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Issue #92

  “Before you get started with reshaping this city, you need to shower.” It was the first thing Ava said to me when we landed outside of a seedy motel on the outskirts of Lower Olympus, right beside the waterfront—but the kind of waterfront that was clogged with filth—garbage, rubble, and I was sure a body or two was mangled amongst the trash down there, too, judging by the stink. She fixed her coat and looked me up and down, the flickering street light above us casting her in a pale yellow. “And I know you’re going to argue with me, but there’s something you need to do before you go anywhere.” She was right, I was just about to speak when she said, “Just trust me, please?”

  “What’s the point?” I asked her. “I’m going to be filthy in a few hours’ time anyway.”

  Ava got a little closer, her snow crunching underneath the shoes. “Rylee,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing. “You’ve been gone for a while. God knows if they even fed you, if you even slept. I know about Dennie and trust me, the entire city heard you scream.” Suddenly, the silence surrounding us was all too loud, the shadows too dark, and the night too heavy. “I need you to get your head on straight, but to let your shoulders drop a little. Soldier on all you want, but if you want to be effective, I don’t need a demigod with a clouded mind.”

  I almost smiled at her. Almost. It turned into a wry smirk. “You’re starting to sound like my old boss.”

  Ava, to her credit, chuckled. “I’d love to meet her.” She fished inside her pocket and handed me a set of keys. “There’s a room on the second floor set up for you. Only room here with hot water. Half the city is working off generators right now, so you’re gonna have to be quick. You’ll find me in the corner office near the convenience store.” She walked away, then paused. Ava turned around and said, “It took a while, but I found his body, Rylee.”

  My heart sprung into my throat, choking me into silence. “Is…is there a way you can—”

  She shook her head, her voice quiet. “If there was, I would’ve.”

  I clenched my jaw and nodded, looking away. I shut my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, slowly nodding. He’s dead, Ry. They both are. And yet my stomach was still a pit. My fists stook hurt from how hard I was clenching them. Fuck me, I want to kill him over and over again. I guess, to some extent, Dennie had been right. The best way to keep torturing a guy like Lucas was to keep living, breathing—making everyday hell by making sure he was useless, pointless, pushed aside in a world he thought he was useful in. But I rolled my shoulders and quietly sighed, because Ava had brought Lucas’ head with her—she had it under her arm like a helmet, his face a mottled mess of flesh and blackened bone. His jaw still moved. His teeth still clicked together. He was still alive.

  On the way over here, I kept asking myself: Why?

  Why the hell do you get to live and he didn’t?

  “Did you bury him?” I whispered.

  Ava shook her head. “I thought it would be better that you were there for that. I never knew him very well but he stumbled into your room by accident and found me headless on your dresser.” She smiled and laughed a little. “He didn’t even look surprised. He just asked me if I wanted anything to eat. It’s weird. I spent months stalking you, getting to know everything about you, and I never once thought about the old man. He was just always there. Someone you spoke to sometimes. Someone who’d wash your suit without you noticing and put it back so you’d think he hadn’t found out yet.” Ava shrugged. “Dennie knew you were Olympia the moment you were on TV for the first time, that’s my guess, at least. So I think it’s only fair that you’re the one to send him off.”

  I didn’t know whether I should hug her or thank her—both things seemed so freaking crazy.

  So I offered her my hand, and she took it and shook. “You’re…not so bad, I guess.”

  My voice had caught in my throat, but she ignored it. “Don’t get it twisted. I’m still looking for a way to get back half the stuff that was taken from me and more than all of the bank accounts that were raided, but,” she said, gently punching my shoulder, “I’ve got an actual reason to do it now other than my own ambition this time.”

  “You’re actually going to help me clean this place up?” I asked quietly.

  “Can’t you imagine the profit from doing it?” Ava grinned, then said, “I’m only half-kidding. I’ve just about spent all of the good faith I had gathering resources we can use as a foundation—which is almost nothing, but that’s more than I had when I was just a head. And besides, after what happened at the coffee shop…I kinda realized that, if something one day happened to you, then Lower Olympus would fold like that.” She snapped her fingers. The sound echoed. “You need a support system, and if we get it right this time, maybe it’ll work out.”

  I smiled. “And there’s no room to fuck each other over this time, right?”

  Ava backed away, heading toward the office. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Last I checked, you’re pretty hard to kill.”

  She offered me a final, wicked smile before she left.

  I know Ava said I should keep it short, but I showered until the water was icy and the steam in here vanished. I stood under the shower, soapy suds sliding down my body. I stared at the drain. At the grime, the blood—everything—get swallowed up. I slowly rolled my shoulders and massaged the back of my neck, angling my face toward the shower head and shutting my eyes. I put my hands on the wall and sighed, stretching my back. Everything felt so stiff. I felt so exhausted. I’d almost fallen asleep when the water was still warm, but now I was semi-awake, the kind of awake you are when it’s too cold to get out of bed but you’re too awake to fall asleep again. Just one more night, Rylee.

  I turned off the shower and towelled down, then paused in front of the mirror.

  And… Gods.

  I picked at my hair, the long wet strands that hung around my shoulders. It had gotten long and wild, almost stubborn against my fingers—trapped in clumps and knots. I used my powers to dry my hair, then found a pair of medical scissors in a medicine cabinet beside the mirror. The tiny green light hanging from the ceiling flickered as I clipped my hair, taking off split ends and leaving my hair somehow even more unruly than before. But at least it was just a little shorter, and a lot cleaner. For a while, I leaned against the sink, licks of hair on the floor around my feet. Bianca’s gonna laugh. You couldn’t blame me for never being a girl’s girl. Painting my nails and doing my makeup weren’t things I didn’t want to do, it’s just that when you live a life like mind, then you skip out on a few things here and there. Who knows, maybe when this was all finished, I’d ask Emelia to teach me to be one.

  But I guess it was time to keep being Olympia.

  When I walked back into the main room, shutting the rickety bathroom door behind me, I slowed to a stop near the bed. No way. The TV was on, quietly playing some old Western. The lights were on, but flickering and fading. This, though, was what had all of my attention. I couldn’t help but smile a little as I slid my fingers over the golden lightning bolt, the stitches and the worn spandex, the scuff marks and the soot. I shook my head and stood in front of my old costume—the costume that I’d worn when I tried to stop the bank robbery, the same costume that I’d almost died in fighting the Kaiju in that damned labyrinth. I slowly shook my head and picked it up off the bed.

  “How the hell did she even get her hands on this?” I whispered. “Freaking supervillains, man.”

  To make all of this even better, the belt from my previous costume was on the chair in front of the TV, hanging off its back rest—phone, note pads, everything that I had in it still there. But I didn’t put any of them on.

  My stomach was in knots just staring at it all; I couldn’t imagine having to wear it again.

  They almost felt like shackles. A broken promise and a never ending quest.

  A part of me didn’t want to wear it ever again. I felt sick looking at it. Not disgusted. Just…tired of it. It wasn’t meant to be more than just a costume back when I’d started, but now it was almost a guarantee that the universe could find me any place and any time so it could throw me a cosmic curveball. I need something new.

  I needed something that was past all of this. Something that left this year, that left everything, behind.

  But I guess I still had one more thing left to do.

  My fingers twitched as I held onto the suit. My mouth dried almost immediately as I slid it over my body and forced my calves into the boots and made sure my hair wasn’t stuck under the collar. It got onto my body as easily as it always had. It was a little tighter. Or maybe that was in my head. More constricting. Less breathable. But the moment I clipped on the belt and stood in front of the mirror, all I saw was a girl playing dress up. A little girl with a red beach towel tucked under her collar and wearing her mother’s boots standing proud with a wide grin..

  I looked down at myself, at the boots, at the symbol, and… I need to get rid of this thing.

  It just wasn’t me anymore.

  None of the costumes I’d had since this one were really me. I guess I kept changing them hoping to find one that fit me; that suited me wholeheartedly. This one was the one that felt the furthest away from me than ever.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing in particular. The city is so quiet. It’s never been this silent before. It’s almost like someone had put a boot to its throat and forced it to shut up. I leaned forward, elbows on my thighs, and nodded slowly, because some guy was listening to rock music several blocks away, blissfully singing.

  “Tired?”

  “Understatement,” I muttered.

  “Ava’s waiting for you.”

  “They all are,” I whispered.

  “You made a promise.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you keep it this time?”

  “I have to.”

  Bianca sank onto the bed beside me, her head almost hanging off the side of the mattress, brown hair spread wide and soft eyes looking up at me. I’d been hearing her voice for a while now, ever since Bloodforge had cut me open and dragged me through surgical hell. I’d ignored her when I had gored open the Damage Control guards. I’d pretended she hadn’t watched as I tore Lucas’ head clean off his shoulders, his throat still wet enough, and still with enough liquified meat and skin on it to pour through my fingers and down my arm—she’d been there.

  And I almost wished she had been, so she could actually tell me what she thought of me.

  I know she wasn’t really there, but a part of me liked to think she was. For my sake.

  Slowly, I got to my feet and quietly sighed through my teeth. Alright. Let’s go hunting.

  I didn’t know how Ava pulled it off, but she’d gathered piles of boxes full of take-out, all of them still steamy and hot and look, maybe I was warming up to her—maybe it was because she had put down the document she’d been reading as I pulled a seat on the opposite side of the large circular table she’d dumped all of the food on, but it kinda felt nice having someone there to eat with, even if it was Ava we were talking about. The girl could be scheming right now for all I knew, or she could have spiked the food and was just waiting for it to get to me.

  She chewed on a chunk of pork out of a take-out box and used her chopsticks to point at me. “I always thought that suit was what made you stick out. Kinda classic but you made it flashy. You can’t even imagine the pain I went through trying to make sure I got it back all in one piece. I needed to have it, just for this moment.”

  I shook my head and snorted as I emptied out another box of noodles. Sue me. I hadn’t eaten in who knows how long, and I was trying very hard to distract myself from the thoughts buzzing through my mind. “It’s not what I like anymore. I designed the first version of this thing in home-ec. This one chick, Harper, stole my book and showed the entire class and made fun of me for wanting to be a superhero.” I paused, then said, “It’s actually pretty amazing barely anybody caught on, you know. Like, literally a few weeks later, here comes a superhero who looks exactly like me wearing the same costume that I literally designed for everyone to see.” I shrugged. “Lucky break.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Ava rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. I’d bet what little I have left on the fact everyone knew.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Then why didn’t more villains attack my school or go after my mom?”

  “Rylee,” she said, sitting back and loosening her belt a little. Power had gone out a few minutes ago, and all we had left was her phone to light up the darkness and a failing kerosene lantern. Not exactly a picture of rebellion and system upheaval, but I doubt the darkness had anything left for me. “You used to murder purse snatchers and leave a mess of them on the pavement. Of course people knew. Everyone was just too afraid of you.”

  I swallowed and stared into the box of noodles, nodding slowly, my tongue gliding over my teeth as if I was trying to look for bits and pieces of the right words to find amongst the meat and pasta between my teeth. “That was pretty fucked up,” I said, then chuckled quietly. “Fuck. No wonder people had a problem with me. I was nuts.”

  “It took you a few years, but you finally got there.”

  “But it works, y’know,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “I mean, if I kept letting these guys roam around however they liked, one of them would’ve gotten the balls to screw with my friends or my mom. It was always about the supervillains, anyway. If I scared them enough, then they’d stop being a pain—at least, that’s what I thought.”

  “All you really did was push them deeper into the foundation,” Ava said. “C’est la vie.” She sipped straight from a short bottle of whiskey, then offered me some. I shrugged, because sure, why not? I sipped it and winced, then took another shot at it and put it back on the table. I coughed and gagged, and Ava laughed and slid across a bottle of water. “I never thought you’d be a lightweight. All the people you killed, I pretty much had the assumption you drowned out the sorrows and the guilt and all the rest of it with copious amounts of alcohol.”

  I spat into an empty box and washed my mouth clean. “I can’t get drunk. Maybe a little buzzed, but it takes like two kegs to make me actually feel something. My one and only high school party practically ended when I drank everything dry. But hey, I won a bet and left half the football team in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.”

  Ava threw her head back with laughter. “I never took you for a party girl, Ry.”

  I leaned back in the chair and picked at my teeth. “Been too busy dealing with crisis after crisis to let my hair down. Back where I’m from, parties are ceremonies that you’re not even allowed to see unless you’re either special or really special, and me? I was just special, but not the good kind. So when I came here and all the humans were pretty much celebrating almost everything, I had to be part of it. I mean, birthdays were so crazy to me, too.”

  “Hold on,” Ava said, leaning forward. “How many birthdays have you celebrated?”

  I tried to count them off. “Been ten years since dad kicked it, so…six maybe? Five?”

  Ava slowly shook her head and leaned back in her chair. “What day is it?”

  I smiled a little. “Don’t tell me you’re soft enough to celebrate my birthday. Just a few months ago we were at each other's throats, and now you want to get me a big fat cake and organize a party? You’re not her, are you?”

  “I’m being serious,” she said quietly, smiling. “I had a lot of time to think when you were gone. Believe it or not, I still love this city more than anything. I believe in it. We believe in it, even if it keeps taking from us. And I pretty much realized, to my absolute shock and disgusted horror, that you’re just about the only…acquaintance I’ve got.” She drummed her fingers against the table, rhythmically interrupting the silence. “I owe you more than I’m willing to admit. You made me realize that some things are worth bleeding for over and over again even if nothing ever seemingly goes right. I don’t know many people who would’ve been able to get through this year like you.”

  I waved her off. “Stop being so soft, it’s weirding me out. I’m gonna barf if you keep going.”

  She spread her hands. “What? I’m being serious. I’ve signed up for an online peer counselling thing. It really helps streamline my thoughts. I personally think you should, too. It’ll get rid of all of that pent up anger.”

  “Me? Angry? Do you know who I am? I’m, like, the chillest person you could ever meet.”

  Ava snorted and took another sip. “You ripped me in two just a few minutes after we met.”

  “I was hungry. It happens.”

  She laughed and shook her head, looking at me from across the table, head slightly tilted and a smile sitting firmly on her lips. “It feels like it happened just a few days ago, doesn’t it? But it’s been dozens of lives.”

  “Poetic way of saying it’s been one shitshow after the other,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “I haven’t even told you about half the shit I’ve been through or even saw. I doubt you’re even gonna believe me.”

  “I was a talking head for several weeks. Absurd is a word I no longer know on a personal level.”

  I smiled. “You’re kind of a badass, you know that?”

  Ava set down the bottle and said, “I think that’s enough whiskey, because I just heard a compliment come out of your mouth and I think I’m losing my mind.” We both laughed, then let the silence fill the room. I folded my arms and sank a little deeper into the chair. Ava toyed with a coin she flipped through her fingers, making it catch the light from the lantern sitting in the middle of the table. “Do you ever wonder what life would be like for us without…this?” she asked, waving her hand around. “The costumes, the evil schemes, the henchmen and the plots to destroy the city or save it.” She stopped turning the coin through her fingers. “Life as a normal person, y’know.”

  “What, like going to college, out on dates, struggling to find part-time jobs like everyone our age is doing?” I meant it as a joke, but Ava nodded, her face a little more serious now as she stared off into the dark. I sighed and shrugged, my finger tapping against my bicep. “I mean, sometimes, sure. It would be even weirder if I didn’t think about it once in a while. But you get so used to living this way that everything becomes so normal.”

  “None of this is normal,” she said, looking at me. “We’re eighteen, Rylee. Barely out of highschool. Not even legally allowed to drink anywhere in the States, but between the two of us we’ve seen enough dead bodies to make any Supe dictator blush.” Ava slowly shook her head. “I saw a man walking his dog the other day and it stuck with me, and not even because the dog was anything special—it was just so absurd watching him fumble for his house keys, groceries in his arms and a dog barking at his feet. Like, our world doesn’t have any of that. We eat what we can. We don’t have houses to own keys to. I think if we owned pets, we’d be too busy to take care of them.”

  I let her words linger in the air for a moment before I asked, “You want out?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t. I’d just prefer that I got the chance to be a teenager before I blink one day and I’m my father’s age and everything I knew this city to be is a web of lies and death and superhero politics, you know.”

  I chewed my tongue for a while, not really knowing what to say. I didn’t know if I should say something. But eventually, I shrugged and said, “It’s different for them. They’re born into it. We have to earn it. Whatever cosmic force decided that we’re the ones who get to live this fight probably chose us for a reason. Most times you don’t want to believe it, but other times, you pretty much just have to.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at the glass, the empty streets, and the silent city beyond. “I can hear just about everything in a several block radius right now and trust me, a lot of it isn’t even gunfire or Supe fights or turf wars. A lot of it is just tv static, a little laughter, a bunch of arguments and snoring. We’ve still got an entire night ahead of us and we’ll sleep when the sun probably goes down in a few days’ time, but for us? That’s normal. Because it’s the part we play, so we need to play it well.”

  Ava’s eyebrow raised slightly. “I never thought I’d heard something like that come from you.”

  “Yeah, well…” Another shrug. “I’ll be nineteen next month. If things go well, then maybe I can take some time off and hang out with my friends.” And if Bianca was back by then, maybe… Heck, I don’t have a lot of cash on me right now, but I know a quiet little farm with some great barbecue that would love to have us. “Who knows, maybe I’ll even saddle up and try to get a degree.” She laughed. I flung a box at her. “I’m being so serious, Av’.”

  “I can’t even imagine you trying to be a college student,” she said, bursting out in laughter again. “I mean, you’re one of the most dangerous people on the planet, and your biggest problem would be your midterms, Rylee.”

  “I don’t know, dude. It’ll feel pretty good actually finishing something for once,” I muttered. And maybe I’ll get to spend more time trying to be a lot less superhero and a lot more girl just trying to do her best. “And I can’t be a superhero forever. At some point, I’m going to need a job that’ll keep the lights on. Saving the day and then coming home to an empty fridge and an eviction notice would literally be the death of everything Olympia.”

  “Trust me, landlords in this city do not care about the shitty week you’ve had. I’d know.” Ava hummed for a short while, then smiled a smile that made my skin crawl like it had so many times before. “I’ve got a proposal.”

  “If you want to start some kind of superhero-for-hire business, then I’m ahead of you on that.”

  “Oh, that Olympia Hotline thing?” Ava waved her hand. “That’s a free social service or whatever, and I guess you’d hate for it to be charged or something. What I think we should do is make both of us filthy rich in the legal avenue. When you defeat Caesar, I’ve got a structure in place ready and waiting.” She scanned over the files in front of her and selected one, sliding it over. “The rough estimate for criminal assets in Lower Olympus is an estimated ten billion dollars. There’s people sitting on so much wealth that it’s absurd, but they’re profiting off of this city being in the state that it is. But here’s the thing, the worse it gets, the less return on profits. You can give a neighborhood of impoverished and disenfranchised people drugs and guns, then supply the funeral homes with the wood they need to build the caskets, but at some point, the returns diminish. Less people want to live in Lower Olympus than ever before. More people leaving means less money being made. Less money, less crime. Less crime means a bump in population, and a bigger chance for it to keep feeding on its own tail like a starving serpent.” She paused, and then shrugged. “Or everything gets bought by billionaires and we all get gentrified and cleaned up.”

  The file was full of names, places, bank account information and criminal histories of men and women, Kaiju and everything in between that I’d hardly ever seen before. “So, what, we just sweep in and grab all this?”

  “That’s the thing, we don’t,” Ava said. She had that look in her eyes again, that edge to her voice. I leaned back and watched her start to almost get excited talking about a coup on our streets. “Caesar is the biggest asset to us right now. He has the most power. The most influence. But he doesn’t actually own anything. Not the clubs and not the hotels and definitely not the port. But he has enough resources to fund his projects to keep hunting a fleeting immortality and a power close enough to rival yours. It’s pretty obvious that someone is bank rolling him, and I should’ve known that from the start. But if you take him out of the picture, the other criminals start to breathe a little more. They get comfortable. They get messy. You come in and, here’s the thing, you don’t kill them.” She stood up and jammed her finger against the table. “You make them understand that none of this shit floats in this city anymore, and they either give over everything they have and get executed, or realize that you’re in charge now and they’re going to spend every single motherfucking dime cleaning, building, and protecting Lower Olympus.”

  She was breathing a little hard and fogging up her own glasses. She pulled them off her face and let them hit the table with a click. Ava pressed her palms against the table and leaned forward, casting her shadow over the files and the documents and the many faces of the criminal underworld spread out on the table. “I think it’s about time you make a statement. That’s why I wanted you in your old costume. That’s why I wanted you to be the one who took out Caesar. If Adam does it, then it’s disingenuous, and the public fully abandons you. If that other version of you does it, then you’re just as good as last year’s news. But you? You’d show the city that there’s now a line you stand behind, and if it’s crossed, there will be punishment. What we have in front of us is the future, Ry.”

  “Hm,” I hummed quietly, staring at her as she breathed hard. “So that’s what the soft talk was leading to?”

  Ava blinked. “What?”

  “You were acting friendly so you could pitch the idea of me becoming a dictator.”

  Ava’s face contorted with confusion. “I’m proposing a way to fix things.”

  “By me becoming some kind of de facto cult leader? That’s insane!”

  “Sorority girls call themselves the Olympettes. You’ve been a cult leader. There’s factions within the White Capes who think you’re the one true rightful ruler of this planet. What’s different this time is that I’m not forcing you to do anything. The people in Lower Olympus take you seriously because they know you. The rest of the world thinks you’re not deserving of the blood in your veins. Me? I think that you should stamp your authority on actually making this city a better place whether the world likes it or not, and trust me, they won’t like it. America doesn’t play nicely when its citizens buck the boat, but you’re different. You’re new, Rylee.” She spread her arms, almost helplessly. “I’m sure I’m not the first person who’s told you this, but you were always going to be the first.”

  “First?” I asked quietly.

  “Of a new generation of superheroes who don’t care about the law and do things because they’ve got the powers, they’ve got the heart, and they’ve got the need to actually take this city’s problems into their own hands.”

  Just like what he promised me to do, I thought, slowly massaging my arm, the pendant around my throat now colder than it’s ever been, just like in the alleyway, just like when his blood stopped being so warm and the bite of the wind nearly became painful. But I don’t know if Dennie would want me to become some dictator, too.

  “Just think about it,” Ava said, the lantern’s flame dancing. “How else do we fix Lower Olympus?”

  “Ava,” I said, my voice heavy and flat. “I know what I am. I know what I’m capable of, too. I’m not like other Supers because I was never supposed to be. I could tear apart most of New Olympus before anyone even makes me bleed.” I looked up at her. “The people who hate me most are conquerors and kings. They take and they demand and they put their foot on anyone’s throat the second anyone tells them they’re wrong. I…I don’t—”

  “You think you’ll end up like your father,” she whispered. I froze. “I know the stories.” She sat down again, an arm on the table. “You hear rumors of what he’s capable of—the villages that don’t exist anymore, the cities that clapped and cheered his name because their governors had forced them to, because this unstoppable force had an ego too impenetrable for any nuclear warhead to pierce. You think people loved him? Sure, some people did, but Rylee, let’s be honest for a second—people were so afraid that they had no other option than to love him. They didn’t know how he’d react to doubt or hate. With you? They know you’re young. They know you bleed just like the rest of us do at times when your father barely shed a bead of sweat. They hate you because you’re just as imperfect as they are, and subconsciously they realize that they would barely be any stronger in your shoes. They don’t cheer you on. They don’t scream your name. But you fight for them, and they’re confused because of that.”

  Ava looked at me, her eyes hooded by the shadows around us. “It really must sound like I’m trying to turn you into a machine of war and bloodshed, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted you to be is great. I want to one day tell someone that I helped architect the greatest superhero ever. That I was the one who made her realize that she deserves more than just failure and half-hearted care from the people around her. Rylee, you stamp your authority here, and the world takes you seriously. You negotiate. You fight. You make everyone realize you’re not just Zeus’ daughter, but you’re Rylee fucking Addams and she wants the entire world to watch as she kickstars a new age.”

  Ava stood up and grabbed her coat off the back of a chair. “Now whether you have your reservations about what I just said or not, I’d still like you to come and meet several people—people I’m more than sure you’d trust.”

  “What…” I pinched my nose. Too many thoughts crossing my mind. “Who are they?”

  “People who believe in you,” she said. “People who trust you through and through.”

  “Ava—”

  “Rylee,” she said flatly. “Your father negotiated with supervillains and brokered for peace. If you don’t want to be like him, let’s start by making sure they understand there’s no brokering to be done—just demands to be met and orders to be listened to. They’re all waiting for you, and I’m more than sure your mother wants to see you.”

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