s“Man, I’m really sorry about, y’know…” Ajax said as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, his hair up in a bun mostly for the convenience and the peace of mind that his long, brown hair wouldn’t end up falling in the copious amounts of vomit that he’d delt with in the past few days.

Walter, who’d been awake for a day or so now, was just about as awkward as Ajax was with the apology. With his recovery from whatever had been done to him by the guy that’d ‘reset’ his arm, Walter had awoken to Ajax just being there and helping him out while he puked more than he had in his entire life.

What it was about the healing that made you so physically ill was beyond Walter, but he’d take the few days of suffering over trying to naturally heal his arm, especially the way that his opponent had mangled it.

“I mean, it’s alright. It was a shitty thing to say, but I kinda overdid it a bit by not talking to you for, uh…” Walter thought for a second before realising that it’d been a full month, “a while.” He completed tentatively.

The understatement made both men struggle to hold back cheeky smiles, and it was then that Walter almost felt like cursing himself out. Walter had built the conversation up in his mind as if there was a massive rift between them, and the single conversation would determine any future involvement forevermore.

Yet here they were, not two sentences into their conversation with the issue almost entirely resolved between them. Walter sat in Ajax’s bed awkwardly for a moment, though Ajax was the one to break the silence.

“So Mirah apparently got Aaliyah to agree to actually being a group. I think anyway.” Walter blinked heavily.

“Come again?” He asked, getting a grin out of Ajax.

“Mirah convinced Aaliyah to actually join up, proper.” Ajax took a great deal of pleasure in watching the baffled expression morph rapidly on the man’s face. Walter was legitimately speechless, though he managed to git his voice back after a moment of opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

“Mirah did?” He double checked. Ajax laughed heartily, giving a nod in response as he watched the comically stunned man come to terms with the laws of the universe somehow breaking before his eyes.

Mirah was the person that couldn’t stand Aaliyah, and she made it just about as obvious as she could with her eternally stony expressions. For Mirah to be the one to bring Aaliyah into the fold properly was against everything he knew about the girl, and Aaliyah was just about as unlikely to have joined under anyone’s request, Mirah even less so.

While they weren’t exactly shouting it from the rooftops, it was becoming increasingly obvious that he and Ajax had more heroic aspirations than simply working a corporate job and raking in the cash like nothing else or working of the gangs.

While he had been avoiding Ajax, he’d noticed that Ajax and Mirah had gotten significantly closer, enough that she’d actively talk to him. She must’ve decided to join up with their little camp, leaving only Aaliyah left within the team. Walter had expected for her to remain the enigma of the group, to spend her time just outside their inner circle and then do a runner when she got out of training.

But now Mirah had convinced Aaliyah to join in their aspirations? He couldn’t help but worry that they didn’t get that they were going for a heroic thing.

“Are you sure–” He began, but Ajax cut him off with a raise of an eyebrow.

“They aren’t silly, Walt. They know what we’re up to, even if we aren’t going to be doing anything much for a little while. I hope at least.” Walter heard the unease in Ajax’s voice and turned a wary eye to the man.

“You don’t sound super sure about that, Ajax. Why?” Ajax sighed heavily at Walter’s prying.

“I’m not liking how the Baxter’s team is setting this up, man. I think this is only round one, and they’re going to keep advancing our training and pull out all stops before long. They pushed our training up more than a month already, so we’re going to have to learn on our feet quick-smart.” Ajax leaned back in the chair he’d spent much of his time resting in the past few days, giving him ease of access to Walter as he laid there.

“I mean, at least we have some unity now, right?” Walter posed shakily, but Ajax just gave him a look, then glanced down to the arm that Walter’s opponent had crushed making Walter himself wince, “You’re not wrong, I guess. Like, I just figured out how control fire, I haven’t even started on Water yet.”

“And I haven’t really gained much from my power. I’m more consistent with it by a few kilograms of force, but nothing actually significant.” Ajax gave Walter an expression of wry concern before lifting his eyebrows in concession, “Mirah did just get a new aspect though, so that’s new and interesting.”

Walter’s eyebrows shot up, letting Ajax see the little glimmer of a tactician that they’d seen in him when he’d set up their general strategies against Baxter’s team.

“A new aspect, what is it?” He asked, but Ajax just grinned as if he’d stepped on an inside joke that Walter didn’t understand.

“I asked and all I got out of it was that she can pull on strings now. Webs of strings, something like that. Aaliyah’s been trying to get her to properly explain it, but uh,” Ajax coughed lightly, “she doesn’t really have the vocab to explain it?”

“God,” Walter said frustratedly, “if only everyone read superhero comics as a kid. Would be so much easier, man.” Ajax’s chest rumbled with a chuckle, not quite agreeing but not disagreeing either. They certainly did give a particular way of discussing links, though they’re all made in the US, so it’s all about ‘powers’ there. Still stuck to the old way of thinking, Ajax guessed

“So, what do we even do now?” Walter said aimlessly, unsure of this sudden shift in his predicted future. Ajax just shrugged.

“I dunno, seems pretty clear to me, man. We have all sorts of things to follow down now, stuff that we didn’t do because we weren’t working together at all. Like the backer thing, we didn’t even start trying to figure that out.”

“But that was because Aaliyah suggested that we break into the admin building and steal that information. We can’t do that!” Ajax gave the other man a sideways look.

“We can’t?” Walter looked at Ajax, aghast, but he continued quickly, “Look, I’m not saying that it’s legal, or that we’ll even end up doing it, but Aaliyah and Mirah agreed that this was our best option ages ago. I’m not just going to throw out those opinions.”

“Are you crazy? If we got caught doing that… I don’t even know what they’d do!” Ajax nodded, amiably agreeing. He certainly wasn’t wrong, but also, there was a risk in not doing it too.

“Well, we certainly wouldn’t be getting our certification after that, and depending on when we get caught it could end up with jail time.”

“See! I mean–” Ajax gave the interrupting man a disappointed look.

“C’mon, Walt. At least let me finish.” Walter zipped his lips sheepishly, wilting underneath Ajax’s gaze for a moment.

“But you have to acknowledge that we’re at risk. Especially now that we’re making this little group. We have no idea who set us up in the most expensive rooms the AASAU have to offer, we have no idea what they want from us in future, and if we don’t at least try to figure out who’s bankrolling our entire training process, we’re almost asking for it.” Ajax made strong eye contact with Walter, making sure that he understood the gravity of the situation. For the moment they’ve been able to get away with having their team squabbles, but with the added pressure, they were running out of time.

“Alright, I guess so. But I’m sure there’s a better way, right? Like maybe we can get a hacker to–”

“With what money, Walt.”

“I mean, I have some. I might be able to borrow more from my parents?” He posed tentatively, though it didn’t seem to have much confidence behind it.

“So, we pay this guy, someone shady enough to break into AASAU systems, and they somehow don’t run off with the money, but we don’t pull up anything? All that money is gone, man.”

“But if we get caught in the AASAU headquarters stealing, we get put in prison, Ajax.” Ajax sighed, holding his hands up in defeat.

“I dunno, you’ll have to talk to Aaliyah and figure out what we need to do. I don’t know anything other than we need to do something. Whatever it is.” Walter didn’t quite look happy with that answer, but he couldn’t exactly argue with it either.

Walter groaned frustratedly, but didn’t bother to follow it up, instead deciding to settle back in Ajax’s bed.

“Wanna order something in?” He posed to Ajax, who just looked to the phone by the bedside and grinned at Walter.

“Sure do.”

---

“Well, well. Fuck me dead.” Willem said, the use of swearing pulling the eyes of every person in the living room of Ajax’s space. Ajax, who was the one that let the man into the room in the first place, balked a little. Willem had sworn a few times around them, but it was always reserved for big things.

As Ajax looked towards his couch, Mirah, Aaliyah, and Walter all sitting next to each other semi-harmoniously. Ajax chuckled a little, it kinda was a big deal.

“You all finally managed to get your act together, then? All circled around a fire, held hands, and sang kumbaya?” Ajax slipped by the stocky man who only just came up to his abdomen, taking his place on the couch, only just big enough to hold the four of them at once.

“We tried to skip that part. Is it contractual?” Aaliyah said tiredly, still recovering from a few nights of less than stellar sleep. Willem scoffed loudly before sitting down in the chair opposite the group, staring at them all intently.

“I’ll let it slide for now.” He responded dryly. “Maybe I should’ve thrown you guys in a gladiator ring sooner. Nothing like grievous injury to bond over.” The group chuckled quietly at the man, though no-one added fuel to the man’s fire. Willem glanced around the room with his mundane looking grey eyes, though they were piercing, nonetheless. He sighed deeply, letting his body slouch into a more comfortable position.

“Alright then, now that we’ve finally figured out how to act like adults, I’ll treat you as such.” He crossed a stubby looking leg over another, giving each and every one of the team a good hard look, “You’re all in a bad spot right now.” The almost happy atmosphere turned cold.

“Why?” Walter asked, though the answers were somewhat obvious. Willem ran a hand over his cleanly shaven bald head, ending with scraping his fingers through his thick brown beard.

“Ernest Baxter is sicing his lawyers on the AASAU and using them to fast track your training as much as possible.” Aaliyah swore, having caught on almost immediately though the rest of the team just looked at each other awkwardly. Aaliyah sighed shortly after, opening her mouth to speak.

“Jeremy wanted to make us an example in here to boost his own rep, but now Jeremy’s dad caught onto it and wants to show just how unavoidable RO’s power is.” The Walter gulped almost audibly, his anxiety level increasing at the sentence went on. “We just got promoted.”

“Fuck.” Everyone’s eyes turned to Mirah, who was simply staring off into space, ignorant of the gazes resting on her.

Ajax choked down a laugh, “What she said.”

The absurd line out of Mirah actually made the mood lighten a little, at least until they were capable of thinking without the intense worry that had been settling over them.

“Normally,” Willem continued, a little crinkle at the sides of his eyes, “you’d get about eight to ten months to train, but you aren’t even going to have half of that at this rate. To put it lightly, you’re getting scammed out of training time that you’re probably going to need to live. You’re being set up to fail here.” Just about everyone was rubbing at their weary faces, already feeling the stress of what was sure to come.

“Is there any way that we can combat that?” Aaliyah said, her voice taking command of the conversation that no one else in the group had the experience to tackle.

“Have a spare lawyer lying around?” He asked, and Aaliyah turned to look at Walter who just grimaced, not interested in putting his parents in that sort of danger. She turned back to Willem and shook her head.

“Can we represent ourselves?” She asked, her last line of hope before simply dealing with it.

“If you want to be eaten alive by a lawyer good enough to work for Russia’s very own Think.”

“Then what do we do?” Aaliyah said while she ran a hand through her hair and quickly organised her hair into a ponytail.

Willem looked down at his watch, something that was probably at least a few decades old, “How are we feeling about some training?”