“Ms. Anders, Ms. Kubo, please take a seat.”

I carefully sat in the indicated chair, the stiff wooden back of it leaving me sitting stiffly upright. Elena’s was no better, but she appeared completely unbothered by the accommodations. If anything, she looked more in her element. My anxiety had already been excruciating while sitting in the waiting room, but something about stepping into that cramped space with its every available surface covered with copious overstuffed files, stacks of papers, and smattering of deeply imposing law books dialed that anxiety up to eleven. The only saving grace keeping me from turning tail and fleeing was Elena’s hand intertwined with mine, the pictures of assorted happy families hung all over the walls, and the knowledge that this was our best option.

“Thank you very much for having us,” Elena said, radiating professionalism. Perhaps a tad too much? It was hard to say. Certainly they wanted to know how capable we were, but I would think they would want people who weren’t too uptight either.

Well, I could balance that out, couldn’t I? Show them we were both. I gave the man behind the desk my best smile and turned up the charm. “Yes, thank you! We’re very excited.”

He nodded, not unkindly but not warmly either. I did my best to keep my smile in place in spite of my dimming hopes. “I’m grateful for your interest in giving a child in need a home. Too few families capable of caring for them are interested, much less take active steps towards doing so.”

“It’s truly terrible,” Elena emphatically agreed, leaning forward in her seat. The picture of persuasiveness. My beloved problem solver, hard at work. “You can understand then why we were caught off guard by our application being rejected with instructions to speak with you regarding the reasoning. We can only imagine a mistake has been made.”

That was the case for Elena, at least. Personally, I still suspected they had noticed my legal name change when running my background and gotten worried. Elena had insisted that wouldn’t be cause to flag me, but my break from my past as ‘Junko’ had always felt too clean. I had never quite shaken that feeling that any minute the other shoe would drop.

“Not a mistake, per se.” He leaned forward as well, resting his elbows on the chipped lacquer surface of his brightly colored wood desk. I couldn’t help but notice the set of his jaw, his grim expression. “The difference between other, successful applicants and yourselves is what I alluded to before—capability of caring for children. Your application was denied due to your listed source of income, Ms. Anders.”

“Wha— Excuse me?” Elena squeezed my hand reassuringly, but it felt distant, peripheral. “She makes money selling her skills just like anybody else!”

“My lovely partner speaks from the heart, but she undeniably has the right of it,” Elena smoothly interjected. Fuck, it was in moments like these that I could so clearly see the corporate executive her family had been grooming her to be. A simultaneously distressing thought, given the reminder of her family, and a likewise intoxicating one. And it was thoughts like that which made me so goddamn thankful we finally had an apartment of our own because if this went well, then tonight I was going to fuck her feel like the absolute queen she was. “NEPEA-5 is relatively new, so you may not be aware that rogues have protection in circumstances such as this. While I am legally obligated to disclose my status as a rogue parahuman, I am not obligated to unmask and am free to redact any identifying information from proof of income required. As I have done here.”

“I am quite aware of the protections NEPEA-5 affords you, Ms. Anders, just as I am aware of the protections it does not afford you. I can’t deny you simply because you’re a parahuman, nor would I, I assure you. What concerns me here is what would concern me when reading over the application for any other household—the safety of any child I allow to be placed in your home. If I were speaking with the owner of a gun, then I would be requiring gun safety courses dedicated to homes with children. I would want to see a gun safe and to verify to the best of my ability that said safe is actually being used. I would be strongly encouraging you to sell your gun, to remove the issue from the equation altogether. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out to you how much more difficult it is to get that assurance here.”

That took the wind out of my sails. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, to assure him of how safe Elena was. God, if he could have seen her perform like I had—she was genuinely a marvelous sight to behold. She partnered with traveling circuses when they passed by, frequented Time Square as a street entertainer, and gave private lessons in fencing, knife juggling, you name it. Yes, she had powers, being a parahuman hadn’t made her talented—her hard work since getting them had.

I wanted to tell him he was wrong, all I could think of was heads in a dark alley and the broken remains of an apartment, of unseeing eyes and blood on my hands. We left, Elena’s arm wrapped tight around me and her whispered assurances in my ear. It felt like giving up.

Elena had not given up.