Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Xavier wasn't ready.  He wasn't sure he ever would be.  The dream of becoming a hero, of standing for something, of putting his powers to use against the kind of corruption and cruelty the world seemed to endlessly generate, felt like something he'd never reach.  The cape thing.  Whether he could ever actually do it, or whether the whole idea was something he needed to finally let go of.  That was the problem with his powers.  That had always been the problem.

So it had been another day of drifting.  He'd found his way back to the clearing again, the way he always did when he needed to think, which mostly meant sitting with his back against the same oak he always used and not really thinking anything new.  Just the same thoughts looping over and over in his head and going nowhere.

The vines along the tree line were thicker than they'd been last week, their growth slow and steady.  His power worked differently on plants than on people.  On people, the effects came fast.

He was mid-thought, in the familiar loop beginning again, when reality seemed to bend at the edge of his vision, and then she was there—crumpling to the ground thirty feet away as if her bones had simply given up.  He was on his feet before he realized it.  

Vista.

It had to be. And she was hurt.

The heroine was face-down in the dirt and not moving.  Xavier cautiously approached, scanning the tree line.  Brockton Bay was a cesspool of scum and villainy.  Being a young Black man in this city, Xavier knew to keep his head on a swivel on the constant lookout for groups of skinheads looking for a skull to stomp in.

He pulled the bandana from his back pocket and tied it around his face.  It wasn't much, but it was what he had.  The full costume was still a plan, still theoretical—something that would eventually conceal not just his face, but also his race.  One less variable in a city full of people who made quick decisions about people who looked like him.

She had warped in without warning.  No explosions, no sounds of a fight carrying over from somewhere else—just an empty clearing and then suddenly her, materializing mid-stride before collapsing.  

He knew how her power worked.  She could fold space like paper, turn a fleeing criminal's straight-line sprint into a loop that had him running towards the scene of his crime.  Seeing her like this made his heart still and the back of his neck prickle.

His immediate instinct had been to run to her.  He'd caught himself, ruthlessly crushing his instinct by being pragmatic.  A potential villain tracking her might let a bystander play Good Samaritan—but healing her would mean using his power, and using his power meant outing himself.  He retied the bandana tighter and kept moving toward her.

He knew a thing or two about the local cape scene. People’s identities were generally protected. If some cape got into a battle and someone witnessed their real face, they were generally expected to pretend they didn’t see and maintain the fiction. Nobody, villain or hero, wanted people going after their families.

Vista was still breathing—shallow and fitful, but breathing.  Xavier worked saliva into his mouth as he crossed toward her and knelt down for closer examination.  Her back didn't seem to be damaged, so he eased her over and immediately wished he hadn't.  Her torso was a ruin.  The light armor she wore had been shredded and beneath it her chest was criss-crossed with deep red gashes, the kind of wounds that came from someone who was more blade than body.

"Hookwolf," Xavier muttered.  His stomach dropped as his adrenaline spiked. This was serious.

The cape world could be brutal.  When the posturing ended and things got real, cape combat could easily become a life and death struggle.  You put the other cape down hard and don't give them a chance to get you with whatever strange abilities they had at their fingertips.  But a kid? A Ward?

Still, if anyone's reputation made it believable, it was Hookwolf's.  And if Hookwolf had followed Vista here and found him crouched over her, it wouldn't end well for him... or Vista.  The correct move was to heal her fast and let her powers get them both quickly to safety.  Xavier knew that.  A part of him had known it before he even knelt down and witnesses the severity of her injuries.

He still hesitated.  His powers were strange, and not in the way that people found quirky or cool. Not in a way that would make people even remotely comfortable.  There was a reason his debut had been so long in coming.  But he'd been gathering more spit in his mouth the whole time he was examining her, and now wasn't the moment for second thoughts.  He hoped what he had would be enough.

He spit on her torso. Leaning in closely to try to spit on any visible gashes while using his fingers to try and work and spread the spit into the worst of the wounds.  He could see the tissue beginning to respond, edges drawing together, but it wasn't going fast enough!  His mouth was going dry, his hands started to shake, and his heart began pounding unsteadily in his chest.

The costume was in the way!  He pried at the armor playing with his fingers, couldn't get purchase, yet pried again.  He tried to still is shaking hands.  He was going to shake her apart if he kept this up.  He stopped, reached down to his ankle, and drew the knife—the one good knife he owned, the one he'd been carrying for more than a month just to get used to the weight of it for his inevitable debut.  Xavier felt a small bit of relief in having made that a habit.  

He took a breath to calm himself and still his trembling hands before defly cutting through the lower part of her dress.  Once he got to the reinforced sections of her torso, he faced more of a challenge.  But his blade was sharp and steady and once he found a seam, he was able to carefully slice through it.

A brief glance at her crotch area showed no visible damage so he left her dark spandex shorts on, which was a relief to him.  Her bloodied sports bra, however, had to go and was quickly cut open with his knife.  He peeled back her costume, tossing the armored pieces to the side, revealing her bare, bruised and lacerated torso.  He scrutinized her closely, his determined gaze sweeping over every inch of her exposed to skin to catalog each wound.  If he was going to do this, he wanted to be able to do it all at once.  

He was grateful she was unconscious for this part, for both of their sakes.  An audience might slow him down, and he couldn't imagine her reaction would be to what he was about to do.  

Xavier rose, his hands trembling once again as he unfastened and unzipped his pants.  A cool breeze swept through, sending a chill through his penis as pulled it free from his boxers.  He braced himself and aimed it at the unconscious Ward, trying to keep his eyes from lingering on her small, bare breasts. With a sigh of resignation and determination, he began to urinate on her.

Chapter Text

A sigh of relief escaped his lips, both from the sensation of emptying his bladder and the fact that his piss seemed to be working faster than expected.  He wrinkled his nose as he aimed, making sure his urine saturated her bare torso.  He even coated her crotch, not feeling right about removing them and exposing her completely.  Hopefully enough piss would soak through to reach any possibly hidden wounds.  Vista stirred slightly, a small moan escaping her lips.

His healing piss finally trickled to a stop, and he drank in the sight of Vista's urine-drenched, naked torso, watching as her wounds slowly knitted shut from his golden shower.  He flicked the last few drops onto her, then tucked his dick back into his pants, zipped up, and waited for her to fully recover.

He thought about covering her as his eyes drifted to her small breasts.  The gashes that had been across them had completely been healed away, leaving her chest shiny and slick with his piss.

At least it's warm, he thought with a grimace, the last thing I need is her nipples hardening and staring me right in the face. Xavier nervously half-smiled as he tried to use humorous images in a vain attempt to normalize this fucked up scenario.

He stepped back, giving her space, trying to come up with excuses for the strong odor.  Obviously some kind of fucked up healing compound, he thought, nasty smell is an unfortunate side effect... 

Stupid.  He shook his head and frowned as Vista stirred, her body writhing and soft moans escaping her lips.  Her torso was whole again, but she seemed to be out of it.  Could the rapid healing have made her sleepy for some reason?  He edged closer, eyes narrowing as he watched her fidget and moan, her mouth opening and closing like she was trying to speak, but only managing slurred gibberish.  Something was wrong.

Trying to stay calm, Xavier scanned over her body, eyes settling on her sturdy boots.  Could blood have welled in them.  Shaking, as his adrenaline spiked, he quickly and carefully removed one boot, using his knife to cut through the laces to spread up the process.  The other boot followed.  No blood. He stripped off her socks, flinging them behind him to only reveal small and pristine feet.

Xavier's gazed up her legs and landed on the one thing she was still wearing.  Her urine soaked undershorts.  Hesitating and cursing himself for wasting time, he began reaching to peel them off when something in the corner of his vision caused him to pause.

"Shit!" Xavier exclaimed, noticing a crack in the visor of her helmet.  The crack almost perfectly lined up with the seams of her helmet.  He hadn't looked close enough.  Xavier berated himself mentally.  He'd been so caught up in the notion of not revealing someone's identity that he didn't look closely enough at her face even though she had a mask and helmet on.

This isn't a game, he screamed at himself internally, focus!

Xavier tried to move quickly and efficiently.  He knelt by the girl and slipped one finger up into the helmet and Vista visibly winced.

Growing increasingly concerned, and resolving not to reveal her identity, Xavier peeled off her helmet, gently laying her head back.  What he saw made him shudder.  Her face was like one big bruise.  Something had tried to crush her face.  But the helmet was too well made and protected her from sure death, but the force must have been so great that it slammed the inside of her helmet into her.  Upon closer inspection, he even noticed a spiderweb of cracks on the top of her helmet.

Xavier was unsure if his powers could heal concussions and brain damage, but he believes it's a possibility.  Unfortunately, his mouth was dry and he was out of piss after using it all on her torso and crotch which means he was going to have to do something very vulgar if he wanted to ensure she survived.  The liquids he expels from his body had incredible lifesaving healing powers.  And he only had one option left.

Xavier glanced left and right, to see if anyone was there.  Right now he wanted the heroes to swoop in and carry Vista off to the local healer, Panacea, to finish the job.  Hell, he'd gladly be arrested and accused of being a villain for the state that the Ward was in right now than do what he was rapidly realizing was his only viable option.  He had done a lot of research when he discovered his powers, and the one thing that he knew for certain is that injuries in the head and potential brain injuries were no joke.  They could be a death sentence if not treated, fast and properly.

Xavier stood before Vista, a man resigned to his duty, no matter how perverse it may be.  "I'm sorry," he muttered, his voice thick with shame as he pulled out his flaccid penis once more.  He looked down at her prone form, envisioning the vibrant girl she must be in her daily life.  Innocent, happy, with a family who loved her and was waiting for her return.  A family that would be shattered if they lost her.  He squeezed his eyes shut, wondering if they'd hate him for not saving her if they knew the truth about his powers.

"No," he growled, steeling himself.  Being a hero wasn't about excuses; it was about taking responsibility and saving lives, no matter the cost.  Right now, he needed to use the healing properties of his semen to bring her back from the brink.  He inhaled deeply, exhaling with a heavy sigh before opening his eyes and beginning to stroke himself in earnest.

This isn't fucking working, Xavier groaned internally, as he tried to coax his stubbornly soft dick into becoming erect.  He should have prepared for this.  In his mind, he'd envisioned carrying vials of his bodily fluids, finding a way to make his piss less repulsive, maybe mixing them with something less offensive.  

But his semen?  He grunted in frustration, his hand working furiously at his cock.  It just hadn't seemed worth is.  He pissed so much more, and it worked just fine.  He was near certain that the healing properties of his semen were more potent, but urine had seemed more useful because he produced so much more of it.

He only knew about his cum's healing properties due to curiosity and a bit of depraved desperation.  When you discover your piss can heal, it's only natural to see if your cum can too, right?  He paused his ineffective stroking, reaching into his pocket which caused his pants to slip down further, exposing his rear to the cool air.  He pulled out his phone, quickly opening the first porn video in his browser history.  He grimaced at the title, but his dick twitched and began to stiffen in response to the hardcore interracial scene playing out on the screen.  He tried to ignore that Vista had blonde hair, just like the actress currently taking a massive black cock.

Xavier grunted and groaned as he stroked himself, matching the rhythm of the porn playing on his phone.  He loved this video.  It reminded him of his last girlfriend, Eve.  She was blonde, just like the actress.  Staring at his phone, he imagined it was him and his ex, his arousal growing along with his longing.  He'd been thinking about contacting her again, revealing his powers... but it had been over a year.  He could at least establish himself as a hero before trying to win her back.  He imagined her spreading her legs, saying, "Oh, you're a healer now?  I'm going to need healing after you fuck me with that big black dick."  Xavier moaned, his strokes becoming more urgent.  He tried to slip the phone back into his pocket, but it his state, it slipped to the floor.  He ignored it, fully invested in his fantasy, bringing himself closer to climax.

He felt himself almost there, so he knelt over Vista's face and increased his pace.  He opened his eyes, panting, getting ready to pinch it so that he could control and direct the flow.  He began to reach for Vista's head to cradle her towards him when he paused, his strokes faltering, the sight of her massively bruised face and black swollen eyes making his libido take a dive.

"Fuck!" he was frustrated as he frantically kept stroking, his dick had softened and lost a little girth in his hand.  He was about to reach for his phone again when he saw that her mouth was slightly parted as she breathed.  Eve would always part her mouth in pleasure when they made love.  If she was feeling extra slutty, she'd moan about wanting to taste his cum as he caressed her while fucking her.  That always got him going and he'd zero in on that soft sweet mouth of hers...

Xavier's ears rang as he suddenly flinches, his orgasmic bliss assaulting him wildly as the first shot of cum went straight into Vista's mouth before he pinched the tip of his penis shut.

Fighting rapid spells of dizziness and twitching, he quickly cradled the back of her head, lifting it towards him as he released his pinch and cum came spraying out, coating her face.  Gasping for breath, he was shocked by another twitch and wave of dizziness as several more ropes of cum shot out of him, causing him to collapse forward, his dick slipping into Vista's mouth before a spike of adrenaline found him quickly pulling his hips back and rising unsteadily to his feet.

He stood over her, gasping, feeling a little bit of shame for the slip.  He looked down at her with concern, flinching as a drop of semen dribbled down onto her from him.  He corralled his penis, while trying to keep the semen that had spilled into his hand from being wasted in case he needed to use it for additional healing.  He went still Vista opened her eyes.

She had a dreamy expression on her cum-splattered face and seemed to be smiling at him.  The bruises, black eyes, and swelling were gone without a trace of them having been there.  She looked impossibly young with her mask off and face healed.  Her tongue snaked out of her mouth and licked a bit of semen off of her lips.  Despite her actions, she seemed disoriented or dazed.  Not like before, but more like she was slowly waking up from a nap.  

Xavier looked down at her with relief.  The intense orgasm had made him a bit too calm for the situation he was currently in.  He opened his mouth to hopefully try and explain the situation when he heard a distant shout.

He turned his head, heard a loud pop and whistle.  An incredible force jerked his head sideways and everything went black.

Chapter Text

He was breathing heavily, feet pounding a familiar route through the trees.  His  head was ringing.  Why was he running?  Training—he was training.  The trees blurred past him, the same trees he always ran through, around, between.  To be a hero.  That was the goal.  That was why.  But the thought felt muddled and far away.

Why did he want to be a hero?

Who... who was he?

Then somewhere behind him came shouts and the sharp pop of gunfire.

Gunshots?  Was there a gang battle near?  A branch exploded close to his head, the shouts became clearer.  Someone was trying to kill him?  He increased his pace, dodging around trees and skidding and sliding down a familiar hill.  He ran off at a different angle towards trees he instinctively knew would provide good cover and lead to several possible trails.

He clenched his fists as he heard pursuers continue on the path he had just abandoned.  There was something in his hand?  He darted for the trees and ducked around a particularly large one and leaned back against it, listening for pursuers as he quietly gasped for breath.  He opened his hand and squinted in confusion.  A bullet?  It was misshapen and slightly corroded.  A familiar creamy substance was on his hand.  Instinctively, he reached for his head and flinched as the fog in his mind began to lift.  He had been shot!  In the head?

His heart beat rapidly and his breath came out in shuddering gasps as he clutched his chest trying not to have a panic attack from the surge of adrenaline.  The cum in his hand had to have saved his life.  He had instinctively grabbed his head where he had been shot.  His semen had healed him and forced the bullet out.  It had been so close.  He had been so close to death and for what?

The girl!  He suddenly remembered. Vista.  He had healed her!  His name was Xavier!  He heard voices and shouts again, but no more shots and movements.  They were looking for him.  They'd find his trail soon.  He began quietly moving through the brush before finding an old dirt shortcut trail littered with cigarette butts.  He took off at a light jog, weary of charging into a trap.  He had to get to safety.

Phone?... Fuck me, where's my phone? Xavier continues his light jog through the park. Those were cops shooting at me! Not surprising.  His thoughts paused.  Cops usually aren't supposed to engage in cape fights.  They'd definitely rescue Vista, but if they thought he was a cape, they'd wait for backup before pursuing.  Something seemed off.

Fuck! He realized as he noticed how freely he was breathing.  I've lost my bandana. His thoughts raced.  He kept expecting the Protectorate capes to bust through the trees and capture him.  He had left a Ward covered in his piss and jizz, after cutting her dress open.  Would she even realize what had happened?  He could hear sirens in the distance and helicopters—but they didn't seem to be coming closer.  It was confusing.

Then a new thought occurred to him.  Where was Vista when she got injured?  She could cover great distances rather quickly through warping space.  There had to have been a cape fight somewhere in the city.  The heroes might be occupied.  Giving him time to escape.

He needed to find a place to lay low until things died down.  Vista must have been injured in a cape fight.  Maybe she got hurt, panicked, and blindly ran, warping across the city to safety.  The neighborhood cops might have not had a clue and found him in a compromising position.  The heroes, though, they must have seen her get injured.  If they find her, near naked, but completely and miraculously healed, then they would probably be able to put two and two together.  Maybe find a way to spin it and leave out all the gross details for both him and Vista's sake.

Once it was safe, he'd reach out to the heroes and everyone would laugh at the whole crazy misunderstanding.  People could just chalk it up to strange cape shit.

Xavier stumbled to a halt as he spotted the young couple ahead, hastily gathering their picnic supplies.  The woman was rapidly rolling up a blanket while her boyfriend quickly collected their bags.  They were moving urgently.  Like they had heard what sounded like gunshots and decided it was time to go.

Xavier's breath caught in his throat.  His shirt was stained with blood, dirt, and streaks of grass.  His face was exposed.  He needed cover.  Something to hide his identity.  The man was wearing a dark blue hoodie, just loose enough to conceal Xavier's frame.

"Hey!" Xavier called out, his voice rougher than he intended.

The couple turned, startled.  The woman clutched the blanket tighter while the man stepped slightly in front of her, protective.  They were both Black, the woman with braids pulled into a high ponytail, the man with a closely cropped fade.  The man's eyes narrowed as he took in Xavier's disheveled appearance.

"I need that hoodie," Xavier said pitching his voice low as he moved closer. "Right now."

The man's posture shifted, shoulders squaring. "Man what the fuck?  Back up."

Xavier looked him in the eye.  He could see the fear there, the defiance.  He understood.  Life in Broctkon Bay as a Black man was a trial.  His mom had once joked to him that growing up Black, you had to get into a fight a few times just to be able to go outside in peace.  You couldn't show weakness.  Black folks aren't going to call the cops unless someone's about to die or actively shooting.  You never knew what flavor of cop would show up and the BBPD was notorious for having Empire sympathizers.  So people had to fend for themselves.  If somebody thought you were a punk, then everybody thinks that and treats you accordingly.  But Xavier didn't have time to posture or get into a fight.  He began to reach for his knife, before pausing, realizing it wasn't there.

The man's eyes hardened.  He set down the bags, hands curling into fists. "You think I'm just gonna—"

"Baby, don't," the woman interrupted, grabbing his arm.  Her eyes lingering on the barely visible sheath on Xavier's leg, not realizing that there wasn't a knife there.  "It's not worth it."

"Listen to her," Xavier insisted, hating how his voice trembled.  "I don't want to hurt anyone.  I just need that hoodie."

The man looked like he might lunge anyway, but his girlfriend squeezed his arm tighter. "Please," she whispered, projecting vulnerability into her voice. "Let's just go."

After a tense moment, the man shrugged off the hoodie and tossed it at Xavier's feet.  "Take it then, bitch."

Xavier bent to retrieve it, ignoring the brief spike of anger at the man's taunt as he kept his eyes on them.  When he straightened, something in his expression must have changed, because the woman's fear seemed to soften into confusion.

"They're after me,"  Xavier said quietly, nodding back towards the direction of the previous gunshots.  His eyes locked with the man's.  "The cops.  They shot at me."  He pulled the hoodie over his head, wincing as the fabric brushed against his tender scalp where the bullet had struck him.

The man's anger faltered, recognition dawning in his eyes—the shared understanding of what too often happens to people that look like them when pursued by the police.

"Be careful," Xavier added, shooting the man a significant look as he pulled the hood up over his head to conceal whatever blood, dirt, or twigs might be in his hair. "They're trigger-happy today."

The woman tugged at her boyfriend's arm. "Come on, let's go the other way."

Xavier heads off in a different direction.  To a trail that led to one of the edges off the park that currently had a fence that had been crudely cut to let people slip in and out of the park away from security cameras.  This was usually a safe neighborhood, he could tell by the gawkers along the edge of the park looking on curiously, with their phones out.  Trying to figure out the reason for the police presence.  While smarter folks seemed to think the police presence was a good time to leave and take their activities elsewhere.  Xavier blended in with them, trying to project the aura of someone with slightly inconvenienced plans.

His adrenaline began to falter after making it a few blocks without being stopped or recognized.  He was left feeling tired and weary.  All he needed to do now is lay low until all this bullshit blows over.

Forty-five minutes later and a bus ride across town found him standing outside a familiar dive bar.  A bleached blonde woman, with trashy attire and surprisingly clean and clear skin hung outside, casually smoking a cigarette.  Her keen eyes roamed, scanning for potential customers.  Those eyes lit up and smiled warmly as he approached.

"Hey X!" she sang happily. "in the mood for a freebie tonight?  I'll even buy you a drink first."  she leaned in for an intimate embrace.  Xavier relaxed slightly at the familiar presence of someone he could trust.  Her breath tickled his ear as she hugged him. "Want me to suck your dick in the bathroom?"

He gently puts his hands on her shoulders and regarded her seriously.  "I had to use my powers on someone today.  I think I'm outed, Angel."

Angel's sultry demeanor shifted into something more urgent and concerned  She flicked the cigarette away and motioned for him to follow her.  "Mama knew this would happen eventually."

She led him down the street to a car and opened the door for him.  Xavier, despite his exhaustion, was slightly amused by the display of reverse chivalry as he climbed into the passenger seat.  Angel walked around the car and opened the driver's door.  She sat down and took her heels off and tossed them into the back seat, before sitting barefoot in the driver's seat.  She regarded him with a look of determination, her hand lingering on his thigh.

"Kiss me for good luck?" She asked, showing a bit more vulnerability than he expected.  He was tired, his adrenaline having faded completely at this point.  So he just decided to go with it, he leaned in and gently brushed his lips against hers, cupping her face.  She sighed as their embrace ended.  Xavier felt a little guilty at taking advantage of her obvious crush on him.  It was, after all, completely his own damn fault.

Angel blushed and gave him a warm smile.  "You look beat.  Why don't you try and get some sleep.  It's going to be a long drive."  Her smile became a bit sultry. "I'll suck your dick later." she promised.  Xavier leaned back his seat and found himself drifting off eventually as she drove.  

He couldn't get the image of Vista, lying there broken before him.  The feeling of immense relief as his piss washed away her wounds.  Her slightly opened mouth.  Her cum covered face.  The way she woke up, gazing at him sleepily with a smile.  Her licking the cum off her lips.  Each image from his memories filling him with equal parts satisfaction and shame.  Xavier's thoughts continued in turmoil as he faded from consciousness.

Chapter Text

Steel hooks. Chains. Knives

PAIN.

Run. Hide. Safe. Survive.

Missy floated in a haze of pain and darkness.  The encounter with Hookwolf had gone terribly wrong.  She wasn't even supposed to be there.  Wasn't allowed to get involved, especially on her own.  She had been stupid.  Too slow.  The churning whirlwind of metal blades had torn through her costume before she could properly warp space around herself.  Her last coherent thought had been to escape, to fold space and propel herself away—anywhere away—before his blades could reach her vitals.

When consciousness first returned, it came in fragments.  Warmth spreading across her skin.  Wetness.  The dull throbbing in her head receded like waves pulling back from the shore.  Her body felt strange—heavy, yet floating, as though gravity didn't really apply to her.

She tried to open her eyes, but they refused to cooperate.  A voice—unfamiliar, deep, male—was muttering something nearby.  She couldn't make out the words through the groggy feeling in her head.  Then there was movement, pressure against her face.  Something slid into her mouth, unexpected and warm and... salty?  Her tongue moved reflexively, and she tasted something strange.

The pain in her head suddenly vanished like someone had flipped a switch.

Her eyes flickered open to a sky framed by trees and a face hovering above her.   A young man—Black, handsome in a way that made her stomach flutter.  His expression was a mask of panic and relief, his breath coming in and out in ragged gasps.

For a moment, Missy felt disconnected from herself, as though she were drifting outside of her body.  The pain that had consumed her was gone, replaced by a peculiar warmth that radiated outward from her core.  She felt... good.  Better than good.  A pleasant tingling sensation spread through her limbs, and her mouth curved into an involuntary smile.

The man above her jerked backward suddenly, his eyes widening.  That's when Missy became aware of several things. The cool air on her exposed chest, the wetness coating her skin, and the strange taste in her mouth.  Her tongue darted out reflexively, licking her lips clean of something viscous and salty.

A distant shout broke the moment.  The man's head snapped toward the sound, and then everything happened at once—a crack of thunder, his body jerking violently, a spray of red mist.

Missy's consciousness exploded into full clarity with the gunshot.  The man—her savior?—crumpled sideways, blood spraying from his head.  Time seemed to stretch and compress simultaneously, a sensation not unlike using her own powers.

"No!" The scream tore from her throat, raw and desperate.

Training kicked in—assess, decide, act.  The thundering of boots, shouts growing closer.  Multiple hostiles approaching with firearms.  The man possibly bleeding out beside her.

Missy concentrated, her power stretching reality around them like taffy.  The shouting voices and pounding footsteps became distant echoes as she expanded the space between them and their pursuers, transforming what should have been a twenty foot gap into hundreds of yards of distorted and twisted terrain.

Her head throbbed with each pulse of her power, the lingering effects of her concussion fighting against the strange healing that had swept through her system.  The world tilted and swayed as she tried to focus, her vision doubling, then snapping back together.  She could taste copper in her mouth, mingled with that strange saltiness that lingered on her tongue.  She slowly, cautiously climbed to her feet,  feeling wetness in places that she didn't want to think about.

Her shorts were soaked through, clinging to her skin and reeking.  With a grimace of disgust, she focused her power, warping space around the fabric, stretching it away from her body to allow the ruined undershorts to easily fall to the ground as she stepped out of them.  The cool air against her now bare lower half sent a shiver up her spine, but at least that particular indignity was gone.

The man—her savior? her attacker?—lay motionless on the ground he had grabbed his head as he had fallen.  Missy forced herself to look at him, to really look.  Young, probably not much older than twenty.  His pants were undone, his shirt had what appeared to be fresh bloodstains on it.  She looked away, blinking away the sting of tears that she refused to let fall.  She needed to focus! There was nothing she could do for him now.  She needed to figure out what was going on.

"What happened to me? she murmured, fingertips tentatively exploring her chest where Hookwolf's blades had torn through flesh.  Nothing.  Not even scars remained.  She touched her face, expecting to find swelling and bruising from where her helmet had cracked against her skull.  There was no pain, only an unfamiliar sticky substance that didn't answer enough of her questions.

A glint of metal caught her eye, reflecting sunlight through the trees.  Missy squinted, her vision still fully adjusting to the light after having been unconscious.  There, half hidden in the trampled grass, lay a knife—not a generic switchblade, but something more refined.  The handle was wrapped in dark leather and the blade looked slender and wickedly sharp.

She reached for it cautiously, her fingers trembling slightly as they closed around the handle.  It felt heavy, expensive.  As she lifted it, she noticed threads clinging to the edge—threads the same shade of green as her costume.

"He cut my costume," she whispered, eyes darting back to the unconscious man.  Understanding bloomed slowly, like a strange and twisted flower opening.  The knife explained the precise cuts in her armor, the careful way her costume had been opened without further injuring her.

A soft electronic noise drew her attention.  A few feet away, partially hidden by fallen leaves, lay a cell phone.  The screen had illuminated itself, some kind of timer or notification bringing it back to life.  Missy set the knife down carefully and crawled toward the phone, her mostly naked body shivering from the wind.

The device was sleek and new, a model the popular kids at Arcadia Middle School used.  She picked it up gingerly, almost dropping it when the screen suddenly burst into motion and sound.  A video resumed playing—a video of a blonde woman on her knees, her mouth stretched obscenely around—

"Jesus!" Missy nearly threw the phone, her thumb jabbing frantically at the screen until the video paused and the wet sloppy sounds were silenced.  Her face burned with embarrassment and something else she couldn't quite name.  The blonde woman in the video bore a passing resemblance to herself—same hair color, similar build.

"Is that what he was watching while he...?"  The thought turned her stomach, yet she couldn't help but stare at the frozen image, trying to make sense of it all.  The video contained words like "blonde," "teen," and other terms that made her skin crawl.

She set the phone down with shaking hands, suddenly desperate to cover herself.  The man had been watching interracial porn while—what?  Healing her?  Assaulting her?  The evidence of what had happened was all over her body, and all over her face, drying into a tacky film that made her skin itch and crawl.

In her distraction, she took a step backward and felt a sharp, searing pain lance through her foot.  She cried out, stumbling and nearly falling before catching herself.  Looking down, she saw she'd stepped directly on the knife she'd set aside, it's blade now embedded in the arch of her foot.

"Shit, shit shit," she hissed, sliding down into a sitting position.

Blood welled immediately, spreading across her skin in a crimson pool.  The knife had sliced deep into her arch—an area ride with tendons and nerves.  Pain radiated up from her leg in hot, pulsing waves.  Her vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges as her body responded to her new injury.

"Focus, Missy. Focus!" she whispered to herself through gritted teeth.

She needed to stop the bleeding.  Her hands scrambled desperately against the forest floor, searching for anything she could use as a makeshift bandage.  Leaves, too brittle.  Moss, too porous.  She needed to hurry! 

Her fingers brushed against something damp and synthetic—her discarded undershorts, still soaked with what she knew just had to be urine. 

"You have got to be kidding me," she muttered, recoiling instinctively.

But the blood continued to flow around the knife, pumping more of her life onto the forest floor.  She didn't have the luxury of squeamishness. With a grimace of disgust, she snatched up the shorts and cried out as she pulled the blade from her foot and pressed the piss-soaked shorts against her wounded foot, wincing at both the pain and the knowledge of what she was doing.

"This is so gross, so gross, so gross," she chanted under her breath, fighting back the urge to vomit.

The fabric squished unpleasantly against her wound, releasing a fresh wave of that acrid smell.  Missy closed her eyes, trying to breathe through her mouth as she maintained pressure  After a few moments, she risked a peek, expecting to see the shorts soaked through with a mixture of piss and blood.

Instead, she gasped.  The bleeding had stopped completely.  More than that—as she cautiously pulled the sodden fabric away, she could see the wound knitting itself closed before her eyes, the edges of the cut drawing together like a zipper being pulled.  Within seconds, there was nothing but a thin pink line where the gaping wound had been, and even that was fading by the moment.

"Holy shit," she breathed, flexing her foot experimentally.  No pain.  Not even a twinge.

Understanding crashed over her like a wave.  The urine.  It had healing properties.  That's why she was alive, why Hookwolf's devastating wounds had vanished from her body.  This man hadn't been assaulting her—he'd been saving her life in the only way he could. 

"Healing urine..." Missy couldn't help feel incredulous as she said the words out loud as if willing them to make sense.  Her mind thought of Newter, who could secrete a sweat that had extreme psychedelic effects.  And then to Panacea, who could heal people with direct contact.  As disgusting as it was, this poor's guy power unfortunately wasn't completely unbelievable.

Her eyes darted to the man, still motionless where he'd fallen.  The gunshot had struck him in the head—she'd seen the blood spray.  By all rights, he should be dead.  Yet something nagged at her, a detail she couldn't quite place.  He had grabbed his head as he fell...

"His own powers," she whispered, sudden realization making her heart race. "If he had any of his—fluids—on his hand... maybe, he got some of it on his head wound!"  Maybe, she could still save him!  Her heart raced at the thought.

Missy scrambled to her feet, her nakedness forgotten.  The shorts dangled from her hand, still dripping with healing urine. 

Missy stumbled as a sudden spike of pain lanced through her skull, radiating outward.  Her vision swam, the trees around her doubling, then tripling, before coalescing back into singular forms.  The world titled precariously as her powers faltered, space beginning to snap back like an overstretched rubber band slowly returning to its original shape.

"No, no, not now!" she gasped, pressing the fingertips of her free hand against her temples.  The throbbing behind her eyes intensified with each heartbeat, the inside of her skull seeming to pound with each beat.

The warped terrain she'd created—the impossible distances she'd stretched between them and their pursuers—began to shrink incrementally.  Trees that had seemed miles away crept closer with each passing second.  The distorted paths, once twisting into Escher-like impossibilities, gradually straightened.  The area around them was reasserting itself, her exhausted mind no longer able to maintain the complex spatial manipulations that was keeping them safe.

Her power had always come with limits.  Brockton Bay's Wards program had documented them meticulously: headaches when she pushed too far, nausea when she held complex spatial warps for too long, and in extreme cases, nosebleeds and temporary power failure.  The recent head injury, and her mad dash to push her power to escape certain death had left her reserves drained.  Whatever healing magic he'd worked on her, didn't restore her power.

In the distance, shouts echoed through the woods, no longer muffled by her spatial distortions.  Male voices, authoritative and urgent, calling to each other as they coordinated their search.  The words were still indistinct, but their meaning was clear.  They were closing in.

"...eastern quadrant clear!"

"...blood trail heading southwest!"

"...armed and dangerous, shoot on sight!"

Shoot on sight.  The words penetrated her fog of pain with crystal clarity.  They sounded like police officers.  But they weren't rescuers—at least, not for both of them.  For her, maybe.  For the man who'd saved her life, they were more like executioners.

Speaking of whom... Missy turned, still clutching the urine-soaked shorts in one hand, to check on her mysterious savior.  To her astonishment, he was moving.  His body twitched, fingers spasming against the forest floor, then his back arched as he drew in a ragged, desperate breath.  He rolled onto his side, one hand reaching up to touch the side of his head where the bullet had struck.

"That's impossible," she whispered, though the evidence of her own healed wounds argued otherwise.

The man's eyes snapped open and began to climb to his feet.  But he looked unsure, as if his body was on autopilot.

Missy watched, transfixed, as the man finished rising to his feet with almost unnatural movements.  They lacked the jerky panic of someone who'd just been shot.  He moved with an eerie, mechanical precision.  He swayed slightly, eyes unfocused, scanning the forest without seeming to actually see it.

There was a little blood in his hair on the right side of his head, dark and glistening in the sunlight.  The wound itself was no longer bleeding, but the damage was evident in more than just the visible blood.  His gaze drifted past her as though she weren't there at all—as though she were nothing more than another tree or rock in his path.

"Hey," Missy whispered, taking a cautious step toward him. "Can you hear me?"

No response. 

Not even a flicker of recognition crossed his face.  His eyes continued their restless scanning, pupils dilated to black pools that reflected nothing back.  The vacant expression sent a chill down Missy's spine.  This wasn't the face of someone fully present in their body.

"You should pull up your pants," she said, speaking a little louder this time, acutely aware of her own nakedness but more concerned about how he would look to their armed pursuers.

To her surprise, his hands moved to his waistband, fumbling slightly as he tucked his limp penis away, tugging his pants upward and fastening them.  The movement was automatic, divorced from any acknowledgement or her presence—like a computer doing what it was programmed to do.

"Do you know where you are?" she pressed, moving closer. "Do you remember what happened?"

His lips parted slightly, but no sound emerged.  A thin line of drool escaped the corner of his mouth, tracing a silver path down his chin before he absently wiped it away.  His gaze finally settled on her, but there was no recognition there—no shock at her nakedness, no concern for her well-being. Just empty observation, as if she were an object he couldn't quite categorize.

"Oh god," Missy breathed, realization dawning with sickening clarity. "The bullet... it gave you brain-damage, didn't it?"

The healing properties of his bodily fluids had saved his life, sealed the wound, perhaps even regenerated damaged tissue.  But brain damage was different.  Once neural pathways were severed, once delicate brain structures were disrupted by the passage of a high-velocity projectile, the original patterns might be lost forever.  His body had healed, but the person he was—his memories, his personality, the very essence of him—might have been irrevocably lost.

"Your name," she tried, desperation creeping into her voice. "Tell me your name!"

His brow furrowed slightly, the first real indication that her words were penetrating whatever fog enveloped his mind.

A twig snapped in the distance, followed by the crackle of a radio.  Missy's head whipped toward the sound, her heart rate accelerating.  They were running out of time.

The world around them shuddered violently, reality rippling like the surface of a pond disturbed by a thrown stone.  Missy gasped as her power fluctuated wildly beyond her control.  The trees almost seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting in impossible ways.  The ground beneath them undulated, distances stretching and compressing in nauseating waves.

"No, not now," she hissed, pressing her palms against her temples.  Blood trickled down from her nose, warm and metallic against her lips. "Not yet!"

Her power was backfiring, the consequence of pushing too hard while already overtaxed.  The complex spatial manipulations she'd maintained were collapsing, snapping back with a vengeance.  It was like trying to hold back the tide with her bare hands—impossible, exhausting, and ultimately futile.

The forest around them transformed into a surreal landscape of impossible geometry.  Trees that appeared miles away suddenly loomed mere feet from them.  Paths that had twisted into labyrinth-like complexity straightened with sickening speed.  The distorted terrain that had kept their pursuers at bay compressed violently, bringing the search parties rushing toward them like water through a broken dam.

Through the kaleidoscope of chaos and collapsing space, Missy caught glimpses of them—men in tactical gear, weapons raised, advancing through the woods with methodical precision.  Their shouts echoed strangely, sometimes seeming to come from directly beside her, other times sounding distant and muffled.

"...visual on suspect!"

"...armed and dangerous!"

"...protect the Ward!"

The last phrase chilled her to the bone.  They knew who she was, despite her lack of mask and most of her costume.  And they had already decided he was the enemy—a predator, not her savior.

Pain wracked through Missy's head as she struggled with her powers.  This was going to be bad.  If her powers overloaded her, she would be in no shape to explain the situation and protect this man... or whatever's left of him.

Unfortunately for both of them, she couldn't stop the inevitable overtaxing of her ability.

Missy's grip on space faltered catastrophically, her powers slipping through her mental fingers like fine sand.  The carefully constructed distortions collapsed all at once, reality snapping back with violent force that manifested as physical agony.  White-hot pain lanced through her skull, as though someone had driven an ice pick into the soft tissue behind her eyes and twisted.

Her knees buckled.  The world spun in nauseating spirals of color and shadows, trees blurring into smears of green and brown.  Blood poured freely from her nose now, spattering her bare chest in crimson droplets that mingled with the remnants of the urine and cold sweat coating her skin.  The metallic taste flooded her mouth, trickling down her throat and making her gag.

"Run." she tried to say, but the word emerged as little more than a wet gurgle.

The man—her savior—stood frozen, his vacant eyes registering something now.  Perhaps it was the sudden normalization of space around them, or maybe some primal instinct for self-preservation cutting through the fog of his injury.  Whatever the cause, awareness seemed to flicker across his features like distant lightning.

Missy collapsed fully now, her limbs no longer able to support her weight.  The forest floor rushed up to meet her, rough pine needles and decaying leaves pressing against her naked skin.  Through tear-blurred vision, she saw the first of the men materialize from between the trees—black tactical gear, assault rifles raised, faces obscured by helmets with face-masks and goggles.

"POLICE! DON'T MOVE!"  The shout reverberated through the clearing, which was now completely free of any spatial distortions.

"No," Missy moaned, her voice barely audible even to herself. "He saved me..."

One officer spotted her immediately, his weapon lowering slightly as recognition set in. "Vista conformed! Subject is down, appears injured!"

Another officer advanced toward the man, rifle trained on his center mass. "Male suspect, show me your hands! On your knees now!"

Blood pounded in Missy's ears, her heartbeat a deafening thunder.  With tremendous effort, she raised her head from the forest floor, fighting against the gravitational pull of unconsciousness that threatened to keep her down.

"He's not—" she began, but a fresh wave of agony cut her words short.  Something was very wrong inside her head.  The pain transcended anything she'd experienced before, even during her worst power-induced migraines.  

Through swimming vision, she saw the man take a single step backwards.  The movement was small, almost imperceptible, but it triggered an immediate response from the officers.

"DON'T MOVE! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"

Time seemed to stretch impossibly, not from her powers but from the heightened awareness that comes in moments of extreme danger.  Missy saw everything with clarity despite her pain: the officer's finger tensing on the trigger, the man's vacan't expression shifting into something like confusion, the glint of the sunlight catching on the barrel of the weapon.

"No!" The scream tore from her throat, raw and desperate, as she forced her broken powers to surge one final time.

The space between the officer and the man suddenly expanded, the bullet that erupted from the rifle's barrel traveling through distorted air, it's trajectory bending impossibly before burying itself harmlessly in a distant tree.  Blood vessels burst in her eyes, crimson leaking into the whites.  The pain in her skull intensified until she thought her head might simply explode from the pressure.

The unexpected spatial distortion threw the advancing officers off balance, several stumbling as the ground seemed to shift beneath their feet.  In that moment of confusion, the man—her savior—locked eyes with Missy.  For one brief instant, recognition seemed to flash across his features.

"Run," she mouthed, no longer able to produce sound.

Something clicked into place behind his eyes.  Without hesitation, he turned and bolted into the trees, moving with the fluid grace of someone who knew these woods intimately.  The officers recovered quickly, shouting into their radios and giving chase, but Missy had bought him precious seconds.

Darkness crept at the edge of her vision as her powers collapsed completely.  The last thing she saw before consciousness fled was one of the police officers kneeling beside her, mouth moving in words she couldn't hear, hands reaching for her naked form with what might have been concern.

Her final thought was a prayer that her mysterious healer would escape, that he would find safety somewhere far from the men who had already tried to kill him once.  That someday, she might learn his name.

Then there was nothing but darkness, deep and complete.