Eventually, Answers
(This is the first new thing I’ve written since culling a lot of angsty drafts, and it exists mainly because I got tired of reading my own unanswered questions. Chronologically, it follows “Optimism,” and hopefully puts Vince on a more definite trajectory up and out of all of those spiraling “What If” scenarios to which he’s been recently subjected. Part one of probably two, I think?)
“So...” you begin, perched awkwardly on the couch, wringing your still-damp hands.
The smell of solvents permeates the room, wafting down the hall from the bathroom. The washing machine chugs and sloshes your ruined clothes along with his now-ruined towels and shower curtain. You’ll replace them, if need be. He probably has spares.
“So,” he replies, placing a pale cup of coffee in your hands. He gives you a nod and a tired half-smile as he sits in the chair across from you.
“So I’m Vindicator,” you finally admit. You look past your hands, intently examining the thick carpet beneath your feet; trying to swallow your heart, which has somehow leapt into your throat.
“So I figured,” he evenly replies again, watching your throat bob as you try, and fail, to find your words. “Drink your coffee.”
You instinctively do as he says, gulping down a drink that’s mainly cream, just the way you like it. You look up at him with a weakly grateful smile.
For a moment you wonder, idly, if he might poison you. You drink anyway. That’s not the sort of man you think he is, and if you’re wrong about that... would it even really matter?
“How did you know?” You can’t help but ask, even though you know you shouldn’t.
He leans forward with his palms on his knees. “Vince,” he says flatly, “We’ve been training for months. With the number of techniques we’ve been going through, it’s not hard to figure out your favorites. Vindicator’s little stunt this afternoon felt a lot like something you would do. And try to play it off. And then when you were ‘busy’ and ‘hurt your shoulder’ the same afternoon Vindicator was nearly crushed interfering in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says with a cynical glance, “it’s hard not to draw conclusions.”
Well, “crushed” is a bit much. Some scratches, a few deep ones, and a dent that’ll need hammering out - if not a full repair by someone much more talented. Ironically, it was the dent that got you. A lucky shot when you were thrown through a collapsing wall which happened to catch the plating at just the right angle to bend it inward and warp it into a cutting edge. Could’ve been worse.
“And that’s why you invited me over.”
“Well, we can still have dinner later, if that’s how I lured you in,” he says with nonchalant shrug and a sarcastic twinge to his voice, “But yeah. You kept trying to brush me off, and it was too much of a coincidence that it all happened at once. And if it was you,” he admits, wiping his palms on his thighs, “I was worried about you.” A tired smile escapes him with an outward sigh. “Suspicion and worry aren’t too far apart.”
“And you’re... Are you not-” mad about it? - He waits patiently while you reformulate your question. “What... do you still need to know?”
He laughs, a wheezy sort of scoff, and finally takes a sip of his drink, as well. “Well, ‘Why?’ would be a big one, of course, but anything you want to-” he huffs out another laugh, “ -anything you can tell me would be appreciated. And before you ask: I know, I haven’t told anyone, and-” He takes another drink to calm himself. “Vindicator’s no longer considered a high-level threat. Which makes me wonder...” Another swallow, then another, looking over his mug to you, a buzz of suspicion still managing to seep past his shields. “Did you already tell the others?”
The Rangers? Of course not. He knows you better than that, doesn’t he? You shake your head without thinking. You haven’t told anyone. Except- “Well,” you correct yourself, with a wince. “Argent knows. And a-... business associate.”
“Argent?” He asks, setting his cup down and leaning forward in one quick motion, before leaning back again. “Argent? Not Steel, not Ortega, but Argent?” The confusion is clear in his eyes, before he blinks it back. “Wait, ‘business associate’?”
“Yeah, well-,” you start again - and if you had any good sense you’d be relieved that the conversation seems painfully awkward, rather than just painful.
Daniel wipes a hand over his face, but with a wincing smile, nods for you to continue.
“More like, a friend of a friend, except... that friend... was also me. And now that she knows...” Daniel’s hand rubs continually over his brow. “I’m not sure if we’re still friends.” You press your thumb soothingly into the palm of your other hand. “I hope so,” you reluctantly admit.
There’s a deep sigh from the other side of the table. “Okay,” says Daniel, ever-patiently. “Okay. We’ll come back to that.” His hand finally removes itself from his face, moving instead to drum his fingers on his thigh. “...But Argent? You told Argent before-”
There’s a moment where his shields - the ones you helped him build, the ones that still need reinforcing- fail. A moment of hurt, soon surpassed by another.
A moment where you see a newspaper clipping on the fridge. A moment where you - not you, no, just the lingering effects of mingled consciousness - remember wondering what possibly could have possessed her to - in public, with a villain, no less! A moment where he remembers things you have told him. A moment where he considers the word “possessed” - a moment where he’s so angry and so worried and so - and it’s gone. In a instant. With the widening of his eyes. And the slamming of mental shutters.
A split-second during which you could have lost everything.
But you’re lucky. You’re so lucky. You’re lucky you’re having this conversation here, and now, after Vindicator’s already been beaten for the day, and by someone else. After you “stumbled into” breaking up a larger battle, and everyone left alive. After Daniel’s already decided to help you.
“How long has Argent known?,” is the question that finally comes, and nowhere near as tersely as you’d expected.
“Not long before you,” you hurry to answer. “Neither of them,” you quickly reassure, for his sake or yours, wincing as you turn your shoulder. “Maybe a month or two?”
“Did Argent know when she-“ Annoyance briefly slips past his shields, before he quickly sweeps it back under, adding up the facts. “A month. So she didn’t know you were Vindicator when she kissed you. ‘Him,’ I guess.” he asks, he states, while you consider the “Technically-” building at the base of your subconscious.
You shake your head, both as an answer and to knock that stupid “Technically-” back where it belongs. In that moment, no, she didn’t. And later was a different thing entirely.
“No,” you say simply. “No, she didn’t. And I can promise you-” for whatever that’s worth, you think “- I had no idea that she was going to do that. Especially with reporters around.”
Your eyes meet, both of you out of your element. “...Honestly, I don’t think I really understand her,” you admit, with all the quiet awkwardness that belongs to that admission.
He smiles yet another tired, patient smile, and collects his mug again, relying on caffeine to make it all make sense. He scoffs softly. “You wouldn’t be the only one.”
You take another gulp from your mug, as well. Then you do the only thing you can do, with your cup mostly empty and your head still swimming with “Technically-”.
You blurt.
“She did kiss me again after I told her, though. I didn’t expect that either.” Before either of you has a chance to process, you barrel right on ahead. “She bit me, too.” You finally pause to think. “...Even though she told me she might.”
Daniel blinks. “She told you she was going to bite you?”
Once again, you are so, so lucky that you have someone so accustomed to your peculiarities. Someone who can parse the information you throw down one piece at a time. Someone who takes the time to do so. Someone who doesn’t react until they’ve wrung the truth from you. Someone who’s patient enough to do the wringing.
“No, she told me she might kiss me, but I didn’t really believe her. And then when she did kiss me, she bit me.” You take in a quick breath for a complicated clarification, blurting away. “...I had the helmet on, and I asked what she’d do if I took it off, and she said she might kiss me, and that sounded pretty unbelievable - and then when I took it off, she seemed angry, which I had expected, but then she kissed me... which I hadn’t. And then midway through that she bit me.”
You unconsciously suck in your lip, your eyes again finding Daniel’s. You swallow hard. “She bit through my lip.”
Which is why your lip hurt the next time you visited the Rangers. And the night he took you to dinner.
He draws in a breath and sighs.
“So why did you take the helmet off? If you expected she’d react badly, I mean.”
“I thought she’d react badly either way,” you admit with a shrug. (Shortly followed by a wince, as again, you are quickly reminded of your stitches.) “If I didn’t tell her - if I didn’t give her anything to work with, in the situation we were in, we’d have to fight. If I did tell her, there’s a chance she’d figure things out, and probably kill me, but there was also a chance she might not kill me? So I took that chance.” You blink, still somehow piecing it together for yourself. “...I didn’t actually think she’d kiss me.”
Daniel’s face shows his thoughts, but it’s yours that you still have trouble parsing.
“People have a way of surprising me,” you tell him.
“And you them, I’m sure.” His scripted accent falls, tone shifting curiously close to yours as he follows your jumps in logic. “You expected she’d kill you, but she likes Vindicator - or at least she used to. She wouldn’t kill Vindicator just for jerking her around,” he supposes aloud.
Under his unwavering gaze, you shake your head. “Probably not.”
“You did something worse.”
Gone are the butterflies. Gone are the questions. He knows. He knows what he’s already suspected. What he never wanted to ask.
“...Yeah.”
“You don’t just influence or suggest. You can do a lot more than what we did in there.” He jerks his head toward the hall. “You can make people do things against their will, not just work around it.” He keeps his eyes locked with yours. “Can’t you?”
You nod, lips twitching, not quite a wince. “I’m a pretty powerful telepath.” You try not to wince, at least. What is there to feel guilty about, just admitting that? It’s a skill. It’s useful. You’d be a fool not to use it.
You’re a fool anyway.
He takes in another deep, centering breath, and sighs. “What was the situation?”
“Pardon?”
“The ‘situation’ you were in, when you told Argent.”
“Oh. That.” You blink, but quickly adjust to his change of topics. “We were both after something, and there were a number of other villains in the way.” You shrug, to try to alleviate his concerns. “She was fighting villains, and I was robbing them. It was in both our best interest not to waste time fighting each other.”
It’s not quite a lie. Everything you’ve said is true.
“What was she there for?”
And isn’t it odd that that’s the question that makes you feel guilty?
“I don’t know.” You sigh. “I don’t want to know. I don’t need to. I haven’t asked, and she’s told me to stay out of her head.” Daniel shifts in his seat. “It’s not like I want to lie to you, but-” He squirms again, and you can tell from his expression that your discomfort must register on your face. He’s still uncomfortable pushing.
And you love him for that. It’s why you bother trying to explain at all.
You love him, as much as someone like you can, anyway. And you want him to know. And you want him to love you in spite of it.
You’re trying to be better, and you can only hope it’s working. Without him, you’d have no way of knowing.
You take in a deep breath, and you keep trying.
“It’s none of my business, and I’m trying to respect that. I don’t want to make things difficult for her or anyone. I know that probably sounds odd, coming from me, but I mean it. I can tell you what I was after, and why, and I can guess why she’d want it, too, but you have to keep this under wraps.”
That piques his curiosity. He floats over, perching next to you on the couch.
“Alright,” he encourages, squeezing your joined hands. You haven’t lost him yet.
“I’m serious. You can’t ask her about it, you can’t let anyone know that you know. Can you - can you do that? For her, at least, even if-?”
He stops you, squeezing your hands again.
“I’m not-... It’s alright, Vince, I’m not going to tell anyone.”
You nod at him.
“There’s a machine. Supposedly, it can regenerate damaged tissue. Revert changes, in a way, maybe. I don’t know how the science works.” Your pulse jumps with nervous energy. “But this is my chance at being normal. At being human-” Daniel takes in a breath to correct you, but you need to say this much, at least. “-on the outside, where it counts.”
He’s silent for a moment then. He allows one of your hands to escape to shakily grip your knee, but he takes your other again in his grasp, weaving your fingers together.
You don’t bother trying to find out how he feels; you can guess from his face. He doesn’t bother objecting, either.
You might be human enough for him, but what does that matter, in the grand scheme of things? No amount of optimism would ever fix this.
“And could it work?” He’s breathless, on your behalf.
“I don’t know,” you admit, softly, suddenly afraid to speak any louder. “I hope so. Argent was after it, so I think she thinks it does. Which makes it seem more promising, even if it doesn’t wind up that way.” You chew your lip, smile at his reassurances, and remind him of his not-quite promise. “Please don’t let her know I’ve told you this. Danny,” you practically beg, which can’t be a good look for you, “You can’t tell anyone.”
He frowns. “I won’t.”
A sudden beeping trill accompanied by a sloshing ‘clunk’ nearly scares you out of your skin. Both of you let out a breath you weren’t aware you were holding. The spin cycle has finished. The laundry is clean.
“Jesus,” you mutter, shaking your head. He laughs and goes to pat you on the shoulder, awkwardly settling for resting a hand at the base of your neck, when he remembers your injury.
“I should put that in the dryer,” he says, floating to his feet.
“I’ll help.” You volunteer without thinking, and follow him down the hall. You’ve never been comfortable just sitting and waiting.
“You don’t have to, you know. It’s just laundry; I can manage.”
“It’s my mess anyway.”
“It might as well be ‘our’ mess at this point.”
He has a point, but that only makes you feel more awkward. And then, inevitably, you overcorrect.
“Look, Danny, just because you’re sleeping with the enemy doesn’t mean-”
“Vince.” He stops you with a look.
“Sorry,” you mutter, your gaze darting away.
“You’re not ‘the enemy,’ you’re just being an ass. You don’t have to pick fights.” He stands there - floats there - waiting for your eyes to turn back to him. When they eventually do, he adds, “You know that, right?”
“I know. I’m just not sure I know what else I should do.”
“Just talk to me,” he says, so simply. So absolutely sure of himself.
Wonder what that feels like?
You nod slowly.
“If you’d really rather help, you can.” A small concession.
“I’d like to.”
He shrugs good-naturedly. “That’s fine. I’ll grab it out of the washer; you sort. I don’t want you wrenching that shoulder.”
“Okay, deal.”
Taking inventory, all things considered, there’s not much damage. Not to you, your friends, your armor, or even the laundry.
Soaking everything in the tub managed to get the blood out of most things before washing- and the few things that required bleaching don’t look too bad after a cycle or two.
The shower curtains - “Those are hang dry,” he tells you - have some interesting splotches, but they aren’t too obvious unless you’re looking for them.
“I can replace those.”
He shrugs. “It’s fine.”
Silence falls, momentarily, as he hands you the last of your clothes, and you pass the shower curtains back to him. He disappears down the hallway, “I’ll hang those. No reaching.” The dryer shuts more loudly than you’d like, and he reappears to re-fiddle the settings before pressing Start.
He chews his lip in thought, leaning against the doorframe.
“What would it mean,” he begins, softly “- if the machine worked?”
“Well, for starters, I could take my shirt off more often.” You laugh, and he starts to laugh, too, but your voice becomes softer, more serious, and he breaks off, watching you. “I could exist in public, without being any more or less at risk than anybody else out there. I could be nobody.”
There’s a pause, a moment where you can actually think. You shrug. “I could quit.”
“Would you?”
“Well, I’d think about it, at least. I’d have a lot less reason to keep getting armored up, if I didn’t have to worry about who might be kicking down my door.”
“Is that why-?”
“I mean- it’s a pretty good reason to want to be prepared.”
“Good as any,” he mutters good-naturedly. His eyes unfocus slightly as he stares past you into nothing.
You aren’t sure if he’s fully conscious of what he’s saying, or if he only said it conversationally.
He sounds tired. Looks tired. You’ve dumped a lot on his shoulders today. Ha! His shoulders, huh? A literal wall came down on yours.
You hadn’t even intended the joke, but it does make you snicker. Softly, but still loud enough to break him from his reverie.
He shakes his head. “So, dinner? I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”
Your answer is always the same. “I could eat.”
He puts his arm around your waist and smiles down at you, guiding you kitchenward. “Alright, then.”
He’s a good guy. That much, you know. It’s one less question to worry about.
