Chapter Text

The sinks of the Hero Corps restrooms don’t run cold enough. I douse my face, dry myself off with paper towels, and look at the woman in the mirror. I remember looking mousy, another unremarkable brunette in a sea of brunettes, back before I found myself. I remember looking gorgeous, powerful, soaring into battle with a smirk on my lips - that had been after I’d discovered that I was a soft summer rather than a true autumn, and stopped forcing myself into wearing jewel tones. 

These days, I just look tired. 

I collect myself, calm myself, and shove the door open, striding back down the hall and into the command room. “Show me.”

The girl behind the controls nods tightly, and taps a few buttons.

The massive screen comes to life again, and the first of a series of photographs appear on the wall.

Captain Paladia lies shoved up against a rusted trash can, silver-white suit ripped to ribbons on her body. Her beautiful hair is a matted, knotted mess, where it hasn’t been yanked out entirely. Her legs are spread akimbo; semen pools on the pavement from where it spills from her gaping cuntlips. Cum and spit and various other fluids drip from her face, her lolling tongue, her mauled and beaten tits. There is nothing left in her eyes. In the photo, she stares blankly, glassy, vacant, off into the near distance. 

There is a steel collar wrapped around her throat. 

You wouldn’t know her as one of the most respected superheroes in the city, from the picture. She looks like an entirely normal, vanilla woman with fair-colored skin that bruises as easily as anyone else’s. She looks no different than an exceptionally beautiful cosplayer. The only clue that she might’ve actually had any powers at all is the metallic-silver paint sprayed over her body. Sprayed haphazardly, unevenly. But the intent is clear. The spray can lies discarded on the floor, shining wet, implying at some point the can itself had participated in the violation of at least one of her holes. 

On the wall above her head, spraypainted in silver, are the words: TIN CAN WHORE

The words, along with some choice others, are also crudely inked on various parts of her body in a manner far more permanent than Sharpie. 

As far as messages go, it’s hard to get any more obvious.

The rest of the pictures aren’t any better. Close ups of the abuse, her injuries. Her face, her gorgeous face, misused and mistreated. Documentation of exactly what had been done to her. 

I have a hard time understanding what this documentation will do for us, exactly. But I don’t raise any objections. I force myself to sit still and watch as the girl clicks through the series. The temperature in the room drops with each photo. A muscle in Wintress’ jaw is twitching something fierce. 

“How is she now?” I ask.

Wintress shakes her head. “Catatonic. Physically, she’s… okay. But she hasn’t… it’s early days yet.”

I appreciate her attempt at optimism. “Her powers?”

“Even with the collar off,” says Wintress, “she doesn’t seem able - or willing - to metal-shape. With her in her current state, it’s impossible to say-”

“How bad is the situation?”

She winces, which tells me everything I need to know. “It’s… it’s bad. There’s, um, footage. Out on the Internet. Whoever did this didn’t waste any time. They uploaded it, everywhere they could. It’s impossible to take down.”

I could feel the fucking migraine coming on. “And?”

“It’s approaching one billion views, collectively.” Wintress colors slightly. “The footage is all… graphic. Very graphic. We’re getting overloaded with questions from the press, and the Mayor-”

“Get me her collar,” I tell her. “Asap. Send it straight to the lab and message me when it’s there.”

Wintress gives me a querying look. “And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

Paladia was right. 

I’ve been too soft. Too academic about this problem. I’ve let the underworld grow confident, aggressive, with this newfound development. I should’ve nipped it in the bud, snuffed out the spark while it was still nascent. But it’s not too late now.

I look her in the eyes. “I’m going out on patrol. Don’t bother me unless you have something.”

-

Centropolis City is sprawling mass of contradicting urbanity. Pale glass spires soar above crumbling pavement and fetid alleys. Monuments of steel and stone glare balefully across billion-dollar penthouses built upon centuries of decay. Home to heroes and rogues and everyone in-between. I’m not under any impression that the world is full of saints. Not everyone out there deserves saving. God knows, I’m not going to be the one to decide which is which. 

But damn, if some days I’m not tempted to.

“Please! I don’t know anything, I swear!” The kid is barely old enough to drop out of college, yet he’s got tattoos marked up all across his face and down one arm. He’s a spindly guy, the type who’s only useful with a gun and even then not that useful. He’d never fight someone, hand to hand, if he had the choice. Especially not anyone like me.

I tighten my fist, and the circle of razorblades closes in a little tighter around his throat. I could practically shave his neck stubble off, at this point. “Not good enough.”

“PLEASE!” he screams. “You gotta believe me, nobody tells me shit!”

“Try again,” I say. And the razorblades tighten. “Think real hard.”

In general, I’m considered one of the nicer heroes on the team. Dr. Materielle is considered one of the nicer, kinder, more compassionate of the bunch. I’ve gotten a lot of good press for manifesting emergency supplies after disasters and city-wide battles. Everybody likes baby bottles and bricks for orphanages. It’s easy goodwill. And in general, I like being that person. I like being the symbol of hope that the people need, that they want to believe in. I think it’s important for them to have that.

But I also understand that sometimes, I need to be something else. 

The kid is a junior gang member, nobody important. A street rat, to use their terms. But that’s where the real info lives. Underlings have their own intelligence network, one that’s incredibly fast, and somewhat accurate. And incredibly secret. He’s staring at me, in my trademark gold-red powersuit, cape fluttering in the wind, fist glowing and clenched, and his eyes are wide with incredulous fear right now, wondering if it’s worth spilling the beans for. He doesn’t know what to think. It’s as though Mr. Rogers flew out of the sky and held a .45 Colt on him, point blank. He’s not sure what I’m capable of.

“One of my best friends in the world was just collared by one of these fucking things,” I hiss, “but I bet you already knew that, didn’t you? You’ve seen the videos, haven’t you?”

He jerks his head from side to side, as much as he can, given the circumstances. “No! No, I never-”

But he’s lying to me. I can see it in his eyes. “Lie one more time,” I tell him. “And you’ll never speak another word again. Do you understand?”

He wets his lips with his tongue and says nothing. I think he understands.

“You’ve seen the videos,” I tell him. “You know what I’m talking about. I bet all your friends are talking about it too. You liked watching it? You liked watching a supe get raped like just another piece of street trash?”

He doesn’t say anything. But I can see the hate in his eyes, under the fear, I can see his pulse quickening, the artery throbbing along his neck. The stiffening in his pants.

Men.

I lean forward. “You disgust me. All you fucking scumbags, too dumb and prideful and ungrateful to realize that we’re trying to make this city a better place. For everyone. Even goddamn garbage like you and your pals.” And the razor edges begin to glow, a dull molten orange.

“Wait wait wait WAIT!” Sweat is pouring down his brow. “I’ll tell you everything I know, please, ok? Just, don’t hurt me. I just, the thing is-”

“Spit it out.”

“Nobody knows anything! That’s the thing, okay? These things are coming out of nowhere and nobody knows what the deal is. Everybody’s going crazy trying to figure out who’s making them or selling them or whatever, the big crime bosses got five million bucks for whoever finds out.”

He’s desperate, practically in tears - and for the life of me, I can’t detect a single lie coming out from him. As far as I can tell, he’s being honest. Either that or he’s wasted a career in Hollywood. 

The only issue is that this still doesn’t make any sense.

“You’re telling me that nobody, not even your bosses, know where these things are sourced?”

He nods emphatically. He couldn’t be nodding any more emphatically if he tried. I'm beginning to smell singed hair.

“Nobody has any clue at all?”

“Lady,” he says, “if I did, I’d be the fuck outta here with five mill in my pocket. Trust me, I don’t gotta clue. Y’all supes gotta figure out your own shit.”

The razor blades disappear into thin air, and I knock him out cold with a clean strike to the temple. I stare at him, out cold on the floor, looking almost peaceful, lying there. I was never going to kill him. No matter how far I’m pushed, how dire the circumstances, there are rules I follow. Rules that separate the ‘us’ from the ‘them’. I have to remind myself that, even as I can feel the bile at the back of my throat. Fuckers like this running around free, loose, while good women like Captain Paladia…

I shove my thoughts away as my transmitter beeps. It’s Wintress, on the comm. “What is it?”

“I’ve got the collar waiting for you here,” said Wintress. There’s an odd note to her voice. “It’s no different than any of the others, as far as we can tell, but maybe you can spot something.”

I doubt it. “Thanks. Anything else?”

She exhales over the microphone. “We got one.”

“Got one what?”

“One of the perps who... got Captain Paladia. Velocigal caught him trying to flee into the sewers.”

Blood thunders in my ear.

A lead.

Finally.

“I’ll be right there.”

-

The suspect is a younger man, not so different at all from the guy I’d just come from interrogating. But he’s bigger, taller, with the sort of muscle that befits a skinhead with ill-fitting pants and a plethora of gold chains. Half his face crawling with tattoos that extend into a full sleeve. He’s eaten his way up the foodchain a bit, and it’s obvious that he’s not the average street thug.

He’s certainly got a lot more balls, I’ll give him that.

He sits in a holding cell in the pits of the Hero Corps tower, at the seat of justice and civic power of the entire city. And he’s not even sweating. He’s glancing around, smirking to himself and the cameras, drumming his fingers on the desk like he’s waiting for someone. 

I’d almost respect it, if he weren’t such a piece of shit. 

“What do we know?”

“Tyler Flynn,” says Wintress. She’s looking a little haggard too. She’s one of the finest logistic minds we have, but managing all these cases has run her ragged. Everything I’ve seen, she’s seen. “Twenty years old, low level street muscle, nothing special in his file.”

“Who’s his boss?”

She shrugs. “Whoever pays the best. He’s got a hell of a resume for his age. Kingster, Black Blaze, even the Tyrant. Doesn’t seem like he sticks to any one single gang or villain. It’ll be hard to pin him down.”

A slight chill spikes in the back of my neck at the mention of the Tyrant. It’s been five years since I put him away, but there’s something about that guy that never sat right with me. “Has he said anything about the collar?”

“He just keeps asking for a lawyer.” Wintress snorts. “The nerve of this fucker. I’ll bury him in supermax before I let him go to trial.”

I get it, I do. But there is due process for a reason. No matter how much we despise these creeps, we’re not here to judge them. We bring them to justice. And that’s exactly what I intend on doing. “I’ll talk to him now,” I tell her. “Make sure no one interrupts.”

“Yes ma’am.”

I don’t slam the door open or anything like that. He’s got a rap sheet as long as my cape - he’s used to the blustering cops and their brute shows of force. I simply let the door close behind me and take a seat opposite him.

“Mr. Flynn,” I say. “Thirteen priors, is that right?”

He gives a noncommittal gesture. “I lost count after the tenth.”

Maybe you should’ve completed high school then, so you could count to something higher than your number of fingers. “Unfortunately, this time is a little different. This time, you’re so far up shit creek you won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Unless you cooperate.”

He rolls his eyes. “I ain’t saying shit, lady. I know my rights.”

But he startles half out of his skin as an industrial vise, hundreds of pounds of metal, slams onto the table out of nowhere. I give him an unfriendly smile. “Your rights will be restored once the current crisis has been resolved. In the meantime, I suggest you do your best to answer my questions. For your own sake.”

“Fine,” he says, squeezing his legs together reflexively. “Fine. What’d you want from me?”

I lift up the evidence bag Wintress gave me, showing him the collar inside. “I want you to tell me everything you know about this.”

He scoffs. “I don’t know anything ‘bout those. You need to find some other schmuck to bully if you want to hear about those.”

My knuckles whiten. “You were traced from the scene of the crime. A heroine was subdued because of one of these, and now the goddamn footage is all over the Internet. And you were part of the responsible party. So try again.”

“Okay, sure. I seen ‘em. I know they’re around. Doesn’t mean I know shit about them, okay?”

“Where did it come from?”

“Some guy, who knows a guy. I don’t fuckin’ know. You gotta know the right people.”

“Like who? Who’s the right people?”

“Whoever’s got the metal to work with, right? It’s all about the metal, ain’t it? Some special steel, or something. Gotta be.”

He’s even more fucking ignorant about these things than I am. I can feel my anger rising, for no other reason than the fact that this guy will get me nowhere. “Which of your friends procured the device?”

Instead of answering, he grins at me. “I’m kind of surprised. You’re pretty brave for a supe.”

I narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He nods to the thing in my hand. “Coming in here with a collar like that. You’re not scared I might take it?”

It’s with a horrifying jolt that I realize he’s right.

I’ve made a horrible mistake.

The whole room turns on its head, because now I’m the one at his mercy and he’s holding all the cards. All he has to do is snatch the bag out of my hand, take out the collar, and I’d be at his mercy. I’m out of my chair in the blink of an eye, chair toppled to the floor, backing away to the door, and he’s laughing like crazy, even as Wintress bursts into the room, hands crackling with frost, shouting for him to get on the ground, hands behind his head, do it now, now now now.

And he does it, but he just keeps laughing. “You dumb fucking bitch,” he jeers from the floor, and I stumble out of the room as Wintress deals with him.

Velocigal’s already there, helping me up, helping me back away from the closing door. She’s willow-thin with slender, coltish limbs wrapped in some skin-tight hyper-durable synthetic, and I’m always surprised by how strong she is. I suppose your body can’t be physically weak if it’s regularly breaking the sound barrier, but you wouldn’t think it just from looking at her. She blows out a sigh and runs a hand through her close cropped hair, giving me a sympathetic but strained smile. “Sorry ‘bout that. I should’ve warned you before you went in - he’s a piece of work, for sure.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” I am fine, I tell myself. My heart is still thumping against my chest, hands still shaky from the close call that wasn’t even a close call at all. Nothing was going to happen to me. Wintress was watching the whole thing, we were locked in a room in the heart of the safest place in the city for a superhero, and even without powers I’ve got more hand-to-hand combat training than the average Navy SEAL - what the hell did I think was going to happen? I was never in any real danger. I just let him get to me. It’s a rookie mistake, but I can’t afford that kind of carelessness.

Velocigal doesn’t seem to notice my distress - or if she does, she doesn’t make a big deal out of it. I’ve always appreciated that about her, even if we have our differences. I’m the mysterious brooding shut-in who spends all her time underground in her secret lab. She’s the cheery one, the bubbly speedster who always sees the silver lining and never the clouds. We talk a big game, us heroes, about being symbols of hope to the civilians, but she’s the real deal. It’s hard not to like her. To nobody’s surprise, @Velocigallllll is one of the most popular superhero social media accounts in the world (and obviously, the skin-tight suit doesn’t hurt at all). “If it makes you feel any better,” she says breezily, “the guy practically pissed himself when he saw me. Seriously, he had the pants stain and everything.”

“Thanks, Val. How’d you find him?”

“I was in the neighborhood, just ran a search through the city blocks ‘til I saw him freeze like a deer.” She laughs to herself, and I’m glad that at least someone on the team hasn’t had their spirits totally dampened. “Never trust a guy with two ‘y’s in his name, that’s what I always say.”

I frowned. “Tyler Flynn is one y per name. First and last.”

“Even worse,” says Velocigal breezily. “Can’t trust ‘em. How’s the case going? Anything yet?”

“Nothing,” I admit. “But hopefully we can get something out of him. And this collar makes six - maybe I’ll have a breakthrough with enough data.” 

The optimism feels paper-thin, to me, but she accepts it without hesitation. “I bet you will,” she says. “This is right up your wheelhouse.”

“I just don’t understand. It’s like these things just came out of nowhere. There has to be someone, something behind it, but they’re not making any moves at all.”

But she scrunches her face up at that. “Are you kidding me? Villains have been trying to figure out how to depower us for years. And we’ve been working on the exact same thing for, how long now? Remember Lizardizer? We spent like a bajillion dollars trying to figure out a way to shut his mutation down. You called it ‘Nullium,’ back in the day. The big ol’ mystery element. Whatever happened to that?”

‘Nullium’ was a stupid name, but in all fairness, it had been a stupid concept. A material that could block every single superpower, regardless of origin? Pure fantasy. I’d tried hundreds of different combinations, permutations of material, in what had been very costly experiments. Some of them had gotten close - I’d been able to weaken some powers substantially, even a few different types at once. But to utterly nullify every possible superpower? I’d written it off as a fool’s errand. Another scrapped project, to add to the pile. The Corps research vault was littered with depowering research that hadn’t gone anywhere - but perhaps there was a lead somewhere there. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier. 

“You’re right,” I told her. “Maybe there’s something there.” 

Velocigal preens a little. “You want to get a pizza or something first? I’m famished. I’ve been burning calories like crazy and I’ve only had protein bars today.”

“Maybe next time. I should get back to the lab.”

And she actually winks at me. “Let me know if you want a lift over!”

There’s a wall in the Corps lounge taped up with dozens of pics of Velocigal carrying various heroes, bridal style, as she sprints through the city streets. I’ve resolved long ago to never have my picture up there. “Thanks,” I say, “but no thanks.”

Then she’s gone in a flash, leaving nothing behind but a crackle of static and the faint beep of a communicator going off - some emergency or battle that needs her help, as soon as she can be there. Such is the life of a hero.

Time to go to work.

–

The sixth collar is exactly like all the rest. It’s beyond infuriating, when the final test comes back, blinking a sullen red on my screen. Nothing beyond it but plain steel. It sits there, in its glass prison, mocking me.

Maybe I should’ve taken Velocigal up on the pizza. I realize that I haven’t eaten all day, or drank any water either. I’ve been slaving away at my desk for hours without even realizing the time. It’s the early AM already and the exhaustion hits me like a brick. 

It’s not unusual for me to get wrapped up in my work like this. It happens more often than not; but usually Reina comes to pull me out of it. I’m a little surprised she hasn’t, today, though I suppose she’s off doing businessy things. She’s probably left me a dozen messages about how I should order food without her, she’ll get in late or something. I flip on my phone and-

-huh. She hasn’t texted me at all. 

“House,” I say aloud. “Is Reina home yet?”

“Not presently,” replies the automated assistant. “Would you like me to locate her?”

“Yes please.”

I can practically hear the assistant whirring away in its server, before responding: “Location not found.”

What the hell?

“House,” I say. “Call Reina Hall.”

“Calling Reina Hall.”

A long, pregnant pause, before:

“Hi Mads! Are you home already?”

“Reina.” Jesus, my heart was practically in my mouth. “Where are you?”

“Me? I’m at the office. Why, what’s - oh shit, it’s that late already? I’m sorry babe, this whole deal’s taken a lot longer than I thought. Fucking international law- give me half an hour, I’ll be right there. I’m wrapping up already.”

I’m just happy to hear she’s okay. Nothing’s happened to her, nothing is after her. Just a late night at the office. It’s so normal I almost laugh at myself. “It’s okay, take your time. Don’t rush, be safe.”

“Okay, mom.” There’s a rustle of papers, some murmuring in the background - probably Thomas, her secretary, putting her affairs in order for the night. “How are you? Doing okay? Catch any baddies today?”

“Only baddie I’ll be catching is you.”

“Oh.” It’s amazing how much of a smirk she can put into just one syllable. “Is that right?”

“You bet.”

“Promise or threat?”

“Come and find out.”

“I’m planning on it. Okay, bye for real now.”

“Wait,” I say, before she hangs up. “One thing.”

“What’s up?” says Reina.

I exhale. “Do you remember the nullium project? When we were researching possibilities for power suppression?”

“Oh, those?” Reina laughs, a little self-consciously. “Back when I was running around rooftops playing vigilante? You really did a number on me back then. I still can’t believe I did all that.”

“You made a great hero,” I told her. “I still don’t think you should’ve hung up the cowl.”

“It was killing my knees,” she shot back. “We don’t all have super-cartilage. Besides, you just liked seeing my ass in billion-dollar spandex.”

“I like seeing your ass in billion-dollar anything.”

“Shameless, you. But yeah, I know the project you’re talking about. You spent a lot of time on it.”

“Sure, just to conclude that it was practically impossible. There’s no way to build a universal suppressor. You can mute arcane resonance, block radiation, counteract genetic mutation, one at a time, maybe. But not all at once.”

“I wouldn’t say they were impossible. I mean, fucking hard to actually pull off, but your theory of it was pretty solid. You think it has something to do with…?”

“It can’t be. Nullium didn’t go anywhere,” I told her. “We couldn’t do it.”

“I couldn’t do it,” she corrects. “I had to pull the plug after the third lab exploded. These things cost money, you know.”

“It’s always money with you.”

“That’s why you like me, don’t lie.” Reina blows a kiss into the phone. “Alright, I’ll see you in a bit. Wear that lingerie I like, okay?”

The line ends, and I’m left sitting in my lab, all alone again, with a long half-hour to kill until my girlfriend gets home again.

It’s a trick question, obviously: she likes all the lingerie on me. It doesn’t hurt that she gets me the nice stuff. Sometimes it feels like too much, even, with the lab and the penthouse and the lacy accoutrement. Sometimes I do feel like… a pet, maybe. Or a toy. Something she ornaments her space and time with. Not every gal can brag that they’ve bagged a S-class superhero.

But it’s an uncharitable reading, I know. A product of my own insecurities, my own shyness of being in my own skin. Reina’s been nothing but genuinely affectionate to me and it’s hardly her fault that she expresses her feelings via lavish materialistic gifts. She’s a hard girl to pin down - the childhood trauma that left her an orphan has never quite healed, I think. I mean, find me another billionaire who spends a fraction of the time and money she burns on battling crime and injustice. She’d even joined me on my escapades for a few years, as the infamous Silver Spectre. Reina Hall might not have any powers, but she has a powerful intellect and an instinct for brutal physicality. 

Damnit, do I love her.

I blow a sigh and brush the hair out of my face, absently gathering it into a ponytail, looking around at the mess I’ve made.

The collar is still sitting on my workbench. 

It isn’t doing anything. It’s just sitting there, silently. Still as steel.

But something about it radiates malevolence. It’s all in my head, I know - there’s nothing sentient about it or any of the others, I’m certain. And still I can’t help but feel unsettled by the thing. It has no eyes but I can almost feel its eyes on me, sneering. Taunting.

It’s with a start that I realize that my hand is nestled between my thighs.

Thighs that are clenching together with uncomfortable warmth. 

Why?

I haven’t thought at all about my… episode, the night before. I’ve been busy, obviously, but to some extent I’ve simply not let myself think about it. I’ve told myself it’s been a hard few weeks - of course I’d have a weird stress response to it. Reina’s been so busy with her company and I’ve been so busy heroing that we haven’t had a lot of intimate time together. 

Even still, to react like… that, to the bane of my existence and the existence of all superheroes, is more than a little discomforting. 

The collar is still sitting there. 

I don’t know why, but I can’t stop staring at it. Wondering about it. 

I can’t stop leaking into the seat of my chair. 

It’s late and I’m not thinking clearly and I’ve got a million things running through my mind. And I have maybe half an hour before Reina comes home. Half an hour alone in my lab.

And then I’m reaching for the collar, fingers plucking at the latch with practiced ease. I’m wondering why, why I’m doing this, what is it about the collar that’s so compelling to me, even as I’m pulling my hair out of the way and centering the cold metal around my neck. 

What the fuck is wrong with me?

The collar clicks shut and I gasp, out loud, audibly, at the feeling. A feeling I can’t even describe.

Because there is no feeling. The world doesn’t suddenly turn white, the nerve endings don’t light on fire, nothing physically happens. There’s no difference between before and after.

The only difference, I know, is in my mind. It’s the difference between having power and not. Being able to defend yourself, and being helpless. Being vulnerable to anyone at all, as vulnerable as any vanilla woman…

I’m so fucking wet.

I’m humiliatingly wet, or it would be humiliating if there was anyone else to see me. There isn’t. It’s just me, and the collar, and a completely silent, sterile lab. And my fingers, dipping in and out of my sex as greedily though I’d never touched myself before, until I’m panting for air, in little breathy gasps that no heroine should be caught dead making. It feels so good, too good, too fucking good. I focus as hard as I can and imagine a bookshelf, a bottle, a knife, a simple rubber ball-

-and nothing appears. 

This must have been what Paladia felt, I realize. 

It should turn me off faster than a bucket of ice water, thinking of her. Remembering exactly what had happened to her, every terrible photo of her abuse. But instead all I can think about is what she must’ve felt, in those moments. Plunged into powerlessness. Reaching for something that isn’t there. That, in the moment, you question whether there was anything there to begin with. Was I ever powerful? Was I simply deluding myself? Because the truth is right there, staring me in the face as I fuck myself on my own fingers. 

I have no power. 

I have nothing.

I am nothing. 

And then I’m cumming, with a wordless cry, legs convulsing in my chair as I curl up, in on myself, fingers digging deep, the metal collar biting against my throat as I strain against it, gasping for air, cumming so fucking hard I’m seeing stars-

“Reina Hall has arrived,” the home assistant says calmly. “Would you like me to send her down?”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“Stop,” I rasp out, still blinking, still reeling. “No. I’ll - I’ll come up to her. It’s fine.”

Some cold water first, though.

–

Reina’s fast asleep - a hard crash after a long day. I can feel her breathing beside me, her chest rising and falling against my back. 

She’d heard about Paladia. Of course she had. Everyone has, by now. She asked me how the case is going. I told her we had nothing. She believed me. It’s mostly true.

I should be falling asleep with her. Instead I’m laying here, restlessly. Thighs rubbing themselves together for no good reason, except for the mindmelting orgasm I had earlier… with the collar on. 

I’m a lot of things, but I’m no psychologist. I’m sure there’s a good, rational, even sane explanation for what’s going on with me. Something about control, dominance, needing an outlet from the stresses of my everyday life. Which are not negligible, to be fair. Something about this specific, unprecedented threat must act as a catalyst for latent desires, I suppose you’d say.

For no reason at all, I find myself thinking about my friend, back in college. I guess we were friends, even if it was… complicated at times. Sometimes, I wonder if he’d actually heard me when I told him to stop. If that had made any difference at all to him. He’d fucked me anyways, on that ratty old couch, taken my virginity with all the grace of a wild animal. I suppose he had raped me, technically, though it had never felt that way to me, exactly. I hadn’t wanted him to do it, but I hadn’t exactly stopped him, did I? I don’t know if I could’ve - he was bigger than me, stronger, and I didn’t have any powers at the time. All I could do was lie there, letting him take me, hearing how good I felt to him, for him.

I never dated any men after that, but the memory had always stuck with me. 

Perhaps it was formative, in some way, that I’d never fully understood at the time. Or now, for that matter.

Tomorrow I’ll take a look into the scrapped nullium project. See what I’d discovered, back in the day. 

Then we’ll see what secrets might be hidden in these collars.