Nova hurries to get changed into the new clothes. "I- yes, sir. Um- I- what? Stuff, that is?"

"Somebody needs a reminder about paying back their loans. Good chance to show the bosses you can pull your weight, I'd say."

"Oh- I-" He stops, unsure how to voice how unsure he is about this, without sounding like he's arguing. He's finished dressing, and grabs the granola bars, tucking one away in his pocket, and opening the other to eat now.

Ruel herds Nova out the door and up the hall, not interfering when two of the boy's usual tormentors are there to kick at him, just steadying his stumble and continuing on.

"I'm thinking we'll head out to the practice yard this afternoon, if they don't need me for anything else. You were pretty close to getting the medium target, yeah? Maybe you'll pull it off this time."

He closes in on himself as they pass his tormentors, but brightens slightly at the mention of the practice yard, nodding. "I- please?"

"They might need me for that thing with Ben, if Raven doesn't want to do it. But if I'm free, yeah." He gives him a quick pat on the back, and then they're at the garage, where another group of half a dozen Fallen are getting into costume next to the van they're about to load into. One of them, a short stocky bear of a man, notices them come in and peels off of the group.

    "Bringing us a treat, Ruel?"

"Nah, he's with me today."

    "Aww. You sure? I bet you could take Kitty, instead, she's good for anything he is. Well, almost," he leers.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Don't you have work to do? Quinn," he calls over to the group, "doesn't he have work to do?"

       "Yeah," comes the reply, a little grudging. "C'mon, Maxo, the sooner we get going the sooner we'll be back."

   "I guess. See you later, sweet thing." He ruffles Nova's hair and goes back to the group.

Ruel shudders, subtly, when the other man turns away, and guides Nova to a car with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Nova flinches slightly from the man's hand, and is relieved to follow Ruel.

It's a bit of a drive to where they're going, and Ruel is chatty; it's been a few days since he's worked with Nova, and he has plenty to say about the progress his other students have made and how happy the heads of the family are about that. He has a few words of encouragement, too, the same pep talk Nova's heard dozens of times already: plenty of people have trouble with control at first, and he could make a breakthrough any time, really, it's not common for things to go that way but it totally does happen.

They skirt the city proper and end up in a nice tree-shaded suburb; Ruel pulls the car over on an unremarkable residential street to get a pair of masks out of the glove compartment and passes one back before looking away to put on his own. "All right, kid, almost there. This'll be a nice easy one; it's a bookstore, so nothing fiddly, just hold off until everybody's out and then you can light it up." His mask is on; he looks up, into the rear-view mirror. "Got it?"

...He doesn't like the idea of that. Not really. But he nods slowly as he pulls the mask on - his reluctance is noticeable, but he doesn't voice anything yet.

"You all right, kid?"

"Ah- yes? I- just-"

"Just what?"

"...it's a bookshop?"

"Yeah, I said that. Something wrong?"

"I- it seems... Wrong?"

"Yeah, we're not the good guys, kid."

"I know! I know-" He doesn't know how to explain.

"And I know you don't want to piss off the family. So let's just get it over with, yeah?" And there's the push of Ruel's power; it's subtle, easy enough to miss if you don't know he's a cape, not enough to change anything if someone's really made up their mind - but for someone who hasn't, who doubts themselves, it's that much easier to just do as they're told.

He nods. "I-yes. Sorry. Yes."

"Good."

He pulls the car around and leads them in, leaving Nova to browse the stacks while he goes to talk to the owner.

Well. It's not like he can read, but he browses anyway, fingers brushing across spines, inhaling the distinct bookshop smell.

Ruel has a couple books tucked under his arm when he comes back. "Go ahead, kid."

He hesitates, because he doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to burn this place down, no matter how easy it would be...

"Kid. Burn it." Push.

The whispered 'yes sir' is lost as he lets the flames burst out from under his skin.

It's always somehow...freeing, when he does this, even if he hates what he's having to do, he loves using his powers. (Likes the idea that Ruel might tell him 'well done' when he's finished.)

There's a lot of paper here, obviously, it doesn't take much to have the store a roaring blaze.

"Good. Let's go."

He's quiet, on the way back.

Nova stays quiet as well. (Ruel might've said 'good', but Nova is very aware that he'd argued, tried to refuse.)

"I'm going to have to tell them about that, you know," he says eventually.

Nova curls in on himself. "I know, I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Well. I'm not the one who's going to be going hungry."

He flinches at that, but he should've been expecting it. "I know, sir."

"I don't want this for you, you know. But if you keep defying - there's only so much I can do, kid."

"I-I know. I'm grateful! I am! I just-"

Ruel glances into the mirror, but doesn't say anything.

"M'sorry," Nova mumbles, shoulders hunching down further.

Sigh. "Just - get it together, all right? Things are how they are; there's no point in resisting."

He nods rapidly. "I-I will?"

(Except he knows he'll mess up, he always does.)

When they get back, one of the family is waiting, her arms crossed over her chest.

Ruel nods to her when he gets out of the car, and opens the door for Nova. "Back to your room, kid."

"That could have gone better. No problems, we got it done, but he's still not coming around."

Nova scurries off.

She exhales sharply. "That is less than ideal. The Mathers are normally better at breaking people than this. How hard was it to convince him?"

"Not hard, but it doesn't stick. He's got a bad case of ethics, it's not just that he's new."

"We're going to take more drastic measures. We appreciate your work on this matter, but we need to turn him over to someone who make those ethics a very bad life choice."

"I could probably bring him around, but it wouldn't be fast, yeah. I'll write up a report."

She considers him for a moment. "Do you have any suggestions on anyone you think would be a good fit?"

He considers. "Cyber, probably, or Kas. Not Quinn, Quinn won't keep Max away from him, and that might work in the short run but I think it'd just break him, in the long run - maybe if you kept an eye on it and gave him back to me as soon as he shaped up. But he does well with attention; Kas might be soft on him, but she's got more time than Cyber."

"Hn. Okay. I'll take that into consideration. Get your report to me as quickly as possible."

She doesn't wait for a response, just turns and walks away.

She also doesn't immediately take action on Ruel's suggstions of alternate handlers for Nova. She pulls him from his room after what would have been lunchtime (had he been allowed to eat), and works him to exhaustion, and then well beyond it till he can barely stand.

She doesn't normally involve herself with their newer recruits, but she's proving a point, and wants to know exactly what she's working with.

He tries to be obedient, tries to do everything she demands, but she's pushing him hard enough that he's too exhausted. When he inevitably fails, she tuts, and dismisses him with a dire warning of consequences.

(Meanwhile, elsewhere, a young woman makes a hard decision, and begins preparations to implement it.)

The next couple of days get increasingly worse. The small measure of protection Nova had vanishes.

By the end of those days, he's exhausted, bruised, and very nearly broken. (He just wants it to stop, he's sorry he can't be better, he is, he's trying, really.)

Nights offer, if not safety, at least some measure of reprieve, and Nova has been left alone long enough to be dozing when there's a tap at his door, and a strange voice a second later - it's recognizably a woman's voice, but flat, emotionless, with a strange accent that doesn't quite sound human. "Nova, I'm here to rescue you, open the door."

-He wants that. Wants it so much-

-Except what if it's a trap? What if it's a test.

...Does he care if he fails it?

"-I- I can't?" he doesn't sound all that certain.

The door slides open, just a few inches, enough for him to make out the girl on the other side; she's about his age, no more than a year older, tall, thin, with a confused expression. She taps at the phone she's carrying, and it talks again: "I'll leave you alone if you want, but it's going to keep getting worse if you stay."

-He doesn't recognise her at all, and he likes to think he recognises most of the people around here. He hesitates for a moment longer before slowly getting to his feet.

"I- Okay? Okay. Please?"

She nods, taps the phone again - "follow me" - and opens the door the rest of the way for him.

He hesitates again briefly, and then nods and follows her.

She walks without watching where she's going, though she does pause occasionally to consider her surroundings, and once or twice adjusts their course.

"My name is Rescue," the phone says after a minute, "and my power is super hearing."

"I was in a place a little like this, and I escaped. It's hard to be on your own as a kid, but it's a lot better."

He's quiet for a moment. "Uh- I- I'm Nova? And...well. I have fire?"

He doesn't, immediately, have a response to the fact that Rescue escaped from somewhere similar to this, or her saying that it's better on her own.

Her response this time takes quite a few more taps, further slowed by the fact that she pauses in the middle to listen and then hurry them down a side passage. "I know, I heard it."

"-Oh. Of course."

One tap, this time: "Talking this way is slow, I can answer your questions when we're someplace safe."

It doesn't take much longer for them to get out of the compound - she stops when they're almost out to release a dog with a number painted on its side from a supply closet, and a few minutes and a picked lock later, they're free.

He's not sure he even knows what questions he's supposed to have, but he stays quiet, and follows.

-And when they're out, he's still not sure what to do. He's never been outside without some very specific thing to do. He looks at Rescue and hopes she's going to keep giving him directions.

She only pauses for a moment, giving him an opportunity to react, and when he doesn't, she continues on. The nearest storm drain is a couple blocks away; she leads him in, remembering relatively promptly to turn on the phone's flashlight. It's damp inside, and the pipe isn't big enough for either of them to stand. "I have a better place than this, but it's not safe to be walking around while they're looking for you. I have enough stuff here for a couple days, but I hope it won't be that long."

He nods slowly. "I- uh, thank you?"

"You're welcome."

A little farther along there's a mattress taking up the width of the pipe, resting on a couple pallets to keep it up out of the water, with a cardboard box just beyond. Rescue climbs onto it to get a couple things out of the box and toss them onto the end of the mattress for him: a flashlight, a bottle of soda, a small package of beef jerky, and a slightly larger bag of chips. "You shouldn't eat too much all at once, that can make you really sick if you haven't been eating for a while," she says with a tap.

He stares at the items, and after a moment reaches out to take the crisps. He nods to the information, and opens the crisps, reminding himself to eat slowly, no matter how hungry he is.

"Do you have any questions?"

"I don't- know. I just-" He pauses. "...why?"

She's slow answering, this time, tediously tapping away on the phone. "Nobody should be stuck in a place like that. Nobody ever."

More tapping. "I want to get them all out."

"I'm not ready yet, I'm still learning how to take care of myself."

"But it's hard not to help when someone is suffering, and you're just one kid, and I think we'll be okay."

"O-oh." He's not sure he understands that, not really. "I- uh- okay?"

"Do you know about the Protectorate?"

"Ah- not...really? Just that- they were a problem?"

"Yeah. The people who had you are the bad guys, and the Protectorate are good guys who fight the bad guys."

"They're mostly adults, but they have a kid part too."

"They aren't safe for me to join but they might be safe for you, if you don't want to stay with me."

-He doesn't know how to respond to that, can't stop the bolt of fear that goes through him. (Why would they be any more safe than where he was?)

She looks up when his heart rate jumps. "Not-" she says, and then goes back to the phone; this one is just a couple taps. "I'm not going to make you do anything."

"Ah- I- as you say?" He's not sure he believes that, but he doesn't know what else to say.

"I know it's hard sometimes to believe that things can be better. But that's what I'm trying to do. And not making you do things is part of that, and letting you choose what you want is too."

"You can stay if you want. You can go back if you want. You can go to the protectorate if you want. You can run away and be by yourself if you want. You can do something else if you want."

"I'm not going to make you do anything."

He sinks down onto the mattress and nods tiredly, picking at the crisps.

She scoots a little further away when he gets onto the mattress.

Tap tap tap tap tap - "How about I go sit by the door and let you rest a while."

"I- I wouldn't want to- it's fine, I'm fine, you shouldn't-"

"I don't mind, I promise."

"Ah- if you're- Sure?" (Because he can't deny that he's not sure how to rest with her this close.)

She nods, and carefully avoids touching him as she gets the flashlight from the end of the bed. She shows him the switch on the side of it and leaves it lit, sitting on its end on the pallet next to the box where it'll light the space a bit without getting in his eyes. That done, she goes to leave, pausing before she goes more than a couple steps to say one last thing - "If you need anything, just talk, I'll hear you." - and then she does leave.

-He half goes to answer her, then stops, and instead curls up to try and get some rest. Sleep doesn't come easily, but he does doze.

The water is a bit noisy, and there's the occasional bug, but nothing else bothers him all night.

He's slept through worse.

He doesn't sleep for long, jerks awake, half-panicked, before remembering the events of the night. He breathes, trying to steady himself.

After a minute, Rescue comes up the pipe; she stops well back, not crowding him at all. "It's safe for now and it's pretty tonight, if you want to come out."

He startles a little, thinks, and then nods. "I- yes. Please?"

"Mmhmm." She steps forward a bit, to be more visible, tapping at the phone again.

"You don't need my permission."

"Oh- I- Ah-" He stops, shrugs a little. "I just- habit?"

"Yeah," she speaks, and then heads back down the pipe, slow enough that he won't have trouble staying in the light of the phone.

He follows after her quickly enough, although he still leaves a a fair amount of space between the two of them.

When they get to the mouth of the pipe, she walks clear of it, giving him space to get out without getting too close to her, and then circles back to pat the top of the pipe mouth indicatively; it's relatively clean up there, a good place to sit. She herself picks a nearby tree to lean on, for lack of a second good spot; she doesn't seem to be watching him, instead looking at the sky - it's a clear night, with some stars visible even this close to the city proper.

After a pause, he scrambles up on top of the pipe, and curls his knees up to his chest to stare at the sky.

Good.

(It's late spring, but it's still the middle of the night, and a little windy; he'll start shivering eventually, in the thin clothes from the compound.)

He does, sooner rather than later, but-

But it's peaceful out here. And he's never really had a chance to do this. (And he's used to being cold anyway.) He curls tighter and tries to stop the shivers.

Rescue looks over immediately when the shivering starts.

"I'm going to go get you a blanket, okay?"

"Oh- ah- you don't- have to?"

"Yeah," she taps, and ducks into the pipe anyway.

-He's not sure what do do with that, but stays where he is, waiting.

She's not gone long, and when she gets back she has a yellow blanket draped over her shoulders and is carrying a blue one, which she hands to him.

"If you're still cold I have more stuff."

"Ah- no- this'll be- this'll be fine," he takes the blanket, not sure how to refuse.

She pauses, not going back to her tree just yet.

He's still for a moment and then wraps the blanket around himself.

That seems to have been what she was waiting for.

"I'm not going to get mad if you tell me no about things," she taps out after another few minutes of skywatching.

"...I- don't understand?"

"It's bad for things to happen to you that you don't want, and I don't want that. And sometimes I can guess, but sometimes I can't."

"I know it's scary to say what you want, because if someone knows that they know what to do if they want to hurt you. So I'm not going to get mad if you don't tell me. Keeping yourself safe is good, too."

"But I'm not going to get mad if you do tell me, because you're helping me when you do that."

"-Oh." He thinks for a moment, he isn't sure he understands that much more than he did previously, but he nods. He thinks he can at least figure out the rules from that.

She hums quietly to herself, tapping again. "It's not the only bad thing but it's important."

He thinks for a moment before saying anything. "S'different."

She looks over. "Mm?"

"I don't- s'all new." (And he doesn't like not knowing the rules.)

"Yeh."

"They didn't think it was important but they are wrong."

"...oh."

"Do you have any questions?"

He's quiet for a moment, decides to go with honesty. "I don't know what to ask."

"That's okay."

"It's not really okay but it's not your fault and I'm not mad at you."

"Not knowing how to be okay is a way they hurt you, and it's not okay that that happened. But you can learn."

"-What if I can't? Learn? I- I try. But I'm- not good at it?"

"If you can't learn then we will figure something else out. But it's a lot easier out here than in a place like that, where they are trying to make you not okay."

"...Oh. Okay."

"For now the most important thing is resting and eating, probably. That was the most important thing for me at first."

He nods. "I- yeah. I can...do that?"

"Good."

"You can go in when you're ready, I'm not going to want to sleep for a while."

"I- s'nice- out?" Beat. "Uh, but I can- go in? If'm disturbing you?"

"You don't have to. You can if you want to and you don't need my permission."

"If I am bad, you need to figure that out, and figure out what to do about it. Both of those are hard and talking to me about them isn't safe if I am bad, but I can say a few things about them."

"You can usually tell who is bad and who is okay by watching what they do. If they hurt you, or lie, or try to make you do things, that's bad. Sometimes there are reasons to do those things but bad people will say that there are reasons when there aren't. Sometimes you can tell who is bad by doing something that doesn't hurt anything but that they don't like; good people might get mad but being mad is not a good reason to hurt you. And if you do that on purpose, you can pick a time when it is more okay if you do get hurt."

"-Oh."

That's a lot to take in, a lot to try and process. He looks back up to the sky.

She leaves him be, while it seems like he's still thinking.

He's not sure he's really figured out what to do with the information, but he at least thinks he understands the general concept, and staring at the sky is definitely less... stressful.

Well, she'll leave him to it, then.

After a while, he starts to nod off on top of the pipe.

She clicks her tongue to get his attention as she approaches, and offers a hand down.

He blinks at the hand for a moment, and then accepts it.

The pipe isn't wide enough for her to lead him without crowding him, so she settles for following, ready to catch him if he stumbles. She pulls out the phone again when they get to the bed: "Good night."

He's pretty good at not stumbling, even when he's in new surroundings. "G'night," he mumbles sleepily.

She heads back out, and returns a few hours later, shortly before sunrise. She's quiet, but it's hard to avoid at least a little bit of splashing.

He wakes at that - he normally sleeps light.

"It's just me. Time for bed."

"Oh- Ah- Sleep well?"

She nods, humming a sleepy acknowledgement, and climbs onto the mattress, still careful not to touch him.

That probably won't be that hard, he's curled in a very small ball.

She sleeps.

-He's not sure what to do. He feels like he should be doing something. But he also doesn't want to disturb her.

So he stays very still and quiet, and will probably doze some more throughout the time she's sleeping.

She stirs a few times in her sleep, tensing up, but doesn't come fully awake until nearly noon, not that there's any way to tell what time it is where they are. When she does, she stretches and sits up, checks her phone, clucks disapprovingly at it, and rifles around in the box to retrieve a power pack and charging cord. That taken care of, she asks, "Have you eaten?"

"Uh- um, no?"

She nods and rifles around in the box again and comes up with a box of chocolate chip mini muffins, which she examines the writing on. "You can have one of these, or something else. There's chips and nuts and meat and candy and fruit."

"I- uh- whatever's easiest?"

Muffins it is, then; she hands him a packet and opens one for herself.

He's still hesitant to take it, but he does, waiting until she opens her own before opening his.

When she notices his hesitation, she makes an odd face and retreats up the pipe with her packet, leaving the phone behind.

-He doesn't know what to do with that, but he does eat, quickly.

She doesn't come back immediately.

He's not sure what to do with the wrapper when he's finished, tucks it away in his pocket for now.

This doesn't cause her to appear.

Well. He curls himself even smaller and waits.