mcmic

[mcmic]

medusxa​:

She doesn’t expect Mimic to say anything, when she declines the apology. She might not have known him very well for long, and she might have a lot left to learn, but she knows there aren’t really any words he can give her. Part of her knows it’s appreciated, without him having to say anything at all. She would appreciate it, after all, if their roles in all of this were swapped. If she was the one people held a grudge against, the one people blamed for their own actions. Katherine thinks it would mean a lot for someone to believe in her, for someone to support her. And she means to support Mimic through everything, as much as she can. She’ll be someone he knows will be at his back, there to protect him if anything gets rough. And if anyone tries to stop her from fulfilling this goal, they’ll learn why Medusa used to be one of the scariest bitches around. 

She lets him hum, and consider her words. Mimic seems like the thoughful sort, like there are constantly novels unfolding inside his head. So much unspoken, so much to think about. Entire worlds in there, and she can just see the glint of them behind his eyes. Mimic is a little bit of a wonder to her, as time goes on. The more she looks at him, the more she examines him –– the more she lets him examine her in turn, a mutal openness, in the aim of sharing her powers and preventing a further catastrophy for herself –– the more that she cherishes him. She wonders if other people could begin to loosen up, could begin to see Mimic as something new. 

So many of them have decided that he’s the monster at the end of the book. The problem in their world that needs to be rooted out. He’s the original sin that they’re rebelling against White for, in some way or another. She wants to shake her head at the thought of it, because once again she thinks that they all need to grow up, that they all need to take a long hard look at themselves and the lives that they signed up for. They were bad guys. And back in her day, most people seemed to understand that better. Oh, there were the soft ones. People like Spencer, who couldn’t handle too much blood and too much teeth and too much violence. But even they understood what they had comitted their lives to, even Spencer didn’t judge too harshly. Maybe it was just a difference in the world now, maybe it was the cloesness of what had happened with Mimic. She didn’t know, she couldn’t understand. But it was a vendetta she would never be able to support. Personal revenge was one thing, but trying to take the whole world down because you had been wronged was another. 

She lets herself smile, a little savage, at his words. “Unfortunate for them.” She echoes, with a hint of a smile. She wouldn’t have messed around, if she was looking for revenge. She would still kill the Morrigan now, if she saw her. Or at least she would try to. Medusa wasn’t the kind of person who wasted time, or who needed grand master plans.. When she wanted something done, she did it. “I’m glad we’re on the same side too,” She says, after a long moment. “You’re much more fun as a flesh and blood human being than you would be as a statue.” 

“Which, honestly, you should know –– that’s a very high compliment, in my book.” 

...

This sort of camaraderie is something that he’s greatly appreciative of, something he hadn’t realized he needed so deeply. It’s not something that he finds often, not something that he’s sought out much in his time in the Collective, self aware enough to read the mood of the manor around him and keep his distance to make things easier for others and himself. Perhaps there’s a hint of regret, sitting here, that he didn’t allow himself this sort of thing sooner. He’s lucky that he’s had Sebastian and Catalyst, but even then there was a hint of his own self-imposed distance, only recently does it feel as if he’s been entirely open and honest with anyone. He knows that that’s what this sort of situation does to people, though. With so much danger, and so much blame being shifted around, collateral damage abundant, the two choices are to either isolate further, or hold onto other people, and perhaps that’s part of the difference in ending up on this side of things, too.

He may be considered a monster by many of the people on the other side of things, and several people on their own side, too, but at least here they’re all coming together in some small ways. The entirety of the Tower situation wouldn’t have gone how it did, after all, if they weren’t all able to set aside some of their differences, if only for a moment, to work together for something like this. And so he’s glad to hold onto this feeling, the extra mile that Medusa offers him, not just acceptance, but understanding and then a choice to stay by his side despite what he’s done in the past, despite his part in this mess of things that’s caused her just as much pain, if not more, than the others. 

She’s a powerful ally to have, yes, but more than that Mimic thinks that she seems like a good friend. A thought that perhaps shouldn’t be as odd as it feels in his mind, but it is. He hasn’t had many of those over the years, after all, even before his greed-fueled spree of pain, he’d never been very capable in that regard. At least not capable of something genuine like this is, like his friendship with Catalyst is, like what he’s found with Sebastian and Hyde alike. And if, with that friendship, came a time that they had to fight side by side and show those fighting for unnecessary destruction just how unfortunate it really is that they ended up on the wrong side, then he would be all the more glad to fight with her for some sense of catharsis from the pain that they caused her in this mess. He thinks that’s what a friend would do.

Mimic lets out another hum, this one a little amused at that thought, and at the thought that he’s better like this than a statue, a thought he knows plenty would argue against. “I can tell it is, I’m grateful I’ve made the cut as more fun as flesh and blood than stone. It’s very high praise,” he says, with a hint of a smile. A pause, to take a sip of his tea, before he looks at her thoughtfully. “When the time comes, I’ll help you get what you need out of this, too, if that wasn’t clear already.”

[mcmic]

jckylls​:

Mimic hums, the way he always does when he’s thinking but isn’t ready to say something yet, or the way he does when he knows exactly what he wants to say but knows he ought not to, and Sebastian can’t quite tell which of the two of those it is, as Mimic finally turns his attention away from Sebastian’s hands to wash his own. And Sebastian looks down at this hands so that he doesn’t have to look at Mimic, turns them over to see how clean they are, flexes his fingers a few times like he’s trying to remind himself that they are, in fact, his hands, no matter what they’ve done tonight. 

And then he can feel Mimic’s gaze on him, and so he looks back up from them, meets his eyes, and the feeling he’s just tried to shake is back again. A low ache of want, a warm thrum of longing. He doesn’t want Mimic to stop touching him. Doesn’t want him to, inevitably, step back and step away. He wants…

He wants… 

And it’s… okay, okay, so he’s wanted to kiss Mimic for almost as long as he’s known him. For what has somehow been almost six years, though it feels like a much, much shorter time—probably because there’s a decent percentage of it he wasn’t actually aware of. And so it’s not unusual, or surprising, that given this is closer to one another than they usually are, when they’re just talking in his lab, or the kitchen, or wherever, that he might be thinking about it. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, about the urge to lean in, when Mimic is standing so close to him, when Mimic has been so kind to him, when his system is still buzzing with adrenaline. It’s a perfectly normal reaction for him to be having to all of this.

He likes Mimic. It’s his choice, that he’s making. He tells himself all of this, in the beat before he does it, the split second before he follows the overwhelming impulse and leans in, bringing one of his still-damp hands up as he closes the scant distance left between the two of them and kisses Mimic.

His hand isn’t shaking, anymore, where it rests against Mimic’s face, but he only notices that distantly, with some remote piece of himself somewhere in the back of his mind. Because it’s impossible to focus on anything else except for the fact that he’s kissing Mimic. And he must have used all of his freaking out energy for the day up back at the Tower, and in the hallway, because despite the fact that this is something he’s thought about doing for almost six years and never thought he’d actually work up the guts to do, he’s… not freaking out, somehow. It feels instinctive. Feels familiar. Feels right, in more ways than he could have imagined before it happened. 

...

Sebastian looks back up at him, catches his gaze, and something about it sends a small chill through him, but not at all in an unpleasant way. He realizes exactly what the look he is giving him is just a few seconds before he acts on. Still, it’s a bit of a shock when his hand moves to his face, and he closes the space between them to bring their lips together in a kiss. A shock because he hadn’t thought that Sebastian was anywhere near that point of admitting those sort of feelings aloud, yet alone being the first to act on them, but then it likely shouldn’t be such a surprise that it’s come now. Tonight, after a moment in which boundaries blurred and old memories, old questions were brought to the forefront, it perhaps only makes sense that some of those instincts of Hyde’s might push forward, too, and give Sebastian the little push he needed to act on those quiet desires.

It doesn’t precisely matter, though, why Sebastian decided to make this choice in this moment, though, because it’s Sebastian, and that’s the only thought on his mind once he’s kissing him. It’s not like kissing Hyde was, there’s none of that near frantic energy of needing something now before time runs out. No, it’s something rather calm, and there is a familiarity to it, even if everything about this kiss is utterly new. 

And he can admit to himself that it’s got a different sort of meaning behind it, too, after years of considering Sebastian one of very few people he could trust, he likes, very few people he could call a friend, knowing that there was a hint of something else beneath that, perhaps not being bold enough himself, either, to admit fully just what that might mean, even if he saw it as clearly as Hyde did, too. It’s always been safer to keep a bit of a distance, after all. Ironic, that he needed Hyde’s push, too, in a different way, to move past that thought as well. 

His hand moves to Sebastian’s waist, solid, warm, and he can’t help but consider the way Sebastian’s hand feels against his skin, too, even as he tentatively presses forward just slightly, returning the kiss, wanting to make it entirely clear that this is something he’s wanted for a good long while, too, despite neither of them having said it out loud. It’s not at all the way he had expected this night to go, especially considering their separate traumatic experiences, but there’s more than a little comfort in this newfound closeness, he finds. 

Mimic hums a little into the kiss, the noise caught between their lips, as his other hand moves to Sebastian’s jaw, brushing over the stubble there. When he pulls back, he doesn’t pull back far, still keeping his hands in place, no intention of moving anyway now. “That’s something new,” he mutters, hint of a smile clear in his voice.

[mcmic]

fortunexfinder​:

His brows furrow in confusion at first, when Mimic begins to speak, because suddenly he’s stopped using “we” and had shifted to “you”, seemingly cutting himself back out of the equation. It’s not until he’s finished speaking, when Fortune realizes he’s misinterpreted what he was trying to convey when he brought up Epoch in the first place. It does give him an out though, he supposes, a way to keep Mimic out of this but still deal with Zander by using a more experienced time manipulator. But he finds, surprisingly, that he doesn’t want to do that. Mimic had come to him as a show of faith, and extended an olive branch to give them both a chance of ending this once and for all, and he doesn’t want to turn him away now that they’re actually talking about the subject they’d been avoiding up until now. 

“No, I think it’s important that you still have a part to play in this,” he replies quietly, looking up to him as he does. “In one way or another, this all started with me and you, and I think I want to finish it together- that is if you want to.” 

A plan is only half forming in his mind, as he tries to figure out just what it is they should do from here, and so he figures he might as well voice what that plan is, and see if Mimic thinks it has any merit. 

“Epoch placed the two of us outside of time, and managed to hold us there for the length of a conversation. If we could get Zander outside of time, I’d imagine he’d have no power there- no random time jumping, nothing that could jeopardize either of us should we try to face him again.” 

He stops his train of thought to gauge whether Mimic thought he was being ridiculous or if just somehow he may be on to something. Taking a breath, he continues, pushing forward regardless of what nonverbal cues Mimic gives him, to finish the half-plan that’d began to take root in his head. “We could have Epoch place us in that place together the next time we run into Zander, or you could gain that power from her and do it yourself.” 

...

There’s a moment of silence in which Fortune seems to be considering just where to go from here, and he sits in it, waiting to see the choice made, if this is the end of his part in things for now, or if Fortune has other plans with this idea of his. He’s expecting the former. Given the way things have been between them, considering the pain that Mimic has caused, he can’t imagine that Fortune willingly wants to be in a position where they might have to work together more than necessary, when there are other options that don’t involve him open to potentially undo what he had done to Hourglass. So he’s surprised when Fortune says that he still thinks he should have a part in this, too, despite having such a clear avenue away from Mimic’s involvement. He doesn’t hide the surprise on his face, either, as he watches him. 

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise to him, though, as Fortune explains his reasoning. Both of them were involved in this from the very beginning, caused Hourglass pain in their own ways, different as they are, and so it seems fitting that they would find a way to undo that harm caused together, if it’s possible. Mimic nods a little in agreement, but doesn’t speak just yet, giving Fortune his chance to follow the thread.

He’s curious, after all, how he thinks this should be handled, and that’s something that he had already been planning to defer to him over––that’s precisely why he had come to him in the first place with this offer, instead of anyone else. And perhaps the same reasoning is exactly why Fortune is right, that they should see the end of this together, whatever that might mean.

The idea that Fortune has seems a good one, even if the outcome in that space might be entirely unknown. It seems the best avenue, though, the safest, too, for all involved. They could confront him in that space without worry of him using his powers on either of them, or without risk of the lack of control causing issues. He does wonder, though, what it is they could do once in that space to end things once and for all, but that’s a question for later, he thinks.

“That seems like the safest plan for everyone. Perhaps having the option of both is best; I can learn that power from her, but we can make the plan known, in case she happens to be around when Hourglass turns up next,” he suggests. He’s more than willing to help make that happen, but he wants to make certain Fortune knows he won’t step further than he’s asked. “Once he’s outside of time, what any of us do is your choice, though.”

[mcmic]

jckylls​:

Mimic washes his hands with a gentleness, a tenderness, that isn’t entirely unexpected from him but feels unexpected only because it’s been a long, long time since anyone touched Sebastian with such kindness. He knows Hyde gets around, but stuck down in his lab, relatively isolated from anything and anyone other than the occasional chat, the closest he gets to something like this is the occasional hand on his back from Medusa, the occasional hug from Jetstream. It’s… distracting, honestly, as he talks, and as Mimic replies, and he finds himself focusing on the feeling of it maybe a little too much. Mimic wiping the blood away, turning his hand over, skin warm from the hot water. There’s an attentiveness to it that feels utterly foreign, to him, a focus in Mimic’s eyes that makes something in his chest ache. 

And there’s a strange familiarity to it, too, to the feel of Mimic’s hands on his skin, that he can’t place, can’t make sense of. The shape of Mimic’s hand against his, the texture of his fingertips, the intense kind of focus that seems to come with it. It makes his stomach twist, a little, pleasant and warm. It raises goosebumps along his arms. He has to close his eyes, for a second, and swallow, trying to focus again, but all that seems to do is summon the phantom feeling of lips brushing against his throat. 

     “Yeah,” he manages to make himself say, opening his eyes again and nodding. Somehow even managing to keep his voice from sounding strained. “Yeah, that makes sense. That would explain it. An extremely unfortunate coincidence, but enough of a psychological mind-fuck to have its own biological effect.” 

And he has to turn his head away, for a moment, after he says it, because opening his eyes has just made him realize how close Mimic is standing, to him, and he can’t account for the sudden and overwhelming urge to lean forward and close the space between them, but at least he can stop himself from doing it, letting out a sigh and shifting his shoulders like he needs to stretch them out, willing himself to set the feeling aside, to not do something stupid he might regret just because he’s feeling a little shaken up, still. 

     “I think I’ll run some tests on this batch, anyway, see if it’s possible there was some mistake when I made it, some reason it might not have been strong enough to override what Fearmonger did…” 

...

Between the focus he gives to washing Sebastian’s hands, and the curiosity over this new revelation that he has, in fact, experienced what he did tonight before, there’s no room in his mind just now for his own troubles, which is a mercy, considering how full his mind had been before he’d run into Sebastian in the hallway. He would much rather focus on helping Sebastian get cleaned up, and sufficiently calmed down than put thought to that guilt just now. There is the hint of a different sort of guilt, perhaps, knowing that his own beliefs about why this likely happened are in direct conflict to what Sebastian wants to believe about himself, but he does silently hope that perhaps because of tonight, after the dust settles a bit more, it might make him consider the connection, and Mimic’s suggestions and offer again more deeply.

He possesses infinite patience, though, so there’s no rush to diving back into that with Sebastian. He’s content to wait until he feels comfortable enough to bring it up again, and tonight is certainly not going to be that night. In the meantime, he’ll have to find time with Hyde, to get his perspective on what happened tonight, assess things from the other side. 

Before Sebastian replies, though, he notices the goosebumps suddenly running up his arms, and Mimic can’t help but frown, curious, although he still doesn’t look up from his hands, washing the last of the blood off, not wanting to chase away whatever realization Sebastian perhaps just had. When he finally speaks again, he doesn’t give any indication as to what it was, though, instead agreeing it must have been unfortunate circumstances jarring enough to push past the serum. 

When he looks away, though, Mimic does look up, unable to stop the curiosity, and there’s something else there on Sebastian’s face, something beyond the panic and unsteadiness this night has brought. He doesn’t bother hiding the fact that he’s looking now, though, curiosity having won out, especially with the sigh that Sebastian lets out, as he shifts, suggesting that he’ll run tests on the serum anyway, even though Mimic thinks they both know that there’s nothing wrong with the batch, Sebastian having perfected it years ago. 

All he offers is a little hum, before finally putting the now-stained washcloth aside, and washing his own hands off, before turning off the water. He takes the hand towel and starts drying Sebastian’s hands. “Whatever it was, at least your hands are clean now,” Mimic says, looking back at him again, raising an eyebrow.

[mcmic]

fortunexfinder​:

He still felt extremely uncomfortable, talking to Mimic about anything related to Zander, let alone helping him. But at the same time, he knows that if there was any way for everyone to move forward from this, allowing Mimic to have his own seat at the table during these discussions would likely be the best option to let everyone involved heal from the events from the past. And so he listens hard to what he’s actually saying, batting away any other immediate reactions that come to mind, and giving himself time to fully mull over what Mimic offers before actually responding to him. 

He didn’t think Mimic has used Zander’s powers all that much, given the fact that time manipulation never seemed to be brought up with Mimic’s name at all. He’s not sure if using Zander’s own power on him would help him, but he figures at least starting the discussion of whether it could, would get them somewhere closer to the right answer. 

“Epoch, the superhero with RESCUE that’s interviewing everyone and their third cousin,” he starts after a moment, “she’s a time manipulator. I don’t think her power works exactly as Zander’s, she has managed to stop aging entirely, and when she spoke with me she did something to time I didn’t fully recognize. She did more than pause it, I’ve experienced paused time when Hourglass used to do it, but this was… I don’t know, it felt like she put us outside of time, rather than just stuck within it, if that makes sense.” 

“But we could use her to see if undoing bad time manipulation with more time manipulation is really the route to go here, or if we should approach this differently.” 

...

It’s still difficult to tell if this is the right choice to offer, to even suggest putting himself into the mix of attempting to fix any of this, or if that might do more harm than good, even if it doesn’t get as far as Hourglass himself. But he’s not sure what else to do. He’s never liked to have to rely on other people, and still he’s more than willing to accept whatever Fortune thinks about this suggestion, even if it means abandoning his involvement entirely now, but he hopes that his willingness to offer aid will be something potentially helpful, given his plethora of powers, having been the one to cause the harm in the first place. Still, Fortune is silent for a moment before answering, and he doesn’t bother letting himself jump to conclusions here, when patience pays off. 

His answer, though, is a surprise. Mimic knows next to nothing about this RESCUE group, and even less about Epoch, even if he has heard the name before. Despite being a member of the Collective, after all, he knows what curiosity over the superhuman community at large does to him, and he’s made himself more than content over the past eight years to focus on amassing the knowledge he has access to here in the vast libraries, and with the vast number of Collective members with various abilities to learn. Which means that he doesn’t know how her time manipulation is different from Hourglass’s, but it’s clear that it is, given her immortality, and a seeming ability to place herself and others outside of time. It’s intriguing as it is dangerous.

Still, he’s not exactly sure what Fortune’s plan is here, and where he fits into it, but he doesn’t take any offense there. If all he’s managed here is to spark an idea in Fortune to help fix the lack of control Hourglass has by calling on another, infinitely more experienced time manipulator, then he thinks that this has been a success. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to suggest he could do anything like that with as much nuance as someone with a century of natural practice, even if he knows he could do what Hourglass does without thinking. There is the danger there, of course, that they manage to undo what Mimic inevitably caused, and Hourglass is still full of enough rage that he doesn’t stop his reign of terror, and more than likely also tries to kill Mimic, as well, but he supposes that’s not his worry to voice. 

The only thing he wants to do here is try to help find a way to undo what he did, even if undoing it doesn’t involve him, in the end. “If this Epoch is the thread you’d like to follow, then that seems like the right first step. It sounds as if she should know more than enough to be able to figure out if help in that way is possible,” Mimic agrees, with a nod. “If you find it’s not, though, I’ll still be here ready to help find another avenue. There are plenty of other abilities open to us.” 

[mcmic]

medusxa​:

Talking to Mimic might never cease to be kind of a wondrous thing. She regrets not doing this sooner, not reaching out and asking for what she had a year ago instead of months ago. To think she could have had this easy kind of connection so much sooner. But then again, Medusa a year ago had been mostly made up of sharp edges and a broken heart. She probably wasn’t in any state to open herself up to the cold study of someone else, to the kind of searching experience that allowed Mimic to get a handle on her powers. Even allowing Sebastian to be her friend, back then, had felt fraught and delicate. But she still should have reached out to Mimic sooner, considering how similar they were, considering the friends they had in common and the entire nature of their personalities. It should have been obvious that they would click in more ways than one. 

She’s grateful for him now, grateful for the fact that she found him here, that she’s allowed to sit and talk with him for the time being. He takes her admission in stride, accepts the pain that she’s been feeling with little fanfare. And she enjoys how normal it feels to admit it to him, now normal his response allows her to feel. She doesn’t get the impression of pity, that he’s walking on eggshells around her still relatively recent heartbreak. It’s fair that she’s hurting, and he gives her the permission she needs to let the pain linger in her chest, accept it for what it is and not as a weakness that needs to be crushed and expelled out of her body in whatever way that she can manage. Medusa nods in her own agreement, gives a small and thankful smile when his words have finished. 

Her heart twists a little bit, at his words. There was certainly a great deal of emotional trauma going around the Manor right now. Medusa didn’t understand all of it, didn’t know why Fortune Finder had such haunted eyes, or if Prodigal Son was okay after the fight. But she does know that it must have been hard for them all. And she knows it must have been hard for Mimic, more than most people. She can hear the real regret in his voice, when he speaks about everything that happened, all the people who had been dragged into a mess they had no part in.

“I don’t need you to apologise for any of that, Mimic.” She says, and she finds that she really means it. She doesn’t want it from him, and she doesn’t need it. “I wish he’d been left out of it too, but it’s not your fault someone decided to literally dig up the dead, just to make a point.” She swallows, and stops to think about it all for a second. Strangely, she remembers something Oppenheimer said to her once, back in the old days. “We’re all someone’s villain. Someone’s monster. It just gets messier when we start thinking of each other that way. But they’re ours, now. And we’re theirs.”

We feels like a statement. Because she knows people have problems with Mimic. But she also knows that he has her support, now, no matter what else happens. She’s not sure she would call them a team, but she’s behind them now, ready to prop them up through whatever intense drama is about to unfold around them.

...

The way she tells him he doesn’t need to apologize to her is a little thing, but he finds it means a great deal to have someone tell him outright that they don’t blame him from what’s come to pass. Even if none of the choices in this have been his own, even if his actions nearly a decade ago were somehow the seed planted to lead to this, a well-placed decade long grudge put to action, it’s impossible not to feel guilty for leading to all of this in some small way, to know that what he did to Hourglass has lead him to these choices, choices hurting so many of them. He’s grateful in a way for it that he doesn’t think he can put into words, never so adept at the more emotional statements. So he simply nods for now, as she goes on, offering her own sort of wisdom, too.

He hums in thoughtful agreement, considering her words. It’s been proven true already, of course, it’s only logical. Perhaps that’s the thing that has been forgotten here, though, the thing that’s led them to this situation. Yes, it seems to be White’s decisions that have led it to getting this far, to a point where Hourglass and Judgement are both taking advantage of the unrest for their own personal plots, with no regard to anyone else’s well being, but it wouldn’t have ever gotten that far in the first place if Medusa’s sentiment was one that the people of the Collective actually believed. He hasn’t seen it since he joined, of course, in fact he knows he’s been considered the villain, the monster to many of his fellow members since his acceptance into the group eight years ago. 

There’s no use in lingering on things that can’t be changed, but it does make him wish there was a way to keep anything like this from repeating itself, and finding a way to stop this trouble in its tracks along with it. He’s not sure how possible that is, with the nature of human beings, the specific nature of those who usually find themselves members of the Collective, those who had been shunned, or hurt by society at large, those who have done harm themselves, and whose only choice for a comfortable life is to lean into that. But it feels immensely lucky that he’s discovering there are more people than he believed here willing to see him as something other than a monster alone, willing to understand that the mistakes he made in his past and the harm he’s done is just that, the past. He feels lucky that Medusa is amongst them, that she’s sitting here, offering her support, despite the pain that she’s suffered because of this plot. 

“It seems that’s part of what led to this mess in the first place, seeing each other as the monsters,” he agrees quietly, looking down at his tea, finger tracing the rim of the cup absently. “It’s much too far now to do anything but face head on, though. And do what we can to keep it from happening again, no matter what the outcome. I’m glad that we’ve landed on the same side... Unfortunate for them, though.” That’s the truth, too. Knowing what he does about Medusa, he’d hate to have an enemy in her, and while he knows that his focus is on undoing harm, instead of causing more, he’s willing to fight if that’s what it takes to help end this all.

[mcmic]

jckylls​:

He holds his hands out automatically, as Mimic starts to run the water, to wet a washcloth, and he’s aware that he’s perfectly capable of washing his own hands, as much as he thinks he might end up staging some fucked up version of Macbeth here if he tries, but still, it feels good to let Mimic take control a little bit, the one of the two of them here who seems balanced, and certain, and sure. He’s sure Mimic dealt with bullshit of his own in the Tower, but it’s easier to let him do this, while they stand and talk. He feels less scrutinized, with Mimic’s hands busy with something else, than if Mimic were just standing here watching him. 

     “It’s… possible the wrong combination of adrenaline and cortisol managed to flush the serum out of my system, or temporarily overpower it,” he reasons, thinking about it for a moment. But even as he says it, it rings untrue. It isn’t possible that in nearly a decade, Hyde hasn’t ones been scared before. Hyde might like being scared, or being in high-pressure situations, but that shouldn’t alter the actual chemical, hormonal affect of it on the body, which means this particular combination of adrenaline and cortisol shouldn’t be anything new or different, not enough to trigger the switch. 

He looks down, for a moment, at his hands, and then away, at the water swirling down the drain of the sink. He doesn’t want to look at his own hands covered in blood. He doesn’t like seeing it, knowing that his hands did whatever Hyde did to get them that way.

And—

It hits him all at once again. That this, looking at his hands, this is what had done it, what had caused it. The center of the nightmare. The memory… 

     “Actually,” he says. “There’s… I mean, it’s not the first time this has happened. It’s the second.” 

And maybe he shouldn’t be telling Mimic this—Mimic, who he knows still probably believes whatever lies Hyde had told him to get Mimic on his side. But at least the first time there had been a reason for it.

     “Early on. There was an incident where I didn’t measure the serum right. I woke up, kind of like at the Tower. I think he’d just killed someone, and then suddenly there I was. I guess that’s what the nightmare was. So maybe it was the memory, or something like it, that was enough to trick my body into thinking it needed to bring me back…” 

...

Mimic takes Sebastian’s hands, guides them under the hot water, watching the water turn red with Mind Master’s blood, letting the easily washed off rise down the drain for a moment before picking up the wash cloth to scrub the tougher stains from his hands. There’s something a little bit peaceful about the act,  even if the anxiety is still wafting off of Sebastian, and his own worries are too deep to be rid of so easily. But the gentle, familiar motion is something of a comfort. It takes him back to those das a long, long time ago during the first years of his residency, the grunt work every resident had to put in, the way it had taught the sort of calm bedside manner he likes to think he still has now, the way it had taught the need for gentleness sometimes. It feels different here, doing something he used to do for patients for Sebastian. 

So he takes care with the task, as Sebastian agrees that it might be possible, although even he can hear the doubt in his voice. It’s a doubt that Mimic would agree with, if he wasn’t sure that’s the last thing he wants to hear just now. Because if something like that could happen so easily, it would be a wonder it hadn’t happened at least a few times over in the last decade of this arrangement. Yes, Hyde perhaps hasn’t met someone with Fearmonger’s powers, but Mimic is certain he’s been put into plenty of other highly stressful, highly chaotic situations before, and he thinks Sebastian would have mentioned it to him before now, if this wasn’t new.

Before he can say anything, though, Sebastian goes on, and it seems clear that he’s only just remembering something else. It has happened before, he has come to as Sebastian when he still should have been Hyde. It takes effort not to seem too interested when he explains it, the way that he had woken in almost the exact situation. 

“Hm,” is all that he says for a moment, frowning down at the sink, the water nearly running clear now, Sebastian’s hands much cleaner now than they were moments ago. He turns Sebastian’s hand over and scrubs the wash cloth gently over a stubborn spot between his fingers, concentrating on that for a moment, weighing his response, before finally looking up at him again. 

“That seems logical,” Mimic says carefully, in agreement. “Fearmonger must have called up that memory for Hyde––a lack of control, of course, that would be a nightmare to him, I think that’s something everyone feels to an extent––and it managed to make your body believe you were back in that moment truly. Which must also be why he shot Mind Master, the confusion and panic of losing control would be more than enough to mistake friend for foe. Fear powerful enough to override the serum.” He thinks it has something to do with the flexibility of boundaries, too, of course, but he isn’t very well going to say that plainly, when he knows Sebastian is smart enough to realize he’s thinking it.

[mcmic]

fortunexfinder​:

He knew the subject Mimic was likely there to speak of, was the same subject that brought him to Mimic’s room all those weeks ago, and one that has forcibly bound the two together for better or worse. His mention of Doppelganger was merely a way to ease into the conversation, although he is genuinely relieved Mimic and Grizzly managed to bring them back. Doppelganger was still someone who had helped him get acclimated to the Collective, he wouldn’t call them his mentor, but they were certainly someone he felt at one time he could look to when he needed help.

All of that was part of a past he was trying to take an initiative to move forward from, Mimic’s next words seem to suggest he was of a similar mind- although his method of moving forward was far different than his own. He lets the half-offer hang in the air for a moment, both surprised that it came from Mimic of all people, but also uncertain if involving him was the right thing to do. Zander had been furious at Fortune for the wrong he’d done him, he couldn’t even imagine how he’d react when placed face to face with the person who first started this nightmarish chain reaction.

“He’s lost his control on his handle of time,” he replies, figuring if this was truly something the two of them were going to consider, Mimic should at least know what he’s facing. “When we first saw him on the roof, he looked to be in his eighties. He wasn’t violent, but he seemed to be struggling with some form of dementia.” He honestly isn’t sure which version of Zander he saw was worse- the aged shadow of his former self, whose memory was slipping away, or the second younger version who was fueled by his own anger.

“A few minutes later, time started to…. stutter. It transitioned from day to night, and based on how our surroundings changed, we were jumping back and forth through several decades too. Once it stopped Hourglass was the age he should be now.”

It was still the abridged version of events, with a few personal details removed, but it was more than he gave Epoch. Looking over to Mimic, he chews the inside of his cheek, as he mulls over his next words.

“I’m guessing you have his powers in your… arsenal, so to speak,” he half-asks, although he’s fairly certain he knows the answer. He can’t imagine Mimic did what he did all those years ago, and didn’t walk away with the one thing that lured him to Zander in the first place. “Have you used them much?”

...

It’s difficult to tell what the best approach here, if it will make this simpler for both of them if he approaches with the instinct of the sort of scientific curiosity, the clinical demeanor, or if he allows the more personal to bleed into things. He does want Fortune to know, even if it doesn’t change anything, that he has been thinking on things since the events at the Tower, and that his intention here, if he is to even get as far as doing anything at all to help again in this madness, is to undo harm, instead of cause more of it. That, if they do follow this path, at the first moment it seems he’s doing the opposite, he’s willing to step aside again, and do his best to move past things in a different way. Perhaps the answer is a combination of the two.

For now, though, what he does is listen, because it seems that Fortune is at least willing to give him the concrete details of what it is he witnessed in the Tower with Hourglass. He can’t imagine it was a very nice conversation that he had with Hourglass, has to believe the emotions run deep there still, from the very little that he was able to glean about their past relationship from their last talk, but Fortune sticks to the facts, which is a cue that he’s more than willing to follow. 

Mimic frowns as he listens to the explanation, the way time had stuttered, how Hourglass had shifted himself, moving through moments in time. The guilt he had been doing a decent job of pushing past comes up easily with that, hearing how he seemed too old, seemed affected by a terrible illness, before he had ended up back where he should be now, out of his own control. It’s a terrifying thing, power without control, and that is exactly what he wants to find a way to undo, if he could. He’s not sure exactly how it would be possible, knowing what he does now, not so clouded by selfish greed and hunger for knowledge that he could have had so easily. There was no consistency across different brains as to where powers seemed to fire from, and so he’s not precisely sure what he did to Hourglass’s brain to cause the loss of control, but he’s determined to figure it out.

There is, of course, the option that pertains to Fortune’s question. But there are powers that he possesses that he doesn’t use now, having learned enough to know that there are some things that shouldn’t be trifled with. If there was a way to do so safely, though, and it was something that the others wanted him to try, he would be willing to do so, if it could potentially undo the damage done. An issue for the after, of course, is the very real possibility that Hourglass in his right mind would likely want to kill him the moment he saw him. But for now, hypotheticals. 

“No, I haven’t used them much at all. Time is a dangerous thing to treat lightly; I should have realized that from the start,” he admits, tilting his head. “If there were a way to use it to safely undo what I did, though...it would be a consideration, of course. It sounds as if Hourglass’s powers are only going to continue to deteriorate.” And the danger in that is immense.

[mcmic]

jckylls​:

He sees the look cross Mimic’s face, at the comment, and it takes a second for him to put together what that look means. And when he does, he almost wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. But he figures there must still be some trace leftovers of serum flowing through him, or something. All of this is stuff he’ll have to deal with over the next few days, when he’s gotten some sleep and he can get back to his lab and get to work on figuring out why and how this had happened. But for now, he’s just grateful that Mimic doesn’t linger on it openly. 

      “I don’t think I had anything to do with that. Daydreamer made Mind Master do something, and got the full suite of his powers back, or something like that,” he explains, as he lets Mimic lead him towards the bathroom. He’s already starting to feel a little more calm, letting himself focus on the facts, on the parts that hadn’t involved him. Things he had seen, and not really been a part of. It had felt a bit like watching a movie, and then Daydreamer had helped him up and dragged him out of there. “Just, like, willed Fearmonger’s powers to stop working, turned the whole nightmare labyrinth back into a regular old hallway.”

He has to admit, that despite how long he’d spent half-worried that Daydreamer was capable of breaking the entire world with one wrong daydream, he’d done an incredible job of fixing things the second he had his unrestrained powers back. Maybe Sebastian hadn’t given the kid enough credit, all this time. Maybe he’d been unfair. Another thing to deal with on another day, when he’s feeling more himself.

     “All I did was sit there. Well, and make sure Mind Master didn’t bleed out before Nightingale got there to heal him, though seeing as it was fucking Hyde who shot him in the first place, that seemed like the least I could do.” 

He remembers it so clearly, looking at Fortune trying to put pressure on the wounds and knowing that it was Hyde who had done it, somewhere in the stuttering flashes of lucidity he was experiencing. He doesn’t even know where Hyde got real bullets, or why he’d shot in the first place. It’s hard to imagine Hyde feeling frightened, by whatever Fearmonger had shown him, frightened enough to shoot blindly at footsteps coming around a corner and accidentally taking out the person he was supposed to save. 

...

He is interested to hear that apparently Daydreamer had finally managed to get Mind Master to give him access to his full scope of powers again, making a mental note to check in with him at some point in the coming days, after their last conversation about that very blockage, but that’s a curiosity for another time, clearly. Leading them back towards the bathroom, he listens carefully, glad that it seems Sebastian is coming back down from some of the panic being able to explain that part of things more fully. It makes him grateful that he ended up there with someone who has such powerful abilities, or else he’s not quite sure how the night would have ended if Sebastian indeed couldn’t get back to Hyde during it all. 

“Well, it sounds like the cards fell just right, then, Daydreamer and Mind Master being around, too,” he says quietly, although he’s a little more than interested in the latter half of Sebastian’s explanation. He’s careful, though, not wanting to make Sebastian panic even more than he already is, no desire to exacerbate the trauma of the situation.

So he’s quiet for a moment, as he guides him into the bathroom, brings him over to the sink, and turns on the hot water, preparing to help clean up the blood, apparently Mind Master’s blood, from his hands. Hyde is an expert in situation such as the one they were all meant to face in the Tower, of course, there’s a reason he does the field work for Sebastian, but he is something of a wild card. He knows he can’t have been happy they were given stun ammunition, but he can’t exactly see him intentionally hurting someone they were meant to save, even if said person is an unpleasant is person who has traumatized a fellow Collective member before. 

Whatever he saw in his nightmare must have been strong enough to send him into a panic of his own. “I’ve heard of Fearmonger’s power before,” he says, taking a wash cloth and wetting it. “Perhaps Hyde was put back in an old situation from before, perhaps something at the start of things for you, when everything felt less certain, less clear. It’s no comfort, I know, but we both know how psychological attacks can affect even the biological, the chemical responses.”

[mcmic]

medusxa​:

Mimic doesn’t seem to mind her presence in the room with him. If she’s reading his face right, he might actually be a little bit happy to see her there. And that makes something in her stomach settle, because it makes her realise that she’s returned to a state in her life where she can walk into a random room in the Manor and find a friend, someone who might want to sit with her, someone who might enjoy her company. That’s a comforting thought, another reminder that her life is slowly but surely reparing itself, that she’s becoming a real member of this society. 

She grabs a teacup, while she waits for Mimic to settle on an answer. He’s honest with her, she can hear that in his voice. And it makes her ache a little bit. Because they’ve all been worrying about the same stuff the last few weeks. The Tower, the guardians, the stolen dead. But she imagined it was different for Mimic, whose name had been thrown around far too much lately. She nods her head in a slow agreement, because she understands it completely. 

She takes her time, considering how to answer his question. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to, she just needs a second to get her own head on straight, to catalogue the endless noise of the feelings in her head. There were different periods on her life where she completely shut herself down to things like emotions, where she saw herself as too strong to need to deal with the smushy human feelings that tried to invade her. But she hadn’t shut herself down this time. It was healthier, probably, to actuall process everything that had been going on lately.

“A little raw.” She says, because she’s already jumped the shark when it comes to being honest with Mimic. They had their supernatural heart to heart, she’s pretty sure that there’s no point putting on a brave face and trying to look like nothing is really affecting her. “Metaphorically letting go of one of the great love’s of your life is all well and good, but actually having to re-bury them is something that can kind of fuck a girl up, for a while, I think.” 

Her voice is as quiet as his own had been, letting the quiet peace of the kitchen linger. “I’m finding it hard to stop thinking about it too, all of it.” And she takes a seat, delicate, near enough to him at the table that they can keep their voices low. She looks at his face, examines it, and wonders how she’s suddenl;y so comortable with him. But sharing your powers and your heart with someone will do that to you. “It was such a fucking mess. I mean, Catalyst did a great job. Her part wasn’t a mess. But the whole lead up, the fact that it happened at all.”

...

It’s a simple thing to be honest with her. Even before he was in the Collective, Mimic never found it very easy to form those sort of deeper, more emotionally honest relationships. Over the years, he had found a way to use his powers to make it easier to read other people, and to therefore provide what they wanted from him, to have something closer to those easy friendships than he might’ve managed had he not realized that he possessed such power in the first place. That didn’t make it simple, though. After what he had done, why he had ended up in the Collective and not rotting in a cell, or worse dead, it was simpler to isolate, to keep at a distance since most people had a picture of him painted in their mind already, one that didn’t lend itself well to things like friendships, or romance. And he got along just fine despite that, finding the few people he could be slightly more honest with.

But even then, it had taken time to get to this level of vulnerability with others. He can put it down to the way she had asked him to learn her powers, and the openness that they’ve given each other to do that, ultimately providing something even deeper than just the ability to help understand power, and protect against it. When you’ve offered so much of yourself up to someone, and have been met with understanding, it’s easy to offer a little more. 

Still, this is something he can hardly imagine himself. He hasn’t felt that sort of love before in his life, and anything that came close in the past still couldn’t compare to what Medusa has gone through, both before and now thanks to the horrifying resurrection business. Even if he can’t imagine how hard it must be, he finds it easy to feel that pain for her. “With good reason. I think it’s only fair that that would get into your head in a way that’s impossible to shrug off so easily,” he says quietly as she sits down near him.

He lets out a little hum of agreement. None of it should have happened at all, that’s a certainty. These old wounds being reopened and then perverted into something that’s hurting even more people isn’t something that should have been allowed to get this far. And now there’s no stepping back from all of the damage that it’s caused. It makes him hope even more so that he can do something about it. “Yes, it was. Of course, in the absolutely surface level, things went as smoothly as they possibly could. We didn’t lose anyone, and we managed to take a fair number of undead into our care, as well as defectors, but the emotional wounds run deep from this whole ordeal. And I’m afraid they’ll only continue to worsen until this is over once and for all,” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry that you were forcibly brought into all of this. That he was.”

[mcmic]

fortunexfinder​:

The days following the Tower attack, he spends largely tucked away in his room, and nursing his wounds- both physical and the ones that are less so. His hands, now glass free, are still wrapped up in bandages to prevent infection, and the small series of bruises that had lined either side of his jaw, were now yellowing and slowly fading away. Having failed his own half of the mission, while everyone else had largely succeeded in their own, he’s not quite sure what to do with himself. Lazarus had been able to pick up and run with their Tartarus search, which somehow now involved ghost hunting in the attic, and so his side of things had quieted down there. 

What he ends up doing to pass the time is packing, because if there’s one thing he did take away from the entire nightmare that was his experience on the Tower’s roof, was how much he needed to put this all behind him in a way that didn’t involve him hiding away in his room. He was a Tier Four now, a promotion he’d been desperately wanting until Kaz came along and gave him a reason to stay in the manor. And while things on the Kaz front had settled down, he feels like he still needs to put some distance between him and the manor- not a lot of distance, but enough so that he doesn’t feel like he’s trapped in the past, and stuck in a life that has seemed to have stagnated in the last few years.  

And so that’s what he’s doing that afternoon, shortly before the knock sounds on his door- packing. His television is turned down low, an old episode of Bake-Off playing, while he’s balancing on one of his armchairs, clearing off the top shelf of his closet. The knock doesn’t surprise him, because he’d just texted Jay, asking if he could bring him some trash bags for a Goodwill pile he was going to need to start soon. 

The moment he opens the door though, it’s not Jay’s face that greets him, but rather Mimic’s- although he wouldn’t necessarily use the word “greets” as a way to describe the words that soon come out of his mouth. He really considers simply shutting the door on him, because he’s not in the mood for whatever in the hell Mimic felt like he needed to get off his chest with him. But he finds himself opening the door further instead, and steps aside to let Mimic come in. He’s not entirely sure why he does it, given how ready he was to put it all behind him, but he thinks he probably should at least attempt to put this thing with Mimic behind him too. 

After closing the door, he motions Mimic to sit in the armchair that was ordinarily his, which still sat by the window, as he pushes Kaz’s back to its original spot from where he’d been using it as a step stool. 

“I heard…”, he starts, because he feels like he should probably say something now that he’s let him in his room. “that you managed to bring Doppelganger back. I’m glad you were able to convince them to leave.” He nearly brings up Tempest, but he chooses not to in that moment, not really wanting to dig up that particular part of the past, especially since by the sounds of it, they were about to head towards another. 

...

There’s a moment in which he’s certain Fortune is going to close the door on him, which he was already prepared for in some ways. It’s clear that he was in the middle of something, moving it seems, which makes sense, of course, given the news he had heard recently of his own promotion to Tier Four, but even if he wasn’t, he’s certain he wouldn’t look any happier to see him. He simply waits for that to happen, no need to push the matter if that’s what he’s planning, but instead, Fortune opens the door further, and moves to let him come inside, which he does, doing his best to act as if this isn’t strange, for both of their sakes, no need to make matter even more awkward than they’ll already be.

It’s a tick in the right direction, even if Mimic is still wholly aware that Fortune could shut him down when he brings up what he’s been thinking about, no obligation between them for anything at all. But for now, he works under the assumption that at least Fortune seems willing to hear him out, which is more than he had been anticipating. He follows his gesture, taking a seat in the armchair by the window, as Fortune moves the other back to its place. It’s hard not to try to anticipate what he might say first, but he does his best to be open to anything, or to have to begin himself. And it’s a surprise when he brings up Doppelganger first, instead of anything else, but he’s happy to ease into things, both of them intelligent enough to know how difficult any conversation surrounding Hourglass will be. 

“It seemed that they had already been contemplating it; they weren’t exactly interested in all that Judgement was doing, I think. They just needed a moment of clarity away from his influence, it wasn’t entirely me,” Mimic admits readily. It’s the truth, after all. Doppelganger hated him, had no reason to listen to his logic, but the moment of clarity had seemingly been enough for them to make the choice themself, which was for all of their benefit, when it came down to it. Less villains to fight for Judgement’s perverse plans, and safety provided for them. 

He looks at them, frowning slightly, trying to figure out how to best approach the conversation from there. It seems best not to beat around the bush, and waste either of their time. He would rather know if Fortune’s going to reject his questions entirely sooner rather than later, so that he can figure out how to move on once again with his own life, as it seems Fortune is trying to do as well. “That was the easy part of things,” he says, after a moment. “I heard that your fight wasn’t so simple, either. I’ve been wondering...what state Hourglass was in. Standing face to face with Tempest, even in such a state, it made me...well, I’ve been thinking on my mistakes, if it’s possible to undo any of them.”

[mcmic]

jckylls​:

Mimic’s actual words wash over him in a sort of indistinct hum—at least, until Mimic’s hands are on his arms, pulling him back out of the haze of panic for long enough to focus on the feeling, on the here and now. The past several hours have felt like an irregular pendulum swinging wildly between two opposing poles, Sebastian fading in and out of control and awareness and Hyde filling in the gaps—or maybe the other way around, he can’t tell which version of himself is the one dissociating and which version is the one picking up the slack. But it feels like his earliest days on the run, when he was only half-aware of when he was one and when he was the other, when he would wake up after long periods of nothingness, somewhere entirely different, blood on his hands and no sense of how he’d gotten where he was, or what he’d done to get there.

But Mimic’s touch helps him to focus on where he is right now, and not the missing gaps and lapses that lead to it. And it takes him a minute, to slow his breathing back to a normal, reasonable speed, to look back up at Mimic and actually see him, where he’s standing. And he immediately wants to reach out and touch him, some assurance that he’s real, except his hands are covered in blood, and Mimic has already changed into clean clothes, so instead he just wipes his hands again on his own shirt, trying not to think about how much of the remaining blood feels like it’s just going to be a permanent feature of his skin after this awful fucking night. 

      “It was… Fearmonger,” he breathes, shaking his head. “In the tower, we ran into Fearmonger.” It’s as close to an explanation as he’s got, for what he’s been through in the past few hours, though he isn’t entirely sure it makes sense, because a psychological power, even one as strong as that, shouldn’t have actually had a biological effect, shouldn’t have been able to overrule the serum like that.

He takes another few slow breaths, trying to calm himself down, before he looks back up at Mimic and, with an uncharacteristic wryness and composure that he can’t really account for where it comes from, adds:

     “I guess Hyde’s worst fear is being me, huh?” 

...

Sebastian doesn’t seem entirely aware of what he’s saying, which is only fair, considering the clear panic, the traumatic experience he must have gone through to end up here Sebastian with his hands covered in blood, and not Hyde, but that’s alright. What matters is doing what he can to help ground him, calm him down, and the touch seems to help do some of that, as he tries to wipe the blood off of his hands on his shirt, and finally gives him a better idea of what it is he faced tonight. 

It catches his attention, not just because of his concern for Sebastian, although that’s top of mind just now, but because Fearmonger only feels like a half explanation, a great deal of unknown right alongside it. He doesn’t know how those powers work, never having experienced them himself, but the fact that fear had been enough to bring Sebastian out in the middle of a situation he’s certain Hyde had adequate time planned for is something that makes him frown with curiosity. The fear had somehow caused the boundaries to blur in a way even Mimic hadn’t entirely realized might be possible as things are with Sebastian, but odder things have happened with powers under equally stressful circumstances and influence. 

It makes him all the more glad that Sebastian happened to find him, someone who understands and cares about how this all is for him, how he can face it.

How he follows that information up makes Mimic raise his eyebrows higher, unable to hide the reaction entirely for how very not Sebastian the whole moment is, enough so that he almost expected Hyde to suddenly be standing there in front of them. He’s aware how unideal the situation is, how traumatic it likely was for both halves of the whole, but he thinks perhaps it might not be the worst thing in the world for either of them, once they can find their way past the initial panic. 

“Well, you made it out alive, so it seems that’s a tick in favor of that fear being unfounded,” he says, matching his tone. He wonders vaguely how much longer the serum was intended to last tonight, but he doesn’t ask, not wanting to make the situation worse, just now. First, the basics. A hand moves to Sebastian’s back, and he starts leading him towards the bathroom to take care of the blood, at least. “We’ll clean that up, and then perhaps tea, and we can talk through what happened.”

[mcmic]

In a way, the past several days have mirrored his first few days at the manor, which only feels appropriate, considering the context of everything that’s going on around them. He’s felt it was the best course of action to keep a low profile, even lower, perhaps, than usual, which is a feat in and of itself, since he keeps to himself mostly anyway. But it’s been simple enough, most of the others thoroughly preoccupied with the aftermath of the events at the Tower, understandably so. He’s glad that the rogue villain defectors are staying far from the manor, making it a bit easier to fly under the radar, but he’s acutely aware of what’s happened, of course, that they all are under watch by White and those loyal to her just by virtue of having aided in the fight. He has no desire to risk his position here, of course, but it had been a simple choice, to agree to Catalyst’s plan and do what he could to help things go smoothly, which he thinks he succeeded in. 

Between that, and the reminders he’s been given of his own part in things, nearly a decade later, old wounds open and festering again, coming face to face with someone he had killed, even accidentally in his selfishness, he’s finding it hard to focus. Sebastian has served as a nice distraction, working through what had happened with Hyde during that night, finally facing down the reality of the more fluid boundaries something he’s glad to be preoccupied with, not to mention the other part of things there, but that doesn’t make it any easier to quiet his thoughts when he’s alone.

And he’s alone now, down in the kitchen to have a cup of lavender jasmine tea to try to soothe his mind into winding down for the night. It’s easier said than done, of course, when his mind seems intent on replaying the moments with Tempest, both recent and a decade old, over and over again, despite how far removed he had managed to get before this started up again. The other thought there, the idea of finding a way to undone some of the harm he’s caused running through his head, considering all of the different combinations of powers he might be able to use to do just that.

He’s deep in those thoughts, tea untouched, when he hears someone enter, and looks around. And he’s never been so glad to see Medusa, to see someone who he thinks would perhaps understand the conflicted feelings, the regret and acceptance, a paradox full of truth for him. Knowing what he knows of what happened to the others in the Tower, too, Mimic thinks she could likely use some of the understanding they seem to share, too. 

So when she asks for his thoughts, it’s not even a consideration to offer a lie, or shut down the conversation. In fact, he thinks this might help them both, to be honest here, too. “I’m finding it difficult to stop thinking about the Tower...as I’m sure you are, too, although in an entirely different way,” he says, voice quiet, barely disturbing the quiet of the kitchen. “How are you, after all of that?”

( the kitchen, a few days after the tower, late evening / @mcmic​ ) 

It’s rare, Medusa thinks, to find Mimic out in the wild these days. It was strange to think that she might actually have missed him. It would be wrong to say that they had been real friends, over the last year. No, up until the last few months, Medusa and Mimic might as well have been strangers. She had been too preoccupied by herself to make friends with anyone at all. The closest she got, aside from Sebastian and Hyde, before she started branching out was Dark Wing. And they were certianly more than friends now. 

But she had asked Mimic for help, and he had offered it to her. And with the help came… the strangest kind of understanding. Someone seeing right into your heart, right into your mind, the depths of your soul and the dark edges of your powers. Mimic was special, because he could look in her eyes and know her in a way that so few people did, these days. And she had found a kindred spirit in him, when she returned the gaze. 

Even without the empthay that let him do his job, use his powers, she thinks that he would understand her. The more violent, bloody edges. They were one of the things she liked in him. He was a man who had gotten his hands dirty, and she was somone who could never blame him for that. It was why she coudln’t truly hold the past against someone like Tartarus, either. Everyone, at the end of the day, would do what it took to grow and survive. 

And besides, they were all villians. She didn’t know what the others honestly expected.

The point is, that when she sees him, she feels a flood of real happiness. Real relief, to see him mostly well and in public. The kitchen was deathly quiet, but there he was. So she turned off her planned path and entered the room instead, setting the kettle on to boil so she could make herself a cup of tea. She was planning to slip some whiskey into it, to lull her off to sleep. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” She asks, voice light. Something that can be brushed off if he wants privacy instead of company. 

[mcmic]

several days after the tower, fortune’s room ( @fortunexfinder​. )

Even a few days removed from the events in Guardian Tower, it’s difficult to keep his thoughts from straying back to standing face to face with Tempest, that familiar feeling of wishing there was something he could have done to change their fate, and the others, that familiar feeling of knowing there’s nothing to be done now. It’s a feeling that he experienced much more intensely during his first year in the Collective. He had kept to himself even more so back then, of course, with the wounds so fresh, and his own grappling with what he had done, the consequences of those actions, the pain he sowed, still not settled into something closer to acceptance. Guilt isn’t the word he would use for what he felt back then. No, he was much too proud, still young and convinced that in some ways it was justified, because he hadn’t know any differently before then. That had changed quickly, of course, thanks, in part, to the conditions of his acceptance into the Collective. He had had to accept responsibility to figure out how to keep living, even in this comfortable, self-appointed prison. 

And so he had.

Over the past eight years, he had accepted that responsibility, accepted the damage he had done, the pain inflicted on his victims and those around them, alike, because of his own selfishness. It wouldn’t have been possible for him to keep living if he hadn’t found his own way to move on from it, while also acknowledging that it couldn’t be expected that others would, as much as he wished that they would, at least those who weren’t directly affected, anyway.

That’s why it feels like this, he thinks. He had been so deeply past that part of his life, that it was jarring for it all to be thrown back in his face in the form of coming face to face with Tempest, and having to choose not to hurt them, this time. He keeps going over what he had said to them ultimately, that he would undo the damage done if he could. And he realizes that perhaps he can in some small way, if those around him want him to. 

There’s no taking back what he did to Tempest––he doesn’t think necromancy is the answer, not something fair when they can’t choose themself––but they aren’t the only one who’s name has come up recently whom he hurt. Which is how he finds himself standing outside of Fortune Finder’s door, steeling himself to the welcome he knows he’ll receive, prepared to accept the rightful venom, to get a clearer picture of things, to figure out if he might be able to help, even if it’s rejected. He won’t be hurt if it is, he’ll accept it without a fight, knowing it might not be his place, considering he’s the one who did the harm, but he has to offer to try, at least.

So he knocks on the door, and momentarily Fortune opens it. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries, knowing nothing about this is pleasant for Fortune. “I’ll understand if you have no desire to speak to me, but I was hoping you might be willing to humor me for a few minutes,” he explains. “It’s about Hourglass.”

[mcmic]

He only bothers to stay at the meetup point long enough to check in with Catalyst very briefly, considering how much chaos is going on around them, and how many of the teams had run into much more trouble than they had, clearly, or perhaps hadn’t managed to handle their trouble as well, before he heads on his way back to the Manor, wanting nothing more than silence, and a hot shower. Escaping physical injury is a small consolation, all things considered, because his mind hasn’t felt as heavy in a very long time. 

Perhaps silence isn’t what he truly needs, for once, because the silence makes it so simple to think, to consider each and every moment, for his mind to replay images of Tempest, now and before. There’s something so oppressive about guilt that there’s no coming back from. Even if he found a way to forgive himself, absolve himself of his past sins––and in a way, hasn’t that been exactly what he’s managed over the past eight years, long buried guilt only just dug back up just as Tempest was––there would never be anything of that sort from the people he’s hurt, and those who care about them. And with good reason. He deals in logic, he understands their anger at him, knows the blame rests solely on his selfishness, even if it’s always been difficult for him to empathize with others.

It doesn’t make any of it any easier to swallow, though. 

The long, hot shower he takes as soon as he makes it back to the manor does little to change things. He was hardly even dirty, compared to most of the others who came from the Tower, and water and soap doesn’t wash away anything deeper than the surface level grime, of course. Making his way back to his room, he highly doubts that there will be any sort of rest tonight, even as tired as his mind is. And that only feels fair, in a way. If he can’t change any of his past choices, at least he can reflect on the pain he caused with them seriously for the first time in too long.

He’s lost in those thoughts, when he notices someone else in the hall. It’s a surprise to see Sebastian standing there, but perhaps not as much of a surprise as it should be, considering what he’s been considering about his dual sides lately. And he’s glad for something else to focus on, someone else to focus on, Sebastian’s difficult night instead of his own, especially as he can feel the panic wafting off of him, something he wants to do his best to calm if he can.

“Sebastian, I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight. It seems like a safe assumption that your part of things wasn’t so simple, either,” Mimic says, crosses to him, and immediately putting his hands on his upper arms, trying to offer support, trying to ground him. It’s only then that he notices the blood on his hands. “It’s alright. You’re here, and you’re safe. Let’s go take care of this mess, yes?”

     a hallway in the Manor, right after the Tower attack, @mcmic​

He and Daydreamer are some of the last to make it out of the Tower, which he knows is almost entirely his own fault—stopping once every ten steps to have an entirely new panic attack about whatever the fuck had caused him to wake up in the middle of the mission when that shouldn’t have even been possible had really halted their progress. But it’s not his fault that they’re some of the last people back to the Manor. Daydreamer had been waiting for Lazarus to finish sapping the life from the group of zombies everyone had managed to round up, and he’d been waiting for Daydreamer who, for some reason, his panic-addled brain had decided to latch onto for the moment like a baby duckling.

He’s still freaking out, all things considered, by the time they do make it back to the Manor, and he heads for his room. The waves of abject panic have ceased, for the time being, but his heart is still pounding in his ears. He feels frayed, brimming with a weird frenetic energy he can’t account for or explain. And maybe, he thinks, it’s a physical symptom of the fact that the serum hasn’t yet worked itself fully out of his system, but he’ll have to test that theory another time to see if that’s the case or not. 

Right now, he doesn’t want to think all that hard about what it means. He just wants to wash the blood off of his hands. Take a shower. Find out, from someone, if Mind Master is okay, because he’s pieced together that it was Hyde’s fucking fault that the Guardian they were there to rescue had, instead, ended up in the hospital with a bullet or two in his lung. 

But, as he heads for his room to do all three of those things, in hopefully that order, he spots Mimic down the hallway, and rapidly readjusts his priorities in terms of things that need to be done, talk to Mimic swiftly moving up to the very top of the list.

He’s already had a half a dozen people act surprised to see him, rather than Hyde, coming out of the Tower, arriving at the meet-up point, coming back to the Manor. But he thinks Mimic will probably be less surprised than anyone else has been, when he raises a hand to get his attention, his voice faltering weakly as he attempts to call out to him.

     “Mimic. Mimic— I…” he starts, and trails off as another wave of panic threatens to rise up and overwhelm him again, like something in his chest trying to reach up out of him, but he lets out a long, slow breath and tries his best to push it back down. 

[mcmic]

g-rzly​:

The second the wind dies down, the second Tempest is down for the count, it feels like the barometric pressure in the room stabilizes, and the cotton-feeling in his ear starts to ease, not all the way but enough let a little sound leak back in, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He holsters his gun again, and then picks Tempest’s limp body up, looking over at Geo Girl, who seems to have similarly recovered herself without the fucking hurricane force winds to contend with.

     “Can you carry them?” he asks here, nodding down to the body in his arms. “We’ve gotta get all of ‘em back, and there’s a zombie gangster in the hallway I need to pick up on the way back.” 

     “Um,” she starts, looking hesitant, but then she seems to steel herself, and nods. “Yeah, yeah of course. Where are we taking them?”

He passes the body over, quickly gives her directions to get back to the little home base Catalyst had set up, gives her a bare bones rundown of the plan—round the zombies up, everyone check in that they’re safe, all that stuff—before patting her on the shoulder and sending her on her way, and then turning his attention back to Mimic, crossing the room in a few quick strides to get to his side.

     “You alright over here, doc?” he asks, giving Mimic a once-over. He looks okay, doesn’t look injured in any way that will do any lasting damage. That force field thing seems to have done the trick again, keeping the worst of everything that Tempest was throwing at him from hitting its mark. But he doesn’t really mean physically. Because chairs and shit wasn’t all that Tempest was throwing at Mimic, he knows, given the brief explanation he’d given Grizzly as they walked into the room and saw them standing there. Whatever the full story is behind Mimic having killed Tempest, he can’t imagine that coming face to face with them again was easy. It sounds pretty fucking brutal. It sounds like a fucking nightmare he’s had, coming face to face with the zombified body of someone you killed. 

Before Mimic can answer, though, the other person over here—a shapeshifter, Grizzly has to guess, based on the fact that they were Catalyst a few minutes ago, and then Tempest, and now they’re someone totally different that he’s never seen before—speaks up. And Mimic seems to think they’re no danger, so Grizzly trusts that impulse, keeps his gun holstered and listens as they start to talk again

     “I don’t know where else to go,” they say, and they’re still looking to Mimic as they say it, but Grizzly shrugs.

     “Didn’t Catalyst say there’s some like… safehouse or something being set up? For the defectors? I’m sure she’d be happy to have you. Just come with us, we’ll figure it out.” He shrugs, at both of them, and then turns back to Mimic. “I’m gonna go pick up the gangster in the hallway. You ready to get out of here?” 

...

Admittedly, he does feel a little shaken. The danger was never truly physical, no, that’s not where the feeling in the pit of his stomach has come from. Even if Grizzly and Geo Girl hadn’t been as efficient as they both were at dealing with Tempest, even if Grizzly hadn’t managed to get to them, and deal a more merciful blow to subdue them, Mimic knows logically that he could have managed it with his own powers, if it had come down to it. He’s glad it didn’t even if that’s the case, though, because he’s not sure he could have mentally handled having to deal with Tempest himself. Alone. There’s an odd feeling that’s settled in him now that their part of things is seemingly over. It feels invasive, wrong, to watch Tempest, now limp, passed from Grizzly to Geo Girl, as he gives her instructions on how to start back to the meetup point. It makes another image flash in his mind, seeing their lifeless body another time, doing what he could to try to resuscitate, perhaps not doing enough to make certain there wouldn’t be more blood on his hands, more death and pain caused for his selfishness. He had been too deep into things by the time he had gotten to Tempest, he had been careless, and they had suffered the consequences of that.

He has to tear his eyes away from them, as Geo Girl does finally leave with them in tow. It’s a small bit of peace, knowing that Grizzly was the one who managed to subdue them, that once Geo Girl brings them back to the spot, Lazarus will be able to give them real rest again, much more merciful than anything he could offer himself. But it doesn’t feel like enough. He’s all too aware that nothing could ever be enough to undo the harm he’s done, and perhaps it’s sign that he hadn’t truly changed over the past eight years that it’s taken him this long to fully admit to that guilt, even if only to himself.

Grizzly’s words make him frown, taking their meaning clearly enough, beyond just the physical, but down to the emotional strain of coming face to face with someone who was his victim, and not being able to offer anything to change or undo the harm done, much too late now. Unfortunately, as much as he knows he should be doing a good amount of self-reflection after this encounter, or at the very least take up Grizzly’s question as an opportunity to admit that perhaps he’s not completely alright, despite them all fairing well in the fight, there are other things to take care of before then. The first clearly being Doppelgänger’s apparently changing allegiances. 

It’s simpler than expected, really, but he has a strong feeling that they’re not the only one who might be thinking that this has gone much too far, if given the chance to step out of Judgement’s control. Grizzly answers their implicit question with ease, and while he’s not sure what the welcome will be in truth when they bring Doppelgänger back, the more people they can keep away from Judgement and Hourglass’s side of things, the better. 

“He’s right. You’ll have a few more of your friends staying in the same place, if all else has gone to plan. The story will be that we took you hostage,” Mimic says, although he doesn’t risk giving up identities now. That information seems to make the choice clear for Doppelgänger, though, understanding, then perhaps a hint of relief, knowing there’s a plan in place. He gives them a nod, before looking back at Grizzly again. “Yes, let’s get back. I’d rather not risk another run in just now...Thank you, Grizzly, for taking care of them. I don’t think I could have done it myself.” He reaches out briefly, squeezing Grizzly’s shoulder in thanks, despite not usually being one for physical touch, before he starts towards the door, more than ready to be done with this ordeal.

[mcmic]

g-rzly​:

Tempest doesn’t give them much time before they’re raising their arms, summoning the wind again, though thankfully this time no rain to accompany it. And wind he can handle, and apparently so can Geo Girl, both of them strong enough that the gale Tempest sends their way doesn’t knock either of them off their feet the way that it should. And the second Tempest lets up, he and Geo Girl seem to have the same though, both of them charging towards Tempest and taking advantage of the brief break in the wind to gain some ground—Geo Girl towards Tempest themself and Grizzly towards the gun that had been knocked from his grip several feet away from them. 

It’s disorienting, trying to navigate what’s happening without being able to hear any of it, though at least Geo Girl seems to have finally gotten the message that yelling at him isn’t going to do her any good and given up trying that tactic, instead communicating with a few mostly decipherable hand gestures — what he guesses is I’ll distract them so you can get a clear shot being the most important of them. He glances over to Mimic, who seems to be having some kind of conversation with the figure who was, a second ago, Catalyst, and is now no longer Catalyst but another version of Tempest, but all of that seems way above his pay grade at the moment, so he shrugs it off and charges for the gun.

The floor is slick, still from the earlier rain, and Tempest keeps summoning gusts of wind, most of them focused on blocking Geo Girl from getting close enough to hit them, so he has to be careful not to lose his footing. But he manages to reclaim the gun without too much trouble, taking cover behind a table that actually seems to be bolted to the floor and hasn’t been blown all over the place by Tempest’s storm.

He’s just getting a shot lined up, between Geo Girl’s dashing back and forth trying to get in past the barrier of wind Tempest has summoned—though he has his doubts about getting through that barrier, himself, even with a well-placed and well-timed shot—when Tempest suddenly seems to change their focus. 

They turn around completely, back to Geo Girl, as if they’ve forgotten she’s even there, and he can’t figure out what the fuck is happening until the wind starts to grow stronger, strong enough that even Geo Girl is having trouble keeping on her feet, and Tempest starts to move back towards the other side of the room—towards Mimic, and the other person he’s with, the tornado of wind swirling around them strong enough to pick up every piece of loose furniture in them wake, chairs and other debris whipping dangerously around them as they move determinedly forward.

And he doesn’t know what the fuck Mimic did to get their attention, but boy does it seem like a big fucking mistake. They’re on the warpath now, and he watches for a moment as a stay cafeteria tray is hurled towards Mimic with enough force to probably do some serious damage, just missing him as it whips past him, and Grizzly doesn’t have time to think about the best plan here, because now it’s time to act on sheer instinct.

He’s running almost before he realizes what he’s doing, and it’s probably a good thing Tempest is so focused on what they’re doing, because he can’t imagine he’s being quiet about it. But the first shot goes wide, its trajectory altered by the gusts of wind surrounding them, and he’s not going to be able to get a shot from this far, so he keeps running, pushing hard against the wind as it threatens to send him flying as well.

And he manages to do it, to catch them, to wrap an arm around them from behind so he can keep hold of them despite the wind, and put the gun directly against the back of their head, and shoot once, twice, until all at once the wind stops, the debris that was flying in it clattering to the ground, and Tempest, stunned, goes limp in his arms. 

...

Tempest’s focus immediately shifts to him from Geo Girl and Grizzly, and there’s a split second, when he finally comes face to face with them, when their eyes meet, that he worries he’s made the wrong choice by playing distraction here, that he should have just let them keep fighting, focused solely on convincing Doppelgänger to come with them willingly. It’s much too late for that thought, though, because as soon as they see him, the wind picks up, and they start hurling things at him, just nearly missing, Doppelgänger backing away from him, holding onto the doorframe to keep themself down.

And there is a sense of guilt there as he faces Tempest, even if it’s perhaps not exactly the sort of guilt that Doppelgänger seems to hope he’s feeling. Because he does regret what he did all of those years ago, the careless methods he took trying to collect and hoard powers that he hadn’t realized he could acquire without hurting anyone, without killing anyone. While he knows himself well enough to know that there’s no world in which he wouldn’t have gone after collecting those powers, he isn’t as cold-hearted as people believe, the harm he caused wasn’t out of malice, but greed, and while he knows that doesn’t change it, he does wish that he had realized sooner just how little his power required to mimic. 

So he allows their onslaught of attacks, creating another forcefield around himself to keep safe from the winds and the furniture being thrown around dodging when necessary to keep the invisible shield from wavering. He knows, in his mind logically, that they’re not able to think the way anyone else in this room can, that they’re operating on the commands of those who raised them, and perhaps pure animal instinct with the clear rage behind their attacks towards him, but looking at them directly, there’s the urge to try to offer an apology for things that no words could ever possibly heal, that nothing could change, even if by some twist of faith they were brought back fully as themself, not some no-minded undead soldier for egotistical plans and old, well-deserved vendettas. He wishes he could offer something to this husk of the old Tempest. But he’s well aware that in this state what they want is his death, that there are many, many people, the group of rouge villains included, who want the same, and that’s not something he’s willing to offer.

Still, he can’t keep himself from putting some of it to words, even as he notices Grizzly running at them, seizing the opportunity as he had hoped he would. “If I could undo all of the harm I caused, to you and to the others, I would do it, Tempest,” he calls over the chaos, the tornado speed winds, the banging of furniture being thrown around. And to admit that out loud feels important even just personally, even if Tempest themself is in no state to take those words and do what they will with them. The wind strengthens, though, and he thinks that’s something of a response, strong enough that the force starts to push him, too. Something keeps him from doing anything about it, though, perhaps a combination of curiosity and that guilt, to allow Tempest to get as far as they can with him before stepping in himself, banking on Grizzly managing it first, because it feels wrong to be the one to take them down again. They deserve mercy, and that can’t be dealt by the hands that set them up to be a victim of another horror.

He lets his forcefield down, just as the wind sends a stray chair hurling at him, ducking down to dodge it, keeping eye contact with Tempest, holding out for just a little longer. In the end, it’s the correct choice, as Grizzly makes it to Tempest and grabs them, managing to finally stun them with his gun, the wind ceasing immediately, everything falling to the floor. The sudden lack of force has him staggering, too, putting a hand on the wall behind him to keep himself steady, as a sense of relief that feels larger than just imminent danger being dealt with washes over him. No time to linger on that just now, though. He glances back at Doppelganger, who’s finally wearing their own face again, who still doesn’t seem intent on attacking, frown deep on their face.

“Do you want to come with us willingly, or do you want to continue the fighting?” he asks, although he thinks he knows the answer already just from the look on their face. Even if it wasn’t expressly apart of the mission, he has no intention of allowing any rouge villain he and Grizzly come in contact with to go back to Judgement and Hourglass. Luckily, it doesn’t seem they’re going to have to fight on this one. 

“It didn’t need to go this far...” they say, after a moment, shaking their head. And Mimic dares to reach out with his borrowed telepathy, just in case an extra push is needed to fight through Judgement’s own cloud of manipulated emotions, because he can still feel it there. But it seems to be waning. 

“I know it’s not my place to say it, but I agree. I don’t think causing more death and destruction is the solution to these problems,” Mimic says, before looking to Grizzly, and giving him a nod, as if to say they pose no danger to them now.