Author's Note

Originally published on AO3 under a different title... sometime in 2019, and deleted in early 2020. Not my best work, but not embarrassing enough for me to keep it in the vault permanently, I suppose. I do miss The Tick.

The television in the bar was tuned to the local ten o'clock news. It played almost silently behind the chatter of the patrons, with subtitles trailing a few seconds behind. Dot curled her fingers around her bottle of grapefruit IPA and watched it run.

"Midtown briefly became a battleground this morning, as the notorious car theft gang known as the Diesel Crew launched a daring heist on 8th Avenue's used car lot. Local superheroes the Tick and Arthur quickly arrived to defend the lot, as seen in this footage captured by a bystander."

The program cut to the same phone-camera footage every channel had been showing since the incident hours earlier. The video showed the Tick grabbing the crew's getaway truck by the back bumper and lifting it up, flipping it over. The camera jerked up just in time to catch Arthur swooping down and landing on the ground. A man popped out from behind a nearby car and fired a gun at him; Arthur flinched and ducked. The camera dropped as the cameraperson made a run for it, and the video ended there.

Dot shook her head and took a long drink from her beer. She and Overkill had been tracking the Diesel Crew just as long as Arthur and the Tick had, but they had yet to collaborate on the case. You should've called us, Arthur. She didn't say it out loud. She was incognito that night, trying to enjoy some downtime as Dot Everest instead of Foresight, or Witness, or whatever corny superhero moniker Dangerboat had come up with that week.

"Fucking superheroes," someone said.

Dot turned her head. The words came from the woman sitting at the bar a few seats down. She had shiny dark hair in a loose ponytail and a shotglass in her hand; as Dot watched, she knocked it back and slid the glass back across the counter. "Another one," she said.

"Hard day at work?" the bartender said, with obvious sarcasm.

"Yeah, you could say that." The woman knocked the next shot back as soon as she had it in hand.

"You're gonna have one hell of a hangover," the bartender said. Another customer called out and he walked away. The woman rolled her empty glass back and forth between her fingers.

The news had returned to the same grainy footage of the Tick and Arthur. Dot wondered why they bothered to keep playing it. The dark-haired woman looked up at it and grimaced. Dot saw her face in profile.

"Bartender," the woman said. Dot bit her lip.

"Hey," she said. The woman looked at her, frowning a little. Dot smiled at her. "Can I buy you something to eat?" She nodded at the bar's underwhelming food menu, up on the wall behind the counter. "They have some pretty good poutine here."

The woman raised her eyebrows. "You come here a lot?" she said.

"Sometimes," Dot said.

The woman stared at her for a few seconds, with a furrowed brow and an intense expression. Dot stared back. Just as she started to worry that she'd overstepped, the woman shrugged. Her frown slid away. "Well, if it's that good," she said. She glanced at the menu, then back at Dot. "I guess I should try it."

Dot felt herself grinning. "Yeah," she said. She turn on her stool toward the bartender. "Hey, can I get an order of poutine?"

It took time for the food to arrive. The woman ordered a beer and sipped at it as she studied the TV. The news had moved on to cover Superian's disappearance, a national story.

"Fucking superheroes," the woman said.

"I take it you're not a fan," Dot said. The woman shrugged.

"Eh, I go back and forth," she said. "Sometimes I think they're cool. Some days..." She shook her head and sipped her drink. "What about you? Are you a fan?"

"It's... very complicated," Dot said. She couldn't imagine summing up her feelings on superheroes in a single sentence, or even a paragraph. The woman nodded sagely.

"I'm Miranda, by the way," she said. She extended her hand.

"Dot." They shook hands. "Nice to meet you."

The poutine arrived. Miranda tried it and agreed with Dot that it tasted pretty good, although she didn't have many other examples of poutine to compare it with.

"You know," she said, as the nightly news circled back around to local events, "they're just so hard to avoid." She gestured at the recent photos of the Tick and Arthur on the screen. "Superheroes, I mean. Everywhere you go—every major city—there they are."

"Not here," Dot said. Miranda sideways at her and raised her eyebrows. "Have you lived here long?" Dot said. She didn't want to explain recent history to someone who knew it as well as she did. Miranda shook her head.

"Just moved in," she said. "But I've heard. You didn't have superheroes for a long time."

"We lost our team," Dot said. She pushed away the terrible memories, the personal edge. She could be just another citizen griping about the loss of the Flag Five, if she wanted to. Miranda didn't know her as Dot Everest, the girl with the dead father, and Dot wanted to keep it that way. "Then we didn't have any for years. Until the—until they showed up." She gestured to the TV.

It was still strange, if she stopped to think about it, that Arthur of all people had somehow become one half of the city's newest superhero team. Then again—as Arthur often reminded her—she was a Category and a vigilante herself, and she worked with Overkill on the regular. Life was strange.

"Do you think you're better off?" Miranda said. "Having superheroes again?"

Dot looked up at the TV again. She saw a reporter interviewing the Tick and Arthur, just outside AEGIS headquarters. Arthur answered the reporter's questions; the Tick bounced on the balls of his feet in the background, obviously impatient. Arthur answered one last question—"We're doing everything we can with the information we have—" and turned back to say something to the Tick, something that wasn't subtitled. The Tick gave him a thumbs-up. Arthur returned the gesture. Dot could see him smiling.

"Yeah," she said. "I think we're better off."

Miranda ate another french fry. "So you've lived here a while," she said.

"My whole life," Dot said. "You?"

"Oh, I've lived all over," Miranda said. "I do a lot of traveling for work." She sipped her drink. "I grew up in LA, though."

"Wow," Dot said. She had visited LA once before, as a very small child. She remembered almost none of it. "Did you like it there?"

"Yeah," Miranda said. "I thought I would stay there, but my sister..." She trailed off. For a moment Dot worried they had stumbled into something painful. Then Miranda smiled, staring off into space. "My sister always wanted to leave. And then she did, right out of college. I followed her." She shrugged. "I've never regretted it."

"That's great," Dot said. "I don't know if I could ever leave the city."

"Do you have any siblings?" Miranda said. Dot made sure not to look at the TV.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I—I have a brother. He's—" Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Dot ignored it. "He lives here, too."

"That's cool," Miranda said.

Dot's phone buzzed again, three times in rapid succession. "Who is texting me," Dot said, half to herself and half to Miranda. She dug her phone out of her back pocket and checked the display.

"It's not your boyfriend, is it?" Miranda said, laughing. Dot smiled and shook her head, but her smile died as she checked the new messages. All five of them were from Overkill.

Steve 2
you need to leave the bar right now

Steve 2
you're in danger. it's the diesel crew

Steve 2
they're going to kill you

Steve 2
i don't have time to explain but they're headed your way. i'm enroute but i'm not going 
to get there in time

Steve 2
DOT GET OUT OF THERE

"It's..." Dot shook her head. "I'm sorry, I—I have to go."

"Oh, shit," Miranda said. "It is your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," Dot said. "It's—" She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the bar, at the empty doorway. Adrenaline roared through her. "I'm sorry. It's complicat—"

The door to the bar opened. A man in black with a gun walked in. He went up to the bar. He pressed his gun to the back of Dot's head and pulled the trigger.

Dot blinked.

The door to the bar opened. Dot turned her head and saw a man wearing all black. He walked toward her with his hands held at his sides. Dot looked at Miranda. "I'm really sorry," she said.

The man raised his gun. Dot turned around, grabbed his arm, and disarmed him in one swift motion. She twisted his arm back away from her. He yelled in pain. Someone else screamed.

The door slammed open. Dot looked up in time to see four more gunmen coming toward her. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She twisted the first guy around in front of her, a human shield. The guns fired anyway.

She abandoned her hostage and ducked under the nearest table. She knocked the table over in a clumsy movement and took out one of the men—two of them. A gun fired and Dot ducked down behind the table. She didn't see the bullet in her mind's eye. Instead she heard a man scream. She saw a gun go flying across the floor. She slid out from behind the table and grabbed it, then retreated.

She heard the one remaining gunman swear. She popped up from behind the table, aimed at him, and fired. The bullet didn't hit. The man ducked for cover anyway. Dot dropped back behind the table.

She heard someone moving behind her and whipped around, ready to shoot. She saw Miranda walk past her, into the center of the bar, holding a gun ready in front of her. She passed out of Dot's view. Dot heard furniture bounce across the floor—then a single gunshot. The man screamed. Dot peeked up over the edge of her table and saw him clutching his hand. She saw a gun on the floor. Blood everywhere. Miranda grabbed a beer bottle from the booth table next to her and smashed it over the guy's head. He went down hard.

The table lifted and fell again, almost crushing Dot. She rolled out of the way and saw another of the gunmen standing up—one of the men she had knocked over. The man raised his gun, aiming at the back of Miranda's head—

Dot leapt up and clubbed him in the back of the head with her gun. The man went down hard. Miranda spun around, her gun ready, pointing past Dot to cover her flank. They stood face-to-face, inches away, staring at each other. The bar had emptied when the fight began.

Miranda lowered her gun. She brushed her hair back over her shoulder. It had come loose in the fight. She had such dark eyes, such a lovely face. She had saved Dot's life.

Dot felt her chest heaving from the sudden exertion, the adrenaline, the fear, and something else. Miranda looked much calmer.

"These guys are from the Diesel Crew," she said.

"Yeah," Dot said. Her eyes caught on Miranda's freckles.

"You knew they were coming?" Miranda said.

"Yeah. K—kind of." Dot adjusted her grip on the gun in her hands. It wasn't hers. She didn't want it. "I had a warning."

"Are there more?"

Dot looked at the bar door. One of its hinges had snapped. "I don't know," she said. "I don't think so."

Miranda broke eye contact. She moved around Dot and walked back to the bar. It was riddled with gunshots. The TV had a bullet lodged in it. Its image had dissolved into fractured colors. Miranda set her gun down on the counter and picked up the closest drink—Dot's grapefruit beer, still half-finished. She took a long drink.

"Hell of a night," she said, contemplatively.

"I'm really sorry," Dot said.

"Yeah," Miranda said. "Me too."

Overkill would be there any minute. He'd kick down the door and rush in to rescue Dot from a threat that no longer existed. "I should go," Dot said. Miranda looked back at her. Their eyes met again.

"You have somewhere safe to go?"

"Yeah," Dot said. "I'll be fine."

Miranda stared at her a few seconds longer. Then she pulled a pen out of the pocket of her sweatshirt and scribbled something on a napkin.

"Here," she said. She held the napkin out to Dot. Dot took it. Their fingers brushed against each other and Dot felt a jolt of phantom electricity under her skin. "In case you need help. Or anything else."

Dot looked down at the napkin. It had a name, Miranda Li, and a phone number.

A siren wailed down the street. Miranda raised her eyebrows. "The cops will be here soon."

"Right." Dot stuffed the napkin in her pocket and headed for the back door. She knew the building opened out into the alleyway. She could meet up with Overkill there. "Thank you. For everything."

"Hey," Miranda said. Dot looked back just in time to see her wink. "I'm only one call away."

Dot left the bar with a smile on her face.

⁂

"Someone on the Diesel Crew must've done their research," Overkill said. "Figured out Arthur Everest had a sister. They went after you to try and get to him."

Dot leaned back against Dangertable and studied the security footage Dangerboat had pulled from the bar's cameras. The video quality was terrible, but she could make out the general movement of the fight. She could see just what Miranda had done to help her.

"Did you tell him?" she said, still looking at the footage.

"I told him you're in a secure location," Overkill said.

"He means me. I'm the secure location," Dangerboat said, sounding proud.

"Wait, you didn't tell him I was in danger?"

"I didn't have time. I barely had time to get you the message before they got there." Overkill folded his arms. "You should have cut and run as soon as you saw it."

"Yeah, well, I was kind of in the middle of something."

"Right. About that." Overkill paused the security video. It froze on a grainy frame of Dot and Miranda standing face-to-face just after the fight. Miranda still had her gun extended, ready to fire. "What did you say to her?"

"What do you mean?" Dot said.

"I mean, what did you tell her?" Overkill growled. "Your name? Your Category? Did you mention me or Dangerboat?"

"No," Dot said. "I—I told her my name was Dot and that I've lived here all my life. That's all."

Overkill let out a long sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We were just talking," Dot said. "I didn't know who she was!"

"This is why we don't go out and mingle," Overkill said. He said the word mingle with the same disgust a normal person might use for murder.

"I don't see why it's such a big deal," Dot said. "Just because you're a paranoid disaster—"

"That woman is an AEGIS agent," Overkill snapped. Dot frowned.

"How do you know?"

"I was an AEGIS operative for years," Overkill said. "I know what their fighting style looks like. She's not just an agent, she's a combat operative. She might have been shadowing you."

"I don't think she was shadowing me."

"Why not?"

"Well, she was getting drunk when I met her," Dot said.

"That could have been a ruse."

Dot rolled her eyes. "Okay, well, she also gave me her number." She dug the napkin out of her pocket and held it up for him. "Name and all."

Overkill stared at the paper. His bright cybernetic eyes always looked like they were open just a little too wide. "Give me that," he said, and made a grab for it. Dot was just quick enough to dodge him.

"No!"

"You cannot call that number," he said.

"Why not?"

"You know why not," he growled. "The instant you call that number, AEGIS will have a wiretap on you. And then we really will have to go to Cuba."

Dot rolled her eyes again. She knew in the corner of her mind that he had a point, that even if AEGIS wasn't totally evil, they couldn't be trusted in full. Dangerboat, at least, was still a fugitive from the government. But the more spontaneous part of her didn't want to give up the first chance for a relationship that she had had in a long time.

"Arthur is with AEGIS," she said. She folded the napkin up and put it back in her pocket. "I talk to him all the time."

"Arthur isn't an agent," Overkill said. "He's a superhero. He works with AEGIS, not for them. It's different. And if he had to choose between you and AEGIS, he would choose you. Every time." He gestured toward the security footage, toward the image of Dot and Miranda. "Can you say the same about her?"

Dot didn't call the number that night, or the next night, or the next. Even setting her own safety aside, she couldn't put her friends in danger of being discovered by AEGIS. They had a case to follow up on, anyway, so she pushed the bar encounter to the back of her mind and focused all her energy on catching the Diesel Crew. But she kept the napkin. And she made a note to herself, on a sticky note by the sink in her apartment, to ask Arthur someday if he knew of an AEGIS agent named Miranda Li.

⁂