That's Rough, Buddy

== July 4th, 2020 - Hana’s Apartment below the community center ==

Loud punk music played from a speaker in the garage section of the base below the center. Hana’s bike sat in one area, with the rest of the left side taken up by big pieces of metallic armor, lots of assorted wires and components, and a rocket hammer. Hana sat at a table, a scowl on her face as she soldered some pieces to a circuit board. Working on the armor was something she could focus on. It was helping. Mostly.

She scooted away from the table, sitting on a rolly stool, and booted up a computer the circuit board was plugged into. It was also connected to the main exo-frame of the armor, though with all the bits and pieces taken off so it was sort of a skeletal frame at the moment. The joints and hydraulics of it were giving her problems, so she’d replaced a couple capacitors to see if that would help. Once it got going, she kicked off a test. One of the limbs moved, slowly, then made a loud ‘pop’ noise and fell. Hana growled and kicked a hunk of metal, making a big dent. “Crap. What the heck is wrong now?” she held her face in her hands for a few moments before looking back up. She knew someone that was good with robots. Heck, he lived with two and was friends with a third.

Hana rolled over to the table and picked up her phone, sending a very quick text to Bolt.

`*The gyro’s busted and it won’t move right!*`

She sent it, not quite realizing it was lacking context.

Roof-hopping was considerably harder without the help of a robot designed specifically for roof-hopping, but it's not like Mel let that stop him *before* he built Lugnut. It was a good distraction, and he had never been more in need of a distraction.

He was consulting (read: arguing) with Wingnut about the angles of a probably too-ambitious jump when his phone buzzed. His heart lurched and he stopped mid-sentence to fumble his phone out of his pocket. He had a split second of disappointment when he saw it wasn't Faith, but it quickly faded as he actually took in what he was looking at.

"Thank god," he said out loud, angling his phone to show Wingnut. "A problem I can solve." Under his breath, he added, "And a friend that doesn't hate me," as he typed out a response.

''I'm gonna assume you're having robot problems and I'm omw w the geek squad.

"Beak squad?" he mused to himself. "Is that anything?"

Wingnut pecked him.

"Ow! Okay, whatever, let's just go. I think we're pretty close to the community center."

Not long later, Mel slid in through the entrance to Shade's apartment base and yelled over the music, "Beak squad's here!"

Hana looked up from the monitor, blinking at the sight of Mel sliding in from the elevator. She chuckled, turning down the music and heading over to meet him.

“Hey, Mel. Nice to see ya, been a little bit. How ya doing? Want anything? I got like...uh, definitely water, I’m pretty sure there’s some soda in the fridge. Hey Wingnut,” she said, a small smile on her face.

"Hi, Hana," Mel chirped back, holding out a hand for a fist bump. Wingnut alighted from his shoulder and flew over to perch on Hana's, running her beak through her hair.

Mel ran a hand through his hair and gave a stilted laugh. "I'm, uh, y'know. Still alive, so that's pretty good. That's a big plus." He offered her an awkward grin.

His entire expression changed as he caught sight of the exo-suit frame behind her. His eyes widened and his mouth opened in an expression of awe. "Dude, is this your robot?" He scurried past Hana over to the frame and started inspecting it. "Holy shit! This is *so cool*! Where did you get this?"

Hana’s smile grew some as Wingnut hopped over to her shoulder, giving her wings some scritches. Her other hand returned the fistbump. “Yeah, that’s good, being alive and stuff. Me too,” she said, chuckling. Hana had a bit of a distance in her eyes as she spoke, mostly there but her mind was elsewhere too.

When Mel shot past her to the garage, she chuckled again, turning to follow him back there with Wingnut. “Yeah, it’s not quite like Wingnut or whatever where it’s like, it’s own thing, but yeah. Robot stuff.” She sat back on her rolly stool. “Sledge salvaged some stuff from the old League of Heroes base and told me about it, so I went with her to get some more stuff. Temperance helped me a bunch with getting it into some kind of usable form, and I used some other tech nabbed from Bishop and other places. There’s...uh...it’s not really an everyday kind of thing, cause like, the power source is unstable. It kinda drains energy from the person using it, but then it amps up your powers by like, a ton. Oh, and the rocket hammer, which is just like, the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.”

Mel pushed himself up on his tip-toes, nodding along to Hana's explanation as he peered into the interior of the suit. "Okay, yeah, that's definitely risky but as long as you're monitoring the--did you say rocket hammer?!"

He whipped around so fast he lost his balance and had to catch himself on the frame and gave Hana a wide-eyed pleading look. "Show me the rocket hammer. *Please* show me the rocket hammer, I need to see it more than I've ever needed to see anything in my life."

Shade gets a big grin and stands up quickly, heading behind the frame and piles of armor. She lifts something up and comes back around, holding a large steel rod that had a large head of a hammer, flat in the front with a bit of a taper coming around the back where four outputs for the rocket boosts were. It had a big handle with a trigger on the front, and a grip at the balance point. “Hehe, here it is. Uh, hm, it has to be used with the full suit to like, actually be powered and do a rocket smash, but like, it’s still a big freakin hammer,” she said, taking a hold of it. She took it by the handle and swung it around, hitting a makeshift practice pad that was several mattresses bungied together and looked in bad shape, presumably from lots of hits from the hammer.

“It’s really cool, Sledge and Temperance only want me to take it out if it’s necessary though, with the way it drains your energy. Like, last resort kinda thing. I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to route the power and use a different source but now I got it all messed up and can’t even put it back together the way it was,” she said, her grin turning into a grumpy look at the frame.

"*Holy shit*," Mel breathed reverently. "Your super-mom gets you the best shit."

He turned back to the frame as Hana started explaining her problem, frowning thoughtfully. "Okay, you said there was a problem with the gyro, right? Lemme see if I can figure out what's up." He stepped back up to the frame and laid a hand on it. Wingnut flew up to perch on the suit's shoulder. Lines of purple light extended from his hand across the surface of the suit, and after a few long moments retreated back as Mel took his hand off and started groping around blindly behind him.

"I think I found it, it's not *broken*, but the alignment's all off, hold on--" he chattered as he finally found a wrench and wedged himself half inside the frame to root around with it. After a minute, he wriggled back out, absentmindedly shoving the wrench into his back pocket and brushing his hands off. "There!" he said with a grin. "Try it now."

“Super mom?! I, that, it, no, that’s not,” she sputtered out as Mel turned to the suit. Hana tilted her head to watch as Mel checked it out, jamming himself inside some to fix the thing. As he came out, she nodded and moved back to sit at the computer, typing in some to test it. “I swear if I just missed something easy I’m gonna...ugh,” she grumbled to herself, hitting ‘enter’ and turning to watch. The arm lifted, turning on the various points of articulation, then extended out fully before coming back to rest.

“Heck yeah! Dang thing has been nagging me all day. Thanks, dude. I got all the like, concepts and crap but little things have been getting me the whole time, I’m way better if I just gotta code or hack into something. Everything look, like, okay in there? Anything standing out like a big obvious mistake in like, the connections or how things are tuned? Wouldn’t be surprised if I effed that up too...” she said to him. The last sentence drifted off quieter as she said it, looking back to the screen to check diagnostics.

"Huh? No, you didn't fuck anything up." Mel wandered over to lean against the table next to her, gesturing at the suit. "There was something wrong with the joint - everything was fine, then when it started moving it popped the gyro out of alignment and the whole thing broke down. I wouldn't've noticed if I wasn't, y'know - " he waggled his fingers. "All up in there."

He looked at the screen, idly looking over the code without really processing any of it. "So, uh, what else have you been up to? It's been a while since we've like, hung out." He punched her lightly on the shoulder.

She nodded, sighing. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks again. With that in place it shoooouuuld be back to where it was before? At least working,” she said, using her foot and spinning the stool to face him as she looked up to him. “Uh, a lot. Kinda? Not really, I guess...Like, mostly not much, except for a few days where it was a lot. Been, uh, trying to deal with some heavy stuff that’s happened. Like, brain heavy, not physically heavy. If it was physically heavy I wouldn’t have a problem, cause like, strong and stuff. Yeah. Uh, a lot happened in the last month.”

Mel let out a short bark of laughter without meaning to. "Yeah, if only all our problems were physically heavy, right?"

He hopped up to sit on the table next to her, swinging his legs. He bumped one against her side. "You wanna talk about it?"

Hana chuckled. “Yeah, that would be awesome, just lift the problems away,” she said, looking to him as he hopped up and bumped against her. She sighed, then looked up at the ceiling. “Which one? There’s a few of them.” It had been a long month for the girl.

Mel snorted. "Oh, mood, dude. It's been a real time lately." He hummed and leaned back on his hands. "Any of them. All of them. Whatever you feel like."

Hana sighed and stood up from the stool. “If we’re gonna be talking about feelings and crap, I feel like I should be on a couch. C’mon, the lounge has a comfy one,” she said, nodding in the direction, then heading that way. Through the main part of the base where the planning table and supercomputer were, to the other side where the apartment rooms she lived in were. She came into the lounge area where the couch, tv, and her drums were, and fell into the couch to sit in one of the ends.

“Uh, okay. So, like, uh, crap, it has been a while. Uh, did you know I went on a date with Hayeli?”

Mel hopped off the table and followed Hana into the lounge, leaving Wingnut to inspect the garage on her own. He flopped down onto the other end of the couch and immediately flipped around to hook his legs over the top. He paused for a moment to think back, then brightened in comprehension. "Oh yeah! I remember seeing you talk about dating a merc on chitter. And like, how many *other* mercs do we know that you had a crush on?"

He looked at her with concern. "How'd it go? She didn't turn on you or anything, right?"

Hana looked away, some red appearing on her cheeks. “I, that, it, that was hypothetical, duh, and I didn’t like have a crush or whatever, just like, it, I, anyway.” She shook her head. “No, no, not at all. It went really well, like, it was really fun and she was great and like, we talked for a while and kis-uh, kicked ass at video games, that’s what I was saying, and like, yeah, it was a really good time. We texted for a while after up until the day all the crap went down across the city. I texted her after getting done kicking Cheeser’s ass and she responded, but that’s the last I’ve heard from her. Sledge said she might have ghosted me and like, I guess that’s technically possible but I don’t think that’s what happened, I’m worried something went down on a job or something and something happened to her or something.”

Mel frowned, drumming his fingers against the edge of the cushion. "I mean, that doesn't *sound* like she ghosted you, unless she was being weird while you were texting her." He chewed on his lip thoughtfully. "Is it possible she's, like, undercover or something? Or maybe she had to get rid of her phone and forgot to give you her new number?"

“Yeah, right?” she said, looking over to him, excitement in her voice. “That’s what I’m saying! She’s a merc, like, who knows what happened? Ugh, it sucks. So, like, that happened. Then I called my mom and that was a whole thing, then Sledge and I interrogated Smokescreen to find out how he hired a merc and set up a breakout from inside prison, then Father’s Day, really that whole weekend was just a lot. Oh, and Flex Girls won a battle of the bands and stopped a dude embezzling from a school, so that was pretty good,” she said, all of it coming out once she got going.

"Okay, that last one sounds cool, good job, but wait, hold on--" Mel contorted himself so he was propped up on the couch facing her with his legs still hooked over the edge. "You talked to Smokescreen? And is there shit going on with *your* parents, *too*?"

Hana glanced over, seeing his sitting position and figuring it must be comfortable if he was in that contorted state. “Yeah. Well, parent. Well, parents. I guess. Kinda? Like, ugh, I called my mom cause I was worried about her and we hadn’t spoken in months and I wanted to make sure she was like, alive after all that stuff went down, and she just kinda made me feel bad about not being sure what I’m doing with myself and said crappy stuff about Sledge and Big Team. Then like, on Father’s Day I was at the base with Ophy, Kurt, and Ernest, and GAIA asked us to deliver some presents to some people, Cyclone and apparently some person that made them, like, the AI part of them, not their bodies or whatever. So we dropped off Cyclone’s present then went to the next one and it was a cemetery and GAIA didn’t tell us who, we just had a note in binary and I translated it and was like ‘no way’ so we found the grave and it said ‘Lewis Kerrigan’ and like he died when I was three and I think it’s my dad and GAIA might be like, my half sibling kinda sorta?” she said, starting calmly but getting louder and more ranty as she went on, falling back onto the couch once she ran out of words to say. “And I don’t know what to do about any of it.”

"*Damn*, dude," Mel said with feeling, finally twisting around to sit properly and face Hana with one leg drawn up on the couch. "That's a lot. Okay, so, first of all--" He held up one finger. "Fuck your mom. That sucks. You're kicking ass and she doesn't know what she's talking about." He reached out and lightly punched her on the shoulder.

"As for the dad thing…" He blew out a long breath. "I mean, what do you *want* to do about it? Do you want to go find answers? I can help you go find answers. They're out there somewhere. Even if you don't wanna talk to your mom--and believe me, I get not wanting to talk to you mom--GAIA might know somebody, or know somebody who knows somebody, or I bet there are records we could find that could give us a lead, or--" Mel cuts off his rambling with a sheepish grin. "The point is, if you want to know more, we can figure it out. Or, hey, if you don't want to, or you're not ready, or whatever… you don't actually *have* to do anything."

He nudges her shoulder again with a sly grin. "It'd be pretty cool to be related to GAIA, though, right?"

Hana turned her head slightly away from looking at the ceiling to look at him, eyebrow raised as he started going through all the stuff she’d blurted out. “Yeah...I guess, she’s just like, ugh,” she said, not knowing what else to say about her mother. She nodded, looking back with a small smile. “Yeah, I do wanna find answers. I wanna know who he was, if he was actually my dad, why the heck my mom never said anything, if he really made GAIA and like, if we’re siblings, kinda, like, yeah. I want to. Really bad.” She chuckled when he nudged her, turning to give him a light shove, though her light shove pushed him to the other end of the couch.

“Yeah, it would. GAIA’s awesome. They might have some leads, they mentioned, but like, there’s some kinda lock on some of their memory and programming or something. I offered to help them look into it. I’m sure there’s other stuff we can find though.” She grinned at him. “Probably could find some places to check out, even if they wouldn’t really want us in there, huh?”

Hana's shove sent Mel sprawling back against the other arm of the couch and he grinned at her. "Hell yeah, dude! We'll get you those answers." As she referred to breaking in, his grin faded and he curled up into a ball tucked into the corner of the couch.

"Okay, so," he said awkwardly. "First of all, I promise I'm gonna help you, like, whatever it takes. If breaking in somewhere is the only way to get answers, then absolutely. I'm there. But, uh," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm trying to do less… y'know, crime. Because Director Hussain might throw me and-or Smoke in superjail, and also my sister might tell my parents that I've been doing Big Team stuff, and… yeah." He flashed her a quick grin. "But it's fine! I'm sure we can find ways to get answers that aren't flagrantly illegal, and if we can't… well, this is important."

Hana puts her hands up and waves them in a fluster. “Oh! Like, yeah, no, I was just, like, kinda joking since we’d already done a lot of uh, legally gray stuff. Yeah. Uh, if you’re worried about all that we don’t have to push it super hard. I don’t want you to be in super jail, or Mr Ribaldi. That would suck. Or your parents finding out. Yeah, no, we can do this in a not crimey way. Sledge was kinda pissed at me after finding out about the whole super jail break in anyway, and AEGIS people were giving me all kinda looks when we were there for Smokescreen.”

Mel let out a long sigh of relief and reached out to nudge Hana's leg with his toe. "Great," he said with a tentative smile. "Look at us. The tech gremlins, going legit. Who would've thought. Cypher would be so proud."

She chuckled. “Not like, totaaallly legit, I still hack stuff, just like, you know, not jumping right into that if I don’t gotta. Trying to make better decisions and stuff. But like, yeah. Gotta be superheroes and junk” she said, laughing after. “I’ll see what info GAIA can potentially give me and talk with them more before I jump right into crime options. Path of least resistance,” she said, the last part mostly to herself, remembering what Sledge had told her.

“Yeah, I guess that’s kinda all that’s going on with me. Lots of family stuff, Hayeli stuff, just stuff I can’t really do anything about and gotta wait and it’s pissing me off cause I’m worried and angry and just...ugh…”

"Yeah, I totally get you. It's been a real month for both of us, huh? But hey!" Mel reached out and punched her shoulder again. "It'll all work out. If anyone can work this shit out, it's you. And *whatever* happens, you won't have to go it alone."

“Heh, thanks, dude. I figure it’s gonna work out, just like, hard to just sit here and think about it. I wish I could just punch something and then the problem was gone. Problems you can punch are great! But yeah, like, I appreciate it. Uh, does that like, uh…” she muttered, face getting a little red as she glanced away. “Does that mean like, we’re friends or whatever?”

Mel startled upright, looking a little hurt. "Of course we're friends! Were we not--did you not think we were friends? I thought with like, the mall stuff, and *especially* after the radio show stuff and everything after that--" He cut himself off and shifted over closer to Hana and bumped his shoulder against hers. "You're the best, dude. Of course we're friends."

She grimaced and put her hands up to rub down her face as her cheeks got redder. “I, it’s not, that, I, it, like, you’re great and I thought you were but I got a hang up with like, being worried people are only there cause they gotta be or like, you know? Just cause I think you’re my friend doesn’t mean you do and I don’t wanna assume then have you be like ‘oh no way you punch and hack and that’s it’ or like, you know? Ugh, sorry.” She sighed, but a smile returned as he scooted closer and bumped against her. “Okay. Cool. Ugh, I’m an idiot. I did the same thing to Atlanta when she hung out here. Yeah. Definitely friends. Awesome,” she said, looking up and over to him quickly. “Crap, I’ve been blabbering on and just like, making you listen and stuff, what’s going on with you?” She turned to sit on her folded leg, pointed toward him on the couch, staring intently and ready to listen.

"Yup. Hundred percent, totally friends. BFFs for forever." Mel gave her a goofy grin.

He let out a long, blustering exhale, then flopped over to lay on his back with his legs hooked over the arm of the couch and his head on Hana's knee. "Honestly, what *hasn't* been going on with me," he drawled. He held his hands up and counted off on his fingers. "Well, real quick, Lugnut is still gone, Faith won't talk to me, Ernest hates me, my parents might be supervillains, and my boyfriend's killed people." He paused. "Um, I probably wasn't supposed to say that last one."

Hana nodded as he explained, eyes getting a bit wider with each one. “Dang. That’s a lot, man. Uh, like, I’m still super sorry about Lugnut. I’m sure you’ll be able to get him back soon.” She tilted her head after saying that part. “Okay, important stuff first. Why do Ernest and Faith hate you?”

Mel took a deep breath in and out. "Okay. Yes. Okay. So." He sighed. "So, basically, Faith and I kissed the same guy, and I kissed him second, so they're both mad at me." He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Tadd told me he kissed Faith, but I thought he was just worried *I* would be upset? And I don't care who he kisses, so I was like hey, no problem! But *then* I told Ernest about it, and he punched me, and he told me I had to tell Faith, and I've been trying to talk to her about it but she won't answer my texts and now she's in Australia and I don't think Ernest wants to be my friend anymore." He tilted his head back to give Hana a pitiful look.

Hana frowned slightly, leaning her hand over to give him a shoulder pat as lightly as she could, trying to be very aware of her strength. “That is rough. Jeez. Uh, like, so, did this Tadd dude clear it with Faith that he’d be doing stuff with other people? Cause like that’s kinda important too. Like, it sounds like you were just told “hey i’m like, polyam or whatever is that cool” and you were like “yeah i’m cool with that dude my bro” or something, or like, whatever guys say when they kiss. And like, that seems fine? So it sounds like it’s a thing where they just need to hear what’s going on and people can like, get on the same page or whatever. But like, I’m sure they’re not gonna pissed forever. Who would wanna be pissed forever? Okay well I’m pissed at something like most of the time but like, not in a ‘you’re dead to me’ kinda way, just like in general at the world.”

Mel lets out a frustrated sigh. "I mean, I *assumed* he'd cleared it with her, but I guess not, because if she was okay with it I dunno why she'd be ghosting me." He scrubbed his hands over his face. "It was my fault. He specifically told me he kissed Faith and I should've like… I dunno, told him to back off until I'd talked to her or something." He sighed again. "I hope you're right. I just wanna apologize and be friends again." He paused. "Also, Box made a flowchart for how I'm supposed to solve my problems, and Faith is step one, and it's stressing me out being stuck at step one, on top of being stressed out because. Y'know. My friends hate me."

“Well, like, you know, that’s up to both people. If you like, trusted him or whatever, he should have said something first. I guess talking more is good, so like, might have been good to check first, or like, I dunno” She shrugged. “I don’t think you’re like, totally on the hook for it. This Tadd dude is too, more so cause he’s the one that kissed both of you and like, wasn’t clear about stuff.”

She blinked, tilting her head. “Who’s Box? If he makes flowcharts I don’t know if I trust him. Sounds super boring.” She frowned, leaning her head over to look down at him. “I don’t hate you, and we’re friends, I know we are cause we just said so.”

Mel smiled despite himself and reached back to bump his hand affectionately against her side. "Thanks, Hana." He paused. "Um, Box… well, he's the team medic. And like, I can't say he's *not* super boring. He's definitely a huge square. Like, he says he named himself after Pandora's box, but I'm not a hundred percent convinced that he's not also named after the fact that he's the squarest square to ever square." He laughed. "But, um, he's not all bad. Or even mostly bad. Like, we're friends now. He's Tadd's twin brother, and also I met his mom who apparently, like--" he cut himself off. "Okay, so, this part is kind of a whole lot," he said apologetically. "But basically, I met his mom, who used to be some kind of superhero *or* supervillain--we don't know which one--and she apparently used to know a whole bunch of other people who all also became superheroes or supervillains, including *my* parents. But she didn't know if my parents did or not, because they didn't keep up or whatever. And this was the same day I told Ernest about Tadd and he hit me, so I went to talk to Box when I got back to the base, and he told me about like, his childhood and shit, and also a little bit about Tadd, and then made a plan for how he was gonna help me solve my problems, and also his problems. It was actually really nice of him."

Mel tipped his head back to smile sheepishly at Hana. "So, yeah. That's… sorry, that's a lot."

Hana got a confused look on her face. “We have a medic?” she muttered to herself, then shook her head and kept listening. She nodded, then got confused again at the odd direction the story was taking. When he was done, she took a moment to think through. “Okay, so, you kissed Tadd, who is Box’s twin, and his mom is a superpowered person, who knows your parents that might be super people, then Ernest punched you, and Box gave you a flowchart to fix your problems. Got it.” She glanced down and smiled back. “You’re good! I like, rambled for a while about all my crap, s’only fair you get to do it too. Wait, so like, Tadd is your boyfriend, and he killed someone? Like, you just heard about it after the fact, or like, saw him do it?”

"Yeah, yeah, that's… basically it," Mel said. He bit his lip as Hana brought up Tadd again. "Okay, so… no, I don't think he's killed anybody *recently*, I'm pretty sure he hasn't. I definitely haven't seen him kill anybody, jesus, and actually that's probably the thing I'm, like, the *least* concerned about right now, and also I *definitely* wasn't supposed to tell you about this." He sighs. "I probably shouldn't go into it. 'Cause like, I love you and all, but Box definitely doesn't want people to know."

“Cool, okay, yeah. Uh, okay. Sure, like, don’t gotta go into that or whatever.” She nodded. Throwing all this crap at both of them right now? The world was definitely not being fair. “Well, like, you know, my girlf-girl person I went on a date with, that, yes, her, uh, she’s like, a merc, so you know, I’m cool. Yeah. Uh, okay, so like, you’re pissed cause you feel like you’re just waiting around too, huh? Uh, what’s something we can get done before the next thing? Like, you know, I feel like if we did something useful for solving our shit, it might help the useless feeling? You know? Like, I dunno, get ready to talk to Faith about it, or something?”

"Yeah, right, like I figure, it's not a big deal, 'cause you--also, with the murder--um. Yeah. Anyways." Mel blew a lock of hair out of his face. "The worst thing is that I totally *am* ready to talk to Faith. She just won't talk to me. And like, yeah, I get it, I didn't mean to hurt her but I *did*, and she's mad at me, but I want her to… not be," he finished lamely. "Is that selfish?"

“Well isn’t she still gone in like, New Zealand or whatever? It might be something better for in person. And like, just cause you have a flowchart that says Faith is first, like, you could go talk to Ernest before that and make things better with him. Nothing good ever comes from following a flowchart. Trust me.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not selfish. Like, you want things to be okay with your friends, and are gonna like, do stuff to make it okay. That’s not selfish. If you were selfish it would be like, just telling them to eff off and deal with it themselves.”

Mel sighed. "Yeah, she's in Australia still. I just hope when she gets back to Halcyon she won't keep avoiding me. 'Cause I don't think Ernest is gonna forgive me until I talk things out with Faith."

He whined and flipped over so he was face down on the couch, his voice muffled. "Maybe I should skip the friend-problems and go right to the parent problems."

“Ugh, parent problems suck. So, like, are you gonna just ask them ‘hey do you got superpowers?’ just like, directly? Or, or, you could avoid talking through your problems and just like, set something up where they’d have to use the powers if they had them! Like ‘oh no this bad dude is attacking, gosh parents whatever will we do’ and see what happens. I think that would totally work.”

Mel flipped back over to give her a bewildered stare and gesticulated wildly with both hands. "No! I can't go to them directly, are you crazy? What if they're supervillains? What if they're supervillains and they find out I'm on Big Team! I'm not nearly a good enough liar to pull that off." He pushed himself up into a sitting position and turned to face Hana, leaning against the back of the couch. "Box and I have a plan. There are a bunch of adult heroes that apparently knew both his mom and my parents. So we're gonna go around and talk to *them* and see if we can find anything out."

He hesitated, then reached over to flick her shoulder. "I dunno how much overlap there is, and Box really likes to keep things secret, but… if you want, I could try to talk him into letting you come? Maybe we can find answers about your dad, too?"

Hana blinked in confusion. “Then, like, we’ll just punch them or whatever. Oh, uh, I guess you probably don’t want to punch them. Maybe we can just go around punching each other’s parents!” she said, shrugging. “Are these bad ideas? I dunno, I’m just like throwing stuff out.”

She tilted her head back and forth. “Ehhh, maybe. I’ll help if you want me there. I don’t wanna intrude if this Box guy wants it to be all private and stuff. I definitely want to learn more about my dad, but I dunno if a bunch of adult heroes would know about him.”

"I mean, I guess if they're supervillains we *have* to punch them, but I don't want them to *know* that I know they're supervillains. Also, they might not be supervillains! They might be heroes! Or like, nothing! And I dunno what I want to do about any of those situations, so I'm gonna try to keep it a secret from them until I figure it out. But look--" Mel put a hand on Hana's shoulder. "If my parents need punching, you're the first person I'll call. And you *know* if your parents need punching, I'm there. That's what friends are for, right?"

He put his hands up in surrender. "All right, fair enough. If you don't think it'll be useful for you, you definitely don't have to go traipsing around the city talking to a bunch of old people with us. But if you want, I can ask if any of them knew… Lewis Kerrigan, right?"

“Ooohhhhh, yeah, okay, I guess that’s fair. Gotta be like, sneaky about it first, get all the info and everything. Yeah, makes sense.” She nodded, only partially understanding. She’d much rather solve it with punching. “Absolutely! Friends let their friends punch their parents if they deserve it,” she said, nodding emphatically.

“I, well, like, I dunno, it might be? I don’t know anything about him other than he died when I was three and he made most of GAIA’s core programming. He might not have anything to do with heroes and villains or whatever, he might just be some nerd! I guess if they do know something, that would be good to know. If you want me to come along and Box is fine with it I will, even if it’s just to like, back you up or whatever.”

"Maybe not, but you never know! The worst that happens is nobody's heard of him, and we're back to the same place we are now. Plus, y'know, I always feel better knowing you have my back. I'll talk to Box and see if I can convince him. And if I can't, well… I'll see what I can find out anyways." He smiled at her. "Thanks, Hana. For showing me your cool-ass robot suit and rocket hammer and, y'know, for talking. We should hang out more."

“Thanks dude, either way, I’m glad to have you like, trying to help with figuring it out. Finding out I even might have a dad to try to learn about was just a ton, let alone the whole GAIA part and being on the same weekend as the Smokescreen thing.” She shook her head, but glanced back up and grinned.

“Totally! You’re awesome, and like, hanging out is fun. If you don’t gotta hurry back you could help me reattach the plating and subframe to the skeletal exo-frame, if you want. Now that it’s working again I should probably put it all back together in case it needs to be used if like, a space dragon attacks or something. I would say you could try it out but like, I don’t want you to like, fall unconscious. It’s seriously a drain on you when getting in it.”

Mel jumped to his feet. "Oh, *hell* yeah, dude, let's robot it up." He got a glint in his eye. "And hey, if it's dangerous… we should probably do some tests, right? Just so we know the limits. Y'know. For safety. And no other reason."

“Well duh, of course we do,” she said, grinning as she stood up from the couch. “Let’s do this. Oh, the community center just got a delivery of supplies, we could, uh, take those to the dumpster for them and make sure the rocket hammer is working properly!” she said excitedly, taking off for the garage. The two got the suit working again and put together, then proceeded to smash several crates and milk cartons that Bolt tossed up into the air. For safety reasons.