B&E Squad

The quiet of Nat’s evening is suddenly interrupted by the doorbell ringing and simultaneous loud thudding from the front door. A second after this begins Michaela’s augmented voice can be heard, revealing the identity of the door’s attacker.

“Naaaat! Nat I have siblings! I need your heel-Ack Aethon! No!”

The pounding and doorbell hammering suddenly stops.

“Um.” The door opens to reveal Tanya Nixon, Nat’s mother, standing in the doorway. She raises an eyebrow at Michaela and Aethon. “Hello? Can I..help you?”

The door reveals Michaela chasing a fluffy white velociraptor through the snow in the front yard.

“No come back! It’s too cold for you out here! Argh! Why didn’t I bring any of your clothes! Yes! Hello! Is Nat home?!”

The very much not-dressed for the outside teen leaps forward and tackles the fleeing raptor which is chirping happily. She finally glances back toward the woman, still somewhat struggling with the energetic birblizard.

Tanya stares for a moment, taking in the way Michaela’s dressed as well as her...was that a *dinosaur?* “She’s home, yes - do you want to come inside? I’m Dr. Nixon, Nat’s mom.” She steps aside and gestures for Michaela to come into the house.

“Umm yes, thanks. I don’t mind the cold too much but Aethon’s cold blooded, so need to keep her warm.” Fussing over the little dino has evidently caused her to switch modes to caretaker for a moment suppressing her hyperactive teen energy. Once she has Aethon’s wings securely closed she hurries inside.

“I assume you’re from Big Team?” Tanya asks. Before Michaela can answer, she calls up the stairs, “Nattie! Sweetheart, you have a friend here?”

Nat pokes her head over the railing curiously and brightens when she sees Michaela and Aethon. “Oh! Hi, Michaela!” She starts down the stairs, clearly already having zeroed in on Aethon. “What’s up? Is something happening?”

“Nat!” she smiles up at the girl, until like a switch her whole demeanor energizes as she practically vibrates. “Right! Yes! I have siblings! I don’t know where they are and need help finding them!”

In startling, probably eerie unison, Nat and Tanya’s faces drop into identical expressions of deep concern. “Did someone take them?” Nat asks at the same time Tanya says, “Should I call the police?”

“Huh? What? Noooo! They’re...” she tucks Aethon under one arm and waves vaguely. “Out there… Somewhere. One might be an alien. Or magic probably.” she smiles, but then her brow furrows before eventually shrugging “I… hmm. I guess I don’t know \*why\* they left, just that dad said I’m his only kid?”

“So, like, half-siblings you’ve never met?” Nat looks relieved, but also deeply confused. “And you want to find them now? How did you find out about all this?”

Tanya touches Nat briefly on the shoulder and then retreats towards the back of the house. Nat nods after her mom and then turns back to Michaela.

“Yeah! Of course I want to find them! Wouldn’t you want to meet a sibling if you learned you had one?”

Nat nods. “Of course I would! I’d love to help you. Uh, I don’t know much about aliens or magic, though? What do you need my help with?”

“Oh uhh...” Michaela’s mouth hangs open with nothing coming out for a good 10 seconds before giving a nervous laugh “I guess I was just excited. Umm... how do you feel about breaking into some old villain lairs? There will probably be booby traps. Might also be some villains. Oh! We should get Maria in on this.”

Nat glances over her shoulder, down the hall where Tanya had gone. When she turns back to Michaela, her eyes are sparkling with mischief. “I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” she says seriously, her voice pitched low and quiet. “That includes, like, if those old villains still have people working in their lairs or something. But if we can do it without anything more serious than bumps and bruises, I am *so* in.” She breaks into a wide grin. “Michaela, this is *such a cool idea.”*

She already is texting Maria. “Yeah, I mean, there probably won’t be people there… I don’t know if some of them will even still be there but like… supers have all the best stuff, and I don’t know how else to find them. Aaaand sent.”

*‘Maria! Or whoever really! I have siblings and I need to find them. No they’re not in any danger. Me and Nat are going to go break into some old super lairs and try to… find some tech to track them down or something? Would love your help. M’*

Meanwhile in the haunted house

Maria grabs her phone “Oh, Elena, could you stop editing for a minute.”

Elena jumps up “Ya what’s up”

Maria grins “Me, you and Sapphire got to go help some kids do some crimes to look for missing siblings.”

Elena grabs Maria and they fuse “Perfect time to project my problems onto helping someone else.”

About a few minutes Later a motorcycle pulls up swerving in dramatically. They pull off their helmet and Sapphire grins “Heard you two wanted to do some breaking and entering, we’re down.”

“Hi!” By this point Nat was bundling herself up in a coat. She had already offered one to Michaela, as well as a too-small t-shirt she bought at summer camp four years ago to see if it would fit Aethon to keep her warm as well. “Um, little quiet around my parents, okay? They’re fine with the hero stuff, but my mom’s a doctor and it might cause problems for her if she knows I’m doing crimes? And my dad too, I guess. But! I told Michaela as long as we don’t hurt anyone I’m down. She’s looking for her siblings!”

Michaela while grateful for Nat’s offer hurries home to get changed and drop Aethon off with Diamantina. As much as she loved Aethon she was a handful and this *could* be dangerous. She leaps out the door, waving at Sapphire. “Yeah! I’m so excited! I always wanted siblings. Will we all fit on this?”

Sapphire openned the storage component of the motorcycle and tossed Nat a lesbian pride helmet and Michaela a pink one “Nice to meet you Nat, Carmen has said really nice things about you, I hear your the singing lesbian and disney fan, very fun.”

Fae tapped their bike and said “We’ll go do our heroic work of reuniting a family on this, there is enough room for three, I mean we’re three, like there is enough room for three bodies on this beauty, we could extend it, like we’re magic and know this baby inside and out but this should be fine.”

Sapphire looked over at the two of them, it was weird, were fae the adult in the room, they were like less then a year old, Welp, no reason to linger on that too much, fae asked “Where to first?”

Nat caught the helmet and beamed at Sapphire. “I’ve heard about you from Carmen, too!” She chirped, pulling it on. “She says great things about you. I’m excited to team up!”

Turning to Michaela, Nat continues, “Um, do you have any ideas where to start? Also, where do you wanna sit? Middle or back? I assume the driver has to sit up front, and I, uh, don’t exactly have a motorcycle license. Or any license.”

“Oh, you two hadn’t met? I thought everyone on big team knew each other!” Michaela looks at the helmet with a slight smirk, but pulls it on over her birdsnest of hair and buckles it up. “Me neither. I don’t mind, uhh. I guess I’ll go on the back? I can like… catch us if we fall then.”

When Sapphire asks where they’re going Michaela has another little blank moment. “Right uhh… So I know at least one of them must have been to dream land, or possibly other dimensions, most of them are probably on earth though. Although… actually most of the people who recognized me were from space or time somewhere else. I don’t think they’re all aliens though. How about… The Trapper, his lair was in North Downtown.”

Sapphire looked ecstatic that Carmen talked about them, the trio loved their unofficial little sister.  Fae got on Aphrodite, the bike, and said “I’ll drive, or Elena will anyway, this body will be driving.”

Sapphire giggled a little bit “No one is going to fall off, we’re the best at this stuff, you’ll be safe and we’ll get there fast, hopefully we’ll find some cool signs. Hitting up old friends of your dad's Michaela?”

Nat clambers on behind Sapphire. “We’ve, like, seen each other in passing at the base? But we’ve never really spent much time talking or anything,” she explains to Michaela. She scoots forward a little extra to try and make sure to leave space on the seat behind her. The only other time she’d been on a motorcycle had been with Atlanta, and she had held firmly around Atlanta’s torso then, but...was Sapphire cool with the hug approach? Should Nat grab her shoulders? “Um, how should I hold onto you?” She finally asks, nervous to make a bad impression.

Michaela shrugs, that was just how she thought about other people; she knew she was more or less indestructible, so if anyone got hurt she’d rather it be her.

“Yeah, dad didn’t like him very much, but he paid well so dad made his ‘perfect prey’ for him. Apparently he was really obsessed with ‘The Chase’ and kept track of lots of strange creatures. Seems like a good place to start.”

Michaela blinks at Nat’s question, not having mounted herself she hangs back a minute. She only really knew the one way for this to work, but maybe there was some kind of motorbiking trick.

Elena took over wanting a go on Aphrodite. There was a big smile on her face as she cheerfully assured the singing hero “Grab onto where you feel comfy, the most important thing is you are safe.”

Elena nods her head “He sounds like a real weirdo, might have to fight some weird experiments when we get in, let us take the lead and we can clear our anything that might pop out.”

“Okay,” Nat said, and hugged around Elena’s torso. Reassured that she wasn’t overstepping any boundaries, she held tight.

“He was a weirdo yeah, but I don’t know if he’d have any experiments? Lots of weird trophies probably.” Michaela climbs on behind Nat and snuggles up to her back. Yeah, this was what having friends was about, cuddles and accomplices.

“Well that was a bust. Who’d have thought the master trappers traps were so… simple. Maybe someone else took this place over?” The trophies had all still been there but… a sneeze wracks Michaela’s frame and she bends over again to try to shake the flour out of her hair.

Elena grinned “I would have never expected so many cooking based puzzles and traps, but luckily you all had a total master...sorry about the flour though, I got distracted….”

Her hands rested on her waist, she knew a lot of old people who totally could have been super villains in the 90s. Like in their 50s if they went to school with her but like, totally possibly still active at that time. Wait, she only knew that the Liminals became hot shots, well Hero One became Reaper One but that’s a whole other thing.

Elena pulls up her phone furiously goggling people from her mental phonebook while talking “Got any other suggestions Nat, Michaela?”

“Uh…” Nat shrugs, trying to pick some tried tomato sauce off her shirt. “I don’t know a ton about anyone who was active before I was? I just joined Big Team so I could get more practice controlling my powers, so like, I wasn’t really following heroes or villains or anything before then.”

“Mmm, maybe he changed career later in life. Cool to know where all the werewolves hang out in Halcyon tho, and who knew there was a Sasquatch accountant with a hidden office in the financial district?”

“That’s fair Nat. Hrmm, who else would have been keeping track of animal people in the Aughts… I think dad mentioned some kind of weird, underground dating thing he tried out once? What was it… Minglr?”

Maria opened their phone “I’ll look.”

They flipped through and suggested “I’d have mostly raided any place I thought was up for grabs but I think there was some Queen Bee girl, old Villain who had a base close to one of my secret hideouts, she had control over animals so she might have kept track of animal people? I think her name was like Madam Stinger, pretty basic.”

Maria hops onto the motorcycle and gets ready to drive them over to Madam Stringer’s joint.

Nat hops on behind Maria, holding securely again. “Not gonna lie, sounds like the place might be gross.” She makes a face. “Not a fan of bugs. Worth it if we find a lead, though.”

Michaela shrugged, it sounded as good a place as any to her. “Sure, lets go!”

Maria stumbled out of the hideout covered in honey “well...she sure did have a lot of honey just laying around, sorry about dropping that shelf down.”

Maybe they could go wash up at their abandoned warehouse before the next place, it was just like a little walk away but obviously the hunt was urgent.

“At least there weren’t bees?” Nat offered. Her hair, which she had braided before she got on the motorcycle to avoid too many tangles, was now more or less glued in place with honey. “It’s fine, I’m sure shampoo takes care of honey.” *I hope,* she thought.

“As long as your shower is nice and hot you should be okay. Hot water should do most of the work lowering the viscosity and diluting it enough for the shampoo to handle.” Michaela wasn’t too pleased to be covered in the thick, sticky substance but they were here trying to help her out so she couldn’t complain too much. “We should probably get cleaned up, we’re only going to make a mess...”

After a series of chaotic events the B&E Squad found themselves back at the big base, gathering their thoughts and what info they gained from their various breaking and entering adventures. Sapphire plopped down on the couch legs up on the leg “So, we did being gay and doing crime for a good reason, what did we learn today class?”

“Uh,” Nat starts, “Michaela’s dad’s dating app hookups from the aughts aren’t necessarily a good place to start?” Not that Nat could really talk about things from the aughts.

“Hey! Minglr had some very nice people working for them. They even offered us brownies!” Michaela retorts indignantly. She huffs and sips some water. “Why is being gay necessary to do crimes though? I… don’t really get what all the fuss is about relationships anyway.”

Sapphire musesed “They were very good brownies, I am glad Elena got the recipe off them, a lot of food based traps and people, you think your dad had a type?”

Fae move up and bit and said “Be Gay, Do Crime is a saying but it’s very nessary, for me personally.”

Sapphire leaned over, to Michaela “It’s super valid to not want relationships, not everyone is a ball of thirst like me and Elena and Maria.”

At the talk of relationships, Nat flushes a bit and waves her hand as if to sweep the topic aside. “It’s not about whether they were nice, I’m just saying, we kind of struck out-” Nat’s flush deepens. “I mean, um, we didn’t find anything about your siblings? Did either of you find any leads?”

“MY DAD DIDN”T DATE THEM ALL! Half of them were your suggestions anyway!” Michaela’s shout buffets the two other girls and from the noise breaks some of the contents of the cupboards. She sits back down with a huff, still kind of red-faced and a little sullen. “Sorry. I just don’t get it… and dad isn’t like that anyway. He’s never dated anyone while I’ve been alive and given that he messed with my genetics I was probably grown in a vat too.”

Sapphire sat up and gritted her teeth, looked like fae pissed off Michaela, wow, fae felt closer to Maria then ever, honestly didn’t feel that bad. Regardless, Sapphire didn’t want to actually upset her so fae slid over and said “I’m super sorry, I wasn’t grown at all, I just zapped into existence, life is weird.”

Fae pulls open a little Journal Elena keep for writing down food ideas and started to jot down leads they might have found “We tried to keep as much mental notes as we could, I think it wasn’t totally fruitless, Nat you can go over these and see if any seemed like dead ends but I think we got a bit of promise.”

Nat is totally unbothered by Michaela’s volume, and tosses her a sympathetic glance at the cracking noises from the cupboard. “Sorry,” she says, “I shouldn’t have joked about the Minglr thing. I didn’t mean to upset you. But sure, pass me the journal.”

After a quick perusal, Nat hums thoughtfully. “Looks like a lot of potential leads in space? Maybe we could look into records from people launching manned rockets in the past however many years, see if any of those projects connect back to your father?”

“No… it’s fine. Sorry for yelling.” she murmurs, pulling her knees up and hugging them to her chest. “I guess… it’s something that makes me stand out from others and since coming to Halcyon I just want to fit in.”

Her life had been weird enough up to this point… She eventually lets out a sigh and drops her legs to glance over at the journal.

“It’s not too surprising I suppose… my dad didn’t start making us until after he left villainy, so unless… hrmm, unless he needed help getting supplies or materials? He probably would have had most of what he needed from his active years, but he still would have needed an egg donor. Wait, would… could Diamantina be my mom?”

Elena tags in, a more sensitive touch was probably needed right now and Elena was the best at not walking on eggshells as much as she didn’t like that about herself. The girl nods her head. Elena explains “The team is allied with some dragons from space, we could ask Charity, Second and Closure if they could look into anything.”

Then the 50’s gal explained leaning in “If you want to talk about any of these feelings we’re here for you, we know all about feeling different. Gee, when I was around girls like me were so rare, well not  rare, just so well hidden I guess but anyway, you can talk to us if you want to explore any of that stuff. Like between the three of us we’re good at a lot of complex stuff.”

Then looking at the paper and looking directly at Michaela “I mean do you want her to be your mom cuz there's a difference in Egg Donor and mom? Also I think your dads the best lead for that one right, you could text him and ask or something?”

“I can talk about stuff like that too,” Nat offers. “My mom’s a doctor, so she’s always talking about how important it is to understand the different ways people feel so you don’t push yourself into situations you’re not comfortable with because you think you’re *supposed to,* or whatever.” She shrugs. It’s pretty clear most of what she just said was basically verbatim what her mother said to her. “You don’t have to know right away, obviously. But like, the background information is still good to have.”

She taps Fearless’s notebook again. “What all did your father say about how you were made, by the way? Did he make your siblings the same way? My parents couldn’t have kids the usual way ‘cause my dad’s trans, so they took some of his bone marrow and made stem cells from that and used those. You could probably use that method with all kinds of stuff?”

“Gahblubrglr. I don’t know!” MIchaela throws her arms into the air for exclamation. “Yeah I know the difference between mom and egg donor, I looked that stuff up a few years back once I was old enough to realize it was a possibility. It would be… strange. Dia has basically helped raise me like a mom, but it wasn’t really like that… she’s... she’s not emotionless, I know that, but she doesn’t show her emotions either. I guess it wouldn’t really change anything even if that was the case.”

She sighs, holding her head as if she could settle the storm of wild speculation and feelings that had been stirred up in the last few minutes. “Too much… what… somebody pick one thing to focus on please.” she pleads.

Elena offers a hug, her arms out to help the girl.  “Whatever you need Michaela, we can talk about your feelings about yourself or we can talk about this Dia or your siblings or drop everything and turn on Just Dance 2045.”

Nat nods encouragingly. “What Elena said.” She doesn’t seem too excited about Just Dance 2045, but doesn’t actually object.

“Uuuuuugh. Okay. I’m not gonna find my siblings tonight, that much is obvious. Dia is Dia, I can consider that on my own. What do you mean girls like you?” she looks over at Fearless, blinking for a few moments before spotting the hair. “Oh, hey Elena.”

Elena looked confused for a second and asked “Girls like me?”

Then quickly connected the dots “Trans girls, Lesbians, stuff like that. Of course we found each other like, ya know but it was a different time.”

She just kinda shrugs that off as a matter of fact before getting up to find the game “I think I got the year wrong, I just know EliZe pulled some Just Dance game from the future.”

Nat nods. “It’s way easier to be a lesbian now, from what I’ve heard,” she supplies. “Not to mention my dad. He always wanted a kid, and he probably wouldn’t have been able to have one - biologically, anyway - before the bone marrow thing got developed. And, like, he and my mom definitely could have adopted or used a donor or whatever, but I know he was really excited to be able to have a kid biologically.”

“Being gay. Right, that used to be a big deal.” she gives a vague nod. “I just… I dunno, I figured I’m a late bloomer or something, when did you all start liking that kind of stuff?”

Elena’s eyes were glowing with joy hearing about Nat’s dad. She says super happy and excited “That’s so amazing, I had done a lot of research but it’s so cool hearing about it in practical use. There are so many amazing things now it’s hard to keep track. It is for sure easier now although I guess that’s relative most people aren’t me and can’t actually compare”

She leaned in and said to MIchaela “Everyone figures themselves out at different ages, for me I knew I was trans really young like 5  years old at the oldest. A lesbian at like 11 but I wasn’t defualting straight, my mom was a lesbian I assumed I would be I just knew for sure I was one once I talked to my adoptive parents.“

Elena quickly pivots away from that and pats Michaela on the back “I mean you could be Asexual too, that is super valid. I would for sure not use me or the rest of Fearless as a set for normal. We’re all big weirdos.”

Nat nods. “I knew really young, too. Like, when I was in preschool, I had this *huge* crush on this girl in my class. I used to bring her clover flowers and stuff, it was *really* gay.” She blushes and scratches the back of her neck a little. “You could be asexual, but like, that doesn’t necessarily rule out wanting to date? Like, I don’t want to overwhelm you or whatever, but it’s not like anything’s all-or-nothing.” She shrugs. “It’s complicated, and it can be pretty confusing. My mom has pamphlets if you think those might help?”

Michaela stares wide eyed at Elena’s revelations, boggled by how apparently easy it had been for her. Her brow furrows with confusion as she suggest Asexual however. “I’m guessing you don’t mean that I can reproduce without a partner.” Her genetics might be a little abnormal but she doubted it was that much.

Elena’s smile couldn’t leave her face, hearing about Nat’s mom just made her so happy, such a cool mom and a trans dad and, gosh it was everything she wanted for the future. The smile fades a bit when she was reminded she didn’t do anything to fight for this, she helped some individuals and threw a party or two but she was nothing like her mom. Still there was a person who needed help and Elena wasn’t going to let her down.

The girl quickly explains “Michaela, what that means is basically like, you feel like little to no sexual attraction, it’s actually it’s actually got a bunch of sub categories and stuff. I am pretty sure I am demisexual which means like, I only sexual attraction to people I have a strong connection to. ”

Elena blushes a little bit, talking about herself was rare, she hoped she was being helpful but was ready to explain more, although Nat could probably tag in, she seemed really smart. That said she did quickly add one more thing “Also we don’t know anything about science really, so I wouldn’t go to us for advice on that. We being me,Sapphire and Maria.”

Nat nods along to Elena’s explanation. “That’s it, yeah. If you want more info on like, the subcategories, my mom’s got a pamphlet for that too. But, like I said, if you’re asexual it doesn’t have to mean you don’t want to date anybody. Relationships aren’t all-or-nothing, you can do whatever’s right for you as long as you and whoever else are on the same page about it.” She shrugs. “That’s the most important part - being on the same page. Which sucks, because serious conversations are the *worst,* but if you don’t have ‘em the situation’ll just spiral out.” Nat isn’t speaking from *relationship* experience, since she doesn’t have any, but she knows this is true on a platonic level. And her mom always says it, so it’s probably right anyway.

“Oh...” Michaela absorbs Elena and Nat’s words as she considers her own experience. She hadn’t even know that was a possibility. Had her dad messed something up when he’d been tinkering with her DNA? No, she barely even knew what they were talking about, no reason to jump to conclusions.

“Yeah, I guess some pamphlets would be good...” she murmurs, feeling the fatigue of the day wash over her. She looks down at the journal. “Thanks for helping today.”

Elena nodded her head, Nat was so smart, why hadn’t more people talked about how cool and smart Nat was?  Elena looked over at Michaela, feeling the energy of the day wrapping up. She said “If you ever want to talk about those kinds of feelings, you can call us.”

Turning to Nat to say “I’d love some of those Pamphlets too, I like to do some queer education stuff on my channel andd it be good to have more resources.”

Nat nods cheerfully, happy to actually be of some use. “Sure! I can bring ‘em by Big Base tomorrow if you want. Honestly, my mom would probably stock the kitchen with tons of these pamphlets if she could, she worries about the kids living at the base sometimes.” Nat’s grin turns a little self-conscious. “She’s a doctor, so she’s always asking me if the base kitchen has options that don’t violate the food pyramid. Now that Ernest’s not gonna be around as much I don’t think she’ll have to ask if the fridge is following the Geneva Conventions, though.”

“Yeah I definitely will, once I figure them out myself.” she offers a weak smile.