Mistletoe's Journal

Back to Mistletoe.

Snapshots of Misty Hawthorne's life, as seen as she tunes into the Friday-Saturday-Sunday morning Classic Rock hours on North Downtown Halcyon Community Radio, WNDH, and tends to end up thinking about what's been happening over the past week.

## S7Chargen - Come As You Are

October 1, 2021

It’s Friday morning, which means that at 10 am sharp, Misty scrolls to the one app on her phone that picks up radio stations. She never has to change which station it’s tuned to; she hasn’t switched it from WNDH, North Downtown Halcyon Community Radio, since she got the phone over a year ago. She knows the intro, which varies by degrees every other morning but generally has been the same for as long as Misty can remember, by heart.
*Good morning Halcyon, I regret to inform you that it is once again my turn on the radio, which means it’s time for the classics. Unless you’re here* for *the classics, in which case, thank you for still listening. For those of you who stumbled across this radio station in 2021, which takes some doing, I’m Josh Hawthorne, and from now ‘till noon I’ll be playing songs from the 70s, 80s, and maybe the 90s if my co-workers yell at me enough--*
Every time, Misty isn’t quite sure how she feels about hearing that voice on the radio. On the one hand, it hurts like pulling off a scab. On the other hand, she can feel herself stop fidgeting, stop itching to move, to go be *doing* something. It’s like when she was a child, listening to him tell stories--something about him is calming, relaxing. And the music is all the music he used to play around the house.
The bass riff starts up, and Misty can’t even stop herself from bobbing her head, mouthing along with the words.
*Come as you are, as you were/as I want you to be/as a friend, as a friend/as an old enemy--*
Damn. She’s trying *not* to think about the week, but it’s hard not to. Some of it was great, obviously. Angraxaethe *rules.* She can throw fire, she’s a *dragon,* and she thinks Misty is cool--well, cooler than most humans, at least--instead of weird. 10/10, awesome new...friend? Misty hopes they’re friends, at least. Misty wonders, vaguely, how big Angraxaethe would be in actual dragon form. Huge, she’s willing to bet. Not as big as Jormungandr, obviously, but pretty big. And, for whatever reason, she wants Misty to be her fan--which Misty totally is, okay? It’s hard not to be a fan of someone that *cool.* Sure, Nat is cool too, but--well. Misty thinks that Nat definitely has a lot of fans. Her music is good enough that she definitely does, unless nobody in Halcyon has taste.
But one of the first things that Misty had noticed about Angy were the shackles around her wrists, and Misty--well. Misty isn’t a scholar of any sort, Misty doesn’t know a lot, but something in the pit of Misty’s stomach *knows* what magical restraints are. It’s a knowing that’s burnt into her bones.
*Memoria, memoria,* the song croons in the background as Misty shakes her head, moving herself past the thought. The point, though, is that the kind of person who has those shackles put on them is the kind of person who really needs a few more fans in the world.

But Nat also rules. Misty smooths her fingers over the edges of her vest, where she’d taken an awl and some string and carefully hemmed it so that the fur fluffed out just right. *I really like your style,* Nat had said. Misty hadn’t really dared to think of it as a *style* before, but she is proud of the way she fixed up her jacket into a vest, the way she added stitchmarks on the mask in a moment of late-night mulish anger. If she’s going to be a hero, she had thought to herself, she was going to do it as herself, and who cared what Asgard thought, right?
*Come, doused in mud, soaked in bleach/as I want you to be/as a trend, as a friend--*
But the problem was, people *would* care what Asgard thought. And Misty doesn’t want to cause problems for Nat, who’s been kind, or for Halcyon in general. And--and this is the main reason she’s hedging her bets, the reason she refuses to say she’s going to be on Big Team. She’s not sure there’s a way for her to be *anywhere,* really, in a way that won’t get Asgard mad at wherever she is.
But. There had been someone else there in the mall. Misty had known, kind of, that there was a jotun on Big Team, but...she’d never really *met* someone from jotunheim. And Inge hadn’t been what she was expecting. The hovering wheelchair was definitely a surprise. Misty had caught herself watching Inge out of the corner of her eyes. Were those sharp canines? Was that a jotnar thing, not just a Misty thing? The runes on Inge’s belt--what did they do? Misty can guess, but she doesn’t actually know.
It’s that, in the end, that had tipped Misty over the line to taking the walkthrough of the base. Maybe, if the Big Team is the kind of place that can work with Asgard but also have a  jotun team member, they’ll be willing to have Misty on the team. Maybe, it won’t even end in disaster.
Misty worries at her lower lip with one pointed canine, trying not to remember what happened the *last* time she joined a team she thought she could actually help, because it had people like her on it. She tries not to remember running away from a crumbling museum in the middle of winter. She tries not to remember all of the reasons that, if Nat knew what Misty had done--who Misty was, at the end of the day--Nat wouldn’t want her on Big Team. Nat wouldnt’ want to be anywhere *near* her.
*And I swear that I don’t have a gun/I don’t have a gun--*
Misty makes a promise to herself, pushing herself off of her bed and starting to pack. Okay. She’ll do this Big Team thing. At least, she’ll try it out. She *wants* to do it, she wants to be good at it. But the second it comes out that not only was she a member of the Rokkr, her father is..well, who he is, she’s out. She’s running for it again. They’ll never trust her once they know, after all.
 *No, I don’t have a gun/No, I don’t have a gun--*
Nirvana fades into the background, and Misty, suddenly at her limit, shuts off the station before the DJ’s voice can come back on. She feels awful for it a moment later, turning it back on, but the next song is already playing.
Well. She’ll tune in later in the hour, to see if she can hear her dad again while she packs.

## S7E01 - I've Been Everywhere (Distress Signal)

**(tw:** mentioned real animal fur, mentioned toxic group dynamics in the rokkr)
October 10, 2021
Sunday morning finds Misty tuning into the radio again. She feels bad for missing it on Saturday, but she’d slept straight through the night, the morning, and some of the afternoon after Friday’s adventure. She feels a lot better now than she did then, certainly; her back is still one huge bruise, but the idea of getting out of bed no longer makes her feel like she wants to die. Which means that this morning she’s gotta get back to work--in this case, fixing her clothes, which also had a rough day of it in the forests of Ozzym.
She’s pulled a table into this bedroom of the Big Base, and while she hasn’t gotten her hands on a sewing machine yet, she has her needles and her awl, as well as some scissors, and the bag that has all of her odds and ends in it; she can make this work. She taps the *play* button on her phone and settles in to listen, grinning at the familiar voice of Johnny Cash. She wonders, vaguely, if her dad’s thinking about travelling; this particular song was one he’d loved to put on playlists for car trips the pair of them went on.
   *I was toting my pack down the dusty Winnemucca road/When along came a semi with a high an’ canvas covered load--*
   The first order of business is obviously her vest. Fortunately, the waterproofing she’d spread on it had kept it relatively safe from the mud and pool of poison that she’d fallen into; the leather’s own toughness had kept it safe from Angy’s fire. Misty hums along to the song as she sets about wiping the rest of the jacket clean.
   “I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere, crossed the deserts bare, man, I’ve breathed the mountain air--”
   She hasn’t, in fact, been everywhere, but she’d like to think she’s been to a lot of places. Halcyon, obviously. Yellowstone, when she was a kid. New Mexico, too, and Canada. But the real bragging points were the *weird* places. Misty’s been to Niflheim, grown used to its constant chill that froze even her to her bones at times; she’s been to the forges of Asgard and Svartalfheim, although she doesn’t like to dwell on that one much. Not her best moment. And now she’s been to Ozzym and fought a colossus, and a void-dragon besides. Not bad, given that she’s only been around for fifteen years.
Maybe one day she’ll actually get to Jotunheim.
She dismisses the thought, for the moment. She doesn’t even know what she’d do in Jotunheim, after all. Instead, she screws up her eyes and tries to remember the order of places in the song,  which she’d stubbornly memorized when she was eight just for the look of impressed delight on her dad’s face when she rattled them all off in order.
*I've been to: Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,*
*Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma--*
 Once the leather has been wiped clean, Misty has to contend with the tragic fact that the fur trim on the vest didn’t survive *half* as well. It’s singed from Angy’s fire, soaked and gummy with mud and poison and both. It’s a *mess.* Misty considers the scorchmarks from Angy’s fire--that could look cool, honestly, on its own, but at this point she’s just going to have to rip out the trim on the sleeves and replace it with new trim. Where in town would sell...well, this is Midgard. She’s not going to make a bid for actual wolf-fur, that would be fucked up. Believable faux-wolf-fur? Wait, Nat mentioned the costume maker, can GAIA create believable fake wolf fur?
   She had *no* idea that keeping a superhero costume together would involve so much logistics. But she feels like she owes this vest. She’d earned it; it had been a gift. It’s the kind of thing she has to keep in good condition, because no other leather jacket is going to be *this* one: the one she earned with her sweat and tears and blood, proving that she had what it took to wear the jacket.
   *Of travel I’ve had my share, man, I’ve been everywhere.*
   She isn’t sure how she feels about the rokkr, even now. Now, after a year in Midgard, she can confidently say that they were doing something horrible. Maybe they--or at least some of them--had been doing it for the right reasons, but ending the world wasn’t the way to go about it. But they’d been kind to her. Or, well, they’d been something that felt like kind. They’d accepted her with open arms, and nobody had done that who wasn’t her dad--and that had ended badly to him.
   But the Rokkr had made it clear they were too strong for Misty to hurt, and they’d made it clear that they *liked* that she was a monster. That was what meant she belonged there. That was what made her special. That had been...nice. It had been nice to be special, and not just wrong.
   --*Monterey, Faraday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa, Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa, Tennessee to Hennessey, Chicopee, Spirit Lake--*
   Angy and Carmen had both reminded her of them, in different ways. With Angy it was the confidence, the power, the air of just being *better* than most people that was electrifying to be around. It was familiar and comfortable, that kind of pride, and being seen as cool by someone like that was incredible.
   Carmen was different; the Misty who had been in the Rokkr, the Misty of a year ago, would have dismissed the bunnygirl pretty fast. And she would have been *dead wrong.* Everything about the way Carmen talked, the way she fought, made Misty feel at home and like she knew someone would have her back. She’d attributed it to her childhood love of playing b-blades with other kids on the playground, one of the few group activities she’d been part of even if people just included her for the joy of trying to beat her. And then Carmen had *used* the B-blade, and Misty had seen the Big Bad Wolf, and it had all settled into place like the last piece of a puzzle. Carmen was a warrior on par with any Misty had fought alongside in the rokkr; she was someone who understood wolves. Misty could only respect someone who *got it* like that.
   And the pair of them had both been strong, and Misty had been *mortified* to fail in front of them. Not getting batted around by the colossus or the void dragon, of course--that was just part of a fight--but losing control of her own powers, freezing in a fight like a newborn pup, unblooded and unworthy of respect. She hadn’t done that since she was *twelve,* but the poison around her sent her somewhere she always tried to leave and never could. The kitchen, blood on her nails, dialing the phone so fast she almost messed up the three digits. Her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
   *--I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere,* the song continued, the familiar words breaking her out of her thoughts again. She turned back to the vest, frowning, and then opened it up to the inner lining, cutting strips out of it carefully. She could replace the lining with something easier to find, and then use the fur for trim until she got her hands on more. And as sudden as Angy’s fire had been, it hadn’t veered too close to Misty’s body, and had left the interior of the vest alone.
   And that was what was different, at the end of the day. When Misty had fallen and failed, Angy had tried to help her clean off her clothes, and both she and Carmen had said that messing up wasn’t important. They’d checked if she was okay. They’d asked that like they cared about the answer.
   If Misty had been in the rokkr, that concern would have been conveyed in snapping at Misty to be better prepared next time, in insinuating that Misty wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t good enough. Maybe she was too close to human to be a warrior, after all. And, at the time, Misty would have taken that as kindness, because they were trying to make sure she was strong enough, right?
   And then Big Team had happened.

## S7E05 - Don't Stop Me Now (The Norse Case Scenario)

October 17, 2021
   It’s Sunday evening, which means that Misty can’t get onto the radio--well, she can. But not for what she wants. She halfheartedly tunes into WNDH, bobs her head to a song or two, but it’s just not the same. Not that the music is bad, but that she can’t feel the connection like she does on the morning show. She doesn’t know the person picking the songs. It’s not her dad’s music; it’s not the same.
   But she’s still too excited from the events of the night, buzzing off of a massive order of food from a local Thai place on the Knights’ dime and the adrenaline of the entire occasion, to *not* listen to music. Eventually she caves and pulls up the spotify app on her phone, scowling at the ad that plays before *finally,* she can start listening to something. At least she knows the song is going to be good, and when it comes on she can’t help but grin.
   *Tonight, I’m gonna have myself a real good time, I feel ali-i-i-ive…*
 It’s always a good time, in Misty’s humble opinion, for Freddie Mercury, but tonight really, *really* is a night for this song. She’d gone into Utgard, and come back out--and she’d *beaten a challenge there.* She’d out-shot the wind.

   *So don’t stop me now, don’t stop me now, ‘cause I’m having a good time--*
   Misty hopes that the walls of Big Base are at least somewhat soundproof, because the *whoop* of victory she gives out isn’t quiet. The song is blaring in her ears, and she finds herself bopping around the room, messing with her few possessions, unable to stand still. She’d done that. She’d gone out on an adventure with Carmen and Bea, and they’d bested Utgard-Loki in three challenges, *and* they’d robbed Utgard and gotten out to tell the tale, *and* they’d won eternal free dinners off of a king. Not a bad day’s work, especially for a crew of three--well, four, including Carmen’s wolf friend.
   *There’s no stopping me, I’m burning through the sky, yeah,*
   And then the *flight.* The sails of the ship-shield-thing filling with wind from the wolf’s breath, sending them skudding across the sky. Misty had daydreamed about riding a ship, off on a great quest, before--usually, though, the ship had been on water, and it was a grim march forward to the end of days. Not a moonlit night, the sound of jubilant wolf-howls filling the air as they took off.
   *I’m having such a good time, I’m having a ball--Don’t stop me now, if you wanna have a good time, just give me a call--*
   Man, she’d thought she was doing something cool with the rokkr, but when had they ever really *done* something? Well, there was stealing the Helveigr. And before that, stealing her crossbow. But that wasn’t the same, wasn’t right. There had always been something that pulled Misty back, made her feel guilty even as her companions cheered her on. Sure, she’d robbed the forges of Asgard, but she’d had nightmares for weeks afterward about the look on that girl’s face. Sure, they’d taken the runestone, but Misty hadn’t been able to forget what it looked like as Fenris froze people solid.
   This, though--this is something that feels *exciting,* without that aftertaste of guilt. The rush of standing on that chair, declaring to the room that she was the best shot--in the moment, it had been a desperate action, trying to figure out some way to force something to happen around her, because the waiting was making her feel like she was going to vibrate out of her skin.
   But she’d done it. She’d declared the terms, she’d named the challenge, he’d tried to humiliate her in front of his entire household and the visitors--and he’d failed. And now *he* would have to humiliate *himself,* and serve him right. *And* they’d robbed him besides.
   *I’m burning through the sky, yeah, 200 degrees that’s why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit--*
   *I went to Utgard-Loki’s house,* she thinks to herself. *And I won. I went to Utgard-Loki’s house and--*
   The idea for the shirt hits her and she starts laughing immediately, partially because it’s so silly and partially because it’s the kind of thing she could give to Bea and Carmen as well, and the idea of them liking it--or just finding it funny--is great in and of itself. She forces herself to sit down and grab a pad of paper, sketching out a base outline that she could show to GAIA to make in the costume maker.
   "I went to Utgard-Loki’s house and all i got was kicked out of Utgard-Loki’s house." Not true, but funny, which is almost better. She grins at the finished project and pushes herself out of the seat and towards the door, music still blaring from the headphones hooked around her neck.
   *Yes, I’m having a good time, I don’t want to stop at all.*
   Tonight, she’s Mistilteinn Lokisdottir Hawthorne, the girl who outshot the wind, and--for one golden moment, with the wolf-howls of victory still echoing in her ears--it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to be.

## S7OVA - Graceland ([Blank] of a Good Time)

October 23, 2021

The opening of the song was bouncy and familiar as Misty started playing WNDH. She wasn’t in the base, this time; even after a night’s sleep, she couldn’t seem to stay still, so she’d gone out to the harbor, down one of the piers until she could sit at the edge, her legs dangling over the water. From here, she could stare out at the horizon and, if her eyes unfocused enough, trick herself into seeing a speck that could be the Naglfar, off to the next party.

   *The Mississippi delta was shining like a National Guitar,* Paul Simon’s voice came through the headphones, and Misty could feel herself relax back into the song, another road trip favorite from her childhood. *I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the Civil War, I’m going to Graceland--”*
 Three impossible things had happened yesterday, and she didn’t know where to begin thinking about them. She supposed the best place was at the most complicated one, the one that she was even now straining her eyes to see on the horizon, even though it was only a trick of the light. But the rune on her wrist was still red and glowing, even a whole day later. *Hagalaz--*the rune of hail, of tribulation, of crisis and destruction. The rune that shone on Misty’s wrist for the goddess of the dead, because those things had always been close as family to Misty.
   *--poor boys and pilgrims with families, and we are going to Graceland--*
   It wasn’t that meeting Hel was a letdown. There was no way it *could* be, because even meeting her was more than Misty had ever hoped. She’d tuck the memory of Hel’s bony arm around her shoulders away with the other little things she cherished, remember it forever. Thinking about it too long made her eyes sting and her chest ache with something that wasn’t pain, but made her want to cry anyway.
   It had been so long since she’d been with family.
   *--but I’ve reason to believe we both will be received in Graceland, Graceland--*
   But alongside the joy and belonging there was the crushing guilt that she had dreaded from the second she recognized Naglfar. *Ragnarok is cancelled, go Big Team!* The vicious bite at the end of the words had been expected, and it hadn’t even been directed at her, but it hurt anyway. She knew--she *knew--*how long Hel had waited for justice, and then it had been snatched from her, by the group Misty was now working with.
   How could Misty explain it? She’d never been great with explanations, the guilt rising up and sticking in her throat every time *why did you do that* was asked. Maybe it was better that Hel didn’t ask. Maybe it was worse. Misty couldn’t decide one way or another; she didn’t know what she would have said.
   The air was full of the sound of waves against the rocks below; Misty’s head was pulled out of its thoughts by music, again, as it always was.
   *And she said losing love is like a window in your heart/everybody sees you’re blown apart/everybody sees the wind blow; I’m going to Graceland.*
 Hel hadn’t seemed mad. She’d just seemed...*hopeless,* and that was somehow worse. Misty was used to people being mad at her. She didn’t know the solution to when someone was just staring down a bleak eternity for an uncertain goal, and didn’t know how to translate ‘you should stop and smell the roses’ into something that her sister would hear. She’d scoured through boogle when she got back to the base (not *home,* she can’t afford to think of it as *home)* and tried to find solutions, although most of what her phone had spat back at her were diagnostic tests for depression. Which might be what was going on, but fuck if Misty knew. Did jotnar who were also gods even have brains that could get depression? Could *Misty* get depression?
   Maybe Inge would know, or at least know more than Misty. They hope they’ll remember to ask him next time they see him; they feel like he’d like to know what had happened yesterday, too, and he’s one of the few people Misty can actually *tell.*
 Which brought Misty to the second, less complicated, impossible thing that happened yesterday.  She’d told Angy who her father was. And...nothing bad had happened. Angy had said it was *cool.* Angy had said Misty’s family was cool! She’d even told Misty a bit about her own in return, although Misty guesses she understands why Angy doesn’t call them her family, or why it’s complicated.
   *But I’ve reason to believe we all will be received/in Graceland…*
   It had been the first time Misty had told anyone who *wasn’t* her family about her family. One of the first things she remembered learning, even before she knew the reasons why, was that she shouldn’t talk about her father. That people would probably be angry about it. Her dad had made sure to tell her, again and again, that it wasn’t because of anything she did wrong, that there wasn’t anything wrong with her, it was just that there were people who didn’t like her father and he didn’t want them getting upset with her. Once she’d actually learned the reasons, she couldn’t even blame either of her fathers for it.
   So she hadn’t expected the overwhelming support--well, the Angy version of overwhelming support, which was *giving back* a free favor, which Misty hadn’t expected, and had said that Misty’s family was cool, and she’d told Misty stuff about herself--and not just stuff about how she was cool, but stuff she worried about as well, about whether or not she knew how to be a real dragon.
   It did, honestly, remind Misty of the way the rokkr had been. Always willing to overlook or dismiss Misty’s flaws with the excuse of “well, of course, you were raised on Midgard” or “it’s all that can be expected, really, you’re half-human.” They’d said it like it was understanding, and it had taken Misty about a year to figure out that, no, it *hadn’t* been them being nice. It was them being shitty in a way that Misty hadn’t been able to realize because it was so everywhere.
*And sometimes when I’m flying, falling, tumbling in turmoil/I say “whoa, so this is what she means”--*
The idea of Angy feeling the same way, that she wasn’t a real dragon because she hadn’t been raised by dragons, made Misty *furious.* But she didn’t know what real dragons acted like, either. She assumed like Angy, because, well, Angy *was* a real dragon. Maybe she could try to get in contact with Jormungandr, Hel had said that at the end of the day all she had to do was ask...but then he wasn’t a dragon in the way that Angy was either. Hmm.
Misty kicked one of her feet, watching her boot swing like a pendulum over the bay. She had to figure out some way to help Angy, because Angy had helped her out a lot and had promised to keep the secret about Misty’s family, and Misty wants to help her out as well.
*For reasons I cannot explain, there’s some part of me that wants to see Graceland; and I might be obliged to defend every love, every ending, but maybe there’s no obligations now,* the song continues, and Misty stares out at the ocean.
She isn’t sure how *not* to be defensive about her family. She doesn’t entirely know what to do now that she’s told someone and they were actually supportive, especially someone as cool as Angy. Nothing on Midgard ever impresses Angy, which Misty can’t really blame her for--she’s a *dragon--*but it’s wild that Misty’s family somehow managed to do it, while Misty has been used to hiding it her whole life. It’s going to take some getting used to, the fact that someone else knows. That they’re cool with it.
*Maybe I’ve reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland--*

## S7E9: Poison (Slay the Spire)

October 30, 2021
In the morning, Misty picks herself up out of bed, where she’d been halfheartedly trying to get some rest, and lets her feet head to the place she’s wanted to go all night: the base’s Danger Room. Violet’s words have been bouncing around in her skull for hours, and she hasn’t had any way to get them out. She’s patched up every article of clothing she’s worn holes into, she’s stared at the ceiling trying to sleep, she’s tried pretty much everything she can do in her small room, and it hasn’t worked.
So she goes to the danger room, and—clumsily, because she’s never done it before and doesn’t entirely know how it works—asks GAIA to make her something to fight. Anything would do. As long as it’s there and she can hit it, it will work, but it would be better if it tried to hit back. A collection of humanoid figures shimmer into view, looking hostile, and Misty carefully looks down and pulls off her gloves.
“Uh, GAIA?” She asks, a moment before she was going to ask the simulation to begin. “Could you—I mean, would you mind putting on the radio? WNDH, please—uh, 107.5.” Because it was Saturday morning, and not even needing to train was going to stop Misty from listening.
A low bass rumble that could have belonged to one of a dozen songs filled the room, and Misty pulled in a deep breath. By the time she’s let it out and the constructs have started moving, the guitar riff has come in, and she recognizes the song. The corner of her lip twitches up, even though it’s not really funny.
*Your cruel device, your blood like ice,*
She lets herself go loose and mobile, spinning away from a hit on instinct alone. This—moving around, even in melee range—is something she’s used to. She’s small and fast and, when you’re running with a pack of people who value strength in combat more than anything else, you learned to use that to your benefit. Nobody could claim Misty was a worse fighter because she was short if she learned how to use it to her advantage.
*—one look could kill, my pain, your thrill—*
Her fist collides with one of the figures with a satisfying thud, and Misty resists the immediate instinct to spin back, trigger the crossbow, and shoot it. That isn’t what this is about. This is about practicing fighting without her bow. As long as she can’t control that, she’ll be a threat to everyone around her. And she’s seen where that goes.
*I wanna love you but I better not touch, I wanna hold you but my senses tell me to stop,* Alice Cooper sings through the speakers as Misty ducks another hit and strikes out, this time a long swipe with nails that dripped white-green fluid. It is just a simulation, so it doesn’t react like human skin or clothes would, and Misty finds herself absurdly grateful. *I wanna kiss you but I want it too much,* the song continues, and Misty drives a fist into the face of the figure, gritting her teeth with the force of it. *I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison, you’re poison running through my veins—*
She’d been taught to fight with her fists, once. Hati showing her how to make the fist properly, so she didn’t break her bones. Fenris approving, up until the moment that she’d actually started practicing against other people, because that was when everyone noticed it. She pulled her punches. The second she started fighting against something that looked, well, like a person, she pulled her punches. She didn’t use her nails, she didn’t hit hard enough.
“I guess there’s too much Midgardian in you after all,” was what she’d been told, time and again, after each lost training fight.
*You’re poison/I don’t wanna break these chains—*
It wasn’t her fault, she had always wanted to say. She couldn’t help it that every time she got within reach of a person, every time she lashed out, she saw the same things behind her eyes. Still sees them now, in fact, but there are more of them: her dad looking down at his hand the moments before he lost consciousness, the girl in the Asgardian forge clapping a hand to her cheek in pain, and now Violet and Serendipity being splashed with poison in the elevator, unable to escape because Misty had fucked up. Again.
*I wanna love you but I better not touch,* the song continued, with backup vocals emphasizing *don’t touch,* and Misty grits her teeth, moves to fight another one, pushes down the fear that drips down her spine. She can do this. She can do this. She’s not a little kid anymore. She’s not twelve and learning to fight for the first time in a land of frigid ice and snow.
*You’re poison running through my veins—*
It had been the training, eventually, that made Misty snap. One too many days of maybe you’re just too soft, too human had gotten to her, and she’d come up with a plan. It wasn’t a good plan, but it had been a plan.
Go to Asgard, because stealing didn’t count if it was from Asgard, and get something she could use to fight from range. If she did that, and got so good at that that nobody could deny that she was good at it, nobody would ever look down on her for not being able to fight hand to hand without pulling her punches ever again.
It had been a great plan, until the second the forge still had someone in it. It had worked, until Misty had to get in another fight, until she accidentally hurt another person. It comes up in her dreams, more often than she’d like. Just another failure in a long string of failures, the exact kind of the thing that the bow was supposed to stop in the first place. She’d slid the bow’s arm-cuff onto her arm the second she got out of Asgard, and hadn’t taken it off since.
*I hear you calling and it’s needles and pins,* the song continues, and it feels good to land a hit. There’s more frustration in her than she knows how to deal with, but that’s not new. Misty can’t remember a time, really, when she hasn’t been angry about something. This kind of anger is the worst, though, because it’s at herself. Another hit lands, and her hands are starting to hurt, and she’s a little out of breath, and the song’s beat is thudding through her skeleton in a way that grounds her, at least a little. *Don’t wanna touch you but you’re under my skin, I wanna kiss you but my lips are venomous poison—*
She’s not a kid anymore, she’s not in the rokkr. People here aren’t judging her because of her parents, on either side, and that’s good. She wants that to stay the same, desperately. But being in the Big Team, it seems like, means working with other people pretty closely. And so not getting close isn’t an option to avoid hurting other people, leaving Misty at a bit of a loss.
Except for the thing Violet said. Except for just *practicing* it. Getting used to her hands as a weapon she can control, not something running her life. It’s not the kind of advice she’d gotten before—something that suggested that she could actually get better, instead of having this—this problem be just another flawed part of humanity that had gotten into an otherwise worthwhile rokkr.
She’s Misty Hawthorne, she’s a hero, she’s on Big Team, and if she wants to stay that way, she *has to* get over this. She can’t be a hero if she’s scared of her powers. She can’t be a hero if she can’t shake someone’s hand without wearing gloves because she’s scared of what will happen. She’s Misty Hawthorne, she’s a hero, and she can *do this*.
The song thuds to an end, and Misty lets out a long breath, muscles she hasn’t used in years aching. She sucks in a breath, pushes her bangs out of her face—she’s going to have to find a knife and trim them again sometime soon—and rolls her shoulders back.
“GAIA? Run it again, please.”

## 7E16: Bridge Over Troubled Water (A Mayor's Ransom)

November 13, 2021
Misty drops her bag onto the floor, staring around the old room. Gods and giants, it’s been *ages*. The dark-blue paint she’d picked out when she was little and her dad had asked if she wanted the room repainted, the science fair trophy ribbon hanging off one of the bedposts because she’d wanted to see it right when she woke up, the day after she won it. The old CD player she’d gotten on her dad’s case for giving to her, because who used CDs anymore, until he’d followed it up by giving her a new CD every birthday, with a new set of songs on it—

She picks up the CD case on top of the stack, pulling it open with the *pop* of old plastic giving up its grip, and carefully pulls out the CD. She has her gloves on—of course she does. It’s going to be…well, it will probably be a long time before she feels comfortable in this house without a thick layer between her nails and the rest of the world.

Gloves on, she pops the CD player’s lid open, sets the CD inside, and hits the play button. There’s the once-familiar whirring as it begins to spin, and then—

Oh.

Misty had forgotten that this was the first song on this particular CD.

*When you’re weary, feeling small—*she knows the words by heart. It was one of the songs her dad had sung, when she was little and couldn’t get to sleep. She’d gotten grumpy about it by the time she left, of course—insisting that she wasn’t a little kid, she didn’t have to be sung to sleep anymore, she was fine. She hadn’t known how much she’d miss it, especially out in the cold nights of Niflheim.

*When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all. I’m on your side.*

She sits on the floor of her room, legs sinking a little into the carpet, and leans back against her bed. The edge of the frame pokes her in the back, a little, but that’s alright. She lets out a breath, and it feels like the first time she’s really exhaled in…well, in four years, almost.

*Oh, when times are rough, and friends just can’t be found/Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.*

She doesn’t have to keep her backpack packed.

The thought hits her in the center of the chest like a punch, and she can feel her shoulders shake, once. Not enough to really be a sob, but too much to be a simple tremor. She doesn’t have to stay packed. Ever since she left home that first time, a chilly day in January right after she turned twelve, she’s kept her bag packed. The rokkr moved around more than they had a stable base, and Misty never had enough space or privacy to want to unpack and show the few things she’d kept from home to everyone else there, for fear they’d turn up their noses at worthless Midgardian trinkets, the kind of things that didn’t matter when your goals were so much larger.

*When you’re down and out, when you’re on the street, when evening falls so hard—*

And then after the rokkr, after she’d run again, there had been, oh, any of the community centers around Halcyon. Stay at one for a couple of months, leave once people started asking questions, once Misty became a normal enough sight for people to start to feel like she was familiar.

*—I will comfort you, I’ll take your part.*

And then the Big Base, where she’d actually…well, she hadn’t unpacked. But she’d started collecting bits and pieces of other things and leaving them out on the table. She’d left projects unattended and out overnight, aware she could work on them again tomorrow morning and nobody would have messed with them. And being familiar hadn’t been frightening. Getting a spot to perch on in Angy’s horde, or having people expect her to come out for breakfast, had been…well, it had been nice, instead of a sign that Misty was getting too close, too fast.

But it still hadn’t really felt like a home.

*Oh, when darkness comes, and pain is all around, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.*

Her shoulders shake, again, and she thinks it’s the aftereffects of years of tension, of uncertainty and instability, slowly draining from her body as she looks at the familiar room. She can also feel, melting away somewhere deep in her like a snowball sat next to a heater, the fear from earlier in the day dissipate.

Because gods, she’d been terrified. It had all been fine, and then she’d heard the name of the person who had been abducted, and everything had gone frozen and still, white noise roaring in her ears (although unfortunately, not loudly enough to drown out Bea’s follow-up question) and a chilly grip settling around her heart. The kind of fear she’d always wanted to think she’d left behind, but reared its head every time that her nails got a little too close to someone’s skin.

It was all the same fear, at the end of the day. It all went back to a cold January evening, an accident, a 911 call, and Misty running. Every time, it just took her back there.

*Sail on, silver girl*, the song continues, and Misty lets herself exhale again. *Sail on by, your time has come to shine.* It’s okay. It’s all okay. She’s back in her room at home, and her dad is okay, and not kidnapped by aliens, and the injury had been bad but it had gotten better and healed over. And he’d listened to all of the stuff she did—or at least, the overview—and he hadn’t gotten mad, and he hadn’t been upset.

*All your dreams are on their way, see how they shine,* the song continues, her lips moving along to the words. *Oh, if you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind, like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind.*

Her dad had sung those words to her at night, when she was a kid, and even on bad days the world had gotten a little better if she let herself believe him. And the really amazing thing was now—after Misty had hurt him on accident and hurt him by leaving and hurt him by not coming back, after she’d fucked up and burned out and hit rock bottom in any number of ways—it seemed like he’d meant it.

*Like a bridge over troubled water,* the song continues, rising to a new height as the music grows and crescendoes, *I will ease your mind.* It fades out, one last perfect, ringing high note lingering in the air of Misty’s room.

She lets out another breath, and it’s then that she realizes she’s been crying, water dropping onto the surface of her backpack. She looks at it, and then deliberately unzips the bag and dumps all her clothes, her sewing kit, all the assorted odds and ends from four years and two realms that were important enough to keep, out on the floor of her room. She can sort through it later; that’s not the important bit. The important bit was not having the bag packed. The important bit, she thought to herself, was being home.

She’d told her dad that she was tired of running, and that was true. But, she thinks to herself as the CD player whirrs to the next song, she was also tired of not having anywhere, really, to stand still. Anywhere she was sure wouldn’t be taken from her the second people figured out a few more things about her. If it wasn’t the poison thing, it would be the rokkr thing, and if it wasn’t the rokkr thing, it would be the Loki thing.
But her dad knows all of that, now. He knows all of that and he wants her here anyway. She doesn’t have to run from him. She never did.

And that hurts, a little, to realize, because if she’d figured that out four years ago…but there’s no point thinking about that, not right now. She has more important things to do. Specifically, she has a dad she has to go hug, and that’s more important than anything else.

## 7E17: Hammer to Fall (Another Very Challenge Thanksgiving)

November 24, 2021
It’s a lot easier to prepare for Thanksgiving back home. The base kitchens are probably *better,* objectively speaking, but Misty *knows* these ones. Also, she feels a lot more confident taking her dad’s cooking advice than that of pretty much anyone on the Big Team.
Not that he is here now, of course. It’s Wednesday, not the weekend, but Thanksgiving week means everyone’s out of sorts and the person who usually handles Wednesday mornings at the station is gone, and weeks before Misty had come back Joshua had already offered to take her slot running the show. Watching him hesitate by the door for the fifth consecutive minute after saying he was leaving, Misty had offered to come down to the station with him and leave their baking endeavors for later--but he’d laughed it off, and she’d told him she’d be listening, so he’d better make it a good show.
It almost feels normal, as weird as that is to say.
The next song comes in on the speakers--Misty has hooked her phone up to them, so she can properly blast music as it was intended to be heard: top volume, accompanied by her singing very loudly.
At the guitar lick, she can’t stop herself from grinning--sure, she got a lot of things from her father, but one thing she got distinctly and completely from her *dad* was the ability to recognize every single Brian May guitar riff in existence.
*Here we stand, or here we fall, history won’t care at all,* Freddie Mercury belts, and Misty can’t get even close to his sound but she does her best. Man, thinking about history does make her remember the last weekend, though--specifically the bit where they had to argue Dominguez Halcyon out of haunting a graveyard, even though he’d kinda been a pushover in the end. Yeah, that--really, any of the fights--hadn’t been the hardest part of the day at all.
*Make the bed, light the light, lady mercy won’t be home tonight--* And now she’s frowning, because geez, did she *have* to think about Thor? She’s not even doing anything with the team today. She doesn’t have to worry about Thor any more than she is always, a little, worrying about Asgard. It’s a small manageable amount and she definitely isn’t paranoid. It’s fine. It’s not like Misty’s luck was so abysmal that, oh, the one random kid she’d accidentally hurt in a forge three years ago and thus had a ton of very good reasons to hate her had picked up the mantle of one of the most dangerous and powerful Asgardian gods? Certainly not one with particular established vendettas against Misty’s family, at least--
*--comes to you as to us all, we’re just waiting for the hammer to fall--*
She drops her head down, plopping the bowl of dough she was making down on the counter so she can lean down enough to rest her head against the smooth stone surface as well. *How* is she *this* unlucky? Why is Thor this particular kid and also  on Big Team? Do the Norns just really, really hate her or something?
Well. That would track, she supposes. They don’t particularly like *anyone* in her family.
*Oh every night and every day, a little piece of you is falling away--*
“Shut up, Freddie,” she mutters under her breath, and then instantly apologizes, because you don’t tell Freddie Mercury to shut up, even if he’s a recording and also long-dead and also also, you don’t actually want him to stop because this song *rules,* even if its choice of metaphor is...uncomfortable.
--*toe your line and play their game, let the anaesthetic cover it all--*
Well, Brenna had agreed to meet to talk, and the talk had been...it hadn’t been awful. Entirely. Brenna hadn’t accepted the apology, but then, she didn’t have to, and she’d said, at least, that she wasn’t going to tell anyone about who Misty was. Which--Misty wants to believe it. She really, really, wants to believe it. She *really* wants to believe what Bea and Brenna have both said--that Brenna isn’t a cruel person, that she’s going to keep her word.
*--’til one day they call your name, you know it’s time for the hammer to fall--*
But long before she met Bea or Brenna, a cold night in the middle of Niflheim’s eternal winter, she’d learned how much you could trust a promise made to a child of Loki. *Did you know,* Skoll had told her, *that they say the gods laughed when Fenrir realized he couldn’t free himself? Not Tyr, of course, he had bigger problems. But they laughed.* Misty, who had just heard the story for the first time, had shaken her head, cold and miserable and realizing, for the first time, how alone she really had been, the entire time.
*Rich or poor or famous, for your truth is all the same,* Freddie Mercury continues, and Misty pulls herself out of her thoughts. Brenna isn’t the Thor who was there then. They’re not in Asgard. And, most importantly, they have to be civil and nice to each other at Bea’s Thanksgiving, and Misty is *not* going to give Brenna the satisfaction of Misty slipping up first. Nope. No way.
*Baby, now your struggle is all in vain…*
And, honestly, the parts that weren’t fighting against Brenna, or talking with Brenna, were...well, Signe rules as always, but the three of them together had been a pretty good team, Misty thought. They’d stopped Pariah Carol--whose very name still provokes a shudder of irritation in Misty, who is pre-emptively sick of Christmas decorations even more than usual thanks to *that* interaction--and Brenna and Signe had fixed a sinking ship while Misty had captured Captain Neckbeard (By herself! She did it all by herself!! She’d told Signe she could handle things there and she’d been right! She will never lose this high) and then they’d placated Dominguez. AND they’d found a bunch of stuff on Challenge’s list!
She was pretty good at this hero thing, if she’d even managed to help save Thanksgiving. With that thought firmly in mind, she pushes herself off of the countertop, picks up her bowl again, and sets about finishing the pastry dough, humming along to the song playing through the kitchen and refusing to think at all about the lyrics.

## S7OVA - I'll Be Your MIrror (All Fun And Games)

November 27, 2021
   All in all, Misty thinks, she didn’t *lie* to her dad when she told him that her latest expedition with Big Team went well. Still, it had been exhausting--and instead of resting immediately, she’d made sure Taiga got home safe and agreed to meet the kid for cupcakes later in the week, all of which was important but had not been lying down or dealing with the scrapes and bruises that came from any good fight.
   So today she gives herself permission to sleep in, lying down on her bed and only emerging to poke her phone until it’s tuned back to WNDH and she can catch her dad’s show. It’s the same comfort it always is, and so Misty burrows back under her duvet, letting herself rest a little longer.
*I’ll be your mirror, reflect who you are in case you don’t know,* Nico sang, and Misty snorts into her pillow. Her dad’s feeling sappy today. That’s not particularly strange, but if she didn’t get to make fun of him, even in her own head, for being a huge sap, then what was the point? *I’ll be the wind, the rain and the sunset, the light on your door to show you you’re home.*
Mirrors, though. She thinks, again, about Taiga. Scrappy, young, desperate to prove herself; Misty doesn’t know *what,* precisely, Taiga wanted that she thought becoming a supervillian would give her, but as she’d told the kid, she was pretty familiar with being in that place in general. Maybe it was attention, maybe it was belonging, maybe it was one of a hundred things. But then, once she was in…Misty remembered her saying “What kind of example does it set if I give up now?”
It’s a familiar excuse as well. You can’t back out now, you’ve already sunk too much time, too much effort, too much of yourself into something to leave it behind even if it’s starting to feel like a bad idea. The rush is worth it, isn’t it? And, Misty thinks bitterly, you keep chasing that rush *because* you’re starting to feel guilty, so you want anything that takes your mind off of feeling guilty, and the only option you have is the rush of breaking something again, the moment of brilliant adrenaline when you ruined something important.
*Please put down your hands,* the song continues as Misty thinks about the moment she realized that talking alone wasn’t going to work. *‘Cause I see you.* Taiga was her own person, obviously, but…she was *so much* like a younger Misty. The right age, same as Misty was when she fell in with the rokkr. Angry and talented and with everything to prove, and all it took was one thing, one small factor, to push her toward a way to prove it…
Ugh. Misty forgot about the book. She groans into her pillow, balling her entire body up as small as she can make it. She’s not scared of a book, she tells herself, no matter *how* creepy it acted once Misty caught on to what it was trying to do. She’s *not* scared of a book, particularly not some weekly manga about edgy villains.
But…she wishes she could forget what the character, the protagonist, the person who wasn’t Misty but looked more like Misty than any other character Misty had ever seen, was saying. “*They don’t trust me, they never did. They were never going to work with me, just because of who I am.Because of my family. They never really cared. So who needs them anyway? Who needs their rules and restrictions? All they ever wanted to do was keep me chained up like a dog, fettered like an animal--well* fuck *that. If they think I’m a monster, I’ll show them what a monster really looks like.”*
*When you think the night has seen your mind,* the song continues, and perhaps in any other situation it would break Misty out of her thoughts, but it only pushes her deeper. *That inside you’re twisted and unkind--*
“Brenna saved me,” she mutters to herself, under her breath, but it seems much quieter than the words in her head. “Brenna--she said she didn’t like what Asgard did--”
*Fat lot of good that does you,* a voice in the back of her head, one that sounded like Fenris and Misty and the character in that book said. *Your brother is chained up, but Thor is a little uncomfy about it. Boo hoo.*
She pushes her mind away from the thought. What happened to Misty’s siblings wasn’t Brenna’s fault. Brenna hadn’t even been born yet. And, dammit, she’d *promised* that she was going to maintain this hesitant truce, and no stupid book was going to break her dedication to that.
*--put down your hands, ‘cause I see you,* the song continues, and Misty catches herself shivering. She’s not cold; not really. She doesn’t get cold like that. But she can’t stop remembering the figure, so clear in her mind’s eye--
A young girl, dressed in punk clothing, short and untidy hair blowing in a chill wind, teeth bared in a snarl at the world, eyes shining. Dark, runic markings trailing up both of her arms, like snakes or vines. Around her, pooling at her feet and suspended in the air, a strange black liquid.The page hadn’t been a color page, but Misty somehow knows that whatever that substance was would have the iridescent sheen of an oilslick.
*I’ll be your mirror, reflect what you are--*
And then, she remembers one last detail: held in her left hand, a long and wickedly-pointed dart, the ends of it still trailing mistletoe leaves.
She shoves herself upright, out of bed, and closes the radio app on her phone. She doesn’t give herself time to think, instead throwing on clothes for the day haphazardly, shoving her phone into her pocket, and heading out of the house without pausing for breakfast or leaving a note. She’ll be back--she knows she will be back--but she has to get somewhere, right now, where enough is happening that she can’t remember that book. She needs to get somewhere she can’t hear herself think.
*I’ll be your mirror…*

## S7E21: God Save the Queen (Make a Beeline Away From That Feline)

December 6, 2021
“And, as a last treat before someone else comes to take over the lunch hour,” Joshua Hawthorne’s voice comes through the radio, distorted and tinny from the microphone and the phone speakers but still familiar, still home, “let’s have the allegedly most-censored record in British history, because everyone else has gone on lunch already and nobody can stop me.”
It’s times like this, Misty thinks as she smiles to herself in her room, that she can see why her parents get along so well. She’s fairly sure she knows the song he’s planning to play--much like how she grew up knowing Queen, she also grew up with at least passing familiarity with punk rock legends, and this song is certainly one of them. Also, she thinks to herself with a snort, it’s a pretty funny song, particularly given the events of yesterday.
“God save the queen,” Johnny Rotten begins, and Misty mouths along the words, smile making her canines pull at her lower lip. “The fascist regime, that makes you a *moron--”* She can’t roll her *r* like he does in the song, but other than that, the song isn’t hard to sing along to or follow, raspy and mid-range in a way that she can emulate.
Honestly, she hadn’t started the previous day expecting to run into a queen of any sort. She’d just gotten the message that was so clearly from her father, and didn’t have anything else to do, and then once she’d gotten there, Angy had been there, and that had been worth hanging around for. And then the mayor had shown up, and she’d had to do her filial duties and put the fear of god--or, more accurately, the fear of demigod--into the man, just in case. She still isn’t sure if he’s actually interested in her dad, but if he isn’t, no harm had been done, and if he is, best that he get used to Misty sooner rather than later.
“God save the queen,” she sings along, stabbing her needle through the cotton of a t-shirt piece, “she ain’t no human being, there is no future in England’s dreaming--”
But *then,* with the arrival of Mittens and the rude kid whose name Misty couldn’t be assed to remember, the day had gotten *interesting.* First, warping between point to point in those different worlds, which was cool--and getting to see more of Big Team, which had been *really* cool. Misty knew, of course, that Big Team has a lot of people who aren’t precisely normal humans on it, but there’s knowing that and then there’s looking around and realizing that everyone around you *also* doesn’t look normal, and that that’s fine--well. There had been something nice about it.
“--don’t be told what you want to want to, don’t be told what you want to need,” she continues, pulling the stitch taut and following the thread of her thoughts to its conclusion: the Creator-Queen, and her strange world. “There’s no future, no future, no future for you.”
Misty’s not going to lie, she’d been scary. Massive, stitched together with clear expertise, and with that…*uncanny* way of looking at people, like she was looking through them entirely, only seeing them for how they could be useful to her. The way she’d reached for Ophanim the first time, like she was reaching for a toy--the way, the second time she did it, Ophanim had *vanished* entirely, chilling Misty’s blood. She hadn’t spent time with em before this, but that didn’t mean ey hadn’t seemed, well, nice. Nicer than a lot of the people Misty’s met. And then there had been what ey said to one of the people who lived in that weird place--something about how it was always worth fighting even if you knew you weren’t going to win.
Misty can’t do anything other than respect someone who thinks like that.
“--*god save the queen, we mean it, man--”*
But anyway, the point. That lady had been creepy as hell. Misty has an ingrained distaste of anyone calling themself a queen, which--now that she thinks about it--is probably not unrelated to the fact that her dad was someone who would play punk critique of the british monarchy over the radio when left unsupervised. But even more than that, she didn’t trust anyone who thought that because they were a god, they had unilateral control over something. If there was anything, she thought, that her family had *always* been about, it was the fact that even a god couldn’t control everyone or anything.
“--god save the queen,” she mutters along with the song, setting another stitch with more force than was strictly necessary. “‘Cause tourists are money, and our figurehead is not what she seems--”
Thinking about family makes her wince, hand coming to rub where her runes had re-settled on her wrist. They were almost in the same place they had been, only slightly higher on the wrist, each of the four symbols spaced equally around the rim. *Hagalaz*, for Hel; upside-down *tiwaz,* for Fenrir; inverted *thurisaz,* for Jormungandr, and finally *kenaz* for her father. The moment that connection, those runes, had been cut away had been--
It had been terrifying. It had been *terrifying.* Suddenly, starkly alone, the constant *connection* in the back of her mind suddenly gone. She hadn’t felt that cold since--since the first time she left home, nowhere to go, nobody to turn to.
“--oh, god save history, god save our mad parade, oh lord god have mercy--” she pulls the next stitch tight, the one after that. She’s stitching too tight, puckering the fabric, and she has to set the square aside, smoothing her fingers over her wrist, reminding herself that it’s there, that her siblings are still there, that their father is still there. At the end of the day, she knows, they’re the ones they can trust to have each other’s backs.
That’s the reason--well, one of the reasons--that when her father drops her a note, she checks it out. It’s not like he makes her. He probably wouldn’t even be mad if she didn’t, she knows. But, like she’d told Angy, it had been years since she’d seen him in person, for real. Any connection she can get, through pranks on people who totally deserved it or a tattoo on her wrist, is priceless to her.
“*--all crimes are paid, when there’s no future how can there be sin?”*
She’s not stupid. She knows that if she tried explaining this to, oh, any of half a dozen people, they’d say her father was just using her for some dumb prank he was pulling. It wasn’t that. Misty knows in her bones, it isn’t that, but it’s not something she knows how to explain to anyone else. Things like this--theft, subterfuge, taking the haughty down a few pegs--are who her father is in a deep, fundamental way. Taking that from him, inventing some version of him where that wouldn’t exist, would be like--Thor without the thunder. Spring without flowers. Her dad without his love of punk music. It *would not be right.* Misty would take a thousand pranks that put her in a little danger and expose her to a grand adventure over a father who wasn’t Loki, any day.
“We’re the flowers in the dustbin,” she sings, picking up the stitching again. “We’re the poison in your human machine,” she grins, thinking about the way Angy’s distinctive style had spread through the dimension in an instant, the second the Creator-Queen let down her guard, “We’re the future, your future--”
Because there’s no way that cat was going to be the last thing she helped steal from that puffed-up petty tyrant. Sometimes, there were people you just *had* to rob. For everyone’s sake. And when you want someone to rob an asshole and humiliate them in the process? Misty has the *exact* pedigree you want.
“God save the queen,” She says, grin back in place, humming along to the instrumental, voice dripping with the poison that came from her hands. She has a feeling that no god will be doing *any* saving when BIg Team comes calling again.

## S7E25: Act I: Battle (Big Team Presents: The Nutcracker)

December 12, 2021
   Misty leans back in her chair when the battle scene starts, fairly sure she’s done enough ominous looming over Christopher Crossover for the time being. It’s starting to get to the point where she should ask her dad what’s really going on, but she’s not quite sure she has to yet. Sure, it would clear things up, but she’d been telling the truth when she told the Mayor that she didn’t super mind one way or the other if he was dating her dad. He’s fine, she guesses. A nice guy, albeit a bit of a doormat. She’s not sure how he was a successful superhero, even though she can kind of remember seeing Cyclone swanning around saving the day; if you can be bossed around by teenagers, how can you stand up to a supervillain?
   But still, the only real red flag that Misty can see is that the guy can’t hold down a long-term relationship, and that’s not a huge problem as far as she’s concerned. If he is dating her dad, and ends it, she’s pretty sure that her dad is going to be fine. He’s a resilient guy. No, it’s more the *other* problems that she’s worried about, like the danger of her dad being kidnapped by aliens again. Not that she thinks that the Mayor would do that on purpose, but there was no harm in giving him a little incentive to make sure it didn’t happen.
   Thus the ominous looming. But she’s done a lot of that so far, and she wants to enjoy the battle scene. She’d also stopped looming when Herr Drosselmeier came in, because he was her favorite character; she hadn’t missed the way that, as his theme started, her dad had glanced back up at her with a grin. He, of course, knew why she liked the mysterious, morally-shady character who swept in with magical gifts, although Misty’s magical gifts tended to come *two* days before Christmas, just in time for Misty’s birthday.
   But. Rat battle. She grins as the Rat King emerges, remembering the nasally voice of the real--or at least, more real than this but not *real* real--one that they had fought, and her fingers find the three crowns in her pocket, each about the size of a ring. She doesn’t wear rings--they tarnish and fall apart way too easy, and she’s always in gloves anyway--so she’ll have to find something else to do with them.
   On stage, Marie is being menaced by the mice, and Misty snorts again at the idea that Samantha would have responded anything like this kid. She doesn’t *know* Samantha particularly well, but she’s heard of her by reputation, and this Fantoccini guy did *not* do his research. On any of them, really. It had been a fun way to spend an afternoon, though. Definitely better than helping set up the set.  The fight with the toys on there had been *great--*she hadn’t known that Angy could do that, make acid like Misty’s make more of itself.
   Of course, that great idea had…not been so great in retrospect, Misty thinks, thinking of the melted hole in the set. Acid was great, but Misty couldn’t really make it only work on *one* thing--it kind of just. Ate anything it touched. But Angy had come to the rescue again, with the suggestion of asking Asiel for help fixing it--and now the stage looked as good as new! Man, Misty didn’t see what problems all those avalonian princesses had. Hanging out with a dragon was *great,* Angy was awesome. Humans were kind of stupid about this kind of thing.
   Misty glances around the crowd as the Nutcracker comes to life, picking up his sword to fight the Rat King. It’s usually one of the parts she likes, but it seems a little lackluster compared to tag-team fighting the Rat King with a dragon, an alchemist, and Scrivener. Speaking of, she can see Asiel here now; they’re sitting near people who Misty assumes are probably their parents, but there’s a deliberate empty seat left between them, and they look grumpy.
   Well, there’s plenty of room down by Misty and Angy, and she doesn’t think Angy will mind someone else sitting near them; Angy is slightly out of it in the way only good music can make her, inner eyelids closed, swaying back and forth slightly with the tune. Maybe at intermission she’ll try to see if Asiel wants to sit with the two of them. Paige seems a lot happier over by her family, and Misty blinks to see that she recognizes the person sitting next to the winged teenager. *Inge?*
   She hadn’t known Paige and Inge were friends, although she supposes now that it wasn’t super surprising. She would try to catch Inge’s eye and wave, but her…niecephew? Misty hasn’t come up with a great term for it yet--is focused on the stage, asking Paige something--probably to clarify some of the points of what’s going on. Well, Misty will say hi to Inge later. Right now--she thinks she’s at the right part of the music, and turns in time to see Marie bean the Rat King with a shoe, knocking the main crown directly off. She grins, remembering the satisfaction of doing exactly that with a table eraser earlier in the afternoon, and settles in to watch the show.

## S7OVA: London Calling (Everything Stays)

   Misty collapses onto her bed, nerves buzzing in every inch of her body. Her dad hadn’t asked many questions, for which she was profoundly grateful. She didn’t even know how to begin to answer them. Instead of thinking, she just wants to…she doesn’t know. Exist. Get out of her own head. Without even thinking, she slides her headphones over her ears, hitting shuffle on a random playlist on her phone.
   When the bass comes in, it rattles down through her sternum, to the tips of her aching fingers. *London Calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared, and battle come down.*
   She doesn’t even have the energy to laugh. It’s a good song, it honestly is. Just…of all the days. Of all the times to hear it.
   She’s been running on nothing but adrenaline since she saw that man in the road, registered the eyepatch at the same time as she registered Brenna telling her to hide. It was a moment of consideration that she had never expected from the other girl. Of course, Brenna had talked a big game about it, but at the end of the day, Odin was right there, and Misty was just…Misty.
   The worst thing was, before then it had been going *so well.* Stealing the urn had been like breathing; planning it out, figuring out how to distract and snipe, all of it coming together without a hitch. Having a team at her back for something like that felt good, even better because she knew she could trust them, at least in this. And then Odin had appeared and everything had gone straight to shit.
   *London calling to the underworld, come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls.*
   She’d entertained the idea, for an instant, that Odin wouldn’t know who she was. She’d entertained the idea, for another instant, that the rokkr had been wrong. That Odin was more understanding than that. That maybe, maybe, the rokkr had lied to her. The world would be so much easier if the rokkr had lied to her.
   And then she’d met Odin’s single eye and seen the look in it.
   It hadn’t been a good idea to say no to him. She knows that now, with adrenaline leeching out of her blood. But something in that same blood had rebelled at the fact that he just…ordered her. Like he had any right to. Like he, of all people, had *any right* to tell her what to do. Giving the mead to him was probably the best thing to do, honestly. Misty certainly didn’t have any use for it, and she couldn’t run from draugr forever. But…she couldn’t. It was impossible to tell if it was just because she didn’t want to or if there was some actual, physical thing stopping her from doing it. Maybe there wasn’t really a difference between the two, which was a scary thought. She’d had to hand it to Brenna, first.
   And then, naive as ever, she’d thought Odin would just leave.
   *The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in, meltdown expected, the wheat has run thin--*
   The apocalyptic chorus in her ears is strangely comforting against the words in her memory, Odin’s demand that Brenna prove her worth as Thor, as if Misty--hell, the entire *world--*hadn’t seen Brenna run out there every damn day and put herself on the line to protect a city. As if Odin somehow had any say in how worthy *Brenna* was of anything. *Bind this child of Loki where she can do us no more harm.*
   The rokkr had been right. They’d been right the entire goddamn time. Misty couldn’t expect any mercy from Asgard. Odin had said *no more harm,* but Misty had never *met* him before. She’d hurt Brenna. She knows this. If Brenna had been the one to say Misty was too dangerous, Misty wouldn’t like it, but she’d at least *understand* it. Brenna had reason to.
   Misty had *never met Odin before in her life.* She’d never done *anything* to him. She’d been a bit player in the rokkr who wasn’t good enough at magic to help with it, wasn’t good enough at fighting to help with that, and had run like a coward.
*--a nuclear era, but I have no fear, ‘cause London is drowning and I, I live by the river.*
   She had been dead certain, for a minute, that she wasn’t even going to get to say goodbye to her dad. That this was it. Brenna would agree, because that was Odin, or Brenna would disagree, the other woman there would become Thor, and she would--as she put it to Brenna--*handle this.* Like Misty was some unpleasant chore that had to be cleared out of the way.
   God, after Odin’s demand, neither of them--neither him nor the woman with him--had even *spoken* to her. Odin had looked Brenna in the eyes and had the gall to claim that duplicity and violence were *in her nature* after never speaking to her for more than a sentence, and Misty had understood, for a long breath, exactly why the rokkr--why her siblings--why her father thought the only way out was apocalypse, because how could you argue with someone who would say things like that?
   And then Brenna told Odin no, and Misty had stopped breathing.
   So when the runes on Misty’s arm went cold, and the water in the bay started roiling, of course Misty ran to the shore. It wasn’t like she didn’t know why Jormungandr was here, even before he explained. This was a *moment.* Something weird was happening with the mantle of Thor, with the way the hammer had exploded. If Brenna died now, would that end it? Would having no Thor tip the scales?
*London calling, to the imitation zone--forget it, brother, you can go it alone!*
   But Brenna had stood in between Misty and Odin and had said no, and for a brief second, Misty had seen a future that wasn’t the end of the world, so she’d moved almost without thinking. She’d thought, if she just talked to her brother--if she just explained--
   It was wild, she thought bitterly, how she could still be so naive.
   *London calling to the zombies of death, quit holdin’ out and draw another breath--*
   He’d cared enough to apologize to her first, she thinks, but it’s cold comfort. It would hurt less if she didn’t understand him. Maybe she wouldn’t, if she hadn’t just seen Odin. If she hadn’t just realized what she’d realized.
   And that had been one conversation. One minute, and someone had stood up for Misty. She remembers what Hel said--the fact that they’d been her age when the three of them had been taken from Angrboda’s house for the last time. She wonders, not for the first time, if she can blame her siblings for *anything.* To have that man--someone who was, she thinks bitterly, their father’s *blood brother*--dismiss them as monsters by nature, something that couldn’t be trusted and could only be locked up--and then to have everyone *listen?* And *do it?*
   If that had happened, and thousands of years had passed and almost everyone thought the Aesir had been justified, if they called you *monster* and *he whom the gods hate* and *hateful sea fish* and *bane of Thor,* well…well, it made a little more sense that Ragnarok would start looking like a better and better option, right? Even if you had to take out the most recent Thor on the way to make sure you’d win.
   *London Calling, see we ain’t got no Hyde, except for that one with the yellowy eyes--the ice age is coming, the sun’s moving in--*
   But that didn’t mean that was the *right solution,* Misty thought angrily. And this time--well, this time, Misty had managed to suck up all the poison that Jormungandr had spit out, and this time, Brenna hadn’t wanted to fight either, and *this time,* it hadn’t turned into Ragnarok.
   This time.
   --*a nuclear era, but I have no fear, ‘cause london is drowning and I, I live by the river--*
   And kind of the worst thing was, during that entire moment, Misty had been more scared of Brenna than of Jormungandr. Because Jormungandr wouldn’t hurt her. Even his venom, which withered grass and would have been lethal to anyone else, had just been--well, a little uncomfortable, but mostly just bc Misty wasn’t used to *absorbing* venom, and it had felt a little like holding her breath, but with her fingers instead of her lungs. Or something.
   Is it *good,* Misty wonders, to know that if Ragnarok happens, the only people she would have to worry about were the “good guys?”
   *London Calling, yes I was there too, and you know what they said? Well some of it was true!*
   Maybe, Misty thinks bleaky, Asgard was…right. She hates even the idea of it, because they’re not right for the *reasons* they think they’re right, but…how can Misty argue to Jormungandr that he shouldn’t attack the gods? Sure, Brenna had done nothing, but then--neither had Jormungandr. And it was easy to take the high road when you hadn’t been stuck at the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years.
   She thinks again of what Jormungandr had said to her--about how she didn’t know, yet, how intractable fate could be. If he wasn’t willing to listen, and Odin wasn’t willing to listen--was there *anything* Misty could do to stop this?
   What if there wasn’t?
   No. No, there had to be. Brenna had decided not to go with it, so that meant people *could.* That *had* to be able to happen. Misty didn’t want to think about the alternative.
   She buried herself further in her blankets, curled around her aching hands, and tried to hope that she was right, that she’d convince Jormungandr he was wrong and not the reverse.

   *I’ve never felt so much alike alike alike…*
December 12, 2021
   Misty leans back in her chair when the battle scene starts, fairly sure she’s done enough ominous looming over Christopher Crossover for the time being. It’s starting to get to the point where she should ask her dad what’s really going on, but she’s not quite sure she has to yet. Sure, it would clear things up, but she’d been telling the truth when she told the Mayor that she didn’t super mind one way or the other if he was dating her dad. He’s fine, she guesses. A nice guy, albeit a bit of a doormat. She’s not sure how he was a successful superhero, even though she can kind of remember seeing Cyclone swanning around saving the day; if you can be bossed around by teenagers, how can you stand up to a supervillain?
   But still, the only real red flag that Misty can see is that the guy can’t hold down a long-term relationship, and that’s not a huge problem as far as she’s concerned. If he is dating her dad, and ends it, she’s pretty sure that her dad is going to be fine. He’s a resilient guy. No, it’s more the *other* problems that she’s worried about, like the danger of her dad being kidnapped by aliens again. Not that she thinks that the Mayor would do that on purpose, but there was no harm in giving him a little incentive to make sure it didn’t happen.
   Thus the ominous looming. But she’s done a lot of that so far, and she wants to enjoy the battle scene. She’d also stopped looming when Herr Drosselmeier came in, because he was her favorite character; she hadn’t missed the way that, as his theme started, her dad had glanced back up at her with a grin. He, of course, knew why she liked the mysterious, morally-shady character who swept in with magical gifts, although Misty’s magical gifts tended to come *two* days before Christmas, just in time for Misty’s birthday.
   But. Rat battle. She grins as the Rat King emerges, remembering the nasally voice of the real--or at least, more real than this but not *real* real--one that they had fought, and her fingers find the three crowns in her pocket, each about the size of a ring. She doesn’t wear rings--they tarnish and fall apart way too easy, and she’s always in gloves anyway--so she’ll have to find something else to do with them.
   On stage, Marie is being menaced by the mice, and Misty snorts again at the idea that Samantha would have responded anything like this kid. She doesn’t *know* Samantha particularly well, but she’s heard of her by reputation, and this Fantoccini guy did *not* do his research. On any of them, really. It had been a fun way to spend an afternoon, though. Definitely better than helping set up the set.  The fight with the toys on there had been *great--*she hadn’t known that Angy could do that, make acid like Misty’s make more of itself.
   Of course, that great idea had…not been so great in retrospect, Misty thinks, thinking of the melted hole in the set. Acid was great, but Misty couldn’t really make it only work on *one* thing--it kind of just. Ate anything it touched. But Angy had come to the rescue again, with the suggestion of asking Asiel for help fixing it--and now the stage looked as good as new! Man, Misty didn’t see what problems all those avalonian princesses had. Hanging out with a dragon was *great,* Angy was awesome. Humans were kind of stupid about this kind of thing.
   Misty glances around the crowd as the Nutcracker comes to life, picking up his sword to fight the Rat King. It’s usually one of the parts she likes, but it seems a little lackluster compared to tag-team fighting the Rat King with a dragon, an alchemist, and Scrivener. Speaking of, she can see Asiel here now; they’re sitting near people who Misty assumes are probably their parents, but there’s a deliberate empty seat left between them, and they look grumpy.
   Well, there’s plenty of room down by Misty and Angy, and she doesn’t think Angy will mind someone else sitting near them; Angy is slightly out of it in the way only good music can make her, inner eyelids closed, swaying back and forth slightly with the tune. Maybe at intermission she’ll try to see if Asiel wants to sit with the two of them. Paige seems a lot happier over by her family, and Misty blinks to see that she recognizes the person sitting next to the winged teenager. *Inge?*
   She hadn’t known Paige and Inge were friends, although she supposes now that it wasn’t super surprising. She would try to catch Inge’s eye and wave, but her…niecephew? Misty hasn’t come up with a great term for it yet--is focused on the stage, asking Paige something--probably to clarify some of the points of what’s going on. Well, Misty will say hi to Inge later. Right now--she thinks she’s at the right part of the music, and turns in time to see Marie bean the Rat King with a shoe, knocking the main crown directly off. She grins, remembering the satisfaction of doing exactly that with a table eraser earlier in the afternoon, and settles in to watch the show.

## S7E27: I Want It All (In the Realm of the Creator-Queen)

January 2, 2022

Misty has to sprawl on her front in bed--her back still aches, probably from that last fall from the Creator-Queen that tore off the woman’s patchwork arm. Nothing too bad, and it’ll be better in the morning, but it does somewhat ruin her routine of sprawling on her back on the bed and relishing her victories.
Well, no reason that she can’t just do all of it on her front instead. She flicks through her phone for a song, clicking at random while considering the far more important topic of if there’s a concise way to make a cool title out of this latest achievement. Yes, okay, maybe she’s been spending too much time around Angy, but--as Inge had pointed out after trying some new nicknames for Misty--there was a long-standing tradition of Cool Titles lots of places, and if Misty wanted to make up her own kennings for herself, who could stop her?
“I WANT IT ALL,” Queen harmonizes from her phone suddenly, and Misty has to give her random clicking while not looking at the screen credit: it knows how to pick absolutely kickass songs. *“I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now--”*
The guitar riff kicks in and Misty grins, pillowing her head on her hands and mouthing along to the words.
“Adventure seeker, on an empty street, just an alley creature, light on his feet--A young fighter screaming, with no time for doubt, with the pain and anger, can’t see a way out--”
She’s liked this song for a long time. Of course, it’s Queen, which means it rules. But more than that, there’s something about the raw, unapologetic declaration of the song that’s enthralling. *I want it all,* it says, not apologizing or hemming and hawing about it, not making compromises. *I want it all, I want it now.*
For a lot of Misty’s life, she’d felt like she should probably want *less.* Be less pointy, less loud, take up less space; then, with the rokkr, want less warmth, less comfort, less of the soft human things that she’d grown up with and loved. She could be human, be soft and small and make other people comfortable; she could be rokkr, could be violent and sharp and a weapon. Not both.
Freddie Mercury’s voice rises out of the noise of the song, transcendent as it always is.
“It ain’t much I’m asking, I heard him say; gotta find me a future, move outta my way,” she sings along, smiling. “I want it all, I want it all--”
Misty thinks of the people in the Creator-Queen’s dimension, people who didn’t know how much they could want, how much they could have, because they’d been stuck in the same mile for their entire lives. Who didn’t even know there was more out there. Whose lives were so tied to the whim of that mad seamstress that they took the sudden cessation of cruelty as a revolutionary improvement.
“Listen all you people, come gather round,” she continues, pushing herself up off her bed--sure, rest is probably better than bopping around her room to Queen, but come on, what is she *supposed* to do? She’d just helped *steal a dimension!* “Gotta get me a game plan, gotta shake you to the ground--”
When she was younger, this song had reminded her of herself most of all, and she still thinks that’s fair. But now, it mostly makes her think of someone else, and the thought brings a smile to her face.
“--Just *give me* what I know is *mine,* people do you hear me? Just give me the sign, it ain’t much I’m asking, if you know the truth, here’s to the future, for the dreams of youth--”
Angy, wings out on the roof of a building, magic circle blazing in green fire beneath her as she wrested control of the entire place from the who-knows-how-old Queen who built it. Angy wreathed in fire again, stunning an angry mob into stopping for a moment. Angy, teleporting back to fight the Creator-Queen herself, on her own, because she was determined to steal this dimension *right.*
“I’m a man with a one-track mind,” Misty echoes Brian May in the bridge, leaning out across her shelves to look out the window, at where the stars were coming out, Sirius shining above the house. She knows she’s still riding the adrenaline of that fight, the rush of battle and of seeing the scenery around her grow taller and more ornate, watching dragon-motfis emerge on buildings and lightposts, watching the fountain begin to spew fire. “So much to do in one lifetime, not a man for compromise, or where’s and why’s, or living lies, so I’m living it all--”
Another image: Angy, haloed in green flame, tearing the ground apart to find MIsty, looking every inch an awe-inspiring, terrifying, beautiful dragon. That moment hangs in Misty’s mind, making her breath catch--although, she figures, it was probably the fact that she’d kind of been *freaking the fuck out* down there. She doesn’t like to be trapped; being *stuck underground* had been nightmarish. But, she thinks, she should have known that Angy would come get her. She’d do the exact same, if the circumstances were reversed. The guitar rears its head again, pounding into the chorus, and Misty lets herself let out a long, even breath.
Angy came to save her. Of course she had. Misty is, as Angy made very clear, part of her hoard; Misty doesn’t think Angy would like *anyone* messing with her stuff, least of all some weird monarch Angy is already trying to rob. And as weird as Angy’s way or phrasing friendship is, Misty thinks she understands. It’s about things, people, places, being important to Angy. It’s in the same way Misty doesn’t want someone messing with Halcyon, for all the usual reasons but also on some deep and primal level because Halcyon was *hers.* Sometimes people are important to you because they’re your people, and it *sounds* like the thing that the Creator-Queen was doing, but it absolutely isn’t, at all. Misty can’t really explain the difference, more than that, but it’s *there* and it’s *important.*
…huh, the song is over. Somehow, Misty had lost the last of it, stuck in her thoughts. Well, she can just replay it, no big loss. But maybe she should get some sleep. She doesn’t want her back to still be hurting when she’s helping Angy move.

## S7 Finale - The Chain (On The Shores of Avalon)

January 9, 2022
The kick-drum starts, and Misty feels like she’s shaking apart with every hit of it. It’s been hours--there was getting dinner with Jade and the prince (the prince? Is he king now that he has the sword? Fuck, Misty doesn’t know. Doesn’t super care, either. Arthur, then, because Misty doesn’t think she can call someone “prince” with a straight face), and then coming home and getting dinner with her father, who teased out the outline of what Misty had done that day and then, understanding perhaps that even Misty didn’t know how she was feeling, offered to do the dishes on his own if she wanted some time.
She doesn’t know if she wanted time, but she has it now, perched on the roof outside her window, her legs dangling over the dry winter grass of the yard. Sirius shines bright above the house, and Misty remembers that Skoll always called it *Lokabrenna,* Loki’s Torch.
*Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise--*
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting on the shores of that lake in Avalon. Maybe some lake guardian of some sort. Some kinda big snake, maybe, that felt like it fit. Not--
She remembers the details, almost disjointed. The style of the cloak, so familiar but not the kind of thing you saw in Avalon, built for colder climes. The frisson of adrenaline rushing up her arm from the runes on her wrist, before she even realized why it was happening. The missing arm.
Misty knows Tyr is one of the most-vaunted among the Aesir. How could she not? He has a *day* named after him. When people came up with fancy names for other gods, they used his; Thor, Chariot-Tyr; Odin, Hanged-Tyr. His *name* was the word for *god.* The bravest god, the most valiant, the ones warriors prayed to. Tyr: battle-god, Son-of-Odin, Mars-of-the-assembly. The One-Handed god.
Feeder of the Wolf.
Fleetwood Mac blared in her ears: *run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies.* She should pick a different song, probably. One that doesn’t make her blood ice over with an anger that scares her in her bones.
“You are right. Fenrir was my friend and I loved him dearly. But the needs of the gods outweigh anyone else.”
She can still hear it, rattling down in the same place in her head where Odin’s words sit. The music isn’t loud enough to drown that out. *Fenris was my friend and I loved him dearly.* The song, indifferent to her thoughts, continues on, each word another drop of ice into her blood.
*And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying, I would never break the chain.* The voices overlap, echoing each other. Misty curls in on herself further.
Hel had told her, back on Naglfar, tucked away from the celebration, about their brothers. She’d said that the Aesir had never really planned for Fenrir to be anything but a hostage. Misty is pretty sure she believed it, too, but at the same time--Misty is pretty sure Tyr wasn’t lying. There was--something--in his voice. In his posture. He had been telling the truth, Misty is sure.
Hel probably was, too. Misty saw the way Odin looked at her, can’t imagine it was any different for her siblings. Some part of her, a part she desperately wants to shut up, reminds her that he and her father are blood-brothers. If this is how someone treats his blood-nieces and nephews, though, blood isn’t worth shit to him. Misty fully believes that Odin only ever saw Fenrir as a hostage.
Somehow, the world would be easier to live with if Misty could believe the same of Tyr. If Misty could believe that someone who loved you couldn’t betray you, just because of Odin’s proclamation, because of the threat of Ragnarok, because of *the needs of the gods.* But Tyr had loved her brother. And Tyr had tricked him and the Aesir had bound him.
*And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again.* Is it that there’s something wrong with her family, Misty thinks suddenly and bitterly, that makes them too hard to love? Once, Odin and her father had sworn to be family. Now, Odin condemns Misty as evil based on her nature, on the nature she inherited from her father. Once, Tyr had loved Fenrir. That hadn’t lasted, either. What was that love worth, if it crumbled so easily? Misty is under no illusions that Brenna even *likes* her, but when faced with that same choice, Brenna said no.
Maybe, Misty thinks and snorts, Brenna just has more moral conviction in her pinky finger than all of Asgard does in their centuries of history.
She needs to stop thinking about this, or she’ll break. She can’t bear to look at her hands, knowing--*knowing--*that inverted tiwaz, Fenrir’s rune, is glowing on her wrist.
*Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night--*
Her thoughts, though, don’t take her anywhere better; they take her to an invisible tower, a woman with the title of Queen and the most stunning lack of care Misty has ever seen in a parent. Shit had gone sideways from the moment the less cool Lancelot had shown up, his dark armor and way of looking down his nose at the team raising every alarm in Misty’s body.
*--break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light--*
And then. Her blood still boils from the rest of it, a welcome reprieve from the ice of thinking about Tyr too long. The fact that Lancelot--that *Sir Lancelot,* who even Misty knows is famous for being a hero even though this version of him ended up in jail--would release a dragon on a village he was *supposed to help protect,* with Angy--Angy who hadn’t destroyed a village but had liberated one just the other week, Angy who had confessed to Misty that she didn’t want destruction out of her rule, Angy who stood there in shackles clapped on her by a world that didn’t care who she was, just *what* she was--*right there--*
Misty had lost her temper, and had not gotten it back for the rest of the day. That smug, arrogant knight--that shitty mother, willing to unleash a dragon on her tired son and claim it was just a ‘test’--the way Angy had stopped, stalled, made herself small and unthreatening and quiet--it made Misty want to scream. Want to tear that tower down. Guinevere’s confidence in her own invulnerability poked at the part of Misty that remembered her name’s meaning, remembered that nothing was truly untouchable, that even the most beautiful cherished thing could be broken.
*And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again.*
Misty doesn’t have a mother, so she’s not entirely sure how that’s supposed to go, but she has two extremely good *parents,* and she knows that parents do not set their children up for failure. She knows that parents *care,* and the fact that Guinevere had looked at Arthur and Misty hadn’t seen a scrap of that care is--
Misty doesn’t have words for it. She knows the basics of how the Arthur story goes, even if she’s never understood why Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot couldn’t have sat down like normal people and just *talked about their relationships,* it wasn’t like it was *rocket science.* Did Avalon not know you could date multiple people? They had to know, right??
In *any* case, though, whatever the fuck was happening with that, it’s no reason to *trick your kid into a deathtrap.* There’s no reason for that, no excuse, *nothing.* Guinevere is a shitty mother and a shitty person and, if she is the reason Angy is in chains, someone Misty is going to fistfight one day.
*I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain*
…without causing an Avalon-Asgard war, because again, Tyr wants that and Misty *cannot* abide that man getting what he wants. She only realizes she’s been biting her lip when the sting of her sharp canines finally hits, and when something drips onto her pants, making the denim sizzle.
She stares down at her hands, unsure at first what she’s seeing. She’d laced her gloved fingers together into a cup of sorts early on, to stop herself from raking her nails down the roof just to leave a mark, but she hadn’t thought to look down at them for a few minutes.
Her poison, thick and green-white in the starlight, has eaten through her gloves entirely. It pools in the hollows of her hands, filling them almost to overflowing, seeping through the cracks in her fingers, about to drip, about to fall. It *bubbles,* almost, for all that it’s cold. The fire and ice of her fury leaks uncontrollably from her hands, which have never been as controllable as she wants them to be.
A bowl full of poison, ready to spill over. It’s too close to how she feels right now for comfort.

*Chain, keeping us together, running in the shadows.* She doesn't like where her mind keeps going.
She can’t just sit here alone, she’s going to lose her mind. She wipes her hands on her jeans, mentally consigning them--and the gloves--to a trashcan, and pulls out her phone. It takes three tries before her hands stop shaking enough to pull up Inge’s contact information.

## S7.5 OVA:Warp and Weft - Everybody Wants to Rule the World

The nice thing about music, Misty thought, was that if you played it loud enough you could pretend it was louder than your thoughts.
She’d walked into the showers at the Big Team Base fully clothed, only leaving her vest outside; any hope she had of salvaging these jeans and shirt did kind of depend on washing them as quickly as possible, and it wasn’t like the poison on them would hurt her. Fortunately, though, GAIA either understood something about Misty and music after the hours Misty had spent in the danger room, always with the radio or one of her own playlists blaring, or was just used to weird requests from the Big Team, because they didn’t bat a (metaphorical) eye at Misty blasting music while she attempted to scrape half-dried toxic sludge from her skin and clothes.
The drums of the original, Tears for Fears version of *Everybody Wants to Rule the World* began, and Misty shoved her hands under the spray of hot water, watching as poison sloughed off her skin, leaving it untouched beneath.
Where the drops hit the tile of the shower, if they weren’t mixed with enough water, the tile hissed and pitted instantly.
*“Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back--”*
She resolved to apologize to GAIA later, but it wasn’t like her bathroom at home would hold up any better. And as long as it was diluted enough, it should be fine. She hoped.
And at least, at the end of the day, the mission had--well, the mission had gone well. Kind of. As well as could be hoped. Violet was going to the hospital, and Misty had managed to get a promise from the very concerned Nat to text her if anything happened, but she wasn’t stupid enough to walk into a hospital covered in…whatever she was covered in.
She’d gotten angry before, with her powers. She’d gotten so full of overwhelming emotion that it had spilled from her nails and pooled in her hands and she’d held it close, too close, because if it dropped on the earth some part of her was mortally certain that the world would split and scream and shudder under her.
“--*acting on your best behavior, turn your back on mother nature, everybody wants to rule the world.”*
She’d guessed from the moment Violet told her that one of the others--Clotho--could re-write fate that this was not going to be a good day. Seeing Clotho, the other girl perched up on the Halcyon Needle, and feeling the *yank* of something core to her very being being pulled out of her…
She shuddered at the memory, dunking her head under the cold stream of water, green-black water rushing past her eyes. Her poison hadn’t always been this dark, she remembered. It had always been greenish-white, for most of her life, but…
…was it after Jormungandr, after she absorbed whatever he had been spitting in to the air? Or was it after Tyr, the anger in her turning into something dark and angry and infused into her blood and venom and being? Or was it something that would have always happened, anyway, inexorable and unchangeable?
*"--It’s my own design,"* the song crooned in the background. *"It’s my own remorse. Help me to decide, help me make the most of freedom--"*
Clotho had pulled on Misty’s fate, something so integral to Misty that she hadn’t even known it was there until it was pulled and then couldn’t ignore it, and every part of Misty’s being had *screamed* in denial. She hadn’t even thought before shooting, barely aimed, her entire body moving on instinct to *make it stop.* That fate, that thread, that thin line of red sunset on the horizon was *hers,* nobody else’s, nobody’s to toy with or weave or rework.
“I thought you in particular would want any fate but yours,” Clotho had said, staring at Misty as though she knew Misty, after Misty shot her, and Misty’s vision had gone red and the entire rooftop had filled with poison darker and worse than any Misty had called on before in her life, furious at the audacity of Clotho speaking as though she knew *anything* about what Misty might want. As though she knew *anything* of the fate she was trying to toy with.
"--*there’s a room where the light won’t find you, holding hands while the walls come tumbling down--"*
But. *But.* Misty’s fate was not good. Clotho was right in that much. The red light that streamed up from Misty’s runes, the one bit of magic she’d ever accomplished, the one that did nothing but express visually the deep knots of fate she’d felt in her soul, was the light of sunsets and blood and ruin. Her fate had been written in the stars on the day of her birth, the day of mistletoe in the old calendars; it had been written even before, when her father had scried for her name and gotten instead Baldr’s death sentence.
It’s not that she *wanted* that fate, she told herself desperately, watching the poison pool around her and vanish, diluted, down the drain. It was just that…that…that at the end of the day, it was *hers* to break or be bound by, it was *hers* to confront or perish to. It wasn’t something for some stranger to grab and smile and speak like she knew anything about.
*"I can’t stand this indecision, married with a lack of vision--"*
“Is this what you were talking about?” She asked the water, too scared to actually touch the runes on her hand, to contact Jormungandr again after their fractious first and last meeting. “How fate is harder to resist than I thought?” Was this how it caught her, then, bitter pride and independence carrying her directly to the last place she wanted to be? She wasn't much of one for reading, but she knew that in all the big tragedies, the hero fell because they could not stop being themself.
"--*all for freedom and for pleasure, everybody wants to rule the world."*
She didn't know. There’s so much she didn't know--why when something happened outside that elevator, she had felt herself resonating with the eerie strings that echoed through the space and lit her runes stronger than anything she’d ever seen before, why her poison was changing and twisting, why any of them were stuck in this situation in the first place, if Violet would be okay. Violet *had* to be okay. They all had to be okay, at the end of this.
She told herself that, left the shower, and pretended she won’t be up every night for a week, terrified of herself and her desperate defense of a fate she has never done anything but hate.

## S8E2:The More Things Change... - It's Alright

April 23, 2022
Misty’s dad is in bed--he’d been discharged from the hospital under strict bedrest instructions for the next day--and the house is quiet. It’s too quiet; Misty feels like she’s about to crawl out of her skin. Or perhaps that’s just the poison leaking from her nails. Half an hour after her dad has fallen asleep, and still she can’t settle.
She shoves her headphones on, hits shuffle indiscriminately on her phone. She would be listening to the playlist containing every song her dad’s ever recommended to her, but right now that feels like pressing too heard on a bruise, painful and raw. She doesn’t recognize the light opening of the song; she doesn’t care enough to check.
*Ah hey, I had a night, I had a day,*
*I did a million stupid things I said one billion foolish things,*
*I’m not okay,*
The lyrics, on the other hand, make her slump against the wall. Carefully, she gathers herself, walks over to the sofa in the living room, collects the throw blanket on it and wraps it around herself like a hug. She’d promised  her dad that she’d go to bed in plenty of time, that she’d get a good night’s sleep, but--but--
She closes her eyes and sees him collapsed in the corner of the recording booth, sees him collapsed on the floor of the kitchen, hears the voice of the 911 operator in her ears.
*It’s alright, it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s okay*
*You’re not a monster, just a human, and you’ve made a few mistakes*
She shakes, a full-body tremor, and lets herself slump against the wall outside her dad’s room, unable to bring herself more than ten feet from the door.
*A few mistakes* sure is a way to describe the mission today. Maybe not the beginning--trying to figure out what Barbie was doing before bringing her to the base was probably a good move, and getting everyone’s attention the second things started happening at the radio station was--that was good. That had all been good. Getting information about what was going on from Mystic Radiance, also good, that was fine. She’d known more about this particular kind of problem than Misty, anyway.
*Goddamn, I threw a brick right through the window*
*Of my life, ignored the signals, can’t see straight--*
And then, unfortunately, Misty had lost her temper.
The others--they were great, they were better than great, but they’d been new to the team, and Misty--Misty was the one who had been on the team longer, she should have been like Nat or Signe or Carmen, someone who could hold their shit together and make sure the mission was a success.
Instead, Misty had been up against someone else who used poison for the first time, and hadn’t known how to handle it. And then she’d seen her dad--and then she’d realized what was happening--
*It’s alright, it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s okay*
*You’re not a demon, there’s a reason*
*You behaved in that way*
--the song is a comfort, in the way that nobody she has right now can really be a comfort, because while she loves her father a god of chaos is not the world’s most comforting presence, and the person who’s always been that--who has always been a rock, been something Misty could rely on--is sleeping off a dangerous poisoning in the other room.
A dangerous poisoning which, in the moments Misty was removing it from him, had felt to her as though she herself was killing him from the inside.
*I don’t wanna know who I am*
*‘Cause heaven only knows what I’ll find*
The new team members--the squire and the magical guardian--well, they were who they were: heroes. People who protected other people, who had managed to shut down the larger plan that Toxic Omen was performing.
*I don’t want to know I’m not capable of coming out alive.*
Misty had done what she did best: hurt someone.
*I don’t want to see what’s inside,*
*I think that I would rather go blind*
And at the end of the day, what was the real difference between her and Toxic Omen? Their poisons had felt similar to Misty’s power, and what separated Misty from being someone who would take over a radio station full of people she didn’t care about, from retaliating against naive kids who tried to stop her based on *morals* and *justice* and all the things that had only ever been used against MIsty, and never to protect her?
*I don’t want to know I’m not capable--*
*I’m capable--*

A year’s worth of time, maybe, and a lot of luck, and being raised by the man in the room behind her. And even him she had hurt.
*I’m alright, I’m okay, I’m alright, I’m okay*
The pounding buildup of the song dropped away for a moment, leaving just the voice, and Misty let out a breath.
She was okay. Her dad was okay. The doctor had said that it was lucky that the poison had been removed so quickly, that Misty’s quick actions in the moment had prevented further damage. That she’d done the right thing. And if Toxic Omen hadn’t been busy trying to dodge her, she would have tried to stop the other two from shutting down whatever magic ritual she’d been doing in the other room.
*I’m not a monster, I’m a human, and I’ve made a few mistakes*
*I’m alright,  I’m okay, I’m alright, I’m okay*
*I’m not gruesome, just human--*
It’s not that Mystic Radiance is wrong, Misty knows. She is…what was the word? Volatile. Susceptible to things that feed off dark emotions, like that Dire thing that Toxic Omen somehow worked for, even more than Mystic Radiance knows. She’s not a knight, or a squire, no matter what compliments Tristane tries to give her. She knows what she is: volatile, dangerous, running from a bad past and a worse future.
But. But for right now, she’s a member of Halcyon City’s Big Team. She’s a hero, and when she hurts someone it is to protect someone else.
--*it’s alright, it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s okay*
*And I believe, yes I believe, that you will see a better day.*
The song loops, Misty hitting the repeat button, and--gradually--she drifts to sleep, wrapped in a blanket in the hallway outside her dad’s room.

## S8E11 - Icarus, Borne on Wings of Steel (To Mechas, With Love)

May 10, 2022
Misty walks to school--it’s one of the little returns to her old habit of wandering Halcyon, and the idea of sitting still on the bus is *agonizing* to consider--and so, on the way, she can listen to whatever she wants. Today, it’s not even a question.It feels like some part of her is still up there, the stars of space shining around her, the dust of the moon still caking her boots. The twinkling notes begin, followed by the strings,and Misty closes her eyes as she crosses the street and lets herself *remember* as the guitar *hits.*
Sneaking past the Rent-A-Cop with the help of Violet’s fantastic “I want to speak to your manager” powers. The cockpit of the mech, glowing in purples and whites. The key chords slamming into the song, just as they’d blared out over Halcyon’s nighttime skyscape.
“Early in the morning sunlight, soaring on the wings of dawn--”
The time right now is even right, although it wasn’t last night when they found the mecha. The sun is peeking over the skyscrapers of Halcyon, and Misty tips her face up to meet it, not caring for a moment that she’s on a busy sidewalk.
“--here I’ll live and die with my wings in the sky, and I won’t come down no more--”
Not that it had been all great. There had been the petrifying moment where the mech had failed, before Misty hit the reset button, when Angy had needed to grab it with her magic. That had--that had been terrifying, sure, but then it had restarted and the wind had caught them and they’d soared *upward.*
“Borne on wings of steel, I have so much to feel--”
It had been *fantastic.* Misty has always liked the idea of flying, although she much prefers being flown somewhere by Angy over something like a plane. She probably *still* prefers Angy over the mech, but there was something incredible about the mech’s flight as well.
“Sail on, sail on, I will rise each day to meet the dawn--so high, so high, I’ve climbed the mountains of the sky!”
She sings along under her breath, feet taking her the familiar path to Big High but her eyes and mind full of the glorious moment when the world had been limned in azure and crimson, when their mech had broken through the seal of the atmosphere and then, suddenly, they’d been out in the blackness of space.
Below them, Earth’s nighttime side had been occluded, its outline visible because of the sun behind it--but the lights of the cities shone upward, tiny golden beads strung together in a map you could only see from space. The globe that Misty’s brother encircled; all of planet Earth, there below them.
She hadn’t been able to look away from the windows until the other mech had hailed them, because she was worried--she was worried that she would forget what Earth looked like, like that. Some part of her had been sure that was the only time she’d ever be able to see it.
“I found my freedom flying high,” she sings, staring up at the sky still, the pale blues of early morning, dotted with clouds. “I climbed the mountains of the sky!”
The break hits and it gives Misty time to start walking again--she’s gonna be late at this rate, but who can blame her? Yesterday she was *in space.* And the race--the adrenaline of a good competition, no-holds-barred…
Pumping the strange black poison that seeped from her more and more into the core of the mecha, and watching it turn to black-opal *fire* before her eyes, something toxic and terrible turned sublime, into something that could push them even higher, even faster. Misty had never thought of that poison as anything but worrying, but--
--but with it, their mecha had reached the moon. The *moon.* Misty and her weird poison had helped that happen.
And then, on the moon--well, Misty hadn’t expected midnight snacks on the moon to be that nice, but it *had* been.
“Floating on the clouds of amber,” she sings, “searching for the rainbow’s end, earth so far below me--”
Earth *had* been far beneath them, small and beautiful and breathtaking. She’d stared at it as Violet asked her if she thought people could be more than what they were supposed to be, and--and Misty knows that Violet grapples with that on a different level than Misty does, but Misty had looked down at the pale blue dot, and--
--and for a moment, a beautiful moment in the night sky with her friends, she’d looked at that small blue planet and thought, *I could never help destroy that,* and for a moment she wasn’t a weapon of fate.
It had been so beautiful she’d wanted to cry.
“--Sail on, sail on, I will rise each day to meet the dawn,”
And then of course Angy had fallen and Misty hadn’t had any time to rhapsodize about the beauty of earth from a distance. Angy was heavy--she was a dragon, of course she was--but Misty was stronger than she looked. Sometimes she forgot Angy was around her height, because the other girl’s presence was so *big,* but…she’d been small, and warmer than a human would have been, and even with Carmen and Violet’s reassurances Misty had been *so worried--*
But Angy was alright, just channelling more power than her body could handle, which is *another* reason those stupid shackles needed to come off. And she’d even said she could take Misty *back to the moon.*
Misty’s not sure if Angy knows about that moment of perspective, of freedom, that Misty had felt on the moon. She has no idea if Angy knew what she was offering. But on the list of best things Misty had ever been given, even the *idea* of going to the moon again is easily in the top five.
“--I found my freedom flying high,” she says, voice a whisper even though the song isn’t. It’s just hard to get words out around the sudden lump in her throat. “I’ve climbed the mountains of the sky.”
She rounds the corner and Big High comes into view, and then--she beams--there’s a burst of emerald fire near the door, and Angy is *also* running a little late, it seems.
“Angy!” she says, pulling out her earbuds, and jogs the rest of the way to meet her at the door.

## S8E16: Hayloft II (Round and Round It Goes)

TW: Discussion of mind control
May 20, 2022
Misty is buzzing with leftover energy, and some part of her knows that she should go to the danger room. That’s the safe place, the place to burn this off and end up okay, end up even remotely presentable.
She doesn’t want to be okay, she doesn’t want to be presentable. Her feet take her to the edge of the semi-abandoned warehouse district as the low opening notes rumbled in through her headphones and into her bones. Misty might not know Halcyon as well as she did when she didn’t have a permanent home, when she *needed* to know it, but she can find somewhere nobody will go. The low bass growl feels like it’s propelling her forward, until she finds an empty lot, a few ruined walls still standing.  Nobody has rebuilt this area; a company hasn’t bought the lot back up, and so there are just ruined walls and the sky above, stars coming out even through the haze of the eastern seaboard.
The lyrics start, but she isn’t even listening to them as she drives her fist into a wall, the aluminum siding denting as pain blooms along the line of her knuckles.
*“--drugs and punks and blood on the street/blood on her knees/bloody history,”*  Ryan Guldemond’s voice is loud in her ears, suddenly, with the release of adrenaline that came from hitting the wall, that came from *breaking* something. *“Whatever happened to the hayloft? Burnt to the ground--”*
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.The day wasn’t supposed to go like this. She’d been going to Nat’s show, because it was a Friday night and Nat’s shows were fantastic, and Violet had been there even, and they’d all gone back to the back to hang out, and sure, it was a little agonizing to be around Nat and Violet with all the pining, but Misty wasn’t going to stick her nose further into that--and besides, it was a fun kind of agonizing, because she was still hanging out with her friends.
*“--my baby’s got a gun, my baby’s got a gun, my baby’s got a gun, I’d better run--”*
Even after Stareater had kidnapped the fake Cadenza--fake Cadenza? Other Cadenza? Misty isn’t sure, except that she knows the Nat who she stuck with is her Nat, their Nat, the team’s Nat--things had been going alright. And then Misty had started chatting with him, had tried to turn his comment about her aesthetic into a fun joke, but it became clearer and clearer that something was wrong, that he hadn’t wanted to be doing what he did--
Her fist impacted the wall again.
*“--it goes boom boom crack ga-ga-ga-ga boom boom--”*
Even once Handler had turned the other Cadenza on them, initially it had been okay. Because Misty knew how to deal with Nat’s powers; it was easy enough to put together that you wanted to paralyze the vocal chords of someone whose power was her voice. And then--but then---
The shine of Handler’s watch, the glimpse of red like sunset, like funeral pyres, the image of a long white-berried dart held in familiar green-stained hands--
The aluminum siding crunched, and Misty’s hand met the concrete behind it. Blood smeared bright-red against the stone and mixed with hissing flecks of black liquid that had escaped Misty’s tightly clenched fist.
*“--an eye for an eye, a leg for a leg--”*
The worst thing, remembering it, was how *naturally* it came. Misty knows, of course, that she doesn’t take herself seriously. From threats to her life, to her grades, she tends not to give much of a shit. If someone isn’t in danger, really in danger, Misty will fuck around and find out on the battlefield as much as actually work. Sure, she didn’t have to steal a pretzel cart, or try to climb a giant monster. But why not? Why take her life too seriously?
*“--a shot in the heart doesn’t make it unbreak--”*
But when she was--well, not *gone*, but when she hadn’t been in control, what was left hadn’t known *not to get serious*. Hadn’t known how much Misty tried to *avoid* taking things seriously. Misty had been fettered in the back of her own mind.
*“--she really really didn’t wanna make it messy, she really really didn’t but the girl’s gone cray--”*
She’d managed to pull back exactly once, the second she realized that--that it, that *she*, was taking the fight seriously. She saw Nat trap her in the same sound-wall that had held Tyr, and for a moment she’d been grateful because surely that would work--and then the black poison had pooled on her fingertips and--
*“--my baby’s got a gun, my baby’s got a gun--”*
--she’d slammed her own hand to the ground, because *no*. Because that--using that, trying to figure out what it was, engaging with the poison that felt like all the distilled hatred in her body--was too far.
And because it would have worked, and that was almost more terrifying than anything else.
But the barrier came down, anyway, when Handler tried to run and Nat pivoted to focus on her.
*“--I better run--”*
Misty drops her fist to her side, feeling liquid--blood or venom, she doesn’t know, there might not be a difference--dripping and hissing against the concrete flooring. She feels sick, because--because--
--because the second her arm came up to aim the crossbow at Nat’s unprotected back, a part of her had gone *yes*. Had gone *this is right*. She’d been focused and serene and deadly serious, because why did Misty exist, other than to aim a dart at that which was bright and shining and brave and true? With her finger on the trigger, the world had been so simple and her place in it was so clearly-defined she could have cried from relief.
And she wished she could say it was the control. That it was Handler.
But she wasn’t sure.
*“--my baby’s got a gun, my baby’s got a gun--”*
She slams her hand into the wall again, then spins back, shoots into the crater her poison had chipped into the concrete wall. Shoots again, and again, and--
--and the aluminum siding, that which was still intact, catches the light of the stars, and Misty sees her reflection distorted in the ripples and waves of the metal--
Her teeth are bared in a snarl, long canines poking over her bottom lip; her face is drawn fully into its angles. Nobody will mistake her for human, like this, even without the poison dripping down from both hands, pooling in caustic puddles on the floor.
And she is crying.
She hadn’t even noticed.
*“She’s not a bad kid, she’s not a bad kid, but she had to do it,”* the song says, audible again over the pounding in her ears, over the consistent low whining noise she only now realizes was coming from her. *“She had to do it,”*
And: she *knows*. She knows that this, today, wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t been in control of herself, not really. And she had been able to pull herself back. *Still*, even then, even controlled, she hadn’t truly been giving it her all.
But, alone in a warehouse with nothing but music and the reflection she’s aiming at, she can admit she’s terrified of how *easy* it would be. She looks into the tear-filled eyes of her reflection, sees the red of burning pyres, of sunset. Handler didn’t put that there; that was there from the beginning.
*“She’s not a bad kid, but she had to do it.”*
Her crossbow is outstretched, pointed unerringly where the heart of her reflection would be. She looks into its eyes, and for a moment, a different face is there. Taller, pale-skinned and pale-haired, radiant; a young man, who Misty has never seen before and knows in her bones.
*“--she had to crack, she had to kill--”*
Misty’s hand tenses on reflex, the trigger starts to move--
She drops the entire bow. It clatters to the ground, and she sucks in a breath, another. Pulls her headphones off with hands that shake.
It would be *so easy*, to start taking things seriously. To let the bitter black poison well up and seep into everything, to let the cup overflow and damn the consequences. To let fate lead her and gain the clarity and competence she’d had under Handler’s control. Stareater was right: she would be a good villain. It would be easy, to be a very, *very* good villain, because--if she was a villain--she would take it seriously.
It would be easy, but it wouldn’t be worth it. And Asgard will never thank her for it, her siblings will probably resent her for it, but--that’s okay. She won’t let that bother her; she won’t take it seriously.
And if that’s the only price it takes, to keep the fires of Ragnarok in her eyes instead of across Halcyon City, she’ll pay it gladly.

## S8E18: Luck Be A Lady Tonight (Luck Be A Fugitive Tonight)

May 27, 2022
Frank Sinatra is out of Misty’s usual repertoire, she’ll admit, and not in the direction that she’s been exploring, venturing into recommendations of punk rock and pop punk. And those are fun, she loves those, but…well, when you’ve just robbed a casino, sometimes you have to go back to the classics.
“They call you lady luck,” Sinatra sings, to a flourish from the band. “But there is room for doubt--at times you have a very unladylike way of running out.”
A casino heist. A *casino heist*. Sure, for a heist Misty supposes they didn’t come out with much loot--she’d seen the pile of chips Angy was hoarding with her characteristic fervor, they could have come out of that casino *loaded*--but maybe when you steal a god from a place, you’ve already taken the most expensive thing there.
“You’re on this date with me, the pickings have been lush, and yet before this evening is over you might give me the brush--”
And all in all, it had been a nice date. *Outing*, she means, or mission, for all that GAIA didn’t give it to them. But date in the flirty-fun tone of the song, a date with luck itself to see if they could pull the heist off.
Oh *gods*, she’s been spending way too much time with her father if she’s thinking about a heist as a seduction of the concept of luck. She loves Loki, but in very particular ways he’s a *terrible* influence.
“Luck be a lady tonight, luck be a lady tonight,” Sinatra continues, the band swinging behind him with ease. “Luck, if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with, luck be a lady tonight.”
She’s out on the roof now, basking in her success. Loki had gone off on his own soon after they reached shore, and Misty suspects that he didn’t want to be around to try to explain himself to her dad once she handed over the news that *someone* had bet, among other things, his *actual heart* on a game of blackjack that he didn’t entirely understand.
When Misty *had* told Joshua--not bringing up what Loki mentioned later, the notes about her dad’s past with Yamato, because the night had seemed too beautiful to bother with things in the long past--he’d let out one of the longer sighs Misty had ever heard from him, and then just started laughing.
“Sometimes I worry about my taste in men,” he had confided in Misty once he had regained his breath. “Thanks for bailing him out, Misty.”
“It was fun,” Misty had said, shrugging. “And I *also* worry about your taste in men.”
That had set him off into laughter again.
“Luck let a gentleman see how nice a dame you can be,” Misty croons into the night, trying to emulate the flirty style of the song. She probably could pull it off with an audience, she thinks, but alone on a roof it does seem a little silly. “I know the way you’ve treated other guys you’ve been with; luck be a lady, with me.”
She circles back to her earlier thought, the conversation about her dad’s love life reminding her. She supposes, all told, there’s not much difference between a heist and a date. You get dressed up, you go with a person or people you ideally know well enough to trust and you come out of it knowing each other better; everyone knows more or less what they’re in for at the onset or else it’s a disaster; it’s, presumably, a lot of fun.
Misty assumes dates are fun, at least. They had better be, or else what’s the point? But so far her only experiences with dates were the fake dates she and Angy went on for Valentines’ Day to con people out of free extra food.
Anyway: heists are basically dates, and if Misty hadn’t promised herself she was going to stop trying to meddle with Nat and Violet, no matter if she walked into the kitchen to find them just staring at each other or had to see Nat’s reaction to Violet in a suit (or Violet’s reaction to Nat in a nice dress--the point is, Misty has put up with a *lot* in the last four hours alone), she would point that out to the pair and let them deal with that revelation.
“So let’s keep the party polite,” Sinatra continues, and Misty sighs. She *had* promised herself that, though, so Nat and Violet will just have to keep doing…whatever they were doing without her interference.
A part of her that sounds a lot like her father points out that Finch showing up might throw some fun gasoline on that particular fire, and she smiles. Finch had been weird, but what kind of heist went the way you planned it? And besides, she’d gotten Misty the hat, so Misty can’t be too irritated toward her.
“Stick with me lady, I’m the fella you came in with, luck be a lady tonight.”
Still, she isn’t too happy about not being there when the fight broke out, particularly because that lady--Misty hadn’t caught her name in the fight and didn’t care enough to find out, anyone who hurt Angy doesn’t deserve to have their name remembered--had managed to *knock Angy out*.
And sure, Angy was okay, and sure, Misty had gotten even, but…Misty couldn’t help thinking she should have been there. She should have stopped it. Sure, Angy can take care of herself, but it had been Misty’s idea to come here in the first place.
“A lady doesn’t flirt with strangers, she’d have a heart, she’d be nice.”
Then again, Misty supposes Angy would have been unhappy with the evening if a fight hadn’t happened--and this way, they got a big TV for the pocket dimension, so it’s all fine. Doesn’t mean Misty is happy about it, but…well, she’s angry about a lot of things, and this folds neatly and easily into “angry about Angy’s shackles and everything about them.”
An *automatic knockout*? Misty’s gonna have *words* with whoever made those fucking things.
“So let’s keep this party polite,” Sinatra says, starting on the last refrain, and Misty pulls herself back to the issue at hand: their total victory over that casino, and also that heists are basically dates. “Never get out out of my sight--stick with me baby, I’m the guy that you came in with, luck be a lady, luck be a lady,” the band trilled higher and higher as Sinatra’s voice rose, “Luck be a lady tonight!”
Misty looks down at the dress she’s still wearing, simple and black and probably the nicest thing she owns, given that there’s no way her Bar Mitzvah suit still fits (she hopes. She has to have grown since then, right?), and figures she’ll take the time to hang it up nicely, to figure out how to treat softer, nicer fabrics as well as she treats leather and denim.
She pushes the thought of Angy saying the outfit made her look like a jewel out of her head, and nods to herself. It’ll be a great outfit to use for future heists--and, for that matter, if she ever wants to go on any with someone, future dates. But mostly heists, she’ll keep it for heists.
And for no other reason.

## S8E20: Does Your Mother Know (A Toxic Family Friend)

June 3, 2022
Misty knows that her dad has petitioned, a few times, for ABBA Fridays to be a thing. He does it intermittently, mostly because some Fridays he doesn’t want to play ABBA, but the idea of a day when you just play ABBA songs is still one he supports, and Misty can’t help but agree. They’re *fun*.
She’s on her way to school and a familiar bass-and-drumbeat kicks in, and she grins to it. She’s already in fairly good spirits from the other day - okay, while it’s not great that Toxic Omen may have gotten picked up by a superhero who wants her dead, Misty’s not gonna lie and say that wiping the smirk off the other girl’s face wasn’t super satisfying. And besides, it seems like Echo has a plan to deal with the other part of it, and she trusts him.
*“You’re so hot, teasing me, so you’re blue but I can’t take a chance on a chick like you -”*
Perhaps it’s inevitable that Toxic Omen would get under Misty’s skin, no matter how they first met. The poison powers, the delight in needling at any weak point she found, the devotion to a cause that probably didn’t care half as much about her as she cared about it - well, it all hits a little close to home. Toxic Omen doesn’t look much younger than Misty, but it is like looking at herself a year ago, all anger and confidence and bad intentions.
But their first meeting had been Toxic Omen poisoning Misty’s father, and then taunting Misty about it. About the fact that it had happened before. Had been Toxic Omen *deliberately* provoking Misty, because this Dire thing feeds on dark emotions, and Toxic Omen must have clocked immediately that Misty was a veritable feast.
*“Well I can dance with you honey, if you think it’s funny - does your mother know that you’re out? And I can chat with you baby, flirt a little maybe, does your mother know that you’re out?”*
And, Misty thought both bitterly and with satisfaction, Misty had *tried* to warn her that she hadn’t known what she was messing with. Sure, all teenagers probably had wells of bitterness and anger tied to them, and in superheroes and supervillains it’s heightened, like these things always are.
But Misty had *tried*, dammit, to warn Toxic Omen that in provoking Misty she was flirting with something apocalyptic.
*“Take it easy, take it easy, better slow down girl, that’s no way to go, does your mother know?”*
And if Misty was a little younger, or hadn’t faced Odin, or hadn’t faced Tyr, or hadn’t turned away from the rokkr, or hadn’t reconnected with her dad, maybe she would have gone for the bait, would have played Toxic Omen’s teasing games, would have let the other girl rile her up. It’s the kind of thing, Misty would admit, she’s extremely susceptible to.
Hell, she even *did* fall for it a little, going for the other girl instantly in a fight or when she showed up. Had followed Toxic Omen down alleyways and into clouds of poison, and there’d been the thrill of the hunt to it, one of those deep instincts that Misty tried very hard not to feed, because it stank of blood and fire. But Misty isn’t human, and her instincts aren’t human either sometimes, and given a quarry that had threatened her home…
*“I can see what you want, but you seem pretty young to be searching for that kind of fun -”*
Toxic Omen so, so clearly wanted Misty to fully cut loose, to give her the bitter hateful fight she’d been looking for the entire time. To get angry. To get, in some way, like Tristane had gotten by the end of the fight, furious to the point of attacking past when Toxic Omen fell. Misty can’t blame the squire for that, either. It would be satisfying to be able to do that.
*“--and I know what you mean when you give me a flash of that smile. But girl, you’re only a child.”*
Yes, Misty knew what Toxic Omen wanted, and it would have been *so* satisfying to fully give it to her. To lose her temper entirely.

But, absorbing the poison bomb Toxic Omen had left behind, Misty had realized something a little terrifying: Misty certainly could take Toxic Omen’s hits, get in a real fight with the other girl, take her poison in and absorb it…but. But if Misty really, truly cut loose…
…she didn’t think Toxic Omen could do the same back.
*“Well I can dance with you honey, if you think it’s funny--”*
She’d done her best to lay that out for Toxic Omen. To say that the girl could walk away, that Misty would not keep attacking her if she did. She’d drawn that line in the sand and wanted to stick by it - but Toxic Omen hadn’t been done playing yet.
Well. Her loss.
*“--does your mother know that you’re out?”*
Misty hadn’t expected the other girl to be entirely made of poison, although in retrospect that shouldn’t have been surprising. She’d just wanted to rip the toxins out of her body and leave her without her weapons and call it a day.
But the knowledge that Toxic Omen’s entire form was the same poison that she turned into mist to escape…well. Coupled with Misty’s control over poison, the way it increased in leaps and bounds these days…Misty could work with that.
It had taken effort, to go for a punch rather than a claw to the face. But Misty wasn’t actually trying to kill the girl.
*“Take it easy, take it easy, that’s no way to go, does your mother know -”*
Yanking Toxic Omen around like a ragdoll had, Misty hoped, driven home the lesson she’d been trying for: don’t pick fights you can’t win, kid. Sometimes, someone just wasn’t somebody you should provoke if you weren’t ready to face the consequences hitting you. Maybe Misty gave a meal of some sort to the Dire during that fight, maybe not; either way, though, she doubted Toxic Omen would try to push her buttons in that way again.

## S8E22: Uptown Girl (I'm Still Terrible At Coming Up With Session Names)

Misty is having a crisis.
She is having a *crisis*.
She’s lying facedown on her bed, *having a crisis*, headphones on in a vague attempt to drown out her thoughts. It’s not working. At least, she thinks as the drums and vocals kick in, it’s a good song; then again, her dad’s on the radio again, of course it’s a good song.
*Uptown girl, she’s been living in her uptown world--*
*Nevermind*. The song is awful. This is awful. *Everything* is awful and horrible and also kind of great and *very* weird.
The thing is: Misty is sure she doesn’t feel differently about Angy than she did yesterday morning, when Angy was the coolest person she’d ever met and her best friend and she totally wanted to spend the rest of her life, as long or short as that might be, trying to help Angy get anything that she wanted just for the joy of seeing her happy.
It’s just that she’s looking at it with a different lens, now, like she’d slid off a pair of sunglasses and suddenly the light of the world was blinding and bright and beautiful, which was good, but also hurting her eyes. This is a bad metaphor, she thinks miserably.
*--as long as anyone with hot blood can, but now she’s looking for a downtown man, that’s what I am--*
It’s *stupid*. All of this is stupid, because now that Misty knows, she can’t stop *thinking about it*. It was fine before, and nothing’s *changed* from before, so why *now* is she laying face-down on her bed having *emotions* about Billy Joel’s *Uptown Girl*? This isn’t even an emotional Billy Joel song, it’s a good-times song! It’s the song version of candy! Upbeat and peppy and fun!
*And when she knows what she wants from her ti-i-ime, and when she wakes up and makes up her mi-i-ind,*
*she’ll see I’m not so tough, just because I’m in love with an uptown girl--*
Misty muffles a scream into the pillow.
It was all that dumb tree’s fault. Or--it was all *Echo*’s fault, for putting the idea in her head in the first place, or Tristane’s for asking if Misty had a crush on anyone, or--
Misty can’t really think that it’s Angy’s fault, even if the look of recognition on her face when she woke up, the way she reached out for Misty before she was even fully awake, had shot Misty straight through the heart better than any arrow ever could.
*Uptown girl, you know I can’t afford to buy her pearls, but maybe one day when my ship comes in, she’ll understand what kinda guy I’ve been--*
Not just that, of course. All of it. It’s wild to think a year ago she didn’t know this prickly, proud dragon with a very hidden heart that still, to Misty, seems even larger than the demiplane she rules. The kind of person who would roll her eyes at the idiocy of humans one minute and offer a guy drowning in medical debt not only treasure to pay off his debt but a place to stay where no villainous employer could ever find him the next.
Frankly, Misty’s not sure if her heart ever stood a chance.
*And when she’s walking she’s looking so f-i-ine, and when she’s talking she’ll say that she’s mi-i-ine,*
But, well. Well. Angy’s…a lot of things. Her mom, as Misty remembered vividly yesterday as they drove up, is an archwizard who lives in a *wizard tower*. The kind of person powerful enough to just sever complex magical bonds and hold a conversation while she did it. Angy *herself* is a dragon, and a truly powerful one if what she can do while stuck in a humanoid form is any indication, and also one of the most gorgeous people Misty has ever met, and a good person besides.
And, sure, Misty is pretty cool. She’s *aware* she’s cool. She out-shot the wind itself once in a marksmanship contest. She’s fought gods. Earlier in the week she wrecked the entire day of a dark magical girl by being better than her at everything they both could do. She’s raced a haunted mecha robot to the moon and stolen a god from a casino.
*She’ll say I’m not that tough, just because I’m in love with an uptown girl--*
She’s just not sure “good at crimes and hurting things” are, well. Great romantic qualifications in anyone’s eyes. In Angy’s eyes in particular. They haven’t talked a lot about Angy’s ex, but Misty can’t think of someone she’s *less* like than an elegant Avalonian bard. Misty can’t sweep people off their feet; she’s a bit better at catching Angy when she falls out of the sky, but that’s not the same thing. The only music she produces is stuff she listens to or sings along to, and while she knows all the words she's not going to pretend she's *good* at singing. She's hopeless at magic, not great at school, and has the kind of looks that lead her dad to kindly describe her as "unique" which is nice of him, because "an ugly duckling" is a lot more accurate. Hell, she lives in a normal house with a dad who works for the city and moonlights as a community radio DJ on the weekends. Avalon wizard towers are so far out of her league that they're playing another game entirely.
And then there’s the issue of Asgard, lurking in the back of her mind and the margins of her life. It’s the same question she had about Big Team: sure, they like her, but is liking her worth pissing off a bunch of actual gods? And Angy’s been on board, so far, but dating someone who has a target on their back and a deadline counting down to the end of the world built in to their fate is…well.

Yeah, Misty doesn’t think she’s really great girlfriend material, is the point.
*--my uptown girl, you know I’m in love with an uptown girl--*
Not that her stupid feelings seem to care about that, because. Because she can’t unlearn what she knows, now, which is that she’s helplessly gone for Angy, and that’s not going to stop anytime soon.

## S8E25: Hungry Heart (Big Team and the Tomb of Mysteries)

Misty fucking hates Tyr.
She kicks one of the stones in front of her on the sidewalk, watching it skid away, bounce off a tree root, and clatter to a stop. She typically goes walking around the streets and warehouses of Halcyon, but the parks are nice too, sometimes, when being in the middle of a city full of people feels a little too much like being constrained.
In her headphones, she can hear her dad introducing the next song, and does manage a smile--he must be in a particular kind of mood, a nostalgia that’s fond rather than wistful. That’s the situation he usually plays the Boss in, after all. She’s never seen another person get so emotional about Born to Run.
*“Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack--I went out for a ride and I never went back. Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going--”*She hadn’t told him about seeing Tyr, mostly because she still has the feeling that he’d be a reasonable dad about the whole thing, and she’s had enough reasonable advice from him lately, thanks. Him and Echo, with their whole “you should just ask Angy out” thing. Misty is *aware* it would be the reasonable thing to do, but it’s terrifying, and it won’t work, and so she absolutely will never do it, thanks.
*“Everybody’s got a hungry heart, everybody’s got a hungry heart--”*
She hadn’t expected to see *Tyr* of all people on a mission to help Asiel find some secrets. The bastard has a tendency, she thinks bitterly, to show up where he has no reason to be--first Avalon, and then the Tomb of Secrets, causing problems both times. Seriously, there was no reason to wreck Antony’s chamber!
And then that conversation with him later…she doesn’t regret asking, not really. She’s not going to make any of her siblings reminisce about their imprisoned brother with her just to salve her curiosity, and asking her father is…well, she has a feeling he’d just find a way to dodge the question, because that’s what he does when something is too painful to talk about. She knows because she does it too. But she doesn’t care about Tyr’s feelings, so she's fine making him tell her about Fenrir.
*“--we took what we had and we ripped it apart, now here I am down in Kingston again. Everybody’s got a hungry heart--”*
Joyous. Cheerful. Given to pranking people by stealing their things, which hurts because of the half-dozen stories Misty knows about her doing the exact same thing as a toddler. For a moment,  she wonders what it would have been like, growing up with a brother who would play with her like that, and her vision blurs in front of her.
It doesn’t matter what it would have been like. She doubts Fenrir is particularly joyful now. It was a stupid question to ask, for all that she doesn’t regret having asked it.
*“--lay down your money and you play your part, everybody’s got a h-h-hungry heart.”*
The entire Tomb had been interesting. Neither Echo nor Asiel was particularly forthcoming about what was in their passageway, but it had looked a lot bitterer than just some riddles. Still, both of them had been dead-set on getting to the end of the passage, and Misty can’t help but wonder what it was each of them wanted to ask.
What anyone there wanted to ask. She’d mostly come along on a lark, and in the end had neither secret nor question asked of her, but it’s strange to think about what she might have asked. She’s not sure a magic cave could hand her the solution to Ragnarok, after all, or the answer on if she was truly doomed, so best to let one of the others get their question. It did suck that Asiel hadn’t managed it, though--but Echo had been the one to move first to stop Tyr, so at least he didn’t win.
*“Everybody needs a place to rest; everybody wants to have a home--”*
Still, Misty hopes the quiet barista knows that she’d lend a hand with whatever problem they need solved; they’re pretty cool, honestly, and what’s the team for if not helping each other out?
Thinking about the questions, though, has landed her back to thinking about Tyr. *Dammit*. What had he been there to ask? Behind Odin’s back, no less? She’d assume that he was looking for the solution to Ragnarok, same as her--but then why keep it secret from Odin?
*Trouble in paradise*, she thinks, rolling her eyes despite nobody there to roll them at.
*“--don’t make no difference what nobody says, ain’t nobody like to be alone--”*
Nothing about Tyr makes sense, though, when she thinks about him, which she doesn’t like doing because gods, she fucking hates the guy. She knows he’s the same Tyr; just like her father and Odin, he’s never passed on his mantle. At least her father actively seems to enjoy his, though; Tyr is just…stoic and *weird*, every time Misty sees him.
The god of justice and bravery, telling Misty that what he did to Fenrir was unfair but it had to happen because the gods’ needs came before all others. The god of justice and bravery, god of the assembly, going behind Odin’s back for secrets the Allfather would not tell him. Even in conversation with Misty, he seems completely normal and reasonable, and then spouts some bullshit about *the needs of the gods*. Fucksake.
*“Everybody’s got a hungry heart, everybody’s got a hungry heart--”*
If he’s going to keep being impossible, he could at least have the decency to be lying when he talks about caring about Fenrir, but Misty doesn’t think he is, which is somehow even worse than him lying to her face. And the mounting evidence that there’s something…*wrong* with Asgard’s god of justice is also annoying, because Misty’s supposed to keep hating the guy forever.
And instead, horribly, she thinks she’s starting to feel *bad* for him. The guy doesn’t seem happy. He doesn’t seem passionate about anything; the only times he’s offered an emotional description of anything is when he’s talking about Fenrir, or moments of frustration. It’s like all the bravery and justice and all that stuff has drained out and been replaced with stony duty, and even though she does fucking hate the guy, it’s kind of awful to see.
Damn. It. She is not going to start feeling bad for that fucking oathbreaker and jailer. She is not. She is resolutely ignoring the fact that it’s way too late on that front.

## S8E28: Saturday Night's Alright (Time for a Catfight)

June 19, 2022
Misty knows that, first, she sounds like her dad, and second, she cannot talk about this without seeming like the world’s biggest hypocrite, but what are they *feeding* kids in Halcyon City these days?
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, and she’s headed out on a walk to burn off some energy--both leftover adrenaline from yesterday, and the constant low-level buzz under her skin that spikes higher and higher unless she gets moving. As always, the radio courses through her headphones and into her ears; she’s developing a sneaking suspicion that her dad knows she listens every time he’s on the radio, and whenever she tells him about a Big Team mission, he picks songs accordingly.
Which might be the reason *Saturday Night’s Alright (for Fighting)* is blaring into her ears right now. She rubs her face with one hand, as if that’s going to get rid of her smile.
*“It’s getting late, have you seen my mates? Ma, tell me when the boys get here--”*
Misty can’t be happy that some cocky little shit blackmailed Sami--*definitely* can’t be happy that he messed with GAIA as well and threatened Angy, even if punching a tween is not a moral line she’s willing to cross even for Angy’s honor--but she also can’t be upset at how the night went, at least until the robots all exploded.
Like, sure, the Brenna-bot was not as strong as the real Brenna, but Misty mostly doesn’t *want* to fight the real Brenna. They’re deescalating. They’re being responsible about it. And Misty’s gonna keep being mature about it, because doing anything else is letting Asgard win, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a little curious to see if she could take Thor in a fight.
*“Oh, don’t give us none of your aggravation, we had it with your discipline--Oh, Saturday night’s alright for fighting, get a little action in--”*
She sings along idly, still seeing the beautiful clarity of sniping that hammer out of the robot’s hand. It wasn’t Mjolnir--that wouldn’t have worked with Mjolnir, the short handle would have absolutely fucked the center of gravity--but it had arced beautifully, and catching it had been really satisfying, like a shot out of an action movie.
The Angy robot had been *weird*, though. Cait Sidhe had clearly attempted to integrate the Cait Sidhe mask and Angy’s facial horns and it hadn’t worked at all, for one thing, leading to an assortment of different-sized pointy bits of metal on the head, with no elegance or eye for design at all. As both a designer--albeit of clothes--and someone aware that Angy is one of the most beautiful things on the planet probably, that’s a little *insulting*.
*“--Gonna set this dance alight, Saturday night’s the night I like, Saturday night’s alright--”*
And that same…missing the point, Misty supposes, continued for the rest of the robot. Sure, it’s a robot that can breathe fire and fly, but if that kid was going to ignore everything actually great about Angy in favor of some fancy DPS-bot, Misty’s not interested. Just build a generic robo-dragon, or attach a flamethrower to a jetpack. Really, taking a gravity hammer to it was a public service to the entire field of art.
It is a little disappointing that she couldn’t also fight the mastermind behind it, but again, there’s a line that Misty’s not gonna cross, and it’s physically fighting a twelve-year-old. That’s just a dumb kid. Misty could punt him into the sun with minimal effort. There’s no justice to beating up a twelve-year-old, even if he’s trying to kill you with robots; the physical and emotional distance is enough that it’s just bullying no matter how you look at it.
And, well, Misty’s a lot of things, but she doesn’t want that to be one of them.
*“Oh, don’t give us none of your aggravation, we’ve had it with your discipline!”*
If anything, Misty would want to sit down with the kid and ask him why he’s fighting Big Team in the first place,  because if there’s anything she understands it’s making dumb decisions to fight people when you’re twelve. She’s just not used to those decisions being backed up with genius-level robotics skill and technopathy, which brings her back to her first point: what are they feeding kids in Halcyon these days?
*“--’cause Saturday night’s the night I like, Saturday night’s alright--”*
Like, sure, Misty was a weird superpowered little monster at twelve, but like, she’s half-jotun and half-god and fate decided to fuck with her specifically, she’s got some excuses! She’s pretty sure that all the other kids in middle school weren’t secretly hiding superpowers of their own, or if they were, they’ve got some explaining to do for all the shit they gave *her* for being weird.
Maybe it’s more that after Permutation Pink--which Misty was out of town for--and the Zodiac Tree showing up--yeah, still out of town--and whatever that magic ritual she’s heard people talking about that gave some people powers, which she was in town for but at a different community center when that went down, the ambient weirdness of Halcyon, always high, has peaked higher. Or maybe kids are just realizing they have superpowers younger.
…or Misty is drawing wild conclusions from one superpowered tween with a chip on his shoulder. That’s a possibility too, she supposes.
*“Saturday, Saturday! Saturday, Saturday night’s alright!”*
Still, blowing up all the robots with everyone still in the facility was a low move. That could have gotten someone seriously hurt. It *did* seriously damage Sami’s Atlas form, because she was shielding the much-less-repairable Misty. Sure, Misty’s not going to fistfight a tween, but someone’s gotta explain to this kid that if he keeps pulling this shit, he’s going to get himself in a lot of trouble.
And while they’re at it, maybe give him a primer on design aesthetics 101.

## S8E31: Summertime (Tell Me WhY(A))

June 25, 2022
Misty has elected to stay in bed all morning, half because even though her body wasn’t doing weird alternate-universe adventures all yesterday, her *brain* is pretty convinced it was and the dissonance is weird, and half because some part of her feels like if she gets up and starts going on with her normal life, yesterday--the good parts as well as the bad--will vanish like a dream, like the other universe had when the machine to fix it was done.
And she doesn’t want that. She’s stuck her music on random shuffle, drifting away from songs from her childhood and to the stuff she’s found since coming back to Halcyon, and the simple drum opening of this one pulls her in, even as other instruments come in to build the melody up.
*“When the lights go out, will you take me with you and carry all this broken bone--”*
*Oh*. Oh, she knows why she wanted to put this song on, now. She rolls over from where her face was buried in a pillow, staring at the ceiling of her room, glow-in-the-dark stars still plastered on it from a childhood birthday present from her dad.
She never wants to go back to that other universe again, frankly--she’s sure they can handle their own problems, and everything about that weird facility makes her feel sick to her stomach--but. But not everything about it was awful, she supposes.
*“--with brick in hand, your lip-gloss smile, your scraped up knees and--”*
Angy’s smile, her easy agreement to help Misty burn down the foundations of that world if that was what Misty wanted to do even in a world where they couldn’t have truly met, couldn’t have watched a 7-b11 blow up in their wake, couldn’t have had sleepover nights on her hoard chatting about anything and nothing--that’s burned into Misty’s mind. Angy’s on her side. Even there, a world away, with no context for why they wanted to help each other, Angy had been on her side.
And the others too, of course, but Misty thinks she’s justified in thinking a little bit more about Angy. Remembers Angy’s writing on the note during assembly: I think I know them, too. Not as well as I know you.
*“If you stay, I would even wait all night, or until my heart explodes; how long until we find our way, in the dark and out of harm? You can run away with me anytime you want.”*
Misty feels like her heart is in her throat; if she tried to speak, her voice would break around the words. It had been…for most of the day, it had been one of the worst days of her life. It’s still up there, for most of it; she knows, now, that the other Misty wasn’t *her*, that her dad wasn’t *Misty’s* dad, and even then that he’d been fine, in the end.
That didn’t stop the fact that she’d barely slept last night, had needed to keep her bedroom door open to prove to herself that it wasn’t locked, that nobody was showing up in the middle of the night to take her dad away. The wounds hadn’t been hers, but they’d cut deep anyway, and Misty’s not sure when they’re going to stop hurting.
But that’s…it’s something she can deal with. Every day, when her dad is okay in the morning, when she sees her friends as people who recognize her and not people fighting her, when she remembers that Christopher Crossover is a dorky mayor and not a dystopian enforcer, it’ll get a little easier. She’s used to coaxing herself back into normalcy like a stray cat into a warm house; this has put her back out in the cold, but it hasn’t shut the door.
*“Terrified of what I’d be as a kid, from all I’d seen--every day when people try to put the pieces back together, just to smash them down--”*
And anyway, that’s not the part of yesterday she wants to focus on. She’d prefer to remember the good parts, like Sami effortlessly hacking government databases to free someone from unfair execution, like Randi powering through that world’s expectations of her to do the right thing, not the thing she was supposed to do.
*“--turn my headphones up real loud, I don’t think i need them now, ‘cause you stop the noise and--”*
Like Angy, smiling at her across the assembly, saying she thought Misty’s clothes--her normal clothes, the ones she fixed and altered and designed, not that stupid uniform--were hot. Angy by her side, at her back, physically attacking Godspeed when he hit Misty, using her power in a way Misty had never seen before to summon a copy of Misty, *this* Misty, because despite the dimension-melding weirdness Angy knew who she wanted at her back in a fight.
Angy being on Misty’s side, despite all the reasons she probably shouldn’t be, and that giving Misty the push she needed to reach out, to turn poison gas into blooming vines, to hold together a cavern shaking apart. To make something beautiful out of a disaster.
*“If you stay, I could even wait all night, or until my heart explodes”*

And that would have been enough, probably. Misty doesn’t *need* Angy to like her like she likes Angy, not if Angy is still at her side, no matter what form that takes. It’s hopelessly sappy of her, like one of those Avalonian courtly loves, nothing fitting a jotun at all, but she thinks she’d be happy just as long as she could make Angy happy, no matter what that looked like.
*“Well, anytime you want,”*
The instrumental surged forward into a bridge, and Misty remembered, for a moment, holding the cavern together, holding it in place, for once being able to do something more than just hold the poison in, more than just protecting the people she loved. Being able to *fix* something, not just hurt it.
Yes, even if it had just been that, fighting alongside Angy, just managing to fix something for once, Misty would have been happy.
*“Don’t walk away, don’t walk away, don’t walk away, don’t walk away!”*
The worst part of the day had been, of course, thinking her dad was dead. The second-worst had been seeing Angy tossed into the poison puddling through the room as Misty also knew her dad was losing a fight behind her. Misty’s not going to place this higher than either of those, but the *third*-worst moment of the day was when Angy had apologized for flirting with Misty and Misty, for a split-second, had thought it was because Angy hadn’t meant it.
*“Cause if you stay, I would even wait all night--”*
But--no. No, that hadn’t been it, and when Misty had finally gotten her courage together and admitted it--*Angy, I really like you*--Angy hadn’t turned her down, or thought it was a joke, or not understood what Misty meant, or thought Misty was weird, or any of the other worst-case scenarios that had plagued her for weeks.
No, she’d gone and tried to--to court Misty like she was some Avalonian princess, just because Angy wanted to make sure she was doing this right. And while it was completely unnecessary, because first of all Misty’s not some princess and would probably be very bad at it if she was, and second because Angy hadn’t been comfortable with it and as mentioned pretty much all Misty wants, when it comes to her and Angy, is for Angy to be happy--well. The gesture was really, really sweet.
*“--how long until we find our way, in the dark and out of harm--”*
Misty hadn’t been articulate, had felt like she was stumbling over her words even as Angy struggled with actual poetry, but she thought she’d gotten the most important part out: I have a space in your hoard, you have a standing invitation to dinner at my house whenever, you don’t have to court me, you already have me. I’m not waiting for some perfect romantic version of you because to me, that’s already here, and it’s you.
Well. She probably hadn’t said it half that well, bright red and standing on the grass outside of the Big Base, shaking with adrenaline half from the fight and half from saying “I really like you” out loud with her mouth, but that had been the gist of the thing. She didn’t want Angy to be…anything Angy didn’t want to be. She just, she’d tried to say, wanted Angy to do things that made her *happy*.
…alright, all things considered, she probably should have expected the kiss, but how was she supposed to know that kissing Misty was apparently one of the things that made Angy happy? Other than the love poetry. And the bit where she’d said Misty’s clothes were hot. And all of the flirting. *Other* than those things, it was a mystery.
Misty rolls over in bed, mashes her definitely-not-sappy grin against a pillow,  and rethinks her plan of staying in bed all morning. Because, yeah, she could do that.
Or she could see if Angy wants to grab snacks and fly them both to somewhere in Halcyon with a great view, which is something they’ve done dozens of times, but maybe this time they could kiss about it.
*“--you can run away with me, any time you want.”*
And if Misty spent the entire time smiling, well. That was nobody’s business but theirs.

## S8E34: Born to Run (A Blast from the Past)

July 9, 2022
Misty knows the song from the first drumroll. How could she not? *Tatatatatatatata* and then that first chord, hitting the ground running--as is only fitting. It’s another fond nostalgia morning for her dad, it seems like--although she did get him to do some reminiscing just last night, so perhaps that’s not so surprising.
*In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American Dream--*
Misty’s early memories of this song are fuzzy snippets, jumping up and down on the couch and belting out the song, usually with her dad laughing and singing along. She wonders, sometimes, if he knows she remembers those times; she’s never told him he does, and there’s probably loads of things from that age she doesn’t remember, but she likes to think that she remembers most of the times her dad would put on music and she’d dance around, unselfconscious the way you can only be when you’re five.
*--sprung from cages on highway nine, chrome-wheeled fuel-injected and stepping out over the line, Oh!--*
She’s out on the pier today, watching the boats that flock around the newly-arrived Museum still stood above the bay on crystal-fire pillars. The boats are full of people doing, presumably, some sort of nerd shit; only one of the boats catches her eye, and that’s because it’s the biggest of them, the kind of ship you could like, live on for a while, and also because it’s flying a pirate flag.
Yesterday, before the villains showed up, had been pretty great. She’s not sure if watching in case a new landmass appears that Angy can rule counts as a “date,” like, officially, because she’s pretty sure she would do that even if they weren’t dating, but it had been fun. Misty’s not sure how to do this whole “girlfriend” thing, really, but sharing funnel cake and speculating about the best location for a lair in the area probably wasn’t bad.
*--baby this town rips the bones from your back, it’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap, we’ve gotta get out while we’re young, ‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run!*

Okay, so the Jackal--the young one, who Misty personally thinks is possibly the scariest person in Halcyon City--had nearly startled Misty into the bay, which is bad mostly because the amount of kisses from Angy MIsty would get if she was soaked is considerably fewer and also because Misty had a whole funnel cake she was enjoying, dammit. And supervillains happened. But other than that, it was great.
She bobs her head to the guitar lick, unable to do anything else, and recalls the old-timey trio. They hadn’t been that bad as far as villains go. Or maybe her scale is just weird, with “apocalypse” skewing all of the results. And, sure, maybe her shooting an old man in a wheelchair is on the news now, but hopefully people will see the context.
*--Wendy let me in, I want to be your friend, I want to guard your dreams and visions--*
Some kids had even left Misty a crayon drawing, which…is…weird. Misty has no idea what about her might suggest to some kids that she’s someone they want to be doing drawings of, or following around. She’s an ex-villain who didn’t even update her aesthetic to look less evil; her superpower is *poisoning people*. She’s not a role model!
But. Day saved, museum mostly intact and only a little bit robbed, and while Angy passing out was always scary, she was up again in time for ice cream (and did call Misty’s dad “dad,” which made his entire week if Misty knows him. Which she does).
*--together we could break this trap, we’ll run ‘till we drop and baby, we’ll never look back, oh! Will you walk with me out on the wire? ‘Cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider--*
Which brings her to thinking about her dad, and the main thing she’d learned yesterday. She’s not…well, she’s a *little* surprised that he was getting up to low-level rowdy villainy when he was a teenager, sure. But her father had pointed out that of course he wasn’t going to fall for someone boring, no matter how much her dad liked to pretend he was, and Misty’s anti-establishment streak didn’t come from nowhere.
So she’s surprised it was *that*, but she’s not surprised there was *something* there, if that makes sense.
*--Beyond the the palace, hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard--*
So. A neighborhood biker gang, huh? That’s pretty cool, if Misty’s being honest. And as much as he’s downplaying whatever crime he got into, it’s enough to have gotten him noticed and in trouble. Misty doesn’t think you end up in the same general area as Yamato if you’re not in some serious trouble--that’s sure been the case every time she ran into the woman.
*--the amusement park rises bold and stark, kids are huddled in the beach in the mist--*
And she also can’t be too surprised that he saved Yamato's life. If there’s one thing that’s always been true about Misty’s dad, it’s the fact that he’s nicer than he really should be, in her opinion. Like when he just welcomed her back, after years away and poisoning him. Like when he laughed off being kidnapped as not that bad. Like the fact that, ages and ages ago, he decided to take and raise a child whose future was never going to be good.
He didn’t *have* to do any of that, but he did anyway, because he’s a good person, no matter what kind of crimes he did in the past. He didn’t need to reassure her he’d never done anything really that bad, because of course he didn’t. Misty kicks out the beat of the guitar solo against the leg of the pier, grinning to herself.
“One-two-three-four *the highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power-drive*,” she sings along, unable to stop herself.
And then there’s the Guinevere thing, which. Misty didn’t like the queen anyway, just on the evidence of her being a shitty parent, and also because Avalon were the ones who said Angy should be chained and Guinevere ruled Avalon and that’s fucking unforgivable, to Misty’s mind. The fact that Guinevere also at one point had her dad in jail? Just more evidence that she sucks, honestly.
Sure, the queen would probably have some reason it happened, but Misty doesn’t really trust Ms. “I’m Going To Organize A Scenario That Will Probably Kill My Son And Say It’s For Training” with a judicial system, y’know?
*“--we’ll get to that place where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun, but ‘til then, tramps like us, baby we were born to run--”*
Well. Unfortunately,  it’s not like Misty’s gonna organize an insurrection in Avalon just because their queen sucks; she doesn’t have the time or the resources even though it would be *totally justified*. So she’ll just have to make sure something like that doesn’t happen to her dad again, of course, and keep helping out where she can.
And maybe see if Tristane or someone can get records of that time Loki apparently helped jailbreak some Midgardian hooligans out of Avalon prison. There is no way that was subtle, someone’s gotta have some records, right?