Cornflower Blue - Hare_Brained_Scheme - Original Work [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

She didn't feel the bullet but she heard it.

Nighttime. Rooftops. Moonlight. Neon glow and cityscape all around. The culprit she had been pursuing was cornered. So far he had only been small time, a few hold ups, a few armed robberies that transgressed to violence when things didn’t go smoothly. He had his gimmick like every other villain of the week. Something to do with mushrooms? Or lichen? She wasn’t too concerned with the details.

But she had him now. She was in front of him, allies flanking her right and left, a 500-foot drop behind him. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

That's when the culprit’s hand disappeared beneath his coat and re-emerged with a flash of gunmetal blue.

Instinct took over. She moved left, swept out an arm, and, in a single swift motion, shoved the unprotected, armorless, vulnerable body at her side behind her.

BANG!

She didn't feel the bullet. But next thing she knew, she was falling backwards.

Memories came in disjointed, fragmented snatches after that.

Shouts. Alarm. Cool night air rushing past, the wind’s talons clawing through her hair. Bleeding red lights of St. Mercy's parking lot. Pale blue scrubs rushing out to meet them. Drunken lights bathing her in luminescence, blurring overhead as she is laid out on a gurney, oxygen mask pressed over face. Her vision waning in and out, she’s rushed down a long, seemingly endless hallway.

She remembers her gaze glinting off the swarm of unfamiliar faces. She remembers finding one she recognized- a scratchy, burlap face. She remembers trying to focus on it, trying to hold to it against the ever-shifting tumult. She remembers a hand in hers. Gripping tight when she didn't have the strength to squeeze back.

And then,

The gurney makes a turn. She passes under huge double doorways. Her hand is empty and the sea of faces becomes unfamiliar again, blurred beyond recognition entirely.

She woke up alone in a dark room.

She blinked against the darkness. Haze clinged to the fringes of her vision and her mind. It was quiet enough that she could hear her breath unfolding in her chest, a stuttered, fragile sound. Her eyes flicked side to side, fighting against the heaviness of her lids and gradually adjusting to the dim lighting.

Half-hidden by the dark, shapes began to form into recognizable objects. Thick curtains draped over a window, a black-screened television mounted high on the wall, a lone card table pushed to the side.

Beyond her breathing, the first sound she processed was a slow, rhythmic beep……beep…beep… of machinery beside her. Looking down, she found sticky pads on her hands, on her chest, half hidden beneath a thin cloth gown. A tube ran from a vein in her elbow to an IV bag beside her.

A rumbling noise pulled her attention to the corner of the room. There, she spotted a figure mostly obscured by shadow, slouched in a chair, chin pressed to his chest. She squinted until she could make out the finer details of his silhouette. Ruffled hair, bowed burly shoulders, a thick, grizzly beard.

Detective Victor inhaled another deep, snuffling snore.

Panic- sharp and metallic- leapt so high in her chest, she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Her hands rushed to her face and with the movement she realized two things.

Number one- her mask was still on. Its shape filled the curve of her palm, she pressed harder just to be sure - one million trillion percent sure- the mask was really there. A cool, blissful relief washed over where the panic had just been. As it did, she realized an irritant beep- beep- beep in her heart monitor had spiked and only now was beginning to slow back to its steadier rhythm.

A glance in the direction of Detective Viktor proved he remained unmoved.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Her tech hadn't failed. The visor was still in place. Of all her father’s tech, this was the one he had spent the most effort ensuring it was fail safe. It was programmed to only release with her fingerprint. A trick that, evidently, the hospital staff had not figured out.

And realization number two- while her left hand reached her face, the right hand did not. It jerked back, traveling no farther than a few inches from the bed. When she looked down, she found a handcuff looped around her wrist, its twin end locked around the guardrail of the hospital bed.

It wasn't panic that returned to her then, not quite. It was much slower. A steadily rising, gut-turning dread, creeping higher and higher like icy floodwater.

She brought her free hand up to her ear.

"Dad?" she whispered.

But it was useless. Her earpieces were gone. Probably in whatever plastic bag they put the rest of her suit in. She wanted to grimace thinking of whatever damage the suit took. What had it been? A tungsten carbide core? Hardened steel? Anything less and the kevlar of her suit would have protected her. But the advantages of slash-proof, ballistic-resistant material weren't so useful when ER surgeons are trying to use trauma shears. She wondered if they had to resort to using a cast saw.

She lowered her hand back down to her side and breathed in, slow and heavy. She had to think. No earpiece, no suit, no connection with the rest of her tech. No Dad. She was entirely on her own.

First year as The Dragonfly and was already in handcuffs. So much for continuing the family legacy. Had any of the previous dragonflies messed up this badly? She doubted it. They had never been caught. Hospitalized and detained was only half a stone’s throw from caught.

But I still have the mask, she reminded herself. I haven’t completely failed. She hadn't broken Dad's Rule Number 5: Never unmask. Not for anybody or anyone. Not for friends, not for family, not for allies. Protect your identity. To unmask was the greatest vulnerability. It put herself and anyone she cared about in danger.

Clay had been the exception. But in fairness, it's not like she was going to keep her mask on 24/7 when they lived together.

What was she supposed to have done? Left him in that lab? Abandoned him as soon as she found him? With nowhere to go and no real understanding of the world outside? No, she couldn't.

He wasn't a monster. He wasn't the thing they tried to make him be. He just needed guidance.

So aside from Clay, her identity was still secret. For now. She took another breath and closed her eyes. “I think I really messed up this time, Dad,” she quietly whispered to herself.

She had to be the worst dragonfly ever.

"Dragonfly?" a voice whispered back.

Her eyes snapped open. She bolted up, bringing a battering ram of pain over her left rib cage, which she ignored.

"Clay???" she hissed into the darkness.

A familiar, burbling, glooping sound shifted somewhere low in the dark. In the next instant, a mound of living, amorphous clay molded itself into a humanoid shape at her bedside.

"Clay!!" she shout-whispered. “Oh, Clay, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you! Where did you come from?"

His face drooped and dripped as he finished settling into his usual shape. "I was hiding. In the water bottle. I have been hiding under your bed since the scientists brought you here."

Scientists?

"You mean the people in the white coats? In the hospital, they're called doctors. What happened? How long have I been here?"

"You have been sleeping for five days."

"Five days?!?" she repeated loud enough to make Detective Victor's snoring break its rhythm. They both held their breath until the snores returned to an even pace.

"How did I get here? What happened?"

He blinked a wet, goopy blink. "We were chasing a bad guy…we were on the roof…you got hurt."

The memory slid into place like a rusty bolt unlocking with a click.

She remembered the rooftop, the gun, the bang. She remembered falling back. Did she hit the floor? She didn’t remember the impact but she must have. One second her eyes were on the perp the next she was looking at the sky.

"sh*tsh*tf*ck! CLAY!!! CLAY GIT O'ER' ERE NOW!!!"

The usually slight southern twang is noticeably more present in the speaker's distress.

"Dragon, ya idjit! Ya absolute idjit! Why'dja do that, huh? Why- ?? Why would ya go an- an-???" the voice shakes.

It's almost a clear night. City smog and what might be gunsmoke rises up, creating wisps of clouds against the backdrop of a never ending sky.

"CLAY! LEAVE 'IM. I NEED YA HERE!"

The stars…the city was always too bright… they look…so far away…

She blinks and when she opens her eyes again Clay is there.

"We gotta git her to a hospital!"

Dad's Rule Number 26.

"No hh…hospital…" she wheezes.

"Fer the love of-! Just this once, Dragon- don't argue with me."

"No…h..hnnghh…"

She can't quite seem to… to…catch her breath.

"Easy, easy now." Hayday's voice comes again, closer this time. Softer. If she didn’t know any better, she’d almost think he was being gentle. Soothing. Speaking in a voice one might use if they were trying to calm a small, frightened animal.

"We gotta, Bug,” the voice whispers. “Yer hurt real bad. Ya need a doctor to patch ya up."

This is ridiculous. She's not even in pain. To prove it she pulls herself off the ground and sits upright.

At least-that’s what she tries to do.

She barely manages to get the back of her head off the ground when a searing, intense pain bursts like a firework across her middle.

She cries out. Before she even has time to fall back, a hand is cupped under the back of her head, and another pushes gently against her shoulder, guiding her back to the floor.

"Stay down," Clay instructs. "Try not to move. We have to stop the bleeding."

Basic first aid. She taught him that. She’s so proud. She would tell him as much, except…she can't quite seem to…draw in the air… Breathing is…not coming easy.

More is said but she doesn't catch it. A ringing has crept inside her ears, massive and thunderous eclipsing all other auditory senses. Dark spots blot against the corners of her eyes.

One of the last things she sees is Hayday turning to Clay. Between the muffled sounds and the shape of his words, she thinks she can make out 'hospital' again.

She uses all of her strength to fight against the tide of black but all she manages is to get out one word.

"NO."

There's no more after that.

“I was shot,” she whispered.

Clay nodded. “The bad guy got away.” She saw his hands ball into fists as he said it.

"And Hayday? What happened to him?"

Clay's features shaped themselves into an undisguised scowl.

"He left as soon as we got here," he answered bitterly.

Oh. Of course.

Hayday had proven time and time again that no competing interest would ever override his instinct for self preservation. He took every opportunity to remind her that they weren’t friends and any shaky alliances they formed were temporary and would last only as long as the benefits to him clearly outweighed the risks.

She had been brought to hospital and woke up handcuffed to her bed. She didn't imagine things would have gone any better for one of the city’s notorious villains if he had decided to hang around the waiting room.

Hayday left. She couldn’t have expected anything else.

"What about my tech? Do you know what happened to it?"

"I saw the scient- the doctors take it and put it in a bag. Then Detective Victor took the bag."

Great. Exactly what she needed. A bunch of cops poking around her tech and surely setting off the kill switch. The tech had been coded with a self-destruct program that would activate if anyone but her tried to access it. She had backups of everything important but still, there was no reason to let perfectly good equipment go to waste.

"Do you have a third name?" Clay asked.

"What?"

"Do you have a third name? One you didn't tell me?" Clay repeated.

"I-? Bud, you're going to have to give me a little more than that."

"Your name is Dragonfly," Clay explained slowly, as if educating a small child. "But you also have a second name, Olivia. I heard the sci- the doctors call you by another name. Jane Doe. Is that your third name?"

Another wave of relief.

“No, Jane Doe is a name the hospital uses if they don’t know that someone’s real name. It means unidentified."

"But they know you are Dragonfly," Clay countered. "I heard them say so."

"Maybe. But they don't know I'm Olivia. So they used the third name."

"That's good, isn't it?"

She managed a weak smile. "Yeah, that's really, really good."

Clay did not return her smile but she knew him well enough to tell when something was bothering him.

"Clay? What is it?"

"The doctors…" he paused, clenched his mouth into a hard line like he wasn’t sure how to say what came next. "When you first came here, they said you could not breathe on your own. They put tubes in you. They gave you medicine to make you sleep. But they were afraid- … I was afraid…you wouldn't wake up."

"Oh- oh Clay, no,” she leaned forward and touched his hand. “It's okay. I'm okay! See! I'm wide awake and no more tubes in my chest," she stretched her smile but Clay looked unconvinced.

"The detective put handcuffs on you."

Her eyes shifted to where Detective Victor was still asleep across the room, snoring quietly. "He did. But it's okay. I'll…I'll figure something out, okay?"

Clay's frown hardened. "I could always…take care of him for you." He flattened the length of his forearm into a shape resembling a broad sword.

"Clay, no. We’re not doing that. I'm going to come up with a plan to get out of here without anyone getting hurt, okay?"

She hoped her voice carried more confidence than she felt.

In truth, she didn’t know what would come next. She didn’t know if Clay's strength would be enough to break through the stainless steel of the handcuffs. If not, they probably could break the rail of the hospital bed, but that still left the obstacle of getting out of the hospital.

She didn’t want to admit it in front of Clay, but that tiny movement of sitting upright in bed had sent a shock of pain up and down her chest. Not to mention her head was swimming with pain meds. Even if she managed to stumble out of her room, could she make it to the first floor unnoticed as a staggering, disgruntled patient wearing a tell-tale hospital gown and handcuffs dangling from her wrist?

Would she be prepared to put up a fight if it came to that? Clay would, she knew he would. But she didn't want him- or any innocent hospital staff, patients, or bystanders- to be put in that position.

"Are you really, okay?" Clay asked. His usually drooping, half-lidded eyes were glossy with shine and wide with worry. "You are going to wake up if you fall asleep again?"

She took his hand in hers, feeling the soft squish beneath her fingertips. "I'm okay," she promised with a reassuring smile. "You don't have to worry anymore, alright?"

She glanced back to the far side of the room. "Why don't you get some rest? We can't risk anybody seeing you."

Clay nodded. She watched him silently slip away back beneath the bed but before he had fully retreated, she called out "Hey, Clay!"

He stopped. Half of him was already hidden from sight but he still held her hand in his.

"I'm really glad you're here," she whispered.

She felt a squeeze around her fingers and the rest of him proceeded to slip under the bed, holding her hand as long as he could as he went.

By the time morning came, Dragonfly’s head was feeling a little clearer. The fuzziness and grog were subsiding and she had a better grasp on comprehending the pain beneath her ribs and what movements would provoke it.

Detective Victor woke a little after daybreak. He stirred slightly before fully rousing from sleep. Dragonfly sat back in her bed, watching. Waiting.

His return to wakefulness began with his head bobbing away from his chest. He grumbled softly and rolled his shoulders back, tilting his neck side to side. There was a noticeable pop, followed by a low grunt. He lifted a large, square palm and scrubbed it up and down his face before finally fully opening his eyes. He turned to look her way.

She noted the little flicker of surprise when his eyes met hers.

"Good morning, Detective. Fancy meeting you here. Sleep well?"

He blinked slowly, dragged his hand down to his jawbone and massaged into his thick beard. He didn’t yawn so much as he grimaced. The gray stubble on his lower neck told her it had been a couple days since he last shaved.

"Well, look who finally decided to wake up,” he said evenly, matching her casual tone. He held eye contact as he adjusted himself in his seat. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Insect. You were touch and go there for a while.”

The statement made her heart stutter a moment, but she kept her voice and expression neutral.

“Just catching up on some beauty sleep. What about you? You look like you could use a day off yourself.”

He gave a dry, rough laugh. “That’ll be the day.” He stretched back in his seat and twisted his torso to the left. “I’m too old for this,” he muttered as he twisted to the right. “My back is too old for this. Maybe twenty years ago I could get away with sleeping in a chair.” He grunted after a particularly loud pop.

"You've been working too hard, Detective. Maybe you ought to go home, get some rest, take this silly bracelet with you." She jiggled her cuffs lightly against the bedrail.

He grumbled a response. "What I need is a smoke."

"Those things will kill you, you know."

He stopped mid-twist to direct a glower at her. "You're one to talk. After the little stunt you pulled?"

He straightened and leaned back in his chair, placed his palms flat at the ends of the arm rests like a monarch glaring down from his throne.

“Three A.M. and I get the call. The Elusive Dragonfly, reigning champ of evading our police forces, on death’s door. Gunshot wound to the chest.”

“Occupational hazard. Nothing more.”

“You call that nothing? You nearly-” He stopped, inhaled deeply and released a slow sigh. “How long are we going to do this song and dance, Insect? I know you’re trying to do what you think is right. I understand that. But you almost got yourself killed.”

Dragonfly set her expression to match his. Hard. Unmoving. "I do what I do to help the people of my city. Same as you."

"I'm not saying you haven't done good for this city but there are other ways-"

"Like leaving it up to your people? We both know half of the uniformed officers in this city are on Snake Eye's payroll. I have been effective operating on my own. I’ve chased down leads when your own officers gave you bad information that led you in the opposite direction. I’ve stopped weapon shipments from entering the city, put myself between civilians and gunfire, disbanded more start-up criminal rings than you know the names of."

Detective Victor sighed. He didn’t speak right away. He held her gaze. Sympathy and what might have been pity creased the wrinkled corners of his eyes. “And look where it’s gotten you.”

He leaned forward in his chair till his elbows rested on his knees. “Vigilantism is a crime. But I bet we could get you a good plea deal, a sympathetic- hell if not a grateful judge. But you're going to have to work with me. Something I know you and your lineage have had an aversion to historically.”

He dug into his inner jacket pocket and retrieved a small notebook and pencil shaved down to little more than a stub.

“You can start by telling me who put that bullet in you.”

Dad’s Rule Number 7: Don’t talk to cops.

“Was it Snake Eyes? One of his goons?”

Dragonfly held his stare but said nothing.

“A hired hit? Put out by Ant Queen?”

She said nothing.

“Common mugger?”

Nothing.

“What about that new guy? The scarecrow?”

“He’s not a killer.”

He raised an eyebrow, prompting her to go on.

She felt her jaw tick and physically had to stop herself from biting back her words. Why had she said that? She knew better than to give even an inch in a police interrogation.

He looked at her long and hard before finally sighing and flipping his notebook shut with a flick of the wrist.

“Yeah, figured you’d be a tough one. No matter. If you don’t feel like talking now, we’ll have plenty of time to chat once you’re down at the station. But until then, your care team will want to know you’re awake.”

He stood and shuffled over to the doorway. When he reached it, he glanced back, one hand resting on the frame. “We’ll be getting to know each other real soon, Miss Doe.” With that, he strolled out leaving her alone.

It turns out she was right about the tungsten carbide core. The bullet, after punching through the kevlar of her suit, entered the left of her thoracic cavity between the seventh and eighth ribs, breaking both and grazing the top of her liver. The bullet exited her body at the sixth rib, also broken, and embedded itself into the material on the backside of her suit. The damage missed her stomach by about two centimeters, and her heart by half as much. It did not, however, miss her left lung. The doctors said that by the time she arrived the lung had already collapsed.

A few minutes more and she would have gone into acute respiratory failure, followed by cardiac arrest and then- very likely- the failure of her liver and kidneys.

Detective Victor had spoken truthfully.

She came very, very close to dying that night.

She listened numbly as her doctors ran through a breakdown of the extent of her injuries, the surgeries that repaired them, the chest tube that was inserted to re expand her lung, recovery outlook, and explained that she would be kept for observation for a few more days before being released to police custody.

She tried to listen but her mind felt distant, wrapped in thick cotton. A trio of words kept circling her mind in a dull buzz. Acute respiratory failure.

Hadn’t that been the exact set of words she’d seen printed nice and neat, black ink on powder blue paper? The cardstock thick and sturdy in her shaky, sweating palms.

Manner of Death: Accidental.

Immediate Cause of Death: Acute respiratory failure

Conditions, if any, which gave rise to the immediate cause of death: Smoke inhalation.

Circ*mstances: Unknown.

Acute respiratory failure. Acute respiratory failure. Acute. Respiratory. Failure. Same as Dad. She came very close to being the same as Dad.

Then a new thought, slimey and traitorous, crawled into her mind. Would things have ended differently if Dad had gone to a hospital? Repulsion that she would even entertain such a thought flared up like a bruise.

Her dad was a hero. He died saving others. He couldn’t have.

Could he? Did she really know that he couldn’t? Maybe he had time. Maybe he could even have changed back into civilian clothes, said he was in the building when the fire caught. Maybe if he made an exception, broke rule number 26 like she had broken it-

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered! Maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe he didn’t even know how much poison he had breathed in. Smoke inhalation was sneaky like that. Hid itself inside the nose, the roof of the mouth, coated the lining of the lungs until-

She shook her head until the thought dislodged itself. She didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Doctors came and went, so did nurses. They checked her chart, asked about her pain, conducted themselves with an admirable level professionalism. But she could read the rigidity in their movements, the discomfort they displayed when they had to look directly into her visor while speaking to her, how carefully they weighed their responses, how intentional they were in not looking anywhere near the handcuff around her wrist. She got the sense they had been instructed not to speak to her unless absolutely necessary.

One nurse did not carry any such reservations.

“You saved my kid brother from being hit by a reckless driver back in April,” the woman said matter-of-factly. “You need anything, you tell me.”

Dragonfly appreciated her.

Detective Victor gave her privacy when the doctors were in the room relaying all the gorey details of how she had almost died. But other than that, he didn’t stray far. When he wasn’t scribbling into a crossword puzzle or playing solitaire at the little table against the wall, he was pacing aimlessly across the length of her room, occasionally sliding a finger between the curtains to peek out at something beyond her sight. A few times he stepped out into the hallway to take a call. He said little to her, leaving her a wide berth. He made no other attempt to get her to talk, to admit her civilian identity, or even suggest she take off her visor. She recognized that this, in his own way, was a kindness.

But it left no chance for her and Clay to plan. She could tell Clay was growing restless by the small scrapes she heard of his water bottle shifting over the linoleum tile.

Wait. Just wait. She pleaded silently. I’ll figure something out. I always do. She wanted more than anything to be able to talk with him. The terror of waking up alone in a hospital bed had mostly subsided, but she still felt shaken, left with more than just a touch of vulnerability. Having a brush of death would do that to you. What she wanted more than anything in that moment was the comfort of her best friend close beside her.

Asleep for five days. She had missed yoga then. She wondered if any of the girls from the class had tried texting her. Michelle probably did. They would have noticed her absence but they probably wouldn’t be worried about it yet, waving it off as “spending too much time at work again.” It would take another few days without hearing from her before they began to wonder…

Would they come visit her if they knew? Not that she was Dragonfly, but if they knew she had gotten hurt? She was sure they would. Michelle would bring coffee from that shop on the corner across from the yoga studio they sometimes went to after class. Taylor would bring her something handmade, a pair of socks or a throw pillow she knitted the week before. They’d sit together, talk. Fabi would gush about the barista she was secretly in love with and how he had definitely accidentally-on-purpose touched her hand when he handed her her coffee. Michelle would roll her eyes and tell her to woman-up and give him her number already. Hours would pass in minutes until visiting hours came to an end and the nurses were chasing them out.

They’d talk about everything and nothing, it didn’t matter what. Just that they were there. That’s all that really mattered.

Despite her best efforts, her thoughts kept drifting back to her dad. It made her nervous being separated from her tech like this. It’s not like her dad was gone, even if her suit was stowed up in an evidence locker somewhere. The AI still existed in the tech she had at home. But still, the last time she couldn’t get in contact with her dad it ended up being because…well…

What would he say if she had her ear pieces with her now? She needed his advice more than ever.

Guard with your left. The memory pushed itself forward like a stubborn daisy in the snow. Third grade. Late December. She had come home with scraped knees and dirt on her face. One look and her dad knew. He walked her over to the sink, cleaned her up, listened as she explained. Her dad was always good at that, listening. Even back then, she knew that her dad was a better listener to kids than most adults she’d come across.

He put bandaids on her cuts, lectured her on the importance of trying diplomacy before resorting to fists. But he also told her that everyone had the responsibility to stand up for what they know is right, and to trust her sense of justice like he trusted her. He ended the conversation by giving her one of his great big dad hugs that always made her feel safe. She missed those conversations. She missed those hugs.

Not for the first time since his passing, she wished he was here. She could almost picture it- her dad walking through the hospital room’s door. Not the AI image of her dad with his dark and neon blue suit permanently digitized over his likeness, but her dad as she remembered him: dressed in straight leg jeans, a pressed t-shirt, and a well-loved cardigan. The ends of the sleeves would be frayed but you couldn’t tell because he always rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. She still had those cardigans, tucked safely in a box in the back of her closet somewhere.

He’d walk right in, probably with a balloon or something equally cheesy, look her up and down and give her a knowing smile. You’ve been picking fights again, Grub? He’d kiss her forehead, tie that balloon around her wrist, and give her one of his great big dad hugs. Make everything feel right even if it wasn’t.

She rubbed irritably where the metal cuff chafed her skin.

In an attempt to distract herself from her thoughts and Detective Victor’s pacing, she made the mistake of turning on the television.

A BREAKING NEWS banner was strung across the lower screen of every channel she flipped through. Each one featured the same medium shot of a reporter standing against a fleet of news vans parked just outside the front entrance of St. Mercy’s Hospital.

“We’re coming to you live from-”

“I’m standing right outside St. Mercy’s, the very hospital where-”

“-unconfirmed reports that the city’s very own resident vigilante is rumored to be a patient.”

“Eye witness accounts report seeing the unmistakable neon blue uniform-”

“ I saw it!” The camera cut away to a middle-aged man with a thin face, and a receding hairline. One arm gestured emphatically while he spoke, the other was cradled in a cast and sling. “It was definitely her! She had the mask, the symbol on her chest, everything!” he exclaimed. “Why else would all these cops be here?” He lifted his good arm and gestured to a pod of cop cars parked in the background. “They only showed up after she did.”

“A hospital administrator who wishes to remain anonymous gave the following account-” the camera changed to a video recording of a shadow cast along a concrete sidewalk. “It was crazy!” a mechanical voice overlain with a modifier garbled. “And I work the graveyard shift of the city’s biggest ER - crazy is kind of our bread and butter around here. I’m walking the halls, minding my business and then I hear it ‘is that the Dragonfly?’ and then BAM! Everyone in the hallways is trying to get a look at this one patient. The poor doctors had to resort to using elbows to push through!”

“Eyewitness News would like to remind our viewers that both St. Mercy’s and the city’s police department have declined to give comment confirming the identity or condition of the patient in question. However, early investigative reporting suggests that the patient was in critical condition when they arrived and has not regained consciousness.”

She switched channels again and found a familiar face filling the screen.

“Some eyewitnesses testimony even report seeing another masked figure in the area at the time the Dastardly Dragonfly was brought into the ER. Perhaps a criminal collusion gone wrong? Hmm?” Reporter Louise hummed into her microphone. “Law-abiding citizens, isn’t it time we stop putting our faith in fallible fugitives? In disorderly desperados? In reinless renegades?”

Detective Victor found the button on the underside of the television and switched it off.

“Damn reporters,” he grumbled. “Don’t listen to ‘em. Nothing but a flock of heartless vultures. They’ll pick a story down clean to its bones. Won’t let up for anything or anyone. Not once they smell blood in the water.”

“That’s sharks.”

“Sharks. Vultures. Same difference.”

He shook his head angrily and crossed over to the window.

“‘Specially that Louise gal. What did you ever do to her to earn such contempt?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

Detective Victor pulled the curtain away from the sill a few inches. If Dragonfly leaned as far as she could, she could see the edges of a crowd formed at the front of the building. Detective Victor grumbled something under his breath and dropped the curtain again. He glanced down at his watch. “It’s past noon. You want something from the cafeteria? Can’t survive off pudding cups alone.”

She had no appetite. The only thing she’d touched was the pudding cups one of the nurses brought her and that was only to sneak them under the bed to Clay.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? They got a Sammie’s Subs downstairs. One of the last ones in the city since the one on 22nd Street closed.”

She didn’t answer, expecting that Detective Victor wouldn’t press the subject.

But he pushed his hands into his pockets and kept his gaze on her. “You sure you’re sure? I’ll bring you anything you want. Pastrami, tuna, vegetarian, meatball, you name it.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

Detective Victor read the question in the expression and rocked on his heels. “Number one thing I hear people say they miss from the outside is the food. Or just the choice of food. Might be a while before you get the choice again.”

She kept her voice flat. “Thank you, detective. But, no thank you.”

He said nothing. She said nothing. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak again, he sighed. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

“Fine, have it your way,” he moved to the door. “Sit tight. I’ll be back in a few.”

Only a few seconds after he disappeared down the hall, Clay whispered “Is he gone?”

“He’s gone.”

Quick bubbling, gulping sounds followed, and by the time she turned from the door to her bedside Clay was already there.

“What’s the plan?”

The plan. She had been running through every possibility she could imagine. None of them were particularly promising, especially not now that she knew there was a horde of t.v. cameras outside and, most likely, more cops lining the hallways. Sneaking out was going to be a bigger challenge than she thought. Fighting her way out wasn’t an option, not when she could barely lift her arm without inviting a shockwave of pain over her ribs.

She had even considered pulling a move straight out of looney tunes with the ol’ uniform switcheroo. But that would most likely mean subduing one of the doctors or nurses that had been caring for her and robbing them of the clothes off her back. She hated the idea.

She took a breath.

“See if you can get that window open.”

Clay nodded and slid across the floor to the window then ducked behind the curtain.

“How’s it looking?” she asked after a few moments of watching his lump shift beneath the thick fabric.

“The… mmgghff… frame was not designed to… open more than a few inches. Maybe if I…” a rattling noise followed.

She was too distracted to catch the sounds of footsteps until they were right outside her doorway.

A soft voice, delicate and feather-light, floated from the direction of the door. “Yer awake,” it whispered.

She turned, expecting a doctor or nurse, or even Detective Victor, returning to the room after forgetting something. But instead, she found a stranger there.

He simultaneously filled the doorway while seeming to be swallowed by it. Tall enough that his head fell just below the frame, lean enough that open air around his sides seemed to take up more space than he did.

The stranger wasn’t wearing the scrubs of the hospital staff, or the uniform of the city’s police. A large, black, button-down workshirt hung off his narrow frame like sails billowing in the wind, yet the shirt’s hem barely scraped past his belly button. Clearly sized to fit someone much shorter and wider. A black baseball cap was pulled low over his brow. A red logo identical to the one scrawled over the work shirt’s breast pocket was stamped across the front of the cap. Tufts of straw-colored hair peeked out from the sides of his hat but most of it was pulled back in a short ponytail.

She tilted her head to the side, trying to make sense of him. But finding her gaze on him, the look on his face shifted from gentle surprise to a deer in the headlights.

“Do…? … Do I know-? ”

“M-me?!” the man squeaked, nearly jumping back. “N-no! I’m just-just- the delivery guy!” he jabbed a finger into the logo embroidered above his breast pocket. She could make out Flo’s Flowers written in a fancy cursive script.

He took a step back, but only got a few inches or so before bumping into something behind him and filling the air with the tinkling of glass. On the other side of him, she saw a two-tiered push cart crowded with glass vases, each one holding an array of brightly colored flowers.

“Flowers?”

“Y-yep.”

“For me?”

The man’s thin, tight-lipped smile flickered. “M-mhm.”

“But… how did- why would- Who?? Who would send me flowers??” she demanded.

“Oh-y- y'know, c-concerned citizens, I suppose. The, uh, city loves their hero an’ all,” the man mumbled through his twitching smile.

She felt her brow twist itself up in knots. The poor man shifted nervously under her sight.

“But, uh, I- I’m disturbing ya. I didn’t know- no one told me you were awake. ” The man’s words came out in a rushed mumble, nearly tripping over themselves in their haste to get out. “‘l’ll- I’ll just go.”

“Wait, wait! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grill you. The flowers just surprised me is all.”

She supposed it was plausible. If every news channel was reporting on her hospitalization, and half of those reporters were camped outside of St. Mercy’s, she supposed she could see how a few random viewers might send her flowers. Not everyone in the city was anti-dragonfly afterall. Even Detective Victor had admitted as much.

“I- I really don’t wanna intrude.”

“No, it’s okay! Really!” She threw a glance towards the window, confirming there was no Clay in sight. “It’s fine! Please, don’t let me stop you from doing your job! Come in!”

The man looked like she had just asked him to swallow glass. But all the same, he kept his tight, closed-lip, half smile screwed on his face. “O-okay,” he muttered as he entered, pulling his cart behind him. “Uh, is anywhere fine?”

“Sure.” Again, she looked back to the window where she had last seen Clay. There wasn’t a lump beneath the curtain anymore. Did that mean Clay had made it back beneath her bed? Or maybe he had chosen a new hiding place? But she could never be sure with how easily he could change shape .

“Okay, so, maybe the windowsill-” the man took a step towards the window and as soon as he did, she saw a pool of mud-like goo begin to drip at the base of the curtain.

“A-Actually! I think the table would be better!” she blurted.

Thrown by her sudden shout, the man stumbled his next step, but to his credit, he recovered quickly and pivoted on his heel without a second’s hesitation.

“‘ Yep, that, that‘ss no trouble.” His voice had an stilted, impersonal cadence- like he was very intentional with every syllable, or maybe he was just afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Guilt gnawed at her for having shouted at someone so skittish. She felt the instinct to be delicate with this man. There was an air of fragility around him, like a misplaced stalk of wheat pinched between two fingertips and ready to break with a single, unkind touch.

It was funny, she was the one handcuffed and dressed down to a thin blue dress, yet between the two, he was the one walking around like he had the naked vulnerability of an exposed nerve.

The man lowered himself to a crouch in front of his cart. He kept his back towards her and his eyes averted. With his chin tucked down and his spine rigid, he lifted a vase from the lower level. He placed it gently on the card table before going back for a second, all the while keeping his head down and his shoulders hitched up to his ears. He reminded her of a turtle trying to hide away in its shell.

She should say something. Start up some polite conversation to assure him she wasn’t angry, and she wasn’t going to be an irate customer giving him a hard time.“The flowers are a nice surprise,” she offered lightly, in a voice she hoped had the right mix of amity and warmth.

The man didn’t look her way, but at the sound of her voice, she saw him tilt his ear in her direction.

“It must be nice having your job. With all the people sitting in hospital rooms waiting on bad news, you must be one of the few people patients are always happy to see.”

The man had already placed three vases on the table. Dragonfly expected that to be all, but he reached back under the cart for a fourth.

“Has that been your experience?”

“Uhh, well, I dunno, its kinda my first day, so…”

Oh. Well, that would explain the first-day jitters. And why his bosses hadn’t had time to order him a shirt that fit properly. But then again, it was probably just difficult to find clothes for his build. Not many people were that tall.

Something itched at the back of her mind but she couldn’t place it.

She wondered if she should attempt to keep the conversation going or just drop it there and let the poor man work in peace. What bad luck. First day on the job and he got stuck with a delivery to a masked police detainee chained to her bed. No wonder his nerves were a wreck. She knew her mask could be intimidating not just to adversaries but civilians too. She received the occasional fanfare, sure, but when Dragonfly arrived on a scene with panicked civilians, people were just as likely to retreat from her as they were to ask for a selfie.

She had made up her mind to stay quiet when the mans’ featherlight voice came again.

“It can be nice though..to get to…let people know…someone is thinking of them.”

A small smile curved her lip. It was sweet. She imagined the surprise and delight this man would get to see in people’s faces every time he made a delivery. How rare it must be to have a job where everyday you get to make someone else’s day. Well, almost always.

“I’m sorry for sounding so interrogative earlier. I was just surprised. I wasn’t expecting…well, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be thinking of me like that.”

She saw his shoulders stiffen.

“I’m sure that’s not true. Yore the famous dragonfly. I betcha were in more people’s thoughts than… ya realize.”

Was that heat flushing her cheeks? No, it couldn't be. Why would she be blushing? “Oh, sure, sure,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Because it’s all over the news? The gossip of the hour? The very public failing of the city’s resident vigilante is sure to capture some attention.” She forced out a laugh but heard how dry and colorless it sounded. Maybe it was better she wasn’t connected to her dad right now. If he could see what her failure was doing to his legacy…

Her faked laughter failed to relax the delivery man. The tension wound in his shoulders and locked tight down his spine was just as obvious as it was the moment he walked through the door.

“That’s not it,” he whispered under his breath, so low and soft she almost didn’t hear it. “Some people- some people were real worried…. Watchin’ for any and every update…but all they said was ya hadn’t woken up.”

He slipped an almost subtle glance over his shoulder, perhaps thinking she hadn’t heard him. But when their eyes locked, the already feverish blush coloring his face deepened, tinting the tips of his ears pink.

W-What I mean is,” he stammered, “I bet lotsa people were thinkin bout you, an worrin’ an, an , some of' em… some of em’ care bout you.”

She smiled a small smile. It was sweet what he was trying to do, it really was. But she knew better. She gave up that kind of life when she became Dragonfly. No one was going to visit her in the hospital. None of her gal pals from yoga were going to walk through that door with an iced coffee in one hand and a box of doughnuts in the other, fretting or worrying over her.

The only friend Dragonfly could count on was already here.

He was currently hiding behind a curtain trying not to melt into an obvious pile of goo, but he was here. And it was more than she had any right to hope for.

“Thank you,” she said. Because she was grateful, truly grateful, for the kindness this stranger was showing her and the ways he was trying to make her feel better. She’d have to remember to bring him up to Hayday the next time they were arguing over if there really was any goodness in the world.

There was that familiar itch pricking at the back of her mind again.

At her thanks, the man seemed to relax some. He nodded to himself, releasing a tiny bit of the tension held in his shoulders like a sigh.

He lifted another vase from the push cart and placed it on the table. There were half a dozen on the table now, anymore and he’d run out of room to put them. His hands hovered above the glass for a second before finding rest in the belt loop of his jeans. He risked a sideways glance her way, eye peeking out nervously from over his shoulder, hesitation building over him like a storm cloud.

“Can I ask you somethin?”

“Of course,” she replied earnestly. She liked talking with this stranger. It almost made her feel normal, almost made her forget the circ*mstances she was in.

“…how are ya?”

She blinked. The question turned itself over in her mind before she fully processed it, and even then, she needed another moment to be certain she heard right. But once she knew she had, her breath snagged like a fishing line caught inside her throat.

It was a simple question, it shouldn’t have had the power to re-split a long-buried schism deep inside her. But it did. In an instant, she realized just how desperately she had been missing that question. She felt the full absence of her father, of her friends, of anyone who would ask that question because the answer mattered to them. The reality of it, the reality of loneliness, overtook her and threatened to spill out of the corners of her eyes.

“I’m-” she tried to say ‘okay’ but the lie choked in her throat before she could get it out. She swallowed against the lump it formed.

“I…I've been better,” she admitted. And then lightly, “Thank you. For asking.”

The man nodded like he understood.

He turned back away from her. “Ya got a favorite flower? I can put it on the nightstand closest to you.”

She didn’t. Not really. She had always been more interested in the pollinators than the pollinatees. Not to mention, after Drosera, it took months before she could stomach the sight of a floral arrangement again. But she didn’t want to take away from another profound and unexpected kindness this stranger was offering her.

“Whatever you like best,” she suggested.

The man looked back to the vases on the table and those remaining in the cart, before finally reaching for a vase filled with a bright, cheery, yellow.

“Sunflowers? Are those your favorite?”

“Uhm, sure, they’re up there, top five, prob'ly ” The man rose from the ground, lifting the vase up with him.

“What’s number one?”

He turned towards her, holding the vase out in front of him, fully blocking out his face.

“Oh. Uhmm…cornflower.”

The flowers obscured some of his words.

“Sorry?”

“C-cornflower?” he repeated as he moved forward. His voice was a bit louder and clearer now that he was nearer. For a third time, she felt a tickle at the back of her brain.

“You, um, can’t really find ‘em here in the city.” He spoke softly, but not with the same nervousness as when he first came into the room. “But, if ya’ve ever taken a drive out through the country in the summertime, you’d see ‘em. They turn the hills the-”

Somewhere between his words while lowering the vase, it hit the bedside table at an angle, tipping the high-stemmed flowers forward and sending them teetering towards the edge.

Her hand shot out the same moment his did. Her fingertips folded over the slender neck of the vase and came to rest atop of his.

She blinked.

Stunning green eyes blinked back.

“The…the purtiest shade of blue…” he finished, near breathless.

A shock of realization hit her, sparking in her fingertips and shooting up the back of her brain like a jolt of electricity.

“You!” she gasped, pulling her hand away.

The man leapt back like he had been struck, tripping over his feet and nearly losing his balance in his retreat. “M-me? N-no! Ya must be confusin’ me with sumun else!”

But her mind was still alight with the buzz of electricity. She lifted a finger. “You’re-” she stopped herself just in time.

It was the hospital. The thin blue gown. The bandages on her side. The close brush with death. The naked vulnerability. The unguarded sincerity in his voice. His disarming kindness. All of it made her forget herself. Forget who she was and the mask she was still wearing.

Because Olivia might recognize…Lenny? Liam? -the cashier from her local grocery store and maybe he would even recognize her back, but Dragonfly would not. Not unless she wanted to risk her secret identity being traced back to her.

“ You’re…Sal… Sal from Sammie’s Subs on 22nd street,” she said instead, lowering her eyes.

That was all it would take. The man would correct her, tell her she was mistaken. She could feign a blush, say a quick apology, and then they would brush past it. Let it be a forgotten piece of conversation that occupied no space in the stranger’s mind.

“O-oh, uh, y-yeah. I am. Y-you must have a mind like a steel trap for faces.”

She looked up to find the stranger’s face blushing pink as a posy and with ears to match.

This was (Larry? Leo??) wasn’t it? Yes, she was sure it was. The longer she looked the more obvious it became. Same straw-colored hair. Same constellation of freckles smattered across his face, same skittering, close-lipped smile curving the corner of his mouth. His eyes were…well, she had never noticed just how green his eyes were but she recognized the familiarity she felt when she looked in them. And she knew those deep purple shadows under his eyes. No wonder he always looked so exhausted in the check-out line. Working two jobs was murder. She would know, Miss Double Life, No Sleep, herself.

But why would…(something with an L), lie to her? Was he trying to save her from embarrassment? Was this another one of his kindnesses? Unless by coincidence of astronomical probability he really did have a third job at a sandwich shop on 22nd street?

“A-anyway- I oughtta get goin’ to my uh, other deliveries.” He stepped back, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and breaking open his smile just the tiniest bit.

The smile she returned was as natural as it was easy. “Of course. Good luck on the rest of your first day. I’m sure everyone will love the flowers you bring them.” She reached to stroke the delicate petals of the sunflowers. But-for the second time that day-she forgot herself. She used the hand that was cuffed. It jerked back against the slight length of its chain, clinking like a broken bell.

She saw him see it. She saw his eyes flick down to where the chain cuffed to her wrist. She saw the color drain from the kindly smiling face that had been blushing pink only a moment ago.

“I…I, uh, I- I didn’t, I mean…I didn't mean- I’m….I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t make out anything he mumbled under his breath but it took all but a matter of seconds for him to collect himself and his cart and remove himself from her room.

She was left alone in a room full of flowers and a bottomless feeling sinking her chest.

“Did he finally leave?”

“Y-yeah. He's gone, Clay.”

“Finally!” Clay exclaimed, reforming himself then disappearing once again behind the curtain. “I think I figured out how to open the window.”

“Yeah? What do you think-”

A thunderous crash came from where Clay had been standing. Shards of glass sprinkled against the linoleum floor.

“The window is open!” Clay declared triumphantly.

“Claaaayyy!” Dragonfly bolted forward in her bed, earning her a burst of pain along her ribs. “Hide the broken glass, quick!”

Clay heeded her instruction, glomming onto the shattered bits of glass scattered across the floor.

“I think there's one more, that big piece by the-”

“Where did all these flowers come from?”

In the corner of her eye, Dragonfly caught sight of Clay slinking under her bed, taking the last broken piece of glass with him, just as Detective Victor entered the room. He held a white paper bag in his hand and a glare on his face.

“From concerned citizens, I suppose,” she answered cooly, borrowing the delivery man’s turn of phrase.

Detective Victor’s scowl deepened. “Entry from the delivery bay is supposed to be locked.” He sighed. “I’m going to have to talk to the floor manager.”

Dragonfly scanned the length of the floor, paying special close attention to the tile near the curtain. From what she could tell, there were no stray bits of glass lying around. She just had to hope Detective Victor didn’t notice a new draft coming from behind the curtain.

Detective Victor walked up to the table holding the flowers and thumbed through the stems and leaves of a blue and yellow bouquet till he found the square of cardstock beneath a cluster of baby’s breath. “Congratulations on your bouncing baby boy,” he read aloud, raising an eyebrow, “XOXO, Gram Gram and Pop Pop.”

“...That must have gone to the wrong room.”

He tugged loose the card on a short vase full of purple flowers she didn’t know the names of. “Thanks for the kidney! Guess I’m glad mom didn’t leave me an only child after all. Sincerely, your ever-loving sister.”

They stared at each other in silence until Detective Victor broke it with a laugh. “I think the delivery guy needs to be fired.” He didn’t bother reading any of the others. Instead, he crossed over to her bed and handed her the paper bag.

“Grilled cheese. No one can say no to a grilled cheese,” he nodded to himself before returning to his chair.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, I should have,” he rebutted, digging into his inner jacket pocket and removing his folded up crossword puzzle. “Like I told you-” He didn’t finish. A puzzled look creased his brow. He patted a hand down against his left breast pocket. Then his right. His brow twisted furiously.

“Everything alright, Detective?”

Detective Victor didn’t answer. He stood upright on his feet, furiously patting his hands up and down the pockets of his slacks.

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, then quickly exited the door.

The sandwich bag was still unwrapped in her hands.

She didn’t know everything, but she knew when not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Clay,” In an instant, he was fully formed by her bedside. “I think it’s now or never.”

Clay nodded affirmingly. “You have a plan,” he said, not really a question.

She offered a lax smile. It wasn’t a plan as much as it was a shot. Dropping out the side of the building wasn’t the most inconspicuous of getaways. Especially not with a fleet of cameras just around the corner, and nothing for cover except for the paper hospital gown and the handcuffs dangling from her wrist. She didn’t like it, but she didn’t see any other way.

She breathed. One step at a time.

“See if you can get these cuffs off.”

Clay nodded, but before he could even move to try to break the chain, she saw his gaze drift over her shoulder. Surprise filled his eyes and in an instant, he ducked back beneath her bed.

She turned, afraid she would find Detective Victor returned already. But it wasn’t him. Standing in the doorway, chest heaving and breath panting, was the flower delivery guy.

“You?” she questioned.

His eyes flicked to her, and it was only then with the motion of his eyes that she realized he had been looking in her direction but not at her exactly.

Her heart skipped a beat. Had he seen Clay?

But the man kept an even, unperturbed expression, or as much as he could while trying to catch his breath. Not the typical reaction people had when they came across a sentient being made of living clay for the first time.

“Are you…here for the flowers?” She offered.

The man quirked an eyebrow.

“Those two?” She pointed at the two vases Detective Victor had read the cards of. “I think they were delivered to the wrong room.”

The man's eyes flashed. “Y-Yea!” He exclaimed, stepping forward. “Yup, that's- that's exactly what I'm here for.”

“Other one,” she corrected when he reached for the vase of red-tipped yellow roses instead of the one meant for the parents of the new baby.

With both correct vases safely tucked under each arm, the man turned back to her, green eyes brimming with a mischievous sparkle, and an honest-to-god- open-mouthed grin threatening to break across his face.

“Thank ya, kindly! Five-stars on Yelp, yea?”

She thought she heard the tinkling of broken glass just then. Probably just Clay moving around under her bed.

The man didn’t wait for a reply before darting out of the room.

“Hey! You forgot your-” but the man was already gone. It didn't matter. She was sure he wouldn't get far before he realized he didn't have his cart, still full with half a dozen vases.

“Clay! Quickly, we need to go now!”

“Dragonfly,” he said, still beneath the bed.

“We don't know how long we have until Detective Victor comes back.”

“Dragonfly-”

“Or that delivery guy, but he's less of a threat. But still, we gotta go before-”

“Dragonfly.”

“Yeah? What is it, Clay?”

“Will these help?” Clay was at her bedside again, dangling a ring of keys, one of which was so small, it could only be the key to her cuffs.

“Wh-where did you get that?!?”

“They were on the floor?”

“The floor???”

“Yes. I saw them when I was under the bed. They were by that guy's foot.”

“The flower g-” she looked over to where the man had been standing.

They were pressed for time but she could piece together enough of the scenario to figure out what happened. Detective Victor dropped his keys at some point- most likely when he was examining the flowers on the table- Clay spotted the keys from under the bed when the delivery guy came in.

Gift horse. Mouth. Not the time.

And-

One more detail came to her attention as she looked back in the direction when the man had been- one she hadn't noticed the first time he walked through the door but she couldn’t look away from now. Hanging off the cart, folded over the push handle of the cart, was a large green hoodie.

She turned back to Clay.

“Okay. New plan. Can you create a distraction?”

Clay's eyes darkened and he leaned forward. “Absolutely,” he breathed.

In the end, the news cameras never got their glimpse of Dragonfly. However, that evening’s news hour, was dominated by the breaking news and accompanying video footage of the Contemptible Clay running amok just outside St. Mercy’s Hospital (allegedly).

The broken window served as an excellent decoy in the mystery of how Dragonfly had gotten out of a hospital undetected. Unlike his ill-fitting workshirt, the green hoodie was clearly tailored for the unusually tall frame of its owner. On her, it fell down to her mid thigh. On him, it probably bagged around his waist. On her, it slipped over her curves in a way that could be considered fashionable. She had to roll up the sleeves to keep them from spilling past her fingers but she made it work. And with a simple slip of the hood, her face was completely hidden.

With Clay pulling the attention of every cop, news anchor, and security guard in a 5-mile radius, all she had to do was take the elevator to the first floor and walk through the front doors of the lobby unnoticed.

It didn't make the papers (with the exception of the news blog of one spectacularly vigilant reporter Louise) but, on the same day the alleged Run Amok Clay Monster terrorized the downtown, a delivery man for local small business, Flo's Flowers, was mugged while along his delivery route, right before his next delivery into Saint Mercy’s Hospital.

The assailant didn't take cash or the delivery van. No, instead the mugger stripped the employee of his uniform from the waist up, tied him to the seat of the van, and stole his bounty of floral arrangements. (The deliverables were later found in Saint Mercy’s Hospital, only a mere doors or floors away from their intended destination). The victim reported that he never saw the mugger's hooded face but noted a peculiar accent. Too bad Dragonfly missed that particular news issue.

Afterwards, people kept their eyes on the skies but in the weeks following the St. Mercy’s Hospital media circuit, there were no sightings of the Dragonfly, and the streets were quiet. It didn’t take long for theories to begin to swirl.

The Dragonfly had died of her injuries and the mayor’s office had covered it up. Dragonfly had never been in the hospital at all, it was someone in a bug costume and the police department was too embarrassed to admit their mistake. It was a publicity stunt to improve the police department’s image that backfired when the public expressed overwhelming support for Dragonfly. None were true, but that didn’t stop the rumors from spreading and multiplying. If you had asked a particular scarecrow about Dragonfly’s absence- not that anyone did- he’d have answered “Leave her be. She’s restin’.”

Maybe that’s why, on one particular night- one of many he spent on rooftops he knew fell directly beneath her usual flight path-he wasn't surprised when he heard the hum of mechanical wings beating down behind him.

“Well, chicken, chicken, look who’s kickin,” he said and turned in time to see her boots land against the gritty rooftop with a crunch.

“Hayday.”

“Bug.”

“Miss me?” she said with her arms crossed and a smirk playing on that smart mouth of hers.

“Were ya hopin’ I would?” he answered, grateful as always that she couldn’t see the blush rising under his mask, or guess the way his heart jumped in his chest.

“Clay-dough,” he nodded and the grim-faced figure molding itself beside her.

“It’s Clay,” Clay responded, bristling.

“Hay-” she cut in before he could fire another shot at his favorite clump of sentient mud. “I believe I owe you something.”

“What’s that? Does it come in cash?”

Her smirk spread into a full on grin and his heart stopped just like it did every time she laughed, just like it did every time she almost caught him staring, just like it did in that hospital room when he first saw with his own eyes that she was alive.

“I owe you a thank you,” she said, stepping forward. “For what you did for me.”

“What I-? What’re ya goin’ on about? I didn’t do anythin’ worth thankin me for.”

“You did,” she said, taking another step forward. “I know it. And you know it too.”

Hayday took a step back.

“I- I dunno what yer talkin’ about.”

“Sure you do,” she took two more steps towards him.

“Look- I dunno what ya think ya know but- it- it ain’t got nothin to do with me!” Hayday desperately tried to back away but Dragonfly wouldn’t let him. Every time he stepped back she closed the distance between them.

“Hayday~,” she had him backed against the edge now, and by the sing-songy lilt in her voice, she knew it. Goddamn it. Goddamn him. He knew he shouldn’t have gone. He knew it was too risky. Goddamn his stupid, sentimental, idiotic-

“You took me to the hospital even when I told you not to. I’m alive because of you.”

Wha-?

“O-oh. Well. It’s not like I ever…listened to ya before. So… Wasn’t about to start then.”

“You saved my life. You’re a hero.”

“Now that’s a four-letter word!” he snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at Dragonfly.

She stepped past it and closed her arms around him.

“Wh-what’s happenin?”

“It’s a hug, stupid,” Dragonfly murmured from against his chest.

He glanced around helplessly.

“Do not look at me. I will not be joining,” Clay said from where he watched, sly smile spreading across his face. “I was initially against the idea but the look on your face makes it worthwhile.”

The hug went on for what felt like an agonizing amount of time but was probably only a few seconds. The entire time he held his arms out awkwardly, not quite sure where to put them.

“Okay. That’s-that’s enough of that,” he said, patting gingerly on Dragonfly’s back.

To his relief (and maybe just a tiny bit to his disappointment), she let him go.

“Now, back to business,” she said, straightening. “I need help with a job. You in?”

He raised a brow. “What kinda job?”

She smiled a sly smile. “Oh, a little breaking, a little entering. There’s some property of mine in a police evidence locker. I’d like it returned. Or- how would you put it-? Liberated. Think you can handle it?” She waggled her brows. Goddamnit if she wasn’t breathtaking when she was scheming against cops.

“And my payment?”

“The usual. Dinner at the restaurant of your choice.”

“A buffet?”

She grinned then, not her sly, cunning grin, or her determined ‘we can do it!’ grin, but her full grin. The one that lit up her entire face, the one that showed off just how indomitable her spirit was. And god, did he just want to grab her again, not even to kiss her. Just to hold her, and hold her, and hold her knowing she was okay, she was here. She was her.

“After everything we’ve been through plus this next job? I think we’ve definitely earned it. So, are these terms acceptable?”

Everything they’d been through.

“Ya got yerself a deal.”

They were not friends. He would not say they were friends. He would not. But. They were not… not friends.

Epilogue.

In the comfort of her little apartment, bathed in the light of a sunny Sunday spilling in through the large glass window panes, Olivia sat on her couch. It was plush, overstuffed, and shockingly comfortable to sleep on when ‘just going to close my eyes for a minute’ turned into a 9-hour nap. She pulled her knees up to her chest, tucked her fuzzy-sock-clad feet beneath her, and sipped coffee from one of her goofy novelty mugs. It was her third cup, but hey, caffeine doesn’t count on weekends. She stifled a yawn as the steam rose up to tickle her nose.

She breathed in the tranquility of a Sunday morning in her apartment and sat in the stillness of the moment. Today was a cozy Sunday and she was dressed for it. Hair pulled back in a messy scrunchy, reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, pajama shorts, fuzzy socks as previously mentioned, and one large, green hoodie.

She had wanted to return it, she really, really had. She knew where he (Lester?) worked after all, his grocery store job, not the florist shop. She had done a little incognito investigating at Flo’s Flowers once she felt strong enough to go out on her own -as Olivia, mind you. She didn’t want to show up fully decked out in her super suit and have the unexpecting civilian worrying that he had a vigilante stalker.

But when she poked around, asked a few non-incriminating questions, all she found was that no one fitting the man’s description worked there. He must have gotten fired after all. Poor guy. But in fairness, he really was bad at his job.

That still left his job at the grocery store. But after much back and forth and mental debates in her head, she couldn’t bring herself to do it for the same reasons she couldn’t tell him she recognized him when they came face to face in the hospital. It could lead back to her secret identity. There was a very high probability that (Leroy?) remembered that the last place he left his hoodie was in her hospital room. So, he might have already made the assumption that she was the one who had taken it. So even if she returned it anonymously - left it in a box, washed and folded it on his register- he would 1.) think he had a superhero stalker; and 2.) know that she knew he worked at that grocery store. And how would she know that if she wasn’t either 1.) a super stalker or 2.) someone who visited that grocery store in her civilian identity?

Neither option was ideal.

As much as she hated to steal someone else’s hoodie, she just couldn’t see a way around it. That didn’t mean she had to wear it as part of her lazy Sunday attire but it was super, super comfy! If she was going to keep it, it made her feel a tiny bit better knowing that the very least she could do was make sure it was well loved. Maybe knowing that would have made (Lee?) feel a bit better too.

Lee.

Yeah… That felt right. Lee. His name was Lee.

“Olivia,” Clay said, climbing onto the couch next to her. “Can we watch cartoons?”

“Sure!” she said, reaching for the remote. “What are you in the mood for today? More looney tunes?”

“Yes. The one with the roadrunner and the dog. That is my favorite. I like when the dog explodes.”

“You got it,” she clicked on the television and settled back into the couch. She sipped her coffee and Clay cheered as another one of Wile E. Coyote’s devious plots backfired in his face.

She snuggled closer into the hoodie, breathing in its amber, woody scent. Wherever you are, Lee, thank you for the hoodie. I promise to love it until it's threadbare. And then even after that.

She sighed. Her eyes drifted lazily from the television to other corners of her apartment, catching on the bright yellow flowers she brought back from her last trip to the farmer's market. It was weird, she had never been one to spend the extra money to buy flowers for herself. But lately, for some reason, she just couldn't say no to a bouquet of sunflowers.