“I’m here because I was interested in how you were doing,” I said. “Obviously I’d prefer it if you stayed a hero, but that’s not the objective.”

“If you guys keep showing up with flowers or to make small talk, you make it awfully hard for me to fuck off and go back to being a villain.”

“That’s a plus,” Tempera said. “But like Victoria said, it’s not the main point.”

“On the topic of pluses,” I said. “I’m interested in who those guys were. So if you hear anything, I wouldn’t mind a heads up.”

“The guy who shot me did so of sound mind, no Kingdom Come in play. Independent, apparently. No money in his accounts, he didn’t have internet. He was just pissed off.”

“There were the villains, too,” I said.

“There were.”

“And we don’t know what they were after,” Crystalclear said.

“Multiple conflicting stories,” I said. “Blindside lied to me when I asked. It bothers me, and I worry it’ll happen again.”

“Give me your cell phone number,” Tempera said. “I’ll get in touch.”

There was a brief pause while we sorted things out, me getting the contact information from each of the others, and giving them mine. They already knew each other.

Reaching out, making and maintaining contact.

A part of me had hoped that Fume Hood was wrong, that the team wouldn’t have dissolved, that they’d be together, willing to give things another try. That it might have been a team I could join.

“The cards and flowers might have something to do with how you’re the topic of the moment,” I mused aloud.

“I heard something about that,” Fume Hood said, indicating Crystalclear.

“From me,” Crystalclear volunteered unnecessarily.

“If you guys were to try again, there could be more attention, more support,” I said.

“More gunshots?” Fume Hood asked. “I’m stepping down and going into hiding. I’ll recuperate, let the heat die down, and then figure out what I’m doing.”

“If it matters, I think more people are siding with you than not,” I said.

Fume Hood nodded a few times, taking that in. “Weird.”

“It’s good,” Tempera said. “I think Crystalclear already accepted the offer from Foresight, though.”

“It was a very promising offer.”

“And I’ve been contacted by Attendant. I don’t know what I’ll do with that. And Victoria—”

“Is not having much luck,” I said. “But I want to do something.”

“You were thinking you might go independent?”

“Which doesn’t pay,” I said. “Not in this environment.”

“How does that work?” Fume Hood asked. “If you’re a crook, it’s easy, you take jobs at the villain bar, or you rob some place, or any number of things. You just… go out on patrol?”