The mask wasn’t the quality sort I was used to, more of a Halloween costume. The top I wore was a men’s small, a little too big in the shoulder, while it simultaneously squashed my chest.

From the ages of the patients in the pediatric wing, I wasn’t sure they would pay much mind to my chest, squashed or not. Most were twelve or younger. A few heads turned, people paying cursory attention.

I still wore the skirt I’d worn to the interviews, the belt.

Room 5, bed C.

I entered room five. There were four beds, one in each corner. One monitor was beeping, the other kids were lying down, looking bored.

Bed C was a little girl, with a face chock full of freckles, and sandy blonde hair. The curtains had been partially closed, blocking the views of the boy sitting to her left and the girl sitting across from her.

“Audrey?” I asked, peering in.

I saw only a glimpse of misery on her expression, while she stared off out the window. Then she raised her head and the expression was gone. She assessed me, head to toe.

“Great,” she said, after she was done.

“Great?”

“Ooh, yay, it’s Legend, except he’s a girl now,” she said, sarcastic.

The t-shirt I wore was styled after Legend’s costume. The mask was the same. Something the staff had kept on hand from the past Halloween.

“The nurses pointed me your way,” I said.

“Well, my day sucked, but now fake Lady Legend is here, so I’m all better. That’s great.”

“I can take the mask off if you want,” I said.

“Oh, no, you can’t do that, fake Lady Legend. Your secret identity might be compromised!”

The sarcasm ran strong through this one.

I pulled the curtain closed a bit more, then pulled off the mask, flying a bit as I said, “I never really had the secret identity.”

With that, at least, her eyebrows went up. No smart retort. She moved around her hospital bed, craning her head to see my feet, trying to spot the trick.

“I don’t know you,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “The nurses mentioned you’d had an especially bad day.”

Again, that momentary look of misery.

Yeah, I knew that.

“Back before everything turned sour, when I’d come to the hospital, with, um—” I stopped, drew in a breath, and sighed. “It’s something heroes would do. Check in on people who had really bad days. And when I came to the hospital, sometimes I’d do that.”

Crisis points. More a PRT thing than a New Wave thing, but we’d done a small share. Looking out for the recent triggers, putting our faces and names out there, staying in touch with the public.

“A nurse sat down with me for a while,” she said. “No offense, I appreciate it, but I’m kind of talked out.”