“Was a part of it you just wanting things to be normal again? The four person nuclear family back together?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m not about to lie here. I—yeah. Yes.”

It hurt, hearing that. Knowing my dad and where he wanted to be were that far away from where I was and where I wanted to be.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I let my guard down when I should have had it up to protect you. I wanted you to hear that apology, and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Crystal and I are looking after each other,” I said.

“Absolutely,” Crystal said.

“That’s great,” my dad said.

I rubbed my arm, wrist to shoulder. “I’m giving some limited direction to a team of heroes right now. It’s messy.”

“Any team is bound to be. It’s good that you’re doing that.”

“Messier than most,” I said. I paused. “Top one percent of messy.”

“Ah, I see,” my dad said. He rubbed his chin. It was late enough in the day that the stubble he usually had on his chin was more of a shadow. “The Dallon–Pelham family never does anything the easy way, does it?”

“No we don’t,” I said.

“Can I help?” he asked. “Advice, support? I don’t have a lot of money, but…”

“I’ve got the team outlined on my laptop. Six people, either under eighteen or in the vicinity of eighteen. One complicated case, age-wise. Um, this doesn’t leave this room, right?”

Nods from both Crystal and my dad.

“They’ll probably go covert. Gather and sell info. I think I can pitch that to the big teams and get the initial funding. I might be able to get costumes through them as well.”

“They have the infrastructure set up for costumes,” my dad said. “They’ve got most current members outfitted, and I’ve heard rumor of them branching out to supply other teams and heroes. I would be very surprised if they said it wasn’t doable.”

“Perfect,” I said. That helped if and when it came to negotiating. I held up my hand. “Funding, costumes, target… target is hard to pin down. A lot of low-level threats out there, banding together.”

“If you’re keeping an eye out for the criminal populations that aren’t joining larger groups, the places you want to keep an eye on are the Cabin, the Tea-Shop, the Pitstop, the Rail, and the Greens. Those last three places are pretty seedy and traditional villain bars. The others are villain bars without the bar part.”

“What about the ones who are hooked into bigger groups?” I asked.

“That gets more complicated, and it’s less about the places to watch and more about the names to keep an ear out for,” my dad said. “Marquis, Goddess, Lord of Loss, Mama Mathers, the Crowley brothers, Deader and Goner, Barrow.”