In the next moment, the Nemean Titan lunged for a group of heroes. Explosions slowed him and broke his forward momentum. Tristan finished his construction. The buildings exploded into existence, ramming the Titan.

Who brought a foot up and did an acrobatic backflip. The force of his landing made rubble cascade from piles, and shook buildings on unsteady foundation.

A big hit, dodged and deflected.

Rain went on, “—it was Jessica accepting Chris and Swansong. Swansong talking about work she was doing with the Wardens, and seeming proud.”

“This was when she appeared? Swansong?”

He nodded.

“Forgiveness?” I asked.

“She doesn’t deserve forgiveness,” Sveta said.

“Not forgiveness,” Rain said. “I don’t know enough, it’s not my place. More like… acceptance.”

Off in the distance, the Titan Fortuna stood still, her ‘face’ pointed at the clouds and the stars above us, arms limp at her sides, the wreath of wolf heads at her shoulders each with their noses pointed up.

“Why?” I asked.

“Gilpatrick asked me to think of what I’d say to myself. And I thought of her… I thought she couldn’t even make the decision of which course of action to take, back when we had to decide. Maybe I understand a bit of what it’s like to be caught up in someone or something else’s current. I feel like I didn’t have a thought of my own in my head, until I saw the doors of the shopping center burst open. Even then, it was a rocky road. I dunno. Not trying to make excuses.”

“I want to say you’re allowed to make excuses,” Tristan said, working on drawing out another diagram. “But that feels like I’m saying it to myself. Fuck.”

“I just thought, okay… I bet it’s really hard to go against a voice in your head that is literally always right all the time.”

“For a certain interpretation of ‘right’,” Sveta said, quiet.

“For a… yeah,” Rain echoed. “Yeah. So… cool. Really shitty, but we kind of need you to fight and try now.”

I thought of Chris, handing me the syringe.

And I thought of the weird link my brain had drawn of that memory of the room and of Contessa. Amy, who had her own fucked up voice in her head. How helpless she’d seemed.

Forgive? No. Never.

Accept? I could accept the reality that she’d been fucked over from the get-go, that the situation had been ugly, that day everything had started to go wrong. That Tattletale had planted seeds in her head and with nobody to turn to, those things had run rampant, twisting up her thoughts. I knew that, objectively.

Objectively, I knew our parents had done a pretty shitty job. Carol was Carol and my dad was the kind of person who only really stepped up when the ship was sinking and it was literally do or die.