It's been a While

"I guess..." Angelo started, halting almost immediately. It was hard to put into words. It felt kind of like he was betraying someone by saying it.

But it was Blade, and he should be able to tell her.

"I guess it feels like school is training wheels. Training me for something. Only I don't want to spend another four years training. I want to get out there and start doing things. Making a difference."

What Blade said sounded... important. Significant. But he still didn't quite get it. Learn as he goes.

"I want to... I don't know. Interning would probably help me learn faster. The idea of sitting in school, listening to lectures about things I've already memorized is exhausting. I shifted my schedule around to have a bunch of subjects that I can't memorize, but... What's the point in taking a bunch of cooking classes when I can get all the food I want from work?"

He ate Italian a lot.

"I just want to... to stop being a kid, I guess. I still feel like that. I want to be part of the workforce. Have a job that makes a difference."

If Jude's brain had worked slightly slower than his mouth, he might have said what else is there? Why not make a difference?

"I want to help people," Angelo said after a moment. "I always wanted that. Back in Halcyon, my options felt... limited. I grew up wanting to be a cop or an EMT or something helpful, but I knew I was never going to be able to. Who would accept Basilio Genovese's son into something like that? So I became a hero, because it would let me help people without showing my face."

He didn't normally talk about it, but it was true. He'd wanted to help and felt closed out before he even tried. There'd been no chance. Not back there.

"Here I feel like I can do anything. So I want to do that. I want to do something I never had a chance to, to help people outside of rescuing cats from trees. To make a real difference."

He was gesturing with his hands as they walked, obviously with strong feelings about the subject.

Jude softened a bit at that. She still wanted it, didn't she? Wanted to go back to being a hero.

"In Halcyon, heroes had to exist because the police couldn't possibly handle criminals who used their powers. How does an ordinary human handle someone who shoots fire from their hands? How do they handle someone like Archer or Calliope? But here, everyone's super. The police can handle things. So vigilantes... aren't really needed. I thought about becoming a cop, but I realized that I'd just be deluding myself. I want to do the most good, and for me, that's doing something like politics. My powers aren't anything special for police work. I can do more good elsewhere."

If anyone could understand, it would be Blade. They were the only two with no powers on the team, even if Jude had sort of gotten his later, albeit at great cost.

"Sure," Angelo said. He wasn't going to argue that a serial killer wasn't a villain. They were, really. Often they were worse than villains.

"But that doesn't really change things," Angelo said. "Their legal system isn't set up at all for it. Even if you knew someone was a serial killer, if you investigated that evidence doesn't count for anything. You'd have to catch them red handed, and what're the chances of that?"

Poor, to say the least.

"Our world at least had systems set up for it."

Okay. There was no way he could miss that, and Angelo's eyes slid over, looking at Blade properly even as he kept pace beside her.

"You don't agree?"

Had she... dodged? Angelo quickly ran through the conversation, rewinding it as he did.

She'd barely said anything about herself. She'd consistently pushed the conversation back to him. She was... she was definitely avoiding it, wasn't she?

"Is..." No, that was wrong. Everything wasn't alright.

"Is there something you want to talk about?"

She wasn't opening up. She wasn't talking about... about whatever it was.

Angelo felt like there was a gulf between the two of them. One that had been there since they'd first fled Halcyon City. Maybe even before that. Only he'd been oblivious to it. He'd had no idea. He'd thought, even with Blade struggling to adapt, that they'd still been close.

He didn't feel close in that moment. But he tried. He made an attempt, trying to reach out.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" There was a tone of desperation in his voice.

Angelo felt like he'd shot and missed. He'd reached out and gotten something that felt... dismissive, almost? No, that was assigning emotional weight where there wasn't necessarily one. There were a lot of reasons she might not want to open up to him, and it was wrong of him to decide that one of those was more valid then the others.

"Sure," he said after a moment. "We could go to a movie or something. Or... I don't know. I could show you the range."

He liked going to the range. It relaxed him. And it seemed like, if anything, something Blade might like.

Wait a second, was Blade even eighteen? Well, she was probably eighteenish. And if she wasn't, Angelo could probably convince Annie to look the other way.

"Alright," Angelo said. "We can meet up then. I'll text you the address. We can just... make a day of it."

He felt so... so nothing. They'd made plans, and he wanted to feel like he'd done a good job, but... she still hadn't opened up. He still knew so little of what she was going through.

He felt tired in a way he wasn't supposed to.