Of Heroes And Villains: The Ties That Bind By Minikisa An assassin. A fallen hero. An unlikely meeting. The road to redemption is long and hard and filled with explosives.

PsyKick rammed his knee into the cabinet and swore profusely.

There was a lengthy pause and then he heard Kara snicker.

He hopped on one leg, hissing through clenched teeth and glared at her.

“I used to do that a lot, too,” she said amicably. Now that her threat had been delivered, she seemed to have calmed down a bit.

PsyKick had only gotten up to walk to the other end of the kitchen for coffee, his eyes focused on the heavenly brew, and had teleported mid-step. Not quite understanding what had just happened, his momentum had carried him forward.

Kara’s expression sobered and she gazed at him thoughtfully. “With light…?” she murmured, seemingly more to herself than to him.

PsyKick didn’t answer and poured himself a coffee, watching the subtle play of emotions on Shade’s face. It was moments like these he really could have used his powers to help him decide what to do – not that it would have helped here. Shade had worn PsyBlockers practically since the moment they met. The day after they’d met, in fact.

PsyKick had tried to ignore the hateful emotions swirling around the hero on the first day. But no matter how strong he built his walls, physical contact and close proximity always made him hear other people’s thoughts, and when Shade had held out his hand to offer a shake, PsyKick had added his obligatory disclaimer to that effect.

And the next day Shade had shown up with PsyBlockers, giving PsyKick a dirty look as if he spied on other people’s minds deliberately. Shade never allowed a psychic link during battle either, which was what had made the supergroup PsyKick led so effective at teamwork. Shade’s insistence on being a loner had repeatedly disrupted that.

It was the combination of the hateful aura, the intense violence of his fighting style and Shade’s almost pathological need to keep his thoughts secret that had formed the foundation for PsyKick’s dislike of the supposed hero. And really, which of his friends was going to disagree with the character assessment coming from a mind reader?

Dawn had made a valiant effort to convince them that Shade was sweet and loving, but the collective reaction to that had been disbelieving laughter.

Watching Kara’s face now he wondered if he’d been wrong back then, or if she’d changed that much since.

Either way, he owed her.

PsyKick was used to keeping secrets – his and everyone else’s. For now, he would say nothing of his nightly escapade. There was something very appealing about the thought of him not only solving this body swap problem by himself, but to also present Kara with her sister fully set on redemption.

Why, it’d be downright heroic.


***


“You’re back.”

PsyKick slowly raised his head and smiled at Caroline’s ethereal form, her long hair swaying in a non-existent breeze. She looked younger, almost innocent in a simple sundress, nothing like the ruthless assassin form she had taken last night.

He was sitting at the very edge of her mindscape, the glowing island cracked and fractured behind him. The path to his own mindscape was through that abyss. To keep his promise of not looking at more of her memories, he had refrained from travelling inward, hoping she would have enough self-awareness to find him here.

“Yes,” he said, his gaze slipping past her to the floating islands. They were drifting, slowly aligning themselves in a more orderly pattern around her core. While he doubted her mind would look anything like a natural psychic’s anytime soon, merely having this power was already changing it to be less chaotic. “How were the voices today?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment, merely looking at him thoughtfully. “Better.”

“Can you bring us to your core?”

Caroline’s gaze was on the canyon behind him. “I get the feeling having a gaping hole in my head can’t be good. What is that?”

“That’s mine,” he said with a sigh. “Ignore it.”

“You ripped a hole in my head?”

“No.” She was glaring at him, reminding him a lot of Shade. “I have holes in my head. That’s just what the gateway to my mind looks like.”

Caroline blinked slowly, looking between him and the canyon. “Why?”

He sighed again and turned his head to face the bridge as well. He could almost see his barren mindscape behind it, and focused on a particular memory.

Caroline’s ground shook a little in what was presumably shock.

A mirage of him kissing Cinder Snow’s boots flickered in the depths of the canyon.

“Because someone made me this way.” With that he turned back to face her. Then he had to tilt his head up, because she’d closed the distance between them.

They looked at each other for a very long time.

“…someone made me this way, too,” she said softly.


***


The colors around him were back.

Caroline cracked open one eye, her gaze lingering on the red and gold swirl. He was lying as far away from her as the island would allow, his arm draped over his eyes. He looked almost like he was sleeping, except he would occasionally call out advice to her out of nowhere, usually at the exact time she was getting frustrated with her lack of progress.

Radiance was fairly good at reading people. One would think she’d be even better at it when given psychic powers, but she did not understand him at all.

The image of him debasing himself in front of that woman was burned into her mind. His face had been contorted in a mixture of disgust and pain that had then morphed into ecstasy.

Caroline had similarly humiliating memories.

She would not ever show them to anyone voluntarily.

Before she quite knew what had happened, she was standing over him. Time and space bent to her will here, responding to her slightest whims.

He stirred and blinked up at her, the color whirl pulsing intensely when their gazes met.

Caroline knew what that meant now.

She was starting to suspect he had not been bluffing when he said he enjoyed their little almost-torture session.

He was as twisted as she was.

“What are you hoping to accomplish?” she murmured.

PsyKick tilted his head. “Getting my body back?”

She tugged at the colors as if they were strings and his image flickered. He made a choked sound. “That’s not why you showed me that memory.”

He grew still, breathing heavily. “You’re not broken.”

Her brows furrowed.

“You think you are. But I know… I know what broken looks like and you’re not it. I wanted to show you the difference.” He closed his eyes and turned away.

“Is it a competition now? Do you want me to congratulate you on first place?”

“No.” He seemed to be weighing his words. “I owe your brother a debt. What I want is for you to not run out on Ian because you have it in your head that you’ll never be anything better than what you are.”

Caroline’s lips parted.

He watched her through half-lidded eyes.

“You are talking to the woman who contemplated stealing your body today and letting you be the one executed by the Order.”

He tilted his head and a new color entered the swirl, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. She wished she knew what it meant. “Well, my body is extremely handsome. I can’t exactly blame you for wanting it.”

She choked on a disbelieving laugh and his lips curved into a small smile.

“Do you know how many petty thoughts I hear every day? Well, not recently… but when I was growing up. Everyone has them, all the time, moments where they are weak and cruel and selfish. What matters in the end is if those thoughts are acted upon. That you’re telling me about that plan, which would give me opportunity to thwart it, tells me you’re not actually going to do it.” He paused. “Are you?”

She slowly shook her head.

His smile widened.

“So what I actually heard there is that you want to leave the Order, and examined an opportunity that fell into your lap.”

“So you just hear what you want to hear?”

“The key to being psychic and staying sane is selective hearing.” His playful voice took a turn for the sardonic. “Of course, I kind of failed at the staying sane part.”

“I’m going to have to concur with that.”