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“No no no!” Nora swore under her breath as she raced through her morning routine with record speed. Throwing on a t-shirt, she went to brush her teeth and swore again when she saw the large bruise blooming on her arm. Damn, Junior really isn’t skimping on the goons these days. She changed into something long sleeved, slipped in her colored contacts, grabbed her purse, and ran down the stairs. She took them two at a time, as fast as she could without raising too much suspicion.
“Better run fast girl!” Mrs. Johannes crowed good-humoredly as she spotted Nora racing down the steps. “But don’t break your neck, you hear?”
“Don’t worry about me ma’am!” Nora called over her shoulder.
The subway station was crowded, it always was at this time of the morning. Usually she liked to get there earlier, but last night had been…intense. Things had been pretty bad ever since The Golden Knight had abandoned the west side. Ragnarok had been used to patrolling alone, but the extra help had made her complacent. No more.
She slipped onto the platform proper, letting a few people into the turnstile after her. She forgot to cut off the cameras beforehand which– it’s fine, she’ll deal with it later if it becomes an issue. It would look suspicious if the police database suddenly glitched and deleted the footage, but if she timed it right it could look like the side effect of a rogue attack. Maybe she could delete all the footage of the same crime at once? She spent the ride mulling over a proposal for Poison Lotus, something about access to public transportation decreasing carbon emissions? She just needed to convince him to make a statement, it didn’t matter the reason, she just needed him to claim responsibility so she could reasonably distance herself from her civilian identity.
But that was an issue for another day.
Nora ran the block from the subway station to the soup kitchen, mumbling her apologies to the organizer as she yanked her hair into a ponytail and threw on her hairnet and apron. She stepped into the empty spot on the line and started scooping out generous servings, only slightly out of breath.
“Hey Josh, how’s the construction job working out?” She asked one of the regulars, happy that he lit up at her question, before tempering his expression.
It’s going good, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up too much.”
“Well, I’m happy for you!” Nora smiled as he moved down the line, she knew how hard he had been working to get his life back on track. “Oh, Ms. Vadgama, nice to see you again!”
This continued for the next hour or so, with Nora checking on and making small talk with most of the regulars that she knew from her time volunteering here. Before too long, the line dwindled, and the sound of lively chatter had filled the hall. Nora sighed and slumped a little, relieved that the rush had passed. Her shoulder had been injured on patrol a few nights ago and it had been hurting with all the repetitive motion.
“Wow, you really know everyone, huh?” Nora turned to the person standing next to her for the first time since she got there. Tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Nora could glimpse the lines of muscle under his t-shirt. He seemed familiar, but Nora couldn’t place where she knew him from.
“Yeah, I’ve been coming here for almost a year now. You get to know people.” She shrugged, internally cursing when it jostled her shoulder. He seemed to notice it, she clocked the way he seemed to be analyzing her moments.
“A year, wow.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and Nora got a sudden sense of deja vu. “This is my first day.”
Okay, so that eliminated the soup kitchen as where she knew him. Maybe another charity?
“What made you decide to start volunteering here?” She decided to go fishing, maybe he would reveal the name of some other charity she had seen him at.
“Oh uhh…” He moved to rest his hand on his hip, then adjusted to cross his arms.
“You don’t have to answer!” Nora reassured him, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No no, it’s just– It doesn’t reflect all that great on me.” Nora raised an eyebrow. “I uh– I got into a fight with a…friend? Of mine. A couple of weeks ago. She said that I–” he scrunched his face up in concentration, clearly struggling to find the words, then sighed and gave up. “She always made a point to make other people’s lives better, guess I’m just trying to learn from her example.”
“I’m sure your friend appreciates it.” She said, after a stretch of silence just long enough to become a little awkward.
“Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t talked in weeks.” It was shocking, how this man managed to be so large and yet make himself seem so small. His answer made Nora’s chest ache. She thought about rooftop lunch breaks and running after muggers, an armor clad knight by her side. “The whole thing was my fault anyway.” He shrugged, then looked incredibly embarrassed. “Sorry, my name is Jaune.” He stuck his hand out for a shake, and it was so proper that Nora giggled a little as she took it.
“Nora.” She said, giving his hand a firm shake. She caught the organizer starting to direct people to start cleaning up. “Alright Jaune, you look pretty strong.” She hefted one of the metal pans out of the counter where it was being heated. “Let’s see if you can keep up.”
***
Jaune was, in fact, very strong. The two of them made it a competition to see how much they could carry at once, and Nora was pleased to know that she reigned supreme, even with an injured shoulder. Although, there was something off about Jaune’s movements, like he was suddenly much stronger and faster than he remembered. He walked a little strange too, a little lopsided, like he was trying to compensate for something heavy that wasn’t there.
“When did you get out of the service?” Nora dropped the idea of subtlety as the two of them went over the closing checklist in the walk-in freezer.
“Excuse me?” Jaune stumbled, turning to look back at her with something resembling alarm on his face. He doesn’t disguise his expressions, almost like he’s not used to other people seeing it.
“You’re ex-military, right?”
“...no?”
“Oh…sorry I guess I just…assumed...” Nora trailed off. Jaune didn’t seem to know how to continue the conversation either.
“I’m an accountant.” He blurted out. “I work out because I have ADHD and my meds aren’t strong enough.”
“Oh!” Nora didn’t fully buy the explanation. It didn’t seem like a lie, but she knew it wasn’t the whole truth. “Does it work?”
“Kinda?” He waved his hand in a so-so motion. “I’m sure there are better ways to deal with it than coffee and curl-ups, but I’ve made it this far.” He flashed a rueful smile.
“I get that.” She nodded, looking away from him. “I usually just embrace it.”
“What do you mean?” Jaune leaned in close, and Nora felt goosebumps creep across her skin. It was because the freezer was so damn cold, no other reason. She stopped to consider her answer before she replied.
“I’ve never worked on a client’s project for more than a month. I work at more than eight different charities, never the same schedule each time. I’ve eaten the same thing every day this week, and I have about three dozen alarms set at irregular intervals to wake me up.” I repeatedly throw myself off buildings and antagonize people who could easily kill me on a nightly basis.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“Yeah well, what can you do?” She handed the checklist to Jaune so he could look over it as well. “That’s life.”
“Yeah, that’s life.” He sighed, then he turned and looked back at her in shock. “Wait, did you say eight different charities?”
***
“And that’s all of them.” Nora finished her explanation of each of the charities as they sat at one of the tables outside the kitchen.
“Woah…” Jaune concluded, leaning back and looking at her with awe. He had been a great listener, letting her ramble about the different places and what purpose they served, interrupting only to ask her questions. They weren’t bad questions, but some of them still got on her nerves. She had to take a few deep breaths and remind herself that 1) Jaune is new to the community activism scene and 2) taking her frustrations with Goldie out on Jaune was not a good idea. She gave the best answers she could, and Jaune seemed to take them in stride. It was clear he was trying, despite a clear lack of experience.
“You think that’s impressive? A couple of years ago I was doing double that.” She bragged. Plus, she was beginning to patrol as Ragnarok, but Jaune didn’t need to know that.
“Woahhhh!” Jaune was appropriately impressed. “What changed?”
The crime rate, my rent, the violence of the street’s villains, Beacon’s help in keeping my city safe, ATLAS’s whole deal, my ability to think properly with half an hour of sleep every day. These and a dozen other answers sprung to Nora’s mind. She finally settled on: “You can’t have it all.”
“No, I guess not.” Jaune sat in contemplative silence for a moment.
“Do you have the whole day off?” Nora couldn’t stand the awkward moment hanging between them. Jaune looked a little surprised at the question, and then he seemed to remember he shouldn’t be surprised, and he tried to school his expression. The whole thing was kind of cute.
“Yeah! Although I usually work nights.”
“You’re an accountant that works nights.” She couldn’t help the disbelief that dripped off her voice.
“Yeah, I think it’s to save on office space? Like, the main team is there during the day, and then a smaller team works at night.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Nora admitted, reluctantly.
“It’s okay, I know it’s kinda weird.” Jaune laughed self-deprecatingly. “It’s no saving the world, but the pay is good and I enjoy it.”
“That’s good to hear.” Nora meant it. Over the past few hours she had grown to really like Jaune, despite his strange mannerisms. She was getting the impression that Jaune didn’t really leave the house much, and when he did he wasn’t exactly going to many new places. “It’s good to do something you enjoy.”
“It is. I’m glad you do what you love too, you’re making a real difference in the world.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.” Nora deflected.
“Do you have the day off too? I don’t want to keep you if you need to be somewhere.”
“Nah.” Nora waved her hand. “I work nights too. Freelance coding.” It wasn’t completely a lie, she did code things at night. Less creating non-profit websites and more hacking government databases but really what’s the difference?
“It must be nice to have a job that’s so flexible.” Jaune said wistfully.
“It has its perks. Although, I should probably get going if I want to catch the 2 o'clock blue line.” She admitted reluctantly. “I have a client meeting.”
“Oh, the blue is still closed because of that taijutsu attack a couple of nights ago.”
Nora eyed Jaune with suspicion, and opened up her phone to look at the news. She hadn’t heard anything about a taijutsu attack recently. “I thought it was closed for maintenance?”
“Right! Yeah, probably, totally.” Jaune seemed a little panicked at the sudden turn in conversation. “My friend must have told me the wrong thing, she likes to exaggerate.”
“Right.” Nora decided to go with it. “Which line are you taking home?”
“Oh no, I drove here on my bike.” Jaune said, “I parked her in the alleyway next to the center.” Nora stared at him in disbelief.
“You what?”
“Drove here on my–”
“No, no,” she waved him away, “I got that part. You’re telling me you left your motorcycle unattended in an alleyway for several hours?”
“I locked it with a chain.” He supplied, and Nora felt part of her soul die. This must have been what her teachers felt when she had tried to explain why she had shoved an entire bag of gummy worms up one nostril and out the other. It was such a strange idea that it had never occurred to them to tell her not to, but there she had been, and here she was now. She sighed a heavy, put upon sigh.
“Townies…” she muttered, leading Jaune towards where he left his bike.
“No!” Jaune shouted as they rounded the corner of the alleyway. Nora immediately tensed, ready for a fight, but instead she saw her new friend standing in shock, staring at the empty alley. Well, almost empty. Jaune walked to the rusted bike rack and picked up a large chain. As Nora got closer she could make out just how thick the chain was. She whistled.
“That cut is really clean.” She said, not able to help the admiration that crept into her voice. Jaune looked at her dejectedly and she quickly changed course. “But that’s good, it narrows down the people that could have taken it. Listen, you can call the cops but they won’t help you here. How about I ask around, I know some of the guys in some of the shops and if I give them the word they’ll let me know if they see it.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “How does that sound?”
Jaune blinked. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s really no trouble, Poe owes me a favor and–”
“No, I mean you don’t have to do that, I know where my bike is.” He held up his phone screen to show her. “I put a tracker in it.”
“Smart man.” She nodded. At least he had some common sense in him, although not enough to prevent his bike from being stolen.
“I’ll get the police involved later.” He said, already scrolling through something in his phone. He sighed and held it up to his ear. “She’s never going to let me live this down.” he muttered, before perking up. “Hey Ruby! Yeah no I’m– It went well can I– Ruby!” He snapped, pausing to send an apologetic look Nora’s way. “Listen, I need a ride and a favor. My bike got stolen and I need– hey! Stop laughing Ruby, it's not funny!” Nora laughed a little herself. “I know, I know. Yes, the tracker is still on it. No, I’m not at my apartment. I'm on the west side, I’ll send you an address. Why would I bring my bike to– well, obviously I wanted it to be stolen.” He rolled his eyes at Nora. “No, of course not. I’m here with someone else, so no need to rush. I’ll see you in fifteen? Thanks, I owe you one.” He hung up the phone, sighing. “I’m never going to hear the end of this.”
“Absolutely not.” Nora agreed. Jaune laughed a little self deprecatingly. “You wanna wait here?”
“You go, I don’t want you to miss your meeting.”
“Don’t worry.” Nora tapped out a quick message on her phone. “Already rescheduled.” Jaune looked at her in disbelief. “What? You’re new to the area, I’m not going to just leave you here.”
“I’ve been here before!” Jaune protested.
“Not enough times to know not to leave your expensive motorcycle lying around.” Nora pointed out, and Jaune pouted. “But since you’re so knowledgeable, tell me oh wise one, where do you want to wait for your friend Ruby?”
“I think there’s a cafe around the corner, we could go there?” Instead of looking at his phone’s maps, or even at Nora, he was looking at one of the nearby rooftops. Which– hey wait a minute. Isn’t that The Rooftop ? Nora opened her mouth to say something, but Jaune turned back to look at her. “Is that okay?”
“Mm-hm.” Nora responded, staring at the man in front of her through new eyes. It just– It couldn’t be him. Just because they had the same height and build, and liked motorcycles, and Jaune's hands gravitated towards the same hip that the Golden Knight’s sword was on when he was nervous, and he had gotten into a fight with his friend about making a difference in the community the same time that Ragnarok did, and knew about things that definitely weren’t public knowledge didn’t mean anything. It could mean nothing. It was an incredible series of coincidences that would make her high school statistics teacher shake his head in disapproval at the sheer improbability.
And yet…
“Nora?” Jaune looked concerned now and– yep, they cocked their heads to the same side when they were confused. “Are you alright?”
“I need some caffeine.” Nora said, shaking herself out of her daze. I’m not nearly awake enough for this revelation. “Let’s go.”
Jaune smiled and she followed him around the block. They ended up at the same coffee shop Ragnarok had pointed out to The Golden Knight oh so long ago. Nora stopped and looked up at the rooftop. It looks so different from down here.
Then again, she looked back at Jaune, so does he.