Love is All You Need (IC)

[Electra]

February 14

Valentine's Day was a well-represented holiday at Claremont Academy, from the heart-shaped strawberry pancakes featured at breakfast to the marathon of sappy love songs playing all day on the school radio station. There'd been a dance arranged by the faculty for the weekend before, but because it was school-sponsored, only the underclassmen went. Many of the students at Claremont were far from home, many for the first time, and that just made romance and relationships seem all the more important, as if they needed to be given any greater weight in the minds of the high school crowd.

Erin watched the Valentine's Day activities and enjoyed the pancakes at breakfast, but she found it hard not to be preoccupied with other things. As soon as classes were over, she headed back to her dorm room and got on her computer, booting up the netbook's video player and beginning to run footage she'd already watched a dozen times over. It wasn't fun, but it was important. She'd find Trevor later, maybe for supper, and do the romance thing then, she figured vaguely.

[Gizmo]

A pair of light raps sounded on the door to Erin's dorm room, a concise announcement she'd come associate with Trevor's arrival. Out in the hallway, the young man waited with a vague nervousness. He was reasonably sure he'd done well, retrieving the bouquet of lilacs, interspersed with blue irises and yellow roses, from Mrs. Lumins' flower shoppe and depositing it in what had struck him as a suitably tasteful glass vase, which he carried before him. The flora was certainly colourful and fragrant, albeit impractical. That's the point, he reminded himself.

[Electra]

"Come in," Erin called, still lost in her work for a moment before her brain caught up. Pausing the playback, she pushed away from her desk and took a long breath, then dug up a smile as the door opened. "Hey, happy... oh,wow." She stood up and looked at Trevor, then at the flowers he was holding, then back at him. "Those are gorgeous," she told him. "Are they for me?" Okay, that was a dumb question, given the day and the circumstances, but she wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders just yet.

[Gizmo]

"Yes," Trevor replied quickly, evidently not registering the absurdity of the question as he presented the vase. "Ah, there was a whole rationale to the choices, too. Hrm." Furrowing his brow slightly, the young man racked his memory. "The blue and yellow ones are supposed to match your costume, and I guess the long black ones," he indicated the sparse lilies, "are me? Metaphorically. Obviously."

[Electra]

Erin took the vase and gave in to the temptation to bury her nose in the fragrant bouquet. The abundant clusters of lilac were already starting to spread their perfume through the entire room, making it smell likes spring. "Smells great, too," she added with a quick smile as set the arrangement down on her dresser, nudging her other treasures over to make room. "It's... it's not what I expected, but I really like it," she told him. "How did you find all these flowers?" The bouquet looked professionally done, but she couldn't exactly see Trevor trying to explain things like costume colors to some florist.

[Gizmo]

Trevor snapped his fingers in sudden recollection. "Lilacs. Represent young love. ...heh." He offered Erin a slight, lopsided smile as the recited trivia had a chance to sink into context. "Did a favour for Fleur de Joie," the dark haired youth explained, nodding to the bouquet as though that explained the entire matter. "Was going to go for something more... useful," he admitted, shrugging sheepishly in his dark brown dress shirt, "but supposed to be something wouldn't get yourself. A... token."

[Electra]

"It's beautiful," she told him again, turning the vase from side to side to capture the very best angle. For a moment, Erin looked less like a hypercompetent fighting machine and more like a young woman enjoying a frivolous, pretty gift. "And if Fleur de Joie made them, I guess they'll probably last a long time too." She tugged one of the black lilies free of the bouquet, turning the stem in her fingers as she sniffed it, then looked up at him. "So the flowers are you and me, huh? That's kind of cool." Crossing the small distance between them, she gave Trevor a soft kiss on the mouth. "Thank you."

[Gizmo]

Returning the gentle kiss, Trevor allowed himself an actual grin. "Well. Flowers are beautiful, you're beautiful." With another shrug that would have been muted on most people but was clearly exaggerated for the reticent teen, he concluded, "Seemed appropriate." Reaching out for the young woman's free hand, his face settled back down in a relaxed expression. "Figured I maybe don't mention that enough."

[Electra]

"You've said it, but I think maybe you have unusual taste or something," Erin replied with a crooked smile. "I have something for you too, but, um, it's not as nice." She went to her desk and rummaged under her notebooks, jostling her computer in the process. The screen came back to life, revealing a paused video image from the school's surveillance cameras, an image that on first blush looked to be Erin, but with boyishly close-cropped hair and inexplicably wearing purple pajamas in the corridors. Singularity, of course, from the dimensional switch a few months ago. Erin noticed the computer's activation and folded the little netbook closed, even as she found what she was looking for.

"Here," she told him, presenting him with a folded piece of red construction paper. A white lace heart was glued on the front, with smaller pink and red paper hearts on top of that. She'd carefully lettered "Be My Valentine" around the borders of the card, and applied a calculated amount of glitter (borrowed from Alex) to the edges. Inside, the card simply read "Happy Valentine's Day, 2011, with love, Erin."

"I'm getting you something better for your birthday," Erin told him as soon as she handed over the card. "But I figured I'd get you one nice thing instead of two things that weren't as nice. But I wanted to, you know, do something for Valentine's Day anyway."

[Gizmo]

"Like to think 'better' more than 'unusual', but..." Trevor trailed off with a reserved smirk. He noted the netbook's screen with a concerned frown but gave the card his full attention as Erin handed it to him. "Ha, Erin, this is..." The young man stood with his mouth open for a few beats trying to properly articulate how much a hand crafted gift meant to him. "It's wonderful," he settled on finally. "Thank you." Resolving to find an appropriate place to display the card, he waited silently before asking. "Do you want to talk about the security footage?"

[Electra]

Erin looked over at the closed computer, pursing her lips. "I got it from Archer," she told him after a few moments of silence. "I told him that I wanted to see what she was capable of, what I was capable of, in case I ever had to face her again. He wasn't very hard to convince, he likes to rub my nose in how dangerous my powers are every so often, like I might forget or something. She spent most of her time in the public spaces at the school, so there's a pretty comprehensive record, and we saw what we saw at the office building."

[Gizmo]

Trevor's head tilted very slightly to one side as he tried to read Erin's expression. "That's what you told Archer," he repeated carefully, his body language making it clear that he wasn't trying to judge but to understand. "Why did you really want it?" He couldn't think of any metahuman who devoted more effort to knowing the precise parameters of their abilities than Erin; someone so cognizant of her strength hardly needed a reminder.

[Electra]

"It hurts to watch," Erin admitted softly, still looking at the closed blank back of the computer. "Because I think she is me, closer than the Erin in this world, closer than the ones we've met in our travels. I watch her and it's sometimes like watching replay of my own training sessions. I look at her and know what she's thinking, why she's doing what she does, even if it's irrational. She's what I could have been, if one thing had changed at the wrong time."

She took a deep breath. "I saw that white box, and I saw where they kept her, and what they did. And I could see in her face in that office when she decided she was going to die instead of go back. But we ruined even that for her. Mark healed the bastard who was going to put her back in the box. I'm supposed to be a hero, but I didn't do anything."

[Gizmo]

Trevor listened silently as Erin explained. He too had found their encounter with Anti-Earth profoundly disturbing, although for different reasons. The ease with which he'd understood the thought processes of his counterpart, a native to that twisted reality, had filled him not with pity but disgust and self reproach. Playing the role of The Blank which they were swapped between dimensions had been far, far too easy for the young man to be comfortable with. Part of him was almost glad Mark had healed his double in retrospect; at least Hex's revenge would have kept both of the despicable pair occupied for some time.

"Nothing we could do then," he reminded her, his expression clouded. "She's not you. May have common history, upbringing, but if anything that..." Realization dawned. "...ah." Inwardly, he finished that train of thought. That would make her more like your sister.

[Electra]

Erin rubbed a hand over her face. "It's something I've been working on in therapy, but it's maybe been the hardest thing to get past. I got superpowers, but I didn't save anyone. Not my mom, not Megan, not even the other survivors that might have been around somewhere on my world. The only person I saved was myself. And when that other Erin and I met up, all I could think of was how hard it would be to try and do anything with her, and how I didn't want anybody on Prime to see me like that. So I didn't even try."

She looked back at Trevor finally, troubled but resolute. "I think I need to go back and make it right."

[Gizmo]

Trevor studied Erin's expression for a beat before nodding tersely. "Alright," he agreed simply, making no futile attempt to dissuade her, not wasting his time trying to argue that the danger was to great or that the responsibility did not fall to her. It wouldn't have worked on him, after all. Stepping over to sit on the edge of her bed, the dark haired tactician steepled his fingers in concentration. "Have to assume security's improved after our last encounter. Either need stealth or overwhelming force; speed will be key, regardless. Hrn." His brow furrowed as he considered. "Have to figure out how we'll get there. Potentially ally with the Anti-Talos."

[Electra]

Erin let out a breath she hadn't been fully conscious of holding, then went to sit down next to him. "I already know that part," she told him, ducking her head to avoid bumping it on Alex's bunk. "I saved Supercape and his lab from an attack by the Power Pack a couple months ago. He can teleport to any dimesion he wants to, and he told me I could call in my marker whenever I needed to. Getting there is the easy part, it's getting in and getting back again that's the tricky part. We can't count on Alex's counterpart being conveniently gone again, and she's going to be the biggest threat we're facing, followed by Hex." She thought for a minute. "That Talos might help us, but we'd have to do something to help him first."

[Gizmo]

Placing his chin in one hand, Trevor murmured in agreement. "Removing one of the Academy's... resources might be enough on its own. Still." Setting a mind-shattered Erin loose on their enemies seemed like exactly the sort of uncontrolled nightmare that would appeal to the demented counterparts they'd encountered. "Hitting another target simultaneously could be to our advantage anyway. Hnn. Manpower is a concern."

[Electra]

"It probably wouldn't break his heart to see Singularity taken off world," Erin acknowledged, "but he might be figuring that we owe him twice if we go back. Last time he basically helped us for free, and we said we'd try to help him out in the future. So we need something else." She frowned thoughtfully, considering and dismissing ideas. "It should be something we can leave there," she figured aloud, "something that will help after we're gone."

[Avenger Assembled]

Just then, there was a knock on the door. "Hey you guys!" called Mark's voice through the solid wood. "Are you in there? I've given Valentines to everybody on my list, and I heard you were in here!" Outside, Mark wondered briefly if he was interrupting something, but he was fairly sure Erin and Trevor would pick a place where no one could bother them if they were getting up to things. He'd managed to track everyone else down with his cards and SMARTIES, but Erin and Trevor had been playing it coy. I wonder if they're planning something. I hope they're not mad at me about anything, like for interrupting them, or our last couple of missions...

[Gizmo]

Trevor placed his hand over his eyes with a resigned sigh, though a small smile threatened to pull at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes it was tough to tell whether Mark was being totally oblivious or possessed a savant like sense of timing. They were probably going to need to bring Mark in on this plan eventually anyway, after all, and it wasn't like he was actually interrupting anything private. Quashing a brief feeling of regret at that thought, the young man gestured concisely to the door, waiting for Erin to invite their enthusiastic friend in.

[Electra]

Erin blinked, trying to pull herself out of tactical mode and back to a more sociable mood. Mark had the damndest sense of timing, and she wasn't even going to ask how he'd known Trevor was in her room. It just was easier not to think about. "Come in, Mark," she called, standing up from the bed and going to open the door. She held it open to allow him in, looking at the premade cardstock cartoon Valentines he had. They looked like the ones she'd given out in fourth grade. "Hey, that's your mom's work, isn't it?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah, aren't they great? These are from her special superhero line." He held up one that had a generic female superheroine on it, a shining figure in blue and white in the middle of punching an armored goon right in the chest. She looked a little bit like Miss Americana, the flying hero he'd seen on TV a few times. "BELIEVE IN YOURSELF...AND BE MY VALENTINE!" Trevor's showed a black-clad figure punching a sinister fellow with stubble and a switchblade. "CRIME DOESN'T PAY...BUT LOVE DOES!" Attached to the cards were two movie-theater-sized packets of SMARTIES. "I saw them both, and I thought of you guys. So Happy Valentine's Day! You guys doing anything?" He took a seat on Alex's chair opposite.

[Electra]

Erin's lips quirked as she looked at the valentine, despite lingering annoyance at the interruption. "Thanks, Mark," she said, opening the candy. "We were just... talking about some stuff," she told him in response to his question, looking over at Trevor. "About maybe taking a trip sometime." She wasn't sure she wanted to bring Mark in on this. Despite the obvious benefits of having his powers along, he was an unpredictable element, as had been shown by his actions last time they'd been to Anti-Earth. And besides that, he wasn't really the sort of pragmatist who would understand what might have to be done.

[Gizmo]

Trevor shook his head a little at the card Mark handed him, but allowed himself a small smile. Saccharine though the probability controller's sentiments could be, it was hard not to be won over by the sincerity and lack of guile behind them. None of which stopped him from being by far the most powerful being in the room. "We're going to need him there," he commented softly to Erin. As much as she was still upset about Mark healing Hex during their last encounter, by that very virtue he'd hopefully keep them from crossing any of the lines that seemed so suddenly burred on Anti-Earth.