"Which still leaves me needing to trust you. Which, well, I won't have much of a choice there, will I? And you also look like a good person, but it feels awful that I never got to choose."

"Sorry, I suppose. If it's any consolation I think I am really quite unusually likely to figure it out. I got hints when feeling the world and I'd encountered something similar before."

They sigh. "So... Are you going to use that now and tell me to stop, I don't know, stealing stuff and humiliating the Protectorate?"

"No, or not unless you start carrying it too far. But aren't there dozens of high-profile villains all over the world - in this country even - that could use humiliation a lot more than the Protectorate?"

"Very much so, but unlike the Protectorate, they don't pull their punches, so I need a good enough rep to fight them. It's slow going."

"I could help with one, and give you most of the credit. Have you started that web show?"

"Yeah! Not much content yet though."

"Good for you. Camera robots? Do you have an editor and so in or do you just do it yourself?"

"Myself, for now," they sigh.

"...I wonder if you could join the Protectorate. It might be good in the long run if you get forgiven for actions until now. But that has a high risk of someone knowing your power, so probably not actually."

"Not to mention the fact that... I accidentally killed a guy with it. That's pretty hard to forgive, I think."

"It was meant to be a stun gun," they explain lamely.

"I see... An industrial accident was my fault. Move on, do better, right?"

"I mean, sure, except for the whole 'arrested for a good chunk of my life' part."

"If it was genuinely an accident, don't you think you could get them to wipe the record somehow? I admit I'm not super familiar with the law here."

"The kind of accident it was was 'there were more of them than of me and they expected it to be lethal,' which to the law looks a lot like 'I ducked up weapon choice.' Not much leniency for that."

"Mm. The past follows, broken, in our footsteps... The rules seem to bend around capes, though. Have you actually talked to them about it? It's not like they can ambush you while you send an email or make a phone call. Or, have you talked to a lawyer about it?"

"No, and no. The law bends around capes until they become dangerous or reckless enough that they're not playing the game anymore. Murder is beyond that line."

"If you don't want to even ask, I suppose that's your decision. But I think it's a mistake."

"What do you suggest? 'Hey, I know I killed a guy, but it won't happen again, I promise!'"

"I'll swear to a lie detector it was an accident, I learned my lesson and am much more careful now, it can't be undone but I want to make up for it... And if they do condemn you, say the way to make up for it is prison, you have lost nothing but the time taken to ask and looking remorseful to them. And that is my last word, I need to get back to Buffalo and finish my job."

"You're underestimating the power of bureaucracy," they sigh. "Good luck with Buffalo."

"You can't win if you don't try. Good luck with nominal villany." She flies off, accelerating to near-plane speeds over a minute or two.

Capes flying this way and that really fast isn't terribly uncommon, and as long as that's all they're doing no one will stop them.