"As you wish," she holds her hand out, palm facing down.

He brushes the back of his knuckles against hers.

It feels quite a bit similar to the armored figure. Identical, in fact.

"- would you normally be able to distinguish different individuals this way?" he asks.

"Based on the psychic aspect, which I think you are blocking?"

"I'm blocking you from sensing me that way successfully? That's good, then - I think this guiding rate reflects high compatibility 'far away', though, so usually contact with somebody else isn't going to pay for itself -" Is she going to confess to being secretly a superhero.

"... it is rather risky for a woman to be generally known to be a hero, and while it would not entirely eliminate my marriage prospects it would curtail the available options quite thoroughly."

"Then I won't tell anyone. I'd - like to say no one worth marrying will care, but you have rather more reasons to be getting married than anyone I'd normally be giving advice to."

"It's reasonably likely that I'll be able to tell my future husband in confidence, but that's different from it being publically known since it would not imply social consequences for my husband."

Nod nod.

"I apologize for being misleading before nonetheless. I followed you after leaving the party - the signal arrow didn't get high enough to be visible from far away but I was flying overhead and it provided me with enough light to determine that Viper was empowered and thus allowed me to fall on him without risk of accidentally killing someone."

"Um, is there anything you'd like to ask me about what happened?"

"Do your staff know? Your family? Do you need any help with covering for absences?"

"My head maid, my chauffeur, my parents, and the head armorer who provided my costume are the only people besides you to know. I don't expect I'll need help covering for absences but I could be wrong."

Nod.

"Are you interested in helping more actively?"

"Yes, but this amount of guiding is going to really slow me down relative to what I'm used to - and what I'm used to was already pretty low bandwidth - plus the human enemies thing is new to me, so I'll need a lot of tactical workshopping before I'm acclimated to the situation well enough to go out."

"I'd be happy to help with such workshopping."

"I appreciate that. So, the cheap things, for me, are being immune to whatever senses and psychic contact I want. That's going to work out to... at a loose guess, I will need to spend two minutes holding your hand for every thirty seconds I spend with someone looking at me unable to see me, and similar for if I make a sound they can't hear and so on, and it's per person, but, fortunately, I only have to pay for it while they're actually looking, not while they blink or look the other way, not while I'm not in fact making any noises, etcetera. I can fly, but it's more expensive; I can go through things but that's even more expensive. - this will be faster with both hands though."

... Sure, she can hold two hands at once later. That's a totally normal thing to do with a man.

"Is putting a stick very barely below the skin of both ankles, to bind them together, more costly than say, a half hour of guiding in this manner?"

"I'm not sure I understand exactly what you have in mind but if it's anything like any of my guesses, yes, in large part because it would be time consuming to sneak up on someone and wait for their feet to be the right distance apart for my stick. If you have manacles I can sneak those onto someone with only the sense thing, though."

"Hrm, it isn't impossible I could have some sort of manacles constructed that would hold many empowered at least temporarily. Scouting would also be useful... If someone does happen to guess where you are and swings at you, will you be able to reflexively allow them to move through you?"

"Yes. But when I'm backlashed it makes me lonely, it is extremely difficult to operate without having an ongoing conversation about something at more than minimal levels."

"Hrm, I can attempt to keep up conversation when actively fighting, but it would complicate your utility as a scout prior to a fight."

"Mostly only if someone does in fact swing at me. If I'm just being invisible etcetera I can keep it under control."

"Ah, in that case scouting may be plausible."