"Why am I not surprised."

"It's probably your amazing deductive skills."

"My turn?"

"Well, I know where your place is - or was, I'm not actually sure you've gone home since you signed on - but I don't know your, like, history."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, I—I do. I mean, being fair isn't all of it, I do wanna have the kind of relationship with you where we share this kind of thing. It's just—I've never really told anyone, not all of it, anyway."

"You also don't have to tell me now."

He shakes his head. "No, I want to." He exhales slowly. "You remember what my trigger event was?"

"Behemoth, New York."

"Yeah. I lived with my mom. She—she died in the attack. I dunno if I told you that part, I know I told you she's dead, but. Yeah."

Lorica goes over and scoops him out of the air and hugs him.

Her neck is plated in armor and not super buryable, but she pats his back.

Squeeze.

"I'm pretty sure he's hurt me more than Boots ever did," he continues explaining, deadpan. "Eventually he kinda gave up on the 'making me a man' thing and decided he was just teaching me a lesson or something. He didn't really say. Then I emancipated. It was easy, actually, he didn't want anything to do with me by then, he wanted to forget I existed, I think." Pause. "I hope he did."

"When was it you got out?"

"Bit after I turned sixteen. A year and a half ago, give or take. I—moved to Brockton Bay, I could already fly then, I wanted to be a hero in a big cape city that was not New York, so."

"Does he know you're a cape?"

"No. I never, ever let him figure out. It's—part of the reason why I took so long to really learn the stuff. The very first thing I could do, the gender thing, I couldn't do it then. He'd have noticed."

Pat pat. Lorica lets him go. "I'm glad you got out."

"Yeah. Me, too. So, uh, I've lived alone since then, I went to school at Winslow High, and after joining the Wards I've been living here."

Nod.