"Excellent! Whatever it was must be terribly uninteresting anyway." WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT we wanted to join them THERE SHALL BE GLORIOUS ADVENTURES there shall be pain JOIN THEM join them "Anyway! Can I join you?"

"...didn't you say we were joining you?"

"Oh! That does make more sense, yes. For I am the hero. Join me!"

"Um." Mostly she's concerned and not sure if she can handle trying to solve... whatever this is... on top of everything else she's trying to solve. She looks at Aleks.

...what, she was the one making the decisions here, he's just as lost.

OUR MIGHT IS TOO GREAT FOR THEM TO CONTEMPLATE they are too cautious SEDUCE THEM WITH GLORY seduce them with pain

"I understand, joining a hero of such great renown is not a decision one makes lightly. Maybe a temporary arrangement! Then you, too, will see if the heroics call to you."

“Um. N-no thank you. I’ve got a lot of things I want to do, and I don’t think I can fit heroics into my schedule.” She’s very concerned for you, guy possessed by some nano demons, though! She wants to help you but she’s got three siblings to re-embody and a super strong sire up to shenanigans that she needs to figure out! And you look like you’ll just make that harder.

...SHE REFUSES US? you were wrong SHE IS NOT THE LOVE INTEREST AFTER ALL a red herring

"A pity! You were very heroic on this day, nevertheless, and it has been a pleasure to run into you. Farewell!"

And without further ado he marches away.

“Good luck,” she calls after him, then she looks at Aleks again. Hug? Can it be hug time?

...yeah, sure, hug.

Huuuuug!

“Actually, can you just. Bring us home, is that a safe teleportation for you? It’s fine if it’s not it’s just. It’s very loud here.”

"...not from here, we're too far. But I could skip most of the distance by line-of-sighting it?"

"Okay, yeah. That would be great. Thanks." She nestles closer for snuggles. It is easier to just focus on his thoughts when she is being hugged by him, instead of drowning in a sea of noise that's suddenly so much louder now that she feels bad about seeing a person and then consciously, thoughtfully declining to try to help them.

Line-of-sight it is. It's only a handful of sudden changes in location before he's close enough to the building to feel comfortable teleporting directly into his apartment.

His castoff companion is so cooperative, and also snuggly. When they're in his apartment she relaxes just a little, then gently tugs Aleks over to his own couch for slightly more comfortable snuggles.

...sure.

This is starting to feel like that mutant girl might have been onto something. He is not sure how he feels about that.

This elicits a little giggle.

"We can stop, if you'd rather. This just... helps."

He doesn't exactly want to stop, he just...

...okay it's not like he can fail to be honest with her, here, is it. Okay. So:

One, he has never had a girlfriend or boyfriend or really even many kinds of regular friends, he does not know how that goes. Two, they have known each other for like three hours now (maybe more? time is fake) and he is pretty sure people don't actually fall in love at first sight like that and while she may plausibly be the least terrible person he knows right now that does not seem like the most solid of foundations on which to base anything. Three, he has... some vague misgivings about the power imbalance here.

There, that was many thoughts in a row that he explicitly thought about wow he's kind of exhausted.

"Yeah, that looked exhausting," she agrees, finding and patting his hand. "Good job, it was very well thought out and clear. Give me a bit to properly reply, I have to go and put my own thoughts into words. It's terrible."

This is a lot to deal with, but actually this is an interesting problem. Furthermore, it's an interesting problem with someone she knows, and it doesn't involve anyone outside doing anything or being incapable of being helped or something. After being confronted with a problem that was probably too big for her, and needing to let it go, having a smaller one with fiddly bits coming from places she understands is sort of... soothing. Like relaxing into a semi-familiar puzzle after walking away from something bigger.

"... So the first reply I'm thinking of is that the... concerns about inexperience and power imbalance are very reasonable, but feel to me as kind of... Misaimed? I'm unique. Mostly. Mostly unique. Is there anyone in the world I could actually have a, an unquestionably balanced power dynamic with, as a mind reader that's like three hours old but with probably hundreds of years of fuzzy memories and knowledge that I can draw on even when I can't... quite remember it all? Because I kind of think that the answer to that is 'no.' Not even with my siblings, not even if they have the exact same abilities, which they wouldn't, because even the closest in age would now be older by at least a decade. Which doesn't mean it doesn't matter, just. I don't think I slot neatly into, into categories here. Have I seemed, um, easy to lead around or bad at expressing myself? Mostly I just feel like I've been doing precisely what I want, and you've been following and supporting me because you like me, and you like what I'm doing. Which actually feels like the power imbalance is tipped in my direction, not yours, but that wasn't the flavor of your thoughts."

On the one hand, fair. On the other, does she have any memory of ducks?

.......he did not mean that in a dehumanising way, just, uh. Well how likely is it that, out of everyone in the world including her siblings, he's someone she'd want to spend a lot of time around? He has met lots of other people and found most of them to be terrible so he feels like he has a good basis of comparison here! Whereas she hasn't and she does admittedly have good opinions on what good people are but of course he'd think so, and he's being nicer to her than he would be to other people because he likes her.

His thought about ducks sends her into a fit of giggles.

"I, I don't know if I have any memories of ducks, but I know what they are anyway," she says between giggles. "A duckling! Following you around! I'm sorry it's just so cute." Giggle, giggle.

Yes! And they imprint on people when they hatch. So: duckling.

Giggle!

"I cannot deny the, the similarities!" she giggles. Leaaaan. "I mean, maybe that's a little of what's going on, I have definitely been sticking with you out of familiarity, but I also don't think it's all of it? I could have started following around Meuk, he was perfectly nice and I liked him. I bet he would have absolutely gotten me a room somewhere if I'd asked. But he also has his own stuff going on and wouldn't drop everything to follow me around, which is... what I have observed you doing. So maybe you are actually my duckling, it's just I'm the first person you've really liked."

..............

...........................

He is not sure how he feels about that.

"I don't have a stable job," is how he justifies it aloud, even though obviously she's reading his mind so she knows it's just a justification.

Well, kinda. He doesn't do much during his days, he reads and sometimes eats out and every now and then does the odd job that requires a speedster and/or teleporter (he mostly tries to keep within the law but, uh, the execution from earlier should let her know what he thinks about the law in general). Meuk definitely has an actual job though.

"Yeah, he does. So, no following me around while I do whatever I want. And I like having a teleporting speedster following me around as I do whatever I want, offering commentary and support!"