Shade: Unbound

Heat. Strain. Stumble. Departure. Collapse.

Finn hardly remembered the events leading up to his sudden intermission; they blurred together when he tried to recall them, forming a vague, confusing mass in his mind.

But he did remember the desperation. The people in need of aid, and his response and his response to their pleas. He had pushed and pushed, further than he’d ever had to. Further than he’d ever dared to.

And it was not without cost. Dried blood flakes stuck to his face below his nostrils. His head felt like it was being stabbed by a dozen burning spikes. It was excruciating, but also exhausting to be in pain for so long, clouding his thoughts. He'd held the dam for as long as he could.

He took heaving breaths, staring up at the night sky while his back rested on cold stone.

Something buzzed in his ear, but he didn't register what the sound was.

“...ade. Shade?”

He lay still, groaning when the headache intensified.

“What should I do?” he heard a feminine voice say.

“Try to see if you can get him to talk. I need to know if he’s still lucid,” came the response from his ear again.

Fingers brushed his shoulder, hesitant at first, then a little more insistent. “Shade, can you hear me?”

The hand shook him lightly. “Ah… Finn?”

That cut through the fog in his mind. He struggled to sit up. “How?”

Lyra raised her hands placatingly. "Gridlock shouted your name when you got caught by Orion, so I thought maybe that would… get through to you?” Her tone made it sound like a question. Her eyes searched his own, but for what, he didn’t know.

He could begin to make out her features now. Some of her hair was plastered to her worried face, which had a sheen of sweat covering it. She had taken her mask off. He paused and looked around, trying to see if anyone else was around.

“We’re alone here, I checked,” she said, gesturing at the empty roof. They were on top of another building, as usual. No one else in sight.

Assured that there was no immediate danger, he addressed Lyra’s previous answer. “So Gridlock revealed my name.” He didn’t bother hiding the accusatory tone.

“Shade, I didn’t do it on purpose—”

“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Finn cut him off. “She already knows.”

They fell silent for a time.

Due to that one slip of the tongue, which hadn’t even been his own, he was more or less outed. If Lyra really wanted to, she could just search public records in the district for people with his name. It wasn’t common. Besides, he knew she had some idea of his age, so she could narrow it down to high schoolers.

He turned away from her, as if not showing his eyes would make her forget everything.

“I’ll just pretend it never happened,” Lyra said at length. “It’s going to be just like before. You don’t need to be mad at Gridlock.”

“It’s not your place to tell me that.” Finn stood, shakily, and took a step toward the ledge.

“Of course! I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. I never meant to get between you and Gridlock or anything like that. It was just that I was feeling bothered when I heard you guys might get into a fight or something because of a name I overheard and it would be terrible if I caused a rift to form between you. I only just joined this team and the last thing I want is to cause trouble for—”

Finn turned back to her. “Lyra.”

She blinked. “Yeah?”

“Go home. We’re meeting again at the same time tomorrow.”

“Okay, but… is it safe for you to go back by yourself right now? I’m guessing you’ve never stretched your power that far.”

He grit his teeth. “I’ll be fine. Don’t follow me.”

“No!” Jack exclaimed, heated. “You know what? Fuck it. Revealing your identity was my mistake, but you’re being ridiculous about this. You just burned out your power, and now you’re suffering backlash. So bad you literally didn’t have the strength to stand just minutes ago, and now you wanna go back on your own? Come on, just let us help you. Oh, and hello Lyra, I’m Jack.”

“Uh, hi Jack,” the girl said awkwardly.

Anger rose from his gut, but Finn didn’t respond to his friend. He stood on the edge of the building, readying his grappling hooks in silence.

“Finn, don’t you dare,” Jack said.

He unhooked his body cam, putting it in his pocket.

“Lyra, stop him,” Jack said hurriedly.

Lyra remained still, however.

Finn’s cable shot out, and he stepped off the edge, letting himself fall. A wave of nausea hit him when his feet connected with the wall on the other side, but he pushed through it, making his way home at a much slower pace than usual.

“Finn,” Jack said a few minutes later, when he was far out of Lyra’s range.

Standing on a sloped rooftop, he wasn’t too far from his house anymore.

“Listen,” Jack continued at FInn’s persistent silence. He sighed before continuing, “How are you feeling?”

‘Exposed’ was the first word that came to mind, but it wasn’t what Finn let out of his mouth. “It’s only a headache. I need sleep, that’s it.”

“I don’t buy it, but that’s not what I was talking about. It’s about what happened with Lyra. I basically unmasked you, and I won’t blame you if you’re holding a grudge.”

He wanted to lash out again, but at this point, he was too exhausted. So he simply listened.

“I just don’t want to lose my best friend,” Jack admitted, sounding almost plaintive. “And it looks like I might, if I let you keep doing things the way you are. You don’t know when to call it quits. It’s like you get more desperate the longer we do this. Which is crazy, because you’re improving much faster than you realize. That’s why I want you to start trusting us to handle things for you. Maybe I didn’t prove that tonight, but I think Lyra has; she deserves a chance.”

“Convenient.”

“What?”

“It’s convenient for you. I fall one time, and you use that moment to tear down my secret identity. You can’t take that back. It doesn’t matter if it was an accident. I’m doing exactly what you want now,” Finn said, but there was no fire in his words. He was a bit out of breath, even.

“This isn't some scheme to get you to play into my hands, but if it makes you more open with our teammate—who saved your life by the way—great. All I want is for you to let yourself recover and please sit tomorrow out.”

“How many times have I saved hers?”

“More than I care to count, Finn. That’s the entire point of trust. You’re supposed to have each other’s backs, just like I’ll have yours.”

Without saying anything further, Finn turned his earpiece off, not waiting to hear what Jack would tell him next.

Looking down at the streetlights, he realized he had no idea what time it was. He checked his phone and saw it wasn’t too late yet, but he also saw an Aegis notification. That was odd, since they had obviously failed the mission. The truck had escaped because Lyra had turned back to help him, after all.

When he opened the app, he knew what he’d received. A decent sum of credits for taking down Ignis, enough to bring him halfway to his next purchase. To his disappointment, he saw nothing for Orion, but he didn’t know what had happened to that guy in the chaos.

Unsurprisingly, the credits had come from an anonymous party. Had he logged the bounty himself? He couldn’t remember, but if he hadn’t that meant someone else must have passed along the information, or found out some other way.

Pocketing his phone, he traveled the last stretch to his house and quietly made his way inside. When he was in his room, he almost let himself fall on the bed, but he had the presence of mind to change out of his costume first.

As the fabric slid over his arm, he sucked in a sharp breath. He looked at it and saw he had a burn there. It wasn’t too severe, but the fact that he hadn’t even been aware of it was alarming.

He examined the burn, tracing his fingers over the reddened skin. It must have happened at some point in the fight. Apparently he’d been too preoccupied to notice.

His body felt clammy all over, and he was starting to notice more bruising as well. He would have to hide those with his power, which should be easier than it had been last time.

Security measures taken, he got into bed. Sleep slowly claimed him, pulling him into a realm of dreams where the weight of his duty was momentarily lifted off his shoulders. But even in slumber, his mind remained restless, searching for answers and solutions to the tangled web of his double life.

The next morning, his eyes cracked open to a stream of light coming from the window. He got up and ready for the day, his headache having lessened somewhat. After he got out of the shower, he dressed and went downstairs, where his mother was cooking breakfast.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Finn asked.

She gave him a strange look. “No? I have today off, remember? We talked about it yesterday.”

Had they? He tried to summon the memory of it in his mind, but nothing substantial came up. “Yeah, I remember now,” he lied.

“Natalie told me you danced with the birthday girl at that party the other day,” his mother said, giving him a sly smile.

Jack was really on a streak, wasn’t he? Blabbering his information to people left and right. Now even their mothers knew what happened with Casey. He sighed. This was comparatively trivial. Embarrassing though it may have been, it didn’t matter that much what his mother thought he was doing, as long as she didn’t find out the truth.

“Other people tricked me into it,” was all he said.

Finn's mother raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Tricked you? Well, as long as you had fun. You know, it wouldn't hurt to let loose every once in a while. You're still young, after all.”

He nodded absently, sitting down at the table as he checked his Aegis account again. There was a message on the forums, from Calliope. She’d linked him a clip, and when he opened it, he saw it was a recording of their fight against Ignis.

Seeing himself fight from someone else’s perspective was new, and it gave Finn a different vantage point to evaluate his performance. He watched intently as the scene unfolded, observing the way he moved, the decisions he made, and the impact of his actions. He spotted so many mistakes, ways he could have moved better, but he was most dissatisfied with the lack of impact his attacks seemed to have. He needed that weapon as soon as possible.

“Your father was a really good dancer too,” his mother spoke up, out of nowhere.

Finn looked up, surprised by the sudden shift in topic. He hadn't expected her to bring up his father, especially not in the midst of his thoughts about being Shade.

“It was before your time,” she went on, “a few dates after we first met. I found a flyer for dance classes in our area, and we signed up. We were both pretty inexperienced, but he learned the steps so quickly.” Her smile grew wistful. “I wish we could have done that more often before… You know.”

Though he hadn’t personally experienced it, he could somehow picture his father having fun with something like dancing. That casual ease with which he communicated translated to other aspects of his life, which must have included movement.

After his passing, Finn would often miss the way he set the tone in the room whenever he walked in. In the first year after his death, he’d sometimes waited in the living room in the dark of night in sheer denial, hoping his father would show up somehow, but he never did.

Finn supposed he would be taking the same risks, years later. It was just him and his mother, but she was safe so far, although they no longer lived with the knowledge that Dad would show up to save them if worse came to worst. Was that going to last forever, or would obscurity no longer be enough to protect them later down the line? What would Finn do if someone truly dangerous came for his family?

To that, he didn’t have an answer.