A/N: This is a work of fiction. All parallels to real events or other works are entirely in the mind of the reader. Panacea!Power!Taylor meets Skitter!Power!Amy on her first night out. They don't quite hit it off, but after a few more encounters they start working together and exploring the power interaction that lurks in the background of their adventures.

I'd left a tomato plant on a countertop in the kitchen.

Every day, I would come home from school and feed it scraps of crusty bread, bits of moldy cheese, and sometimes a dead rat from one of the traps around the house.

The plant wasn't just alive, it was alive to my specifications. Running my fingers over it, I could feel a rush of information from the DNA to the cellular to the structural levels. With a mental twist I could manipulate that flow, change the shapes that fractaled up into a single viney growth.

Every day, once the plant was satiated, I would close and hide its mouth and move all that fresh biomass up and out into four perfect tomatoes: juicy, just ripe enough, and already falling apart into cubes.

It was a way to practice my powers, but most of all, it was a way to produce something I could use. After all, tomato sauce tastes better fresh.

Dad walked into the kitchen to find me pulling lasagna out of the oven. Two crispy layers of extra-brown pasta held an irregular mound of vegetable and meat stuffing.

"Lasagna again?" he asked.

"Yeah." I sighed. "It reminds me—"

"—of Annette?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I know I make it a lot, but—"

"It's fine, Taylor. I understand." He swallowed audibly. "I think we both miss her." He walked past me and started setting the table.

I didn't say anything, focusing on shoveling chunks of the lasagna onto two plates, making little heaps. I tore up some of the pasta that had fallen off and used it as garnish.

We sat down to eat.

"How was school, Taylor?" dad asked around a mouthful.

"Same as usual."

He moved some greenish meat from one side of the plate to the other. "The bullies still bothering you?"

"Not so much, no," I said, thinking back to what I'd done. "It's gotten a lot better."

"Since, uh—"

"Yeah." I separated off another bite of lasagna with my knife and spooned it into my mouth. It dissolved, mushy chunks of lightly pureed vegetables giving it an unforgettable texture.

"You know, I could—"

"It's fine."

"Taylor, really—"

"Dad. Please."

He deflated.

The rest of the meal proceeded in awkward but blissful silence. Dad didn't finish his food, throwing the half he hadn't eaten into the garbage can with the previous day's waste.

I could feel an itch under my skin, all-pervasive and encompassing. When I sat in my juice-soaked seat in school and formed bacteria on my skin to clean up the spill and eat up the glucose; when I walked home, brushing my fingers against bushes and dangling tree branches shuddering to imagine how I could take over the whole city if I just lost control and linked all the trees together into a monster; when I bumped into Sophia in the mornings and caught a glimpse of her brain and was so, so very tempted to just tweak it into something more appealing and pliable; those were the times when that itch screamed the loudest.

My power was writhing inside me, demanding to be let out, telling me that it was time. Time! Time to go! Time to do... something. I wasn't sure, it was never very clear, just a vicious and uncomfortable spasming.

Why couldn't things be simple? I would have preferred my power send me an email.

My closet was open before me, revealing nothing more than rows of shirts and vomit-green hoodies. Boring. Ordinary. Nobody would think to look any closer.

With a flourish, I swept them to a side to reveal my greatest creation, my child, my magnum opus, perhaps my legacy.

A blob of barely differentiated, goo-like flesh. It had it all: simple neural systems branching throughout, the ability to mold itself like living liquid especially when I commanded it through my power (though it was learning on its own), and flash hardening and springiness, allowing me to take hits and survive falls. What had started as a common housefly had become a flesh-mecha.

"Come out, sweetie," I crooned.

With some rustling of shirts and much viscous motion, the glob moved an inch towards me.

"Yes, come on." I motioned with a hand.

It stood in place and wobbled for a moment before jiggling backwards, losing any progress it had made.

"Aw." I stepped forward and plunged an arm in, watching the goo-flesh creep up towards my head. It felt like liquid skin, warm rolls of fat swallowing my arm whole and pulling the rest of me in after.

I reached into the suit with my senses. It was information I was intimately familiar with: groups of platelets repurposed into corded ant-colony-like muscles, trihelical self-modifying DNA, branching almost brain-like structures that somehow managed to avoid centralization. A clunky mess of modifications that even I didn't fully understand at this point.

It flowed up over my mouth, and I constructed an air filtration system on the fly. It flowed over my eyes and glasses, and I built fake one-way eyes. It flowed over my hair, and I let loose a set of blonde locks, letting them grow rapidly from my second scalp.

Another hoodie and a second pair of pants, and I was slipping out of my window and onto the street.

With the powers afforded me by my streetwear and any additional powers I could gain on the fly through the wonders of biomanipulation, I was able to climb buildings, race across roofs, and leap chasms an unassisted human would find at least mildly frightening.

I was looking for something to satisfy that endless churning anxious need. I wanted to punch things, level buildings, touch people and watch as their eyes bugged out and their brains melted and their faces twisted into horrible screaming mockeries. In short, I wanted to find some criminals, defeat them, and be a hero.

I stopped on a rooftop and looked out over the city. Somewhere in this dead, poorly lit night, there had to be some criminal scum looking for a beating. Why couldn't they be near me?

The inside of my suit was moist and hot, so I adjusted it further to absorb sweat and use it as further mass. Ventilation was yet beyond my capabilities. I was sacrificing comfort for power.

A shout rang out below me.

This was my chance. I walked quietly up to the edge of the roof and looked down.

The alley below was dim, lit only from an unseen source directly below me. A beat up, rust-red car sat alone, facing the mouth of the alley, presumably set up for a quick getaway.

As I watched, a man walked out into my field of view, limping towards the car. He held a suitcase in his left hand. Halfway there, he turned his head and spat a "Fuck off!" at something behind him.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" a second voice echoed from below.

"Getting out!" the man yelled even as he pulled open the car door.

"It's my fucking car!" the voice yelled back as it turned into a skinhead running at the first man. The skinhead hit the door at full speed, slamming it closed.

The man barely pulled his hand out of the way. "Fuck you! I'm not putting up with this shit any longer."

A few more skinheads walked into my sight and started to spread out. The man looked around, and then he started backing away from the car.

"It's fine. It's fine. I'll just walk," the man said, raising his suitcase defensively in front of his chest.

"No. It's not fine," the first skinhead said. He took a step forward and punched the man in the face.

I flinched, slipping forward a little on the roof. I was only two stories above the ground, so the fall wouldn't even hurt me, but my reflexes set in before I could think. In scrabbling for purchase, I made noise.

The skinheads didn't seem to notice, but their victim glanced at me for a moment—just long enough for another fist to connect with his face. The others had come closer in the meantime. One tripped the victim. Another kicked him. A third stepped on a hand and nudged the suitcase away. By this point, the man was screaming.

I couldn't let this continue. With a deep breath, I stepped over the edge.

I'd tested this before, running up stairs and repeatedly jumping to test my resilience to various heights. I'd managed to get up to five stories before chickening out, but even if I hadn't gone any further, I knew enough to know the shock absorption worked.

And yet, this two story fall was a bigger rush than any of the tests. I dropped right behind the group, briefly catching the glint of a reflection in the leader's reversed sunglasses.

I lunged at him, touching a hand to his neck and knocking him out.

The others had already noticed my arrival; I felt a fist slam against my face. The suit took the brunt of the impact, but I allowed just enough contact through that I could knock this guy out too.

The victim wasn't where I'd last seen him. I looked around. He was escaping in the distraction, hightailing it out of the alley, holding on to a broken hand. He'd left the suitcase behind.

I felt a sharp pain in the back of my leg. The flesh I was wearing told me little about it. Round? Wooden? It didn't matter. It brought me back into the fight.

I ducked under another punch, took a third to the gut. I stumbled at an enemy and barely managed to grab his arm and put him out of commission.

Two remained. I moved to the side, to block their route to the street, and I started walking forward to hem them into the alley's dead end. They backed up in response. None of their attacks had done anything, so I imagined they must have been pretty scared by then.

"Well?" I said, trying to sound intimidating.

The one on the left threw his baseball bat at me and ran. I stepped to the side and tagged him with a hand just as the bat bounced harmlessly off my side. He tripped forward and fell into a doze.

The last skinhead kneeled down and put his hands up in surrender. I high-fived him to guarantee it.

Exhausted, but not quite yet finished, I checked the area for any further attackers. Nothing.

The suitcase lay on the ground, inviting, a matte smear in the dark. Nobody was around. I walked up to it, and shucked it into my suit, arranging it over my back so nobody would notice any strange lumps.

Almost done. I walked out of the alley and looked around for something to call from. I found a someone.

A girl was walking alone a distance away from where I'd exited onto the sidewalk. She shuffled, head down, more sweater than person, seeming completely unaware of her surroundings.

"H-hey!" I yelled, trying to get her attention.

She sped up a little.

"I need some help!" I yelled, again. "Please, just—call the PRT!"

The girl stopped. "The PRT?" she said, her voice somehow carrying even in the evening wind's susurrations.

"I have some criminals secured in an alley. They were beating someone up."

The girl turned around and looked directly at me. "They're not capes."

I felt awkward, like I was imposing on this girl's time. "No. I am though. Uh, I can show you where they are. It's this way. Uh." I pointed in the direction of the alley, and took a step in that direction.

"I believe you."

"Can you call the PRT?"

The girl fumbled a phone out of a pocket. "Okay, I'll call. Are you going to secure them or something?"

"I did, like, I think they won't be able to move for a while. Hopefully long enough. I haven't really done this on a human before."

The girl didn't seem to be listening. She was on looking down at her phone, typing something with a thumb. Raising it to her ear, she turned away from me.

I stopped trying to keep up my end of the conversation, and went back to check on our prisoners. They were still fast asleep, benzodiazepines circulating in their bloodstreams. No problems there.

The car was only mildly scratched up. I pulled the final criminal out of it and laid him on top of the others, making sure to arrange him so he looked comfortably laid out. It wouldn't do to be accused of violence on my first night out fighting the good fight.

I came back to see the girl put the phone away. She turned to me, and I stopped mid-step. We stared at each other awkwardly.

As the awkward standoff dragged on, I noticed my suit squirming without my control. It rubbed against my skin and seemed like it was trying to slip off and to the ground. The biggest motions were wherever she seemed to be examining.

Using my power, I paralyzed the suit and tore open a hole for my mouth. "Can you not?" I said.

I stopped feeling its futile attempts to spasm against my control. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "Didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to?" I said as I hopped down and walked up to her. "You could have tripped me down those stairs—Wait. Are you Firefly?"

I'd finally gotten a better look at her. Frizzy brown hair, freckles, brown eyes that glinted in the dim street lights. This was New Wave's ugly stepchild. I'd researched her when I'd first gotten powers, afraid that I wouldn't be able to help much without any flashy power.

"I don't want to fight you," she muttered.

"Uh, me neither."

She fidgeted, looking like she expected something from me.

"Um. What did you do to me earli—"

"Why are you wearing a bug?" she blurted out.

"A bug? This is just my skin."

"It's not."

"Sure—"

"No." She seemed to pick up some steam. "It's a bug. I can sense it."

"Using the eyes you have everywhere?" I wiggled my fingers at her.

"Pretty much. Yeah."

"What did you see?"

"What?"

"Like, what did you see that made you think I'm somehow wearing a bug? It's just skin." I plucked at a bit of my arm to demonstrate. It ploinked quietly, the ripples quickly dissipating.

Firefly flinched. "Definitely a bug. Or a crab, I guess."

"What are you saying? Where are you looking?"

"I—uh, I can see more than just visual stuff?" she said. "Like, the structure of the, um, thing you're wearing is very buggish..."

"Buggish."

"It reminds me of a housefly."

"I guess that's fair."

"Oh?" she said, looking at me expectantly.

"I made it out of a fly. I didn't think it still was one though."

"Well, it seems a lot like a fly to me, even if the shape is a bit... off."

We stood there for an awkward moment, staring past each other.

I spoke first. "Why did it move when you looked at me?"

"I—well, I can't quite control that."

"That? So, can you do more than just look at stuff?"

She shuffled her feet and glanced away. Silence dragged on, broken up only by the Firefly tapping the phone in her hand with a fingernail.

I tried to bring it back. "No, really—"

"First night out?" she asked.

"Oh, uh, yeah."

"Hm," she hummed. "What's your name?"

"Uh, like my cape name? Right, um, not sure yet. I was thinking Membrane?"

"Well then, hello Membrane, I'm Firefly."

"Yeah, you said. Hi?"

Before I could get my bearings, she twisted the conversation again. "So, are you going public?"

"What? Like am I going on TV?"

She gestured at her face. "Like, maskless."

"Oh, sorta. This isn't my real face," I said, trying to fight off a smile. I pinched my forehead and stretched it out a few inches. It plinked back into place.

Firefly watched. Her expression was frustratingly impassive.

"Really? Nothing? I thought that would get more of a reaction. " I deflated a little. "I practiced for like an hour. Stood in front of the mirror. Plink. Plink. Hard to get the noise loud enough. Thought I'd sell myself as a quirky anti-hero, but I guess that dream's dead now."

"I've seen worse."

"Yeah, I guess I'm nothing but a novice." I leaned against a wall and contemplated by failings.

Silence crystallized around us, saccharine and stifling. I drifted, mired in my thoughts. All this preparation, all this practice, hours spent punching rusting hulls to test my costume, days of design, weeks of thinking and imagining and getting ready. Were they all for nothing? Were they just the flailings of an over-eager child, too ready to throw herself into costumed violence?

"You're—well, it's not so bad," Firefly said. "I started at the bottom too."

"You did? But you grew up in a family of superheroes. Caping's in your blood."

"I'm—uh, well, sorta. My powers are really different from theirs."

"Can't fly?"

She grimaced. "Not just that."

"Oh?"

"It's," she said, "complicated. The point is you took down some criminals and saved someone's life."

"And then he ran off."

She shrugged. "Maybe he thought you wouldn't make it. Went to save himself first. They won't always be grateful."

I had a thought. "What if he was a criminal too, and ran off to avoid being taken in?"

"Then at least these five are off the street."

"I guess so."

She sighed. "Just—there's no point in beating yourself up. I know I say that hypocritically, but it's something I'm working on too. You have to do what you have to do. That's all there really is to it."

Her advice was barely more than platitudes, but it still managed to help me relax. I let the conversation sweep me along.

We talked about the gangs, about the Protectorate's failings. I told her about the recent powered scuffle at the docks that had taken place too close to my father for comfort. Personal fact elicited personal fact.

Firefly opened up at first hesitantly, but as soon as she was assured of a sympathetic ear, she really let loose, jumping from advice to anecdote, telling me all about various New Wave adventures and her role in them. A particularly elaborate one turns into a car chase and Firefly herself getting involved.

"And then this guy falls in through the skylight. Lands right next to me. Now, he's on the ground, digging his hand into the asphalt and pulling out liquid looking chunks of it. Clearly, he's a cape.

"Oh no."

"Oh yeah. Even worse, Victoria flies off after the van without saying anything to the rest of us—"

"Did she catch it?"

"Well, first we had to—" She paused. "You should check on them again. They're starting to wake up."

"How do you—right." I stopped myself before I could put my foot further into my mouth.

Our prisoners were still on the ground. None of them looked like they were moving or about to go anywhere.

I touched one, and found that he actually was awake, just keeping his eyes closed. Before he could pull anything, I redosed him and he fell back out of it. The rest followed.

"They should be down for a bit longer," I told Firefly. "How long does this usually take?"

She shrugged. This wasn't particularly high profile, and these were just unpowered randoms. The PRT was probably busy doing something else; maybe someone had downed Lung. She switched the topic back to herself.

Her endless spiel wound on and on, but I persevered. I was learning more about caping in an hour or two than I had in all my weeks of internet research. It was valuable, even if it was hard not to wish the PRT would get here already.

"You know what's the worst? Yesterday, I found an E88 warehouse. I went up to Brandish and—"

"That's so true. I really feel that. Do you know how long it'll be until the PRT gets here? I'm getting a little tired."

"Um. Uh. No. I don't know. Maybe a few more minutes?"

"You were telling a story?" I prompted.

"Oh, yeah. It doesn't really mat—"

"No, go ahead."

"Okay. I, uh, I guess—"

"Don't be shy!"

"So, um, I needed to talk to Brandish. She's team leader, so—"

"I know, I know. What happened?" I looked down the road for any sign of rescue. It was getting way too late.

"The—uh, she—um, well at first I was nervous but then, I—"

"Is that the PRT? I think that's them," I said, straining my ears for any hint of sirens or cars moving. Absolute dead silence.

"Is it?" she asked hopefully, as done with standing around as I was. "Maybe I should get going."

"And leave this all to me? No thanks. And anyways, I'm enjoying talking to you."

"Oh. Uh, really?" She looked oddly hopeful.

I smiled at her. "Yeah!"

"Um. Thanks."

"No problem! Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah, uh, sure."

"So what were you doing out here—"

"Oh! I was just taking—" she interrupted.

"You didn't let me finish. What were you doing out here, at night?"

"Just—just taking a walk. I couldn't—"

"Where to? Visiting someone?"

"No, just wanted to clear my head, I guess," she said.

"That's nice. Seen anything interesting?"

"Well, there was that—"

"Awesome!"

She opened and then closed her mouth.

"You're really cool, you know? Even for a professional hero. I thought you'd be more, uh, standoffish or something."

"Oh. Thanks?"

"Hey, do you think we could meet again?"

"I'm not sure that—"

"Great! You go to Arcadia, yeah? How about we meet at Bredsea's Coffee and Tea right after school lets out?"

"Oh, um, I—"

"Yeah, I don't go to Arcadia, I go to Winslow, so it'll take me a bit to get over there. Don't worry about it so much, it'll take me like fifteen minutes."

"Sorry, I actually—"

"You're really nervous? No need, really. We've gotten along fine so far. I'm sure it'll only get better from here."

Firefly didn't respond.

"Hey, you still there?" I asked, worried that I'd said something wrong. Ever since Emma had betrayed me, I'd been wary of social situations, never quite sure if my attempts at friendship would be turned against me.

She put up a hand. "They're here."

I crouched into a fighting stance. "I'm ready. How'd they contact backup anyways?"

"What? No, I mean the PRT is here."

"Are they on our side?"

She looked right at me. "Yes."

I relaxed, but not all the way. I'd learned from previous heroes' failures, and I knew that it always paid to be wary. "How do you know?"

A van pulled in, cutting off her response. PRT troopers piled out of the back.

"May I use the restroom?" I asked.

I took my backpack with me, letting the suit slither out of it and envelop me as I took a back hallway and left school.

Thus armed and disguised, I stashed my stuff inside a tree. The wood flowed over and closed after it, leaving it unblemished. With a little more concentration, I tinted the leaves a little redder, in case I forgot which tree it was later.

I reached the coffee shop right as the school day ended.

I sat down only to feel a hand grab my shoulder. It depressed my outer flesh, pushing it further than it should have, but still not enough to get through to my real body and hurt me.

"What are you doing to my sister?" a voice hissed in my ear.

The flesh on my shoulder began to slowly deform around the offending appendage, shaping itself to her fingers and flowing over them. "Your sister?"

"Amy. Firefly. My sister."

I turned my head to find Victoria Dallon staring at me angrily.

A/N: Thank you to my betas hoaryphew, papamars, ObjectiveSpear, and to a much lesser extent B453B411C4P.