@OBSOB on tumblr, A LOVE SO NICE
ITS ECHOED IN DREAMS

✶

II.
YOUNG AND SAVAGE

"HONEY, I'M HOME," Juliet called out into the relative quiet of the apartment as she keyed open the door and dragged herself inside. The lack of a snarky reply left a glaring silence; it was almost alarming. Ezra could be considered a personal contributor to the climate crisis just by the amount of electronics he had running at any given moment. His repeat offender was his laptop, which despite his choice of profession he often left unlocked and blaring his music—or whatever Netflix show he was hyper-fixating on at the time.

On too many occasions had Juliet come back from a job to have her return scored to Ezra's sad boy playlist or John Williams, depending on whether he was revisiting his Star Wars phase or not. A hit she had carried out on Tombstone's behalf a few months ago had seen her stumble home, bloodied and bruised, only to interrupt her roommate's one-man Spotify pity-party. Frank Ocean had come through, though, providing sufficient ambience for the subsequent stitching-up. That, Juliet could admit.

And she was the Illusionist, after all—theatricality was her best friend. Life was not a movie but that didn't mean it couldn't have cinematic value every so often.

Juliet opened her mouth to call for Ezra again when she heard the gentle padding of paws against the hardwood floor. From her open bedroom doorway down the hall slunk a tortoiseshell cat, the cream-coloured splotches in its coat catching the light of the LED strips Ezra had neglected to switch off before he disappeared to wherever it was he disappeared to.

"Hey, Monty," Juliet said, crouching to let the cat jump up into her lap. He did just that, leaning back on his forelegs for a split second before springing up onto his owner's knees. Juliet curled her good arm around him, cradling him as she eased herself down to sit cross-legged on the floor. "How are you, baby? Where did Ezra disappear off to, huh? Did you see him go?"

As expected, Monty did not reply. Instead, he simply stared up at Juliet, his eyes saffron-yellow and unblinking. This was a silence Juliet was used to, and one she appreciated: she had had Monty ever since she and Ezra moved in together, and the cat had come to embody calm in four legs and a tail amongst the chaos of his parents—Juliet, with her vaguely-life-threatening work as a mercenary and Ezra as her guy-in-the-chair.

Juliet had first met Monty in an animal shelter in the shadier side of Hell's Kitchen—a shelter that was later revealed to be a front for a drug-trafficking ring, which Juliet discovered after being paid to investigate said shelter on the behalf of a rival operation. With the neighbouring shelters at too full of a capacity to accept the front's full intake after it was shut down, the innocent volunteers had had no choice but to hold an adoption drive.

Maybe she was lonely, or maybe she felt guilty—either way, Juliet still found herself at the drive. Found herself drawn to the tortoiseshell cat who was sulking in the corner of his carrier.

Found herself signing her name across the dotted line to adopt him, despite the volunteers' warnings of his antisocial nature and alleged tendency to bite, as well as his apparent joy at doing so. Juliet supposed that this was intended as a warning, but as they had brought Monty over, she'd deadpanned, So we're twinning, then.

The volunteers were right. Monty was an asshole: the antisocial part of his personality suited Juliet just fine, but the biting for obvious reasons did not particularly fly. Especially with Ezra, who was the type of person who stopped whatever they were doing at the sight of a cat to try to pet it. (Ezra had asked Juliet, mostly-jokingly, why he was never allowed to come with her on her marks. Other than the fact he was untrained, Juliet had dryly pointed out he would compromise a job just to baby-talk to a cat. He had no rebuttal for that one.)

Juliet had pressed on—in spirit, because physically she had stepped back—and it eventually paid off. She and Monty got along well now, and the cat only bit Ezra on special occasions.

(Like his birthday. That was funny.)

Tortoiseshell cats were rare, Juliet had learned in high school biology. They were the result of x-inactivation: a process which occurred most frequently in female mammals, where one of the two X chromosomes in cells were "inactivated" at random. Some chromosomes might continue to express the gene for ginger fur, or brown, black, cream—while some might not, producing a cat with a particoloured coat.

Tortoiseshell cats were rare, and male tortoiseshell cats were even rarer. Monty had the feline equivalent of Klinefelter syndrome. His extra X chromosome (which was what allowed the process of inactivation to occur, as well as what caused an imbalance of sex chromosomes) meant he was sterile.

Juliet loved him all the same. He was a mutant, just like her.

"Did someone from the Dark Web finally track him down and kill him, baby? Is he getting chopped up into tiny little pieces as we speak? Is he fish food?" Letting go of Monty, Juliet leaned forward and placed the carry tube safely against the wall. Then, she began the slow process of untying her bootlaces with one hand. Even when injured, it was ingrained in her to remove her shoes at the door. If she enforced the rule upon Ezra, just as her mother had on her, she had to stick to it, too. "You know I'm no tech wizard, but I did tell him he should be using a VPN when he watches porn. Didn't I?"

She was putting on a performance for no-one. Monty couldn't understand her and yes, she had attempted to read his mind. Maybe she was intellectually unequipped to read animal thoughts, or maybe her powers simply didn't extend to the non-human mind. Was it embarrassing that she had attempted in the first place? Probably. But wouldn't you have?

Successfully managing to work off one shoe, Juliet was about to start on the other when she heard the tell-tale scrape of the fire escape window against its frame. Paranoid at heart, she should have been more concerned at the prospect of an intruder, but it only took a moment of hesitation—or what Juliet liked to consider a tactical pause—for would-be intruder to reveal themselves.

Ezra Savage sauntered through the open window and into the kitchen, a grin on his lips and a plastic bag of takeout in his hands. With exaggerated ceremony, he placed it on the counter. "Honey, I'm home!"

"That's my line," Juliet grumbled as she scooped up Monty and attempted to stand. Monty, sensing the imminent danger of Juliet's lack of structural integrity, leapt from her arms.  The sudden movement sent a tidal wave of pain crashing through the upper left side of her body, and she stumbled forward. Ezra, a six-foot-two freak of nature in comparison to Juliet's five-three, closed the distance between them easily and instantly, sliding an arm around Juliet's waist to catch her before she fell.

"Whoa, whoa—slow down, Jules." He helped her stand straight, reluctant to remove his arm in case she toppled over again.

Huffing to herself, Juliet swatted him away and stepped past, albeit shakily, to reach the first-aid kit where it sat on the kitchen counter. "I'm not fragile. I can manage."

"That's what you always say."

"And it's what I always mean." She took a moment to inspect the food he'd brought home, looping a gloved finger into a hole in the bag to tug it open wider so she could get a better look. Sticky rice in lotus leaf, barbequed pork, fried rice. All her favourites, no doubt purchased out of pity—like her favourite takeaway order could fix her past with Dominik and her fucked relationship with her sister. Still, Juliet supposed, Ezra was trying. She couldn't fault him for that. "Would you like me to thank you? Oh, Ezra, you're my hero."

She said his name like an actress in a low-budget C-list film. They'd watched enough of them together that she had the impression pretty much down.

"Yeah, yeah." The concern on Ezra's face was a ghost, there and then gone as he sidled up to Juliet. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he crossed his arms. Grinned, like an idiot.

"Don't leave the window unlocked."

"I needed to leave it unlocked so I could enter back through it."

"You didn't have to enter back through it in the first place. We have a front door for a reason."

"I wanted to enter through the window—I see vigilantes do it in movies all the time. You know, after they come back from patrol? All bloodied and shit?"

"You're not a vigilante, Ezra."

"You don't know that."

That earned an eyeroll. Juliet flipped open the lid of the first aid kit, eyes already searching for antiseptic, alcohol wipes—something to clean the wound. "Uh, I think I do."

"Do you?" He wiggled his brows, shooting Juliet a look so contradictory—so genuine and shit-eating at the same time—that she almost doubted herself. Almost. The idea that Ezra, perpetually sleep-deprived and gangly-limbed Ezra, was any kind of vigilante was laughable. But she'd read comics with premises much more outlandish...

There she was again, letting her imagination get the better of her.

"Are you just going to keep standing there, grinning like an asshole? Or are you gonna help me out?"

"Oh shit, yeah." Ezra was standing straight in an instant, reaching for the first-aid kit like he had a hundred times before—a thousand. "Take off your shirt."

"Creep," Juliet said, rolling her eyes again as she did as told. She pulled off the top part of her suit, draping it over her arm. A frown grew on her lips as she caught sight of the tear in the fabric of the shoulder, where the bullet had grazed her: the entire sleeve was compromised now. She'd have to remake the whole thing. (Yes, she made a living out of creation, but it was a convenient career choice. Reality was at her fingertips: the time it would take to get out her sewing machine and fix the suit was not.)

"Flattered that you think I'm interested, but tragically I am not." Ezra was used to the knives Juliet hid in her words, so much so he'd stopped taking them by the blade and instead by the handle, returning her snide remarks with ones of his own. Juliet liked their little dynamic, the push and the pull. It was comfortable, if not vexing. It was safe. "You're too scary for me."

"And you're too much of a virgin for me, yeah-yeah." Juliet looked around their apartment, one of the few places she felt at home that existed outside of her imagination.

Juliet had signed the lease for this place right before she'd ended things with Dominik, initially believing Arden would claim the spare bedroom and move out of the tiny Empire State University dorm she was always complaining about. But then she'd started dating Dominik, and Juliet was, for the first time in her life, alone. She had no friends to speak of, having pushed them away (or deserted them, just as she had the Saviours) and she wasn't about to put an ad up on Craigslist just for some axe-wielding stranger to come murder her on her nice, newly polished hardwood floors.

Juliet did not believe in fate or God or anything but herself, but she was sure that meeting Ezra was the closest thing to a miracle she'd ever experience. Fresh out of Taskmaster's Manhattan criminal academy, Juliet was itching to put her new skills, and her new anger, to use. As Phantasma, she'd never done any real crimefighting, but by following the sounds of city and the internal monologues of its less-than-savoury characters she'd found herself at a derelict warehouse tucked away in the Meatpacking District, where a meeting between two small-time crime lords was being held. Wilson-Fisk-wannabes, they dealt in domestic sex trafficking and drug-smuggling in and out of the city.

Crime Lord #1 had seismophobia, a fear of earthquakes. Easy. Perching herself at the top of the second-storey stairwell, she'd slipped into his head, splitting open the floor and his psyche with a single thought. It was satisfying: although Juliet's powers only extended to the mind, it was the mind that controlled the rest of the body. If the mind told the body it was slipping through the cracks, falling into the deep, dark abyss that Juliet had cut like fabric into the concrete, what was the body to disagree? Juliet had complete control over every being she encountered. Reality was at her fingertips and her fingertips were pressed to the flesh of these men's throats, feeling the life in their bodies as it ebbed away.

Figuratively, of course. Juliet watched Crime Lord #1 from afar as his mind, too far gone, turned his body against him. As his lungs ceased respiring, as his heart stopped beating—both organs so convinced they were being crushed to pulp by crumbling walls of concrete, smashed to nothing by falling debris. #1 shook, broken and bent over and over again by a natural disaster that existed only in his mind, but devastated him all the same. Every inch of his being was consumed by Juliet, every nerve spasming under her control, every atom suffering. Juliet waited until he was unconscious before she relinquished her control. He went still, to the horror of his rival and the onlooking criminal entourage.

Juliet hadn't laid a hand on him—not in the traditional sense. She was plausible deniability in the flesh.

Crime Lord #2 was a little harder to crack. A quick survey of his psyche revealed no deep-set fear that could easily be exploited, no simple phobia Juliet could take advantage of. What she would give for a fear of drowning. That was easy: the floods would come, swift and silent and unstoppable, sweeping through the warehouse and swallowing #2 whole. Dragging him by the limbs into the depths. Forcing his head beneath the surface of the water. Filling his lungs until they burst.

Holding him tight. Never letting him go.

Even something stupid, like spiders, would have worked better. She could have made a giant tarantula or something. But no—he had a fear of abandonment. What was she meant to do with that? Fashion the likeness of his parents and have them leave him again and again until he had a mental breakdown?

No. She needed more nuance than that. Both physically and cinematically.

Crime Lord #1's sudden panic attack had spooked most of the back-up, leaving Crime Lord #2 short-handed as Juliet revealed herself. Not yet having rebranded herself as the Illusionist, her appearance was nothing of note; wearing a turtleneck, jeans, and Doc Martens, she was as nondescript as ever. #2 didn't get a chance to register how truly nondescript Juliet was before she sprang into action, striking hard and fast and accompanied by a soundtrack of her own scoring.

Taskmaster had taught her well. Every movement perfect, precise, she dealt a series of kicks and punches that left #2 on his knees, his lungs struggling to function just as #1's had. Except this time, Juliet had used her hands instead of her head.

With every blow came a taunt, echoing through the man's head like a bullet ricocheting in an empty room. Juliet wove each word on the spot, pulling memories from his mind to fabricate familiar voices. His mother: I'm leaving. His father, the same. His girlfriend, some exotic dancer down the way: We're over. I'm leaving.

She took those words—I'm leaving—and stretched them long and thin like silk, cutting a piece of cloth from his psyche only to shove it down his throat. She knew she was playing dirty; she was taking a page out of Dominik's book, if not a whole chapter. But Taskmaster made it clear: the task at hand was most important. Whether it was a task self-assigned or otherwise, you had to do what you had to do to fulfil it.

When Crime Lord #2 began to sob, Juliet pressed pause on the psychological warfare, the symphony of goodbyes, and gave him a merciful punch in the head. It knocked him out cold, leaving her in the peace and quiet she preferred to properly search his and #1's heads for their respective gang's caches.

Mind-reading was like filing, and unfortunately, everyone had their own organisational system. #1's was simple: he was one of those weirdos that physically remembered words, and so he practically spelled out the address of his stronghold. Crime Lord #2 was, again, a pain in the ass. He only remembered what his hideout looked like.

Juliet encoded the image to her own memory anyway—the building was on a street with a few small businesses, so if she figured out the district she could probably just wander around until she found the place—and was just stepping back the way she came when she heard the phone ring.

Not hers. #1's, vibrating from within his coat pocket. Brows furrowing, Juliet scooped the phone from his pocket. Blocked number.

She let it go to voicemail. A text came through almost instantly: scary lady in the turtleneck, don't be rude. answer the phone.

A moment passed, maybe two, and then another message popped up.

please. :).

Then, the phone rang again.

Juliet picked up.

               EZRA: What the fuck was that?

               JULIET: Excuse me?

               EZRA: What did I just watch? I can't tell whether you're a good guy or not. (Neither could she.)

               JULIET: Does it matter? Who are you? Where are you?

               EZRA: It totally matters. What the fuck?

               JULIET: You didn't answer any of my questions.

               EZRA: (Trying to think of a witty reply) ...

               JULIET: Hello?

               EZRA: I'm your conscience. And I'm watching you from a security camera.

               JULIET: My conscience doesn't sound like a twelve-year-old boy, thank you. And it doesn't stalk me from a security camera.

               EZRA: I'm not stalking. And I'm not twelve!

               JULIET: (sighing) Yeah, the maturity's just bleeding through the phone.

After making a few vague threats and heavily implying she was able to control minds through the phone—Juliet maintained it was on Ezra for believing that—Juliet arranged to meet her stalker. They met at the beginning of the High Line, Juliet grabbing some Japanese curry from Gansevoort on the way as a peace offering.

Ezra, she learned her stalker's name was, had never had Japanese curry before. It was a good icebreaker. Better than Juliet could've hoped for.

"So, stalker," Juliet began as she seated herself on a park bench, Ezra reluctantly following suit. "What were you doing watching security cameras in a random Meatpacking District warehouse on an even random-er Tuesday night?"

Ezra shot her a look. "What were you doing being in said random Meatpacking District warehouse on an even random-er Tuesday night?"

"No girlfriend to entertain yourself with, huh?" Juliet smirked. "You should be able to tell me, consider you were watching me be in said random Meatpacking District warehouse on an—"

"I think we should step away from the entire 'Meatpacking District warehouse' thing, sweetheart. It's getting hard to track."

That earned a laugh. Juliet shook her head, wiping an imaginary tear from the corner of her eye for dramatic effect. "I don't think you're old enough to be calling me sweetheart, buddy. Maybe when you're older."

Ezra went red. He zipped up his jacket and shrunk back into the neckline, turtle-like. "Well, I wasn't stalking you. You just happened to be there."

"That still doesn't answer my question. Why were you watching in the first place?"

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee have a pretty big cocaine stockpile somewhere in the city. I was trying to figure out where it is." Ezra paused. "For... reasons. Anyway, I wasn't expecting some crazy lady to show up and start beating the shit out of them. What are you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Like, are you some kind of hero?"

Juliet could still remember how she felt when he asked the question, like her organs had called a mutiny and turned themselves inside out. Taskmaster had made her a soldier, but it was just another slipcover, another illusion. Smoke and mirrors in the form of combative perfection. "I don't like the H-word."

"So that's a no."

"Yup." Juliet wet her lip with her tongue, thinking. "I'm trying my hand at crime. Tonight was an exception. An altruistic one, but an exception nonetheless."

"You're not gonna try to take control of their drug trade?"

"Nope. I was planning to find the drugs and destroy them. New York doesn't need that on the streets."

"I've never seen anyone fight like that before." He paused again. "Well, I have. On the tv. The Avengers."

Well, that was a compliment if she'd ever heard one. "That makes sense, I guess. The guy who trained me was obsessed with studying them—so he could fight them, exploit their weaknesses. It's kinda his entire thing."

"Oh, cool." Ezra scrunched his nose. "Who's the guy?"

"Who're you? That's the question."

"I'm Ezra. Savage. Ezra Savage."

"Hi, Ezra Savage. I think you know I didn't just want your name."

He flashed her a sheepish grin. "I was hoping I could eke by. I dabble in cybercrime."

"Cyber-fighting-crime?"

"No. Cybercrime."

Juliet quirked a brow. "You're kinda young for that."

"So are you."

"I have a dark past to justify my age thank you. Very dark. Very gritty. Real superhero-like." Her voice was practically drenched in sarcasm. Every day she thanked her lucky stars her mother hadn't been afflicted with the desire to name her daughter alliteratively. Nominative determinism decreed that a name like that would've been her supervillain origin story.

Juliet liked the supervillain origin story she had now.

"But not enough?"

"No, I guess not."

"I have a dark past too, I guess." He scrunched his nose again. "It feels pretentious to put it like that."

"I know, right? But we're in it together. Please, tell me about this dark past of yours."

"Will you tell me yours?"

"Probably not."

And that was the start of a beautiful friendship. Together, they located the crime lords' drug caches; Juliet described to Ezra the building she'd seen in #2's head, and after a few minutes of searching, Ezra had procured the address. Watching him work—in his tiny ESU dorm, hunched over a laptop with perhaps the worst posture Juliet had ever seen—made Juliet glad he wasn't actually stalking her. It also brought forth the initial proposition of a partnership. Splitting the cash Juliet found at the caches turned into Ezra actively searching for other small-time operations for Juliet to dismantle, which led to the inevitable discovery they'd make more money if Juliet stopped working for herself and started working for others.

Thus, the Illusionist was born.

Somewhere down the line, the offer was extended to Ezra to move in. Somewhere down the line, Ezra did actually tell her about his dark past.

And somewhere down the line, Juliet told Ezra about hers.

"Well, this could be way worse," Ezra said, calling Juliet back to the present as he dabbed an alcohol wipe over her graze. (On closer inspection, it was a little worse than a graze. But she wasn't going to die. Probably.) Juliet inhaled sharply, wincing. "Like, you could've been shot in the head."

"Wow, Ezra. That would have been way worse!"

"C'mon, Jules. I'm trying to find the silver lining—"

Another dab, another wince. "—and still, it eludes you."

"One of us has to try."

Juliet snorted. "It's always going to be you."

Ezra smiled small. "I know." A pause, and his focus returned to her shoulder. "Anyway, this isn't that serious. I think. You've lost a decent amount of blood, but if I stitch it up and you hydrate you should be fine."

"I love how sure and knowledgeable you are about these things. It's so comforting."

"And I love how genuine you are." Ezra scoffed gently, slicking a layer of numbing gel over the site of the wound, "Okay, I'm going to start the stitches now."

"Aye-aye, captain."

The process was painful, but brief—Ezra was a fast learner, and although his first few attempts at patching Juliet up were fumbling, imprecise, he'd improved greatly over the past few months. He was done in a few minutes, covering the injury with petroleum jelly first and then a patch of gauze. "There we go. Good as new."

"Thanks." With her good arm, she reached for the takeout. Ezra slapped her hand gently, head shaking.

"Wash your hands first, missy."

"Sorry, forgot." Juliet stepped away from the counter to wash her hands at the sink. Monty reappeared at her feet, his tail curling around her ankles. "How's your night been?"

"Are you talking to me or the cat?" Ezra began to unpack the food, as well as assemble plates and cutlery for them both.

"You, unfortunately."

"Ah." A shrug, one that Juliet caught in periphery as she dried her hands. "It was stressful. You're emotionally taxing, you know."

It was a joke, but the phrasing was familiar. Familiar enough to make Juliet stop where she stood. Familiar enough to turn her to stone.

You're emotionally taxing. I never know what Juliet I'm going to get, the Juliet that loves me—or the Juliet that hates my guts. It isn't fucking fair.

"I'm kidding." Ezra bumped his shoulder gently against hers, his smile apologetic. Genuine. "Sorry, I was—I was just worried. Still not used to the sound of gunshots."

"We can swap, if you like." In an instant, the façade was back, the smirk. "You can play Illusionist for a night. I'd love to be the guy—girl—in the chair, for once. I've always wanted to be a loser."

"Ha ha, Juliet."

"You deserved that one." Juliet grinned. Ezra grinned back.

"I did." Life was full of little concessions. Ezra offered her a plate. "C'mon, food's getting cold."

Juliet served herself some food, heaping it onto her plate before heading off to her bedroom with the swagger only someone with a semi-concerning case of blood loss could possess. Ezra followed, balancing his plate on one hand and swiping up Monty with the other.

Their apartment was nice, a far cry from the shoebox of a bedroom Juliet shared with Arden growing up. Located in a semi-decent part of Hell's Kitchen, it boasted large, panelled windows as well as hardwood floors and an actual stove. (The stove was the ultimate win, Ezra had announced when he first moved in.) It was decorated nicely, its expensive but understated furniture subsidised by Juliet's work as the Illusionist. Over the past few months, Juliet had put together a Pinterest board of images that would ultimately collate into her dream home, and job by job she was making that dream come true.

Juliet seated herself on the edge of her bed while Ezra took up his spot on the armchair pushed to the corner of her bedroom, right by the window. In this position, he looked like a therapist—when Juliet got to talking, he effectively was one.

They ate in comfortable silence, with Juliet looking up every now and then to watch Ezra, let her eyes trace his features. Years of being invisible saw Juliet's observational skills be sharpened as keen as the point of a knife; she saw anything and everything, both real and unreal, organic and manufactured. Ezra had never considered himself anything special, but whether it was appearance-wise or personality-wise, he had never not been interesting to Juliet.

Aside from the suggestive comment here and there—often said to trigger a reaction from the other—Juliet and Ezra's relationship had remained platonic. Still, Juliet could acknowledge he was cute, in an understated way—cute, in the sense that he wasn't aware he was.

Or, he was fully aware, but he tried to hide it.

There had been a time, long before Juliet, when Ezra hadn't hidden at all. He was clever, devastatingly so, and confident. Athletic, too—he'd won a full ride to Empire State on a lacrosse scholarship, somehow managing the sport alongside ESU's fully-loaded computer science major. Juliet had seen the photos of him in his freshman year, flashing a supermodel-perfect smile in each one.

Now, he shied away from the world. He was still good-looking, Juliet supposed—with the dimples, the dark hair, the boyish grin—but he lacked the spark he had before, the substance. Some part of Juliet wondered if she was holding him back. He'd already deferred a semester by the time he met Juliet, but he'd pushed back school another six months to continue working as her "guy in the chair". Her illicit activities were the reason he was still avoiding the past, still outrunning the life he'd left behind at ESU.

He would have to face his past eventually. So would she.

Ezra swallowed the last bite of his barbeque pork. Leaning back in the armchair, he pinned Juliet with a look he probably thought seemed studious, analytical. (It did not.)

"So, are we going to talk about tonight, or what?"

"I really don't want to," Juliet said, not bothering to finish what she was chewing as she spoke. Ezra pulled a face, and she pulled one right back. "You heard the whole thing?"

"Yeah, you didn't mute your end."

"Remind me to next time." An indolent shrug, "If you heard everything, you heard everything. I don't know what you want me to talk about."

"Arden? Dominik? Arden and Dominik together?"

"I'm over that." She wasn't.

"Are you?"

"Yes." No. "I don't care. I just like messing with them. You should've seen her face when I said—"

"I could imagine," Ezra said dryly, head shaking. "It's okay to be upset about this kind of thing."

"You'd be upset if your sister started dating your ex-boyfriend? Seems super petty and immature to me."

"My sister is gone, and I don't have an ex-boyfriend."

"Right." Juliet ran her tongue over her front teeth, refusing to meet Ezra's gaze. They were relatively open with each other, but just as Juliet had laid ground rules not to mention the Saviours, nor Arden and Dominik (especially Arden and Dominik together) Ezra had laid his own. "Sorry. It slipped out."

"It's fine." It wasn't, but Ezra didn't pry so neither did Juliet. "I just think you're bottling stuff up. It's not healthy."

"Oh, I know it's not." Juliet polished off the rest of her plate. Monty poked his head out from behind her to lick at the sauce left over. "Look, just try to put yourself in my shoes. It's exhausting to be upset about it all the time, you know?"

"Not really." To be fair, Juliet's situation was unique.

"Well, take it from me. It's draining. Not worth the emotional strain. Very few things are."

"One day, someone's gonna study you for your incredible ability to avoid your problems."

"I'll take that over being studied because I'm a mutant."

"You're so dismissive-avoidant I think being a mutant will pale in comparison."

Juliet laughed. "It's all going according to plan."

"You're also painfully self-aware."

"'Painfully self-aware' is my middle name."

"Really? Huh. Juliet Painfully Self-Aware Young." Ezra snorted, shaking his head. "Sounds exotic."

"It's a family name."

"Right." Ezra turned his head to look out the window, his green eyes neon in the reflection of light off the street. "We're not gonna talk about what happened tonight, are we?"

"No, my darling Ezra, we are not." Juliet carded her fingers through Monty's fur, cutting her roommate a wry smile. "But thank you for trying."

"It's what I do best."

"And most unsuccessfully."

"It's the effort that counts." For Ezra, whenever Juliet's name was mentioned, a lot of other words came to mind simply by association: indifferent, defensive, isolationist. Juliet didn't even have to read his mind to know them—not that she would invade his privacy like that, but to be honest? It wasn't even necessary. No powers required. His thoughts were written all over his face, indelible like ink, covering his skin from neck to toe like a tattoo.

He deserved better. But no matter what they were now, no matter what they had become, Ezra hadn't entered this partnership looking for a friend.

And neither had she.

"Are we done? How much do I owe you for dinner?"

"My shout."

"Alright." Juliet watched Ezra as he turned back to look at her. "Oh, I don't like that look. What did I do? What did you do?"

"I got you something." He rose from the armchair, groaning as if it were some Herculean task. "Stay put."

"Not going anywhere, Ez," Juliet drawled, reaching to place her plate on her bedside table so she could pull Monty properly into her lap. The cat obliged, folding himself into a patchwork loaf of fur, head nuzzling against her stomach. "Me and Monty are vibing."

Juliet lapsed into comfortable silence as Ezra disappeared into the rest of the apartment, swallowed up by wall-hung records and miniature forests of pot plants. She scanned her surroundings, searching for something—some error, some void—she could fix with a credit card and express shipping.

Underestimating the success she would find as the Illusionist—as well as the profit, thankfully never-ending in a city as crime-ridden as New York—Juliet had spent the first few weeks of her new gig unsure what to do with all the money that came with it. In childhood she had been weaned on discount groceries and second-hand clothes; frugal was not just a word to use to describe her but a lifestyle she had been forced to live.

She'd had a taste of materialism—Dominik had paid for most of the fineries in their relationship, adorning Juliet in expensive clothes and jewellery and smothering her in five-star hotels and restaurants—but none of it had ever been hers. Dominik had given it to her, sure, but he could always take it away.

Her first score she split with her mother, depositing the cheque into her mother's account and ensuring she would no longer have to rely on the Soros family for rent money as she had the duration of her daughter's relationship with their youngest son. Telling her mother this news was a burden off her shoulders, a noose loosened around her neck.

But she was still bound to the Saviours. To Dominik. With him, there were much worse ways to be indebted. Money was nothing without freedom.

Ignoring her predicament, Juliet turned to filling her life with material possessions to replace the spaces left by her sister, her friends, her teammates. Constructing the comfortable, dependable existence she'd craved growing up—the life of relative luxury she'd always wanted. The fantasy wasn't enough, and her powers could only do so much: she conjured illusions and nothing more. Nothing real.

It had to be real.

Besides, retail therapy was still therapy (technically) and Juliet was its best patient; though she didn't like to draw too much attention to herself she still dressed well, expensively and sustainably, maintaining the façade of every facet of her being. She bought what she wanted to buy when she wanted to buy it. She showered her mother in surprise gifts and purchased for Ezra what he was too indecisive to get himself.

Why shouldn't she? She had the money, and the means to get more if necessary. Every purchase was further proof she was better as the Illusionist that she ever had been as Phantasma; crime was quantifiable, whether it was in statistics or profit. Heroism was not.

(Anyway—as far as she was concerned, the only heroic thing she had ever done as Phantasma was walk away.)

Juliet was considering a new potted plant when Ezra returned, holding a box behind his back. "This was meant for your birthday, but I figured you needed something to cheer you up."

Juliet lifted a brow. "My birthday's not till November."

"Like I said, it was meant for your birthday. But you can have it now." He sat down beside her, swapping the box—wrapped semi-neatly with Disney princess paper, a token of a long-running inside joke—for Monty. "Open it."

"Yessir," Juliet said, smiling small at Ezra's subsequent sigh, and did as told. Peeling off the wrapping paper and opening the box, it took her a moment to register its contents. "Shit. You actually listen to me."

"Uh-huh. Every last word." Ezra slanted her a sideways smile. "I figured statistically you'd have to say something important eventually. Like how much you wanted this."

Juliet must've talked about this a lot more than she realised, or Ezra must just be a really good listener. The gift was a Contax T2 camera—manufactured first in 1990, it was a well sought-after point-and-shoot camera, with its 38mm f/2.8 Zeiss Sonar lens and solid build quality. Admittedly, this spiel probably meant nothing to Ezra (in the same way his computer-science talk meant nothing to Juliet) but he'd clearly listened to her anyway.

"How much was it? These are expensive, even second-hand." Juliet had been watching one of the cameras on eBay a few months back, but she'd lost track of the listing amongst school and work and whatever else. But she knew Contax T2s weren't cheap.

Ezra did, too. "Uh... let's not talk about it. But happy birthday in advance."

"Thank you." Juliet's gaze flickered from him to the camera, then back again. To her, photography was nothing more than a hobby, a distraction, but there was something about it she couldn't resist; something about preserving little pieces of the world in film, concreting a reality she couldn't touch, or change, or corrupt.

"You're welcome. Thanks for stealing a painting for us."

"No, really." A long, almost momentous pause, before Juliet reached over with her good arm and hugged Ezra. The act was sloppy, but it felt better this way. More authentic. More real. "Thank you."

They sat in silence for a minute. Then, Ezra patted her awkwardly on the back. "I'll see if we can find a buyer for the painting."

"Okay."

He let Monty scurry off his lap and then stood, making it halfway through the doorway before turning around and speaking again. "I'm here for you, Jules. You know. If you ever want to talk."

"We're talking right now."

An amusedly strangled sound left his lips, half a snort and half a scoff. "You know what I mean."

"I do." Juliet nodded, finally smiling—small, but genuine, with no smirk in sight. "And I appreciate it."

Ezra nodded, his lips pressed into a resigned line. This was the best he was going to get. "Rest up, okay?"

"Yeah. See you in the morning."

"See you."

And then he was gone, retreating back into his corner of the apartment and leaving Juliet in hers.

✶

AUTHOR'S NOTE

not a lot happened in this chapter i know but we've shined a little light on one of juliet's core relationships: ezra.

he's my baby and he's heavily inspired by a lot of characters!! namely, player from carmen sandiego as well as micro from the punisher supporting cast. ezra (named after ezra bridger from star wars rebels) is pretty much juliet's one-man support crew. they have an interesting relationship in that they still act as if they're just partners, and not totally best friends.

anyway. next chapter we meet peter (or at least, juliet does.) i'm very excited.

let me know what you think of the story so far! thank you so much for reading 🥰🥰

🪞 GRAPHIC by SOULOFSTAARS 🪞