Flea

Chapter Forty Seven

The gun fit into Dabi's hands far better than hers. Maeve stared down into the cup of mahogany coloured fluid he'd handed her, watching small ripples develop on its surface and desperately trying to hold back blurring at the edges of her vision.

She wouldn't cry in front of him. Maeve knew how satisfying Dabi would find it, knowing in some twisted way he'd won. The girl quickly rubbed her eyes, squashing her strangling anxiety, and followed Dabi up the steps. He was standing over her desk, looking down at something with a crooked smile.

"Did they seriously give you a pamphlet on how to avoid getting tortured by me?" He asked, clearly finding the idea as funny as she had. Dabi picked up the brightly coloured strip and flicked through it, the side of his stapled mouth tugging.

"Apparently, you should always be polite and civil to your interrogator," he read dryly, "Not seeing a whole lot of that, Sweetheart. Something to work on."

Dabi placed it back on her desk. Maeve didn't trust herself to reply, so took a sip of coffee instead. His brew was far better than her shoddy attempt earlier in the day, which was inexplicably what pissed her off most about the entire situation.

"Is this important?" Dabi asked, indicating the mess she'd created on the blackboard. Maeve shook her head, avoiding looking at him. He picked up a duster and moved to wipe the statement draft down, before pausing to actually struggle through what it was saying. She felt a resurgence in fear as his lips silently formed words like 'sincerest apologies for breach in contract,' 'provisional license exam' and 'potential hero work.'

"What is this?" He asked quietly, burning turquoise eyes not leaving the blackboard.

"I don't want to talk about it," Maeve replied, shrinking into herself when his face darkened.

"It sounds like a press statement. That you're not giving."

Dabi's voice was just matter of fact enough to be threatening.

"I'm not sure you have a say in the matter," Maeve replied, snatching the duster from his hand and rubbing the blackboard clean before he could stop her.

"Are they seriously taking away your license because you were annoyingly stubborn enough to go back and stop that potato head asshole?" Dabi asked, crossing his arms and examining her face closely. So it wasn't just her who saw the resemblance between All for One and a kid's movie character. Probably wasn't a good sign that the only other person was a murderous villain who'd popped in for a drunk 3 am visit.

"I broke the law multiple times. They're being generous not giving me jail time, considering everything."

"You saved thousands of people in an act of self-defence and they're punishing you for it? What kind of justice system is that?"

"A fair one in this particular aspect. I knew and accepted what the consequences would be at the time," Maeve replied somewhat calmly, putting the duster back and sitting at her desk. That immediately made her feel better. She knew how to handle fanatics from an office chair, so as long as he didn't get into her bed again Maeve could manage. Dabi remained standing.

"I thought you disagreed with heroics?"

"I do."

"Then why are you abandoning what you believe in to become one of them?"

Maeve gave a small smile at that, her composure slowly coming back now she was in a more familiar area: arguing policy.

"Because what I believe in matters less than people's lives. Don't think I haven't noticed you're diverting from the real issue here, by the way," she commented, raising thin legs to sit cross-legged in the office chair. The bandages around her feet already needed replacing.