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Before, someone becomes a villain, they’re a person. Before someone’s a hero, they’re a kid with a half-spoken hope. It’s something the public, the newspapers and screaming reporters often forget in a city crawling with corruption. Where individuality is a privilege, privacy a joke, beginnings aren’t so easily spoken of.
But such things matter. Such things define.
And before Niki was trained and shaped, before she was anything, she was a girl with bright eyes and a bakery, years ago.
…
The ending of it all starts on a normal, autumn evening.
A downfall that dooms hundreds starts with change flitting through the streets, the turn of the season hanging crisp in the air. In a small, tucked-away building, someone breathes in the haze of coffee and baking goods. The end of a shift nearing, boredom in slumped shoulders, a girl traces swirls on dark wood. Chipped with time and age, the counter is nothing terribly impressive. The place in general isn’t - all of the tables are unoccupied, and the few paintings that litter the walls cover holes and stains.
It’s nothing much. Whispers and side-eyes, glances at mismatched plates and wobbly chairs.
It’s nothing much, yes, but it’s hers, and there’s a pride to that - a reassurance. A home built by her own two hands, furniture dragged in, and nights spent sleeping on the floor, it keeps her going. Not many people can call themselves a business owner at seventeen, but Niki has always been one to beat the odds.
Propping her face up with a hand, she hums, the sleepy, purple paint clouding her mind. Murky colors, eyes slipping shut, staying awake is a whole different matter entirely. The day has been slow, thick like molasses and artificial sweeteners, and it’s almost a physical weight on her shoulders. Time drags on with the nothingness almost more exhausting than the rush.
Using the tips of her fingers, Niki drags her phone over. The time only reads a glowing 5:56 PM, and her sigh echoes through the shop.
“Four minutes,” she says the words aloud, just to hear the way they swell in the space where people should be. Outside, the sun is getting closer and closer to the thin line of the horizon, and the people that do walk by are hurried, rushing to try and beat the dark. “Four minutes,” Niki murmurs and wonders if it’s too late to put on some music.
A song has wormed its way into her head, filled the void of loneliness and an empty, cold building. She hums lightly, and there’s no one to judge. There’s never anyone to spare a second look at another kid, another person doomed to die and live, buried in cement.
“I’m in shock,” she sings, softly alongside the melody. Swirls at her fingers, aching feet. “I’m in shock-”
Abruptly, the door slams open with a bang.
Niki jumps, startles, sliding an invisible, jagged line through the circles she was tracing as she stumbles fully to her feet. The person who follows the noise is every bit its opposite. Dressed in dark green and with a hooded face, they seem to almost blend in with the emptiness. A wraith more than a person, some superstitious part of her whispers, a shell, a husk - dangerous. Niki shakes away the thoughts, though, and her smile is only mildly strained as she offers a wave.
“Welcome to the Crossway! I’m Niki - she/her - what can I help you with today?” Tucking blonde hair behind her ear, she watches them amble their way closer, and something about it strikes her as odd. There’s a sharpness to their movements - in steps that make no noise, in a face still unseen. The way they circle tables with a tilted head makes Niki wonder if she’s getting robbed.
Wouldn’t be the first time, if it’s the case. And the few that have tried have found out quickly that Niki hasn’t carved this life of hers out of luck. Skill, spite - she may not look it, but she’s grown up in this city, too. And it’s the type to infect. It’s the type that fills your blood with tar, twists kindness into something as dark as the concrete. She’s held on better than most, but it doesn’t make her less capable. It doesn’t make her a pushover.
The figure reaches the counter, and she’s close enough to see the tense set of their back, the fighting stance they fall into. She smiles, serene, and lets her power flare to life. “Muffins are half off,” she adds. Calm descends, thicker than the haze of sleep, and the person relaxes with it. It’s not as reassuring as it should be - there’s a.. .ruthlessness to their demeanor that can’t be taken away. The way they hold themselves speaks more of cement and poison than humanity.
That stubborn melody comes to mind once again. “Wolves line the city streets.”
Well. It’s a good thing she’s well-versed in threats.
“He/him,” the man finally says after a long pause. She watches with narrowed eyes. “And I won’t be ordering on the menu. Give me your money, please.”
Niki blinks, bewildered, and doubles over laughing. She makes no note of how her fingers twitch towards the register, how the man flinches away from her - shocked. She’s too busy trying to cover her giggling with a hand. “Well, you’re certainly the nicest robber I’ve ever met,” she says. “But I’m still going to have to say no.”
(Green threads unable to breach sunny yellow ones. Control slipping, a mind spinning-)
“No,” the man repeats, sounding out the word like he's never heard it before. “Huh.”
“And this is a nice place. Nothing much happens - I’m sure there’s no need for a fight.” Niki raises the calm in the air. The man relaxes further, but his hands are still loosely clenched into fists.
He raises them, curious. “Control,” he murmurs, seemingly half to himself. “How... interesting.”
For some reason, the words send a chill down Niki’s spine. With a huff, she’s about to make a demand, grab a knife, but the man begins to back out the door. “I’ll be going. But I suppose I’ll have to take you up on ordering some other time.”
It’s absurd. It makes no sense, and she’s about to tell him so when he flicks his fingers in a lazy wave. Her plans for calling the police directly after this... disappear. Some of the potent distrust does too, and she’s left to blink in confusion as there’s another slam of the door.
(“All that’s left is a tired crime-”)
“Talk to you later,” he calls out, voice fading. “Talk to you soon.”
Slowly, slowly Niki begins to close up, but the words echo long into the night.
...
It’s about a week later when the man makes good on his promise.
He arrives around the same time even - just minutes before closing. With a slam of the door, he saunters in, and Niki’s already half out from behind the counter, her power rising like the tension thick between them. A string pulled taunt, an amused huff of breath, as soon as it’s there, it’s gone again. Snapped in two like a discordant chord, Niki blinks and hesitates.
Niki Nihachu does not hesitate.
She is many things - a kid that grew up too soon, a cutthroat business owner, a liar stitched together with soft smiles and false colors. She is kind and soft-spoken, and many call it her downfall in a city where you have to yell to be heard. But confusing her kindness for hesitance is a mistake. She has survived and she has preserved, and none of it was through doubt. Shivering in the streets, swiping money with deft hands - building this life took everything. And keeping it is all she is.
Which is why when her hand falters on the knife in her sleeve, Niki knows something is very, very wrong. The man stumbles over, chuckling lightly and shaking out his arms. Flexing his fingers, he finally raises his head, and now’s her chance to get a good look at his profile but-
Nothing.
Where a face would normally be, there’s only a writhing mass of shadows. Where the slope of cheekbones and a nose and eyes should lay, there’s nothing, and yet, somehow, she still knows he’s smiling at her.
Laughter like the grate of train tracks, the shatter of broken glass. “Checkmate,” the man says, gesturing in between them, but it doesn’t feel like the end of the game. It feels like the opening, the curtain drawn onto a stage of dark.
She tries to move her arm. It’s like pushing through syrup, unyielding - restraining.
“Get out of my head-”
“Only if you get out of mine. I just wanted to order a muffin.” He gestures to the menu. “Still 50 percent off?”
Niki looks at him with thinly-veiled annoyance. Her emotions are a mess, and it bothers her more than the arrogant tilt of the man’s head, the amusement in his voice. She says nothing, grappling with herself, and the minutes tick on to the tap-tap-tap of her heart. A reminder that she’s alive, here and mostly intact, but, Gods, with her mind like this it sure doesn’t feel like it.
“Well?” he says, leaning on the counter. “Are we going to keep wasting both of our time or can I order?”
She tries to move her arm again. It doesn’t work, and something sharp, vulnerable, begins to brew in her chest. Her hands itch for her knife, but she can’t grab it; she can’t, and she has to protect her home-
She drops her power, and the calm vanishes like it never was. She watches the man stack himself back, layering defenses stronger than the mask he wears instead of a face. The muddiness in her mind vanishes alongside the numbness in her arms, and she pulls out the knife in a flash.
“Three muffins, please,” the man says like there isn’t a blade pointed in between his eyes. “To go.”
“You really think-”
“I’ll pay ten times the original amount.”
Niki falters. Her hand still on the weapon, she moves it closer until it’s nearly level with where his heart should be. She knows she must make quite a sight, lips pulled into a feral snarl and looking two seconds away from murder, but the man’s posture never changes. All languid arrogance, there’s only a curiosity about him, and it’s…
(Wrong, wrong, run while you can, villains like that will use you, use you, take all that you are and make it all theirs-)
The thought tapers out. Her mind goes green.
She sheathes her knife a second later and ignores how wrong it feels. She can only pray to unlistening gods that she made the right choice. “Three hundred dollars,” she dares. “And why were you trying to rob me if you have so much money already?”
She moves back, grabbing for tongs and a bag, not bothering to ask the man what flavor he wants. He hums, and it may be her imagination, but it feels all-too-familiar to the song in her mind. “Coiled like a rattlesnake,” echoes alongside a deal.
“I’ll give you three hundred and an answer if I can ask you something.” The man rocks back on his heels. He seems more tired than he was just seconds ago, swaying softly. “Sounds more than fair, doesn’t it?”
“Fine,” Niki hisses, shoving a bag towards him. “But then get out of my bakery.”
“What would you do for this place?” he asks with a lazy wave of a hand. “You seem awfully protective of it.”
And Niki smiles.
Her power flares to life, a wave of white-hot rage crackling between them. “I would burn for it,” she purrs. “I would burn you and this whole goddamned city in a blink.”
The man watches her for a second, silent, before nodding and grabbing his bag. He starts to make his way to the door, but Niki snaps her fingers, “And the answer to mine?” she says.
(“Bites burn just like a bush fire-”)
“I was bored.” And with a laugh, he’s gone, leaving only a lingering chill and the sinking filling of a mistake.
…
The weeks flow onward, and the meetings become less a source of conflict and more a fucked-up sort of routine. Every week, at least twice, the man ambles his way into the store near or at closing. He pays a ridiculous amount of money for three of her baked goods and asks a single question.
And Niki always asks one back.
She starts losing sleep. In the hours before dawn, she stares at papers, a pencil in hand, her desk lit only by the glow of her computer. The song that has flowed from her mind to her heart to her bloodstream, infecting all she is, stays with her. Fall spirals into winter, and it’s fitting. It’s a blessing, in some ways, because then she can blame the chill that sits ever-present with her on the weather. Snow falling, ash-like, in a barren city, lead stains her fingers grey.
(“I write to stay awake,” her mind murmurs, during those hours where she clutches her head and wonders if her thoughts are even real anymore. “Light dies quicker in the wintertime.”)
When she wakes, sometimes only a few hours later, she finds drawings, a mess of ink and scribbling colors. Creatures with no faces, men with painted-over smiles, they haunt her. Void of color, scratched into the essence of the night, except for one unique anomaly. Acidic green curves through her artwork, over her fingers, and she wonders what it means.
Part of her knows, in the cover of night.
(“I’ll sleep away the cold-”)
That part of her always forgets.
And so her business thrives. With the extra money from the man, she’s able to patch up the holes in the wall and replace broken chairs. She gets more paintings and products and even a new register, in the space between their meetings. Whenever he sees any of such improvements, he only laughs and pays more.
It should be a blessing; it should feel like the victory it is. And yet every time she hears the feather-light sound of footsteps near closing, all Niki manages to feel is dread. Every purchase is another shovelful of dirt, a deeper passage into the ground, and her dreams are filled with digging. Creating her own tombstone, with drawings of frantic, faceless beings and-
The door slams open.
(“Wrap myself up like a twisted wire-”)
The door opens, and Niki, who’s been looking at her hands, lost in thought, doesn’t have to move to know who it is. “You know,” she starts, “I still don’t know your name.”
He walks over. It’s been some months of this, and from an outsider’s perspective, she’s sure people would call them friends. She knows his favorite type of muffin, that he loves cats, and that when he was six he accidentally mind-controlled his parents, and they abandoned him not long after. He knows she’s from the streets, a runaway, and that she learned baking to get any jobs she could. They are familiar, but nothing about it is friendly. Every question answered is only more ammunition to a silent, unseen battle.
“You could always ask.” The sun is low outside, and it casts the man in shades of purples and oranges. “We have a deal, you know.”
“Oh I know,” she says. “I just figured you wouldn’t answer.”
“Well, I would. Three scones, please.”
Niki opens the display and begins to bag them up. She makes sure to choose the raisin ones - solely to hear the way he grumbles under his breath. He hates raisins. It’s the little things she's learned that keep her sane.
“That’ll be four hundred.”
“Pricey, pricey,” he tsks. Still, he rifles through the pockets of his hoodie, pulling out a wad of cash. Crumpled, covered slightly in dust, he tosses it on the table.
She eyes it disdainfully. “This better not get me in trouble with the heroes.”
“Please, like they’re smart enough to catch me. Now…” Trailing off, he props his elbows up on the counter. It gives her a clear view of the shadows that flicker across his face, and she clenches her fists against a shiver. Some piece of technology, he had said when she asked once - made by a vigilante friend of his. She still remembers how, with a hand that traced a featureless expanse of nothing, he asked his question back:
‘Are you scared?’
(Niki hadn’t answered. Her silence said enough.)
Hissing out a sigh, she taps her fingers in a staccato rhythm. “Hurry it up then,” she snaps. It’s a betrayal of her nerves, and he sees it, based on the tilt of his head. More and more, these days, it feels like he sees everything. A presence always with her, a bundle of pressure next to the song in her brain.
With a hum, he lays his palms flat on the table, making a solid-sounding thump that drowns out her own anxious patter. It’s a dare, a challenge, a power-play all in one. “You ask first,” he sings, and Niki stills.
Breathing in, breathing out, the question is already forming in her mouth before she even thinks it. All that matters is getting rid of that smug, lifting voice. All that matters is proving she’s a force to be reckoned with, too - consequences be damned.
“What’s your name?” Niki says to the writhing shadows, the stolen money, and the purple that doesn’t feel like a comfort anymore. A flash of teeth slides starkly from the dark, inky lines running through them. A smile, a mistake, chess pieces falling in one large swoop.
“Dream.” And the name is familiar; the name has meaning, around these parts. The man, the villain, Dream himself splays his hands out, filling the space with his presence. Mind-control, Gods, she should’ve known- “And yours?”
“Niki,” she breathes. “Not as exciting as you, ‘m afraid. I’m just a normal civilian.”
“Oh, you’re nothing close to normal, Niki.” Her skin crawls at the sound of her name in his voice. Grabbing his bag, he begins to make his way to the door, an added pep to his steps. “You’re an anomaly. You have potential.”
The door shuts. Niki grips her hair in the resounding silence and wonders what the fuck she’s doing.
She doesn’t sleep that night. The hour she does manage is filled with blurry feelings of cold metal in her hands, darkness all around, and dirt filling her throat. Gravestones loom above her, and they laugh as she’s buried.
(Buried alive.)
…
From there, it only crumbles more. It withers, fading away, soil in her blood.
And the first thing Niki remembers from the day her life fell apart is the fucking weather, of all the things.
Around her, the sun reflects off an ocean of white snow, piled high next to buildings and pushed away from the ever-busy hustle of the roads. Crisp, frigid air rustles her hair, sending it spinning in a curtain of light. This time a few years ago, Niki would’ve been huddled under a bridge somewhere, eyes sharp as she looked for targets. Armed with a knife and her wits - things have changed. She has more now, a home and a warm jacket and something like stability, but winter still always brings a feeling of doom. And as the sun rises, smiling, on the horizon, this morning is no different.
Humming, snow crunches underfoot. Her steps leave dirty footprints, a stain on the world as she weaves around larger snowbanks. “I’m a switchblade renegade,” Niki murmurs, and she is. It may be buried under a pretense of normality, snow piled high, but the past isn’t so easily forgotten.
Instincts aren’t either.
And while Niki makes her way closer to the Crossway, her bakery, something feels wrong.
The air starts to tastes gritty, something sharper than the chill. More than cold or smog, there’s smoke. A pillar of it billows a few streets over, and she knows this area. She’s been walking this way every morning for a year and working there even longer. Grey like the city and grey like nights with no sleep - Niki breaks out into a run.
“Fuck,” she chokes out. The smoke grows thicker the closer she gets, winding around her like those wreathing shadows of Dream’s. “Fuck,” Niki says, and panic rises faster than the fumes.
The whole block is ablaze.
The whole street - her street, her home - is covered by flickering fire, melting the surrounding snow into a sludge. Embers dance through the air, carried by drafts of wind that no longer feel cold, and it’s... beautiful, some part of her thinks. Fire and ice, opposites united, two extremes dancing into one. It’s a spectacle; it’s a statement, but among the thick smoke, she sees it.
And Niki-
Niki staggers to a stop.
Her bakery. The Crossway. The place she put everything into, money and time, but more than that, even. She tore it from herself in the end, from half-spoken hopes and a desire for good. It’s a cumulation of the little girl who was told she was a monster for her power, the teenager who stole and lied and became all she hated to survive, and her now. All her dreams of having to not just survive anymore, her dreams that maybe she could live.
It’s all of her. It was all of her, and now it’s in fucking flames, fire creeping up hand-painted walls. Oranges and reds eating away the sign she made herself, crawling over the roof with a screeching shudder. The noise is all null, though, static in the background as Niki runs. Half-sliding on ice and melted snow, she falls, pushes herself up with scraped hands and moves and-
Someone catches her by the arms.
“Now, let’s not go into the burning building, hm?”
Someone holds her back.
Her feet scrabbling desperately at the ground, her eyes stay locked on her bakery. One of the walls creaks, a dying groan, and caves in, and something in her does, too. Her whole body shudders with the crash, and she feels herself go limp.
There’s tears clouding her vision, Niki realizes, as whoever is holding her drops her without a care. They grasp her coat, though, as blood from her hands stains the snow red. Her knees hurt, her throat aches from either smoke or screaming, but nothing compares to the supernova in her chest. Fire greedily devours her home, and Niki is devoured with it.
“I know, I know.” A gloved hand swipes away her tears, a deceitful sort of kindness. She keeps on staring, blank, at the flames. “A tragedy. I came as soon as I saw on the news. They’re saying it was one of those mercs - Punz, most likely. Too bad. I really did like your muffins.”
“Dream,” she rasps. Another wall collapses, and she curls in on herself with it. “What did you do?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything. I thought I would just check up on my favorite ‘civilian,’ is all.” His hand is still on her face. She’s too tired to flinch away even with how it burns. “And maybe offer you one last deal.”
Niki says nothing. Her mind is aflame; her heart is already dust.
“I’m one of the most powerful supervillains in the city, and without your bakery, you’re as good as homeless again. I’ll give you a job, a home, allies. Just long enough to get back on your feet, hm? Seems fair, doesn’t it?” he croons.
“Fair,” she repeats. Nothing about this is fair. She just wanted to finally feel safe-
Dream hums. “You were always meant for more, Niki,” he turns her face so she’s forced to look at him. The usual shadows are replaced with a porcelain, smiley face mask. His iconic look, his brand, a man of many faces and somehow none at all. “You have potential. And I can help you use it.”
Potential. The word fills her with dread as always, but it’s muted this time, obscured by the haze of smoke. His fingers wipe away her tears, and she bites back a sob, her life like the ashes dancing through the air.
(Unseen by even Dream, the sunny yellow of her soul darkens into rot. Burned away with all she is, it fades into shades of muddy pink. It fades, and the song grows louder as a smile turns sharp-)
“Okay,” Niki manages. The word is swept away by the crackle of fire, but it echoes like an omen. “Okay.”
Grabbing her shoulders, he pulls her up. Laughter rings; laughter burns, but Niki still feels cold. The final wall caves in, and the sign tumbles to the ground. The “Sway” part of it has been blackened beyond recognition, leaving only the word “Cross.”
It feels final. And despite the fire, the chill persists. Ice at her fingers, control beyond the green, she walks away with all she hates and leaves something integral behind in the ashes. She leaves something more than a bakery, filled with fire slowly trickling to embers.
(“My heart’s buried in the junkyard,” the song swells, a climax. She leans on Dream as they stagger away and ignores the prickling on her skin.)
“You made the right choice, Niki,” Dream says, kind.
(“Covered it in kerosene-”)
And it doesn’t feel like it.
But Niki doesn’t feel much of anything, so she turns her back and marches on. Dirt under fingernails, a grave dug, it’s a mistake. But she has nothing left to lose anymore.
“Call me Cross,” she rasps, and the words are as bitter as the soot on her tongue. “ If I’m going to become a villain - call me Cross.”
Dream laughs. “Potential,” he murmurs, amusement in his voice. “Very well. Time to go home.”
Home is behind her. Home is crawling with fire and darkened by ash and wholly, completely destroyed. Home is something a girl made with everything she had, and home is gone along with the hope in her chest. Home is the smell of baking bread, chairs dug up from dumpsters and paintings she made herself.
Still, she nods, numb.
(-“Burned it up in cold regard-”)
It’s not like there’s anything more she can do.