Chapter Text
Powder breathes in, deep.
The air in the fissures will never be pristine. But now it compares to the dirtier surface-side cities, thanks to the added improvements to the air filtration systems.
She lies in a field, Isha and Vander beside her. Far above, she can distantly see a glimmer of light from the surface. She used to long for the freedom of the vast sky— to fly like how the Pilties seemed to do with ease.
But beneath is her home. This is where she belongs.
Vander still has bad days or lapses in control. But they are infrequent ripples in the lake of their existence. And no one has been horribly maimed, outside of that stray bullfrog that had spooked him.
As the months pass, the arcane’s influence seems to wane from Vander. His face gains back more of its organic softness and he continues to surprise Powder with new words.
Powder swears she’s done with the constant ‘emotional bursting into tears’ slog, but when Vander greets her one morning by holding her by her shoulders and slowly forcing out the words: “Powder, ‘m proud of you. All grown up, my daughter,” what is she supposed to but break down sobbing?
It makes her realize how she’s spent the past decade in a numb fog of avoidance and violence, doing anything to avoid feeling everything that had been chasing her. Everything feels so raw and fresh and she’s surprised to realize she wants more of it. After spending that same amount of time as a mindless beast at the doctor’s whim, it seems Vander feels the same.
The three of them— Powder, Vander, and Isha— are a little family now. They spend their days exploring the depths of the fissures and catching Isha up on all the learning benchmarks she missed as a feral child in the Lanes. Powder had never really appreciated the effort Silco had done to continue her education and making sure she always had materials for her projects. It softens some of the bitterness that lingers toward him in Powder’s mind.
After having ventured through his mind and seeing how difficult speech is, Powder makes an effort to learn sign language. Isha teaches the both of them and Vander is a quick study, though his mechanical claws are stiff. Vi isn’t the best at it, but Vander and her had always preferred roughhousing anyway.
If Viktor is still out there, he remains silent after helping Powder. She hopes he’s doing well, whatever he’s doing. He gave them their dad back. Powder likes to think that he’s chilling on a beach somewhere with his boyfriend and margaritas.
Regardless, she no longer has to worry that a scant drop of blood will lure Vander away and for that, at least, she’s grateful.
Vi comes around several times a week. She has a room in their home and sometimes Caitlyn stays with her.
Powder tries to make peace with the fact that her sister is a creature of the sun. She craves the atmosphere of Piltover, even if the fissures will always be her hometown.
The two of them spend their days catching up and running around the fissures. It strangely almost feels like nothing has changed— Powder’s hair is short again and Vi laughs a lot more now. Powder even convinced Vi to let her do her makeup. She hated it, but Powder maintains the lime green was a look.
Their current side project is fixing up the old game room her, Vi, Claggor, and Mylo had spent their childhood.
Being in the space brings back memories— good and bad. Vi cheers Powder on as she tries besting Vi’s score. She lets Powder get to second place before getting to work, putting her childhood score to shame. Powder just laughs— she’s still a better shot than Vi any day.
Now, Caitlyn is another story.
She’s come around to Caitlyn. Finally, Powder has someone who can match her in the carnival shootout game— though Isha is quickly improving her aim. It also helps that Caitlyn has stepped down from her enforcer position, instead following in her mother’s footsteps as an advocate to the Council.
Caitlyn takes her aside one day and apologizes for releasing the Gray.
“Well, I did kill several people close to you,” Powder admits.
Powder figures that’s the closest they’ll get to amends without one of them losing another body part.
Isha is growing. Powder’s honestly not sure how old the kid is, but she’s old enough to learn how to parkour. No more falling from broken vent pipes onto strangers.
Vander comes along as they race along the edges of the fissures, a pace behind to catch any missteps. There’s been no disastrous mistakes yet, but one of Vander’s strongest remaining personality traits seems to be his protectiveness.
He still fusses over either of them when they fall. But despite the accumulated scraped knees and bruises, there’s been no more incidents, thankfully.
Powder marks Isha’s height on the column in the center of their house. Only the base remains from their old home, but it feels right to see Isha’s name beside Powder and Violet. A year from now, they’ll see how tall she’s become. It feels strange to be excited for something so mundane.
And as for Ekko?
Powder supposes the term to describe them could be ‘dating’.
They hang out— a lot. With and without the rest of their motley family. Powder wasn’t really one for dating around when she was younger— having a reputation for bombs and a generally unstable psyche post-orphaning tended to do that. But what she has with Ekko is… nice.
Powder teases Ekko, but in a different way than she does with Vi. She doesn’t just want him to laugh at the ribbing— she wants to… well, she wants to do a lot of things.
Ekko teaches her to hoverboard. Or rather, tries to teach her. It definitely doesn’t end with Powder almost plummeting to her death down some hole. But she’ll stick with just using her two legs, thankyouverymuch.
Isha, of course, is a natural. The kid is a worm, always wiggling around and moving. No wonder she has a perfect center of gravity as well.
Powder watches Isha zoom through the pipes, Ekko by her side. Vander stands a ways away from them, watching Isha’s movements with the intensity of a dad who’s had multiple children seemingly hellbent on unintentionally killing themselves.
Powder and Ekko are doing the thing where their hands lay at their sides, hanging awkwardly in space until one of them moves.
“I never said thank you,” Ekko breaks the silence.
Powder raises an eyebrow. “What for?”
“For coming back. After the battle. You could’ve gone far away, you know? What the three of you have… it’s a good thing,” Ekko says. “But I’m glad you came back.” For not giving up on us , lies unspoken between them.
“Yeah, well,” Powder huffs sheepishly. You didn’t give up on me, either.
Even on that bridge— when it’d seemed like they might be the deaths of each other. Ekko had raised his fist and hesitated. Powder almost feels like laughing. How had she thought blowing herself up would be preferable to this?
“Crazy girl. Can’t get enough of the Lanes,” Ekko teases.
Powder leans in. “Well— who can blame me?” Ekko’s smirk softens into a smile and he moves to meet her. The kiss is short and sweet with a touch of neediness.
She breaks away just in time to see Isha do a quick front flip, clutching onto the board with one hand. With the other, she makes a small fist pump and Powder can see the elation sparkling in her eyes at the trick. Vander makes a warning growl but Isha just giggles.
Powder hums happily. Yeah, she thinks this might be the good life.