Things had been going smoothly with Haven, even if never quite boring. Since the inter-dimensional portal closed in New York several months ago, there was a period of readjustment; people still wandered this side of the rip, others were missing, and SUPER still had its claws in this reality, although a lot less dangerous than it used to be. The immediate threat of kidnapping or attack subsided, although Sveta was not dumb enough to just assume it was over. Where there was SUPER, there would be other organizations as well.

And then, of course, there was always petty crime.

When Sveta went on patrol, every once in a while, she usually hunted for bigger criminals. Unless she directly ran into trouble, there was no use chasing down purse thieves or vandals. She patrolled areas with higher lever bad guy activity, such as top tier drug lords or human trafficking.
But that didn't mean she'd just walk past when someone needed help.

The grocery store was adjacent to a gas station, and therefore appropriately run down. Sveta was considering taking her mask and green jacket off (she was not wearing the red vigilante uniform anymore, she had switched to green) and grabbing herself a drink, when the yelling started. Looking in through the dirty windows she spotted two men waving guns around, a scared cashier, and a few yelling customers.

Ain't no rest for the wicked.

Going to jail had NOT been anywhere in Matt’s plans. Keep trucking forward with his life? Definitely. Continue to date the girl he’d finally asked out? Sure. Prison? Absolutely not.

The knowledge that he could have been spared a year of his life had he been a white man driving that car was not at all lost on him. The DUI charge was exaggerated and exasperated by the fact that he had several unpaid parking tickets, and by the fact that implicit bias ran rampant in the US criminal justice system.

The year was over, though, and the charges had all come and gone, so there was no use standing and whining about the ways that they had ruined his life. All he had left to do was to focus on rebuilding his life now that he was back out. He was lucky enough to get his old job at the bar back, but it was hard to settle back into a routine. Plus, the apartment that he’d had to settle for to satisfy his parole officer wasn’t exactly the nicest, and his dog wasn’t the happiest in the space - especially after having been shuffled around by his sister and parents for the past year.

He stifled a yawn as he browsed pickle jars at the nearest bodega, trying to ignore the nagging negativity in the back of his head. He stood there for a minute before a sound at the front of the store pulled him away - a commotion of some sort. Definitely not something he wanted to get involved in.

The last possible thing he needed was to give his parole officer a reason to give him a violation, so Matt did the first thing he could think of: he shrunk back into the racks of chips and cans of soup and hoped that he wouldn’t be noticed.

Technically, Svetlana could have just walked by. Or called the cops, and hoped that things would go down smoothly; the thugs would get the cash, and might or might not get away before the police made an appearance. Chances were good that no one would get hurt. But also, she kind of knew the place, and they did not deserve to be robbed. Plus, she really had it with petty criminals in a city that had bigger issues to deal with.

Instead of taking off her green mask and jacket, Sveta circled around the bodega to the back door that usually served to take the trash out into the alley. It was open (so much for security). She entered as quietly as she could, listening for cues. One of the robbers was still yelling about cash, and the other seemed to be collecting some extra purses from the customers huddling on the floor. He was too busy doing that to keep his gun trained on anyone. Sveta stepped into the shop between the aisles and moved as silently as she could. She was not carrying a gun; she'd given that up because it was too much of a liability on all counts, now that she was a part of Haven. But she could take two idiots unarmed any day of the week.
Usually.

One man was watching the cashier unload the register. Svetlana moved one aisle over, closer to where the other guy was walking along collecting valuables. She made a little noise just around the corner, giving him an idea that someone else was moving there, and stood ready, waiting for him to come around the shelves...

Skulking in the shadows apparently wasn’t Matt’s strongest suit. Before he knew it, his position was blown, and someone was trying to get his attention. He wondered for a second if he could just ignore them and try to wait the whole thing out, but he also knew that that wasn’t likely to work out for him. Things rarely tended to work out for him.

Still holding his jar of pickles, Matt walked slowly toward the voice, trying not to bother the people up front. What even was this? Were they looking for a hostage, or was there someone else in the store who wanted moral support through it all? Either way, there was a door at the back, and if he played his cards right, he might be able to make a break for it.

Checking over his shoulder as he did, Matt rounded the corner to greet whoever had just tried to get his attention. As he turned his head back, he was met with a sight that he never expected to see again.

Blinking, a jolt of electricity made its way through Matt’s form. He had to leave. He had to get out of there. Prison wasn’t so bad, was it?

After a second to process, Matt stepped backwards, breaking the incredibly awkward eye contact that he had just made with the woman he’d ghosted after he’d been arrested. What the actual fuck was she even doing there? In the bodega across the street from his new apartment while it was being robbed? What the fuck were the chances of that?

He walked briskly to the front of the store, still holding the pickles, as he tried his best to plot a course around the whole robbery thing that would still get him to the door. The guy had a gun, sure, but Matt had faced guns plenty of times. Vigilante ex-flings? Not so much.

The man that walked around the shelves, following her subtle rustle... was not the thug with the gun. Sveta was all tensed up, ready to fight, ready to grab for the gun and punch the guys lights out; to everyone's luck she realized a split second before springing into action that the man in front of her was not one of the robbers.

It was Matt.

Sveta's eyes widened, her surprise evident even behind her mask. The same look was mirrored on Matt's face as well, a clear sign that he recognized her. They both looked like they had just seen a ghost.

"What the hell?!" Sveta muttered in Russian, but Matt was already turning around, a bottle of pickles in his hand, and... marching to the front of the shop? He really did look like he thought he could just walk out.

"Hey! You! Where do you think you're going?!"

Matt was a distraction, but fortunately, not only for her. Sveta sprang into action as the second robber turned to yell at Matt, showing his back to her. She aimed a kick at the back of his knee, and an elbow at the back of his head, and twisted the gun out of his hand before he could raise it. A knee to his head knocked the guy out cold.

"WHAT THE F***?!" the other robber yelled, turning away from the cashier to see what was going on. Sveta aimed the gun at him with a frown. "Dis robbery is done now. Get on the ground."

Matt had almost completely forgotten how badass Sveta was. Before he knew it, the scene that Matt was looking at was completely under her control, despite the fact that he almost got himself shot (again). How stupid had he been to walk into the line of fire? What if she hadn’t been there to stop the guy?

Well, if she hadn’t been there, then he wouldn’t have made a scene.

Matt felt entirely dumbfounded, watching her take down two robbers with ease as he stood daftly, still holding the jar of pickles. His eyes were wide with confusion and fear - fear that he might get roped into this somehow; fear that he would now clearly have to face Svetlana.

The other robber was knocked off his game by what was going on, clearly, but he wasn’t ready to give up the fight just yet. Gun pointed at the cashier, he stared Sveta down, his eyes narrowing, “drop the gun or this guy gets an early retirement.”

Matt felt very useful. Oh so useful. Wasn’t it fantastic that he had combat training and a hardening year in prison so that he could stand and watch an armed robbery happen?

Sveta could only spare a glance at Matt, to make sure he was not in the line of fire. He looked... scared. No wonder. No one liked to be stuck in a robbery while picking up groceries, for one, and he also had a bad history of getting shot at. Especially with Sveta around. That was the reason he had left, more than a year before - or at least that was the most logical explanation, since he never gave a reason for disappearing. Sveta had told him to walk away, because she tended to put people in danger. When he never showed up again after asking her out, she assumed he'd done the smart thing and taken her advice.
That didn't mean it stung any less.

He could have walked away a little farther than Manhattan...

>>“drop the gun or this guy gets an early retirement.”

The guy was pointing the gun at the cashier, but turning his head to look at her. The cashier must have been a smart man, because the instant the robber was distracted he ducked down behind the counter.

"You are a special kind of dumbass, aren't you." Sveta noted coolly. The robber looked, noticed his target was out of sight, and began to swing his gun around to aim at Sveta instead. She didn't give him a chance. A shot rang out and the man collapsed, dropping his gun and grabbing for his knee with a painful cry.

It was basically all over. Sveta grabbed the gun before the robber could reach for it, and took a few steps back. She took the bullets out of both weapons in a practiced manner, and looked around.

"Everyone alright? Could someone call the cops please?"

Nothing seemed to phase Svetlana, no matter how many things came her way. As soon as the first robber was distracted, she was pointing a gun at him, and then he was on the ground. Matt winced as the man grabbed at his wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Matt felt a little bad for him, but he didn't dare step in to offer help - anything that might make him look more connected to the crime was what he wanted to avoid.

He didn't know that he had it in him to be such a coward, but things had changed over the last year, and he'd seen sides of himself that he'd never expected. Who knew that he could turn into someone so jilted and cynical? A year ago he might have doubted it. Even with everything he'd been through before, there was still a hope that he felt at each new intersection of his life. Now? That was almost entirely replaced by this new bubbling fear deep within him that he couldn't help but loathe.

The fear kept him standing there while Sveta finished it, and that kept him standing and staring while she looked back around.

"Everyone alright? Could someone call the cops please?"

"Uh, yeah," he said blankly. The person who called the cops was never guilty, right? He took his phone out and dialled as he glanced back up, keeping his eyes focused on the scene but trying to avoid making any actual eye-contact. A responder picked up so he gave them the address and warned that they should bring an ambulance before hanging up.

Matt called the cops. The few minutes until the wailing of sirens reached the bodega felt very, very awkward. It wasn't like Sveta could start a conversation; she was wearing a vigilante costume, which meant showing that she personally knew a civilian would have been a very bad idea. She stayed, keeping an eye on the injured robber, but when the flashing lights appeared in the windows, she finally put the guns on te counter for te clerk to look after.

"That's my cue to leave." she told them. MRC was one thing, but the regular cops were still huge fans of vigilante justice. And she was not even an official vigilante. Sveta turned, looking at Matt. She wanted to say something... but she was at a loss. And she didn't want to get him involved if he didn't need to be. After long moments, she sighed, and turned to walk out the back door into the alley.

This evening had taken a very strange turn. Sveta had struggled with Matt leaving without a word, but it had been months since than, and she had chalked it up for yet another thing that was never meant to be. It hurt, more than most. But she managed to bury it until he just... walked back into her life with a jar of pickles.

Sveta leaned against the brick wall of the alley, taking a few deep breaths, and pushing her mask onto her forehead.

What a night.

Everything was handled, which meant that Svetlana was going to head home. What else did Matt expect? She was a vigilante - it wasn't exactly like she could stick around after shooting someone in the leg and wait for the police to collect her. He didn't want her to stay, he told himself.

But as she walked away, he knew that that wasn't the case at all. Buried not-so-deeply in his subconscious was the hope that they would be forced to have some sort of conversation once everything had gone down. Maybe that was why he hadn't bolted when everyone else was distracted. Maybe that's why he stood watching her walk away, like a starstruck teen at a Lizzo concert. All the feelings for the last year, the feelings that he had thought wouldn't threaten to come back to haunt him, were bubbling back up.

He blinked and set down the jar of pickles on the nearest shelf to him and uttered a quick apology to the clerk who was left with the incapacitated robbers. Things would be fine, but he might have some explaining to do to his parole officer.

Matt pushed the back door open as he ran after her, feeling the November cold on his skin through the light jacket he'd thrown on hastily when it was meant to be a quick trip to the store. She was standing her, mask pushed up to her forehead as she processed what they'd just witnessed.

He stood there, in the alleyway, unsure of how to even begin to broach a conversation with her. What could he say to account for where he'd been? What could start a conversation between them now? He half contemplated turning back around and running out, but he knew he would regret that as much as he regretted not telling her where he'd gone initially.

He couldn't spend his whole life running.

"Sveta," he uttered daftly, watching the way that his breath was carried by condensation in front of his face. It was natural poetry, the way that it carried his breathless cadence into something tangible; visible to them both.

She didn't expect Matt to follow her. Some deeply buried part of her wondered if he would, but Sveta was too old to actually allow herself to daydream about grand romantic gestures. Whatever. They both had their perfect out, an excuse to go their separate ways, and the city was definitely big enough for two people who did not want to meet. Most of the time, anyway. Meeting an ex, who wasn't even actually an ex, should not have made a blip on Sveta's sh*tstorm radar.

>>"Sveta,"

He did follow.

Sveta looked at him, still leaning back against the wall. He looked out of sorts, the past year must not have been kind to him. A tiny part of her was glad. Another part wanted to hug him. Sveta smothered both.

"I thought you left town." She couldn't really think of anything smarter to say. Now that her adrenaline was ebbing away, she was feeling the cold on her face. She folded her arms. Against the cold. Why else?

"I thought you left town."

Hanging his head just a little, Matt nodded. What else would she think? That he had just decided that after all that - after getting shot - that it wasn't worth it for him? Sure, he had a lot of baggage that made it hard for him to get close to anyone, but those few days with Sveta had stuck with him through everything else. They had stuck with him through the trial, and through his time, and even now.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, Sveta had burrowed her way into Matt's head and he couldn't quite kick her out.

"I-" he stopped. What could he say now that would account for the missing time? For the ways that he had screwed her over without a word? There had been time before his trial that he could have contacted her, but it had been an embarrassing time in his life. He had been pulled over for a stupid mistake and dragged through the mud based on the colour of his skin. How could he bring her into something like that?

He paused taking a step closer so he could see the outline of her face better in the dim light. He forgot how striking her features were. "I did leave town. Sort of. It...." It was a stupid mistake? It was a flaw in the system? It was based on a structure of racism and phobias built deep within the people he came into contact with? "It wasn't my choice, and it was fucked up of me not to tell you."

What else did he have to say? If she wanted to run now and never look back, he wouldn't blame her.

Matt was searching for words too. Was he embarrassed about his decision, to take the out she'd offered him? Did he feel like he needed to apologize, or come up with some kind of an excuse? Sveta wanted to hear what he had to say, but she also just wanted to run away. As he stepped closed, the edges of his aura reached her. Her coffee buzz was suddenly silenced, which made the quiet between them all the more deafening. She'd almost forgotten Matt was an adapted. His ability to create calm stillness somehow became just a part of him in her memories.
She'd missed that calm.

>>"I- I did leave town. Sort of. It... It wasn't my choice, and it was fucked up of me not to tell you."

Apology then. But it sounded like there was more to the story. Sveta tilted her head, trying to see if he was going to tell it. Leaving town had not been his choice. That usually meant trouble. The kind of trouble she tended to drag people into, even when she tried to keep them safe.

"Did you get kidnapped?... Did SUPER get to you?"

What was he supposed to say in response to her? It’s not exactly like anyone had ever written a script for what to say to someone you had feelings for a year ago after getting out of prison. Matt was almost entirely at a loss.

"No, nothing like that, I...." Heavy sigh. Too long of a pause. Sveta deserved the respect of an explanation, in the very least - even if that made her run screaming.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose hard, trying to will himself into responding with the truth.

Fuck it.

"I... got arrested. DUI charge that could have been dropped if the cop hadn’t been an ass, and then a laundry list of things that went wrong so I’d have the maximum sentence for the charge.” Matt took a deep breath to centre himself after saying that. So far the only person he’d talked to had been his old boss, and he had already been aware of the situation when he was arrested. "I could’ve called you, or something, but I... I didn’t want you to feel like you had to stick around or something.”

One date in and he was facing a prison sentence. It wasn’t fair of him to stick that on her.

>>"No, nothing like that, I...."

Not kidnapped. Good. But also, out of town against his will, not good. What was going on? Sveta felt a pang of worry, which was kind of misplaced now that he was obviously back and more or less fine. She leaned away from the door, waiting for him to make up his mind about sharing.

>>"I... got arrested. DUI charge that could have been dropped if the cop hadn’t been an ass, and then a laundry list of things that went wrong so I’d have the maximum sentence for the charge.”

Sveta was braced for a lot of things, but she did not expect that. She stared blankly for a few moments.

"You... were in prison?"

>>"I could’ve called you, or something, but I... I didn’t want you to feel like you had to stick around or something.”

There. There it was. Matt didn't walk away, he got f*** arrested. For drunk driving.

For f*** sake.

"You were in prison for an entire year?!" Sveta reiterated, still digesting the news. There were sirens and flashing lights on the other side of the bodega, and some voices as cops arrived to the scene. Under normal circumstances she would have been far away by now. As some flashlights flared up at the corner of the alley, she grabbed for Matt's sleeve and dragged him along down a few alleys and around a few corners before they were sufficiently far from the scene. "Tell me you didn't just break out."