a/n. dedicated to jo, 'cause it's her birthday. this'll probably be somewhere around 5 chapters.

(also, um, jo: this is a lot like the other cftbf thingies, but most of the names are slightly different, because. um. i dunno, but i'm pretty sure you'll recognize them all. happy birthday. )

ch. 1: Old Friends

Joanna Grey was stretched out comfortably on a leather couch in a dim room of a colleague's luxurious houseboat, allowing the gentle rocking of the boat to lull her into a pleasant drowsiness. But, as they always did, whatever higher power governed over Joanna's particular situation refused to allow that.

And so Delia Summers burst into the room in all her loquaciousness, holding in her left hand a thick manila envelope; and in her right, a thin paperback novel which looked about to fall apart.

"Oh, Grey," Delia sing-songed, as she plopped down next to Joanna on the couch. Joanna groaned and covered her eyes.

"Yeah?"

"We've got an assignment," Delia said, with a certain smugness that even her childlike excitement could not disguise. "I told you they would get over the Egypt incident. I mean, it wasn't even—"

"Whoa, wait. Assignment? What's the assignment?" Joanna sat up hastily and reached for the envelope, but Delia snatched it away quickly.

"Ah-uh-uh," she said, as she stood up and made her way to the door. "We're not supposed to read these without the whole team present, remember? They're all waiting in the meeting room."

The meeting room was a bit unimpressive, as meeting rooms go. The walls were painted a boring shade of dull green, and there were no decorations—nothing so much as a paperweight—but the meetings were always interesting enough; entertaining, even.

Now that all five members of the team were present, Delia consented to give the envelope to Joanna, now seated at the head of the table—she was, naturally, the leader of their ragtag group of vigilantes—and they all looked at her expectantly.

Joanna cleared her throat. "Right, so, now tha—"

"Open the damn envelope, would you?" Tate called from down the table.

Joanna grumbled something under her breath as she carefully opened the envelope—it sounded suspiciously like, "And who was appointed captain, again?"

All was silent as she took out a small stack of papers. She stared at the first page of the assignment for a moment, eyebrows furrowed; and then flipped to the second page, and, after scanning it quickly, closed her eyes and said quite audibly, "Shit."

"What is it?"

"Shit, shit, shit," chorused Joanna, and opened her eyes finally. "Looks like we'll be meeting up with some old friends."

Drift, their resident genius, raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize we had friends."

"I use the term loosely," said Joanna. She paused. "They want us to do damage control. There have been riots breaking out in Egypt; Kol is still free, and he's getting worse, and apparently he's gotten a sidekick since last time."

"…Oh," said Delia. "So they haven't gotten over Egypt."

"It's not such much a second chance as it is a suicide mission. They've no idea what the sidekick calls herself, but apparently she has…'some degree of manipulation over weather.'" She sighed. "Knowing the Bureau, that's probably vague on purpose. They don't want us to know that we're going in over our heads."

"So… If we're going in over our heads… Then why would they send us?" Tate asked, confused.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said Drift, before anyone else could respond. "Let's be logical." She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the mahogany table. "Obviously not all of us are coming out of this alive. But the ones that do—they'll be assigned to another team. They're salvaging spare parts. It won't be the first time, either."

Following Drift's evaluation of their current situation is a long pause.

"Guys," Tate said disbelievingly. "You do know we can do this, right? It's not like we're hopeless. Come on," she added desperately, after receiving no reply. "We can do this."

She got no response.

Battle strategies, maps, numbers… Joanna's mind was in a mess, too tired and too young to worry about all these lives on her shoulders, all these people depending, expecting, needing her to step up to the challenge.

It was too much, but then, it had always been the same, and she had always worked through it.

They'd need money, she knew. She'd have to contact the Bureau—though she wasn't sure how generous they would be this time, what with this being their second go at this particular villain.

She couldn't even remember what went wrong. The whole battle was like an adrenaline-fueled nightmare, blurred by blood and screaming and dust and the months they had all spent pretending it hadn't happened. Everything had been the same as it alwwys was, as far as Joanna could recall—which, incidentally, wasn't very far—all the same moves, a few minor injuries.

But then. Everyone said it was their fault—Drift said she should have trained harder—Jordan claimed that his super-strength as no longer super enough—Tate kept saying that if only she had only practiced that flip a few more goddamn times—Delia groaned that she had started relying too much on her hydrokinesis—and Joanna, herself, had thought that perhaps her hypnosis wasn't strong enough, or her leadership skills were failing—

But no. Joanna refused to place blame, even on herself. They had underestimated Kol; they had been misinformed, and on top of that, he played even dirtier than expected.

(They should have been ready for anything and expecting the worst, always, but they were a young team, and they are a young team even now, the callouses on their hands and feet barely forming, still not used to the pale white scars that criss-cross their arms or the ache of old injuries.)

The walk to what had been her bedroom for the last two months seemed longer than it usually did. There was an ache in her bones and a heaviness in heart which she barely had the time to register before she collapsed, fully clothed, on the bed.

a/n. so. superheroes. that's cool, right?