The moment I begin the process of getting out of bed and escaping the grip of the slumbering Amelia, her eyes flutter open, settling on me with a glare.

  “It’s not wake-up time yet,” she pouts.

  “It’s seven thirty? I slept eight hours?” I try wincing as I already know where this argument is most likely to go, and I don’t know how I’m going to resist Amelia in general.

  “Well, that means I’ve only slept for five hours and thirty minutes, so you are formally obligated to hold me while I sleep for the next three hours and thirty minutes when I finally fall back asleep,” Amelia whines, my willpower already breaking.

  “Is that the rule?”

  “Yup, cuddles are incredibly important, increasing the efficiency of comfy dreams by seventy percent. I didn’t complain about getting into bed when you go to sleep even if I was going to be up for several extra hours anyway.”

  “What did you do to pass the time?”

  “I ended up reading till my phone died and then falling asleep,” Amelia confirms as run a hand through her hair.

  “I’m sorry, I just…” I trail off, not entirely sure what I’m supposed to say in this situation.

  There’s this aching need in me to go out and do some hero work and try and help the city. That in this moment I’m not doing anything but wasting my time.

  There are more criminals popping up, and Amelia and Cass can barely keep up, so if I can figure out what the root of the problem is, I could maybe do something.

  “Jason, let me remind you of two things. If it’s really important, I’ll just get up now, and you can give me snuggle compensation later. And you could just use your spying powers to watch from the safety of our bedroom, and you would still have an entire area under your purview, keeping folks safe.” Amelia explains, doing her best to fight off a sleepy yawn, making it all the way through her sentence before succumbing.

  “Don’t do that first one, you need to sleep.”

  “Not really. I’ve functioned on way less than this back when I was entirely human. Now that I’m a badass, I don’t even know how much sleep I actually need. I just like it,” Amelia points out.

  This feels a little bit like me throwing stones in my own glass house because I know I’ve just given up a lot of my sleep utilizing my own abilities to keep me going.

  “So decide are we going to get up just to try and deal with your own paranoia or are you going to let me sleep for a few more hours and then we can go out in full force when you’ve had time to mentally set your feet?”

  I give Amelia a tender kiss and pull her closer to me.

  “Just go back to sleep. I’ll make sure everything stays safe.”

  “We should get a fortress of napping.” Amelia says yawning once more before her eyes flutter shut, curling into me as she falls asleep once more.

  Taking her own advice to help me deal with my nerves, I slowly begin expanding my awareness, blanketing the nearby area with my power as I try to make sure that everything is alright.

  Bianca is still asleep and will happily be so for a while longer, but for most normal people at least one member of their various abodes is beginning to get up and get ready for the day.

  The line between surveilling to help people and outright spying on everyone is a line I’m continuing to figure out, but right now I just try to put very little focus on anything I wouldn’t want random strangers seeing about my daily life.

  Even if I can see all of it, I can’t concentrate and process everything I see; it’s too much for me to be aware of.

  Everything mostly seems to be normal though. With it being the weekend, people seem to be starting slower than normal, though the conversations of someone who has just woken up with those I’m almost certain are getting ready for bed are funny even if I can’t know the words.

  The apartment is safe from everything I can tell but it makes me wonder at what point should the team get a new place with everyone either in their parent’s place in the case of Asher or regular apartments for the rest of us at what point is it a problem that we’re living here.

  I don’t want to live at the clock tower, though.

  While I’ve worked from home most of my career, there’s at least some degree of separation by having a separate office or only working at set times I don’t know if I can do that when I’m supposed to be saving other people’s lives.

  Contrary to my own thought process, however, I don’t start looking for houses to buy, nor do I keep doing a specific sweep over the entire area; instead, I pull out my own phone and begin reading a book.

  If there’s a movement large enough that it draws attention to me, I’ll be able to notice it as long as I’m not fully engrossed, and it’s better for my own mental state that I am doing something to actively detract from spying.

  About an hour into my time-killing activities, I’m pretty sure that at least someone in the apartment complex is in trouble since I’ve watched the same dude make five loops around the building.

  I keep a mental eye on him, but apparently halfway through their sixth loop they chicken out at least a little bit and head out of my range.

  Everything else, for all I can tell, are normal Saturday morning activities.

  When I feel Bianca starting to stir, I decide it’s close enough time that I should wake up Amelia, even if it’s not quite the ten she wanted to get to, but at least this time I can excuse it behind Bianca getting up.

  “Mmmm?” she asks, eyes still closed.

  “Do you want Bianca to barge in with you still in bed, or do you want to get up and greet her?” I tease, lacing my fingers with hers.

  “I hate you sometimes.” Amelia grumbles before giving me a kiss. “Let’s get up. Get your cute ass out of bed so that I can claim the shower.”

  “I don’t think I need to get out of bed for that though?” I ask confused yet still complying. Getting ready for the day is quick enough for me, and I’m ready to get started.

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  “Yeah, but for waking me up twice, you lost watching privileges, so you need to be done first,” Amelia says with a giggle.

  “Guess you don’t get to either,” I taunt, tossing a pillow into her face as she gasps in horror.

  Once I’ve finished all my morning preparations, I give Amelia another quick kiss before heading to the kitchen to make a simple breakfast.

  Asher is working on some school thing and Cass was out most of the night patrolling, with the plan being Amelia or I patrolling or canvassing the area today, though I’m hesitant to use a plan I thought of.

  Using my mind map would let us explore tons without having either of us suit up, but it would mean potentially leaving Bianca in danger.

  As per usual, my first sight of my daughter is her poking a single eye around a corner watching me cook.

  “Hey B?” I ask gently, crouching down as I gesture for her to come over. “I’m making omelets today; do you want to watch?”

  Bianca happily nods as she curls my arm around her, looking at me expectantly in the hopes that I pick her up.

  Standing up to my full height, I resume cooking, making sure to ask Bianca what she wants between various seasonings in case there’s something she really does or doesn’t want.

  “Bianca? You know how your mom and I are trying to be heroes?” I ask gently. “Part of that involves us going out and looking for danger. Today, one of us is supposed to go. But with my powers, we could do it as a family, just walking around. The problem is, it could put you in danger. And I don’t know what to do.”

  Bianca looks up at me, her eye sparkling as she hugs me, resting her head on my shoulder, not really giving me an answer I can work with in any possible way, which isn’t what I was exactly hoping for but I can manage.

  Between the winter storm, the Christmas spirit, and everything else, I doubt there’s going to be much super crime going on.

  There’s also the fact that a lot of the supers are probably still training with their powers.

  Mine more or less came with all the instincts I needed to figure out what I needed to do and how to do it, and I still practiced at least a little bit before I started actually understanding what I was doing.

  Amelia rockets into the room, skating on what I hope are her socks and not her icing the floor again. Last time I fell, it was far too hilarious, but I really hope she isn’t so excited to do it again.

  “So have you finished your moral dilemmaing yet, or do I need to come back in thirty minutes when you’ve really gotten yourself into a tizzy?” She giggles, throwing herself onto my back.

  “I just don’t want to accidentally hurt Bianca,” I mumble.

  “Jason, you’re indestructible. I can make a whole fucking castle. And there’s also the fact that she could end up killing nearly anyone without much effort so long as they’re not a super.” Amelia points out, poking me in the cheek with every word.

  “I’m not letting her become a crime fighter; she’s a child.” I say only to get double-teamed by both of them looking at me with sad eyes. “Bianca, you can become a hero when you’re older, just not right now, okay?”

  Bianca gets a look of concentration on her face as if trying to decide if that is a worthy deal or not.

  Amelia hums in my ear but seems mostly interested in the omelets than doing anything.

  “Okay, we’ll go out together, but if something happens, uh… how are we going to deal with that if none of us are in costume?”

  “I mean, I could just make a giant ice statue, or you could go all dark ninja like and it’ll be fine enough, though we could always try and put one of our suits in the backseat?” Amelia muses.

  “We couldn’t fit yours; it’s a little too bulky,” I grumble.

  “That’s cause you have a small car. We could always take my van instead, that could work better maybe?” Amelia offers.

  “If we’re using your van, we could bring both suits if you want?” Amelia muses. “Though if we’re taking my van, I still don’t want to drive. I'm in my passenger princess era and I’m a little bit allergic to the driver’s seat at the moment.”

  “Alright, alright, we can go and grab both suits.” I laugh trying to get Amelia off of me so that I can cook properly.

  “Hey Bianca, if you’re good, I’ll show you the Christmas present Uncle Asher got you,” Amelia says in a stage whisper that tells me everything I need to know about what’s going on.

  “If you made a toddler-sized superhero suit, I’m going to be more than a little bit annoyed, just so you’re aware.”

  “Well, technically it’s not a toddler-sized super suit. Just because B is smol doesn’t change the fact that she’s not a toddler.”

  “We will have to find some time for you to practice with your wires together, B,” I say, giving our daughter a smile.

  Bianca nods as I mull over what we were told. She had no problem using her powers with us. Just her peers, she worried about hurting them.

  Once everyone has eaten and Amelia has helped Bianca get ready, I take a quick call with Asher telling him what our general plan is with his response primarily being I hate that it will actually work Jason just don’t spend the whole day at the amusement park.

  With everyone ready, we move Bianca’s seat from my car to Amelia’s, and I add a note to myself that I should buy a second one.

  “So do we really want to drive around or do you want to go somewhere to walk?” I ask once we’re all actually in the car.

  “I am already in the car, so I want to at least drive somewhere.” Amelia says, twisting around to look around at Bianca. “Do you want to go to the park? We could get some snow involved if someone wanted to ask me about it.”

  Bianca looks excited at the idea of going to the park, and I figure us taking one of the walking paths or visiting some places will give me a good enough view of the area with us being near the center of the city.

  This time I do make sure my sunglasses are in the car though because I have absolutely no plan on being publicly a super when there’s a chance someone can put two and two together.

  One quick car ride later, and we’re in the park watching snow drift down from the sky.

  “Don’t look at me. I literally haven’t done anything today,” Amelia says, adjusting her own beanie before doing Bianca’s as well.

  “I didn’t say anything.” I point out, letting my awareness expand out. “Bianca, we can run around, just don’t go too far, okay?”

  Bianca nods before running in a wide loop around us, going from tree to tree to see what’s going on.

  “So, anything dramatic going on yet?”

  “Couple of people speeding and a few purse snatchers from what I can tell so far.” I say with a shrug. Maybe I shouldn’t just be talking casually about all of this, but I really doubt anyone’s going to want to pay attention to us.

  We just look like any other normal family.

  Sweeping through the world with my mind, I try to take note of anything that can be dangerous.

  Guns, weird devices in bags, everything.

  As I’m trying to decipher a weird object that is in the basement of a nearby abandoned building, I watch it begin to expand in slow motion as if it’s about to explode.

  The device, in fact, does explode.

  I don’t have much time to act, but I pull Bianca and Amelia to me, putting myself between them and the shockwave, and turn them phased while I go immutable as the energy rocks through us.

  When it’s passed, I release my power, standing up and spinning around towards the source of the blast.

  There’s no fight going on, and I don’t know how it happened, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s in danger.

  In all honesty, we were far enough that I probably didn’t need to use my powers at all, but it still set me on edge.

  Amelia’s talking to me, but I can barely hear her as my mind whirs. I don’t know who or why someone had set off a bomb nearby, but there’s probably a limited time before we can do something about it or it becomes harder to do so.

  The tech was distinct, probably done by a genius of some kind if I had to guess, so I can probably track it via that, but it won’t make the people feel safe.

  Come on, think.

  “Jason?” Amelia asks, pausing in front of me and taking my sunglasses off to look me in the eyes. “I get you like the quiet, introverted thing, but I usually like an answer to my questions.”

  “We should head back and suit up, both of us.” I say quietly, watching the interaction happen.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. But people are scarred.”

  “Let’s see what we can do. I still have movie reservations for later.”

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