I learned several things that day.

Glasses can make things slightly tricky when you're kissing someone, though the awkwardness can lead to laughter that makes you feel like everything's going to be alright eventually.

Amelia was very ticklish, which I totally didn't use to my advantage.

Oh, and she tasted vaguely like chocolate, but that one made sense considering the snacks and sweets we'd been having.

She was also a lot cuddlier after making out. Which I may or may not have pointed out to her while I held her squeezed to my chest and she had her scroll in her lap, idly scrolling through her stalking files.

"Oh, shut it," was her very reasonable response. "You'd be cuddly too if you were kept stuck in a lab with no real human contact outside of your asshole of a father!"

"Hey, I'm not actually complaining."

And I wasn't. I was very comfy, and not even eldritch weirdness could ruin the good mood I was drowning in.

It helped that said eldritch weirdness was very subtle. I could feel a prickling of something close to unease whenever my uncovered fingers brushed against her skin, but even that was a step forward. Knowing that my instincts wouldn't default straight to murder around her was a reassurance I hadn't realized I needed.

She also hadn't asked me to cover up my hands. She'd even slipped my other glove off at… some point. (She had me a little distracted at the time.)

And that made me feel all sorts of odd.

I didn't know whether I should feel awkward that my Stalker cybernetics were out in plain sight, or touched that she'd put herself through at least mild discomfort at the sight of them for my sake. I did eventually shift both of us around until I had my gloves back and covering my hands once more.

"It wasn't bothering me, I promise," Amelia whispered when she saw what I was doing.

I shot her a smile in response. If it was a little sad, she didn't mention it. "Thanks, but… I know what it was doing to your head. You told me. Unless that's changed, suddenly?"

"Well… no."

"Then it's fine. I'd rather we both be comfortable. Besides I'm pretty used to them at this point. They're not in the way either, since you got me these with the grippy fingertips." I flexed my fingers at her playfully, making her giggle.

"Well, couldn't have you crippled by being unable to even operate a scroll."

"Ehhh, I've got my eyes. I'd be fine."

"Hmmm…."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just wondering what that's like, is all."

"Having eyes?" I asked teasingly, then followed up with a more serious question. "Is it the Shadow Runner thing, or just cybernetic eyes in general?"

"Cybernetics in general. My eyes aren't as bad as what you told me you went through, but they're still not great. I can't really handle distance well. Everything's all blurry and confusing without glasses. But my father never liked the idea of letting me get replacements."

"I'm — I — Ugh, there's nothing I can say to that without cursing your father ten different ways. Aren't there, like, surgeries and organic replacements for those who don't want to go the cybernetic route?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Cloned organs, surgeries… lots of options, really. Most of them are expensive, but it's not like we didn't have the money. And my father is at least part ripper according to his job description. He could have done half the operations on his own."

"Ah."

Once more, I was at a loss for words.

I'd heard about some solutions to blindness, of course. I'd obsessively researched my condition and the price tags attached to the most affordable options on the market.

Obviously, the cheapest were bargain bin cyber eyes. Right above that, and well out of my price range, were surgeries that temporarily corrected whatever issue you were having, so long as it revolved around your actual eyeballs. These surgeries could reshape the cornea by slicing off incredibly thin bits of it.

The idea made me shudder a little, but I'd have signed up for it happily were it not for three factors. First, the procedure was expensive. Second, not every ripper could do it. It required a more delicate touch than most street corner butchers were capable of. Third, well, it was temporary. If the issue was genetic, or tied into a degenerative condition, then you'd eventually be right back where you started. There was a limited number of times the procedure could be done, too, which wasn't ideal.

The final solution, and the most expensive by half, was an organic or cloned eye replacement. 'Organic' meant eyes that came from helpful 'donors.' Read: people butchered for their parts, quite often without their consent in a place like the slums.

The other way was much safer and even more expensive. The ripper would collect your DNA and grow you a brand new pair of eyes in a vat somewhere, while playing around with gene editing to prevent whatever had caused them to deteriorate in the first place. The gene treatment on top of everything else made it an option reserved for much wealthier citizens.

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Then again, since Amelia's father had a whole ass secret lab, I doubted he was strapped for cash.

"Yeah." Amelia sighed. "As before, it all boils down to control. He didn't want me getting my eyes fixed, so they didn't get fixed. He'd even delay getting me new glasses for as long as he could, and only switched out my prescription when it would start getting in the way of my work. The headaches and light dizziness, though? Those, he didn't give two shits about."

"Lovely man, your father. I'm genuinely shocked he even let you learn how to become his assistant."

To my unpleasant surprise, Amelia stiffened in my arms. "He didn't have much of a choice."

She said nothing to follow that up. She just tapped absently away on her scroll, switching back and forth between two of our would-be victims' profiles.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," I whispered.

"No, no, it's just… I mentioned my mother before, right? Well. My father… he… killed her. I don't really remember what it was about, but they argued, and my mother threatened to expose him for what he'd done. She was going to take me and leave, but… he got to her first. And then he suddenly realized he no longer had an assistant, I guess."

She had her shoulders hunched in that posture I recognized from myself and some of the other street kids I'd known. The posture that more than implied she didn't want anyone's pity. She was challenging someone to offer it, if they dared.

Obviously, I wanted neither to hurt her nor to lose my new kissing privileges. You can call me shallow for the latter if you must.

In the end, I settled for, "She worked as his assistant before you, then?"

I felt her marginally relax in my arms.

"As if," she scoffed. "She was more brilliant than he'll ever be! They worked together, but my father always acted like he was merely humoring her and letting her 'help around the lab.' She never did a thing to upset him before that one outburst, though, and I still don't know why. Did she love him? Was she afraid of him? Why the fuck was she even with an asshole like him?"

I tightened my arms around her, pulling her even further into a hug, and she pressed back almost desperately.

"I mean, I'm — I'm thankful, I guess. I'm only here because she decided to have me. My father's made it clear multiple times that I wasn't his idea at all. But… why? And why didn't she leave much sooner? We could have been perfectly fine away from him! I more than proved I could cut it on my own. I learned everything he deigned throw at me! And that's with the hobbled excuse for an education he 'let me' have."

"We can add that to the list, if you'd like," I offered softly. "When we go after your father, we interrogate him about your mother."

She laughed. It was a little wet, and a little bloodthirsty, but I smiled at the sound. "Maybe we can gather up all the people with a grudge against my father and launch our little coup a lot sooner? I'm sure we can come up with a list a mile long. The only reason my father's even running around instead of three feet deep is because he's made himself indispensable for several corps. Still, he sure stepped on and keeps stepping on a lot of toes. It's like he enjoys making enemies."

"Maybe he does?"

"I wouldn't be fucking surprised. He loves making people miserable, so…"

We let the silence stretch for a bit, but Amelia was back to work mode, for the most part. She was compiling data on our targets again, though I did notice her occasionally open an empty file marked as 'Essentials' and stare at it with a thoughtful expression.

"You know, I'm wondering…" I paused. "What would you do if there was no threat hanging over our heads? No Shadows, no Stalkers, no megalomaniac fathers. Just… options, as many as we wanted."

That got her to blink and tilt her head so she could look back at me with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Hmmm… Well, I'd like to open up a clinic, eventually. I actually enjoyed working as a ripper, unlike my father. Engineering, design, coding? It's all useful knowledge, and I'm happy I have it, but ripper work is my passion. Putting people who've been badly hurt back together, so no one can even guess they were hurt to begin with? It's… rewarding."

"Huh. I admit I didn't expect that."

"What, because I like to laze about occasionally? Or am I not serious enough for the job?" she asked dangerously.

I immediately realized I was on thin ice. I may never have had a girlfriend before, but Mela sure had taught me how to mind what I was saying.

"No!" I said in a hurry. "I just can't imagine your father letting you work on anyone who's not some major corpo paying top credits for the privilege. And… I figured they wouldn't have been the most pleasant of people."

She hummed noncommittally, but she did look away after a few tense moments and focused back on the scroll. "You're not wrong, but they weren't all bad. Not even the majority, really."

My silence and disbelieving expression must have done my talking for me, because she burst into giggles when she sneaked a peek at me.

"What?" I asked defensively.

"Nothing, nothing. And yeah, I was being honest. Not every corpo is a soulless asshole, Adrian. Lots of them have families and loved ones. I operated on way too many children. A ton of them as a result of assassination attempts, too. It's not all great when you're top dog."

"Well, yeah, sure, but at least they have security and the money to pay for doctors," I grumbled, then shook my head. "Not that I'm saying kids ever deserve to get hurt. I'm just… a little bitter, I guess."

"That's fine. There was a ton of assholes among my patients, too. A couple I felt tempted to off myself. Except then my father would be on my case for 'ruining his reputation' or whatever. Like it would be my fault that he doesn't even have the decency to operate on people himself instead of putting his thirteen-year-old daughter on the case and fucking off."

I choked on that. "He made you operate as a ripper on your own at thirteen?!"

"Yep," she sighed, shoulders slumping. "On his 'less important' patients. Nowadays he sees only the most important ones himself, really. And I was slowly taking over those as well. He couldn't be asked to do shit anymore when his precious experiments were waiting."

I shook my head. I vaguely remembered her mentioning this before, but… there had been a lot going on. "How did he even get away with that?"

"Eh, patients need to be sedated for surgery. He showed up, chatted and shook hands for a bit, knocked out the patient, and then made me take over. Didn't even stick around for the aftercare. I'd have to wake the patient up, take care of them, and pretend like I wasn't the one who'd cut them open. That I was just his assistant, and that he'd 'moved on to another patient' while 'letting them recover' from the surgery. Urgh."

I shook my head, ideas already spinning away. "Could we reveal this, somehow? Wouldn't he take a major hit to his reputation if we did? We might not even need to get involved if it pisses off one of his patients enough."

"Well, there's an idea." Amelia paused, her eyes taking on that faraway quality as she nibbled on her lower lip. I found the expression adorable. "Maybe… I'll need to look through the files I have. He did refuse to operate on a few pretty important corpos… Anyway, there's something else we need to discuss."

"Hmmm?"

"Equipment. We don't have any, and you need some. I'm not sending you off to that bar party with nothing but your claws."

"Ah. Well. Um. That's a good point, actually. Any idea where we might be able to get something useful? Like, a gun, preferably?"

"And some armor," she said, very judgmentally.

"Sure. Armor. Yeah. I've worn that before," I lied, like a liar.

"Right…" She so very much did not believe me. "Well, I do have a couple ideas…"

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