“Well, you’ve answered so many of mine, I’d say it’s only fair you get to ask one,” Lili said.

“Have you ever sung opera before?”

Lili looked surprised. “Why, yes. Off and on.”

“Queen of the Night? Magic Flute? Roughly fifteen years ago in this city?” Coral asked.

“Yes, I believe so. Did you see one of my performances?” Lili asked.

“I think I did,” Coral said. She’d gone after rewatching Nightingale’s shattering performance. “I knew I heard your name somewhere!”

“Impressive,” Lili said. “Especially since I didn’t perform as often as I’d like.” She sighed. “I loved it. But I had… other things to deal with, so I never got a full career going.”

“Like family?” Coral said. The local team was said to consider themselves family.

“I suppose you could say that,” Lili said with a mischievous smile.

“Well, if it kept a powerful voice like yours off the stage, I bet it’s one amazing family,” Coral said. “I’d love to meet them.” Not just because she wanted to borrow powers from them. That was certainly part of it; after all, it wasn’t every day she got to play around with hero-level powers. But they’d been responsible for saving the city, time after time. Coral didn’t believe in the city and the government enough to put her life on the line, but she could still dream and play, couldn’t she?

“When they come to visit, I’ll be sure to introduce you,” Lili promised.

They never came.

Over the course of the next month, Coral watched Lili’s smile slowly droop, one day at a time. No visits, no letters, no calls, not even a postcard. “If you like, we could send a message to them,” Coral said. “Try and arrange a visit.”

“No, no,” Lili said, peeling her eyes away from a news report of the local superteam defeating a mad scientist. “If they’re busy, I don’t want to disturb them. And there might be some privacy concerns. I’ll just… let them come on their own time.”

But they didn’t.

Coral was incensed. They allowed this sweet old lady, The Nightingale, savior of the city and the world and humanity, to go to this bottom-of-the-barrel nursing home when the government easily could have paid for the best home for her. Not only that, but they didn’t even do her the tiniest favor of visiting her every once in a while? They couldn’t even call and let her know that they still gave a damn about her? What kind of heroes were they if they couldn’t take care of one of their own? But it wasn’t like Coral could go up to the team and tell them that they needed to go visit their former teammate. Even sending them a letter suggesting that they go visit would probably kick up some security alarms and convince them the world was going to end.

Coral snorted. Lili only got to see her former comrades when there was news about a robbery or a supervillainous scheme. Well, then. Maybe Coral needed to make sure Lili could see her former teammates more often. Maybe the stupid government needed a reminder of how their heroes were more than cogs in an ever-grinding money printer. Maybe it was time to take these powers out for a test drive.

***

Eric stared at the loan officer. “Denied?”

“That is what the bank recommended,” she said.

“But I have a stable income and enough for 25% down! I have good credit! Some of my coworkers have gotten home loans from this very bank in worse situations!” Then again, those coworkers were white.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I don’t have much say in the decision. The bank reviewed your details and decided that it was too risky.”

Eric slumped back in the chair. “I suppose telling you that it was my mom’s childhood home won’t help?”

“As I said, this is completely above my head.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “If you like, you’re welcome to try again if you have a higher income or co-sign with someone who does.”

“No,” Eric said. “Not with this bank. I’d like to close my accounts. Who do I talk to for that?”

The manager spent some time trying to talk him out of the decision. Apparently, the money that wasn’t worth a loan was worth quite a bit to the bank. Still, they wouldn’t give him a mortgage, and so that was that. He walked out with a check, but not enough to cover the cost of an entire house. Fortunately, it was close to the beginning of the month, so he’d have time to switch over all his payments to whatever new account he created. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t have enough time to get a new loan approved before the house was off the market. The realtor had hinted that the family who owned it was looking to close fast, and the next best option was a developer who wanted to tear the place down.

Mom would be so disappointed. She’d finally split up with Dad and needed a new home. When Eric saw the listing the day he heard the news, he knew it was fate. He wanted to give his mom a place with history, but not any history with Dad. The family who currently owned it wanted to move overseas and so they wanted to give it to someone who would appreciate it. It was perfect. Except apparently it wasn’t, due to the banks.

It was ridiculous. He’d calculated the amount of money it would take and it was easily affordable. Even more affordable than renting, even when he took the full cost of repairs on himself. So why was it considered more financially risky to buy a home than to rent?

But he really needed to stop thinking about it. His hands were starting to flame up, and that was a bad idea in public. People already thought firestarting was a villain power, so revealing he could set himself on fire? Not a good move. Once he got home and into the shower, he allowed the fire to course up his arms and sizzle out the water droplets. Fortunately, heat shielding usually came with the fire power package. Otherwise, he would be very dead.

So, what to do about the house? Loans weren’t an option, at least not from banks. Problem was, he didn’t know anyone who was wealthy enough to buy the house outright without causing financial problems. Unless he could somehow get enough cash to buy it, he was out of luck.

Unless…

No. That was a ridiculous idea. Just because he had superpowers didn’t mean it was a good idea to rob a bank. Even if they deserved it for potentially getting his mom’s home razed. They were probably just fine when not dealing with home loans, right?

One search later and he sat back from the computer, fuming. That bank, the one he’d trusted his money to, was using their clients, fraudulently opening accounts in their name to make arbitrary quotas, profiteering from overdraft fees, making openly sexist comments about their female employees… Well, that put the loan officer’s comment in a whole new light. Oh, and they were racketeering their mortgages. Really a good thing he didn’t get a loan with them, then.

Yeah. They were going down.