The stairs folded back down as Angel, Marcy, and Ren approached. Looking back, it was pretty hard to tell that anything had been down there at all. Marcy tried desperately to breath as their feet touched the ground. Ren tried his best to keep her up. Meanwhile, Angel stumbled onto his feet, but was otherwise fine. 

Candy Man wasn’t able to stay activated for very long, was it? He cautiously summoned his dream, feeling its energy recovering. I’ll have to be careful next time. “Hey, Marcy, right?” 

Marcy was taken aback a little. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

“You work at the library, right? I saw it on your nametag earlier.” He was referring to the nametag she was still wearing and forgot she had on. 

Ren eyed Marcy intensely after Angel spoke. He had seen her follow Angel into the building in the first place, and had found the way she did so suspicious. She didn’t seem like a threat to Angel, but if she really had followed Angel all the way from the library, that was a bit concerning.

“Oh, uh… Yeah, that makes sense.” She ran her fingers through her hair, obviously frazzled by the situation they had just been in. “Look, I gotta go. I’ve got a friend next door, and-” Outside the building, Isis strolled over and knocked on the window. “Yeah, that’s, uh… her.”

Isis squinted through the window “You hurt your foot or something? It’s getting cold out here!”

“Shit, that’s right…” Marcy tried to get onto her feet by herself, then realized that probably wasn’t that possible. “What’s a good excuse I could tell her? I tripped down the stairs or something?”

That would’ve taken a particular nasty fall, that’s for sure. It also didn’t explain why she was going downstairs in the first place.

“Wait, I think I should be able to help.” Angel focused on his Dream and pointed at Marcy’s chest, causing her to give him a glare before the Candy Man’s limited energy began to flow through her body. The leaked blood causing her bruises began to be absorbed, the blood vessels began to seal, and a callous was able to form around the small fractures in her bones. After just a few moments, her injuries looked… well, not good, but passable as a regular fall.

Ren seemed intrigued. “So you’ve found another use for your Dream. That’s impressive - usually people are slow to understand their abilities so well.”

It had only been about a few days, hadn’t it? “Well compared to your Dreams, the Candy Man’s pretty simple… and I found out about the healing on accident anyway.”

While Ren seemed pretty calm about the development, Marcy was very obviously marveling at the ability’s quick work. “Thanks. For healing me up.” Marcy awkwardly scribbled her number down on a receipt from her pocket and handed it to Angel. “I hope it’s alright if we can talk about this sometime. Just to… make things clear, you know?”

“That should work, right?” Angel looked over to Ren. 

“We’ll contact you tomorrow.” Ren grabbed a couple sets of clothes and handed them to Angel. They were a bunch of suits, with wildly varied colors and patterns. “It’s probably for the better that way. That gives us some time to figure out how to approach this.” 

Marcy seemed a bit confused by Ren’s choice of words. “How to approach this?”

Even after a few moments, Ren remained silent. Angel figured he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to Marcy’s push for clarification. “His family’s involved with all this, and I think he wants to be pretty careful with getting people involved in his family’s work… To really get me involved, he had to get his family’s approval, but it seems like they accepted without much trouble.” 

Angel carefully observed Ren’s expression as he said this. He wasn’t sure what he expected from his stoic partner, but he didn’t get anything. Last time he pressed on the subject he seemed to get anxious, so was that topic not what caused it? 

“Past that, I’m not sure how much more I should say… I know you’ve got no interest in working with us, but I guess it pays to be prepared…” Angel looked over at Ren. “... right?”

“That would be correct.”

Marcy nodded to herself, as worried as she was intrigued. “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around. Just, uh… give me a call. Yeah.” She gave them a little wave and made her exit. 

Ren gave Angel a look. “I think that might have been a little overwhelming…, and I think you might’ve seemed a little too eager to share. She seemed a little uncomfortable.”

“It’s better than not saying anything at all…” Angel slung the suits over his shoulder and began walking away. “... or downright lying to her.”

* * *

“So you took care of the demon, that’s good…” Dallon nodded and set down his cup of coffee.  “I’ve got some maps with hot zones in this folder, so you should know what you’re getting yourself into going forward.”

Ordinarily Angel and Ren would’ve been more happy about this development, but instead the air around them was thicker than a block of ice.

“The two of you haven’t even made eye contact since you got back.” Dallon glared at Angel. “You’re acting like high schoolers, dammit… Whatever beef you two might have, you’re letting it get in the way of your professionalism.” Then he turned to Ren. “I expected more from you at the very least, Ren.  I would’ve expected your father to train that sort of childish pettiness out of you a long time ago.”

Just as before, Ren didn’t say anything. However, he did try to make eye contact with Angel. 

“Look, Ren… I know you didn’t talk with your family about my involvement in the business. You don’t have to tell me why you did it, but… I’m just not sure I get why you even bothered saying you’d get their approval to begin with.”

“It’s because I dug into you.” Angel seemed shocked as he looked over at the man in the red suit, with worried eyes highlighted by dark circles. “Even if it was all those years ago, that sort of stain wouldn’t fly with my family… even within the family itself. They’d just see you as a liability.” 

It was a stain, wasn’t it? It followed him, even now - even here. That legacy would never go away, no matter how unjust it was or how long ago it might have happened.

“My family… My father isn’t one to give things much thought, nor is he a compassionate man.” Ren’s stoic face began to waver, as Angel could notice a lurking kindness within his eyes. “I thought that if I could prove him wrong, if I could be compassionate and see the good in you, I could be different. It was selfish. I’m sorry.”

“You wouldn’t just be different from your dad, you’d be different from just about anybody.” Angel bit his lip, mulling over this new development. “I’d say just about everybody can’t help thinking about what happened back then… Even when they smile, there’s a look in their eyes I never saw before.”

Ren seemed to be surprised. What he saw as a small effort to break away from his father seemed so important to Angel.

“You’ve got no reason to be sorry… I’m sorry I didn’t trust you better. Guess there was just a part of me that was worried you had some other reason is all…” 

“So that was the reason behind all this.” Dallon heaved a heavy sigh as he rubbed his temples. “S’pose that makes sense… I know a thing or two about a record myself. You just need to move past it, cuz nobody else will until you do. In the end, it won’t matter to those that really care. They’re only looking for the stain itself, not how you wear it.” 

“Yeah, I guess that’s a good way of looking at it…” Angel nodded, not quite sure if he really agreed with Dallon’s exact line of thinking.

“Well, that should be everything settled for now. Thank you again for all of your help, it means a lot.” Ren grabbed the file. “I’ll pay you back when I’m able.”

“Just pay me a visit when you’re in charge of your own company. That’ll do just fine.”