❛ I pay attention to detail ❜

Maya Clemmons was defintely Thunderbird. Between the evident bruises on her arms after a night where Thunderbird was reported on the news and the mysterious text Andy had seen on the girl's phone, she was without a doubt the new villain roaming the streets. The tracker that Andy put on Maya's phone only further proved the theory Andy had been testing for a while, yet it always led to dead end after dead end. The girl seemed to leave her phone somewhere abandoned, and it was a new location every time. Part of Melisande believed that Maya knew she was being followed.

But nonetheless, Andy was tired. She wanted this assignment to be over. Everything about it was giving her more stress and anxiety, and she was still not making any progress in her parents' death. So as she was sitting in her robotics class, she waited for Maya to leave the classroom for a bathroom break before standing up and watching her leave. The teacher in the room couldn't care less if her students walked out as long as they came back, so Andy slipped out of the room and rushed up the stairs to find where she went.

Maya had taken her phone with her, and there was a serious look in her eyes before she slipped away, so Melisande had her suspicions of exactly what Maya was going to do.

Cautiously, the teenager opened the door to the hallway and noticed Maya was nowhere in sight. The bathroom was all the way down the hall and there was no way Maya could have gotten there by the time Andy got upstairs, and the restroom wasn't exactly a private place to talk so she knew Maya had gone somewhere private.

With a sigh, Andy turned right and continued to walk for ten seconds before turning another right. There Maya was, talking quietly with her phone to her ear as she faced the opposite direction of Andy. The girl grinned to herself and pulled out her own phone, making sure to turn on the voice recorder before squeezing herself in between the break of the lockers so that Maya wouldn't spot her.

She couldn't hear the conversation between Maya and whoever was on the other end, but she heard fragments of Maya's angry whispers into the phone. She had said something about there not being enough time, and that tomorrow wasn't the right day, and finally something about being able to put him down if need be. Maya was threatening whoever the other guy was, and unfortunately, Andy wouldn't be able to find out who that was.

Suddenly, Andy heard Maya snap a goodbye and her footsteps began walking to where Andy was hiding. The girl popped out into the hallway and smiled at the now-surprised and nervous girl in front of her. "Andy? Uh, w-what are you doing here?" she chuckled, twirling her finger in her dark hair - one of Maya's tells. "Spare me the dramatics, Maya. I know what's going on."

"Oh, that?" the girl shrugged, a scoff leaving her mouth. "My dad hired a guy to help plan my sweet sixteen, you know, it's a big party kind of thing," she said simply, the lie falling so easily from her mouth. Andy crossed her arms and stared at the girl, "You're birthday is in two months, and last I heard, you didn't want a sweet sixteen."

"What? Where'd you hear that?" Maya wondered, raising an eyebrow to continue on with the lie she was burying herself into. "From you, three weeks ago at a DECA meeting. We were talking about Bar Mitzvahs and Quinces, then Madeline brought up American culture and how we've adjusted Latin American customs for our own enjoyment, particularly taking form in sweet sixteens," she answered, a smug smirk on her face. "I pay attention to detail, Maya."

Almost immediately, Maya's smile turned to a frown and she shifted uncomfortably on her feet. Her first instinct was to look around and make sure no one was near to listen in on her conversation with Maya. "What are you hiding, Maya? I mean, I have an idea, but maybe you can enlighten me," Andy suggested, tilting her head to the side.

Maya bit her lower lip, looked up at the ceiling, and shook her head, before even finding the words to retaliate with. "Look, I've tried to be nice--"

"No, if you were trying to be nice, then you wouldn't be stealing from ATM machines and robbing jewelry stores. People invest their money into these banks and you are just like those rotten low-lives who decide to hurt the good, honest people in the world."

"You think you've got me all figured out, huh?"

"I know that your mom died in a lightning storm years ago, and that you call yourself Thunderbird. I know that you use lightning, maybe to honor her, maybe because you enjoy the science of it. I know who you are, and that's all I got for now. But continue down this road and I sure as hell will make sure you never set foot on another road ever again."

"You don't know who you're messing with, Andy Dubois."

Andy held her arms out to her side and shrugged before walking backward. She stared directly into Maya's eyes and smiled, "That's not my name."

•••

After her timid conversation with Maya, Andy had been relieved to return upstate where a new personal assignment was waiting for her. Once she entered her room, she noticed a white envelope sitting on her bed sheets and she realized someone must have gotten her mail from her apartment in Queens earlier during the day. Andy didn't recognize the name on the return label, but she had gotten letters from people she never knew before asking for assistance for a job. It was always technological, something with hacking, and there were very few occasions where Andy would deny the money from the job, much including some felony.

But near thirty minutes later, Andy was sitting in the kitchen with her laptop on the counter before her and her fingers were working quickly to hack into a secure database. Wanda stood at the sink in front of her, chopping carrots while silence surrounded the girls. It was peaceful at first. Andy was doing her job that was assigned to her and she wasn't having any problems with it. And Wanda was doing what Wanda enjoys and was cooking.

It was fine until Steve walked into the room and approached Andy from behind. He was about to walk behind the counter to open the fridge and grab some healthy grub when he caught sightof the New York Police Department logo on the computer screen Andy was rummaging through. "What in God's Green Earth are you doing?" He snapped, bringing Andy out of her working trance to slam the computer down. "Hacking the NYPD now?" He questioned while she stepped away from the seat she had rested in only seconds ago. "Steve..." Wanda trailed off, her eyes not leaving the cutting board she was working on. "This is how I make my living, Cap. Out of everyone here you are someone who shouldn't judge me."

"Did you just Cap me?"

"If you want to establish order around here then yes, I did."

Steve scoffed and shook his head before yanking open the fridge. "You're impossible, Melisande."

"Did you just Melisande me?" she said with a fake gasp leaving her mouth. The man rolled his eyes and grabbed a waterbottle before slamming the fridge. "Hi, Wanda. How are you, Wanda? Did you just Wanda me?" Wanda said to herself, trying to bring herself into the kitchen after being left out. Andy cracked a grin and Steve didn't say a word.

"I'm not going to be the guy who tries to be a parent, that's not fair to you because I was never around for you all the time. But this is unacceptable. You don't get to act like a rebellious teenager right now, you have a mission."

Andy clenched her fists at her sides and took a daring step forward. "I make my living by getting jobs. Someone gave me this job, to deny it would cost me five months worth of groceries. I'm not proud of erasing someone's criminal record from police records, but it gives me literal life."

Steve opened his mouth to interject with some sort of argument before Andy cut him off yet again. "And you can't act like a rebellious teen when you've got no one to do it for."

Wanda, at this point, looked up from her activity and made eyes with Steve, trying to get him to talk to her. But instead, he found himself walking away, most likely to train away his frustration.

Andy found her way back into her chair and began to type more on her computer. It wasn't until Wanda sighed that she looked up.

"It seems you are always butting heads, no?" the girl asked, finally sweeping her carrots and peas into the pot of boiling water on the stove. Andy shrugged and leaned on the granite. "We don't always see eye to eye, sure. And he put me in positions that I would never get into on my own, true. And he criticizes my way of life, yes. But I know he loves me, he just wants what's best for me. And I would be lying if I said I didn't love him back. He's like a brother, and I could use one of those."