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Babylon blinked at her, and then he took a slow sip from his cup. Lina must have been before Laney's time as Hvergelmir, and, well, he hadn't seen her in so long that he felt perfectly comfortable spreading her business around. For all he knew, she was dead, or long gone to another branch of the organization. "LIna was a Mercury knight, and before she was a Mercury Knight she was a Negaverse General and at some point she went back to the Negaverse," he said. "She sort of, um, mentored me, the whole time I was a page and a squire and a little bit as a knight. I thought she was incredible. She was incredible."

Even now, he felt a little bit reverent to talk about her. "Anyway - she was Castor's girlfriend? They had a thing going when he was Order and she was Chaos. She came over to be with him, and then they... broke up. Because they were like literally nineteen years old or something like that and also because Castor's an a*****e. Who ******** knows. I have no idea. I wasn't a fly on the wall in their relationship - I just knew Lina."

Worshipped Lina.

"The Negaverse welcomed her back," he shrugged. "I went to Alaska. It was easier to run away than to deal with things, and when I went to Alaska, I left Tate alone, and..."

He trailed off to take a gulp of wine. "You know Avalon. She doesn't blame me - not anymore. She should, though. Everything that's happened to her is my fault."

Finn shrugged. He hadn't exactly seen Lina since leaving for Alaska, and he wasn't enough of a masochist to go looking for her. Some things were better of unknown. "Well, I - I know Lina's not my fault," he sighed. Tate was harder for him to reconcile - but he didn't want to dump all that on Laney. "Okay," he said. "You're right. I did not personally introduce Tate to a bunch of generals and tell her to get cozy."

But--

I was alone and scared and you left me. She'd carved all her hurt into his face and it had scarred there.

He set his drink aside and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Okay. Okay. I trust you."

He needed a subject change, and he needed one stat.

"I have these, um, these things?" said Finn uncertainly. "Never-go-outs. They're little lanterns. They're useful, I swear. Do you want one?"

Finn was drunk, and when Finn was drunk, he made silly decisions and broke house rules like no powers on premises. Whatever. They were on the roof. They were not technically in the building. So: he powered up. He dug around in his pockets and places that were not his pockets but it was a sort of handy mnemonic until he found a never-go-out.

He held it out to Laney, swooping into a deep bow. "One little lantern," he said. "Given freely. Or in exchange for a ribbon. Whatever you want to do. A light in dark places."

And then he powered down, still holding the lantern on his outstretched fingers, because he was a little bit scared that Kaatje would literally teleport here from Japan propelled only by her pure rage and murder him until he was dead.

Finn took the ribbon and excitedly tied it around his forehead. "Awesome!" he crowed, fussing with the bow. "Okay. How do I look? Trés moderne?"

Oh, what he would give for a mirror. At least his never-go-out looked good on her wrist.

"Okay, so, uh," he said, sitting back down - his head was spinning a little bit. "Good talk. Let's sober up and figure out how to proceed with getting everyone together. I'll talk to Mistral. Jargon jargon, buzzword buzzword. I'll see you out if you're ready. Or. Uh. Call you a cab? Definitely call you a cab. Or you can crash on the couch if you like?"