Chapter Text
The lights hit like a punch. White-hot, blinding and beautiful.
The crowd in Piltover Arena roared her name as the bass rolled through the floor and up Vi’s spine, a living thing that rattled her ribs and made her grin sharp and feral. Smoke curled around her boots, stage lights slicing into colour, painting her exposed skin in electric shades of blue, pink and gold.
Vi loved this moment. The second before the first note, when the world waited for her.
She leaned into the mic, fingers covered in rings, grin already crooked.
“Piltover,” she drawled, voice echoing back at her tenfold, “you look real good tonight. Like “about to make some bad decision” good.”
The screams that followed were deafening. Mylo, her bassist, wiggled his eyebrows at her.
Vi laughed, a sound as loud as the guitars kicking in behind her, and launched into the opening riff. The stage vibrated under her feet. The lights pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She moved like she belonged to the chaos, hips slightly swaying, shoulders loose, voice tearing through the arena while Claggor grinned behind the drums.
Between verses, she paced the edge of the stage, crouched low, pointed the mic at the crowd. “C’mon, don’t be shy. I know you know this one. I wrote it about my deeply tragic relationship with Piltover traffic.”
Laughter rippled through the stands. Phones flashed like stars.
She winked at a cluster of fans near the front. Blew a kiss at the balcony seats where the tickets cost more than her childhood apartment. Someone threw a neon bra onstage. Vi hooked it on her mic stand without missing a beat.
“Bold choice,” she said. “I respect that.”
The band slammed back in, louder now, tighter. Vi fed off it, adrenaline buzzing hot and bright in her veins. This was control. This was power. Tens of thousands of people hanging on her voice, her timing, her every smirk.
That was when she saw the sign.
It wasn’t flashy. No glitter, no glowsticks taped to the edges. Just thick black lettering on white board, held steady amid the chaos.
VIOLET.
Not Vi.
Her real name. What the hell, she thought.
Below it, smaller letters:
I’m still here.
The bass thudded. The crowd screamed. Someone set off a burst of pyrotechnics that washed the stage in heat and sparks.
Vi laughed into the mic, sharp and bright. “Alright, alright, don’t pass out on me yet. We’re just getting started.”
She leapt off the monitor, landed hard, let the music swallow the thought whole.
The rest of the set burned by in a blur of sweat and sound and light. Vi gave them everything. New tracks, old favorites, an encore they’d talk about for weeks. She soaked in the adoration like she always did, like it was oxygen.
By the time the final chord rang out and she stood there, chest heaving, arms spread wide as the crowd chanted her name, the sign was gone.
Vi bowed deep, blew another kiss, and shouted, “Piltover, you’ve been unreal. Get home safe. Or don’t. Live a little.”
The lights cut. The roar lingered.
Moving backstage, Vi wiped her forehead with a towel and peeled off cropped leather jacket, leaving her in only a black sports bra. She laughed as a runner shoved a bottle of water into her hands.
“Did you hear that crowd?” she said, breathless. “I swear, they’re getting louder every tour. At this rate I’m gonna go deaf before thirty.”
No one laughed.
Her manager stood near the corridor, arms crossed, face tight. Security hovered closer than usual, eyes alert, scanning.
Vi took a long pull from the bottle, forcing her grin wider. “Uh-oh. That look usually means someone’s about to tell me I can’t swear on stage anymore.”
Her manager sighed. “This was left outside the door,” she said, tone clipped, brittle around the edges.
“What is it?” Vi asked. “What door?”
“This door.” Her manager nodded toward the heavy metal exit that led into the service corridors snaking behind the arena. The place where roadies smoked, where band members slipped out for air, where fans absolutely were not supposed to be.
Security shifted. One of them glanced instinctively toward Vi.
Vi frowned. “Okay, you’re doing that thing where you all look dramatic but no one’s actually saying anything.”
Her manager hesitated, then reached into the crook of her arm and handed Vi a small cardboard box.
It was plain. No logo. No return address. Just her name written across the top.
Not Vi.
Violet.
Vi’s grin faltered – only for a second, but long enough.
“…Huh,” she said lightly. “Didn’t know we were doing government names now.”
No one laughed.
She took the box. It was lighter than she expected.
The lid came off easily.
Inside was a laminated card.
Vi frowned as she slid it out.
It was a security badge.
The photo wasn’t included, but the barcode was clean.
Her fingers stilled.
“What the hell,” she said automatically.
Her manager shook her head. “It wasn’t issued to anyone on tonight’s list.”
Vi swallowed.
There was something else in the box. A folded note.
She unfolded it.
You forgot to invite me tonight, Violet.
Don’t forget next time.
It was hard getting this pass.
The room seemed to shrink.
Vi laughed, a short, sharp sound. “Wow. Okay. That’s… bold.”
Her manager didn’t move.
Vi read the note again.
Hard getting this pass.
“You’re telling me someone went through the effort to fake a badge,” Vi said, forcing breeziness into her voice, “just to mess with me?”
“No,” her manager replied quietly. “I’m telling you someone didn’t fake it.”
The words landed heavy.
Vi’s gaze flicked to the service door. The guards. The corridor beyond.
She looked at Greyson, the head of her security team when she was on tour. “Isn’t it kind of like… your job to prevent this?” she meant to sound funny, but it came out harsher than intended.
“We are looking into it, Vi.” Greyson said, stoic as ever. But Vi could tell she was slightly stiffer than usual, slightly more uncomfortable when she eyed the guys on the security team in the room.
“Well,” Vi said, rolling her shoulders, “good thing I put on a great show. Wouldn’t want to disappoint.”
Her manager stepped closer. “Vi, we’ve had other incidents. Notes left at your gym. Flowers delivered to the front desk of your building. Someone knew you were rehearsing early last Tuesday.”
Vi blinked. “I didn’t even post that.”
“No,” her manager said. “You didn’t.”
The humor drained from Vi’s face, slow and unwilling, like something she was being forced to set down.
“…Okay,” she said finally. “So what’s the plan. You bubble-wrap me?”
“We adjust,” her manager replied. “Immediately.”
Security shifted around them, the space tightening.
“We bring in a specialist,” her manager continued. “Someone who doesn’t rotate. Someone who stays with you.”
Vi frowned. “Stays with me how?”
“Lives in the penthouse.”
Vi barked out a laugh that sounded wrong even to her own ears. “Oh, absolutely not. I barely tolerate myself.”
Her manager met her gaze, steady and unyielding. “This isn’t optional.”
Something hot and sharp flared in Vi’s chest.
“Last time I checked, Elora,” she snapped, “it’s my life. My penthouse. And my fucking money paying for all of you. No one decides who lives in my place.”
Claggor, Mylo and Gert, the guitarist, who’d been watching from the couch, both stood, ready to jump in. Vi lifted a hand without looking at them – an unmistakable don’t.
Elora opened her mouth to respond.
Vi cut her off. “That is final.”
She turned to Greyson. “Sort this shit out.”
Then she tossed her towel into the corner of the room and headed for the exit.
“Who’s the lucky bastard driving me home?”
The penthouse was too quiet.
Vi noticed it the second the elevator doors slid shut behind her, sealing her inside glass and steel and expensive nothing. No crowd. No feedback hum. No voices bleeding through walls. Just the soft whirr of the climate system and the distant glow of Piltover stretched out beneath her windows like a jeweled map.
She tossed her keys onto the counter harder than necessary.
“Home sweet overpriced prison,” she muttered.
The lights flicked on automatically as she moved through the space. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Polished concrete. Furniture chosen by people who’d said words like aesthetic and minimalist with straight faces.
Vi dropped her jacket on the back of a chair and paced.
She checked the balcony doors first. Locked. Checked again anyway. Then the bedroom windows. Locked.
She laughed under her breath. “Relax,” she told herself. “You’re being dramatic.”
Still, she walked the perimeter. Counted exits. Mentally retraced the routes she took when she left in the mornings. When she came back late. When she cut through the garage instead of the lobby because she didn’t feel like smiling.
She stopped in the kitchen.
Something was off.
She stared at the counter for a long moment before she realized what it was.
The fruit bowl had been moved.
Maybe?
Vi’s chest tightened.
“You’re losing it,” she said out loud, sharper now. “Congratulations. Officially cracked.”
She picked up the bowl, set it back the way she remembered it, then immediately felt stupid for caring.
Her phone buzzed.
Vi nearly jumped out of her skin.
She scowled at it, then answered without looking. “If this is about the press release, I swear…”
“It’s me,” Elora said.
Vi closed her eyes and dragged a hand down her face. “You call to yell at me or just to haunt my night?”
A pause. Then, softer, “I wanted to make sure you got home.”
“Safe as a very paranoid person in a very tall building,” Vi replied. “You should see the view. I could fall to my death in six different directions.”
“Vi.”
She sighed. “I’m fine.”
Silence stretched.
Vi glanced toward the hallway again. The dark doorway leading to the bedroom. The way shadows pooled there differently depending on where the city lights hit.
“Did you… did you say the flowers were delivered to the front desk?” she asked suddenly.
“Yes.”
“And the notes at the gym. Were those… inside?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Vi swallowed.
She walked to the couch and sat, elbows on her knees, staring at her hands. They were still shaking. Just a little.
“You didn’t post about rehearsal,” Elora said gently. “You didn’t post about the gym. And you didn’t invite anyone backstage.”
Vi huffed out a laugh. “Guess I’ve got a secret admirer with great investigative skills.”
“Vi.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Her voice came out quieter than she intended. “If I say yes to this… nanny thing -”
“Bodyguard,” Elora corrected automatically.
Vi huffed. “It’s a woman, right? I’m not having a man living in my place.”
There was a brief pause. Then, softer, “I’ll make sure it’s a woman, Vi.”
Vi exhaled and let her gaze drift around the penthouse again. The locks. The glass walls. The dizzying height.
For the first time, none of it felt impressive.
It felt exposed.
“…Fine,” she said at last. “Fine. You win.”
Relief slipped through the line, unguarded.
“She lives here,” Vi added quickly. “Temporary. And if she touches my guitars or reorganizes my fridge, I’m blaming you.”
Vi could hear Elora smiling through the phone. “I’ll take full responsibility. We’ll find someone as soon as possible. Until then, Greyson’s offered to stay with you.”
Vi let out a weak breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Great. Slumber party.”
She hung up and stared at the darkened windows. And didn’t move for a while.
Two days after the concert, Vi refused the car.
“No,” she said flatly, already halfway toward the public lift. “I’m not riding down in a blacked-out panic box.”
Greyson paused beside the vehicle, hand still on the door handle. “It’s more secure.”
“It’s more Piltover,” Vi shot back. “I’m going home, not staging a hostage extraction.”
She tugged the hood of an oversized jacket up over her head, jammed a beanie down on top of it, and slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses that were absolutely unnecessary underground.
Greyson assessed her outfit. “You’re aware that doesn’t make you invisible.”
Vi grinned. “It makes me iconic.”
The lift rattled as it descended, metal groaning in protest as Piltover’s clean lines and glass vanished above them. The air thickened with oil and heat and something metallic she’d never been able to name but could always recognize.
Zaun.
Vi leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, boot heel hooked on the edge of the floor, a crooked grin pulling at her mouth despite herself.
“Ah,” she sighed. “Smell that? Childhood.”
Greyson stood near the doors, broad-shouldered and solid, hands folded neatly in front of her like she might be mistaken for a statue if she stayed still long enough. She wore plain clothes today. But she still looked like security. Always alert. Always scanning.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Greyson said.
The lift shuddered to a stop.
The doors slid open to noise.
Not the curated roar of an arena, but life. Voices overlapping, machinery clanking, vendors shouting prices that changed depending on who was listening. Music spilled from somewhere deeper in the streets, distorted and alive.
Vi stepped out and felt her shoulders loosen instantly.
“…No way.”
She froze.
“…That’s her, right?”
Vi sighed and lifted her head.
A mechanic across the street grinned wide. “Holy shit, it is you!”
A kid nearly crashed his board trying to get a better look. Someone else laughed. Someone else waved.
“Nice disguise!” a woman called.
Vi pushed her sunglasses up and smirked. “Damn. Thought I nailed it.”
People laughed. Someone clapped. Someone else shouted, “Saw you live last month! You killed it!”
Greyson tensed instinctively.
But no one surged forward. No one grabbed. They just smiled. Waved. Called her name like it belonged to them a little too.
Vi laughed at her. “Relax. This is my place, my people.”
Vi waved at people she knew, or who knew her. A mechanic called her name from across the street. A kid on a hoverboard nearly crashed staring too hard before his friend smacked him on the back of the head.
Vander’s place came into view like it always had: solid, loud, warm. The sign over the door flickered stubbornly, refusing to die.
Vi didn’t knock.
She shoved the door open and called, “If I get stabbed, I’m suing.”
“Vi?” Powder’s voice came from somewhere inside. “VI!”
A blur of blue hair collided with her chest a second later.
“Oof – hey – Pow, watch the ribs!” Vi laughed, arms wrapping around her sister automatically. Powder squeezed tight, unapologetic.
“You’re late,” Powder accused, pulling back just enough to look up at her. “You said noon.”
“It is noon,” Vi replied. “Somewhere.”
Vander’s laugh rumbled from behind the bar. “Good to see you too, kid.”
Vi grinned and crossed the room in three long strides, letting Vander pull her into a hug that smelled like oil, smoke, and safety.
Greyson cleared her throat politely.
Vander’s gaze sharpened, taking her in at once.
“And you are?” he asked.
“Greyson,” she said evenly. “I’m with Vi.”
Powder’s eyes lit up. “Like… with with?”
Vi groaned. “What? Absolutely not.”
Greyson smiled faintly.
“She’s security,” Vi added. “Temporary. Very temporary.”
Vander leaned back against the bar, arms crossed. “Security?”
Greyson nodded. “There’s been a situation.”
Vi opened her mouth to cut her off.
Too late.
Greyson explained, carefully and professionally. No details that would panic. Just enough.
Powder’s smile faded.
“…You’re getting a live-in bodyguard?” she asked.
“Yes,” Greyson said. “As soon as we finalize arrangements.”
Powder brightened instantly. “Oh my god, that’s such a good idea.”
Vi stared at her. “Excuse you?”
“Vi,” Powder said, hands on her hips, “someone is creeping on you.”
Vander nodded. “She’s right.”
Vi’s jaw dropped. “You too?”
Vander met her gaze steadily. “You’ve always acted like you don’t need backup. Doesn’t make it true.”
Vi looked between them, betrayed. “I came down here for emotional support.”
“And you’re getting it,” Powder said cheerfully.
Greyson hid her smile badly.
Vi scoffed, rubbing the back of her neck. “You’re all ganging up on me.”
Powder grinned. “Family tradition.”
Vander clapped Vi’s shoulder. “You don’t have to like it. Just don’t fight it.”
Vi exhaled, long and slow.
“…Fine,” she muttered. “But if she’s boring, I’m blaming all of you.”
Greyson tilted her head. “She won’t be.”
Vi shot her a look. “You don’t know that.”
Greyson’s smile turned almost amused. “I do.”