Blackstar couldn't help glancing at Ikret's wingspan as the other woman subtly seemed to show them off while answering her question. The accepted glass in her hand glinted and sparkled, like every other part of her. It was adding to the glare in Blackstar's vision but she was trying not to think about that.
Ikret leaned slightly towards her, and Alaine thought maybe her smile softend -- but she couldn't be sure. She was becoming more and more aware that her nerves were obvious, so maybe Ikret was just trying to keep her from exploding. Nobody wanted to deal with that.
“It’s on loan from an agent..well, my ex-agent, so it’s sort of an ex-loan.” She giggled. The act of drawing closer wasn’t just to whisper, with Blackstar in close, the shining beacon that was Nadia and all her wing span was a rather considerable body block for incoming attention. “You look grand as well, trust me, these things become a lot more enjoyable once you work out just how much better we are than half the room.” She winked, the more mischievous nature returning to her expression.
She felt a small pinch of pain in her hand and realized she'd been clenching one fist behind her back so tight that her nails were biting into her palm. Alaine quickly loosened her fingers, brushing her hand casually through the tulle train of the dress as she turned with Ikret, carefully keeping out of the way of those impressive wings while also eagerly accepting the distraction they provided.
She did appreciate that. Apparently her distaste for the situation was way more obvious than she'd been hoping, because both Ikret and Lightning Girl seemed to have immediately picked up on the fact she was trying to hide behind everyone... and she had to say she was a little touched by the way they fell right into the role of distraction for her.
Girl's girls. That was what it was called, right? Maybe that was the wrong thing. In any case -- it was appreciated.
As they made their way over to their table, Alaine was already beelining for the seat next to Asteroid. Screw trying to be Miss Independent -- not twenty minutes in and she was already throwing aside her initial determination not to depend on his gravity to keep her sanity. Was that pathetic?
"Oh.....I heard stories of you. You were in DTLA a while ago, I believe? Ikra?"
The voice wasn't directed at her, but Blackstar felt her heart immediately drop to the soles of her feet all the same. Calliope. A quick glance around Ikret's shimmering wings confirmed the guess, and Blackstar was quick to begin subtly backing away as the winged heroine turned to regard the ancient muse.
Blackstar had never paid too much attention to heroes growing up, aside from a loose favoritism for Lady Liberty -- especially these West Coast heroes, as she'd lived largely on the East Coast most of her life. But she had heard of the Hollywood Six, and she did know what made them Hollywood Six material... and aside from Black Rose, who Alaine was sure could pretty easily figure out her identity with a little research -- she felt the most apprehension about Calliope.
Calliope's powers were hard to describe exactly, she knew that from the promo and stories she'd seen over the years, but Alaine knew for sure that the muse would be able to make her say things she didn't want to reveal.
It was one thing when Jet made her feel so comfortable she blurted her name or took off her mask. It was another thing entirely to be influenced-slash-charmed into spilling her secrets to someone who had far too much power and far too many connections. Just the idea of fessing up her deepest, darkest secrets to a table full of her team and the Hollywood Six made Blackstar feel nauseas again.
She tried to give herself some reasons why it wouldn't be the end of the world. She wasn't a bad person. She wasn't a planet-level threat. She didn't have anything against the Six or anyone else there at the Gala.
But you stabbed some innocent old man and left him to die without trying CPR or calling 911. But you killed some petty thieves who were probably just down on their luck and didn't deserve to die. But you slaughtered over twenty people in cold blood because you decided you couldn't risk them knowing what they knew, even when half of them probably didn't even know the stuff you killed them over.
That was a slippery slope. She knew it. John knew it. If she'd murder a whole compound of gangsters because at least maybe five of them knew who she was and where her family was, what would stop her from killing one or two people who knew the same or started to figure it out? She knew how her brain worked. She'd rather stop the threat at the beginning than let it grow.
But she wouldn't kill anyone just for that. But she had. And what about Jet? Jet knew her face and her first name. Lightning Girl was close to getting that information too. But that was different. She trusted them.
She just didn't trust herself.
And that, she was well aware, was an extremely dangerous weak point.
Getting ahead of Ikret and Calliope, Blackstar made her way to the table -- only to see Asteroid getting up and heading the other way. Not bothering with an attempt at gracefulness, she plonked herself down in the chair next to where he'd been and immediately scooted her chair an inch closer to it, hoping no one would notice amid the movement of others taking their seats. She didn't immediately feel better, if only because her mind had subconsciously created a placebo effect out of Jet's physical proximity and he'd just walked off. It was enough to help her take a few subtle, deep breaths though, being seated; there was still too much noise, too many voices, everything bouncing off the walls and ceilings like a giant echo chamber, but she knew she had an outlet for the energy threatening to start boiling over. If she could just feel out that signature, gravitational pull, wherever he'd gone--
"Ah, there you are. Blackstar, right?"
The unfamiliar voice made her lowered gaze snap back up as Lady Liberty dragged a chair right up to her, and Blackstar just stared for a second as her careful concentration was whipped out of her control again. Her eyes were still ablaze, stars still crowding her vision and her head, but she managed a quick smile. It was fake, but she hoped the other heroine couldn't tell.
"Ah-- yeah."
What if she could tell? She was a pro. What else could she tell? What would the others be able to tell? Obviously Ikret and LG were onto her already. Through the stars, Blackstar spied other well-known figures approaching the table. Her hands started to tremble, the looming sensation of being an imposter creeping up her spine like sentient tar.
But Lady Liberty was holding out her own hand for a shake, and Blackstar sucked in a breath and held it for just a second, long enough to hopefully keep herself from shaking for the brief moment of contact. She reached out, meeting the other woman's extended hand and giving a very quick handshake indeed.
"Lady Liberty, at your service. Don't be scared, I promise, just saw your name on the guestlist and had to meet you......just wanted to say hi to the person I keep seeing in the leaderboards who ain't the usual folk."
Oh, wow, that was terrifying. Leaderboards could be seen by other branches? Well yeah, duh, that made sense, of course they could be.
Alaine's mouth still felt dry, but now her throat felt tight too. Breathing. She needed to steady her breathing...
"O-Oh, hah -- I'm honored." I'm a liar. She was breathing too fast, she was going to make herself start hyperventilating. She struggled to swallow, trying not to think about it too much for fear of making it worse.
Liberty's midwestern accent seemed to carry a tone of easy charm, disarming in her reassurance that there was no need to be starstruck or scared. As if she had to tell people that all the time. Being one of the Hollywood Six probably did make her that much more intimidating... for normal reasons, like being in awe of meeting your hero or feeling like you'd never be able to live up to her example.
Alaine was just scared Liberty had been in the game long enough to know a fake when she saw one.
"Oh, no, sorry," Blackstar started, feeling the urge to lift her hands in an apologetic gesture but instead forcing them to stay down in her lap since they were still shaking. After a split-second hesitation she adjusted her chair, turning it to face Liberty a little better. "I'm just, uh... I don't love crowds. And it's been a long week."
That was close enough to the truth. She backed it up with another small smile as her hands started to fidget, gently tugging again at the borrowed bracelet.
Liberty's energy reminded her of Lightning Girl. Liberty just seemed... more refined, in a sense. Or a little more in control of her enthusiasm. They were both cheery and charismatic and seemed excited to be there, that was for sure. Her accent was vaguely familiar too, a western flavor of southern that, kind of like Quickdraw, reminded her of the old western channel. And her dad. And home. And--
For the love of God, stop it, she begged herself internally. Focus on something else.
Jet was back. She knew it somehow, even with her back turned. It made her release the breath she'd been holding in her lungs for a painfully long time.
She was aware of other new voices joining the conversation at the table, the one nearest her catching her attention because she heard him say "Blackstar". That made her nervous, especially since he was seemingly talking to Asteroid behind her. But it'd be rude to try and be listening to that conversation while Liberty was talking to her, so Alaine forced herself to stay focused on the heroine in front of her instead of the chatter behind her.
"It's cool you're making so much hype. You join SDN, end up posting similar metrics to me by week two....you are quite somethin'. Someday you should show me how it's done if this is how good you are out of the gate, hey? Where were you before this?"
"It's just beginner's--" She faltered mid-reply, taken off guard by the question thrown on to the end. "Uh, just beginner's luck."
She was breathing too slow now. She wasn't getting enough oxygen. Logically she knew there was no way the room would run out of air, but her lungs were trying to convince her it was.
There were a million ways to answer Liberty's question, and she didn't know which one was the right way. She didn't want to be rude and deflect or dodge it, nor did she want to tell the truth -- but, maybe Liberty wasn't actually asking where Blackstar had been before like that, just where she'd worked before.
But maybe she was asking it the other way. Maybe she was asking where on earth Blackstar had even come from.
She was acutely aware of her thudding heartbeat again and struggled to recall if Lady Liberty had super hearing.
"This is, uh -- this is my first hero job," she replied after another brief pause, choosing to take that as the question Liberty had been asking. The gold chain of the bracelet was digging into her skin. "I haven't been anywhere else. Oh -- I mean, I did a little, um, promo? Practice? In some of the northern counties. Shasta, El Dorado."
Blackstar shrugged slightly, feeling a touch out of breath. Casually she lifted a hand to brush her fingers over her hair and make sure it was still in place, but she also used the bracelet to see if the glow from her eyes was still there. It was. Which didn't surprise her, given she could still feel her heart pounding and see her hand shaking as she dropped it again.
Maybe the shaking was contributed to by a lack of food and sleep on top of... everything else. That definitely didn't help the anxiety. She was such an idiot, she should've thought of that and put a little more effort into getting some rest... at least she'd had lunch with Jet earlier, and at least that was long enough ago that she was in no danger of vomiting it up as the idea of letting something slip accidentally crossed her mind again.
“Liberty! If it isn’t the second best rack in the room.”
Blackstar would've scoffed at that if she wasn't so unnerved by the proximity of Calliope just beyond Ikret.
“Don’t tell them anything, you’ve got them running scared with those numbers.”
"Beginner's luck," Blackstar croaked again embarrassedly, clearing her throat and leaning back in her seat.
Breathe breathe breathe breathe wait too much breathing, too much, too fast, wait there wasn't enough air-- she was gonna suffocate-- she was gonna pass out--
The stars, the screaming cosmos, the fear tugging at at everything in her. The cosmic energy in her body wanted to go.
Just when she thought she might completely lose it and ruin everything -- there it was. Gravity. He was doing the thing, that reaching out thing, and she could feel it.
If it were a physical hand being extended, she would've grabbed it like it was a lifesaver and she was in the ocean in a middle of a hurricane. But it wasn't physical, and instead of an overt reaction, Alaine's response was subtle.
The foot she'd had hooked around the leg of her chair relaxed, she stopped tugging the bracelet so hard it dug into her skin. One deep, careful breath proceeded an evening out of her breathing in general, and she felt herself settle slightly into her seat. Very casually, she scooted her chair back a bit towards Asteroid's.
She wondered if he could feel her the way she could feel him. Was it a conscious thing he did, that reaching out? Or was it like her, where maybe some of his powers just did their own thing?
Alaine's eyes were on Lady Liberty, Ikret, and Calliope, feeling like it would be rude to turn away since she wasn't sure Liberty was done with the conversation yet. She didn't bother adding any comments of her own for the time being, content to put her energy towards orbiting that point of gravity. Circling, finding the right speed and distance, the right pull. Little by little, everything started to slow down. The light smoking from her eyes steadily began to dim, and if the other women were content to exchange their friendly -- or, not so friendly? -- banter without her, the light would probably fade entirely.
Oooohhh this was not good. She was so stressed out and they weren't even at the gala yet.
Asteroid said something about karaoke to LG and that briefly distracted Blackstar, making her think of that night a few weeks ago now at the hero bar where he and Madcap had sung some karaoke together. Jet's dramatic performance had been cute. And his voice hadn't been half-bad, either. If he sang again she wouldn't mind at all--
"Well, Asteroid, that depends how many vodka martinis you and I drink. Who knows, maybe it'll be more than a duet!"
Blackstar's head snapped slightly to the side, pale eyes wide as she stared at Lightning Girl for a second before remembering her eyes were actually visible at the moment and swiftly looking away again. That had sounded suggestive. But Sophie didn't mean that, surely? It almost seemed like she was hopped up on excitement without even having any of the champagne yet.
Caaaaaalllmmmm down, Alaine chided herself mentally, one leg bouncing anxiously where it was crossed over the other. She took a deep inhale.
"Like Blackstar might join in and sing too, I mean, if we keep drinking champagne!"
"Ahaha!" Blackstar registered her name and laughed automatically, though she was immediately horrified by the robotic sound of her own voice. Quickly clearing her throat, her smile was a little more tense than she'd like as she added, "Ah, hah, uh -- I don't drink, so, uh, it'll be a hard sell."
Weak, but it would do. At least it was a coherent sentence.
Looking at the rest of the group, she wished she was an empath. If she could just siphon off some of the cheerful excitement of Lightning Girl and Hat Trick, or even the cool nonchalance of Ikret, she'd be good to go. But maybe that was the right track to be on -- maybe she could just trick herself into being chill.
Like Ikret. Yeah. ...Well. Ikret actually didn't seem "chill", exactly, it was more like effortless elegance. Even with two giant wings crammed into the limo she somehow looked blasé -- in the sophisticated sense -- like being encrusted in diamonds was just a regular Friday night for her.
Alaine tried to pretend that was her. That she'd done this a dozen times before, that she totally wore very nice dresses all the time and hobnobbed with the rich and powerful and famous all the time... and she definitely didn't want to crawl out of her own skin... and they all definitely wouldn't immediately see through her act and nail her to the wall...
Lightning Girl laughed and Blackstar blinked, letting out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Her hands were fidgeting relentlessly in her lap, and she was mentally thanking Asteroid for letting her borrow that gold bracelet -- turning it around and around her wrist was giving her some small outlet for her nervous energy. She was trying really hard not to just latch on to his gravity again, even though it'd be so easy and so nice with him sitting right next to her... but no, she was trying to keep herself from developing a dependency. He wasn't always going to be around. He wouldn't want to be. So what was she supposed to do, fall apart?
No. No, she was a tough, strong, independent woman, and she always had been, and she always would be, and she didn't need anybody or anything ever.
...Although a hug would've been very appreciated right about then.
It seemed like she blinked and the next thing she knew, the limo was pulling up to the gala. Alaine pretended she was adjusting her necklace but in actuality she was casually checking her heartrate.
Ah. Racing like a rabbit about to be mauled to death by a pack of wolves. Great, yeah, that was great.
She could already see the flashes of cameras up ahead through the windows and felt her stomach drop. Shoooooot she hadn't thought about cameras...
The stars' incessant screaming in the back of her head was threatening to give her a headache before she'd even gotten out of the limo, and she could feel her breathing trying to keep pace with her rapid heartbeat.
You're going to make yourself hyperventilate. God, if only her body would listen to her head. No matter how many times she told herself she was fine, her nervous system refused to get the memo... that had always been something she'd struggled with, but it had gotten ten times worse when that stupid shooting star whacked her in the head.
Speaking of stars, they were burning so bright at the edges of her vision she was starting to get scared she was going to have a reaction she couldn't control. Blackstar sank back in her seat a little, again hiding slightly behind Asteroid as she tried to regulate her breathing and force down the increasingly-anxious cosmic energy.
Lightning Girl and James were talking but their voices were reaching her ears in a muted way, like she was underwater.
"Here we are. Wow. I've only seen this on TV."
"Yeah, A-Listers out tonight. And us. Valerie must have a secret caring side of her I didn't think existed. Or is setting us up for something."
"The Carnival, good performances? The star power of east LA? Come on James, don't overthink. For once. Enjoy this."
Alaine nodded slightly to herself, even though Lightning Girl had been talking to the dispatcher and not her. Don't overthink. Enjoy this.
Yeah, but since when had she ever enjoyed something like this? Uhh oh, right, never. She hated big fancy places. She hated big crowds. She hated dressing up and feeling like a fraud.
The stress was being tempted to turn into rage. The stars were coaxing it out and she could feel it, like something physical sticking to her ribs and trying to work its way up her throat. She wasn't sure if the flashing in her eyes was the cameras outside the tinted windows or the flickering stars forever in her vision. Maybe both. She was disconcerted by the fact that she couldn't tell the difference.
That made it worse. Her body started reacting before she could stop it, and she knew the second her eyes started smoking light. Like floating when she was asleep, it was a physical response to the cosmic energy that she hadn't figured out how to control, and Blackstar immediately shut her eyes. She had no idea what it looked like from the outside, whether the light was still glowing through her eyelids or drifting up past her lashes.
Okay. Okay, okay, she thought, taking yet another impossibly deep inhale that had her bruised ribs screaming in protest. This is okay. At least it hides your eyes. Right?
The limo doors opened and Alaine's eyes snapped open, but she couldn't see anything properly. Between the stars and the photographers, her vision was a mess of lights. She stifled a groan, rubbing a hand over her eyes that were still smoking cold light, irises and pupils completely hidden by the glow. If nothing else, it'd make focusing on her face a nightmare for cameras.
Blackstar was the last one out of the limo, trying not to glower but not wanting to smile, either.
"We'll be fine, Blackstar. Promise. You look stunning by the way!"
Eyes leaking starlight, Blackstar glanced over as Sophie offered a word of encouragement and a compliment. "Thank you," she mumbled, but she wouldn't have been surprised if the noise around them drowned it out. That said, it didn't go unnoticed how LG put herself out in front of the cameras; there weren't that many photographers around, but even one was too many as far as Alaine was concerned. She felt relieved to see the white-haired heroine taking the brunt of the flashes, and she knew her own glowing eyeballs would help hide her identity, but she lifted a hand to shield her face anyway. She hadn't been paying attention if SDN corporate had sent down word about smiling for cameras, and frankly, she didn't care.
Blackstar certainly didn't linger on the carpet, making a beeline for the indoors and having to work extra hard to keep her feet on the ground. She would've killed for a little of Asteroid's gravity to stick herself down -- she was having enough trouble regulating her breathing and trying to get her eyes to stop bleeding luminescence, let alone making sure she didn't go drifting off like a wayward comet.
It didn't matter how sophisticated the noise was in the hotel -- like the cameras, just a few voices was too many for Alaine's crowded head. The singing from the actual goddess on the stage was beautiful, but the stars' screeching was too obtrusive to let her properly appreciate it. Once she was in she didn't scan the room like she might have had she been a little less jittery, instead just keeping a hand up over her glowing eyes like she was embarrassed of them, falling back in the group in an attempt to hide behind any one of them. Which was easy enough, since she was apparently the shortest one there. In fact, ducking between Lightning Girl and Hat Trick pretty much completely hid her from view.
Occasionally glancing out from under her fingers -- her hands still bearing somewhat bruised up, scabbed-over knuckles -- she did spot a few figures she recognized. Not from personal acquaintance, but because... well, everybody recognized those heroes. Her gaze lingered longest on Lady Liberty and Quickdraw; the former because younger Alaine had always liked the iconic American-ness of her and the closeness in their ages, and the latter because something about the cowboy hat and revolvers felt comfortably familiar. Probably because she'd spent so many nights watching the old western channel with her dad.
Don't think about Dad, she pleaded mentally as soon as her mind started conjuring up images of her old family living room, with the old worn armchair her dad always sat in and the thrifted pillows her mom had re-covered and the infomercials playing on the TV between episodes of The Rifleman and Clint Eastwood movies.
Ah, great, now she was homesick again.
Blackstar, still struggling to manage her breathing and avoiding the photo op, hurriedly scoped out the edges of the room for a good place to go be a wallflower. But before she could act on her plans the team had been approached by Valerie, looking intimidating as all get out, as was to be expected. Alaine dropped her hand from her face, if only because she didn't want to get called out for it.
"You made it.....finally. Don't fuck this up. Especially you two."
Who, Lightning Girl? Ikret? That baffled Alaine. Those two, in her opinion, looked the most like they were supposed to be there. They were literally sparkling. Also Hat Trick, who seemed charismatic and down to earth enough to fit in just about anywhere.
"Governor wants to talk with me. Keeping all of your sorry asses, and corporate in contract.....and you didn't bring Madcap at least, James. Keeps us in with a fighting chance. That and Blackstar seemingly posting numbers even Liberty's struggling to match."
Being specifically named made her go very still for a second, blanching as if Valerie had just put a hit on her.
"Your table is there. When you're called, come up, don't say anything stupid. Shake hands, look good. And enjoy your night. This ain't gonna be regular."
When you're called? Come up?! Blackstar felt properly sick but she swallowed the anxiety-bidden nausea, glancing at James when the dispatcher eventually spoke up. Mental. Yeah. At least he seemed like he was enjoying himself, judging by the smile. That was good. He and Sophie started bantering again in that sibling-y way they did, and Blackstar felt herself stuck in place, trying to decide if she could actually get to their table or if it'd be pointless since nobody else seemed to be sitting.
Where was Asteroid... she turned just slightly, catching sight of him nearby and focusing briefly on the red-faced watch on his wrist. Watching the tiny gold hands tick, trying to imagine the steady sound of it in her head and pretending that was her heartbeat. Slower than it currently was.
Focusing a great deal of her mental energy to the task of imagining her heart as a red-faced watch with gold hands, the shine of Blackstar's blazing eyes started to dim -- she might've just been getting a hold of it when Lightning Girl's voice startled her back to a full glow.
"Seen Lady Liberty over there? I thought I grew up looking up to her. But she's actually a lot shorter than I thought in person. So cool though. I'm not worthy, Blackstar!"
Alaine swallowed thickly and quickly forced a smile. There was a joke to be made about height, probably, but it wasn't coming to her.
"Then over there, that's Black Rose. I think you two have a lot in common. Quiet. Highly effective. Red haired. And you both have black costumes. But she can turn invisible, soo......when we getting that?"
The red hair bit immediately had Alaine's hands jumping up to the back of her head, hastily trying to hide any inkling of red peeking out from under the rest of her mousy hair and the low bun she'd attempted. "Ha... yeah... I'd kill to turn invisible..." It might've been an awkward-sounding response, but she meant that with all her heart right about then. If she could turn invisible she wouldn't be hanging around any longer than she had to, just long enough to establish she had been there.
"And Tsunami. I almost fucking forgot."
"Oh?" Alaine glanced over in the direction LG had looked, still trying to adjust her hair. She spotted the blue-themed heroine in question, silent for a moment before saying simply, "Well. Let me know if she starts winding up again." She would soooo much rather be in a fight. So much. Honestly, she would be happier back at the clownfest. Social interaction was so much easier when the interaction was a fistfight. Which was awful to think, and she really shouldn't be thinking it, but she was, and now she was upset at herself again, and--
"You look really nice," she said to Lightning Girl, trying to casually thank her for taking the spotlight with the cameras. "Those photos are going to look amazing. The lights on that dress make it look--" Ah, actually, she could see the light from her eyes reflecting off the silvery material. She'd hoped that had stopped already. Alaine pressed on. "--look like starlight."
She paired that with a weak smile. "Ha. I oughta know."
Genuinely. The stars trying to fill up her peripheral vision could've blended right into Lightning Girl's dress. "You and Ikret both. Y'all--" Her voice cracked a little and she quickly cleared her throat. "Uh, you both look amazing."
Speaking of... Ikret might actually be the perfect person to go linger behind. For one, those big, majestic wings were practically a wall, no one would see her. For two, who would look at Blackstar when there was a diamond-studded, model-bodied angel in front of her? Yes, perfect.
...Was that rude? To use Ikret as a distraction? ...Maybe? Alaine didn't really think she'd mind, if she even noticed. It was kind of a roundabout compliment.
Her eyes drifted to the side, following Lightning Girl's departure and the man she approached, dressed in his dashing black and red and gold. Alaine's gaze lingered for a second unintentionally. She'd thought Asteroid was handsome ages ago, and she'd thought he looked amazing in his suit in the locker room, but seeing him from a bit of distance in a setting like the gala... wow. He looked so...
...Far away.
Alaine swallowed the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat, deciding not to think about that strange, tugging sensation in her chest. Instead she turned to set her sights on Ikret. Time to become as invisible as she possibly could...
With the practiced movements of someone who was used to skirting around people and avoiding attention, Blackstar sidled her way towards the winged goddess reincarnate. Intending to just casually stand in the shadow of her wings, she was almost there when she thought she heard Asteroid laugh. Maybe it wasn't him at all, maybe the stars were evolving and now mimicking familiar voices -- or maybe it was just some other random guy who sounded like Jet. In any case, Alaine's course was derailed embarrassingly quickly as she turned to look, catching a glimpse of LG and Asteroid chatting; looking back mid-step, she realized a server with a tray of drinks was walking right past her.
They saw each other right about the same time and she could see the split-second panic on his face. Obviously he couldn't really yank back with that tray in his hands, but he did lurch slightly as if instinct almost made him do it. Alaine caught herself, quite nearly colliding with him -- she, likewise moving on instinct, threw out a hand that hit a glass and almost tipped it over, only she managed to catch it instead as she turned sharply to avoid hitting the rest of the tray.
Whirling to a halt, drink in hand, she and the server shared a somewhat bewildered look before the man sucked in a breath and continued on his way towards the tables, leaving her to turn and realize she was actually right in front of Ikret.
Looking with wide, glowing eyes between the drink in her hand and the winged woman, Blackstar realized just how close she'd come to knocking a whole tray of drinks right into that million-dollar-looking dress.
The thought was almost enough to make her nauseas again. She was far from the relaxed, casually-saluting woman who'd wished Ikret good luck on her first day earlier that afternoon.
"Yikes, sorry, that was close." Alaine cleared her throat, paused, then extended the drink in Ikret's direction with a sheepish smile. "Uh -- do you want this? I'm assuming it's champagne -- I don't drink. If not that's fine! I can just... set it... somewhere."
Somewhere behind her she heard James and glanced back to see him pointing at them and beginning to direct everyone to the table. She wasn't sure if she'd feel better sitting down or not, because technically that was being stuck in one particular place. Standing up and walking around was a bit more stressful but at least there was the feeling of being able to run -- or fly, in her case -- if she really needed to.
And she might need to, the way things were going. She could still feel her heart pounding painfully fast in her ribs, and she knew her stupid eyes were still glowing, which was starting to get embarrassing because somebody was going to figure out sooner or later that it wasn't a voluntary thing she was doing for the sake of giving herself a little more anonymity. It was probably annoying, too. Was it hard to look at? She'd actually never really looked at herself when her eyes were smoking light like that before, just caught glimpses. Mostly because it had only ever happened in very high-stress or high-power situations, like a fight.
Her mind was going a hundred miles a minute and she really wished someone would just give her a shake and tell her to cut it out, because obviously mentally scolding herself wasn't working.
Blackstar cleared her throat lightly again, mouth feeling so dry that she was almost considering having a swig of one of those drinks anyway. "Your dress is stunning, by the way," she said to Ikret, starting to turn to head for the table but somewhat obviously waiting for the winged woman -- more out of a desire not to walk on her own than genuine politeness, if she was being honest. "I've never seen one like that. Those, uh -- are those real diamonds?"
The sound of Jet laughing immediately quieted ten different worries she hadn't even known she'd had. Of course that number jumped right back up again when he doubled over, hand going to his ribs in a gesture she was now very familiar with, but it was more worry about him than anything else.
"And here I was filling out paperwork for child- er- bear support. I wasn’t even expecting joint custody.”
Alaine snickered softly at that, pain wincing through her side but not as much as if she'd let herself actually laugh. "Hey, a growing bear's going to need all the parenting he can get, I imagine."
He was leaning towards her. From the outside looking in, he wasn't that close... to Alaine, it felt like he was very close. She went rather still, eyes wide behind her mask.
"Alaine- I won this for you.” His voice is steady- but quiet. Soft- but sure. "It reminded me of you. But now- he reminds me- of me?”
Had she not been so distracted by the quiet way he was talking, she probably would've found it funny that he and Sophie had both seen stuffed bears and thought of her. Instead she was still just staring at him, brain stuttered to a halt as she mumbled a surprised, "...Oh."
"You’ll just have to give me the opportunity to win you another.”
Jet leaned back then as Sophie -- Lightning Girl -- entered, and Alaine didn't reply; but the pink spreading across what was visible of her face probably spoke for her.
There was screaming in the back of her head again -- but it wasn't the usual, language-less star-screams. This time it was just her, squealing and giggling mentally like a giddy kid.
Hat Trick entered eventually, chatting with LG briefly and mentioned the Gala before groaning about the aches he still had from last week, which was way too relatable... Alaine forced herself to pay attention to Lightning Girl's response about the Gala, noting the dress code expectations and wondering how she was going to manage it. Sophie sounded eager, at least -- Alaine could see through that attempt at hiding excitement. It was probably a big deal for an important hero like her. She probably already had a nice outfit ready. Dang it, were there dress shops around that had, like, off-the-rack dresses? That was a thing, right? The only experience she could really draw any ideas from was when she'd gone wedding dress shopping with her sisters and mom and grandma, for Brook's wedding.
But trying to figure out what she going to do was stressing her out again and she really didn't want to be stressed right then, so Alaine casually shifted a little in her seat, legs stretched out -- and let one boot lightly rest against Jet's. Just enough that it could be unintentional.
The sight of two big, angel-like wings being fit through the door eventually made her start thinking about something other than the man sat next to her, and Alaine blinked a couple of times as she processed what she was looking at.
"Sup." Punctuated suddenly by the 'pop' of the bubblegum she began to work on purely for dramatic purpose.
The bubblegum popping burst the brief air of statuesque, goddess-like presence the newcomer held, and Alaine's head tilted to the side subconsciously in curiosity. She remembered he Slack message then about a new hero -- Ikret, right? She was stunning. From the curves to the suit to the wings... she looked like she ought to be on a runway somewhere.
Alaine was quiet for the moment as Jet spoke up, greeting the newcomer; he was joined by LG, who introduced her teammates enthusiastically. When she was noted, Blackstar sheepishly uncrossed her arms to lift one hand in a small but friendly wave. Finally speaking again when there was a pause in LG's introductions, she offered a light, "Howdy."
A little light conversation, then the dispatches started rolling in; James picked her for a welfare check and Blackstar stood, pausing briefly to tap Asteroid's shoulder with her gloved knuckles. "Seeya later, Louie," she hummed, grinning at him as she shortened one nickname into another without really even thinking about it.
On her way to the balcony she gave Ikret a relaxed, two-fingered salute and a nod. "Hey, good luck on your first day." She was no Lightning Girl, but she hoped her friendly tone came through.
And with that she off, on to the dispatches for the day.
"Okay, Blackstar, need you on a Search and Rescue mission. Somehow, some hiker has ended up being teleported into the San Gabriel Mountains, no idea how he got there, and he needs saving. Can you go look for him? Gonna patch you into Los Angeles SAR, they'll have more info on the situation. Head north towards the San Gabriel Mountains and standby for further info."
After so many mild dispatches, a more serious one coming in through her earpiece immediately had Blackstar's attention.
"On it," she replied to James, stepping off the rooftop she'd been idling on while waiting for another call. Soon James had patched her through to SAR, and she listened as the operator explained the situation. Random guy on the street one minute, in the middle of nowhere the next?
Wormhole, Alaine thought to herself matter-of-factly. That should probably be a bigger issue. If it were her, she'd be asking the guy where exactly on the street he'd been and blocking the area off, just in case.
She could see the mountains coming up; she'd been out that way before on her pre-work, early morning flights. She was pretty sure she'd gone streaking through the sky above them like a shooting star just last week, actually.
"Blackstar, thank god you're on the line! Okay, we've narrowed it down to four grid co-ordinates from his phone call, but we can't still see him.....can you look around for him? If you find the guy, he's in an orange shirt, sounds like he's quite hurt because he fell into a tree....if you can pull him out, get him to hospital as soon as you can!"
"Alright..." She thought for a minute. "Orange?"
"Yes, and in a tree."
"Gotcha."
Blackstar let her flight path shift upwards as she approached the mountains, arcing high into the sky. She had good vision and she knew it -- she had a feeling that if she got high up enough to scan the whole grid area, she'd have a better chance of spotting the lost man than if she tried flying low.
She curved over the mountains, turning midair to study the ground below. Orange wasn't a natural color, so she had hopes it'd be easy to spot. Of course, if he was sort of buried beneath a bunch of foliage or tangled up in a tree, that might make it difficult... She supposed she'd do an overall sweep first, then go in for a closer look if--
Oh. There he was.
Alaine fumbled to a halt midair, registering the flash of orange she'd just seen far below. Twisting around, she dropped into a quick dive, pulling up before she smashed into the trees and righting herself so she could float down.
"Hello?"
"Here! Help!"
Okay, yeah, that was him. Blackstar pushed a few broken limbs out of the way, bracing one boot against a thicker branch and leaning into the foliage to spot her displaced civilian; the orange shirt was a bit dirty and ripped, and he did look a little worse for wear -- but overall he seemed alright.
"Alright, bud?" Blackstar asked, extending a hand; he took it, wincing as he carefully edged towards her down the wide branch he'd managed to perch himself on. "Y-Yeah, I think so... I mean, k-kind of... I think I might've broken my leg though, it hurts like hell..."
Gripping his hand, Alaine shifted around, maneuvering amid the branches and glad for the lenses over her eyes as a small limb whacked her across the temple. Ignoring the lingering pain from the events of the past week, she lifted the man in a bridal carry, being very careful of the leg he thought was broken. "Okay, here -- let me get you to the ground and set that leg for you, yeah?"
The guy was more than willing to sacrifice a couple scraps of his already-ruined shirt, and it only took Blackstar a minute to find a couple of good sticks to brace on either side of his lower leg. Crude but efficient splint made, she gingerly picked up her passenger again and made a swift flight to the hospital the San Gabriel SAR operator directed her to. Emergency services were waiting when she touched down, setting the man on the stretcher they provided; she stepped back to let the nurses take over, but before she could turn to leave she heard him call out.
"Hey!"
Blackstar paused, pivoting on a heel to look back. The man waved to her from the stretcher. "I bet you hear it all the time, but thank you! Really, I've got kids--
Please! Please, I've got kids--
Alaine blinked, ignoring the urge to make a motion like she was physically shaking something off.
"I was just on the way home... if I fell out of that damn tree, hell, I might not have made it back to them." The guy laughed faintly, letting out a breath of relief and calling, as the nurses began to wheel him away. "So thanks! Keep up the good work!"
Blackstar stared after him for a second before throwing on a quick smile and waving after him. "Ha -- yeah, no problem! Get better soon, yeah?"
She saw him throw her a thumbs up before he and the nurses disappeared into the hospital, and she stood there for a few seconds more before taking a deep breath and ignoring the burn in her ribs. Clearing her throat, she turned and pushed off the ground and into the sky again.
"Alright, James, got it wrapped up and headed back to Claremont."
Judging by the time, that might just be her last dispatch of the day, she reasoned.
After that was the real challenge -- a social event.
No, wait -- she could, she could. It just hurt. A lot. So much that her body was trying not to breathe without her mind consciously making the decision.
Ow. It was on the right, somewhere. Lower rather than higher. Did she have a broken rib? Wow. First broken bone. Exciting.
And suddenly she wanted to start bawling because no one knew.
First bone breaks were supposed to be for wild childhood shenanigans where your parents freaked out and rushed you to the hospital then got annoyed at you for sticking stuff down in your cast later. They were for college roadtrips with your best friends when things got a little too rowdy and you and the gang got to go spend your Thursday night in an ER together.
Right? Right? That was what it was like in the movies.
This wasn't the movies. Alaine blinked the blood out of her right eye again. No, this was some whacked-out carnival with a bazillion clowns, and she... what was she doing?
She shifted a little and was immediately greeted with full-body pain, plus the discomfort of smashed wood under her palms. Ah, right. She was out of juice. She'd dived out of the air and tackled Gaggles off Madcap and now... Her ears were ringing, but she was pretty sure she could hear Lightning Girl shouting.
Bad shouting or good shouting? ...Sounded like communicating. Not screaming. Okay. That was good.
Alaine tried to push herself up again and managed it that time, though one of her hands slipped a little where she was trying to brace against what probably used to be the counter of the stand she'd barreled into. When she glanced at her hand, she saw the sanguine smear her gloved fingers had left and felt her stomach drop.
It had happened again. She'd done it again.
Bile rose in the back of her throat and she struggled to hold her guts down, even as everything started assaulting her senses all at once. The pain, the residual vertigo, the nausea, the voices, the memories, the panic.
No no no no, she hadn't wanted to do it again. It was like speedrunning the five stages of grief.
Denial. She couldn't have done that again -- it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same. She'd had to. Anger. Why? Why couldn't she have just kept her good streak going, why did those stupid clowns have to make her do that?! Bargaining. Maybe it wasn't so bad -- they had been bad guys, real bad guys, and they'd been trying to kill everyone. Her, LG, civilians, everyone. Maybe it was something she could live with. Depression. Except it wasn't. It wasn't something she could live with. It was going to be like the month after the first time. She wasn't going to be able to sleep or eat or think straight, and she was going to be in so much pain because she deserved it and it was going to hurt and she'd have to writhe in the dark of her apartment alone.
Alaine felt herself starting to hyperventilate despite the extreme discomfort in her ribs.
Acceptance. She'd done what she'd done. It was over. She couldn't take it back. She couldn't stop what was coming.
Her hands were shaking. Everything was shaking. She was breathing too much and not enough at the same time, her head spinning, screaming in the back of her mind -- whether it was her or the stars she didn't know, and she was losing the ability to think long enough to figure it out.
Not now, she begged herself silently, still outwardly trying to get up despite the overwhelming dismay building in her chest. Now now not now not now please this is such bad timing--
She heard more than saw Hat Trick's approach, and she managed to drag her head up while still on her hands and knees. Focus. Focus on something, anything...
Counting heads. Like she had for years growing up, walking at the back of the group. Brook, Grace, Ezra, Elijah, Joy, Mom, Dad. This time she was counting teammates -- Lightning Girl, Asteroid, Hat Trick... Ah. Well that wasn't comforting. That was only half the team.
An especially deep, panicked breath had pain lacing through her lungs and Alaine winced, stuck on her hands and knees amid the rubble for a moment more as she fought two battles at once.
“Why did the clown stop making jokes?”
Fuzzy vision focused in on the speaker. Gaggles? Gaggles... and Madcap. She focused on the later briefly, adding that to her team headcount. Good, he wasn't dead. At least her dive had maybe helped him out, rather than just made the evil clown king disappear.
Alaine gritted her teeth, pushing off her hands and sitting back on her knees. A small movement, but her entire body seemed to disapprove. Strongly.
“He lost his head.”
Blinking thickly, she frowned over at Gaggles and Madcap, the latter of the two holding the former around the throat. Deathgrip. She knew what was happening even before the manic laughing -- Lightning Girl's call to cuff the clown wasn't going to be followed.
The sharp snap and sudden silence brought no visible reaction from Blackstar, who just sat there on her knees, struggling to find a way to breathe that didn't hurt. In the back of her mind, there was some part of her that still wanted to be mortified. In the front of her mind, there was a much fresher part of her that thought Madcap should've torn Gaggles head clean off.
Like she could've done.
Oh God, there was the nausea again. She tilted her head up and back, something in her neck protesting the movement -- but it helped a little with the sickening feeling.
She could feel, in her core, the carnival dropping -- but not as fast as it should've. She didn't bother trying to puzzle through why.
Madcap was looking at all of them, hands spread like he was waiting for some kind of decree. She didn't have one to give.
Blackstar bit the inside of her cheek, hard, and forced herself to her feet. Another headcount. Lightning Girl, Hat Trick, Asteroid... Madcap. No Eclipse, anywhere. He was probably tied up somewhere else. Yeah. Just tied up.
She shook her head, feeling like her brains were mush in her skull. Back to business. She could be miserable later. A lifetime of putting everything and everyone else first meant she was well-versed in biting back her own discomforts to make sure what needed to be done got done.
It was easy enough to dodge going to see Alan back at headquarters. If anybody asked, Blackstar was quick to chirp that she had a healing factor. "It'll be kicking in any minute here, I'll be fine! Focus on the others, I'm good."
She hated lying. She never used to lie, ever, and now it felt like every other word out of her mouth was some tall tale or another.
Yeah, she had a little kick to her body's natural healing ability, but it just took off the edge of the healing process. Broken ribs generally took 6-12 weeks, so she'd be better in 4-8. She probably should've let Alan of Plymouth slap some morphine spell on her or something, but...
Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, mask still on, still covered in grime and blood, she knew why she didn't.
She deserved the pain.
It was supposed to hurt, after what she'd done.
Alaine started to tug her mask down, ignoring the searing pain around that right eye. But as she saw her face starting to emerge in the mirror she felt an overwhelming sense of apprehension and turned abruptly, putting her back to the counter as she finished pulling the mask down, letting it hang around her neck. A glimpse at the inside revealed a good bit of blood around her right eye lens, and she huffed softly to herself.
She was still in public, despite the bathroom being safely empty for the moment, so her guard was still up. There was still more hurt on the way. It'd hit when she was at the apartment probably, alone, out of the public, free to crash and burn.
She wasn't looking forward to it. It was going to hurt. It was really, really going to hurt. The panic started rising again, tangible in the back of her throat. But she deserved it. Breathing quickened, lungs burned. Her eyes were starting to sting again.
Alaine tugged off her gloves before looking at the red-stained fingers made her start fighting nausea. Her hands were bloodied underneath, but that was her own blood, from split knuckles. That was fine. Grabbing the backpack she'd brought in from the locker room she moved for one of the stalls, starting the laborious process of stripping out of her uniform. Normally she wouldn't have bothered until she got back to the apartment, but she wasn't going to be able to fly to her window and slip in that afternoon. She didn't have enough energy. It'd have to be walking.
Which was going to hurt.
Stripped out of the uniform, she changed into the civilian clothes she'd brought in the backpack, just in case she'd needed them -- dark jeans, black t-shirt, black hoodie. All of it went right on over the blood and gore and open wounds, no effort made to bandage herself up yet. She didn't have enough first aid supplies in the backpack for that, and she wasn't about to let anyone at SDN know her "healing factor" wasn't already in full swing.
Slipping out of the bathroom in her new, almost full-coverage civilian look, Alaine first made sure no one was around to see her bare face before making for her locker. She had a black, cloth facemask, like people wore when they were sick sometimes, and a pair of sunglasses… she was pretty sure she’d just dropped them in the locker the other day.
It crossed her mind to go find Jet. He hadn't looked too good last she caught a glimpse of him, but she’d bolted right down to the locker room almost as soon as they got back to SDN.
He wouldn't want to see her. He'd probably just want to get himself checked out by Alan then head home and pass out, get some sleep. That would be best for him, definitely. What would she even do? Ask if he was okay? What was the point?
God, sleep sounded so nice. She doubted she'd be getting any any time soon. Alaine grimaced as reaching back into her locket sent a stab of pain through her shoulder. Ah, right. She'd been stabbed back there... shallowly, but she probably should've looked at that in the bathroom. Too late then.
There. She felt the mask and sunglasses and pulled them out, quickly putting on the mask and planning to go find that one back door she’d scoped out early in the week. Only, as she turned to do just that, she caught sight of herself in the locker room mirror.
Aw, yikes. She looked… well. Like she’d gotten beaten up by a bunch of clowns. With her hood up, the shadows across her face made her eyes look dark.
Hesitating briefly, she trudged closer to the open sinks and the mirror, looking specifically at the gash in her brow, above her right eye. No wonder she’d been blinking so much blood out of her vision… it was still bleeding a bit, plenty of dried and drying blood smeared all around her brow, her temple, her eye. It looked like it was swelling, too. Lovely.
Alaine hesitated yet again, then stepped a little nearer and tugged her mask down under her chin. The red tear-tracks were still scrawled down her cheeks, and fortunately her nose and busted lip weren’t bleeding anymore, but it didn’t look pretty.
She started to inhale deeply only to stop herself short as pain laced through her ribs, altering the breath to something shallower.
There was a sound behind her. Whether it was just a natural building sound or someone entering the locker room, she didn’t stop to figure out and instead hastily trying to yank the mask up – only to forget she was still holding her sunglasses with that same hand. Said sunglasses subsequently hit her right in her injured eyebrow and Alaine doubled over, snapping out an agitated and very Southern, “OW! Doggone it, son of a frickin’--”
She cut herself off, hissing through a grimace and thumping her fist on the counter weakly. Of course, doubling over had made her ribs ache again, and had stretched out that stabbed shoulder, so, like an idiot, she’d only hurt herself more. “...ow…”
Sucking in a shallow breath, she stayed slightly bent over, trying to keep her unmasked face out of view of whoever might’ve just come in. Weakly waving her arm with the unstabbed shoulder back in the general direction of the locker room, she managed, to whoever might be there, “Sorry – s-sorry, I’m fine…”
Said person approaches slowly- feet dragging just a little as they do. “H-hey- S-Bee- relax- hey- it’s just me.” Each word feels like he has to carefully chisel it from glass. The edges of each piece coming off in his hands.
Jet’s in rough shape. His face is mottled red, black, and blue. Blood vessels burst over the places of impact. He’s been relying on the pure battered shape of his face to protect his identity at this point- having gone maskless since they’d arrived back at SDN. His right eye is swollen shut, and his left one looks like he burst a few blood vessels in it too. Black bruises color his cheek bones. He was going to look even uglier tomorrow.
In his right glove at his side he’s clutching a half melted ice pack. His left one hovers about waist level fingers pointed in Blackstar’s direction. He does not touch her. He just- wants to.
Actually he’s not sure he’s ever wanted anything else more than he wants a hug right now.
That’s probably the painkillers talking- someone gave him a shot of morphine in the medical bay upstairs to tide him over til he got to bed. They figured he had some sort of tolerance. Nah. The injection had immediately felt like the descent on a rollercoaster- but- up? It’d erased the pain, but now it was a dull ache. It wasn’t going to last much longer.
Alaine stared at him, at least with one eye. Her right was squinting a little.
“Jet–” God, he looked awful. Concern twisted up her stomach in knots and before she knew it she was dropping the sunglasses on the counter, already halfway to reaching for him but stopping herself before she could bring her arms up.
“Are you okay?” Jet’s getting a bit more comfortable with speaking now. But his tongue feels fat and slow in his mouth. He tilts his head- and motions vaguely at her side. “Hopefully you got patched up?”
Alaine bit back several different responses before finally managing, “I-I’m okay. I’ll be fine.”
She hesitated. “You look– I mean… you got…?”
The words wouldn’t quite come out right, but she could see the icepack. He must’ve gotten seen to. But suddenly she felt like she needed to go back up there and make sure they’d done everything they possibly could for him.
She saw his hand out of her peripheral, the one not holding the icepack. Her own hovering hands moved on instinct, both going to fold shakily around his, curling over his fingers and palm. She hated her bloody hands and she hated she was touching him with them but she couldn’t help it – she needed it. She had to.
After a moment- he can’t help himself. “Was that-? An accent?” There’s a smile in Jet’s voice, and one side of his mouth quirks up. A dimple appears despite the bruising.
How was he cute? How was he cute like that, looking like he’d been curb stomped by twenty clowns, his poor face all black and blue and red and one eye almost swollen completely shut–
“Uh– y-yeah,” she squeaked, clearing her throat a little and huffing out something that was half a laugh and half something distressed. Somehow she’d completely forgotten about her own pains; it still hurt, it just… wasn’t important anymore. “Yeah, sorry, it – I’ve been told it, um, twangs. Sometimes.”
Mostly when she was particularly animated about something. She tried to tone it down because she felt like people didn’t take her seriously when she was legitimately mad because she was just “y’all”ing and “ain’t”ing and “doggone it all”ing the whole time.
A frown tugs at Jet’s lips.
“Are you okay?” she asked, any amusement fading to concern as she shifted just a little closer, searching Jet’s face intently, eyes dropping to scan him over like she had to double-check the work of the qualified medical team upstairs. “Are you really okay? Do you need anything? Do you need help getting home?”
Forget about getting herself home, this was way more important. She could fly for this. She’d make it work somehow.
Alaine’s close. Close and- looking at him. He takes half a step back, but his hands seem to do the opposite. His fingers curl, hooking themselves tighter to hers. He blinks- trying to process her back to back questions. “Uhhh- I’ve been- better. I’ve been worse. I-” He pauses, mouth getting ahead of his head.
“I could- really use a- uh-” Come on Jet- you’re holding fucking hands. That’s like friendship 2nd base over a regular hug. “a hug?” He’s not thinking straight- maybe this is weird. They met practically yesterday.
Alaine blinked, and her mind started trying to spiral again. Was that a bad idea? Was that a good idea? She hadn’t hugged anyone in about two actual years. She was going to start crying. Would that weird him out? She didn’t want to accidentally hurt him. Was that a consciously-asked question or something concussion induced? Was he concussed? She needed to talk to the medical people upstairs. What if it wasn’t? Why did he want her to hug him? Hadn’t he seen her at the carnival, didn’t he think she was–
Something that wasn’t her mind and might have very well been her heart went ahead and made a decision.
He hadn’t even fully gotten the request out yet and she was already closing in, hands gently letting go of his as her arms looped around him instead. Bloody fingers curled tight against his back as her head dropped lightly against his shoulder, and when she expected to be assaulted by a thousand thoughts and worries–
Her head was quiet. No insistent stars flickered behind her eyes, no anxious energy prickled in her veins.
It wasn’t the most idyllic of situations, no… her rib was hurting and her face was hurting and he was probably hurting too, and they both smelled like blood and sweat and smoke, and they both looked absolutely abysmal.
And somehow, it was the most at peace she’d felt since… forever, really. She couldn’t remember the last time. She couldn’t believe it.
Ignoring the pain in her chest, Alaine let out a deep, shaky sigh against Jet’s shoulder. She wanted to tell him he made it quiet in her head, she wanted to tell him she’d felt his gravity at the carnival and it had kept her from losing her mind but – that wasn’t his problem. She didn’t want him to feel any kind of obligation, she wasn’t asking for anything. Plus, she was afraid if she opened her mouth then she wouldn’t be able to get anything out without blubbering.
So she just kept her mouth shut and closed her eyes for a minute, holding on to Jet and his gravity for what little while she could.
Alaine's arms encircled him slowly. He stiffens, anticipating a zing of pain. There is none. She’s so gentle that he sucks in a breath- filling his lungs just a little too full. A tiny quiet gasp, one that feels like a cool burning in his esophagus. When her head rests on his shoulder he has to thank the people upstairs once more for the morphine. It dulls his aching body. He's so happy that he's only mildly uncomfortable.
When he leans his less injured cheek against her forehead. He barely registers that it happens. Time is getting a bit blotchy for him. His left eye flutters open after a little while. One of his arms is wrapped around her shoulders, the other is around her mid back. The warmth of the woman in his arms is like a blanket on his nerves.
“Thanks.” His appreciation spills out softly.
Alaine took a breath to respond, but she immediately felt that lump in her throat and knew she’d better not… so instead she just nodded faintly, a gentle motion he could probably feel against his cheek.
Vertigo spikes, and he feels his body begin to tip to compensate. The hypoxia from the thin air was not doing him any favors. Reluctantly he lifts his cheek from her to speak.
“And- I uh- could call Rey to come and get me. I’m half expecting him to be waiting for me at my place. Are you okay to fly?”Jet is starting to feel a little silly not having a car in L.A. He didn’t want to impose on her, and it seemed to be coming up a lot. But there was always ridesharing.
Still struggling with feeling a little choked up, Alaine shook her head ‘no’ before she caught herself and hastily nodded out a false ‘yes’, only to feel bad immediately and shrug out an indecisive bob of her head instead.
“I… could manage,” she answered, clearing her throat lightly in an attempt to get rid of that shaky note in her voice. “I mean, I’ll. Um. I’ll figure it out.”
Trying to skip past it, she asked, her eyes doing yet another concerned sweep over him, “Do you have a phone? I’ve–” Oh. She only had her real phone in her locker. …Well, he could use it to call some friend of his. Nobody could track that to Blackstar. Probably. “I-I’ve got one you can use if you need. And you – I could give you my number, too. If you want. I mean if you feel like you might need anything, um, later. And Rey’s not available.”
Jet rests his cheek on her head once more. “Yeah, let’s call Rey. He’ll help us get home. How far are you from my place?” It’s not firm, but it’s assumptive. He can’t imagine the wind burning a facial wound. He lets go gently, catching himself on the counter beside them. His stomach swoops lightly.
She made a muffled huffing sound against his shoulder before he pulled back, trying to feel exasperated or anxious or something like that, something she probably should’ve been feeling. Instead she just felt overwhelmingly grateful, and still kind of emotional, and very very tired.
Pulling back a little herself as Jet let go, she let her arms slip away from him, one hand lifting to hastily wipe across her eyes. “Uh…” Her puzzling over the distance between their places faltered for a second when she saw him wobble, hand twitching instinctively; but he caught himself and she relaxed partially.
“Uh… I’m not really sure,” she admitted. Flight distance wasn’t too bad, but flight distance wasn’t too bad anywhere. She knew how to get between their places in the air, but if she had to do it from the ground she’d be completely lost.
Alaine hesitated briefly as she turned to the backpack she’d left sitting on the counter a moment ago, reaching in to feel out her phone under her discarded and bundled-up suit; she had to take a second to boot it back up, a red and blue image of a dragon lighting up the lock screen as she spoke again.
“It’s, um… River Valley,” she managed to remember the name of her apartment building. One that struck her as odd, given it wasn’t in a valley nor near a river. Maybe it was just trying to sound ritzy to disguise the fact it was one of the cheapest options available. Quickly unlocking the phone and handing it over, almost a little shyly, she tried not to look like she was watching everything he was doing.
It wasn’t that she really had anything to hide, nothing that he’d be able to find unless he went looking at her texts and found her family’s addresses or something. She was just a little embarrassed that he might see her home screen, which was a picture of her at probably ten years old, beaming ear to ear with braces while holding up a fat tabby cat that was probably half as big as she was.
When she hands him the phone, the first thing he does is put his contact in. ‘Jet 🚀’, he presses the camera button, holds it up and takes a picture of the hot mess that is his face.“There, now you’ll remember which Jet it is.” Then without further thought he punches in Rey’s number.
“Thank goodness,” she mumbled, unable to help a weak grin of amusement.
One ring, two, and it picks up. An older warm voice answers the phone. “Hello-? Jet?” There’s a lot of worry in his best friend’s voice and it makes him wince. He guesses the news coverage was pretty intense.
“Rey- I’m fine.” He catches the look Alaine gives him and amends his statement. “Well- mostly- I’m just banged up.”
“That looked brutal- are you at the office?” In the background he hears the man pick up his full keyring and the chime of his door. A warmth bursts in his chest.
“Y-yeah. Me and-” he looks up, meeting Alaine’s eyes, and then quickly up at the ceiling. “-a friend need a lift home- do you mind?” He sucks on his bottom lip.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.” He hands the phone back to Alaine after he hangs up. His chest feels tight, thankful that Rey is his family. “Rey’ll be here in fifteen. Let’s get out of here.”
She took the device back, casually shutting it completely off again before sticking back down in the bottom of her backpack, which she proceeded to gather up and tug over her right shoulder to avoid that aching stab wound on the left. The sunglasses went on and the facemask went up as they made their way outside and waited, but after about two minutes she’d resolved to take them off again once in the safety of Rey’s vehicle. They were really irritating the various little injuries scattered across her face.
Rey drives an old wide pickup with a bench seat. Jet climbs in first. He sits with the gear box between his legs, which leaves plenty of room- and a seatbelt- for Alaine beside him. In the driver seat is Rey- he’s wearing a purple Lakers jersey. The color reflects onto his cheeks, turning his normally copper-toned black skin a cooler color.
Alaine’s face automatically started to crack into a smile at the sight of the old pickup, but the motion hurt so she muscled it down. It reminded her of her dad’s truck. Climbing in after Jet, she let her small backpack sit in her lap, proceeding to remove the sunglasses and tug the mask down under her chin again. If Jet trusted Rey, she figured she could too… plus, she hardly looked like herself at the moment.
“Rey- this is Bee. Bee- this is my best friend Rey.” Rey leans forward around Jet, offering a wave.
Alaine returned it, a touch embarrassed about the state she was in. But Rey had kind eyes, and that – plus the way her leg rested against Jet’s – put her at ease. “Hi. Thank you for the ride.”
“Hi Bee, nice to meet you.” Rey leans forward to wave politely with a kind smile. The older man is shifting into gear the second he hears Alaine’s seatbelt click. He takes the opportunity to knock into Jet- it’s careful on account of how banged up he looks- but it’s also a warning. A hundred words in one action.
Seatbelt safely on, Alaine sank back against the worn seat, wincing a bit but letting out a small, relieved sigh. Thank God she didn’t have to walk home. Now that she was sitting, the exhaustion was hitting hard.
Jet reaches over Rey. That earns him a scolding- “Hey man- watch it I’m trying to drive here.” He plucks the phone from its stand on the left side of the wheel. Unlocking the phone with a swipe code is muscle memory.
Very quietly, the GPS begins directing them.
Sleep wasn’t going to come easy, if at all, when she got back to her apartment. She knew that already. She felt alright at the moment – mentally, anyway – between the depletion of cosmic energy and Jet’s grounding presence, but once that was gone?
Alaine cringed a bit, not wanting to think about it. Instead she sank a little in her seat, subconsciously gravitating towards Jet in the middle until her shoulder nudged him.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, specifically to him, leaning back and closing her eyes for a minute as the rumbling of the old pickup created a familiar kind of white noise.
With a brief nod, he presses his ankle against hers. The connection point lights up his nerves like a Christmas tree. “Yeah Bee- literally- any time.” Jet replies softly.
It’s a little while until they make it to Alaine’s apartment, but when they roll up, Jet finds himself wishing they could all just go back to his place. But that’s not in the cards. Despite the meds wearing off, he shifts his wait to the edge of the bench after her. His feet dangle above the ground, and Jet freezes.
He wants to get out, and walk her up to the door. There’s a lot they didn’t talk about. Like- when he’d gotten his shit kicked in- he never thanked her from hauling him off the ground. How they might explain their 15 minute break if asked. Or about where their carnival prizes ended up- he’d win her a new one. He just needed the chance.
Looking back at Rey, he’s surprised to see the old man looking out the driverside window. Jet feels like he’s tucked in a safe little valley between two of his safe people. He’s not sure he’s really ever had two at the same time. This observation prompts his anxiety to claw out of the void he’s stuffed it into.
The mask came back up, though Alaine hesitated to put the sunglasses on because of how they messed with her right brow. Slipping out of the pickup once it had stopped safely, she pulled the backpack back over her shoulder and was immediately reminded that she’d just been beaten up by a million crazy clowns. Ow… Wow, she already knew tomorrow was going to hurt.
She hesitated as she glanced up at the building, not looking forward to the walk in, not looking forward to the confined space of the elevator, not looking forward to the empty silence of her apartment. Just thinking about spending the next few days off rotting there alone made her wish they hadn’t been given the extra downtime. She’d rather work through the pain than sit in it.
Alaine sucked in a shallow breath and decided she ought to thank Rey again. Anything for one less minute she had to be alone.
Alaine turns to face him as Jet reaches out. His powers are still under the weather- but he can feel their beings laying on the picnic blanket of the universe. This was something he did when he was separated from Rey in prison. Check that he was upright, around, moving like normal. Detecting someone across a prison was great practice for him. Once, he’d done that, and something had been wrong.
Alaine’s bright eyes interrupt the resurfacing of that memory- and he swallows. His chest squeezes- and he attempts once more to slide from the bench seat. A shot of pain shoots down his neck and he hisses.
“Hey–” She reached out with the hand not currently holding her sunglasses, gently catching hold of his arm. “You okay?” She was frowning, but it was a concerned expression. Hopefully that came through the grime and blood and the mask over the lower half of her face. “Be careful…”
Was he trying to get out? What for? Alaine searched his face, realizing she felt that tug again. The way she had in the middle of everything at the carnival. Something in her chest, stirred up by the dread of being alone with her own misery all weekend, suddenly seemed to settle.
Inwardly, almost subconsciously, she let out a breath of relief. Followed immediately by a little exasperation at herself. She knew the best thing for him was probably to go home and sleep – maybe be with Rey, who knew him better, who’d know how to help him. But–
But she wished she had actual food up there in her apartment. Or a couch. Something. She’d take ibuprofen if it meant she’d feel good enough to try and make something for a just-got-our-asses-kicked-but-hey-we’re-still-alive dinner. Of course it’d been a hot minute since she’d made real food, but she’d try. She could invite him up. She could invite Rey up too. Was that crazy? It wouldn’t be denying herself the pain she deserved if it was to help somebody else. Right? That would be okay, wouldn’t it?
Alaine swallowed, realizing she was still holding onto Jet’s arm. Holding onto that gravity, pretending it was keeping her boots planted right there on the curb. “...You’re gonna be okay, right?” she asked. Maybe that was rude, given he had a best friend in the truck right behind him who was probably more than capable of making sure he was okay… but she couldn’t help it.
Jet feels his blood heat when she reaches out. “Y-yeah. Rey’s gonna patch me up the rest of the way. This is old hat for us.” Rey grumbles quietly.
“I’d–” The words were coming out before she could think to double-check them first. “I’d invite y’all up but I– I don’t have, um… seating.” Literally. Unless they were cool with sitting on the counter or the floor. She knew it wasn’t really a good time for hanging out, she just wanted to make sure he could take a break before going again, if he needed it.
…She just wanted to know he was okay, really, and there was no way for her to know that if he left.
And, selfishly – so, so selfishly – she didn’t want to be alone.
You’re an adult. She could practically hear her mom’s voice in her ear. Being an adult means doing things you don’t like. You’ve got to do things on your own.
Jet offers her a smile, “text me later.” He has to stop himself from pulling her back into the cab. “I'll let you know when I'm settled too.” It's friendly, but there's a very obvious softness.
His other hand covers hers. A light squeeze. And then he's swinging his legs back into the truck. “I need to go before I fall over on either of you.”
Alaine swallowed her protests and nodded, holding onto his arm for a second more before he was pulling himself back into the truck.
“Okay–” She bit back another ‘be careful’. “I’ll… see you Monday, I guess.” She managed a small smile, leaning a little to bob her head to Rey and add, “Thank you again for the ride. It was nice meeting you.”
Alaine stood back then so Jet could actually close the passenger door, lingering on the curb as the truck pulled away. She tried to focus inward for a second, honing in on that grounding feeling she knew was Jet’s gravity; still unused to the practice and lacking the full force of her cosmic energy, she seemed to fumble a bit at actively reaching for it. But she managed, and stood there for a moment more even after the pickup was out of sight. Little by little, she could feel the distance stretching out between them.
It was a little depressing, actually.
Taking a breath, she finally turned to the building to start the dreaded trip up to her apartment. It took her a little longer than she would’ve liked, thanks to someone stepping into the elevator ahead of her which prompted her to immediately change course and make for the stairs instead, as if she was in good physical condition to climb six flights of stairs. Still, she’d rather physical pain than a potential panic attack in the elevator.
The backpack was dropped on the floor the second she was inside her place, door nudged shut behind her and locked. She didn't bother turning the light on in the main area, simply shuffling through the dark to her room and the bathroom, where she did finally flip on a light. Now would begin the unpleasant task of patching herself up, but she paused before she started to pull her phone out of her hoodie pocket.
She unlocked it and opened up her contacts, staring at the new one.
Jet 🚀. His poor face looking up at her from the contact icon made her wince a little in sympathy before she moved to send a text…
…And then just stared at the textbox blankly for five minutes. That probably made it about twenty minutes since she’d parted ways with Rey and Jet, since it had taken her around fifteen to get up to her place with all the breaks she took on the landings between floors.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of hesitation, she typed out something simple. He just needed her number after all, it was simple. She didn’t need to overthink it.
Hey, it’s Bee.
She paused, then deleted the cold-sounding period and replaced it with a waving emoji.
Hey, it’s Bee 👋
Yeah, that was better. Alaine sent it, then set her phone down on the counter, gave herself a grimace in the dingy mirror, and got to work.
It finds Jet- laying on his back on Rey’s kitchen island. Between the several stories of steps into his building and Rey's spare bed, Rey had driven to Jet’s place, added food to Ducky's tank using the week slow release feeder, collected Jet's go bag- of course he had one, and his phone.
“If you would just let me cut it off-” Rey complains as he painstakingly removes Jet's uniform. The blood has started to adhere fabric to wounds, and for the first time since he got it, he hates his costume. Rey pries up a section at his side and Jet swears loudly.
“As much as I hate it right now, this thing is technically on loan to me.” Jet tries to recall the cost he'd assume for ruining it further, but can't. Rey swears under his breath.
In his hand, his prepaid phone buzzes. An unknown number and a friendly hello. Hovering the phone close to his working eye- he saves her contact as ‘✨️Starshine✨️’.
“So you like her huh?” Rey asks, an eyebrow quirked up at him.
Jet chokes- “well- she’s- uh- she’s my coworker- uh.”
The older man waits for a straight answer.
“I’m really that obvious?”
Rey hums out a yes. Jet quickly types a message back to her- not wanting to leave her on read. ‘Hey Bee- at Rey’s. You holding up alright?’
“Well- yeah. I don’t know her well yet- but it’s- so different than it was with anyone else. She’s- not like anyone else.” There’s a sense of wonder in his voice.
He’s brought crashing back down to Earth with the burn of antiseptic.
The red tear-tracks took some scrubbing, but she got them off her cheeks. The blood crusted on her eyelid was a little trickier but she managed that too after a while, tediously cleaning the split in her brow above where all the blood had been coming from. It probably should've gotten a stitch or two. Instead it got some hydrogen peroxide and a couple of butterfly bandages, with a messy medical tape and gauze situation on top for the bleeding. It was swollen, too. She'd have to find something to put ice in.
Wasn't much she could do for a split lip except clean it, same with the busted nose. At least those had both stopped bleeding. Her right ear was a little bloody, but the injury seemed surface-level since her hearing didn't appear to be impacted. The bruises forming were inevitable, nothing to be done for those but more ice, assuming she had enough on hand. Any other cuts and scrapes were dealt with, scattered all over her body but mostly on her arms and torso.
Aside from her brow and that broken rib, the stab wound on the back of her left shoulder was the only other bad injury. Tricky to get to, too. Alaine refused to let herself wish someone was there to help. Everybody had their own wounds to lick. She focused on the act of giving herself first aid, fighting the mental despair with a simple, one-task train of thought. In the end, although her shoulder also probably needed stitches, it got an even messier butterfly bandage, gauze and medical tape job. She found some velcro wraps too and wound it haphazardly around her upper torso and over her shoulder to hold her gauze work in place, looking critically at herself in the mirror but knowing it'd just have to do.
Locked in with a one-track mind, she pushed herself to her feet and padded back into the kitchen, opening a drawer and grabbing the one bottle of pills kept there, muscle memory making her sore hands start to twist the lid off as she headed blindly back for the bathroom... before she realized what she was doing.
Blinking and looking down at the bottle of ibuprofen in the hallway, Alaine stared at the label for a second.
...Where did she get off, taking pain killer? What right on Earth did she have to try and take the edge off the pain she was feeling?
She deserved it. Like a medieval monk whipping himself as penance for his sins, she had to pay for what she'd done.
With a sudden surge of self-hatred she wrenched the lid off, storming into the bathroom and upending the bottle of pills over the toilet, proceeding to throw it, empty, into the trash and vehemently hitting the flush before she could second-guess it. Tears stinging her eyes she stepped back, catching sight of herself in the dingy mirror.
...Who even was that, looking back at her?
Alaine turned the light off.
Her phone had buzzed a while ago but she hadn't stopped to check it yet, busy with her first aid. Alone in her room then, however, she finally went to check the screen and blinked quickly a couple of times so she could actually see.
Hey Bee- at Rey’s. You holding up alright?
She sucked in a deep breath to bolster herself and instead stopped herself mid-breath as her side flared with pain; of course the sudden hitch in air sent her into a cough, which didn't feel much better. She sank onto the bed, wheezing, and attempted to lie down.
Ow. Everything hurt.
Holding her phone up in front of her face once she finally got herself situated in a way that felt as little painful as possible -- Alaine started to tap out an automatic response.
Yeah, I'm fine.
She scowled at the three-word draft. No, I'm not fine. She hated lying. She'd hated lying since she was a kid and that was all she'd ever done. I'm fine. It didn't hurt. I'm not scared. I want to go. I'm fine. It'd only got worse -- now she was insisting she'd never been at that cartel compound in Arizona, she'd never killed an innocent old man and run, she was in control of whatever alien energy was coiled up in her body--
Alaine grit her teeth, feeling the intense urge to just let it out, somehow. Throw the phone. Scream. Draw something. None of it was an option, so she was left with the usual number; seething in place until the boil had tempered down enough for her to take the pot off the stove and pretend it hadn't burnt.
After a few torturously long minutes, she finally lifted her phone again. Deleting her first attempt, she tried again. I'll be okay.
That was more honest. She sent it, hesitated, then typed again. Make sure you eat something.
The text was sent before she could overthink that, too, and she put her phone down on the bed, gingerly folding her hands over her stomach and staring up at the dark ceiling.
Nothing left to do but spiral.
BLACKSTAR
(( just some solo Blackstar filler - spoilered to save space haha )) x vibes x
The stars twinkled, lightyears away but close enough to be heard. The far-nearness was hard to explain in human words. All she knew was that they were watching her.
"Why do you keep bringing me here?" Her voice was both echoing and not at the same time. She'd stopped trying to understand it. "I don't want to be here anymore."
The stars blinked and tittered around her, laughing.
Alaine's throat felt tight. "I don't understand why you keep bringing me here."
More shimmering laughter. Of course she didn't. They brought her to the infinite void for nothing. Maybe they weren't even bringing her, really, they were just there when that foreign part of her brought her out. It felt like it was on purpose, though.
A few of the stars twirled around, tumbling together in a cosmic dance of ancient familiarity. They all knew each other. But they didn't know her. They knew the stardust in her veins, but not her. Nobody did, not anymore. She didn't belong there in the stars like she used to think she did -- she didn't belong back on the ground with the people like she used to think she did.
The loneliness was as immense as the void of space around her. Was she made of loneliness? She couldn't be -- if she was, there'd be people who understood that. She wouldn't really be alone like she was.
She reached for the stars instinctively but they were too far away. Always. Always out of reach, right at her fingertips. They'd turned her into this... for what? To torment her?
She felt the burn in her hands, the black energy broiling around her fingers. Death. They'd turned her into death.
"I don't want this." Alaine shook her hands, as if she could throw the energy off. "I didn't want this! Why did you do this to me?"
Stars didn't understand killing. They understood birth and destruction. Stars were, inherently, violent -- beautiful but constantly burning, imploding, spraying scalding energy. One day they simply were, and until they stopped being they were constantly destroying themselves and everything they came in contact with.
Getting agitated, she tried to turn away; the movement was a graceful spin in the vast nothingness, but everywhere she looked there were the familiar shards of light. All around, all watching."I wanted-- I wanted to make things!"Her voice caused a ripple among the idling stars, as if they were curious. Or maybe amused.
They didn't understand making or creating, not like people could. They didn't understand art. They didn't know why it made her so upset.
She'd come out west to find herself. She'd wanted to work with her hands, to help things grow, to make art, to nurture and create and be good--
The stars glimmered, curious and screaming. The sparkling dust of a red nebula drifted by and she reached for it, desperate for color; her hands sifted through it like a giant's fingers through sand, but no sooner had she touched the cloud than it began to wither. The stars being born in its recesses melted away, the colors bleeding out into gray nothing as Alaine helplessly tried to hold it together.
All she did was kill things.
All she could "create" now were voids. Empty places where things were supposed to be. She made dead bodies and melted doors.
The stars shimmered, starting to drift. She felt a spike of panic. "Wait -- don't go!"
They laughed in reply, already catching the tail of some cosmic wind to a place they'd known before. Places she'd never know, places she couldn't understand. There was nowhere for her to go, nothing to hold her down. She'd go spinning off into the cosmos like lost stardust.
Every time she found herself there, she was reminded of how singular and misfit she was. She wasn't a star. She didn't think she was even a person anymore. She was something that tried to be a person while holding a star in her body.
"No! Wait! Please!" she shrieked after them, but they didn't understand fear. The tears welled up in her eyes and drifted away, twinkling bits of ice in the void. "Don't leave me alone! Don't go!"
Alaine woke with a gasp, her face bumping the ceiling. As consciousness flooded back, the weightlessness flooded out. She flailed, one hand slipping off the smooth surface of the ceiling as she felt the drop in her stomach, but there was nothing to grab onto.
With a thwack she hit the bed below -- but not the nice, semi-soft mattress, no. Not completely anyway. Mostly she hit the bedframe on the edge of the mattress, the impact shooting pain through every bone in her body as she bounced slightly and hit the ground.
Breath momentarily knocked from her lungs, she laid there on the floor gasping and groaning like a fish out of water.
Someone in the unit below banged on their ceiling. She could hear the angry, muffled shout through the floor. "Shut the fuck up up there!"
"Sorry," Alaine rasped against the floor, eyes stinging.
Oh God. Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow OW, God, it hurt. 'It' being e v e r y t h i n g.
She could finally breathe again, but now she was crying. The air caught and snagged in her lungs like brambles and made that one rib hurt so bad she wanted to just rip it out. She tried to move, tried to twist herself around just a little to ease the pain, but there was no way to move that didn't hurt. Hours after the carnival, everything in her was sore. The kind of sore that was worse than the original injury, the kind that made her want to yank her hair out or slam her head against a wall until she knocked herself out so she didn't have to feel it.
She hated feeling. She hated breathing. She hated her bloody hands and she just wanted to scream. No, she wanted to draw something. She just wanted some kind of outlet that wasn't destruction and killing and violence.
"Ugh!" A strangled sound of helpless, angry frustration escaped her as she gathered her strength and shoved herself up. Her hand hit her phone on the floor, probably fallen off the bed in her fall; blinking blearily at the screen as it flared to life, she saw the time. 2:27am. She hadn't been "asleep" for more than forty minutes.
That realization distressed her all over again, exhaustion seeping into her bones alongside the soreness.
Weary fury at herself spurred her actions as she dragged herself to her feet, starting to tear around the small bedroom. She grabbed dirty clothes, stuffed them into her duffel bag. Tugged on the black hoodie she'd worn earlier -- it had blood on it from earlier, but it was hard to spot and it was the only one she had. She didn't bother switching out of her sweatpants, just tugged some sneakers on and stumbled into the main room to dig her suit and matching jacket out of the backpack still on the floor. She barely remembered to make sure she had her keys and wallet before she was out the door, blinking against the ugly fluorescent lights in the hallway.
There was a 24 hour laundromat not too far away. She wasn't going to be getting any sleep, so why not do something useful with herself?
The walk there hurt, but that was fine. It grounded her to reality, reminded her she wasn't drifting aimlessly in the void.
No, instead she was trudging along on a sidewalk under orange streetlamps, miserable. Reality.
She shouldn't be out so late. She didn't have the energy to fight anyone off, if someone got any ideas about a woman on the streets alone. Also, she was honestly in no state to be walking at all. She knew her parents would've lost their minds if they saw her.
But they never would. And they'd never know she'd been hurt, either. She wasn't going to tell them. She never really had. She hadn't intended to do that whole "I'm fine" dance with SDN, she really hadn't, but -- old habits died hard.
Nobody needed to know.
It was just pain, right? It'd just hurt and she'd hate her life and she'd suck it up and eventually it'd hurt less, and less, and then it'd be better. No shortcuts. She deserved it.
But God she wished she didn't. In fact, there were a lot of things she wished. Like she wished she could have another hug. Just a short one. She didn't want to bother anybody, but -- it would make her feel so much better.
Alaine blinked swiftly, sniffling behind the black facemask she'd pulled on again.
Alaine pushed open the door to the laundromat with her foot, stepping into the yellow-walled room full of laundry machines. There were a few working, whirring away faintly in the background; probably people getting off nightshifts, or getting some really early mornings. Maybe hospital staff who'd been up all night taking care of people who'd survived Gaggles' stupid deathfest.
She made for the nearest emptiest spot and dropped the duffle bag on the floor, retrieving her wallet to dig around for the quarters she usually kept in one of the pockets. A few minutes later, with the washing machine beginning its cycle full of bloody uniform parts and jeans, Alaine moved back to sink stiffly down onto one of the benches across from the row of machines.
She kept her hood up, mask on, the only part of her face currently visible being her tired eyes and that split brow. Her gauze-and-medical-tape situation had peeled off at some point in her forty-minute nap, so now it was just an nasty, bruised-up, swollen cut, held shut by the butterfly bandages. At least it had finally stopped bleeding.
Her phone buzzed faintly in her pocket and she almost jumped. Which phone had she grabbed...?
Slowly pulling it out, she realized it was the real one, with her family's -- and now Jet's -- contacts. Grace had texted her.
Heyyy good morning!!!🩷💐🌞🤗 I hope this doesn't wake you up, I was just up with Calum and thinking of you. Hope work's going well!!! Brook told me you said it was going good. Met any nice guys???👀🤭😏 Working around a bunch of heroes must be cool!!! Nate wants you to try and get a picture of Phenomaman for him but I told him you're not at that SDN. Anyway!!! Calum says hi and he hopes you can visit soon so he can meet his Auntie Alaine!!!🤗🩷🩷🩷 Well, I'll leave you to it... call me sometime okay???
Alaine felt the absolute worst combination of homesick, actually sick, appreciative, and self-loathing.
She'd slipped up a couple of weeks ago and accidentally told Brook and Grace she was going to be working with SDN. She'd quickly covered and said she was working as a dispatcher, but she hadn't mentioned the slip-up to John. He'd probably say it was too close to the truth, and he'd be right. But in a way she was glad that she wasn't completely lying to them. She was glad they cared enough to ask how it was going.
And she hated that her nephew's Auntie Alaine was a murderous, bloody monster.
Her vision was blurring as she tried to re-read her little sister's text and she blinked swiftly again, agitated at her own tears. It was like she'd finally reached the point where she needed to cry so bad that every other thought was setting her off.
It hurt to move her fingers but she did it anyway, thumbs hovering over the screen to type a response... only she realized it was 3am and that was going to make Grace ask questions and how could she possibly lie to her sister now? She couldn't, she was too weak. She didn't have it in her.
So instead Alaine gently turned the screen off and slid her phone back into her pocket, easing back into a slouch on the bench as her weary eyes stared blankly at the washing machine.
Genuinely, what was worse? No time off to rest and having to keep working through the agony... or three whole days alone in her apartment?
Alaine was tempted to say the latter.
At least if she was at work she'd see the other members of A-Team and be able to see they were all healing up okay. At least she'd be able to see Jet. At least she'd be doing something, and there'd be something to focus on to help her work through the pain.
Instead she was just rotting. Overnight the cosmic energy had returned to its usual volume, even if her physical body was still exhausted and full of aches. The stars flickered incessantly at the edge of her vision as she sat on the floor in the living room, staring at that one awful window and it's little red piece of glass on the sill. She spent hours that way, shifting occasionally to try and ease the discomfort of everything, trying to figure out the least painful way to breathe.
It was almost worse than the first time.
After the first time, she'd at least had the immediate distraction of having to scrub out any trace of her existence, move towns fast, hastily check in on her family from burner phones. Not to mention she hadn't been absolutely pulverized by a bunch of clowns the first time... The misery had mostly been a mental thing.
This time there was nothing to frantically get rid of. No moving, nothing to focus all that rebuilt energy on.
She couldn't sleep. She'd tried. Either it was some endless void full of dancing stars or a nightmare collage of cartels and clowns and her hands covered in gore. She had no appetite and frankly didn't want to go out, even though she knew it would help. She'd called Grace back at one point, sometime mid-morning on Saturday, when she felt a little less like a blob of tar. That had helped.
"Alaiiiiiinnnneeee aaaaahh! It's so good to hear your voice! How are you doing? Did you get my text the other night? How's work?"
The onslaught of cheerful chatter was definitely jarring at first, but Grace's voice and the occasional quiet sound in the background -- the baby, Calum, or Nate, or their dog, Penny -- was achingly familiar. She remembered visiting Grace and Nate's home before she'd left... it was full of earthy tones and plants, Grace was so good with plants. Like their mom. Alaine wished she had a green thumb like that.
"I'm good," Alaine replied, and she convinced herself it wasn't a lie. At least for the moment, she was feeling okay-ish. "And I did, yeah. Work's good. How're you? How's Nate and Calum and Penny?"
"We're all doing really good! Nate got a raise the other week and I just got back from a doctor's appointment with Cal, and everything's looking just right! Penny's good too, she's really come around to having the baby around." Grace's beaming smile was audible through the phone. Alaine could close her eyes and practically see her little sister's bouncing curls and rosy face. It made her throat feel a little tight but she pushed past it.
"How's everybody else? Mom and Dad and them?"
"Oh they're all great! Joy's chipping away at that nursing degree and Eli's had a couple of interviews lined up this month... Mom and Dad are good, now that Ezra's got Rose into that daycare they've got a lot more time for them, y'know? And Ezra's..." Grace laughed a little, a resigned sigh following. "He's Ezra, so. I guess you could say he's fine, too. Oh! And Brook and Elliot are planning on coming down to visit sometime in the next month or so, we're looking forward to that! Oh, and you remember Mom's job? Well, the other week..."
The younger woman chattered on for a long while and Alaine didn't interrupt, sitting there with her head tilted back against the wall and her eyes closed. Occasionally she offered a small sound of acknowledgement or reaction so her sister knew she was still there, but for the most part she just listened. Pretended she was sitting in Grace's cozy living room on the couch Nate's parents had given them, surrounding by about twenty crocheted blankets and a couple dozen leafy houseplants. The sun would be in its afternoon gold, coming through the windows like warm ambient light, warm on her shoulders and making Grace's blonde hair practically glow.
"...Anyway! Wow, that was a yap and a half. You never answered my question, by the way, missy! About nice guys? Hmm? Have you met any?"
Alaine blinked her eyes half-open, lifting one arm to rub her sleeve across her wet cheeks. Stupid tears again...
She cleared her throat lightly. "Um... well, not..."
The roundabout reply didn't come fast enough, and she should've known Grace would spot the truth even from 2000 miles away. Alaine could hide the fact she'd committed literal atrocities, but not the fact that she'd met a guy. Insane.
"AHA! You have! Who is it? Someone you work with? Or someone else? It's someone you work with, isn't it? Another dispatcher? Oooh, a hero? Or-- oh!" Grace gave a dramatically scandalized little gasp and a giggle on the other end of the line. "It's a Phoenix Program guy, isn't it?"
"Wh--"
Another gasp. "It is! Ahahaha, I kneeeew it! Nate, you owe me dinner!" A male voice could be laughing somewhere not too far away from the phone. Grace giggled again. "Oh my gosh, I knew you stinkin' would go get the hots for a bad guy. That's so you."
"He's not a bad guy," Alaine started automatically, before realizing her blunder and resisting the urge to smack her palm to her forehead. Idiot. She had to pull the phone away from her ear slightly as Grace squealed.
"Awwwwww that's so cute! Awww! What's his name? What's he like?"
At least she kind of had an excuse for that. "Well I can't really tell you his name."
"Oh, yeah, huh. Darn. Well, what's he like, anyway?"
Alaine took a breath, winced at the stab of discomfort in her ribs, and looked down as she picked vaguely at her sweatpants. "Um. He's nice."
She could feel Grace's exasperated eyeroll through the phone. "Girl. C'mon."
"Hey, there's not a lot I can tell you," Alaine protested lightly. She'd told them, when she'd slipped up and mentioned SDN in the first place, that she had to keep a lot of things hush-hush because, as a dispatcher, she could quite easily earn the ire of some bad guys and be in danger, same as the heroes. And it seemed like it wasn't too far from the truth, given how she'd seen James absolutely decked in the bar earlier in the week. Of course, Tsunami wasn't a bad guy, per se...
Grace huffed, and Alaine relented just a little. "...Okay, well. He is really nice. Like... sweet. Y'know? And he's handsome. Not that that's like, important--"
"--But it doesn't hurt," the younger woman snickered.
Alaine felt a grin tug at her lips. "Anyway. I think he's neat."
Grace snorted. "Oh gosh. 'Neat'? You're like a twelve year old boy."
"Grace, c'mon. It's embarrassing."
"Never be embarrassed by love!" The bubbly voice on the other end suddenly went up in overdramatic volume. "Love is beautiful and amazi--"
"Who said anything about love?" Alaine squeaked, flustered. "I just met the guy!"
A pause. Then an anti-climatic, "Oh." Another pause. "Well! It might be love! Eventually! Who knows! Definitely eventually though, with your emotionally-constipated butt..."
"Whatever," Alaine grumbled. "I work with some other pretty cool people, too, so. You could ask about them and not just badger me about guys."
"Okay, okay, gosh. Who else do you work with?"
"I can't tell you."
Grace spluttered in exasperation and Alaine felt another grin pull at her split lip. She missed the old big sister activities. Teasing, goofing around, walking at the back of the group to keep an eye on things, driving her younger siblings all over, just... hanging out.
"Alright, well, tell me about your new apartment then..."
After a week of laid-back dispatching, Alaine was feeling a little better. She was still full of aches and pains, and her broken rib was going to take a couple more weeks to be healed properly… the swelling had gone down in the various places she’d been dealing with it, and most of her other injuries were all covered by her suit. The black-on-black one, which she’d gone right back to on Monday.
She didn’t like the way blood showed up so obviously on the black and white one.
For the most part, aside from favoring of that right side of the ribcage or left shoulder – Alaine was pretty good at acting like her lie about a fast-acting healing factor was real. She was still a bit bruised up in the face where her mask didn’t cover, and her lower lip had still obviously been split last week, but if someone brought it up she was sure she could come up with something about why that hadn’t healed up already.
Getting back to work was a relief, honestly, even with the residual pain. She would’ve almost rather worked through the weekend and the worst days of the initial recovery, rather than sit in her apartment and… spiral. Or rot. Or exist in agony without any form of distraction whatsoever.
Or whatever she’d been doing in that run-on sentence of a weekend.
Making it to SDN on Friday, she was without the joyous flight of the previous week; Gaggles Carnival had apparently snapped her into a very, very serious mindset, at least for the time being, and she took her morning commute straight to work and back again in the evening.
That morning, though, she didn’t take the trip alone. In her backpack was a small, golden friend; when Lightning Girl had managed to recover the various stuffed animals she’d collected for her teammates at the beginning of their carnival dispatch, she’d brought back the tote bag Alaine had been using to stash Panda safely away. The tote also held, stuffed securely under the giant teddy, a couple pairs of “Giggles”-themed sweatpants and t-shirts, and two more stuffed animals, much smaller – a little red and black bear, and an adorable golden puppy.
The latter had been freshly laundered, and Alaine had gone out of her way the evening before to buy a white ribbon for it… said ribbon was currently tied around the puppy’s neck in a bow, and Alaine fiddled with it as she made her way down to the gym in SDN’s basement. When she’d asked someone where Lightning Girl was, they’d pointed her that way.
Sure enough, upon entering, she found the white-haired heroine hard at work. She wasn’t in her usual suit, instead wearing a sleek gym set that was still nicely reminiscent of her suit.
Alaine was relieved to see LG seemed back to health, at least mostly if not completely. She’d been worried about that stab wound, as much as it had been bleeding, and she was always a little worried that other people did what she did – saying they were fine when they really should’ve just gone and gotten medical help.
But no, Lightning Girl seemed properly on the mend. Physically, at least, who was to say how she was doing mentally. Alaine was pretty sure Gaggles’ deathfest had messed with all their heads.
Clearing her throat a little, she walked further into the gym, puppy in arm. “Hey, morning. Hope I’m not interrupting a set,” she greeted, managing a small grin. She’d specifically waited to try and catch LG between sets, but of course she didn’t know what routine the other heroine was following. “I, um…”
Suddenly she felt awkward. She glanced down at the stuffed animal she held, then gently held it out to Lightning Girl. “This is for you. I was going to give it to you… uh, well. Last week. But something happened with a bunch of clowns, so. Got kind of derailed.”
Weak joke, but she wasn’t entirely sure how everyone else was coping yet. “I cleaned him up,” she assured LG, as an afterthought. “But I get it if it’s like a… uh, very unwanted reminder of one of the worst days ever.”
The white-haired, white gym-costumed heroine turned her head hearing the door open, seeing the heroine in her black on black variant of a costume walk on through, injuries covered, for just about the most part. Lightning Girl could just, just faintly tell there was something up, maybe not all of it, but everyone’s healing factor worked differently. She didn’t really ask others, same way you didn’t ask about names, or other things….
But in any case, she was glad to see Blackstar was back on her feet. Everything had been a blur that afternoon. All of it. From being in hospital for a check up, to just seeing the team again on Monday, it had all not quite sunk in yet.
It was why that morning that dream had come back. Not called for, wanted, known. But seeing the dark-energied heroine brought a smile to her face, placing the kettlebell down into the ground with a hard thump into rubber matting. And with that tote bag, with a golden retriever like. Lightning Girl ran across grabbing her rubber gloves as Blackstar walked in, almost making the usual mental note to go for them just in case. Blackstar was mysterious, but she could half imagine the face, given she wasn’t wearing the full mask like before- her black hair hiding some red that only more recently LG had managed to spot.
“Blackstar…..awww, you really shouldn’t have. Thank you!” Lightning Girl smiled, hugging the shorter heroine, squishing the dog between them both before gently rotating it around, noticing the little ribbon that had been attached. Her face was full of glee, as Sophie took off her mask, indicating comfort around Blackstar. She’d already seen her face. Not exactly like it was going to make much difference.
“Yeah, lots happened with the clowns. That is an understatement. And don’t worry, you’re not interrupting. I’m just lugging a kettlebell until my shoulders hurt. I don’t have a plan…..I’m not that organised. Just pretending to be.” She chuckled, gently placing the pup down by her gym bag, kneeling and giggling, looking back. “You know, somewhere in that darkness there’s a heart of gold in there, Blackstar. That is so sweet of you….difficult as that day was, thank you for thinking of me. Guess you found my equivalent.” Sophie smiled at her with at least some self awareness, before standing up, stretching out, realising she should probably push the loose power cable out of the way before Alaine shocked herself.
She breathed out, sighing, leaning against the far wall, just grateful. Happy. So pleased with this all. But knowing Blackstar’s affection, as nice as it was, also came from that gentle worry about….well, that day. With her mask up, Sophie wondered how Blackstar might see the costumed heroine that was Lightning Girl, as right now, she felt like she was in the ether between them. Probably for the best. This time without the blood at least.
“How are you holding up? Sorry if you’re not used to the face, it’s……well, I’m realising you probably saw it, so no point pretending to hide between us. It helps me divide from who I am at home to this.” She added, her words trailing a little towards the end. She shook her head. “Like my innie and outie.” She chuckled with reference to the only comparison she had recently seen with James on TV, shaking her head, her white hair, a tiny, tiny fragment of blue tip in the end of her white locks revealed as she turned, the mark of where she’d been hit in the head still just about visible without the mask. That was taking longer to heal, but she was lucky to have a head of locks to cover the cut.
Alaine was still stunned from the hug. She’d been standing there in pretty much the same place since it happened, and she’d probably look more surprised if raising her eyebrows hadn’t hurt and forced her back into an easier expression.
She swallowed, still not fully in control of her emotions from last Thursday. Having her powers get such a hold on her seemed to leave her struggling to get things under control again. Or maybe that was just the lack of sleep. …Or a myriad of other things, actually.
“Oh, uh. Y-Yeah,” she finally spoke up, brain whirling as she seemed to try and catch up on everything LG had just said all at once. Somewhere in that darkness there’s a heart of gold in there. Lightning Girl was probably just being funny, but Blackstar felt a lump trying to form in her throat.
She blinked, focusing as Lightning Girl took her mask off; Alaine had a similar thought to the one she’d had at the carnival last week, that the white-haired heroine somehow didn’t look all that wildly different without the mask. Like she was Lightning Girl with or without it.
At least the pretty came through much better without the blood and grime. Alaine’s head tilted slightly as she watched the other heroine moving around, noting the injury still slightly visible and what looked like a little blue dye in the white hair. It was probably so easy to dye her hair different colors. Alaine bet if LG tried that holo hair style it would look so cool.
Blinking and refocusing yet again, she cleared her throat and gave a small shake of her head. “Oh, no, it’s fine. I mean, I’m not used to the face, but – you just look like you.” She shrugged a little, though the movement was less pronounced with her left shoulder. “...Which I guess isn’t great to hear if it’s how you divide home-you and work-you.”
She managed another small smile, mildly apologetic. She wasn’t trying to say the mask didn’t work, and she obviously didn’t know at-home Sophie… in the simplest sense, as far as she knew, LG was just LG, even without the mask. But she meant it in a good way – even if that was her civilian face, Lightning Girl still looked like someone Alaine could imagine being a hero.
“I’m, uh – I’m doing fine, though,” she answered that question finally. It was half-true. “I mean, better than last week, anyway.” That was true, at least.
Alaine debated removing her own mask. But… well, LG would see her busted eye if she did and then her lie about healing would be blown.
Also she had a sudden feeling of horror in her gut at the idea of Lightning Girl connecting the slaughter Blackstar had committed with Alaine’s face.
That’s not me, she wanted to say. But was it? She didn’t know. That was almost as bad.
Speaking of. Alaine took a deep breath – or started to, and cut herself off with a wince. She kept trying to inhale and calm herself down while forgetting about that broken rib. Pushing through, she frowned a little as she glanced down, absently scuffing one booted foot against the floor.
“Speaking of, um. Last week.” She cleared her throat again, shifting to look at LG where the latter had leaned against the wall. Her black-gloved hands fiddled together, feeling her partially-healed knuckles under the dark material. “I’m…” Her throat felt dry all of the sudden. “I’m sorry about… I’m sorry I was… um. The way I was. Near the end, there. I mean I’m sorry you had to see… that.”
She felt she had to apologize. She didn’t like what she’d done, even if maybe she’d had to do it. In any case, the distaste in her voice was palpable at the last word, as if she was talking about some ill-behaved evil twin.
Lightning Girl shook her head, knowing Blackstar was full of doubt, worry, concern. Maybe Sophie should have had more of that herself, but between them, there was nothing to say.
Even in spite of the private worry she had internally, she wouldn’t let it out at all. She wasn’t going to let Blackstar feel bad. Not one bit. That wasn’t happening on her watch.
“Don’t apologize, Blackstar. You saved a lot of lives that day. We all did. Sometimes it isn’t about the means, it’s about the ends. And they really wanted to kill us, so……what choice did we have. A shame we had to live through it but sometimes, being a hero is just doing things most people can’t. We need to try and be strong for them. Even if we’re not inside. And that can be hard.” She replied, gently bending over and picking up a bottle of water, sipping away to replace the electrolytes she’d began to set fire to the moment she started lifting what looked like a weight that would look like to most to have the density of a neutron star.
She didn’t admit to Blackstar that with the last trailing words, yeah, she knew it. Not the same way, but she knew that feeling. The nightmare this morning. Just stewing. Playing it back. Things done different that could have happened. And so on.
“I’m sorry you had to come over and save my stupid arse from being overrun by clowns who wanted to cut me up like a steak. Fucking hell. That was really, really dumb of me. Word of advice, Blackstar, do as I say, not as I do….if I’m going to be some sort of mentor, that shit, that was stupid of me to put myself in that position without thinking.” She retorted, shaking her head, leaning against the wall.
Dividing home her and work her. Was she really not that different? Maybe it was true. The mask didn’t cover much of her face at all, it was literally a cowl from nose to forehead, and with white hair, she stood out like a lemon in an apple orchard. Blackstar maybe saw deeper into that than Sophie would have liked. It was that filter, the thing that stopped the two sides of her crossing. The mask was someone who Sophie wasn’t, and right now, without it, she was realising those two were very much blurring. More than she perhaps had realised they had.
She decided to change the topic rather than talk that over, looking to the kettlebell shaped object between the two of them. Maybe to take things away. Shoved in as awkward as could be, but, it was better than talking last Thursday. For a lot of reasons even LG didn’t want to really dwell on.
“Hmm, on another topic…..and I know you’re not a fan, but do you fancy giving this kettlebell a lift? You look like you’re strong but I was curious what you thought. You know, just in case you need to carry the entire team or something.” Lightning Girl bonked the big thing with her foot, and it made a dull, low-toned donk, as if to justify just how dense it was, with a gentle chuckle, playful as ever, trying to keep the topic diverted and lighter.
Blackstar’s foot kept scuffing absently at the ground as Lightning Girl assured her they’d done what we needed to do, which sometimes meant doing things other people couldn’t. It was oddly reminiscent of what James had been saying earlier last week, when handing her the form for arm severation. Was severation a word?
She shook her head slightly. Was she really being strong for the people who couldn’t be when she just… went psycho on a threat? Maybe that argument worked for the carnival, but what about in Arizona?
“Yeah. Hard,” she mumbled, lost in thought. Remembering the feeling of stabbing into someone so hard that her fists were in his lungs.
LG speaking again pulled her out of her thoughts and Alaine blinked, looking over and immediately shaking her head. “Hey, no, you couldn’t have known there were that many clowns. There were, like, a bazillion of them. I got overwhelmed really quickly at first too, I don’t know where they all came from.”
That question still sat a little uncomfortably in the back of her mind. Who exactly had she been killing, anyway?
She’d almost hit Lightning Girl with one of her energy blades. It was something that had hardly left her mind at all since it happened. What was that lapse? Weariness? Being on edge? What if it was just some horrible, dark part of her that didn’t care what she was aiming at and just wanted to kill?
Alaine didn’t fully comprehend what LG said about the kettlebell, just catching that she’d been asked to lift it. “Hm? Oh, yeah, sure.”
She stepped over, mind successfully distracted as her train of thought shifted. She didn’t know how heavy it was, but it looked like it weighed a ton. She knew for sure she could lift at least two tons when needed, so… of course, it had been a while since she’d had to and she’d never done it while recovering from being beaten to a pulp by clowns.
Alaine huffed a little, lightly kicking at the weight with her boot like she was trying to judge the heft of it before crouching to lift it. Her form was less like someone who knew what they were doing in the gym and more like someone who did a lot of manual labor.
Of course she forgot about her stupid broken rib. She’d only lifted the kettlebell a few inches when she was abruptly reminded of said rib and faltered, biting the inside of her cheek to stifle an undignified sound of pain.
You’re fine, you’re fine, she chanted at herself mentally, huffing and continuing to lift. You have to at least pretend you’re fine, idiot…
“Hah. Heavy,” she mused, adjusting her stance a little and, with some effort, straightening almost completely. But dang it that rib hurt, and she was forced to casually lower the weight again and let it hit the matted floor with a soft thud.
“I could lift it,” she insisted, giving the kettlebell a dirty look. “I think I’m still just a bit tired.” Understatement of the year. “I’ve picked up cars before,” she tacked on, as if further substantiating her claim.
Alaine paused, then added simply, like it was a simple matter of fact, “If I need to pick something up, I’ll pick it up.”
Not minding the change of topic, all things considered, she glanced over at Lightning Girl curiously. This was the second time she’d found the white-haired heroine in the gym, but she wasn’t sure how much of LG’s strength was power-induced and how much was just built muscle. “What’s the heaviest you’ve… lifted?” she asked, not sure about the correct terminology. There were different kinds of lifting, right? Like benching was different than lifting? She really wasn’t too sure.
Lightning Girl chuckled, putting two hands and carefully dragging it along, the thing now beginning to feel heavier in her grip than it had earlier. Blackstar still was hurting a little, that was an unforeseen side effect, but, she had a point, probably given her powers relied on the heat of the moment. Based on at least, everything Sophie had seen so far. She was clearly hurt though. Sophie might have healed faster, but she was lucky enough that with enough electricity, the wound could stitch back up quickly enough. For Blackstar, she was still clearly hurt.
“Heaviest I’ve lifted? Uhh…..good question. It was a real blur, but probably a couple of tonnes. Van drove over someone and I just, uhhh, pushed until someone dragged them away.” Sophie replied, not touching on Alaine’s moves, but well, keeping off that. An interesting question she posed back, mind….
“Well, you know where to find me if you do want to carry things…..weirdly, it’s not my thing that I was…..ever into. Just helps me build a bit of strength I guess so the powers sit nicer. I can’t explain it entirely. None of it really makes sense. I’ve had this 14 years. And I’m still finding out stuff.” She was so matter of fact, not really dwelling too much, not if she wanted to add to her internal monologue of all the insane shit no person should have ever seen.
And as awkward as Blackstar was, in the quiet of the gym, with nobody else, something else leapt into her mind. Something she’d been meaning to ask, actually, quite a long time. A suspicion she had for a while, the same one she had about Asteroid. Something personal to herself, a projection in a way.
“Blackstar, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get your powers?”
Alaine blinked.
“How did–” She started and stopped again. “Oh. Well.”
She’d never told anybody, had she? Not aside from John, anyway. Would it hurt? …Well, it’d probably make her look like a hero baby, only having gotten her powers about two years ago while LG had apparently had hers for over a decade.
“Um. I was in–” Alaine started and stopped yet again, not sure how much she should really say. Did it matter that it had happened in Arizona? Maybe not, except that the cartel incident had also been in Arizona. Had LG heard about that? Maybe not, it had been Arizona news but maybe not California news…
Blackstar hesitated. “I was out in the hills, around two years ago. And, um… well.” She huffed out an awkward little laugh. “It’s kind of vague. I don’t really know what happened for sure, there was just… a shooting star? A meteor. I guess technically a meteorite because I think it came down and whacked me in the head. Or something.”
She shrugged, once more favoring that left shoulder slightly. “I woke up in the impact crater. It looked like an impact crater anyway, a little shallow one. Still, if it was enough to do that, I don’t really know how come it didn’t blow me open. Anyway.”
Her boot was scuffing at the floor once more, but that time it was more absent-minded than nervous. “It fried my phone though, and I don’t know how long I was out. I wandered back to some town and–”
And accidentally killed a sweet old man who was just trying to help. And then made the conscious decision to run away and leave him there on the sidewalk.
Alaine went very still and quiet for a second before shaking it off. “The blades just sort of… popped up. I found out I could fly because I had some weird dream and woke up in the air, started experimenting from there.”
She glanced over at LG, wondering if that sounded legitimate enough. It was all the truth, for once, save the lack of detail about the discovery of her cosmic blades and the omission of the exact location.
“Yeah, not very impressive I guess. And not very long ago either.” She huffed out an embarrassed laugh. “Dang, fourteen years for you though, huh? I feel like a baby.”
Sophie laughed on that last comment, smiling as she folded her arms to her gut, leaning against the wall, thinking on that.
Damn, she was really new to this. Two years to be able to do all of that was impressive. Alaine had come a hell of a long way. To go from no powers to a costume in two years, well, that was something immense.
“That is impressive…..wild how fast you got into it!” She smiled, confident as ever, trying her best to big up her new work bestie. And thinking on her own progress. 14 years. It had been a lot of work. No less the time in the forest, the attempts to fly and failing, and constant work. It hadn’t been given easy to her. It felt like making the most out of the power took all the work it did.
“I barely had control two years in so you’re doing well. I could barely project a bolt. I would either just cascade shock everything around me or produce less electricity than an electric fence on contact.The former meant I basically started deflecting people away from me. Which is fun when you’re a teenager.” She added with a sigh thinking back to those times, knowing that Alaine seemed visibly nervous.
So she tried to take some heat and swing it back to her. Not for selfish reasons, more just so Alaine didn’t feel worried. Sophie seemed to astroturf that statement heavily, not giving it the inflection that maybe came with what she had just stated.
It was creeping in more and more. Sophie thought all Americans were so confident, positive mindset people, and yet here she was, from a rainy, cynical country, outdoing them. Was it just what being nearly blonde was like? Or was it her covering her own tracks?
She put that thought out of her mind thinking about the rest of what Alaine had said.
“Yeah, it’s been a while. I guess I had my suspicions, cosmic themed and all. For me, it was a comet fragment that got me, not an asteroid though. Landed in a park back home in Manchester…..then put a bolt through me when I went to look at it. Next thing I know I was in hospital and everything that seems to make a current would be pulled to me. Like it’s a magnetism, it seems to just absorb and my body just seems to…..I’m not sure. Like the more electricity I take on, the more I seem to be alive, but the more volatile I feel. It’s been a long process….taming it was hard. So yeah. You might be a baby relative to me, but honestly, this has been a long process.” She was open about it. “But worth it. There’s no call to the void, yet……it’s I guess just a suspicion I had when I saw you and Asteroid were all astral. And I wondered how it affected you.” She replied, her voice slowing, as if she was getting more contemplative. And all over the place. She needed a stab of power before they went back out, because she was clearly spent from carrying silly heavy weights.
She sighed, looking at her hands.
“Weird isn’t it. Something falls out of the sky and here we are. Never asking, only receiving some of this insane shit. And choosing to do something with it like this.” She chuckled, her fingers crackling a little. “I wasn’t always like this, but here I am I guess.”
Perking up a little when LG started talking about her own origins, Alaine shifted in place a little as she listened. She would’ve gone and leaned against the wall as well, though she didn’t like the idea of leaning on that left shoulder. Besides, she could see Lightning Girl’s face better, standing somewhat across from her. She liked being able to read the other heroine’s expressions without the mask.
She was happy to breeze past the comment about how quickly she’d gotten into it all, herself. Maybe that had been a bit iffy of her to mention… It really was kind of suspicious that she’d only been at it all for two years, give or take, and had already gotten a suit – two, technically – and a job at SDN. That was all John’s doing, of course… Alaine could only hope everyone just assumed she’d somehow done it herself. The one thing he’d made sure she knew was that, if anyone asked, he didn’t exist.
Alaine kept her mouth shut on the topic of not being in control, thinking it probably wasn’t a good idea to mention that she wasn’t entirely sure she was in control herself, actually. Definitely wouldn’t be smart to mention she’d nearly flung a cosmic blade at Lightning Girl during the clown fighting, either.
A pained smile slipped across her face briefly at the mention of a “call to the void”. God, if LG only knew.
“...Huh. You’ve been calling Asteroid my doppleganger, but it sounds like we’re some sort of cosmic sisters with that origin story,” Alaine mused, her smile softening into something a little more genuine, a little more at ease. “Weirdly similar… I never saw any fragments of whatever hit me, though. If something did hit me. I’m just kind of assuming.”
For all she knew, the darn thing was embedded inside her somewhere. She hadn’t been to a doctor or gotten an X-Ray since it had happened and she wasn’t about to, so it’d probably just be a mystery forever as far as she was concerned.
Alaine squirmed just a little, a subconscious movement when Lightning Girl mused about wondering how the astral stuff had affected her.
“Yeah,” she huffed out a faint laugh, amused by LG’s phrasing at the end. “I guess.”
She hesitated a second, internally debating, before piping up again. Gesturing at the white-haired heroine with one gloved finger, she asked slowly, “So, you’re… you’re having to consciously control all that energy, all the time? Does it ever – I mean, if you don’t mind me asking – does it ever, sort of…”
Ah, how to describe it. Alaine frowned a little as she tried to figure out how to word it. “I don’t know. Does it ever drive you crazy?”
Sophie gave a rare sigh, almost as if suddenly, Alaine had found a corner of the armour that she hadn’t been wearing up. Like nobody asked that question the way a hero did. James had, doctors, family, anyone who realised she had that power in her veins. But it was like nobody had actually come in that close.
But in a strange way, through her own pain, Sophie hoped Blackstar might understand her own. Fear less. Worry less. Understand this was a shared experience. And one maybe she was a few years beyond in this process.
She sat down and leaned against the wall, legs sprawled out as she looked up. “When I go home, I just push all of what’s inside me into an earthing point. The static pours out of me without much drama. It’s why I don’t shock people when I’m not like this, and I guess, I got used to it. But when I do, I push out all of the energy that makes me…..well, larger than the sum of my parts. It’s the same when I’m spent. Or if I really, really throw a lot of power at something. Like I nearly did at Tsunami. It just….goes to ground. Being maximalist is easy when you’re wired up with more energy than you know what to do with.” She began, sighing, shaking her head.
“Then once it goes, I’m normal. At least until my body starts creating current on its own, it’s like how your nervous system produces bioelectricity, except, it seems to do that on a much, much quicker scale. Like everything about me. So as long as I ground myself regularly, I’m fine. Moment I don’t, I naturally build up to enough electricity to taze most people on contact. Which was a problem until I realised I had to put effort into grounding. But that’s not the worst of it.” She continued, looking right at Alaine, chuckling, shaking her head. Revealing her neck, and her hair, and the bits that her collar would have covered- going down to the top of her back where a braid of river-like lichtenburg scars seemed to foam like a delta.
“I’ve lost all the colour in my hair, got scars all over, and my body metabolises in a way that makes no sense. The more I sit here working out, the more my body seems to be able to take without making me want to pass out when I’m throwing bolts, because it’s like it’s transferring from a battery to a circuit I can make with anything I focus on, whenever I want. And everything else. But it’s constantly a fight because the moment I stop physically working, my body’s capacity to that is limited. My energy I can control when it’s close in. But electricity as a force is wild, untamed, and it doesn’t pick what it goes to when everything’s a resistor, Blackstar, it will find the easiest path when it wants. It doesn’t drive me crazy. It just means I have to be a lot of different people and wear the same face. The mask is a divider.” She breathed, shaking her head. Trying to think how to explain it.
“It’s like…..when the power’s in, it’s vivid. I can see colour, it’s like synesthesia. Makes me feel like I’m more alive, so much more……substantive. Like every part of me, amplifies up. What you’re seeing is who I am, just turned up to a thousand. Like I can think faster but get to the same ending I would normally. When I’m not, I’m like anyone else. And while I want to be Sophie, I suppose I can’t be her if I’m moving this quickly..” She mused, taking a bottle of water from the side. Exhaling. A name drop too. Not that at this point it felt like Lightning Girl had much left to hide.
Well, shit. She hadn’t expected to dump that out.
“I guess I didn’t have a choice. I end up being this thing and doing good with it, or……and, you have to admit, electricity is a hell of a fucking villain power. I mean come on, if you could do this, you’d find a way to scare kids.” She shocked a nearby pipe with a bolt, her usual party trick, a flash near blinding but enough to prove the point. “So yeah. Fun.” Sophie shook her head, sipping a little more water away, thinking back to Alaine’s earlier comment.
“Maybe we’re more similar, you’re right. Sisters. Hah. Maybe. Asteroid, Comet, same big unknown rock that makes us……superhuman I guess. But if it’s any advice from me….all of this gets better. You have to find what works for you. It’s a blessing and a curse. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, I think, just remember that if you can do good, inspire people, then you’re doing more than most with what you’ve been given. But make it work for you so you can live with yourself. Don’t fight it all the way. And don’t let it run you over. Find peace with it. It’ll never get easier. But you can make yourself stronger, Blackstar.” She shook her head, chuckling. “I guess I’m just what people want to see me as. White hair meant white costume. Besides. Yellow was taken by Wasp-Man in Manchester. Yes. It is that dumb.” She shook her head, sipping water down, sighing.
“Sorry. No easy answer to if it drives me crazy or not as I don’t know any different. But, silver lining, I have always got your back if your phone needs charging.” She chuckled, giving a double finger guns, and a wink, making her laugh through her trauma dump a little more.
Alaine tilted her head, listening with a thoughtful expression on what was visible of her face. She hadn’t expected so much information. But, as someone who enjoyed knowing things – she wasn’t complaining. Besides, it was nice to learn more about LG. Despite the fact that they were talking about the superpowers that made them something beyond human – it humanized the white-haired heroine.
Sophie. Alaine blinked. Had LG meant to tell her that? Or had it just slipped out, like she’d let her own name slip with Jet? She didn’t say anything for the moment, not wanting to interrupt.
Lightning Girl – Sophie – said she supposed she hadn’t had a choice. Alaine wondered how many heroes ever had.
She studied the lichtenburg scars peeking out from under the other heroine’s collar, finding it odd that Sophie’s powers had come from some cosmic fragment, yet ended up making her look like she’d been struck by lightning. That would’ve been Alaine’s guess, honestly, if someone had asked her how she thought LG got her powers – a lightning strike, or some kind of crazy storm.
The fact she’d gained her explosive powers from some comet fragment made Alaine wonder just how much about the cosmos there was yet to know – for herself, and for humanity as a whole.
All of this gets better. Alaine’s pale eyes shifted upward, watching Sophie’s unmasked face again as the white-haired heroine went on. Inspiring, just like she always seemed to be. Alaine thought that was probably just who Sophie was.
And she did feel inspired, there was just… something… off. Not with Sophie or what she was saying – more like something off in Alaine’s own chest. Like she wanted to say “yeah, I can do that!”, but something in her, deep down, knew she couldn’t. Or knew, at least, that she’d messed up too big already to ever be able to live with herself.
Alaine swallowed, keeping the thought a thought for the time being rather than vocalizing it. “...Yellow, huh?” She grinned slightly. “That’d definitely look good with the white hair. Most colors would, actually.”
She fiddled absent-mindedly with her black-gloved hands, adding in amusement, “If you do ever feel like going bad guy, though, give me a heads up so I can conveniently retire.”
Lightning Girl as a villain would kick her ass, probably immediately. Alaine didn’t fancy getting toasted.
She hesitated briefly then, finally, moved a little closer and carefully lowered herself to sit on the mat nearby. Not leaning up against the wall, but still a friendly distance. Alaine crossed her legs, now fiddling absently with the top of one of her boots as she spoke again.
“And, uh… thank you. For the encouragement. And the advice. I know I’ve just kind of been standing there whenever you’ve talked to me about this hero stuff, but… I just…” She shrugged honestly. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not exactly great with words. But–”
She glanced over at Sophie. The black lenses of her mask hid her eyes, but she hoped the white-haired woman could feel her appreciation anyway. “–Thank you, Sophie, I mean it. I really appreciate it. …Finding peace with, um… whatever’s…” She made a vague motion at herself, indicating her powers. “...That might be harder said than done, but I’m trying.”
Her hand dropped, briefly sinking to rest over her ribs before she shifted it away and went back to tapping at the side of her boot.
She wanted to say more. But she knew what would happen if she did – or at least she convinced herself she knew.
Alaine shook her head a little. “...The scars are cool, by the way. I’m assuming that came from the comet and not you accidentally lightning-striking yourself?” She paused, frowning curiously. “Can you even zap yourself?”
Sophie chuckled, shaking her head. It didn’t quite work like that, but, from someone that wasn’t in her shoes, who she was showing this all to, the inner workings of the thing that had transformed her life from just some regular girl into this woman that now had the ability to put a quick end to anyone she came into contact with, and the ability to fly.
“Uhhhh, not quite. Yeah, the scars were from the comet. Not from shocking myself, but I guess it’s because my skin is all a conductor. I mean, when I do this…” She stood up and walked across to the cable tucked out of the way, and yoinked on it, realising it was probably time to get back upstairs soon and go. Visible was better than anything, the high voltage, three phase cable an industrial one someone had routed through here and LG had managed to….splice for her own supply. Matt got a solid supply of tea if he didn’t report it to building management.
With cable in hand, she shoved it against her side and suddenly animated, eyes turning white, a faint halo and the smell of ozone erupting, as she then threw it back down, having drawn enough in. She tucked it out of the way and placed a rubber cap on the end as she’d botched it before, knowing full well that if that hit Blackstar, it would probably hurl her across the room. If it hit her heart, it would kill her. On an Alternating Current, the electricity would normally hurl someone away- particularly a high voltage, three phase supply that was designed to make sure an entire building got power, not just a house.
“That is a bit better. So now, I’m very, very live compared to before..”
She walked across, sitting back down on the mat it as she thought back to the earlier comments. The scars from all of this were a painful reminder. Sophie didn’t see it as pretty, so she found it amusing that someone else looked past her face and found it to be neat.
She’s trying to be sweet, Sophie, because she’s clearly scared of letting you down.
Scared? She wasn’t sure but like Felix, maybe just shy. But something was certainly up. Like Blackstar had something inside of her she wasn’t sure if she wanted to show. She was new, so maybe she was scared of making mistakes. Or showing something she didn’t want to. It was understandable, everyone had that fear, but even so, if Lightning Girl’s face was on the side of a bus, she was billed up as this premier heroine, why did it feel like even without the suit, without the mask, there was still that inertia inside the dark-haired heroine opposite her?
Maybe like Felix, eventually, she’d loosen her hair a little with time. But then again, Sophie knew that if the mask hadn’t slipped when she was at the carnival, maybe she’d have been a little tighter with things too herself.
“All you can do is try, Blackstar. That’s what being a hero is about. Doing the best we can. If you like, I can mentor you a little. But, I can help you. Even if I can’t sometimes help myself get things wrong. That’s what friends are for. But I think you’re already going to kick my ass because you’re good at this work already. So don’t worry, I wouldn’t want to be bad because I know you’d absolutely mess my day up.” She smiled, and laughed, reassuring, knowing it wasn’t going to help, but Blackstar needed a softer approach. Someone to gently pull her in, and well, give her a bit of a mentor.
“Though maybe don’t mention my name to anyone else. I don’t mind work and personal mixing but maybe not just yet.” She chuckled, shaking her head, Sophie knowing that it was an accident about the name, but the genie was firmly out of the bottle. She was tempted to ask about where Blackstar came from, given the accent, and it definitely wasn’t local. Talk about something else. But she wasn’t comfortable talking given that meant James would be brought up. And again, whilst it was a secret that was going to eventually spill, ideally when one of them left, she’d rather not talk about it given she was a professional. And did not want to give up any ideas that he had any bias towards her. Which he didn’t. Right?
She shrugged, looking to the horizon, then back at Blackstar. “I wonder……the dark energy blades on your arms, how did you find out you could use them that way? Sorry, I guess I never met another heroine that had cosmic powers. Same with Asteroid, actually. I mean, dark energy seems like it could be volatile. People can barely find it in a particle accelerator. And you seem to make it stick to you. How does it feel?” She asked, looking to Blackstar’s arms. “Have you tried doing anything else with the dark matter? Like the blades are cool, but I wonder what else you could do. I heard it’s like anti-gravity. Literally a force like it wants to spit out how we see reality whole.” Almost more out of curiosity, or at the least, to get her thinking about it. The power was relatively new- and Sophie hadn’t been able to fly until a few years in. She hadn’t been able to use an EMP-like blast until the last few, requiring a hell of a lot of energy to just smash bulbs and make circuits overload by making it all eyes on her. At the carnival, she had given it a small try, but even she wondered what was possible. Who knew what Blackstar could do, as a teeny bit of Sophie’s dorkery began to emit, the bit of her that James’s influence had absolutely crept it on.
Alaine had jumped a little when Lightning Girl shocked herself – or, rather, to be more accurate: sucked in electricity from that cable she’d noticed earlier. It made her look like some kind of angel for a second, all glowy and vibrant. Her eyes glowed but it looked warm, at least to Alaine. Not the cold, smoking light from her own eyes when she was invested in her powers, which just looked… otherworldly. Again, at least in her own opinion.
Sophie’s powers, although cosmically-induced, seemed comfortingly terrestrial. Alaine wasn’t sure where Jet’s powers had come from – she should ask – but even with his spacey theme, it felt similar to Lightning Girl in that it was familiar. They were all familiar with gravity, they’d all seen lightning, the science behind both was well-known and stuff you learned in grade school.
But her? She was foreign, even to herself.
Briefly tugged into memories of dreams or nightmares she’d been having since it all started, Alaine was pulled from her reverie as Sophie came back over, sinking back to the mat again while shimmering faintly like the sunlight in the high atmosphere.
She managed a lopsided little grin as the other heroine assured her the ass-kicking situation was the other way around, and Alaine shrugged slightly. “Well, I’ll take all the help I can get.”
At the mention of not spilling the white-haired heroine’s name Alaine was quick to nod, expression briefly turning serious again. “Nobody keeps a secret better than me,” she returned, remembering last second to smile and bob her head light-heartedly; that said, there was something almost eerily somber in her tone, like she wasn’t kidding at all.
Despite her attempts to look casual, LG’s next question made Alaine freeze for a beat. Like someone in an interrogation room who’d just been told that one critical piece of evidence had been found.
She swallowed thickly, reminding herself to breathe as Lightning Girl went on, musing about the dark energy Blackstar used with a curious tone.
…The dark energy blades on your arms, how did you find out you could use them that way?
She could see it in her head, as clear and sharp as if it had happened right before she walked into the gym.
Stumbling along in the early morning hours, feeling like she’d been asleep for three days straight, the rising sun stinging her eyes. Some kind of foreign drone in her head, in her blood, an odd tugging sensation in her veins, heavy confusion. A silhouette at the end of the alley, concerned eyes and wrinkled hands reaching out to help. Her own shaky hands reaching out in return, scared, desperate–
“...It just – happened.” Alaine cleared her throat, realizing her voice sounded a bit strained. She looked down at her lap, avoiding looking at LG as the fidgeting returned full-force. “I wasn’t trying to do it.”
The way she said it was less like someone recalling a memory and more like someone pleading to be believed.
She cleared her throat again, like that would help. Blinked quickly several times under her mask, trying to will away the inevitable twinkling in the corners of her vision that rose at the memories.
“It’s not sticking to me exactly, it’s… it’s inside me. It’s less like it’s sticking to me and more like it’s just… manifesting.” She remembered trying to explain it to John once, a few months ago. She hadn’t been able to describe it very well then, and as this was the second time she was attempting it, she doubted she’d do any better. Especially since it wasn’t like she understood it herself.
As for how it felt? She really didn’t know how to answer that, so for the moment she skipped to the next inquiry. “I haven’t really tried to do anything else with it, no.” The next admission slipped out without her pre-considered approval, and was more of a sullen mumble. “...All it does is destroy things.”
What was the point of experimenting? Learning new ways to kill and maim people? Alaine had enough on her conscience.
She took a breath, remembering that time to keep it short and not expand her lungs so much that it bothered her rib. “As for, uh… how it feels…” She trailed off, debating it mentally. “It’s… like…”
Her fingers flexed absently. “...It’s like a lot of things,” she said finally, though she knew that wasn’t very illustrative. “It takes anything I feel and runs with it. Especially the closer I let it get. I see them all the time, they’re always screaming something at me.”
Alaine blinked, feeling her face go a little warm as she realized that probably sounded more than a little crazy. “The, um. The stars, I mean.”
Ah, now she really felt stupid. Stars didn’t talk. Sophie was going to think she was insane and hearing voices.
Maybe she was, though.
“It’s like Jekyll and Hyde,” she tacked on, although that felt lame and still like the wrong comparison. Her powers weren’t some separate entity in her head, like she wanted to believe they were. When she did horrible things, there wasn’t anyone else pulling the strings in her mind. She was still fully present the whole time, if a little overwhelmed.
That was what made it so awful.
“Okay, well, not exactly. It’s just… it’s just like there’s something there, besides me – but it is me. It’s in my blood, I feel it there. It’s there now, tugging. It tugs. Upwards, usually. That feeling helped me figure out I could fly, but, at the same time, it’s – disorienting. Stars are…”
Alaine bit the inside of her cheek for a second. “...Violent.”
She was still avoiding looking directly at Sophie. “I, uh – I’m sorry, I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s hard to explain in human words.”You are human, idiot.“I mean you understand it better when you’re… it. Stars feel more than they talk.”Wow, that was such a normal human thing to say.
Memories of her dreams prodded at the back of her mind, scenes of floating in the endless cosmos and feeling like she was supposed to be a star, but wasn’t. It was an odd mirror of what she felt like there, a lot of the time – like she was supposed to be a human but… wasn’t. Not quite.
It was stressing her out. Sitting on the floor like that was making her think of sitting in her apartment, and her rib was really starting to protest the position – especially as her breathing started to quicken slightly.
The constant stars twinkled like looming, brilliant vultures and she winced, feeling that cosmic energy starting to prickle in her veins. She was going to start spiraling again. A star without an orbit.
“I need to find J–” Alaine started abruptly, only to swiftly correct herself mid-name. “--ames. J…ames. James. I think I forgot to fill in my timesheet for yesterday.”
Guilt stabbed at her chest for lying to Sophie, even if it wasn’t like it was a really important lie. She didn’t need James, she needed Jet. She felt like a pathetic little cosmic leech, spending that past week of work reaching for that personal gravity of his whenever she’d started to lose it… which was way, way more than usual.
Dang it, she’d been doing so much better. She never used to get those stupid panic attacks when she was younger, and then it had been so, so bad after Arizona. She’d been getting better, especially over the past year, but last Thursday seemed to have majorly set her back. She could only hope it was just a temporary thing and wouldn’t take as long as last time to get better.
Jet helped. He didn’t know it, but he did – and she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t had him last time, she hadn’t had anyone. It had been horrible. She didn’t want to feel like that again.
“We should probably get moving, anyway,” she added, trying to sound casual and not move too fast as she carefully got to her feet again. “I’m sure we’ll be getting a debrief here before long.”
She hesitated, then offered Lightning Girl a black-gloved hand to help her up. She realized a second too late that might be tricky with all the electricity the other heroine had just sucked in, but she wasn’t about to pull her hand back then.
“And – I mean it, really,” she added, looking sincerely at Sophie. “Thank you. For all the support and advice, it’s… it’s nice. It really means a lot to me.”
Sophie reached across to where her gym bag was, and scooped one of her gloves on, before crawling over and taking her hand. In what would have seemed a bit of an awkward pause, but one that she knew was probably best. Safety first, Blackstar!
She took the hand and clambered up, nodding as she reached over and grabbed the bag, hucking it over her shoulder. “Yeah, we should probably get moving. And don’t worry about it. It’s what heroes do, Blackstar.” She winked, giggling a little, pointing to the changing rooms, knowing she had to get dressed and return back to costume. “Right, I need to go get changed. Catch you later, alligator.” Sophie smiled, turning her head over her shoulder, her hair following as the white-clad heroine thought to finish up their earlier chat.
“And don’t worry about explaining it either. We also wouldn’t be superhuman if there wasn’t something odd about us.” Sophie smiled, trying to pass off her reaction to earlier, before splitting away.
Blackstar was still nervous, Sophie thought. Like really, really nervous. Had Sophie poked something inside her, deeper than maybe she should have. Was it something she was trying to hide? And if so, how bad could it possibly be? All heroes had issues, fuck, half the team were Phoenix Programme, actual, legit, criminals? So what had she done that she was so worried about? Was it impressing people, or was it she’d gone around mass murdering as a hobby? Or worse? Sophie didn’t know. And couldn’t, but something sat with her, but heading into a booth, she sighed, thinking that today was the last day of the week, but man, it was a half day and yet all paid. And she’d get to meet Quickdraw. And she’d get to finally go to Hollywood. Not as a tourist, but as a heroine. Though she wasn’t sure how the others may react to that.
Alaine started grinning a little in spite of herself at the brief pause between her extending her hand and Sophie taking it – though she did appreciate the effort taken to avoid a workplace accident form.
She huffed in faint amusement at that last comment, though she thought it was more like something was wrong with her than just “odd”. Still, she also appreciated the easy way LG handled it – not pressuring, not making Alaine feel like she was being interrogated. Sophie seemed good at that.
“Right. In a while, crocodile,” Alaine returned naturally, momentarily reminded of parting ways with her sisters and how it almost always ended in some silly phrase like that. She shook the nostalgia off. “Good luck with your dispatches today.”
With one last glance after the white-haired heroine, Alaine took a breath and turned to head back upstairs.
Upon arriving at the breakroom on her own, having left LG to change out of her gym set and back into her suit, Blackstar perched herself next to Asteroid immediately. Whether he was already there or she had to wait for him to arrive, he'd find her coming to sit next to him either way.
While James microwaved his hamburger -- a sad state for a hamburger to be in -- and Lightning Girl eventually arrived to debate the healthiness of it, Alaine quietly pulled her backpack around to her lap and dug around for a moment before finding what she was looking for. Producing a red and black teddy, she gently set it on the breakroom table in front of Asteroid.
"Lightning Girl found our stash," she explained, trying to sound casual about it.
Not like, upon receiving the recovered tote bag the other day, she'd had her first non-essential outing in probably a year to go get all the stuffed animals cleaned up and given a little something extra. The cute bow collar for LG's puppy -- and some extra stuffing for the red and black bear, who was also now wearing a light gold chain. It wasn't an actual expensive chain, just the sort of thing used for jewelry-making, but it looked enough like the one Jet had been wearing at the bar the previous week. She'd had to call Grace to figure out where to purchase such an item, as well as get her younger sister to walk her through how to do the stuffing and stitching. She may or may not have had a bandaid or two on under her gloves, due to her extreme rustiness with using a needle.
Alaine knew she could've just left the bear at Jet's locker, like she had with the fish food, and he'd probably have to go drop it off at his locker before dispatches anyway -- but she'd wanted to actually give it to him.
She adjusted the chain around the teddy's neck then sat back, tossing Asteroid a small grin. "Better take good care of him or I'll take you to court for custody."
"Alright everyone, we're on for half a shift today. As I'm sure you all know, the SDN LA County Annual Gala got moved.....again.....to today, at 6pm, and we are all invited. Be back here for 5:30 and dress formally, as per the Slack message. No flying, because you're getting a limo to pick you up."
The SDN LA County Annual Gala. Aw, shoot. She'd forgotten about that -- and hadn't actually thought she'd need to remember, because she hadn't expected she'd be invited. Probably would've helped her mentally if she'd checked Slack like he mentioned...
When James looked around at his A-Team she managed a strained smile and a double-thumbs up, trying not to look like he'd just announced the worst thing ever. Dress formally. How was she supposed to do that? Wear the one t-shirt and jeans she'd just washed the blood out of? Oh God. She'd have to call John.
Or -- no, scratch that. She was a little nervous about calling John at the moment. During the week she'd received a text from him on her second phone, which had turned into a call that nearly made her melt through the floor with anxiety. Lots of warnings about how similar the clown carnage looked to the cartel incident, questions about why she'd done it, how -- trying to make sure she was in control of it and not the other way around, which she'd struggled to answer.
All in all, he'd seemed a touch tense with her. She'd been left feeling like a scolded dog. Calling him up to ask if he could produce her some formal attire in a couple of hours felt like a bad idea.
Plus, she was so... picky. It was why her mom had given up trying to go clothes-shopping with her when she was probably fourteen. There was no way John would be able to find something, first try and on such short notice, that she'd be able to stand wearing for a couple of hours. No, she'd just have to figure it out on her own.
Before she started getting too upset about the situation, Blackstar swiveled her attention to other things. Like Lightning Girl producing yarn and crochet hooks to start working on something pink and grey. The amount of times she'd seen Grace sitting around, crocheting away with a huge bag full of yarn sat next to her... For a split second, she could almost imagine that was Grace sitting over there, not so far away at all.
But she blinked and the vision was gone, leaving Lightning Girl with her half-finished project. Alaine let out a quiet breath and fiddled with the straps of her backpack in her lap. She might've tried for a little light conversation with the others while they waited for the first of their dispatches to come rolling in, but she felt like she'd used up her conversation battery for the day with Lightning Girl down in the gym, at least for the time being. Instead she leaned back in her seat, stifling a yawn and stretching out her legs to rest a bit in the meantime with Asteroid's calming gravity next to her. Even a few minutes of "resting" was relieving after the monumental lack of sleep she'd had so far that week.
Alaine shrugged in reply, buzzing with enough cosmic energy that she didn't entirely feel everything that was wrong. Aside from that annoying blood in her eye, anyway...
Lightning Girl, though, that was a different story. The white-haired heroine was clearly in pain, bloodied in multiple places -- perhaps most concerningly at her side, where it looked like she'd done a little first aid on herself. Blackstar zeroed in on the injury for a second, the light behind the lenses of her mask flaring briefly.
Anger started to blur the lines of the constellations in her eyes.
Blackstar's jaw clenched, the taste of copper on her tongue as she struggled to rein that all-consuming rage back. Not again. Not again...
Lightning Girl offered a distraction in the form of removing her mask. There was a moment of respite between the clowns Blackstar had just slaughtered and the next wave, and she felt herself falter a little as she stared at the woman behind the mask.
LG looked... the same, somehow. Alaine wasn't sure how to explain it, but -- it just... looked like Lightning Girl, still. Not so much like a faceless persona had been given a face or the mask had been removed to reveal something completely different. She still looked like LG under the carbon mask, maybe just a little more human. Like a woman who'd been nice to her, helped her out, offered advice and given her a stuffed panda.
Alaine sucked in a breath, fists clenching so tight they hurt, even through the haze of power. All her emotions felt magnified -- the fear, the confusion, the fury.
If Lightning Girl looked more human, Blackstar suddenly looked less.
It was happening again. Her gaze slipped to the side, to a clown twitching on the ground nearby, maybe trying to drag himself away, maybe just spasming in death. Her fists shook with the overwhelming urge to run him through, to hunt down every single last one of them for hurting her friend--
Lightning Girl's hands landed on her shoulders. Alaine jolted like she'd been shocked, yanking her arms back behind herself as she scrambled to mentally will away the dark blades protruding from her fists. All that rage had instantly become panic, terror that she'd accidentally turn that violence on LG. "Wait--"
She wasn't sure what she expected from such a hands-on gesture. Maybe the unmasked heroine was about to demand she stop the killing, or maybe she knew about Arizona somehow and was about to make her face it--
"Listen to me, Blackstar. We're gonna get through this. We don't have any choice, we're the best shot at saving people right now...you did what you had to. I've got comms. I'll raise the team. We're doing fine. We're...."
Alaine was holding herself very still, eyes wide under her mask. Well, one eye wide. She felt like the other was swelling a little. It wasn't the confrontation she'd been expecting. It was... encouragement?
You did what you had to do. The words made Alaine's throat feel tight. The stars that had been clouding her vision started to flicker.
LG coughed, faltered, spat blood to the side. She was leaning into the shorter heroine slightly and Alaine could feel it; automatically her hands jumped up, catching hold of LG's arms to steady her. She realized, in enormous relief, that she'd successfully dismissed her cosmic blades; instead her hands were just her hands, the white fingers of her gloves now an ominous red.
"Okay, maybe not quite fine. But we're enough. We're gonna find those tunnels and I'm.....we're going to turn Gaggles into vapourware. Take a breather, and look at me, Blackstar. We're gonna be okay. Take a deep breath. We need to keep going, and we need to protect them. Find the team. Save the day. We can do this. You can do this. Yeah? You can. You saved my arse there. You're golden."
Lightning Girl wasn't looking at her like a monster. Alaine wanted to hold onto that realization, but something sharp in her mind pointed out that the other heroine was just trying to hold things together. Who knew what she really thought, deep down...
You saved my arse there. You're golden.
Blackstar opened her mouth to say something but -- what? What could she possibly say? "Thanks for not treating me like the murderous monster I am, LG, that's real nice of you." Right. Instead she just cleared her throat, keeping her steadying grip on the other heroine until Lightning Girl was ready to move.
"Thanks, that's -- I... Th-Thanks," Alaine managed, then promptly shut her mouth. She wished she could say more but it wasn't the right time, really, and she just... she just couldn't make her brain work to put the right words together. Like back at the Ferris Wheel earlier; LG was being so genuine and brave and encouraging, and all Blackstar could do was stand there mute, like she didn't care. She did care. Lightning Girl knew that, right?
With another word of encouragement and a suggestion to stay close, LG lightly pushed herself off of Blackstar's shoulders. Blackstar felt like she'd just been through a salad spinner and turned slightly to keep the other heroine in sight, fists shaking at her sides again -- not so much from protective rage anymore, just... well. Everything.
She should say something. Maybe grab LG by the cape and drag her back because what was she doing, going up like she was about to start fighting again? She should not be fighting. Alaine could handle it -- she was gonna handle it, she was gonna murder every fugly stupid clown she saw--
"Two for one....and I thought Lightning Bitch didn't have a pretty face. Shame we can't see Starfucker's because we all would love to.....oh, the shame. Well, we're gonna make you look hella ugly when you girls ain't gonna put up a fight. Prepare to die. We'll be smiling."
Alaine didn't even hear the Starfuck bit, her light-smoking eyes zeroing in on the speaker the second he said Lightning Bitch. She didn't like that word, especially not in relation to her girls. Of which Lightning Girl was now apparently one of, without Alaine even making the conscious decision to add her. But that was how it went, wasn't it?
Stars screaming in the back of her skull, Blackstar turned fully as the cosmic blades flashed back into life on her arms. She recognized LG's protective stance, mostly because she was doing the same, like they were competing for who could be the most defensive of the other while being severely outnumbered and, really, in no shape to still be fighting.
But, if nothing else -- at least the white-haired heroine seemed to have caught a second wind. Blackstar tried to let that ease her concern, but the cosmic energy coursing through her still struggled to regulate her emotions.
"Don't die," Alaine said to Lightning Girl shortly, voice maybe a little unnervingly flat. She'd forced past the momentary weakness because she knew the time for it had quickly passed, and now she was focused on figuring out how the heck she was supposed to spill guts while fighting with someone. She had to -- she had to keep LG from getting hurt worse than she already was while she was still able to, but she absolutely couldn't be the one who did the damage, no matter how accidental it was.
LG moved before Blackstar was ready, and the black-clad heroine hesitated briefly, afraid of charging in and causing damage where she didn't need to. But Lightning Girl, as Alaine should've known, seemed to have gotten back in the groove -- looked like maybe LG had some power on standby. When she swung that otherwise comical little putter, she sent clown brains flying.
Alaine had seen too much gore at her own hands to be traumatized by the sight, and there were too many clowns closing in to stay solely focused on her coworker. Luckily they were coming from the opposite direction too, so Blackstar could focus her murderous rage safely away from LG.
"Three for one. At least get our names right, scumbags."
Alaine took the line as a sign that LG was successfully holding herself together. Shrugging off the body of a clown that stumbled into her when her cosmic blade went through his gut, she twisted slightly to cast a periodic glance at her companion; LG was stumbling a little after taking out several more assailants and Alaine swiftly adjusted, falling back to guard the other heroine's injured flank.
She could do this. Take her example. Hold it together.
They fell into a kind of rhythm, rotating around each other, catching the blows the other couldn't, throwing enemies left and right with all the energy they had left.
Alaine leaned back to avoid the clown LG tossed past her, glancing around as another lull in the face-painted villains gave them a few seconds of respite. She was breathing heavy, veins still burning, still trying to blink the blood out of the lashes of her right eye. The tears had stopped at some point, but now there were some disturbingly bloody trails streaked down the unmasked lower half of her face. She could feel the dark energy reaching its limits; after so long suppressing it with all she had, it wasn't as long-lasting as the situation would've ideally called for.
"Team, me and Blackstar are grouped up, by the big Helter Skelter. We've found a way to find Gaggles. We need to stop this before we keep climbing higher..."
Lightning Girl spoke into her comms and Alaine spared her another glance. The white-haired heroine didn't look much better as far as energy went, and Blackstar could tell LG was feeling her injuries more than she currently was. It'd hit later.
Her mind turned to her coworkers in an effort to avoid dreading the near future. She hadn't seen anyone but LG yet, though she was pretty sure she'd heard some pumping music from somewhere else not too long ago. Hat Trick, maybe? What about Payback and Fenom? She couldn't imagine Fenom being overwhelmed by those clowns like the rest of them seemed to be, but she worried about Payback. Maybe the two of them had been able to team up and help each other out. Yeah. That was a nice thought.
Eclipse had been in the back of some corndog stand, last Blackstar had caught a glimpse of him. She knew Asteroid had been with Madcap before... if either of them were still conscious, she had a feeling they could probably hold their ground pretty well. She hoped they could.
And Jet. The thought of him made the sick feeling she was barely keeping at bay threaten her stomach. The cosmic energy latched onto the new burst of gut-churning concern, colliding with the desperate determination and the still-pounding rage in veins. It was a maddening combination. Her vision was spinning again -- despite standing still and menacing for the moment, she was screaming in her head. Panic. A new emotion to feed into, and Alaine realized the mistake too late.
Nightmares and memories and the present moment were starting to blur again. She was distinctly aware of her lungs rapidly rising and falling, hyperventilation setting in. In an oxygen-thin atmosphere, that was the last thing she needed.
The sound of a hundred mirrors shattering gave her attention somewhere to go. Her swirling vision tumbled together into something steadier as she turned, a little disoriented, looking for the source of the sound. "Did you hear...?" Her question to LG trailed off, maybe not even loud enough to be heard at all.
She tried to clear her throat, tried to speak louder, but all she tasted was the blood in her mouth. She wondered how bad she was hurt -- wondered how bad it was going to hurt when she came down. Panic again. Quickened breathing, stars flickering, movement out of the corner of her eye--
Alaine caught herself just in time, seconds from launching a blade as a projectile right at Lightning Girl. That made her freak out more and she stumbled a little, one foot coming slightly off the ground -- like the cosmic energy in her was trying to take over, pull her up. But then...
Gravity.
She felt it, or something in her did. That cosmic energy changed course, like a star finding something to orbit. The sole of her boot settled on the ground again, head clearing. Maybe it was temporary, but while she had the clarity she focused all her will on that sense of gravity.
A few more clowns were running up. Blackstar's eyes flashed as she threw an arm out, sending a dark blade their way; it went right through the heart of the first and took the leg off the one behind him, and she tossed another that stopped the third in his tracks with a head split right through the middle.
She'd like to say she didn't know she could do that. If she did, it'd be a lie.
Gravity. "Where are you?" Alaine breathed the question, backpedaling from her previous attempts to ignore the stars and instead retreating inward; not sure what she was doing and acting on instinct as she closed her eyes, her brows furrowed.
There it was. A tug in the cosmos, something searching.
Blackstar's eyes snapped open. Instead of clinging to her own emotions, the cosmic energy boiling in her veins latched onto that gravity.
A quick scan of the area told her she had a moment, and a glance to Lightning Girl nearby revealed the other heroine still upright. A little wobbly but alert and, at least for a beat or two, clown-free. Blades dissipating, Blackstar pulled out of the protective formation they'd been in, drifting off the ground as she exclaimed quickly, "Asteroid's here -- I'm gonna go get him. Tell him I'm coming!"
One more look around to make sure the coast was clear, then she honed in on that gravitational pull and shot off like a comet. She wasn't high off the ground, just enough to propel herself as fast as possible towards Jet. She knew it was him. And there he was -- it looked like he'd dropped to his knees outside of a mirror maze, and she could see shards of glass sparkling all around the maze's entrance.
The sound of all those mirrors shattering had drawn more than just her attention though, and she could see more clowns coming. They just never ended... how had Gaggle found all these thugs...?
Alaine touched down and skidded a little ways in her haste, quite nearly running into Jet but managing to avoid the collision. "Hey," she choked out, grabbing his upper arm. "Hey, you okay? C'mon, you gotta--"
The front of his mask looked darker. Splotchy darker. Like he was bleeding under it.
Whatever clarity she'd momentarily found almost left her. First Lightning Girl had been hurt, now him--
Alaine reached down, grabbing his arm with both hands. It helped. "Lightning Girl's over here -- the other guys are coming. C'mon, Jet, I've got you."
Whether he got up on his own or she had to pull him, Alaine stomached her unwillingness to cause any discomfort for the sake of getting him to somewhere safe -- well, safer -- and made sure he got up, warning him quickly before pushing off the ground and darting back over to where she'd left LG. Soon enough Hat Trick made his way to them too, but the clowns just never stopped coming... although they did seem to be thinning out.
Alaine stuck close to Asteroid, partially because that gravity about him kept her head clear -- and made it feel less like she was about to lose her mind and put her teammates at risk. Which she was immensely grateful for as she'd put herself on double-time, attention mainly split between Jet and the unmasked LG; every last bit of energy she had was being put towards keeping the clowns as far away from the two of them as possible. She knew she should probably hold on to a bit of that power, keep it stocked up for the cool-down when it was all over, if only to make the crash a little less devastating for herself... but that was a secondary concern. Tertiary, even. If using every last bit of the energy she had meant her injured teammates stayed alive, then that was just the way it was. She'd be fine. She could handle a little pain.
A clown swung a bat at LG from behind and Blackstar threw herself that way, catching the blow on her shoulder before running the thug through and tossing him to the side; there was another with a knife running up behind him. She twisted back towards Asteroid and pushed off the ground, using small bursts of flight to jump between the two as fast as possible -- blade flashing out, she removed the knife-wielding arm of the threat before giving him a kick that sent him flying back into another pair of clowns.
Hat Trick, as far as she could tell, seemed to be faring better. Or maybe it was just because he was so big and impressive-looking that it was hard for her to tell if he wasn't. In any case, she kept an eye on him to, and on any other of their hero coworkers who managed to get to them.
The earlier observation that the clowns were shrinking in number seemed to ring true as the gaps between them got bigger by the second. It made sense to Blackstar, considering how many they'd been killing. It felt like half the population of Claremont had been employed by Gaggles.
Oh God, that was an awful thought. What if that was where he'd gotten all the clown support? What if there was some kind of mind-control going on and they'd been killing civilians dressed up like clown goons?
Blackstar's boots touched the ground briefly as she stumbled back next to Asteroid, breathing heavy. Hazy vision scouring their surroundings, she paused as something caught her eye.
"Does -- does anybody else see that?" She pointed with a bloodied hand out at the one clown in the near-distance who didn't seem intent on swarming their group. In fact, he appeared to be busy flying upwards -- only to smash down to the ground somewhere out of sight, sending debris flying.
Gaggles. Had to be. She could only imagine what on earth he was doing, but hopefully he wasn't pounding one of their teammates into the ground...
Blackstar looked down at herself, then over at that cloud of dust and debris. She had enough juice to make it over there, if she flew. Gaggles looked distracted with... whatever he was doing. Maybe she could catch him by surprise.
Her glance darted to Hat Trick. He got around on ice, right? Maybe, if he could make some kind of path for them-- or at least put some kind of icy block between the team and clowns--
"Team!" She had no right to be making plans or taking charge, even for a minute. But it wasn't the time for hesitation then, not when she'd been the one to spot their target out there. Her flight path would give them the direction. "Gaggles is over there -- I've got enough energy to fly, I can make it to him!"
Whether or not she had enough energy to do anything when she got there was a different story, but she didn't bother mentioning that. "Hat Trick -- can you cut a path through these clowns so the rest of you can follow me? I think I can catch Gaggles by surprise, but..." She glanced out again, then back at the rest of the team. "I figured we all wanted a chance to hit him a bit."
It was a lamely-humorous cover for the truth, which was that she might just straight-up pass out when she got there. Especially since jetting over to Gaggles meant leaving Asteroid, and she was a little -- a lot -- nervous that her mental clarity wouldn't hold out without his gravity giving her something to orbit.
Blackstar inhaled deeply, gathering the energy she had and bouncing briefly from one foot to the other. Alright. Alright, you can do this. You're golden.
No time to hesitate and sand around working up a solid plan. They were getting higher every second, more and more people were dying and getting put at risk, her teammates included.
"I'm going," Blackstar exclaimed, giving them a heads-up then pushing off the ground.
No blades, no thinking, nothing but flight. Focus on flight.
She shot off the way she'd seen Gaggles, putting all her energy into it. One of the clowns on the ground threw something at her, but she was high enough and fast enough that it didn't matter.
There he was. She spotted him as she approached the settling dust and debris. Yeah, that was the same clown she'd seen earlier. And--
Wait a second, was that Madcap down there? Was that what Gaggles had been doing, jumping up and down on poor Madcap?
Not okay.
Alaine threw the last dregs of her energy at the clown. Diving down, she slammed into him full-force, sending the two of them soaring off Madcap and tumbling to the side, her velocity resulting in several rough rolls over the ground before they crashed into some stand off to the side, full of carnival prizes.
Dislodged from Gaggles, she bit back a groan as she shoved a board away and shook some accidentally-obliterated stuffed animal out of her face. Ow. Ow ow ow ow oh God OW. Ooooh boy, yeah, she could feel the pain now. As she'd predicted, that last burst of flight had used up just about everything she had.
Normally she handled pain sarcastically. There was no such thing for Alaine as a genuine expression of pain, unless she was completely alone. It never hurts bad enough to ruin the vibe was her motto.
But right now? It hurt bad enough to ruin more than a vibe. So bad that she tried to push herself up and physically couldn't.
Not good. Where was Gaggles? Her head was such a mess. Had that stupid clown killed Madcap?
She wanted to be angry but she was kind of busy just struggling to breathe. She just needed a minute...
Something felt different when Alaine took off to fly back to the Ferris Wheel -- aside from the fluttery feeling behind her ribs that didn't have much to do with the carnival at all. No, it was something in the air. Her flight felt off, like she was lower to the ground than she meant to be and had to work a little harder to stay above it.
Confused, she scanned the carnival grounds idly. Maybe the sudden amount of sugar in her system was messing with her? Or--
Her eye caught on a small figure below. A child, walking along the rows of food stalls with their parent, suddenly collapsed.
The parent exclaimed in surprise and Alaine immediately dropped down; her feet hit the ground a little harder than expected, almost like it had moved up to meet her. She didn't dwell on it for the moment, instead immediately moving for the parent trying to rouse their unconscious child.
"Amanda! Amanda, wake up-- wake... wake up..." The woman stammered, cutting herself off as Alaine approached.
"Hey, what happened? Are y--" Her question died on her lips as the mom suddenly wobbled and keeled over as well, Alaine diving forward to catch her awkwardly before her head whacked the ground.
The movement made her dizzy -- at least she thought it was the movement -- and she attempted to carefully lower the woman the rest of the way to the ground, one hand reaching to find a pulse point as she turned slightly to look around for help. "Hey! Can I get some help?"
No reply came. Almost every other person in the immediate area was passing out. She could hear James in her ear, asking for a sit rep. His voice and Lightning Girl's response were background noise as cries of surprise and fear started echoing all around, people panicking over unconscious friends and family or reaching up to find their noses suddenly bloody, steps stumbling as the echoes of mass chaos came from all over the carnival -- garbled with some heavily static announcement over the speakers.
Something was very wrong. Alaine jumped to her feet and nearly fell over herself, a sudden wave of dizziness making her head pound. Her lungs were beginning to feel a little tight. Wait. She knew what that was. Like the first few times she'd shot up into the sky upon discovering her ability to fly, unpracticed and not thinking about thinning oxygen...
Was the carnival flying? No -- there was no way. Right? Alaine dug a heel into the ground, steadying herself as more people began to pass out, creating a rather macabre scene of bodies strewn all around the fairgrounds like some kind of mass extinction had just hit. Although there were still quite a few figures on their feet, actually... and more were approaching every second, stepping from around tents and booths and all bearing one very unfortunate similarity.
They were all clowns.
Unfriendly looking clowns, at that.
Shoot. Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot. How had she not noticed? Well, she knew how she hadn't noticed, she'd been distracted.
The realization made her head snap to the right, back the way she'd just been flying from. Jet. What if he was unconscious somewhere? She was used to high altitudes in her own way, though this definitely felt wrong. She wasn't in control of this ascent, her body wasn't acclimating like it would if she was taking herself up. She didn't know how fast she was moving, she couldn't accommodate it. She didn't think Jet was used to high altitudes like that at all.
Her feet shifted, almost starting to step back that way -- but she stopped herself as a small seed of fear tried to take root in her stomach. Was she really about to abandon the remaining conscious civilians, easily fifteen or more in the immediate area, for one person? One person who was also superpowered and perfectly capable of handling himself in a bad situation, unlike the literal children crying a few yards away from her?
Alaine didn't take the time to seriously consider it and determine the answer, instead pivoting on her heel and lunging for the nearest civilians. Two kids who looked twelve or younger and a teenager.
"What's going on?" the teen gasped, pulling the two younger kids to himself. They all had similar noses. Probably siblings.
"I don't know," Blackstar replied honestly, shaking her head and glancing quickly around. Clowns, everywhere. Not good at all. There was a booth nearby though; the employee who'd been inside was nowhere to seen, but that might've been because they were passed out behind the counter. Pointing to the booth she added quickly, "Hide and don't come out, alright? It's all gonna be fine, don't worry."
One of the younger kids, a girl with curls that reminded her so much of her own younger sister, looked like she was on the verge of tears. Alaine gave her a quick smile and a double thumbs-up as the teen hastily dragged his siblings towards the booth.
Turning again, Blackstar scanned the clown-filled surroundings. Only one thing to do -- distract and fight.
"And actually, I am an EVIL clown named GAGGLE, and you have all been fooled. Now time for my master PLAN where I eject you all into SPACE. Goodbye."
The audio on the speakers finally broke through for her and she made an exasperated face. What was even the point? Was he just after the heroes there and the civilians were collateral? Or was he trying to hit the highest number of casualties possible? Was there any rhyme or reason at all?
There were a few clowns closing in on her, others chasing down any still-awake civilians. Blackstar took a breath, ignoring the pounding in her head and launching herself up. Simultaneously, her energy flashed into existence around her hands, extending out into flickering blades of inverted light.
While briefly in the air, she scouted the surrounding carnival grounds -- looking, without meaning too, for the familiar black and gold of Asteroid first, before scanning for any of her other teammates. Instead, she caught sight of one clown not actively hunting down heroes. He was ducking into a bathroom with what looked like a limp balloon in hand.
A bathroom? Immediately she thought of the story Jet had told her about his and Madcap's adventures with a secret passage and tunnels. No way that had something to do with all this... Actually, no it made a lot of sense that that would have something to do with everything else. Whenever there were tunnels under someplace that wasn't supposed to have tunnels, something was usually amiss.
She made a note of the suspicious clown but focused on the current task first. Diving down, away from any running civilians, she made a display of herself. She was as good at drawing attention as she was avoiding it, when she wanted to be.
It worked. A swarm of bloodthirsty clowns started scrambling her way as she straightened up, blades flickering at her sides, stars flashing in the corners of her vision. She didn't bother counting her would-be assailants, she could handle them easy. She was already starting to get mad, blood churning in her veins as her head pounded -- this Gaggle bastard wasn't just picking fights with heroes, he was endangering children, hundreds of innocents.
Not okay. Not at all.
"Yeah, yeah, c'mon," she muttered eagerly, fists tightening, weight shifting as she got ready for the collision. The white lenses of her mask began to burn with the light of her eyes behind them, her lips quirking up slightly as the adrenaline started to blur the lines between solid land and the cosmos.
The first of the group reached her and lunged, swinging something. She didn't even register what, her body feinting to the side like she'd seen it coming from a mile away. Back came her bladed fist, ready to punch down, punch through--
The clown had stumbled down to a knee and twisted around then, hastily trying to parry as he looked up at her.
All at once, she was somewhere else entirely. A desert, in the dark, early hours of the morning. There wasn't a murderous clown scrabbling on the ground in front of her, there was a man from a cartel, thrown out of a van she'd slammed into moments ago. He was begging. He had kids.
But she killed him. And then she turned around and flew back to that compound, and she kept going and kept swinging and she could taste the blood again--
Alaine stumbled backwards, blades of cosmic energy flickering out like someone had flipped a switch on them. Cold sweat beaded her brow as James' words rang in her head.
"Weirdly, it's shorter, as coroners tend to just want to know how to put down the mess they're about to walk into on their forms. We work in one hell of a fucked up business."
She couldn't do it. She didn't want to.
Whack! Something struck her across the back and she stumbled forward, fists jumping up as she spun around -- but no blades came that time, the glow from her eyes smoking out like a dying fire.
Great, she shouted at herself mentally. Great frickin' time to have a moral crisis, Alaine! Yay! This is fantastic!
The clown who jumped forward then looked way too excited to throw a punch. Alaine took it like a champ, right in the face.
Well, if her nose hadn't been bleeding before, it definitely was then. She spat blood to the side and threw her arms up just in time to block another punch, but the hits were already coming from every angle. Something sharp bit into the back of her shoulder and she wrenched away, not exactly in the mood to get stabbed to death in the middle of being bludgeoned.
"Hrk--" Okay, well. Her vision spun briefly -- whether it was because of whatever had just smacked her in the back of the head or the altitude sickness, she wasn't too sure. This wasn't the way she would've liked things to go, but with a mental block in the way of her cosmic blades... being a nice, distracting punching bag was just going to have to do.
And no, she wasn't calling for backup -- everybody else definitely had their hands full, and Alaine wasn't the type to ask for help for something she could do herself. Like take a beating.
Of course, getting beat up was only going to be "helpful" for so long. In fact, if there was anyone around -- they'd either gotten away already or passed out by then. She got distracted trying to see through the disturbingly thick crowd of clowns, getting one in a headlock just long enough to peer past him.
Looked like the goons on the edge of the crowd were getting bored, starting to stalk around and rip through the booths. Booths where people were hiding, if they were still awake. Blackstar startled, realizing she wasn't being enough of a distraction.
She needed to do what she'd known she'd have to do. She had to do it.
Someone grabbed one of her arms, yanking her back; she let go of the clown she'd had in a headlock, bringing a leg up to plant her boot in his ribs and push herself off of him instead, attempting to jump into the sky despite the spinning in her head suggesting she not try that. She didn't have to worry about whether or not flying was a bad idea though, she didn't get the chance to get away. She'd barely gotten a foot above the nearest clown before one of them had jumped up and grabbed her ankle.
Any other time she would've just kept going and kicked him off, but it wasn't any other time. She was disoriented for multiple reasons and flailed instead of flying, yanked down like a runaway balloon -- only she hit the ground a lot harder than a balloon.
And the ground was definitely not a good place to be.
Alaine winced, right eye twitching under her mask as blood dripped down from somewhere and got under the lens; she rolled away from the first kick, but as she tried to push to her feet she was just shoved down again. Someone heavy put their full weight in their boot and stomped right between her shoulder blades, knocking what little oxygen she still had out of her for a moment.
Gasping as the kicks rained down, her head picked up just enough to see droplets of her own blood splattering against the ground in front of her face.
The sight was familiar.
Too familiar.
―✧―
Red droplets spattered onto the ground as she ducked her head down, breathing ragged, listening to the voices of a drug lord and his men as they started barking back and forth in Spanish. The sound reached her ears like it was coming through water. She could feel her whole body shaking, panic still heavy in her chest as she struggled to think.
What could she do? She knew she had enhanced strength, but she didn’t know how strong – so far she hadn’t had much success with those chains. Was it leftover tranquilizer in her system? The physical effects of being hung upside down for who knew how long? No doubt everyone in that room was armed – even if she did break loose, she’d get shot before she could get out. And she couldn’t get shot. She was the only one who had any chance at saving her family, she couldn’t afford to get herself killed.
But what could she do? Oh God. Oh God oh God oh GodohGodohGod– She was starting to hyperventilate.
This was all her fault. She thought she could play hero. She thought she was big enough to decide when it was okay she’d killed someone. She hadn’t paid attention, she’d been sloppy, she’d been stupid–
They were gonna kill her family. They were gonna kill her family. She had to do something. She couldn’t do anything.
She was alone. No one was coming to help her. No one had ever come to save her. No one was going to be able to save them except for her.
The drug lord was screaming in the background, words she didn’t understand pounding through her skull as she squeezed her eyes shut tight, feeling her veins beginning to burn.
Her eyes were closed but she could see the stars. Dimly at first then brighter. On the edge of her vision then more, and more, and brighter, and wilder, until the darkness behind her eyes was full of them.
God, she was so scared. She’d never been so scared in her life.
She’d never been so furious in her life.
―✧―
Stars. They were pulsing behind her eyes like the insistent, overwhelming voices they were.
Alaine's arms weren't curled over her head to protect herself, they were there trying to hold herself in.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.
She'd come there on John's advice, joined SDN, scrubbed herself out of recent history to avoid that happening again. She couldn't do it again. She wouldn't--
The glow of Blackstar's eyes streamed out through the gaps between her arms and fingers. Some of the abuse from the clowns faltered, just for a second; but it was enough. Sucking in a breath, she used the momentum and the extra surge of energy in her veins to shove off one of the heavy boots pinning her down and shoot up into the sky, fast enough that none of them seemed to expect it or could manage to grab her again.
She didn't know what had happened to the civilians she'd been endeavoring to help protect, and she couldn't take the time to look. The madness needed to stop, immediately, and she could tell from the way her limbs were shaking and her head was spinning that there was no time to waste.
Fumbling through the air, she flipped herself over the top of a large tent and out of sight of the mobbing clowns; sliding down the canopy, she let herself drop to the ground, grunting slightly as her boots made contact. One leg buckled and she toppled over unceremoniously, rolling into the dirt with a muffled wheeze.
"Ah... ow..." Alaine inhaled shortly, allowing herself just a half-second to lay there and wince before gritting her teeth and pushing herself up. "Hffph..." Huffing a few strands of loose, mousy hair out of her face, she looked up and spotted the bathroom that weird clown had headed into.
"Move," she growled to herself, verbally urging her limbs to work. She was gonna be feeling that tomorrow, that was for sure.
Up she got, stumbling a little and sloppily dragging her arm across her face. A glance down, still blinking and squinting that right eye behind a cracked lens, revealed she was quite the mess. The white on her uniform made the blood stand out pretty obviously. Probably a good thing most of the kids were unconscious, honestly...
Blackstar steeled herself and gathered what strength and resolve she had, stalking towards that bathroom. The stars were swirling in the edges of her vision, a cosmic force she was desperately struggling to keep in check simmering in her veins. That part of her was almost reveling in the too-quick ascent and the looming threat of joining the cosmos again.
No more flashbacks. Not now. She strode closer, a determined scowl settling on her bloody face. If you've gotta kill a clown -- then you've gotta kill a damned clown.
She could do it once. If she had to. If that was what it took to save the whole carnival.
Kicking the door in, Blackstar reached out and braced herself heavily on the frame, yelling into the bathroom, "Hey! Google or whoever the heck you are!"
No reply. She looked around, shaking her head slightly as the blood in her eye irritated her. Something was off. Nobody in the stalls -- nobody at the sinks, but one of the sinks was dripping. Zeroing in on that one, she pushed off the doorframe and stepped over, pausing briefly as she caught sight of herself in the dingy mirror above it.
...Yikes.
Frowning at her one cracked lens, she refocused on the sink, not sure what she was doing but feeling more and more peeved by the second. A step back -- then another kick, this one aimed right at the sink. The basin chipped and cracked, knocked slightly back into the wall... which, in turn, seemed to fall back into a particularly rectanglular slot.
Secret passage. Blackstar let the energy crackle around her hand briefly as she didn't bother trying to find a code or lever, simply bashing the wall in until the passage beyond was revealed. She didn't waste time while hopping over the rubble, slipping down the passage into a wider space. Still no clown in sight, but she could see openings to other passageways branching off in all different directions, long passages. No telling where Gaggle had gone, and no way she could find out; maybe if she had a few hours to spare, but she wasn't even sure she had a few minutes.
One more hasty glance around to make sure she wasn't about to be ambushed and Blackstar turned, hurrying back the way she'd come as she reached up to speak into her comms. "I've got some tunnels over here, what's everyone's status?"
She stopped as she reemerged into the bathroom, frowning as no answers graced her ear. No LG, no Payback, no Fenom-man. She tapped the outside of her cowl over where the earpiece was, already high heartrate not getting any better. No Hat Trick, no James, no Eclipse...
"Hello? Team?" Still no replies.
Was -- was everyone gone?
Alaine faltered, tapping at her ear more insistently and ignoring the pain. "Hello? Guys? I-- Jet? Jet?"
In distress she shoved her fingers under the cowl, fumbling for the earpiece and scooping it loose. She pulled her hand back and the device tumbled into her palm with a few loose chips, obviously damaged. Probably from where she'd been getting whacked and kicked in the head... Alaine tried to rein in her emotions, throwing the earpiece to the floor agitatedly.
Who was closest? Lightning Girl. She was probably still near the Ferris Wheel...
Stepping outside Blackstar steeled herself and pushed off the ground with a wince, not taking the time to see if there were any clowns in the immediate area coming after her. Up she went, ignoring the way she wobbled midair and scouring the ground for the gray-clad heroine, in case she'd moved away from the Ferris Wheel.
And she had, apparently; barely a minute later Blackstar had spotted her, out in the carnival grounds with a trail of downed clown assailants in her wake and more closing in. Faltering midair at the sudden sighting, Blackstar course-corrected and circled back, struggling to fly as smoothly as usual. Her body was confused by her flight and the flight of the carnival under her, still unable to figure out how to compensate.
Lightning Girl wasn't doing good. Even without comms, Alaine heard that scream.
The stars at the edge of her vision responded in kind, flaring like old, eager voices in the back of her mind. She felt herself falter in the sky again and gritted her teeth; through the blood still bothering her right eye, she could see more clowns coming. How there was that many she had no clue, but they were clearly headed for the injured heroine below.
Alaine could help.
It wasn't that she didn't want to or that she'd rather run away -- she was going down there, no doubt about it, but she knew there was only way way she'd really be able to help.
The cosmos swirling in her blood jumped at the notion, searing at the various points of pain scattered across her body, tingling at her fingertips.
I don't want to. Alaine didn't know who she was pleading to. The stars listened but they didn't answer. They never gave her any other option. I don't want to--
No other option. Lightning Girl was hurt, her fellow teammates probably were, too -- innocent people were hurt, dying, maybe already dead, countless children among them.
She didn't want to touch that side of her power ever again, but she'd known she'd have to eventually. It was a disease in her blood, always with her, always in her head, and it wanted the one thing she kept refusing to give it, one thing hero work was bound to supply. Her head was a warzone -- a disorienting clash of old horrors and the very real promise of new ones, pleas to be someone she still liked and the overwhelming realization that the only way to help was to sacrifice what she wanted. Like always.
Like since she was a kid and she wanted to watch the horse movie but Brook wanted to watch Barbie. Sacrifice, let her little sister be happy. Like when she was eighteen and she wanted to be a ranch hand but her parents worried it wasn't sustainable. Sacrifice, go to college, get a degree to ease their concerns.
Like when Lightning Girl was bleeding and screaming and the carnival was on fire and Jet was probably out there somewhere too and she didn't want them to see her like that, she didn't want them to look at her and know she could do that, she didn't want to be that monster she hated.
Blackstar slammed into the incoming clowns before they got to Lightning Girl, where the other bloodied heroine was hanging onto a claw machine. She didn't pour ozone like LG, and her blades made of dark, cosmic energy only flashed when they formed; she wasn't a bright, twinkling star come to the rescue, she wasn't graceful. She crashed down like a meteor come to cause a mass extinction. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't pretty last time, either.
To her, she looked more like a villain than any kind of hero.
Stars, everywhere. Her eyes were burning -- physically smoking cold, white light... but also stinging with tears, not that she'd realized it. It'd probably look a bit unsettling when that right side of her mask started trailing red down the rest of her face, like she was crying blood under it.
The cosmos were screaming in her head, and she didn't know if it was real, an effect of the oxygen deprivation, or actually people screaming as she ripped into them. She was seeing in jarring doubles -- the past overlaying the present. One minute it was a clown trying to get to Lightning Girl under her bladed fist, and the next it was a cartel man, scrambling to protect himself or protect his boss.
None of them made it far.
But there weren't as many as before; the overlap of memory and current events started thinning out as Blackstar swung one blade in a sharp arch, simply beheading the next clown that charged at her. And, for a second, there wasn't anything else to swing at.
The energy pooled in her palms and fingertips and she swallowed thickly, blinking as she registered the probably-momentary lapse in assailants. Her head was pounding. And spinning. And spiraling... There was a tug in her shoulders, like the ever-approaching stars were trying to pull her up.
What had she been doing? She wasn't... it wasn't Arizona. Her family was fine. Right? She glanced down, seeing a drop, two drops of blood hit the ground, falling from her fist. She didn't think it was hers. In fact she knew some of those hits had been deep. Her fists had probably been in someone at some point. Someones.
Alaine gritted her teeth, ignoring the copper taste in her mouth and squeezing her eyes shut, blades still burning quietly at her sides.
Right. The carnival. Lightning Girl.
Dread pooled in her stomach immediately, but now she was fighting not to let go of the power too soon -- while she was embracing it, the effects of her first failed fight took a little less of a toll, and there were probably still clowns nearby and headed their way.
And she knew, in the far recesses of her mind where she was still very much just Alaine... that as soon as it faded out, she'd feel like she was going to throw up.
"Do-- Do you still have comms?" Her voice sounded strained as she turned slightly, addressing Lightning Girl. She was breathing heavy, wobbling a little, and not fully turning her head -- as if she was purposely avoiding looking directly at the other heroine with her eyes smoking light through her mask. She was on the verge of going supernova again, and she knew looking too closely and seeing how exactly LG was hurt would send her chasing down clowns with a vengeance, when that wasn't what she needed to be focusing on.
More than that, she'd caught a glimpse of Lightning Girl's half-shredded mask. She was scared to see what expression might be on the other heroine's face if she looked. "Mine broke. There's -- tunnels. Lots of tunnels. Under us."
The revelation was accompanied by a stiff jerk of one cosmically-bladed hand, the tip of the blade indicating the ground beneath them. "Goggles or whoever went... under. I tried to follow him but there were too many ways to go. I lost him. I--"
Blackstar's strained voice, slightly deeper than normal and far less friendly, finally cracked a little. "I don't know what to do."
Blackstar hadn't said that, Alaine had. She hadn't meant to show that hand. She didn't want to do it. She'd just massacred a bunch of clowns in a decisively brutal way, severed limbs scattered among the bodies and gore spilling out of sliced-through, half-cauterized heads. She didn't want to do it. But she'd had to. She didn't know what else to do.
If she could actually think, she might be able to find an answer. Obviously they needed to find Gaggle, and if he was in the tunnels that meant they probably needed to get in there after him. But how? What about civilians? What if the clowns followed them down and boxed them all in? What if the whole team wasn't even intact?
Even covered in blood and grime and draining the dregs of power from broken carnival machines -- as far as Alaine was concerned, Lightning Girl was the only one there who might know what their next move should be. At the very least, she could spread the information about the tunnels. The violence had to serve a purpose. A big one. Or else Alaine would spiral back into that place where she'd been months ago, and she couldn't do that again. She couldn't...
Blackstar, who was currently getting her ponytail yanked on by a little girl who'd asked to be held, only to lean over her shoulder and immediately reach for her hair -- tilted her head to see around the girl. From behind the white lenses of her mask, her eyes locked onto the spun sugar Lightning Girl was offering. Um, YES please.
"Oh gosh yes, thank you," she started. "I am starving--"
She was cut off with a small grunt as the little girl over her shoulder abruptly yanked on her ponytail again, causing her head to tilt back a bit. "Ow."
With a deep, long-suffering inhale, she held up a finger to signal just a second to Lightning Girl, then carefully bent over to set her passenger down. "Aaaalright kiddo, better go get back in line or you're gonna lose your spot."
The girl pouted as she was set down but was quickly distracted by some excited squeals from the Ferris Wheel, prompting her to run back over to the line. Straightening up, Blackstar dusted her gloved hands off and looked back to the white-haired heroine... only to realize she was not only being offered cotton candy, but an absolutely massive stuffed panda.
"My new 'friend' reminds me of you with that mask. All yours......I think I shouldn't play funfair games, Blackstar. I'm beginning to think I am a little bit overpowered compared to the last time I was at a funfair when I was like, 12. Or carnival. Sorry, forgot it's different over here!"
Blackstar accepted the cotton candy then reached, much more tentatively, for the offered stuffed animal.
LG was still talking, saying something about how the carnival was an easy job and one of the other stuffed animals she'd apparently won was for James, another was for Hat Trick... Alaine shook her head a little, snapping herself out of her thoughts as she looked over at the other woman. Very casually, very gently, she curled her arm around the panda and tucked it against herself.
She hadn't said anything yet and still didn't, using the excuse of eating some of the cotton candy as Lightning Girl talked to avoid speaking.
Truth was, she felt like she was about to cry.
She really shouldn't be tearing up under her mask over a silly giant stuffed panda, but that was exactly what she was doing. It was probably just some mass-produced bulk buy toy, maybe not even worth the price of the tickets needed to win it, and yet -- it was soft. Alaine could feel one of the fuzzy ears brushing under her jaw, one of the few places where she could actually feel the texture without suit material in the way.
She didn't have anything soft. Nothing. She'd denied herself anything comfy for probably around two years already. The thought of going back to her apartment that night and setting this big, cuddly panda anywhere in her bare-minimum lodgings was forming a lump in her throat. It'd look so funny. It'd make everything else so obvious.
And Lightning Girl had thought of her. Had she really? Or had she just spotted Blackstar and tried to hand off one of her various carnival plunderings? Her mask looked absolutely nothing like a panda's face -- ...right? -- but she supposed she could draw the connection between the black and white combo. The idea that LG had seen that big, stupid, cute stuffed animal and thought of her was just making the urge to cry worse.
Of course, she reminded herself, having another bite of cotton candy -- Lightning Girl had immediately gone on to say she was planning on giving the other two to James and Hat Trick, so it wasn't like Blackstar was special or anything. Yeah. No need to read more into it than was actually there. LG was just being nice. She was spunky and friendly and seemed to look out for her teammates, so that was all it was. Right. Right, right, right...
"How are you getting on? Do you want to...."
Whatever the white-haired heroine had planned to ask, it was interrupted by an incoming of more kids. Once again with the wrong names, but it wasn't like that could really be blamed given that ridiculous ad.
Alaine cleared her throat lightly as the kids exclaimed, letting LG take the social bullet for a minute while she attempted to swiftly compose herself -- at least enough to properly talk and not just stand there like a statue. Of course, she wouldn't have offered a photo, she wouldn't assume anyone would want a photo with her, but she supposed the opposite could be said for Lightning Girl. Or Lightning Woman, rather. That seemed like one of the most decent name-changes from the ad. What had it called Asteroid? ...Meteor? No, Meteorite, that was it.
She didn't realize it, but thinking about it made her feel a little better.
LG straightened up and Blackstar sucked in a breath, casually hoisting her new fuzzy companion up so that the head covered the lower half of her face that was, currently, uncovered. She would've put on that bottom part of her mask if she'd known they'd been working the carnival -- now that she was little more comfortable with the team, who all had their own identities to protect, she didn't mind not wearing it around them or on actual dispatches where they were dealing with crime or helping someone out real quick.
At the carnival, though, with all those phones and cameras all over the place? She wasn't so sure she wanted a million pictures of her face, only half-covered, all over social media. Someone would see. Surely someone would find something similar in the shape of her jaw, the curve of her mouth. It wasn't so much that she didn't want her family to find out, it was more that she didn't want her family to be put in danger because they found out.
Blackstar could feel the buzzing sensation from LG's sparks, and she smiled a little as the phone cameras snapped some pictures, even though she was casually keeping that panda held up. Didn't mean Lightning Girl couldn't still see whether she was smiling or not.
The kids and their parents thanked them, all laughing and chatting together as they moved on and left the two heroines to their conversation again.
Alaine cleared her throat a little, letting the protective shield of the panda drop slightly as she glanced at Lightning Girl.
"Um, thanks. For the panda." She hefted the stuffed animal a bit, as if to illustrate the comment. "He's cute. I'll have to start totin' him around as a sidekick."
Lightning Girl giggled, gently poking the panda’s belly a little, smiling with a grin. “Yeah, I thought you looked lonely over there. With kids hanging off you. So I thought you needed a friend to help you man the fort. And this panda for help.” She chuckled, as she let her indulge in that joke. And a serious reply.
It felt like kind of a weak joke, but she persevered. "But, uh -- yeah, it's... different. From being on the beat. I mean I'm not gonna say I don't like kids--" She dropped her voice, just in case anyone was around who'd take offense. "--But if I wanted to be stuck with them for more than ten minutes I would've chosen a different career path."
Might've been an odd comment from someone who so clearly seemed to radiate "big sister", but maybe that was just the old, secret childhood bitterness about never getting any attention because there were always so many other kids running around. She'd been an only child for just about 4 months before her mom got pregnant again, so. Not much time to enjoy the spotlight or be anyone's sole focus. Which she'd gotten used to, and she of course wouldn't trade her siblings for the world -- but there was always some deeply-buried twinge of resentment about it, whether she liked it or not.
"Anyway." Blackstar shrugged, moving on and absently waving the stick of partially-eaten cotton candy. A pause, then she asked, maybe too nonchalantly, "...How was the flight over?"
She was definitely just asking about the flight. Just making sure there hadn't been any turbulence. LG had flown someone over too, yeah, but that totally wasn't why Alaine was asking, no. Of course not.
LG smiled, herself chewing through the sticky cotton cloud, it getting all over her lip balm in a not so pleasant way, looking down at the black-suited, brown haired heroine that was holding the fort here, her Southern tones warding off kids messing around, but she was clearly still getting messed about. Though….she did seem almost stunned anyone would come to her with a panda. Blackstar hadn’t clearly spent enough time with Sophie to realise that if she could find a way to cheat at a rigged game to make it even, she would for the sake of her team-mate. And well, who else would like the Panda? Asteroid? Actually, where was he…..
She replied back to her, after her eyes drifted when a trio of very concerning looking clowns caught her eye.
“Oh, yeah, it was good. Sunshine at last…..even if it burns my skin, it beats rain turning my skin into needles. And I got to know the other cosmic hero of the team, beyond you strolling in awkwardly into the gym on Tuesday. I try to mix it up with people, make sure everyone’s welcome, given it feels like I’ve been here the longest…..even if that doesn’t feel like long at all. Anyway, Asteroid’s a character, isn’t he? For a Phoenix Programme, he’s really well spoken, cool guy. I hope he does well at SDN, he deserves something good. I’m happy your dispatch went well with him. It still comes up on my socials every now and then from Ultra.” She didn’t give anything up, she was astute enough for that, especially because she didn’t have feelings for Asteroid. But a promise was a promise. Lightning Girl wasn’t giving up words that easy, not without more of a poke. She seemed honest, in a way that seemed refreshingly straightforward. She had her pinch points, but that wasn’t one of them.
But she hinted. She hinted at almost an unsaid bond, like a way of saying ‘yeah, he’s nice, you can trust him’. He was trustworthy. Someone she could count on, and hopefully, someone Blackstar would know their feelings weren’t wrong, because Asteroid’s definitely weren’t.
Alaine nodded slowly, still feigning total nonchalance as she continued munching on the spun sugar. She wasn’t cotton candy’s biggest fan ever, but she was hungry enough that it tasted like the best thing ever. The trio of suspicious-looking clowns – well, they all looked suspicious – caught her eyes as well.
Lightning Girl’s reply was what she’d expected, though Blackstar did perk up a little when Asteroid was mentioned, as she’d hoped he might be. I hope he does well at SDN, he deserves something good. That was a nice thing to hear. It was a nice thing to think of deserving something good.
Lightning Girl cleared her throat, keeping an eye out, stopping any more kids from breaking into the queue, as was tradition. You didn’t break through the queue. A heroic thing to do was to stop queue jumping.
Wait, that was a British thing.
Well, fuck it, these little fuckers were learning manners, Sophie’s inner goblin tittered, glancing back to Blackstar, back on her earlier comment about kids. She was new to this. Lightning Girl realised she may be a bit of a mentor, a bit of a wiser head. Blackstar had that older sister energy, but Lightning Girl was the more experienced hero of the two of them, and well, unofficially, felt like the resident here in Claremont.
It may not have been home, but hell, it was what it was, so Sophie replied to that.
“And yeah, I’m not keen on stuff like this normally either, but, this makes for a change after the week we’ve had. It’s worth saying, when I have lots of voltage in me I am chatty, I guess it just happens that I gush, and give into being a bit more…..maximalist. I’ll tell you why someday.” She looked on, seeing some kid in a Phenomaman T-Shirt, chuckling, adjusting her mask a little, watching the crowd before turning her head back to Blackstar.
Blackstar opened her mouth but shut it again, deciding against jokingly commenting on the fact that Lightning Girl seemed chatty 24/7. She assumed the “why” was similar to if you gave a battery-powered toy more juice than it actually needed. Maybe there was something more to it, though.
She wondered what the woman under LG’s mask acted like when she wasn’t expected to be a voltaged-up heroine.
“And I guess those kids….they’ll talk about us all the time, and they’d love to be us when they grow up. Same way they look at firemen, doctors, astronauts in costume. When you put that mask on, you’re everything they want to be…..and I know it’s a lot of weight, when we go back home that goes away. But you get used to it with time.” Lightning Girl looked across to Blackstar, knowing this was heavy, very, very heavy for a carnival. But if Alaine had big sister energy, then even as the younger sibling, Lightning Girl’s want to prove herself, clamber the ranks and get on that shiny star of LA’s top team, had come back to her own roots, perhaps, seeing a little of herself.
Blackstar glanced over when she felt Lightning Girl looking her way, returning the sentiment with something of a wry smile. It was a multilayered thing. On the one hand, she wanted to say ‘kids wouldn’t want to be me if they knew what I’d done’. One the other hand – well shoot, she’d spent her whole life being the role model. With five younger siblings, it was unavoidable that her parents would be telling her to be on her best behavior. Little eyes are always watching, little ears are always listening. They copy you because they want to be like you. You’re their model for growing up.
It was weird, feeling totally used to something but completely unfamiliar with it at the same time. She kept those thoughts to herself though, knowing Lightning Girl was trying to encourage her and just generally being the quieter of the two.
Sophie may have still been learning, hell, she wasn’t really even at her prime really, but Blackstar reminded her of the really early days. In Manchester. Trying to make it work, the costume, the identity, the photos, the feeling of being this……thing people liked and you didn’t know if to turn to bad or good. The lines were grey. You could just do anything when you had the ability to short-circuit ATMs, people, lifts, whatever you liked. And seeing Blackstar felt like an echo.
Blackstar was new to this, but Lightning Girl could tell she was in this for the right reasons. Even if her past felt cloudy, she felt unsure, any of it, Lightning Girl could cut through people. Even the people she struggled for rapport with, like Eclipse, Madcap, Payback…..well okay, damn that was quite a list, but most people, she tried, the former two, definitely so lately. Blackstar was clearly harbouring something in her heart, it didn’t take a mind reader to see it, but if Lightning Girl could lighten that load, she was going to find a way. Maybe she would get that phone call from a high profile branch, a marketing role, that would be dreamy. But right here, she had a job to do, and well, in a city where she was getting to know people, she wasn’t turning down a chance to hang with someone like Blackstar that clearly Sophie had the chance to influence. Maybe when the time would come, Sophie would be able to reveal she wasn’t just a masked hero and neither was Blackstar. That weight of being a hero, with the mask peeled back was someone else. And Sophie knew that person was more confident, better, stronger, hell, sitting on a pylon in a leather jacket and tights was fucking insane the first time she tried it.
But Lightning Girl was so much cooler. And she had a bottomless battery for people. Madcap seemed to be the only other member of the team that was like that, and she realised the comparison was not a great one.
For now, Sophie reasoned they were just working together. So it was best to keep that relationship proffesh. A chance for mentoring would also look good in the reports, sure, but at the same time, it felt like the right thing to do. Same way that putting herself in the way of harm felt when saving civilians. It was like a beacon, a guiding light, that screamed. And it helped that you didn’t die when you got shot, at least from something lower in caliber. So it was easy enough. Too easy to be a dipshit in this world, and, it cost no manners to be nice. And it meant you could save all your repressed anger on Brick Frog’s fucking face when he ruined your hair and send him across a road…...okay, maybe that was half true!
She cut her thoughts out, putting her rubber gloves back on, zipping up her hip pack and looking across to the shorter of the two heroes, aware that they’d been getting snapped from afar. Finishing her thought.
“I guess for me, it feels like we need to try and live up to that dream, if at least for our younger selves. Even if what's under it struggles, at least we can do good playing us. And they'd think we were the coolest things ever. I mean, dark energy and a costume as cool as that, Blackstar? When I grow up I wanna be like you.” She chuckled, with a reassuring chuckle, knowing it would maybe put Blackstar a bit more at ease. Let her seep into the vibes that Lightning Girl was on.
You reeaallly don’t. Alaine almost said it, almost. Still. She appreciated what LG was trying to do.
And she did look up to the white-haired heroine. Lightning Girl would probably be an excellent mentor for the new role she found herself in, certainly John would approve. Right? Or would he think that was too risky? …Couldn’t be that risky. A mentor was still a perfectly professional contact. Now if she started yapping to John about having found a new bestie, he’d probably caution her against that.
Of course, after trying to gossip in friendly fashion with Payback, Alaine wasn’t too sure she was able to make friends like she used to. Maybe she’d lost the “yes, I’d love to hear your life story” vibe that she’d seemed to bring everywhere growing up… Thank goodness if she had, honestly. That was a lot of pressure too, not that she didn’t find hearing total strangers’ life stories interesting… It could just be a little jarring when all she wanted to do was get in and out of the grocery store as fast as possible.
Alaine blinked, bringing her throats back to the present. Right, Lightning Girl as a source of direction. Probably a good idea. Blackstar was already looking up to her.
Lightning Girl turned and rested a hand on her fellow hero’s shoulder, a smile back, knowing Blackstar must have been probably a little scared to go out into it, especially because this felt like a job. As someone a little her senior, and a little more experienced in this, Lightning Girl didn’t want her to feel like this was too serious a job, and with that gloved hand, reassured.
“Go have some fun, Blackstar. I’ll keep an eye out and make sure nobody gets up to nothing naughty here. They just told us to be here to look after things. We are doing just that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go and get some more cuddly toys. What’s James gonna do. Fire the best performing hero he’s got on his roster?” Lightning Girl smiled, sincere, and a beam of positive energy as always.
“Fun?” Blackstar echoed incredulously, rocking a little under the friendly weight of LG’s hand on her shoulder.
She knew it was possible, thanks to that first dispatch with Asteroid, but that was different. Wasn’t it? The fun had been part of the dispatch, actively. Having “fun” now – like if she actually went and won some more stuffed animals – would be shirking the dispatch itself, although she’d technically still be on site. Right?
Lightning Girl had literally just said “what are they gonna do, fire us?” but Alaine wasn’t so sure it wasn’t a possibility. They had a lot of heroes on the team. She’d gotten in trouble in previous jobs without even doing anything wrong, so she didn’t like to give anyone any reason to make notes on her file.
Blackstar pursed her lips in an expression of serious consideration, which probably looked a little funny paired with the giant stuffed panda she was holding like a puppy.
“...Well,” she said at length, uncertain. She might as well go find something to eat, or just… take a break from all the kids. Had to be somewhere she could hide for a few minutes. “...If you’re sure…?”
Lightning Girl had a little bit of an undertone, of not being a purist, she was less letter of the law, more spirit of it. A little wildfire behind grey eyes, as she spotted a kid trying to cut in and only gave a glare and a “Hey!”, and that kid reconsidered very, very fast when Sophie cast shadow towards him. She looked over her shoulder and nodded to Blackstar, letting her do her thing.
Alaine blinked under her mask, taking the nod as a “yeah, I’m sure”. Okay then. Well… she could find something to do. Clearing her throat lightly, she said, “Alright. Uh – here, I can take that for you, at least.”
Taking LG’s now-bare paper stick, still faintly colored from the cotton candy, she deposited both their trash in the nearest trash can, like a responsible carnival-goer, and proceeded to try and figure out what to do with herself.
(( ᴄᴏʟʟᴀʙ ᴡɪᴛʜ @SonnetNSunbeam | ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: @Auragreedia/Madcap in the beginning )) (( ᴛʟ;ᴅʀ . . . Asteroid & Blackstar go civilian to enjoy the carnival while on break! Lemonade & elephant ears, balloon darts, and wholesome cuteness overload. Asteroid & Blackstar part ways at the end, Blackstar heading back for the Ferris Wheel.))
Asteroid felt rather disheveled sitting on the bench next to Madcap. His mask was rolled up to the minimum necessary for corndog eating. A cup of mustard dangled loosely in one hand, he slowly worked his way through the dog in his other. For a moment, he mourns his meal prep. But only between bites- he only went to the carnival when he was a kid during Summer sports- so this was a treat.
Madcap had led him on an absolutely insane adventure. He still wasn’t sure it was real, or if he slipped into whatever side reality Madcap usually existed in. Why were there tunnels under a Carnival? Maintenance?
What were the others up to? Was Eclipse going to spend all day inside the corndog trailer? Maybe he’d check and see if the lemonade stand needed help. He could get a free lemonade- and XL for himself, and at least a large for Blackstar? Did she like lemons?
So many questions, what had gotten into him? If they weren’t in public, he likely would have bent to rest his head in his hands. But instead- he stares straight ahead. Dead eyed, and praying that the children leave them in peace for just another moment.
And they do. Long enough for him to see a familiar form in her white on black costume. It’s a shake up, and rather than react, he watches her move through the crowd. She draws attention from everyone around her like this, can’t really miss costume design like that. She continues to weave through bodies. Watching her makes his pulse race as he tries to decide if he wants to catch up to her. He can’t tell where she’s headed. The farther she gets, the less he wants to let her out of his sight.
”Madcap- I’m gonna take a walk-” He offers no more explanation before he tosses his garbage, pulls down his mask, and runs after her. Bobbing and weaving through children is difficult. He nearly trips over a toddler barely hanging onto an ice cream cone. Cream actively drips onto their shirt.
When he is within ear shot- he tries his luck- “Blackstar! Hey!”
At first, the crowd noise prevents the words from carrying too far. So he tries once more- “Blackstar!” His tone is even and he’s cupping his mouth with his hands for range.
In all honesty, Alaine still hadn’t really gotten used to being addressed as “Blackstar”. She did hear Asteroid the first time, probably, but it didn’t register. The second time though, probably both because it was a little louder and it had a chance to sink in, she realized oh, wait, that’s me.
Pausing, she turned around. Luckily, most of the crowd was under 5’6, so she could actually see over heads for once. She did have to lean to see around a passing pair of parents, and that was when she spotted the familiar black and gold.
For a split-second, she just stared. He’d called her? Why?
But then, part of her she hadn’t felt in a while asked why does it matter?
Alaine blinked, starting to weave her way towards him, stepping around a few teenagers with a quiet “‘scuse me”, around a mom and a screaming kid – in a crowd, with all those eyes on her, she didn’t feel like a hero. She felt like someone who hated being looked at getting actively stared at. Skirting past someone else, she abruptly realized she didn’t have to walk. Ah, right.
Pushing off the ground with one foot, she simply lifted into the air – an over-extended jump over the remaining children, teens, and parents between her and Asteroid. Slowly, she let herself drop lightly to the ground in front of him, the big stuffed panda Lightning Girl had given her held securely in both arms, like she thought if she held it too loosely somebody would make her hand it over. She and the stuffed toy seemed inverted, with the majority of her suit being black and the majority of the panda’s fur being white.
“Hello,” she hummed, smiling at him. Funny how the tight feeling in her ribs had just lessened a little, like it was easier to breathe. “Meteorite, was it?” Asteroid laughs.
The teasing came naturally, somehow, as if she hadn’t been dying inside minutes ago. “Where’ve–”
“Hey!”
Aw, shoot, she recognized that demanding little voice. A glance over her shoulder saw the kid who’d first accosted her at the front of the carnival marching up, one hand raised like he was hailing a taxi. Which he probably was attempting to do, given he now knew “Darkstar” would give free flights if pushed a little.
“I’m on break,” she blurted to the kid. Without thinking, she let go of the stuffed panda with one hand and grabbed Asteroid’s hand instead. A gentle push off the ground and up they went – just enough that she could hover them above the height of some of the nearest stands and smaller rides, well out of reach of sticky, demanding little hands.
“Sorry,” she said to the hero in black and gold, dipping her head towards him in an apologetic gesture. She hadn’t asked to do that. “I’ve had kids yanking my hair for the past hour, I need a break.”
Her hair did look a touch disheveled. She probably needed to re-fix it, but to do it right she preferred to slip her mask down and make it look nice.
“Where’ve you been?” she finished her previous question. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the white lenses of her mask but they were fully on his face – covered as it was. Like any slight movement would tell her what expression he might be making.
Asteroid lets out a relieved breath. Glad to be away from the crowd as well. “I'm glad to follow your lead honestly.” The sound of his smile bleeds into his voice. He looks her over, noting the fluffy panda bear in her arms.
“I spent the last while with Madcap, which was an experience, per usual it seems.” Asteroid attempts to manipulate gravity so he's floating more directly in front of her. With his free hand, he reaches and gently scratches the bear on the head. “He somehow knew the code to a secret passage, which led to a tunnel, which led into a fun house.” The more he says, the more crazy he feels. “All with murder vibes?” The last two words come out as individual questions.
Alaine almost grinned a little at the way she could feel him manipulating gravity. It was like the weight of his hand in hers warbled slightly. But then she did grin as he went on, tilting her head to the side at “murder vibes”. She watched his free hand move for the panda’s head – so very close to her own – but she didn’t edge away at all.
”Honestly- maybe James is right about laying off the drugs I'm not taking.” He snickers just a little. “How'd you get this little thing?” Jet anticipates the jolt of jealousy, but it doesn't come. And it's comfortable. Which rattles him, with his exes he was the jealous type.
”Any secret admirers we need to worry about?” His voice is playful and low. This is clear flirting territory for him. Still hopefully harmless enough to be deflected, but a sign post to refer to in the future. He stresses for whatever amount of silence that remains, but it's for fear of making her uncomfortable. Their friendship is new, and the last thing he wants to do is spook her.
Jet wants to know her. He's not looking for anything else. If she lays out a boundary, he'll figure out how to forget the green in her eyes. But he isn't going to do it in advance. Instead he's going to chase this foreign joy- and maybe just a little desperation- for everything she's willing to share.
Alaine blinked behind her mask, the question taking a second to sink in. She may or may not have been distracted by how close his hand was to her face.
“Hm? Oh–” She started off in easy dismissal before she actually realized what he’d asked and cut herself off with an embarrassed little laugh. “Oh, ha! No…” She couldn’t imagine that. She’d helped secret admirers of her sisters before – when she approved – to pass along gifts or something. But secret admirer for her? That’d be a first.
Wait. Was that just a joke? Or was he…
Alaine felt her face getting a bit warm. Nah. No way. …Right?
Wow, that was a nice thought though. If he was.
She cleared her throat lightly, realizing she still hadn’t answered the question. “It’s, um – Lightning Girl had an armful of prizes, I think she went on a little gaming spree. She said it made her think of me. Probably the, um… black and white.”
Quiet for a second, she hesitated before musing softly, “I don’t think he’ll be very happy at my place. It’s kinda…” She stopped herself. “Um. Well.” A little shrug. “He’ll be the softest thing there, I guess.”
Soft things ought to have other soft things, or so she’d always felt. Right now, her apartment was three rooms – living room and kitchenette, bedroom, bathroom. With one bedframe and mattress, some paper plates, plastic cups and utensils… all her clothes were still in the duffel bag by the foot of the bed, everything else in the big backpack next to it.
Oh, and a little piece of triangular red glass on the windowsill of the one window in the living room. It was from somebody’s breaklight. She’d picked it up while she was on that dispatch with Fenomaman and Payback the other day.
Her mom would say it was junk. It was, in every sense of it, and the light didn’t hardly even come through that window thanks to the building right next door, but – the red glass glowed just a little, when the streetlamp light snuck between the two buildings. Closest thing to stained glass she’d have for… probably ever.
She pushed the thought out of her head. There she went again. It was like she wanted to be depressed.
Alaine’s hand tightened around Asteroid’s just barely, a subconscious movement, the pad of her thumb against his knuckles. Even with their gloves on, she was sure she could feel the warmth of him.
Jet frowns. It’s not the reaction he was hoping for. He’s a bit of a flirt when he has one too many at the casino. It’s not something he’s disrespectful about. He hums at her comment of not having soft things. Maybe she’s really new to town- he’ll have to help her with that. It’s when her hand tightens on his that his stomach does a flip.
“You wanna… do somethin’?” The question came out a little more vulnerable than she would’ve liked. She felt her face getting hot again. “I mean – Lightning Girl said I could take a break… um. Sounds like you could use one, too. Something with less murder vibes, maybe?”
She tacked on a little smile, hoping it looked like she’d meant to ask and it was a totally normal thing to ask and it hadn’t just slipped out. He kept making her do that, just – say things. And, for someone who should really, really be taking care not to just say things… she didn’t mind much at all.
When she asks him to do something- he imagines what it’d look like to twirl her around like this. While she’s the engine of flight. His Adam's apple bobs. She continues-
“Unless you were digging the murder vibes.” The smile that came with that was easier. “We can totally try to find another secret tunnel, I’m down.”
Snickering at the comment about murder vibes, he enthusiastically agrees. “I’m good on murder vibes for at least the next hour. I’ve been in search of extra large lemonade at least, and maybe you could share an elephant ear with me? It’s so messy we’d probably need to find a private place to eat it.” They are his secret favorite, even though he’d only been to a carnival with his tennis team once or twice. That’s probably why following Madcap wasn’t even a question- Jet was still curious about carnivals. What else was there about them that he didn’t know?
That earned a small laugh out of Alaine, followed by an equally enthusiastic nodding. One stick of cotton candy, however delicious, wasn’t enough to make up for a week of skipped meals. “Oh, wow, yes, yes please,” she agreed. “Honestly I could eat the whole elephant, I never had breakfast.”
Or dinner the night before… or lunch the day before… had she had breakfast yesterday? …Huh… Geez, her mom would kill her if she knew. Maybe.
“Oh – here.” Alaine adjusted her position midair – she’d never actually thought about it before, flying and hovering and going up and down, all that. It had always just been her, and it was like something in her knew instinctively how to move in the air. Holding somebody else’s hand, though… she wanted to make sure she didn’t just yank him straight to the ground.
Down she went, bringing her coworker down with her and making sure there were no stray kids below before they touched down. “Elephant ears are the things with the cinnamon, right?” she asked as they landed. “I’ve never had one.”
”Yeah- it’s basically a flat but bubbly piece of fried dough covered in topping! You’ve gotta take bites of it without taking it off the paper plate they give you it on. Or the sugar and cinnamon, standard topping, go everywhere.” He rattles on a bit about how they’re his fav but it’s been probably a decade since he’d had one.
Alaine smiled slightly to herself. She liked people who talked a lot. Lightning Girl, Asteroid… it made her feel less like she had to keep the conversation going when she always felt she was so bad at it, but she still wanted to be part of the moment. Besides, she liked listening more than talking herself.
When they touch down, Jet gets an idea. A bad one. “Ever think how we could just shed our costumes right now and blend into the crowd?” He whispers it, afraid that his communicator might be listening. Skipping out on work is a sure way to get fired, and Jet really needs this job.
He peaks out from the thing blocking them from view, and peers out over the crowd. “After all, nobody knows what I look like under here but you.” It’s a soft admission- but also it’s own kind of secret.
“I’m kidding- of course.” He laughs, but there is an insinuation of sort of not joking. Maybe they could come to a carnival on their own sometime.
Alaine stared at him for a second, taking the suggestion quite literally. That sounded… really nice, actually. And very possible. He was right, nobody knew what they looked like under those masks except – well, each other, apparently.
That made a funny, butterfly-like sensation flutter behind her ribs. “No, yeah. We… totally could.”[ She had a similar tone of “haha funny thought – although…”
Of course, there was one problem with the idea. Alaine grinned a little.
“...Unless you’ve got a full second outfit on under there, though–” She realized she was still holding his hand and let go, only to reach up and gently poke his chest instead. “I think we’d end up standing out anyway without clothes on.”
Giggling to herself at the mortifying idea, another thought occurred to her. “I mean – if there’s some employee uniforms around or something…” Her voice dropped too, and she wiggled her panda slightly as the gears started turning in her head. “We could totally qualify for a little free merch, right? Like some t-shirts?”
Wait, no, that was crazy. That was crazy. Right? Alaine stared at Asteroid, subconsciously realizing she was waiting for his reaction before attempting to finish formulating the rest of that plan.
The more Alaine talked the more Asteroid was ready to take his mask off. The loss of her hand was burned away by the press of her finger to his sternum. Another beat of his heart, skipped. “I'd think so? There were uniforms in that building and tunnel.” Jet visibly shivers. “But I'm not sure I'd want to go back there.”
He watches her panda waggle. “Let me see.” Jet peeks out the door, and searches for articles of clothing to swipe. Shirts are in abundance, but then the thought of shoes stumped him. Flip flops? Oh they always had those somewhere.
“We definitely need to get our treats, but what if we just came back? Us, later? Not necessarily tonight-” he cuts himself off. This is a dangerously close to a date invitation and he immediately back pedals. “There are always new ones coming into town though, lots of time.” He rocks back on his heels and then squeezes the panda’s cheeks each with a thumb.
Alaine watched him reach for the panda again, squeezing its puffy face like he needed something to distract from what he’d just said.
In all honesty – she had been hoping to stay somewhere for more than a few months, especially now that she had a proper job, but… who really knew? Never staying anywhere long was a lifestyle she was so used to that it was almost the norm. Living somewhere for more than a couple of years was what sounded weird.
What if she messed up, bad? She’s already taken some guy’s hand off in her first week on the job, who knew how long or short it would take for her to do something worse and be fired? Or worse – for the connections to be made between Blackstar in Claremont, California and a lone mirlo in Arizona?
Even worse… what if Asteroid saw something that would make him not want to come back some other time, no masks?
She could feel the ominous anxiety of that scenario looming in the back of her mind like towering, distant thunderclouds. Lightning Girl was sweet and supportive now, but what if. What if, what if.
“I’m not… used to having time,” Alaine replied carefully. It sounded an awful lot like he’d almost asked her out. She wasn’t sure if he’d meant to, judging by the way he’d seemed to hastily rephrase.
No, she didn’t trust time to give her a chance to come back. She made her mind up – well, so long as he was doing it with her.
“No time like the present, right?” she added lightly, giving him a small smile. “C’mon, I thought you were a big scary criminal. Scared of pulling a little hijinks? Uh – hijink?”
Something occurred to her that might get them the extra clothes they needed. She wasn’t so worried about shoes – her boots were separate from her costume, though they didn’t look that way, and she doubted anyone would be looking too hard at her feet anyway. If they did… it’d probably just look like she was wearing bowling shoes or something.
“I’ve got an idea.” Alaine abruptly handed over the panda. “Watch him, would you?”
With a smile she gave Asteroid a little two-fingered salute, then stepped back and pushed up into the air. It only took her a second to spot the stand she’d had in mind; she hadn’t known where it would be, but she could see what she’d been thinking of beneath the awning.
Touching down in front of a bored-looking, purple-visored employee, she cleared her throat and put on her best Woman Who Was Definitely A Hero voice. “Hello there,” she greeted brightly. It’d be a small lie. For the greater good. “I need to grab a couple of those sweatpants for some parents, kid spilled ice cream all over them.”
In her time at the carnival so far, she’d already seen at least three parents walking around with the same, brightly-colored, carnival-specialty sweatpants on. They were rather bold, black with a rainbow star print all over – but looking at the tags past the employee, they were, for some reason, the cheapest out of the available options. Weird, because as far as she was concerned they were the least awful compared to the ones with a clown balloon plastered all over them in garish colors. “And I’ll need a couple of complimentary t-shirts.”
“We don’t have complimentary t-shirts,” the employee replied, sounding as bored as she looked. “And the cheap sweatpants are thirty bucks. Each.”
“Well I’d hope heroes were entitled to at least, like, one free t-shirt,” Blackstar replied with gentle insistence. “Aaand maybe the sweatpants might have a little hero discount? Hm?”
The girl squinted at her. “Which one were you again?”
Alaine sighed. “...Darkstar?”
“Oh.” The girl thought for a moment, glanced at her Giggles-themed watch, then shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Just take ‘em.”
A quick question of sizes and the sweatpants were handed over – along with two t-shirts, garishly clown-themed but that would just have to do. And, with a little cajoling, Alaine managed to get the girl to hand over a tote bag too.
Thanking her and beaming, Alaine took off again before dropping down elsewhere and walking her way back over to where she’d left her panda-sitting coworker behind one of the various booths.
“Tada!” She fished out the sweatpants and t-shirt she’d scored for him with a big, dumb grin on her face. She was well aware of how silly the combination was, but luckily for them, in a carnival full of clowns they weren’t that likely to be the odd ones out. “Pretty sick, right? I guessed your size so hopefully it fits good enough for a half-hour civilian spree.”
Jet practically rips his mask off when she returns. The panda is firmly held to his front with his left arm. His mask balled up in his right. “These are the goofiest pants I've ever seen. But they actually would look really nice with a black leather jacket and tight shirt I think.” His smile is blinding.
Wow. Alaine stared at him, still smiling but looking a little starstruck for a second. His smile was so nice. His face was so nice. She didn’t know if anything could make those pants look good but she did think he’d look good in a tight shirt and leather jacket…
“You're really crafty, ya know that?” It's bright, and meant as a compliment. Between the idea for bungee jumping and this one, he's impressed by her ability to just figure something out. And generally, fast too.
That snapped her out of her momentary daze. The praise immediately made her stand a little taller, a happy warmth spreading through her chest. She was aware she reacted to praise like a loyal dog desperate for the slightest word of approval, but she couldn’t help it.
“Okay hold Bear for a min and then I'll stand guard.” Gently he checks the sizes of the clothes in her arms. Grabbing the slightly larger ones, he presses the bear into Blackstar's arms. Then, he finds a hanging curtain behind him and ducks behind it. Its practically touching him so he's sure it looks silly from outside.
While inside the curtain, he comments on her earlier statement. “I also move a lot. I'm really hoping this will stick though.” His costume zipper is loud as he straps off the top and bottom. It's less than a minute and a half and he's peaking out of the curtain at her.
“How do I look?” On the walk back he shimmies his shoulders. His uniform is over one arm, and he's taking the Panda back with the other. He's avoiding eye contact with her mask, mostly. Jet feels exposed under her eyes, and seeing the reflection of that in the lenses of her mask is too much.
Holding Bear in one arm, she hefted the strap of the tote over the other shoulder, casually bouncing from one foot to the other with a little extra floating than normal until Asteroid popped back out from behind the curtain.
Alaine couldn’t help a giggle at the way he wiggled his shoulders, and she replied, while handing over the stuffed animal and the tote bag if he wanted to put his suit in it, “You look like Giggles’ biggest fan.”
And your eyes are so pretty. And I wanna ruffle your hair. And– She kicked the thoughts out, clearing her throat lightly and heading behind the curtain.
“You mentioned that the other night, when I flew you home,” she said to him through the curtain, quickly tugging off her gloves then going for the well-hidden latches and zipper going up her side. “The moving, I mean.”
On went the Giggles’ tshirt and the painfully colorful sweats over her boots; they were long enough that they hid the majority of the pattern that might’ve aroused suspicion, and it did look like she was just wearing bowling shoes or some other funky option.
Popping out from behind the curtain, she reached over and tucked her suit and gloves into the tote bag, reaching up to take out her ponytail and the pin that held the red portion of her hair down under her cowl. Tying the mousy hair up into a small bun, she left the red part loose around her shoulders – it drew more attention than the natural color, which was the point.
She huffed a strand of mousy hair out of her face, glancing up at him briefly before focusing on Bear and extending her arms in an offer to carry both the stuffed animal and tote bag. “I’d, uh – I’d ask how I look but seeing as we’re wearing the same thing, I guess I’m just Giggles’ biggest fan times two,” she mused with a faint laugh, feeling a little heat rising on her face. God, she hoped she wasn’t blushing. He’d already seen her face before but she felt naked all of the sudden.
When Alaine pops out of the curtain, Jet finally looks at her directly. She’s a knockout. Her smile is the second thing he decidedly commits to memory. After her mossy-ocean eyes.
“Does that make us Giggles’ groupies?” He hides a smile behind his fist and he bites a thumbnail. The star pants are baggy- perfect lazy day loungewear. Stop it- stop it- stop it- he chants at himself.
That earned a laugh and an eyeroll out of her. “So – where’s this lemonade and elephant ear you were talking about?” she asked, trying to sound casual and trying to avoid eye contact but unable to resist glancing at his face again. She’d thought it last time but darn it, why’d he have to look so cute?
When she looks up, she finds him looking at her. Really looking at her. It takes him a few seconds to realize she’s asked a question. “Oh- yeah- right- your uniform?” His face flushes and it spreads all the way to the tips of his ears. He extends a hand to accept it, and then uses gravity to lift them up to the top of whatever booth they’re hiding in. An orbee inflates and rests atop a support beam. He rests their uniforms there. “Hopefully well hidden enough that kids won’t get to them?” He looks for her approval before turning back to the exit.
“Or coworkers,” Alaine hummed, busy watching the way the orbee floated up – enough that she didn’t see him reaching over right away.
Jet almost doesn’t do it. But he can’t help himself, he reaches for her hand and then pulls her along. “This way- they had the extra big cups for lemonade.” He laces their fingers together and pulls her along. Their bare hands pressed together is surprisingly intimate. His hand is just slightly clammy- not wet- but not dry. Jet’s heart is hammering in his chest, and inside his mind, he is chanting the same mantra. ‘Don’t fuck this up’ over and over again.
Alaine inhaled subtly at the feeling of his hand nice and cozy against her palm, his fingers laced between her own. That was probably a bad idea. Right? Being coworkers and all.
Though – her fingers curled gently against his knuckles as he started pulling her along – they were on break. So. Technically they didn’t have to be coworkers at the moment. Just… a couple of people at a carnival.
Yeah. That could work.
When they get to the food booth, it’s a pretty sparse line. Only one couple ahead of them. They lean in for a kiss and Jet averts his eyes from them and Alaine. The tips of his ears are red, but his grip on her hand tightens and then loosens very gently. Get a grip Jet you’re nearly 30- Blackstar is awesome- so you’ve gotta try to be smooth here.
He settles on rubbing his thumb against her index finger slowly- and then he clears his throat. “So- 1 Lemonade and an elephant ear for sure. Anything else?”
Although her gaze was ahead, Alaine wasn’t even actually seeing the couple ahead of them. All her focus was on the hand pressed against her own. She wondered what that callous on his finger was from – it wasn’t a normal working-with-hands callous, it was more specific. Writing? No… he’d mentioned sewing before, hadn’t he? Or was she just confusing that with the way he’d talked about clothing?
“Hm? Oh–” Ah, shoot, he’d asked something. She blinked, vision coming into focus again as she hurried to comprehend the question. “Oh, yeah, no, that’s fine by me, if I can have a sip of that lemonade.”
He’d suggested sharing the elephant ear but hadn’t technically mentioned sharing the lemonade, and suddenly she was overanalyzing what exactly he’d said and what she’d said and hoping he didn’t think she was assuming he’d just share everything. If there was anything she hated it was being misunderstood… probably some logical reason for that in her raising, but she tried to make herself stop puzzling over everything so hard right then.
Instead – Alaine breathed out, settling into her boots a little. She was always tense, always on the balls of her feet slightly, like she’d have to take off any second.
“I feel like I’m pretending,” she said suddenly, voice low amid the overall noise of the carnival, and she leaned slightly towards him so only he could hear. “It’s so confusing. Do you feel like that? Like I’m pretending to be normal. Or I’m pretending to be a hero. I’m not even sure which one’s the real one anymore, sometimes. Blackstar, or Al–”
She caught herself just in time, a tell-tale flush spreading across her cheeks. “Ah. Well.” Alaine laughed a little embarrassedly. Could it hurt? Just her first name? It wasn’t the most common name, but – well, without the last name it couldn’t hurt. Right?
But she didn’t want to make him feel like he had to tell her his name… even though, technically, she supposed his name was a lot easier to access than hers. She’d probably just have to snoop around in James’ desk, it had to be in his criminal record. But she wouldn’t do that.
Oh, screw it. John was gonna kill her – but he didn’t have to know.
“Well,” she said again, clearing her throat and glancing up at Asteroid. The couple ahead of them was doing something stupid and cute like arguing over who was sweeter than whatever sugary treat they were buying. “I was gonna– um. Alaine.”
She gestured to herself with her free hand. “I mean, don’t – uh. Don’t tell anyone, but.” She could’ve given him her middle name or something, but would he have believed her if she’d said her name was “Star”? He’d think she was joking. “Sorry, you didn’t ask, but – well, I mean, if you’ve gotta get my attention or something you can’t really just go shouting Blackstar, so…”
Her fingers fidgeted a little against his. Was his hand clammy or hers? Why was she so nervous? Probably because that was the first time she’d said her own name out loud in months… and because she kept thinking about him looking at her earlier like he was memorizing her face… was that a good thing? Or a bad thing? Did he like her face? Wait, why the heck did that matter? It didn’t. Nooot at all. Nope.
Jet grins- it’s like magic to be trusted by this woman. He wants to pick her up and twirl her around in a circle. With how dizzy he is, it feels like they’re already spinning. “Jet.” It’s all he can manage to say as he looks at her from beside him. His body is still facing forward but his neck is craned to see more of her. The red of her hair settles the anxiety in his chest- just like red always does. He thinks it’s cute pinned up in a bun like that, especially the pieces falling out in front of her face.
Jet? Alaine glanced up at the sky for a split second, puzzled, before it abruptly clicked in her head and she looked back at him and that charming grin of his. God.
“I mean- I didn’t ask but.” A purposeful inhale of breath. “I’m Jet and-” In between words he lifts their conjoined hands purposefully, hoping he’s being obvious enough “I wanted to know. And for the record- I feel like I’m pretending almost all the time.”
Alaine glanced at their hands as he held them up, and she started smiling without realizing it. He wanted to know. That… wasn’t the horrifying feeling she’d have expected upon learning someone wanted to know what her name was. In fact it was a very, very nice feeling. So was hearing she wasn’t the only one who felt like her existence was a big game of play pretend.
He’s smiling so hard his eyes are crinkled at the edges. The fact she hasn’t pulled away yet, has to count for something. He reasons with himself until he remembers he held Madcap’s hand at least twice today already. Was this a thing friends did that he was unaware of? He and Rey never held hands. They hugged a lot- which had been a weird transition after he got out.
“We’re going to have to come up with a nickname to beat into my brain though. Don’t want to slip up in front of everybody else. I’m not too protective of my first name though- so it’s okay with me if you say it around the team. Just maybe not on live tv.” He makes a half laugh sound.The idea of Blackst- Alaine calling him Jet full time makes his stomach do a tiny flip. “You have a pretty good nickname for me already.”
It’s their turn in line now- so he orders their items and they shift over to take it from the pickup window. He decisively does not order two lemonades, but he does order the largest size they have. Jet loves lemonade, so much he wants a juicer.
Quiet while he ordered, Alaine piped up again to continue the conversation as they moved to wait at the pickup window. “Yeah, now I’m thinking I’ve got to make up some new nicknames. Like F-22 or Blue Angel or something.” She grinned impishly, huffing in amusement and adding, “Sorry, that’s dumb, I know. Couldn’t resist, I like jet. Jets!“ she corrected quickly. “Fighter jets. Ha.”
Alaine cleared her throat lightly. “Jokes aside – that’s a nice name.” She nodded a little, murmuring to herself, as a memorization tactic, “Jet.” She didn’t think she needed that to remember though.
As for nicknames for herself… huh. “Black” would be weird for a number of reasons. “Star” was easy, but it was also her middle name which would also feel weird, not that she’d particular mind though. What else was there? Coming up with nicknames for other people was easier.
Absent-mindedly, she swung their intertwined hands between them a little. It felt nice. It all felt nice.
One of the employees working the booth brought their lemonade and elephant ear over. Reluctant to let go of Jet’s hand, Alaine stubbornly held on just a little tighter and took the plate with the warm, just-fried dough with her free hand so he could take the lemonade with his and they could keep holding hands in the meantime. Jet takes a drink of the lemonade the moment its in hand.
She thanked the employee even though they were already turning away and glanced to her companion, physically unable to resist saying his name again. “So, Jet–” Yes, that felt right on her lips. She was in such a good mood all of the sudden. “–I have a question. If we were to attempt a totally-not-rigged game after some much-needed refreshment…” She lifted her brows, and a beauty mark at the outside corner of her right eye was pulled into the crinkle around her eyes as she grinned. “...What should it be?”
If Alaine kept saying his name over and over like that he was going to pass out. “I think a game of balloon darts would be fun.” When he was hanging out in villain bars, he'd hustle to get people to buy him drinks & food. The key was to lose at the right times. One thing about balloon darts though was his powers couldn't make things sharper. So if the darts were dull and the balloons were less filled, it would still be difficult.
Ooh, that was a good idea. Alaine nodded, swapping the elephant ear for the lemonade. After a little warming up, she had pretty good aim… as far as throwing things went. Her dad used to say she should try softball but, unfortunately, she’d never really been one of the athletes of the family.
“What is on your list? I only think we have limited time on a break…..I'm also not sure if what Madcap and I did counts as work either.” He takes a huge bite from the side and some of the cinnamon from the middle gets on the tip of his nose. Even as he eats his smilelines at the edges of his eyes stick around.
“I’m not sure I’ve done much work either, unless getting climbed on by a bunch of first graders counts,” she hummed in amusement, glancing over to see he’d gotten a little cinnamon on his nose. Oh God. It was a test, wasn’t it? How long can Alaine go without thinking about kissing this guy’s face?
Yeah, well, she’d failed. Apparently the answer was, like, three seconds.
She cleared her throat, focusing on the lemonade. It really was a humongous size, she hadn’t known cups could be made that big. This Giggles Gigglegrounds or whatever it was really was… interesting. Yeah, that felt like the safest word for it.
“I’d love to throw some darts, though. Can’t say I have a list,” she added, comment followed by a sip of the lemonade. She didn’t. Attempting any carnival games hadn’t even been a thought in her head until about two minutes ago when she asked. She just wanted to spend some time with him.
“How do you feel about the nickname Bee?”
The question caught her by surprise. Bee? Bee. Alaine considered it. It was cute. She liked it before remembering it was supposed to be a nickname for her, which made it feel… not wrong, exactly, but… almost like something she wasn’t supposed to have.
It was cute. She wasn’t cute. She’d never been cute. Maybe for like the first year of her life she’d been cute, but then there was always another younger sibling to be adorable while she immediately became grown-up. And now?
Now she chopped off hands with cosmic energy and wore black all the time and used broken brakelight glass as home decor. Not cute. She didn’t deserve something cute like that – no, it was that she didn’t deserve to be called something cute by somebody like Jet.
…And yet. She always wanted the things she didn’t deserve. Selfish.
“...I like it,” she replied after a few thoughtful seconds, voice a little quieter than before. Trying to act nonchalant, she shrugged and added, ignoring the way her ears were starting to feel hot, “But I mean – whatever works for you.”
“Yeah? Okay, we'll go with that.” He hums and redirects his attention to the snacks. Jet's heart still squeezes in his chest.
She handed the lemonade back to swap for the cinnamon-dusted confection, for which she briefly let go of his hand to carefully pull a piece from. Despite being breakfastless, she ate and drank like someone who was constantly aware of being perceived – modest bites, small sips, polite.
“Y’know, I was worried about this being weird because it’s freaky clown carnival food,” she said in amusement after finishing her first piece, going to take a second. “But this is actually really good. My mom used to make stuff like this every now and then, but it was usually supposed to be something else. Like churros or donuts or something.”
The memory slipped out without her even realizing it and she blinked, staring down at the elephant ear for a second. Well, everybody had a mom, at some point. That wasn’t too incriminating.
She glanced up at Jet, catching sight of that sugar and cinnamon on the end of his nose again. A breath of laughter slipped away from her and she shook her head. “You got a lil’ somethin’...” She reached over and gingerly tapped his nose. “What’s with you and getting stuff all over your face? Do I need to start carrying around a handkerchief?”
Her hand hovered, the tip of her index finger gently poking the spot between his brows too. Almost like she’d gotten distracted – because she had. It was another test from some higher power that wanted to play with her, surely, that had her hand so close to his dark mess of hair… that looked like it was supposed to have someone run their fingers through it… and twirl a little curl up by his temple…
Alaine quickly pulled her hand back, certain she was red all the way from her neck to the top of her head. “Ah. Sorry.”Rein it in, cowgirl, she chastised herself in a panic. You’re gonna freak him out.
Jet's eyes focus on her finger as it touches his face. It's gentle and after she pulls away he rubs the sugar away. “Oh, thanks.” His voice is low, and he swallows. The more contact she makes with him, the more his brain shuts off.
Offering the fried dough back, in trade for the lemonade, she attempted to change the topic. “Uh – c’mon, there’s gotta be a balloon dart booth around here somewhere. I’ll try not to win by too much,” she added with an innocent smile and a shrug. “No promises, though.”
Before they know it, they're halfway thru the elephant ear and standing in front of a booth. An over enthusiastic man introduces the rules of the game, Jet hands over a $10 bill, and steps up to the line. When the prizes filter into his vision, he sets his eye on the perfect prize.
“Alright Alaine- lets do this.” He smiles, adding emphasis to her name as he throws the first dart. The aim is pretty good, but the darts are definitely dull. It bounces off the under inflated balloon and hits the ground.
She blinked, a full-body shiver going right up her spine when he said her name. Forget saying her own name for the first time in forever, that was the first time anyone else had said it in months. Not even her family – when making a direct call, you knew who you were talking to… wasn’t like her sisters opened their calls with “Hello Alaine, how are you today?”
Alaine shook her head slightly, trying to focus. Instead she got distracted again watching Jet’s arm as he brought it back to throw a dart.
Stop staring! She swallowed, forcing herself to look down and pick up one of the darts. It took her a couple of throws to figure out how much power to put into the throw – she didn’t want to put the dart through the board, but she did want to pop some of those balloons, solely for the satisfaction of hitting her mark. She wasn’t thinking too much about prizes.
Of course, Jet’s bicep may have distracted her once or twice again – but she still managed to make some decent points, despite the diversion.
He turns the force up on his throws adding just a little kick with his powers each time. Gotta win that prize for Alaine. He turns and watches her applying a similar force, so subtle that he hopes she can't tell the difference. He doesn't for one just so it's believable they aren't cheating. The booth attendant is much quieter once they've thrown their darts- “Okay, what prizes do you want?”
Oh, right, she mused, turning to look at the options. “Um…”
Jet turns to watch Alaine review the prizes, watching for any signs of something she really wants. He had a good idea, but if she wanted a big prize he'd immediately pool their points. Her expression remains neutral, nothing in particular catching her attention.
He points up and gets the medium sized black and red teddy bear that looks like it's missing a bit of stuffing by the way it's hanging simply. Jet can add some more polyfill no problem, but it's the red and black that catch his eye.
Alaine grinned a little at his selection, waving vaguely at the options and just asking the employee to give her one that fit the points she’d earned. They looked around, then reached up and plucked a golden puppy to hand over.
For some reason, it made her think of Lightning Girl. Alaine decided if she caught the other heroine before they split ways after work, she’d give it to her.
She glanced over at Jet as they turned to leave, hesitating briefly before reaching out to slide her hand into the crook of his arm.
“Okay as much as I'm having the, best, time- I think we need to get suited back up.” His smile is a bit subdued.
Part of him wants to stay screw it and play hooky the rest of the day. But the biting cold and raging heat of his jail cell is always chasing him. If he wanted to keep seeing Alaine's smile, he needed to stay out of prison. He'll be the best damn hero if it means staying free.
“No, yeah, we probably should,” she agreed, glancing around at the carnival again. She could appreciate it a little better when she wasn’t being Blackstar. “Be a shame if SDN had to fire their best cosmic team.”
She grinned slightly and nudged his side with her arm as they began making their way back to where he’d stashed their uniforms. He bumps her gently back. A couple of quick changes later and Blackstar and Asteroid were back on duty. Asking if Jet would mind keeping the civilian clothes and her stuffed companions hidden where the uniforms had previously been, so her hands were free while working, Alaine took a moment to make sure her mask was situated right and her hair looked neat.
Jet does so without much fanfare. He leaves his mask off. His cheeks hurt from smiling and he feels like the added heat under his mask would be suffocating.
“I’d better go see if Lightning Girl’s still stuck at the Ferris Wheel and needs rescuing,” she hummed in amusement, gently pushing off the ground to hover slightly. “...It’s not the hardest assignment but, uh – well, if you can’t find anything else to do… you know what they say, two heads are better than one.”
She shrugged slightly, drifting up; putting a hand on his shoulder, she used him to gently flip herself upside-down midair, glancing over at him with a smile.
She looked at him a second, then gave his collar a playful little tug. “Thanks for hanging out with me, Jet.” And with that she spun herself rightside-up, gave him a wave, and darted off to resume her station at the Ferris Wheel.
He's looking up at her with a big smile, no mask. Jet waves. Quietly, he says, “No, thank you Starshine.” He celebrates with a short skip and a victory arm swing. Then it's mask on, even though it's too hot.
(( ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: [collab with Payback further down] | ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: [various] ))
"When a goon loses an appendage, you fill this one out. If they get killed, use the one on that pile there, and, I'll make sure we have someone from our Wellbeing team reach out. And I'll be here to talk too. Weirdly, it's shorter, as coroners tend to just want to know how to put down the mess they're about to walk into on their forms. We work in one hell of a fucked up business. But, it could be worse."
One hell of a fucked up business. She could've sworn John had said something like that to her once. It was supposed to make her feel better. If she was a cop and had to shoot someone who was about to blow up a hospital, sure. If she was a sniper who'd had to make a kill to save the country, sure. If she was a hero who had to take down the villain to save her team, sure.
She wasn't. She was just a woman who'd seen a possibility and eliminated it.
When it came down to it, she was no better than the man who'd sent his goons out in that van in the first place. She'd just killed his family and his thugs before he could do it to her. And then she'd killed him.
And then she'd gone to play superhero on corporate pay.
Alaine blinked, opening her eyes under her mask at some point. Just in time to look up and see a viking in a business suit looking into the break room.
The towering woman had looked right at her. It felt like the stare lasted two seconds and two hours at the same time, and all Blackstar could do was look back. The woman's gaze didn't make her feel transparent -- no, it was worse. It made her feel like she was completely opaque and it wasn't enough.
It hadn't scared her, per se, she had a hard time being scared of anyone in a business suit off a first glance. But it did make her mighty uncomfortable. Maybe this was the mindreader she kept worrying about.
And, just like that -- viking-lady was gone. Blackstar had let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and was then free to go back to her pondering.
"...But, it could be worse. ... You could be me, Blackstar. With no fucking powers at all, a regional director that looks like she was about to run me through a meeting room wall, and some heroine that got promoted out of her capacity, punching me in the face."
God, what she wouldn't give to have no powers at all. The sudden desperation of that longing had almost choked her up. Thank goodness he couldn't see her eyes and the way she'd stared at him for a moment, imagining it. She might be out on a ranch, maybe in Nevada. Maybe Montana. Working with animals, working the land, using her hands to nurture and grow and build. Riding horses from sunup to sundown.
That dream was as distant as it had always been, if not more. Instead she was there, wishing someone would punch her in the face. Wishing they'd send her on a dispatch where someone would land a hit on her. Or twenty. She was too much of a coward to hurt herself, so she'd leave it to someone else. She deserved it.
Maybe that was just the world she'd been raised in. Churches, responsibility, constantly striving to be a good example, an outstanding citizen. But was that so wrong? It wasn't wrong to be a good person. So what made one bad? Why did she look at herself as a bad person who had still come nowhere close to making up for the bad she'd done?
Blackstar gave a little shake of her head, glancing down at the folded form on the table next to her. She'd forgotten to grab a pen, so she'd just have to fill it out later.
Snap out of it, she thought to herself. Got a good day ahead of you here. Just like the last two. C'mon, it'll be--
"Afternoon, team, checking in as we're on the clock. Looks like you're headed off to a carnival."
"Aww what? C'mon, man..." Blackstar dropped her head back in an overdramatic show of exasperation. Not the dang clownfest. With a bunch of screaming kids. Ughhh...
Be friendly. Polite. Nice. Show them why you're all heroes. And if you're not social....I don't know. Try and keep some families safe. ... Just don't be too weird. James, out."
Hard to be the weird ones at a carnival with a clown mascot, but whatever. She'd have to follow somebody who knew where the place was, she hadn't been paying attention to the TV, except for that weird ad with all the wrong names...
She stood up, stretching her arms up over her head and glancing across as a familiar black-clad figure showed up. Ooh, nice. Mood automatically improved by 75%. She opened her mouth to offer him a lift--
"Asteroid, you want a lift to the carnival? I ain't pooled with you yet."
Blackstar shut her mouth, looking at Lightning Girl for a second and ignoring the sudden twinge of emotion behind her sternum. Uh-oh, she knew what that was. Juuuust a touch of jealousy.
Way, waaaay too soon for that, Alaine. She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, then tried to transition it into another stretch, as if that was what she'd been doing the whole time.
She could still give somebody a lift. Payback? Madcap, even? Everybody else could get around on their own, right? Was she forgetting anyone...? Hmm, Princess. She had yet to really interact with that one. Blackstar assumed Princess could get herself where she needed to go because she hadn't heard anyone else offering her a lift yet, nor had arranging transport for her been mentioned as far as she knew. The Canadian guy skated everywhere, she was pretty sure.
"If anybody else needs a lift, I'm happy to take you," Blackstar started, folding up the form from the table even smaller and tucking it into an inner pocket of her jacket.
BLACKSTAR, PAYBACK
Giggle's Playground for Little Heroes Cowritten with @Thayr
She glanced around, eyes landing on Payback. She’d already flown with the redheaded ex-con once, maybe that was the safest bet. "Payback?" She offered the other woman a small grin. "Want a lift?"
Well, it was better than the alternative. Probably. Myla hadn't yet flown with Fenom and she wasn’t entirely sure how gentle the guy would be. In all likelihood he'd treat a passenger like glass until they said they were alright or he forgot about them, and then all bets were almost off. Maybe. Probably. Still, though, she was fairly surprised at the offer. Seems that lil Blackstar didn't feel like arguing over things - fair enough, really. She pushed off the wall.
"Sure, yeah. If you start charging me let me know."
A little smile at the joke. Shit. Was she starting to actually be chill with someone? And Blackstar, miss I-fly-and-cut-off-hands? Well…maybe compared to others she wasn't that bad. Heck, compared to Tsunami she was almost cool. Maybe it wasn’t that bad.
One hand went searching. Fukkin…where were those…had she even taken them off, before? Surely she had, when they went to the pub. Was it in the other pocket? Ah. There it was. She pulled out the previously ‘misplaced’ motorcycle googles, put those things over her forehead quickly enough. Hey, didn't she get them from…here? Well, shit, maybe. Possibly.
Blackstar grinned back as Payback went searching around in her pockets for something; she wasn’t sure what the other girl meant about "charging". She almost asked, but – oh. Well. She had chopped off a hand in front of her, so… Warranted, she supposed.
She kept grinning like yeah, that was totally funny and she’d never accidentally ran anyone through before, nope, yeah. Haha.
"Will do!" she hummed, maybe a little too brightly to be genuine. "Mind if we head up to the roof? It’s easier to take off from there."
Beginning to head that way, she pulled her SDN phone from her pocket and added, half to herself, "Lemme just…uh… look up the directions…"
While trying to figure out the cardinal direction she needed to go and landmarks to look out for, she asked the redhead, "You got any preferences? For flying, I mean. Last time I just went bridal carry because of the speed and all, but, uh – I figured out I can keep someone afloat with me via handholding, if that’s better for you?"
The handholding hadn't even been a method she knew she could do until her first dispatch with Asteroid; she should probably look into that more, honestly, see if there was some new facet of her power there. She should probably explore her power further in general, like John had suggested multiple times before, but... well. Couldn't say she loved the idea of finding out she was more dangerous or volatile than she'd originally thought.
"I mean. Whatever works for you." She looked up from her direction-searching to flash Payback another smile and a shrug.
Preferences for how to fly - yeah, Myla listened as she followed on up, and yeah it was a question, but she had no idea on that. Handholding versus bridal, which was less embarrassing for either of them - shit, she really didn't know. A chuckle came from that thought, quiet enough as they got onto the roof, but it was still there. Then again though, if they went with handholding, Myla was sure she'd fuck up somehow there, or someone would cramp their hand, or some other stupid lil bit of nonsense. It somehow didn't seem like a great idea.
Bridal carry. Yeah, it was a term. For a brief second the thought of the tabloids screaming about this or that because they saw this hero or that hero in a bridal carry flashed in front of Myla's eyes. Yeah, it was a term. She really care about the news, though? They'd left her alone, after all, generally speaking. It was easy to say fuck what the world thinks, when the world doesn't look at what you do, but she wasn't so certain in anything ever would change. But, in any case, was it better than handholding? Fuck it, both answers kinda sucked.
"Honestly, why fuck with what worked before. Bridal carry it is."
Blackstar laughed a little. "Okay, that’s that then."
Wait a fuck. Was Blackstar asking because of like…Asteroid or some other nonsense? Was she…no, no, no, it wasn’t great to try to analyze the other people, especially when you start making assumptions about this or that or what the fuck they actually value, and then you're making decisions based on things that might not actually be real, all to look like an ass. No, she wasn't going to do that, definitely not. It wasn’t the time for those straightforward questions, fuck no, not when Blackstar was getting ready to fly her over. She kept her mouth shut on that front, just let the other lady figure out her directions.
Up the stairwell and out the door to the roof, and Blackstar tucked her work phone back into an inner pocket of her jacket, zipping it up. Wouldn’t be good to have that fall out mid-flight.
She stretched a bit and glanced briefly at Payback; last time they’d been in a hurry to get to that car chase, so she’d just scooped the other woman up and off they’d gone. Now it almost felt a bit awkward. But she was determined not to make it awkwarder by actively being awkward about it.
"Alright, hang tight." Turning to the redhead, she quickly leaned down and smoothly scooped her up. She was pretty sure she could’ve picked Payback up even without the enhanced strength, but it was nice to not have to worry about getting tired.
As far as carrying someone went, of course. Exhaustion as a whole was a very real problem that was steadily getting worse each day but, hey, that was what happened when you were living off a couple hours of sleep every night.
Directions in mind, Blackstar glanced up at the sun to gauge her course then lightly pushed off the roof with one booted foot. Into the air they went, and she flew leisurely – there no careening car full of gun-toting thugs to apprehend, and she doubted Payback was any more excited than she was about working a clown carnival all day.
"So, Payback – gotta be a story behind that name, right?" she asked as she gained some height over Claremont; not too much, but enough that she wouldn’t have to keep adjusting to get over taller buildings. At her current speed, there was no need for shouting to be heard.
"Fucking marketing. That’s the story. Marketing wanted a shiny name, so they slapped me with that one."
Myla paused. Well, yeah, that was like…halfway true. There was something else with it, that there had been around a dozen names marketing had tried to spin up, with various stupid campaigns that could be possible for this or that or the other, and Payback had been maybe the hardest one for them to figure a good angle to spin things. Magnet Girl, that had been one of them. Had a costume and everything sketched up, it was so fucking stupid. But hey, there was another reason still…’payback’. Pay back all the fucking money that had been blown when she’d broken that data center. Pay back the company and the government and people. Pay everything fucking back. Yeah, there was another reason, and the reason fucking sucked in Myla’s opinion.
It was nice, though, that they weren’t flying oh-so-fast. She could actually talk, actually look around - the goggles almost felt like too much, really, but they were nice enough. She looked down, saw the ground pass by them like it was just a river of buildings and some trees and roads, grey little ribbons moving through everything the eye could see. In the distance, there was the San Clemente Canyon, and CA52 going across the whole thing. It almost seemed…nice, ish. It was too hot, though, at least in Myla’s opinion.
"Honestly, it was the best one they could come up with, too. Other one was ‘Magnet Girl’. Not my idea, really." She paused, considering it before adding, "How about you? ‘Blackstar’ and all that."
Blackstar was trying not to grin too much at the name Magnet Girl. Of course from the way Payback was talking, she didn’t think the redhead would be very offended either way.
"Marketing, gotcha. Well hey, it sounds sick." She fell quiet for a second as she considered her own response. In truth the answer was pretty similar to Payback’s – John had come up with a few different name ideas for her while working everything out. She might’ve been a little more enthusiastic about it if she wasn’t coming out of the worst time of her life.
"...It was kind of the same deal for me, actually, I just – I had a friend who came up with some names for me instead of a marketing department." She shrugged a bit, the motion slightly moving Payback in her arms. "One of the candidates was Darkblade, but that sounded kinda grim to me."
That was a lie. Darkblade had been the one she’d sullenly said fit her best. Sounded like someone who’d show up to kill people. John had immediately scratched the idea out.
"From what I understand, my powers have a… cosmic origin? Sorta?" she went on, glancing up to gauge direction again and altering her flight path a touch. "So this friend came up with some spacey sounding names too and convinced me Blackstar sounded the coolest. Fits the uniform. Well, the other uniform." Blackstar didn’t make as much sense with a uniform that had a white star on it, but, although John had suggested Whitestar, something about that sounded… dumb. Blackstar was probably just as dumb, honestly, but she liked that color better, so.
"Better than ‘Comet’," she tacked on in amusement. "Although that would’ve been funny to have both a Comet and an Asteroid on the team."
"Fuck it, all we’d need is a ‘Nebula’ and we’d start having themed fuckin response teams," Myla responded, chuckling a bit.
‘Darkblade’, yeah, she could see that getting scratched out, too. There wasn’t much that could be done for some random nobody who’d suddenly get to hear ‘oh yeah Darkblade and Murderhobo are here to save you’. It’d be real good for any sort of response to not hear names that didn’t spell ‘help’ but instead spelled ‘you are in danger’. Or, really, that was the thought. Then again, you had some people like Madcap who, well…sounded like a villain, really, if you heard the name out of nowhere, and Hat Trick, who sounded like another wacky time. So hey, there wasn’t something you could do for everyone Myla guessed.
Cosmic origin, though, that was…yeah, that was a thing. Spacey, flying, make dark matter that you slice hands off, it connected a bit. Was more interested than Myla’s own time, which was just ‘hey the thing appeared out of nowhere’ for someone who was, also, just kind of out there as a person. She’d never really thought about that sort of angle. Their own discount-Phenomaman was cooked up in a lab, she’d heard, and as for Princess there was really no telling how she came into being. Was a whole gaggle of randoms, all told. Fucking weird.
"Could have gone with worse, I guess." She paused, thinking for a second. A sly little smile, then, with a thought on a joke. "Other uniform? Don’t tell me - spandex unitard with thigh-high boots."
"Oh, God, no." Blackstar scoffed, grinning and shaking her head. "I am not about to mess around with spandex."
Another slight course adjustment as she spotted the landmark she’d been looking for. "Nah, I just meant the uniform I started the week with. Black-on-black, instead of this black-on-white one. I like that one better. But I guess me and Madcap synced up our laundry days… I’m just lucky I had an actual spare uniform and didn’t have to resort to… uh, whatever the heck that was he was wearing. Which is probably gonna fit in fine at the carnival, actually."
She sighed a little, still put-out about the assignment. Carnivals, amusement parks, big places with lots of people – not her vibe.
"So," she piped up again, mostly to distract herself from moping. "How long have you been working here now? You like the team? Or – do you get along with them alright, I guess? Everybody seems pretty cool to me so far."
Of course she wasn’t too sure about Madcap yet, and Fenom unnerved her just a little, and she hadn’t had any interaction with Hat Trick or Princess yet… So, maybe more accurately, Payback and Eclipse and Lightning Girl and Asteroid all seemed pretty cool so far. Especially the latter. How were he and LG flying? The handholding method? Could Lightning Girl do that too? Or were they going bridal carry too? How was that going? Was–
Nope. She yanked her train of thought back onto the rail, feeling her face heat up a little. Pay attention. She’d just asked Payback a question and there she was not listening to the answer. Rude.
"They uh…" Fuck. Did she really actually want to fucking talk about the other team members. Did she really want to bear out on all the other bullshit with Blackstar of all people. Did she really feel that comfortable about things…I mean, yeah, she’d done a heart-to-heart with the fucking dispatcher, but he’d leveled with her first, so that was like…expected, almost. Had she leveled with Blackstar? Had Blackstar really leveled with her? Was it good to talk shit about teammates to a teammate, even if you weren’t really going to talk shit about her? Fuck.
"Been here too long and not enough, I think. Fucking…government, y’know? But the other people, they…they’re interesting…fucking weird at times, and they all kinda parade around, but feels like they throw on a name and a mask and feel big about shit. Me, I’m…here, because fuck prison, fuck the jail walls, fuck the…"
She trailed off. Yeah, fuck the whole thing. But there was more to that than just ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that’. There had to be. Myla swallowed, looking out. "I wouldn’t get this view there. Y’know? So yeah, put on a name someone else gives you and do the job, but it feels better out here than in there." Shit. She hadn’t actually answered the question. She’d just kinda fucking exploded all over the place like some fucking child and had gone and thrown everything own. Fuck. Myla added on, definitely as an afterthought, "The others are kinda…all over the place, versus that."
Blackstar had never been to jail. If she ever ended up there, it’d probably have to be of her own free will – unless somebody knew what the heck had made her what she currently was and knew how to stop it, or suppress it… she was pretty sure she could break herself out.
That said, she didn’t like the idea of it. She’d never liked being stuck in one place, and prison was kind of the epitome of that.
"I don’t blame you," she mumbled, lost in thought for a second before shaking her head. Saying something sympathetic crossed her mind, but she wasn’t wholly sure Payback would appreciate it – or, rather, she worried the other woman would take it as some kind of lofty pity from someone that, as far as anyone else knew, was a law-abiding, upstanding hero.
Still, she was pretty sure that was a genuine answer. Maybe Payback hadn’t meant to be so open about it but Blackstar liked to think that maybe she just gave off that “you can talk to me” energy even after being away from her siblings for so long.
She felt like she’d unintentionally brought the mood down though so she shifted the topic ever so slightly. " ‘All over the place’ sounds kind of vague, though," she said in amusement. "Buuut I guess that means you don’t hate them all, right?"
"Hate is a strong word. Feels like a lotta kids playing around with something I get to be stuck with, y’know? And yeah, you can’t blame em because they’re kids, but…" She trailed off, shaking her head.
A little chuckle at the thought, though, Myla adding, "I think Fenom-Man actually is a kid, though. Fucking…arm out, ‘halt’ to that car. He looked like he didn’t expect to cut it in fucking half." He really did seem like a kid, sometimes. Cooked up in a lab, probably wasn’t used to all the complex stuff that happened in the normal world and SDN was maybe the best place for him to do some good before turning into some primordial soup or whatever might happen to him. There was maybe a reason why you didn’t try to mass-produce heroes, but then again maybe whatever mad scientist that had done it had actually solved the thing. Maybe. That was a big fucking maybe.
"Princess gives me the fucking creeps, though. Weird ass girl."
Blackstar laughed lightly at the Princess comment, though something about the first part of what Payback said struck a chord with her. Maybe it wasn’t exactly comparable, but… as far as she could tell, nobody else on the team exactly resented their powers. Not that she would really know if they did, she supposed, but… it felt like they were all well-accustomed to their powers and comfortable in their roles, one way or the other, and she was – not. Maybe that was imposter syndrome talking, but she felt like they were all heroes in their own right, 'playing around' as Payback put it, while she was just stuck with it, whether she liked it or not.
But yeah, Fenom could probably be given a pass. She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on with him, but she’d agree that he genuinely didn’t seem like he expected to cut that car to ribbons.
She didn’t plan on diving further into the topic, though. "Is she even a girl? I mean I guess she looks like one…?" Blackstar frowned a little as she considered it. "She’s kinda unnerving, yeah, I agree. Hey, you were sitting at her table at the bar the other night – do you have any idea what she was drinking? I caught a glimpse of it and I swear that was straight-up blood."
Blood? What the…yeah, no, Myla could believe that, even if she hadn’t gotten a glimpse at whatever the heck Princess had been drinking. Either that or Kool-Aid for some random reason, because yeah of course someone would just drink that or something. Did they do Kool-Aid cocktails? Was that a…was that a thing? Fuck, that bar had been so weird, honestly. Too many themes drinks that required a solid ten seconds to figure out what the fuck they actually were supposed to be, though there were a few that solidly were ‘absolute trash’ and not actually meant to be anything. Weird fucking place. "No, but honestly I wouldn’t be surprised. Girl doesn’t seem stable."
Was she a girl? Yeah, that certainly was a question. Myla thought on it for a brief second. "Think she is a girl, though. I think. Would be ironic for the person named ‘Princess’ to not be, but then again I think her whole deal would be like…fairytales and shit. It’s not very fairytale-y to be a ‘Princess’ that’s not, yknow?"
"I guess that makes sense, yeah," Blackstar mused. Princess wasn’t exactly her idea of fairytale-y but Payback had known her longer, so. Maybe she’d learn more if she was ever put on a dispatch with the odd heroine.
"That bar was nice, though. Kinda weird, but nice. I had a good time after. I mean during," she corrected quickly, clearing her throat. "Before that water-girl or whoever showed up. But, I mean. Seemed okay overall. Oh!"
She shot Payback a grin, briefly forgetting she was at work and lapsing into spilling-the-tea-with-her-sisters mode. "Did you hear Lightning Girl and Eclipse were up on the roof hugging after that Tsunami thing? I mean LG totally needed a hug I think, but Eclipse was definitely being prickly about it when me and Asteroid came to check on her. Wouldn’t that be an unlikely couple? LG and Eclipse? I mean I can totally see it, kind of got that ‘good girl, bad boy’ vibe–"
Ah. Suddenly she very much missed sitting up into the late hours of the night and yapping about nothing and everything with her little sisters. The sudden homesickness for people she hadn’t seen in years made her pause, but she played it off with a faint laugh.
"Ha, sorry, I read too much into things. Always fun to have a little workplace rumor or two though, yeah?"
Myla stared for a good three seconds. Yeah, that was a comment and a half, fucking…yeah, let’s go and talk about the Lighting Brit and Mr Shadows-And-Drugs, yeah, there was no way that’ll not get fucking awkward. Up on the roof hugging and shit, fucking…yeah, that sounds about right, but she really, really wasn’t there to talk about it. Bit whoop, really, and if the girl scout got with the guy, then they could be another cliche in the room.
And yeah, her and Asteroid went up there, and yeah that could get kinda weird if the roof was small or so, but Myla didn’t know what that place really looked like. Kinda weird to have two couples up in a place though, even if there was a lotta space. Someone always feels like there’s someone behind them, watching them, and she could believe it that Eclipse was more paranoid than most. Fucker was probably jonsing, honestly. He might get better, though, might get worse but hey, that was also not something for Myla to really comment on.
"Yeah, uh…yeah. Bar was fucking weird. Themed drinks everywhere, I think it took me waaaay too long to find something that was vaguely normal." She swallowed, mouth wry at the empty space. "But yeah, Tsunami was kinda a bitch. Glad she got the fuck out of here, even if I never got a chance to work with the lady, but if she gets drunk like that, no thanks."
Okaaayy, so friendly gossip wasn’t up Payback’s alley, if the way she’d completely dodged that was any indicator. Blackstar just felt a little stupid now, mostly because she realized she might’ve been trying, a teensy bit, to recreate the feeling of having her sisters around. Not Payback’s thing though, okay, duly noted. She could respect that.
Wow, she should call Grace and Brook sometime. But timezones got weird when they were all in different states. And it just… wasn’t really the same as being in person.
She pushed the thought away. "Ha, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I get it – I can understand where she was coming from, but… but yeah, no, she handled it in all the wrong ways, for sure. Especially lightin’ into James, that was totally uncalled for."
Her southern accent popped a little at the phrase but she brushed by it, shrugging slightly. "Definitely wouldn’t want to worry about getting punched in the face every time something went wrong."
Blackstar glanced down, scanning for the next landmark. There it was… course adjusted slightly, and she announced, "Alright, I think we’re almost there. Hope you’re not scared of clowns. I mean I think this dispatch sucks already but it’d probably be a million times worse if I was scared of clowns, too."
"What a fucking joke," Myla sighed, "Well…let’s get on with it."
Clownfest
(( ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: n/a | ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: none ))
Blackstar touched down at what seemed to be an open space just past the entrance of the carnival -- which she hoped was okay and they weren't supposed to go through security or a ticketbooth or something...
Carefully planting her passenger, Payback, on the ground, she took a moment to observe their surroundings as she straightened up. Her eyes lingered on the huge, slowly-turning wheel; if there was anything that she'd submit herself to the torture of a carnival for, it'd be a Ferris Wheel. Nobody else had ever wanted to do that, though, the few times she and her family had gone to something like this growing up. Half of them didn't like the heights, the other half thought it was boring, and she didn't want to go by herself while the rest of them waited around for her on the ground.
Alaine's thoughts were jolted back to the present as a couple of squealing kids ran by, and it took a lot of self-control to make sure her expression didn't devolve into a grimace.
Okay, well. Not all kids were sticky and screamy and bitey. Some of them were nice. And you couldn't always blame the kids anyway, their behavior had a lot to do with their parents and the environment they were growing up in and all that kind of stuff, blah blah blah... uughhh God this was going to be a long one. And she was hungry, dang it. And tired. Not to tired to work, but definitely too tired for a million children.
You're fine, stop being dramatic, she scolded herself, even though she was literally just standing there with a neutral expression.
"...What are we supposed to do, exactly...?" she asked quietly, to no one in particular.
"Who the hell are you?"
A little hand suddenly grabbed her leg and Alaine shot about five feet up, looking down at the kid who was now out of reach but still squinting up at her quizzically.
"...Wow, sorry. Uh." She cleared her throat, slowly sinking back to the ground. "I think the nicer way to ask that is: 'can you please--' "
"Well you're not my mom," the kid scoffed in response, and Alaine stared at him. "You can't tell me how to talk!"
"Well Mom put me in charge," she retorted automatically, before realizing that actually was not the case and just muscle memory from childhood. Before she could correct herself however, the kid simply blinked and rocked back on his heels with a simple and surprisingly accepting, "Oh."
They stared at each other. She realized she hadn't answered his previous question.
"I'm A--uh, Blackstar."
The kid frowned, looking her over like he was analyzing the statement. "The TV said you were Darkstar. And your costume looks different."
"Weeellll, if you know exactly who I am, then why'd you ask?" Alaine squatted down next to him and tilted her head to make up for the fact he couldn't see her raised brows. "And this is my laundry-day suit. The one in the ad is dirty."
"How'd it get dirty?"
"Because I've been wearing it all week and it got dirty while I was working."
"Why didn't you wash it?"
"That's -- that's literally why I'm wearing this one, because I'm washing the dirty one."
"But you're here."
"I, it's -- you just assume I'd be handwashing it?"
The kid shrugged. She didn't know if it was because he didn't know what she meant or he was saying, yeah, he'd assumed she'd be handwashing it.
"Look, I... you need help with anything? Somewhere you wanna go? Where's your mom?" she asked, exasperated.
"She said I could do whatever I wanted." Uh-huh, sure. Likely story.
He considered for a minute, looking around, turning in a slow circle to regard the carnival. Alaine waited, sighing and wondering what kind of food they had around there. Something smelled good. She wasn't sure she trusted Clownfest food but, hey, maybe they'd give it to her for free.
Abruptly the kid pointed. "I wanna go to the Paris Wheel."
"Ferris Wheel," she corrected lightly, standing up. That worked for her. "Alright, I'll walk you there."
The kid looked back at her, frowning. She paused. "What?"
"The TV said you could fly," he pouted.
Ah, now, she wasn't sure that was allowed. Legally. What if the kid kicked himself out of her arms like kids seemed so prone to do? Besides, if she flew him somewhere then other kids were gonna see and then they'd all want to be flown around, it was a never-ending cycle.
He was still pouting at her. Alaine inhaled deeply. "Okay, fine. But if I get in trouble I'm blaming you."
The kid beamed in satisfaction, lifting his arms expectantly. She feigned more exasperation and bent down, easily picking him up and pushing off the ground.
He grabbed her shoulder. "HIGHER!"
"Ach! Geez, inside voices!" Alaine cringed, the shriek echoing in her right ear.
"We're outside!"
"Whatever, just don't shout, yeah? I can hear you fine."
With another huff she took off -- slow, and no higher than she needed to be to clear some concession stands and game tents, despite her passenger's insistence that she go higher. Reaching the Ferris Wheel, she settled down at the bottom of the short ramp leading up to it; it wasn't too busy currently, and she set the kid down on the ground gently.
"Thanks!" he chirped, which she appreciated, before running off up the ramp and immediately trying to skip in line.
Deciding she'd settle in there, if anyone passed they'd no doubt find Blackstar, at any given point, acting exasperated but still carefully holding various kids from time to time and hovering up and down for the ones that wanted to hang on her legs while waiting for the Ferris Wheel.
Jet might be losing his mind over the way Blackstar is playing with his sleeve. A small ache forms a few inches below his collarbone. His second double tequila goes down like every other time, fire and ice. It’s enough that he stands there for a minute grimacing and then against his better judgement, he orders just one more. It’s the exact amount of drunk he has to be to live in the moment fully. It’s also at the edge of just a little too much.
If they are there for too much longer, he’ll need another. But he supposes he’ll find his way home before then. “Do you want anything?” he turns his face towards her, looking over their shoulders behind them. “My buddy usually gets Shirley’s but not sure if you like cherry?”
“Oh–” She’d been about to politely decline before she realized he was suggesting a mocktail. He’d noticed? That made her heart beat funny for a second. She told herself it was because she was embarrassed. Not because he’d noticed and thought of it. “Actually, yeah, I do. Thanks.”
She liked cherry, sure, but honestly she just loved looking at the drink. The red was pretty. That and black were her favorite colors. Blue might be a close second. In fact she liked most things with rich, vibrant colors – though her black-on-black suit might give a different impression – and anything with said colors that light could shine through. Stained glass, sheer curtains, pretty drinks.
“First day-” his voice is lofty, “gotta buy you a drink.” He puts it on his tab before he closes it. He’ll drink more tequila tomorrow.
“You don’t gotta…” Alaine protested, but he’d already put the Shirley on his tab. That earned an appreciative smile from her – and a subconscious but happy little tug on his sleeve.
He fights a smile all the way to the booth, and regrettably loses his warm and comfortable contact with Blackstar. He clamors into the booth first, seated beside Madcap once again. Being a little drunk, he reverts a bit back to his former state of party bar fly- offering a wrist bump to Madcap.
"I think you all hate lawyers more than me, and given I'm the only one who got hurt, I'd rather keep my paperwork volume low. I'd also rather keep my sanity high, and most importantly, any bullshit to a minimum. Are we understood?”
Jet snorts, covering a laugh with a sip of his drink. If only James really knew how much Jet hated lawyers. “Aye aye Captain,” he echoes James’ call for clarity- just a little too loud.
Alaine, carefully sliding back into her seat with a polite “ ‘scuse me” past Fenom, grinned a bit and shook her head. She’d actually had very little dealings with lawyers, but she knew the general sentiment. She was impressed by James, though – maybe she didn’t know a lot about how it all worked, but she got the impression that was a tough call to make. Especially when he’d just had his face bashed in. Poor guy. She knew from experience that that smarted.
Still. Graceful thing of him to do. Alaine lifted her glass a little to James, specifically.
Now she felt twice as bad about lying to him in the one-on-one.
What else was she supposed to do, though? Besides, she’d been honest enough about the fact that no one was after her currently. As far as she knew. She just hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about why that was. Or that he wouldn’t need to get involved if someone was after her, because she’d do it again.
Alaine lowered her glass, glancing down at the red drink. Blood in her mouth. She’d hit that van in the desert hard.
No, dang it. That starry discomfort had just gone away, and all at once it was trying to sneak back. Was everything going to trigger the memories? The upward tug in her bloodstream? She felt the itch to anchor herself again and her gaze darted sideways to Asteroid; she hadn’t missed the gently-returned bump of his foot against hers earlier, and it had helped quite a bit. But did she dare to slide her boot over that way again? Or was that weird? It had been an accident before. If it was on purpose that was weird. Right?
Jet at one point or another emphatically begins speaking about a sports team- and leans across the table in Blackstar’s direction, their shoulders brush together a few times before he settles just a bit closer to her than before.
Things started to wrap up as it got later, conversations dying out, energy slowly dipping. Lightning Girl came over as empty glasses were being set aside; the white-haired heroine looked like she was doing better, but Blackstar couldn’t be sure how accurate the outward appearance really was. She doubted anyone would just bounce right back from an encounter like the one with Tsunami, even someone as vibrant as Lightning Girl.
Still – like with James, she admired LG’s spirit. It was encouraging in the same breath that it made Blackstar feel like a fraud.
Pushing the thought aside as the team began to make their exits, Alaine stood and checked her phone – a burner, or at least not her real phone. Her family contacts and pictures weren’t on this one; the other, the real one, was back in her apartment, hidden in her mattress. Checking the time, she realized the little battery icon was at full charge when it hadn’t been before. She was confused for a second before connecting the dots and realizing LG must’ve given her a charge.
Appreciative, she lingered for a minute by the booth and glanced Asteroid’s way. He looked… hm. Maybe more than just tipsy, but the mask made it a touch hard to tell. He’d had a couple of those double tequilas. Which was, what, two shots in one? Or something? She didn’t know.
She also didn’t know why she didn’t just say goodnight and get going, but she didn’t.
“...You gonna be able to get home?” Alaine asked, watching Asteroid closely. One hand tugged at the hem of her jacket, needing something to fidget with.
Jet freezes, his hands in his pockets, previously looking up at the sky. “Oh uh, yeah- def- definitely.” He stutters through his response, and that’s when he knows just how toasted he is. Reynold would want him to shake somebody down for a phone and give him a call. He reached into his pocket, feeling his modified MP3 player, and was shocked at the battery being at 100%. He’d used it a ton today. The loss of charge disorients him, and when he opens his mouth- his answer practically falls out- “Gonna jump home.”
Alaine shifted her weight to one foot, slipping her hands into her jacket pockets and, somewhat obviously, standing there to see how that went.
He grimaces a bit through some calculations, and takes a step towards her. The next step lands a little to the left of where he’d anticipated and a chuckle fills his lungs with air. He takes another, and trips- but there’s a bounce to his step that could only be explained by gravity calculations he’d done bad math on. In his stumble he nearly knocks it’s a trashcan that’s bolted to the sidewalk.
Alaine’s arm moved, the familiar hum of flight in the back of her mind – prepared to dart that way and keep him up if he fell. Luckily he didn’t, and she settled back on her heels absently as he spoke again.
“Dang, I might go inside and have another water or something.” He wasn’t going to ask to borrow her phone. Maybe the bartender can shoot Rey a text or something- he doesn’t know.
What, was a water going to sober him up? She didn’t think it worked like that. A small grin tugged at her lips before she glanced down the street, considering the situation.
She knew what John would tell her. You need a good image, but don’t go out of your way to get close. The more you let your guard down, the worse it’ll get.
But… maybe John wasn’t right about everything.
Alaine looked back at Asteroid. He’d made her feel a lot better today. Multiple times. And he’d bought her a drink. That was a good enough reason to explain away helping him if anyone asked. Yeah.
“...I don’t know how secret you want your place to be, but, um–” She cleared her throat a little. “–I’d be happy to get you there. Or within a block of there. Or whatever you’re comfortable with.” Alaine shrugged slightly, adding in amusement, “I absolutely suck at finding my way around so it’s highly unlikely I’ll be able to find the place again, if you’re worried about being compromised or anything.”
Would that make him uncomfortable? Maybe that was too much. Just in case, she also offered, “Or, I mean – I’d be happy to pay for a cab or something, if you’d prefer. You bought me a drink, I buy you a ride.” She shrugged again, hoping the twenty bucks in her pocket would cover a cab ride if that was his preference.
Asteroid is surprisingly quiet through most of her suggestions. He’s having a bit of a hard time maintaining focus, his normal drunk silliness trying to invade his consciousness. He snickers as he trips over his feet in her direction. They’re close enough to touch now. Jet starts taking his glove off. He’s forgotten that she left her glove on last time, and his drunk mind is making the same mental predictions as earlier.
In any other situation, with probably any other person, she would’ve shifted to maintain a little personal bubble. She, again, had no clue why she didn’t then. Just trying to stay close enough to keep him upright if he fell. Uh-huh.
“I move a lot.” In his head he remembers Reynold scolding him. A whole saga turning into Reynold keeping a five gallon bucket of red paint in his garage. He was sick of Jet buying six cans of ‘the wrong red’ before finding the right one. It’d happened at least three times, and that was three times too many.
Alaine squinted at him, not sure what he was talking about. Like, physically? Like he was going to wiggle around a lot if she tried to fly him home? Or did he mean it in regards to home itself, that he moved a lot? If so, she could relate. But since she wasn’t sure what he was talking about, she just shrugged. Either way, wouldn’t be a problem for her.
He unclicks the bottom half of his mask, and he takes a big breath before extending a hand to Blackstar. He was getting hot under his full mask, this was the first time he’d worn it for this long consecutively. “That’d be mighty fine of you,” his words are slipping out of his grasp, each syllable lengthening more than the last.
Alaine couldn’t help an amused little scoff at that, though she tried to look exasperated as she shook her head. “Don’t mention it.” She took his hand, not sure why he took his glove off but kind of wishing she’d taken her own off.
For – uh, stability. Or something.
His hand safely in her own, she lifted off the ground; slow at first, just to make sure he was good, then a little faster once she felt confident he wasn’t going to lurch or anything. Still, she didn’t fly very fast.
Just so that he could be sure and direct her where he needed to go, of course. Not to stretch the time out.
When they’re in the air, his mouth takes over. Suddenly he’s saying things that should’ve maybe stayed on the inside. It’s her silhouette against the stars that does it, “Your costume is soooo cool, did SDN make it? They designed mine, and I was worried it’d be made cheap-” he rambles a bit about costumes and masks, and well made garments. He tells her about a light jacket he saved up for with his first few SDN checks- it’s a jacket made out of a simple blue quilt, and he loves it.
Alaine listened with a small grin, more than happy to let him ramble. She was on the quieter side by nature – she talked and made conversation around others so that everyone else was comfortable, but if she had her way, she’d just sit quietly and listen.
It wasn’t like she enjoyed his voice or anything or found his apparent interest in hero fashion endearing, obviously. It was just that letting him ramble meant she didn’t have to talk about herself which could end up with her divulging sensitive information. Yeah.
“You’ve gotta show me this jacket sometime,” she said when there was a pause in his flow of thought. She was a bit surprised to find she meant it. “I love a good jacket.”
When he realizes he’s been talking for a while, he suppresses a snicker that is dangerously close to a giggle. The bottom of his flushed cheeks are visible, barely peeking out from below what remains of his mask.
Jet points out over the landscape, towards a more industrial district of town. “Over there.”
“Ah, gotcha.” Alaine shifted course with an easy, drifting movement that gently bumped her shoulder against his.
“What do-” the bump of their shoulders short circuits his brain, and he trails off. When he comes back to himself, he tries again. “What do you like?”
The question took her off-guard. “What do I like?” she echoed, stumped. “Um–” All of the sudden she’d forgotten everything she enjoyed. She needed a narrower category. “Uh… stained glass.” It was the first thing that popped into her head. “And suncatchers. And I like swords. Um… Big sweaters. Stars. Also orange sherbet.”
Now she was a little flushed under her mask, too. That was all true. John would’ve told her to lie. Even small things can lead back to you. But what could it hurt? Asteroid probably wouldn’t remember, anyway. No one ever did, really. Plus he was four or so tequila shots under.
When they land, they’re outside a semi-lit industrial complex. An old building with large iron windows towers over them, each floor retrofitted into small apartments. His studio is just one big room, with a small shared bathroom in the hall with the only neighbor on his floor. But the rent was cheap, and they let him pay cash. Less and less places wanted him to do that.
“Thanks- I owe you one.” It’s sincere as he lets go of her hand, offers her a fist bump, and walks up to the door with his keys. He looks back over his shoulder and offers her a large open palmed wave. The only thing he remembers after the outdoor encounter with LG the next day, is just how badass she looked in the night sky with the stars behind her.
Alaine laughed a little as she returned the fist bump, replying, “No problem, Louboutins. And you don’t owe me one, really,” she tacked on, waving back at him and smiling in spite of herself. His steps definitely- don’t- get a bit bouncier at the nickname.
She remained standing there on the sidewalk for a moment, just to make sure he could get the door open. He did, so she took a step back and lifted off the pavement again, ascending smoothly along the front of the building and flipping herself over the top.
The pet store near her own apartment was just closing, but the employee let her in anyway when he realized she was a hero and not there to rob the place.
Asteroid’s SDN locker had a bottle of fish food in it the next morning.
She was in a real good frickin' mood. Her dispatches had all gone well so far, she was pretty sure she got along well with her team, Asteroidwascute and hey, James was back and not horrifically deformed from his run-in with Tsunami the other night. Also, office cat!
Yeah, she was feeling pretty good. It had been a long time since she had felt good, honestly, so Alaine was soaking it up.
The downsides were always there, of course -- the memories, the homesickness, the pull to the void, the nightmares. She'd come to the terrible conclusion a year or so ago that they'd probably always be there. But she could do little things to make it better, and her surroundings certainly helped too.
"I can feel your heart, t-t-t-tickin' like a time bomb," she mumbled to herself, along with the lyrics of the song in her ear. Her flightpath was particularly crow-like that morning, bobbing and twirling and rolling about in the air, free to take her time since she was up early again -- nightmares -- and not due at work for another hour or two. Eventually her course steered from the clouds down to the SDN building, and she twirled her way down to the roof while humming along the her music.
Spotting an armored figure sitting on the edge of the roof, she dawdled over with a slow flip in the air, coming to an upside down hover next to Eclipse as he tossed another Cheeto down at someone.
Blackstar clicked her tongue at him. "Waste of perfectly good Cheetos," she lamented, grinning at him upside-down before shrugging and, with a casual kick of her leg, flipping herself rightside-up. Dropping to the roof, she made her way over to the door; she'd taken off from there a couple of times by then and could find her way from there better than she could from the front doors.
"Tell Lightning Girl I said hi," she added over her shoulder innocently and quickly shut the door before he could throw something worse than a Cheeto at her. Was she implying there was another reason he was sitting around on the roof where the flying heroes sometimes touched down for work, other than being a general nuisance to his coworkers? Yes. Was the implication that he was maybe waiting for Lightning Girl? Yes. Was it because of the fact that she and Asteroid had caught him and LG mid-hug Tuesday night after the Tsunami thing? Also yes. Was she ever going to let it go?
Mmm probably not, no.
Trotting down the stairwell and making her way to the dispatch floor, she stopped by James' desk and eyed the flowers and candles in confusion. Did someone think he'd died? It looked like a memorial. She'd apparently been beaten to the gift-giving by Mr. Cheeto-launcher himself, so she simply set her own down amid the flowers. The little blue succulent in its Union Jack planter was a nice addition, she thought.
"Good morning," she chirped to James as she set the plant down, giving him a smile. She was wearing her black-on-white suit today, which might've been an indicator of her mood. Or maybe just that she had to wash the other one. "Hope you're feeling better! We missed you," she said, speaking for the team whether they actually cared or not. Her eyes dropped to the kitten and she added, voice immediately turning to that higher-pitched, cooing tone for animals and babies, "And I missed you, little guy! Gotcha some stuff..."
She'd worn a small, black backpack over her jacket and she took it off then, holding it in one hand; she reached into it with the other and retrieved a bag of cat toys and a little cardboard scratcher, kitten-sized. Both she offered to James before also retrieving a little container of catnip and handing that over as well, tacking on, "Also I got him drugs. Might want to experiment at home first to see if he's the type that goes absolutely bonkers or immediately falls asleep, which might determine whether or not you want him hopped up at the office. Oh -- and just get me that form for the uh... hand thing... and I'll fill it out ASAP."
Blackstar knelt down, giving the kitten a friendly little pet or two, then straightened up and gave James a lazy salute before turning to jog off to the locker rooms. She pulled her SDN equipment out of her locker, making the switch between personal earbuds and work gear; when she went to turn off the music on her phone however, she came to a horrifying realization.
This wasn't her decoy phone. It was the real one.
There was Brook's text from the night before. Hey girly pop! How's your first week of the new job going??
And her mom-- Pictures of Calum! Dad and I got to babysit this weekend. Attached were several pictures of her nephew -- a year old already. She hadn't met him in person yet.
Alaine hastily turned the phone off, completely. Down into the very bottom of the backpack it went, with the bag itself getting shoved as deep in the locker as it could possibly go. She shut the locker and took a deep breath in -- held it a few seconds -- then let it out slow.
It'd be fine. She was bound to make a little mistake at some point. Wasn't... wasn't that big of a deal.
She nodded to herself, adjusting her jacket and huffing a loose strand of mousy hair off her forehead. Yeah. It'll be fine.
Back up to the breakroom then, where it seemed she and Madcap were the first two to arrive, aside from Eclipse on the roof. Or -- wait, was that Madcap? Blackstar paused a few steps in, squinting at the person in front of the TV that she didn't remember being there. No, yeah, same buggish helmet and tie. It was the rest of the ensemble that was... interesting.
She didn't know anything about fashion, but she'd venture to say fashion wouldn't claim that outfit. She did think Asteroid would think it was funny, though.
Moving a little further in with hopes of getting a water from the vending machine, she found it annoyingly empty. Dang it. She really ought to start making her own food and drinks rather than just hoping there'd be something at SDN.
Since "breakfast" was a bust, she instead moved to peer over Madcap's shoulder to see what was so interesting. An ad for... some kind of carnival? A superhero supervised carnival? That was probably normal enough, but something about that ad just struck her as creepy.
"Weird," she mumbled under her breath, shrugging and moving to plonk down in a seat off in the corner, boots propped up on another chair as she leaned back and crossed her arms. At least no one could tell she had her eyes closed behind her mask while she waited for the rest of the team to show up.
Alaine liked the rain when she could decide whether or not she wanted to be out in it. She, Fenomaman and Payback had been lucky that it dropped down to a drizzle while they were on their dispatch, otherwise she was pretty sure the traffic situation would’ve been a lot more dangerous. But on the way back to the SDN building the rain had picked up and Blackstar, in an effort to keep Payback as dry as possible, had been using herself as a human umbrella while giving the other woman a lift.
Her suit was waterproof and thermal, but with part of her hair out and a gap between her jaw and the collar of the suit, she got wet whether she liked it or not.
Nobody was in the locker rooms when she arrived, so she was free to tug down the upper part of her cowl, if there was enough material there to actually call it that. With a small towel she took a moment to ruffle her damp hair in its mixed colors of natural, mousy blonde and the less natural red underneath, taking a seat on one of the benches scattered around.
She’d been given a locker number but she hadn’t gone to find it yet, her jacket, earpiece and other SDN equipment removed and sitting on the bench next to her as she rubbed the towel over her face with a sigh.
Permission to use lethal force.
Alaine tugged the towel over her head and leaned over, elbows on her knees and face in her hands.
That news in her earpiece had caused a small existential crisis. She’d known situations like that would have to come up eventually, she just hadn’t expected to face it on her first day. Luckily it hadn’t been necessary, thanks to Fenom’s car-stopping techniques, but what if it had been?
She couldn’t look like she knew what she was doing. If she did kill someone, how would everyone expect her to act? She’d done it before. It’d be obvious. What then?
She’d asked John when he started getting this whole SDN thing set up for her.What am I supposed to do if I’ve got to kill someone?
Same thing you did in the desert, he’d said. Like it was normal. Like it was just another Thursday. Heroes kill, too.
“But I don’t want to,” Alaine mumbled, echoing the same thing she’d said not so long ago to John.
She could practically hear his response. You might not get a choice.
There’d been a choice earlier. She'd slipped up a bit with that little disarming thing on her dispatch with Fenom and Payback, but... well, it wasn't lethal force. And lethal force had been authorized. After seeing Fenom demolish a whole vehicle just by standing in its way, she was pretty sure he would've survived a bullet. But Payback? She hadn't been sure. And that gun had been pointed at her. It was a reasonable action taken after making a logical and rational decision--
Who was she kidding. She'd just reacted.
Her first instinct could've been to dive into the line of fire, take the bullet herself, push Payback out of harm's way. Once upon a time, that would've been her first instinct.
Now? Now it seemed instinct was violence.
Alaine felt that same touch of nausea from when she'd talked with James in her one-on-one.
A noise had her sitting up straight, swiftly tugging the towel off her head and pulling up her mask again in case someone was coming in. Just the top half that covered her eyes and the red portion of her hair; the mousy portion was kind of a mess now that it was out of its ponytail and all towel-dried, so she hastily combed her gloved fingers through it in an attempt to look put-together.
When Asteroid walks into the locker room, his posture is very stiff, his shoulders are in his neck and his hands are close to his chest clutching something precious. He's covered in soot, his mask abandoned as he stepped into the locker room, sticking out of his right pocket. His dark brown hair is a mess, and there are smudges of ash all over his face.
“Shh it's okay, I'm gonna getcha some water sweetie.” He walks by Blackstar not even noticing her, his steps short and fast.
As he approaches the mirror he sets a small bundle of fur on the counter. It's the kitten! His fur is smeared and covered in soot. But its meow is strong, and it looks old enough to be on its own. About 13 weeks or so. It's panting a bit, which isn't a great sign, but water will help.
He takes a second to look in the mirror and he spots Blackstar over on the bench. “Oh!” His eyes widen and he pats his chest hunting for his mask. After a second he shrugs and meets her gaze in the mirror. “Cats out of the bag I guess-” a small laugh that sounds kind of like a cough “literally.”
He pointedly looks down at the bundle of fur. “Would ya like to meet him?” He waits for Blackstar to join him at the sink before he jogs to his locker. “Gotta grab something to hold water, poor things gotta be parched.”
The tupperware lid from his lunch seems shallow enough. He pulls it down and fills the shallow lid with water. The kitten moves up and begins to lap furiously at it.
Alaine, who had been momentarily perplexed as to who she was looking at until she recognized the suit, hadn’t even given the secret identity thing a second thought when she realized her coworker had a kitten.
As someone whose family had been a cat family practically all of her childhood, she had been severely missing having a feline around for the past two or so years. In other words, she was already on her feet before Asteroid had technically even invited her over.
“D’aww, look at the lil’ baby,” she cooed as the kitten began to lap up the water; taking a moment to tug off her gloves, she began to stroke his fuzzy little back, fingers gently feeling for any injuries. Considering the sooty state of both cat and man, she assumed this was a rescue from Asteroid’s latest dispatch. “Silly lil’ guy, you’re all dirty…”
Jet looks up at Blackstar, feeling a bit exposed and says “since this was, ya know an accident, don't feel any pressure to reciprocate, okay?” He smiles at her softly but then grabs a paper towel and begins wiping the soot from his face.
Alaine glanced up at him in the mirror as he started trying to clean himself up, actually looking at him for the first time. “Okay–”
Oh. She stilled, one hand on the kitten, staring for a second while he was busy with the paper towel. Oh no. He was cute. Even covered in soot – which, actually, kind of gave him a scruffy vibe that made him even cuter.
“I'm not too worried about the secret identity thing as it is, but it'd be inconvenient if my Father knew so don't shout it from the rooftops or anything.” He snickers at that, hands connecting under the water to splash it over his face.
“Huh?” Alaine blinked, realizing she was still staring and quickly redirecting attention back to the ashy little cat. “Oh – yeah, no, no, sure. I’m the last one to go revealing secret identities, trust me.”
The kitten was purring as she pet it, still lapping up the water but happily so. She couldn’t help a smile and, when the kitten had finished with the water, she gently scooted it back from the edge of the counter as it started exploring and Asteroid spoke again.
“Heard we are going to the bar tonight! You in? I think Lightning Girl is gonna help me out with this little guy.” The kitten was then curiously crawling around on the counter, and checking the new space out. “I'll probably petition for baby sitting duty sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Alaine agreed immediately, if only because it sounded like he was planning on going. Dang it. She needed to think something like that through – things could go sideways very easily at a bar, she was sure… “Well sign me up too,” she hummed in amusement, her mouth brushing past the bar thing and onto the kitten thing while her mind was trying to weigh the risks of the former. “I love cats. I wish I could keep one, but it wouldn’t be fair to the cat at this point in time.”
There was a note of disappointment there but she shrugged it off, musing, “He’ll be in good hands if Lightning Girl’s going to look out for him, though.” Lightning Girl was probably way more put together. She had the hero thing downpat.
Alaine glanced over at Asteroid again, prepared to say something else but forgetting whatever it was as she spotted a dab of soot he’d missed.
“You missed a spot.” She tugged the towel off her shoulder where she’d tossed it a moment ago when she came over to the sink; without thinking, she reached over and carefully smudged away the spot on his forehead, where it had been trying to hide in his hairline.
Jet freezes. His facial expression is soft as she wipes the dirt from his brow. It’s unexpected and unfamiliar but not unwelcome. He’s kind of afraid to move, in fear he’ll spook her away.
Too late she realized what she was doing, but she made sure she’d gotten rid of the soot anyway before she pulled back. “I thought you were trying to stop a fire, not collect all the soot,” she joked, a hasty attempt to distract from the fact she’d just been touching his face and her ears were now feeling kind of hot.
The rib at his condition makes a laugh bubble out of him. “I might’ve been rolling around on the floor.” He redirects his gaze toward the kitten after watching her for a little longer than he should have. “Was definitely worth it to find these little guys, though.”
Clearing her throat, Alaine glanced down as her peripheral vision caught the kitten wandering to the edge of the counter again. “Whoa, whoa…” Reaching out, she gingerly picked him up. She loved when they were that age – they hardly weighed anything, all fluff and squeaks and teeny-tiny claws. “I see you were helpin’ Louboutins here with the soot collection, huh?”
The kitten glanced up at her face for the first time and cowered a little, ears starting to fold back. Alaine winced. “Ah, yeah. I look kinda scary, right?” Her family had had a cat before who’d been scared of people when they put sunglasses on, so she figured her mask probably looked a bit menacing.
Hesitating briefly, and ignoring that thing Asteroid had said about not reciprocating the accidental face-reveal because she did feel the instinctual need to reciprocate and besides this was about the cat, not about anything else, nope– Alaine reached up with one hand and tugged her mask down.
God, I am such an idiot, she thought, mildly horrified at herself. What was she doing? All that effort to hide her face, all the fear that that night in the desert would happen all over again because someone would connect the dots–
The kitten squeaked, ears popping back up as he realized she was a person.
“...Yeah.” Alaine’s voice softened as she pet him again, grinning at the way he kneaded his tiny claws into the slim, black star design on the front of her suit.
The hooking of needle-like claws into what he presumes to be a relatively expensive super hero costume makes him cringe just slightly, and he starts trying to formulate how he’d help her fix a snag in the fabric. The care on Alaine’s face washes those thoughts away as he actually takes her in. She’s a little shorter, and- actually quite lovely.
Plus her hair is dyed red, of all things, in the under layers. Blackstar’s cool. They’d just met, and Jet was confident of that already.
She glanced at Asteroid in the mirror, went a little pink, and looked back down at the kitten. “So, um. Bar, huh? Where’s it at?”
When her eyes meet his in the mirror, he startles. Got it, you do not have to memorize your masked colleagues face immediately. It’s not going to be the last time you see her. He clears his throat just a little- “I think I heard one of the guys say we were headed over to the Cowl.” He takes the babysitting moment to dust off the remaining soot, grab his tupperware, his leather sling bag from his locker, and a fresh mask for the bar.
“I think we’ve got that last meeting, let's see if we can catch Lightning Girl beforehand and she can help us figure out what to do with him next.”
Alaine nodded along, setting the kitten down to quickly fix her hair, the red part down and under her cowl and the natural part up in a high pony; then, mask up and using the excuse that Asteroid was already carrying, like, three things, she scooped up their new furry friend and toted him out of the locker room alongside her coworker, grabbing her jacket off the bench on the way.
Once they got back to the breakroom she surrendered custody of the kitten – not without a little kiss between his fuzzy ears – and fell back to hang around and wait for the evening’s debriefing.
“Hey! Lightning Girl- special delivery!” He holds up the tiny creature to her. “This is the one that didn’t look like it was gonna make it in the fire, but with some water, they’re looking much better.”
Lightning Girl was freshening up her face in the sink in the breakroom, back early from the job at the nightclub- aware though, that she’d get caught in all the rain again, making not much effort to tidy what was there. She turned and saw Asteroid come in and heard the tiny, raspy squeak from the kitten, her grey eyes lit up, her grey and white visage lit up as if the electricity pulsed.
Someone who could so much damage seemed to almost dissolve like butter, into a child-like, giddy almost excitement. There was pure good inside her, and seeing that kitten just made her answer instant.
“Woah! No way!” She exclaimed, excited as ever, triple checking her gloves, the black-gloved heroine so badly wanting to stroke it, and Asteroid obliging.
“It’s friendly!” Asteroid says as Blackstar places the tiny creature into LG’s hands and watches it squirm to get used to the new set of hands. “What do you think James’ll say?” His one-on-one with James had gone well enough that he didn’t think this would go over too awful bad, especially if Lightning Girl was gonna ambush him about it.
Lightning Girl gushed, smiling as she nodded to him, gently stroking the tabby’s fluffy neck.
“Leave this one to me. He might not trust you fully yet. But he can’t say no to me. I worked with the guy for a while. I can convince him to keep this little baby. Awww….yes you are, aww, he’s so cute!” She chuckled, gently rubbing a gloved finger over the cat’s side, the mackerel tabby absolutely smelling of smoke and dust still, despite clearly getting a great cleaning. Another thought popped into her head, as she looked around the corner from the break room, seeing James still dispatching away, one last job for Lunara, it looked like, before she would head home. Lunara wasn’t joining them tonight, but, it was good enough a distraction. She turned back to Asteroid, clearing strides with her long legs, cat still safe in her left “paw”.
“Wait…..he definitely needs a home though…..wait. I have an idea.” She added, the wastepaper bin in her other spare hand, setting it down and using the paper inside to create a makeshift shelter. She gently set the kitten down on the worktop as it squeaked, curious as to what the new, mysterious white haired woman was doing. That wasn’t human and definitely was not as trusting, but, within a couple of minutes, Lightning Girl had built out something.
“Right. This might do….I would take him home but we’re all going drinking tonight.” she added, turning to the fridge, opening it up, and reaching in to the far back. “I’m so sorry Martha, write up another HR violation, why not…it stinks so bad anyway….” She added, yoinking a piece of sandwich off, taking the malted bread out and sticking a piece of tuna into the basket next to a tiny saucer of water, a teeny tub of tupperware that was in the mug cabinet.
“There.” She added, jogging across and almost clearing the distance in barely seconds, all set up for their new guest, as she walked back across, fiddling with her own cowl, unaware of what had happened minutes ago privately, still nowhere near Sophie Speight given she likely had to carry James later. “I got this.”
Jet calls after her- “I’ll buy some litter and a smallish litter pan for him, and bring it in first thing tomorrow!” He is in a bit of shock at how fast Lightning Girl jumped in here and took care of business, but very grateful. It already felt like a fish was out of his depth, but that’s what having people were for.. Right? Helping when you felt out of your depth?
Alaine's first thought at officially hearing they were all invited out for company beers was dread, despite the heads-up from Asteroid.
And yes, she'd already blurted out an affirmation that she was coming. She wasn't going to back out, but... Alcoholic beverages that often loosened tongues and fogged mental processes? That, paired with her sleep deprivation and secrets to hide did not sound like a good combo.
But then.
Retreating into herself and hiding away in her apartment whenever she wasn't on the clock, although it seemed the most logical solution, would surely paint her as the kind of character who... would have done what she did. She didn't want to be seen like that. She didn't want anyone to have any reason to think that was something she'd do.
In all honesty, the mind-numbing effects of a couple of beers sounded fantastic to her guilt- and shame-riddled mind, full of doubts and a severe homesickness for people who didn't know what she'd become.
But God, the what ifs. What if she really got drunk, what if she said something she didn't mean to? Missing her family as much as she did, she was sure some information of them, uncalculated in its significance to their safety, would slip out. Or maybe she'd start thinking about the people she'd killed to prevent that threat to safety, and the faces of those two little girls who'd lost their dad because she couldn't risk him going home. Maybe she'd say something about that and someone would launch an investigation.
Or worse. Maybe she'd lose control of her carefully-maintained powers. Maybe something would shift, maybe the stars would get too close and she'd start losing her grip, maybe her hand would fumble and she'd look up and realize she'd just run someone through with a blade made of cosmic energy. Maybe there were things she didn't even know she was capable of yet, and all her star-charged body needed was a moment of laxed inhibition to go supernova.
No, no way she was even touching something that was actually alcoholic. But she did need to go -- being at least as social as her limited social battery would allow would be good for her image, or at least for everyone's perceptions of her. She could try and act like the person she was trying to be -- like Lightning Girl. Like Blonde Blazer. Not a murderer.
Even then, the thought of lingering around Lightning Girl and Fenom and the others, Phoenix Heroes and not, posed an odd juxtaposition. Feel like an imposter among the real heroes... or pretend like she wasn't as bad as if not worse than the villains in reform? No place felt right because of all her damned lies.
Well -- almost no place. Asteroid felt... comfortable.
Alaine was trying not to think about that too much, but she couldn't deny that something about him, even the almost nervous air he'd had a few times, was... calming. Which made no sense, but -- huh, well, maybe it did. She felt like she was made of stars that were all trying to go spinning off into infinity. She had dreams, or maybe nightmares, where she was a star, and she woke up in the air, flailing and all tangled in her sheets and gasping for breath like she'd just remembered she was a human being.
And Asteroid... was gravity. Something about him made all those whirring cosmic energies settle down a little. She'd actually had fun with him on her first dispatch, which still sort of blew her mind to think about. Instead of wanting to jet off into space and join the infinite cosmos... she'd enjoyed that little downward tug when they were giving Ultragal a bungee jumping experience without the bungees. It didn't feel restricting, it felt grounding.
Maybe she needed that. Every star orbited something, right?
...Those were dangerous thoughts, too. Almost as dangerous as the alcohol.
Didn't help that the darn guy had brought a kitten back from his dispatch with Princess and Hat Trick. Like was he trying to seduce her? What was wrong with him? The way he'd had it peeking out from that pocket in the chest of his suit, a little sooty fluffball all snuggled up against him... ugh, her heart. He had no way of knowing her family had been a cat family practically her whole childhood and that she wanted a cat so bad at the moment she could literally die for it, so it wasn't like he could actually do it on purpose...
But come on. Just marry me already.
Okay, well. Maybe a dumb little work crush wouldn't hurt things. It wasn't like it'd ever go beyond her stealing a glance or two in the breakroom, it never did. Even before she'd become... whatever she currently was, she'd never thought she was enough to actually be considered by the people she liked. Why make an awkward moment by being all "hey so I actually like you a lot" just for them to go "oohhh... uhh... thanks, but..."?
No, no. It was fine. It'd be fine. Everything was fine all the time and nothing was ever wrong and she was having the greatest time ever--
zap.
Alaine snapped her hand back from the bar counter, a little flash of inverted light flickering across her knuckles for a split-second. Lightning Girl called "Sorry!" before beginning to order a drink, and Alaine breathed out slow as she pulled her spiraling thoughts back to the moment.
When the bartender eventually looked at her she asked quietly if there were any non-alcoholic beverages, to which she was given a bit of an odd look but offered some options. Eventually she headed over to sit next to Asteroid -- no particular reason why -- with a drink that the lady at the bar had called The Designated Flyer. Funny. She tried not to make faces while she sipped it, which would surely give away that the closest she'd ever come to alcohol was probably two mocktails about four years ago.
"I hate beer, and I HATE alcohol 'cuz its all EVIL!"
Okay, that made her grin a little. She spared Madcap a curious look from behind the lenses of her mask, but didn't bother contributing verbally.
Content to sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, she offered Lightning Girl a smile when the sparky heroine headed over to join the table. By then it was her, Asteroid, Madcap, and Fenomaman taking up the seats, and Blackstar thought it was a funny assortment. But, she supposed the whole team was kind of a funny assortment.
She gave Lightning Girl a modest smile and a shrug at the congratulations on a great first day, moving to carefully clink the other heroine's glass with her own. While Blackstar's social battery might've been nearing the end of the line, Lightning Girl seemed just as full of energy as ever. Alaine wondered if that was genuinely her personality or if it was just... part of the hero. Not that it was bad either way, but she was curious.
"So, Feno, I know you're from probably out of this world. Blackstar, Asteroid, you two both.....seem very cosmic. Would it be fair to say we're kinda the same? I mean, I'm not from another planet, I'm from England, which I know to Americans sounds like it is, but.....yeah, I know, it's kinda crazy we have that in common, cos I guess I got powers from something that wasn't terrestrial? Oh, and Madcap here is just out of this world too, I suppose. In his own way!"
Blackstar opened her mouth to reply then shut it again. She wasn't entirely sure what gave her the powers she had. She could remember seeing what she thought was a shooting star, only it got bigger and brighter until it seemed like it was filling the whole sky... then darkness. Then the universe. And then waking up in a small crater. She had a joke with herself that the shooting star had smacked her on the head.
"I'm not from another planet," she assured after a pause, just to clarify.
"Kinda makes me think. I wonder what it would be like to be out of this world you know. Like, literally. High above it all. Look down from space on it all....my lungs gave out by the time I think I cleared 100,000 feet. Feno, have you ever done that?"
Blackstar blinked, mind starting to wander again. I wonder what it would be like to be out of this world you know...
Infinity. Swirling darkness that was simultaneously light. A spectrum of colors never seen before, an endless cacophony of singing silence. Flying, falling. Nothingness. Oneness.
The stars were closing in on her again. Blackstar inhaled sharply, jolting herself back down to Earth, back to Claremont, back to the bar. She rested her glass on the table so no one could catch her hand shaking as she sank in her seat a little. One of her boots urgently but casually felt around for a leg on the table, or a bar under her seat -- something she could hook her foot under and anchor herself with.
She was pretty sure she bumped someone's leg instead so she froze, instead trying to just push the sole of her boot against the floor as hard as she could.
"Hey, Cosmic buddies..."
Good, Madcap. That would definitely keep her attention down there, on the ground. Good.
"Wanna karaoke? I wanna sing, and no one's called dibs yet! Singing about heroics is like. Prime hero stuff. We gotta do it!"
Karaoke? Alright, she wanted to keep herself grounded, but she didn't want to put herself six feet under out of sheer embarrassment. She blinked over at the bug-masked hero, who certainly seemed enthusiastic as he looped an arm around Asteroid. What she wouldn't do for some of that complete lack of social anxiety.
Maybe it was a lack of something else, actually. She'd better not think on it too much.
"I'll pass, thank you," she said lightly, giving Madcap a small grin and another shrug. "I have more fun listening. Though--" She motioned from Madcap to Fenom, saying about the latter, "I know this guy's got a good shouting voice. Shouting's not too far off from singing, right? Bet you two could do a mean duet."
She was joking, mostly. Madcap and Fenomaman singing karaoke together would definitely be entertaining enough to keep her grounded.
[center]♘ The name's CosmicCowgirl, feel free to call me Cosmo or Cowgirl! ♡
25 // female // infp-a
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[center][i]modern warfar 4 modern warfare 4 modern warfare 4 mOdErn wArEFarE 4 MODERN WARFARE 4[/i][/center]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-center">♘ The name's CosmicCowgirl, feel free to call me Cosmo or Cowgirl! ♡<br> 25 // female // infp-a<br>______<br><br><img src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d7/c2/d5/d7c2d5134de5a7a9f0fda7acb27996bb.jpg" /></div><br><br><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-i">modern warfar 4 modern warfare 4 modern warfare 4 mOdErn wArEFarE 4 MODERN WARFARE 4</span></div></div>
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