face your fears

“Eh being in the headlines isn’t that great,” she says, tossing a few things into her laundry hamper or her closet, feeling a little self conscious suddenly about the mess in her room. Not that it was that messy anyway.

She feels a little funny in her stomach at his compliment. “Thanks I picked it myself. Terry’s a nice name too,” she waves off the rest of it, “don’t worry about it. Do you need something to eat?”

      “Oh, yeah, I... honestly if I could continue being completely unknown to the press, that’d be super.” He’s seen supers get reamed by the papers and newscasters and he sure as hell doesn’t want to gain any notoriety as a walking nightmare.

     “Mr. Wilson,” Slade answered, watching Trauma push himself up with crossed arms, “Or Sir. I don’t know how your parents raised you, but I expect ‘yes, sir’s and ‘no, sir’s from you. Backtalk will not be tolerated. If I ask you to do something it’s for a reason whether I feel the need to tell you the reason or not.”

      “Well... my mother’s in a mental hospital and my dad kicked me out, so... that should give you an idea of how I was raised, sir.” Terry stared at Slade, wondering if he was about to regret what he’d just gotten himself into, but... well, it wasn’t like he had other options.

“I guess,” she answers as she leads the way up the fire escape and pulls off her domino mask. They’re dangerous too, and doesn’t want to mention that if she lost her temper she could end someone’s life easily. Maybe even with one careless touch. But she didn’t want to think about that.

“You didn’t give me any other name,” she tells him as she jimmies open the window to her apartment and slides inside, “Since you’re coming into my apartment, you might as well know my name. You can call me Elva.”

      “Terry. I should probably have a codename, but... Guess I haven’t made headlines yet...” Trauma crawls through the window, awkwardly navigating his long limbs through the frame.

      Daken doesn’t say a word, quirking up his brow as if waiting for the other to continue or rant at him. He did admit to himself that he wasn’t expecting the boy to suddenly stop talking all together. He could feel it happening, the very action however was still shocking.

       A flash of understanding sparked in Daken’s blue hues as he listens to the boy, he’d been there, comparatively what he had survived was worse from the sound of it, not that he would ever say that. Oh it was tempting to be his usual sarcastic little shit self to the boy. “Seems as if you should talk to Osborn.“ The other ripping into Daken wouldn’t matter, least he didn’t think it would help, he had nothing to do with what happened to him.

        Daken shrugs, a slow mean smirk curving over his lips as his eyes flash dangerously. “Anyone who tries to make me a puppet deserves to be sliced into, repeatedly, until their body falls apart.” With that he turns & starts walking to the exit. “Feel free to follow, I will even let you hit me if you want. It won’t help.”

      Flashes of something hit Trauma, a bit of Daken’s fears finally reaching him, but Trauma doesn’t shift. The potential form of Romulus makes Trauma’s gut twist. Dammit. The problem with having empathic powers is it’s really hard to stay angry at someone once you start feeling for them.

      “Osborn’s not here, you are.” Which speaks to how desperate Trauma is for people to yell at in a vain attempt to sooth his turmoil. “If Osborn was here I’d be doing a lot more to him than talk.” Trauma doesn’t generally like using his powers to harm other people, but god, the idea of seeing Osborn cower before him... Well, it’s probably for the best that Trauma hasn’t run into Osborn since the Initiative.

“Ah, so that’s what it is. A lot of people don’t want to hang out with human generators either, but I know it’s not the same,” she says, awkwardly trying to relate. Finally they reach one of the back alleys that lead to her apartment and she pulls off her cowl and sticks it in her belt before scrambling up the wall to bring down the ladder of the fire escape.

“C’mon Gerard Way,” she tells him from the top of the first stop, she’d almost said cutie instead but had refrained.

      “It’s really not the same. At least your powers are badass.” Terry gets that she’s trying to relate, but there’s a huge difference between his powers and hers. He’s pretty sure she’s never driven someone insane, but he doesn’t say anything about that right now.