#boomboombaby

Yara had always been quick to anger. Her mother, when she was alive, said it was the gods’ blood in her veins. A god’s rage burns hot, burns ancient. Yours is the same. She’d never seemed to sway one way or the other in regards to how she felt about her daughter’s anger, but Yara liked to think she hadn’t minded it much because she wasn’t sure who she was without it and the idea that her mother had resented it was synonymous with the idea that her mother had resented her. It wasn’t a thought she wanted to entertain.

So she didn’t expel that rage. She didn’t try to flush it out of her system. She wasn’t sure it would have been possible. She wasn’t sure she would know where to begin. When it came to fire, Yara knew only how to let it burn.

And right now, it was burning bright. 

She didn’t think she’d been being exceptionately loud. Louder than everyone else, perhaps, but that was simply who Yara was. In any case, she didn’t think she deserved to be chastised for it. (Yara rarely believed she deserved to be chastised. It had always been one of her most damning problems.) Whirling around to face the woman who’d spoken, Yara shot her a fiery glare. “Why don’t you try to make me?” 

(Things were off to a lovely start.)

It was just the two of them. Rahne had run off somewhere in wolf form, doing some kind of perimeter sweep Rictor was sure, and he and Tabby were laying on their backs in the dirt, staring up at the stars. The light pollution from New York made it hard to see many of them. There were more here than in the city, to be sure, but compared to other places? Compared to the desert in Mexico where he’d gone on jobs with his father? There was nothing. A few twinkling lights, a few airplanes that only looked like stars until you stopped to study them for more than a moment.

He’d always hoped he’d have something nice to look at, at the end. He’d always hoped that, when he died, it wouldn’t be under a starless sky. He figured hopes didn’t mean much now.

“You’re not really gonna blow up my plants, right?” He turned his head to look at her, brows raised. “Cause you’re kind of the only person I trust to take care of them, if something happens. Not saying it will...” As if there was any chance he made it out of this shit alive, as if his fate wasn’t already written, as if Magneto wasn’t planning on killing him the first fucking chance he got, “But you know. Now, ten years from now, a hundred years from now. Nobody I trust more than you.”

Gar turned slowly, brow furrowing, mouth dropping open slightly with an obviously-confused sort of look, “Hey, I mean full offense when I say this: how is that any different from any other day?” No sooner were the words out of his mouth, Gar was dodging a punch, turning into a chipmunk and scurrying under the woman’s feet.

Their friendship had started off pretty similarly. Tabby had been interested seeing a green squirrel beside the park bench she was resting on (who the heck wouldn’t be? Green squirrels are cool), and when Gar had ultimately said something akin to “Hey, I can see down your shirt from this angle,” The mutant had tried to strangle him.

Billy was mindlessly walking the streets...His eyes unfocused as he navigated his way through the area. Billy was normally more aware, but the reality manipulator has been in a haze today. He doesn’t even really know what brought it on...But he just seemed out of it. He could do a spell to make it go away...But if he was being honest? 

The haze was kind of nice. 

It was kind of nice to allow himself to go on autopilot...To do mindless tasks and chores until he decided to go on a walk. He still had enough of himself to make sure that he didn’t endanger himself or others around him...But it was nice to just kind of relax and let go. 

Shatterstar had been with X-Force since he was a teenager. While his time on Mojoworld felt like an entire lifetime the time with them had seemed to go by in a blink of an eye. He hadn’t ever really had a true sense of family, what it meant to rely on others. He had been alone on Mojoworld and stayed that way until he finally escaped. Earth was strange and there was so many customs and things he had no idea about until they showed him. (Julio showed him, he was much too patient with him. It made his chest hurt, he wasn’t quite sure yet what exactly that meant.) He had been a soldier for so long that he wanted to try to see what exactly it meant to be normal as everyone seemed to say. So off to explore the world he went.

What was unforeseen and unexpected how much Shatterstar found himself longing to go back to his friends—his family. It confused him. He thought that exploring around the world would give him some sort of thrill that he could compare to the thrill he got from a fight well won, but it didn’t. He wanted to be back home the longer he was away and so that’s where he went. Home.

“Tabby!” Star greeted all too eagerly the moment he finally made it to Genosha in search of his friends, wishing he could have teleported, but unable to do so without Ri—an anchor. “I’ve missed you dearly. I’m so glad to be back,” he wrapped the girl up in a tight hug and felt some of the unnamed tightness in his chest seeming to unravel. 

In the movies, the life of a private detective was all action all the time. Rictor knew the only reason Madrox had even gotten into this biz was because he was uncomfortably obsessed with the old noir films where women dressed in fancy hats showed up in the detective’s office and begged for help, promised to repay the favor with whatever it took. Madrox had always had a thing for damsels in distress. For people in distress. That was kind of why Rictor had a job.

Real life, of course, was often less exciting. It was taking photos of people sleeping with people they weren’t supposed to be sleeping with, it was filing paperwork you’d rather burn, it was asking your clients very nicely and very often to actually pay you for the work you’d done. When this case had come in, Rictor had figured it’d be an easy one. He’d volunteered himself and Tabby, sticking Madrox with one of the more complicated-looking clients and promising Tabs they’d be done in time to get drunk for lunch.

Maybe he’d underestimated things a little. 

It was well passed lunch now, and they weren’t ‘done’ so much as ‘hunkered down in the back room of a mob hideout.’ Tomato tomahto, right?