#dragonsdefender

​“Marriage looks good on you,” he said in way of greeting, approaching Colleen with a smile. He hadn’t gotten the chance to speak with her yet, but he supposed that was to be expected. He remembered his own wedding day, with the parade of well-wishers who’d had so many kind words to say. He and Jean only made it a few hours before sneaking off to a food truck to spend some one on one time together, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Colleen and Danny made a similar decision. 

But for now, she was here and she was glowing, clearly excited and in good spirits. Scott’s expression was fond as he looked at her. “It was a beautiful ceremony. Not many dry eyes in the house.”

People said, sometimes, that when someone was really happy, they were glowing. Simon hadn’t understood it until Sira and Nazir showed up at his apartment looking so excited he thought they might burst, told him he’d be an uncle a few months down the road. He’d seen that glow in both of them, seen it again when Farid was born and the three of them were crowded in a hospital room with Simon and Sira’s parents in the corner and Nazir’s family hovering uncertainly in the doorway. He could recognize it now, the glow of being so happy that you couldn’t hold it in any longer, so content that there was physical evidence of it.

And Colleen was glowing.

Simon was bouncing on his heels by the time he finally made it through the crowd to her. It was only natural, of course, that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to congratulate the bride. Plenty of people had approached her already, he was sure. And she was still glowing. Simon grinned. It felt a little contagious, if he was being honest. “I didn’t wear the shirt,” he said, gesturing instead to the suit he wore. “Couldn’t get it made in time. Apparently, the shop was all backed up with white people making t-shirts for their family vacations.”

It was strange, the number of people he was indirectly connected to in this time period. When he’d first arrived here, well over a year ago now, the only connection he’d really had had been one he’d never wanted to begin with, existing in the form of Tiberius Stone tying him back to his biological father in a way that still made him feel sick. But... That wasn’t the case anymore. He had other people now. Not just Tony and Zee, who were unexpected but welcome reminders that his family history wasn’t all doom and gloom, but others, too. Dinah and Bart and Maddie, people he’d made his own without help. And then... there were the ones he could have. The people who were connected to his family, but not quite tied in with him yet.

Colleen Wing --- Colleen Rand, now --- was one of those.

He’d gone to her wedding. He wasn’t sure if she knew that, wasn’t sure if she’d seen him in the crowd or if she’d recognized him if she had, but he’d been there. Looking up at a woman he’d met as both Spider-Man and Miguel O’Hara, a woman who didn’t know they were one and the same. It felt odd, but... it didn’t feel entirely wrong. Neither did this.

He shifted, approaching her slowly. It was strange, the concept that a billionaire was shopping at a farmer’s market, but Miguel figured his only real frame of reference here was Tony, who he didn’t think shopped at all, and Tyler Stone, who probably consumed souls over organic food. (Okay, maybe Lyla had a point about his flair for the dramatic.) “Uh, hi,” he greeted, a little awkward as he raised a hand in a wave. “I was... I didn’t get a chance to stop by, at the wedding. Lots of people, and you looked busy, but I just... I wanted to congratulate you.”

New York was becoming more familiar in the slow, gradual way that things did after enough time spent exploring them. Rachel had found favorite coffee shops, picked out restaurants where she knew the bread was especially good, sat in bookstores where the chairs were comfortable enough to sleep in. She’d gotten to know the areas where her friends frequented, too. The restaurants Bart ate at, the coffee shops Tim probably single-handedly kept in business, the community center Donna volunteered at. It was the last one she was headed towards now, intending on a quick drop by just to see if her friend was there.

Instead, she came across something else. 

The whirlwind of emotion hit her all at once. Fear, frustration, fury. Rachel was drawn towards it with a tentative curiosity, somehow unsurprised to find that the scene was unfurling directly outside the community center. The woman yelling was one she recognized only vaguely --- a friend of Donna’s who also worked there. Rachel didn’t remember her name, but what she saw told her everything she needed to know. A group of people apparently trying to lead a young boy away. Rachel thought fleetingly of her mother, alone and terrified in the city, coerced into joining a cult just to have something to fall back on, cursed with a daughter who was -- 

Rachel pushed the thought away. This moment was the one to focus on. This moment was the one she could do something about. “Hey,” she called out, jogging over to the scene. “What’s going on here?”