#stxrsfires

@stxrsfires

It had happened quickly. A fight with something - Rachel didn't think it was human. It wasn't dense enough. Maybe mutant? Not one that she recognized. Whatever it was, it was gone now. Someone had flown down and dispatched it after Rachel had taken a direct hit, she didn't even realize she was bleeding until her savior started speaking. Pulled from her questions about origin and her confusion about what she had just witnessed - she looked at the woman and then down at her hand that was clamped to her side.

She didn't even realize it.

It hurt now that she was looking at it. (Funny how that happens.) Blood leaked through her fingers and was trailing down the left side of her body. "Oh. I didn't..." Her voice wavered and Rachel tried to clear her voice. Tried to put on a show that she was normal and everything was fine. "It's just a scratch," she offered breathlessly. "It's fine."

He’d admit, it didn’t look great. 

Miguel’s organic spinnerets had often been, as far as he could tell, both a blessing and a curse compared to his predecessor’s manufactured web shooters. Unlike the majority of other spider-people, Miguel never had to worry about running out of webs at the wrong moment, didn’t need to concern himself with the mechanical failings involved in even the most advanced feats of engineering. He didn’t have to make his own web fluid, which certainly saved on costs. 

But, for all its pros... the cons still shocking sucked.

For example, when mechanical web shooters jammed up, it was inconvenient. When Miguel’s spinnerets were backed up? It hurt. It wasn’t an unbearable pain, even on his most dramatic days. It was more of an itchy, cramping sensation in his wrists, a pressure that wouldn’t be relieved until he purged some of the webbing, so to speak. Because it was something that could get... messy, he liked to avoid doing it in his apartment. The alley between his building and the one next to it was a great place, especially since Spider-Man ran off the dealer that used to operate there, leaving it unoccupied.

At least... it was usually unoccupied. Tonight, he’d already shot out a not-insignificant amount of stringy, sad-looking webbing when a voice broke him away from his thoughts. Immediately, Miguel dropped his hand down to his side, turning towards the source of the voice with wide eyes. “I’d say it’s not what it looks like,” he said, “but I have no idea what you think it looks like.”

Dick had dreamed of this. Time and time again, for as long as he could remember, he’d dreamed of this. It was to the point that, when it had happened, he’d thought he was imagining it. He’d called Leslie, told her he was pretty sure he had a brain injury or something, nearly dropped the phone when she explained to him quietly that it was happening all over the city, that it was real. He still pinched himself so many times he had bruises on his arms. It didn’t change what he was seeing.

Mary and John Grayson were standing in his living room.

There’d been a lot of crying, at first. He’d talked to them until his throat ached, tried catching them up on everything good he’d been through while leaving out the bad because he didn’t know how much time he’d have and he didn’t want it to be spent in grief. He told them about Bruce, told them he was taken care of. He told them about Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Duke, Steph, and the rest of the family, told them he’d gotten to be a big brother even if he wasn’t always sure he was good at it. He told them about the Titans. And when he finished, they were still there.

It was Mary who asked for the introduction. She was smiling, eyes shining, saying she wanted to meet everyone, everyone who made him who he was. And there were a few pretty obvious places to start. He was knocking on Kori’s door before he knew he’d decided where to head first, fingers tapping against his thigh as he waited for her to answer. When the door swung open, he flashed her a smile. “Okay,” he said, “don’t freak out. I, uh... I wanted to ask if you’d like to meet my parents?”

@stxrsfires​

Days were good and bad, and recently? They had been mostly good. Jessica didn’t know what had done it, maybe it was their trip to a forested planet that had woken up her mind again or maybe it was the casual talk with Barry that ended with him saying that he’d help her look into the murder of her friends — but it was the first time in a long time that Jessica had felt solid. Like she was doing good.

And Kori was back in town — or rather, back on planet. (Town and neighborhood were sectors to Jessica now. Anywhere was accessible — but it was good to have her around again.) But with her being back around, came compliments that felt out of nowhere, but… Jessica knew that Kori had her heart behind them. She had always spoken from that warm place in her chest, but that didn’t stop Jessica from pausing what she was doing and fidgeting with her hair. “You and Simon keep reminding me.” And so many other people that went unmentioned, but they weren’t forgotten. Jessica was getting better at holding their names in her heart. “But I’m always my best on a team. You’re a part of that too!”

“Didn’t say I missed you,” Robbie said dryly, stubbornly glaring at his beer. The truth was, he kind of had missed her, in his own surly kind of way. He didn’t have a lot of friends, wasn’t the kind of guy who got along with most people. He was an asshole on his best days, a literal demon on his worst, but... Kori wasn’t so bad to have around. Even if she did have an incredibly irritating habit of pulling him back when he was just about to throw punches.

And he probably could have used her around, these last few months. The shit with the blackout, when he had no healing factor to stitch him back together and no Rider to give him an excuse for his anger? That was the kind of situation where it’d be nice to have someone willing to yank your ass out of a fight. Robbie took a swig from his beer, glancing over to her from the corner of his eye. “Where’ve you been, anyway? Some kind of space shit?”

Scott had learned at an early age how to operate with very little sleep. The X-Men rarely got breaks back when it was only the original five of them, were switched on almost constantly because they were the only ones standing up against mutant threats in a way that wasn’t deadly, in a way that offered redemption instead of death. It had been a lot to take on, back then. It still was, even now that the team had grown. There were days when Scott was so wired, he didn’t even think of sleeping until it all caught up with him at once.

And there were days when he needed a little kick in the ass to keep going. On those days, he frequented coffee shops.

This one was one of his favorites. It was tucked into a smaller corner of the city, just outside the neighborhood frequently referred to as Mutant Town where XFI had their... headquarters. (Was that the right word for it? He was often afraid to ask.) It was rarely crowded and most mornings, Scott was the only one there at all. Not today. Today, there was a woman in line behind him with fiery hair and a cheery expression. Scott couldn’t help but smile as he glanced back... though perhaps he should have been paying a bit more attention. He didn’t realize how close she was until he turned and accidentally poured his coffee all over her. Luckily, he supposed, it was iced coffee. Scott closed his eyes, sighing at his own clumsiness. “I am... so sorry,” he said, wincing at the sight of her. “Please, let me buy your drink to make up for it?”