September 9th
Midtown
Memorial Services
|Ft. The Talents of Sassy1085...|
Slightly Earlier...
“You still there, youngblood?” A gruff man’s voice bellowed from Ray’s cellular device. The grown boy shrugged to the question, knowing well the man on the line couldn’t see him. The man on the phone only accepted honesty, and if Ray was honest, he wasn’t sure. Over the past days from his time in the hospital, everything was changing so fast.
Even in the two days since his last encounter with Kim. He was a little taller, it was hot all the time, and there was an incident when he literally crushed his custom PS4 controller in his hands. NBA 2KXX was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. What kind of changes were these? How could he explain them to the man on the phone, whose name he wore?
“Baby Ray!” Raymond barked at his son from over the phone. The voice shook him back to reality and warranted his answer.
“I’m still here, Pop.”“Then talk to me, man. You know damn well I don’t got the minutes for all that.” “How the fuck you want me to answer that, Pop?! I got bombed!” X-Ray bit back probably a little harder than he meant to. The burst of emotion almost sent him falling off the edge of the four-stories-high attorney office building that he was sitting on. Oh yeah, because he could fucking CLIMB walls now. But how could his father know that?
They both sighed at the exact same time.
“Look, I know I don’t know the full story right now, youngblood. I just wanna make sure my son is still kickin. After all, Our--”“--family doesn’t run from things.” Ray rolled his eyes a little with a nod at the family saying.
“That’s right…” There was another pause, and Ray rubbed the back of his neck; watching cars drive down on the street below.
“You said you were piecin down in brooklyn. How’s that--”|”Your call has 30 seconds remaining.”|
“Well...looks like it’s gonna have to wait.”“Yeah...I was...Gonna go to the memorial thing downtown anyway.”“Aight. Hold it down, and keep ya head up. For you and ya Momma. I love ya kid.”“Yeah, I know, Pop. Talk to you later.” Ray finished the conversation, hanging up the phone and staring at it for a bit. It had been a long time since he had heard that voice. Not because he didn’t call...but because he didn’t always answer it. The relationship between Baby Ray and Sugar Ray was a strained one. The reason was....complicated. Whenever the younger talked to his father, the only thing that happened were the recurrence of memories. Memories that Ray didn’t want to relive again.
So, instead of dwelling on that, he moved his thoughts elsewhere. Though, not literally. He was actually right across the road from the Oscorps Tower, simply watching as varying news crews were getting set up. X-Ray wasn’t really a fan of the high and mighties up there in Oscorps, but out of respect for the people that didn’t make it, he made sure to show up. It was ironed into him by the man he just hung up with, to make it early to important meetings. This probably wasn’t what he had in mind, but the habit stuck. He took notice of people gathering and he figured it’d be better if he went to ground level.
So, he got up and put his phone in his pocket. Making sure none of those cameras were pointed in his direction, Ray took to an edge of the roof facing an adjacent alleyway. There was a fire escape, but, instead of taking that, Ray leaned down just slightly out of reach of the thing. Hanging from the ledge by one hand, he looked down. There was a decent drop, and less conscious thinking made him want to test out this wall sticking thing some more. The average person’s senses would scream not to. But Ray was never average.
So down he fell, and as the brick started the mesh together in a blur, Ray took a deep breath in. The idea was to reach out and stick to the wall when he got low enough. The backup plan was to just reach out and grab one of the rails of the fire escape.
A few seconds in though, the fall seemed to be happening a little too fast. He jutted a hand out in front of him. Unfortunately for him, his hand only grazed the wall and only slightly slowed him down. It was something, but as he tried to pull the rest of his body closer, a loose piece of brick broke off leaving him back at a freefall.
Now his heart was pumping, because the ground was only getting closer. He tried for plan b, but found himself out of reach of both the wall and the fire escape. He had to think quick if he didn’t want to be a puddle in this back alley. It’d be a stretch, but he tried it anyway. Aiming his hand upward toward the building he jumped from, he concentrated and a stream of silver silk shot from his wrist. His teeth grit as his eyes drifted down again.
Just as the kid was prepping for the X-Ray on his brand new broken legs, he felt his wrist tug and the line coming from his arm lock. His body stopped from its downward motion, and his back slammed into the wall. Looking up, Ray saw that his on the spot thinking saved his skin. Whatever this stuff was that he shot out was strong...his eyes looked outward to the only opening from the alley. The people of New York, oblivious as always kept walking without even a glance at his plight. Grateful, he sighed in relief.
Glancing back down this time, the distance wasn’t so bad, so, relaxing his arm, the thread was released and he landed on all fours in a cat like position. A cool breath pushed out of his lips as he stood up. Surveying what he just survived, Ray merely shook his head. Seemed that he still had a lot to learn about how this stuff worked...but, enough for that for now. He pulled his hood over his head and walked out among the developing crowd of people with his hands in his pockets. Looked like he was right in time, Osborn’s loaf of bread hair having ass was gonna start talking.
Now...to endure listening to this dude…
Current TimeKim walked toward the sea of people and then to Ray. Instead of saying hi to Ray, she just says
"Boop!" when she poked his cheek. The childhood friend of hers seemed lost in thought amidst all those people. The pang in his brain to announce her presence is what broke his trance, followed by her finger. Ray looked down to Kimi and a corner of his lip turned upward.
"Hey. What's up?""Doing good, doing good." Kim say happily while she look around
"But I feel great after what I just discovered the other day" she quietly said. Ray casually tuned out whatever Osborn was going on about and took notice of her statement. He was at least glad that she was adjusting to this better than he was, but her discovery made him curious.
"Discovery?" Ray matched her volume, as it clearly wasn't something to talk about amidst a bunch of nosy people.
"Come on, Ray. Follow me." Kim say as she grab Ray hand as they run past the crowd and into the alleyway. Ray chuckled some and followed.
When they finally made it to the alleyway, Kim pick up a empty soda can and place it on the top of a trash can
"Ok, remember that glowing power that I have? Well, it turn out that is not my only ability. Check this out." Kim step away from the trash can and stand right next to Ray, her hand mimic a handgun, point at a soda can and then a little blast came out from her finger and hit the soda can, the can fly and fall to the ground.
He leaned against a wall of the alley as she began about her glowing thing, mentioning that she had something else. It honestly made him curious what her abilities would be next. They were clear as day different from his own. Though, he anticipated what it could be, he still found his expression jumping when she blasted the soda can. That right there, was something else.
"Holy shit." He interjected.
"I know right?!" Kim say excitedly and starting to pace around little bit
"I wonder what another abilities I have. Can I shoot big blast from my hand? Do I make a big flash from my glowing powers? Can I make neon claws? Can I-" Kim stop on her tracks as a little idea pop in her head.
"Ray...Feel free to think about this but what if we become....superheroes?"Ray watched on as she started to ramble about it. Clearly she had been thinking hard about all this. Much harder than he initially thought she did. Though, he stood up straighter when she talked about the possibility of becoming a superhero. In retrospect, this all seemed to be something straight out of a comic book for real. That part of it was actually kind of cool to think about initially.
While a lot of people around them did die, they survived the bombing. Not only did they survive, but with no recurring conditions...like disease or a limp. Hell, the doctors didn't even prescribe them any medicine. Then on top of that, they gained these super abilities...Though, the thought of that was kind of getting to him. Keeping it 100, superheroes typically had super problems...Super problems he didn't want for his fam to have to go through.
"I mean, this all does seem kinda cool Kimi...it's only been a few days since we got out of the hospital nd all that type of shit...We should probably figure out more about how all this works first..." Ray managed to put it lightly. Especially with the fiasco from earlier, he didn’t want to go trying to play hero out in these streets. Don’t nobody got time for that.
At least, not right now.