Member
Carlyle
The Otter
ASDAValueMilk
Bacon
Crimson Flame
Simple Unicycle
ColdAtlas
Autumn Moon
RomanKeystone City, Missouri
Morning-ish, January 1st
It did not take her long to locate the store she had seen on the news mere moments before. Something which she thanked her rather enhanced senses and photogenic memory for allowing. Still, hovering in the air above the store, she could tell that her… target, was not within the walls. So instead the young heroine closed her eyes and focused on the sounds of the city she had learned to tune out over the years. Eventually, through quite a bit of focusing, she was able to recognize the familiar voice of somebody muttering to themselves. The voice which belonged to her target. In a mere moment, there was a blur in the sky, then in front of the young man just after he set down the dog food to get into his home. The next thing Malcolm would be aware of, he was suddenly high above his house and being suspended in the air by the fabric of his shirt. Before him, a rather beautiful face was contorted in what was clearly rage, eyes glowing bright green in a rather dangerous manner. ”You seem awfully well for a dead man.” She growled dangerously, though there were just barely hints of other emotions in her voice. Particularly those of hurt, pain as might be expected of somebody in Kara’s current position.
Y’know, all in all Mal was having a weird day, all things considered— The dreams, waking up to an unrelenting combined assault by canine struggle-snuggles and nineties pop-rock, that whole damned clusterfuck at Miss Kovalenko’s he was still trying to wrap his head around…
And now here he was, floating over the goddamn city. Staring right down at his townhouse below and the two bags left abandoned in front of his door that’d made the whole adventure worthwhile; one filled with a big bag of dogfood and a metric assload of painkillers, the other as many pastries, meats and Slavic sweets Kovalenko could ram into there with her sledgehammer-like fists… which, as it turns out, was quite a lot.
That aside, the exact microsecond the young man registered the particularly precarious position he’d found himself in, his hands clamped down over those of his apparent attacker in a vice-like grip. Malcolm having no particular faith in his shirt’s ability to take the whole of his weight and no real desire to really stress-test that freaky-deaky endurance he’d been pondering over the last thirty minutes while taking the long way home, either. And then the orange and red returned, and for once he wasn’t too mad about it’s sudden appearance.
...And then he heard her voice.
Any and all thought came to an abrupt halt. His grip loosened, and his hands just sort of slipped down to her wrists, and his head travelled upward where their eyes locked; his own faintly glowing like amber-coloured embers in sharp contrast to the woman’s raging emerald fire.
This whole ‘glowing eyes’ thing really was starting to become a theme in his life.
”...Kara?” The young man responded, much more softly than she had, an initially happy expression giving way to one of confusion, hurt all of his own and then just a bit of sadness as he registered the way she was looking at him. Though his voice didn’t show it… not that he knew what exactly to say here. ”You’re, uhh… flying.”
He had wanted to see his old friends again. Her especially. Thought about it pretty much every day for the past two years.
This was… not quite what he had in mind.
”...It’s good to see you again.”
That one, at least, actually came from the heart. Though by the look of her, he got the impression the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual.
”That’s what you got to say, Malcolm!? You’ve been dead, and didn’t even tell me you were alive! Then you just casually say it’s good to see you!?” She shouted at him, though her eyes seemed to falter and start to fade. As if, somehow, hearing the voice of the boy she had grown a bit fond of all those years ago was managing to cut through the rage she was dealing with. ”Im sorry. I shouldn’t have done… this. Can we try again?” She asked, as her hands moved to support him better than just holding his shirt.
For a moment, Mal’s eyes seemed to glow a little brighter as Kara chewed him out, and his jaw tightened a little; Oh, he had plenty to say about, well, just about all that stuff; where he’d been, what he’d been through, that other time he died… but he bit his tongue and the glow in his eyes faded completely. Which, as it turned out, was a smart move, as the woman who’d had him at her mercy seemed to calm down a little herself.
A low, quiet sigh escaped him at that as he spoke;
”Yeah… I'd appreciate that." Mal admitted tiredly, though his eyes traveled around them briefly with a bit of silent wonder at the fact that, yes they were indeed flying. "I can- I want to tell ya everything; but it's a bit of a... long story. We're probably gonna have to sit down first."
There was a brief pause, before he added, pointing down at the abandoned bags below with just a glimmer of hope on his face.
"...I've got food and stuff too, if ya'd like."
”I… I’m gonna need to get changed first. I don’t wanna go in wearing… this. So, I’ll be back.” She said quickly, before setting Mal back in front of his house, and rocketing away into the sky. It would not even be a full two minutes later that she landed, dressed now in a more casual outfit of a green sweater, and a pair of jeans. She also has her trade mark glasses on as she looked the boy in the eye. ”So, lets go sit down and hear this story.” She said calmly.
Said boy, for his part, just stared up at the sky for a few seconds as his one-time highschool crush set him back down on the ground and then abruptly… rocketed off into the sky to go get changed. Something that, despite the day he was having, still kind of left him just a bit stunned. And maybe just a little grateful, he’d admit, gently rubbing his hands together to get some of the warmth back that the winter air had stolen from them.
...It’d be a little bit awkward trying to explain where that outfit of hers had sent all that blood that’d normally take care of that kinda thing, after all.
Wearily, his eyes scanned the rest of the street, wondering if anyone’d actually seen and let out a little sigh of relief when he found it pretty goddamn empty; a mercy he could probably attribute to half the neighbourhood still sleeping off their New Year’s festivities. Well, save for ol’ Mrs. Hess, who was just watching him from her bedroom window across the road as she did everything on the street.
Sheepishly, he gave her a little wave, even as his thoughts (and senses) turned to the house behind him.
’One pulse?’ The boy physically paused, mid-thought. ’Did Grandpa head out...?’
Not that he would complain, mind you, this would be a hell of a doozy to explain to the old man.
And besides, he realized, shaking his head slightly and letting out another strained sigh as he calmly shuffled his discarded grocery bags well out of the door’s way as Kara touched down again behind him. If what he was hearing inside was true, then he had other things to worry about.
”Alright, jus-”
Mal paused, seeing her again in her new clothes (with the added bonus of not being held up by the damned collar) and felt his cheeks grow a little flushed as some old feelings bubbled back to the surface for a second, before he averted his eyes and awkwardly cleared his throat.
”-Just give me a second, I think you may have tripped the, uhh... security system earlier.”
Honestly that was probably the best way of putting it, he surmised as he slowly climbed up the steps to his porch, unlocked the door, and, bracing himself, slowly pushed it open… only to abruptly catch [i]an enraged black-furred mass of muscle, teeth and claws[i] as it came barreling out of the house at Kara. With eyes seemingly glowing a murderous, ancient crimson as it pushed and thrashed and outright tried to climb over the boy for the chance rip the thing that had dared to even briefly threaten him limb from bloody limb.
The dog, apparently, had taken Kara’s sudden meet and greet a lot more seriously than he had.
”Sadie… Sadie!” Mal shouted, struggling to hold the thrashing, wolf-like creature that was hellbent on protecting her boy by any means necessary in place long enough to calm her down, even as her muscles seemed to bulge as she strained harder and harder to push him out of the way and a snarl that had no real place in the throat of a mere dog echoed out from her throat as she snapped, snarled and swung her claws at the woman behind him, even managing to push Mal back a step. ”It’s okay! I’m okay! She’s a friend!”
The dog paused. Snout and baleful eyes wheeling towards his face again in a way that seemed to scream 'BULLSHIT!'. Then there was a bit of sniffing, as if to make sure he was telling the truth. Then a solitary lick on the cheek as the glow in her eyes faded, her hackles went back down and her tail started a waggin’.
Finally, her legs kicked up as she forced her boy to catch and carry her, resting her muzzle in the crook of his neck and staring Kara down with an expectant look that seemed to demand affection as she lapped at the air in the girl’s general direction.
The MacAodhan house's security system, it seemed, had been disarmed.
Letting out a sigh of relief and then a nervous laugh, Mal turned back towards the girl, dog in his arms and a mildly sheepish, apologetic little smile on his face.
”...Would ya mind carrying the bags? Kinda got my hands full here.”
He asked in a… disturbingly casual fashion, as if this was just a completely normal thing for him.
She was literally bulletproof, and stronger than most things on the face of the planet. Yet, when that dog came surging out with murderous intent, Kara took a large, intimidated step back until Mal got the beast to calm itself down. As the beast seemed to change from kill to ‘I’m fucking adorable please love me.’ in a heartbeat, Sol was very confused. Still, she stepped forwards and gently pet the dog on her head, giving her a pleasant smile before stepping back and picking up the bags Mal left. Then gesturing for him to lead the way, Kara decided to let him lead the way inside.
Readjusting the grip on his dog (who in turn, readjusted his grip on him, after turning it’s attention from licking Sol’s wrist to having another go at the boy’s face, of course) and offering a slightly-muffled ”Thanks.” (again, dog) to the girl as she picked up the bags, Mal finally led the way inside the old townhouse. Stopping a minute to awkwardly shuffle off his boots with one hand while cradling his big boofer in the other.
”C’mon, kitchen’s this way.”
Not saying much else, partly due to focusing on keeping a grip on Sadie as she wiggled incessantly in his grasp as Kara stepped in behind him, intent on getting more headscratches and partly because of the general weirdness of the sudden realization that this was the first person outside his family (barring the Valinovas) he’d ever actually had over. And it just so happened to have been his almost girlfriend from way back in highschool.
Who could apparently fly.
And lift him like a piece of tissue paper.
Strange times all around.
Leading her down the main hall, past a living room in where one could find, among other things, an old Chesterfield sofa, resting atop vintage carpeting from the forties, across from a starkly modern widescreen TV, a glass cabinet containing a small shrine to his mother and father against the wall by the window containing the former’s old police cap, the latter’s green beret and a whole lot of pictures of both their family and professional lives. On the other wall, a downright ancient round shield engraved with a peculiar symbol hung over the fireplace, beneath an old Canadian Red Ensign and flanked on either side by pictures of a smirking Churchill and a grinning Eisenhower, who were themselves flanked with a on the outside by a Union Jack and Star Spangled Banner respectively. With a few other pictures and knick-nacks from that era resting on the mantle beneath it. Up to and including a smaller picture of Patton where, in the corner if someone had a particularly sharp eye, one could make out the words ‘DRINKS ARE ON ME, YOU GLORIOUS SON OF A BITCH!’ scribbled in hasty handwriting and permanent marker. Walking briskly past a few more pictures in the hall, among them a slightly yellowed group shot of a small group of soldiers circa the First World War, all drinking in a bar in Paris, and another portrait from the same era of someone who very strongly resembled someone Malcolm himself might grow to look like, they finally arrived in the kitchen, where Mal carefully set his pooch down, though he made a point of keeping her rooted to the place with some tactical belly rubs.
”You can go ahead and set them down anywhere.” He said, motioning to the room. ”Though I’ll warn ya now, the minute you sit down, Sadie’s gonna be all over you— She loves meeting new people.”
It was actually the first time she had ever even been over to his place, she realized. Seeing as they had done their tutoring at home or V’s place, she had never really been over to Mal’s house. Taking a look around, it was certainly rather well decorated and looked pleasing enough. Certainly not the eldritch horror of necromancy she was halfway expecting when walking into her dead-nearly-boyfriend’s house. Setting down the bags on the table, she did one last turn before stopping and giving Mal a hard look. Quickly, she produced her phone from her pocket and took a picture of the young man, and immediately held up a finger to tell him to wait after the picture.
Going to her favorites, and seeing those texts from Verra, Kara had a single minded goal in her head. Attaching the image to a text, she sent a simple message to her best friend.
Hey V, look who I found today. At his house. Might wanna come hear how he isn’t dead.
She texted, then turned to look at Mal. ”That was V. I think she’s gonna wanna be here to hear how you aren’t dead.” She said firmly, not exactly leaving room for protest in her tone.
---
Meanwhile across the city and over the river a certain someone was still waiting for a text back from another super-powered someone, sitting back on the couch and watching a bit of daytime television. With the exception of a thwarted bank robbery, another thwarted convenience store robbery and a metahuman rally later in the day, it was all rather boring if she was being honest with herself. Normal was boring though, and it was steadily starting to sink in that little bit. Everything was calming back down to the point that she was almost over the fact that her longtime friend had just flown through a bank and a bunch of bad guys. Okay, she was still LeagueSalty over that, but it would pass.
Then her phone buzzed and she was quick as ever to pick it up and see the texts she had just gotten. Finally, a response and maybe even a reason for disrupting her day. Oh. The image on the screen reflected in emerald eyes as she took in what she had just been sent, just about to respond with the rather impulsive congrats to Kara on finding someone that wasn't a sentient garbage heap like her last boyfriend. She paused though, scant seconds passing as she looked at the rather confused guy's face and started to put things together. He was a bit buff but the resemblance was rather uncanny…
A few things happened once it finally clicked. First, the phone left Verra's hand as she let go in surprise, excitement surging through her body just like the energy that had cursed her to an extraordinary life. Then she was up and in her bedroom, changing into something that wasn't basically pajamas and as most of her wardrobe had sadly needed to be, rather friction resistant. Jeans, pink t-shirt and running shoes back on she was out the door and had it closed with the alarm set before the phone had moved even a centimeter. Kara's text had only just loaded and been marked as sent for a few seconds when faster than anything, much less any person had any right to move, the third member of their high-school trio came bounding into the room.
One step through the threshold, foot pressing firmly into the floor to propel the second forward, and then planting a full ten feet from Malcolm to send the girl into a hypervelocity tackle-glomp aimed directly for him.
Mal had barely even processed what the previously-flying girl had said before the dog that’d been oh-so-contentedly wiggling on the floor under his belly-rubs abruptly froze in place, staring down the hall towards the front door in pure canine confusion. Prompting the boy to follow her gaze as something… odd... began hammering in his ears.
’Are those… footsteps?’ He thought, slowly getting to his feet.
It was the only warning he got.
Before an all-consuming ’BOOM!’ thundered in his ears and something came slamming into his chest at speeds approaching Mach Turkey. Knocking him well off of his feet, into the air and straight through the sliding glass doors leading to his small backyard and directly into the trunk of his grandpappy’s prized apple tree.
As well as cracking a few of his ribs, if the [i]’Crunch![‘/i] in his ears was any indication.
Hissing a little as he came sliding down the solid trunk behind him to flop on his ass in the snow, leaning up against the trunk, he remained mostly silent— save for a few ragged breaths escaping him as those cracked ribs began to snap and grind together as his body got to mending itself.
”...What in the godda-”
He finally managed to rasp out, but stopped as he opened one eye and caught sight of what, or rather who was clinging to him right now.
A shaking hand rose to lift a bit of scarlet hair out of the way, as if to confirm what he was looking at. It’s opposite coming to rest on the girl’s shoulder. Experimentally. Seemingly to check that she was, indeed, real.
Though his ribs had mostly mended by then, his breathing became even more ragged when he found both to be true. A slight tremble started at the corner of his mouth, one of those shaking hands sliding down from her shoulder to her back, the other finding its way behind her neck as, without further warning, he wordlessly pulled her into as tight an embrace as he possibly could without snapping her in half. Burying his face into her collarbone, shaking all over and actually sniffling a little, if your hearing good enough to hear it, as he finally received (via hypersonic delivery) what he’d probably really needed after all this time and all he’d been through…
A hug.
The moment, however, passed. As Sadie, true to form came trotting through the snow from whence they’d both been defenestrated. Not in her full-blown murderous rage as she greeted most intruders mind you— having caught Vee’s familiar scent before she’d even broken down his door— but cautiously tip-toeing her way toward the pair to take a few investigative sniffs of the girls face… then a few licks.
As good a time as any to regain his composure, Malcolm reasoned quickly as he snorted a little and got back to his feet, lifting the redhead back onto her’s as well with all the effort it would take a normal person to lift a piece of tissue paper and setting her down about an arms length from him, but still keeping his hands on her shoulders, before the big black fuzzball could get any other ideas and tackle them both with excessive use of her tongue and wet dog smell.
Clearing his throat and quickly wiping something from his eye, He finally spoke;
”Vee... I…”
The words died in his throat as he caught sight of the state of the house behind her— the broken doors, the picture frames in the hallway now laying on the floor, those groceries he’d had to go through all that crap for laying strewn about the place— and his brain began to register what exactly had just happened. What had all led to it happening.
That headache of his began to start up again, and a fiery orange glow began to burn in his eyes, brighter than before as he for the first time during this whole affair, he started to look a little angry as his eyes turned Kara’s way.
”...I think it’s fair to say that I’m owed a few explanations myself, ain’t it?”
On the big list of reactions that she had expected to see out of Verra, slamming into Malcolm with a hug that just about would’ve killed most people was firmly not on the list. Which of course, raised even more questions in Kara’s mind as she focused in on the fact that not only was Malcolm alive, he was getting back up. Seeing the way his eyes started to glow and he seemed a bit angry looking at her, her own eyes seemed to light up a bit with their own green glow. ”Watch it, Malcolm. You’re the one who was ‘dead’ all these years.” She said in a firm tone, a hint of the girl’s own flash temper that both parties were well aware of inching its way into her tone. ”I didn’t know she would charge in like that, but you still owe us an explanation on how you’re not ducking dead.” She said firmly, crossing her arms and looking a bit like she was once more starting to reign in that anger that always seemed to rip through her with a certain ease.
To this, Malcolm’s brow furrowed and he felt his lungs instintctively take in a sharp breath. A sign that his own ire that, while not as famously explosive as Kara’s, was a known force of nature all its own for its sheer focus and depth, was beginning to rouse. As some particularly unkind words for the blonde-turned-pink haired girl began to form in the back of his throat. Well… until his hands, still on Vee’s shoulders, almost started to involuntarily clench, stopping the second he registered the resistance of her skin. His train of thought came to an abrupt halt as his eyes snapped back to the girl before him to check that he hadn’t accidentally popped her arms off or anything crazy like that. Biting his lip a little in irritation all the same, even though she looked fine.
If there was one thing in the world he’d rather not accidentally break with his… oddness, it was probably his oldest friend.
Letting out a low, calming sigh and allowing his hands to fall off the redhead’s shoulders and into his pockets, he looked to the ground for a moment of thought, before looking back up between the two again as he spoke.
”I was dead. Died at least twice, in fact. And I’ll be happy to tell you all about it.” He said, in a flat, but still clearly irritated tone. ”After you help me clean up.”
He cocked his head to the side slightly at the girl still inside his house, as he added.
”That sound fair to you?”
All things considered she was more than fine. At the very least she had taken the revival of a close friend far better than the other, to the point she seemed unphased by the laser-eye high noon showdown she was stood squarely between. Unphased wasn't quite correct though. Seeing him again after the rather… Emotional last conversation they had, and the few days to follow that had revived many of those same feelings that she thought she had come to terms with. Just the slightest quivering of her lip, watering of the eyes and a reddening of her face began until she caught herself, taking a breath and nodding slowly.
He wasn't going to hear the full emotional explosion, not right now even with how badly she needed to unload it all, but she wasn't going to go all injustice arc on him either. Instead she reached up and gently prodded at him as she used to do when he put his hands in his pockets, showing that she was just fine.
"Hey, what did I say about hands in pockets?"
While there was a little bit of that emotion roiling just under the surface showing in her tone, evidence that she was working hard to keep from just gushing right then and there, she had that same cheer that he should have remembered. Then quickly she realized what had happened in her rush to see him. That slow turn as she looked back to see the chaos of a sonic boom contained within a house very much not built to withstand such forces.
"Right… Sorry, I got a little caught up in the moment… I'll just…"
The moment that last word left her lips she was gone again, this time at a much more controlled speed. A rush of wind swirled around them and the living room, objects disappearing from one place and reappearing in another where she had thought they had come from. Of course it was Verra's first time in the house too, though the personal connection between them had been a bit stronger than the one between her and Kara, or Kara and Mal. Here and there she stopped to look over one thing or another, distracting herself with various objects. "Ohmygosh, is this real?" She would say as she held up an antique bolt-action that had come from someplace that only her and Malcom would probably know, then it was back where it belonged. The shield rang out a couple times as she tapped on it from the middle of the room. A curious look met his eyes as she held a picture up, almost confused as she compared him to a vintage photograph.
"Unky Dunky knew Eisenhower?!" Her shout came from behind him this time, picking up the portrait from the snow, a trail melting from the intense speed and friction of her motion, then she was back in the living room.
"Hey who's Ray? Is he some kind of wizard?"
"Is this real gold? ow. Yes, that's real."
"Is this your sword? What about this?"
"Holysmokes. That's a big bullet."
"What does this key go to?"
"What about this one?"
"Hey wait, when did Unky Dunky go to Argentina with my mom?"
"Is this a key too?"
"What about…. Nevermind."
"Dog!"
In between her returning the house to something approaching normal she also stopped to pet Sadie repeatedly. As one does, of course. A pet here, a belly rub there, coming at her from multiple directions and showing the doge all the appreciation a good doggo deserves until finally when she came to a stop she was just sitting there beside her and giving her cheek squidges.
That look Vee gave him didn’t at all go unnoticed by the boy, who could do nothing but avert his eyes slightly in a fair bit of regret and shame at the sight of her wettening eyes and quivering lip. Sure, Grandpa Duncan had wanted him to keep a low profile— at least, for now— but between Kara’s omnipresent glare and that look on Vee’s face it was really starting to be driven home that he probably could’ve tried… something... to let his friends know he was very much not dead.
And then there was a wee poke in his chest, and suddenly the old Vee he knew was (mostly) back… and on top of that, she still apparently had the power to make him do shit before he even realized he was doing it, as his hands instinctively left his pockets and came to rest at his belt at her simple command.
And stand up just a little bit straighter as he turned his head back toward her again just in time to register her vanishing back into the house in a blur of red and pink.
Kind of an odd time to be dumbfounded by that— not long after taking that directly to the freaking sternum— but dumbfounded he was as he cast a confused glance at his dog who had the sense to look up at him with a small tilt of her head in a comically ‘Heck if I know.’ fashion before facing ahead again and cautiously as he tried his level best to keep up with Vee being… well, Vee.
Just at a higher Velocity.
It actually brought a smile to his face, truth be told as his earlier anger began to rapidly melt away— Another thing the redhead was still as good at as ever.
Didn’t really help him answer her many questions, though.
”Uhh… yeah.” He answered as the decidedly turbo’d smol zipped around the house plucking up all that old stuff around the place he’d seemingly been conditioned to never pay much thought to and putting them where it looked like they should go. Starting with an old Enfield. ”Grandpa kept it after the war, yer mum actually taught me how to shoot on that thi-”
Aaaand, now she was clanging on the shield.
”H-hey! Careful with that! We don’t actually know how old that i-!”
Another blur, and now it was a photograph in her hands.
”Uhh… Malcolm— the other Malcolm, my great gran-”
And suddenly she was in the backyard, excitedly shouting while holding up one picture in particular.
”Yeah, Ol’ Uncle Ike—” The boy paused for a second to cast a sidelong glance Kara’s way, as if, for the first time realizing just how weird it was to refer to the long-dead President as ‘Uncle Anything. ”—I mean, General Eisenhower bought the house as a wedding gi—”
It was after she abruptly went zooming past him again that Mal decided to just stop trying and park his butt at the kitchen table until she was done. Opting instead to watch in awkward silence, occasionally casting a glance Kara’s way that seemed to scream; [color=orangered]’What, and/or the duck?’ as the girl tore the place apart by paradoxically un-tearing the place apart. Bombarding him with questions the whole while.
Sadie, for her part and being a colossal slut for headpats and bellyrubs, did not mind in the slightest. Taking her sweet time to roll over onto her back between pets to lazily splay about the floor, just in time for Vee to finally stop and give her fuzzy cheeks some love. Leaving Mal to just stare at the pair in a few seconds of comical silence. And then cast his eyes about the place with a raised brow.
’Well… at least the Old Man can’t say I made a mess...’ He thought, until his eyes fell upon the still-broken sliding glass door. ’...Mostly.’
Eyes settling on Kara again, the boy cleared his throat.
Well… the hard part now, where the cluck should he even start?
He rapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds in thought, letting out a little breath as he did so. Casting a glance away from her and down the hallway again, where that other old picture beside his great grandfather’s still hung.
As good a place to start as any, he supposed.
”Well, I guess I should start by explaining that my family’s a little… odd… in that we tend to last a pretty long time” Mal began, pausing a minute to collect his thoughts, before pointing towards that same picture again with his thumb. ”That’s my granddad on the centre-right there, when he was around my age during the First World War.”
He then pointed to another, stuck to the fridge by a magnet showing… a guy who looked to be in his late thirties or early forties that could very well pass as his dad grinning ear-to-ear, lit stogie hanging out of the corner of his mouth and a colossal salmon in his hands.
”...And that’s him three years ago, on a fishing trip up to Anchorage.”
The girl had been about to agree and start moving to fix up the house whenever Verra just went and… Verra’d. Kara could only stare in silence, and slight amazement, as Verra went about the whole ‘cleaning and turbo smoling’ thing. Whenever Malcolm started to explain his family being a little strange, Kara’s eyes narrowed as she thought about how Malcolm had survived the hug from Velocity that very much should have killed him, and how his eyes had seemed to glow earlier. Between his explaining how odd his family was, the strange pieces of history spread throughout the house, and his apparent abilities…. Malcolm was not a normal person. Something that Kara was very quickly starting to deduce, though it was a fairly obvious thing to note. Perhaps it had something to do with why he was ‘dead’ for all that time. Shaking her head, the pink haired girl silently listened to the explanation, wanting to hear more about why he had suddenly up and died, then was magically not dead.
There was still a bit of that same anger evident in the girl’s posture as she watched with arms crossed across her chest, and her face remaining terrifyingly neutral, which was not something she often wore. Though perhaps a clear sign that she was starting to ‘cool off’ was the lack of some sort of sharp comment about getting towards the point, instead following along and keeping her tongue and anger in check.
And though Kara made a good show of keeping from verbally tearing Mal a structurally superfluous new behind, the boy did catch that look on her face. Cutting himself off midway through whatever diversion ramble about the… oddness... of his family he’d caught himself in to let his hand slowly drop down to the table and his eyes to cast down towards the floor. Suddenly looking and feeling rather tired now.
’Well… no way around it, huh?’
He didn’t particularly like thinking too hard on it, truth be told. Even as he contradictingly chaffed against the forced-limbo and monotony that had been his life in the past two months, biting down his restlessness, the rage, and increasing sense of helplessness and uselessness.
He didn’t particularly like thinking too hard on it.
He’d probably go mad if he did.
”Alright, alright… you’re gonna wanna sit down.” Malcolm finally said, resting his head in his hand. ”It’s a long story...”
”...And that’s about when Aunt Mari found me freezing and bleeding to death on the side of a mountain, in my underpants and weighing about a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet.” Mal explained, a faux-amused tone to his voice and a glazed look to his eyes as he stared transfixed to that same spot of floor he’d been for the past hour. ”Three bullets in my gut, four broken ribs in my chest, my left shoulder dislocated, all the fingers on my left hand bent the wrong way, a chunk of bone sticking out my thigh, a crack in my skull nearly an inch wide and a four foot piece of rebar I’d apparently ripped out of my torso embedded in a goddamn tree about thirty feet away from me.”
A small, rueful chuckle escaped the boy at that. As if remembering a particularly bad joke.
”That would be the... second time I died, by my count— Apparently for all that, I still kicked the bucket while my Granddad was carrying me down the mountain.” He added, head cocking to the side a little as he paused and bit his lip in thought. ”...And, apparently, my heart just... started back up again a few hours later... Which I assure you, confuses me a hell of a lot more than it does you.”
Well, that said, he still much preferred his second resurrection to his first; the details of which he’d quite purposefully omitted. Kara’s inquisitiveness or no, that was a particular memory he’d prefer not to revisit any time soon.
Still, keeping his momentum, he carried on.
”After that, I just sorta… got better. Hell, I was back on my feet in just over a week!” Mal continued, pausing for a minute and raising his hand as a physical indication he was trying to piece together the right words… only for it to just flop back down into his lap as he clearly gave up. ”And somewhere in all that, I just started packing on muscle for some reason. And then started hearing things happening miles away, then took a look out the window one day and noticed I could actually see those things happening miles away. And then came the headaches and the hallucinations that I could see through friggin’ walls... though I guess if today’s proved anything, it’s that that’s actually a real thing, too. So it’s been an interesting two months, you could say.”
Letting out a long, tired sigh, Malcolm finally raised his head and looked between his two guests, a decidedly emotionally and physically exhausted expression on his face.
”Any questions?”
After the high-velocity restoration of the apartment to mostly good as new condition, the door still a little off-kilter but hanging in there, Verra had joined her two friends for hearing the full story behind the one's rather impressive resurrection. She had thought of making the joking comment on how one could make a religion about that, but she refrained as while she sat on the floor with a dog's head lazing across her lap, it was clear that reliving all of this was straining Mal. Through everything she remained silent, only nodding to him here and there to show that she was listening through everything and offering a supportive hand on the knee when it seemed that things were particularly rough. By the end of it she had an idea on just how bad he had it, quite a bit worse than Thea it seemed, as at the very least she got out of the same rough spot without dying. Again.
As he came to the end she had very little to comment on, all her questions rather frivolous compared to having a friend back, the second in so many weeks and the reunion honestly was more than she could have hoped for. Perhaps a little more explosive than intended, but he seemed honestly happy to see her and with their last parting words before the train… Well, that was better than the alternative.
"Well." Verra said at last, that slight accent tinting her voice as it usually did in times of emotional stress. "Explains why Mom has been a little more distant lately at least, and why she skipped out on dinner a while back. Though my bet had been on her and Unky Dunky having some kind of thing together, didn't expect it to be them doing a raid on some shadow organization's secret mountain base." There was only a slight pause as it seemed she was done, a playful smile rising up to meet Malcolm as she leaned just a little forward.
"They…. They weren't like nazis were they? Like, actual nazis?"
At that, Mal just levelled an incredulous stare Vee’s way for a few seconds, before a tired little smile slowly snaked it’s way across his features and a little chuckle escaped him.
”No… no, I don’t think so.” He said with a little shake of his head. ”Not fashionable enough.”
The more the boy talked about what had happened to him, the more Kara felt that same black hole in her heart from all those years ago opening back up. She didn’t speak, or seem to have any reaction as she stared in a stunned silence for a long few moments after he finished speaking. Many thoughts tore through the young woman’s head, but the loudest of them was that same one that had been plaguing her. She had caused this suffering. She hadn’t been using the powers she had to save him or the others that dreadful day.
In a sudden move, just after the first tear fell from her face, Kara flashed across the kitchen. In a moment the distance between them was closed, and Mal would find himself wrapped tightly in Kara’s arms. He would also notice they were hovering just off the floor, Kara having stopped their momentum the best she could, yet in return this caused them to gently spin a bit as they hovered. It was at this time, her tear had finally hit the ground where she had stood, and Kara just stayed here hugging Malcolm tightly to herself. Almost as if she were afraid he’d disappear again if she were to let go. ”I’m sorry Mal. I’m so sorry.” Was all she managed to squeeze out with a tortured voice as she shook a bit from her tears. The sudden change in emotion coming from part of her realization she had been unfair to Malcolm, and the other the release of the buildup of emotion from that event which Kara hadn’t let herself feel before. Now? She was simply unable to hold it back as she held him and cried, all the while apologizing but never specifying which sin she had committed and needed to apologize for.
To Mal’s credit, he only managed to flinch a little as he was abruptly glomped at ludicrous speed for the second time that day. Making a surprised little wheezing sound as he was suddenly snatched out of his chair and left hovering a few feet off the floor in the older girl’s embrace, stiffening slightly at the sudden contact before he could really register what was going on.
Then the boy felt something wet on his shoulder, and the slight shaking of her body against his. Finally clueing him into what was happening before the poor girl had even spoken.
’Ah… there she is.’ Mal (perhaps wisely) kept to himself, quietly returning the embrace of the girl he’d known those years ago— who’d apparently finally arrived through her own metaphorical traffic jam of confusion and emotion— after a moment’s (somewhat understandable) hesitation.
”It’s alright, Kara.” He whispered, stroking her back a little and trying to calm her down as she kept on crying and apologizing into his shoulder. ”I’m… fine. You don’t need to apologize, not for this.”
Malcolm would be able to feel the girl shake her head slightly in response to him telling her that she didn’t need to apologize, as they slowly were lowered to once more be standing on the floor. Breaking off the hug, Kara stepped back from Mal as she looked at him with a pained expression. ”It's my fault, Malcolm.” She struggled out, though reading his facial features, she knew he didn’t understand. ”I could’ve saved you Malcolm, I could’ve stopped all of this.” She said, pausing as she seemed to debate something before deciding to just come out with it. ”I’ve always been like this. If I hadn’t been in some fantasy trying to be normal, I could’ve prevented all your suffering right there and then…” The girl said, her features betraying that fear inside of her over how the boy might react that she could have prevented his last two years of suffering. ”I’m sorry.” She choked out once more, before falling silent, having said her piece.
For a moment, Mal just stared at the girl, processing all of what she’d just said, his brow furrowing a bit for a moment as she physically shrank away from him and stared at him with a mixture of guilt and fear as she spoke. For a moment his eyes cast down a bit in thought, tongue running over the teeth in his closed mouth as he mulled how exactly he should respond to that in his head.
Perhaps to the girl’s surprise, instead of anger or some other biting remark, it turned out to be a solitary finger wiping the tears off her cheeks.
”Kara. listen.” The boy said flatly, looking up at her again with a cocked brow. ”...I’ve made more than enough mistakes in my life to know that regret isn’t something to be held onto so tightly.”
That solitary finger on her cheek became a hand on her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.
”I’m not going to fault you for being human.”
She just stood there, staring in silence for a few moments as she wasn’t sure to react. In truth, it was likely because the girl had spent every day since he had died blaming herself for the fact that he had. So, when it came to him actually forgiving her she was simply unable to accept that this was the truth. It stayed this way for a long few moments before Kara finally nodded, accepting that he didn’t hate her. Instead, a different thought found its way forwards. ”Mal? Who did this to you? Who are the people who took you away from us?” She asked, her mind focusing in on that intrusive thought. ”Are there more? Like you? People who need to be taken from there?” She asked, her tone more solemn as she seemed to register how many others might be in that same spot he had been.
Quietly, Mal’s hand slipped off her shoulder as the boy took a step back, flopping down into his chair at the table again and pinching the bridge of his nose in thought.
”I… I don’t really know. They weren’t exactly nametags or anything while I was there.” He admitted after a moment, chewing his lip a little and staring a hole through the floor. Pausing for a moment as his eyes flashed a brief orange and locked on something he apparently found… particularly interesting..., but then snapping upward again to look between his two guests. ”As for any others? They came and went, some I saw a lot, others only once.”
He paused for another second, folding his arms and now outright biting his lip before he continued.
”...But the night Gramps ‘n Mari were breaking in, another group of them decided to break out. And they weren’t exactly that discerning when dealing with anyone or anything in their way. So I grabbed Thea, started running like all hell and, well… I already told you how that one went.” He said, with a little grunt and a pursed lip at his own morbid half-joke. ”So, to be fair, I was a little too preoccupied to notice if anyone else had made it out or not.”
A poignant silence followed that statement, with only the rhythmic happy panting of the big boofer in Vee’s arms to fill the room. Broken only by the crinkling of paper as the boy slowly reached his arm across the table and pulled one of his grocery towards him, eyeing the girls as he did so.
”So, uhh... on another, slightly less depressing note… have either of you had breakfast yet?”
Morning-ish, January 1st
It did not take her long to locate the store she had seen on the news mere moments before. Something which she thanked her rather enhanced senses and photogenic memory for allowing. Still, hovering in the air above the store, she could tell that her… target, was not within the walls. So instead the young heroine closed her eyes and focused on the sounds of the city she had learned to tune out over the years. Eventually, through quite a bit of focusing, she was able to recognize the familiar voice of somebody muttering to themselves. The voice which belonged to her target. In a mere moment, there was a blur in the sky, then in front of the young man just after he set down the dog food to get into his home. The next thing Malcolm would be aware of, he was suddenly high above his house and being suspended in the air by the fabric of his shirt. Before him, a rather beautiful face was contorted in what was clearly rage, eyes glowing bright green in a rather dangerous manner. ”You seem awfully well for a dead man.” She growled dangerously, though there were just barely hints of other emotions in her voice. Particularly those of hurt, pain as might be expected of somebody in Kara’s current position.
Y’know, all in all Mal was having a weird day, all things considered— The dreams, waking up to an unrelenting combined assault by canine struggle-snuggles and nineties pop-rock, that whole damned clusterfuck at Miss Kovalenko’s he was still trying to wrap his head around…
And now here he was, floating over the goddamn city. Staring right down at his townhouse below and the two bags left abandoned in front of his door that’d made the whole adventure worthwhile; one filled with a big bag of dogfood and a metric assload of painkillers, the other as many pastries, meats and Slavic sweets Kovalenko could ram into there with her sledgehammer-like fists… which, as it turns out, was quite a lot.
That aside, the exact microsecond the young man registered the particularly precarious position he’d found himself in, his hands clamped down over those of his apparent attacker in a vice-like grip. Malcolm having no particular faith in his shirt’s ability to take the whole of his weight and no real desire to really stress-test that freaky-deaky endurance he’d been pondering over the last thirty minutes while taking the long way home, either. And then the orange and red returned, and for once he wasn’t too mad about it’s sudden appearance.
...And then he heard her voice.
Any and all thought came to an abrupt halt. His grip loosened, and his hands just sort of slipped down to her wrists, and his head travelled upward where their eyes locked; his own faintly glowing like amber-coloured embers in sharp contrast to the woman’s raging emerald fire.
This whole ‘glowing eyes’ thing really was starting to become a theme in his life.
”...Kara?” The young man responded, much more softly than she had, an initially happy expression giving way to one of confusion, hurt all of his own and then just a bit of sadness as he registered the way she was looking at him. Though his voice didn’t show it… not that he knew what exactly to say here. ”You’re, uhh… flying.”
He had wanted to see his old friends again. Her especially. Thought about it pretty much every day for the past two years.
This was… not quite what he had in mind.
”...It’s good to see you again.”
That one, at least, actually came from the heart. Though by the look of her, he got the impression the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual.
”That’s what you got to say, Malcolm!? You’ve been dead, and didn’t even tell me you were alive! Then you just casually say it’s good to see you!?” She shouted at him, though her eyes seemed to falter and start to fade. As if, somehow, hearing the voice of the boy she had grown a bit fond of all those years ago was managing to cut through the rage she was dealing with. ”Im sorry. I shouldn’t have done… this. Can we try again?” She asked, as her hands moved to support him better than just holding his shirt.
For a moment, Mal’s eyes seemed to glow a little brighter as Kara chewed him out, and his jaw tightened a little; Oh, he had plenty to say about, well, just about all that stuff; where he’d been, what he’d been through, that other time he died… but he bit his tongue and the glow in his eyes faded completely. Which, as it turned out, was a smart move, as the woman who’d had him at her mercy seemed to calm down a little herself.
A low, quiet sigh escaped him at that as he spoke;
”Yeah… I'd appreciate that." Mal admitted tiredly, though his eyes traveled around them briefly with a bit of silent wonder at the fact that, yes they were indeed flying. "I can- I want to tell ya everything; but it's a bit of a... long story. We're probably gonna have to sit down first."
There was a brief pause, before he added, pointing down at the abandoned bags below with just a glimmer of hope on his face.
"...I've got food and stuff too, if ya'd like."
”I… I’m gonna need to get changed first. I don’t wanna go in wearing… this. So, I’ll be back.” She said quickly, before setting Mal back in front of his house, and rocketing away into the sky. It would not even be a full two minutes later that she landed, dressed now in a more casual outfit of a green sweater, and a pair of jeans. She also has her trade mark glasses on as she looked the boy in the eye. ”So, lets go sit down and hear this story.” She said calmly.
Said boy, for his part, just stared up at the sky for a few seconds as his one-time highschool crush set him back down on the ground and then abruptly… rocketed off into the sky to go get changed. Something that, despite the day he was having, still kind of left him just a bit stunned. And maybe just a little grateful, he’d admit, gently rubbing his hands together to get some of the warmth back that the winter air had stolen from them.
...It’d be a little bit awkward trying to explain where that outfit of hers had sent all that blood that’d normally take care of that kinda thing, after all.
Wearily, his eyes scanned the rest of the street, wondering if anyone’d actually seen and let out a little sigh of relief when he found it pretty goddamn empty; a mercy he could probably attribute to half the neighbourhood still sleeping off their New Year’s festivities. Well, save for ol’ Mrs. Hess, who was just watching him from her bedroom window across the road as she did everything on the street.
Sheepishly, he gave her a little wave, even as his thoughts (and senses) turned to the house behind him.
’One pulse?’ The boy physically paused, mid-thought. ’Did Grandpa head out...?’
Not that he would complain, mind you, this would be a hell of a doozy to explain to the old man.
And besides, he realized, shaking his head slightly and letting out another strained sigh as he calmly shuffled his discarded grocery bags well out of the door’s way as Kara touched down again behind him. If what he was hearing inside was true, then he had other things to worry about.
”Alright, jus-”
Mal paused, seeing her again in her new clothes (with the added bonus of not being held up by the damned collar) and felt his cheeks grow a little flushed as some old feelings bubbled back to the surface for a second, before he averted his eyes and awkwardly cleared his throat.
”-Just give me a second, I think you may have tripped the, uhh... security system earlier.”
Honestly that was probably the best way of putting it, he surmised as he slowly climbed up the steps to his porch, unlocked the door, and, bracing himself, slowly pushed it open… only to abruptly catch [i]an enraged black-furred mass of muscle, teeth and claws[i] as it came barreling out of the house at Kara. With eyes seemingly glowing a murderous, ancient crimson as it pushed and thrashed and outright tried to climb over the boy for the chance rip the thing that had dared to even briefly threaten him limb from bloody limb.
The dog, apparently, had taken Kara’s sudden meet and greet a lot more seriously than he had.
”Sadie… Sadie!” Mal shouted, struggling to hold the thrashing, wolf-like creature that was hellbent on protecting her boy by any means necessary in place long enough to calm her down, even as her muscles seemed to bulge as she strained harder and harder to push him out of the way and a snarl that had no real place in the throat of a mere dog echoed out from her throat as she snapped, snarled and swung her claws at the woman behind him, even managing to push Mal back a step. ”It’s okay! I’m okay! She’s a friend!”
The dog paused. Snout and baleful eyes wheeling towards his face again in a way that seemed to scream 'BULLSHIT!'. Then there was a bit of sniffing, as if to make sure he was telling the truth. Then a solitary lick on the cheek as the glow in her eyes faded, her hackles went back down and her tail started a waggin’.
Finally, her legs kicked up as she forced her boy to catch and carry her, resting her muzzle in the crook of his neck and staring Kara down with an expectant look that seemed to demand affection as she lapped at the air in the girl’s general direction.
The MacAodhan house's security system, it seemed, had been disarmed.
Letting out a sigh of relief and then a nervous laugh, Mal turned back towards the girl, dog in his arms and a mildly sheepish, apologetic little smile on his face.
”...Would ya mind carrying the bags? Kinda got my hands full here.”
He asked in a… disturbingly casual fashion, as if this was just a completely normal thing for him.
She was literally bulletproof, and stronger than most things on the face of the planet. Yet, when that dog came surging out with murderous intent, Kara took a large, intimidated step back until Mal got the beast to calm itself down. As the beast seemed to change from kill to ‘I’m fucking adorable please love me.’ in a heartbeat, Sol was very confused. Still, she stepped forwards and gently pet the dog on her head, giving her a pleasant smile before stepping back and picking up the bags Mal left. Then gesturing for him to lead the way, Kara decided to let him lead the way inside.
Readjusting the grip on his dog (who in turn, readjusted his grip on him, after turning it’s attention from licking Sol’s wrist to having another go at the boy’s face, of course) and offering a slightly-muffled ”Thanks.” (again, dog) to the girl as she picked up the bags, Mal finally led the way inside the old townhouse. Stopping a minute to awkwardly shuffle off his boots with one hand while cradling his big boofer in the other.
”C’mon, kitchen’s this way.”
Not saying much else, partly due to focusing on keeping a grip on Sadie as she wiggled incessantly in his grasp as Kara stepped in behind him, intent on getting more headscratches and partly because of the general weirdness of the sudden realization that this was the first person outside his family (barring the Valinovas) he’d ever actually had over. And it just so happened to have been his almost girlfriend from way back in highschool.
Who could apparently fly.
And lift him like a piece of tissue paper.
Strange times all around.
Leading her down the main hall, past a living room in where one could find, among other things, an old Chesterfield sofa, resting atop vintage carpeting from the forties, across from a starkly modern widescreen TV, a glass cabinet containing a small shrine to his mother and father against the wall by the window containing the former’s old police cap, the latter’s green beret and a whole lot of pictures of both their family and professional lives. On the other wall, a downright ancient round shield engraved with a peculiar symbol hung over the fireplace, beneath an old Canadian Red Ensign and flanked on either side by pictures of a smirking Churchill and a grinning Eisenhower, who were themselves flanked with a on the outside by a Union Jack and Star Spangled Banner respectively. With a few other pictures and knick-nacks from that era resting on the mantle beneath it. Up to and including a smaller picture of Patton where, in the corner if someone had a particularly sharp eye, one could make out the words ‘DRINKS ARE ON ME, YOU GLORIOUS SON OF A BITCH!’ scribbled in hasty handwriting and permanent marker. Walking briskly past a few more pictures in the hall, among them a slightly yellowed group shot of a small group of soldiers circa the First World War, all drinking in a bar in Paris, and another portrait from the same era of someone who very strongly resembled someone Malcolm himself might grow to look like, they finally arrived in the kitchen, where Mal carefully set his pooch down, though he made a point of keeping her rooted to the place with some tactical belly rubs.
”You can go ahead and set them down anywhere.” He said, motioning to the room. ”Though I’ll warn ya now, the minute you sit down, Sadie’s gonna be all over you— She loves meeting new people.”
It was actually the first time she had ever even been over to his place, she realized. Seeing as they had done their tutoring at home or V’s place, she had never really been over to Mal’s house. Taking a look around, it was certainly rather well decorated and looked pleasing enough. Certainly not the eldritch horror of necromancy she was halfway expecting when walking into her dead-nearly-boyfriend’s house. Setting down the bags on the table, she did one last turn before stopping and giving Mal a hard look. Quickly, she produced her phone from her pocket and took a picture of the young man, and immediately held up a finger to tell him to wait after the picture.
Going to her favorites, and seeing those texts from Verra, Kara had a single minded goal in her head. Attaching the image to a text, she sent a simple message to her best friend.
Hey V, look who I found today. At his house. Might wanna come hear how he isn’t dead.
She texted, then turned to look at Mal. ”That was V. I think she’s gonna wanna be here to hear how you aren’t dead.” She said firmly, not exactly leaving room for protest in her tone.
---
Meanwhile across the city and over the river a certain someone was still waiting for a text back from another super-powered someone, sitting back on the couch and watching a bit of daytime television. With the exception of a thwarted bank robbery, another thwarted convenience store robbery and a metahuman rally later in the day, it was all rather boring if she was being honest with herself. Normal was boring though, and it was steadily starting to sink in that little bit. Everything was calming back down to the point that she was almost over the fact that her longtime friend had just flown through a bank and a bunch of bad guys. Okay, she was still LeagueSalty over that, but it would pass.
Then her phone buzzed and she was quick as ever to pick it up and see the texts she had just gotten. Finally, a response and maybe even a reason for disrupting her day. Oh. The image on the screen reflected in emerald eyes as she took in what she had just been sent, just about to respond with the rather impulsive congrats to Kara on finding someone that wasn't a sentient garbage heap like her last boyfriend. She paused though, scant seconds passing as she looked at the rather confused guy's face and started to put things together. He was a bit buff but the resemblance was rather uncanny…
A few things happened once it finally clicked. First, the phone left Verra's hand as she let go in surprise, excitement surging through her body just like the energy that had cursed her to an extraordinary life. Then she was up and in her bedroom, changing into something that wasn't basically pajamas and as most of her wardrobe had sadly needed to be, rather friction resistant. Jeans, pink t-shirt and running shoes back on she was out the door and had it closed with the alarm set before the phone had moved even a centimeter. Kara's text had only just loaded and been marked as sent for a few seconds when faster than anything, much less any person had any right to move, the third member of their high-school trio came bounding into the room.
One step through the threshold, foot pressing firmly into the floor to propel the second forward, and then planting a full ten feet from Malcolm to send the girl into a hypervelocity tackle-glomp aimed directly for him.
Mal had barely even processed what the previously-flying girl had said before the dog that’d been oh-so-contentedly wiggling on the floor under his belly-rubs abruptly froze in place, staring down the hall towards the front door in pure canine confusion. Prompting the boy to follow her gaze as something… odd... began hammering in his ears.
’Are those… footsteps?’ He thought, slowly getting to his feet.
It was the only warning he got.
Before an all-consuming ’BOOM!’ thundered in his ears and something came slamming into his chest at speeds approaching Mach Turkey. Knocking him well off of his feet, into the air and straight through the sliding glass doors leading to his small backyard and directly into the trunk of his grandpappy’s prized apple tree.
As well as cracking a few of his ribs, if the [i]’Crunch![‘/i] in his ears was any indication.
Hissing a little as he came sliding down the solid trunk behind him to flop on his ass in the snow, leaning up against the trunk, he remained mostly silent— save for a few ragged breaths escaping him as those cracked ribs began to snap and grind together as his body got to mending itself.
”...What in the godda-”
He finally managed to rasp out, but stopped as he opened one eye and caught sight of what, or rather who was clinging to him right now.
A shaking hand rose to lift a bit of scarlet hair out of the way, as if to confirm what he was looking at. It’s opposite coming to rest on the girl’s shoulder. Experimentally. Seemingly to check that she was, indeed, real.
Though his ribs had mostly mended by then, his breathing became even more ragged when he found both to be true. A slight tremble started at the corner of his mouth, one of those shaking hands sliding down from her shoulder to her back, the other finding its way behind her neck as, without further warning, he wordlessly pulled her into as tight an embrace as he possibly could without snapping her in half. Burying his face into her collarbone, shaking all over and actually sniffling a little, if your hearing good enough to hear it, as he finally received (via hypersonic delivery) what he’d probably really needed after all this time and all he’d been through…
A hug.
The moment, however, passed. As Sadie, true to form came trotting through the snow from whence they’d both been defenestrated. Not in her full-blown murderous rage as she greeted most intruders mind you— having caught Vee’s familiar scent before she’d even broken down his door— but cautiously tip-toeing her way toward the pair to take a few investigative sniffs of the girls face… then a few licks.
As good a time as any to regain his composure, Malcolm reasoned quickly as he snorted a little and got back to his feet, lifting the redhead back onto her’s as well with all the effort it would take a normal person to lift a piece of tissue paper and setting her down about an arms length from him, but still keeping his hands on her shoulders, before the big black fuzzball could get any other ideas and tackle them both with excessive use of her tongue and wet dog smell.
Clearing his throat and quickly wiping something from his eye, He finally spoke;
”Vee... I…”
The words died in his throat as he caught sight of the state of the house behind her— the broken doors, the picture frames in the hallway now laying on the floor, those groceries he’d had to go through all that crap for laying strewn about the place— and his brain began to register what exactly had just happened. What had all led to it happening.
That headache of his began to start up again, and a fiery orange glow began to burn in his eyes, brighter than before as he for the first time during this whole affair, he started to look a little angry as his eyes turned Kara’s way.
”...I think it’s fair to say that I’m owed a few explanations myself, ain’t it?”
On the big list of reactions that she had expected to see out of Verra, slamming into Malcolm with a hug that just about would’ve killed most people was firmly not on the list. Which of course, raised even more questions in Kara’s mind as she focused in on the fact that not only was Malcolm alive, he was getting back up. Seeing the way his eyes started to glow and he seemed a bit angry looking at her, her own eyes seemed to light up a bit with their own green glow. ”Watch it, Malcolm. You’re the one who was ‘dead’ all these years.” She said in a firm tone, a hint of the girl’s own flash temper that both parties were well aware of inching its way into her tone. ”I didn’t know she would charge in like that, but you still owe us an explanation on how you’re not ducking dead.” She said firmly, crossing her arms and looking a bit like she was once more starting to reign in that anger that always seemed to rip through her with a certain ease.
To this, Malcolm’s brow furrowed and he felt his lungs instintctively take in a sharp breath. A sign that his own ire that, while not as famously explosive as Kara’s, was a known force of nature all its own for its sheer focus and depth, was beginning to rouse. As some particularly unkind words for the blonde-turned-pink haired girl began to form in the back of his throat. Well… until his hands, still on Vee’s shoulders, almost started to involuntarily clench, stopping the second he registered the resistance of her skin. His train of thought came to an abrupt halt as his eyes snapped back to the girl before him to check that he hadn’t accidentally popped her arms off or anything crazy like that. Biting his lip a little in irritation all the same, even though she looked fine.
If there was one thing in the world he’d rather not accidentally break with his… oddness, it was probably his oldest friend.
Letting out a low, calming sigh and allowing his hands to fall off the redhead’s shoulders and into his pockets, he looked to the ground for a moment of thought, before looking back up between the two again as he spoke.
”I was dead. Died at least twice, in fact. And I’ll be happy to tell you all about it.” He said, in a flat, but still clearly irritated tone. ”After you help me clean up.”
He cocked his head to the side slightly at the girl still inside his house, as he added.
”That sound fair to you?”
All things considered she was more than fine. At the very least she had taken the revival of a close friend far better than the other, to the point she seemed unphased by the laser-eye high noon showdown she was stood squarely between. Unphased wasn't quite correct though. Seeing him again after the rather… Emotional last conversation they had, and the few days to follow that had revived many of those same feelings that she thought she had come to terms with. Just the slightest quivering of her lip, watering of the eyes and a reddening of her face began until she caught herself, taking a breath and nodding slowly.
He wasn't going to hear the full emotional explosion, not right now even with how badly she needed to unload it all, but she wasn't going to go all injustice arc on him either. Instead she reached up and gently prodded at him as she used to do when he put his hands in his pockets, showing that she was just fine.
"Hey, what did I say about hands in pockets?"
While there was a little bit of that emotion roiling just under the surface showing in her tone, evidence that she was working hard to keep from just gushing right then and there, she had that same cheer that he should have remembered. Then quickly she realized what had happened in her rush to see him. That slow turn as she looked back to see the chaos of a sonic boom contained within a house very much not built to withstand such forces.
"Right… Sorry, I got a little caught up in the moment… I'll just…"
The moment that last word left her lips she was gone again, this time at a much more controlled speed. A rush of wind swirled around them and the living room, objects disappearing from one place and reappearing in another where she had thought they had come from. Of course it was Verra's first time in the house too, though the personal connection between them had been a bit stronger than the one between her and Kara, or Kara and Mal. Here and there she stopped to look over one thing or another, distracting herself with various objects. "Ohmygosh, is this real?" She would say as she held up an antique bolt-action that had come from someplace that only her and Malcom would probably know, then it was back where it belonged. The shield rang out a couple times as she tapped on it from the middle of the room. A curious look met his eyes as she held a picture up, almost confused as she compared him to a vintage photograph.
"Unky Dunky knew Eisenhower?!" Her shout came from behind him this time, picking up the portrait from the snow, a trail melting from the intense speed and friction of her motion, then she was back in the living room.
"Hey who's Ray? Is he some kind of wizard?"
"Is this real gold? ow. Yes, that's real."
"Is this your sword? What about this?"
"Holysmokes. That's a big bullet."
"What does this key go to?"
"What about this one?"
"Hey wait, when did Unky Dunky go to Argentina with my mom?"
"Is this a key too?"
"What about…. Nevermind."
"Dog!"
In between her returning the house to something approaching normal she also stopped to pet Sadie repeatedly. As one does, of course. A pet here, a belly rub there, coming at her from multiple directions and showing the doge all the appreciation a good doggo deserves until finally when she came to a stop she was just sitting there beside her and giving her cheek squidges.
That look Vee gave him didn’t at all go unnoticed by the boy, who could do nothing but avert his eyes slightly in a fair bit of regret and shame at the sight of her wettening eyes and quivering lip. Sure, Grandpa Duncan had wanted him to keep a low profile— at least, for now— but between Kara’s omnipresent glare and that look on Vee’s face it was really starting to be driven home that he probably could’ve tried… something... to let his friends know he was very much not dead.
And then there was a wee poke in his chest, and suddenly the old Vee he knew was (mostly) back… and on top of that, she still apparently had the power to make him do shit before he even realized he was doing it, as his hands instinctively left his pockets and came to rest at his belt at her simple command.
And stand up just a little bit straighter as he turned his head back toward her again just in time to register her vanishing back into the house in a blur of red and pink.
Kind of an odd time to be dumbfounded by that— not long after taking that directly to the freaking sternum— but dumbfounded he was as he cast a confused glance at his dog who had the sense to look up at him with a small tilt of her head in a comically ‘Heck if I know.’ fashion before facing ahead again and cautiously as he tried his level best to keep up with Vee being… well, Vee.
Just at a higher Velocity.
It actually brought a smile to his face, truth be told as his earlier anger began to rapidly melt away— Another thing the redhead was still as good at as ever.
Didn’t really help him answer her many questions, though.
”Uhh… yeah.” He answered as the decidedly turbo’d smol zipped around the house plucking up all that old stuff around the place he’d seemingly been conditioned to never pay much thought to and putting them where it looked like they should go. Starting with an old Enfield. ”Grandpa kept it after the war, yer mum actually taught me how to shoot on that thi-”
Aaaand, now she was clanging on the shield.
”H-hey! Careful with that! We don’t actually know how old that i-!”
Another blur, and now it was a photograph in her hands.
”Uhh… Malcolm— the other Malcolm, my great gran-”
And suddenly she was in the backyard, excitedly shouting while holding up one picture in particular.
”Yeah, Ol’ Uncle Ike—” The boy paused for a second to cast a sidelong glance Kara’s way, as if, for the first time realizing just how weird it was to refer to the long-dead President as ‘Uncle Anything. ”—I mean, General Eisenhower bought the house as a wedding gi—”
It was after she abruptly went zooming past him again that Mal decided to just stop trying and park his butt at the kitchen table until she was done. Opting instead to watch in awkward silence, occasionally casting a glance Kara’s way that seemed to scream; [color=orangered]’What, and/or the duck?’ as the girl tore the place apart by paradoxically un-tearing the place apart. Bombarding him with questions the whole while.
Sadie, for her part and being a colossal slut for headpats and bellyrubs, did not mind in the slightest. Taking her sweet time to roll over onto her back between pets to lazily splay about the floor, just in time for Vee to finally stop and give her fuzzy cheeks some love. Leaving Mal to just stare at the pair in a few seconds of comical silence. And then cast his eyes about the place with a raised brow.
’Well… at least the Old Man can’t say I made a mess...’ He thought, until his eyes fell upon the still-broken sliding glass door. ’...Mostly.’
Eyes settling on Kara again, the boy cleared his throat.
Well… the hard part now, where the cluck should he even start?
He rapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds in thought, letting out a little breath as he did so. Casting a glance away from her and down the hallway again, where that other old picture beside his great grandfather’s still hung.
As good a place to start as any, he supposed.
”Well, I guess I should start by explaining that my family’s a little… odd… in that we tend to last a pretty long time” Mal began, pausing a minute to collect his thoughts, before pointing towards that same picture again with his thumb. ”That’s my granddad on the centre-right there, when he was around my age during the First World War.”
He then pointed to another, stuck to the fridge by a magnet showing… a guy who looked to be in his late thirties or early forties that could very well pass as his dad grinning ear-to-ear, lit stogie hanging out of the corner of his mouth and a colossal salmon in his hands.
”...And that’s him three years ago, on a fishing trip up to Anchorage.”
The girl had been about to agree and start moving to fix up the house whenever Verra just went and… Verra’d. Kara could only stare in silence, and slight amazement, as Verra went about the whole ‘cleaning and turbo smoling’ thing. Whenever Malcolm started to explain his family being a little strange, Kara’s eyes narrowed as she thought about how Malcolm had survived the hug from Velocity that very much should have killed him, and how his eyes had seemed to glow earlier. Between his explaining how odd his family was, the strange pieces of history spread throughout the house, and his apparent abilities…. Malcolm was not a normal person. Something that Kara was very quickly starting to deduce, though it was a fairly obvious thing to note. Perhaps it had something to do with why he was ‘dead’ for all that time. Shaking her head, the pink haired girl silently listened to the explanation, wanting to hear more about why he had suddenly up and died, then was magically not dead.
There was still a bit of that same anger evident in the girl’s posture as she watched with arms crossed across her chest, and her face remaining terrifyingly neutral, which was not something she often wore. Though perhaps a clear sign that she was starting to ‘cool off’ was the lack of some sort of sharp comment about getting towards the point, instead following along and keeping her tongue and anger in check.
And though Kara made a good show of keeping from verbally tearing Mal a structurally superfluous new behind, the boy did catch that look on her face. Cutting himself off midway through whatever diversion ramble about the… oddness... of his family he’d caught himself in to let his hand slowly drop down to the table and his eyes to cast down towards the floor. Suddenly looking and feeling rather tired now.
’Well… no way around it, huh?’
He didn’t particularly like thinking too hard on it, truth be told. Even as he contradictingly chaffed against the forced-limbo and monotony that had been his life in the past two months, biting down his restlessness, the rage, and increasing sense of helplessness and uselessness.
He didn’t particularly like thinking too hard on it.
He’d probably go mad if he did.
”Alright, alright… you’re gonna wanna sit down.” Malcolm finally said, resting his head in his hand. ”It’s a long story...”
”...And that’s about when Aunt Mari found me freezing and bleeding to death on the side of a mountain, in my underpants and weighing about a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet.” Mal explained, a faux-amused tone to his voice and a glazed look to his eyes as he stared transfixed to that same spot of floor he’d been for the past hour. ”Three bullets in my gut, four broken ribs in my chest, my left shoulder dislocated, all the fingers on my left hand bent the wrong way, a chunk of bone sticking out my thigh, a crack in my skull nearly an inch wide and a four foot piece of rebar I’d apparently ripped out of my torso embedded in a goddamn tree about thirty feet away from me.”
A small, rueful chuckle escaped the boy at that. As if remembering a particularly bad joke.
”That would be the... second time I died, by my count— Apparently for all that, I still kicked the bucket while my Granddad was carrying me down the mountain.” He added, head cocking to the side a little as he paused and bit his lip in thought. ”...And, apparently, my heart just... started back up again a few hours later... Which I assure you, confuses me a hell of a lot more than it does you.”
Well, that said, he still much preferred his second resurrection to his first; the details of which he’d quite purposefully omitted. Kara’s inquisitiveness or no, that was a particular memory he’d prefer not to revisit any time soon.
Still, keeping his momentum, he carried on.
”After that, I just sorta… got better. Hell, I was back on my feet in just over a week!” Mal continued, pausing for a minute and raising his hand as a physical indication he was trying to piece together the right words… only for it to just flop back down into his lap as he clearly gave up. ”And somewhere in all that, I just started packing on muscle for some reason. And then started hearing things happening miles away, then took a look out the window one day and noticed I could actually see those things happening miles away. And then came the headaches and the hallucinations that I could see through friggin’ walls... though I guess if today’s proved anything, it’s that that’s actually a real thing, too. So it’s been an interesting two months, you could say.”
Letting out a long, tired sigh, Malcolm finally raised his head and looked between his two guests, a decidedly emotionally and physically exhausted expression on his face.
”Any questions?”
After the high-velocity restoration of the apartment to mostly good as new condition, the door still a little off-kilter but hanging in there, Verra had joined her two friends for hearing the full story behind the one's rather impressive resurrection. She had thought of making the joking comment on how one could make a religion about that, but she refrained as while she sat on the floor with a dog's head lazing across her lap, it was clear that reliving all of this was straining Mal. Through everything she remained silent, only nodding to him here and there to show that she was listening through everything and offering a supportive hand on the knee when it seemed that things were particularly rough. By the end of it she had an idea on just how bad he had it, quite a bit worse than Thea it seemed, as at the very least she got out of the same rough spot without dying. Again.
As he came to the end she had very little to comment on, all her questions rather frivolous compared to having a friend back, the second in so many weeks and the reunion honestly was more than she could have hoped for. Perhaps a little more explosive than intended, but he seemed honestly happy to see her and with their last parting words before the train… Well, that was better than the alternative.
"Well." Verra said at last, that slight accent tinting her voice as it usually did in times of emotional stress. "Explains why Mom has been a little more distant lately at least, and why she skipped out on dinner a while back. Though my bet had been on her and Unky Dunky having some kind of thing together, didn't expect it to be them doing a raid on some shadow organization's secret mountain base." There was only a slight pause as it seemed she was done, a playful smile rising up to meet Malcolm as she leaned just a little forward.
"They…. They weren't like nazis were they? Like, actual nazis?"
At that, Mal just levelled an incredulous stare Vee’s way for a few seconds, before a tired little smile slowly snaked it’s way across his features and a little chuckle escaped him.
”No… no, I don’t think so.” He said with a little shake of his head. ”Not fashionable enough.”
The more the boy talked about what had happened to him, the more Kara felt that same black hole in her heart from all those years ago opening back up. She didn’t speak, or seem to have any reaction as she stared in a stunned silence for a long few moments after he finished speaking. Many thoughts tore through the young woman’s head, but the loudest of them was that same one that had been plaguing her. She had caused this suffering. She hadn’t been using the powers she had to save him or the others that dreadful day.
In a sudden move, just after the first tear fell from her face, Kara flashed across the kitchen. In a moment the distance between them was closed, and Mal would find himself wrapped tightly in Kara’s arms. He would also notice they were hovering just off the floor, Kara having stopped their momentum the best she could, yet in return this caused them to gently spin a bit as they hovered. It was at this time, her tear had finally hit the ground where she had stood, and Kara just stayed here hugging Malcolm tightly to herself. Almost as if she were afraid he’d disappear again if she were to let go. ”I’m sorry Mal. I’m so sorry.” Was all she managed to squeeze out with a tortured voice as she shook a bit from her tears. The sudden change in emotion coming from part of her realization she had been unfair to Malcolm, and the other the release of the buildup of emotion from that event which Kara hadn’t let herself feel before. Now? She was simply unable to hold it back as she held him and cried, all the while apologizing but never specifying which sin she had committed and needed to apologize for.
To Mal’s credit, he only managed to flinch a little as he was abruptly glomped at ludicrous speed for the second time that day. Making a surprised little wheezing sound as he was suddenly snatched out of his chair and left hovering a few feet off the floor in the older girl’s embrace, stiffening slightly at the sudden contact before he could really register what was going on.
Then the boy felt something wet on his shoulder, and the slight shaking of her body against his. Finally clueing him into what was happening before the poor girl had even spoken.
’Ah… there she is.’ Mal (perhaps wisely) kept to himself, quietly returning the embrace of the girl he’d known those years ago— who’d apparently finally arrived through her own metaphorical traffic jam of confusion and emotion— after a moment’s (somewhat understandable) hesitation.
”It’s alright, Kara.” He whispered, stroking her back a little and trying to calm her down as she kept on crying and apologizing into his shoulder. ”I’m… fine. You don’t need to apologize, not for this.”
Malcolm would be able to feel the girl shake her head slightly in response to him telling her that she didn’t need to apologize, as they slowly were lowered to once more be standing on the floor. Breaking off the hug, Kara stepped back from Mal as she looked at him with a pained expression. ”It's my fault, Malcolm.” She struggled out, though reading his facial features, she knew he didn’t understand. ”I could’ve saved you Malcolm, I could’ve stopped all of this.” She said, pausing as she seemed to debate something before deciding to just come out with it. ”I’ve always been like this. If I hadn’t been in some fantasy trying to be normal, I could’ve prevented all your suffering right there and then…” The girl said, her features betraying that fear inside of her over how the boy might react that she could have prevented his last two years of suffering. ”I’m sorry.” She choked out once more, before falling silent, having said her piece.
For a moment, Mal just stared at the girl, processing all of what she’d just said, his brow furrowing a bit for a moment as she physically shrank away from him and stared at him with a mixture of guilt and fear as she spoke. For a moment his eyes cast down a bit in thought, tongue running over the teeth in his closed mouth as he mulled how exactly he should respond to that in his head.
Perhaps to the girl’s surprise, instead of anger or some other biting remark, it turned out to be a solitary finger wiping the tears off her cheeks.
”Kara. listen.” The boy said flatly, looking up at her again with a cocked brow. ”...I’ve made more than enough mistakes in my life to know that regret isn’t something to be held onto so tightly.”
That solitary finger on her cheek became a hand on her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.
”I’m not going to fault you for being human.”
She just stood there, staring in silence for a few moments as she wasn’t sure to react. In truth, it was likely because the girl had spent every day since he had died blaming herself for the fact that he had. So, when it came to him actually forgiving her she was simply unable to accept that this was the truth. It stayed this way for a long few moments before Kara finally nodded, accepting that he didn’t hate her. Instead, a different thought found its way forwards. ”Mal? Who did this to you? Who are the people who took you away from us?” She asked, her mind focusing in on that intrusive thought. ”Are there more? Like you? People who need to be taken from there?” She asked, her tone more solemn as she seemed to register how many others might be in that same spot he had been.
Quietly, Mal’s hand slipped off her shoulder as the boy took a step back, flopping down into his chair at the table again and pinching the bridge of his nose in thought.
”I… I don’t really know. They weren’t exactly nametags or anything while I was there.” He admitted after a moment, chewing his lip a little and staring a hole through the floor. Pausing for a moment as his eyes flashed a brief orange and locked on something he apparently found… particularly interesting..., but then snapping upward again to look between his two guests. ”As for any others? They came and went, some I saw a lot, others only once.”
He paused for another second, folding his arms and now outright biting his lip before he continued.
”...But the night Gramps ‘n Mari were breaking in, another group of them decided to break out. And they weren’t exactly that discerning when dealing with anyone or anything in their way. So I grabbed Thea, started running like all hell and, well… I already told you how that one went.” He said, with a little grunt and a pursed lip at his own morbid half-joke. ”So, to be fair, I was a little too preoccupied to notice if anyone else had made it out or not.”
A poignant silence followed that statement, with only the rhythmic happy panting of the big boofer in Vee’s arms to fill the room. Broken only by the crinkling of paper as the boy slowly reached his arm across the table and pulled one of his grocery towards him, eyeing the girls as he did so.
”So, uhh... on another, slightly less depressing note… have either of you had breakfast yet?”
