“Karrie, you look great,” Nico says for the hundredth time in an hour, rolling her eyes as she untangles one of Karolina’s earrings from her hair. “Stop worrying so much.”
Karolina barely hears her over the blood in her own ears, swept up in the nerves and anxiety of basically meeting her orphaned girlfriend’s parents. Or, really, since neither of them have parents that weren’t evil and murderous and left them with a lot of baggage to clean up, the actual parents of Nico Minoru—Jennifer Walters and Carol Danvers. The people that had taken care of her when they had gone their separate ways, the people that had held her as one of their own while all their other friends were figuring out who they were without each other—the people that had taken care of her when no one else had, and when Nico had had to find her own way in the world.
So maybe Karolina’s a little bit obsessed with impressing them. Why wouldn’t she be—it’s a meet-the-parents night, only instead of parents, she’s meeting Captain-fucking-Marvel, She-Hulk, Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans, and also motherfucking Dazzler—like, Dazzler. The girl that Karolina has a tee shirt of and a poster hanging over her bed. The Dazzler. Alison Blaire. Karolina might literally throw up.
So, yes, she’s nervous—and nervous doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“I’ll believe you when my eyeliner’s even,” Karolina says, raising the pen again to the corner of her eye. Nico’s lip quirks.
“You’re meeting my friend, not fucking, like—”
“Carol Danvers?” And Jennifer Walters. And Dazzler. And literally everyone else.
Nico shrugs. “Okay, so you’re meeting Carol Danvers. Which is, yeah, kind of a big deal. A little. I don’t know, she’s really a lot more chill than you think.”
Karolina snorts, carefully filling out the wing she spent six minutes outlining. “I dunno, I don’t think I can walk up to someone that saved the whole universe, like, six times at least and just be like, ‘hey, I’m Karolina, I triggered an interplanetary war and also I dropped out of college because I got a girlfriend.’”
Nico shakes her head. “You did not drop out of college because of me.”
“Kinda?”
“You dropped out because you realized college was unfulfilling to the life you actually wanted.”
“Can’t that also be a reason?”
Nico laughs, short and actually amused, something Karolina loves to hear and loves even more to be the cause of.
“Regardless, she’s cool, I promise. Actually, she’s basically just… a wine aunt. A very cool, sometimes overbearing, morally upright wine aunt that also has Kree superpowers.”
“So, like, Michelle Obama?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Karolina sighs, evaluating her eyeliner—first one side, then the other. “I’m gonna die.”
“You are not going to die,” Nico says sternly. “You are going to be awesome and impress everyone there except for Medusa. But that doesn’t matter, because she’s a bitch.”
Karolina giggles a little, feeling her nerves relax somewhat. Maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe she won’t make an utter fool of herself. Maybe having Nico there will help calm her, help her stay sane, just like anywhere else. Having Nico always keeps her centered, anyways, and she’s so, so grateful that she’s not meeting Carol Fucking Danvers by herself. Especially since, somehow, she’s the famous girlfriend, but Nico knows all the cool people.
Which is whatever, Karolina guesses. Knowing cool people is a lot of pressure, anyways—she’d be awful at it.
“America’s gonna steal my girlfriend so hard,” Nico mutters, seemingly to herself, and Karolina leans back in her chair to look up at Nico with a confused expression. Nico smiles, and God, she’s so cute. Karolina might kiss all of her makeup off before they even get to game night—which would be a shame, because she looks even cuter with the new, dark red lipstick that they bought just earlier that day.
“Have I told you I love you? Because I do.”
Nico shakes her head. “I love you, too, Kar—let’s get going, okay?”
Karolina whines. “I haven’t even finished.”
“Hurry up.” Nico leans down to press a kiss to Karolina’s forehead. “We’re late.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it—Carol’s probably too busy peeling Medusa off the wall to notice.”
Nico says it so casually, so indifferently, and it’s just baffling to Karolina that somehow, at some point in time, Nico lived with these people—she loved them and worked with them and grew bonds with them to the point that the two of them had flown out to New York just to watch them beat the shit out of each other.
Well, hopefully not that last thing—but from Nico’s descriptions of her old teammates, that’s probably what’s going to happen by the end of the night. Karolina just hopes she won’t be in the middle of it.
“Give me just a second to change.”
Three outfit changes and a short Lyft later, Karolina finds herself face to face with a completely normal apartment building, and she’s surprised, for some reason.
“This is where Jen lives?” Karolina asks, dumbfounded. It’s a lovely grey building that stretches a lot taller than her West Coast brain usually tries to comprehend, so she probably looks like a tourist, squinting to see the top.
“Yeah. It’s a nice place, I hear.” Nico’s looking at her phone, sticking her tongue out and making a face. “Oh, great, America’s bringing someone, too.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” Nico shows Karolina whatever she’s looking at on her phone, which, after a moment, Karolina parses out messages in what seems to be a group chat titled ‘gAy-Force.’ “Which, cool, but also she better not be rude.”
Karolina shrugs. “I’m already meeting, like, five people. Might as well make it six.”
Nico counts silently on her fingers for a second. “Six, so seven.”
“Whatever.”
Nico takes Karolina’s hand, and together they walk into the building. “I trust America’s taste in people, actually, so this will be fun. Also, I can’t wait to see Singularity again—I wonder if she still has that bow I got her…”
Karolina lets Nico lead her up the three flights of stairs to an unassuming apartment door, listening to Nico describe Singularity and America and other names she doesn’t remember, but Nico seems to be happy, for once, so she just listens. Nico’s just mentioning something about how Singularity’s hair was kind of the same as what Karolina’s does when she’s glowing, when someone gets kicked—literally—through the front door just as Nico is about to knock.
“Oh, hey, Medusa,” Nico says, toneless and flat—which would be fucking hilarious if Karolina hadn’t jumped three feet into the air as soon as the door burst open, and is still trying to calm her heart rate down.
“Nico Minoru,” Medusa replies, surprisingly calm for someone who was just ejected through a wooden door at terminal velocity. “It’s wonderful that you could make it.”
Nico rolls her eyes. “It’s not even eight, yet—Jen must be feeling extra petty tonight.”
“Quite the contrary. I believe she’s in a—what did she call it?—festive mood.”
Karolina’s brows shoot up. “What’s the occasion?”
“Beating the shit out of Medusa Day, actually,” says a voice from inside the apartment, whose owner peeks out through the door. Her brown hair tucked back into a bun and glasses contribute excellently to her ‘do not fuck with me, ever, unless you want to get your ass b-e-a-t’ vibe going on, and Karolina has to admit—she’s digging it. “We’re having a party.”
“Don’t be crass, Jennifer,” Medusa says, picking herself up from the floor with a lot more dignity than Karolina ever thought possible. She sounds more than a little miffed, which is a hell of a lot more understandable.
Jennifer—Jennifer Walters—rolls her eyes. “Hey, Nico—oh! You must be Karolina.”
Nico waves with the hand that isn’t tangled with Karolina’s, and Karolina swears her heart jumps right out of her throat and onto the floor, running as fast as it can away from this shitfire that’s about to start.
“Hi, um—yeah, that’s me. I’m Karolina.”
God. She’s gonna bang her head against a counter later. Luckily, Jennifer gives her an understanding, if a little amused, smile.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. Come inside—we don’t bite.” Jennifer gives Medusa the side-eye. “Don’t let the shit at the front door intimidate you.”
“Yes, they’re always this bad,” Nico whispers to Karolina, just as Karolina was turning to ask. Which is fine—Karolina doesn’t know if this is better or worse, actually, that she’s getting to see them being normal human beings.
Well, they’re not normal. They’re superheroes. But that’s neither here nor there.
Karolina trails behind Nico as she starts up a friendly conversation with Jennifer—’so, what have you been up to?’ ‘oh, not a lot, just getting my life back in order,’ ‘did anyone ever teach you how to do taxes?’—and she’s just beginning to wonder how she’s going to survive the night at all when someone bumps straight into her, spilling wine all down Karolina’s front, soaking the shirt that she spent twenty minutes picking out.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry,” blurts the shorter blonde, bubbling over with apologies and rushing to make amends. “It was an accident, really, I don’t know how I didn’t see you—”
“It’s okay,” Karolina says, stepping back and only then realizing that the person spilling wine on her was Alison, Alison Blaire, Dazzler, and she’s wondering if it would be weird to just point-blank ask her for an autograph. And also she might throw up because that’s Alison Blaire in front of her and she has red wine soaking her white shirt top to bottom.
“God, this is such a terrible first impression—I’m Alison Blaire—”
Karolina’s just deciding whether or not to cry, introduce herself back, or excuse herself to get some paper towels or something, when Jennifer places her hand on Alison’s shoulder.
“You really haven’t changed, have you?” Jennifer rolls her eyes, and Alison flushes. Jennifer waves her off. “Can you grab the poor girl some paper towels, before anyone else scares her off?”
“She can do whatever she wants,” Karolina blurts, unthinking and probably more than a little rude, then immediately flushes red, realizing what she said. “Or—or—”
Jennifer laughs. “Oh, don’t let her reputation fool you—she’s a klutz. And sweet, too—you’ll like her. And at any rate, I’m sure no one wants to have wine spilled on them.”
“And you shouldn’t let those underaged drink, anyways,” says a voice that Karolina doesn’t place, but as soon as she sees the owner of, it makes complete sense. Of course Carol Danvers looks like that, of course she sounds like that, and of course Karolina thinks she might pass out because this is too much, too much all at once and too much to deal with consciously, or at least soberly, but preferably not at all.
So instead of anything coherent, she just says, “Are you kidding? I came for the drinks.”
Which is mortifying to say, especially to a room full of people whom Karolina would dump out hundreds of drinks for the chance to meet them, and even worse considering that Carol looks disappointed in her and oh, God, she should just kill herself right now because the only thing worse than Carol Danvers knowing she exists is Carol Danvers being disappointed in her.
“Lighten up, Carol,” Jennifer chuckles, even though Carol’s mouth is still in a stern line and Karolina might light herself on fire. “I’m a responsible host.”
Karolina sees Carol’s mouth twitch in what must be amusement, or maybe she’s getting ready to kill Karolina for being so stupid, so entitled, so arrogant, before Carol sighs, smiling, holding up her free hand in mock defeat, the other hand raised but more carefully since it cups the bottom of a still-full wineglass.
“Have it your way, Walters. Nice to meet you…?”
Carol trails off, and Karolina nearly leaps out of her skin when she realizes Carol is looking at her.
“Karolina! I’m Karolina Dean.”
Carol’s eyes light up. “Oh! The girlfriend. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”
God, if Karolina thought she was going to pass out before.
“Well, still good to meet you. Have fun, and—” Carol claps her on the shoulder. “Relax.”
Leaving Karolina shaken and dizzy, Carol walks off to mingle with Nico and the blonde—Alison—that Jennifer had sent for paper towels just a few minutes ago, which Karolina would be annoyed by, except for the fact that she doesn’t care anymore, at all, about anything. She can die, right now, and she’d be okay with that.
“Oh, my God, that was Carol Danvers,” Karolina mumbles, still getting her bearings. Jennifer laughs.
“You get used to it. She’s got a great head on her shoulders.”
Karolina shakes her head. “I don’t know how I’d ever get used to this.”
“Well, you know, we were all like you, once.” Jen’s lips purse, looking thoughtful. “It took me a while to get my stripes, too.”
“No offense, really, but I’m not into the whole superheroing gig.”
Jennifer shrugs. “I don’t think any of us are. You kind of realize, once you figure out you have powers, or you’re an alien, or mutant, or whatever—that you have a choice. You can use what you’re given, you can take your gifts and you can make a difference—” Jennifer sips her wine. “Or you don’t. And it’s your choice.”
And with a life-jarring bit of profound wisdom, Jennifer Walters throws Karolina a wink and begins to walk off. “Enjoy yourself, Karolina. Loosen up.”
Karolina shakes her head—Nico really wasn’t kidding when she said they were normal people, but they were also… not. The A-Force, Nico’s old teammates—whatever she wanted to call them, Karolina was starting to think that she’d tripped into a dimension filled with wise sages that have three thousand million years of experience, and she’s still a toddler that barely understands her own power, let alone deciding what to do with it.
She hadn’t lied—they’re not into superheroing. Mostly, ever since she got her powers, she and the other runaways have just… run away. The superheroing only ever really happened on accident, or as a side effect to what they were really trying to do. Sometimes—and only sometimes—they sought it out on purpose, but it’s so hard to avoid when you’re a group of superpowered teenagers with strong moral compasses.
“Hey, babe.” Nico’s hand skims over Karolina’s arm as she leans her head against Karolina’s shoulder. “You survived Carol, huh?”
“And Jen,” Karolina hums, leaning to press a kiss to the side of Nico’s forehead. “I’m two for two so far.”
Nico snorts. “You’re doing fine. Do you want a drink?”
“I’ll get one in a bit.”
Nico shrugs noncommittally. “We don’t have to stick around for long if you don’t want to—you should meet America and Singularity though. And I kinda want to scope out America’s girl…” she trails off, a rare mischievous glitter in her eyes. Karolina can’t help but melt a little at how alive her girlfriend looks, how full she is.
Karolina twists the hand that Nico tangled with her own a little tighter, pretending to be deep in thought. “You know, we did spend a lot of money on plane tickets for this.”
“Your money.” Nico sticks her tongue out. “You know I can’t afford to just drop everything to leave to New York on a whim.”
“Like I can.”
Nico stares at her, eyebrow arched in incredulity. “Babe, no offense, but you paid for college, which is already way more than I can afford.”
“It was literally one year.”
“So, still, like, twenty thousand dollars, at least.”
Karolina frowns. “Whatever. Yes, we can thank my rich, evil, dead parents for this sweet gig where I get to watch your old teammates beat the shit out of each other.”
Nico laughs, short and sharp and definitely loud enough to make at least one person look in their direction, but Karolina doesn’t really care, and besides, they all knew they were dating anyways. It’s not like looking at Karolina and Nico enamored with each other is going to confirm anything they didn’t already know.
“I love having a rich girlfriend that can take me on vacation.”
“I think you want a sugar mommy.”
Nico shakes her head. “No, I’d definitely have to shoot, like, twenty years older. And a lot richer.”
“Well, excuse me and my wallet then—”
Nico grins at her and plants a quick kiss to Karolina’s lips. It’s warm and tingly and everything Karolina wants in the moment, but maybe later she’ll ask for a few more.
“Hey, quit making out, we’re about to play Scrabble!” Alison, perched on the back of Jennifer’s couch, throws an Oreo at them, which thunks against the side of Nico’s nose. Nico whips around to glare at her, and Karolina can’t help but giggle, even if her heart flutters at the idea of Dazzler throwing a cookie at them. But Nico and everyone else had told her to relax, so she’s going to relax. Act cool. Act like she’s not making impressions on people whose opinions of her she values greatly and would probably jump out of that window if even one person in the room disapproved of her.
“Get off the back of the couch.” someone else throws an Oreo at Alison, and it seems to shock her so badly that she jerks backwards and crashes to the floor unceremoniously. Karolina hears the sound of a high-five and a ‘nice shot, princess.’
“We’re not throwing Oreos,” Jennifer says, calmly, but not before she gets hit with at least three of the cookies. “Unless you want to volunteer to vacuum.”
“Ay, no fun,” pouts a tall, lean, and very, very attractive girl, dressed in a cropped red hoodie with stars on it, and a pair of jeans that hug her hips so well that Karolina has to actively try not to stare. Combined with a necklace that proudly flashes the word ‘dyke’ in curly, pink and white letters, Karolina can safely conclude that this must be America Chavez.
Sitting next to her on the floor is a girl that looks familiar to Karolina—but she can’t quite put her finger on it. Her outfit is much too beachy to be local—her shirt alone is breezy with a deep neckline, and her purple shorts are frayed enough to be a few years old. Also, there’s bandages all over her face. Karolina can count at least four, as well as two bruises, and one cut just dried and uncovered.
She leans against America’s legs, her feet splayed out in a wide V. She looks relaxed, comfortable, even, with a literal coffee mug filled with wine, judging by the stain on one side of her chest, in one hand while she picks her teeth with her fingernail on the other.
“It’s Jen’s apartment,” Carol points out from where she’s sitting on the other side of the couch (it’s a large couch—the kind that has a corner and spans, like, a million thousand miles), braiding the hair of what looks like a girl literally made out of a galaxy—Singularity. “Her roof, her rules.”
“So next time, we do this at my place,” America says easily.
“That is no easy task, given that you have no permanent residence,” Medusa says. America shrugs.
“I have a planet?”
“We’re not having the next game night on Fuertona, America,” Alison says, flicking an Oreo at her, then shirking from Jennifer’s withering glare. “What? she started it.”
“Not an excuse.” Singularity shakes her head, and Carol frowns like it interrupts her braiding—which it probably does. Karolina imagines it’s hard enough to braid cosmic matter. “Cookies are not weapons. They are for… digesting.”
“How is Blue more grown up than all of you?” Jennifer sighs, probably remembering the reason the team broke up in the first place.
Nico tugs Karolina over to sit on the end of the couch, Karolina on the very end next to the armrest, and Nico curled into her side, tangling their hands together. It’s a little out of character for Nico to be so openly expressive about their relationship, especially since it’s new and she’s never been into PDA in the first place—but Karolina finds she doesn’t mind being shown off in the slightest. Even if she’s wondering what the hell Nico thinks she’s showing off to all of her super powered friends that have done way cooler things than she has.
“We see you, Minoru,” Alison snorts, while Medusa carefully peels open a still-wrapped box of Scrabble that she was only assigned to do because of her long and pointed nails. Nico sticks her tongue out at her.
It’s a fun side of her that Karolina enjoys seeing ever so rarely—the relaxed, lighthearted part of her that can tease and make fun with the best of them.
"I'm gonna kick ass at this," Nico mumbles. "My whole thing is words."
"Don't underestimate experience, kid," Carol says, sparing them a glance. "I was a spelling bee champ."
"Let the game begin!" Medusa finally tosses aside the shrink wrap to reveal a pristine scrabble board, the small, wooden tiles falling into a pile on the table.
"Do you know how to do anything normally?" America complains. Medusa gives her a withering glare.
"Forgive me for deigning to tarry with such foolish matters. You may usher the proceedings, should the chance come again."
Karolina wonders how old this woman is, or at least what dimension she popped out of, to be speaking like a medieval queen on the execution block.
"Not the best with words. Will just watch." Singularity shakes her head again just as Carol finishes off her braid with a pink bow. Her hair doesn't end in the braid—it keeps swirling and flowing beyond it, but who would've guessed that space could be woven so neatly?
"I can spell two words and two words only--'pizza' and 'hysterectomy.'" Kate takes another sip out of her mug that Karolina now sees has a small cartoon of a dog painted on the side. She pauses, smacks her lips loudly, and continues: "I'll play."
“You can't even read." America rolls her eyes, but Karolina doesn't miss the fond quirk of her lips.
"I'm reading the situation right now, and it says that I'm gonna kick their asses and you're gonna give me fifty five bucks when I do." Kate grins with some cheesy and sweet, but still childishly evil look in her eyes. America shakes her head, clicking her tongue.
“Oye. I’m not paying for your license application.”
“And you’re not kicking anyone’s ass,” Nico says, with an unusual air of confidence about her that makes Karolina’s brows raise. “Because I’m kicking Carol’s ass, and there’s only room for one ass-kicker.”
“How about this—” Kate sets down her wine mug on the wooden floor next to her, carefully, then leans forward and props her elbows on the coffee table—a silver triangle necklace that Karolina hadn’t seen before flashes in the lamplight. “You kick Carol’s ass, and I kick your ass. It’s like a conga line, but ass-kicking instead of dancing.”
“Stop.” Carol rubs her temples. “Stop saying the word ass—you’re teaching Blue bad words.”
“Ass.” Alison flicks a scrabble piece at Kate—who flicks it back with startling accuracy, clocking her square between the eyes and causing Alison to yelp in surprise—and probably pain. Medusa sniffs in disgust.
“The crudity of humans never ceases to amaze me.”
“Ass.” Jennifer throws it pointedly at Medusa, and then clears her throat. “Anyways, so, Nico, Carol, Kate… that’s room for one more. I’m gonna just eat and watch, I think, or start up a game of cards on the kitchen table.”
“I’ll play with you, Jen,” Alison says, mouth full of popcorn that she already somehow found and began eating between getting pelted with scrabble tiles and shouting curse words. “Have you taught Blue Go Fish yet?”
“I wanna watch Princess get her ass kicked,” America volunteers. “You have fun.”
Jennifer rolls her eyes, standing up and gesturing to Singularity. “Do you want to play cards with us, or watch them?”
Singularity pauses for a moment, seeming to decide. “Cards with friends. Too scared of pieces as weapons—and fighting.”
Alison snorts. “There will be a lot of that, Blue—come on.”
Karolina watches as Carol leans over to begin setting up the scrabble board—handing out the tile holders and arranging all of the pieces facedown on the table next to the playing field.
“You still wanna kick ass?” Karolina asks, more teasing and amused than genuine, and Nico smiles—she’s been doing a lot of that, this evening, and it’s been so refreshing to see. It’s a wonderful change of pace from being back at home, in Los Angeles, where she’s so stressed and tired and worried all the time that Karolina hardly gets to see her smile. Here, she’s unwound, decompressed, and much less concerned with making horrible decisions that result in everyone around her being brutally murdered.
Well—Nico herself might get brutally murdered by the wine-drunk Princess Hawkeye, but Karolina’s at least confident that she wouldn’t go down without some hair-pulling.
“Hell yeah.” Nico slides ten tiles into a pile in front of her as Carol and Kate do the same, facedown and impartial so that they can set their tiles into their trays and begin the game.
“Kicking your own mom’s ass? Harsh.” America clicks her tongue. “The kids have no respect these days.”
“I know, right.” Carol picks up her wineglass and takes a sip. “It’s like they want me to just hurry up and die so they can cash out on my life insurance.”
“To be fair, that was always the plan,” Kate says, squinting at the tiles she just finished placing carefully into their spots, then picks one up and turns it. “Oh. Now it’s a letter.”
America, who has finally moved from her position of leaning casually against the wall and is now sitting behind Kate with her arms around Kate’s waist, her chin on Kate’s shoulder as she squints at the board, says quietly, “It’s upside-down.”
“Is it?”
America makes a grunting noise. “Godspeed, princess. Godspeed.”
“Who’s going first?” Nico asks, sitting up and away from Karolina’s side, making her miss her girlfriend’s warmth almost instantly.
“Mother knows best,” Carol says, one corner of her mouth turned upwards—so she can smile. she pauses for a moment, clearly thinking, before she carefully arranges five letters in a straight line: ‘water.’
Kate makes a whining sound. “I can’t read upside-down.”
“I thought you couldn’t read at all?” Nico asks, nonchalant and calculating—this side of her is fun, too—the way she analyzes like she’s observing a battlefield. Karolina knows better than to be the target of such cold calculating, though—no one would ever catch her dead playing her own girlfriend in a deadly game of Battleship.
Nico picks two tiles up, safely, and arranges the word ‘way.’ “Your move, princess.”
“It’s Kate.” Kate squints, frowning. “Bishop, if you must—though I hate that a lot more and would probably have to kill you over it.”
“Princess is my mean nickname.” America’s nose crinkles.
Kate picks up three tiles and sets them at the end of Nico’s word—‘yeet.’
“That’s not a word.” Nico frowns. “You can’t just make up words.”
“It is a word, and even if it wasn’t, English is entirely made-up words.” Kate crosses her arms, leaning back into America’s chest. The expression on America’s face—the resignment, the mild disgust, the fondness beneath it all—it’s hilarious. And it’s even funnier that Nico looks so ticked off about it.
Carol’s fingers press to her temples as she stares at the board. “Kate, can you get me a dictionary definition of… ‘yeet?’”
“No,” Nico says, at the same time that Kate reaches into her shirt and pulls (presumably) her phone out of her bra, a cute little purple arrow charm dangling off the bottom of it—she swipes to unlock it and begins typing rapidly.
“Carol, she can’t—you know she can’t—” Nico protests, but Carol says nothing, and Kate’s face lights up.
“Yeet. Y-e-e-t, verb. To discard an item at a high velocity—example: Alex finishes his soda and proceeds to yeet his empty can into a trash bin.” Kate clicks her phone off triumphantly, sticking her tongue out at Nico.
Nico rolls her eyes, and Karolina can’t help but snicker a little bit at the way she huffs and says, “Okay, whatever—Carol, it’s your turn.”
The corner of Carol’s lip twitches, but she calmly picks up two letters and makes the word ‘tea.’
The rest of the game continues like that—at some point, Alison’s phone fills the apartment with loud, funky, dance-y music that makes Karolina want to get on her feet and light the whole place up in a light show, tugging Nico into a swing, or a two-step, or something loose and free and completely unchoreographed that ends in kisses, ends in the sweet taste of Nico’s lips against her own, ends in love and gasping breaths and sheer bliss.
Also, Kate keeps making up words to add onto the board, which is continually both frustrating and annoying Nico—it’s a little funny, honestly, but Karolina’s pretty sure some of these were just created on the spot by Kate looking sideways at her tiles and squinting a little.
Kate puts her pieces into a line, spelling out the word ‘tumor.’ “I think I win.”
Carol studies the board for a moment, leaning over it and carefully calculating. Karolina watches, waiting—waiting, because the second Carol says that Kate won, she knows Nico is going to snap her jaw shut, too fed up to protest the idea that someone so unruly and… well, feral—could beat her at her own game.
“Everyone count your points, I guess.”
“I can’t count, either,” Kate volunteers. “Also, I forgot which words were mine.”
“That’s easy,” Nico grumbles. “Just pick all the cuss words and genitalia out.”
“I only wrote penis once,” Kate complains. Nico’s brows raise, and the entire time, Carol slides her tiles, one by one, over to her own side to count her points up.
“I’m pretty sure you can’t do the same word twice,” America points out.
“Yeah, otherwise I would’ve done it again.” Kate leans back into America’s chest. “I followed the rules.”
“Technically,” Nico says, seeing now that Carol has finished counting her tiles and is leaning against the couch, sipping her wine and texting. “How many, Carol?”
“Two hundred and ninety.” Carol finishes tapping out her message and glances up at Nico, swirling her glass. “What about you, munchkin?”
“Three hundred,” Nico crows, obviously proud of herself. Karolina leans over a pecks her cheek, warm and fuzzy from a beer that Alison handed her, but mostly just love and pride at watching her girlfriend absolutely devastate at Scrabble.
America frowns, glancing between her phone calculator laid flat on the coffee table and Kate’s pile of scrabble tiles. “Princess got three hundred and fifteen.”
Karolina blinks once, twice, because she believes it—Kate’s words had been excessive and streetwise, but spelled correctly and otherwise perfectly acceptable. Nico, however, looked like she was about to boil over in frustration, or disgust, or sheer rage, or possibly all three.
“Three hundred and seventy five,” Carol echoes, her voice flat and unamused “Well, I’ll be.”
“Be beat, bitch,” Kate says, leaning back with her tongue stuck out like a bratty five year old, which is pretty funny, actually—or it might be funny, if Nico wasn’t squinting at her like a dog deciding how best to attack.
“How did you win that?” Nico asks, incredulous. “I—You spelled penis.”
“Almost twice.” Kate frowns. “I think having penis on there twice would’ve been so funny.”
“You—you—” Karolina watches as Nico’s face scrunches up tighter and tighter. “You barely followed the rules.”
Kate shrugs. “I’m not much of a rule follower, I gotta say. They just kinda… suck and get in the way. Everything’s way better with house rules and an ‘okay, fuck it, whatever’ attitude.”
“That’s not how you play! Where’s the strategy?” Nico’s hand flexes on the table as she hits it—not hard, but hard enough that Karolina notices, her frustration evident. “You’re supposed to think about it—to feel some kind of… satisfaction when everything comes together and you win.”
Kate’s nose wrinkles. “Plans? Couldn’t be me.”
Nico sighs, sitting back, palms up in defeat. “Okay. Whatever.”
Carol, glass now empty in her hands, glances back and forth between the two of them, the two idiots with some clear unresolved tension that no one wants to speak aloud. “So… are you done?”
“Guess so.” Nico takes Karolina’s hand again, thumb drawing circles restlessly on Karolina’s palm.
“Ay. I want a drink, and I wanna beat the piss out of Katiecat at Mario Kart.” America stands up, stretching—Karolina watches as Kate makes a pouting face when America moves her warmth from Kate’s back.
“I see Princess has been retired,” Kate remarks, holding out her mug. “Can you refill this for me?”
“Sure, princess.” America plucks the mug out of a disappointed-but-secretly-pleased Kate (Karolina knows what that looks like, she’s made the exact expression herself many times), swirling it as she peers into the bottom of the glass. “What the fuck was in this?” She asks, holding the mug to the side, looking accusatory. Kate shrugs. America makes some disgusted noise, tilting it further back so she can see to the bottom of the glass. “I think that’s lipstick. And mud.”
“Just pour more in,” Kate groans, pouting. At the same time that America finally relents, walking off to the kitchen with her lip curled in a disgusted look, Alison bounces over from their now-ended game of poker.
“Jen kicks ass at poker,” she declares, someone less enthusiastic than would be expected from someone that literally bounces everywhere. “It turns out it’s hard to see your opponent’s poker face when she’s green.”
“Don’t be rude,” Jen says, still seated at the table. Medusa is nowhere to be seen—presumably, she had her ass handed to her and is now pouting somewhere about being defeated by a lower class citizen than her. Or something like that. “You still owe me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alison says, waving her off nonchalantly, her other hand clutching a glass full of white wine tipping deeply enough to make Karolina’s neck hairs stand up. A few droplets spill out of the edge and splash Nico, who glances upwards with a murderous look in her eyes—how much of that is actually aimed at Alison, and how much is leftover from Kate, Karolina couldn’t say. Either way, Nico might attack someone right now and Karolina doesn’t want to be in the line of fire.
“I’ll get Mario Kart set up,” Nico says, before Karolina can duck away into the kitchen to either get a glass of vodka or call a Lyft—she wasn’t done deciding. Nico looks up at her, big grey eyes looking a little pleading, like a puppy, her bottom lip poking out in a pout. “Can you get me something to drink?”
Karolina barely has to lean down to kiss her girlfriend’s forehead. “Yeah. What do you want?”
“Whatever you get,” Nico mumbles. “And we won’t be here too long if you want to get out of here.”
“You look like you want to leave more than me,” Karolina remarks, her thumb idly running over Nico’s forearm.
“No, I wanna beat that smile off of Kate’s face.” Nico shakes her head. “And have a victory kiss, or something, afterwards.”
“With Kate?” Karolina laughs. “I think you might be taken up, babe.”
“So’s she.” Nico winks, laughing, and climbs up off of the couch to finally get the Wii set up. Karolina watches for a moment, appreciative of the overalls and cropped sweater Nico had decided to wear, her short black hair pulled into the tiniest ponytail in the world. Sometimes she wonders how she got so lucky.
And then the moment’s over, so Karolina stands up and finds her way back into the kitchen that she entered the apartment in, empty save for America and Singularity.
“Hey, Blue,” America’s saying, as she pours at least three shots of Grey Goose into Kate’s mug—Karolina hadn’t watched her pour any mixers in there, either. Fun. “You being treated right?”
“Friends are nice. Treat me good.”
“Bueno. You know who to call if you need a punch, you know.”
Singularity’s head cocks quizzically. “Carol is very strong. So is Jen.”
America smiles—it’s the same endeared look that she’s been giving Kate all night. Karolina watches as she drops maybe a tablespoon of cranberry juice in the mug, swirling it around with her finger and then licking it off with a pop.
“Carol and Jen are cool, too. They’ve got you covered.”
“Not covered. Nico gave me a dress, before. Too itchy.”
“Hey, Free the Nipple is a very powerful movement.” America sniffs the coffee mug concoction that she’s created, muttering to herself: “I’m sure that’s mud in there.”
“‘Scuse me,” Karolina mumbles, finally getting up the courage to squeeze past America to the wine glasses on the top shelf in the cabinet behind her.
“Hey! Karolina, right?”
Karolina nods, ignoring the knot of nerves that has since reappeared since Nico left her on the couch. “Yeah. Karrie is cool, too, if you want.” She picks the two glasses closest to her and sets them down on the counter, surveying her options before her. Jen has a pretty well-stocked bar—Karolina spies the Grey Goose America was pouring, as well as two kinds of rum and six wine bottles. She opts for the sangria in the back.
“Friend,” Singularity says, seemingly to herself, affirming, before she wanders off to sit with Jen at the table again. Karolna and America watch her walk off for a moment.
“Nico told me a little about you,” America says, staring into the mug, swirling it a little. She sniffs it again.
“Oh?” Karolina’s brow raises while she unscrews the lid on her selected bottle. “Do tell.”
America shrugs. “The usual shit. ‘She makes me happy’ and blah blah. Did wax-poetic a little about your thighs—”
Karolina flushes red—god. She’s not dealing with this, not now, not to the person standing next to her that has more chiseled abs than her own and legs that look like they could crack melons.
“Here I was, thinking I was nothing to write home about,” Karolina mutters, intent on pouring and not spilling her drinks.
“Chica, no,” America sighs. “Don’t get feelings-y on me.”
Karolina laughs, a little, finishing pouring the second glass. “I’m not.”
“Good, cause damn, Nico’s got taste.”
Karolina glances up, a little startled, brows through her hairline and she’s sure her mouth is a little agape—and America laughs.
“No, no, I’m not—” America coughs. “I’m not trying to pick you up, promise.”
Karolina shakes her head. “Are all of Nico’s friends like this?”
America’s eyes roll dramatically as she snorts a laugh. “Have you met Alison? Girl seduces anything that moves.”
“Kate looks the same way,” Karolina comments, keeping her voice carefully neutral—she doesn’t miss the surprise that flicks across America’s features before they resume a posed, nonchalant expression.
“She kind of is. Gets into more trouble than she can handle.” America tuts once, twice. “But she’s still kicking.”
“She must mean a lot to you.”
Karolina leans back on the counter, sipping her glass. Jen picked out a good mixture—Karolina’s going to have to remember this when she gets back home. Chase would probably love this.
America looks over the counter into the living room—Karolina follows her gaze, spying Kate, still sitting on the floor. Her hair is down from its bun that it had been tied in, obviously tangled and a little greasy. She looks like she might be missing a tooth whenever she talks, and her nose is crooked from being broken, once—one of her band-aids is peeling off of her cheek, revealing a mottled yellow and purple knife slash across her cheekbone.
Despite looking like she just crawled through a dumpster and fought a raccoon for her dinner, America has a soft look in her eye, the kind that comes from real love—the kind that you don’t even let yourself see, because looking it in the eyes means being small, means being vulnerable in yourself, means knowing what it is to have something to lose.
“I hate her,” America says after a long moment. “I hate her so much.”
The corner of Karolina’s mouth quirks in a sympathetic smile, and America looks back at her, eyes narrowed.
“Don’t talk feelings.”
“Wasn’t planning on it, chief.”
“Good.” America looks away again. “Not a lot of people get away with it.”
Karolina gives her a mock salute that looks a little more like a wave, but it gets the message across: Heard and received.
“I tried to kiss Nico for the first time when we were sixteen,” Karolina says, quiet, hoping she’s not stepping too far. The memory still hurts, a little, but not nearly as much as it used to. “She told me she wasn’t into girls.”
America snorts. “Well, clearly something happened.”
Karolina shrugs. “Everyone goes through it different. I just kind of always knew, but I think a lot of people have to go through that journey.”
America’s head shakes in disbelief. “I experimented, but coming from a no-boys-allowed planet, well—let’s just say no one’s surprised.”
Karolina lets herself laugh at that.
Kate wins every single game the rest of the night—surprising everyone, but most of all, herself. Even absolutely trashed over the vodka and wine she’d had—and Karolina was watching, too—she managed to pummel Nico in pretty much every game they played together, from Mario Kart to Pictionary to Catan.
Mostly, Karolina just watches. She knows from experience how dangerous it would be to get in between Nico and winning, especially since it looked like she was starting to form a blood feud with the purple archer girl that sat across from her at the table, picking her nails and tying cherry stems with her teeth. Every game lost made Nico’s undereye twitch and a loud sigh to escape her chest, usually followed by Kate sticking out her tongue and saying something stupid and gloaty.
Karolina knows that, legally, as Nico’s girlfriend, she should hate Kate Bishop. But also, she’s kind of cute, and it’s just really, really funny to watch them argue.
After a lost game of charades, Monopoly, and then Smash, the final insult to injury seems to strike when Alison, Nico, America, Jen, and Kate are well into a game of Uno.
Karolina knows better than to take Nico on in any kind of card game, but especially Uno. It’s a devastating kind of destruction, the kind that makes Karolina throw her cards down in defeat and wonder if this is her punishment for being gay and in love. Nico’s strategizing is a brutal end for anyone, but judging by the poisonous look that Nico keeps throwing at Kate over her hand, it might be a special kind of eviscerating tonight.
Except that isn’t happening. Kate’s cards are haphazard, poorly planned, and obviously so lacking in any pattern that Nico’s just squinting and squinting with a scowl on her lips, one side curled up in disgust and concentration, watching as Kate’s hand grows less and less as everyone else’s grows more and more.
Nico’s hand is dwindling, too—slowly but surely. It’s a long game, too—a kind of systemic destruction that Nico is enacting on everyone else, a planned and painful death especially for the princess seated across from her.
Nico drops her last card. “Uno,” she says smugly, and Karolina’s already more interested—she actually won a game for the first time that night?
Jen looks annoyed, Alison looks devastated, America looks a little irritated but mostly nonchalant—Kate, though, looks unbothered. Karolina watches as Kate slides one of her cards out from her hand and drops it on the table: +4.
Nico’s glare is contemptuous, but even she plays by the rules, so she starts to take the cards from the stack in the middle, when Kate slides another card out of her hand and drops it. Another +4.
“Okay, now I don’t think you can stac—” Nico’s protests are silenced by another +4 dropping onto the table. And another. Every time a card flutters onto the glass-top table, it sounds like Karolina’s jaw dropping lower and lower, and it sounds like Nico’s resolve drawing thinner and thinner, until at the end of it, Kate has played four +4’s and Nico looks like she really might attack her.
“Okay, now I’m done,” Kate says, after the dust clears and those that survived the apocalypse are still gathered. “Also, Uno, I think.”
She does have one card left.
Nico shakes her head in disbelief, obviously furious. “Can she—can you—can you even do that? How did you do that?”
Kate shrugs. “No one else knows what I’m doing. Even I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Karolina watches as Nico inhales, holds it for a few moments, then exhales. In and out, deeply and repeatedly. Karolina reaches out and brushes her hand against Nico’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Karolina mumbles, but trails off as she realizes Nico’s completely tuned out of her—it’s a shock, to say the least.
“Did you even read the rulebook?” Nico asks, her fingernails drumming on the table.
Kate’s nose crinkles up. “No?”
Nico’s hands press to her temples, looking exasperated. “Do you even know how to play?”
“I don’t even know what we’re playing.”
“Okay, let’s not fight—” Alison starts, but a glare from Nico makes her wither in her spot.
“How is it that you can just breeze through these without even knowing the first thing about them?”
“Beginner’s luck?” Kate’s chapped lips are quirked in a smug smile. “Really, gothie, it’s not a huge deal. I am the multitalented Hawkeye, after all.”
“It’s a little bit of a huge deal,” Nico snaps. “You don’t even know what you’re doing.”
Karolina knows that tone—it’s not about the games anymore. It’s a direct question aimed at Kate’s own competency.
Kate scoffs. “If you think I’m not perfectly capable, you’re so, so wrong.”
America looks at Karolina, shaking her head slowly—she’s really, really not.
“Breezing through on luck doesn’t keep you alive forever.” Nico shakes her head. “And if you don’t know what you’re doing, people die.”
“Whoa, Nico,” Jennifer says, standing up. “It’s Uno.”
Nico’s lips draw into a thin line. “But it’s true.”
“Do you want to fight, or something?” Kate asks, leaning back and taking a huge swig of her near-empty mug. “Like, I can meet you in the Arby’s parking lot. Or wherever else.”
“What, you’re gonna poke me with your glorified toothpicks?” Nico rolls her eyes. Kate’s own narrow, and it looks like Nico might have finally touched a nerve.
“These glorified toothpicks have done way more for L.A. than you have.”
Nico’s eyes narrow. “My bad for assuming that a rich brat from New York couldn’t possibly have a vigilante alter-ego.”
“One: I’m not rich.” Kate leans back, arms crossed and obviously pissed, now. “I got cut off. Two: I’m not a vigilante. I’m a superhero.”
“Oh, so you like cosplaying and beating up people without giving them due process.” Nico flicks a cracker off of the table, and Karolina sees the smugness of the curve of her lip, and she must know that she’s touched a nerve, so she’s pushing it as hard as she can.
Karolina feels like she might be the only one seeing the waterfall that this kayak of an argument is heading towards.
“They’re criminals,” Kate protests. “And I don’t kill people.”
“So you just leave them? For other criminals to kill, or rob, or find and drag back to their lives? Doesn’t sound very justice-y.”
“I happen to know a Detective—”
“Oh, I bet she loves you. I bet she falls on her knees asking for your help.”
“Okay, what is your damage?” Kate slams both palms on the table, obviously snarling, now.
“My damage is that you have no idea what you’re doing, and you’re doing more harm than good, but you love playing dress-up so much that you refuse to see it.” Nico sits back, her legs jaunted and nose high. “And you just put more people in danger.”
“Well, at least I try, instead of running away from my problems like a coward.” The words taste like venom in the air.
Nico shoots to her feet, murder in her eyes and a smell for blood—Karolina’s too frozen to move, too shell-shocked to actually try and stop the inevitable.
“Don’t you dare act like you know what I’ve been through,” Nico warns, low.
“Everyone’s been through shit.” Kate pretty much spits. “You get over it.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying to me,” Nico pretty much spits. “I died because of this superheroing shit, and I’m sick of idiots like you thinking that this is a fun game, or a gig you can do for money. It’s dangerous, and people die.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve watched my friends die in front of me?” Kate sounds almost hysterical, hissing the words out with so much animosity that she sounds like a cornered raccoon—the bite comes next, and Nico should probably stay on her toes. “I’ve followed my friends into hell and back because of their dumb asses, and I’ve held people in my hands while they died—”
“Maybe they wouldn’t have died if you weren’t so goddamn incompetent!”Nico shouts, her lips curled up and eyes hot with both tears and anger, and Karolina watches the pin drop, drop, drop.
Kate lunges across the table, claws first—her nails are chipped and broken off, but Karolina can see how dirty and ragged they are even from her position still on the couch, breath bated. The cards and wine glasses are just collateral damage, scattering in every direction as Kate and Nico crash to the floor, two tiny, tiny girls that are somehow so, so full of violence.
There’s incoherent screeching, words Karolina can’t make out, and biting, somehow—she’s instantly on her feet, bracelet snapped off and ready to move, to fight, to get Nico out of there. If Kate cuts her, this could escalate far beyond just a couch scuffle.
She’s almost as fast as America.
Just as Karolina’s in the air, kicking herself off and streaking the couple of feet between her and the fight happening on the floor, America swoops downwards (Karolina didn’t even know she could fly—what is it with lesbians and flying, anyways?) and grabs Kate by the armpits, lifting her up—which probably would’ve worked fine, if she wasn’t koala-grasped onto Nico’s back, biting her shoulder with intensity.
Karolina twists around, grabbing Nico’s waist and tugging her away until they’ve successfully separated Nico and Kate—both of them looking worse for wear. Kate’s many Band-Aids have been mostly ripped off, a couple hanging off of her skin by a hair, her greasy hair pulled out of its bun and falling in dirty strands around her face. Her lip is bleeding with a fresh cut, and it looks like it might’ve been Nico’s earring that sliced it.
Nico herself has a chunk of hair on the floor, as well as a quickly swelling eye and a non-bleeding scratch running the length of her cheek, give or take a few bite marks.
America holds Kate at arms’ length. “Ay, cariña. You’re embarrassing.”
Kate just blows out a breath, only interrupted by a short hiccup.
“No more Goose,” Nico grumbles. “Bad idea.”
Karolina floats her gently back to the ground, her thumbs pressing into Nico’s cheeks the second her toes touch the floor. “Are you okay?”
Nico grumbles something unintelligible, probably petty, and Karolina frowns at her, trying hard to throw disapprovement in her eyes, but failing miserably since she’s still mother henning.
Carol, who had been in the kitchen, suddenly appears next to Nico and Karolina, looking furious.
“I can’t believe you—you’re supposed to be responsible—level-headed—” Carol’s scolding is loud and fast and harsh, but the entire time, she’s turning Nico’s arms over looking for cuts, and twisting her head around to look at her neck, and thumbing over the marks on her shoulders, lips pursed in concern.
“I mean—” Jen starts, shrugging, until Carol throws her a glare.
Medusa, who was sitting on the couch calmly sipping a glass of wine during the entire fight, turns the page of her magazine, barely glancing upwards. “If it makes you feel any better, Minoru,” she pauses to take a sip, “my money was on you.”
“Only because Kate had, like, six drinks.” Jen argues. “And that’s before I lost count.”
“Please.” Medusa rolls her eyes. “A powerful witch like Nico? None of her enemies stand a chance.”
“We’re not enemies,” Nico mumbles and promptly receives a swat from Carol.
“Quiet, you.”
Karolina watches as America leans into Kate, doing pretty much the same thing that Carol’s doing to Nico. She hears a murmured, “You’re such a dumbass, princess.”
Kate wears a fond smile as America’s thumb brushes over the cut on her lip. “That’s kind of my job, you know.”
Karolina recognizes the eyes-too-quickly-looking-away, the furtive corners of lips turned upwards, the tiny blossom of hope that’s still delicate, still small, still learning how to bloom—she recognizes it, but she still wonders, for a moment, just exactly how. And then America’s hand falls away, and she sees the flash of disappointment cross Kate’s features before resuming her previous disgruntled expression, and she knows it, knows it by name, knows it by heart.
And she gets the sense that she’s intruding on them, so Karolina looks somewhere else, anywhere else. Nico’s still being smoothed over in the corner by Carol, who’s now receiving unwanted coaching from Alison at the dinner table with Singularity, carefully building triangle houses out of playing cards.
“You know—” Carol interrupts Alison, shooting Jen a glare. “None of this would’ve happened if we just hadn’t brought out the alcohol.”
Jen snorts. “There’s a hundred reasons why this would happen. America brought Kate, Nico showed up, I really doubt there’s much else to say.”
“What does that mean?” Nico grumbles, a now-appeared ice pack on her chin.
“It means,” and Jennifer jabs a thumb at Kate here, “That she was literally designed to get under your skin. Seriously—nobody else ticks you like that, Nico.”
Karolina can think of a few examples that come close—but Jen’s right. Kate seems to be the embodiment of everything that gets on Nico’s nerves.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess?” Kate’s brows, slightly bloody, raise high. “I’m particularly talented at being annoying.”
“Among other things,” America mutters.
Nico rolls her eyes and looks at Karolina. “Never let her meet Gert.”
“Oh, God.” Karolina’s head hurts just thinking about the catastrophe that would ensue. “Never let her meet Victor.”
“This sounds fun.” Kate claps her hands. “Send me the date and I’ll be there.”
“Absolutely not.” Karolina shakes her head, and Kate laughs—it sounds real, which is a relief.
“She doesn’t usually punch first,” America comments. “Then again, I have had to pull her off of a lot of monsters ten times her size.”
“Only because you physically can pull me off,” Kate grumbles. “I had it that last time.”
“You were in its armpit and getting crushed.”
Nico gives Karolina a knowing smile—a smile that means oh, this conversation sounds familiar, doesn’t it? and Karolina always loves receiving those smiles.
They argue for another minute or so, before Kate seems to finally concede and turn back to Nico.
“Anyways… sorry about giving you rabies.”
“WHAT?” Nico recoils like a snake struck at her, wide-eyed and gaping. Kate holds up her hands.
"Kidding! Probably.” Karolina doesn’t quite catch the second word, as she muttered it quickly and to herself—she gives a short, nervous grin though, and it seems to set Nico at ease. “But yeah. Sorry for losing my shit like that.”
“Sorry for being a bitch for no reason,” Nico mumbles, looking thoroughly chastised. “It wasn’t fair.”
Kate exchanges a glance with America, obviously startled. “I mean, you were right—I didn’t know what you’d been through, and it’s terrible to try and make it seem like less than someone else’s experience.”
“Yeah. Well, I wasn’t being fair to you, either.”
Kate obviously looks a little wounded, but must decide not to press it further. “Hit me up sometime. I kinda live in the area, I guess. If you ever see a sign with a big eye, that’s me.”
“We threw out the first sign,” America chimes in. “It was terrible.”
“I have a better one now.”
Nico shakes her head, barely concealing a laugh. “Whatever. Text me the address.”
“I don’t, ah…” Kate kicks her foot. “I do not have a phone right now.”
“She’s broke.” America jabs her with her thumb.
The corner of Nico’s mouth twitches. “Right. You mentioned that.”
“In lieu of paying my phone bill, I got, like, twenty billion business cards printed, though.” Kate reaches into her pocket and pulls out a messy stack of at least ten crinkled, purple cards that read:
KATE BISHOP
SUPERHERO AND PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
NOT THE HAWKGUY
5299 MARIPOSA BOULEVARD
LOS ANGELES, CA
(424) 420 - 3693 (leave voicemail)
“Cute,” Karolina comments, noticing the tiny hand-drawn eye in the corner—it looks like she drew it on the original and copied it over onto the many.
“Isn’t it?” Kate wears a smug little smile on her face as she hands Nico the card. “Anyways, that’s the address—I live in my office, so don’t worry about, like, office address versus home address.” Kate frowns. “I think Clint is still sending me all my personal mail, though—something about how work properties and home aren’t supposed to be the same, and I keep getting letters from the government about that…” Kate shrugs, trailing off.
“Um…” Nico takes the card, flipping it over to see if there’s anything on the back. “Thanks?”
“No problem. I’m home a lot, so shoot me a text or something—like, next month when I get my phone back up.”
“Okay.” Nico tucks the card into her pocket. “You wanna get lunch or something?”
Kate’s face lights up. “Oh, there’s this amazing sandwich place down the street from me, I go there all the time—I don’t even know what you like but we should go there sometime.”
Nico’s lips quirk into a smile—one that means she’s unsure what to say, but she appreciates it nonetheless.
“That sounds awesome,” Karolina says, intervening before Nico has an anxiety attack on the floor from having a normal conversation with an extrovert. “She’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, well, you can come, too. You’re the girlfriend, right?”
“Karolina.” Karolina holds out her hand, and Kate’s eyes light up with recognition.
“Oh, my God! I don’t know how I didn’t recognize you when you were glowing—you dated Julie Power, right? You helped us with the Mother parasite and—”
“—and before that, during the Skrull invasion,” Karolina continues, everything rushing back to her, finally, finally, even though it’s been hours, “When we got back from 1907—”
“—and before that, during that stupid civil war about superhero registration, when we found Noh-Varr—”
“—and Nico froze everyone,” Karolina finishes. “Oh, my God.”
“Oh, she did.” Kate whirls. “I had hypothermia after that.”
Nico rubs her temples, as she’s wont to do whenever Victor and Chase are making a mess in the Hostel, or Molly and Old Lace wrestle, or whenever Gert is being stubborn about… well, everything. It’s the don’t even start, I’m sick of your shit, just go back to being fucking normal please God temple-rubbing.
“I don’t even remember this,” she says. “How long ago was it?”
Kate counts on her fingers for a moment—Karolina knows it’s wrong pretty much immediately as soon as the fourth finger goes up.
“Two years, I think. Right after Gert—”
Right. Nico’s face contorts in a wince, and it’s hard to remember that even though she’s back, now, that will never be an easy period of their lives to remember.
Kate makes a sympathetic face. “If it means anything, you were going through a super goth phase.”
America, who had been looking back and forth between the three of them for the past minute, chimes in again: “This is before I knew you?”
“I was born in my goth phase,” Nico grumbles under her breath, and Karolina leans over to press a kiss to her temple.
“You’re a lot less goth now, though,” Karolina mumbles into her ear. “It’s not a bad thing. We can go get that blue redone, if you want.” She misses the blue, a little bit—the black she has now is gorgeous, though, and short enough that whenever she runs her hands through Nico’s hair, she can feel the buzzed ends at the nape of her neck.
“Yeah, you met me like, six months ago, maybe a little more?” Kate leans into America’s side. “Feels like forever ago, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” America grumbles. “Only ‘cause every conversation with you takes another ten years off of me.”
“You love me,” Kate says, with much more confidence than someone who didn’t believe it.
“Whatever, princess.”
“You think you’re so cool,” Kate says, her lips jaunted in a smile as she punches America’s arm. “Bitch.”
“I could literally throw you into the sun, you know that, right?” America’s eyebrow is just barely raised in such a way that would make Karolina’s neck hairs stand on end because it screams danger, danger, be careful, danger—but Kate is either unperturbed, or so aware of
America’s boundaries that she knows she can dance the line with her eyes closed. Karolina, gay, is inclined to think the latter.
“You make such tempting promises.” Kate pouts. “Please push me out of this window. I’m begging.”
“If anyone is getting pushed out of Jen’s window,” Alison interrupts, and it’s then that Karolina even remembers there are other people in the room. “I vote Medusa.”
“Hmm?” Jen had settled down at the dining room table with a glass of wine, but now she looks up, apparently alerted by the sound of her name. “What about my window?”
“And what about me?” Medusa asks. She had obviously been arguing with Carol a moment ago, who had finished fussing over Nico when their conversation struck up, and was washing dishes in the kitchen with a very imposing Medusa hovering over her neck.
“They said they were gonna push you out of the window.” Carol’s voice is flat. “Keep up, Medusalith.”
Medusa sniffs. “I only respond to Your Majesty.”
“Sorry, Your Majesty. Keep up.”
Medusa huffs and stalks off into another room, her huge red hair standing on end like an offended cat. Karolina watches the whole exchange, making eye contact with Jen at the end of it all.
“She does need to be pushed out of a window,” Jen remarks. “You have no idea how much I used to fantasize about that.”
“It’s her kink,” Alison says, and Jen frowns at her disapprovingly.
“Language, Ali. Don’t teach Blue bad things.”
“Blue knows too many bad things,” Alison says, shrugging. “It’s not my fault.”
‘Spread only good things.’ Singularity makes a heart with her hands. ‘Never bad.’
“That’s right, Blue.” Jen pats Singularity’s hand.
“Say fuck,” Kate says, cupping her hands around her mouth to make it louder. “I’ll give you a cookie.”
‘Fuck?’ Singularity sounds more confused than anything, and it’s honestly kind of jarring to hear someone so cute swearing.
“Kate!” Jen shouts, and Kate shrieks in delighted laughter. Alison throws an I told you so look.
“Oh, this is the best!” Kate laughs, leaning into America’s side for support. “Do it again.”
Singularity looks at Jen. ‘Friends don’t like that.’
“God. Party poopers.”
“It’s getting late,” Carol says, drying the last plate and checking her watch. “Chewie needs food, and I probably need to call Tony back…”
“It was good to see you,” Jen says, getting up to give Carol a hug, a bracing one with claps on the back. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too.” Carol looks at Karolina. “You keep an eye on her for me, okay? Never did like her running around by herself.”
Nico makes some offended noise, but it makes Karolina feel warm inside. “She’s got me—promise.”
“Good. And stay out of trouble, you two.” Carol points at America and Kate. “I don’t need to deal with intergalactic law ever again.”
“No intergalactic, just local.” Kate makes a saluting gesture. America elbows her.
“We’ll be fine. Goodnight, hermana.”
“Goodnight, you guys.” With a bottle of wine in one hand and a leather jacket in the other, Carol disappears out the front door.
Alison is the next to stretch, comically yawning and generally being loud. “I think I need to get out of here, too—the music calls. Goodnight, you guys.” She hops nimbly off the back of the couch and fiddles for a minute with her jacket on the hook, fishing her keys out—she gives Jen and Singularity a hug, waving to the group of four still standing in front of the couch.
“Goodnight, y’all. Nice to meet you, Kar.”
Kar. Karolina is going to scream when she gets home and processes all of this.
And just like that, Captain Marvel and Dazzler are gone for the night.
“I think it’s time to get princess here out of here, too,” America says, poking Kate in the side. “Before she starts another fight.”
Nico looks at Karolina. “Then I guess we’re going, too? Might as well get out of your hair, Jen.”
Jen shrugs. “Carol did the dishes and there’s not much else to do. You’re welcome to stay if you’d like.”
“We need to get back home in the morning,” Nico groans. “Our flights are miserable.”
Jen nods knowingly.
“Flying on airplanes?” America’s brows are through her hairline. “No. Nu-uh. Won’t catch me in one of those while I’m alive.”
“The airplane government—I forget what it’s called—issued my ex a warning for flying everywhere,” Karolina explains, remembering the plane hassle with Julie. “And even if I could, I still have to get Nico home…”
“That’s dumb as shit. Watch this.” America’s wrists light up in star shaped outlines that Karolina hadn’t noticed before; her eyes glow white, and as she spreads her hands, a star in the exact same outline as the marks on her wrists appears in the floor.
Jen sighs loudly. “How many times—”
“Shh, it’s cool,” Kate says, watching in awe.
America stomps down on the star and it shatters, falling in on itself, impossibly, miraculously.
“It’s… a portal?” Karolina frowns, staring at it.
“A star portal,” America corrects. “One of a kind.”
“You’re the only one that can make these?” Nico asks, incredulous.
“Me and my abuela. It’s a family speciality.”
“And they can go anywhere? You can just… make portals?” Though it’s not the strangest power Karolina’s heard of (her roommate has a telepathic link with a dinosaur), it certainly is very convenient.
“Now you’re thinking with portals,” Kate says, and America groans.
“She makes this joke every time,” America grumbles.
“It’s funny.” Kate shrugs.
“It’s not.”
“You l—”
Kate is cut off when America pushes her directly into the portal and she falls, almost comically, into the floor, into wherever America is taking them.
“She’s annoying.” America sighs.
“But you love her,” Nico points out, and America’s lips twist into something wistful.
“Yeah. Catch you later?”
“You know it.”
“Wanna see something else cool?” America asks, a smirk on her face, and she kicks off the ground, doing a backflip into the star portal that closes after she falls into it, leaving Karolina and Nico with just Jen, Singularity, and wherever else Medusa is.
“God, I hate her,” Nico grumbles. “I bet that’s so much easier when you can fly.”
“It is,” Karolina says, shrugging. “Anyways, I think it’s time to go.”
“Long day tomorrow,” Nico agrees, and Jen gives the both of them a smile.
“Goodnight, you two. Stay out of trouble.”
“No promises,” Nico says, reaching to hug Jen—she has to stand on her toes, but Nico’s face barely presses into Jen’s shoulder.
Karolina doesn’t eavesdrop on purpose, but Jen whispers into Nico’s ear—“I’m so proud of you.”
It’s a small statement, but one that means a lot, even by Karolina’s knowledge. Nico nods, and they hug for a moment longer, and then Jen releases her, holding her by the shoulders and looking her in the eye.
“You take care, okay? My door is always open to you. Both of you,” she adds, exchanging a meaningful glance with Karolina.
“I know,” Nico says, her mouth twisted in a sad smile.
“We’ll see each other again for next game night. Wherever the hell they decided on.”
“Yeah.” Nico nods. “Yeah. I think it’s time to go.”
“Okay,” Jen says, pressing her lips together. “Okay. Goodnight, Nico.”
“Goodnight, Jen.”
Karolina watches the moment for a while longer, but eventually, Nico sniffs and returns to Karolina’s side, taking her hand as the two of them leave the apartment.
Their walk back down the hall and down the ten flights of stairs is silent. Karolina keeps looking over, wanting to ask Nico if she’s okay, wanting to ask if she wants to talk, but stays silent.
When they get outside, the night sky is cloudy and cool—it makes Karolina’s Californian self shiver.
“The end is always the hardest,” Nico says, so quietly that Karolina wonders if she imagined it. But then Nico sniffs again. “‘Cause I barely see them anymore—we’re all so busy that putting these together is the only way we stay in touch.”
“Yeah.” Karolina rubs her thumb over the back of Nico’s hand.
“I mean, they were my family, like you and Gert and Molly and Chase and Victor.”
“Yeah.”
“And I miss them a lot.”
“Well,” Karolina starts, hesitant. “Sandwiches with Kate might be a good start.”
Nico laughs a little, and they continue to walk the street—their hotel is only a few blocks from here, anyways. They might as well get the exercise. Plus, it’s late enough that Karolina would feel nervous about getting into a strange person’s car. Sure, she has superpowers, but she’s not going to energy blast someone for being a general, unpowered creep.
“Yeah.” Nico finally agrees, a few minutes later. “It sounds like a good place to start.”