shatterverse | (no subject)

It's fairly early in the morning when Mel, Sokka and Steph crest the final hill and find themselves looking down from the Heights towards Gotham City. Mel is keeping the girls happy in the back; Steph's driving. She doesn't ask before slowing gradually to a stop, eyes on the vista before them.

Gotham. Smoky, dark, twisted, gothic. It almost looks organic, lumpy and misshapen as it is, every building sprouting gargoyles and added wings, twisted into fantastic shapes.

It's so familiar it makes Steph's heart lurch; she hasn't been home for almost a year. She knows the skyline inside out, knows exactly how it feels to leap from the casino to the street below and swing up exactly in time to land on the train, knows where the instabilities in the gargoyles are and just how hard to throw a grapple to get from one end to the other of Ninth in under two minutes. It's filthy and ugly and disease-ridden and smoky and it's home.

Except ...

... this isn't the home she left.

It's with a sigh of pure relief that she realises, slowly, that this is Gotham before the quake, missing the light-filled spires of Luthor's redesign, all the old buildings still standing tall. This is Gotham before she had the baby, before the No Mans' Land.

This isn't her world.

The grin she turns to Sokka is enormous and full of relief.

"It's not mine. I won't find th— her here. Oh, thank fuck for that."

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Steph glances at her, grateful but worried.

"I ... dunno, Marie, it might be better if we wait for Mel. It doesn't look like it's good in there."

Offer refused: attempt failed. Or obligation fulfilled, if you look at it that way.

Careless shrug.

"Sounds good to me."

"Thanks, though," Steph says, and means it. She curls up in the drivers' seat to sit facing Marie over the corner of the seat.

"You'll totally come with us, though, right? Just in case we need a quick exit? I'd owe you for ever."

"Yeah, no problem."

Hey look: a genuine smile. Amazing.

"Quick exits - that's me. Say the word and I can have you all in Metropolis in--"

She makes the calculation in her head.

"--ten seconds, rough estimate. Depends which ones of you I'm rescuing. The woman Mel's talking to comes, too, I assume?"

"Yeah, I'm guessing so." Steph grins back. "Sokka says she's her sister."

Raised eyebrows.

"Hmm," is Marie's only comment.

"You're not a fan of sisters?" Steph rests her chin on the corner of the seat, looking at Marie curiously.

"I don't have any," she returns. It's not much of an explanation, but it's all Marie's offering.

Steph nods, looking out at Mel and Sokka where he's gone to join them.

"Me either, but I think if I did I'd want it to be Mel. She's pretty awesome."

"She is, at that," agrees Marie with the ghost of a smile.

Steph offers the other girl a hand. "C'mon, I think they're nearly done talking secretly. Or at least, they should be. Let's go bug them."

"Sounds good to me," Marie agrees, accepting the hand.

Steph grins at her. NEW BFF. Or possibly just awesomely-haired teleporting woman with a sad smile who clearly needs hugs.

Marie grins tentatively back.

...she should probably be glad she can't read minds, because she'd react to the whole hugs thing mainly with confusion.

EVERYONE NEEDS HUGS. It's just a fact of life.

Steph beams and tugs her over to where the others are having a council of war.