Noelle - Day 122 (So....Hi)

I want to start off by apologizing.
I went full on RMS marathon mode with out thinking, huh, maybe I should post something interesting along with the non-interesting RMS posts...huh.  *taps chin thoughtfully* Ain't that smart?  So, you have my full apology for not giving you guys my best, da best, and only da best (110% all the way y'all)

Now, I want to actually start off the post by completely nullifying my apology and posting RMS junk!  Aren't I a wonderful person?  No?

At any rate, we're almost done with Book 1 of RMS!  Can you believe it?  Just like 15, 20 more pages on this gigantio document I've been using for all the posted parts, and then we're off, wondering why Noelle couldn't just continue the plot into a longer story.  Because I'm evil, that's why.  Get used to it. Speaking of evil - Jessie Willow costume pics, coming soon, as well as some concept art (that I totally didn't do)

Random Marvel-based Story (Parts 71 & 72)

Weeks past.  Danny had decided not to move back into Peter’s house, having an apartment of his own now.  Training continued and Nick Fury was no grumpier (although he wasn’t any nicer either) than usual.  The burnt door was replaced and thrown out.  If the team was upset, they didn’t show it.

Only when Black Widow came to pick up JACKIE, three weeks after Jess’s disappearance, did it really hit Danny that Jess was gone.  He watched as she dusted off the leather seat, shining the last flakes of dirt off the handles, as if she was wiping away Jess’s very existence.  He trudged back inside, wondering why today of all days it had to rain.

Danny had done his best to erase all the Jess-ish things from the apartment.  He put the desk and painting supplies in her closet, replaced the kid’s shampoo, threw out the tattered Avengers’ poster that had always been tacked haphazardly above the bookshelf.  He had hesitated and very nearly stopped his destructive campaign when he reached the weaponry books that Jess had taken such good care of, but after ten minutes of staring at the dusty shelf, those too had gone into hiding.  Now that the team knew where Danny had lived all these months, they came by every so often, if only to stash candy that they knew was too unhealthy for Danny to even touch.

With a sigh, Danny kicked open the new door, and walked in.  “What up, Danny?”  Said a girl’s voice, making him utter an embarrassingly high-pitched scream and duck for cover before a dart whizzed past his head, landing with a nasty thunk against the door frame.

“Really, that good?”  Jess said, munching on a donut with one hand and picking up another dart with the other.  “You know, these are really good!  Are they up for sharing, ‘cause I’ve already eaten two.”  It was the same wise-cracking Jess that Danny had always known, back before the craziness had started.  He frowned.

Danny stood up, shook his head, and slowly spluttered out the words, “Those are my donuts!  How did you even get in here?  Better question, where have you been?”

“Aww, wittle Danny still thinks he can fool me,” Jess said with an echoing laugh that filled up the shocked silence in the room.  The same laugh that the curly-haired Jess had used the day that she disappeared.  It was a strangely normal blend.  “These aren’t your donuts, these are Spider-man’s.  Too sugary for your diet.”

“People change,” He argued, not sure why he was being so defensive about donuts.

“Nah, Kun Lung warrior changing his diet?  You’re too sunk in tradition,” Jess shot right back, sitting back down on the bed like she was totally at ease in this place where all signs of her had been scrubbed away.  She took a huge bite out of her donut.  “These are really good, you should try one,” She added.  If there was a hidden meaning to her words, he couldn’t decode it, nor did he care.

Danny’s fist burst into flame, making Jess frown as well - a worried frown.  Jess was never worried.  “Tradition?  What about your traditions?!”  He shouted, punching Jess.  She dodged it easily and caught his arm, spinning him around until she pinned him on the ground.

“I don’t have traditions,” Jess whispered coldly.  “Traditions kill.”  Whatever that meant.

Danny twisted himself to a point where Jess could hear his voice and said, “Yes you do!  What about punching me in the shoulder after every sparring match?  What about calling Nova ‘Bucket head’ no matter how long he screams at you?  What about target practice every Thursday night with Spider-man?  What about giggling every time Ava says sug?  What about forcing me to watch all of your silly American Disney movies?   What about tackling Luke every time he says ‘oh yeah, indestructible me’?”

“I hate it when he does that,” Jess said, her voice empty and emotionless, but her grip loosened a little.

“What about dodging every stupid question about your past?  What about lying to us if we even came close to the truth?  What about becoming a disappearing act when we need you to be a teammember?  Huh?  What about those traditions?”  Danny spat, finally wriggling free.

He spun around, ready to fight Jess, only to find she wasn’t there.  “I’m sorry,” She said simply from behind him.

“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that you lied.  You have no place on this team, and no honor to earn back that place,” Danny snapped, biting back the full power of his anger.  Anger is the peace-killer, he reminded himself.  A trickle of fury still escaped his lips.  “Get out of my apartment,” He shouted.

“Ok,” Jess said quietly, but she looked like she had been punched in the face.  “Rent is $700, and I’m taking Honey with me.”

Danny nodded furiously, shoving that stupid golden bobcat at her.  Honey hissed and swiped at him with its claws before darting behind Jess.  He dropped a trashbag of dented paintings at her feet and growled, “Happy?  Out.”

“Give me back the recorder, too.  Those are expensive,” Jess said flatly.  He tossed the tiny silver gadget in her general direction, ignoring her tiny ‘ow!’ when it clipped her on her arm.  On the inside, Danny winced.  He had been hoping to keep the recorder.  She glanced at it and slid a finger around the edge.  “It’s been activated, twice.”  She sounded confused, but Danny ignored that.

“Alright, you have your junk, can you please get out now?”  He said, hoping that he could turn around and Jess would be gone.

There was the sound of the door slamming and then, blessed silence.  The question of where Jess was going fluttered across his mind, but he quashed that immediately - it didn’t matter anymore.  She was gone.  He turned around, just to savor that moment.

A painting sat, propped up on the kitchen counter, with a little yellow stickie stuck to the front.  He glanced at it before ripping the penciled words ‘I’ll be around’ to shreds and shoving them in the trash.  But the painting?  He stood for a long time, staring at the scene.  Danny delivering a golden punch to the Beetle’s armor from above - their first battle.  He allowed himself a tiny smile and put it on the highest dusty shelf, where he wouldn’t have to look at it everyday.

********

“Jess just dropped by and you didn’t bother to tell us right away?!”  Ava screamed at Danny the next day.

“Calm yourself, Ayala,” Danny murmured, rubbing bleary eyes.  He had been up half the night, missing the warm fluff ball that usually comforted him and eying that stupid painting out of the corner.  Finally, he had gotten up and tried to find a place where he could see it but not see it from his bed.  Apparently, no such place existed.  “It’s too late in the day to be yelling.”

“It’s your fault that you spent all day sparring against LMDs,” Spider-man called from the other end of the training hall.  The life model decoys had kept Danny busy, but they weren’t a good enough decoy to distract from Jess.

“Not helping!” Danny yelled back, using an American term that Nova loved.  Ava shuddered.

“Don’t do that, it creeps me out,” she snapped.

“What?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Pretend that you can talk like a normal teenager.  It creeps me out when you do that.”

Danny rolled his eyes right back and picked up the file case that Nick Fury had slapped down in front of him.  “Mystery thief on eighth street.”  He sighed.  “The battle against evil continues.”

“‘Thief appeared and disappeared without a trace, between the times of 8:15 and 8:30,” Luke read aloud.  “Stole about ten thousand dollars in cash before vanishing.  Didn’t bother to shut down cameras, but no heat trace and just vanished.”  He looked up.  “Sounds like Mystery Gal from the warehouse, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed absentmindedly.  He picked up the case file and flipped through it like he was perusing a magazine.  “Sounds boring,” he declared with absolute certainty.  He scowled and pretended to fall asleep.

“Doesn’t Jess have heat disguising tech?  She used them when we captured the Beetle,” Ava said, her voice an empty shell.

Danny stood up, pushing his chair back against the wall.  “You think that Jess has gone from friendly hero to bank-robber?  She may sink low, but that’s…low.”

“You’re doing it again, that talking thing,” Ava said grumpily.  “I’m just saying.  Anybody know where Jess went, after she left Danny’s apartment?”  She put emphasis on the last phrase.  Well, she’s still mad at me, Danny thought.

Nova slid the case file back over to Luke.  “Whatever, man, Jess wouldn’t do that.  I just know she wouldn’t.”

“Right,” Spider-man snapped.  “Like we knew anything about Jess.”

“C’mon, can’t we focus on the mission for half-a-minute, guys?  Guys?”  Luke called over the arguing teenagers.  “C’mon, man, can we please focus.”

“When did this ‘man’ thing start?  Man?”  Ava said, bemused.

“Alright, playtime’s over, Webbed Warriors or whatever you guys call yourselves,” Nick Fury announced, over the intercom.  “I have new intel for that mission.  We suspect it might be the work of Shadow.”  Ava sucked in her breath, but the rest of the team looked blank.  “Look her up in the database,” Fury said, exasperated, before continuing, “Be careful on the field today.  Willow is still on the loose -”

Like we needed reminded, Danny thought, and he knew the thought had flashed across his teammates’ minds as well.

Nick Fury wasn’t done yet.  “-And she’s been known to randomly drop in on old friends, against protocol and even against the law sometimes.  Anyway, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Right!  Because that’s totally a viable piece of advice!”  Spider-man yelled at the ceiling.

“What he said!”  Nova agreed, though it was pretty obvious he didn’t know what viable meant anyway.

Sorry for the random, sudden, and completely unnecessary break at the end of part 72, but hey, my typing hands were getting kinda tired! Since I know that not all readers are RMS readers, I'll send you off with a few fall challenge pics, which, btw, totally failed. Big flop. Blarg.

Mom's fall set up in our garden.

We replanted the flower bed! Ain't it puurty?

Bye, see you tomorrow! :)