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"There you go, officers," Ryan landed down in front of the Timely Bank and Trust, the two would-be bank-robbers encased in hard-to-break coils of cosmic energy. He'd been there to grab some cash for a haircut when the two dunderheads had decided to try and rob the place.

Seriously, who even robs banks in New York anymore? Between all of the various superhero groups - and they were on their third generation of heroes now, really - it was one of the stupidest things to do.

"Thank you...Lucent Lad?" The officer looked up at Ryan, raising an eyebrow.

"Stellar, actually," Ryan replied with a grin. It was designed to hold back a grimace."Lucent Lad was too...dorky." That had been the name he'd chosen for himself back when he and his brother Jacob had first moved back to New York and...no. He'd changed the codename soon thereafter. Sadly, though, some people still remembered it. "Anyway, though! Money's back in the safe. They're all checking to make sure things balance. I gotta jet but, you know. You might wanna tell these knuckleheads that robbing banks in New York is so eighteen-hundreds."

With a wave, he flew back up into the air, relishing the feel of the rushing wind against his face. When he was high enough, he turned away from midtown and headed towards his stylists' place, lost in thought.

A lot had happened in the last couple of weeks, it felt like. Remi and Alexa had given birth to their baby. The Pier had been attacked by a group of villains. He'd had some auditions that had gone really well, and others that had gone less so. (But he was doing a small thing off-Broadway, so that was nice.)

He sometimes wondered what it'd be like to settle down and start a family of his own but, realistically, he was far from ready for that. There was so much he still had to do, so much he still had to experience. So much growing he still had left to do. It worked for people like Remi and Alexa, but for people like Ryan...

Not yet.

He landed in front of his stylist's realized he still had an hour to kill before he went in.

Heh. Oops. He flew over the street and landed in front of the coffee shop that was directly opposite the salon. Coffee and a muffin couldn't hurt...

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Alisa sat by herself in the coffee shop. Her laptop on a table, a vanilla latte in her hand, and her eyes focused on what she was reading on screen. Despite taking a break from work, she really never took one these days (especially after the disaster with Steve's sister, Nikki).

Her green eyes appeared to be glued on the screen before her, checking and re-checking various pieces of artwork that were scanned in. She was running programs to help her authenticate on a low level, before she would go examine the artwork in person. Alisa took another sip of her latte, before looking up for a brief moment.

"I must be seeing things." Alisa thought to herself. "That guy outside looks like Ryan. Maybe I have been looking at this computer program too long?"

Edited 2014-11-24 04:02 (UTC)

Ryan stepped into the coffee shop, eyes doing a sweep of the place as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He had been about to tap on the app for his email when he saw her sitting there.

Of course, he mused. Why wouldn't this be the one person I'd run into while on a day out in the city? He closed his eyes. He could try to make it seem as though he hadn't seen her. This was New York, it was busy, he could very easily have missed her. The place was, after all, crowded enough that stepping through the door of the coffee shop meant that he was already in line.

He opened his eyes.

Nope.

She'd seen him.

Pressing a smile to his lips, Ryan went over. "Fancy meeting you here."

"It is nice to see you, too, Ryan." Alisa stopped the program she was running, closing up her laptop, and slipping it into a rather expensive looking bag. The table was now cleared, and she waved her hand, as if to offer Ryan a seat if he wanted it. "You can have a seat if you like. It is a bit more crowded than usual, today."

Inside, she had hoped he had not noticed her. Their last meeting together was not the best. But now that he had, she opted to be polite and civil. After-all, she heard about what happened at the Pier.

"So, how are things?"

"Usually pretty busy around this time, honestly." There was a three to four hour block where it was generally crazily busy here, but Ryan had a standing appointment with his stylist.

Well, when the world wasn't in danger from one thing or another. Honestly, he was surprised he hadn't been dropped as a client. Granted, he ensured that his stylist was paid for when Ryan didn't show up, tip and everything. It was only fair.

"Though I get it. Their coffee's never over-roasted." He nodded, but he didn't take a seat. Not yet, anyway. "Things are, you know, good. The same as always." He smiled thinly. "Not much to talk about. How about you?"

"Things are going kind of well on my end." She had a thin smile herself. She took a sip of her latte before speaking again. "I am busier than ever with work."

Alisa thought for a moment, before looking back up at Ryan.

"How is Mary doing? How are the others? I heard about what happened and... I was worried about all of you. And on a friendly level, mind you." She did show a bit of concern on her face.

"Well, that's good," Ryan said. "We're okay," he added. "I mean, we're heroes. That kind of thing is bound to happen," he shrugged. He had, after all, moved to New York to try and build up that life of being a superhero. It was a family legacy, and even though he may not have been related to Franklin, Valeria, and Mary by blood, they were bound by the relationship that their parents had shared. "Everyone's okay, though." Because if anything, the Imaginauts were a capable group. Maybe not all the way there, but capable nonetheless.

"That's good to hear." She gave a nod of her head, feeling much better with the knowledge that everyone was okay. "I can sleep a little better knowing that everyone is alright."

She sipped her latte, placing the empty mug on the table before sitting back some.

"You do not want to talk to me, do you?"

"Glad to hear you're so concerned," he said. He knew that she had hit it off pretty well with Mary, and he'd have to pass on that he'd run into her.

Ryan's lips twitched. "Let's be honest, Alisa. Did you want to talk to me when I walked in? I'm doing the polite, sociable thing. Meet an ex, say hello, politely catch up. It's how things work." It was true. He could have just pretended he hadn't seen her, ignored her, and moved on, but Ryan wasn't that sort of guy. Or if he was, things hadn't gotten to the line where he no longer felt the need to be a nice, sociable person.

"Actually, I had planned on ignoring you given the last "chat" you gave me." Alisa frowned some, running a hand through her hair. "I was merely being polite once you started to talk to me. But I was concerned for the others at the Pier, truly."

Her eyes narrowed for a moment before she stood up, placing her bag over her shoulder.

"You always claimed we were "friends" after we broke up. But never did you want to hang out with me. I always had to ask or invite you over, and it made me feel awful. Like I was not worth your time! It was like you were ashamed to know me or something!"

Ryan raised an eyebrow.

He also sat down.

Alisa standing up and picking up her purse meant that she was likely going to abdicate the table. He wanted it before anyone else there tried to lay claim to it.

"Alisa," he said calmly. "Before either I or Alistaire had entered your life, had you had any serious romantic relationships?"

"No. Alistaire was my first sexual relationship. You were my first ever boyfriend. Fuck, you two were also the first friends I ever made." Her arms folded across her chest. "What does this have to do with anything, Ryan?"

She hated to admit all of that, especially in public.

"Oh hey. Language. There are kids with their nannies about," he said. "Look. The staying friends thing? It's something all people who are about to become exes say to each other. It's really just code for lets-be-civil-if-we-run-into-each-other-in-public-places-or-social-situations. Like, you know, this." He indicated the two of them in that moment.

"Think about it, Alisa. I tried to date you, but I was also constantly being interrupted by the first guy to ever turn your cherry out." That was an ambiguous enough, family friendly turn of phrase, wasn't it? "And he wasn't letting go of the stem to that cherry. It wasn't exactly a situation I wanted any connection to. When you called, when you needed a friend, I came. Because that's what friends do. But I also didn't want to give you any mixed signals about where we stood, because you did do a lot of flip-flopping between Alistaire and myself and I didn't want to make things any more complicated. It wasn't healthy, and I wanted out of the equation. I mean, I bet the next guy you date is going to have to deal with his overly pampered shadow as well."

Ryan shrugged. "I'm sorry that I hurt you, Alisa. But when I said we'd be friends, I didn't mean that we'd become besties for life. It...rarely works that way. And not in the triangle that we were in."

"I thought you wanted to be my friend. An actual friend." Alisa fought to keep her composure. She was shaking, and her hands were balled up into fists at her side. "You would not have given me any mixed signals. You told me flat out you were interested in someone else and I got that! I am not stupid enough to try and get you back! You did not have to..."

Her hands were shaking, now.

"You know what's sad, Ryan? You are an actor, you play various roles from day to day. And the one role I needed from you, was to be my hero. And you could not even do that. Instead, when the role became too difficult for you, so you bailed without a fight."

She reached her hand up to wipe a tear from her eye.

"And in the role of my "friend", again... it was easier for you to runaway then take on the full role. You treated me like I was something to be pitied, and never had any real interest in talking or doing the things friends did. Instead of telling me the truth you lead me on to believe I had a FRIEND. And then... when I was hurt, you decided it was a GREAT time to break me down, instead of building me back up!"

Alisa shook her head.

"It's like you never grew up. Real men do not run from problems, lead other people on with false friendships, or kick people when they are down! You are not a man, Ryan Grimm. You are a little boy trying to play the role of one. And you suck at it!"

Ryan, for his part, managed to keep his composure. Mostly, all Alisa got at this point was a tired roll of the eyes. "I think you already had your hero in Alistaire Shaw, Alisa. Your employer, your lover, your...everything, really." He sighed, then. "This isn't about him, though. This is...honestly, this is about you not seeing the situation as it really is."

He shook his head. "Alisa, I came to see you when you were injured. Anytime you needed help - like needing your car, for instance - and you reached out to me, I was there. Friends do that. I never actually bailed on you. Sure, I broke up with you because our romantic entanglement became too complicated, and it's not fair for you to lay that on me when you couldn't decide who you actually wanted do be with. Besides, friendship? There's many different kinds. Maybe you're trying to stick me into the wrong friend slot."

He shrugged. "Believe whatever you want, Alisa, but I never lied to you, I never played you, I never set out to ruin your life. I dated you despite my family disagreeing with my decision on it. I've been there for you as much as would be reasonably possible, but come on. There, at the Pier, you're the one who brought up how you wished you could have told me that you loved me. You're the one who told me that you changed the color of your eyes for my brother. Do you have any idea how bizarre all of that was? Any reasonable person would have stepped away."

He took a deep breath. "I admit that I'm generally a pretty immature guy. I still spend my Saturday mornings in my Pokemon pajamas eating cereal and watching cartoons on Netflix. But I never once ran away from you, as you put it. I stepped away because you were being uncomfortably clingy and indecisive. Remember how you wanted to be an actress for five minutes there? Oh, you'll find some way to justify it, but that felt like you trying to get back into my world somehow. Like you'd lucked out with Alistaire so you were running back to me." He shook his head. "Whatever soap opera life you've got running on in your head, Alisa, snap out of it. I mean, listen to yourself, right now. I'm not the one who sounds like a lovescorned teenager."

"I wanted to be with you, not him! I was willing to give up everything to just be with you, but it never mattered. You were never going to come back in that way! I was just happy to have you as a friend, though!" Alisa's fists were shaking more. "And what other friend slots are there? There are friends, and there are enemies!"

She took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm down. Ryan hit her everywhere that hurt. Every part of her inside that was open and festering took a blow. She looked flustered when he brought up how she changed her eyes and wanted to be an actress.

"Fine, Ryan. You got me. I'm an emotionally stunted teenager. I cannot do anything "nice", just wrong. Really wrong." There was no frown on her face, no smile. "I am incapable of seeing things the way you do. I hurt easily, and when I do I act like a wounded beast. EVERYTHING is black and white with no shades of grey in between!"

This was all just humiliating and she realized she made a total ass out of herself, making that hurt inside of her even worse.

"I DID want to be an actress, I always have. I gave up after I received some sage advice that I should go back to doing what I do best. To stop being something I am obviously not and can never be." Her voice was low, now. "Apparently what I am good at is screwing everything up and being the embodiment of chaos in someone's life, much less my own."

Edited 2014-11-24 17:38 (UTC)

"I mean, there are associates-slash-acquaintances, useful contacts, favour friends, fun friends, helpmates, confidantes, work friends, Facebook friends, frenemies, best friends...there's a whole list out there. It's not just friend-or-enemy, and if that's how you think the world works, Alisa, then I'm kind of glad we did break up. You clearly can't see beyond extremes, and I'm glad you're starting to realize that. It's all kinds of unhealthy."

He hadn't really glanced at the laptop when she'd pulled it out to show the file to him. As he'd said earlier, he knew that she'd find some way of justifying her actions, and no matter how rooted in truth they may or may not have been, Alisa had never been one to back down and really see the error of her ways.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're zero to sixty when it goes from being passive-aggressive to just straight up aggressive?" he asked. "Honestly, I don't care that you were in school plays or that you wanted to be an actress. That past of yours was something that we had never discussed - something that literally just came up right now, with a file that you just somehow happened to have oh-so-handily. You have to understand that, where I was coming from, and from the conversation we'd been having that day in the Pier, it just seemed really weird and clingy to me. I mean, you still don't get how weird the fact that you changed your eyes for my brother - who you'd never even met - was, do you?"

"Seriously, Alisa." Ryan stood up. "Stop always playing the victim and stop flip-flopping around between everything in your life. Grow up, make some decisions, and stand by them, otherwise the next guy you get involved with might get fed up and walk out on you as well."

Edited 2014-11-25 03:31 (UTC)

Ryan was right, she went from zero to sixty rather quickly. Now she was zero to one twenty, having to listen to him comment without understanding her. Without wanting to hear her reasoning... because then it would just be an excuse to him. Her composure started to crack as she let go.

She allowed herself to take in more anger and rage around her than usual. It was the only real emotion she understood, anyway. She feared it, it made her want to change who she was, but now she just accepted it. It was strange, but in doing so, she felt more in control and felt like her composure was being patched back up.

"Thanks, Ryan. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go. I have things to do."

As much as she wanted to punch him in the face, she refrained. No, she would do something about that later this eve. Instead, she turned her back to him and started to walk out.

One of the things that Ryan liked most about his stylist's salon was the little juice bar they had in the back. Given that he hadn't been able to grab a cup of coffee as had been his intent, a grapefruit ginger mint juice seemed like just the thing. He strolled out of the salon with one in his hand, glancing at a reflective surface every few moments. His stylist did good work, he had to admit.

He grinned as he crossed the street, opting this time to walk instead of fly. After all, his stylist had worked meticulously on his hair. No sense in ruining the style just yet.

"Hey, Sparklepants! Recently well-coiffed?" Jay called out from behind Ryan. The sometimes-green-teen was out and about in the city. He was getting as much as he could for his first year of college starting in September.

He jogged to catch up to his sorta cousin. People between the two moved out of the way of a 6'5" broad shouldered guy moving along the sidewalk.

There was literally only one person in this world that called Ryan Sparklepants.

Two, if Jacob was feeling snarky.

A grin spread across Ryan's face as he turned around and watched people scramble aside to make room for Jay. "Jay-Jay!" he yelled back in greeting. "What up, Jolly Green?" Ryan, clocking in at just under six feet, grinned and raised his fist for a fist-bump.

Hopefully a delicate one.

"You like the hair? I like the hair."

"School supply shopping day. Mom's getting a ton of packages delivered to the apartment whether she's ready or not." Jay was all human at the moment. So his fist-bump while not delicate would not do lasting damage. Unless Ryan turned into a delicate flower the last time he checked.

"Hair's so nice I won't reach out and ruffle it." He adjusted one of his backpack straps to keep himself from actually ruffling Ryan's hair.

"Oh, that's right! School's starting soon!" Man, seriously, where the hell had summer gone? "Where are you headed? NYU? ESU? Columbia?" He'd be surprised if Jay was leaving the area. Few of their set ever left New York to go to school, unless they were considering retiring from the game.

For how ever long that tended to last.

"For some reason, I don't see you heading to Harvard. Not that you can't, but...you know. I get a feeling that law ain't your thing."

"Yep. All those fresh coeds moving into the city." He paused. "Unless you're still with... Mellie?"

Jay wasn't quite sure. He was not completely up on the family gossip. If he asked Mom, he wouldn't get away for awhile. He shrugged apologetically and gave a lopsided grin.

"Nah. Not Harvard. Or Columbia either. Heading to ESU. They have a pretty good environmental science and engineering program. How about you? Treading the boards anywhere?"

"Doing an off-Broadway thing." Pause. "Okay, it's way off-Broadway. But at least it's not in New Jersey, amirite?" He nodded his head. "We're together." Things were going well. For now, anyway. They were both young actor/models working on their careers and their craft. Things were bound to change one day. Ryan was fully prepared for that. Still, though. "She's nice and calm and fun and sweet. And more together than my last girlfriend, who more and more I'm beginning to suspect is mentally unhinged." Which was putting it lightly, but Ryan had always hated the phrase crazy ex-girlfriend.

"What about you? Any special lady in your life?" Ryan knew that Jay had been seriously seeing someone for awhile, but he wasn't too sure on the details. It was hard trying to get his father to sit down and gossip.

"Or dinner theater in Poughkeepsie," Jay agreed with a mock-solemn nod.

"Wait. You're beginning to suspect after the break-up? My sympathies. That's gotta be rough." Though Jay thought New York was a huge city. What were the chances of running into an ex again? He blinked at the questions about his dating life.

"Kinda sorta. Except more definite. May came back in town and missed me. I missed her." She helped save the city from him rampaging. "Her dad hasn't strung my butt up on the Empire State Building, so it's all good."

"Dinner theatre. If I don't get killed by a supervillain or kidnapped by Galactus, I'm half-certain that's where I'm going to end up dying." It was, at least, the least terrible death of the three.

Or the worst.

It all depended on your point of view, really.

"I mean. She had this ex-boyfriend-slash-employer-slash-overbearing-presence and things got difficult. I knew she moved fast - man, did she move fast - but I always thought that things would calm down. Except it felt like someone was always trying to kill her, and she had to get put together again more times than Humpty Dumpty and..." Ryan shook his head. "In some ways, I'm making this sound worse than it was. In other ways, not so much." He tentatively took a couple of steps so that they could start walking. Jay was like a human wall, and the sidewalk, it was not so big.

"It was too much to handle, too much to deal with. I can see it so much more clearly now that we're broken up," he added. "I just ran into her. It was...unpleasant.

"I don't really forsee Mr. Parker stringing your bottom up on something." Pause. "Your mom could throw him up into a Badoon space station or something if he did, you know?"

"I could put you in touch with May's mom if that would help any?" Jay's family did have a small shelf dedicated to Mary Jane Watson's movies. Thus it had been hard to not be star-struck meeting both of May's parents.

He frowned thoughtfully as he followed Ryan. It was like a dam breaking when he moved. "My sympathies, man. Sounds rough."

He hooked his thumbs inside his backpack straps. The urge to ruffle was still strong. He hoped to not Hulk out or Ryan would look like a dandelion. "He and Mom get along well. Humor and all, but most smart people know not to mess with her or her family."

Either via brute force or application of the law, Jennifer Walters was a force to be reckoned with.

"I'll reach out to you when it comes to that," Ryan nodded. "I appreciate the offer, Jay-Jay." It was nice to know that not everyone in his social circle was going to turn into a crazy person today.

Especially since this one could literally hulk out.

Ryan ducked this way and that as the crowd sped up around them. "She changed her eye color for Jacob, Jay-Jay. Jacob. She's never met him," he said. "Thieves Guild girl. Hellfire Club girl. People obviously weren't feeling it, you know? In retrospect? I get it."

Ryan's hair suddenly started sparkling. It was a shield. He knew that look in Jay's eyes. As children, it had led to many a noogie.

"Well, you know. She's an all-around bad-ass. In a business suit or a spandex outfit."

"Hey, it's what Fantastic Family is for, right?" Jay figured if you couldn't count on your weird cosmically- or gamma-irradiated family, who could you? While Ryan ducked and weaved around people, the tall teen just kept moving forward. If anyone bounced off of him, they would find he'd gotten back to strength training.

"Wait. Changed her eye color for someone she never met? Rockybritches is cool and all, but damn." Jay shook his head. He wouldn't understand that kind of extreme need to please.

He squinted at the sparkle-dome. Foiled again! "I'm sure she reminded herself of that while she changed my stinky diapers as a baby."

“You know how every family has one member who possesses the uncanny ability to attract the crazies?” Ryan asked. “Last generation, it was Aunt Sue.” Because Namor, man. Just. Namor. “I feel as though I’m the one that got it this generation,” he said. Clearly, this issue didn’t need to be a genetic thing. You just had to consider yourselves family.

“We were broken up and she did that,” Ryan said. “Broken. Up. If we were, I don’t know, engaged or whatever, then maybe. Maybe. But doing it just while she was recuperating? It’s not as though we were offering her a place on the Imaginauts.”

He quietly considered the image of She-Hulk changing a baby-Hulk’s diapers and wrinkled his nose. “Dude. I love ya, but there are some images I do not need.”

"Well, it ain't me." That Gina person not withstanding. Though Jay somehow got a lot of female attention. He wasn't sure how. No aliens had come to the Avengers Mansion to make him a husband, so he could pretty well ignore anything but May's attention.

He scratched the side of his nose as his eyes widened. "Investing in Static Guard? Because it sounds clingier than my Christmas sweater in the dryer."

He chuckled. "You walked that trail on your own. I already lived it. And get reminded about it all the time."

"I mean, unless Jacob or Mary somehow end up with worse luck than me..." Ryan said.

"I'd invest in Static Guard, but I don't think that would help. You realize she expected me to be her hero? After we had broken up? I'm not sure how that works either. And why a mutant woman who has superpowers of her own needs a hero, I don't even get." It genuinely did confuse him. He had been raised around strong women - both superpowered like his Aunt Sue, and those who were differently-abled, like his mother. Women like Alisa, he was starting to realize, were a creature he simply didn't understand.

"Mothers like to do that," Ryan nodded. "Mine does that to me." Less so to Jacob since he rocked-out.

Jay considered the other two. "Nope. It's you."

He grinned a little before listening to Ryan's problems. "Well, you are a hero, bro. But you don't need to be someone's personal hero. Especially if they're holding you up to a romantic ideal that's... so not what I'm used to being the son of a feminist icon. May's one of my heroes, but I don't expect her to go saving my butt all the time."

He tilted his head. He spoke with sympathy for a fellow super-son's embarrassed plight. "Yeah, but your mom can be sneaky about it. Just drop it in at the right moment. A person can laugh along with it until we realize what she said. Then we laugh harder."

"Yeah. Of course it is," Ryan said. "Maybe this will be my last crazy, though." He chuckled. "I don't even know how I could be someone's personal hero. I'm still trying to figure out my own life." Hell, he wasn't ready for adulthood yet. Ryan shrugged. Again. "Dude. My mom's blind. Not Daredevil blind - the original, not the cute young thing we've suddenly got running around - but blind. And she can fend for herself just fine." And this was while being married to Ryan's rock of a father, and having gotten involved in some of the scrapes that the Fantastic Family tended to find themselves in.

"People don't expect Mom to have a sense of humour. Quiet, romantic, artsy type? It usually takes people a few seconds to get the joke bomb."

"Don't know either. Though I get more of the big, bad monster stuff." His conversational tone didn't change at all. It was just a fact in his mind. He had rampaged through New York. Not like he could live that destruction down.

"I didn't say she wasn't. Being able to see has nothing to do with being able to tell a joke or humorous story. Every one has a sense of humor," Jay observed. He came from a place it was a little of a necessity to survive. "Your mom just has an artistic sense of where to drop it."

"One rampage and suddenly you're labeled society's greatest threat," Ryan shook his head. "If only they knew you, Jay-Jay." He gently nudged his "cousin" with his shoulder. The move, obviously, had no effect on Jay, given how slight Ryan was in comparison to him.

"You know. This talk about moms and stuff...we should have a Fantastic Family get-together. Get all the branches involved before school starts up again. We've never really been the summer barbecue type of family, I know, but..." sometimes family was nice. "Remi and Alexa have had a baby, you're starting college, Franklin's teaching the X-Men. It feels as though we all oughta catch up with each other over hot dogs and raspberry beer."

"One naked photo scandal and one rampage, I'm this generation's downfall of civilization bad boy," he deadpanned. He glanced down at Ryan bounce off of him. He faked a staggered step a second or two later than he should have. "Oof. Thanks, man."

He adjusted his backpack to make the straps sit more easily. "I can see Captain Fishlips being all excited until he sees me anywhere near his fish food. But yeah, a party might be nice. We could even set up an old folks spot so they can watch their kids play with fire."

He chuckled.

"Give it time," Ryan said drily. "I'm certain my ex will do something that'll make everything forget about your little scandals." He knew Alisa well enough to know that sooner or later, he was going to come entirely undone. This, kids, is why you don't pick up a woman in a bar.

"You do, of course, realize that the person mostly playing with fire will be Uncle Johnny."

"I'm young. I still have more embarrassment and mayhem to go." He shrugged. "But where did you meet this ex? So I never go there. May will kill me if I get a cling-on."

Jay shook his head. "As long as he doesn't burn the hot dogs again, he can join in the reindeer games."

"God, I don't know. Some bar somewhere in the city." Ryan honestly didn't remember. The place had been nearby, he'd needed a drink after having unwittingly stood up his date for the night.

Alisa had been a thing that had just happened. A one-night stand that had led to something more.

More than Ryan had bargained for, certainly.

He thanked whatever gods were paying attention to his little corner of the universe for Mellie.

"Funny how it only started out with four," Ryan said, offhandedly. "Now there's an entire family of us."

"Well, if it was a bar, I'm pretty safe. I don't plan on drinking. I get uninhibited enough as it is." Jay felt lucky he got a sane Spider-Girl instead of... well, just about anyone else.

He reached over and patted Ryan's shoulder. "That's what families do. They get bigger. We just happen to have one of the best extended ones."

"Enough about me, though," Ryan said. "I know you've got those big, strong shoulders that can handle most problems laid upon them, but I'm done venting." He let the sparkle-shield fall so that Jay was free to noogie him if he so wished. "Let's talk about you, buddy. I don't get to see you enough." Truth be told, he didn't get to see most of his friends and family enough these days.

That needed to change.

It was oh so tempting to ruffle that freshly styled hair. But Jay was human, so he could resist such things at the moment. He blinked at Ryan.

"Uh, me? I'm not all that interesting." He hadn't really gone out much since rampaging. Though he was eating regularly now and working out regularly again.

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