WHO: Courtney and Nico WHAT: Catching up WHEN: 5 February, 2019 WHERE: The Mortuary WARNING/STATUS: Low/Complete
So far this year Courtney hadn't run into her awesome witchy friend, which was a mistake she intended to rectify as soon as she could. She'd never visited the Mortuary before, but it wasn't too difficult to find the old gothic looking building on the outskirts of the very new settlement of New Asgard. Bounding up to the front door, Court rang the bell and tried not to bounce to keep warm against the chill.
She didn't really have any plans for the day, other than swinging by to pick up Nico so they could grab pastries and a mint mocha at Cath's bakery. She just hoped that her friend wasn't too wrapped up with her girlfriend, or studies, or something to come out with her for a while.
As fate or chance or pure circumstance would have it, Nico was the very soul who answered the door. Instead of ripped up stockings and layers of tulle, leather, and satin bows, she was dressed cozily in a sweater that swallowed up her hands and hung down to her knees and a pair of thermal leggings. They were still dark enough to go with her whole aesthetic, though, and the wingtips at the corners of her eyes came to deadly looking points. She blinked at Courtney, but set aside her surprise long enough to reach out and take the other girl's arm so she could pull her into the warmth of the house.
"Hey, you!" She waited until the door was closed to turn to Court and smile at her, confusion still a twist at the edges of her mouth. "Did we have plans I spaced on?"
"Hi!" Nico’s surprise registered and as soon as Courtney was led into the warm, she hurried to address it. Shaking her head at the question, she smiled, "Nope, this was a spur of the moment thing. I got it in my head that I hadn’t seen you yet this year so I decided to fix it." The teen shrugged, "Didn’t really think through what I would've done if you weren’t home. But at least I'd have had a nice walk?"
Looking around the entrance hall of the house, Court’s eyes widened, this place was awesome. If a little spooky on the outside. "How are you?"
Nico blinked. Had it really been that long? Well, she was hardly ever at the Facility anymore, and it wasn't like the Mortuary got many visitors. Still, it made her frown at herself, because the last thing she wanted was to be a bad friend. She'd done enough of that in her first life. Or was that second? She'd definitely had at least two so far: the one with her sister Amy in it, and then the one after, the one without.
But rather than get bogged down in all that, Nico shook her head a little and smiled her understanding. "Well, I'm glad it worked out that I was here. Gives me a chance to give you a tour with my own brand of color commentary, if you want." Reaching out, she took Courtney's hand so she could start on it as she considered her question. "I've been… good? I guess? Better now that Karolina's here, not to be that girl or anything. Mostly just training, trying to get a handle on my magic. What about you? How's school?"
"I would love that!" Courtney beamed, glad that her unannounced visit wasn't an inconvenience for her friend. She hoped that Nico would tell her if it was. "I mean, we're only in February, but I didn't want you to think I'd neglected you." She squeezed Nico's hand, more than happy to hear that everything had been going well for her.
"You should absolutely be that girl, I'm really happy she came through to this world. It kind of sucks being the only one." She shook her head, setting her curls swaying for a second. "Has your magic felt different here? Sometimes the Staff seems a little-- temperamental, even more than usual, and I wondered if it could be the whole different world vibe throwing it off?"
Pulling a face at the mention of school, she followed it up with a grin, "It's going so much better after Steve and Derek went to my parent-teacher meeting. For one thing they actually believe the signature on my homework diary is real now." Court giggled, swinging their joined hands slightly. "I've been training with some of the other young heroes too which is cool."
As she led Courtney into the front parlor, Nico's cheeks grew pink under her makeup as she considered the time she'd been able to spend with Karolina. There was a small part of her that had been secretly concerned that having all this down time might be detrimental to their relationship—something, something, forged in trauma, something—but it hadn't been. They seemed to be stronger than ever. Still, she definitely knew Courtney's point. It absolutely did suck being the only one from that world, or that time, in Nico's case.
She gave Court's hand a little squeeze to show her solidarity. "My magic? No, not really. It's probably because I'm from this world, but it makes sense why yours might be off. I wonder if that's something anyone's tried to detect. We hear it from the science team all the time, how they're going on about weird energy readings or whatever. Surely there's a magical equivalent?"
The idea of taking Captain America to a parent-teacher conference startled a laugh out of her, possibly all the more so with the addition of Mr. Grumpywolf. Before she could comment, however, Nico was brought up short by the last thing Court had said. Nico looked over at her, head tilted in open curiosity. "Training? What kind of training?"
At the tiny blush, Court leaned her head on Nico’s shoulder for a second, thinking how sweet it was. She could only hope that one day she’d have a relationship like Nico and Karolina’s. Since moving to Blue Valley, she hadn’t really thought about dating all that much, but she couldn’t deny there was a spark of interest between herself and Cameron.
"I'm glad to hear that." It would be extra weird for Nico if the portal was screwing around with her magic, as well as finding herself in another time. "Yeah… I thought about that. But I don't know enough about science or magic to figure out what's going on with my staff. I don't even know exactly how Cosmo works… I mean, beyond channelling literal star power."
The look Nico gave her made Court pause in her perusal of the parlour. "Oh, yeah, so there's a group of us who wanted to do more after that whole thing in Russia that we weren't allowed to go to." A tiny little grin tugged at her lips then because people probably figured out that a lot of them did actually go to Norlisk. "We've been training to work better together and see how all our powers mesh with one another's."
There was a tiny part of Nico that still felt a little guilty for sitting out of the not-so-secret secret mission, but her magic was neither the most stable or even reliable, so she'd sat it out. Without bad guys to punch, she knew she would have just been in the way, or worse. To hear that there was now a second secret team shouldn't have surprised her as much as it initially did, but it made sense that people were getting restless—especially powered people.
And now there was another tiny part of her that was kind of jealous. "I don't know if you would've called us a team or anything—more like a group of people thrown together via trauma and shitty parents—but we used to train together, too. Or we tried to, at least. Most of what I can remember was a lot of yelling and not believing in each other's powers." Nico used her free hand to make a dismissive gesture. "Not that you guys aren't doing much better, probably. There's probably a huge difference between needing to work as a team and wanting to."
Her mind circled back to the issue of her friend's Cosmic Staff, which in turn made her think of her own. It was currently up in her room, but Nico knew that didn't really matter. If she absolutely had to have it, she knew it would just come out of her body. It was a sensation she deeply loathed, because a) ew, gross and b) ow ow ow. "Your staff is kinda sentient, isn't it? Sometimes I think mine is. It's got that whole 'use spell only one time' thing, but it's more than that. It's hard to describe. We should introduce them to each other sometimes." She stopped dead in the hallway leading to the kitchen and stared into the middle distance, horrified. "Oh, gods and goddesses, I just got this image in my head of our staffs really getting along."
The team was really still in the early stages and a knowing smile came to her lips at Nico's description of her own team experience. "There are definitely a few clashing personalities, I think too many of us are used to being—" she lifted her free hand to air quote, "Leader. But we're getting there. We could totally use more help though, if you ever wanted to come along?" They'd lost Cissie, who had been a part time teammate, Nico could take on a similar role if she didn't want to be a full on member.
"Yeah, it is. Seems to have really strong opinions about people especially. I'm just not sure how sentient it is. Definitely enough to pout at times." Court half expected to see it appear outside the kitchen window in response to that comment, but luckily it hadn't. "Are there any other quirks yours has?" When Nico seemed to stall in the hallway, Court wondered for a second, before bursting into laughter. "How would that even work?!" Courtney managed to ask between giggles, not quite able to picture the two staffs getting amorous. "Actually," she caught her breath again, "I don't want to know."
Nico's empathy for the apparently nascent team was unaffected, and she nodded knowingly at Courtney. "Yeah, we had a pretty big 'who's going to lead us' issue back when me and my friends were trying to do the whole team thing. I guess it all kind of worked out, 'cause we stopped who and what we needed to stop, but I'm not sure any of us were really all that clear on who was leading who most of the time." They were hard times, for sure, but she found she could think about it a little easier now, even with the occasional harsh reminders from the stupid portal by way of little gifts. "Karolina has some pretty cool powers, you should ask her, too. As for me, I'll think about it. Right now, all I'm really confident in is my ability to kick ass, but that can be helpful, too, in a pinch. Do you want to float my name to the others? No pressure either way, just if you think we could help."
Again, Nico's head was full of truly awful, but hysterical images, and her laughter echoed off the kitchen walls as they wandered into it. "No, no, you're right. It's absolutely mind-scarring." Her laughter devolved to giggles, until only a smile remained that continued to twitch around the edges. "But as for quirks? Nah. Really just the holding out on magic thing that makes no damn sense. Staff of One, indeed." She rolled her eyes, and then squeezed Court's hand. "C'mon, let me show you my room, and then we'll hit up Sally's. Maybe they have something caffeinated enough to obliterate that idea from my brain."
Courtney could tell that there were more stories to be heard about Nico's team and had the feeling that there would be bad times as well as good, much like her own experience with the JSA. "I definitely will ask Karolina, and I'll float both of your names to the others." Court bobbed her head in a little nod, as if confirming the plan to herself as well as her friend. "Kicking ass is a major skill. I'll know who to call when we need the big guns."
Nico replied in the cheesiest way possible: by shooting finger guns at her friend and pretending to blow them off and then holster them. It was a whole thing. Yes, even she could be ridiculous on occasion.
"I'll bet." Court reached up with her free hand and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye; she hadn't laughed that hard in a while. "Maybe it's tired after one spell?" She shrugged a shoulder, not really sure how to explain the one piece of magic at a time thing. "Okay! Sounds perfect, I have a craving for a Mint-Mocha."
Scrunching her whole face, Nico shook her head rapidly. She didn't think Court was continuing to drop euphemisms, but if she was, she was diabolical. "No more images, please, I'm begging you! I'm scarred enough as it is." Letting go of her friend's hand, she instead linked their arms and started to lead her upstairs. "In that case, I'll give you the speed-tour. Who am I to stand in the way of a craving?"