Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[siobhancan99]

Monica chuckled "well we will give her your card, and honestly we will think about doing something with you guys." She ran her hand along Gabi's back "but in the spirit of making it clear that you weren't coming on to us, and that this was a talk about business I'm gonna take my girl here and dance a little bit."

 

[Halcyon638]

The man raised his glass in a toasting gesture. “Absolutely. Enjoy yourselves.”

“Come here, baby,” Gabi said, extending both arms to Monica. She tugged her onto the dance floor. The music wasn’t exactly sexy, but it was propulsive enough to give them something to move to, and Gabi looked almost otherworldly lit by the unnaturally-hued lights above them.

“Freaking guys, am I right?” Gabi shouted into her lover’s ear, competing with the speaker volume. “I’m so glad I have you. I would have to be on, like, constant douchebag patrol otherwise.”

Hadley made her way over. “Hey,” Hadley called, “would it be cool if I took off again? You should take an Uber from here. Is that okay?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Mon nodded "yeah we can get back" She wrapped her arm around Gabi "why don't we just head back now? it's awful out, and I don't really feel like being hit on by fake talent agents" she shrugged "and you know that guy will come back over here in a few."

Fishing out her phone she started summoning an Uber.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Sounds good, querida,” Gabi said, kissing Monica’s cheek warmly. “I was, like, two seconds from throwing the drink in his face. I’ve always wanted to do that!”

“Thank you,” Hadley said. “I owe you guys. Talk soon.”

A few minutes later, Gabi and Monica huddled under the awning waiting for the vehicle to arrive. “I do kinda think the guy was sort of telling the truth about the whole influencer thing. Zoe says when’s she streaming and gaming she is constantly getting guys asking her if she has an OnlyFans or for pics and crap. That’s just so weird and creepy, though. I couldn’t do it.”

Smiling, Gabi says, “And I know we just let a guy watch us fuck last night but…that was different. Somehow.” She giggled and braced herself to make the short run from the awning to the vehicle.

The driver was a portly, paternal middle age man who spoke with a lilting accent of indeterminate origin. Monica’s phone read 1:57 by the time she and Gabi made their way into the apartment.

They heard voices and saw the dim flicker of the television screen. Aidan was sitting up asleep on the couch while a nature show exploring the arctic tundra played, the volume on low.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica considered waking Aidan up for a romp, but then realized how weird and sort of rapey that might be. She figured if she shut the tv off and he woke up and it happened naturally, great, and if not they could all hit the sack and try again tomorrow. She assumed Hads wouldnt be staying at the house very much that week. So she grabbed the remote and turned off the tv, then headed into the bedroom, leaving the door open for now.

 

[Halcyon638]

“He looked kind of cute sitting there,” Gabi observed as they crept into the bedroom, “but I’m done with boys for tonight. You’re all mine, carino.” She tugged down the straps of her violet dress and let it fall to the ground, then pulled the door shut with a grin.

As it turned out, the weekend marked the end of Troy’s spring break, so he headed back off to Providence College. The next day, the torrential downpour continued, so Hadley dutiful led Gabi and Monica on a trek through the Museum of Natural History where Gabi proceeded to act like the proverbial kid in the candy store. The bio major’s seemingly boundless enthusiasm was so infectious, even Hadley seemed affected by it, and they capped the day off with some “real” New York pizza from one of the NYC resident’s favorite places before hitting a dive bar. The weather for Tuesday looked promising, so the plan was to hit Ellis Island and Central Park, broken up by a few less touristy spots of Hadley’s choosing.

Late Monday night, Monica and Gabi were close enough to the bathroom to hear Hadley hugging the porcelain and vomiting up a lung or two. By the time Tuesday morning rolled around, the theater major looked pale and exhausted as she stumbled out to meet the two girl as they sat at the table with her mother and Aidan.

“Fuck,” Hadley groaned, hair plastered to her sickly-hued forehead. “I knew those wings were suspiciously cheap.”

“McClendon’s again?” Aidan said, referring to the dive bar. “I told you that place is terrible.”

Hadley checked her phone. It was already 11:02. “Okay. Lemme get myself pulled together and then we can do the Ellis Island thing and…uhh…the other thing.”

Gabi frowned. “Hads, it’s okay. You don’t have to take us there today. We can go tomorrow or something when you’re feeling better. We can figure out something to do. Like go back to the Natural History Museum, riiight?” she said, hugging Monica.

“The weather’s supposed to be shitty again,” Hadley sighed, settling into a chair. “Aidan, can you take them? To Ellis Island and Central Park?”

The dark-haired guy briefly looked up from his phone then, perhaps purposefully, directed his daze down again.

“Not as like their chaperone or something,” Hadley explained, “but it’s kind of a pain to get there if you’re not a local.”

Aidan looked up at Monica, then Gabi. “Oh. I mean, I don’t have much going on, so…up to you,” he said to the girls, looking out the window at the streaming sunlight.

 

[siobhancan99]

"We're big girls, we can get around the city ourselves" she joked "look Aidan, if you don't have anything to do feel free to tool around with us. We don't know the cool places to go and all." She shrugged and licked her lips, eating a bit more as she was perpetually hungry "So you know, show us around and all that but not if you're busy." She shrugged "why don't you come with us for a bit, and if you're bored you can fuck off and do whatever?"

 

[Halcyon638]

The dark-haired guy was trying to keep his composure, but Monica saw the brief flash of his boyish smile. “Sure. Sounds good,” he said.

Grinning, Gabi gave Monica a short, knowing glance, then slunk off to get dressed. The brunette wore a pair of black leggings and a white Legend of Korra t-shirt under a pink hoodie.

About a half an hour later, Aidan joined them near the apartment door, wearing a forest green hoodie and a pair of jeans. He had cleaned up his facial hair a bit, but there was still a layer of dark scruff on his well-defined jawline.

 

[siobhancan99]

"bisexuals represent" Monica grinned at her girl's t-shirt, then kissed her and grinned. She was dressed in jeans, a white v-neck and a black cardigan. When Aidan appeared she nodded, thinking he cleaned up decently well. Letting her girl watch them fuck wouldn't be that hard after all. She slipped her fingers through Gabi's and squeezed her hand "so where are we off to then?"

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi smiled as Monica admired her t-shirt. “Heck yeah.”

Aidan’s face reddened a tad. “Yeah, so…if you all wanted to do Ellis Island, we should get over to Battery Park pretty soon.”

“Sounds good! I’ve been before but this will be Monica’s first time. We gotta check out Liberty Island, too!”

“Oh. Yeah, unfortunately, there’s not really enough time to see both since we’re getting a late start, and you have to book a Liberty Island tour way in advance if you want to go up into the statue,” Aidan noted as they slipped into the elevator.

“Oh, okay. I’m sure there’ll be plenty to see on just Ellis Island! I remember going there when I was a kid and just spending hours wandering.”

Aidan smiled, clearly tickled by Gabi’s earnest enthusiasm. “Well, we kinda got dragged here every other year on school trips when I was growing up, but there’s definitely a lot.” The elevator dinged signaling they had reached the lobby. “So, where are you two from? How did you meet?”

 

[siobhancan99]

"so we are from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania" Monica brushed her thumb along Gabi's hand "and we are from a class of like... 40 kids? 50 or something? anyway. two classrooms per grade. My parents and her parents were the only immigrants so they sat me next to her you know, cause we have the same experience" she gestured at her girl and back at her self "you know, my parents emigrating here from sweden and all. exactly the same as coming from Latin America. People 100 percent treat us the same." She rolled her eyes and laughed "but you know, fast friends. She was six and I was seven. It helped that being a year older and a girl i was the biggest kid in the class. So we didn't catch much shit. But as kids we were also deeply deeply weird. We liked science and science fiction and we wanted to go to college, which... there's maybe 10 kids from our class who did. So. we were always sort of outcasts. Well. Till high school. Then we got cute and I got a popular boyfriend and everything sort of changed. Then we got to be the cool kids."

 

[Halcyon638]

As they stepped out into the April sunlight, Aidan shoved his hands into his sweatshirt. He chuckled at Monica’s remark comparing her and Gabi’s backgrounds. “Yep, just like us Italians. My great grandpa got discriminated against 100 years ago so we totally understand what it’s like.”

They made their way down the crowded sidewalks.

“I don’t know about that,” Gabi said, taking issue with Monica’s last statement, “maybe I got a little hotter but I don’t think I’ve ever been cool. Do you remember the string of boys I dated?”

Monica, Gabi, and Aidan made their way across the street. “This is going to sound corny AF, but looking back, I really think the coolest kids were the ones who figured out their thing and just went for it,” Aidan remarked.

“What was your thing?” Gabi asked.

“Oh, definitely the mysterious, artsy loner thing. I couldn’t make it work. Everyone still remembered the weirdo who almost choked on a churro in Ms. Castilla’s Spanish class.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"very suave. bet that really got you a lot of edgy loner cred." She grinned and looked around the city a bit, honestly a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of the place "New York is cool and all, but man I gotta admit. I'm glad I don't live here." She sidestepped to avoid being barreled over by a guy on his phone and then a messenger biker. "Prospect City is too crowded and too loud. this is insane" Her heightened senses were a little overwhelmed in the City, the cacophony of it and the somewhat terrible smell mingled a bit to set her on edge.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Jesus!” Aidan shouted at the messenger. Gabi gripped Monica’s hand tighter. “Yeah. Sorry about that. There’s a reason I try to spend as much time in nature as possible.”

They passed a pair of food trucks and the piquant, pleasant smells temporarily offset the more unpleasant odors. “You like outdoorsy stuff?” Gabi asked as Aidan took the lead, burrowing through the crowds like a fullback punching a hole in a defensive line.

“Yeah. Kayaking, rock climbing, hiking. What about you two?”

Gabi smiled. “Back in Cottersville, I think the main outdoorsy things were getting drunk in a field and swimming in the gorge. We were definitely indoor kids.”

“Well, if you ever want to try any of that stuff, let me know. One of my good friends just moved away and I used to go with…my ex.” He furrowed his brow slightly as if wincing at a sharp jag of pain. “I like going alone. Spending time in nature. But sometimes it’s cool to go with someone. Share the experience.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica refrained from sharing the last time she was out in nature she threw a man over the dam "Don't let Gabi lie to you. we used to go boating on the lake behind the dam too." She laughed and bumped Gabi with a hip "She just didn't enjoy it." She stuck her tongue out at her girlfriend and paused to get a hot dog "anyone want anything?" She got a Dr. Pepper as well. "I'm fucking starving."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Nope, but I’ll steal a few sips of your soda,” Gabi said.

“I’m good, thanks,” Aidan responded.

“So…do you work here, or go to school, or…?” the brunette asked him.

“Or do I just stay in my stepmom’s apartment and play video games all day?” he said, his tone playful. “No, I have a job. I’m a graphic designer for this marketing firm.”

“Oh, cool,” Gabi said.

“Ehh. It mostly pays the bills and they let me work remote, but it’s just a job. We’ve been doing this campaign for this sports betting site and one of the clients is just the biggest fuckwit ever. You two are science majors?”

After they disclosed their majors, the younger girl added, “Monica just got an internship at this private security company for this summer!”

“Wow. Congrats,” Aidan said.

 

[siobhancan99]

"thanks" she felt a little self conscious about it, largely because Gabi didn't have anything yet. She had told her to go to the damn fair though. Still it was awkward as fuck.

"Marketing. Sounds fun. I guess." She laughed and brushed her hair back out of her face "so what would you do if you could do anything?" she wolfed down half her hot dog waiting on the answer "Like, if you had to work but all jobs were equally easy to get. not like... if you had sufficient resources to not work"

 

[Halcyon638]

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Aidan said as Gabi took a swig of Monica’s Dr. Pepper. “I designed an album cover for a friend and a book cover for my ex’s brother. I’d love to do that for a living—albums, book covers, movie posters.”

“Maybe we should hook you up with this guy we met last night,” Gabi said, grinning at Monica. “He said he was a movie agent or something and one of his clients was going to be in the next Scream movie.”

“Yeah?” Aidan said, amused. “How casually did he drop that one into the conversation?

As Monica finished her hot dog, he added, “What about you two? Dream jobs?”

“I’m really digging evolutionary bio, so maybe that, or epidemiology, something like that,” Gabi responded. “Something in a lab.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"I wanna buy a super suit and fight crime to avenge the death of my parents at the hands of a cheap hoodlum after a movie." She deadpanned and sipped at her Dr. Pepper "Oh wait that's batman. i want to build robots I think. The physical part of it. The fiddly electronic parts of it I'll leave to someone else. I'm in engineering with a minor in Materials Science." She shrugged and drained the last of her drink and tossed it in the trash with the napkin from her hot dog. "and yeah, mr. agent didnt even drop it casually into conversation. He led with it. I could just feel the roofie in the next drink coming."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Wow. Now I feel kinda unambitious for saying I want to design movie posters,” Aidan said in response to the girls’ career plans, sidestepping a child sprinting past them. “What kind of robots do you want to make? Is this going to be one of those Skynet situations where I should be trying to stop you now to prevent a horrible future? ‘Cause I’d really just prefer to take you two on a nice ferry ride, maybe get some egg creams.”

Gabi looped her arm around Monica’s elbow as they left the food carts and followed Aidan’s lead. “Damn. You almost gotta give him credit for being so direct about it.” He shoved his hands into his hoodie’s pockets. “I can’t promise either of you a role in a major franchise, but I did post a video with Adobe InDesign tips that got something like 1,600 views, so if you’re looking for some exposure…”

“Hmm,” Gabi said with an impish smile as they approached the subway station, “would we have to do nudity?”

“As long as it doesn’t distract from the tips.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"I was thinking more Voltron than skynet. You know, five bad ass lions that form an even bigger robot. that sort of thing. I mean i'll settle for skynet. there's a certain charm to people being like 'hey that's a monica bergenson model' before it murders them, but really I feel like i have more protagonist energy than that."

She laughed at Gabi's comment "i think anything with your ass in it would be for a more private video baby."

 

[Halcyon638]

Aidan grinned. “I support your life goals.”

Gabi laughed as they saw their subway train pull up. After a short subway ride, they reached Battery Park, where they waited for openings on a ferry to take them to Ellis Island and passed a security screening. All in all, the wait took nearly an hour, Monica felt a wave of relief that she’d grabbed the hot dog before the ride.

The sun was still shining and the temperatures were in their mid-50s, but there was enough of a chill coming off the water that Gabi clung to her lover for warmth as they took the trip. The brunette snapped a number of pictures of them with the New York skyline as the backdrop, enlisting Aidan’s help on for one of them.

They roamed the National Museum of Immigration and grounds for a few hours, soaking in the historical details, Gabi occasionally recalling moments from her childhood family trip to the site and Aidan reminiscing about adolescent antics some of his classmates engaged in on one of their many school trips.

They took the last ferry back around quarter to 5, and then the graphic designer led them to a small, packed, hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint. Aidan ordered a beer and Gabi flashed her fake ID to land a hard cider. “So…I wanted to thank you both for letting me tag along today. I haven’t gotten out much recently and…this is going to sound strange considering what happened on Friday, but this is the first time I’ve felt sort of normal in a while.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"what, you don't watch two co-eds fuck every friday night? I'm so shocked Aidan. Really. Truly. Shocked. This is my shocked face"

Monica tucked into the food, eating some smoked wings "So what's your plan for the rest of the night after this? Gonna meet some friends or are you just gonna sit on the couch?" She licked her lips "you can stick around with us, if you want. I'm sure even if Hads is feeling better she will go see her man."

 

[Halcyon638]

Aidan lowered his head toward the table, resting his hand on his forehead. “Fuck. When you say it like that, you make me feel like even more of a creep.”

Gabi took a swig of her cider. “Aww. You’re a cute creep, though.”

Hadley texted Monica and Gabi: “So sorry for bailing on you again today. I’m probably going to have to hit it early tonight because I feel like I could pass out sitting up.”

The dark-haired guy leaned back in his booth. In the booth behind them, a group of men were enthusiastically shaming the referees of a recent basketball game. “I’ve been avoiding my friends lately ‘cause I’ve just been a walking buzzkill. If I’m not bringing you two down, I’d love to stick around. Where to next? Are you all clubbed out after this week?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica shrugged "we're not huge club people. I mean we can do whatever, but really I kind of want to do shit I can't do at home. Also, don't feel creepy. We literally invited you. It added a little something. We had fun, you had fun. we all had fun."