[Closed] hit the showers!

[cazamitad]

Who: Araña and Nomad, and later Tommy
Where: The Trailblazers dorms
When: Backdated to just after all the rescuing. Like, literally just after. Same day.
What: Aña was promised showers. She is also a) a vigilante and b) not sure if she can safely get her new arm wet. And then Nomad walked in. And after showering? Sneaking her roommate in for his own shower bliss. Only fair, right? ...Right?
Warnings: Awkward teenagers and body horror trauma?

So everyone's alive, at least, and more or less in one piece as far as Araña can tell. She's texted Tommy back to let him know she's alive and will be home soon, and she's wondering if she wants to stick around to see if the Trailblazers order pizza or something because she is famished.

But first, that shower Jon promised her. And she's hit a bit of a snag.

"Podría dejar de funcionar," she mutters to herself, still in her grimy, blood-stained clothes and looking from her new metal arm to the shower and back. "Podría oxidarse. O me electrocute."

She did not think of this and now she is staring at a shower that she is kind of scared to step into and everything is awful oh god somebody do something.

Comments

[crotcharrow]

He makes a small noise when he feels the metallic fingers press into his back, but he makes no effort to move himself or get her off. They both need this. He'd been so freaking worried and she was here, alive, but not in one piece but she was here, and holding her made it real. And he could only imagine what she'd been through. TRIDENT had been an experience, but he at least still had both his legs. Even if they were covered in horrific scarring. This was way worse.

He takes a deep breath, his hand tightening on her waist a little when she speaks. This is hitting very close to home. They had teamed up to stop TRIDENT, to make sure nobody had to go through what he had. But turns out, it's not just TRIDENT they have to look out for. What good were they if they couldn't protect each other?

"Fuck. Fuck, I'm so sorry I didn't find you sooner."

[cazamitad]

She hears the noise, though it takes a moment to connect that to pain to the metal fingers digging into his back. This was going to take practice. Maybe she should learn to write with her left hand... She relaxes the right hand a bit, so hopefully she won't be hurting him, and presses her face into the nape of his neck.

"Not your fault. I was stupid and went out alone, they did this almost as soon as I'd got there, after they tried to pry the exo off." She shivers a little, grateful for his warmth.

The new arm doesn't get warm like the rest of her body.

"I think they thought if they took my tattoo, my powers would go away." Which indicates that they did not. To be honest, it's a little bit of a surprise to Aña, too - she honestly had thought the magic tattoo was the source of everything.

[crotcharrow]

He leans his head against hers, and sighs through his nose, holding tightly onto her. He's started to thread his fingers through her hair unconsciously, mind racing with all the things hed do to her captors if he ever got his hands on them.

"Yeah, what the hell was that about? I thought we were gonna go out together?" he frowns, pulling his head back a little so he could look down at her mop of hair. It was weird to see it down. She never had it down.

"I swear, I'm gonna kill them. Every last one. I'm gonna break off their arms and I'm gonna make them watch, and then I'm gonna break their atoms one by one from the inside out," he grabs onto Anya a little tighter, scowling.

[withoutaworld]

Rikki only just got out of the shower. She hasn't even had time to get dressed, just wrap a towel around herself, but she heard gradually rising voices and thought maybe she should check to make sure nothing's on fire.

What she finds is Araña sobbing and an angry (annoyingly familiar) delinquent hanging onto her and threatening violence. So she does the only sensible thing, in her view, which is to stride forward, yank the criminal off the traumatized girl, and punch him directly in the face.

Fun fact: it is basically impossible to keep a towel up while punching someone. She hadn't really figured that into her plans.

[cazamitad]

"I know, but it just... didn't seem like that much of a threat at the time, I guess," Aña admits with a sigh. She's smiling faintly even as she cries, when Tommy starts ranting, until suddenly he's...

Okay.

That was Nomad hauling off and punching him in the face.

And losing her towel.

Aña is torn between gaping at the (frankly really pretty) naked girl, indignantly protesting the treatment of her best friend, and laughing hysterically.

She votes a mix of c and option d - blaming Tommy for this girl being mad at him. She starts laughing through her tears in a startled way, trying (and failing) to be subtle in her attempt to watch Rikki with her pretty body, and immediately asks. "Fuckin' hell, Tommy, what'd you do to piss her off?"

[crotcharrow]

Tommy is so wrapped up in Aña's situation, that he doesn't even have time to register that Nomad is ripping him off of her and punching him in the face. She gets him right in the nose, and he reels back, tripping over something so that he's flat on his back.

"Whatthefuck!?" he screeches, pushing himself back up, one hand on his nose to see--...

Well. That sure is a naked superhero. Now he knows that the carpet matched the drapes. Dammnit why did she have to be naked. He could shout at her if she wasn't naked.

He stares for a bit, his brain obviously having shorted out after the jostle from the punch and the nakedness of the situation, and then Aña brings him back just as his nose starts to spurt blood all down his face.

"I didn't do anything!! I should be pissed off at her--goddamnit I think she fuckingbrokemynose!"

[withoutaworld]

She doesn't move for a second, fist cocked back for another punch if he tries to come at her - she probably wouldn't be able to do anything, with the whole speedster thing, but she has to try.

And then he doesn't attack her, and he's gushing blood, and she is... very very naked. Shit. She yelps softly and lunges for her dropped towel, pulling it up to cover her as best as she can.

"I thought... You were shouting and she was crying and... How did you get in here?"

[cazamitad]

"I let him in," Aña blurts. "I'm sorry, he was just really worried and wanted to make sure I was okay, plus y'know, the showers here are way better than the ones at the Y-- Uuuuuh than ours."

Well, nothing like peacekeeping to distract you from angst.

She turns her back on Rikki to examine Tommy's nose. "Yeaaaah, it's broken. You gonna let me set it so it heals right?"

She's fussing, enough that any normal person would probably assume she and Tommy are a couple. Well, they're a couple'a something, anyway...

[crotcharrow]

"How many times do I gotta tell you that I'm not a psycho?" he shouts, before grimacing as he touches his nose, hissing a little in pain. Goddamnit.

Tommy pushes himself up into a sitting position and squints up at Aña, removing his hand, which is now bloody and gross (that he's wiping on the floor by the way, Rikki), and lets her do whatever she needs to do to it.

"Yeah, just don't make it worse. This is the money maker."

[withoutaworld]

"I didn't know!" she protests, taking the opportunity of him being distracted to wrap her towel around herself properly. "You just appear in my building and you're... kind of being scary and..."

She sucks in a breath, folding her arms over her chest (which has the added bonus of holding her towel more secure, god, she's just going to pretend that never happened).

"I'm sorry. It's been a long day and I'm tired and not really... Do you wanna go to the infirmary? We don't have a nurse on staff, just... medical supplies..."

[cazamitad]

Aña pretty much ignores their little argument to gently feel Tommy's nose and then, rather abruptly, tug the cartilage back into place.

Sorry, Tommy. It'll feel better once it's back in place, though, so there's that, right?

"He was worried about me and threatening the people who did this," Aña clarifies on Tommy's behalf, waggling the metal hand's fingers. "Veloz, this is Nomad. Nomad, mi Veloz. I assume you two have already met." She turns to Rikki. "He's my roommate. And basically my best friend. So please don't punch him again, thanks."

[crotcharrow]

He yelps when she yanks his nose, and sinks back onto the floor, holding his face and muttering something under his breath with the pain. God, he was going to get black eyes wasn't he? Goddamnit.

It takes him a few seconds to recover, sitting back up, his shoulder brushing against Aña's good one, scowling a little at Rikki.

"Oh, we go way back. I met her when she was still Bucky," he snorted, wiping his hand across his face with his sleeve to try and get rid of the blood. "She basically arrested me," he finishes, carefully touching the bridge of his nose and wincing.

"I don't need to go to any CONDOR infirmary, okay? Chica, can we go? This place is giving me the creeps."

[withoutaworld]

"It's not a CONDOR--"

She gives up protesting halfway through, throwing up her hands in frustration - and then quickly remembering to grab her towel before it loosens and slides down again.

"Fine. Whatever. I just thought you might want painkillers or something to stop you bleeding everywhere, but sure, go ahead. I am sorry."

The unspoken "jerk" in that sentence somewhat undermines the apology, maybe.

[cazamitad]

Aña lowers her voice and leans in to murmur in Tommy's ear. "At least stay here and let me grab some things?" she asks. "Given everything, I think we could use some supplies. Por favor, don't start a fight, and I'll grab some stuff and then we'll go home, sí?"

They could use some antibiotics. Some gauze, some splints, whatever you use to stabilize a broken nose. Basic first aid items. She can get at least a few of these things, and she would really like to, in the event that one of them gets hurt. Again.

[crotcharrow]

He looks up at Aña, frowning at her suggestion. He hates how good the idea is, especially since the last time one of them got hurt they had to go and steal a bunch of supplies. And really, he was trying to cut back on the criminal activities. He groans at Aña, gives a brief nod and then eyes Rikki, pointedly wiping his hand on the floor again.

"I guess that's the least you can do. Since y'know. You ruined my face."

[withoutaworld]

"Your face is fine," she retorts with a little eyeroll. "Bloody, and you're gonna be black and blue for a week or two, but your face looks fine. Maybe don't break into people's homes and you won't get punched so much."

She glances to Araña, lips pressed together in annoyance. She is sorry. It's just hard to stay polite with someone as abrasive as Tommy.

"I'll show you where it is. Um. You might not want to leave him behind? Because if another Trailblazer comes down this hallway..."

Somehow she doubts he'll be able to charm his way out of getting decked again. He's got that kind of a face. And mouth. And everything.

[cazamitad]

"Your face was never fine," is Aña's retort. "He'll be fine here as long as he keeps an eye out," she adds to Nomad. "No offense but I am way too tired for bickering."

Bloody broken nose or not, though, she gives Tommy a one-armed hug and a hopefully-discrete peck on the cheek to hopefully reassure him she's kidding.

She kinda likes his dumb face.

And also Nomad's face.

And she has a metal arm, which is unrelated but adds to the amount of complicated in her life.

"Right. First aid stuff?"

[crotcharrow]

He mutters something under his breath, and shoots Nomad a look when she speaks--god everything about her just gets a rise out of him--and then huffs loudly when Aña does too.

"My face is so fine, chica, you don't even know," he starts, before promptly stoping at the hug and kiss. He rolls his eyes rather dramatically, and wipes his nose on his sleeve.

"Don't be too long, yeah? I'll die of boredom."