The hacks and coughs of my family surrounded me. The walls having exploded, blowing all of us back, just as my husband, the hero SENTINEL, placed the cuffs on Glasgow, the villain quickly erupting into a mess of laughter beforehand. "Don!" I had screamed his identity, a mistake that would've cost us if GlasGow hadn't been the explosion...
My lungs were on fire. The space was clouded in dust and what felt like tiny pinpricks against my skin and inhaled into my open mouth, I coughed, hacking up what felt like a shard of glass that I'd swallowed. Great...
My hand finding the shoulder of the closest person, Travis, who masqueraded as the hero: EMBOLDEN, who's face contorted into a worried grimace as the room clouded with smoke and reddened with fire. My son turned to me quickly, "You ok, Ma?"
"I'm fine, I'm ok," carefully I looked over his face, besides the dust from the explosion and the scratches from our tumble, he seemed fine. "Are you?"
Travis nodded, squeezing my hand. "Yeah. Didn't know Gow had that in 'em," he spoke, looking over his shoulder. "Psychotic to the end..."
"Yeah," I agreed, looking behind the structure that gave them both cover, the smoke was still thick, but I could hear the metallic whir and grind of gears that wasn't too comforting. GlasGow never went far without his entourage, apparently they'd just arrived in time to see their captain blow himself up.
Wonderful.
Shivering despite the flames that were slowly crawling around the warehouse, sweat beads blooming across my skin to run down my face, if it weren't for my mask, they'd have blinded me by now.
Using the cover of the fallen, priceless statue that had nearly impaled me during the explosion that had leveled the entire building, the stone sculpture had fallen through the upper floor barely missing me by a few feet. If it weren't for my eldest son, Travis that had tackled me out of the way, "Mom!" he had bellowed, the two of us rolling to safety. He was sure to cradle the back of his mother's head to save her from any damage.
The communicators went off, static screaming in my ear, I cringed at the sound but I didn't dare remove the earpiece. "Is everyone alright?!" came the choppy sound of my husband's voice. "Respond!"
Breathing a sigh of relief. "Don, thank god..."
But, then it was too quiet afterwards.
I pressed a finger to my own earpiece, panic rising. "Please, is everyone ok? Answer or signal."
Looking around, we received answers one by one, "I'm with Ma, we're good," Travis responded for me.
"Besides needing a new helmet," Louis, my second oldest, goes by CROW, groaned into the connection, a few feet away, I could see him tossing off the broken headpiece, revealing his mask beneath. "I'm good. And pissed..."
"Join the club," Jack huffed into the network, a few paces away I was relieved to see him not too far from Don, the two brushing away the rubble that coated them. Suddenly, it made sense how Don had survived. Jack wasn't called BULWARK for nothing. So relieved to see them unharmed, I could cry.
"Suture," I called into the comms for my youngest son, brows furrowing at the lack of response from him. "Kevin, respond, please." I start to climb to my feet, pushing off the debris. Travis follows, covering my head as footsteps emerge from the smoke, red beams of light leering over all of our heads, searching, waiting for anyone of us to step into its crosshairs. "SUTURE!"
"I'm ok!" came his yell, but it wasn't through the earpiece, instead on the other side of the hall. The sound echoed and a short round of gunfire erupted from beyond the shattered walls, everyone putting their heads down.
Kevin, hero name: SUTURE, pinched together the torn skin of his ear, face twisted in pain as it mended slowly. His blood felt hot enough to sear at his own flesh, his communicator lost to the blast. "Crow is closest, I'll stick with him."
"Fine." Without wasting a breath, "Just don't slow me down, dimwit," Louis proceeds to leap off the debris and down to his brother, a red beam just briefly missing him, taking him by the arm. "Tore that leg up real good, huh?" he whispers, hauling him up. Kevin's bloody hand squeezes at a puncture in his thigh.
"Nooo," Kevin sarcastically drawls. "What does it look like, asshole?"
"Looks like you're about to slow me down." Kevin gives his brother a nasty look, before groaning as he quickly hauls him over and onto his shoulder. "Let's get outta here!" Louis yells, keeping himself and his brother under taller cover.
As the smoke clears up enough for me to see, I release a relieved breath as I catch sight of all of my boys, all luckily safe. I take hold of Travis's arm, my eyes flickering over to Don first, I focus.
Space begins to thin, air getting heavier and my line of site shrinks until it's just him and the color of the red hot flames that begin to settle on the rooftop. He reaches out, "Come."
And suddenly he's in reach, the space gaining weight again, air returning to normal and I take a breath and hold it once more. I take his hand, he takes mine. My gaze drifts quickly to Louis and Kevin, catching Louis's eyes beyond the debris, and it happens again. Air growing heavy, a weight that presses into my skin, space growing narrow and stretching between the meters that separate us. Jack settles his hand on Don's shoulder and another on mine. I still hold tight to Travis.
Everyone around me takes a breath in, stiffening.
And then suddenly, Louis and Kevin face me, space is no longer a concept between us, they're in reach. Everyone jerks to a stop as if on a rapid moving train, each taking a singular breath before sucking in in unison to hold it once more. Again the air returns to normal, the weight falls from my skin and I feel every muscle relax unwittingly. My hands fall onto Louis and Kevin, the rest of their hands fall onto me, everyone encircles each other, taking shape of a huddle.
But they leave my line of sight open, everyone keeps quiet, I can't be distracted.
Red beams of light search and search around. Bullets begin to fly, bouncing off the walls, hitting the debris that crumble down above our heads. But, I can't be distracted...
I stare out toward the window, out toward the midnight skyline, toward the city towers, toward the flat high-rise rooftops miles beyond reach. There.
Someone flinched beside me, and I zeroed in onto the empty rooftop of a commercial building, eyes narrowing in on the zone, "Hold tight," I spoke, voice tight with strain as space began to squeeze down to a line, until it was just that rooftop in my path. Beyond the glass window, beyond the debris, beyond the air, beyond space, beyond time, I'd get there.
Pressure fell on my family, everyone stiffened, like being slammed down hard on, shoulders being pulled down low, a confining pressure that squeezed down on all of us, but my eyes never left that rooftop.
Get there. Get there. Get there...
Footsteps getting closer.
Gunfire did not cease.
Shadows moving in, flames closing in around, red hot fire that licked at my feet and singed the hair on my skin, threatening to sear the leather onto my body.
I just had to focus on that rooftop.
And then it began.
Space fell around us, surrounding us in a way that blurred color together. First it was past the glass. Then through the air, and off the ground. Weightlessness in weighted air, that squeezed me through the pocket of space that I commanded it to allow me passage through, to allow us through.
As fast as it allowed us passage, was as fast it let us go.
All of us collapsed, hitting the rooftop, finding cool, midnight air, released of tensioned air and suffocating space, finally allowed to breathe.
"Ah!" Louis dramatically cried first. "God, I hate that."
Unfortunately, everyone had to agree, even me. "Yeah..." panting heavily, exhausted.
Don fell to his back, next to his wife, hands still entangled. Breathing harshly in sync, "Gonna have to...get that name for you soon," he huffed out. "JUMPSTREAM sounds nice, yeah?"
"That....sounds so....long...winded," my hand on my rising chest. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.
"Yeah, maybe..." Don tiredly chuckles. Before then struggling to sit upright, looking down the way, where a building burns to life, smoke rising into midnight city skies, as small as a bonfire at this height. Miles and miles of space between. "20/20 vision saves the day again..."
"I've got astigmatism..." I sat up, reminding him.
Watching as the police sirens finally begin, red and blue lights invading the streets of the city.
Kevin and Louis begin to straighten up. Jack is already beginning to stand.
Looking over the rooftop ledge, Jack hums, "Think GlasGow had a copy lying around somewhere?" he wondered aloud. "His right eye looked a little crooked, and last time he didn't even get his scar right."
"He's too much of a coward to take himself out that way, come on," Louis scoffs, then ripping out the pipe stuck in Kevin's leg, earning a yowl from the boy. "He's probably hiding out in Toronto like last time."
"Louis!" I scolded him.
"What?!"
"You dick!" Kevin clutched his leg, that had only just begun to mend itself again. "You can't just ask first?! God!"
"It's better to pull it out unprepared," Louis defended. "Isn't it?"
Giving my son a disapproving look, I shake my head, before leaning down to Kevin's side. "Does it feel like it's healing correctly?"
"Yeah, yeah, I think so," he grimaced slightly, relief spreading quickly it appeared as the crease in his brows began to fade.
"Good," I took his shoulder, finally taking a moment to be so damn relieved that he was ok, pressing my lips to his forehead. "A heck of a first mission, huh?"
"Better than I thought it'd be," Kevin admitted. "At least, I've got a better story than Louis."
"You wish!"
"Yeah because a bank heist is more exciting than an exploding robot!"
"Because it is!" Louis argued. "Do you even hear yourself, cripple?"
With his leg restored, Kevin jumped up. "I'll show you a cripple!"
I chuckled as they bickered at one another, sitting back, looking back over to the fire growing across the city, heroes gathering in the skies, police cars zig zagging down the maze of a city, clouds moving in as thunder roared to life on command of a super.
Oh, what a day.