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May 4 2012 After all the exhaustion of the last few months, it had been a welcome relief for Mark to get invited to the get-together at the Socotran Consulate for Nina's brother Morakot. Or be informed by Nina over breakfast that they'd be attending, anyway. "Personally, I never thought Morrie was going to get married," she told Mark breezily as she sat back in her chair and drank her dark, strong-smelling Arabian coffee with a thoughtful expression. "But he's nearly forty now and he's not getting any younger. Father does value family, and he does control the purse strings. You can't be a gentleman bachelor forever, not and enjoy the lifestyle of a prince of Socotra." Morakot al-Darsah, Mark knew, had been something of a playboy in years past, his dark skin, good looks, and well-groomed mustache making the wealthy prince a star of the tabloids of a previous generation: he'd even once squired Princess Diana around. He'd made it a point to be up to date on Nina's family after they'd started dating. "So he's announcing his engagement here in Freedom City? He must be marrying somebody local." He put his mind to the thought of all the eligible women in town interested in marrying a handsome prince, but there were too many possibilities. "And you don't know who, or you'd have told me already." That got him one of Nina's more predatory smiles. Mark had the idea Nina didn't always appreciate it when he was clever, but she seemed to find it interesting all the same. "You seem to have my number, Mr. Lucas. Anyway, yes, it is a mystery! He's been out of the public eye lately, you see, going to all those clubs of his and spending Father's money like it's made of water. So Father has used his influence with the consulate to make sure you and I both have tickets to the soiree next week. The better to keep an eye on my errant brother, and to make sure he's not about to disgrace the family." "A courtly evening with you? I'd be honored," said Mark with a wink. "You should wear that black dress of yours, the one that shows..." He demonstrated with his hands, and Nina laughed. "I can get my good suit." Sobering a little, he added, "We should bring Trevor and Erin too. They're smart and they're observant, and they're good in a crisis." Very good, as it happened, but there was no need to dwell on the fine details in front of someone who wasn't in their circle of trust, even if she was in his. Kind of. It was complicated. "Your schoolmates. Yes, hmm, I remember them." Nina and Mark had never actually discussed where those superheroes had come from when the Nazi transdimensional assassin had come to kill her for her father's defiance. "All right, I'll make sure there are two tickets..." That evening, with Nina off at her late-night class, Mark called Trevor's 'workphone', figuring that if he got lucky, he'd catch Erin and Trevor together. And as it happened, he did!

Once upon a time, before the end of the world, Erin White had been a much girlier girl. She'd had fun at sleepovers with her friends, giving and receiving makeovers and talking about boys. If everything hadn't gone careening off the rails, she would've gotten professional instructions from the Avon rep that Kathy's mom had booked for her birthday party, but even so, Erin could put on makeup without looking like a fool. But that had been in another lifetime, and she just didn't anymore. For a long time, there was absolutely no point in it, between one thing and another, and then, when she'd been released from quarantine and gotten used to being around girls who cared about their appearances, she had no money for that kind of thing. It was easier to pretend not to care and just make sure to keep her skin clean and avoid zits. Now, though, she had a job, sort of, and a scarily amazing dress, and she was going to a fancier party than anything she'd ever been invited to before. If there was ever a time, it was now. She wished Alex was around to help, but at the same time, doing it on her own protected her ego when she scoured clearance racks and tested what sort of products worked on super-resilient skin and hair. The curling iron and hair doo-dads she could borrow, at least. With Oliver watching encouragingly from the counter, she co-opted one of the girls' bathrooms on the day of the dance and spent literally most of the afternoon getting ready. Training and homework be damned, just this once. Maybe she had no chance of fitting in, but she wanted to at least look the part. All in all, she thought she did a fairly good job. After experimenting and deciding that she couldn't put her super-straight hair up in any sort of complicated arrangement by herself, she let it go and just curled the tendrils near her face, holding the rest back with a couple of sparkly rhinestone combs. The makeup was understated, it had to be with her pale skin, but it set off her lips and made her eyes look bigger and darker. She'd borrowed the shoes, too, strappy red heels that added inches to her height and a sway to her walk that she'd had to practice with a little. The dress, however, was doing most of the heavy lifting in the ensemble. Despite her concerns, Frank had done an amazing job on it, creating a calf-length showpiece in deep red charmeuse that clung as much as her costume did but somehow made her look a whole lot more feminine. He'd gone with a little more cleavage than she'd hoped, but not as much as she'd feared, so she figured they could call it even, since he'd also included the matching shorts and slit the skirt enough to let her work if she had to. Frank obviously knew his customers. The earrings and the necklace she'd found were rhinestones too, and people would probably notice at a shindig like this, but there was no help for that. They looked pretty. Oliver purred his approval as she looked at herself in front of the mirror one more time, getting up and stretching after his long stint playing moral support. "Wish me luck," she told him with a crooked smile. "I think I might be better off going into a war zone than doing this. But it'll be an adventure." Tucking her bat and her wallet into the little matching evening bag, she headed out to the common room to wait for Trevor.