ic Midnight Elegy

[Electra]

Life didn't go back to normal after the funeral, there was no way it could do that, but it did begin to settle into a new routine. Ted and Janet didn't stay long after the formalities were completed, heading back to their own lives with awkward platitudes and air kisses. It had been strange having them there, but it was even odder with them gone. Trevor and Erin rattled around the house like the last Cheerios in a value-sized box, unanchored without Travis' quiet but always palpable presence. Erin started inviting Redbird into the house more often, via the still-experimental holoprojectors in a half-dozen of the rooms. It wasn't the same, but the boisterous AI did bring some life into the house. Most of the funereal flower arrangements obligingly died on schedule in the week after the funeral, but a half-dozen stubborn holdouts continued to bloom. Not knowing what else to do, Erin left them in the front parlor and kept watering them. It seemed unsporting to abandon them at this point, and maybe a little mean. 

Once the post-funeral week ended, Erin went back to work and Trevor returned to school, both of them picking up more of the threads of normal in their lives. It took Erin several weeks to get everything back in order after her prolonged absence; Steve was a decent second in command, more than decent in a tactical situation, but his typical responses to any complex employee requests tended to range from a blank stare to a baffled shrug. Just trying to sort out the vacation schedule for her team was enough to make her wish she'd done a lot better in her math classes. But nothing too crazy had happened while she was gone, and everything was back running smoothly soon enough. That gave her more leisure time to devote to her main current hobbies of worrying about her family. Project Freedom was starting to make a lot of noise about Jessie being ready for less-supervised release, an announcement that had stunned both the former Erin Whites. Honestly, Erin had just kind of assumed that Jessie would be in Project Freedom for a long time, maybe forever, or in another group home. Letting her out did not seem like a good idea, but since the doctors were pretty insistent, Erin figured they'd better do it right. Jessie would have an apartment someplace safe and quiet, she would go to school and get a real education and then... Well, hopefully it would take a really long time to get to the "and then." 

She worried about Trevor too, quite a bit, though she tried to keep it on the down-low so that he wasn't aware of it. Erin wasn't quite sure how successful she was with that, since Trevor was way too good at reading her for anything to stay secret for too long. Since the night of the funeral he'd seemed to be a little better, a little more present in this new reality, but it wasn't easy to know what he was thinking or feeling. His final projects at school were taking a lot of time with graduation looming large on the horizon, so it wasn't as though they had gobs of time to talk. Erin thought about it, then put her own name on the vacation schedule in a week nobody had claimed yet. They could get away together, just the two of them for a few days or a week, turn off the communicators and hope for no apocalypses. In the meantime, she picked out a graduation dress and a graduation present , kept watering the invincible chrysanthemums, and finally started reorganizing the biggest kitchen. 

[Gizmo]

In some ways Trevor was very good at keeping busy. Certainly he had enough projects to fill his hours, between resuming nightly patrols, finishing up the last of his university practicum project and refamiliarizing himself with the trappings of a legacy for which he was now the sole custodian. Knowing every nook and cranny of the Manor's network of caverns felt urgent now, as did updating his mental inventory of the equipment and vehicles stored there. There were things tucked away down there that he'd never had cause to investigate before and which, objectively, would most likely never be relevant again that were no longer curios and curiosities but the representations of a grave responsibility.

In that sense he was very, very bad at keeping busy. Always given to thinking things through from every angle and having trained himself to allow for multiple trains of thought at once there was precious little chance of actually occupying his mind. Walking from display case to crate to vault left him with plenty of time to think and the creative elements of his schoolwork had been done with months before, leaving only the crunching of numbers and physical assembly, tasks that required little of his immediate focus even if they were time consuming. He has time to examine in some detail how their home had changed, the new tenor of the intangibles. He learned to differentiate between Redbird's normal boisterousness and when the autonomic machine intelligence was actively trying to fill the silence with her shouts or fill empty space with her hologram. He refined his ability to know for which social events he could make excuses and when his absence would generate too much talk, when a bottle of wine and a note of apology referencing a frivolous ski trip was even better than a personal appearance. Mostly he thought about his grandfather, he thought about his parents and he thought about Erin.

On the night of his class' graduation ceremony he stood by the front door, regarding the collection of potted flowers in his immaculate suit. His narrow toed dress hoes had been brought to a polished shine and for once his hair didn't look about a week past due for a trim. Straightening the black silk tie around his neck with one hand, he idly reached into his jacket pocket with the other and turned the contents over in his fingers.

[Electra]

He was only waiting a minute before Erin joined him, still rummaging in her purse to make room for her collapsed bat along with her wallet, phone, and communicator. With everything finally arranged to her liking, she looked up at him and smiled. "You're looking very sharp, Mr. Graduate." Erin was looking pretty sharp herself in a deep blue dress with knee-length skirt and subtle golden accents worked in throughout, a nod to the school colors and to her own costume, once upon a time. Dull gold headband and sandals completed the look, and would be eminently practical if for some reason a fight were to break out. Graduation days could be pretty fraught, but at least this year she hadn't felt compelled to wear her uniform under her clothes.

She reached out and took his arm, squeezed it lightly. "Summa cum laude, that's pretty amazing. And it means something this time and everything," she added with a chuckle. Headmaster Summers had added the distinction to all their diplomas when they'd graduated Claremont, mostly as a sign to show he'd believed their story of the end of the multiverse, but since that was an honor that wasn't actually given out on the high school level, it wasn't much of a resume-builder. "I'm really proud of you." Leaning in, she risked her makeup to give him a quick kiss. "We'd better go or we're never going to find a parking place." 

[Gizmo]

Smiling into the kiss, Trevor let out a murmured, "Wow," in response to the dress and slipped his hand into Erin's, fingers intertwining. He leaned forward to follow her and extend the kiss for longer than was probably good for her subtle lipstick but eventually remembered that they had somewhere to be and led the way outside. "Better late than never," he reasoned, still seeming to be in little rush as they walked to the stately black sedan in the driveway. Already installed, Redbird's avatar flickered to life behind the driver's seat when she saw them coming, starting up the engine while Trevor opened the door for Erin.

They'd only just gotten far enough for the mansion to disappear around a bend behind them when he spoke up again. "Hhn. You know, can always mail diploma. Have better idea for evening." He looked sidelong at the auburn haired woman and raised an eyebrow enigmatically. "Unless you were looking forward to three hour long ceremony?"

[Electra]

Erin blinked in surprise, then grinned. "You know I'd do anything for you, even sit in the FCU auditorium for three hours to watch faraway tiny you walk across the stage in your cap and gown. But if you've got something else you'd rather do, I am all for it." She looked from his suit to her own dress. "We could always go dancing, we haven't done that in forever. Or did you have something else in mind." The idea that Trevor was ready to blow off a social obligation for fun was both pleasure and relief, things were really starting to get back to okay again. 

[Gizmo]

"Raincheck on the dancing," Trevor agreed as he nodded to Redbird in the rear view mirror. Her hologram nodded and took the next right turn, muting the speakers in the car to prevent herself from making a high pitched sound that would have been wholly unbecoming of a Furion warrior.

It didn't take more than a minute or two for Erin to deduce where they were headed. After all, it wasn't exactly the first time a rare show of spontaneity from Trevor had brought them to the Pramas Bridge. That was alright with the dark haired engineer, though; the location was important but it wasn't the point in and of itself. Still, it was a little different this time anyway. Even he wasn't going to try racing up the suspension cables in the lumbering four wheeled sedan.

Redbird pulled the car up at the foot of the bridge and Trevor stepped outside, forcing himself to go slowly and keep his breathing measured. Remaining calm in the face of the physical manifestation of entropy had been child's play compared to this. "Memories," he called over the roof of the car as Erin exited the vehicle, hands in his pockets and the corner of his mouth turning upward.

[Electra]

"Yeah," Erin agreed, lacing her arm through his since his hands were tucked away. She stepped onto the pedestrian walkway that ran along the bridge, smiling as the wind whipped her skirt flat against her legs. "I'd never ridden a motorcycle before the first time you took me up on this bridge," she recalled. "I don't think I'd ever felt so terrified and free at the same time." She tilted her head back to look up at the cables, gone to golden and copper in the sunset. "I think..." She hesitated for a second, then plunged on. "When we went up those cables and we stopped at the top and we could see the whole city and all the lights, I think that was the first time I thought that being a superhero might actually be something good." 

She rested her head against his shoulder, paying no attention to the cars that were rushing by just a few feet away. "Funny to think it was so long ago now. A quarter of our lifetimes, almost." 

[Gizmo]

Shifting closer as Erin placed her head on his shoulder, the quirk at the corner of Trevor's mouth gave way to a full smile. It was strange in some ways to think about how long ago that night had been but looking back he found that meeting the reticent powerhouse in the common room of Claremont's dormitories represented a definite line in his life, a break that placed every other event into the categories of 'before' and 'after'. There had been other defining moments, certainly, but his parents always would have left, his metahuman mutations always would have developed, his grandfather always would have revealed his legacy to him. Inviting Erin to join him on the back of the Night Cycle had been a choice, heart in his throat and pulse pounding in his ears and he could see how the arc of his life had pivoted around that point.

There was nothing he regretted less.

"Jump us up there?" he suggested, glancing up and down the bridge and waiting for a break in traffic and the glare of headlights.

[Electra]

She tilted her head up to look at the top support post for the bridge, then grinned at Trevor. "Yeah, okay. But only because I've got shorts under the dress. Climb on." Despite their difference in height, years of practice made running with Trevor on her back a simple matter. On her own, she could've made it to the top in a single leap, but given the extra weight, decided it was both prudent and fun to spread it out a bit. She raced down the empty pedestrian walkway before vaulting over the traffic, thirty feet above the roadbed, only to catch hold of the cables and swing briefly onto the wider access pathway cable, then bounced across the road once more to do the same thing on the other side, another sixty feet up. A few people were slowing their cars to rubberneck, but this was Freedom City, and that kind of stuff was for the tourists. 

One more quick leap had them on the broad concrete top of the bridge support, the wind whipping a bit harder at this altitude, but the sunset even more striking without the traffic and the city in the way. It was rather cleaner than Erin had expected it to be, given the birds who tended to roost here, and for the first time she got an inkling that this might not have been an entirely spontaneous idea. But it was a good idea, a very nice idea. She straightened out her clothes as Trevor disembarked. "I don't suppose you brought pie," she teased with a smile.

[Gizmo]

"Well." Trevor removed his sunglasses with one hand to look out over the water at the dipping sun before removing his beaten black fedora with the other and running a thumb contemplatively over the weathered brim. Dropping the sunglasses inside the hat he crouched to set it down near his feet, making sure the added weight was enough to keep it from being pushed about by the wind. Rather than straightening back up, however, he methodically undid the buttons on his suit's jacket so that it hung open as he rested one knee against the concrete and looked up at Erin. Producing a small, black box from his pocket he cleared his throat conspicuously. "Not pie..."

[Electra]

Erin turned from her contemplation of the city at Trevor's cough, only to find him on one knee in front of her with a ring box in his hand. She swore she could feel every drop of blood draining from her face, then flooding immediately back into her brain with a force that left her dizzy. "Oh my god..." She put her hand over her mouth to stifle what was probably going to be a rather hysterical little giggle, and looked from his face, to the box in his hand, then back to his face. "Yeah, definitely not pie," she agreed inanely, breathless laughter still in her words. 

[Gizmo]

For once Trevor's immaculate deadpan faltered, Erin's expression pulling his lips into a smile. He took a deep breath, forcing those lips to form far more words than he usually deigned to give over to any one topic. "Erin, you are the most courageous, determined, beautiful, relentlessly wonderful person I have ever and will ever meet." There was a matter-of-factness to his explanation that would have suited quoting the measurable qualities of a new engine or armor weave. "There is no part of my life -- of me -- that you don't make infinitely better." Speaking this way, transmuting emotion into sentences wasn't something that came easily to him but on the subject of his love he could write sonnets if need be. "I can't begin to imagine any future where I'm not by your side."

With his thumb he pushed up on the lid of the box, which snapped accommodatingly open with a soft click. Inside was a graceful loop of impervium polished to a radiant shine, catching and reflecting the glow of the sunset. The arms of the metal curled around to clasp a perfect black diamond, delicately cut so that some of its facets refracted the light while others seemed wrapped in velvety dark. Mouth dry, Trevor pushed forward. "Would you do me the immeasurable honour of agreeing to marry me?"

[Electra]

When she thought about it, Erin wasn't sure exactly when she'd started tearing up, but she thought it was probably somewhere around the part where she made his life better. Because it was ridiculous when she thought about it, really, that she made his life better when it was him who had saved her on a thousand different days and nights, pulling her out of the ruins of her past and giving her a future to look forward to, and now... 

She was even less equipped than Trevor to put her complicated feelings into words, so instead she hauled him to his feet, maybe even a little off the ground as well, and kissed him with all the things she couldn't say, trusting he would understand. But finally she managed to break off and step back long enough to give him the important words. "Of course I will. You're all I need for the rest of my life." She lifted her hand, pale, sturdy, nails unpolished, faint calluses on it from her weapons, and put it in his to let him slide the ring on. 

[Gizmo]

Thin wisps of midnight mist were stinging Trevor's eyes by the time Erin broke off the kiss but the corners of his mouth hurt more than that from smiling. With long, lean fingers that could strip sensitive electronics in the middle of a fire fight but shook ever so slightly now he removed the ring from the box and slipped it onto Erin's finger. Even after all of the times he'd checked and double-checked his measurements he still let out a soft sigh of relief to find that it fit perfectly. Cupping her hand in his own, he stared at the gleaming impervium and dark diamond against pale skin for a moment to convince himself that what he was seeing was real before bringing his opposite hand to her cheek and laughing happily pulled his fiance into another kiss.

[Electra]

Erin happily kissed him back for quite awhile before taking a break to inspect her new piece of jewelry. "It's gorgeous," she declared, holding it out to catch the faint backsplash of light from the bridge's powerful halogen streetlights. "And I won't have to worry about breaking it. You always pick out the very best accessories." She sat down crosslegged on the side of the support tower that faced south, away from the lights of downtown, but toward Bayview and Claremont. "We should... I don't really know. We should tell people. Like, our teammates will want to know... oh god, Mark." She put her knuckles against her mouth to stifle a burst of laughter. "Maybe we should just, like, get married right now before he has a chance to start planning a wedding." 

[Gizmo]

"Hold that thought," Trevor asked with a short snort of amusement. Jogging over to the edge of the platform he placed a hand to the side of his mouth and called downward, "She said yes." There was no way any human ear could have caught the words over the sound of the wind and traffic below but immediately the door panels of the sedan parked below erupted with a neon red wing pattern and the back end reconfigured itself into a collection of skyward facing tubes. With a chorus of thumping discharges the cannons sent streaks of brilliant red, vivid blue and impossible violet into the air where they exploded into cascades of beautiful sparks high above the bridge.

Faintly the newly engaged couple could hear a bellowed, "HUZZAH!"

[Electra]

Erin jumped at the sudden explosion, one hand going automatically for the bat that was not hanging on her hip right now, then realized what was going on and laughed while the sky exploded with colors. "Your partner in crime, I take it?" she asked Trevor, then leaned over the edge herself. "Thanks, Redbird!" Briefly, automatically, she checked to be sure that the rubbernecking from travelers on the bridge had not caused any accidents, but again, it was Freedom City. No matter what strange things happened, everyday life went on.

She patted the concrete by her side, inviting him to sit on the edge next to her, then leaned in close once he sat down. Interlacing her fingers with his, she watched as the sun finally dropped completely behind the city skyline, leaving them in deep blue twilight. "I wish your grandpa was here," she finally said. She wished a lot of people were here, wished she could call her mom and dad, wished she could yell and jump around with her sister. "I think he'd be really happy for us." 

[Gizmo]

Fitting himself against Erin, Trevor rotated their intertwined hands to make sure that the ring was indeed on her finger and he hadn't somehow dreamed the whole thing. "He would be," he agreed without hesitation, turning his head to look out at the darkening sky over the water. Thinking about his grandfather in the past tense still felt like being held underwater, tightness in his chest and the disorientation of not knowing which way was up. The solid, reassuring presence of the woman beside him, however, was all he needed to bring his world back into focus and air back into his lungs, safe in the knowledge that being worthy of her surely meant that he had grown to be the man Travis had raised him to be.

Reaching over with his free hand, he pulled his sunglasses from his hat and tucked them away in a jacket pocket before lifting the fedora itself and placing it atop his head, where it sat comfortably indeed.