We're not superheroes, okay?

After about nine hundred delays that had had Gert anxiously tapping her foot for so long that she was starting to develop blisters, the portal finally dropped off Gert, Bay and Old Lace at the top of the stairs at the new and improved hideout under the La Brea tar pits, where a cacophony of arguing voices awaited them.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Victor!" Chase snapped. "The dude who attacked us was in his twenties, tops. And along with being an old dude, Alex Wilder's dad is also dead. Trust me, I saw him get blown up before watching an entire ocean get dropped on his corpse."

That was chilling, but Gert only raised an eyebrow, motioning for Bay to follow her down the stairs toward where her friends had gathered.

"Trust me, I saw a portrait of the guy when he was younger," Victor said impatiently. "And I have a photographic memory. Literally."

"He's right, Chase," said Nico. "I'd recognize Mr. Wilder's baritone anywhere. I don't know how, but he's definitely the one who kidnapped Molly."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Gert said, holding up her hands as she descended the last stair and stepped into view of her friends. "Is this actually a mirror universe, or did I miss something big?"

( More sniping behind the cut! )

[[preplayed with the amazing justbeingbay. taken and adapted from runaways volume ii, issue 16. nfb/nfi, ooc-okay, and part one of five today!]]

The weather outside was offending Gert's delicate Los Angeles sensibilities, so as soon as she was back from her field trip, she retreated to her room and returned to her bed, swiftly shimmying under the covers.

Ten minutes later, that turned out to have been a rather well-chosen place to be when her phone buzzed with a text from her version of Karolina that felt like a punch.

Thinking about meeting up. How soon can you get away?

Gert thought of the woman at Portalocity who'd been so apologetic but ultimately unhelpful when Gert had last tried to book a ticket back to LA.

Stupid superpowered controlling jerks and their power trips.

Gert didn't answer Karolina right away, but instead chose to set her phone aside and pat the space beside her for Old Lace to hop up. She could use some comforting.

Gert wasn't big on Halloween -- hadn't been, really, since she was about nine. Now that she was sixteen, she was pretty over the whole thing, and in the interim she had all but memorized an annoying spiel about how this dumb holiday was just another sign of the appropriation and Americanization of everything anyway.

So. No trick-or-treating for her tonight, obviously. Instead, she was spending her morning at her desk, going over verb conjugations for her online Italian class (what, fall break had inspired her to pick up another language), all the while fully ready to launch into that spiel of hers if anyone asked her why she wasn't in costume.

[[open door and post!]]

Over the course of the weirdly social past few weeks, Gert and Old Lace hadn't had a lot of quality time to spend together. So that was why on this fine Sunday morning, Gert was flopped on the floor on her stomach in her pajamas, painting Old Lace's nails.

Okay, so maybe the metallic purple color was going to clash with Old Lace's coloring, but Gert only had one thing of nail polish, and besides, she personally felt like if anyone besides her got close enough to see Old Lace's nails, the fact of their being painted alone was intimidating enough that the color really didn't matter.

She had a dinosaur who was happy to submit to this treatment, she had internet radio, and she had a wide-open door and window so that the nail polish fumes didn't get too annoying. It was a good day.

[[open!]]

Okay, don't get Gert wrong. Handwavily turning back into a person was nice, and she was pretty thrilled to have opposable thumbs and the ability to eat normal food and pet Old Lace again. But something (possibly multiple somethings?) about today was/were weird and she was not a fan. For one thing, either she was just out of practice using her hands or the stuff in her room was just extra slippery today, because she didn't seem to be able to grab things. You know, like her phone. Or the bag of Raisinets she was seriously craving. But on top of that, she was also doing a disproportionate-to-her-usual-thoughts-about-him amount of thinking about Chase today, and not in the wholesome oh-my-god-he's-such-an-idiot kind of way. In a different way.

Confused and frankly irritated, Gert flopped down on her bed and matched Old Lace's sad eyes with her own, almost wishing she was still a lizard.

[[door cracked, post open!]]

It might be bordering on obsessive, the care that Gert took to make sure her hair was freshly purple once a week. In the years since she'd gone purple, she'd gotten used to a routine of putting the dye in at night no matter what the instructions on the box said, leaving it in for however many hours she managed to sleep (which often wasn't many -- nightmares and all), rinsing it out bright and early in the whatever-time-of-day, and then squinting at it in a mirror all morning to see if the purple really was as bright as it had been before. Having completed steps one through three already and attacked the room with an unholy amount of air freshener to get rid of the dye smell (you're welcome, Maddie), she was now working on step four.

With a snoring dinosaur occupying three-quarters of her bed as she sprawled on her back and held up a compact mirror to her face, so she dared anyone to tell her she was being a typical girly-girl right now.

[[door and post open!]]

Gert wasn't a big fan of Public Speaking class - well, class in general, really, but especially that one. So as soon as class was over, she made her way right back to her room and flopped down in her desk chair, where Old Lace promptly headed over to be petted.

Gert gave in, because she was a nice dinosaur owner like that, and then since petting Old Lace meant she really only had the use of one arm, she picked up a book with her free hand and started reading it. This position was probably going to get really uncomfortable fast, but you try choosing between a cuddly dinosaur and a good book. Couldn't be done.

[[open door, open post!]]