There is really no excuse for how late these are. The only thing I can say is that Nico's chapter is next and it will be up tomorrow.
(X)
Gert didn't make it to eighteen. Or seventeen. Her birthdays are pitifully few in number. Not that she cared. Oh, she cared about dying but birthdays not so much. She died at the tail end of sixteen surrounded by her boyfriend, her dinosaur, and fire. Bleeding out while she tried to say what she stupidly thought she would have time later to say.
Gert wasn't special. Her parents knew that the moment she was born and before that. They always knew that their precious child wouldn't have any superpowers, prophecies determining her fate, or excel at sports, science, or arts. They had traveled to enough futures to know that.
Which is the reason they sold King John the Bad's famous missing crown jewels to pay for genetically engineered dinosaur to protect her. It was her father's idea. Gert will never find out how close she came to getting a griffin for her bat mitzvah.
Before the dagger had flown into her gut, Gert hadn't believed in fate, especially not the fate that said she was destined to lead the Avengers. The rest of the runaways believed that, but they also tended to forget that she lead them into complete destruction.
Not something the snarky teen wants to happen.
It's a cold comfort that as she struggles to breath she knows she's right. Fate is pile of s# %.
Gert always spoke her mind. Her parents knew this, her friends, her teachers, people on the opposite side of town. If you had heard of Gertrude Yorks it was usually in the context of 'that snarky bitch' or in case of an adult, 'the violet haired one.' Adults knew better than to insult the Yorks' daughter out loud. Either way, once you met her you'd find yourself wishing at least once that Gertrude would keep that sharp tongue in her head.
Gert didn't care. As far as she was concerned her wit and quick tongue were the best things about her. Everyone else could be boring morons that ran around like a chicken with their head cut off every time they hit a problem. She wasn't going to put up with it. It was the one thing she liked about Nico when their parents regularly forced them to get together: Nico tried to solve her problems. They disagreed on pretty much everything else from fashion to enslavement of animals but Gert had a deep seated respect for Nico's willingness to stand her ground on what she believed. Karolina is up there too but she's far to naïve about the world and right and wrong for Gert to stand being around her for long.
It made it easier for Gert not to believe in anything when she has them so willing to fight her over it.
Chase is holding her hands and trying to convince her that she's going to make it. The fire is burning bright and higher with each word he drops. Gert is trying to cut him off, trying to get him to save his breath while she transfers Old Lace to him.
It's one of the things she loves about him. His willingness to throw himself into what he cares about. He always goes all the way from showing the group his secret base instead of skipping out to loving her without reserve when Gert knows she isn't the hottest thing on the block. F*#$ it, even in the group. Gert may not bat for their team but it's hard not notice that Karolina and Nico are much prettier than her.
But Chase kissed her, loved her, and is the one crying over her quickly dying self, and, damnit, she needs to finish talking.
Gert's bat mitzvah is a boring event that's not helped by the fact that she doesn't believe in God, doesn't like anyone here, and her parents dragged her out of bed at six to get ready for this stupid thing.
So she snarks, and quips, and picks the most annoying passage of the Torah she can think of to read aloud and spends the day getting scolded at by her parents and glared at by distant relatives. No explanation on why only third removed cousins are here, but her parents long ago stopped answering questions about the extended family.
Gert doesn't find out until she's sixteen that her parents killed most of them via time travel. Surfing the time stream tends to wreck the lives of those related by blood.
She really doesn't care about this fact when she does learn it. She's never messing with time. Fate and prophecies be damned, she is not her parents.
She manages to get out to Chase that she forgives him. Manages to pass on the link in its entirety. Old Lace doesn't want to go. Doesn't want to give up her place in Gert's mind. Physically, the dinosaur curls around her as she mentally clings to her mind. The comfortable spot she was made for that even Gert can't comprehend not being there. But the both of them are not going to die so Gert metally pries it loose and shoves it into Chase. She hauls Old Lace to her boyfriend and chucks her into his head.
Protect him. She orders. I love you. She adds. She can barely hear the dinosaur's acknowledgement over its cries of anguish.
Middle school sucks. High school isn't better. Kids are cruel and she doesn't mesh with any of her classmates. She's fat, too argumentative, too talkative, too much of a know-it-all. At least, that's what the kids say. They taunt and tease and push until Gert gets good at giving it back. At running them around in circles with her tongue. At shutting them up with a few words. Eventually they back off. A chance to insult her isn't worth the snarky comeback that she'll fire off.
The thing is, once she starts she doesn't just keep it to the bullies. Her friends, peers, teachers, parents all get the blade of her tongue at some point. It pushes people away. She goes through middle school mostly friendless and high school with only Nico.
That's okay. Gert is not going to change herself for anyone. She's not going to back down and play nice because people want her to just take what the world dishes out. If that means she doesn't have friends so be it.
It's getting hard to talk now. Well, it was before, a dagger in the stomach will do that to you, but now it's becoming impossible to mouth the words that are racing through her head.
Chase is talking about her future. Still attempting to convince her things will be okay. He doesn't get that she's okay with not having a future. Okay with living on the run until death catches up to all of them. Okay with battling C Class super villains and saving the day of ungrateful L. . She doesn't want to be some important super hero that leads the world. Doesn't want that weight on her shoulders. Deep down she knows she can't handle it. She's not good enough with people; not the kind of smart that you need to know how to win battles. She can barely stand people on a good day, how the hell is suppose to lead them through death?
She's trying to explain this to Chase but it gets muddled. Everything is too hot and too weak and too much pain.
Gert's not surprised to learn that her parents are evil. They've lied to her way too many times for her to believe that they aren't. Lies about how she looks, the Easter bunny, God, her pet pig. Now she's definitely sure that they killed him and hid the body. It's sweet in a bitter, vindictive way. To know that she was right.
In the privacy of her mind, on dark days where they come back to the Hostel bloody and broken, she thinks she could have lived with being wrong about this one thing. It's a dream that she dismisses immediately.
If she had been wrong than she never would have gotten Old Lace. Never would have become family with the kids her parents made her hang out with every year. Never would have fallen in love with Chase and have him love her back. Never would have saved L.A. day after day and maybe the world too. Never would have met Victor or Cloak and Dagger. That's worth being right.
There's one last thing Gert has to tell Chase. It's the only thing running around in her head right now. Got to say it. Got to say what she's been meaning to tell him for months.
Things she said with actions (a cup of coffee he didn't ask for but she knew he needed, a sharpener for his switchblade when it started to get dull, a spot for him on her bed even when it was over 100 Fahrenheit) and others words that weren't it (An, 'I know' or 'Same here' cutting him off before he could get his out, an 'you're amazing' when he just got her like no one else, a 'thank you' that was said between the sheets when she was pretty sure he wasn't paying attention.)
"Chase Stein I have always…." She's trying so hard to speak. Trying to get out that L-word. She can't feel the rest of her body. Not her legs or her hands that she's pretty sure Chase is still holding or the pressure of Old Lace against her back. That doesn't matter though. What matters is that she finally says it before she dies. Come on, just two more words.
The last thought Gertrude Yorks has is wondering if she actually said love you or if it was just in her head.
