Author's Note: You've waited long enough. Time for some cuteness to ease up from the previous chapter's heaviness.
Cover art is a still from Hulu's Runaways.
I do not own Marvel comics, the Runaways, Hulu or any of a half-dozen other related properties, and I do not make any claims upon Marvel or its characters. All these characters are used under the concept of Fair Use, and I make no profit or income from using any of them.
Chiaroscuro
by Jo K.
Chapter 11: Run with Me
The rats are on parade, another mad charade
What you gonna do?
The hounds are on the chase, everything's erased
What you gonna do?
I need some room to breathe, you can stay asleep
If you wanted to
They say that nothing's free, you can run with me
If you wanted to
Yeah, you can run with me
If you wanted to
Before the time runs out
There's somewhere to run
Wake up
Run for your life with me
Wake up
Run for your life with me
-Foo Fighters, "Run"
—O—
—O—
SIX YEARS LATER
"NiNi! NiNi!"
"Obaa-chan! Obaa-chan!"
"NINI!"
"OBAA-CHAN!"
Karolina and Nico looked at each other over the small crowd of children of various ages surrounding them, tugging on Nico's long black skirt and Karolina's baby blue romper, little arms raised and waving, pushing and struggling for the best position closest to their grandparents as they stood outside beneath the desert sun. The look the two partners of the last thirty-four years shared was one of happy resignation, as they were keeping their granddaughters at the Hostel today.
"Are we getting too old for this?" Karolina, hair still a golden blonde despite the intermittent silver strands that now appeared in her wavy tresses. Her face had a few lines developing around the corners of her eyes and across her forehead, but she wore them as proudly as battle scars.
Nico looked back at Karolina over the bobbing and jumping heads of black, cinnamon, blonde and auburn hair surrounding them. Her face had only a light foundation on it this morning, paired with a pop of soft orange around her eyes and an umber so dark that it was nearly black on her lips. The years with Karolina and their family had removed Nico's need to wall herself off from the rest of the world, so some days her makeup was surprisingly minimal, especially compared to when she and Karolina were teenagers. But Nico still loved the boldness and artistry that came with cosmetics, and by this point in her life, she was pretty damn good with them. She loved having another dimension with which to express herself and her feelings, and she had made sure to pass on her skills and knowledge to her and Karolina's daughters when they were young. Now she had a new generation to share her skills with, and that had made Nico step up her makeup game once more.
Karolina often described Nico's ever-changing look as a field of wildflowers that bloomed in a different color every day, always fresh and always beautiful. Nico usually rolled her eyes at that comment, but it made her heart swell with happiness to know that Karolina still appreciated the effort and skill that went into her makeup as well as the end result.
Admittedly, Nico's overall style had gotten slightly more understated as she and Karolina transitioned into their fifties. Menopause, aches and pains, changing bodies and a healthy dose of not giving a fuck what most other people thought demanded a few sartorial changes: the high boots had been retired, passed down to Lenore (the only one who could wear Nico's size) several years ago, along with some of the more revealing outfits.
—O—
"You realize that in ten years Ligeia's going to want to wear these, right?" Lenore had asked her mama, examining one mostly-see-through top that Nico had loved but was passing on to her middle daughter.
Nico had sighed and given Lenore an exasperated look. "Why would you tell me that?" she asked wearily.
Lenore smirked at her, and the expression was totally Nico twenty-five years ago, just with deep blue eyes. "Because I have to deal with worrying about that, and I wanted some company in dreading the dating years."
"You're a bitch sometimes," Nico replied, her smile indicating that she really wasn't angry at her daughter.
"Learned from the best," Lenore smugly replied, placing the top on a hanger before adding it to her closet.
—O—
"Is Gert letting the new babies outside yet?" Nico asked her wife, poking her lightly in the side with her elbow.
Karolina smiled widely. "Oh my god, they are SO. CUTE. You want to go see them?"
"Sure," Nico replied. "Hey, rats! We're going right over there to check on the little dinos." As cheers rang out around them, she pointed across the open scrubland to the lower-elevation arroyo where Gert and Chase's small but growing family of dinosaurs liked to play. "You think you can keep from burning the desert down while we're over there?"
"YES!" was audible as several voices joined in to pledge obedience.
"I'll watch them, Aunt Nico," said Jessi. The tall girl with dark brown hair that was nearly black was the daughter of Molly and her wife Klara; Jessi was closer in age to Nico's and Karolina's grandkids than to the rest of her generation of Runaways, as Molly and Klara were not only younger than the rest of the original Runaways, they had been much later to have children. (Mostly because Klara had struggled with her sexuality for several years, due to her repressive and abusive childhood.) As such, Jessi was a young sixteen, ten years younger than Gert's and Chase's younger daughter Marie, the next youngest of the second generation of Runaways.
Karolina illuminated into pink and yellow light and swept Nico into her arms as they flew the short distance to view the new dinosaurs. Only moments later, once Nico and Karolina were out of earshot, a thick stream of cold water struck the half-dozen children gathered close together, sparking loud shrieks and squeals as the half-dozen children ranging in age from Lydia's nine years to two-year-old Edgar, the younger child of Lenore and Jimmy, starting running into each other in their haste to escape the cold spray of water.
Jessi had hidden a waterthrower of her uncle Chase's design, built like a flamethrower with two tanks of water mounted on a backpack and designed to assist with firefighting, behind a pile of rocks, and once her aunts had flown off, she had quickly set to work spraying her cousins, who appeared to be enjoying the relief from the desert heat more than actually disliking it, judging from the laughter and the smiles on the faces of her cousins.
Lydia and her sister Coraline bloomed into copper-red and golden light respectively, shooting off the ground and out of the spray of the large water cannon. The two girls flew in opposite directions as Jessi tried to track Coraline, mainly because Lydia was smart enough to fly over Gert's large patch of prickly pear cacti growing adjacent to the Hostel, and no one was going to risk pissing off Gert.
(Gert had won a grant and concession from the Bureau Of Land Management to allow her to conduct research and cultivate the cacti for the goal of more efficiently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That, combined with the hundred-year-lease Nico had managed to secure on four hundred acres around and including the Hostel, served to give the Runaways' large family long-term security when it came to their unusual home.
The fact that Gert named her most promising strain of prickly pair cactus, one four times more efficient at processing carbon dioxide than typical cacti, Opuntia deanoru had been an utter delight to Karolina.)
The swooping Lydia laughed as red runes glowed to life around her hands, a richer scarlet than her Majesdanian glow, as her sorcery activated. The spray of water that Jessi was directing at Coraline suddenly bucked like a fire hose as it began to glow a matching shade of scarlet.
Coraline abruptly streaked in, just centimeters off the ground, and grabbed Jessi from behind, using her budding super strength to lift the older girl off the ground and hold her aloft as her arms waved and legs kicked.
Jessi was nearly as strong as her mom Molly, but she covered large distances by jumping, not flying, so she had no way to dodge if she wasn't touching the ground. As such, the thick stream of cold water that Lydia was directing back at Jessi hit the older girl squarely in the chest and face, drenching her as she shrieked playfully.
"Oh my GODDESS, Lyd!" a dripping Coraline shouted from beneath her cousin. The thick stream had been more than enough to soak not only Jessi but poor Coraline, too, soaking her shorts and one of her favorite shirts.
Lydia rolled onto her back, still hovering several meters off the ground, laughing wildly until a glowing stream of thick, gritty water mixed with desert earth slammed into her.
"CORI!" the now-sodden Lydia yelled, her body position tilting so that she was upright and glaring down at her younger sister, the telltale rose pink of Coraline's magic still shining around the girl's hands.
"Uh oh," said Sabrina, seven years old. She was essentially the third generation of Karolina, with the blonde hair and blue eyes her mother Pandora and grandmother Karolina shared. Sabrina was all too aware of the hot tempers her older cousins possessed. She turned to her cousin Ligeia and said, "Gee-Gee, go get the Nanas. Quick."
With a quick nod, the petite, jet-haired Ligeia streaked away, leaving an afterimage of blue-green as she shot off in the direction of their grandmothers. Ligeia strongly took after her mother Lenore, with the diminutive frame, dark hair and quiet nature that had also marked her obaa Nico as well.
No sooner had Ligeia taken off than the smack of Coraline's body impacting her sister's in midair rang out, with the two siblings immediately escalating to shoving and short punches as they wobbled slowly, drifting away from the Hostel as they hovered just above the ground.
"Stay back," Sabrina said, rounding up her younger sisters Blair, now five, and Elvira, who had just turned four, along with their cousin Edgar, Ligeia's little brother. "They're a lot stronger than we are," she told her siblings as she put herself between them and their older cousins. As a precaution, Sabrina conjured a barrier shield, placing it between them and the tussling siblings; her sorcery was more dependable than her mother Pandora's had been at her young age, but Sabrina was still hoping that the strength of her shield wasn't going to be tested today, because with America Chavez as one of their grandmothers, Coraline and Lydia were strong.
The first serious punch landed in the scrap was Cori's left fist connecting with Lydia's chest, driving the older girl downward onto the desert ground hard enough to crack the dry earth and send Lydia's body bouncing upward.
Lydia used her momentum to flash upward, grabbing her little sister by the legs and spinning her at super speed before letting her go, sending her hurtling upward for a little over a second before bright pink light, not the soft rose of Coraline's magic but a rather bold pink, appeared around the shaken Coraline, halting her instantly but not doing anything to ease her disorientation at the sudden acceleration and deceleration.
At the same time, a pink glow with soft flickers of purple wrapped Lydia up, holding her rigidly in place. The girl twisted and strained, but she couldn't break out of the tingling energy field wrapped tightly around her.
"HEY!" rang out a voice, sharp and commanding.
At the sound of their obaa's serious voice, Coraline and Lydia both stopped wriggling. Each girl's head turned to see their grandmothers Nico and Karolina on the ground below and between them, pink runes and a pink glow around Nico's hands as she held Cori in a magic field and pink light streaming from Karolina's left hand as she immobilized Lydia.
(The changing of Nico's magic from violet to pink had begun almost immediately after handing the Staff of One over to Lenore. It had been a gradual shift, first to a lighter purple later that evening, then to a bright magenta by the time they went to bed, then to a soft vermilion the next morning before finally stopping at a rich pink identical to the hue of Karolina's light by bedtime. Nico and Karolina hadn't been surprised—both of them had already seen the true color of Nico's personal magic over thirty years ago during her duel with the Staff of One—but the change had been striking to the rest of their extended family when Nico demonstrated the difference the next day.
"That's so sweet!" Molly had shouted. "You two match!"
"Very cool," Chase had agreed.
"I think it shows the real source of your power, your true strength, now that you're no longer using the Staff," Alex had observed; he and Livvie had stopped by to drop off some electronic components for Chase.
"You are what you eat," Gert had smirked, getting a light swat from Nico.)
"One day you'll be strong enough to break my fields, firefly," Karolina said firmly as Lydia again tried to toss and struggle against her grandmother's pink light. "But you're not strong enough yet."
"What the hell is going on here?" Nico snapped, her voice louder and harsher than her wife's as she looked at the soaked, dirty kids.
"I started it," Jessi said, wringing water out of her shirt and looking overly contrite. "I was spraying them with the waterthrower."
"Did you make Lydia and Cori start hitting each other?" Nico asked, turning her intense gaze to the young woman.
"... Well, no, but—"
"Then it's not your fault, Jess, but that's sweet of you to try and take the blame." Nico softened her gaze as she looked at the beautiful young woman, so much like Molly at that age, as she toed her shoes into the wet ground.
Nico returned her attention to her two oldest grandkids as she pulled Coraline down to the ground, positioning her beside her sister as the two of them hovered, wrapped in matching pink light, directly in front of her and Karolina.
Karolina frowned, taking her time as she met each of the sisters' eyes, holding each one's gaze long enough to wordlessly convey her disappointment with each girl.
"You two have super strength," Karolina said, keeping her voice calm and steady. "Much more than your cousins, who are all younger than you as well. When you start roughhousing, you could really hurt one of them!"
As Karolina paused, Nico simply leveled her intense stare at the two girls held just off the ground, both of whom were visibly starting to wilt under the disapproval. Nico's angry gaze was terrifying enough without any accompanying words; on several occasions, Karolina had seen grown men urinate on themselves when caught in her wife's smoldering glare.
"Can you two control yourselves at this point?" Nico finally asked, her voice flat and charged as she spoke.
"Yes, ma'am," Coraline replied meekly, eyes firmly fixed on the ground just below her.
"Yes, obaa-san," added Lydia, hazel eyes flicking up to meet Nico's stern gaze for a moment before retreating to the safety of staring at the desert earth like her sister.
Nico looked at Karolina, whose expression looked mildly hurt before shifting into a look of curiosity, wordlessly conveying to her wife that she felt a bit bad for the girls but was unsure if they needed to be released yet or not.
Nico shrugged, then stopped her suspension spell; Karolina followed her wife's lead, releasing Lydia as Nico did Cori.
The two girls settled their weight back onto their feet fairly easily, both sporting matching looks of guilt as they uneasily shifted back and forth. Coraline's hair was still slightly blonde, but it was clearly darkening, closer to Lydia's reddish-brown every week.
"Sorry," Lydia said, eyes lifting long enough to flit over to her cousins. Sabrina, the next oldest in their generation, looked the most upset, arms crossed and blue eyes glaring. Blair, blue-green eyes and curly red hair like her mother Jhileesa, was standing partly behind her big sister, with their little sister, dark-haired Elvira, securely behind her two big sisters. Lenore's daughter Ligeia had inherited her mother's and grandmother's Resting Bitch Face along with their petite size, and even at age six, her facial expression game was already strong. She returned Lydia's hesitant gaze with an angry stare. Her little hands were ready at her sides, fingers in the right position to cast her own barrier spell to protect her and her little brother Edgar, sandy-haired like his father, who was now clinging to the back of his big sister's shirt.
Sensing that everyone had now shifted to glare at her and Lydia, Coraline squirmed momentarily before mumbling, "Sorry," toward the ground.
"What was that?" Karolina asked, raising her voice. "I couldn't hear you."
"SORRY," Coraline repeated, louder, eyes flicking up to look at her NiNi then quickly looking away rather than challenge the woman she secretly respected more than anyone, even her moms.
"That's better," said Karolina, and once more her smile softened into its usual kind expression. "Nobody got hurt this time, girls. You got lucky. Next time, remember that you can deal with each other without getting mad."
"Tell that to Madre," Lydia mumbled, getting a surprised laugh from her sister beside her. Their mother Gloriana had an impressive temper, though she had excellent self-control to go with it. The two girls looked at each other and shared a knowing smile for a brief moment.
"Your madre doesn't deal with your mom that way, does she?" asked Nico carefully, and there was more than a hint of promised menace in that question.
"No," both girls quickly replied in unison.
"That's the most patient we ever see Madre," Cori added. "When she and Mom disagree."
"Voices get raised," Lydia interjected. "Definitely. And there's some swearing."
("Shocker," Karolina whispered to Nico.)
"But Madre would never so much as point a finger at Mom when she was angry. And Mom's the same way. They have too much respect for each other."
"And for you," Karolina said. "They know that the way they deal with each other is the example that's set for the two of you with your future girlfriends. Or boyfriends. Or nonbinaryfriends. We won't judge."
"Relationships are gross," Lydia muttered, as Cori made a soft gagging noise in agreement with her sister. "Can we spray Jessi now?"
Karolina sighed, then glanced over at her wife. "If only they'd stay that way forever," she whispered, getting a knowing smile from Nico.
"Hormones won't kick in for a while, at least," agreed Nico. "Another year or two of peace for Pers and Glory."
Karolina watched as Coraline and Lydia began to squabble over who got to use the waterthrower next. "Well," she said as the two sisters began to raise their voices but at least kept their hands off each other, "I guess peace is relative, right?"
—O—
The hubbub was at a steady rumble as Karolina and Nico made their way down the aisle of seats in the school auditorium. The Hidden Grove Elementary School Christmas Play wasn't scheduled to start for another ten minutes, which Nico interpreted as them being at least nine minutes early. Karolina disagreed; she had asked that they arrive early to get seats close to the front, and Nico had acquiesced with only minor grumbling.
(The fact that Karolina had bribed her with sex helped.)
"These programs are still pains in the ass," Nico whispered to her wife as they took their seats four rows back from the front. "I still say we should take a page from Gert and file a complaint with the school board about Christmas plays imposing specific religious views on the kids and their families."
Karolina turned to look at Nico, her very outfit refuting Nico's argument. She was wearing a satiny red dress, the hem trimmed with white fluff, with red-and-white horizontal stripes in a candy cane pattern, finished with shiny black flats for shoes. Her internal energy kept Karolina from getting cold, but she still had brought a white winter coat so as not to appear too out of place.
"Don't be a party pooper," Karolina said quietly, her expression nonplussed. Despite being fifty-two years old, she was still stunning, easily able to pass for early to mid-thirties, particularly when she dressed up like tonight. "We're not here for Christmas. We're here for Brina and Blair, Miss Grump," she continued. "So you better put a smile on your face for those little angels."
"It's Mrs. Grump," Nico replied, her voice low as she shifted in her padded auditorium seat. She was wearing a loose-knit long-sleeved black sweater, cut short enough to show a strip of red fabric from her thin camisole beneath the sweater, a long black stretchy pencil skirt, shiny black leather boots and a silver pentacle necklace that had been a gift from Karolina over twenty years ago. She leaned against Karolina's shoulder as they settled into their seats.
"Sorry we're late," said Pandora as she, her wife Jhil and their husband Isaac all moved in, taking seats next to Karolina. Their two oldest children, Sabrina and Blair, were both in this year's Christmas play; Elvira hadn't started school yet, but she was enrolled for kindergarten starting the next year. Her aunts Molly and Klara were keeping Elvira for the evening, so as not to test the four-year-old's patience for sitting through a program she couldn't join.
Hidden Grove Elementary was where all of Nico's and Karolina's children had attended school during their childhoods, a small, quiet public school in a district just outside of Los Angeles. The overall experience with Hidden Grove had been surprisingly good for all involved, so good that Persephone, Lenore and Pandora had all made the decision to send their own children to the school as well. Gert and Chase had done the same, with their daughters Ada and Marie and their son Nikola all attending the school. Likewise, Molly's daughter Jessi had gone to Hidden Grove Elementary before moving up to the middle and now high school in the same district.
Alex had bucked the trend, as he often did, and he and Livvie had sent their son William and daughter Henrietta to Atlas Academy. Of all of the Runaways, Alex's time at Atlas had been relatively positive, and they admittedly did have fantastic computer and technology programs.
For Karolina, Atlas had never been an option. There had been too many memories of whispers behind her back, of pitying gazes from eyes that would immediately look away when her own eyes dared to meet them. The softly-spoken words cult and brainwashed that she heard behind her back nearly every day but never to her face. The way the other Atlas students had shied away from her, eventually not even bothering to talk to her, even when in a one-on-one situation with her.
Well.
That wasn't entirely true.
One student had still possessed the courage to talk to her. And even if those remarks were cutting and acerbic, Karolina knew Nico had said those things to hurt herself as much as Karolina. And while that didn't make those pointed remarks right, to Karolina it did make them more understandable.
Nico had been hurting too, worse than any of them, and they had all ignored her pain, letting her suffer silently behind her mask of makeup, eyeliner and glower rather than reaching out to their friend. That remained one of Karolina's greatest regrets, just as Nico continued to feel guilt over some of the things she had said to Karolina when they were teenagers, before their worlds had been shattered (shattered again, in Nico's case).
Karolina took her wife's hand, holding Nico's fingers in her own warm grasp and smiling when Nico squeezed her hand with the same light but obvious pressure. Those days of thoughtlessness were long behind them. They had spent over three decades righting those adolescent wrongs and loving and caring for one another, and they were never going to stop.
The rattling of the stage curtain and hum of the electric motor silenced the crowd, nearly exclusively composed of those old enough to have finished school or too young to have started.
A bump against her left knee had Nico already opening her mouth to give someone an earful, but her words stopped when she saw Gert's smiling face looking down at her.
"Hey," Nico said, smiling up at their friend. Chase peered over Gert's shoulder, waving quickly before taking his seat. Gert, her hair now magenta fading to orange at the tips, did the same.
"Sorry we cut it so close," Gert whispered as recorded music began to play from the auditorium's speakers. "Somebody had been working on one of the cars and had to take a shower before we could leave."
"Surprised you didn't leave him at home," Nico whispered back.
Gert leaned forward, giving a low wave to get Karolina's attention. "Hey, Karolina," she loudly whispered.
The blonde grinned and waved back. "Hey, Gert, Chase," she whispered.
"Hasn't anybody ever told you to be quiet during plays?" Nico asked Gert, the softness of her tone at contrast with her words.
"People tell me to be quiet all the time," whispered Gert in reply. "I just ignore them."
Nico nodded, then held out a fist for Gert to bump with her own. "Respect," she said softly before turning her attention to the stage as the first children, dressed as trees and snowflakes, danced out of the wings.
The first act went fairly well, or at least as well as could be expected given that the actors were all in elementary school. Most of the lines were handled well, costumes were suitably adorable, and performances were endearing to the audience, composed almost entirely of family members of the students.
But as things would have have it, the two people having the worst experience of the entire audience happened to be seated directly behind Nico and Karolina.
"Such an amateurish production," sneered the woman directly behind Karolina. "Could the costumes look any cheaper?"
Nico felt herself tense at the words, but she maintained her control.
"What do you expect from a group of public school students?" hissed the man beside her, not doing a very good job of keeping his voice down. "I'm sure they have a diversity quota."
At that, Nico turned her head just enough to give a nasty look to the man, who appeared to be around the same age as Nico and Karolina, early fifties. He was white, clean-shaven with hair that appeared to be dyed a dark brown, and he met Nico's glance with a look of haughty indifference.
A quick squeeze on her right thigh made Nico turn back around, meeting Karolina's intense gaze.
"Sweetheart," Karolina whispered, her expression pleading. "Remember where we are."
Nico didn't bother to conceal the ire in her dark brown eyes; Karolina knew Nico wasn't mad at her. "They're assholes," Nico whispered, making sure that her voice was inaudible to anyone other than her wife.
"They are," Karolina whispered back. "But don't lower yourself to their level."
Nico carefully stared at her wife for several seconds before acquiescing with a nod. Karolina smiled and took Nico's hand as they returned their attention to the play.
Not two minutes later, when one of the students forgot his lines and had to be prompted by a teacher standing in the wings, Nico and Karolina heard a sardonic laugh behind them.
"Jesus. How many weeks have they had to practice this?" hissed the man to his wife, drawing some irritated murmurs from other parents and grandparents around them.
"Not enough, apparently," replied his wife, frosted blonde hair with a talk-to-your-manager cut and diamond necklace to go with her sneer and surgically-shortened nose. "Do they not still teach English in schools today?"
Nico was already turned around in her seat before Karolina could stop her. "Hey," she said to the snobby couple, her voice low but harsh as she shifted her glare between them both. "They're little kids. Stop being assholes."
As Nico turned back around to watch the play again, she heard soft titters of laughter from other families behind her and to the sides as the snobbish man and woman silently fumed at the rebuke.
Then, several seconds later, Nico felt a sharp fingernail repeatedly jab into the back of her right shoulder to get her attention.
"I thought your people were supposed to be polite!" the woman hissed as Nico whirled around, murder flashing in her brown eyes. "How dare you talk to—"
A soft snap of Nico's fingers was accompanied by a brief spark of pink light, matched by a soft pink outline briefly limning the man and woman as Nico's stasis spell froze them in their current positions, an angry scowl on the man's face and indignation on his wife's, her mouth still slightly open in a fairly unflattering expression.
Wordlessly Nico turned back around and settled into her seat again, reaching out to take Karolina's hand once more. Very soft applause and whispers of approval and delight could be heard in the rows behind them for a few seconds before everyone's focus returned to the children on stage once more.
("You owe me five dollars," Gert whispered to Chase, a smug grin on her face. "No bodily harm.")
"Thank you," Karolina whispered, turning to look at her wife, who was still adorable even when she was grumpy. As Nico turned to look at Karolina as well, the blonde leaned forward and lightly kissed Nico's lips.
"You're welcome," replied the jet-haired woman as their lips softly parted, unable to keep her irritation from starting to fade as she looked at her extraordinary wife. Karolina smiled, close enough that Nico couldn't see the blonde's lips but instead had to read the subtle movements of her wife's eyes and forehead, and Nico was powerless to resist the joy that reflexively swelled within her heart whenever Karolina smiled.
They both turned back to the play.
"Brina's part is coming up," Karolina whispered, squeezing Nico's hand warmly.
"Good. Not a big fan of these things."
"I know," Karolina said, shifting to lean a bit more against her wife.
"But I want to support the little bits."
"I know."
"And they really are cute as fuck in those little costumes."
Karolina smiled a bit wider. "I know."
They watched quietly as their granddaughter Sabrina and Gert and Chase's grandson Benjamin, both dressed as reindeer, walked onto the stage with several of their classmates. Karolina quickly took a few pictures with her compact camera, not using a flash and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.
After she returned her camera to her lap, she looked down at the viewer, its image maximally dimmed.
Nico leaned a bit closer to Karolina, admiring the excellent photos her wife had taken. "Nice," she said softly.
Karolina looked up, briefly glanced around the darkened auditorium, then returned her eyes to Nico. "Oh, Nico," she whispered, a guilty expression on her face. "I just took pictures of a school play. We're old, hon."
Rather than reply verbally, Nico simply grinned that understated, indulgent grin she broke out only for Karolina.
"I mean," Karolina continued, keeping her voice at the barest whisper, "we're sitting here in a school auditorium, taking pictures of our grandkids and admiring them. When did we become—"
Karolina paused, reconsidered what she was about to say, then smiled awkwardly. "Well, we didn't become our parents, I guess," she whispered to her wife.
"No, thank goddess," answered Nico. "And if you're worried about us continuing to whisper, I already cast a silence spell around us so we're not assholes who ruin it for everyone else."
Karolina's grin widened even more. "God, you're so good," she said, letting her voice increase slightly now that she knew they weren't disrupting the play.
"Mmm, you'll be saying that again later tonight," Nico said cockily.
"I better be. Twice. At least."
A faux-shocked look spread across Nico's face. "So demanding," she said teasingly.
Karolina simply continued to grin unabashedly. "I am a princess, you know."
The look on Nico's face was warm and soft as she breathed in softly, admiring Karolina's playful expression before the blonde spoke again.
"And you're my princess, Nico. My grumpy goth princess."
Nico sighed, but her smile never wavered. "I can live with that. For you."
"Thank you," Karolina said softly, staring into Nico's eyes as they both continued to smile at each other.
"Empress," Nico added quietly, just above a whisper.
It was difficult not to laugh at the blush on Karolina's face, but Nico managed to maintain her self-control.
—O—
FIVE YEARS LATER
As the Wizard board of directors meeting was ready to begin, Persephone Dean took a look around the large conference room.
Nearly half of Wizard's board of directors were women. Over half of the board were black, Latinx or Asian. Several were openly gay, bisexual or queer. For trans employees, if an employee identified and lived as a woman or man, that employee was treated as such, and Wizard's insurance covered the costs of transitioning for any employee's covered family members. Birth control both pharmaceutical and surgical was covered one-hundred-percent under employee benefits, and Wizard was one of the largest contributors to Planned Parenthood in the country. It was a different picture than most large corporations, and Persephone was intensely proud to be part of the company her grandparents had built and her moms had made even more remarkable.
The opening of the main doors to the conference room instantly stilled the whispered conversations that had been taking place around the large ebony wood table. Nico Dean swept into the expansive room, her long black dress's lacy skirt swirling around her lower legs as she walked the length of the room, quickly moving to the head of the ebony-wood table. The long sleeves of her dress were see-through black mesh, covering the long black lace gloves that covered her hands and most of her forearms. Nico's hair had been pulled up into two elaborate braids that had been coiled atop her head until the ends of the braids spilled out to the sides, each braid hanging down several centimeters.
Persephone struggled not to laugh at the way every other person in the boardroom watched Nico stride confidently along the room, eyes fixed on Wizard's chief executive officer and chair of the board with varying combinations of awe, respect and fear. Her mama was easily the smallest, shortest person in the room, only barely taller than a few of the directors while they were seated, but there was no doubt who was in charge at Wizard.
As Nico took her place at the head of the large table, she let her nonplussed gaze sweep across the room, starting at her near left and slowly moving to meet the faces of every person present, ending with Persephone, seated at Nico's near right. For her oldest daughter, Nico gave a hint of a smile before returning her attention to the board as a whole and her expression to a cool stare.
"Well, we haven't sucked this month," Nico said by way of starting the meeting, drawing a few soft laughs from the directors who had served the longest, nearly forty years in one case, and thus knew their sardonic CEO quite well.
Nico's management style was both reminiscent of her parents' approaches as well as clearly her own. She commanded a fearful respect (which had slightly increased after her identity as the Avenger Sister Grimm had become public several years ago) and ran a structured board, but she wasn't afraid to interject her dark humor and deeply-felt humanity into her decisions and discussions.
"Let's start with the most important stuff first," Nico said, looking across the large table. "People."
As the large holographic display over the middle of the table flashed to light, smaller individual displays activated in front of each seat, indicating the charitable distributions that Wizard had made over the last month, the last quarter and the last year.
Nico had reviewed all the information for the meeting ahead of time; she made sure every department head gave her a personal report at least twice a week, sometimes sooner, and she made a point to visit each department in Wizard's headquarters weekly. She and Karolina also continued their trips to every Wizard branch twice a year, which not only kept them personally connected with each division, it also served as mini-vacations for just the two of them. That practice remained so well-received throughout Wizard that Persephone and her wife Gloriana had started doing it as well.
By now it was well-established that Persephone was going to be Nico's successor as the driving force behind Wizard. Lenore was much more occupied (and happy) with the mystical world than she was with the corporate realm, and Pandora was happy with managing the Gibborim organization, focusing less on it as a religion and more as a spiritual and philosophical way of life, and maintaining strong ties to Majesdane and its people. All of their daughters were happy with their chosen career paths, and that made their mothers happy in turn.
Truthfully, Nico had understood why it had taken Persephone several years to overcome her long-standing reluctance to taking more involvement in Wizard. After all, Nico had felt much the same way, preferring to remain mostly silent at board meetings for years as she watched others manage the day-to-day operations of the corporation her parents had built and she had inherited. But as she grew increasingly uncomfortable with decisions made solely to generate profit and investor dividends at the cost of the company's employees and the environment itself, Nico found herself speaking more and more in opposition to such ideas. Several times she used her and Karolina's majority shares to force Wizard in one direction as opposed to a more profitable option, flatly stating that she wanted the company her family had built to stand for more than just profiteering and greed.
Persephone was fully on board with her mama's vision for Wizard, and she was determined to make sure that the corporation continued the changes Nico had made, deliberately investing more into the company and its workers' pay and benefits at the cost of cutting profits. They remained profitable—Nico made sure of that—but they no longer pursued maximal profits as their overriding goal.
"Absolutely not!" Nico snapped at one board member, yanking Persephone's thoughts back into the present; one of the board members had started to argue for reducing employee benefits at Wizard facilities in states with higher premiums for health insurance.
"B-but we need to lower our contributions to the rising health care premiums this year," the startled man, one of the newest members of the board, protested.
Nico leaned over the table, only barely resisting the urge to climb up on the sleek ebony surface and storm down to the man arguing with her. (She had done it a time or two.)
"Insurance premiums go up every year!" Nico snapped. "And the asshole insurance companies cut benefits every year! That's what they do, because all THEY care about is increasing profits! That's why Wizard is NOT going to act like assholes! Looking at numbers over the last five years, we can easily absorb the increased cost of contributing to employee insurance benefits at a higher rate to keep the employee share of the insurance premiums static for another year, and we can do it while only taking a small dip in profits!"
"But it's still a drop in profits," the man continued, looking increasingly uneasy; his unease visibly increased as the clomp of heeled boots on the ebony wood table swiftly moved in his direction.
Nico stopped before she was standing directly in front of the man, who looked like he was in his early to mid-thirties. And possibly about to have a stroke.
"Don't you dare say the word shareholders," the petite woman said coldly as she fixed the sweating man with her angry gaze. "Because my wife and I ARE the fucking shareholders! Over seventy percent of them! And WE say that we're good with the dip in profits to take better care of our employees, and that decision is FINAL!"
The man had turned pale and was pressing himself back into his seat as far as he could go.
Nico maintained angry eye contact with him for a few seconds before she straightened back up and looked around the room.
"The most important resource we have as people are our children," she began. "The most important resource a company has are its employees. We ARE going to take care of our employees, so they can take care of themselves and their families!"
She paused and looked down at Persephone, back at one end of the large ebony table. "I want Wizard to take care of its employees because I respect and appreciate them. They helped build this company just like my parents did, and my parents didn't do the heavy lifting. The rest of Wizard did."
Nico returned her gaze to the shaken man, who was starting to regain some of his regular coloration. "We take care of our employees here," Nico said, more calm than moments before. "And that's not going to change as long as I'm here."
Nico looked at Persephone again. "And it sure as hell better not change after I'm gone, or I'll come back and haunt you," she said to her daughter, getting a surprised laugh from a few of the board members seated along the massive table.
She just might do it, too, Persephone thought proudly to herself.
For being such a small size, her mama left some damn big boots to fill. But Persephone was determined—and honored—to do it.
—O—
Placed carefully on one wall of the bedroom Karolina and Nico had shared for over thirty years were two paired paintings. Each was the same size of canvas, eleven inches by fourteen inches, and the paintings had been arranged beside each other, measured and aligned so that they hung at exactly the same height.
That was essentially where the similarities ended.
The panel on the viewer's left was full of brilliant colors, pink and yellow and orange and purple swirled together, thin brushstrokes readily evident with close inspection but at a distance easily lost in the brilliance of the colors and their interplay. Seemingly carved out of the riot of colors were ebony letters, masked with tape prior to the application of the bright colors but after the canvas had been primed with a deep black. As such, the exposed letters arranged neatly in the midst of the swirl of vivid colors were a deep, jet black, spelling out a single world: PRINCESS.
The second painting, hanging to the viewer's right, had been thickly covered with different shades of black, ranging from a glossy black to a flat Blackest Black that absorbed nearly all the light that fell upon it. The brushstrokes on this canvas were much thicker than the ones on its counterpart centimeters away, forming a third dimension of shape and texture that rose and fell almost topographically.
But even in this ocean of ebon and jet, color managed to break through. Arranged on this canvas just as its counterpart, letters were visible, carved out of the thick waves and peaks of black to reveal rich pink proudly spelling out PRINCESS, albeit in a slightly more irregular font than on the other canvas.
The two paintings had been a gift from Lydia and Coraline, the oldest of their grandchildren, for Nico and Karolina's most recent anniversary, and the doting grandmothers were incredibly proud of them (them encompassing the paintings as well as the two rapidly growing girls who had painted the canvases).
Karolina's blue eyes proudly examined the paintings as she lay in bed with Nico, who was still asleep this early in the morning. The smaller woman's arms were wrapped around Karolina's torso as they lay in bed, the tip of Nico's nose and her lips brushing against the back of Karolina's head.
There was no denying that Karolina was Nico's teddy bear, just as Nico was the blonde's security blanket, wrapping her in delicious warmth and comfort.
"Mmm," Karolina softly murmured as her right hand came up to gently cover Nico's right hand, which was sleepily cupping Karolina's bare left breast. She smiled as she pressed Nico's palm more securely against the sensitive skin, leaving her own hand atop her wife's to maintain the slightly increased pressure.
"Not sure which one of us is copping the feel," Nico drowsily mumbled against Karolina's mussed hair, the heat of the smaller woman's breath brushing against the blonde's skin.
"You," Karolina replied softly, smiling as she closed her eyes to focus on the warmth and sensation of her wife's touch all along their bodies. "Always you."
"Can you blame me?" Nico murmured, now placing soft kisses on the back of Karolina's head.
"Not in the least," replied Karolina, who was so happy at that very moment that her skin flared into bright pink light.
Nico smiled as her eyes closed reflexively at the sudden brightness; she could still perceive Karolina's radiance through her closed eyelids as well as feel the warmth against her own body. "Love it when you light up because you're happy," she said gently, moving her face so that her lips were closer to Karolina's ear.
Karolina moved her right leg slightly, smoothly gliding against Nico's skin; their lower legs were interlaced like their fingers atop Karolina's breast, and the gentle motion of Karolina's leg made Nico likewise shift her own legs just a bit in response.
Karolina made no attempt to turn off her radiance, letting her body do what it wanted in Nico's arms, because it was in her wife's arms that she knew she would always be protected and accepted, no matter what was going on in their lives.
Any time Karolina had been ashamed of who she was, of what she was, Nico had been right there, never pulling away, never treating Karolina like she was anything other than the woman she devotedly loved.
No, the only times Nico had ever pulled away had been times when Nico was ashamed of who she was, of what she had done or had proven capable of doing. And it was those times that had taught Karolina that sometimes she needed to be the one to wrap her arms around her quiet, introverted lover and refuse to let go, even when Nico tried to wall herself off out of some well-meaning but misguided fear of hurting Karolina.
One of them had to be the one to step forward and extend an arm across the gap when it threatened to grow between them. Sometimes that was Karolina. Sometimes it was Nico. But the truth of the matter was that both of them were quite capable of overthinking matters, of being too stubborn and too self-sacrificing for their own good.
They were heroes, but they were still human. Feelings were going to get hurt, tempers were going to flare. Mistakes would be made. But those mistakes, though definitely painful, would be unintentional, never a deliberate infliction of pain or betrayal of the love and bond between them, and that made all the difference.
Flared tempers would cool. Hurt feelings would heal. What ran deeper than those emotional abrasions was the depth of the feelings Karolina and Nico held for each other. That was the strength that allowed them to face their own fears, to persevere beyond pummeled egos, to refrain from personal attacks or insults when they disagreed and tempers flared, to be a source of unshakable strength when their own failings and fallacies attempted to drive a wedge between the two of them.
Being married was hard work. Not killing each other or walking out was even harder. But Nico and Karolina held love and respect for each other above all other emotions or feelings, and that was what helped them weather the hardest times, knowing that they had each other no matter what else the universe threw their way.
Nico's soft murmur of contentment against the back of Karolina's neck made the tall blonde tingle all over and the pink light suffusing her skin pulse more brightly.
She smiled and fought the urge to press her head back more tightly against her wife's face; she had accidentally hit Nico's nose that way more than once over the years, and it was not a pleasant beginning to any morning. Instead she just focused on how loved she felt at that very moment, with Nico's arms and legs wrapped around her in a tactile demonstration of how much they wanted to be together.
"We have to get up and get ready soon," Karolina finally said, a hint of displeasure in her words, and her bodily glow dimmed slightly at the thought of having to leave Nico's arms. "Saturday lessons."
"Yeah," Nico sighed in reply. "I love doing them, but I really don't want to let you go right now."
"Well, nothing says we can't lie back down afterward."
Nico's lips pressed against the back on Karolina's head. "Smart and beautiful," the smaller woman said softly. "No wonder I love you."
Karolina slightly turned her body so she could look over her shoulder at her wife. She confidently said, "You love me for lots more reasons than just those two. I'm pretty amazing."
A loud shriek from somewhere downstairs made both of them sit up. When the aggrieved cry of a teenage girl followed, Karolina laughed silently as Nico leaned forward and hugged the blonde from behind.
"Oh, god," Karolina mumbled into her pillow. "These grandkids. Winter Solstice weekend is getting too big to have here."
"Ours are plenty by themselves," Nico agreed, her lips pressing against Karolina's golden hair. "Throw in Gert and Chase's grandkids plus Alex and Livvie's, and we're up to a dozen teens and preteens raising hell around here. Plus Jessi."
"Jessi's pretty well-behaved, though."
"Which is a damn good thing, considering she could throw her cousins farther than they could walk back."
Karolina laughed, prompting a happy squeeze of Nico's arm wrapped around her as the blonde's body shook with amusement.
"So what's your bet on who's going at it this morning?" Nico asked her wife.
"Mmm, who all's here so far?" Karolina asked as she started to mentally cycle through the extended families of the Runaways, as the original six still thought of themselves even after nearly forty years.
"All the grandkids except Jessi. Mol and Klara should be by later today with her; she had an early soccer game this morning."
"That's a lot to choose from as to who's yelling downstairs."
"Yep. Got your work cut out for you."
"Maybe we should stay in bed today. Pretend they're not here."
"That'd work for about an hour, then we'd have a little swarm of multicolored munchkins knocking our door down."
The thought of that image made Karolina laugh, until a prolonged crash was heard downstairs, followed by another angry shout.
"Now they're breaking shit," Nico added calmly. "Still no guess?"
"Mmm, I'd guess Lydia and Izzy. Lydia's fifteen, she and Iz are the same age, and the two of them have been snapping at each other since Etta and Jeff got here yesterday," Karolina said. "I'm guessing it's them getting more frustrated, butting heads and about to fight."
Nico laughed once, then she kissed Karolina on the blonde's shoulder as she stretched her arms high over her head, taking care not to hit Karolina in the head. "They're about to do something, but I don't think it's fight," she said, her voice tight as her arms stretched.
Karolina whirled around. "You think—"
Nico nodded, unable to talk momentarily until she finished her stretch with a satisfied groan. "Lydia's into girls. Persy and Glory already told us that, and really, no surprise there, given her moms and grandmas. Kid comes by it naturally. And Izzy's bi."
"When did you hear that?"
"Livvie told us when we went to dinner with her and Alex and Molly and Klara a couple months back."
Karolina frowned. "I don't remember that."
Nico nodded. "Yeah, she told us. Iz had come out to Etta and Jeff first, then to Livvie and Alex, and she gave all of them her permission to tell the rest of the extended fam. Plus both Lydia and Iz are teenagers stewing in hormones, they're both cute, and they're being thrown together staying in the Hostel for the next few days. If we're not careful they'll be fucking before the weekend's over."
"Dammit," swore Karolina softly. She sighed and looked up at the large skylight in their room, then her blue eyes shifted back down to look at her wife. "Our grandkids are old enough to be thinking about sex, Nico."
"Yeah," Nico replied sadly.
"We're getting old, hon."
Nico nodded again. "Yeah," she said once more, this time more wistfully than sad. "There is one bright spot, though."
A shy smile creeped onto Karolina's lips. "Yeah? What's that?"
"We don't have to be the ones who talk to them about sex."
"Oh, thank god," Karolina said gleefully, falling backward onto the bed beside Nico.
Another crash followed by a more prolonged howl came from downstairs, then what sounded like muffled cheers and shouts.
"They're tearing our house apart," Karolina said, turning her head to look at the woman she still loved wholeheartedly.
"Probably racing dinosaurs," Nico replied, turning her head as well to look at her wife. "Hedy's big enough to ride, easy. She's slow, but she can plow through damn near anything. Goes with being an anklyosaur, I guess."
Karolina thought for a moment. "I could see that, but who else could they ride? They can't ride Sunny because of his fin. And his personality. Or Roger, because of his dorsal plates." (Sunny was the often ill-tempered dimetrodon and Roger a very laid-back stegosaurus; Gert enjoyed the challenge of mastering the genetic and biochemical engineering of different varieties of dinosaurs.)
Nico smiled. "Bettie," she said, confidently, naming the triceratops, one of everyone's favorites due to her sweet, friendly nature. "You can get up on her back and tuck right behind her crest."
"Huh," Karolina replied, looking up at the ceiling as she considering what her wife was saying. "Wonder who—"
Nico guiltily looked away just as Karolina's head turned to look at the dark-haired witch again, a nearly synchronized pair of movements.
"Nico!" the blonde said with a mixture of shock and delight. "Are you serious?!"
Despite them both still lying on their bed, Nico shrugged. "Chase mentioned something about trying dinosaur races one day," she admitted. "It... sounded like a good idea."
Karolina's hand came up to cover her mouth, which was wide open with glee. "Nico! We're fifty-seven years old! We shouldn't be riding dinosaurs, let alone racing them!"
Nico looked back over, meeting Karolina's bright eyes. "I won," she said proudly.
Still grinning, Karolina reached over and lovingly ran her fingers through Nico's messy jet hair. "I'm so proud of my wife. Even when she acts like a six-year-old."
"A six-year-old who beat Chase's ass."
"Of course."
—O—
Karolina used to thoroughly dislike sports. She still did, to an extent, especially when it came to competing in them herself.
But Nico would be the first to say that martial arts weren't sports. They were discipline. They were fitness and confidence and conditioning. They were aligning the body, the mind and the spirit.
So over the years Karolina had let Nico talk her into taking lessons in aikido and judo, as long as Nico was the teacher. And while Karolina still wasn't entirely focused on the lessons, she had managed to learn some things in between moments of getting handsy with her wife, and she would readily admit that she had grown to enjoy spending this time with Nico. Nico always taught her one-on-one, just the two of them, and once they found the right balance of affection and seriousness that worked for Karolina's lessons, things fell into place. Her body and mind did indeed feel better after working out with Nico, the activity helped them stay active and in shape, and she had legitimately learned how to fall properly, how to fight and how to protect herself without her powers.
Getting to watch Nico teach kids was just an adorable added bonus.
Nico saw no need to adjust her sartorial style while teaching martial arts, so she was wearing her usual black gi top and pants with her black belt tied around her waist, nearly vanishing into the other dark garments. Her inky hair was currently put up in a messy bun, though a few springs of her jet hair were already starting to escape thanks to the movement and exertion of teaching first Karolina, then her class of teenagers. Even without her usual makeup, Nico certainly didn't look to be nearing the age of sixty, thanks to regular exercise and the magic flowing through her.
As Karolina sat lotus-style on the mat, wearing her favorite pale rose pink gi, she continued to watch Nico as she ran her current class of twelve- through fifteen-year-olds through their aikido lesson. Karolina had never officially tested for a belt, choosing to wear a yellow belt because she liked the bright, happy color and because Nico agreed that she had easily met the minimum requirements for that particular belt, which made the blonde very happy. She and Nico had already done their own exercises together prior to Nico's class starting, and the blonde happily rested on the mat as Nico worked with her next class. The quiet time let Karolina focus on letting her heart rate slow down, her thoughts unwind and her spirit rise as the adrenaline and endorphins from the physical activity continued to work their own kind of magic on her body.
Then footsteps next to her on the mat disrupted her relaxing vibe.
She pointedly didn't look as she heard a man groan slightly as he settled into a seated position on the mat beside her.
Which was annoying.
Karolina specifically sat on the other side of the large dojo, opposite where the parents of Nico's students waited, just so she didn't feel obligated to make small talk or participate in gossip among the mixed crowd of women and men.
So if someone sat down beside her, it was because he or she had very deliberately walked across the dojo for no other purpose than to interact with her. The bathrooms were in the middle of the dojo, so this guy sitting down beside her had to pass by them to get to her.
She managed to resist the urge to sigh. Well, it had been a slow day. This could at least be amusing.
And Nico showing off was still irresistible.
"Hey!" said the overly friendly voice beside her. "I'm Dave."
Karolina smoothly turned to face him, smiling in her default pleasant demeanor. "I'm married," she replied sweetly.
The man was younger, notably so, in his late twenties to early thirties. He was wearing a worn off-white gi with a brown belt and had short, straight sandy brown hair, a hint of stubble on his face and chin, and a smile that was certainly pleasant, at the very least.
Without missing a beat, he replied, "Divorced, for me," then he turned his attention back to where Nico was showing one of her older students the proper way to grip an attacker in preparation for the throw she was teaching them tonight. "Well, in the process of a divorce," he amended as he looked back at Karolina, entirely missing Nico's eyes darting over to assess her wife's situation.
"So you're still married but trying to hit on women?" Karolina responded, not looking at the man and instead meeting Nico's eyes as the smaller woman's gaze focused on Karolina, then flicked over to the man beside her briefly before returning to Karolina.
"What makes you think I'm hitting on you?" he replied, amusement in his voice.
Karolina sighed as Nico returned her attention to the next student. She had been wrong. This wasn't the least bit fun at this point. "You had to walk all the way across the dojo to sit down right next to me, when there's absolutely no one else over here but me."
"My class just let out," Dave said, jerking his thumb in the direction of an adult class three mats down, most of whom had already filed out by now. "And in my defense, you're not wearing a wedding ring."
Karolina glanced down at her left ring finger, which only appeared bare at the moment because she had shifted her wedding band into the astral plane for class, just like Nico did with her matching ring, both simple silvery bands of cobalt. To those skilled in astral perception, the connection between their enchanted wedding bands was visible, a pale silver thread running parallel to the thin red thread that was tied to and ran between their adjacent little fingers. "You're supposed to take your wedding band off for class, you know. Or you would, if you still wore yours, since you are still legally married. But not wearing a ring still doesn't make a woman, or a man for that matter, an open target for unwanted advances, and I clearly do not want any advances made upon me."
Dave paused for a bit, but his smile didn't dim. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. How about we start fresh?"
"How about we not?" replied Karolina, leaning back and stretching her arms back behind her to hold herself up. Her gaze drifted up to the tiled ceiling as she mentally willed Dave to go away before things escalated.
"You know, if your husband realized how beautiful you were, he wouldn't let you out of his sight," Dave said, still looking at Karolina.
"Okay, that's both creepy and incredibly offensive, on several levels," she replied, still looked up at the ceiling. She was about to expound upon her statement when a loud WHOOMPH came from directly in front of them, startling them both as the mats shook with the impact of a body hitting the ground.
The teenage girl flat on her back on the large blue mat took in a few deep breaths as she lay there, her chest rising and falling until a scowling Nico leaned down over her, extending her right arm for the girl to take. Nico gave Dave a piercing glare as she helped the girl haul herself to her bare feet once more.
"You good?" Nico asked the girl, whose chestnut brown ponytail bobbed as she nodded affirmatively. As the girl started walking back to the other side of the large mat, where the rest of Nico's class was situated, Nico took a moment to give Karolina a questioning look.
The blonde slightly inclined her head in Dave's direction and mouthed the word asshole to her wife. She very nearly laughed when she saw the flare of recognition in Nico's dark eyes, followed by a very subtle nod from the smaller woman before she turned around and stalked back toward the others.
"She seems very intense," Dave said, watching Nico walk away. "Does she only teach kids?"
"Sometimes she'll do an adult class, but it's usually just teenagers and younger kids." Talking about Nico was something Karolina didn't mind doing, as opposed to talking about herself. "She tends to get frustrated with adults more easily."
Dave nodded. "She gives up a lot in the reach department, too. Sparring with adults would put her at more of a disadvantage."
Karolina turned to look at the younger man, a look of mild disbelief on her face. Not two weeks ago Nico had fought an Asgardian disir, one of Hela's fallen valkyrie, giving up half a meter in height and reach and over a hundred kilograms in mass; it had taken Nico less than thirty seconds to lop off the spirit's two forearms before banishing her back to Helheim.
"Her form's seriously good, though," Dave continued, not seeing Karolina's disbelieving look as he continued to study Nico as she let one of the older boys in the class throw her as part of him learning the new movements.
"I"ll say," Karolina mumbled to herself, unable to keep her look of mild shock from shifting to a more pleased expression as she considered just how good Nico's form was.
"Quick, efficient, clean with her movements," the man continued, sounding increasingly impressed as he watched Nico send that same teenage boy, significantly taller than her, sprawling to the mat. "Man. She really knows what she's doing. Maybe I should see if she has any upcoming classes for adults," the man continued.
"Maybe you should," Karolina replied, now nearly laughing.
—O—
"Who's that dickhead?" Lydia Chavez-Dean asked her sister Coraline in Spanish as they scoped out the man who had plopped himself down next to their grandmother Karolina, sitting on the other side of the large mat Nico was using for her class.
Coraline adjusted the soft hair tie holding her medium length auburn hair, the same color as her sister but cut into a fade on one side with longer hair on the other, as she scrutinized the man who was rather obliviously trying to chat with a nonplussed Karolina.
Cori wrinkled her nose with subtle distaste. "Somebody who's going to get his ass kicked, if he's not careful," she whispered back to her sister, still in Spanish.
"Oh, I think careful's long gone," whispered Lydia back.
"Well, NiNi is still beautiful, so he's got good taste. Never seen the guy before, though."
"Probably never going to see him again after Obaa gets done with him," Lydia whispered back, grinning and nearly making her sister laugh out loud.
"Lydia," Nico said crisply, commanding their attention once more to where the jet-haired woman stood two meters in front of them, her brown eyes fixed upon them. "Come demonstrate this throw, please," the smaller woman said, her tone making it clear her words were a command, not a question.
"Hai, sensei," Lydia spoke quickly, her long hair pulled back into a high ponytail that swayed as she got to her feet, hoping that her obaa wasn't too irritated at that moron trying to flirt with their NiNi just yet.
—O—
"So which one is your kid?"
Karolina looked over at Dave. "Excuse me?" she asked as Nico walked Lydia to the center of the mat, where they moved into position before Nico rushed at Lydia, letting the fifteen-year-old grab her sleeve and shoulder and throw her to the mat.
"I mean, you're watching this kids' class, so I figure at least one of them is yours," he answered calmly. "Want me to guess?" he added, smiling again.
"Not really, no."
"I'd guess the blonde boy down at the end, on the right."
Karolina laughed once. "Oh my god, not even close," she said, incredulous. "I have three granddaughters in this class, one of whom just made that very nice throw whose name I don't remember."
"Granddaughters? Wow."
"Yeah. Granddaughters. I'm officially old. And still off the market."
"Well, you certainly don't look like a grandma. Not in the least."
"Not fishing for compliments here."
"You don't need to."
"Look, you're starting to—"
"EXCUSE ME."
The sharp tone and raised volume of the statement made both Karolina and Dave look up to see a glowering Nico standing over them. She wasn't exactly towering over them despite her close proximity, as she wasn't that much taller even with the other two seated, but there was a clear aura of menace in her glower.
"I'd like to demonstrate a few advanced techniques to my students," Nico said, glaring down at the younger man. "You're a much better choice to demonstrate them on, if you don't mind to help?"
"I might not be your ideal test subject," Dave said, his expression light. "I mean, I'm a lot taller than you and have more reach."
"Oh, you'll hit the ground just fine," Nico replied confidently. "Did your earn your brown belt around here? I don't recognize you."
"No, I just moved here from Phoenix. I have a brown belt in aikido, but I'm actually a dan in Shotokan karate."
"Oh, nice," Nico replied, realizing that she wouldn't need to hold back quite as much.
"When did you get your black belt?" asked Dave, motioning to Nico's belt as he got to his feet.
"For aikido, when I was fifteen," Nico smoothly replied, stepping to the side and gesturing for Dave to go first toward the larger mat. As he walked past her, she added, "It was my third," smiling ominously behind his back. Nico looked back at Karolina and her smile widened.
You are so bad, the blonde mouthed to her wife.
You love it, Nico mouthed back, ending the sentence by blowing a quick kiss to the blonde.
Across the mat, Lydia, Coraline and twelve-year-old Blair, who was also in the current class, had figured out what was about to go down, and the three of them nearly quivered with giddy anticipation.
—O—
"And you're not hurt too badly?" Nico asked as she double-checked Dave's leg, making sure it wasn't broken.
"It's fine, really," the somewhat battered younger man said where he lay on his back, unable to keep the grin off his face after learning just who had been throwing him around the mat for the last fifteen minutes. He was surprisingly ebullient despite hurting pretty much all over his body. "God! I just got my ass kicked by an Avenger! I can't believe it!"
"Avengers reserve. And I don't like it when people try to hit on my wife," Nico said calmly as she finished her examination and let the pink glow around her hands fade out.
"And I totally was," Dave admitted. He turned to look at Karolina, hovering over him and Nico where he lay and she knelt on the large blue mat. "I apologize for that, by the way," he said up to the blonde.
"Apology accepted," Karolina replied lightly. "And lesson learned, I think."
Dave nodded as Nico stood, then she extended an arm down to help the much taller man to his feet. "Oh, lesson very much learned," he admitted as he stood, a bit shakily. He looked back down at Nico. "As is the lesson about reach advantage being overcome by vastly superior skill."
Nico actually blushed a bit, which Karolina thought was so adorable that she wanted to pick Nico up and hug her, though the blonde had enough control to not embarrass her wife in front of two dozen teenagers eagerly watching the exchange.
"Cockiness is something we all have to work on," Nico spoke calmly. "There's always someone better, and it's usually the person you least expect it to be. You're sure your leg's okay?"
Dave tested putting more weight on his right leg first before shifting all his weight to it, getting only a twinge of discomfort in the knee. "It's good," he said. "Going to be sore all over for the next few days, though. You're definitely stronger than you look."
"Nico likes to say that the discipline and focus on aligning the body, mind and spirit help with channeling magic," Karolina said, having heard her wife's explanation many times. She stepped over and put her arm around the woman she loved.
"And stay in shape and flexible," added the black-haired woman, looking up at her wife. "Which is important at our age."
"Pffft," Karolina sputtered as she lightly blew out her breath before turning to face Nico. She lifted her arms and draped them across her wife's shoulders, locking her hands together behind Nico's neck. "We're in our fifties, but we still have some years ahead of us, hon. And you still make my heart race, especially when you're tossing around people twice your size and half your age." Karolina's face leaned down closer to Nico as she spoke, ending with the tall blonde lightly kissing the tip of her wife's nose.
A few titters of barely-suppressed laughter behind them reminded the two women of their audience. Now Karolina blushed as well.
"Why don't you finish up your class, sweetheart," Karolina said, face burning slightly. She turned around quickly enough to catch Lydia whispering something to Coraline; the two sisters instantly snapped back to regular sitting positions.
"Not a word, Lyd," Karolina teased the brunette, whose skin tone was closer to her mom Gloriana than to the fairer-skinned Persephone. Lydia's vivid brown eyes were definitely Persephone's, though, while the younger Coraline's eyes were hazel like their other mother. "Or I'll spill the beans on what you and a certain other person were doing at the movies last weekend."
"NiNi!" gasped the fifteen-year-old, at once turning even more red than her grandmother. Coraline and Blair both laughed aloud, with Cori playfully pushing her big sister's shoulder.
Karolina simply raised an eyebrow as she held the teenager's shocked mahogany gaze, an expression of amusement on the blonde's face. "Behave," Karolina said calmly, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
"Yes, NiNi," the older teen grumbled, lightly pushing Cori back, getting a soft titter of laughter from their cousin on the other side of Coraline.
(Sabrina was currently on Majesdane with her moms and dad as part of a PRIDE trip, or she'd have been right in the middle of the teasing, as that had become one of her specialties.)
"How is Izzy?" whispered Blair to her cousins, only to be immediately shushed by Lydia, who somehow turned even more red in the face.
—O—
As the bright light of the interstellar portal illuminated the large room in the secure WIZARD facility, Karolina, Nico and Blair all stood a few meters away from the transit platform while Persephone used her indigo light to power the portal device from the Majesdanian side.
The first figure to step through the swirling light of the portal was running more than walking, a taller teenager with long blonde hair who still looked eerily like her mother Pandora and grandmother Karolina had as a teenager. "Obaa-chan! NiNi!" Sabrina exclaimed gleefully, running into the arms of her proud grandmas.
"Brina!" Karolina shouted back as she wrapped her arms around the young teen who was nearly as tall as she was.
"Damn, you're even taller," Nico said by way of greeting as she likewise hugged Sabrina, wrapping one arm around Pandora's oldest and the other arm around Karolina.
"Maybe you're just shorter," teased the teenager, getting a snort from Nico and a giggle from Karolina.
"Gone two weeks and already talking shit about your poor obaa," Nico grumbled. "Some respect I get."
Another set of arms tried to wrap around the small gathering as Blair pressed against her older sister's back. "Welcome back, sis," said the redhead. "Missed you."
Sabrina knew there was no extricating herself from the arms of her grandmothers, so she leaned her head back carefully to press it against Blair's forehead. "I missed you, too, meanness," she said lovingly. "Did you stay out of trouble while we were gone?"
"Yep," replied the younger sister. "Well, kind of. Nothing too bad."
"She broke the railing at the Hostel," Nico clarified.
"Which I also fixed!" Blair quickly added.
"And she kept Bumbles from getting hurt by catching him before they hit the ground," Karolina said.
"But she shouldn't have been riding Bumbles inside the Hostel, much less racing her sister. That's how shit gets broken." Nico leaned her head and looked up at Karolina, who was having none of it.
"And I wonder who might have inspired these kids to race the dinosaurs in the first place, hmm?" Karolina calmly replied, meeting her wife's dark brown gaze.
Only her excellent self-control kept Nico from squirming. "Chase was to blame, too."
"Uh huh."
"It was his idea, remember. That first time."
"And you went along with it."
Sabrina turned her head slightly to whisper to her sister, "I've missed this," grinning at the loving interaction between her grandmothers as the rest of her family began to emerge from the swirling light of the interstellar portal.
"It's cute as shit," Blair whispered back. She had definitely expanded her vocabulary after two weeks with her grandmothers. Especially her obaa.
—O—
Author's Afterword: My apologies for this chapter taking so long to post. That was due to combination of flu season at work, which has kept me hopping for three months, and the fact that this was a bit of an impromptu chapter that I hadn't originally planned. I wanted to add a bit more interaction with the granddaughters before wrapping up this story with the final chapter. I also wanted a more light-hearted chapter after the weight of the previous chapter.
Next chapter this story ends, and I'm both happy and sad about that. I'll be working on a new story compliant with Season 3, but it'll be different than this one, which I want to let stand on its own. I've really grown to love all these characters, and it's going to feel like something's missing to me when I start a different Nico/Karolina story, but I really would like to have a canon-complaint story that picks up after season three. That had been my goal with this story, but things just didn't work out that way, and that's okay. This is what we have fanfic for, to take a look at what could have been as part of showing our love for characters and their relationships.
Thank you again for reading, and I'll see you one more time for the end of this story!