I know that this probably wasn't the story update you were hoping for, but I'm SO inspired by the warm weather lately to write the Jump City Chronicles. I know it's not my most... action-packed work of Fanfic, but I love the characters. I can't wait for another Titan to show there face in this - but for now, a continuation of where we left off:

As always, thanks for Favs and Reviews! It means so much to me.

-Song

Summertime in Jump City had proved to not only bring with it heat waves and violence, but long stretches of deceitful monotony. Mike found himself without much to do each day. He tried to work in his father's auto shop down on the corner of 22nd and Applewood, Royce Auto, but more often than not customers were scarce. The inside of the building was like an iron oven. The air had gone out over the weekend, and now, being Monday, it was putting him on edge.

He was already upset that he'd missed story night at the bar yesterday, instead being berated by his father for visiting Irish Pubs on a sunday night, which was no one's business but Mike's - though he'd stayed home if only to end the conversation.

What had he missed last night?

He really had to get his own apartment.

The small, rickety fan next to him was weakly blowing hot air over his face, and the phone had not stopped ringing all day. The clock was nearing five, so close in fact that Mike looked shocked when the phone rang again.

Mike pulled himself away from the auto shop counter and answered the phone. An insurance agent was calling about a recent crash one of their customers had had, and he politely told the person that repairs had not been done yet.

"Not done?"

"No," Mike continued. "It's scheduled for a week from now."

The man huffed over the phone, audibly and then hung up. Mike couldn't help but let the heat get to him, and so he slammed the receiver back in its cradle and swore at the phone.

"Michael!" his father called from the door that led to the garage. His face was covered in a thick, auburn beard that shaped his face into a permanent visage of a scowling viking. This brows were thick over dark eyes and the ballcap emblazoned with the auto shop logo covered his bald head.

"Sorry, Dad."

"Not in the shop, show some professionalism."

Mike nodded and logged off the computer. The clock above him now showing five in the afternoon, and therefore the end of the work day.

"Don't do it again," his father said for good measure and then closed the door roughly to the garage. Mike took that to mean that his father would be staying late again to work on his own pet project of a run-down Chevy.

Rather than offer to help, Mike jangled the keys in his pocket and locked up the shop. He turned the Mom and Pop "Open" sign to "Closed", and then promptly left Royce Auto without even finishing his paperwork for the night.

Summer nightlife in Jump City was the only thing that made the heat worth it. Mike could smell the late afternoon baking of concrete filtering through the air. It stuck to the bottom of his tennis shoes and, rather than hop into his sweltering car, he elected to grab his mother's bike from the side of the shop and ride it down the hill, fresh wind in his face. She wouldn't mind, she was probably writing in the office above the shop, keeping to herself. Mike's mother, Nora Royce, was famous for her tawdry romance novels. Famous, in that she wrote them often and with quick successions of one another, but not so famous that money was rolling in in waves. Most were self-published and only a few had made it to the local bookstores as physical hard copies. Still, it kept her from having to work in the auto shop - or working at all for that matter, and it kept her close.

It was easy to say that Mike was different from his parents. He was lacking in the mechanical prowess of his father and definitely lacking in the creative workings of his mother, so he'd elected instead to teach kids. He figured that, even if he himself wasn't creating or making anything, he'd be able to encourage the next generation to work hard to follow their dreams.

Still, it had been hard to convince his father that enrolling in school and then teaching it for the rest of his life was the best path for him - in fact his father had adamantly declared that universities were a waste of time and money, and that Mike should go straight to a technical program that could teach him "real, concrete skills". Mike had almost gone, too, if only to end the fighting, but he couldn't. He loved learning and he loved being around other people who loved learning. Those first few years as a freshman and sophomore in college were hard, no one around him loved learning like he did. They were just… there. Instead he'd tried to join clubs and programs and after-school nonprofits like being a "big sibling" to a few kids here and there. Nothing really stuck though, not until graduate school, and by then he'd gotten so discouraged by his own dreams and path that he'd wondered if he'd wasted thousands of dollars like his father had warned him.

Until this past winter, when he'd met Rose. Well, he hadn't officially met her then. She just appeared one day - a new face in town transferring to the graduate program, dedicated to the idea of learning and teaching. That learning was sacred, and that molding young minds was something so precious, such a privilege, that her passionate essays and presentations in class revitalized him. Breathed life into him. Saved him from a future of mufflers and oil changes, of dirty fingernails and his father's gruff stare.

He'd desperately wanted to talk directly with her, but the most he was able to get out during classes and lectures were his many positive comments and questions when she presented. She'd smiled and thanked the class for feedback and would take her seat in front of him, as always, but he'd never told her just how much she and her dedication to becoming a teacher had meant to him. How much it had saved him.

Mike's shoes felt like small, hot prisons around his feet as he pedaled up the hill to 29th street before it dipped down again. He was heading to the bookstore. It was Monday afternoon, and he imagined Rose in a soft, cream colored sundress as she exited the store with Nate. It made his feet pedal faster, and he was just nearing the top of the hill when he caught a glimpse of the city splayed out before him, shining in the late afternoon sunlight.

Last Sunday, Mike had offered to walk Rose home without thinking. It had fallen straight out of his head and he was worried she wouldn't want to pick up the offer. But she had, and so he'd offered her his sweatshirt jacket and the two of them had climbed the steep hill to 29th street together. The gentle click click click of her bike spokes comforted him as they walked in gentle silence for the first few streets. He'd stolen glimpses of her - her amber eyes, her long, curling red hair. She caught him, she'd said, "What are you looking at?" and her nose had scrunched up in embarrassment as she wiped at her face.

"Your - well, I mean you have nice hair," he said.

"Oh," she smiled. "Thank you, the kids at the bookstore think I'm Merida from the movie Brave."

"That must work to your advantage."

She'd laughed. "Oh, yes, though the Scottish brogue doesn't come naturally to me."

"Maybe you can tell them you're a descendant."

"Of a fictional character? It'll mess with their heads!"

He laughed at her expression. "True. Maybe not then."

She smiled back at him. "I don't remember you being this mischievous in class."

"Best foot forward, and all that, I guess. Gotta seem professional."
"You always had great presentations."

He looked at her sincere amber eyes and turned away, blushing in the night. "Not as great as yours."

She scoffed good-naturedly. "No, don't say that! You always wore these fantastic ties and it made you stand out. I think there was a purple one once that I loved."

"You did?" His heart had fluttered a little and he blushed harder.
The tone of his voice had made her second-guess her flattering of him and so she switched tactics, so as to not make him uncomfortable. "Er- yeah, um. Where do you live? I'm not taking you too far away, am I?"

He shook his head. "No, you're just before the 29th street hill, right?"

"Yes."

"I live past that, up near 34th, but not quite. My family has a house on a side-street. Harrowing road?"

Rose shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, I don't know that area well. I hardly head toward the water. I'm mostly either at my apartment, at school or down here at the bookstore."

Mike had nodded. The 29th street hill overlooked the city. If you went east, you headed down the hill to the parks and Nate's bookstore. If you went west, and the street numbers increased, you were headed to the coast and the beaches. From the 29th you could see both lush green parks and trees, but if you turned around, you could see the shining water and Titan's Tower.

"I like it there, lots of trees off the main strip."

She had smiled at that and pulled the jacket tighter with one hand while the other remained on the handle bars. "It sounds great, you'll have to show me sometime."

"I-I will. Yes, definitely."

"Good."

They walked a little further than that before Rose stopped and pointed at a brick building with iron bars on the door and a buzzer system. "This is me," she said.

"Oh, okay. Nice place."

"Thank you so much for walking me home," she said.

He grinned. "Of course, any time."

"See you at the thing?"
Mike's heart had skipped a beat.

"Yes."

He couldn't help but feel forlorn at the idea of leaving her, but he watched her click her bike up the stairs slowly and then watched her shut the door firmly behind her with a smile and a wave.

Her little wave gave him butterflies and it was only as he kept climbing the hill and then crested over it, once a chilly wind went through him, that he realized he'd left his sweatshirt jacket with her.

The sweatshirt jacket was left somewhere on his bed, safely returned to him after that first night telling stories.. The spokes of his mother's bike clicked beneath him as he rode the hill down to the bookstore. She'd probably be nearly gone by now - there was no guarantee that she was even there, but he thought he should at least try. In his head, Mike imagined reaching the bookstore just in time to see her unlocking her bike, just in time to offer to walk her home, and for some reason he pictured her again in her yellow sundress and blushed to himself, the hot wind blowing in his face.

Nothing he did could clear his mind of Rose.

He didn't want anything to.

A smile broke out over his face when he saw a single bike leaning up against the side of the shop, firmly locked to the stand that was cemented there. He hopped off with flourish and quickly locked his own to the stand next to hers. The bikes looked good together.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and pushed his way into the small bookstore, still open even though it was past five, like always. Ol' Corner Books was only supposed to be open until five, but the old man tended to let stragglers haunt the place until he was fed up with them.

"Nate!" Mike called as he walked in and there she was to his left. Curled up in one of the arm chairs near the storefront window and he turned, as if he was surprised to see her and he grinned.

"Hey," she smiled at him.

He continued to grin back like an idiot until he saw bruises on her arm and scrapes on her leg.

"Whoa," was all he could get out before Nate appeared from nowhere.

"Got herself into trouble, of course," Nate 'tsked' at Rose who merely reached behind the armchair and lifted a light blue helmet up and over her head, as if to say that she had it.

"What...happened?"

Suddenly another set of footsteps came from behind Mike, between the bookshelves, and out stepped Will who said, "She flipped a curb on her bike and it got run over by a taxi."

And then Mike remembered that Rose's bike was yellow, and the one outside was blue and black.

"That's crazy are you okay?"

She smiled back up at him and reached behind her again to pull a light cardigan over herself, hiding her T-shirt and her bruises. The cardigan could do nothing for the scrapes down her legs, and her cutoff shorts weren't helping.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she stood from the chair and did a small twirl as if to prove it. He winced down at the small red lines on her legs, contrasted terribly against her pale, freckled skin, and just shrugged back at her.

"You look great," he said.

"Thanks."

Will shuffled around behind them, carrying a large stack of books and placing one after another on the shelves.

"Will works here, now," Rose smiled at Mike and then turned around to collect her things.
"Oh," was all he said. Then, "When did that happen?"
Will let out a little laugh and said, "Just in time to watch Rose nearly throw herself into traffic yesterday."
"I'll wear the helmet!" She cried, turning around. Playfully she threw it at him and he caught it, then placed it on his head and knocked on the plastic of it.

"Sturdy."

Rose rolled her eyes and huffed off to find Nate to tell him goodnight.

Mike and Will stood awkwardly in the small entrance of the bookstore and then Will sheepishly removed the helmet from his head.

Mike cleared his throat. "So, did you guys skip story night last night, then?"

"Oh, no," Will walked to the armchair and gently placed the helmet on the cushion. "She wouldn't let us - well, Nate claimed that we were all big boys and girls and that we could make it to the Pub," then he looked around to make sure Nate wasn't standing there and finished with, "to tell the story of Rose falling off her bike, of course."

Mike chuckled. "He gets carried away with that club, sometimes."

"Rose agreed with him, so really it's both their fault, but I suggested she go home."

"She looks good, though."
"She is."

Another awkward silence.

Even though the two of them had nearly died together just last Tuesday, they knew very little about one another. Then Mike smiled.

"You look good, too," and Mike pointed at Will's nose. The bruise was long gone, but it still looked slightly crooked now.

"Oh, yeah," he absentmindedly scratched at it.

"Alright!" Came Nate's cheerful voice from the back as he and Rose exited, patting Quill the cat before leaving him behind to sun on the checkout counter. "Let's close this place up, I'm starving."

"Same," Rose said.

"Me, too." Mike and Will said together, and suddenly they were all standing outside, "starving".

Rose cleared her throat and then offered up a suggestion for food, which Nate flatly refused, saying it was too "young" for him, there. She placed her hands on her hips.

"What does that even mean?"

They quarreled like that for a while until it was decided they would eat at a small 24-hour diner on 4th, only two streets up the hill, and Rose offered for Mike and Will to, of course, join them.

Mike jumped at the chance. "Yes, definitely," but Will's face fell and he shook his head.

"I can't, I have to go to the hospital."

Immediately they all turned to him, shocked. Rose even scanned him with her eyes and he felt himself flush a little bit.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"No, yeah, I'm fine!" He raised his hands up in front of him in mock-surrender and the three of them sighed in relief. "Penny, er - my little sister is there, so I visit as much as I can..."

Then the three of them each donned the same expression he'd been seeing for nearly three years since Penny had been diagnosed.

"Guys, come on, it's fine. I'll see you tomorrow, Nate."

"Seeya, Will," Nate frowned and they all watched him head for the bus stop down the hill.

"Did you-?" Rose started.

"Nope," Nate finished.

They turned to Mike.
"Uh, not a clue."

When dinner was over, Mike offered once again to walk Rose home. He was practically glowing, being near her. She smiled and the two of them both walked their bikes up the hill toward 29th street.

Once they'd reached her apartment, Rose hesitated on the stoop.

"Thanks again, Mike."

"Seriously, I wouldn't want you to walk alone."
"Oh, come on," she grinned mischievously at him. "We're in Jump City - I'm perfectly safe."

"Riiiiight."

They laughed together and she smiled up at him. He was taller than her, brown-haired, blue eyed. He looked so… safe.

Just as she was about to say something more, Mike's phone went off.

"Oh, uh… I have to get this."

"Sure."

Mike's father's voice was audible without speakerphone, and Mike cleared his throat and smiled at Rose.

"I'll see you Friday, okay?"

"Oh, you sure?"
"...yeah."

She almost reached out to him, to tell him to stay and hang out a little longer, but he was already turning his face away and continued the walk up the hill toward Harrowing road and home.

Rose watched him go, this time forlorn, and hiked the bike up the stairs and closed the door behind her.