#also featuring: my beloved oc meilin peace who is A Good Mom despite everything

[words-writ-in-starlight]

OMG that sky high fic was grrrreat. Let me rant about it... I feel like will and layla are little pure cinnamon rolls. And everyone's reactions with their powers was great. And yeah that mad science class could use some theory. I really want to see warren's mom's reaction to him having friends over.

(the first bit, the bit with the Strongholds)

It’s seven-thirty PM when Meilin Peace comes home and finds Warren pointing a knife at Zack.

It’s not as bad as it sounds.

“Glowstick, I swear to god, you touch those carrots again and we’re gonna see if you leak neon,” Warren snaps as Zack reaches out, and Zack holds both hands up in surrender and scuttles back when Warren brandishes the knife at him menacingly.  “Not the peppers, either,” Warren adds, and turns toward the sound of the door opening.

It’s not a big apartment--two bedrooms, one bathroom, not in a great neighborhood. They have about five square feet of counter space in the kitchen/living room, and when the front door is open it blocks the hall to the bedrooms, opening right into the main room.  With six teenagers scattered across the couch and floor, plus the kitchen table, it looks smaller than ever.

The relevant thing, though, is that when his mom walks through the door, she has a perfectly good view of Warren, the knife, and Zack, frozen with one guilty hand outstretched toward the bell peppers.

For a moment, Warren considers that he probably should have called her.  She looks alarmed, sort of--not really concerned about Warren’s physical health, because she more or less put that one to bed after he got kicked through a concrete wall, but clearly concerned about the rest of the situation.  She has her hair tied back and the fresh-scrubbed look of someone just out of a rapid shower, and she’s wearing a hoodie rather than her paramedic’s coat, and her dark eyes settle on each of the teenagers blinking at her in turn before she looks back to Warren.

“Hi, Mom,” he says, and goes back to cutting up the carrots before Zack can reboot and start risking his fingers again.  “Mom, everyone.  Everyone, this is my mom.  I expected you to be back a couple hours ago.”

“Sorry, baby.  Transport up to the Trauma One,” she says.  “And then cleaning the rig.  What--the hell is happening right now?”

“Mrs. Peace!” Layla says gamely, jumping up and offering her hand.  “It’s so great to meet you!  We’re friends of Warren’s, from school, and uh, he offered to let us do our homework here!”

“It’s Miss,” she says, bemused, and shakes Layla’s hand, eyes still on Warren.  “You must be Layla.”

“Aw, Warren talks about us,” Magenta drawls.  

Meilin grins a little at that.  “Complains, mostly.  Come here, Warren,” she adds, and Warren leaves the cutting board to go over and let her pull him down into a hug.  “Are you all right with them here, baby?” she murmurs into his ear while he’s there.

“They’re fine,” he says as he straightens up again.  “Probably all going to fail their classes, but they’re fine.”  

She holds him there for a moment, studies him, and Warren can’t blame her.  He hasn’t brought friends home since he was a kid on playdates, before--well, Before.  That means that the last few hours have been.  Strange.  Not bad, but foreign, unnerving and uncomfortable.  He tries to let her see what he means, tries to let her see that he’s trying for the first time in fucking forever and that it’s awful and exhausting and he doesn’t want the others to leave, and she nods slowly before giving him a clap on the shoulder.

“All right, then,” Meilin decides.  “What are you making?”

“Fried rice,” Warren says.  “Did you eat already?”

“No,” she says, crossing the room and taking Warren’s seat at the table.  “Transport, like I said.  And is he all right?” she adds, nodding to Ethan in the other seat, where he’s all but vibrating.

“He’s like that,” Magenta says.  “I’m Magenta, Miss Peace.”

“Wow,” Ethan says before Meilin can answer, eyes wide behind his glasses.  “You’re Adamant.”

It’s been a really long time since Warren saw his mother speechless, and he grins to himself as he chases Zack off the carrots again and dumps the lot into the wok.

Everyone knows that his mother was a hero, Before.  If pressed, they might even be able to remember that Baron Battle fought with a partner, sometimes, a petite Chinese woman who couldn’t be harmed.  But for some reason, no one ever seems to expect to meet her.  It makes parent-teacher conferences...entertaining.

“I...was,” Meilin says warily.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Wow!” Ethan says again, bouncing in his seat.  “It’s such an honor to meet you, Miss Adamant--uh, Miss Peace, really, it is, I had no idea you were Warren’s mom.  Is that why he can just walk stuff off?  I mean, I assumed it was a healing factor, you know, those come with weird powers sometimes, but real invulnerability is so rare!”

“He’s like this,” Warren says when his mother looks to him.  “Popsicle, pipe down.”

“I like him,” Meilin says, and smiles at Ethan.  It strikes him silent like he’s just seen an angel.  Warren goes back to the stove and tries not to look too smug.  Once upon a time, Adamant wasn’t just known for her heroics and her intelligence--she was a famous beauty, back in the day.  Still is, as far as Warren is concerned.  He always wished he looked like her, as a kid.  Even more after he got older and started growing into his father’s face.

There’s a sound of confusion from the couch, and Warren pauses to take a breath.  Layla makes a noise--like maybe she tried to get across the room and didn’t quite make it in time.

“Hang on,” Stronghold says, because apparently his good sense lasts exactly eight minutes.  “My parents said Adamant’s civilian name was Meilin Guerra.”

Warren closes his eyes.

“You’ll be Mister Stronghold,” Meilin says, perfectly civil.  “Very nice to meet you.”

“Changed it, after everything,” Warren says shortly, opening his eyes to shoot a glare over his shoulder.  “Obviously.”

“Right,” Stronghold says, cowed.  “Obviously.  Um.  Sorry.  It’s, uh, really nice to meet you, Miss Peace.  Sorry about--”

“Dude,” Zack interrupts before the sentence can get worse. “Probably just.  Stop.”

Magenta makes a wry sound.  “A rare moment of insight from the living lightbulb.  Will, try and keep your foot out of your mouth for twenty minutes, you were doing so well.”

“As far as I can tell, it runs in the family,” Meilin says, not unkindly, and Ethan actually sputters a laugh.  Warren can practically taste Stronghold’s blush, but it’s not worth having this fight again.  Meilin moves on.  “Although, while we’re on the subject, do you mind if I ask why you kids are doing homework here?  I thought you were planning to be, quote, ‘out doing something stupid’, baby.”

“Did something stupid,” Warren confirms.  “Now we’re here.  Still got all my fingers and toes, though.  Glowstick, pass me that cumin--it’s the one that says cumin on it, Jesus Christ.”

Layla clears her throat delicately and says, “We were going to do homework at the Strongholds’ house, but um.  That didn’t happen.”

“Warren.”

“He didn’t do anything!” Zack protests.

“I know he didn’t do anything,” Meilin says, and Warren can feel the way she’s squinting at him, suddenly looking for hurts like she used to when he came home from middle school holding his ribs gingerly.  

“It was fine,” he says, splashing soy sauce vaguely in the direction of the wok and getting a fair amount on the burner, where it crackles in the flame.  “Don’t worry about it.”  Honestly?  Warren wasn’t really planning to tell her.  She works twenty-four hour shifts because they pay better, and she doesn’t need to worry about him.  He’s spent half of his life trying to make it so that his mom doesn’t need to worry about him--at first by being compliant, then by being the toughest thing around.  He’s not about to let the Strongholds wreck that.

“I’m--really sorry,” Stronghold says, almost--what, miserable?  Warren’s tired of trying to decode people.  “I had no idea--I just figured--I thought they were...better than that, I guess.”  

Warren turns around in time to see his mom’s eye soften a little.

“Yeah, well,” she sighs.  “Live and learn.  What’s your name, Stronghold?”

“God, you really are related,” Magenta says, fascinated.

“It’s Will,” Stronghold says over the rush of slightly shaky laughter that trickles through the room.  “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Peace.  Sorry about kicking Warren through that wall that time.  I didn’t really know what I was doing.”

“Well, he had that one coming,” Meilin says, and Warren makes an offended sound, because she’s expecting him to, but this is...better.  Calmer.  His hands are steady when he starts putting fried rice on plates.  “And if you five are going to be a regular presence, you’d better call me Meilin.”