AD ASTRA. | III.

( 'BLACKOUT' )

They pulled into the gas station. Loghan had stayed fairly quiet, except for a few sarcastic remarks, but those were inevitable when it came to her. 

"Look, I like this whole mysterious thing but if we're going to work together on this, you gotta fill us in," Daisy said, as Robbie shifted the gear.

"You know someone who worked at that Momentum facility?" Loghan asked.

"My uncle," he turned to look at her, then turned back to face forward. "I'm going to see him." Robbie got out of the car, and so did Daisy and Loghan.

"Uncle? Uncle Elias Morrow?" Daisy asked.

Another man pulled into the gas station, and he happened to have his radio on. The news reporter said that there was a blackout in Miami. Loghan furrowed her eyebrows, confusion and suspicion washing over her at once. Daisy turned to look at her, then to Robbie. They both seemed to think the same thing. 

"What the hell—" Loghan started.

"I don' t believe it," Daisy mumbled.

"Hope they don't hit LA," Robbie said. "My little brother rides the metro, he's gonna be stuck in a bad part of town. You know what happens to people during a blackout, they think they can get away with whatever they want—"

"That nothing can stop them," Loghan finished. 

Robbie nodded and started to say something but then all of a sudden a street light exploded and sparks fell to the ground from where it was. All the cars in the street slowed to a stop. Loghan stared at Robbie. 

"I think you just jinxed us, Reyes."

》》◆《《

They swerved through traffic, rushing to get to wherever Robbie's brother was. 

"What exactly is 'it' because I still don't buy the whole 'sold my soul' story," Daisy asked.

"I don't give a damn what you buy, I'm the one stuck with it," Robbie countered.

"So you wanna get rid of it?"

"I thought that if I settled the score, took down the gang bangers that put Gabe in a wheelchair, it would go away. It didn't happen. So I started settling other people's scores."

"The x's on the mural," mumbled Daisy.

"That didn't work either, figured if I settled my uncle's score-"

"Your uncle?" Daisy cut in. "Don't think he was the victim in that situation..."

"He always said the guy he beat up was the real criminal." 

"So you think that if you...right whatever wrong your uncle was trying to fix, that you can...get rid of...it?" Loghan asked skeptically.

Robbie's eyes didn't leave the road ahead of him as he spoke. "Or else I'll be stuck with it forever."

After that statement, the car sped up, and a sort of awkward silence fell over them.

Eventually, they came across a boy in a wheelchair, and there were four guys strutting over to him, one of them firmly holding a gun in his hand.

Robbie was the first one to step out of the car, making his way over to where the boy in the wheelchair, Gabe, was. As he did so, the man with the gun said, "Even better."

Then Daisy and Loghan stepped out of the car, and the man who Loghan assumed to be their "leader" stepped forward and put his hands on the hood of the car. "I wouldn't touch it if I were you, heard it's a bit of a hothead," Daisy warned.

Loghan stepped forward, next to Daisy. "Yeah, you wouldn't wanna get burned."

"It's a shame to see something so nice in the hands of someone who can't take care of it. What I'd really like to do is get a look under the hood." The man then leaned forwards, his hands pressing up onto the car. With his eyebrows raised slightly, his eyes met Loghan's, and he licked his lips. She couldn't help but get a feeling that he meant a bit more than the car. Gross.  

"Hey, hands-off," Robbie's voice came from behind them. Loghan turned to face him for a brief moment, before crossing her arms over her chest and averting her gaze back to the unknown man.

"Relax, just admiring her, Holmes. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Loghan felt an intense increase of heat in the air from behind Daisy. She didn't think anyone else could feel it since her powers were a bit unclear. But she knew what it meant. 

Reyes was mad. 

Smoke arose from the man's hands, and there was a slight sizzling sound. He screamed, stumbling backward.

"Warned you it was a little hot," Daisy shrugged.

"Really should have listened to her," Loghan added, cracking her knuckles as Daisy dodged a bat being swung at her.

The man with the bat then moved on to trying to get Robbie, and Loghan slipped out from between them.

As Robbie dealt with the man with the bat, another came up to Loghan trying to swing a punch. She grabbed his fist before it hit her face. His other arm came to sock her in the stomach, but she grabbed that one, too. "You just made a big mistake."

She then took his arms, crossed them over each other, and judo flipped him, dropping his body into a trash can nearby.

She felt someone put an arm around her neck, but she was released quickly after Robbie ripped them off of her. 

Then everyone heard the unmistakable click of a gun and all eyes shot to the source of the sound. The group's leader had a gun pressed up against Gabe's temple. Another guy came up behind Robbie, and Daisy had just hit her broken arm against the side of the car, a scowl displayed on her face.

Loghan held her hand out and aimed it toward the boy, and before the man could pull the trigger or think of anything to do, she made a sudden motion with her hand, and the gun flicked out of his hands and into hers. Daisy managed to hit him with a blast of energy that made him crash into a car, breaking the glass in the process.

She groaned in pain but kept fighting. Loghan saw Gabe look incredulously at the gun in her hand, then to Daisy, and then Robbie.

As both of them were preoccupied, Loghan came to Gabe's aid. She tucked the gun into her  waistband, before running over to where said boy was. She stood next to him and saw that someone was about to gang up on them.

She stepped forward and kicked his legs out from beneath him. Kneeling down, she punched him in the face.

Loghan stood up and brushed her hands off on her jeans, seeing that Daisy and Robbie were conversing.

She shook her hand, wincing a bit at how hard she had hit the guy's face. She yawned and heard Robbie introduce both her and Daisy. Then he lifted his brother up and out of his wheelchair and into the car.

The ride back to Reyes's house was quieter. Daisy looked to be in a lot of pain because of her arm.

Robbie opened the door and let them in. Daisy decided to talk to Robbie so Loghan ended up in the kitchen with Gabe, sitting across from him at the table. She took one of the candles he had lit and moved her finger above the fire and played around with it.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it isn't good to play with fire?" Gabe asked, looking amused.

"Well, they would have if they weren't busy telling me not to mess with paperclips and power outlets," she joked.

Gabe didn't laugh. 

"So, where you from? I can tell it's not from around here."

"I've...moved around a lot."

It was true. Because of her mother's job, they'd moved often. New York, Malibu, Denver, Springfield,  even Ukraine at one point. 

He nodded. Robbie came in to light a few more candles, Daisy in tow. The latter leaned against the door frame.

"The man in all the pictures, is that your dad?" Daisy asked.

"Uncle Eli. He raised us," Gabe answered.

Loghan heard the jingling of keys and turned to Robbie.

"Yo, I gotta head to Canelo's," came Robbie's deep voice.

"This late? Why?" Gabe questioned his brother.

"With all the power out, there's gonna be looting." Robbie walked past Gabe and Loghan at the table.

"Alrighty then. Bye," Loghan waved at him. 

He stopped in the doorway and leaned to whisper something to Daisy. She kept a straight face and didn't let anything slip. She nodded and then Robbie left.

Gabe wheeled his chair away from the table. "Plates in the cabinet, forks in the drawer."

"Which ones? In case you didn't notice, there are multiple," Loghan said sarcastically.

"Ha-ha."

Gabe told them where everything was, and soon, they found ourselves eating dinner.

"So. You know Robbie?"

"We don't. He gave us a ride," Daisy said, unwrapping her arm from the bandages.

"What happened to your arm?" Gabe asked.

"Hit by a car. How'd you end up in a wheelchair?" Daisy shot back.

Gabe took a moment to look down before answering. "Wrong place, wrong time years ago. I've made peace with it though. You know he's always out at night, always alone. Thought it was gambling, maybe racing, or maybe drugs, I don't know." 

Daisy looked down.

"He's a good guy, your brother. I don't think he does any of that," Loghan smiled at Gabe.

He looked at her. "Yeah well, I do know that bad things come from bad people."

"And you think we're bad people?" Daisy questioned calmly.

"Eso es lo que quiero ver."

"No eres el único que puede hablar español, niño," Loghan said, smirking at the surprise on his face.

"You speak Spanish? Fluently too?

"What can I say, I actually paid attention in class. That and my mom speaks it."

"You're Hispanic?"

"My mother's job made her travel a lot," She said flatly, shrugging. 

She wasn't lying; when her mother worked with SHIELD, she had to go to places all over to deal with aliens and dangerous artifacts. She was really committed to her job, up until the fall of the organization. 

They finished eating, and there was little talk after that.

"They were saying on the news earlier that the Inhumans caused the blackouts," Gabe said as he put the dishes in the sink. "You think that's true?"

"I have no idea, I've never met one," Daisy lied. "I just know that people don't like them because they're...different."

"Been there," he said. "That doesn't look so great, I don't know why you're not in the ER," Gabe piped up as Daisy winced yet again from the pain in her arm.

"That won't do any good, there's no power," she replied. In that moment, the lights started to flicker and then the power was back.

"Looks like someone's watching out for you," he smiled and took a quick glance in Loghan's direction. "That excuse won't work anymore Daisy."

Gabe's expression went from amused to serious very quick. "If that even is your real name."

"No, obviously it's Mary Sue Poots," Loghan deadpanned.

"I go by a lot of names," Daisy said, glaring in her direction.

"One of them 'Quake'?"

Daisy looked up from her arm at this, an uncomfortable expression on her face.

Gabe shifted his chair closer to them. "Look, that guy that had the gun to my head went flying. And somehow that gun ended up in your hand even before that. How did that happen?"

"Ah, well I guess the cat's out of the bag. You see, we're ghosts," Loghan shrugged. 

Gabe was not impressed. 

"I felt the earth rumble, nothing there but you in a lot of pain, but so afraid to go to the hospital. The air went dense, almost cold, and then all of a sudden the gun was in Fallout's hands." 

Loghan's posture went rigid. Her secret was out. She was as good as arrested, maybe even worse. She paled at the thought of spending the rest of her life in prison for a crime that she had committed accidentally. 

But murder was murder. And despite her best intentions, that man from the alley was dead. Because of her. 

"But hey, your secrets are safe with me."

There was a heavy pause before Daisy spoke up. "Thanks, Gabe."

"Yeah, thanks, man."

"As long as you leave," he said. "And never come near my brother again. Robbie needs good people around him, and that's not you."

Loghan scoffed. "You don't even know us. How do you know if we're good people or not?"

"Being a vigilante isn't exactly the best business to be in, is it?" he countered, raising a brow at me.

"Well, neither is—"

Daisy started coughing and cut her off. Loghan took that as her cue to shut up.

"Neither is what?" Gabe fired back. When she didn't respond, he asked, "Why are you so quiet now?"

"I'm gonna take a walk," Loghan excused herself, before walking out of the kitchen and out of the house. "I need to make a call, so don't expect me back for a bit," She added. 

She paused a moment, and after she heard Daisy mumble an "okay" she opened the door and stepped outside.

The humid air hit her face immediately as she stepped outside. Loghan sighed and pulled out her phone from her pocket, staring at it for a good moment, contemplating whether this was a good idea.

Screw it, she thought, scrolling through her contacts and tapping the one enlisted as "Mom".

The bell rung for a moment before she heard her mother's worried voice on the other end of the line.

"Hey, Mom," Loghan greeted awkwardly. 

"Loghan? Oh my goodness, sweetie, are you okay? I haven't heard from you in months and—"

"Relax, I'm good. I just, uh, got into some trouble..."

"Does this trouble have to do with Quake?"

"Maybe..." Loghan trailed off. She heard her mother scoff on the other end of the line. "Aren't you going to get mad?" She asked after there was a pause on the other end.

"No. You know the stakes. I just hope you know what you're doing."

"I mean, I think I do..." Loghan trailed off. "I talked to Lucille, earlier, she asked when I'm coming home."

"Well, when are you coming home?"

"I don't know," Loghan sighed. "Currently, I'm working on a weapons deal, some guy who 'made a deal with the devil,' and that stupid Daily Bugle guy on my ass."

"Who, Jameson?"

"Yeah, I don't really care enough to know his name."

"He hates everyone. You've seen the things he's said about Spider-Man. But seriously, don't jump so deep into this stuff that you can't get out."

"I won't," Loghan rubbed a hand over her face. 

"If you need any help, let me know, okay?"

"Mom, your help is sending in the Avengers or the CIA," Loghan shook her head. "I'm fine."

"Alright, just stay safe, okay?"

"Alright," Loghan ran a hand through her face. 

Just then she saw Robbie's car zip towards where she was, and she realized that she had wandered pretty far from the house. He seemed to notice her too, because he pulled up to where she was standing.

"Hey, uh, I gotta go...Call you later?"

"Alright, but you'd better make sure that 'later' is in the next twenty-four hours."

"Don't worry, I will," Loghan said, walking up to Robbie's car and opening the door.

"Alright. I love you. Please stay safe."

"Don't worry, I will. Love you, bye," Loghan cut off the call as she sat down.

"Who was that?" Robbie asked.

"My mom," she told him, buckling the seat belt. "Where are we going?"

"To talk to my uncle."