MINE

By Clayton Tooley

Fourteen Years Ago…

“Julia… you look beautiful!”

Valerie Cooper stood back from the young woman wearing white and grinned in happiness. Though she’d only known Julia for a few months and had been surprised with she’d asked her to be her Maiden of Honor at her wedding to Larry Carpenter at City Hall, but any break from working on her PhD was a welcome one. “I’m honored to be here.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Val, for helping me out,” Julia said, running her hands down the front of her white, skin-tight dress. Her hands lingered on her stomach and a flush spread across her face that was redder than her long, strawberry blonde hair. “It was so unexpected…”

“I’d say,” Val said, picking up the veil and walking toward her friend. “I mean, you didn’t have time to arrange something with your parents? It’s just us and Larry and his best man…not that there’s anything wrong with it, but is there any particular reason for the rush? It may be the ‘90s, but eloping is still unusual.”

Julia lowered her head and Val thought it was so she could place the veil upon her hair, but she was stopped mid-placement when Julia looked up and was smiling through the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m pregnant.”

The wind was sucked out of Val’s lungs as she blinked, her mouth hanging open and shock crossed her features. Before she knew it, she was also crying and hugging her friend, gently stroking her hair. “Oh, honey, congratulations! I’m so happy for you!” Then she stiffened and pulled back, her hands on Julia’s shoulders. “Uh…this is happy news, right?”

Julia smiled and then roared out in laughter, doubling over and hanging off of Valerie’s shoulders, crying all the time. When she’d calmed down and sat, she wiped at her face and nose with tissues as Valerie scrambled to get the make-up kit. “I’m so scared… and so exhilarated!” Julia said, covering her eyes with her hands. “I woke up a few days ago and just knew something was different… something had changed. When I found out what, I couldn’t control myself I was so happy! I had never thought I’d be pregnant so young… I’m not even twenty! But Larry just smiled and hugged me, then got down on one knee and proposed with barely twenty bucks to his name…” She took a deep breath and looked at her the only friend she’d managed to make so far at college. “Am I making a mistake?”

Val Cooper just smiled at her through her own negative thoughts and gave her a pat on the stomach. “Not at all, Julia. I can see in your face that you and Larry and the baby on board here are going to have nothing but happily ever afters from this day forward. Now let’s get out there and get married!”

Julia smiled and lightly rubbed her stomach again, her mind giddy and excited. Rachel…, she thought, smiling. Rachel Carpenter… MY baby…

“I. Said. NO!”

Hands that could tear concrete apart like Styrofoam slammed down onto the antique oak desk and the four thick legs that had held the large, heavy desk up for close to 150 years shattered into toothpicks and the heavy, solid desk slammed into the floor like a cannon shot. If they hadn’t been on the ground floor, it was a certainty that the desk would have smashed completely through the floor and down into a lower floor. As it was, the hardwood floor of the offices of Jenkins Fenstermaker, Attorneys at Law, shattered like glass and the desk shuddered on the brink of falling completely apart.

Julia Carpenter stood with her palms sank a half-inch into the top of the wood, not showing any discomfort from her actions, and stared daggers at her former brother-in-law, Sean Carpenter, who stood on the other side of the desk with his lawyer, Gary Matthews, both staring at her in disbelief. “Do I make myself clear?” she asked.

“You bi—” Sean began before Matthews cut him off.

“Ms. Carpenter, that will be quite enough of that,” he said calmly, attempting to maintain control of the conversation. “Threats will do you no good, I assure you. These are legal matters we’re dealing with, not some sort of super-villain you can beat about the face. This is about your daughter, Ms. Carpenter.”

“I know exactly what this is about, Mr. Matthews,” Julia said, her face a mask of fury. “Sean’s never liked me and now he’s twisted not only his parents but mine as well to get this farce of a case brought against me.”

“That’s…!” Sean began before closing his mouth so quickly his teeth cracked together like a pistol shot. He shook with fury and fought down an angry retort. “This is about Rachel’s safety, nothing else,” he said.

“Oh really?” Julia said, closing her hands into fists through the desktop, digging ten grooves into the thick wood. “So you didn’t try to screw me after Larry left me?”

Matthews looked at Sean and shook his head, wondering why the hell he’d taken this case in the first place. Parental rights cases were awful to begin with… throwing in a dead father, questionable brother and an Avenger mother made everything almost unmanageable. “Be that as it may, Ms. Carpenter, it really has no bearing here. Your parents and your ex-husband’s parents have sufficient written legal authority to bring this suit forward, and have both signed representation over to Mr. Carpenter here, and no amount of property damage will change that fact.”

Julia peeled her disgusted gaze off of her Sean and looked at Matthews. “What are you talking about? What written documentation? I never signed anything of the sort!”

“I’m afraid you did,” Matthews said, sliding some photocopied forms across his ruined desk. “This is a custody release form in case of your death or proof of ‘significant danger to a minor child’ for one Rachel Marie Carpenter, signed by both yourself and Larry Carpenter. As you can see by the date, it was nearly a year prior to his death and names both of your parents as potential co-guardians of Rachel.”

Julia picked up the paper and read it and her mind flashed back several years and she scowled, crumbling the paper in her fists. “That motherfucker!” She turned and paced across the room, attempting to regain her composure. “That son of a bitch!”

Sean smirked but was stopped from speaking by Matthews laying a firm hand on his arm and shaking his head. Now most certainly wasn’t the time. “I see you remember. Please explain it to us, Ms. Carpenter.”

Julia breathed hard and sank into one of the chairs across the desk, lowering her head into her hands. “I must have thought it was part of the custody agreement forms Larry had drawn up after our divorce was nearly final and we’d worked out sharing custody of Rachel. It was such a large stack of paper and I’d just gotten these powers and was so busy… I hadn’t been back from the Secret Wars more than a week… Jesus Christ… I knew he was pissed about the length of our separation and wanted the divorce final, but…”

“You didn’t read everything you signed, then,” Matthews said, not without sympathy. Julia shook her head. “Well, I’m afraid ignorance of the law is no defense, and you signed willingly which precludes any finding against Larry Carpenter, though you have my sympathies.” Matthews looked at his client and shook his head. “I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

Sean sneered. “Regardless of your moral authority, Matthews, let’s cut to the chase. My parents have the right to request on behalf of their granddaughter a court hearing to judge whether Julia is the best person to raise and protect her… or if she’ll just get her killed like she did my brother.”

“Fuck you!” Julia said, coming out of her seat so quickly that it looked as if she’d teleported across the room and was clinging to the wall behind Sean before he could blink. Her face was so close to his when he turned around and looked up at her he could count her eyebrows if she didn’t move. “I didn’t kill your brother! He died saving Rachel’s life! Whatever else he was to me, he was a loving father to her and he would not want this! I’m her mother! Fighting this will expose my identity to the public! You will be placing Rachel into danger!”

“Tough,” Sean said, not backing down even though his legs were shaking. “Don’t fight it then.”

A beeping broke up the tension and Julia dropped from the wall and pulled out her communicard, reading the message and blinking twice, stunned. “I have to go.”

“Oh, how convenient,” Sean said. “What is it? A super-villain or your psychotic boyfriend?”

That brought Julia up short. “What?” she whispered.

Sean rolled his eyes but it was Matthews that spoke. “I’m afraid that’s a part of this lawsuit, Ms. Carpenter. You don’t deny that you are in a romantic relationship with one John Walker, aka, the U.S.Agent?”

Julia couldn’t find the words so she just shook her head no, not denying it.

“Given Mr. Walker’s past mental… eh… problems, and the fact that he not only leads the team you are a part of but spends private alone time with your daughter, it is the opinion of your parents and Mr. Carpenter’s that you are putting Rachel in exceedingly dangerous situations and in the company of potentially dangerous individuals… and in one month’s time a hearing will be held that will consider these facts and determine if you can retain custody of your daughter or not.”

Numb and shaken, Julia said nothing as she took her leave.

She got to the medical facility within the secret headquarters of her team located beneath the basement of Steve Roger’s brownstone just in time to see Dr. Jane Foster rolling a horribly battered Katie Walker Tollifson, John Walker’s sister, into the surgical section and saw John standing there in his uniform, mask off and head down. Standing to the side in a kind of stunned stupor were S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison Major Jason Bludd and one of their teammates, Cathy Webster a.k.a. Free Spirit, both unsure how to approach USAgent in his time of grief.

Several months ago, Katie had been kidnapped by the Watchdogs, a paramilitary group who rebelled against what they saw as affronts to America, from blacks and immigrants to pornography and freedom of religion, who had been the first serious threat John had faced back in his days as Captain America. Since then the Watchdogs had returned again and again to take more pieces of his soul from him, including murdering his parents, an event that had pushed John over the edge and left nearly a dozen Watchdogs dead at his hands.

And every time he moved past that… they returned. They’d targeted his sister once her husband, a recent Watchdog trainee himself, had exposed his relationship to John, who he did not know was the USAgent, and kidnapped her despite the best efforts of both the USAgent and Captain America. For many months he’d been missing…until this morning when she’d shown up on their doorstep, battered and in severe need of medical attention.

Moving past Jason and Cathy with little more than a sharp glance, Julia stepped up softly behind Jack and laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned, tensing a little at the touch, but when he saw her he broke a little around the eyes and pulled her to him desperately, burying his face into her neck. She hadn’t seen him this worked up since he’d returned from Crossfire’s trap where he and Hawkeye had been forced to relive their past and the pain of losing Barbara Morse, the Avenger known as Mockingbird, the woman most important in helping John find his way back from his madness the first time.

But she was gone now and the feelings he’d only barely allowed himself to have for Bobbie had been buried under the strong feelings that had formed between him and Julia during their Force Works days, which had been complicated by her unintentional relationship with the man named Moonraker and the subsequent breakup of the team. When they’d met back up a little more than a month ago to rescue Free Spirit, Jack Flagg and Moonhunter from the Resistants, the old feelings they’d once had resurfaced and a quick, passionate relationship had ignited…one that scared and excited them both at the same time.

So as they sank to their knees, his emotions thundering out of him as she rubbed his head and whispered to him, Julia felt herself harden on the inside again at the insinuations of her brother-in-law and his lawyer, using the mistakes of the past to make an even bigger one now, and she swore she wouldn’t allow them to shatter the life she’d been building for herself here… the life she wanted… now that it was within her grasp.

The next morning, Julia stood outside the medical facility watching Jack talk to Dr. Foster when Rachel walked up next to her and hugged her from the side. “Are you ok, Mom?”

Looking at her fourteen-year-old daughter, Julia wrapped her arms around her and rested her head on top of Rachel’s. “I’m ok,” she said, kissing her daughter’s forehead. “Sorry I didn’t get back to see you before bed last night.”

“It’s ok,” Rachel said, smiling at her. “Peggy took me back to her place. I know Jack needed you; I understand.”

Julia’s heart swelled with love and pride at the young woman she had raised and her throat nearly closed off her air supply as it tightened up viscously on her. “I love you, Rachel. You know that, don’t you? No matter what, nothing in my life will ever mean a fraction of what you do. Ever.”

Rachel was looking directly in her mother’s eyes and the strength of the truth of the words her mother spoke was plain to her. “I know, Mom,” she said, smiling. “Me too.” She then hugged her only living parent and prayed to whatever god who’d listen that she would never have to leave.

Julia didn’t pray… she just made up her mind about what she was willing to give up for the girl in her arms. She realized that there was no price too large to pay… no matter the consequences.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Carpenter. My professional opinion is, unfortunately, that you have no case. Other than wasting a lot of time and money, there’s not much else you could possibly accomplish here.”

The speaker, Franklin Nelson, had been recommended to her through her super-hero connections as a champion of super-hero law and an outstanding lawyer in this sort of situation. He and his partner, a Matthew Murdock, who was not available for a meeting on short notice, had a history of representing her peers, including the Fantastic Four. Julia had attempted to speak with Jennifer ‘She-Hulk’ Walters, but hadn’t been able to reach her.

“I don’t understand,” Julia said. “I was not made aware of what I was signing. They’re going to take my baby!”

Foggy sighed, wringing his hands. He hated taking paternal-rights cases, and the fact that Ms. Carpenter had confided in him her identity as an Avenger made him feel all the worse for his response. “I understand, but it’s a binding document. Unless your parents and Mr. Carpenter’s parents relent, they have the right to have you judged for competency and Rachel’s safety. If it goes before a court, I have no doubt you will be found competent, and if you agree to give up your costumed identity until Rachel is at least 18 years old, then I think we could win.”

Julia breathed quickly, her emotions scattered and her mind flashing. Hating herself, she said in a near-whisper, “What about Jack?”

Foggy shrugged. “That’s… tricky. It depends on the judge we’d pull and the angle they take with it. Though there is ample evidence of his good aspects and no evidence of a danger to children, his exploits as Captain America, including the Watchdog incident as well as the Left & Right Winger assault, will be drug out, as will his faked murder and rebirth as the U.S.Agent. Though the legal aspects of all of these incidents have been resolved…and trust me no one is going to tear into those cans of worms… anything they can throw out as detailing the character of those you surround your daughter with will impact the judge’s decision. I’m afraid your relationships are subject to questions about your quality as a mother.”

“But–” Julia hated herself even as she prepared to say the next sentence, but she couldn’t control herself. “I’m a fucking super-hero!”

Foggy Nelson smiled a knowing, terribly sad smile and said, “I know, Julia, believe me I do. But in the court of law of the United States of America… so what?”

Julia thanked him for his time and left before she began crying.

CURRENT ACCOUNT BALANCE: $7,496.85.

Julia stared at the amount in her checking account, all of the money she had to her name, and wondered about what she could do with it. The saddest part was that $6,000 of that amount had only come to her in the last three weeks once S.H.I.E.L.D. had finalized the agreement authorizing Jack’s team and their $2,000 per week retainer to be heroes. After struggling her ass off for the last 18 months, she finally had an income that would not only care for herself and Rachel, she had a man in her life who loved and supported her… and now her family came forward to take her baby away.

“Hey, lady, move it or lose it, huh?” a guy behind her at the ATM said, shaking her from her depression. She hit cancel on the machine without making any transactions and walked down the side of the bank. She knew the money would be sufficient probably to handle Mr. Nelson’s legal fees through the first court appearance, he had made a very generous offer to try to help her, but she knew it was a waste. Her gut churned with despair, wishing for a way to help Rachel to appear out of the blue.

Instead… the wall of the bank behind her that held the ATM exploded violently.

The expanding bubble of force that emanated from the point of origin of the explosion caught her in the small of her back and lifted her off her feet. Fortunately, unlike the other half-dozen people caught with her in the explosion, she was the only one wearing an unstable-molecules uniform beneath her clothing and had super-human durability, so she was able to spin backwards into the concussive force and extend her hand, strands of psi-webbing forming from her fingertips to the ground and catching the flailing forms of innocent bystanders before they could impact with cars, the sidewalk or other people, helping to lower them safely to the ground.

Dropping the webs, Julia quickly pulled her mask up from beneath her shirt and shucked her outer clothing until only Arachne stood and turned back toward the scene of smoldering concrete behind her. From within the smoke pouring from the interior of the bank stepped a large man with well-defined muscles in a green and brown costume who held a large bag full of cash, coins, bonds and other items from the bank vault. He looked briefly around and seemed really surprised to see Arachne standing there looking back at him.

“Who the fuck’re you?” he asked.

“Arachne,” she said, smiling, annoyed at having to deal with this today, but not stupid enough to attack him without knowing how he had busted out of the vault. Was it strength? Explosives? She had to know first for everyone’s safety.

“Arachne? What’s that, some kinda fucking spider?” When Julia just shrugged, the man said, “Why not just call yerself Spider-Woman, then?”

Gee, why didn’t I think of that? Julia thought even as she crouched down, rolling her eyes under her eyeless mask. “So what are you called, handsome?” she asked.

“Powderkeg,” he replied, flexing his free arm. “I sweat nitroglycerin.”

“Hmmmm, that probably isn’t something you should tell someone who is likely going to hit you soon. It’s kinda like the Colonel listing all 13 herbs and spices.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just trying not to mess up a pretty face,” Powderkeg said, smiling. “One punch from me will absolutely rock your world, darling?”

“Really?” Julia said, jumping up onto the wall to her left, smiling down at him. “According to the Avengers Logs I read, Photon took you down back in her Captain Marvel days when she didn’t even have 90% or so of her powers. Doesn’t seem so memorable to me?”

“Oh, fuck you and that cotton-picking bitch!” Powderkeg said, dropping the bag and smacking his hands together, causing a large ‘pop’ to sound from the combustive nature of his super-human ability. “She hit like a Mack truck!”

“Oh yeah?” Julia said, smiling as she leapt into motion, her spider-speed allowing her to cross the distance between herself and Powderkeg in an instant. “Then it’s your lucky day… because Photon’s got nothing on me, sweetcheeks!”

She rose from her crouch and hit Powderkeg with around a left-handed 75% blow, uncertain just how invulnerable he really was, but considered it a safe bet that if he sweated nitroglycerin he had to be a tough bastard, and was satisfied when he went flying backwards into the crumbling wall of the bank with only a grunt instead of a horrible scream of pain.

However, Julia’s hand ricocheted back at an unexpected angle and nearly broke her elbow with the force, but with her extra-normal flexibility she easily flexed backwards and absorbed the motion. Still she flinched back in surprised pain, cradling her arm and realized that her punch had excited the nitroglycerin on his chin and causing a mini-explosion. She stumbled back and tried to remember Photon’s report of her fight with this guy. Her powers at that time had been in flux and she’d had an aura of energy around her that protected her from harm in addition to her super-strength, but Julia did not have a protective aura. This could be a problem, she thought.

“Well, if that was your best shot, babe, then you’re finished,” Powderkeg said as he pushed free of the wall and stalked toward her. “That hurt real good.”

Julia considered the man stalking toward her and realized her only problem was contact. If she didn’t touch him, she couldn’t get hurt. That limited her punching or kicking options, but on a street in New York City she had more options than just herself.

“Well, you got me there, Brutus,” she said, smiling even as her mind extended out and her psi-webs wrapped around the concrete flower pot behind her. “I guess there’s no way I can hurt you…or…”

Flipping forward with the speed of her namesake, Julia pulled the flower pot down from between her legs and it drilled down onto the top of Powderkeg’s skull with the impact of a freight train, and it smashed him into the street, creating a sizable divot in the concrete and a small explosion of energy that blew everyone back from the impact. Arachne flexed with the concussion wave and landed close to the impact site and jumped forward, landing on the lip and looked down.

Powderkeg lay at the bottom of the crated and didn’t move at first, but then he pushed up onto his hands and knees and shook his head, groggy. He was covered with dirt and grime and looked tired, and Julia smiled. “You look a little parched there, PK. How about a drink?”

Arachne kicked out with her right foot and busted the front off of the hydrant next to her, which began pouring a torrent of water down into the crater she’d made, plowing Powderkeg off of his knees and onto his back, choking and gasping for air. A powerful hand clamped on his neck and jerked him into the air before slamming him down onto the sidewalk and straddled him.

“Awwww, you look a little wet there, big boy,” she said as she pulled her fist back. “Hard to sweat when you’re soaking wet, huh?” she said as her fist plowed down at full strength, knocking Powderkeg into unconsciousness.

An hour later, Julia Carpenter sat watching her daughter play a volleyball game with the rest of her school class. She was magnificent, moving like a panther pouncing on her prey, setting, digging and smashing her way across her side of the net, punishing the opposing team at every turn, not letting them do more than score the occasional gimme point or ricochet. Rachel was everywhere and always in motion, and her team revolved around her and she was spectacular.

Julia cried silently, wiping her eyes and keeping her long hair in her face to avoid stares.

This girl, her daughter, was the light of her life. Nothing mattered to her more than Rachel, and nothing had since the day years ago when Rachel had been born. Though there had been many trying times since then, including Larry’s death, the end of the West Coast Avengers an then Force Works, and the mission against the Resistants… but all had been overcome and the two of them, mother and daughter, were as close as sisters.

So to face the unbeatable fact that her grandparents could take Rachel away from her now, just when they had become so close and their lives had settled down into a good pattern, it was so unfair. Julia stood with the rest of the crowd and clapped, smiling a wide smile as her daughter scored the winning strike for her team, and it was then, seeing the happy and content smile on Rachel’s face as she was lifted by her friends into the air as the star player, that Julia made a decision that would solve their current problems while ensuring many more in their future. With a heartbreaking sigh, she slipped from the stands and into the night.

The private office of Valerie Cooper was, theoretically, impossible to get to unless you were either Valerie Cooper or someone she had ‘requested’ to be there, usually escorted by big, strong government types. So it was with some surprise that she opened the door to her office and saw the last person she’d ever expected to see standing on her ceiling. Recovering her composure, she calmly closed the door without alerting the pair of security guards outsider her door and casually walked to her desk.

“Julia… you’re looking well,” she said, sitting.

Arachne dropped from the ceiling and landed on Cooper’s desk, then pulled her mask down. Her eyes were almost lifeless but cold, serious. “Val,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

“I doubt that,” Valerie said, leaning back. “What can I do for you?”

“Fix this,” Julia said, pointing at the papers in the folder on Val’s desk. Julia dropped from the desk and walked to the window looking out at New York City while Valerie read the documents, only turning around when Val closed the folder and sighed. “What?”

Val rubbed her eyes. “This is serious, Julia. You understand that, right?”

“Too serious for you?” Julia asked. “Bullshit.”

“I didn’t say that,” Val said, standing and coming around her desk. “But this is big.”

“You owe me,” Julia said, stepping close. “After what you did to me, what you made me do to the Avengers, not to mention Death Web and Larry…”

“I know I owe you,” Val said, her eyes showing genuine sorrow. “None of that was supposed to be that way.”

“Yet you did it,” Julia said, plucking a photo of Larry from the folder, one showing him in the morgue. “You did this to me…to Rachel. Now fix this!”

Valerie Cooper pursed her lips and walked back to her desk and sat, thinking. It appeared simple on paper, what Julia wanted, but it really wasn’t. The grandparents’ would pitch a goddamned fit and Sean, who she knew from back in the day, was a bastard in every sense of the word, and none of that considered the legal ramifications of overcoming the guardianship of a minor in this manner.

But she could do it.

“I owe you,” she said, nodding. “I know I do. But not this much, Julia; you have to know that.”

Julia started to protest but when she met Val’s eyes she faltered, unsure of how hard to push it. This was her only play, her signature on that paper made that clear enough and she’d known this was a possibility. The Valerie Cooper she’d thought she’d known on her wedding day all those years ago had always been a lie…a convenient cover for the ambitious, single-minded woman sitting in front of her, the one who never did anything for free.

“What do you want?”

“A favor,” Val said, closing the file. “To be named later.”

Julia felt something in her heart shrivel and die. “I agree…but I won’t kill anyone.”

Val blinked, honestly stunned. “I would never ask that of you, Julia. Surely you still believe in me that much?”

Julia shook her head. “I don’t.” She saw the hurt in Val’s eyes but didn’t apologize. “I mean it…I won’t kill anyone.”

“Fine,” Val said, reaching for her phone. “But whatever I ask, you better only say yes. Otherwise…”

“I understand,” Julia said, moving to the window and swinging away.

It was over a week later… well after the Watchdogs had been dealt with and life had all but returned to normal, when the knock sounded on the apartment of Julia and Rachel Carpenter, only they were busy in the kitchen listening to the radio and neither one of them heard the sound. But John Walker did and he came out of the back bedroom where he’d been recuperating and opened the door, his body still wrapped in a considerable amount of gauze as he recovered.

He looked down on the man on the other side of the door and didn’t recognize him at first, but he reasoned out who he was from the fear that crossed the man’s eyes. “Sean,” Jack said, smiling a terrifying smile. “I was hoping we’d someday meet.”

Sean Carpenter gulped but only took a very small step back from the enormous man in front of him. “I…I need to speak to Julia, Walker.”

John Walker stared at him for a moment before stepping into the hall and pulling the door around. He stood, towering over Sean Carpenter for a minute before saying, “Fuck off.”

“You have no right…” Sean began then stopped, composing himself. “I need to speak to her about what happened.”

Jack leaned his sore body back against the closed door and crossed his arms. “Why? What happened?” Sean just stared at him. “No, really, I’ve been a little busy lately,” Jack said, gesturing at his bandaged body, “saving the city, fighting the bad guys and stuff, but don’t worry about that, you tell me your big news.”

“Mock me all you want…”

“Already on it.”

“…but I’ll find out how she got the case dropped and our lawyers acting like they don’t even know who we are,” Sean said, building up a head of steam. “It’s illegal and wrong and going to get Rachel hurt!”

“Where do you live, Sean?” Jack asked, keeping his voice calm.

“I don’t…”

“Eden? Shangri-La? Some other paradise where there is no crime, no danger, no high places to fall off of or bad weather. Hell, man, you can’t even live in a city in the United States that isn’t visited by some super-villain at least half a dozen times a year. There is no safe, Sean.”

Sean Carpenter blinked at him and opened his mouth to say something, but Jack beat him to it.

“But there is love. Look, no one doubts that you love your niece, and obviously her grandparents do too, and I love them both with my all my heart, but none of that compares to how much her mother loves her or how much Rachel loves Julia. They are each other’s worlds and at this pivotal moment in Rachel’s life she needs her mother more than she needs even the slight improvement in safety she might find in Colorado with her grandparents as opposed to New York City.”

Sean looked slightly abashed but stood firm. “She’s going to get hurt or killed. Do you understand that?”

Pain like none Sean had ever seen flickered across Jack’s eyes and for a moment the facts of Walker’s life that he’d been made privy to during the case preparations made him feel like an ass, especially given what had just happened to his sister, but that was also the point. “You’ve been doing this hero-thing for what, five years? And how many have you lost? Can you protect her? I know Julia would die for Rachel, and you probably would as well, but is that enough? Is it worth it?”

“Yes,” a voice from behind the cracked doorway said and both men turned as it opened and looked down at Rachel Carpenter standing there, Julia in the hallway hugging herself. “I understand what you’re saying, Uncle Sean, and I know you and my grandparents have my best interests at heart… but this is what I want. I love my life, my school, my friends and my family. I know it’s dangerous but it’s my choice too. I want to stay with my mom.”

“I wish it were that simple, honey,” Sean said, sighing.

“Well, today it is,” Julia said, coming up behind Rachel. “Legally it’s over so let’s drop it and move forward. Would you like something to eat?”

Sean stared at her and almost looked like he was going to accept, but the cold resolve of a man convinced he was right moved back into his eyes and he shook his head. “Thank you but no. I have to go. I’ll speak to you soon, Julia.” With that, he turned and left.

Jack turned back to the apartment and Rachel stepped out and hugged him quickly then went back into the apartment. Jack looked quizzically at Julia who came up and wrapped her arms around him.

“She’s embarrassed. She heard you say you loved her when you were defending her; I think you’re her new hero.”

“Ah,” Jack said, smiling and feeling his cheeks warm. “She needs better taste in heroes.”

“Not from where I’m standing,” Julia said, kissing him gently. “And I love you, too.” They gazed at each other for another few seconds before kissing again, hungrily.

From the apartment Rachel Carpenter watched them and smiled, giggling to herself as she went back to cooking their dinner. Sometimes things worked out after all.