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eldabeTitle: Don't Tell Me Not to Fly
Fandom(s): DC Comics
Character(s): Lian Harper.
Rating: PG-13 for some creepiness.
Summary: Lian Harper came back to life in a world where heroes and villains never seem to stay dead. Now old enough to hold her own as a hero, Lian searches out the undisputed master of non-powered heroes in an age of superpowers. But Lian might not be the only one that has come back to life...
Acknowledgments:draconic_voices was the most fantastic beta ever, putting up with my absolute writer insanity. All remaining mistakes are completely mine. And thanks to iceshade, who shoved me back on track when I plateaued.
Complement:bliumchik put together an amazing mix to go along with this fic. It can be found here.
Flight Masterpost
Chapter One
5 Times Jess Met Everyone
1.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Jessica glanced up from her reading for Drama 108. She and Lian had a silent, vicious rocks, paper, scissors battle before Jess, sighing, got up to unlock the door.
Behind it was the hottest guy Jess had ever seen in person. No, seriously. Thick, black hair, and piercing blue eyes, and cheekbones. Jess nearly fainted right there in front of him. Since when did guys like this just show up at your dorm room door?
Lian, of course, was cool as a cucumber. "What are you doing here?"
Jess was going to kill her. Her tone was somewhere between rude, and inconsiderate, and mean. Jess opened her mouth to apologize, but the boy just rolled his eyes.
"Special delivery," he said, almost sarcastically, and held up a manila envelope. Lian rolled out of bed, and he took a step into the room.
That was the moment that Jess noticed he was dressed in leather. Oh. My. God. The rest of their conversation was totally lost on her as she basically just stared and tried to keep the lower half of her jaw from coming off. She did manage some sort of mumbled response when he said it was nice to meet her. It was only after he’d left that she realized she didn't even catch his name.
"Who was that?" Jess demanded from Lian, who was dropping the envelope onto her desk.
Lian shrugged. "Just a family friend. No big deal."
Jess threw her pillow at Lian, because what could you do with a roommate that hopeless?
2.
Jess ducked into the cafe, heading straight for the far corner that Lian liked to hang out in.
"Lian," she yelled, waving her arms wildly to try and get the other girl's attention, "Do you think you can cover - oh hello."
There was a boy with Lian that Jess didn't recognize, but that was ok. He had dark curly hair, and he was pretty tanned. And fit. Why were all of Lian's friends so fit?
"Hey, Jess. This is, um..."
"Hello," the boy cut in smoothly. "My name is Cerdian." He shook her hand firmly.
"Cool," Jess decided. "Like, Cerdia, the country?"
"I was born near there."
Jess sat down. Lian looked a little nervous, but the guy seemed totally at ease.
“So, Cerdian, where do you go to college?”
He smiled. “I’m only sixteen. But I attend an international prep school in New York.”
“Is that where you met Lian?”
“In New York, yes. Years ago now.”
Lian was giving him dirty looks, but Cerdian told her about the time that Lian was looking for a particular knock-off Coach bag and they spent four hours going up and down Canal Street hunting it down. Lian seemed mortified by the story, but Jess was so envious.
Cerdian hadn’t seen a lot of Broadway shows, but he promised to take her if she ever stopped by. Jess mentally calculated the cost and time of a ticket to New York. Then, she tried to figure out how much her parents would kill her if she made a quick dash across state borders. While she was dreaming, she imagined Cerdian two years older in a tux for their Broadway date.
Lian seemed to be glaring daggers at him by the time he finished describing the cast of the new RENT revival. Apparently, they’d done a free performance in Times Square to protest a new demolition slated in a housing project in Brooklyn, and Cerdian had been there. Jess was almost melting with envy when his cell phone buzzed.
He glanced at his phone, then at Lian.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take that. I’ll see you later?”
“Duh.”
“It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise!”
He ducked out the back, and Jess turned on Lian, who spent the next twenty minutes ducking questions.
Turns out he was almost seventeen, though. Which was totally legal in New Jersey, at least.
3.
"Hi!"
Jess blinked. "Um, hi?"
"Is Lian here?"
The redhead had a huge gin on her face, and she was bouncing on her toes excitedly. Jess found herself smiling back, even though she had no idea who the other person was.
"I don't think so." Jess offered, hating to let her down. "I can tell her you stopped by?"
"That would be great!" she said. "Thank you!"
Then she skipped down the hall, whistling.
Lian really had the weirdest friends.
4.
When Jess tore into her room in the twenty minutes between Calc and Drama 280 to grab her textbook, she was expecting to see Lian, who didn’t have any classes before noon on Tuesdays. She wasn’t expecting the naked boy flipping through a book on Lian’s bed. Fine, not totally naked; he had a towel wrapped around his waist. But still, mostly naked counts.
“Um, hello?”
“Hello,” he smiled, like he was completely delighted to meet her. Which he might be; delighted, that is, Jess was certainly a bit bowled over.
“Are you…maybe looking for Lian?”
“Oh, no. She’ll be back in a minute. She said she was going down the hall.”
Leaving a naked guy in the room... In all fairness to Lian, Jess normally didn’t stop in at this time of day. In all fairness to Jess, there hadn’t been a sock on the doorknob or anything.
“Oh. If I’m interrupting anything I can go…”
“Why?” he seemed really confused. “This is your room. Jess, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Bobby.” He held out his hand to shake, and Jess took it gingerly: who knew what had been going on before. He certainly seemed totally comfortable in nothing but a short purple towel and a copy of Selective English Readings for University Studies.
“Hi Bobby. Um. So. Um. What are you doing here?”
Bobby fidgeted with the book a little bit. “I sort of lost my clothes.” He confessed. “And I wasn’t sure what I should do in Gotham. At home it’s no big deal, and in New York I could probably get by without drawing too much attention, but I’m in Gotham, so I called Lian.”
He lost his clothes? “Oh. Okaaaay.”
Jess didn’t want to sit. She really had to grab her books and run, but he had these sculpted muscles that most guys don’t just put on display, and he was totally comfortable besides. Plus, he was a guest. Technically. She couldn’t just leave him there.
Naked.
Then the door banged open. “You are so freaking lucky, Bobby, I swear. If my RA didn’t believe the crap story about the construction on Fourth - oh, hey Jess.”
Jess waved her fingers; then, sort of flailed them at Bobby. Lian sighed.
“Sorry about this. Greece doesn’t have the same naked taboos as America, and Bobby gets confused. Right, Bobby?”
“There was construction on Fourth, though, and by Glen Avenue.”
“Thanks for that update.” Lian pushed the clothes at him. “Shirt, jeans and shoes. He drew the line at underwear, so you’re going to have to buy your own. Ciao.”
“Lian!” Jess dragged her over to the closet. “You can’t just kick some foreign exchange student out into the street. He needs help or something! Clearly he’s confused -“
Lian rolled her eyes. “He’s been in the States for years, Jess. He’s going for his masters in philosophy at Rutgers. He can figure out how to get downtown with his pants still on, if he tries hard enough.”
Jess turned around to apologize, only to find Bobby with the pants on already, making a face at the shirt. The jeans were too big, but he had somehow found rope to tie around his waist to hold them up.
“Sorry, Long. But the only long-sleeve shirt Darryl had was a button down. Appreciate the sixty bucks I had to use to bribe the stupid thing off his back.”
Bobby sighed and pulled on these weird gold bracelets. Some guys can pull off the man-jewelry, some guys can’t, and some guys have weird Wonder Woman fetishes. But he pulled on the shirt and buttoned the wrists, so he was obviously figuring some stuff out, even if he somehow though that wandering naked around the GSU campus was a good idea during morning classes.
Speaking of which – Jess grabbed her book. “It was great to meet you, Bobby!” she told him, shooting a dirty glare at Lian. “If you need help or anything, feel free to drop by anytime!”
“Thank you,” he said seriously. He had great curls. Jess wished she had a card to hand him. Or something.
5.
“I think you met my sister.” The guy said, grabbing Jess’s arm.
“Really?” Jess asked weakly. It wasn’t a good time to play geography with some stranger; she really needed to get back to the dorm, or maybe to a bomb shelter. It wasn’t clear at this point which was safer.
“Yeah, redhead. Very energetic. Drops by to hang with Lian all the time.”
For the life of her, Jess couldn’t think of a single person in the world that would fit that description. At least not while she was watching a bit of the Roosevelt Tower hit the pavement forty feet away. It was a little much.
The guy tugged on her arm. “Breathe,” he advised, and Jess sucked in a deep breath.
“Listen, I need the key to your room.”
Jess automatically slapped her pocket to check for her keys, even as her eyes rolled around the scene. “I don’t think this is the right time.” Her voice didn’t shake too much.
“It’s important,” the guy urged. “We can’t find Lian.”
Jess knew that she shouldn’t hand keys to her keys to strangers and that she should probably go back to check for Lian herself and that her parents were going to pull her out of school the second the phone lines were back up. But she found her keys in her back pocket and the guy looked really worried.
“Yeah, ok.” She tore her eyes away from bits of debris still falling and pushed the keys at him.
He closed his right fist around them and looked relieved.
“Thanks. I’ll get them back to you.”
Jess held back strangled laughter, and he grabbed her arm again, meeting her eyes.
“Inhale through our nose and out through your mouth. And head East – there are less fires as you get toward the river. Grab a friend and try to stick with a group.”
Jess gaped at him, then winced at the loud CRASH behind her. The guy bit his lip.
“Jess! Come on!” Someone grabbed her other arm and tugged and Jess turned to Haroon. “You have to keep moving. Have you seen Lian?”
“This guy said that-” Jess turned back to the guy, who she realized never gave his name. But he was gone. Haroon tugged her arm again and Bailey grabbed her hand and they were running toward the water.
Jess only remembered him later, when she emptied her pockets out while searching for her keys.
Chapter Two
Fandom(s): DC Comics
Character(s): Lian Harper.
Rating: PG-13 for some creepiness.
Summary: Lian Harper came back to life in a world where heroes and villains never seem to stay dead. Now old enough to hold her own as a hero, Lian searches out the undisputed master of non-powered heroes in an age of superpowers. But Lian might not be the only one that has come back to life...
Acknowledgments:
draconic_voices was the most fantastic beta ever, putting up with my absolute writer insanity. All remaining mistakes are completely mine. And thanks to iceshade, who shoved me back on track when I plateaued.Complement:
bliumchik put together an amazing mix to go along with this fic. It can be found here. Flight Masterpost
Chapter One
5 Times Jess Met Everyone
1.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Jessica glanced up from her reading for Drama 108. She and Lian had a silent, vicious rocks, paper, scissors battle before Jess, sighing, got up to unlock the door.
Behind it was the hottest guy Jess had ever seen in person. No, seriously. Thick, black hair, and piercing blue eyes, and cheekbones. Jess nearly fainted right there in front of him. Since when did guys like this just show up at your dorm room door?
Lian, of course, was cool as a cucumber. "What are you doing here?"
Jess was going to kill her. Her tone was somewhere between rude, and inconsiderate, and mean. Jess opened her mouth to apologize, but the boy just rolled his eyes.
"Special delivery," he said, almost sarcastically, and held up a manila envelope. Lian rolled out of bed, and he took a step into the room.
That was the moment that Jess noticed he was dressed in leather. Oh. My. God. The rest of their conversation was totally lost on her as she basically just stared and tried to keep the lower half of her jaw from coming off. She did manage some sort of mumbled response when he said it was nice to meet her. It was only after he’d left that she realized she didn't even catch his name.
"Who was that?" Jess demanded from Lian, who was dropping the envelope onto her desk.
Lian shrugged. "Just a family friend. No big deal."
Jess threw her pillow at Lian, because what could you do with a roommate that hopeless?
2.
Jess ducked into the cafe, heading straight for the far corner that Lian liked to hang out in.
"Lian," she yelled, waving her arms wildly to try and get the other girl's attention, "Do you think you can cover - oh hello."
There was a boy with Lian that Jess didn't recognize, but that was ok. He had dark curly hair, and he was pretty tanned. And fit. Why were all of Lian's friends so fit?
"Hey, Jess. This is, um..."
"Hello," the boy cut in smoothly. "My name is Cerdian." He shook her hand firmly.
"Cool," Jess decided. "Like, Cerdia, the country?"
"I was born near there."
Jess sat down. Lian looked a little nervous, but the guy seemed totally at ease.
“So, Cerdian, where do you go to college?”
He smiled. “I’m only sixteen. But I attend an international prep school in New York.”
“Is that where you met Lian?”
“In New York, yes. Years ago now.”
Lian was giving him dirty looks, but Cerdian told her about the time that Lian was looking for a particular knock-off Coach bag and they spent four hours going up and down Canal Street hunting it down. Lian seemed mortified by the story, but Jess was so envious.
Cerdian hadn’t seen a lot of Broadway shows, but he promised to take her if she ever stopped by. Jess mentally calculated the cost and time of a ticket to New York. Then, she tried to figure out how much her parents would kill her if she made a quick dash across state borders. While she was dreaming, she imagined Cerdian two years older in a tux for their Broadway date.
Lian seemed to be glaring daggers at him by the time he finished describing the cast of the new RENT revival. Apparently, they’d done a free performance in Times Square to protest a new demolition slated in a housing project in Brooklyn, and Cerdian had been there. Jess was almost melting with envy when his cell phone buzzed.
He glanced at his phone, then at Lian.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take that. I’ll see you later?”
“Duh.”
“It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise!”
He ducked out the back, and Jess turned on Lian, who spent the next twenty minutes ducking questions.
Turns out he was almost seventeen, though. Which was totally legal in New Jersey, at least.
3.
"Hi!"
Jess blinked. "Um, hi?"
"Is Lian here?"
The redhead had a huge gin on her face, and she was bouncing on her toes excitedly. Jess found herself smiling back, even though she had no idea who the other person was.
"I don't think so." Jess offered, hating to let her down. "I can tell her you stopped by?"
"That would be great!" she said. "Thank you!"
Then she skipped down the hall, whistling.
Lian really had the weirdest friends.
4.
When Jess tore into her room in the twenty minutes between Calc and Drama 280 to grab her textbook, she was expecting to see Lian, who didn’t have any classes before noon on Tuesdays. She wasn’t expecting the naked boy flipping through a book on Lian’s bed. Fine, not totally naked; he had a towel wrapped around his waist. But still, mostly naked counts.
“Um, hello?”
“Hello,” he smiled, like he was completely delighted to meet her. Which he might be; delighted, that is, Jess was certainly a bit bowled over.
“Are you…maybe looking for Lian?”
“Oh, no. She’ll be back in a minute. She said she was going down the hall.”
Leaving a naked guy in the room... In all fairness to Lian, Jess normally didn’t stop in at this time of day. In all fairness to Jess, there hadn’t been a sock on the doorknob or anything.
“Oh. If I’m interrupting anything I can go…”
“Why?” he seemed really confused. “This is your room. Jess, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Bobby.” He held out his hand to shake, and Jess took it gingerly: who knew what had been going on before. He certainly seemed totally comfortable in nothing but a short purple towel and a copy of Selective English Readings for University Studies.
“Hi Bobby. Um. So. Um. What are you doing here?”
Bobby fidgeted with the book a little bit. “I sort of lost my clothes.” He confessed. “And I wasn’t sure what I should do in Gotham. At home it’s no big deal, and in New York I could probably get by without drawing too much attention, but I’m in Gotham, so I called Lian.”
He lost his clothes? “Oh. Okaaaay.”
Jess didn’t want to sit. She really had to grab her books and run, but he had these sculpted muscles that most guys don’t just put on display, and he was totally comfortable besides. Plus, he was a guest. Technically. She couldn’t just leave him there.
Naked.
Then the door banged open. “You are so freaking lucky, Bobby, I swear. If my RA didn’t believe the crap story about the construction on Fourth - oh, hey Jess.”
Jess waved her fingers; then, sort of flailed them at Bobby. Lian sighed.
“Sorry about this. Greece doesn’t have the same naked taboos as America, and Bobby gets confused. Right, Bobby?”
“There was construction on Fourth, though, and by Glen Avenue.”
“Thanks for that update.” Lian pushed the clothes at him. “Shirt, jeans and shoes. He drew the line at underwear, so you’re going to have to buy your own. Ciao.”
“Lian!” Jess dragged her over to the closet. “You can’t just kick some foreign exchange student out into the street. He needs help or something! Clearly he’s confused -“
Lian rolled her eyes. “He’s been in the States for years, Jess. He’s going for his masters in philosophy at Rutgers. He can figure out how to get downtown with his pants still on, if he tries hard enough.”
Jess turned around to apologize, only to find Bobby with the pants on already, making a face at the shirt. The jeans were too big, but he had somehow found rope to tie around his waist to hold them up.
“Sorry, Long. But the only long-sleeve shirt Darryl had was a button down. Appreciate the sixty bucks I had to use to bribe the stupid thing off his back.”
Bobby sighed and pulled on these weird gold bracelets. Some guys can pull off the man-jewelry, some guys can’t, and some guys have weird Wonder Woman fetishes. But he pulled on the shirt and buttoned the wrists, so he was obviously figuring some stuff out, even if he somehow though that wandering naked around the GSU campus was a good idea during morning classes.
Speaking of which – Jess grabbed her book. “It was great to meet you, Bobby!” she told him, shooting a dirty glare at Lian. “If you need help or anything, feel free to drop by anytime!”
“Thank you,” he said seriously. He had great curls. Jess wished she had a card to hand him. Or something.
5.
“I think you met my sister.” The guy said, grabbing Jess’s arm.
“Really?” Jess asked weakly. It wasn’t a good time to play geography with some stranger; she really needed to get back to the dorm, or maybe to a bomb shelter. It wasn’t clear at this point which was safer.
“Yeah, redhead. Very energetic. Drops by to hang with Lian all the time.”
For the life of her, Jess couldn’t think of a single person in the world that would fit that description. At least not while she was watching a bit of the Roosevelt Tower hit the pavement forty feet away. It was a little much.
The guy tugged on her arm. “Breathe,” he advised, and Jess sucked in a deep breath.
“Listen, I need the key to your room.”
Jess automatically slapped her pocket to check for her keys, even as her eyes rolled around the scene. “I don’t think this is the right time.” Her voice didn’t shake too much.
“It’s important,” the guy urged. “We can’t find Lian.”
Jess knew that she shouldn’t hand keys to her keys to strangers and that she should probably go back to check for Lian herself and that her parents were going to pull her out of school the second the phone lines were back up. But she found her keys in her back pocket and the guy looked really worried.
“Yeah, ok.” She tore her eyes away from bits of debris still falling and pushed the keys at him.
He closed his right fist around them and looked relieved.
“Thanks. I’ll get them back to you.”
Jess held back strangled laughter, and he grabbed her arm again, meeting her eyes.
“Inhale through our nose and out through your mouth. And head East – there are less fires as you get toward the river. Grab a friend and try to stick with a group.”
Jess gaped at him, then winced at the loud CRASH behind her. The guy bit his lip.
“Jess! Come on!” Someone grabbed her other arm and tugged and Jess turned to Haroon. “You have to keep moving. Have you seen Lian?”
“This guy said that-” Jess turned back to the guy, who she realized never gave his name. But he was gone. Haroon tugged her arm again and Bailey grabbed her hand and they were running toward the water.
Jess only remembered him later, when she emptied her pockets out while searching for her keys.
Chapter Two
