⸝⸝₊ ┊afterglow
── we're not alike ♰ ‧₊˚ ⋅⩩

────── ♰ ──────

     ⁰︎⁰︎ °. "HEY, THANKS FOR bailing on us," Ned scolded lightly as he and Maisie finally found Peter in one of the lab rooms after they had searched half the school for an hour.

Maisie hadn't even been able to find Peter when she got home. He wasn't at his apartment or in his room and then she had to cover for him with May. A random excuse that Maisie had left early and he was catching a ride with Ned. Safe to say Maisie was anything but happy with him at the moment.

"Dude," Maisie started quietly. "If you ever pull something like that again —"

"Sorry," Peter apologized. "Something came up," he muttered a little, cutting Maisie off from finishing as they seemed to finally notice what he was working on.

He had something he was picking apart at a vice, a faint purple glow surrounding it softly. Maisie moved around the table, standing beside Peter as she grabbed another object he had already torn apart off the table.

"Where'd you find this?" She asked after she flipped it over in her hand. Letting the glow turn her hand a light shade of purple before her fingers held it cautiously.

"Uh, on my walk to the train last night," he grunted when he hammered something else. Another piece flying off the table before the room fell silent.

"Keep your fingers away from the blades," the teacher advised, turning back to his word search before Maisie scoffed lightly.

Maisie moved a stool closer to her to sit down as she inspected the rest of the pieces. She'd seen this stuff before, but only in pictures. It was a case her dad had worked on years ago.

"You don't want to mess with this stuff, Pete," she started cautiously. "My dad had issues with this years ago. It was from those aliens that the Avengers fought," she trailed off as Peter pried the main glowy thing out from the contraption it was in. "From space."

"I think it's a power source," he ignored Maisie's worries.

"Yeah, but it's connected to all these microprocessors," Ned explained carefully, pointing to the array of wires that were sticking out. "That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush."

"Why do aliens need to charge their toothbrushes?" Maisie grumbled, face scrunched as she pulled apart her own piece of the plastic that Peter had dropped onto the table. "Is somebody trying to make weapons or something? They shouldn't even have this stuff."

"And they're combining alien tech with ours," Peter trailed off, staring at the glowy thing for a few seconds.

"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said," Ned mused.

Maisie looked up at him, brows furrowed carefully before she shook her head.

"Or the scariest," she fixed. "If someone figured out how to make weapons with alien tech, that could do a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people."

There were news reports for years about people getting hurt from this alien tech, messing with things they don't understand. It was a matter of homeland security and the police, and all they've done is let it get into the hands of the wrong people.

"I just want to thank you for letting me be a part of your journey into this amazing —"

Ned was interrupted when Peter hammered the glowy thing again, sending it flying past Maisie's head and onto the floor. The room fell silent again, the teacher too preoccupied with his crossword to give a damn what his students were doing.

"What did I say about the blades?"

Maisie reached down to grab the thing from the floor, this one glowing much brighter than the one she was looking at. The power came from the one in her hands. It was stronger, it was practically buzzing with power.

"Freaky..." Maisie mumbled, placing it on the table and staring at it.

Peter and Ned finished their short stint in the musty classroom with their handshake, the only signal Maisie needed to know that they were finally done.

"Great, now that we're done with the aliens," Maisie threw her bag back over her shoulder and stood up from her stool, desperate to get out of the classroom before something got her dirty. "Peter, next time I say we're not going to a party, we're not going. 'Kay?"

"Yeah," he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, got it."

Maisie watched him carefully, trying to see if he was being serious before nodding to herself and moving on. She'd muttered something to herself that he couldn't hear, letting her clean up the rest of her things before he shoved the glowy thing in his own backpack.

"I have to go pack for DC," Maisie mustered up, finally getting her bag on her shoulders. "I'd ask if you packed but...you're not going," Maisie reminded, a little bitter that Peter had backed out not even a week ago.

"Don't you have tutoring?" Peter reminded before Maisie could get out the door.

Her after school tutoring session with Andrea almost forgotten before Peter had so rudely reminded her of. Maisie stopped to groaned, dropping her head back before slumping back down in her stool.

"I lied," she mumbled. "Let's keep messing with the stupid alien stuff."

♰

"Gravity times sine is a product of —" Maisie had explained for yet a third time to Andrea in the library. Tutoring wasn't a bad gig to have in high school, it looked good on college applications and it gave Maisie a good reputation with the principal.

And after Liz's party, she's starting to realize that Andrea isn't all bad like she thought she was. The mean girl persona she put on, it was simply that. Andrea didn't have a bad intention in her body, not towards Maisie anyway. If someone had messed with her though, that's when the catty side came out. It's the side she had shown Maisie when they had first met.

"It cancels," Andrea reiterated as she scribbled aimlessly on her paper. "Mass cancels it out."

"...right," Maisie nodded shortly, looking at the whiteboard she'd written the problem on before erasing it. It had been a long two hours already and Maisie could tell Andrea was losing interest. She'd gotten every answer right so far so honestly...she wasn't seeing the point in the whole tutoring thing actually. "What do you say we just call it a day?"

Andrea was more than happy to oblige as she slammed her notebook shut a little harshly before shoving it into her bag.

"Sounds like a great idea," she muttered.

"And, uh..." Maisie cleared her throat a little. "I can — I can talk to Principal Morita about the tutoring. You really don't need it. I mean you've gotten every question I've thrown at you right, so I don't really know what the point of this was."

"Really?" Andrea seemed a little shocked as she fixed her backpack strap against her shoulder.

"Yeah," Maisie shrugged. "It kinda just seems like this is a big waste of both of our times. Unless you don't want to — then I'm happy to still do this, but —"

"No. No, that's...that'd be okay with me," she reassured. "I only agreed to it in the first place because my mom was on my ass about catching up. But we were already ahead at my other school so I only agreed to make her happy."

"Anyone ever tell you that your mom is like — way intimidating?" A nervous laugh escaped Maisie as she slowly collected her things.

Andrea's own laugh escaped her, a small snort with a nod of her head in agreement.

"Trust me, I don't need people to tell me that. I know."

Maisie let a short smile creep onto her face as she zipped up her bag. "I have to go get ready for this weekend, but I'll talk to Principal Morita on Monday."

"You have Nationals this weekend, right?" Andrea mused.

"Uh, yeah," Maisie agreed. "We're going to DC."

"You nervous?"

Maisie hesitated for a second. Peter wasn't on the team anymore, but that wasn't really her biggest concern. Yeah, Peter was one of the better ones on the team, if he was there they had a much higher chance of winning. But she believed in everyone else, even if Flash bragged about getting Peter's spot nonstop.

"Yes and no?" Maisie finally conceded. "I mean, it's National's, so obviously I'm nervous. But I think we'll be okay."

"Even with Flash?" Maisie couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. "I mean he's like...totally the worst, isn't he?"

"Yes, he definitely is," she agreed with a nod before throwing her bag over her shoulder. "But he knows just as much as anyone else," another shrug of her shoulder followed. "You know, you should think about joining, you'd be good on the team."

"Me?" Andrea was quick to defend. "Oh, no. No, no, I don't want any part of that."

"Why? It'll ruin your pristine reputation?" Maisie had joked lightheartedly, her smile dropping a little when she saw Andrea was being serious. "Right, 'course it would. Being on Decathlon makes you a loser, doesn't it?"

It hadn't meant to sound as harsh as it did. Maisie wasn't one to go around and complain to people about their attitudes. She was stressed. They had National's in two days, Peter bailed on them — shocking — their replacement was Flash of all people, and she still had to pack. Andrea was just the icing on top of her already toppling cake that she couldn't be bothered to try and handle right then.

"Maisie, no —" Andrea wanted to defend herself, wanting to prove her point that that wasn't what she meant at all, but Maisie was already leaving.

"I gotta finish packing. But I'll talk to the Principal on Monday so we probably won't be seeing each other after today," Maisie explained shortly, letting the library door shut behind her.

♰

"Toothbrush?"

"Check."

"Notebooks?"

"No – yes, check."

"Game face on?"

"Yep."

"Ready to kick some butt at Nationals?"

"Absolutely."

"I now pronounce you, Maisie Anne Hudson, officially ready for Nationals," Genevieve finished off her big production by pretending to crown Maisie with her invisible crown. "May this crown carry you all the way to the finish line."

Maisie laughed at her mom's incorrect metaphors, curtseying to keep up the facade before shaking her head before flopping down on her bed beside her mom.

"I'm starting to think none of you know how Decathlon works."

"I know how it works," Gen scoffed in feigned hurt. "You answer the questions, you hit the buzzer, then boom, confetti cannons go off when you win, and then you all get to run off and break the ribbon at the finish line."

"So close," Maisie whispered.

"Yeah?"

"No."

Gen scoffed lightly, pushing Maisie's head away from her while the teenager laughed softly. A knock on the door dragging their attention away from Maisie's mess of a suitcase on the floor.

"Do you really need all that for a weekend?" Harry questioned at the sight of the piles of clothes on the floor. "You know it's only two days, right?"

The girls both looked down at the case, silent as they let their eyes travel around the room before Gen nodded slowly.

"You're right...it's not enough," Gen concluded.

"What?" Maisie and Harry were quick to question.

"Your dad's right, we need a swimsuit. There's gotta be a pool at the hotel, there always is," Gen was already walking over to Maisie's dresser, stepping over the girl to reach it. Maisie laughed shortly, gently pushing her mother off of her before standing from her bed after Gen had gotten past her.

Maisie silently left her room, leaving Gen to finish packing whatever in the world she thought Maisie needed. Harry followed suit, following Maisie into the kitchen while she sat at the table. The cup of coffee in his hands stayed put as he leaned against the counter casually.

"You ready?" He asked softly.

"Yeah," Maisie nodded.

"You sure you don't want us to come? We can catch a hotel not far from yours."

"Please don't," Maisie chuckled. "You're gonna send mom's superstitions out the window."

"Does that really do anything?" He had always been skeptical about Gen's variety of superstitions. If Maisie ever had any sort of competition, they weren't allowed anywhere near the event. There were only a handful of times the two of them had shown up to support Maisie, and every time they had, Maisie's team had lost. But anytime they weren't there, Maisie came home with a trophy bigger than the last.

"Yes," Maisie laughed again. "Every time you show up, we lose."

"It is not our fault if you lose, sweetheart," he reasoned.

"Not according to mom."

"Your mom has about ten millions different explanations for just about everything that I never want to try to unravel. Her superstitions are just that."

"You can say whatever you want, but next thing you know, mom's gonna make you stay still for hours on end if something great happens while you're holding the end of the table."

"Why would I be holding the end of the table?"

"I don't know," Maisie shrugged. "But why'd the Mets win the exact moment you had your hand on the table? No one knows, but now we know that you're doomed for an eternity of holding the end of the table every time the Mets play a game."

Harry stared at Maisie, exasperated from the detailed explanation she had just rattled off like she had thought about it before. She had a point actually, because Gen would make him stand like that if the baseball team had won a game after a horrible season.

"You're just like your mother," he muttered quietly around the rim of his coffee mug. "Can't believe there's two of you."

Maisie smiled victoriously when he had given up trying to argue.

"Freakishly smart and amazingly awesome?" Genevieve walked into the kitchen with her own smile.

"Pains in my asses," he corrected, letting Gen kiss him on the cheek anyway as Maisie chuckled to herself.

"But I'm your favorite pain in your ass."

────── ♰ ──────

gracie's getaway //
gen and harry are my parents
y'all can't take them from me

— gracie xx