Archive of Our Own ^beta

Nat dodges through a pack of tourists craning their necks up, smiling as she catches sight of Traci. The other girl’s head is tipped back as well, but unlike the tourists her eyes are closed and her headphones are in, sunning herself on the park bench. “Hey there,” she says once she’s closed the gap, and Traci cracks first an eye and then a smile.

“Hey there yourself.” Traci straightens, pulling the headphones off.

“Still stuck in the wired age?”

“You have no idea just how incompatible Bluetooth and magic are.” Traci stands. There’s a moment of hesitation between them, something not quite comfortable, until Nat closes in for the hug. 

“’S good to see you.” Nat murmurs. Traci’s still just as soft as Nat remembers.

“Missed you too,” Traci says. She squeezes Nat’s ribs as she pulls away. As she does so, Nat catches a flicker of movement at her collar.

“Is that…”

Traci shrugs. “He wanted some sun.” 

Sure. Wanted to watch out for Traci, more like. Leroy probably hasn’t forgiven Nat for the way she’d broken things off. (To be fair, Nat also hasn’t forgiven Nat for that, she’d fucked up bad on that one.) “Hey, Leroy.”

Leroy’s head pokes above the line of Traci’s hoodie. He stares unblinking at her. 

Nat clears her throat. “So did you have plans for the day?”

“I’m all yours,” Traci says, and then at Nat’s raised eyebrow, she snorts. “Not like that.”

“No?” Nat teases lightly. Traci rolls her eyes. “Good, ‘cause I have an errand to run.” She lowers her voice a little. “Normal, mundane, no-superpowers-required kind of errand. I’m kind of looking forward to it. But first-” she holds up a hand. “Two things. One…” She sets her bag down on the bench.

“You remembered.” There’s an odd note in Traci’s voice as she reaches out to feel the soft orange fabric. So maybe Nat’s held on to it for an embarrassingly long time, so she may or may not have dozed off with it as a pillow. It’s still Traci’s, not hers, no matter how much it’s come to feel like it. Traci clears her throat. “I didn’t bring a bag, can you hang onto it for the time being?”

It could mean nothing. They are exes, Nat firmly reminds herself. “Sure.” The moment of silence as she stuffs it back into her backpack is definitely not awkward. “Okay. The other thing. Gotta fuel up.”

Glancing up before she slings the backpack back on, Traci’s face is obscured by the halo of the sun, but Nat thinks she sees a smile. “Lead on.”

—

Nat manages to sneak her card in before Traci can magic the machine and feels quite smug about it (“Hey, I let you do that, I’m a working woman, I’m not about to fight the girl with her name on a skyscraper”) as they shoulder their way onto the street again. Traci’s bubble tea order is still the same as it was when they were together. Which is definitely a normal thought to have.

God, she’d told herself she was gonna be so chill about this. Had been so chill about this, the three whole ass times they’d had to reschedule. Not that it hadn’t been nice to text back and forth, exchanging occasional selfies, Traci throwing up a peace sign next to this or that magical artifact, sometimes with Xanthe looking annoyed in the background. Traci had called after Steelworks had blown up, and it’d been at least a chance to catch up, but the reception had been so godawful in whatever magical sludgepit Traci had ended up in that they’d had to cut the call short. Then once the Lazarus fallout had been mostly contained, it’d been the height of the Blue Earth bullshit, and Walker’s assault on her uncle, and Jimmy Olsen getting turned into a giant turtle yet again…

“Hey, Nat. You’re not off in space again, are you?” Traci bumps into her shoulder.

“Sorry. Just thinking about how it’s actually calm for once. Metropolis gets so weird sometimes.”

Traci snorts. “Yeah. You don’t even wanna know what’s in the sewers.”

“Can’t be worse than Gotham.” 

“It is.” 

“...really? Okay, you’re probably right about not wanting to know. Oh, there it is.”

“The gaming store? It was Tetris, right?”

“Yeah.” Nat sucks the last boba out of her drink and pitches it before they make their way inside. It’s pretty busy for the middle of the weekday. “I told you about Shawn Kerry, right? On one of his trips he phased right through Unc’s retro setup. His stuff’s actually so old the only cartridge that was affected was the one in the machine. Well, that and the CRT is fucked in a way I didn’t know a television could be fucked, but he wants to take that fossil apart and rebuild it himself. So I’m just gonna get him another copy and call it an early birthday-”

“Dude, is that an iguana?”

“Sort of,” Traci says. The guy who’d interrupted her is staring in something close to amazement. He’s a bro-ish type, and he has a certain look to him.

“I didn’t know you could, like, take them for walks. That’s crazy.”

He’s not going away. And, god, the urge is still there to tell him to fuck off. To wave him away from Traci. 

It’d been a thing, when they’d been together. Traci’s very, very used to telling people to fuck off, had been annoyed when Nat had kept on doing it for her, instinctively. They’d been funny that way. The big stuff - they’d been perfect, then. They’d saved the damn world. Random Dude #3 shouldn’t have been anything in comparison. And it hadn’t been, not really, until it’d been Random Dude #15, and the annoyance had simmered for months. The sharp edge had worn away, though, because they’d both finally just sat down and talked about it  (“I look out for myself, Nat, been doing it for years-” “I just fucking hate the way they look at us, Trace, and they’re already gonna think I’m the angry one.”). And in the end it’d become a balance. A raised brow, a little shrug, a nod of the head. You take this one, I’ll get the next. 

Nat looks at Traci. Traci looks at Nat, and then the corner of her mouth curves up in the faint hint of a smile, and she turns away. You take this one. 

Meanwhile, Bro is oblivious. “Aw dude, he’s, like, wagging his tail.” Leroy hasn’t even bothered to extend his dewlap, but his tail is flicking in irritation.

“That’s a sign he’s pissed,” Nat says, a politely aggressive smile curling across her face. She straightens fully, crossing her arms in a way that she knows shows off her biceps. She stood that way in the sands of Warworld. The bro gets it. “Oh,” he says faintly, backing off. “Cool lizard, man.” 

“Thanks,” Traci says, not looking away from the shelves of game cartridges. “Oh, look, Nat, I think it’s in here.” Nat watches the bro retreat an extra second, and then joins Traci shoulder to shoulder at the bins. “Down, girl,” she murmurs.

Nat almost chokes as her thoughts go to a place they should not go. She turns it into a cough that is maybe convincing, scanning the rows of cartridges. “Hey, it was my turn, you know I can’t turn down the knight in shining armor routine.” 

“I’m sure hanging around the most earnest group of aliens on Earth is doing wonders for that complex of yours- oh. Here it actually is. I think. This the right one?”

“Hey, I come by that from Unc too. That’s it. Nice.” She makes sure she’s checking the package and not looking right at Traci. “You ever played it?”

“No.”

The flaw in Nat’s genius plan of playing it cool is that she can’t actually see the expression on Traci’s face if she’s not looking at her. It hadn’t been a flat no, though. “Do you wanna?” She flicks the cartridge box. Since it’s fortyish years old the cartridge starts sliding out of it and she has to fumble to catch it like an idiot. “I mean, if you have time.” Around Traci’s neck, Leroy blinks at Nat. Amazing how such a little reptile face can convey both sleepy relaxation and judgment. 

“Isn’t your uncle gonna mind? Since it's his present?” There’s dry amusement in Traci’s tone. It’s okay though. Nat is winning the being so normal sweepstakes.

“Absolutely not. His head is so full with wedding planning that even if he walks in and sees us playing it he will literally forget about it.”

“Okay.”

Nat can’t stop the stupid smile. “Okay?”

“Okay, I will try your fossil game. I’m going to be shit at it though. And I’m working tonight, so I have to take off at five if I want to get there on time.”

“Can’t you just magic yourself there? How does time work at Oblivion, anyway?”

Traci scrunches her face. “Well, you feel like you get there all at once, but most of the landings require time as their energy sacrifice, so it compresses itself on the way. It’s actually really cool, if you’re a regular some of the time you spend inside gets looped back into the system…”

—

“…and that’s how we realized the Eye of Effron was stuck in the rafters, because some jackass was using it as a frisbee.” True to her promise, Traci is pretty shitty at Ye Olde Tetris, but it’s fine because Nat is also not that good at it. They’ve given up and are lounging on the couches in the gaming room when Traci’s alarm goes off.

“Back to work?”

Traci climbs over the sofa to retrieve Leroy, who stretches and ambles up her arm. “Okay, quid pro quo. I played your ancient Tetris game, so that means you owe me one, right?”

“My uncle’s ancient Tetris game technically, but okay.”

“So that means you come for poker night.”

Nat’s grins at the idea that Traci wants to hang out more some time before her brain catches up with the specifics. “Hell no, girl. With Constantine?”

“He’s not that bad in small doses. You gotta build up a tolerance for him. Like alcohol, or poison.”

“Really selling it here.” Nat’s smiling, though. She can’t help it. It feels good to hang out with Traci again. And, well, whether or not it ever leads to more again…

“Okay, I’m off.” Traci moves in for the hug first this time. Nat does not pick her up and twirl her around like she used to, although it’s tempting. She maybe overstays her welcome though, since a snout bumps against her head none too gently. “All right, all right,” she laughs. “It was good to see you.”

“Yeah.” Traci punches her in the shoulder. “You too.” She inscribes a circle in the air, quick and confident, grown so much from the girl Nat had met. “See ya,” she tosses over her shoulder, and then the vibrant purple winds around her and Leroy and they’re gone.

Not two minutes later, Nat goes to hide the reboxed Tetris cartridge in her bag and she finds Nat’s old hoodie. Shaking her head, she texts a picture of the opened bag with the bright orange fabric poking out and a pensive emoji. She puts her phone away but the response buzz has her pulling it out all of five seconds later. damn looks like we’ll just have to meet up again :/

Yeah, they’re going to be all right.