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The 11th Street Kids were finally back together, with some added friends - acquaintances - acquaintances turned soon to be friends - to the team.
They’d gotten Chris out of the prison world and were back at Checkmate.
Chris’ cubicle was across from Adrian’s, Adrian’s was next to Fleury, Harcourt’s was next to Chris’, Adebayo was by Harcourt’s, Economos’ was next to hers, and Judomaster and Bordeaux were near Economos’ next to each other.
They were lounging around their headquarters - Checkmate - not having any work to be done at the moment, when Adebayo asks, “Adrian, how’s your shoulder healing up?”
Adrian blinks at her from across his cubicle. “It healed up forever ago.” He scoffs, like it’s a stupid question.
“What do you mean, forever ago?” Adebayo asked.
“I was fine, like, the next day.” Adrian said.
Adebayo stares at Adrian. And slowly, so does the rest of the team. Chris, Harcourt, Economos. Even Judomaster, Fleury and Bordeaux turned to look at him.
“Are you saying your shoulder’s totally fine?” Adebayo asked, a ‘what the fuck’ tone in her voice.
“You saw me tackle Peacemaker.” Adrian said, as if it’s obvious.
“Right, but like, does it still hurt?” Adebayo asked.
“No.” Adrian said, again like it’s a weird statement.
“What happened?” Fleury asked, looking around at everyone.
“Uhh.” Chris started.
“Adrian got shot protecting us from nazis in the Nazi dimension Chris went to.” Harcourt explained, only slightly glancing at Chris.
“That.” Economos said, pointing at Harcourt.
“Right. That place.” Bordeaux commented.
“It was a shithole.” Judomaster said, popping a cheezie into his mouth.
“No kiddding.” Adebayo commented.
“At least I got to shoot some nazis.” Adrian said. “And met my alternate dimension self.”
“Me too.” Judomaster said, referring to killing nazis too. Judomaster and Adrian briefly made eye contact with one another - a look of camaraderie - before they quickly turned away from each other and pretended said camaraderie hadn't happened.
“I didn’t realize it was a nazi dimension.” Chris defended.
“No shit.” Adebayo said to Chris.
“How was I supposed to know it was a nazi dimension?” Chris commented loudly.
Harcourt turned to Chris. “The mural, for starters.” She said, referring to the giant mural that Chris had somehow totally missed and shouldn’t have.
“Right.” Chris said, eyes downcast a bit and his voice low.
“We’ve got a lot of shit to unpack about that.” Adebayo said, motioning with her hands. “And we totally will later. But what about Adrian’s shoulder. That’s weird, right?” She looked around at everyone.
“Yeah, people don’t generally heal that fast.” Economos stated.
“Yeah, they’re not all better the next day.” Fleury said.
“What they said.” Judomaster said, vaguely using a cheeto to point in the direction of Economos and Fleury.
“I heal pretty well.” Sasha said.
Harcourt looked over at Bordeaux. “You’re a metahuman.” She told her.
“Maybe Adrian’s a metahuman.” Economos commented.
“Ha! Right.” Adrian said.
Only everyone looked between each other, thinking about what had just been said. Chris, Emilia, Adebayo and Economos were thinking of past instances where Adrian seemed to walk away totally fine for someone who had had some seemingly serious potentially life threatening injuries and compared how fast he had been totally fine compared to what it would take for your average human to heal.
It was Chris who spoke up. “When my dad… When we got separated cause I thought you blew yourself up while taking down my dad and those nazis, me and Economos thought maybe you didn’t make it.”
“But when we found you later, you were fine.” Economos said, remembering.
“Uh, yeah. It wasn’t that bad.” Adrian said.
“Dude, we thought you’d gotten blown up.” Chris said.
“But I didn’t. I was fine.” Adrian said.
“But what if you did." Economos started. "Because we saw you, before we had to run away, and I’m pretty sure you did. No one standing that close to a grenade - that he threw himself by the way - " He told Fleury, Judomaster and Boreaux "- Walks away like that.” Economos said.
"Uh - My suit helped protect me." Adrian said.
"Still." Economos said back.
“Yeah, you seemed totally fine when we met up later.” Chris said.
“Because I was totally fine when we met up later.” Adrian said.
“I don’t think I’m following this conversation.” Fleury said. “He got blow up but he didn’t get blown up.”
“He definitely got blown up - at least somewhat.” Economos told Fleury.
“Yeah and then you walked it off.” Adebayo said, remembering when Economos had told her what happened, but hadn’t thought Adrian had actually gotten really hurt, because he had seemed fine when she’d seen him later.
“After Project Butterfly.” Harcourt started. “I was in the hospital significantly longer than you were.” She looked at Adrian. “You were completely fine after like, what, five days.”
”Three.” Adrian supplied. “So you think I’m a metahuman because I just have better, regular healing than everyone else. Maybe you guys just suck at healing. Maybe I’m just awesome at healing because I’m in really great shape.”
“I’m also in great shape, Vig.” Chris told Adrian.
Adrian turned to Chris. “You totally are.” He agreed.
“I guess we can always test the theory.” Harcourt commented.
Chris looked at Emilia. “We’re not gonna shoot him in the shoulder.” He told her.
Harcourt rolled her eyes. “Why would my first suggestion be shooting him in the shoulder? I meant something smaller, like a cut on his hand.”
“Oh. Right. That makes more sense.” Chris said.
Judomaster looked at Chris. “Idiot.” He laughed.
Chris glared at Judomaster.
“But only of Adrian is okay with it.” Adebayo assured Adrian, looking over at him.
“Oh yeah, you guys can totally do that.” Adrian said, standing up and holding out his hand in the general direction of everyone else.
“Guess I’ll do the honours.” Harcourt said, walking over from her cubicle to Adrian's.
“I can’t look.” Economos said, partially putting his hand over his face for a second before putting his arm back down and watching the scene unfold.
Harcourt stood in front of Adrian and got her pocket knife out and took his hand in hers and made a small cut - Adrian cried out a little as she made the cut - before putting her knife back in her pocket.
“Oh shit. That kind of hurt.” Adrian said, staring at his hand. He looked up at everyone else. “Is that what people feel when I stab them?”
“Yeah. Only it hurts a lot more.” Economos deadpanned.
The whole team were staring at Adrian, watching and waiting.
“Nothing’s happening.” Fleury noted.
“Stuff takes time, man.” Adebayo said.
After a few minutes Adrian held up his hand for the rest of the team to see.
The cut was completely gone.
“Well, I guess that answers that question.” Harcourt said.
“Oh, shit.” Adebayo said, staring at his hand.
“No fucking way.” Economos said, even though he had been pretty sure Adrian had been a metahuman before the test, but still, having it confirmed is a whole other thing.
“Okay, that’s kinda cool.” Fleury said.
“Very cool.” Bordeaux agreed.
“I guess.” Judomaster said, shrugging, but secretly thinking it was cool.
“Shit, Vig. You’re a fucking metahman.” Chris said.
Adrian smiled. “I’m gonna be so much better at fighting than I already was!”
“That’s your takeaway?” Adebayo commented, even though she already knew the answer.
“Uh, yeah.” Adrian said, like it was obvious. “I can take down so many more bad guys now.”
“You had the healing factor before when you took down bad guys.” Harcourt said.
“Yeah! But now I know about it, so I can do way more cool stuff.” Adrian said.
“We don’t know your limitations, so I wouldn’t do any more crazy shit than you’ve already been doing.” Harcourt said.
“Yeah, Vig. We don’t know anything about your metahuman healing factor.” Chris said. “Don’t get yourself blown up again.”
“I can’t promise that.” Adrian told him.
“Some stuff you might not be able to heal from. We need to like, figure a baseline or something.” Adebayo said. “Without doing extreme shit to find that baseline. Like a guesstimate baseline.”
Adrian huffed. “Fine. But I’m getting a chainsaw the second we have your baseline thing.”
“Of course you are.” Adebayo muttered.
“Welcome to the club.” Bordeaux told Adrian.
Adrian frowned. “There’s a club?”
“It’s a metaphor. Or something.” Adebayo said.
Adrian looked from Adebayo to Bordeaux. “Oh. Okay. Where does the club meet?”
“There’s no actual club.” Adebayo said.
“Then why mention a club?” Adrian asked.
“Welcome to being a metahuman.” Bordeaux told Adrian.
“I was a metahuman before today, apparently. I just didn’t know.” Adrian said.
“Well, I’d say our team just keeps getting cooler and cooler.” Adebayo said, smiling and looking around at the rest of the team.
“Can’t argue with that.” Harcourt commented.
“11th Street Kids rule!” Adrian said.
“11th Street what?” Fleury asked.
“What are 11th Street Kids?” Bordeaux asked.
“It's probably a stupid nickname, that I totally don’t like.” Judomaster said, a tone indicating he wasn’t actually serious.
“It’s an awesome nickname!” Chris said.
“Yeah!” Adrian said.
“Have you ever heard of the band Hanoi Rocks…” Chris started, going into the explanation of how their group got their awesome name.