Sell you a Bridge chapter 100

O'Malley Penthouse September 30th 2010 3:00 PM EDT

I  slumped down on my couch in exhaustion. Paula, mom, Gojo, Artemis,  Reggie, Kit, and I were all sitting in my living room safely. Well,  mostly safely, and mostly sitting. Paula was standing by the window,  looking through the blinds to see if any more of the plant tendrils were  going to try to get in. Gojo's wards or whatever the fuck he was doing  kept the thing out to this point but since no one knew what they were  they were loathe to trust them to keep working. Gojo himself was sitting  on the love seat across the room with my mom in his lap and I was  trying my best to avoid looking over at their cuddling.

Once  I'd found out the way things worked with the plant thing we'd gone to  work. I'd poured my points into those saw blades and used aura sight to  pin down the core or whatever before attacking as best as I could. My  best apparently wasn't that great, because I ended up having to just  pour my points into an ice spell to pin it down. My Devil transformation  came with something called demonic power, which basically let me cast  any spell I could imagine, but only if I had the power, imagination, and  basic understanding to use it.

Ice  magic, it turned out, was within my wheel house, if barely, but the  spell took an insane amount of points. After killing the one near my  place (turned out there was a half dozen cores across the city, and the  one we killed was just this regions threat) and shadow porting the  duffel bag Kit had lent us to help stuff our gear in back to the tower, I  was sitting at only about a hundred points. Demonic power was  complicated and expensive, but it was one more thing on my list of  powers to master. Del had been right, I was diversifying too much. I  needed to slow down and learn to use what I had.

My  mom was overjoyed to see us, and was sitting in Gojo's lap gushing  about how happy she was that we were safe. "I'm so glad you're all ok.  What were you kids thinking coming out in this mess? You're lucky our  new building is so sturdy, that plant monster hasn't been able to make a  dent in it. Paula come away from the window that's dangerous, what if  you...I don't know get it's attention or something?" She seemed  flustered and jittery, a common enough reaction to stress and high  emotion. I was kind of twitchy myself, hell the only person here who  wasn't was Gojo.

Paula  just shook her head. "No. I don't even see the thing anymore. There was  some commotion outside twenty minutes or so ago and the plant  disappeared pretty soon after that. I can't really see much from this  angle but still, it looks like things are calming down." She glanced at  her daughter. "What did you see out there on your way in?" It took  Artemis a second to react. Since we got inside she'd been calling Wally  over and over again trying to get through. She knew he was busy since  Zee told us where he'd be but she was terrified for him and trying to  get in touch seemed to be helping at least a bit.

I  elected to answer for my best friend. "Not much. Something cut a bunch  of those tentacle things up but it looked like they had already grown  back. Whatever did it seemed to be aiming at the ones by the doors first  though because there was a gap for us to run though." I turned to my  mom, leaning hard on my Devil nature which seemed to make deception a  bit easier, something I would worry about later, but mixing in some  truth too. "We were worried about you guys. Plus the school isn't  actually any safer than here. It's better for us to be together." If I  knew my mom she wouldn't dwell on the stupidity of running through those  vine things right now since she was so relieved we were safe.

Sure  enough, she gave a slight nod, though she frowned a bit. "Well, it did  work out ok. Just...be careful next time something crazy happens  Morgan." She gave me a sharp look, one that implied she wasn't as  trusting right now as I thought and might be holding back because we had  company. "No matter how impressed you are with yourself you aren't  invincible. Your father was always like that too. Reckless and arrogant.  It wasn't his best quality. That Falcone drive to impose his will on  the world got him into more trouble than it got him out of."

I  winced at the comparison. She must have been pretty pissed. Mom never  talked bad about dad to me. She had always insisted that he loved us and  that I should think well of him. Making an unfavorable comparison like  that, one that pained us both in a bad light, was pretty much the  closest she would come to expressing actual disappointment with me and  it hurt. Artemis looked up from her phone. "Don't be too mad at him Ms.  O'Malley. He was really worried about you. I know he can do stupid stuff  sometimes but even I was on board with coming here. I was scared for my  mom too so I get how he felt.

My  mom looked at Artemis with a sad smile. "I know dear, but my safety  doesn't mean as much to me as his does. Nor do I imagine Paula's means  more to her than yours. It's sweet of you both to worry but I couldn't  bear it if something happened to my boy. No mother should have to  outlive her son, no matter what Gotham's cavalcade of lunatics has to  say about the matter." She turned back to me. "He knows I love him more  than anything, stupid decisions or not, but I won't pretend not to be  upset when he risks his life." I felt myself actually tear up a bit at  that, though I looked away to try to save my image.

Not  wanting to get into this more I stepped away from the group, and mom  let me go as I fished out my phone and dialed a familiar number. Zatanna  picked up on the first ring. "Morgan? Baby is that you?" Her voice was  laced with anxiety, and I suddenly felt a bit bad for running out into  the city to play weed killer. Coming back to the penthouse was a  reasonable decision, but fighting the plant monsters kind of wasn't. I  could have snuck us in with my shadow porting and bypassed this whole  thing, but I'd wanted to test out my new abilities. Reckless and  arrogant wasn't a bad description. I really needed to work on that.

For  now though I just smiled, glad to be talking to her. "I'm fine Zee. Me  and Arty got home fine." I got a loud throat clearing sound from Reggie  and rolled my eyes as I amended. "Me and Arty and Reggie got back to my  place. We even stopped to pick up Kit and our building seems to be  sturdy enough not to get messed up by the plants." I was trying to avoid  the subject of Gojo's weird shield thing in front of mom, and it seemed  to be working. From inside they couldn't even see it, and with the  plant monster nearest us dead it was less of an issue. "How about you,  any news on your dad or Uncle?"

Honestly  we shouldn't be parked here like we were, we'd been planning to go out  and help Batman with the plants, but since our first stop was here and  one of them was nearby we ended up coming in to check on our moms and  there was no way they would let us leave. Still we dropped one of the  six or so plant bastards around so I didn't feel too bad staying in. Zee  however was in a less desirable situation, stuck in the tower of fate  with no clue where her loved ones were. She mad an affirmative sound.  "Daddy checked in, Uncle Kent is with the justice bros and Captain  Marvel so he should be fine. The biggest threat there is Black Adam and  Captain Marvel is the best equipped to deal with him."

I  actually wasn't sure what the connection was there, no one had ever  explained it to me, but seeing as they dressed in matching outfits with a  slightly altered color scheme it made sense there was one. Honestly I  knew fuck all about Captain Marvel, he'd kind of showed up on the scene  recently. I made a sympathetic noise. "How about you? How are you doing?  You must be going stir crazy in the tower. You read a book, or maybe  two or three? Add a few new paintings to your gallery?" I immediately  knew my joke had work as she burst into giggles, and I could almost see  some of the tension draining from her as she laughed.

Zee  and I had gone to see Tangled in theaters recently and we had both  fallen in love with the movie. With her living in the tower of fate I  had been making Rapunzel references for weeks, and the familiar banter  had helped put her at ease. "You're a dork, and now I'll have that song  in my head all day. I'm...I hate this Morgan. You, Uncle Kent, Daddy,  everyone I love is running around in the middle of a worldwide villain  attack and I'm stuck here twiddling my thumbs. I know Uncle Kent means  well, but I never want to feel like this again. I never want to feel  this weak."

I  understood. "I know baby, I get it. But you're overlooking the obvious.  Being worried is only natural, but if you want to get stronger you  can't do much better than being alone in one of the largest repositories  of mystical knowledge on the planet. The only way this doesn't happen  again is if you get strong enough that your Uncle Kent doesn't need to  worry about you. Put your energy into studying while you're stuck with  no supervision." Honestly that was a risky thing to suggest. Zee could  go slightly nuts about magic, and unleashing her on Dr. Fake's library  might be asking for trouble.

That  said, I didn't care. My girlfriend was hurting and scared and if  telling her to go do magic to some books helped her feel better then she  could blow up Salem for all I cared. She made a noise of realization.  "Huh. You're right baby that's a great idea! I have so many books in  here I could be looking into. Hell I could even sneak some out to share.  Some of them are under lock and key because they're dangerous but I  have access to a ton of different magical texts, I mean gods just last  week I was research tantric ma-" She stopped, clearly having not meant  to say that and cleared her throat. "Good idea is all I meant to say."

I  grinned to myself at the idea of my sweet blushing girlfriend trying to  comb through a tantric sex magic primer. Zee could be bold during our  alone time but she was still a sheltered little princess when it came to  hearing or talking about anything sexual outside the bedroom. I was  surprised her head didn't burst into flames from the blushing, but I  made a mental note to absolutely go over her research with her. "Well  I'm glad I could help. I'm going to let you get to your studying baby. I  love you and I know everything will be ok. Call me with updates ok  love?" She promised she would and said she loved me and we hung up, the  knot in my heart easing slightly. Seemed like this crazy day might  almost be over.