Serafina Celtigar shook her head, tapping her finger on the back of the chair at the dinner table as she waited for Thea, Peter, and Bex to finish getting ready for school. Happy just left to drop May at work and Lydia had already rushed to the clinic, leaving Sera to make sure the kids got off safely. She was already dressed in a teal shirt, black leather jacket, and black pants and had fueled up on the chilaquiles Lydia had prepared for breakfast. The savory meal may have been the only reason why she wasn't extremely annoyed over the children's awful punctuality.
The condo smelled like the Ortega house. It smelled like Abuela Imelda was alive and laughing, taking either her or Thea into her arms and dancing whenever her favorite song would come up on the radio. For a moment, Serafina felt her heart swell up as the familiarity came back to her.
She had bonded with the Ortega matriarch over their shared immigrant experiences. Imelda had arrived through the Pedro Pan operation in the 60s to avoid the Castro regime and Serafina departed to avoid Asgardian imperialism and the inflammation of the Sovrani government. Imelda came to America when she was fourteen with a small suitcase of clothes, Sera at eighteen with a dragonbone sword and a newborn baby girl in her arms.
Sera would never admit it to Thea but she knew the reason why the Valaryen girl preferred dinners at the Ortega place and it wasn't because Bex found a new breakthrough in a conspiracy. It was easier to find solace in a more normal, tight-knit family than... whatever it was she and Sera had. Though it never truly hurt her, Sera had regrets that she knew she couldn't remedy.
"I'm ready, I'm ready!" Peter Parker exclaimed, raking his fingers through his damp hair as he sprinted into the kitchen.
With Thea usually taking showers in the evening, it was a cutthroat race between him and Bex to see who can nab the single bathroom first but he had other more pesky concerns on his mind. Slung over his arm was his red-and-black Spider-Man suit but with one stark difference: a huge stain of green paint.
"It didn't come off?" Serafina asked, frowning in confusion. She sighed, pulling a hair tie off her wrist to bind her hair into a ponytail as she received the suit from Peter to inspect. The paint splotched the torso mostly, with long green fingers stretching down to the spandex legs.
She (along with half the Internet) saw the viral video where some random Mysterio supporter hurled a bucket of green paint at Peter when he tried to shut down a drug deal. Since then, morality has sunk and it was pretty hard to believe public opinion would shift in their favor. Peter would have a better chance at sluicing the stubborn paint out before changing the world's mind about him and what happened in London.
"That guy must've bought the world's most neon green paint," Peter sighed despondently.
"Well, it definitely is not your color," Sera muttered under her breath as she pinched the corners of the half-discolored suit to hold it up. "Tell you what, love: May's gonna pick up some detergent and we'll work on it after school, alright?" She bunched it up, tossing it into the empty sink. Sera's brows narrowed and she grabbed Peter's arm, squinting at a dime-sized red welt on his wrist. "What's that?"
