C I N D E R ― An MCU Spinoff.

T W E N T Y

Dash was weirded out by this situation.

He was an unofficial member of CINDER at this point due to his involvement with saving Alessa and stopping his mother from attaining ultimate power and killing her.

He remembered Christina offering him a spot on the team and noticed how hesitant he looked.

"Don't force yourself to join right away, think about it. And when you're ready, just say the word."

Christina had said to him, and those words stuck with him through the entire school day and as he went back to his apartment and sat on his couch, staring into oblivion.

He looks down at his knuckles and sees apart from the freckles standing out against his down skin, he sees gold flecks of blood staining his palms and knuckles.

Swallowing the nausea he felt, Dash wipes at his hands and nearly fell off the couch once his phone had started ringing.

Shaken, he picks up the phone and tries to sound as calm as possible.

"Hello?"

"Hey, we're wondering if we can hang out at your place?"

"We?"

Dash was still shaken from the unexpected phone call and was confused by what Joshua had meant.

He hears some giggling and hangs up the phone, cautiously walking to the door and arming himself with his angel blade.

He opens the door as fast as he could and points the blade at a stunned Peter's face.

"Relax, Dash, it's just us."

Dash found himself sighing in relief when seeing the rest of CINDER (exception of Christina) standing behind Peter with some gifts and big grins across their faces.

"You guys didn't have to go this far and get me stuff..."

"Well, you're sort of unofficially part of CINDER now until you decide to join us or not. So expect us to get you gifts whenever we can."

Kyle would say with a grin accompanying his words and Dash sighs, sitting on the couch next to Joshua and grabs one of the gifts from nearby.

He opens it up and sees it's a cookbook—obviously he knew who this was from.

"Apparently you're a good cook? It's just that you're too lazy to make your own food?"

Dash turns to a grinning Marlene who was nodding earnestly. He found Marlene to be a little odd; sure, she was bubbly and loved food with a passion—but there was something about her which didn't seem right.

It was probably his imagination at this point.

"I should try some of your cooking."

He grins and Marlene's face was a bright red.

"No! If I make food for you guys, I probably would eat it all and not share any of it..."

"You always do that, Mar."

Kyle cuts in, looking unimpressed as Marlene nervously laughs, slowly inching over towards Sagittarius and frantically tapping her shoulder.