Rise Up \\ Marvel + Hamilton

Socializing is Hard \\ Cat

I took a deep breath as I walked out of the house, relishing the fresh sensation that the crisp air brought with it. An icy breeze seemed to bite into my nose, and the air I exhaled left a puff of steam drifting up into the frigid night sky.

There, that's better. I bet those history books they teach from back home never mention how stuffy eighteenth-century houses are.

I knew full-well that the lack of ventilation hadn't been the only thing bothering me inside the Hamiltons' house, but I decided to overlook the mixed sensation of guilt and nausea that I'd felt when Alexander had brought up Laurens-- it was easy to forget, now that the fresh night air had driven away the clouded emotions in my head.

I wandered aimlessly onto the street, not entirely sure where I was heading but knowing what I wanted to avoid. I absentmindedly kept track of the route I was following, not in the mood to get lost in 18th century New York. I passed by several familiar places, all of which I stayed a safe distance away from. If Clint came looking for me, he'd start with places we knew-- so the fewer of those place I visited, the higher my chances of avoiding him were.

Not much later I found myself strolling through an vaguely familiar park, which bore some resemblance to Central Park as I knew it. But that could've easily been my imagination seeing what it wanted to see-- after all, I had no idea whether Central Park even existed yet.

By then, the chilly air which had originally been such a relief was starting to become a nuisance, and I rubbed my arms in an attempt to stay warm. My legs were starting to complain about my unexpected half-marathon, and my stomach voiced its dissatisfaction with my decision to leave before the meal.

"Yeah yeah, I get it, you need food," I grumbled to my stomach, searching for a good spot to sit down to give my feet a break, "why are you so picky now, anyway? I had a decent lunch, and you've gone much longer without food than this. I bet it was the smell of Eliza's food-- oh perfect Cat, now you're talking about food, that only makes it worse. Stellar decision-making."

I found a bench beside the path, close to a solitary lantern lit with a flickering flame. The unsteady light made the whole park seem more threatening, but that was the least of my problems-- the complaints of my stomach were much more pressing.

I sat down, propping my head up with my hands as I stared ahead into the bushes.

I wonder if they've saved me some leftovers, I'm starving. Why did I decide to leave again?

I sighed, attempting to force my thoughts along a different track to get my focus away from food.

"I wonder if we'll ever make it home," I muttered softly to myself, "I mean, Bruce said that after the war he'd have more technology to his disposal, but... I have no idea if he's made any progress at all. For all I know, we're stranded here. What if--"

My sentence was rudely interrupted by the sound of a twig snapping somewhere behind me, and I was instantly on full alert.

What was THAT?

Every fibre of my body was tensed and ready to strike at the slightest trigger, even though to onlookers I would've looked just as relaxed as before, showing no external sign of having heard the barely audible snap. I listened carefully, and could juuuust make out steady footsteps crunching on the crisp grass. It was an even pace-- the person didn't seem to be sneaking --but that didn't mean they had good intentions.

The moving shadows that the flickering lantern cast everywhere only made matters worse, and every shadow looked like it could belong to an army.

Are the British back? Is there some other civil war going on? I should've asked Janet about these sort of things before heading out...