𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 - 𝐇𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧

[Chapter 4]

╔ • ╗

"Why are there only the four of us today?"

We stood around in a circle, me, Hobie, and Jess, and we have been for the past few minutes or so.

Miguel had called us in, but he's just typing and grunting angrily when he does at the screens in front of him.

"Sh!" Hobie shushed me, glaring at me. He leans down to my level, and after a while I thought he just likes over exaggerating our height difference.

He wasn't. He never did. 6"5 pain in the ass versus 5"7 victim of said pain in the ass.

His lips accidentally swept against the dangling piercing located in the shell of my ear as he leaned in. "He don't like talkin', or any form of communicatin', so he pretends like he's mute-"

"I can hear you, Hobie." Scolded Miguel without glancing over at us. "And I'm not mute."

"Aight, gov'na!" Hobie hollered at him. "That 'nough screen time for today, don't you think? Look at him, he's all pissy from all that screen time. We're bored out of our bloody minds! What'd you even call us in for?"

"Just give me a minute! Dios mio, Hobie, you're like a child." He snarled frustratingly. "Are you still in school?"

"'m 17, sir!" He saluted him, of course, in a mocking way. He even got into the straight posture and all. "Hope that when I age the ripe age of 18, I'll be a more proper man, sir!"

Huh. Hobie's 17 like me this whole time...? 

And he ignored the question about school. I bet he's flunking. God, he really is a punk.

"When you turn 18 and mature is the day I'd love to still be alive to witness." Miguel shook his head.

"Then I wish you good health for the next 2 weeks, sir!"

I'll be damned, I'll be 18 soon, too, just after two weeks.

Miguel clasps his hands together and sighed into them, before yelling out, "Dove!"

My eyes widen, and fatigue has never left my body so fast. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry, I know you're still waiting for your next mission, but just-" he couldn't even finish, shooing who I'm guessing is Hobie, away. "Take him for a walk or something. He's getting on my last nerve."

Hobie's body deflates at the same time I whined, "Aw, man," under my breath.

Somehow, it came off as funny to Lyla, so I glare at her.

My jaw clenches and I walk off without waiting for Hobie. I hear his chucks right behind me.

I've only been on 1 mission and it was really successful. We have a Lizard we stalked, chased around tiredly, restrained, and paralyzed with my webs now locked up in his own cell.

But even after it, it didn't make me feel any better that I still barely know the people I'm working with. I only know Jess, who's been more of a cool aunt to me than a mother, and I've been training under her care ever since. And Peter Parker from Earth 616, who does either of the following: he resorted to calling me "kid" all the time because he keeps calling me "Robin" or "Raven" (in his head he just remembers my name comes from a bird), making me eat at the cafeteria with him because no one else will, or talk about a kid named Miles Morales he'd met when he got sucked into his dimension.

"You'd love that kid, there's just no way you could hate him," he would tell me with a mouthful of his burger. "You could bond over comics and stuff."

And while I had always loved the idea of being in my own superhero team, this sorry excuse for a team made the dream put to rest. Hard. More like absolutely killed all of my expectations for it.