Getting Comfy (Open to Titans!)

Scope had chased after Grace and had grabbed her by the shoulder. With her left-over anger still fuming inside of her, Grace almost froze his hand as punishment. Fortunately, she restrained herself. She would give him a warning, instead.

"Scope," She said when he finished talking, "you're touching me. Don't ever touch me." She would pull a small amount of heat out of Scope's hand, making it suddenly feel very cold, but not freezing it. She was not his to touch, especially not when she was angry at him. "Do not touch Will's bride."

She realized that she sounded mean when she said this, but she could have been a lot meaner. She owed Scope some gratitude for fighting for her in the North.

He wanted her forgiveness? She looked him in the eye. Grace wasn't a very forgiving person. On top of that, she had never really thought that Scope had liked her. She wasn't sure of what to do. "You're right, Scope. You don't know anything about me, and I don't understand you either. Why do you want me to forgive you? Don't you hate me?"

Galaxius and Ben walked past them, going back to the Main Ops room. Galaxius smiled at Grace, but Grace refused to look at her. Ice started forming around Grace's arms and legs as she struggled to hold in her feelings towards the half-demon.

Grace was a little surprised when Scope said that he didn't hate her. It seemed to her like everything she did was criticized by the other Titans, mostly JaK and Superboy, but the others too. She was glad that he didn't hate her, though. With Lance, JaK, Fenris, Kat, and Will gone, she felt like everyone she knew was going to disappear.

Grace's eyes were starting to water, but she wasn't going to cry in front of everyone else. Scope asked if she was okay and she again started walking towards her room. She waved a hand, indicating that Scope should follow her.

Reaching her room, she opened the door and let Scope inside. Grace then closed the door and sat on the foot of her bed.

The room was barren right now. Grace didn't have very many belongings. A dozen or so outfits were hanging in the closet. Her purse sat on the floor in the corner, neglected. There were a few books lined up against the wall, far too few for a bookcase. One book, black leather bound, was sitting next to her bed on a nightstand. A few toys for Mercy, some dog food, and a doggie bed sat in one corner. That was it.

Finally away from the prying eyes, Grace allowed herself to cry. Her feelings were messed up right now. A lot had changed recently. She was in a new tower with all these new people, and one of them was a half-demon.

"I'll forgive you if you sit here with me," Grace said to Scope. "Just be here for a while." She had never answered Scope's question. This was the answer. She was not okay.

Julie was so utterly oblivious. In generel, but now especially. She liked everybody on the team so far. She thought Gala (as she had dubbed her mentally) was nice. And she already liked Grace. And Scope seemed nice. She just needed to be able to rely on her team. So when Ben excused himself she nodded and kissed his cheek.
She then heard Grace say she didnt expect them to understand her and sighed, "Grace..guys, what's going on?" she looked around, but soon they were gone.
"Huh? Guys? What'd I miss???"

So Scope was feeling out of place, too? This surprised Grace. He had seemed to fit right in with the new Titans. But Scope was saying that he missed people and that change was a bad thing.

Grace felt like Scope understood her, just a little bit, but that was more than anyone else in the Tower understood her.

An adventure? Grace hadn't thought of it as an opportunity to do new things. Scope had a point: with one big team, the Titans could do a lot of good for Jump City. They would never be out of firepower with a team of this size.

Scope said that they had no reason to trust Galaxuis, and Grace nodded her head. You couldn't just walk into an organization and expect to be trusted, especially if you were a demon. Grace still didn't feel accepted by most of the Titans, and she had been here for over a year. The thought that a fiendish demon could just walk in the door and instantly be loved made Grace angry. She would be watching Galaxuis closely.

Grace realized that Scope had been trying to console her. That was a nice thing of him to do, and she appreciated the effort.

"I still don't feel accepted, Scope, but I can't blame the others entirely. I joined this team to accomplish something. Now that I've done that, I have only 1 reason to stay on this team: Will. I'm going to be honest, I don't care about anyone else on the team. I don't care about saving Jump City or protecting the world. I care about Will."

Grace dried her tears. There was something she had been meaning to ask Scope. This seemed like as good a time as any. "Scope, can I ask you for a favor? Do you remember your ice grenade? I want you to build me something that can get rid of any heat that my body takes in. It has to keep me cold."

Grace needed this machine to get stronger. She needed it to better protect Will. In the middle of a fight, she could no longer afford to get too hot. "I don't have any money to pay you with, but I would owe you a really big favor."

Grace smiled. Scope was willing to help her, and for free, at that. With a cooling device, Grace would become stronger. She would be better fit to serve Will, and fight at his side.

Grace tapped her chin as she thought. "I don't know about gauntlets. I usually use my hands to freeze stuff, so I need them open. I like the idea of wrist-bands. If I had something around my wrists that would make me colder, I would never get overheated. See, the way I freeze things is by drawing in the heat from objects through my hands. The heat has to travel through my wrists to get to the rest of my body. So if I had cooling band on each wrist, it would stop the heat from getting to me chest."

Grace realized that might be an annoyingly long explanation of what she needed and why, and she blushed slightly, a little embarrassed.

Galaxuis smiled down at all her new teammates then made herself comfy on the couch where Grace once sat. She crossed her legs and snuggled her back into the cushions before she looked back at the rest of the Titans. She noticed the guy behind the coach and searched for his name in her mind but didn't come up with any results. She then paid her mind to the televisions watching as the story unfolded.

Hotwire walked down the hallways of titans tower until he found the central room, and yelled out in excitment.

"Whoa... This... is... amazing. This place is sooooooo big. I might just get lost on the way to my room. Tons of unpacking... Hey, are you guys watching Flight of the Phoenix III: The Origins of Felix Westerkamp? I love that movie!"

Hotwire looked up at the film playing, squinted, then continued.

"Hey... you guys don't have it set on high-def. Let me help with that..."

Hotwire proceeded to walk over to the DVD player, place his hands on it and let the nanobots do the work. He soon saw the cause of the problem... scope had forgotten to make a few other connections. His nanobots soon bridged the gap, and the picture became much crisper, and the sound much more defined.

"There we go..."

Scope left to start working on Grace's favor. "Thank you," Grace said as he walked out the door.

The girl sat on her bed, petting Mercy. It was nice to have friends, Grace decided.

The tears started falling again. Grace locked her door shut. She didn't want to be interrupted, and she didn't want the others to see her crying.

Will, where are you?

Hotwire just sat down on the couch, not really caring if anyone was surprised with his quick fix of the high-def system.

"AAAAHHHHHHHH. This is the life. Oh, wait, haven't introduced myself." Turning to capricous and ben "I'm hotwire. Technological control is my shtick." Somewhat over his fan-boy phase, when he was obsessing over ben.

"We can start by not suffocating her with your ego...come here..." She pulled her boyfriend down to her seat by the collor and moved so she was on his lap once more.

"Do you mind if I call you Gala? Welcome to the team," she smiled, before looking back up to Ben, "Mhm, of all the guys in the world, I fall in love with an Ego," she teased nuzzling him softly. Then her attention swerved to Hotwire.

"I'm Capricious, call me Julez. Welcome."
So many newbies, so exciting.