Author's Note: Short little Runaways ficlet, prompted by a ficlet challenge and set during Vol. 1, Issue 18 - shortly before the girls meet up again at the James Dean memorial.

Disclaimer: Runaways is the property of Marvel Comics.

Dedication: For Sandoz, in snarky fangirl solidarity.

I've missed this, Gert thought.

Not as much as she missed her pet dinosaur or the irritating jock who'd given her her first kiss (hard to say which one of those twists was more extraordinary). If she ever saw Chase again, she'd pummel him within an inch of his life. Or hold him tightly enough to make him stay this time around. Still a toss-up.

You promised yourself that you wouldn't think about them.

She'd felt no particular nostalgia for the cramped city bus, the shrieking tires, or the suspicious look the driver had given her when she'd first boarded. When an entire paranoid minute had passed and it was clear that he didn't recognize her -- only a teenage girl out at this late hour with backpack in hand and grape-colored bangs hanging to the tops of her glasses – she had fixed him with one of her most potent glares before proceeding to the backmost seat. She'd sure not had any longing for the lanky individual with the humongous backpack, blondish dreadlocks caught in a bandana, and highly questionable odor, who had unfolded himself into the seat next to her at the last stop.

Even when he asked her name, she'd stared pointedly at the advertisements plasterer to be walls of the bus shelter, with the same intensity with which her half-open eyes had fixed on the Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have poster above the blackboard in her English classroom.

Back at school, she had sung herself to sleep every night with a mantra of It's over, it's over, it's over. She'd had regular meals, hot showers, a chance at the scholarships she'd been looking into before all this started, which would open up her opportunities for... well, whatever she was interested in doing with her life now (how she hated not being sure). She'd had the assurance that she and the others would be safe from whatever remained of their parents' minions, and free from Earth's Mightiest Goddamn Heroes breathing down their necks all the time. She'd had e-mails from Molly every couple of days, from Karolina once a week, from Nico more seldom than that... and from Chase not at all.

You promised yourself...

The guy asked her name again. There was nothing in his voice to make her feel uncomfortable, but she really didn't feel like talking right now. She pivoted her head slowly, like a possessed ventriloquist's dummy in an old horror movie, and amplified her Death Glare. Cool name.

He started rambling again, and at first she was too busy thanking the Powers that Be that it would be a short ride, to listen to what he was saying. Y'know, you hear all those stories on the news about kids about your age who pick new names because their folks kicked them out of the house, but then hired detectives to hunt them down wherever they ended up? he went on. Personally, I think they're all better off where they can be kept an eye on, but innocent till proven guilty, hm? As if he were twenty years older than she was (and therefore suspect, as she had to admit that anyone over the age of thirty seemed to be suspect nowadays, whether she liked it or not), instead of ten, at most. So, are you a mutie?Am. I a. What now?Y'know, did your mom and pop get freaked about your special powers and toss you out the door?

She tried to scowl, but ended up having to practically sink her teeth into her lip instead to keep the tears behind her eyes. Where had that come from? Her parents were – had been – trying to destroy the entire human race. She should have been glad that she and her friends had stopped them, no matter what the cost. I don't think that there's much chance of their finding out I'm here.I won't tell them. I've never met a real mutant before. So, what can you do?

She let her aggressive glare become wide and trancelike. I can command the wild sharp-toothed beasts of a bygone era to descend upon you and rend the flesh from your bones. It wasn't technically true anymore (because she wasn't thinking about that, or about Chase either, not that she was sure she could without crying for sure), and it was a gamble, but it worked. He edged away from her.

As they shot toward the city lights, carrying her further away from the campus for what she hoped was the last time, she let herself relax muscles that she hadn't realized were clenched. This guy had looked at her, and hadn't had a clue what her story was, and as soon as he was out of her face she realized that she preferred it that way.

This was what she had missed. Cutting loose, taking off, so that no one -- family, friends, teachers -- had the slightest idea where she was. Had she really almost refused Karolina's invitation? Amazing.

She held that the world out there could do with a good ass-kicking to set it in gear, but it was as wild and beautiful as it was messed-up, a world where crazy dweebs had no evidence that girls on buses couldn't send a dinosaur to rip them limb from limb. And, strangely enough, she had faith in something that she knew couldn't be assured by footnotes or fine print: Somewhere in that dangerous, crazy night, the ones who would recognize her were waiting.

For the first time since she'd seen them last, she began to smile.

Damn those platitudes.