“They were kissing and…

Jessica was doing something like this…

And… I was sure that she was about to jump on him…

And moans and moans and splash and…

Mirio was all like ‘yeah, that’s it right there…’

I am pretty sure that she did the tongue trick…”

Jessica and Mirio approached the table and heard a completely different tale from the brief hug they shared in the bathroom.

Of course, none of what Alisa was describing actually happened and Brian’s exasperated face showed just how much of Alisa’s usual wild fairy tales he believed.

Alisa was always the type of person that could never distinguish much between her imaginations and reality.

In high school, she used to watch Brian talking to some girls and dump him because she imagined them exchanging numbers.

Whenever he came back to apologize for something he clearly didn’t do, she would imagine him begging on his knees for another chance and that’s how their relationship always persisted.

Alisa’s wild imaginations made her an exceptional Children’s Book Author but it also made acts such as innocent hugs between Mirio and Jessica into intense sexual odysseys that defied the Laws of Physics.

“Oh… oh… oh…” Alisa shrieked as if remembering something and demonstrated hopping like a bunny “And Jessica wore a Bunny Suit and hopped around like this… And Mirio was like ‘hop baby hop with those cuddly ears’… And she hopped really high and did a backflip only to land on his d-”

“oooookkkkaaayyyy!” Brian yelled just in time to stop Alisa’s imagination from straying into unrecoverable categories.

Noticing Mirio and Jessica who had unsightly looks standing behind Alisa, Brian dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the table, walked past his wife, and pulled Mirio along so the ‘men’ would not participate in the women’s squabbles.

It wasn’t even a second after Mirio spun around that Jessica could be heard throwing dishes as she argued with an equally ferocious Alisa who swore that the story she described was exactly what she saw in the bathroom.

Thankfully, Brian knew how to avoid an argument between the two female Titans.

Exiting the restaurant, Mirio couldn’t help but have a newfound respect for Brian “I honestly don’t know how you deal with it…”

Brian paused and directed a twisted smirk at Mirio “You mean how we deal with it… muahahahhahha… welcome to the family Mirio… haha… good luck with Jessica… I have been trying to give her away for years… hahhaha… I would say congrats but I feel sorry for you!”

Mirio’s admiration instantly turned into terror at the thought that Brian had somehow successfully pawned off Jessica to become his problem.

Only one thought remained inside Mirio’s mind ‘I misjudged Brian… everyone in this family is crazy…’

-------------------------

An hour later, a group of four could be seen stuck in traffic through the windows of a yellow taxi.

In the rear-left window, you could see a terrified Mirio with a beyond-happy Jessica clinging to his arms.

In the shotgun seat, you could see a smug Brian who seemed much lighter than before, as if a huge weight had been freed from his shoulders.

In the rear-right window, you could see Alisa daydreaming like usual while occasionally taking pictures of Mirio’s and Jessica’s ‘cute’ interactions.

“How much longer?” Mirio asked impatiently.

They had been stuck in traffic for the past thirty minutes and his patience was wearing a little thin.

Of course, Jessica and the others didn’t mind because they were weird, but he was relatively normal.

“Why… do you hate spending time with me?” Jessica asked accusingly and laughed a bit inside when Mirio choked, not knowing how to answer.

Finished with all the playing, Jessica released Mirio’s arm and also returned to her usual self, complaining about the traffic and everything else she saw that annoyed her.

Honestly, she was just acting a bit spoiled to take Mirio’s mind off the matter between him and Christine because, as much as he tried to hide it, she could tell that it broke his heart.

Even being fifteen years old, Jessica had watched enough Korean Dramas to know about breakups and how drastically they could affect Asians.

“Why is this taking so long?” Jessica complained, earning Brian’s and Alisa’s attention as well.

Being stuck in traffic was a usual occurrence but being stuck on Bridge Street was another matter entirely.

“I don’t know…” The Cab Driver also complained “The lights won’t change… I think they’re preparing to block off the area…”

Brian frowned and noticed that his phone was vibrating with a SHIELD call sign.

Just as he was about to pick it up, Mirio gestured for him to look outside the taxi window where a red streak flashed across the skies.

It was moving relatively slowly so it was easy for Mirio, with his two times the average human physique, to spot Iron Man.

“Iron Man?” Brian questioned, earning a squeal from Jessica and Alisa as they hopped out of the cab with their phones in hand.

They weren’t the only ones who hopped out of the cabs but apparently, not a lot of people had noticed Iron Man flying past since the majority waited for the traffic jam to pass.

“His suit looks a bit beat up…” Mirio stated, similarly hopping out of the car to follow Jessica and Alisa.

“Not possible…” Brian said with absolute confidence as he also followed behind his family “I have seen the specs for Iron Man’s suit and it’s difficult to damage…”

Mirio didn’t reply, just staring at the Stark tower where Iron Man hovered around without any clear motives.

With his eyes sight, Mirio was able to examine Iron Man’s suit although not very clearly from nearly five miles away.

Still, compared to everyone else who couldn’t see anything but a red dot, Mirio found that he was quite fortunate.

“What did your tests say about my physique?” Mirio asked Brian curiously.

Brian, who was distracted by the red dot in the distance, gave a blunt reply “Your physique is like someone barely tried to create a super-soldier but stopped halfway… basically, you can manage 12,000 pounds at your best… just imagine you were a buff guy on steroids and double his strength and that’s you…”

Mirio's steps faltered and Jessica spun around to laugh at Mirio’s plight before spinning back around to aim and zoom her phone at the red dot floating in front of Stark’s Tower.

Mirio noticed Iron Man floating slightly higher as he aimed at something “Something is happening guys…”

“Yeah…” Jessica rolled her eyes “It’s called looking cool while flying…”

Mirio frowned and was about to disagree when the faint sound of an explosion echoed just enough for his senses to pick it up, albeit barely.

“Did you hear that?”

At this point, Mirio was becoming anxious but even Brian was too enamored by the floating red dot to pay him any mind.

Thankfully, the red dot entered the Stark Tower and everything returned to its previous calm, though the traffic jam didn’t seem as if it would clear up anytime soon.

Seeing that Mirio had already turned to walk back to the taxi, Jessica felt like his actions were a bit cowardly “If you’re so much about being a hero like you say… why don’t you go join Iron Man or something?”

“Jessica!” Alisa chided a bit disappointed that Jessica would put Mirio on the spot like that.

Mirio just shrugged “I am not afraid to fight without my quirk… I am just afraid to fail someone like I failed Eri…” he whispered, causing Jessica to pause and curse herself for being so insensitive.

She knew that hero talk was a sore spot from Mirio but she couldn’t stand his reaction since this was the first time he saw Iron Man.

He should have been excited as she was but instead, he seemed almost unimpressed.

Brian saw the situation and attempted to lighten the mood “I know Iron Man personally; you know…”

Alisa rolled her eyes in exasperation “He asked you to go buy a sandwich for him one time in 2004…”

“Yes…” Brian answered confidently, puffing out his chest akimbo style “But he called me by name… people say that Tony Stark never forgets a name so he knows me…”

Mirio held back a laugh when Jessica turned in his direction and mouthed silently ‘Tony Stark forgets names all the time…’

“Okay… let’s go!” Brian commanded a bit disheartened that nobody believed he actually knew Tony Stark.

Mirio gave one last glance at Stark tower and was prepared to turn around and get back into the taxi but what he witnessed froze him in place.

A body was tossed from the window of Stark’s Tower…

A heavy feeling pressed against Mirio’s heart but it was too late to do anything about it since he clearly wasn’t the only person to witness the event.

“Oh my gosh!”

“What was that?”

“Is that Tony Stark…”

“He’s falling…”

Jessica, Brian, and Alisa spun around to gawk at the faintly discernible human figure that fell from the window of Stark Tower.

The next moment almost everyone was hopping out of the taxis and cars trapped in the jam, pulling their phones from their pockets to video whatever was occurring.

Unlike everyone else, Mirio was growing more anxious by the second.

Being a hero meant he was trained to spot the earliest signs of danger in UA, and everything about his current situation screamed impending danger.

… And then it was too late…

Mirio and everyone watched in morbid fascination as a ray of blinding blue light rose to the sky from The Stark Tower and expanded three miles before hitting some sort of limit.

As the blue light stabilized to form a portal, even Jessica and her family could witness the vast expanse of space that lay behind the portal.

Still, chaos didn’t come immediately… it never does.