A ROOFTOP FALL. no way home

i. the way down is long.

ACT ONE.
CHAPTER ONE.
« the way down is long »

It's been exactly one year since people from the other universes came to hers and exactly one year since her dear friend had died fighting Kingpin. Life became dull after these events. To some degree even meaningless. Her evening patrols through the New York City's neighborhoods had become a routine that was sometimes altered thanks to her cousin, but that was it. Otherwise they pretty much resembled her job — always starting and finishing them at the same hours, and the only times she didn't show up to them were when she was sick, which didn't always stop her from coming to them either. She would show up with a blue and red scarf wrapped around her neck and flask with hot tea in it.

Sometimes, after a peaceful patrol, she would find one of the taller buildings in the area and she would sit on its edge, legs flailing and bumping against the hard and usually cold concrete of the walls beneath her. At such moments she would close her eyes and recall the many, many conversations she had had on the even higher rooftops with Peter, better known as Spider-Man to most of the city's population. She loved their talks during the early hours of the morning. The sky changing colors from dark hues of blue that were almost black to beautiful, soft yellows and oranges always astounded her. No sunrise was the same nor any of their conversations. Although one topic was a little constant in their talks.

"You shouldn't throw yourself so eagerly into danger." He would often say when their frequent topic was coming up. "One day I'll react too slowly and the gun pointed at you will fire where it's supposed to and you'll die. Or you'll be too busy fighting your own battle you won't even notice my own struggles and I will die."

To that Valeria would always reply, "But that won't happen, tonto" she'd nudge him lightly with her shoulder. "Because your spidey sense and reflexes are amazing, and I always have one eye on you. It will never happen to us." She'd look at him with a small smile. "We will live long and die together of old age! The longest living heroes! And of course your beloved Mary Jane will be there with us." The brunette would tease him and he'd shake his head with a small laugh leaving his lips.

"We will live long and die together of old age." He'd always repeat after her quietly. Then silence would fall between the two heroes as they admired the skyline of the never-sleeping city. Days coming up to his death he would repeat the phrase with more sadness — almost as if he somehow knew he wouldn't be an old superhero, but of course she didn't pay that much attention to it. She thought he was just going through something with Mary Jane that he didn't want to talk about. Oh how she wished that was the truth.

After his death, their phrase left a bitter taste in her mouth. Everytime she tried to say it to herself it was burning her tongue. But on some days she was able to mumble the words. She would mumble them over and over shaking her head with a mockery and then saying to herself that she had been foolish to think heroes lived long enough to grow old. They all took too many risks for that to happen. The only way that would happen would be if the hero retired and they were all too selfless for that. They cared too much about everything to just leave the hero's world behind. So they suffered. Some more, some less, but no matter what they did — they suffered.

That night was no different. Valeria finished her fourth patrol of the week and found herself on the roof of one of the buildings in Brooklyn overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Though in truth the view was poor, as through the thick fog she could only see the blurred lights from the skyscrapers across the river, leaving the rest to her imagination.

She unhooked the strings from behind her ears and removed the black fabric from the lower part of her face to her neck to make it look like a turtleneck. This time she took several blows to her face as well as other parts of her body while patrolling. She gently ran the fingers of her left hand over her left cheek where she knew the thug had hit her quite hard with his fist full of silver and gold rings, some with shiny stones. At the touch of her fingertips meeting the open wound, she hissed slightly and quickly took them away from the face. She shifted her gaze from the hazy view to her fingers, which bore a red hue.