Venom

060

— 1 month later, 2/2/2022—

The air was cold today, though the sun was shining brightly in the sky.

A lot had changed in a month.

Helen had inherited all the money that belonged to Dean and to Derek, quickly becoming the richest woman alive. However, about a week before today she'd had some problems using Dean's money. The bank had told her that they were working on it, and she was fine with it. Derek's money was more than enough anyway. Reason why she started donating to multiple charities.

She'd shut down both Towers, giving some money to the people that worked there until they found a new job, giving them three months at most to do so.

After doing that, she'd moved to Italy in the villa Dean had bought her for her birthday and started working as a book editor for a publishing house, although learning how to open her own. It would take a while, but she had time.

She'd cut her hair. It now barely reached her shoulders and looked a lot healthier. The cut suit her extremely well, but when the hairdresser had started cutting it she'd teared up, thinking about Dean. It had been a little embarrassing, but the woman had understood immediately that it wasn't because of the hair itself and she'd comforted Helen sweetly.

Isaac and Mickey were going to get married next month. They were super excited, and they also planned on adopting a child in the near future. She was happy for them and for how well their relationship had worked out.

Now, it was ten in the morning in Tuscany, which meant it was around four p.m. in New York, where her friends still lived. Helen was sitting at the table outside her house, reading the manuscript of a fantasy novel of the author she was following. She had some tea in front of her, some homemade biscuits brought to her by the owners of a villa a few minutes away from her — basically her neighbors — and the beauty of nature all around her. She was wearing a woolly brown sweater and cream jeans, with some dark brown boots to complete the outfit.

One of her four cats jumped on her lap, meowing and purring. Helen smiled, brushing her hand along it's black fur. "Hello, Loki," she said sweetly. The name was a bit cliché, but after seeing his green eyes and the black body, what else was she supposed to call him?

The bitchy red cat was Natasha. Her white cat, instead, was called Alpine, as Bucky's cat in the comics. And last but not least, her brownish cat with a gray leg was obviously Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes Jr, or Bucky when she had to be quick to call him.

Her plan was to adopt as many cats as possible to name them all after a Marvel character, but finding a green cat to name Hulk was harder than one would think.

As of right now, she'd just bought her first two horses, that stayed in a paddock in the back of the house. Isaac had suggested calling them Dumb and Ass, but that would have been too much even for her. Instead, she'd opted for Hugo for the male and Sera for the female. They didn't have an actual meaning, but she really liked them. Part of her wanted to call the male Sleipnir, as it was the name of Loki's horse son in mythology, but it was too complicated to pronounce every time.

As for the dogs... Helen heard barking and saw her two puppies running towards the fence that circled the house. It was always open — except of course for the night — because there weren't many people here and, truth be told, she could watch out for herself if it came down to that.