Copycat: Genesis -(Marvel Fem!OC)

Cat's Path.

Peter finished the beeper on the same day summer came to an end. Cat was too scared to try it out just like that, so unceremoniously. She asked him to wait a day, she needed to do something first.

"Call me superstitious, but I really have to do it."

"You really have to get drunk with your ex and his two friends in a shitty bar?"

"Bucky, last time I checked you were not invited to this conversation," she hissed. "Get out of the lab!"

"Lab," he scoffed. "This is a basement, we should've turned it into a pool room."

"We have one in the attic," she lied. "You're just not invited because you cheat."

"Newsflash asshole, everyone cheats when they play pool!" He replied, standing up and looking around. "Where the hell is the attic?"

Cat ignored him and turned to Peter and Wanda. "So?"

Wanda shrugged. "Use it now or next year, I don't see a difference."

"I have to go back to the city tonight, though," Webs reminded her. "College, remember?"

"I'll drive you back," she nodded.

"Do you have a license?" Bucky asked as he walked past them.

"Do you? Didn't it expire like half a century ago, Grandpa?"

"Keep walking," Spider-man pushed her forward.

***

Cat texted Foggy and got a response in less than a minute. She left Peter in his apartment so he could pack up the stuff he needed for Monday, and then she went to Josie's ready to hang with some old friends.

"There she is!" Foggy called out. "Come here, you!"

Cat smiled at the trio, she hugged each of them tightly. "Hi! How's your week going?"

"We desperately needed an excuse to drink," Foggy groaned. "Thank God you texted me."

"But not really," Matt smiled in that playful way of his. "You're leaving, right?"

Karen and Foggy looked at her expectantly, she'd told them that, eventually, she would not be around again. They had taken it well, Cat hadn't been around that much anyway. It was bittersweet, realizing she was free because she hadn't lived at all in the past.

"Webs finished the gizmo," she nodded. "I'll leave tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Karen stared at a corner, but her gaze seemed to go for miles. "So... this is goodbye?"

"No," Matt eased her, squeezing her hand. "We're not that lucky."

She kicked his foot. "Jerk."

***

It started raining as they left the bar. Foggy and Karen shared a cab like usual not before wishing her the best of luck, hoping to see her again one day, though probably not any time soon. Matt and Cat were left alone, so she offered to walk him home. Or run, to be precise. 

They turned it into a small competition, to see who could reach his building first. For a moment she was reminded of their patrols: running blindly, Cat's pulse racing at the feeling of freedom she'd get from it. She won the race, but she had the feeling Matt had let her as a farewell gift.

She accompanied him to his apartment, and Matt gave her a towel. "Thanks! I should pick up Spidey from his apartment, we were supposed to be back before midnight, Edith goes crazy when we break curfew at home..."