Radiance: Mid-Credits

No weirdness here.

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Science! Girl & Chained Lightning is a spinoff of Radiance; both stories take place around 2014 in a world where atypical abilities have become increasingly common, with the storyline following a group of minor-league superheroes based in Washington, DC. This one is all about belligerent couple Dr. Marissa Cotlin and her (former) favorite test subject Baz Grimes.

Previously, Marissa’s newlywed younger sister Morgan visited…

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Baz could tune out a notification or two while they were watching something, but the cascade of chirps coming from Marissa’s phone was starting to get to him. He took his hand off the soft curve that housed his small squirming son and flicked her on the arm. “Hey. Are you gonna get that?”

“What?—oh, sorry. I thought that was yours. I must have forgot to change the sound on some group chat.” Marissa picked up her phone, scrolled for a minute, and looked back at him with a delighted smile and her hand in the air. “High five!”

He complied, bemused. “What for?”

“We got Morgan!” she said. “She’s due in January. Mal’s blaming me, of course.”

“How would that be your fault?” Baz said.

Marissa chuckled as she typed away at her response. “Oh, it’s a joke we made. I told Morgan to watch out ’cause the pregnancy thing was catching, but she must not have listened.”

She was somehow making this less clear. “Wouldn’t it be Mallory’s own fault, then? She was first.”

“Yeah, but I’m the general epicenter of weirdness in our family,” she said.

He shook his head. “That’s obviously your dad. I’d ask him what he’s been up to.”

Marissa turned all the way around in his lap now, squinting suspiciously in the harsh light of the living room TV. “…why?”

Baz shrugged. “He’s screwed with your biochemistry for your own good at least once. Think about it.”

“I do not want to think about that,” she said, her nose scrunching up. “No. It’s a coincidence.”

“Sure.”

She laid her head back down on his chest and watched another minute or so, but she stayed tense enough that he could tell Marissa was thinking in spite of herself. “Mal is the one who’s been trying,” she muttered. “And they did have him out last Thanksgiving, and he can be a meddling…I mean, but that shouldn’t affect me and Morgan…unless by accident, but…no. No way. I mean, who knows what that’d even do.”

“Who knows,” Baz agreed. “So that makes how many definitely normal kids crawlin’ around next year?”

“Three...maybe?” Marissa flicked back through the chat. “She didn’t say ‘we’re having a baby’, she just said ‘I’m pregnant’.”

“So?”

“Maybe it’s twins.”

“I don’t understand you girls at all,” he said. “Why would you wish that on her?”

“—no, okay, she says here they’re having a boy too. So that does make three with Mal’s little girl. Mom won’t know what to do with herself.” Marissa switched the sound off and tossed her phone down to the end of the couch. “Look, Morgan wished twins on me first. Fair’s fair.”

“Not like it worked, though.” Nope. One kid. One kid seemed like enough trouble for a good few years. “I’m just sayin’, no need to tempt fate.”

She shifted through a few of the awkward-looking positions that babies apparently demanded before settling on the one she’d started with, making him move his legs again so she could sprawl across him just so. “You’re not getting superstitious on me, are you, Sparky?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, princess. This is a house of rational explanations and cold, hard data. No weirdness here.”

“Smartass. Pass me that pillow.”

“Yes’m.”

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