7 Chapter 7: Reunion

Honestly, it had been way too long since he had last contacted her. Was it high school? Right before that time? Think she changed her name after that thing with her parents? God what was it, something with an L-

'Oh fuck you no. No no no that better not be it. I'm gonna be so pissed if that's it, I swear to the lord.'

But if that was it, then suddenly that would explain a few things. Because he did remember what her quirk was. Now that really begged the question. Was it worth the trouble of contacting her, if she really was who he thought she was.

'Fuck it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'd like to see her try and catch me anyways.'

Looking through his phone, which had had it's contacts transferred from the old phone, he found her old name and called her up, the phone ringing for quite a while before being picked up.

"I just got the first bit of sleep in several days, and you woke me up. Whoever the fuck you are, you better have a really good reason for calling me." Yup, that voice. That was Lyn, aka his old friend Linda, a girl who was used to be a grade ahead of him in school. She musta hated that name, and he had to admit the new one was better.

"Well shit you're really putting me on the spot, Lind-ah wait, that's not your name anymore is it." Even though he knew her name was different, habit kicked in and he almost called her the wrong one.

Lots of shuffling and a yelp could be heard as she nearly dropped her phone, shock combined with lack of proper sleep. "Jack!? It's really you? I can't believe you finally called, hell you're actually alive!"

Jack had lost contact with everyone halfway into high school and left, and never attempted to contact again after he had dealt with everything.

Thus, she was the first to hear from him in nearly 3 years.

"I'm just surprised you still remember me, let alone being excited to hear my voice." He genuinely was, he had assumed most people who knew him in school had forgotten him by now, even his best friends.

"You gotta tell me everything that ha-no, wait not like this. Let's meet up somewhere."

"Right now? Didn't you just say you haven't slept for several days?"

Lyn huffed, as if offended he even considered that. "Like that would matter in a time like this. The park, no a cafe, no wait...aggh heck just come to my house."

Guess she didn't want to have to make herself publicly presentable, she probably looked like a mess still after last night. "Welp, your call. I'll be on my way I guess."

With that, he hung up and she texted him the address. First thing he did, was make sure to shower, and wear new clothes that he hadn't used while fighting before. Otherwise, if she touched his gloves or something, she'd see him using them to fight as Ghost Rider and immediately find out.

With that all set up, and making himself look decently presentable, Jack headed out to the house of the one person who was actually a threat to his vigilante alter ego.

Arriving outside, it was a fairly normal apartment building. Definitely on the higher end, it had less apartments in exchange for each being bigger, but definitely not some top 1% house.

As he arrived, he couldn't even ring the doorbell before it flung open and she hugged him, having assumed he was dead for so long.

Looking down at her, he realized she not only cleaned up, but cleaned up really damn well. Wearing a red sweater and blue jeans, every curve that existed was visible even from up there, as he had a good four inches over her height wise.

And don't think he didn't notice that makeup, and the lipstick too. Though he could only speculate as to why she put in all this effort.

Having missed the good ol days of school too, he hugged her back and they just sat there for a bit, before she stepped back and pulled him in by his wrist. "Come on, have a seat, make yourself at home and all that jazz."

The two sat down on the couch, the coffee table in front of it littered with documents, and a cup of coffee that looks like it's been refilled a few too many times. Before Lyn could take the lead, Jack made a bit of a plan.

"How about we do this. For every question I answer, you answer one of mine. Cause from how giddy you seem, if I let you lead we'll be talking about me all day and I won't learn shit about you."

She drooped her head, guilty as charged. "In my defense, I'm normally a lot more serious than this. It's just, been so long you know? You and your family dropped totally off the grid, and after three years we just thought you were gone."

With that, they passed a few basic questions past each other and got caught up. Where they lived, their new jobs, the little things. As expected of best friends back in high school, they got back into the swing of things right away.

While she did cover it up with her professional demeanor, this was still the same old Linda he knew. And to get along with him back then, obviously she had to have a sense of humor of her own.

Once things had gotten a little more comfortable, Jack tossed her the curveball, touching her cheek. "You okay?"

She blushed and froze. "What?"

"Last night on the news. You took that punch pretty hard, and last I checked that dude could explode things." He wasn't even trying to flirt, he just thought it might still hurt.

"Y-yeah I'm fine- wait hang on. You're right, he could explode things."

"Yeah?"

"So why not me?"

Jack immediately tripped into thought. This was a very good question he hadn't even thought of. Why didn't he just kill her then and there. Clearly they weren't afraid to kill, the same guy tried to finish off Skylar after all.

It clicked, and he locked eyes with her. "They need you for something."

"But what could they possibly need from me?"

"Well the first question is, how high up the food chain are you?" First she felt confused.

"High enough."

"Second, what ages were they picking the kids." Next, she had a single drop of sweat run down her brow.

"Almost all of them were at least four. After all, they all had their quirks."

"And were their quirks all registered?"

"Well of course- Oh god no. No." And now, all color drained form her face. She had got where he was going with this, but she didn't want to believe it.

"It's my fault. They're using my access to the databases somehow, and tracking which kids have good quirks aren't they? Those kids that were so scared, and traumatized last night. And who knows how many others that have already been, made into whatever those guys last night were. Oh god it's all my fault."

Lyn, tired from days of stress piled up, and now this mountain of guilt, broke down crying. She had failed so many people, in such a terrible way.

Not knowing what to do, Jack just panicked and pulled her into a hug, hoping to god that would work. "Even if you had stopped it somehow, they could have used someone else. Plus, we don't even know for certain that they used your personal account. Besides, this isn't over yet."

Pulling herself away from his chest, she looked up at him with her damp emerald eyes, listening for his next words knowing they might be exactly what she needs.

"Because now you have a lead. You just need to examine your accounts or everyone around you, and look to see which files of kids were looked up. Get those, and you know the next targets." Nodding her head, Lyn finally cracked a smile once more.

Deciding to put that off until later, something she hadn't done in years, Lyn just let herself enjoy this moment while she could. A moment she hadn't dared dream of for years.

"In the time you've been gone, you've really gotten good at this."

Jack had no idea what she meant. "I'm literally just winging everything I do, and it's working out."

Speaking of, Lyn took advantage of this moment to feel the muscles he had on himself. He was no body builder, but this was a solid fighter's build that she hadn't noticed due to his baggier clothes.

"Speaking of working out, I see you've been doing quite a bit of that." Jack froze still as she started to get a little into it, before trying to crack a joke.

"Hey that's not fair. I can't exactly casually feel you up, ya know." Not expecting a counter attack, he was completely caught off guard when she moved closer to him.

"And who said that?" He took a second to think, and then made a decision. But before he could act on it, the front door of the apartment unlocked and a little girl walked in.

'Goddamn cock blo- Oh wait.'

"Big sis, I'm home!"

The girl had bright red hair, and green eyes like her sister. He forgot she had a sister, it'd been so long, she was just a baby when he last saw her.

Lyn jolted up off of Jack, and smoothed down her hair to make herself presentable.

"Hey, Jackie. How was your day at preschool?"

Despite being interrupted, Lyn was beaming at seeing her sister, and Jack knew she definitely loved her little sister.

He waved as well, startling the little girl at first. "Oh we have a guest." She looked a little scared to see him, and he couldn't really tell why.

Lyn noticed this too, and tried to calm her down. "This is an old friend of mine, Jack. He hasn't been around in a while, so you haven't really seen him since you were a baby."

"Oh, his name's like mine." With something to connect to, the little girl already started warming up to him.

Realizing that a fair amount of time had to have passed, Jack looked up at the clock and saw that it was already the afternoon. Sitting up from the couch, Lyn almost instinctively reached for him, and stopped herself.

"Where are you going?"

He turned to look at her, grinning gently. "Don't think I don't realize how busy you are. You need to go back to work soon. And I think that somebody else needs to monopolize the time you have left for today." As he said this he gestured towards the little girl.

Right he was, and she hated that he was right. For the first time, she wished the job could wait just a little longer. But she nodded and walked with him to leave. As he went, he knelt down and patted Jackie on the head.

"You have a good day now." She cheerily smiled and nodded her head.

'Oh that's adorable.'

With that, Jack left and went home to wait for the good news. Not from Lyn directly of course, because she had no reason to give it to him.

But several hours later, into the middle of the night, Jack got a text on the burner phone from Skylar.

"Lyn just found how they were targeting the kids. One of the men below her was a mole, and used the privilege of being her underling to access the files under the pretext of looking for potential suspects.. She's arrested him and given us the list of all the potentially targeted kids. The police and heroes are gonna keep an eye on the general areas, but we don't have enough people to just camp them out of every single one's house. Not to mention not all of them will be grabbed at once, so some may be duds."

So the plan was for Ghost Rider to keep an eye on the areas where patrols were thinner, and for each side to contact the other the instant contact with the enemy was made.

Cracking his knuckles, Jack walked out into the streets in his normal form, determined to keep the secret of his survival until the perfect time to catch these fuckers with their pants down. "They already had a lot of vengeance to be dished out, and now they added my near death to the mix. What dumb fuckers."