It had only been seven months, that's what Gigi kept reminding herself.

January was the first time she'd experienced the shift, waking up with no idea where time had gone or what had happened. As scary as it was to say that was normal now, it kind of was. At least she knew to expect it. At least she knew a bit more information than that first time she'd woken up terrified, confused. She and Gwen left little notes for each other and that helped a little, even though there was no way to properly convey certain things in writing.

Like symbiotes, for example. Gigi never realized there would be a day in her life she would be grateful to know it was some weird alien being inhabiting her body, but when that was the alternative to finding out she'd relapsed — it was the lesser of two evils, honestly. She'd worked really hard to strike up a decent balance with the parasite, took Gwen's suggestions, had what she considered to be a solid grasp on what was happening, at least most of the time. It had been a while since she'd been in a situation where the symbiote might feel the need to protect, take over, so she couldn't be sure. Not that she was wanting to find herself in the middle of a brawl, but until it was tested she was only working off assumptions.

The thing was, nothing she'd read - from Gwen or from comics - prepared her to have sparklers for fingers. That was the best she could describe it, considering she had no idea what was going on, so she didn't know if that was actually accurate but it seemed to be? Web-shooters, fine. Those were equipment so it was easy to avoid getting stuck to things like she knew might be a problem otherwise. Little gummy spiders? Those had taken more getting used to, but she considered them cute and at least they were useful, they could report back to her if they went wandering off. Not to mention, those were all what she might come to expect, based on her research. Knowing who she was, or rather who else she was, helped in that she could look into things a bit. She wasn't as good at that as Theo, but she could try.

Nothing involved sparklers or anything like them.

They'd happened for the first time at Theo's party the night before. There had been so much going on, Gigi was happy to consider it part of the chaos. Dinosaurs wandering around, birds coming to life and snatching snacks out of people's hands, why wouldn't she have sparkler fingers? It was easy to dismiss anything out of the normal to whatever was causing everything else to happen. There was no reason to think otherwise! Until the next day, when it was still happening.

"Sorry, sorry!" Her hushed apology didn't seem to do anything to soothe Nyx, who seemed far more comfortable tucked under her bed where there wasn't the potential of being hit by a spark. How was she supposed to control any of it? That's what she didn't understand about all the superpowers stuff — they appeared randomly, people didn't have any training, and it could be dangerous as hell. Her spider-situation was pretty tame, she considered herself lucky, but what about people that could make fire out of thin air? Cause earthquakes? Control minds? She'd read plenty of comics, she knew there was plenty worse out there. What about the bad guys?

These new powers, though they weren't as bad as some she could think of, were a bit terrifying. Pretty, at first. Cool, a bit. But knowing she had no idea how to control any of it? That took away from them being pretty and cool. It didn't matter if it looked nice if it was the reason their house burned to the ground. It wasn't impressive if she had no idea how it was happening or why. The sparks came with no warning, nothing to let her know things were getting dangerous. That was what was so scary.

Gigi was terrified of hurting someone, plain and simple. Or at minimum, scaring someone. She knew she looked scary when her symbiote took over, black goo sliding over her whole body, enveloping her in a protective shield, a whole different face presented to the world. That was obviously scary, people might run away, they should. As much as she didn't like being perceived as scary, she thought it was probably worse to be seen as harmless and actually be dangerous.

That was kind of the state of things on a general day though, wasn't it? She looked normal, looked harmless, small and not intimidating in the least. Even before she felt power flowing into her hands, her fingertips, light and sparks shooting out of them somehow, she knew she was more than people saw her as. That had been her life. Underestimated, looked over.

The issue was not knowing what to do, where to go. Anywhere was dangerous, she couldn't bury herself under the covers of her bed and wait for the problem to go away — what if she set the bed on fire? She didn't think she'd magically become fireproof and, again, she wanted to avoid burning down their home. Or anywhere else. Through deep breaths and concentration, she somehow managed to rein it in. Maybe all that time working with Venom had paid off, to where she was better at controlling what was clearly outside of her control. Or maybe the world was taking pity on her, giving her a little break. Either way, she wasn't going to take it for granted.

"Let's go, Nyx. Come on." Hands clutched to herself, as though that could contain anything, she slipped on sandals and grabbed her bag and Nyx's leash, going right back to holding her hands in clenched fists against her chest once she had everything and was out the door.

Maybe if they were by the water it would be less scary. At least there, there was water. It made sense, right? If things felt like she couldn't control them, she could go out into the water and then nothing could happen. She hoped. It had at least a little logic, more than staying in their house, their neighborhood, where things could get bad real fast. It was selfish, taking Nyx with her, but at least this way she wasn't alone. She wouldn't let anything happen to her dog, she knew she wouldn't.

She just didn't want to be alone.