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“I’m so excited to take you to your first Pride! You’re going to love it - trust me!”
Roxy Washington dashed up to the path to the Green Lagoon with a skip in her step, smiling a blinding diamond smile back at Rachel Summers and Elle Diwa behind her.
Rachel gave a slightly forced smile. It was not actually her first Pride. It may be her first Pride as an out and proud lesbian, but she had a decade's worth of Prides as a trans woman under her belt already… but Roxy was smiling. She did not need to burst the younger woman’s bubble over a technicality.
“Freddy throws a great Pride party,” Elle chimed in, flying upside down next to Rachel. “I’m sure it’ll be ama-”
“AH!”
Ellie and Rachel exchanged a glance, flying over to catch back up at Roxy, who was standing in front of the Green Lagoon, looking stunned into silence.
“Are you alright?” Rachel called out.
“Huh? O-oh. I-I’m fine,” Roxy stammered out. “It’s just… sooooo cringe.” She shuttered slightly, pointing up towards the arrangement of flags alongside the roof of the bar. Amidst the colourful hues of the standard pride flags, the black-and-white straight pride flag flew proudly.
“Oh,” Elle replied, pouting slightly. “Why does it look like a prison jumpsuit? Meaning aside, it just looks bad.”
“I swear to god,” Rachel muttered. “If my mom had anything to do with this, I’m going to die of embarrassment…”
Elle laughed an awkward, forced, choked-out laugh. “It’s not that bad. I mean. I’m sure nobody will even notice.”
DING!
beep-BEEP !
DITTLE-deet~
Elle, Rachel and Roxy exchanged a glance, then pulled out their phones… where people had already started to message them about the flag.
“Pixie sent me a link to an op-ed from last year about straight Pride Flags,” Roxy observed. “I think she knows.”
“Xuân messaged me about it too… She’s more of a mind controller than a mind reader, but Illyana’s already asked her to start wading through people’s thoughts to figure out who put the flag there,” Elle said.
“Bobby just sent me a neutral face emoji without further elaboration,” Rachel commented. “I think I can guess why he sent it though…”
Elle sighed. “Okay, so some people noticed, but it shouldn’t matter that -”
DING!
“Anole says he isn’t opposed to the flag, but would rather it be the ally flag with the rainbow A in it,” Roxy said.
beep-BEEP !
“Morgan says that this is why they don’t live on Krakoa,” Elle supplied.
“Now that one hurts,” Rachel murmured.
DITTLE-deet~
“Jessie Drake tells me that she just cringed so hard she briefly shapeshifted into Big Wheel.”
DING!
“Pyro - the younger one, not the one you’re thinking of - sent a series of laughing emojis and an MS paint drawing of what I think is supposed to be Charles crying?”
beep-BEEP!
“Pyro - the older one, probably the one you are thinking of - sent me a three-paragraph wall of text about the flag full of literary references that I do not understand and, to be honest, I am not going to google them.”
DITTLE-deet~
“America Chavez invited me and Betsy to go to Pride in another dimension,” Rachel said. “Apparently the dinosaur pride parade is far less cringey.”
“Oh, right, I’ve been meaning to ask: Do you know if there’s a dinosaur version of me? Maybe something with, like, pterodactyl vibes?” Elle asked. “Xuân’s got too much Catholic guilt to ask herself, but I think she’d be into that kind of woman.”
“I did not need to know that about my English teacher,” Roxy murmured.
DITTLE-deet~
Rachel bit her lip as she read the text.
“Ah, Kyle texted me. He says that Destiny told him the straight flag would make Glob feel more welcomed to the event, meaning she'll come out as trans two years earlier, causing a series of events that saves the multiverse itself,” Rachel explained. “So that’s why he put it there.”
Elle and Roxy glanced at Rachel and then at each other.
“Is she fucking with him?” Elle asked. “It feels like she’s fucking with him.”
“I do not know and do not care,” Roxy declared. “I’m run a pretty firm ‘Don’t fuck with Destiny’ policy. If she’s behind the flag, I’m not asking questions.” She put her phone on silent and slipped it back into the inner pocket of her jacket. “C’mon. Let’s go, lesbians.”
Rachel and Elle shrugged, putting their phones away and following the young woman inside. Cringe flags or not, it was time for Pride - and the event itself could still be fun.