Is she going to apologise?

Now hug !

Well…okay then.

=D

Oh man. I’ve totally been exactly where he is right now.
Not the huge well-funded headquarters and government job, I mean… you know what I mean.
(Excellent use of unconventional mood whiplash, BTW.)

Pintsize has developed a new power: Wall of Text.

Interesting that he calls her Alison, but she calls him Pintsize. I have a feeling he might prefer her to use his real name…

Also, he’s packing! Huh.

Oh my God. That’s heart-breaking. He still considers her his best friend and the only reason she came was to ask for money.. When everybody turned their backs on her, she chose the compassion of a relative stranger rather than the guy she had known for years, the one who was the first to make her feel good about her powers.

Alison is cold, pal.

Seems Manic, Is Pintsize bi-polar?

Hope you hug and finish making up before asking for a check.. pobably explain your new lifestyle.
ALso.. “are you” what? I didn’t get that context.. are you ok?

That song is totally in my head now. Thanks, jerks. 🙂

So wait, is he moving out?

I think this is going to be interesting. Last time they met, Pintsize seemed to be struggling with the same question that Alison was – what’s better than being a superhero?
Alison can now answer that question, so I’m seeing potential here…

It wasn’t intended as a “no, shut up” so much as a baffled “are you seriously trying to make predictions about a character based story because of what you personally want out of the story or do you have a bunch of character actions from which to build this prediction from?”
As for not starting out with a constructive tone for the sake of compelling conversation, think of it as an initial heckling of what I thought was yet another one of your jokes that I found wanting, then incredulity that you were in fact, “for real.”

Since I’m not utterly mystified by you anymore, let’s go with the numbers!
1) It’s character reinforcement: Both of them are huge dorks and they were super tense about the whole affair, and thus they are too relieved to do anything other than trip over each others words and joke about how they were worried that things would go badly.
Tame is a matter of taste, I would have called it a stylized anticlimax, except there was far too little dramatic build-up within the issue to reasonably expect a climax. Thus I expect that this interaction will likely serve the plot as some sort of rising action to a different conflict. I will however call it tame in any situation where this only serves as some sort of wrap up with next to no impact elsewhere in the story other than “oh they’re not mad/awkward at each other anymore”
2) Alison has been shown to disproportionately care about others and what they feel. This holds even when she is emotionally drained from hunting down a former teammate and other people would blow their top. She only ever dismisses them when she feels like punching or they make no sense on a level that would cause her to start punching but she’s strong enough to leave the building first.
As for not valuing his apology, the easiest way to establish that she doesn’t find it necessary and she just wants her money would be to cut Hector off, tell him she don’t give a crap, and is here to get that check. I had no expectation that she would be unfazed by Hector’s emotional state & development because Alison had introduced the scene with the line about the conversation being awkward. That was another opportunity for her to establish that she didn’t think much of Hector, yet she said that the money was on the other side of a conversation. Which I interpreted as meaning something to the effect of a significant struggle for Alison. Al was going into the tower anticipating something big to her that would be worth the money. The phrasing could have been dismissive, but it wasn’t.
Further, Hector entered the scene in a vulnerable, yet endearing fashion. Alison could have reacted to those vulnerable moments with a dismissive or impatient gaze, but she let him do his thing. I read the scene as only reinforcing the idea that Alison cared deeply for what Hector thinks, and for her to act in such a way that goes against that, in a calm emotional state, would mess with the tone set up by the narration, the character interaction, and her general personality of not doing that stuff since she was a short-sighted teenager.
3) Oh man don’t I know that feeling. But I didn’t see Hector as anticipating Alison being relieved from his apology. Sure he probably hoped that, but I thought he was nervous about her being passive-aggressive with him or say something to the effect of “I didn’t contact you because you’re a jerk, and I could have kept it that way but I need something, we’re still not friends.”
4) No disagreement on the remnants being there, but I see them as being no more pronounced in her than in any other young character in the comic. Further, Alison is less egocentric than some of her peers, showing that her choosing to not be jerk about her POV is totally a thing that she achieves.
The way that you highlight them is absurd, and is delightful every now and then. But that’s it, an absurdity from which any coherent amusement is derived from contrasting the goofy interpretation wherein Alison is a petty child that disproportionately sucks at maturity from the scene-directed intent where she’s slowly getting better with sudden bursts forward & temporary dramatic setbacks.

As for Hector’s personal drama: I don’t oppose it in principle, but I’d be amazed to see a sub-plot like that be successfully implemented seeing as he has been previously in the narrative role of a side character, and opting to focus on his struggles *now* is a delicate balance to avoid either:
Wasting screentime for a payoff that hardly affects the main character but means a lot to the side character
&
Devoting a excessive amount of screentime to introduce, escalate, and resolve a meaningful conflict between the main character and a side character as opposed to something else that the main character could be used for with that time

It probably can be done, but I’m used to stories doing things other than that. and as such I anticipate that this story will avoid risky structuring in favor of the development of relationships between multiple characters towards furthering the main character’s goal. I read Alison’s remarks about setbacks and mundane work as foreshadowing for the theme behind the struggles she’ll have with everyone on this issue’s cover.
That’s the only kind of prediction I can draw from the patterns I see here. I’m personally extremely uncomfortable making stretches on any particular element of storytelling of any sort, so my process of considering your proposed page goes something like “Well wouldn’t that make X and Y from before totally weird and out of place or a wasted opportunity?! How could we make that proposal actually fit what the narrative most clearly establishes?” and quickly devolves into frustration as I cannot yield anything necessary to make that stretch work at the expense of what has come before.