a supervillain walks into a house | Quirk #7

So it's Monday and therefore not Saturday anywhere. 

But I do have a good reason for being busy on Saturday! Excuses fun story below the Quirk!*

Annnnyway here's my beta-reader tale for this Quirk:

Me: Mum can you read this, and just so you know, because last time you didn't realise they were superheroes, this is a world where superheroes are common.

Mum: can't you write something normal 

Security is less than it should be. The sentries around the back of the house are talking; the one across the street is texting. They don’t notice the glimmer of his cape as he walks, invisible and silent-footed, between them. The front door is locked, but he deals with that.

The scent of the flowers piled on the doormat wafts in with him as he steps inside, a jumble of clashing perfumes that hang heavy around his head.

Inside, it’s quiet, though no quieter than the late-night (early-morning) street outside. Cape hung neatly, he pauses a moment to shuffle off his boots, toeing them to attention beside the hat-rack. Is he stalling? Yes. It’s part of his routine.

“Hello?” he calls, low and feeling foolish. Also somewhat ashamed. (The hour, pushing three in the morning, is the least of the reasons why.)

And Mrs Trevino appears in the doorway to the living room, and it’s like the house comes awake. The room seems slightly brighter, the air seems slightly lighter, and he thinks he can hear the refrigerator humming.

“Teddy. It’s good to see you back.”

Her voice and face both say she’s pleased by the fact. He latches onto that, uses it to reassure himself, once again, that it’s okay for him to be here. Even though anyone else would say it really, really isn’t. He nods instead of replying.

“How are you doing?”

Guilt’s kept him from sleeping more than two hours at a time since their first meeting, and that was almost two weeks ago. He’s not sure what day he last sat down to eat. He knows he’s getting sloppy and that’s what gets supervillains killed. He can’t bring himself to properly regret it. “I’m fine,” he says, and tries to sound like he means it. Because, for whatever unfathomable reason, she cares.

She studies him. “You know I have experience in this. You’re going to have to do better if you want to lie to me.” Her eyes flick down to his side. “And don’t bleed on my floor.”

He looks down. He hadn’t realised he’d been hit at some point, but his body armour is indeed compromised. Not by the pathetic excuses for guards outside, sometime earlier – possibly when he’d run into the police car on his way here? Possibly when those four teens decided they, with their knives, could do Isa’s job for her?

He takes the tea towel without comment and presses it to his side. If she cared about him staining it, she wouldn’t have handed it to him.

Something he’d learned since spending time with Mrs Trevino: protesting will get you nowhere.

She’s casting a critical eye over his side now. “Do you need bandages? Ice spray? Panadol?”

He perches on the edge of a rickety kitchen chair, shakes his head. The paint’s flaking under his hands; considering its age, it’s likely lead-based. He’d be concerned, but it’s hardly going to bother Mrs Trevino, not now. “I’m fine,” he repeats.

Her sigh has the tone of someone who has heard that far too often. “Tea? I was about to make myself a cup.”

She wasn’t. He accepts regardless. The kitchen hums as she rattles around: mugs from the cupboard over the sink, milk from the door of the fridge, soggy teabags dropped in the compost bucket under the sink. Neither of them mentions how he takes his tea; she knows how sweet he likes it.

Dropping the teaspoon in the sink, she pushes the mug across the kitchen table and sits opposite. He wraps his hands around the heat of the mug, disregarding the warmth of the night, and that’s when she breaks their silence.

“Have you spoken to her?”

The gulp of tea burns the top of his mouth, but only lets him put off answering for less than a minute. “To say what? That I’m sorry? She doesn’t want to hear from me.”

“Ignoring what happened—”

“I’m not ignoring it, Mrs Trevino.” He really isn’t. But there’s nothing he can say that will improve the situation. Ultimately, it’s his fault that the Irving Boys came after Mrs Trevino.

“I’m serious, Teddy. In fact—” she gets a stubborn look around the corners of her eyes “—you should make the call now.”

He definitely should not. He should never, ever, call Isa. Or speak to her or see her. Ever. He’s even started actively avoiding other villains she’s likely to need to fight, which means his appearances have been pretty quiet. Probably he should talk to a professional about how much he feels like getting into a hopeless fight, but he hasn’t been picking fights. He’s been trying to drown out his thoughts in other ways—hyperfocus on his inventions, exercising until he can’t breathe, staring at the ceiling while he waits for sleep and carefully planning the future downfall of the Irving Boys—and visiting Mrs Trevino after dark.

“It’s half past three, she’ll be out in the mask.”

“You know she’s taken to going out in the day instead.” She pauses. “Without the mask.”

She doesn’t say, “Because when you’ve lost what matters most, why hide?” His thoughts whisper it regardless.

“I don’t—”

Mrs Trevino leans across the table. “You owe me this.”

And he does, doesn’t he? He owes her whatever she asks.

He knows the number, memorised it months ago. Thanks to him, he’s not the only one: the whole city knows, or any who care to look up the video clip. Superhero Bright Ice revealed as Riverside’s Isa Trevino. She could have changed her number, but she didn’t; what would it have changed, at that point? Instead, she blocks all but the people she trusts the most.

He stares blankly at the phone hanging on Mrs Trevino’s wall, and then dials.

Two and a half rings, and the call is picked up.

“Mum?”

There’s a sleepy hitch in her voice, a vulnerability brought on by the hour. He must have woken her up; she hasn’t remembered why this number never calls her anymore, or maybe the snatch of breathlessness is because her sleep-slowed mind is hoping that somehow this is true, her mother is really calling. In a flash of panic, he looks across the kitchen at her mother, who’s moved on to clearing the dishes from the rack, but she lifts her shoulders in a semi-translucent shrug.

The scent of the mourners’ flowers still hangs over him, presses in, takes his breath.

No matter what Mrs Trevino says he needs to do, there’s no way this can end well.

 

Tis up to you to decide whether he deliberately exposed Isa's identity, not knowing about her mother, or whether he accidentally let it slip. 

Oh! and also many thanks to Kate for helping me name Isa. x'D

• • • • •

Shout out to our Quirk writers! This week we have the below blog posts:

• Samantha: In Which Blood Happens, featuring a very sweet married couple and also blood!
• The Temperamental Writer: Disaster Child Makes Poor Decisions, featuring cousin angst and also blood!
• Megan Chappie (a newcomer! hiii!): In Which There Is Graceland and Blood, featuring people popping out of kitchen cabinets and also blood!
• The Story Sponge: In Which Basically I Just Gravitate To The Blood Part, featuring a sad kid and his half-sister and also blood!
  
• Sarah Seele: Don’t Bleed on the Floor, featuring an audio-transcript format which somehow seems to show the blood better... and also blood!
  

I should probably clarify: the italics/link text is not the title of their Quirks. They are but the post titles. Although they would make great story titles.

There will be no Quirk in April! This is because of Camp NaNoWriMo. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it because I genuinely do need to look at a second draft of Three Sisters.

• • • • •

*My reason for Saturday being a write-off: I was out of the house! being social! shocking development, I know. A few local homeschool families got together for a board game night. There was Dutch Blitz, Exploding Kittens, Billionaire, Bananagrams, a memory game called Sherlock.... and of course, dinner was that ultimate pinnacle of Australian cuisine,

the sausage sizzle.

Yes indeed, we had barbecued sausages on slices of white bread with tomato sauce and onion, and enjoyed our dinner immensely. 

Are you doing Camp? Have you ever played Dutch Blitz or Exploding Kittens? What is the most chaotic board game you've played? (I would really like to play this game called Don't Get Got... it sounds like tremendous fun.) Have you read these marvelous quirks yet?? if not, go now. So much angst, I adore it. This is why I do the Quirks mwahaha.