The good, the bad, and the high heels

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Back before Afghanistan, back when my dad was Mr. Partying Playboy, I never really understood why. Granted, I was thirteen at the time, so I was not too concerned about that fact, but still.

But as I walk into the Wilted Rose, I understand.

Not the playboy part. The bit about drinking.

And I'm not saying I approve of my dad's alcoholic in denial tendencies, either, just that a harmless drink now and then takes a load off one's shoulders.

Natasha pulls me to a table in the front, near the bar and far from the more rambunctious clubbers.

We all set our purses under the table as Natasha takes orders for drinks. We fade into easy small talk as we make some old geezer at one of Jane's science conventions the butt of our jokes.

"And then he's all like, 'Well back in my day...'"

The table bursts into laughter.

"I wonder....if he....knew Steve!" I gasp out as I grasp my aching ribs.

"I truly would not put it past him. Seriously, that dude was ancient! So then-"

Jane drops off mid-sentence and jumps up to help Natasha with the drinks.

Betty takes her grasshopper - which I'm pretty sure she ordered as a joke, it practically glows green, Jane holds a huge margarita, Darcy is holding a fruity cocktail, and Natasha is holding a Bloody Mary with a shot of vodka - yes, I am aware of the irony here.

Natasha hands me a glass of a familiar bubbly brown substance, although it smells like my dad used to every other night. Rum and Coke, I assume.

Well, my dad likes it.

I take a cautious sip, wincing as it burns down my throat.

"Don't worry, it'll get better. And I strongly recommend cutting off at one. Everyone here is smart enough to have their lives on track at the moment."

I nod along with the others. Natasha snorts.

"Yes, at the moment. Next week yet another apocalypse will come, thanks to the maniac of the week."

We all chuckle as I shrug at the only-too-true description.

The speakers blast a song with a baseline that rattles the glass behind the bar as we sip our drinks and tell stories from our lives dating superheroes. And being superheroes, in Tasha and I's case.

The Wilted Rose is by no means a posh new club for teenagers. That's not to say it doesn't have a few wild cards - I see you, guy doing the worm in the back - but the main room is about half full. The bartender is an older guy with a pudgy belly that only suits old guys like him, his minimal amount of hair is styled in what Tasha says is a comb-over, and he looks bored.

"So," Darcy draws me from my thoughts, "what exactly is a girl's night? I truly have no idea."

I think for a moment and shrug. "No idea. I'm a nerd who is new at this game."

I glance at the older three women for answers, but Betty scratches her neck and looks embarrassed, and Jane looks thoughtful but shakes her head.

Natasha is looking at us with a strange expression blanketing her face. "Wow, you really are nerds. What did any off you do in college?"

"Uh, I literally had my head in the stars."

"I was busy winning science fair."

"And I'm still in college."

"...I was sixteen, Tasha."

The rest of the groups sends me curious looks, which I just shrug to in response. MIT really is not that hard with my genes and brain and 198 IQ.

Natasha just shakes her head and tucks a lock of fire-red hair behind her ear. "Girls night is where members of the female gender gather for the consumption if alcohol and the berating of their male peers."

Jane and Betty nod quickly and lean back, satisfied. Darcy slowly turns tome with a raised eyebrow.

"Girls form packs and go out to get drunk and whine about guys." I clarify.

"Oh...I get it."

"All guys," Jane adds, with a quick glance at Betty. "Not just boyfriends."

Betty nods in understanding. I shift in my seat as we begin to encroach on dangerous subject territory.

Natasha sees this and quickly jumps into a story on one of her less gruesome and classified missions.

I lean back against the fraying upholstery and let the Coke bubbles tickle my tongue as Natasha tells the story of some of the dumbest criminals I have ever heard.

Jane then follows with her and Darcy recounting how they first met everyone's favorite god.

"You tazed, of all things, the god of lightning?" I question incredulously.

Darcy blushes. "Hey, in my defense, he was acting like a drunk hobo! And I am a jumpy person!"

We all laugh at the mental image of a tazer-happy intern standing over a big, buff, hunched form on a deserted road in New Mexico.

And then laugh even harder at Darcy's expression.

"Okay, subject change! Taylor, I saw your dad on the news one time, and he was with this model..."

I sigh as Darcy babbles about a year-old case of mistaken identity on my dad's part.

"...and then she left. What the heck was going on?"

"Wow, you guys are worse than the press! Jeez. So the thing is, my dad had just found out his favorite coffee shop had gone bankrupt-"

"Because of him, presumably."

"Yeah. And my dad minus coffee equals a delusional and emotional version of my dad. Imagine a psychic pregnant woman in a mental hospital."

We all shudder and flinch. Even Black Widow herself.

"I mean seriously, peanut butter and pickles? Outside of pregnant women, who finds that appetizing? So we run into this model at a gala about a week after he hears about the bankruptcy. She was Latino, I think, and then my dad goes..."

I run on and on about my dad acting like the love child of a chicken and gorilla because he was on caffeine withdrawal, being a rude equivalent of a five year old, and ruining the complexion of Miss Brazil 2012.

Betty follows this with stories of pre-Hulk, college Bruce, and we all laugh as his science fair project explodes, taking his dignity for the year with it.

She's just launching into a tale about the time Bruce tried to genetically mutate her rabbit when our attention is diverted by a buzzing noise.

I sigh as I glance at my now lit up phone.

I barely get to glance at the unrecognizable number before everything inside goes silent.

And then the widows shatter inwards.