Hero Types

Chapter 23

"Leave me alone."
Jersey continued to snigger. Kit fell back into the window. It was raining hard, and it was too early to deal with this.
"How long have you been fucking?"
"We're not."
"Seriously, you haven't?" He made a face. She checked her phone. They had only been waiting ten minutes. It felt like forever. "How long have you been trying not to fuck him?"
"Jersey—"
"Fine." He rolled his eyes and checked his own phone. "But, you know, I would've thought you'd tell me something like this. I get that it's a work relationship, whatever. I tell you a lot about my shit."
"I never asked to hear any of that," she said, and he shrugged. A few minutes passed, the pitter patter of the rain like tiny marbles on the windshield. She groaned and rubbed her eyes. "I had a huge crush on him for months."
"I fucking knew it."
"Yeah. I know."
"Come on, then. Details." He snapped his fingers. "This is very important."
"I don't know. Lucas kept, like, warning me that he was flirting with me, but I didn't believe him, and then we, like—you know, he kind of came out with it and I was like...I mean—"
"You're literally the most stubborn person I know."
"Stop. And then we had a thing, or something, and we still have a thing."
"How long, though, seriously?"
"Since...Christmas."
"Holy shit." He sat back and watched the rain for a while. "Holy shit. How did I miss that? I mean, I knew there was weird energy between you two, I just thought it was sexual tension. I guess it was, if you really haven't banged him..."
"Okay, that's not—"
"My business. Fine." He scratched his chin. "But I would like to know if—"
"Don't go there."
"—downstairs, like—"
"Jersey."
"—for scientific purposes, of course. Hey, isn't that our guy?"
A man in a black hoodie and a feathered mask had sprinted around the corner with a bag in his arms. They scrambled out of the car and darted after him through the rain.
They apprehended the criminal and the drugs he was carrying, and dropped him, as was custom, in front of the nearest police station. Jersey suggested keeping the drugs and making some cash, and she convinced him that he was on the road to villainy if he kept up like that.
As he drove her home she considered villainy. For so long it had been mostly a black line between the heroes and the villains, with the occasional reluctantly sinister outlier like Mickey, and that was just how it was. She had always simply accepted that villainy or heroism was something you were born with—or without—and there was no changing that.
And perhaps basic moral understanding was something innate and personal, something inseparable from one's personality. But she wondered for the first time whether villainy was rather more a matter of opinion, not to mention circumstance.
She was still considering that when she caught the train to Mickey's house after lunch, telling Gran, after making sure she had taken the correct medication, that she was going to Bridget's house. The gravel on his road was sludgy from the rain, but all in all it was better than it was in winter.
It was hard to believe that she was graduating in less than three months. She hadn't totally decided on what she was going to do. She had been told that she ought to really have applied to a college by now, but the truth was that Kit wasn't sure that she wanted to go to college.
Gran was all right with it, but she was concerned that her granddaughter completely lacked a plan for adulthood. This wasn't far from the truth.
Kit had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.
"C'mere." Mickey pulled himself out from under the hood of an old convertible so she could peck him on the lips. She shrugged her jacket onto one of the chairs and greeted Fitz, who liked to lick faces. She massaged his head till he calmed down, and she eased herself onto the floor against a support beam.
"Hey, Mickey?"
"Uhuh?" His voice bounced off the pieces of the engine.
"You didn't go to college, did you?"
He snorted. "Hell, no. Lovey, I didn't graduate from high school."
Fitz sneezed on her arm. She wiped it in his fur, chewing on her tongue. "But you're so smart, though."
"...Thanks?"
"No, sorry, I'm just—I don't know." He withdrew and retrieved a rag from his workbench, rubbing his hands and eyeing her. "I've just been...thinking."
"Listen." He sighed, looking at his hands. "You should get your education. I...Kit, look at me, you don't want to live like this."
"It doesn't look so bad from where I'm sitting."
"I do know you're talking about my ass, so thank you." He walked over and batted her nose, leaning against the car. "But it is serious. You should invest in your future, you know? And I mean, I'm not climbing on your back or anything, but judging by your clothes and the view of your apartment, the debt isn't going to be too hard on you."
She nodded. He grabbed a wrench and went back to tinkering. Fitz got bored of her and trotted over to make sure no food had appeared in his bowl.
"Are you happy?"
"What?" He popped back up. There was grease on his nose.
"Are you happy, though?"
"I...I'm not unhappy, let's leave it at that. I mean...I've got the garage, I've got Fitz. Every now and then I've got you, you're all right. No. But...I love the machines." He fondly patted the car on the roof. "It's just not for everyone."
She traced her wet footprint on the cement.
"For me, that's what you mean?"
"Kitten..." he groaned, "I know you think it's fun and everything, but the reality of it is...poverty, really. I can't buy shit. Let me ask you: do you think you would be happy like this? Not for a year, for ten years. For the rest of your life?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I like building projects in here, I could do that all day."
"Then go to art school!" He threw up his hands, then his shoulders slumped and he sighed. He set his wrench aside and knelt down in front of her. He grabbed her face in his dirty hands and locked her in his gaze. "Please, just do something with your future."
Kit had been a weird little kid with a lot of hopes and dreams. This was something that could get you made fun of. She was an easy target. She liked to draw cartoons full of flying people and dragons and after a couple of hard years she learned that she had to hide that in order to survive.
She supposed that she had been forcing this down for so long that she had forgotten what she really wanted. Becoming normal and avoiding bullying had come at the expense of a large part of her personality. She knew this, and while she had once been proud of her overcoming her 'weird' self, she now regretted the loss of her dreams.
And she still didn't know what to do.
She nodded. "Okay."
"Good." Mickey pinched her nose and cleaned his hands again. She wiped off her face. He put his hands on his hips and regarded the convertible. "Well. That's probably enough for today. Want to see if there's a game on?"
They cuddled on the couch, but she wasn't paying attention to the screen. She thought about whether she really would be happy living like Mickey, and whether Mickey really was happy living like he did.
He was warm and gentle, but when he tried to really snuggle up to her there were cold bits and sharp pieces that she preferred not be on her skin. Contrary to what Jersey probably believed, this wasn't the reason they hadn't slept together yet. They'd had time. She was alone at his house several times a week now. It didn't even seem like a big deal.
There was just this very small part of her that worried over how invested she had become in Mickey, and how strong her feelings for him were. She trusted Mickey, much more than she knew she should. She didn't trust the people he had been involved with in his past. She was confident that he would never hurt her; but he was in a risky business, having been a proper turncoat on a number of occasions. That was scary.
She understood, of course, why he did it. She didn't approve, but she understood, and it was his life and his choices, and they didn't talk about it. He needed the money. His arm was rusting through, and he'd mentioned that he was still working on finding the right pieces. That meant he was trying to get enough money to buy them.
It seemed cruel. It wasn't his fault that he was missing half of his body, and money most people would have spent on things like furniture and food he had to spend on keeping himself alive.
"Mickey?"
"What's up?" His face was in her hair. She twisted around.
"Did you ever file for, like...assistance?"
It had seemed like an innocent enough question to her. They were close, and Mickey was understanding, and he took things like that in stride. But the look that flashed in his eyes was the same one she'd seen when she'd brought him her leftovers, and it wasn't a look that encouraged the conversation.
He covered it up, but not as carefully as before. His voice was rather cold when he spoke, in spite of the attempted smile.
"No, I'm not...I'm not disabled."
She frowned. He had managed to move away from her, in spite of the fact that they were curled together on the same small couch.
"I mean, I'm perfectly capable of doing things."
"I'm...not saying you aren't." She might have stopped normally, but she mustered up the confidence to continue. "But you're, like...literally missing half of your body." She picked up his hand with its frayed wires. "And you talk about how expensive it is, so...why not get some help, that's what it's for...."
He didn't meet her eyes, and he removed his hand from hers. "I'm fine."  He sounded sharp. He swallowed and softened his voice. "I'm serious, you don't need to worry about me. I'm—I'm not—I'm fine."
They had stopped cuddling, but they were still lying against each other. It was awkward. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes.
"Um...I...have homework," Kit finally said, getting up. He didn't argue.
"Do you need a ride?" His tone was polite and distant. She shook her head.
"No. It's nice out. I need some exercise. Um..." She glanced back. This was weird. Was he mad at her? Was she mad at him? Were they fighting!? "Bye."
"See you, Kit."
She realized when she got to the train that she'd left her jacket over the back of his chair.
Whatever. I'm not going back now.
Mickey was so stubborn sometimes.
Now, who does that sound like?