Superheroes, Super Problems

*21* The Better Bet

I gazed up into a pair of chocolate brown eyes and I was so overwhelmed with relief that the noise from the TV in the background was completely tuned out. I wondered if I had fallen and actually died, but this dark angel was definitely alive. I could feel it in the warmth of his touch and see it by the injuries on his body. He corrected me to be on my feet once more and I studied the cuts, scrapes, and bruises on his face that still somehow allowed his handsome face to be recognizable. I noticed that a cut beneath his eye was stitched up. He had been to a hospital. Not to mention, he was no longer in his costume.

I quickly lifted the maroon sweater he wore out of pure concern about the injury that caused him to collapse and saw that the majority of his torso was dressed and wrapped in bandages. Even though I was seeing the clear proof that his injury was taken care of, I was still remembering seeing him grab his stomach before spitting up blood and passing out. It made me stumble backwards, causing him to grab my arms once more and shutting the door before guiding me to the bed. He let me sit and eventually lay down on the propped up bed, but I still heard him hiss in pain as he sat to my side.

"Why are you looking at me like you've seen a ghost?" he asked after another five seconds of me looking at him and wondering what exactly I'd say. "Because I was pretty sure—"

Even though I knew he was still injured, I reached over and hugged him as tightly as I could. At first, he was rigid at the affection, but not even a second later, he was clutching me back with the same strength I gave him. It was just like the hug he gave me right before he broke up with me, as if he was proving there was someplace in this horrible world that I could feel protected and loved, and then contradicting it by saying he wasn't good enough for me—without me getting to argue that.

He pulled away and his hand immediately went to cup my head with his thumb threatening to stroke my temple. Boon had done that once before making me question it was Sutter and then continued to lie about it being him. I don't know why I believed him because there was only ever one person who did this and made me feel absolutely numb.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you I had powers," he apologized. Even though he had presumably cheated on me, hated me for the past year, and kept Declan away from me in school, this is what he apologized for as if it was the blanket to vindicate all the other transgressions.

I was just glad he was alive. "So then tell me now," I told him.

"The day of the Explosion, I was outside on the trampoline," he began and I could visualize him on his trampoline at his house because he napped on that thing, did homework on it, and just about preferred it over his bed. "And I saw the actual explosion and tried to see what was happening, but then by the time I jumped up high enough to see it over the other buildings, the shockwave hit me and I ended up hitting the house," he said. This much of the story, I already knew. The only injury he had was a bruised rib. "You already know that I was at your side in this hospital until you woke up, but the days when I had to help my parents or let Vixen have her time with you, I was noticing something different about myself and I don't know, one of those days I was just mad at the situation we were all put in and discovered my powers..."

He knew I didn't want the exact details of how he could create powerful energy from his body that could be sent through punches of channeled into amazing Superman-like-bounds into the air. So when I waited for the explanation of everything else until now, he sighed.

"By the time you woke up, I already knew what I was capable of and it was before all this superhero business..." he trailed off and his eyes hit the sheets. I was recalling the memory of waking up and seeing him and Vixen asleep in the corner of the room. "But by then I also knew that I didn't want you around me with these powers—even if I could control them. Then, Siren emerged and I saw how everyone wanted to know who she was and then one by one these metahumans were presenting themselves and getting caught and either jailed or used or cut open. I didn't want any of those options. I just wanted to live a normal life with you."