The Supervillain and Me (Morriston Superheroes #1)

Chapter Three

I stopped running halfway down the next block and leaned against a streetlamp, waiting patiently until the moans of the man turned to silence. Connor had finally gotten his butt here. According to protocol, he would still need to call the police station for someone to retrieve the man, but then he could fly me home.

"Comet"—I never called my brother by his real name in public when he was in costume—"do you need my . . ." I trailed off, staring at the guy standing over the unconscious attacker. "Who are you?"

The stranger's green eyes snapped to my own. He wore a black suit, his mask revealing only his eyes, lips, and a portion of his jawline. Unlike Connor, this guy didn't have a symbol plastered to his chest. My brother's suit sported a shiny gold swoosh that looked mysteriously like a Nike symbol (but he insisted it was a comet). This guy didn't have anything.

"I thought I told you to run," he said, crossing his arms. He was about as tall as my brother, easily clearing six foot, and possessed just as many, if not more, muscles bulging through the dark material of his costume.

"How did you—wait. That was your voice in my head?" I had to admit he had a nice voice—deep and smoky. I wondered if it was real or a disguise.

The super winked at me and tapped the side of his head with his index finger. I didn't know mind-to-mind communication was a legitimate superpower. Connor frequently gushed at other supers' powers and would have told me if someone had such a unique ability.

"Okay, well . . ." I didn't know what else to say. I wished Connor were here to fly me home. I couldn't ask this guy to escort me. I had no clue who he was. "I'll just be going now."

"Don't I get a thank-you?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, a guy puts on a tight rubber suit that crushes his manhood to teleport down here and save a beautiful girl from getting mugged by a creep and he doesn't even get a thank-you? It makes me not want to continue this line of work, to be completely honest."

"Oh, uh . . ." I looked up at the masked stranger. He winked again when he caught my eye, and my stomach somersaulted. "Thanks, I guess."

Turning my back on him, I set off in the direction of my house. If I was lucky, maybe I wouldn't encounter anyone else. I only managed to take a few steps before the stranger began following me, black boots crunching on loose pieces of gravel.

"All right, so either you're extremely prone to confrontational situations and frequently need a super to come save you, thus, you're so used to saying thank you that it's become too repetitive, so you decided to stop being polite, or this has never happened to you before, you're rendered completely stupefied by my appearance, and you're so impressed by my lifesaving abilities that you simply forgot to say thank you. Which one is it?"

"Who are you?" This guy must have been new in town. Not even Connor was this annoying to civilians after he saved them.

The man—or boy, rather (I'd determined by his voice he was somewhere around my age) —scoffed. "I can't tell you that. Rule numero uno and all."

"I wasn't asking for your real name. What's your superhero name?"

"Oh, right. I can't tell you that either."

"Is it because you haven't picked one yet?" This guy was definitely a newbie.

"Hey, maybe I'm still weighing my options. You know, determining what the public will best respond to."

I glanced up at him. Superdork's green eyes were still trained on me. Was I imagining it, or did he look a little hurt at my jabs to his legitimacy as a hero? It wasn't my fault I was unimpressed by the supers. Living with Connor removed any coolness factor associated with fighting crime in spandex—not that there was any to begin with.