Superheroes Suck

Chapter 33: T-Man

"I feel like I don't want to ask what happened looking at you," was Murphy's greeting as I slid into the passenger side of his car, followed by, "but I have a feeling I should ask. So I am. What happened Wallflower."

"I got paid?" Murphy was going to be pissed, especially when he found out I had to meet his parents before their fundraiser.

He had already expressed that he didn't want me to meet them. I had met his father in passing and his mother was a big part of our school's charity fundraisers every year. She was the perfect image of the rich socialite mother, but she was almost completely absent in Murphy's life. His father was estranged for obvious reasons and everything we have already covered.

"We both know there is more to that story but I won't push because we both know I'll find out eventually. It's better that you tell me yourself." The engine of his car purred to life as I buckled myself in. "Sidenote, Gelato?" He held up a cup in each hand, one blue and one green. It was obvious which one he wanted so I grabbed the blue one from his outstretched hand.

A car behind us honked, obviously annoyed at how slow we were to move.

"Thank you," I took a bite of the desert, impressed but not entirely convinced it could come close to comparing to ice cream. "Come on, let's get out of here before something happens."

Murphy drove silently for less than a minute before he pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park. He turned to me, his hands still gripping tightly on the wheel as he spoke.

"Tell me why the hell you're being so weird Nova. I seriously thought you'd crack by now. Something obviously happened in there and you know it's going to upset me so just spit it out. If you don't, I'm calling Mary and I promise you I will spin some sort of crazy and convoluted web of lies and you're going to have to spend weeks of damage control trying to convince her you're not secretly some alien princess on a mission to stop some supernatural terror on earth with your powers of sarcasm and..." He groaned as his head drooped and fell to the steering wheel, "Sorry, I'm just on edge because of my father. We had a little fight about the stupid fundraiser my parents have coming up."

"Speaking of the fundraiser..."

Murphy was quick to catch on, "Please tell me you aren't going."

"Oh it's way worse than that, but I think we have bigger problems to worry about." I pointed to what seemed like only a blip in the distance.

"What do you mean..." His gaze fell on the growing dot. He turned back to me, "This doesn't mean you're getting out of telling me. It just means this conversation has been put on hold and you're going to have to tell me later. Don't think you dodge a bullet here because my gelato is going to melt so I'm going to be in a pissy mood."

He flung the car door open and raced into the nearest alleyway, not sparing a glance back in my direction.

Seeing no other option, I grabbed my camera and the keys and ran toward the very thing I should be running away from. I couldn't help but call back in his direction, "Like you're not always pissed off!"

I had no doubts every newspaper in the area would have photographers galore but I had to at least try to get a few shots in. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky again and almost die. That seems like my best bet to get ahead in the world of news.

Spitfire zoomed overhead in the direction of the growing blimp in the sky, causing a gust of wind to fly down the street. It messed up my hair, something I didn't appreciate, although I realized it wasn't entirely on purpose. I jogged forward to get closer to the action though I stopped a little ways away when I noticed the police had begun to barricade off the surrounding area and pushing the civilians back a safe distance from the action.