Shadow-Man

17

I was surprised to find out that Steven and Warren were still willing to help me stop Pip. I figured they would decided that they were too close to Pip, and cared about him too much to do any form of harm to him, which would have been understandable. However, they agreed that what Pip was doing was horrible, and that he needed to be stopped, and I was grateful to receive their help.

Morton had texted me, telling me when the nest meeting was at the paper factory, and we sent me in, just like the first time I spied on a meeting. It went very much the same way too. Morton and some guy argued, they all talked about how Shadow-Man was ruining their jobs, and their lives, and how they still weren't pulling in enough money to reach their quota. I noticed that the man from the first meeting who argued with Morton constantly and claimed that he liked what he did, was starting to look nervous. Things were going well for me, since I was getting information, when the worst thing ever happened. I sneezed.

"What the fuck?" Someone asked loudly, looking around for he source of the sneeze.

"He's up there! It's the shadow mother fucker in the costume!" Another guy yelled, pointing up at me. Suddenly, just about everyone had pulled out a gun and aimed it at me. They all began firing, and I ran as fast as I could, jumping from wooden beam to wooden beam.

"The name's Shadow-Man you fuck wad!" I yelled down at the man who had called me out. I managed to get to the sky light window, and climbed through it, avoiding getting shot. Everyone ran out of the factory, hoping to catch me as I ran away, but I was still on the roof, watching everything happen down below. I sighed, and sat on the roof, planning to wait everyone out.

When I finally was able to leave, I went to Gill's house, and told him all about what happened. I found myself needing Gill's comfort more and more often. He was always enthusiastic about me being a superhero, and always knew how to show me the bright side of every situation. I was very, very disappointed in myself when I told Gill the story, specially when I told him about how I sneezed. But Gill laughed. He laughed his ass off when I was done with the story, and I found myself starting to laugh too. We were just both sitting on his bed, laughing hysterically at my mistake.

"Why am I laughing?" I laughed. "i just messed up so badly."

"Because it was funny. Yeah, you messed up, but what superhero hasn't? Some superheroes killed the wrong person, or blew up whole buildings and stuff like that. All you did was sneeze." Gill responded.

"Thanks Gill." I sighed, and I fell over so that my head was in Gill's lap. Gill's fingers went straight to my hair and began to play with it.

"When someone's as cool as you are, the least I can do is cheer them up." Gill responded, beging to braid my hair a bit.

"I'm not cool. Shadow-Man is cool. He's badass, and he isn't afraid of anyone or anything. He'll be who he wants no matter what, and no one would dare question him, because they would know that he would lay their asses out if they did."

"Ty, you're Shadow-Man. You aren't two different people. Even if you weren't Shadow-Man though, I would still think that you're one of the best people I know, and I'm proud to call you my boyfriend, regardless of you being Shadow-Man." Gill told me, gently running his fingers through the short braid that he had made, and gently rubbing my scalp.

"You know what Gill? You're right. I am Shadow-Man." I smiled, sitting up suddenly, causing Gill to look at me in surprise. "And Shadow-Man isn't afraid of anything. So I'm going to do what I've been wanting to do since eighth grade."

"And what's that?" Gill asked.

"I'm going to cut my hair, and I'm going to start wearing binders to school, and I'm going to feel great about myself doing it."