Masked

You can’t grow out of your powers. Or ignore them into non-existence.

• M/M

• Superhero

• Grumpy/Sunshine

• 4,037-word count

• CW: Swearing, violence, police

A lot of smart people have mused about the responsibilities of those with powers and abilities. But have they dealt with the growing pains of studying for a math test while trying to figure out why they can suddenly fly? Or punch through walls. Or shoot plasma blasts from their fingertips. Shouldn’t we just be allowed to be kids for a little while longer? Without the extra pressure of needing to ‘use our powers for good’?

And yet, I’m sitting in history class listening to my professor drone on about ethics in warfare when last night some punk put my head through a brick wall. I still had brick dust in my hair when I pulled myself out of bed ten minutes before I was supposed to be in class. Luckily most of my classmates were far more concerned about not failing out of their shitty community college history class than paying attention to the kid who hardly showed up to class and always looked like death warmed over. Excepting Luisa of course. She could mother hen even the most antisocial classmate into showing up on time. I was her single abject failure and it irked her to no end.

A loud bang of a spiral notebook crashing to the linoleum floor had me nearly jumping out of my skin. The guy that sat between Luisa and I leaned over to pick up the offending notebook, flashing a shy smile as our eyes met. I had to admit it was pretty smooth, like the slow-motion in those teen romcoms where the girl saw the hot guy on the first day of school.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quietly.

“You didn’t,” I shot back, sinking back down into my seat as the hairs on the back of my neck relaxed.

“Hrm, you looked startled to me.”

“Well, I wasn’t,” the guy snorted, his cheeks showing off a perfect dimple as he looked back towards the front of the class. Soft brown hair curled just above his ears and at the nape of his neck. It wasn’t until I caught Luisa’s gaze that I realized I’d been staring. She rolled her eyes and I looked down at the scribbles I’d made in my notebook. There was no way I was going to pass this class. Even with Luisa’s tutoring that I kept avoiding. I didn’t even know what war we were supposed to be outraged at. World History 102 covered a pretty big swath of, well, history.

“You can borrow my notes if you need to,” the guy said without even looking up.

It was so out of the blue that I replied with, “What?” He was going to think I was an idiot. No wonder he was offering his notes.

He turned to me again, “You can borrow my notes. For the test next week.”

I let out an involuntary, guilty laugh, “Oh, thanks.”

“No problem,” there was that smile again. Why had I never noticed him before? Oh right, I was usually dead on my feet or half asleep when I managed to show up. Afternoon classes were supposed to be easier to get to, but that was proving false.

There was a brief moment before the professor lobbed a piece of chalk at us that I questioned if we weren’t in some bad 1980s rom-com after all. I reached out to grab it before I could stop myself, reflexive impulses, and all that. The class was suddenly too quiet, eyes focused on me leaning over the guy’s desk and casually catching a projectile as the professor grumbled his disappointment in my superhuman show of skill.

“Mr. Sikora, Mr. Chey, no talking,” the professor stated before turning back to his lectern.

I cleared my throat, dropped the crumbled chalk on the guy’s desk, and tried to ignore all my classmate’s glances and whispers for the rest of the class. Thankfully it passed without further incident and I picked up my backpack and headed out of the class before anyone could stop and question me. If I hurried I might be able to grab a sandwich before catching my train home. I couldn’t remember what or when I’d eaten last and my stomach had long given up on trying to remind me I was in fact still required to eat.

Luisa knew my M.O. and caught up rather quickly, ready to start in some pep talk or a badly quoted advice article.

“I’m gonna stop you before you start. I’m too hungry.”

She huffed, “You’re always hungry. You know if you woke up when I set your alarms, then you could maybe eat before coming to class.”

“I was wondering where those came from. How did you unlock my phone?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her shoulders.

“Your passcode is your birthday. And I’ve known you since we were in diapers. Now, we still need to go over last week’s notes for history and English.”

“Sorry, didn’t you hear, that guy in class was going to give me his notes.”

Luisa crossed her arms, “Oh, I see, you’ll go study with the hot guy from class, but not your best friend. The one that knows all your secrets and puts up with you showing up on my window sill at four in the morning asking for ice cream and bleeding all over my comforter. Tia Isa is still waiting for an apology for that you know.”

“I know, I know,” I sighed, tipping my head back and staring at the clouds that were blocking any view of the few stars you could see in the city.

“I don’t know why you wanted your own apartment. Tia Isa said you could have the spare bedroom.”

Shrugging, I tried to ignore the bad feeling I was getting, “Can’t have the baddies following me home. Besides, Tia Isa would have to get used to scrubbing blood out of more than just your comforter.”

“She just worries about you. All on your own.”

“And you don’t?”

She shoved me in annoyance, “Of course I do güey. ¿A mi plín? Gran idiota.”

“Hey! I’m not an idiot.”

Snorting she shook her head, “No you just stare at pretty boys in class like you’re dying of thirst.”

“That is not–”

“Oh, it very much is!”

That bad feeling was persistent, a sharp pain at the back of my head as Luisa continued on about how much I resembled a love-sick puppy. It was almost completely dark now, the mugginess from the heat of the day clinging in the air as I strained my senses to find anything out of the ordinary over the cacophony of the city streets. As we got to the doorway of the sub shop, I could finally pick it out over the honking and chatter and buzz of the street lamps. Nails on a chalkboard couldn’t compare to the screeching engine that was coughing smoke as it swept by overhead. Couldn’t mad scientists care about the environment for once? Or did they not sell mufflers at Villains-R-Us?

Luisa grabbed my wrist, giving me a look that said I didn’t have to rush off. That someone else could take care of it. This once. But who was going to put themselves in danger? I wasn’t like healthcare was free.

“Duty calls,” I said, slipping from her grasp. “I’ll try to drop by after to study.”

“Don’t you dare, Abuelita is coming for dinner and you coming in the fire escape all beat up would give her a heart attack!”

“Save me some of Tia Isa’s tamales!” I shot her a smile and dipped down the next alleyway. At least there was always a dirty alleyway to strip down to your spandex in when you lived in the city. I slipped through a gap in a chain-link fence and shoved my sweatshirt into my backpack and hoped it wouldn’t be stolen off the roof as I shook the potato chip crumbs from my mask. It only took a few leaps between the alley walls to reach the roof and locate the smoke trail in the sky. Dropping my bag and shedding my jeans in one practiced motion I was up in the air in the next breath.

Flying was just as natural as walking. Sure it took some practice to get your balance, but once you had that, it was easy. It did have its disadvantages though, just like chasing after a villain had its risks. Pigeons, drones, and helicopters were all annoying flight path interference. Updrafts were worse. Once you’d been flung into a wall half a dozen times from a sudden gust of wind you learned to either pay more attention or put stabilizing fins on your suit. Sure they looked stupid, but it was better than the bruises and the lectures from Tia Isa. But it was banter that was certain to get you hurt if you were too slow, or the villain was in an especially bad mood.

As I caught up to the hunk of metal barely staying airborne I spotted the thick goggles and lab coat quickly tossed over an orange jumpsuit, “Hey, Doc Sheridan! I’m gonna need you to pull over for a vehicle inspection. I think yours might be on fire.”

“I wasn’t aware that Commissioner Devins deputized you,” the doctor called over the sound of her homemade hover-bike and the wind.

I couldn’t help but laugh at that idea. She’d never do that in a million years, “Nah. Just doing them a favor tonight by keeping the skies clear.”

The doctor’s lips curled up into a smirk as she jerked her hover-bike into my flight path. Luckily that was a pretty standard move from villain types and I was able to avoid a mid-air collision. Laying back, hands behind my head I clicked my tongue, “Attempting to injure your local vigilante isn’t very nice Doc.”

“I was attempting to maim, but I’ll take the warning, flyboy,” she said, hand going to her hip.

Normally she didn’t use firearms, but maybe the most recent villain conference had included them in their goodie bags. I waited until I could see it before quickly peeling away from her range. A quick check over my shoulder confirmed a plasma laser or some other deadly home-brewed weapon trailing me as I wove in and out skyscrapers. The beam caught decorative stonework and sliced through steel-framed windows sending debris raining down to the street below.

Ducking behind a church spire, I slipped back behind her, wrapping my arms around her when I caught up, “I thought we had a rule, no guns.”

“It’s not technically a gun. There’s no projectile,” she said, giving up very little resistance. 

“Things that go pew-pew fall under the gun ban. Now, how about you come back to jail and we can call it a day?”

“Sorry, not in the mood. I’m a free spirit you know,” she jerked the hover-bike sharply to right, careening us into the window wall of an office building as I slipped between the bike and the building. My ribcage caught most of the impact before the glass shattered behind me, flinging me into some executive office. A glass partition kept me from flying back farther into the building and knocked the rest of the breath from my lungs. I made a couple of false starts to get to my feet, gasping for air and trying to narrow in on next steps.

There were sirens in the distance now, but they weren’t coming to help me. A slow beeping finally clued me into the fact that the doctor had tossed an explosive in after me. The glowing red of the numbers counting down next to the window I’d come through stood out in the dust and debris. I forced myself to start running, scooping up the device, and leaping out into the open air as I launched it as hard as I could straight up. 

For a moment, before the shockwave hit me, I could pretend I was just floating. All alone without anything to hold me back, or catch me when I fell. Nothing compared to that feeling of freedom.

Then the air itself was shoving me downwards towards the pavement as the device detonated. The appeal of explosions was lost when you’d been caught too close to them. They weren’t like fireworks, especially when the maker filled the device full of as much shrapnel as they could. Flakes of metal that would normally be pretty harmless were like bullets when propelled by an explosive. I had more scars from shrapnel than from bullets or knife wounds.

But I couldn’t fall forever. Slowing my velocity just before I hit the ground, I pushed off the roof of a car and was back to barrelling after Doctor Sheridan. If she’d kept away from the conspiracy theories, maybe I would be taking one of her physics or engineering classes. Instead, the only things I’d learned from her were how much I hated hover-bikes.

I grabbed the front handles of her vehicle, fighting against its forward momentum to stop it dead in the air, “You know, I really just wanted to grab dinner and study tonight.”

“Sorry cupcake, I’m not really into dating vigilantes,” Doc Sheridan replied.

“Not with you,” it was almost offensive, besides she was twice my age. “You’re so not my type.” 

“Glad we can agree on one thing,” she snapped back, “Now how about I solve your problem?”

The plasma gun was staring me in the face, but I wasn’t about to deal with the hospital bill that would create. Grabbing the barrel of the gun as it powered up, I crumpled it in my hand like it was made of cardboard and yanked it away from her. She glared at me, the wheels in her head-turning, trying to decide what she could retaliate with. 

“Haven’t you had enough yet?” I asked.

She laughed, “Enough? You’re still breathing.”

“What did I ever do to you?”

“You get in the way. Don’t you have a life to live? Loved ones?”

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you about them Doc.”

My chest was screaming. And it would probably be a good idea to have a doctor make sure I didn’t have a punctured lung.

“You don’t have to do this hero thing. You’re just a kid, aren’t you? Let the police handle me.”

“Ah, if only Doc. If only,” the swarm of police vehicles and swat vans below was growing. I reached over the controls and turned off the hover-bike keeping it from plummeting to the street below with raw adrenaline.

Doctor Sheridan raised her hands over her head as the police pointed their guns at both of us, “Think about it, why are you doing the job of these guys? They don’t even like you.”

I glanced at the Commissioner, with her body armor and handgun, “Cause I can.”

Raising my hands, I stepped back from the hover-bike and the doctor as the police swarmed around her. Two of the officers grabbed my hands and pulled them roughly behind my back, cuffing them and leading me over to an armored van.

“Easy! I’m the good guy you assholes!”

“Quiet!” I don’t know which one it was, but I made a mental note to avoid them in the future.

The Commissioner shook her head and intercepted the two officers, leading me out of the police tape and towards an alleyway. She gave me that disappointed look that your mom might give you after you flunked out of chemistry.

“If you want an autograph, you’re gonna have to hit up my Patreon, Comish. Can’t show any favoritism.”

“What do your parents think about you leaping into the middle of a crisis?” she asked.

I leaned back against the brick of the building behind me, trying to find a comfortable position to put my hands in while they were still cuffed, “I dunno. Probably that I’m a delinquent that should be paying more attention in school.”

She mumbled something exasperated under her breath as her radio buzzed and chattered, “I don’t have time to be dealing with kids almost getting themselves killed trying to play hero.”

“I’m pretty sure I did your job for you.”

Leveling a glare at me, she pulled the key to the handcuffs from her belt and motioned for me to turn around, “Keep this up and you’re going to end up in a world of trouble kiddo.”

“Just trying to do my part. Can I get a copy of that key? You know if this is going to keep being a regular thing?”

“No,” she said, folding the cuffs in one hand, “Now get the hell out of my sight and go to a damn doctor. I don’t care how super you are, looks like that hurt.”

I rubbed my wrists and smirked, which would have been more effective if my mask didn’t cover my entire head, “See ya next time, Comish. Hit me up and I’ll give you a discount on a signed print for your office.”

Arms crossed, she couldn’t hide the tiniest hint of a smile as I took off and called after me, “And call your parents!”

“Yup!” that wasn’t going to happen. What was the point of being barely an adult and scraping by to pay rent if you still had to call your parents? “Try to keep the Doc in jail this time. It’s really a pain to have to round her up.”

It took a few minutes to remember which roof I’d abandoned my backpack on, and when I arrived, the guy from my history class was standing there waiting. He had a camera slung over his shoulder and I debated just ditching the bag and going home the easy way. But I couldn’t really afford to lose another backpack. And that particular faded black hoodie was my favorite. It would take years to wear out a new one so it was perfectly broken in.

“Hey,” he said, that smile far less shy now. Maybe it was because he thought he had a story. Or was just one of those people obsessed with ‘heroes’ and wanted a picture for clout on social media.

“I don’t do pictures,” I told him, glancing around to make sure there wasn’t anyone else hiding. I so wasn’t in the mood for dealing with this.

“I know. Don’t worry.”

‘Don’t worry’, those were famous last words.

“Do you still want to borrow my notes? You kinda ran off after class. Though I guess you had a good reason.”

Letting the implications fester for a moment I chewed on my bottom lip, “I don’t know—”

“I know that heroes don’t like people knowing who they are,” he interrupted. “And I wasn’t stalking you or anything, I just accidentally saw you pull on your mask, and well…I figured you might come back for your bag.”

He pulled out his notebook and held it out, like a peace offering, “I get it if you don’t want anything to do with me.”

“Let’s get one thing straight first, I’m not a hero.”

That ruffled him, “Why do you say that?”

“Cause I’m not. I’m just a guy with powers.”

“Who helps people.”

I shrugged and picked up my bag trying to figure out how to get rid of him. The simple way would be to just fly away, but he hadn’t really done anything wrong. He was just trying to be helpful. And I was seriously failing that history class. Against my better judgment, I took the notebook and flipped to the front page to find a phone number scribbled at the top.

“That’s my number.”

“Right.”

“If you have, um, questions,” now he finally seemed nervous. He was avoiding eye contact.

“Are you hitting on me?”

His cheeks turned red and I wished that sometimes my tone wasn’t so snarky. The mask really brought that out in me.

“You can just forget it,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize you and Luisa were–”

Pulling off my mask, I sucked in a deep breath, glad to have the wind on my face again, “Luisa’s just a friend. We’ve just known each other forever. I was gonna grab dinner before…you know.”

He blinked at me.

“Do you eat dinner?” Maybe it wasn’t just the mask that made me snarky.

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I can ask you questions over a sub then,” I said, taking my sweatshirt and pants out of my backpack and pulling them back on. Oh boy did it hurt just raising my arms to pull on my sweatshirt. The next day was gonna really suck. Burying my mask back at the bottom of my bag, I slung it over my shoulder, then went to the edge of the roof.

“The fire escape is over on the other side…”

“You climbed up the fire escape?”

“Well, it’s a private building. I couldn’t just walk into the lobby and say ‘Hi, I need to go to your roof, my classmate left his bag there.’ They’d think I was crazy.”

“Fair. I can take you down the easy way.”

He was keeping his distance from the roof ledge, “Oh?”

“Yeah, come here,” I held out my hand, a little surprised when he took it. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“I wasn’t until I realized what being on the roof of a twenty-story building was like.”

I laughed, “It’s pretty wild I guess. You get used to it.”

“Do you?”

“Sure. Now hold on,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and stepping off the roof. He squeezed his eyes shut, arms clinging to my neck, after letting out an involuntary yelp.

“You’re fine. I’ve never dropped anyone.”

“So you do this often?”

“No. But like, I’ve never dropped a bad guy. Except on purpose. You’d be surprised what a swim in the river does to a villain’s disposition.”

He laughed nervously and didn’t open his eyes until our feet touched dirty pavement. His fingers were curled into my sweatshirt like we hadn’t just had our first conversation that day. And it was surprisingly comforting. That dimple peeked out when he smiled and stepped away, trying to hide the fact that he was shaking a little.

“I’d never drop you,” it sounded cheesy as soon as I said it.

“Thanks,” his hand squeezing mine.

My heart was beating faster, and I knew it wasn’t the adrenaline crash from chasing after Doc Sheridan or dealing with the Commissioner. I cleared my throat, “So dinner?”

“Yeah. Though I think you should ask my name before we go on a date.”

“I mean I already flew you off a building.”

“It was more like floating down. I think flying is a second date thing.”

“How would you know, your eyes were closed.”

He shot me a look and I couldn’t help but start laughing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation with someone who wasn’t trying to kill me or chastise me for my failing grades or late rent. It was such a stupid thing to argue about, but it was also great.

“Okay, I’ll take you flying on the second date.”

“Who says you’ll get a second date, flyboy?” he asked, his tone warm and teasing.

“I’ve got a hunch.”

“A hunch?”

“Yep. I’m Jase by the way.”

“I know,” there was an implication that he’d seen my photo plastered across the tabloids, but he didn’t say it.

Now I felt stupid, “And your name is?”

“Kamm. With a K. And no it isn’t short for Cameron.”

“Jase isn’t short for Jason either.”

Kamm smiled, “Well now that the formalities are out of the way, I’m starving.”

Sometimes growing pains fade even without you noticing. One day you’re barely getting up in time for classes. But the next you’re looking forward to dinner at the hole-in-the-wall sub shop near your school. You can’t grow out of your powers, but you can grow out of your awkward phase. Especially with help. A kind smile. Someone willing to share their notes. Another person wearing a mask, waiting to take it off just for you.