I don’t know why superheroes bother with an alter ego. At least not the ones that have money or skills or both. Why spend your time bothering to be mundane and ordinary? Okay, so I have wanted to be normal and boring and ordinary, but we’re talking about someone with the lamest power ever. Or close to it, at least. I would rather be normal than have gone through as many of the disasters that I have trying to live with what I can do.

So why would you do that to yourself if you didn’t have to? Be the hero or be the everyday guy, not both. And yes, if I had a choice, I think that I’d be the ordinary guy.

“It’s Brady,” April said, looking at her phone in disgust. “Again. He’s been calling me all day.”

“As much as I hate this, maybe you should take his calls,” Clayton began, and both April and Larabee looked at him. He sighed as he leaned his head back against the booth. “As much as I want to see you hurt him for all he did to you, April, I don’t want to tip them off if they haven’t been already. It’s possible that they saw that guard chase me and they know he knows about me—”

“I still say that at least one of you could have taken a picture of him so that I could run down his name and information. We need to know about that one, too. He definitely has it out for you, Clayton, and that’s not good. We need to know where he’ll be so that you can avoid him. You’re still not up to defending against him—”

“Clayton needs a weapon, Larabee. A small, heavy duty taser or something. I don’t know. Something that he can use against them and not get injured with himself—but something that’s not going to kill anyone, either.”

“Ooh, now I get to be a nonviolent lame superhero! This is perfect!” Clay muttered sarcastically, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t that he wanted to go around killing people, but he really didn’t see how he could really ever be useful in this state. He would never be a ninja or anything like that, wouldn’t be able to take them down with awesome moves in hand-to-hand combat. He was just… him.

“Stop it,” April warned. “We don’t have a lot of time to argue over this, okay? I have a certification test tomorrow, and I need to make my lesson plan for the next week. I don’t want to say that those things are more important that keeping you alive or finding out what this conspiracy is, but we have other things to worry about, too.”

“Speaking of that, about the wedding—”

“Larabee, no wedding talk, not right now,” they said at the same time. This was a familiar argument, too. He made a face, getting ready to pout.

April put a hand on his arm. “Look, the wedding really isn’t the highest priority right now. Clayton is at risk—we all are—with this conspiracy, and that’s what we have to focus on. And I don’t know how I can think about anything related to a wedding when I’ve got all this stuff to do to get my teaching license. Like as not, we need that, too. Clayton is probably going to have to leave his job—”

“What? No!” Larabee objected. “I like working with Clayton.”

“Uh, Larabee, I haven’t delivered the mail in years, and I never make it down to your lab these days. I analyze reports all day long. I read chatter. I assess the words they’re using for possible hidden codes or valuable information and day after day, there is nothing. I’m starting to think that was all made up for my benefit so that they can watch me. I don’t want to be there.”

“That sucks.”

“Larabee, you’re still the tech and science guy.”

Larabee smiled a little. “Okay. Hey, I think I can make you something pretty cool for a weapon, you know. Not that I’m thinking you need a weapon, but since the stealth field didn’t work, we need something else, and so that means something more… offensive than defensive. Let me think about this for a while. I can come up with something, I’m sure…”

“What about that presentation you owe them about the flux thing you were rattling off the other day?” Clay asked, not remembering what all that had been, just that Larabee said it could mean the difference between him having a job and not having one, so it had to be important.

“Oh, crap. I need to finish that.”

“And April needs to work on her stuff.”

“We’re not abandoning you,” she said, reaching over to touch his face. She was worried, and he sighed, hating being so helpless. “We’re all in this together.”

“I know,” he agreed, kissing her cheek. “But you have stuff to do, and you’ve got Brady to deal with, so we’ll just let this go for now. You and Larabee can go take care of what you need to do while I… I’m going to go sleep, actually. I’m exhausted.”

“Superheroes don’t sleep,” Larabee teased as he got to his feet, pulling on his coat.

“I’m not a superhero. Just a lame wannabe,” Clayton said as he slid out of the booth, letting April out. She stopped to give him another kiss.

“Be careful.”

“I’m only going home to sleep. What trouble could I possibly get into?”

“I don’t know. But this is you we’re talking about, after all.”

What superhero runs away from danger? The whole idea of a superhero—aside from a great line delivered in the middle of a robbery, the definition of a hero is someone who gets someone else killed—is someone who runs into danger.

I really needed to find some means of defending myself that I could actually master so that I’d have some kind of option other than running away. Or hiding. Especially since this guy knew what I was capable of and so hiding as a child or old man or anything was out of the question. I needed something, anything, fast…

Clayton leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. The guard was relentless, but then again, this went far beyond shoplifting. He was not going to stop. He knew that Clay could be an old man or a child, and he was looking for him to switch. Clay stuck with a teenage form all through the mall, knowing that went best with the population and kept him looking like a shoplifter or vandal that the guard was after—but Brady and whoever that was with him might already know that this was him, and everything would be ruined then.

Clay dug out his cellphone, pressing a button and making the call. “April? Are you anywhere near the mall?”

“Oh, yeah, the Praxis exams that I had to take merited retail therapy,” she muttered, and he could see her rolling her eyes.

He leaned out, looking behind him for the guard. He didn’t see anything, but that wasn’t much comfort. “Don’t ask me why Brady felt the need to meet with the other man in the mall. I just need to know if you’re close enough to get me out of this or if I should call Larabee.”

“Out of what?” She demanded, her whole tone shifting. “Clayton, is everything—What is it? Are you hurt? Did Brady spot you? Tell me where you are. I’m coming to you right now.”

“I’m not hurt, but I probably will be. That security guard spotted me—I had no idea his day job was at the mall, or I would have been more careful and kept an eye on him, too, or just given up the surveillance thing today because I didn’t even want to spy on Brady, but—the guy is like a dog on a scent and won’t quit. And he knows what I can do, so he’s not going to be fooled if I try and blend in with any of the kids or the old people or anything.” Clay took another look, cursing when he saw the guard. He started running again. “I left the mall, started down a few blocks, but he is still after me, and I think he just saw me again. Damn it.”

“Okay,” she said, and he heard her keys jingling on the other end of the line. “I’m coming to you. Let’s see—there’s that crappy restaurant by the mall that—”

“I don’t really think hiding is going to work.”

“Clayton, you’re not a marathon runner. You won’t outrun this guy, either.”

Looking behind him, that was all too true. The guard was gaining on him. “I know, but he knows to look for me at any age and—”

“Restaurant or the bank. The bank might have security that could protect you, or it could work in his favor. It’s kind of up to you,” she said, and he knew she was thinking out loud. “They tore down that building on the corner, so you can’t hide there… We need something that’s going to keep you out of trouble, you know.”

“I tried self-defense. I was very bad at it and ended up with a tentacle.”

“Clayton—”

“The park is on the other side of that block. I think I can make that, and I can try blending in with the kids,” he said, liking that plan a lot better. He could shift into a little kid now, before he got there, and then no one would know that he was anything but a little kid there to play. “Yeah, I know, he could still catch me and hurt me, but he’s going to get in a lot of trouble if he does because he’d be going after a little kid.”

“It’s risky.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Ball!”

Clayton passed the ball over to the other little boy, looking around for the guard. He didn’t think he’d really lost him, so where was he? Why was he hiding? Or was he staying away and waiting for Clay to think it was over? If he did that, then he must figure Clay would go back to being an adult and that he could get away with hurting him or something. Or worse.

Clay was waiting right here for April, though. He wasn’t risking changing back until she was here and he was able to get into a car that was moving away from here very fast. He didn’t know how long it had been since he shifted to this form, but he was relatively safe here, with the other parents watching their kids and bound to react to any strange man—even one in a guard uniform—harassing another child. As long as Clay didn’t have a random shift—and he’d been lucky so far without one—he would be fine.

He figured that thought had just jinxed him, and so he sighed, distracted enough to let the other kid hit him with the ball. “Ow! What was that for?”

The little boy smirked, and Clay almost went after him, but a voice stopped him, grabbing him by the hand. “No fighting.”

He looked up at April, and she was doing her best not to look at him. Admittedly, this was awkward. Almost everyone here must figure that she was his mother, and the implications of that were kind of unpleasant. Not that she was his mother, but she had to hate having everyone think that she was because it was too creepy. She was supposed to marry him, not be his mother.

“Uh, April—”

“Not now.”

“But I was going to say I think he might be waiting for me to leave and—”

“The car is right here. Speaking of cars, you really have to get your own again.”

“I can walk everywhere fine most of the time,” Clay said, shrugging. “And public transportation has its issues because of the random shifting—which technically makes driving a bad choice, too. I don’t know. I hate feeling so… helpless.”

She stopped and looked at him. “You’re not helpless. Sometimes running is the smart thing—and shift back to your normal age—I feel weird having a conversation like this. I’m not going to lecture you like a mother. That is just—”

“Creepy. Agreed,” Clay said. He looked for the guard again. Nothing. He wasn’t sure it had been long enough, but he didn’t really want to stay a kid, either. She could get him in the car if he did it a little too soon. Clay made sure he was as out of sight as possible and did the shift. “Better?”

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. “I was worried about you. We have to do something about this. And about Brady. He called me, actually, when I was talking to you. I can’t believe him.”

“I hate him, but we might need to be cautious there. We don’t know how much he knows, and maybe we shouldn’t tip them off that we know.”

She made a face, and so he distracted her by kissing her again. He was relieved, feeling much better now that she was here. He could relax, and they could meet up with Larabee and make some kind of plan.
“Oh, look, the freak has a girlfriend.”

They broke apart, looking at the guard. So he had been waiting. Not good. Clay looked at April, and she jingled her car keys. Right. She could unlock it remotely, and they could both be inside and on their way away from the scary man in no time.

“I love you.”

“And I should get hazard pay for this,” she muttered as she pushed the button and they both ran for the car.

April and I were rather careful not to spend too much time with Larabee after that. He was obsessed with the wedding, determined to take part in it as the dress designer—he had a special suit for me, too, even though I tried to remind him that I just needed to rent a black tux for a few hours. He refused to hear that.

Yes, that did mean watching my fiancee’s ex-boyfriend, of all things.

Clayton put his head down on his desk, not able to keep his eyes from blurring the words on the page anymore. He didn’t want to be at work anymore, but he wasn’t looking forward to what he was going to do afterward. He didn’t want to see Brady again, ever, and spying on him was worse. It wasn’t like he had any reason to be jealous—April had made it clear that she loved Clayton, not Brady, despite the whole genetic freak thing, and they were going to get married. He didn’t have to be intimidated by the fact that Brady was better looking, not a hopeless and hapless would be hero, and that he’d been with April first. No, Clay didn’t have to worry about that.

Except… he did.

He seemed to be having a very hard time dealing with the idea of April’s ex. It should be that hard, not really. She loved him, he loved her, and Brady was no part of this thing. They didn’t need him or want him involved.

April had her maid of honor and Clayton had his best man—and never mind that they were the same person who wanted to call himself the wedding’s mad scientist—they didn’t need anyone else. He wasn’t going to invite Brady to the wedding, that was for sure. That was just not happening.

Clay lifted his head, checking the corner of his computer screen. Time to quit and go home—only he wasn’t going home. He was going to spy on Brady. He reached into his pocket and dug out his bag of gummy bears. He was going to need them. He shut down his computer and grabbed the jacket April had given him, pulling it on has he went to the elevator.

He swiped his badge, stepped into the elevator, and pushed the button for the ground floor. He was really sick of his job. Maybe he could get better at surveillance and move on from being an almost useless analyst to something useful. Of course, the conspiracy issue had to be settled first.

“Heading out, Moore?” the guard asked as he came out of the elevator.

Clay nodded. “Yeah, it’s been a long day so far.”

“Congratulations, by the way. When’s the wedding?”

Clayton groaned. “I’m going to kill Larabee.”

“Was it supposed to be a secret?” the guard asked, smiling. “You know there’s no such thing as that around here.”

Yeah, Clay was all too aware of that.

Clayton adjusted his position and sighed. He honestly had no idea what Brady was doing hanging out in the mall, of all places. The only others around seemed to be teenage girls, giggling and laughing, mocking the clothes as they went past the stores. Oh, and mocking him, too. He’d had the foresight to bring along a change of clothes, at least, so he wasn’t sticking out like a sore thumb in a suit, but that didn’t mean that the girls were any nicer to him now than they had been when he was this age.

He ate another gummy bear and sipped from his smoothie. At least there was still one good—if ridiculously expensive—smoothie joint in the mall. Otherwise, he would have gone home and spied on Brady on a different day.

“Relax, it’s just kids,” Brady told the man who had joined him. He looked around the mall with disgust. “Stupid teenagers.”

“Don’t forget what we’re dealing with here. Are you sure none of these kids look familiar?”

Clayton slurped loudly from his smoothie, but Brady and the other man—one he thought he might have seen before but wasn’t sure about; all the suits seemed to look the same—didn’t pay any attention to him. He must have gotten the right spot, even if the fake plant kept touching the back of his neck because of the vent coming down right next to him. It reminded him of the tentacle, and he nearly shuddered but managed to control his reaction.

“No. They’re just kids. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“New development. Seems he’s going to marry the woman.”

Clay tried to stay still. They were talking about him. He’d been fairly convinced before, but now, he knew it. Him and April. If anything happened to her because of him… Who was he kidding? Like Ninety-Nine, April could handle herself better than he ever would be able to. Clay was looking forward to seeing her kick Brady’s ass.

“What do you expect me to do? Go there and try and rekindle our ‘romance’ before she gets married? She doesn’t want me. She made that clear. Why don’t you just try recruiting her directly?” Brady demanded. Clay smiled a little—even the jerk knew that April was never going back to him. That helped. Maybe now Clayton could really believe that, even in that nagging corner of his mind that wouldn’t stop the jealousy.

“She was approached. The initial response was deemed unfavorable. Try and rekindle a friendship with her. Report back anything she tells you about him. We know she has to know what he can do, but someone tipped off Larabee, and he’s been disabling all of our surveillance.”

Yes, go Larabee! Clayton thought and then sighed when he realized his smoothie was gone. He could sit here for a little while longer, but it was going to start looking suspicious soon enough.

He took out his phone and sent a message to April and Larabee, trying to look like a normal teenager. Brady involved. Not sure who else. They definitely know.

Larabee didn’t answer—for someone who dealt with science and technology and computers, he was a slow typist and never texted anyone. April’s answer, though, made Clay laugh out loud.

Bring gummy bears. I’m going to kick his ass. She’d written, and then, a second later, she sent another message. Oh, and I love you.

He smiled, getting out of his chair and throwing away the smoothie cup. Brady and the other man were arguing about the plan, getting nowhere, and it was probably time for him to move on. If they’d been close to the arcade or playground, this would have been easier.

“Well, now, I thought I recognized that face from somewhere.”

Clay shook his head. Impossible. The paranoid and prejudiced jerk that patrolled the warehouse here? His day job was guarding the mall? Or had he been demoted? This couldn’t be happening. No. Not even Clay was that unlucky, right? Still, when he turned to look, it was the security guard.

There was nothing else to do. He ran.

With that particular question settled, we could move on to other things, more important things—well, I can’t exactly say that. Marriage is a big step, a huge thing, and April would hit me if she knew I was saying it was not important. It is.

I just meant—she’d said yes, and we weren’t discussing it anymore, not fighting over it or anything. Not like before. It was something we’d need to talk about, to plan, but that could come later. It didn’t have to happen right then.

As usual, something went kind of… wrong.

“Guys, guys, wait! I just thought of something!” Larabee yelled right as April’s lips met Clayton’s, and they both groaned. Larabee had some kind of timing, didn’t he? A real knack for interrupting their moments. He was rather good at that.

April pulled Clay close for a quick kiss anyway. Well, it should have been a quick one, he figured, but they got kind of caught up in the moment and had a proper just engaged kiss before Larabee reached them, out of breath.

“Wow. I thought running was bad. How do you two do it?”

“Larabee—”

“Okay, okay, never mind. Look, I was thinking about this whole conspiracy business, and I thought maybe the answer isn’t in our office like we’ve been thinking. What if—and prepare to be shattered by my brilliance here—the key to it is April’s ex-boyfriend?”

“What?” April asked, shaking her head. “I know I brought up Brady’s possible involvement before, but I don’t know about him being the key to all of this. I’m probably just being paranoid.”

“Not to mention that we really don’t want to be discussing April’s ex at the moment, okay? It really ruins the mood,” Clayton grumbled. April gave him a look before shaking her head and tapping on the ring on her finger. He knew she wanted him, that she’d just said yes to marrying him, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to talk about her ex. He wasn’t just jealous. He really didn’t want to think about the guy.

“Well, you know, the whole mood thing aside, if he is involved in the conspiracy, he’d be easier to track and get information on than your boss. Less dangerous than sneaking around the CIA looking for some kind of rogue operation that might not exist,” Larabee insisted. “Besides, we can—wait a minute.”

Clayton rolled his eyes, waiting for the latest ‘brilliance’ to get itself over with, but Larabee snatched up April’s hand and looked at the ring. His eyes tried to bulge out of his skull, an excessive reaction, but it was Larabee. He pointed to April. “You—he—ring?”

“If that’s your incoherent way of asking—yes, I agreed to be Ninety-Nine,” April informed him, amused. Her smile dropped as he enveloped her in a big Larabee bear hug. She patted him on the back and tried to get free, but Clayton ducked behind her, trying to avoid his own hug.

“This is going to be great. You’re getting married. There will be a little cake with a superhero and bride on it, and I’ll help with the decorations, and oh, April, let me help with the dress, too! I’m not bad at designing things.”

“You are not making April a wedding dress out of spandex,” Clayton objected, shaking his head. “And listen to you. I thought when you heard about this you’d be bugging me about being the best man, but you’re sounding more like a maid of honor.”

“Excuse me, mad scientist. I can do anything or be anything I want to be,” Larabee objected indignantly. “That does include fashion design, if I want it to.”

“Your idea of fashion scares me.”

“We are not making this a big production, Larabee. In fact, I don’t want to plan anything until after I’ve finished school,” April said firmly. Clayton had been about to offer to elope, but they could wait, too. That was okay by him. “And maybe you’re right about Brady, but it’s late. We’re all going home and we’re going to sleep, and tomorrow we can see about doing something about Brady.”

“Oh, I get it. You two want to be alone, don’t you?”

“Larabee—”

“I’m going; I’m going. I’m going to make you a fantastic wedding dress, April,” he assured her. “Oh, and I am the best man, Clayton! Don’t forget that.”

Clayton looked at her. “We should elope while we still have the chance.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Simple question, simple answer, right?

Like I said—Ninety-Nine.

“I can’t believe you asked me that in front of Larabee.”

“I didn’t realize it was a do not talk about in front of Larabee subject,” Clayton protested, trying to keep up with April. She had pulled a coy little I need to think about it instead of answering, and then she made an excuse and started to leave. He’d had to follow her—not just because she had the car and was his ride, but also because he knew that this was not finished. “It… came up. Again. It seems to do that a lot. Maybe I haven’t been very patient or given you the time you wanted to think about it, and we haven’t solved all the possible complications with my job and if anyone from the agency is at all involved in some way with my ability or past or if they’re looking to use me in the future. We don’t know. It’s all still in the air. It doesn’t change what I already figured out and what should be kind of obvious to you—I need you. Without you, I’m annoying. I whine. I mope. I complain about my ‘power’ and never do anything about it. It sucks being in your role, and I won’t deny that. I don’t think anyone else would want it—or even that they should. You would probably have preferred that you never saw that weirdo from the park again.”

She stopped, shaking her head as she turned to face him. “That’s not true. I don’t—I love you, Clayton. I didn’t figure I’d meet the my ‘prince charming’ under those kind of circumstances, no. Things are never going to be normal with us, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Is it—It is about your parents, isn’t it? And then what you figured out about Brady—even though we don’t know that for sure yet. You feel like he betrayed you when you really needed him, after you’d lost them, and losing them was bad enough—I can’t say I know because I don’t. I never had parents to lose. I grew up in the system, and one thing that teaches you is how to be alone. A lot. I had decent foster parents, but they weren’t family. It’s I’m not trying to—I want to help, and you know I don’t know how to do that, but think about it for a second, April. While I know I can be a real jerk sometimes, I’m so dependent on you that I… I don’t ever want to hurt you again, and I don’t want to be alone, either. I tried to convince myself that it was for the best because I am kind of… messed up genetically, but that hasn’t stopped me from falling in love with you. And you know, it’s not like I can really get that hurt with my power because it’s so… lame. You might be stuck with me for a very long time. I guess that would be kind of scary and—”

She cut him off with a kiss. Clayton hoped that was a good sign, he thought as she stepped back again. “Stop babbling now.”

He nodded. “Okay. No babbling. What happened to your parents?”

“It’s not like you can bring them back or guarantee it won’t happen to you.”

“No, and I wouldn’t try to make that promise, but you keep—it hurts you. Every day. And it’s something you don’t let me help with, and while I know that I’m not good at this kind of stuff, I can at least be there for you to listen. To hold you. All that stuff you’ve done for me and the way you keep me from drowning in my problems—I should do something for you for a change.”

He reached up to touch her face, and she sighed. “Clayton…”

“You don’t have to marry me. I promise I’ll stop bringing that up. You can tell me when you’re ready, if you ever are,” he assured her. She frowned, and he smiled slightly. “I want to help. Kind of rare for me, don’t you think?”

She snorted. “Yeah, it is.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “You are important to me, even if I don’t always show that because I let this ‘superhero’ thing get in the way.”

“You’re not a superhero.”

“I know that. Larabee doesn’t, but we do.”

She leaned against him for a moment. Maybe someday she’d realize that she didn’t always have to be the strong one—and maybe he’d get better at showing her that, too. He needed a lot of work, and he was still figuring that out, but he was trying. “This is nice.”

“Yeah. I could do this for a very long time,” he said, and she looked up at him. “What? I didn’t ask you again. I’m not asking. I was just saying… I like doing this. I could hold you for a long time. That’s all I’m saying. It is kind of cold out here, but I don’t even feel it. I just feel… you.”

She smiled. “You’re so… I don’t even know what word I want to use right now. Sweet in a warped way, I guess.”

“Everything about me is a little off, I agree,” he said, his hand reaching up to find the chain around her neck. “This was your mother’s, right?”

She nodded, slipping the chain over her head and setting the ring in her palm for a moment. “It was just… sudden. They were there one minute, gone the next. I was working, and I got a call… It was over before I even knew what was happening. Car crash. Big pile up, they were only two out of about twelve that died that night. There were more people injured, but I don’t remember how many. I used to think they were smothering me. I was an only child, and they were more than a little involved in my life. Then… they were gone, and it was… terrifying, being that alone. It… This is all I have left. Everything else is boxed up and put away or got sold off to manage the debt.”

He touched her cheek, and she bit her lip, shaking her head. “I thought I could box it all away, but it doesn’t work that way. It always comes back.”

Clayton nodded. “That’s how I always feel about my power—I know, nothing like what you’re going through, but I’m relating the best way I can right now. I just meant… Every time I think I’ve got it handled, something else happens, and I don’t. I don’t think you need to box it away—pretending it doesn’t hurt doesn’t help. Though now I know I’m even more lucky that you gave me your father’s coat.”

“Someone should use it, right? He would have liked that,” April said. Then she laughed. “He would have hated you, though.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

She took another look at the ring and then lifted the chain up again. He went to help her put it back on, but she shook her head as she took the ring off the cord. “My mother, though, I think she would have liked you.”

Clay managed a smile, but then he frowned as she put the ring in his hand. “Uh, April, I appreciate the coat and all, but this is not me.”

She just gave him a look, and then he finally understood. He took her hand, slipping the ring on her finger. She smiled at him, putting an arm around his neck as she kissed him.

I practiced. I practiced and practiced and practiced. It didn’t get to the point of perfection. This was me, after all. Nothing I do would ever be perfect. Still, I finally got to the point where I could actually shift before I hit the ground. It wasn’t much of an accomplishment, but shifting quickly was something, at least.

He was disappointed that I never took him up on any of his costumes, of course. And he had this notion in his head that a superhero couldn’t possibly marry his sidekick…

“I am not your sidekick,” April said, annoyed. “Since when did I get stuck with the role of sidekick? I’m not a sidekick.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Clayton protested. He looked over at Larabee. “He’s the one that says you’re the sidekick. I was going more with… motivation, my guide, my inspiration, my… significant other, my—”

“I didn’t say she was a sidekick. You can’t marry your sidekick. That’s just wrong.”

“Leaving out the sidekick part, because April is not my sidekick, why would it be wrong?” Clay demanded, shaking his head. “You have been telling us we belong together since she was my lab partner, and we almost failed our science class. Then, when I said no, you fixed me up with every girl you could find until April had to deal with Amy. And—I haven’t actually asked, and April hasn’t said yes, but it’s not wrong if we had decided to take that step. Unless you know something I don’t about my past or something? Did you find out something about my parents that I don’t know? Something that makes me—I don’t know, related to April or something?”

She grimaced. “Please, don’t even—”

“Leia kissed Luke, and he was her twin. She just didn’t know it at the time,” Clayton reminded her. April nodded. “I know that’s not much, but—”

“But they made it seem like Leia was never in love with Luke, just close to him. That was one kiss, and you and I have had several. And a bit more than kissing. And I am not—Larabee, we are not related, are we?”

Larabee shook his head. “I can get DNA to prove it conclusively, but I didn’t find anything like that. I was only saying you can’t marry a sidekick. It’s against the rules. I don’t know what rule, specifically, but I’m pretty sure it’s in there.”

“Mr. Fantastic married Sue Storm.”

“Member of his team, not a sidekick. You don’t see the Joker marrying Harley Quinn, do you?”

“Uh, that’s the Joker you’re talking about. He’s a sociopath. He’s incapable of love. Besides, Harley Quinn’s not a sidekick. She’s a henchman—henchwoman. That’s different. I know—Maxwell Smart and Ninety-Nine. They got married. They even had kids.”

“They were partners, and Ninety-Nine did all the actual thinking,” April pointed out. “There is no rule about sidekicks. The only reason you’re thinking there is—well, because if you look at the case of Batman and his sidekicks, they were young boys. If he—”

“Do not go ruining Batman for me right now. Just don’t.”

She shrugged. “It’s true. If you think about it, that’s probably why most superheros wouldn’t marry their sidekicks—because they were younger and the same sex. And while the world has changed its opinions on the one part, they had better never accept the other part as okay. You just don’t do that to kids, okay? And so now that this conversation has gone way too far, new subject. Now.”

“I have a question first,” Clay said, and she watched him suspiciously. He smiled. “Do you think April is the sidekick for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?”

“Oh, you bastard,” April said, hitting him. Clayton rubbed his sore shoulder, and Larabee laughed.

“Well,” Clayton said. “If you married me, he couldn’t say you were a sidekick.”

“I am not getting married just so no one calls me a sidekick,” she objected, shaking her head in annoyance. “And since when do you care so much about getting married, Clayton?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because you don’t seem to want it, I want it too much.”

She sighed. “It’s not that I don’t—This is a very complicated situation, and marriage makes things even more complicated—”

“And you lost your parents,” Clayton interrupted, and she looked at him, stung. He sighed. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he had a feeling that the death of her parents was part of what held her back now. “You’re worried about me, but we don’t even know for sure that my boss had anything to do with what happened to me—or what I can do, I guess. I might have practiced, and we even did more eavesdropping, but you know we didn’t find anything. Larabee’s been looking into old experiments, and he found nothing. I made up excuses to get into the archives, and I didn’t find anything, either.”

“That’s a lot to go through, though.”

He nodded. “I know. And it’s just—We’ll find something, if it’s there to find. If not, there’s no point in worrying too much.”

“I still want to know if Brady was involved so that I can go kick his ass for it,” April said angrily. “If he used me like that—”

“He deserves it, and I want to watch,” Clayton told her, taking her hand before he leaned over and gave her a quick, gentle kiss on the cheek. “I do get to watch, right? I’ll even act as your sidekick and hold him for you if you want.”

“Why are we suddenly obsessed with sidekicks, anyway?”

“I like having you with me. Larabee seems to think that makes you a sidekick. I’d accept a partner. I like that. I’m kind of hopeless, more like Maxwell Smart, and, well… I could definitely use a Ninety-Nine. You want to be mine? Maybe a little?”

I used to have aspirations of being a spy. I did.

Maybe we should say that I’m getting better—at failing, at least—with practice.

“I’m still not sure how you managed to do this to yourself.”

“I’m spectacularly talented—if there’s a way to screw up something simple, I find it,” Clayton muttered, trying to find the right place for the ice pack, wanting to get rid of his pain. He was bruised everywhere from the fall—or so it would seem—and his head was still killing him.

“Stop saying that,” April ordered, gently combing her fingers through his hair. “You weren’t expecting a shift—that’s one thing. You didn’t know they’d put the cover back up, that’s another. You’re not a hopeless failure, no matter what you want to think. If I believed that, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you.”

“I know.”

“So while I’m not sure I agree with Larabee’s insistence on making you your own mini-vent shaft maze to practice with, I do think you can do better next time. We did get you to stop freaking out so much when you were with me, right? You hardly ever shift when we’re making out anymore.”

“That’s such an improvement. ‘Hardly ever.’ Should be never. Never ever.”

She flicked her fingers at his face. “What did I say? Stop it. Granted, it ruins the mood most of the time, but it can be funny, too, not just frustrating. And the important part is that it’s teaching you to relax no matter what happens. Even if I get frustrated, I don’t leave. I’m not horrified by what you can do. You’re doing the whole feeling sorry for yourself thing again, and I don’t like that much, but I know that I can make you stop.”

“You can,” he agreed with a tired smile. “I love you, April.”

She studied him for a long moment, and he thought for a second he’d said the wrong thing before she leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I was wondering when you’d figure that out.”

He made a slight face. “That’s the kiss I get for those words? That’s it? No wonder no one ever says them anymore—”

She cut him off, giving him a real kiss that made him forget that his head hurt and his body was bruised all over. He smiled. “That’s better.”

“Just don’t expect me to go kissing all the bruises better. That’s above my pay grade.”

“Oh? And you’re being paid for this?” he asked, curious. “What do you get out of it besides a whiny loser and a few gummy bears?”

“You know what I get, and you’re going to knock off being a whiny loser. Right now. I know you’re hurt, but that means a little pity, a little whining, and then sucking it up, because it all hurts sometimes. We’re going to need to do something different this time.”

“Different like… what? Marriage?”

“I was talking about your spy thing.”

“You’re scared of commitment? You? Of all people?” he asked, sitting up and looking at her. He didn’t care that his head spun a little as he did. “I admit—that’s kind of hard for me. The whole genetic freak thing coming back up again, as always. I mean, I never did that well before that happened, but then we throw Cailey into that mix, and how she—”

April covered his mouth. “I’m not Cailey. I don’t—I’m not really thinking about marriage right now because my mind is on what might be going on with you instead. I’m worried about this thing with your boss; I won’t lie about that. It scares me a little, and I don’t like the idea of losing you. There was something about the way he spoke to me—it wasn’t supposed to set off any warning bells, wasn’t supposed to be anything other than a coincidence, but it didn’t feel like that. I felt like… Maybe I’m getting all paranoid now, Clayton, because I swear, now that I think back, when I talked about you with Brady—I don’t think he was jealous.”

“What?”

She sighed, looking down at her hands. “It sounds crazy, and I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it for a while now, but I think he was trying to get information from me. He asked a lot of questions about you, and I just figured he was being possessive, wanted to know the ‘competition’ or whatever it was, but he… He wasn’t asking the normal stuff—the stuff I would have expected. He was always curious about your ability even though I told him I didn’t believe it, and he kept asking if I’d seen what you could do and what I thought that meant. I always said I hadn’t and it meant you were a liar, but if you think about the way that Brady just conveniently showed back up in my life about the same time as you did… He was gone for a while, probably after he realized that I wasn’t a good source of information on you anymore, and then we—you and I—met at the park… Am I going crazy, do you think? Making too much of nothing?”

Clayton frowned. “I don’t know. It’s really hard to say what he might have been thinking. I barely met the man—I didn’t like him, but I was jealous, even if I wouldn’t admit that to myself. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe we’re all seeing conspiracies where there aren’t any. I mean, what could the point of making someone do something like me be? I can’t find the point of it, after all.”

She shook her head. “Just because you haven’t doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a reason—if they had anything to do with it. And we don’t know that. That’s why you have to get better at spying.”

“I need a recorder so that I can get stuff even if I smack my head—they make them really small these days, so that’s not a big deal to hide or anything. And I don’t know how we’ll do it, but Larabee does not get to be the voice in my ear. That needs to be you. And…” Clay groaned. “I’m going to get stuck using that vent shaft maze, aren’t I?”

“We should have put pillows under it.”

“You say that now?” Clayton demanded, rubbing his sore elbow. He reached for the water bottle someone had thoughtfully left him instead of a pillow. “I think I have more bruises than clear skin at this point.”

“Thought you could shift and make some of them go away.”

“Yeah, maybe, but not nearly as many of them as I’d like,” Clayton muttered. He looked over at April as he took a slow sip of his water. “Now you really won’t kiss them better, will you?”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You have to get better at shifting quickly.”

“It’s not like I’m going to suddenly start flying, you know. I’m still going to fall.”

“But if you fell as an adult, you could turn it into a jump and not land on your face and get all banged up and bruised.”

“I don’t have that kind of grace, either. The genetics that let me shift ages apparently took all coordination with it.”

“Not all of it. You need to try again.”

Clayton shook his head. “No. Not now. I hurt too much. And even if we put a pillow there, that is not going to be enough.”

Larabee held up a pillow. “This is no ordinary pillow. I should show you how I modified it. First, I removed the stuffing and then I—”

“I’m done,” Clay repeated. He held his hand out to April. She took it, helping him to his feet.

“I think you were close the last time, but we’ll try again later.”

“You just like seeing me fall on my face, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

It wasn’t until I was in that ventilation shaft that I realized I’d missed an obvious comparison. I was not a mutant or a superhero—I was Alice.

Larabee would probably be willing to make me some of her other weapons, though. He could make that cold wand somehow or maybe the jacks. Or the exploding jack-in-the-box. No, not that one. I always managed to blow myself up with that one in the game…

“Clayton, are you still there? What are they talking about?” Larabee’s voice was getting worried, and Clay knew that he had to answer. He should already have answered. He was still having a hard time focusing, though, between the cramped space and the way his head ached. “Clayton?”

“Ooh, never let me shift in a small space like this again. Ever. This hurts, and not just because I can’t move because I’m too freaking big—and I do mean freaking in this case because, let’s face it, that’s what I am, a freak,” Clayton grumbled miserably. His head was killing him, and he had already missed most of the conversation that he’d crawled up here to hear. “I need to get out of this place, Larabee.”

“Agreed, but you need to wait twenty minutes to shift,” his friend reminded him, and Clay tried not to grown. “Keep listening. Get as much as you can from their conversation.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. “Why can’t we just plant a bug?”

“Here? In this building? Of all places?” Larabee demanded. It was kind of a dumb question, but Clayton wasn’t exactly at his best at the moment—if he ever was. “Do you want to get arrested for espionage and locked away in Guantanamo Bay or worse for the rest of your life?”

It was probably going to happen anyway. He was stuck at the moment, and he wasn’t sure he had any way of getting out of here—definitely no explanation if he got caught. “And this kind of spying is any better?”
“Well… Who’s going to believe that you fit in there?”

“Good point,” Clay agreed. He shifted again, but there was no relief in it—he was still too big. He was having a wonderful Alice moment here. He was too big. He could use that getting smaller elixir any time now. “Why didn’t we have me bring a recorder at least?”

“Hmm. Good question.”

Clay groaned and shut his eyes. “Wake me when it’s been twenty minutes. I’m not going to get anything out of this conversation. I can’t focus. I can’t believe I hit my head that hard.”

“You’d think it would be thicker and more damage resistant.”

“Shut up, Larabee.”

“Clayton?”

“Has it been twenty minutes?”

“Try an hour. I haven’t been able to wake you up. You must really have done a number on that head of yours,” Larabee said, a bit of relief in his voice. “Come on. You have to get out of there now.”

“I’m getting,” Clay agreed quickly. He didn’t want to be in here any longer than he had to be. He just wanted to get out and go home. He didn’t care if he still had hours left of work. He was taking the rest of the day off. He needed it for health reasons. Shifting into a small child, he felt some relief from the pressure in here, but not much. He needed to remember the way to go back, and hopefully he wouldn’t hit anything since it wasn’t like he could conveniently turn around in the ventilation shaft. It wasn’t big enough for that even when he was small. “They should make these things bigger.”

“They’re small for a reason, Clay. No one wants someone up there crawling around, not in a place like this. Still, you’re the only one who could really do it.”

“I don’t care. That was unpleasant. I still can’t control those random shifts, and I could have gotten stuck. I don’t ever want to do this whole vent shaft thing again,” Clayton muttered, shaking his head.
“That was such a waste of time.”

“It was not. You learned a few things, didn’t you?”

“Like never go in the ventilation shaft again? Yeah, did learn that. Definitely. Learned I can give myself a concussion with surprising ease, and that I apparently stress out in small spaces for some reason.”

“And you sound funny as hell when you’re that size, talking like a regular person, with an echo in a metal shaft,” Larabee added, cracking up. Clayton shook his head, annoyed. He didn’t need this right now. He was going to get out of here and go home and then he could tell April about his failure of a day, let her mock him a little and maybe get some sympathy care for his head. That was good enough for him.
“Aren’t you out of there yet?”

“No, I don’t see the open panel, just give me a—”

“A what? Clayton? What just happened?”

“Oh, someone was kind enough to shut the panel I’d opened but not screw it shut, so I didn’t see it. On the one hand, it’s good that I wasn’t trapped up there, but I just fell through the ceiling,” Clayton muttered, curling up against himself and moaning in pain.

“Did you at least shift on the way down?”

“No time for that.”

“Maybe you should practice that.”

“Yeah, right after I peel myself off the floor. I need to go home,” he said. He saw a nice welcoming black. “Or I could just go to sleep here…”

But I’m a superhero, right? Not supposed to have an easy life? Of course, if I hadn’t fought against my power for so long, things would probably have gone better for me…

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Larabee, and yes, it is still creepy. I really wish we could have had April do this and be the voice in my ear and not you,” Clayton muttered, shaking his head. He didn’t like this. He would feel a lot better about it if he had April with him—well, not with him, but sort of… He sighed. He was really way too dependent on her. She was the one who was actually good at this stuff, stronger and everything. He wasn’t going to deny that. He knew who the real hero was. Her.

“You know, if you were a field agent like you used to think you’d want to be, you probably would not have a female handler, just so you know. It would be a man’s voice in your ear, so there,” Larabee said, grumbling a little. “Oh, and you know we can’t just sneak her in here. She can’t be here. Her presence would ruin everything. So you have to be stuck with me. Sorry.”

“I know.”

“You ready? Your boss is in his office, meeting with someone. Now’s the time to see if there’s anything worth learning,” Larabee said, and Clayton took a deep breath. He jumped up and pulled himself as much into the ventilation shaft as he could before shifting into a child to make it easier to move around.

“Step one… complete.”

“This is so cool, don’t you think? You’re finally doing it! The superhero in action!”

“Larabee,” Clayton began, not liking the annoying way that his little kid voice echoed against the metal of the ventilation shaft. He sounded even younger than he’d shifted into, and louder, too. “I am not a superhero here. Sorry to burst your bubble, but heroes—I’m not one of them, ability or not. You’d be a better hero than me. April would be even better.”

“You know, everything with you these days is I’m not a hero and April’s so wonderful. Why don’t you just marry her, then?”

“Well, actually… We sort of talked about it, but she said spying first.”

“That’s why you’re doing this?” Larabee demanded. “You’re finally going to use your abilities and powers because April told you to? Because of a girl?”

“I am, at heart, a very normal guy. Bit weak, bit of a loser, but still, fairly normal. Why wouldn’t I do this for a girl?” Clayton asked. “I love her. Uh. Wow. I didn’t just say that, did I? Oh. Um, don’t say anything to her. I haven’t—I need to tell her first. I haven’t, and I should.”

“Yeah, you should. Are you at the junction yet? You need to take a left now.”

Clayton took the turn, trying not to think about how small of a space he was really in. If he shifted, he could actually get stuck here, and he wasn’t really fat or anything. They weren’t meant for men to be crawling around in, though, that was for sure. “How much further to the office?”

“You should be coming up on it any second now. On the right this time. Can you see it?”

“I think so,” he agreed, stopping near the vent shaft. He looked down into the office. The suit was pacing the room, his arms folded behind him.

“What do you see?”

“Larabee, shut up,” Clayton hissed, looking down at his hands as they started to tingle. Not now, he thought. Not now. Why did it have to be now? He supposed that it was probably the stress. He’d finally gotten to this point, and now—now he was going to shift and be stuck for at least twenty minutes. Great.

“Have you figured out what to do with him yet?”

The suit shook his head. “That’s hard to say. He could be an asset. It’s too soon to know. We have to wait and see what develops.”

Clayton shifted, his head smacking against the side of the ventilation shaft with a curse. That had hurt. A lot. His head spun. Had he really hit it that hard? Was that even possible in this small space?

“Clayton?”

He reached up to touch his head, not wanting to answer Larabee at the moment. Clay felt like an idiot, and he hadn’t even learned anything useful. He’d just given himself a very bad headache. He tried to adjust his position and get comfortable again, since he was going to be here for a while.

“…Gone rogue,” the other man in the suit’s office was saying. “It’s not good for anyone.”

“The program was shut down years ago. Nothing like that exists anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s what they always say, isn’t it?”

I know what you’re thinking.

She had a superpower, at least. It was getting me to do something instead of giving up, and while that might seem very normal to everyone else, it was huge for me. Larabee might have tried to claim the sidekick role, but that really belonged to her.

“I am just saying that you should put your talent to use, not that you have to wear any of Larabee’s outfits or come up with a superhero name or logo or anything like that,” April said, shaking her head as she knelt next to the bush. “I mean, look at you right now. Why can’t you do this to gather information instead of pout?”

“I could,” Clayton agreed, looking at his hands. He wasn’t sure how she’d found him, but she was good. He would give her that much. “I did think that my gift might be good for spying, even if it wasn’t good for anything else.”

“You’re going to. This isn’t going to help you or anyone.”

“You should have the superpower. Larabee might want one, might have the costumes for it, but you—you would use it.”

She shook her head. “I’m the everyday hero type, if anything, and only because I’m very nearly a teacher. You, on the other hand, need to get off your superhero butt, quit moping, and find a way to use this thing for something. You can get into lots of places when you’re small, and you could listen in and everything. Larabee says he has a holographic projector that might give you a chance to have cover for a few hours—long enough for you to do some eavesdropping of your own.”

“I still don’t know that we can trust Larabee, ad his inventions have a habit of going very wrong. I happen to know this from experience.”

“So you get fired because you’re not working at your desk. Isn’t knowing what they’re doing worth the risk?” She asked, and Clay had to nod. Even if they did more than just fire him, he really needed to know what they knew and what they were going to do with him. He couldn’t afford not to know. “Okay, so, Larabee is going to sweep your place and mine for bugs and surveillance. After that, we’ll make more plans for tomorrow and what you’re going to do at work.”

“Okay.” Clayton crawled out of the bush and started dusting himself off. “Anyone around?”

She shook her head. “Coast is clear.”

He shifted back into his normal form and stretched. “That is so much better.”

“You have no idea,” she told him, sighing as she reached over to straighten his shirt a little. He knew he was a mess after crawling in there, but he’d just needed a place to hide. Now he was ready. Hopefully. “I don’t find what you can do revolting or anything, but I really do prefer talking to you as you whenever I can. Especially with the whole dating thing.”

“Well, you could look at it this way,” he began as he started walking back toward her car. “When I’m all old and stuff, I won’t look like it. And I won’t have to act like it, either. I can love you like a younger man.”

“Ha ha. I’m not so sure I want you running around like a twenty year old when I’m… sixty-four or something,” she said, wrapping her arm around his and leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Will I still love you, will I still greet you, will I still meet you…?” Clayton asked, not bothering to sing because he didn’t have the voice for it. “I certainly hope so, if we both make it through this. I think you’d make a very lovely old lady, and you know what I’d look like when I get older. Not the best, but hey, you won’t be surprised. It would be nice to grow old together.”

She stopped and kissed his cheek. “It’s a little soon for that, you know.”

“What, you thought I was proposing? Or are you objecting to being older?” he asked. “Ooh, I get it, you’re actually repulsed by old people. That’s why you’re going to teach children and—”

She covered his mouth. “Stop. It.”

He took her hand off, lowering it. “If I had been proposing, what would you have said?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s deal with one crisis first before adding any others to it.”

“How is getting married a crisis?”

“It changes everything.”

“It changes some things. It’s an adjustment, but it isn’t the end of the world, either,” he disagreed, surprising himself. Why was he saying any of this? He didn’t want to get married—did he? He had to be kidding. He was not that type. He was also a genetic freak who should not have children, and April was like, the perfect mother. “Wow. How did we go from let’s spy on your boss to let’s argue over getting married when we’ve barely even started dating?”

“I don’t know. Spying first, marriage later.”