Hero Types

Chapter 19

"Hi, you." Mickey batted her nose and fell into the backseat beside her. The smell of Chinese food filled the cabin, and he pushed the bag into her lap while he buckled up. "Hungry?"
"Thanks." She pulled out the thing of white rice and ignored Jersey's pointed look over his shoulder.
"Don't spill anything. Leather seats."
"Cheers," Mickey passed a container up front. Kit leaned forward and checked the time. They had to meet Lucas at the docks in half an hour.
Their feet were touching.
She'd been over to his house once in the week since they'd kissed. She'd started another project, but she hadn't gotten very far. Mickey was very distracting, especially now that she could kiss him. She just had to be careful around his neck; she'd gotten her lip caught between his metal slats, and it was still healing.
"Lucas mentioned that is was a drug bust?" Mickey asked, between bites. He was the type of person who ordered a hamburger from a Chinese restaurant.
"I'm not positive," Jersey said, "but I have a feeling there's more to it than that. Otherwise it wouldn't be our problem."
"Of course not." He turned to her. "How was your Christmas?"
"Good," she said. He knew exactly how her Christmas had gone, but Jersey was there. "Gran got me a lot of pencils." Mickey had lent her a book and told her to trust him on that one. "Someone gave me a book, but I really don't like reading."
"Did you read it?"
She sighed. "The first half, so far."
"There you go," he said, pushing on her knee. Maybe that was a little too friendly. He cleared his throat and shifted away.
There was no way it wasn't obvious. Jersey had to be able to see it, she thought, trying to keep herself from blushing. His lips might as well have been tattooed across her face. If her crush had been obvious, then they were basically wearing neon signs around their necks. He said nothing.
The sun had gone down by the time they reached the docks. Lucas was waiting in his heavy winter coat. Their breath puffed in the grey air.
"Any minute," he told them, checking his phone. "Mr. Majesty and his goons have this shipment of steroids, and that's the last thing we need in a city full of villains."
"Fair enough," Mickey said with a shrug.
"Watch him," Lucas continued. "He's a known telekinetic."
"Like, Mardie-telekinetic."
"Magneto-telekinetic."
"Magneto's not a telekinetic," Jersey muttered under his breath.
They waited in the shadows, hugging themselves for warm and shivering. Kit stomped her feet and rubbed her hands together. She leaned against the brick wall and squinted over the foggy waters. The shore was caked in broken ice and slushy froth.
"Cold?"
She glanced up, and Mickey leaned on the wall beside her. She nodded, rubbing her shoulders.
"Yeah. You?"
"What do you think?"
Mickey was hot. As in, very, very warm. Not that he wasn't, but there was still a part of Kit that was conflicted over her attraction to him. But he was definitely warm, and if you were lucky enough to cuddle with him on the couch after a mind-blowing make-out session he would let you rest your head by his throat or on his chest where there was warmth and light and the peculiar absence of a heartbeat.
Because it turned out that Mickey didn't have a heart.
In the literal sense only, of course, because now he glanced up and down the dock to make sure Jersey and Lucas were distracted, and he cupped his hot metal hand over the back of her neck, buried beneath her hair. She leaned into his touch.
"Tomorrow," he said in her ear, "do you want to come over?"
She eyed the others and spoke into his own ear, the one that didn't have a wire coiling from it. "When?"
He giggled. "You've seen my life, do you really think I'm the sort to keep a schedule? Anytime. You could come home with me tonight and sleep over for all it matters."
She thought about that. "I don't have my toothbrush."
"You could use mine."
She made a face. "Mickey."
"You're very cute when you're disgusted with me." She shook her head, not knowing how to respond. He flicked her hair. "But I know I've grown on you, Kitten."
She ducked her head and hid her smile. He slid his hand under her collar and set it on her spine, and then he froze.
"You see that?"
A ship was approaching through the fog.
He backed away and she whistled to Jersey and Lucas, who were deeply absorbed in their own conversation. They all hid behind a stack of crates to the side. Mickey had a tendency to breath down people's necks.
"Can I shoot it?" The warm hand that had cradled her moment ago had morphed into a pulsating cannon. She pushed it down and peeked over the tops of the boxes. He flicked her ponytail again and she ducked her head away.
"Shh." She looked again. Jersey and Lucas were ducked behind a small shed on the other side of the dock. Lucas held up one finger, and she nodded.
"What was that?"
"We need to stay put."
"All right then." He groaned in the back of his mechanical throat and leaned onto her.
"Mickey—" she swatted him off. He giggled and held up his hands in defense. She stopped and stared at the wall for as long as it took her to get her smile under control, and then she snuck another look at the ship. She could now see figures aboard the deck, and hear the rumble of the motor. Lucas signaled urgently, and she lowered herself behind the crate. She pushed Mickey down when he went to look and held a finger to her lips.
The planks were cold, and they creaked whenever one of them shifted their weight. They laid as still as they could, and Mickey thought it would be funny to maintain eye contact the entire time. His breath was on her face, but that wasn't the problem. He was glowing like mad.
"Cover that up," she whispered, pulling his collar up to his chin. He shrugged his shoulders and worked his coat higher.
"Mickey—" she placed her hand over him. "You're getting brighter!"
He cupped his hand over his throat and tried to duck his head. "Stop touching me, then. I can't help it!"
Anyway, it didn't last much longer than that.
"What's that over there?" came a distinctly French voice. There were footsteps and creaking planks, and they exchanged a glance. Kit sighed. Mickey rolled his eyes and rolled out from behind the crate, and in the same second fired a blast of blue energy that sent half the ship into flames.
Not the most subtle.
Jersey was gone, but random people were tripping and stumbling backwards as he did his dirty work. Kit pulled Mickey back behind the crate before he could get shot and threw up her shield just as at least one startled smuggler got ahold of her gun.
There was a flash of light, and it was Lucas spinning with his electrified blade through the fray. The sword passed through their bodies, and they seized and fell to their knees. Their guns flew out of their hands before they could get a clear shot at him.
Lucas would always miss Mardie, but Kit would always argue that he and Jersey made a better team.
She was distracted with a few seconds's worth of thoughts, and that was the amount of time it took for her to be shoved sideways off the dock.
The water was sluggish through her winter clothes, and after her initial impact there was a single blissful moment where she hadn't yet figured out or felt what was happening. Then it soaked through, and her head ached, and her toes were on fire. Her limbs were stiff.
She gasped and choked and sucked in a lot of water. She was under water. She had to get back to the surface. Her fingers were blocks of lead, and her clothes were sucking at her every move. She flailed and wondered if her eyes were bulging out. There was no oxygen in her body.
Her head broke the surface. She sucked in a breath and shook and coughed, and a second later was under again. Lights were flashing above.
She splashed and tried to yell. Her voice had left her. She tried to kick, and her legs were moving as if through jello. Barely at all. She was sinking. She flung her arms around and struggled upwards and then—
"Give me your hand!"
There was an arm dangling over the side of the dock. She fell under and sucked in water, and a hand caught her wrist rather painfully and yanked her back to the surface.
She tried to breathe and swallowed the water that was rolling off her face. She cringed when her arm was twisted around, and she managed to work her hand around their forearm. They pulled and she struggled and tried to kick.
"Dammit, Kit—"
She got one of her hands on the dock and grasped around at the slippery surface. She couldn't feel a thing. She got her knees under her and Mickey fell over backwards, panting.
"Jesus."
She tried to get off him. It didn't work. All of her muscles locked up, and she shuddered repeatedly. It was hard to breathe.
"Oh my god, Kit—"
"She fell in," Mickey said. He was shaking too, probably from adrenaline, and she knew because she was still against him in some way or another. "I dunno, man, I'm gonna get her to the car."
"We'll clean this up."
There was pressure under her arm and pulling, so she was on her feet. Her legs were like sticks, and they wouldn't bend right. She leaned on his shoulder and dragged her foot.
"Agh, Kitten—hold on." He picked her up, which apparently he wasn't used to, because he nearly dropped her. Her brain was aching and fuzzy, like she'd just swallowed a gallon of ice cream whole. "Here you go."
She collapsed in the seat. Mickey stripped off his jacket and passed it to her. He debated his shirt and removed that as well. "You can put this on," he passed it over and glanced back, shivering, half naked in the snow, and shut the car door.
It took a minute for her brain to kick into action. She pulled at the bottom of her coat, and remembered it had to be unzipped. Her fingers wouldn't grasp the zipper. She struggled out of her shirt, which clung to every part of her, and worked off her jeans, which were heavy and pulled at her skin. Her shoes went shluck! when she suctioned them off her feet, and her socks weighed ten pounds each.
Mickey's shirt was still warm. She wrapped herself up in his coat and stuck her fingers in her mouth while she opened the door. He was rubbing his bare body and jumping up and down to keep warm.
"You okay?"
She nodded. Her teeth were chattering too hard to let her speak. He shivered and rubbed his head.
"That was a bit scary, wasn't it? Scary, scary stuff..." He giggled nervously and looked over his shoulder, just as an airplane shot out of the bay.
It wasn't an airplane, exactly, but it was moving too fast for Kit to tell. Lucas and Jersey spun around as well, silhouetted by the flames it spewed out its tail end, as it shot into the night sky and disappeared. Mickey glanced at her.
"What the fuck?"
Jersey took her home. He seemed shaken, but they didn't talk about it. There was no explanation, other than that same vague sense of foreboding that had been building for months now. He didn't say anything about that, but there were other things that he seemed more interested in. He glanced at her, curled in the backseat, and chuckled. She glared at him.
"I'm not saying anything."
"Good." She pulled her knees up tighter. She'd have to give Mickey's clothes back later. She thought about how nice of him it had been to stand in the cold while she'd changed. "Don't."
"You should bang him."
"Stop."
"Why won't you?" He shrugged. "I mean, he's obviously got a thing for you."
"...No."
"Yes, and there's no reason that you wouldn't as well."
"I'm not—I don't even—"
"Like him? Yes you do."
"No."
"Jesus. I just don't get it. Part of me thinks you're just too stubborn to admit that you don't hate him anymore, but then...I don't know. What is it?"
"I'm not even going to answer you."
"What, is it the Romeo and Juliet complex?" He adopted a mocking tone. "'Oh, he's bad and I'm good and it can never work!' That kind of thing?"
She ignored him.
"Whatever." He stopped the car. "Have fun explaining that getup."
Gran was sitting up by the TV in her slippers, which she only ever decided to do when it was most inconvenient. Her penciled eyebrows rose when Kit walked in.
"Busy night?"
"Um...yeah." She took her soaking clothes to the bathroom and threw them in the dryer. She took a deep breath and darted back out. "Good night." She started up the stairs, and was halfway up before Gran spoke.
"Kit."
She stopped in her tracks.
"Whose clothes are those?"
A friend's. He used to be my enemy, and he still kind of is, but now he's my friend and sometimes I make out with him and we might also be dating. "Lucas's, I fell in some water."
"That man." Gran loved Lucas. "What a sweetheart. Get some rest, you looked exhausted."
"Goodnight, Gran."
That felt like it had been a close call. Kit changed, and then because nobody would know and it smelled like him, she put Mickey's shirt back on to sleep in.
Why was she lying? Maybe because it was new? Maybe because she wasn't sure. Who knew what would happen. Just because she was attracted to Mickey and she knew what his tongue felt like now didn't mean that she trusted him. Or, at least, she liked to think that, and she didn't want to trust him.
But she already had trusted him, with literally everything that could destroy her, and that wasn't something she could back out of.
A part of her knew that this was rash and dangerous, and that part of her sounded an awful lot like Lucas.