Super•Villainous

XXII

"Go fish."

Sighing, Tempest drew a card from the pile. His countenance perked up immediately, and he took a four of clubs out of his other hand to match the four of hearts he just drew, laying them out on his side of my hospital bed.

"Any queens?" I asked in the bored drawl of someone amidst a boring card game that had gone on far too long.

Reluctantly, he withdrew a queen of diamonds from his hand, which I gleefully accepted, and placed face up in front of me beside its matching pair, leaving only one card remaining in my hand.

Alas, the sweet taste of near victory.

A soft breeze brushed softly over my skin, sending the deck and our carefully paired off cards scattering to the floor in mixed up jumble. Despite the cracked window behind him, Tempest's too innocent expression made my eyes narrow, and I flung the sole card in my hand at him like a throwing star.

"Cheater."

The wind stopped the attack in its tracks, the card bouncing harmlessly off a wall of air just shy of touching his clean-shaven jaw.

"You can't blame me every time wind blows your life off course," he chided.

"I can, and I will."

"Mature. Reaaaally mature."

"No," I began, leaning forward, "what was mature was not cheating at Go Fish. I expect you to pick up the cards, by the way."

"But it was a breeze from outside!" he protested.

"Uh huh. Right. Let's say I believed you, sadly, I am still too ill to leave my sickbed."

To drive my point home, I flung myself back onto my pillow, the back of my hand strewn dramatically across my forehead like a Victorian maiden languishing over her final days on the mortal plane.

He scoffed, but set about collecting, nonetheless. His powers, it seemed, did not operate with enough precise attention to detail for him to be able to harness the wind to collect the cards for him. Seeing him resorting to doing something so menial as crawling around on his hands and knees gathering a few dozen cards without the boon of his super power lit a spark of something I wasn't proud of in my chest: bitter satisfaction.

"It seems super powers can't solve every problem," I tutted, shaking my head for affect, although he couldn't see it with his own head ducked low to reach a stray card that had worked its way under my bed. "How does it feel to be reduced to such plebeian tasks? Not quite as glamorous as tackling supervillains, is it?"

He merely shook his head and clambered back onto the foot of the bed, deck in hand. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

Tempest began shuffling. Nothing complicated, just the simplest means of folding the cards together, his thumbs deftly fanning the split piles into one larger one. With his attention focused on not making another mess, I leered at his face, his jaw, his nose, his lips. Anything I could set my eyes upon.

I was on a mission. I wanted my tuition paid up front and in cash, and if I squinted just the right way, I imagined him somewhat familiar, a small nudge of recognition alighting the back of my mind. Maybe. A little.

Not really.

A girl could hope, though, couldn't she?

Which did remind me of something, as a matter of fact.

"Hey." He glanced up from shuffling the cards at my questioning tone. "What were you doing by the coffee shop the day I nearly got hit by that car? Was that a coincidence or," I wiggled an eyebrow suggestively, "were you stalking me?"