Superheroes Suck

Chapter 39: Wildflowers

There were two that had served their time, one was already dead but the other was still very much alive. The latter had devoted himself to a life of service so we passed over that one quickly as well and decided to remove him from the pile. The former had one son who had passed the Xavier Test, but appeared to only have minor powers. It mentioned a small amount of Telepathy and he was a teenager when his father was arrested and his father passed relatively recently, within the past year or two, the guy was around my age. He seemed like the most likely candidate, it's probably not impossible to diminish or outright cheat the Xavier Test. They could have had someone switch his results or alter them so he'd fly under the radar.

We separated a little while later, my mother insisted because Murphy and I were absolutely famished. I personally think she wanted some more time with Hunter, who honestly had to get back to his real job, but I kept quiet. I couldn't really complain, we had school the next day so Murphy and I couldn't exactly spend all night going over theories.

I was ready to go home and order a little Chinese food when I realized Murphy had turned off down the road to Jackson's Graveyard. I turned to him but before I could ask what we were doing, he just shook his head and turned his attention back to the road.

We pulled off to the side, when I noticed Murphy hop out of the car and swing back his trunk. He popped it open and removed a worn, red cooler and a large blanket. He wheeled it around front and then gestured for me to join him as I had yet to even unbuckle.

He lay a blanket on the hood of his car before turning his attention to the cooler. He unpacked a some sandwiches and drinks, which he unceremoniously dumped on the blanket. He hopped up on the hood and then patted the space next to him so I begrudgingly climbed up to join him.

Murphy grabbed ahold of the sandwiches and passed me one, but not before he had taken a bit out of his own, "Hungry?"

"Of course." So we chowed down, so engrossed in our food that neither one of us spoke until there was only one sandwich left. "Split it?"

I still wasn't quite sure what we were doing there, I know Murphy mentioned taking me out here but, I thought it'd be one of those things that kept getting pushed back because one of us was almost dying.

I shivered, "Um, it's a little cold out here."

Murphy's lip quirked up, "That's half of the reason we're even here."

"For me to freeze my ass off?" I shot back.

"It's not even that cold," He slid down from the car and turned back to help me down. "I figured tomorrow would be crazy with the ball coming up and I heard we have a forecast of rain so I thought I'd reschedule our date. It was supposed to be a surprise after the press conference but that didn't exactly work out."

I perked up, "So we're going to burn some things?"

"I think I'm going to need to watch you, you little pyromaniac. I don't want to burn this entire place to the ground so we're going to need to keep our insane impulses to a minimum. I'm starting to wonder if I should change your nickname to Pyromaniac."

"Is it normal for me to want to watch things burn?" I asked as I searched the backseat for the lighter and matches Murphy promised me he packed.

"I guess so, I had someone drive by and set up some wood for a bonfire so you get that going while I set up to show you some trick with my powers."

It didn't take long to get a fire going so I set up the blanket a safe distance and brought the drinks over. Murphy didn't take long either so we quickly moved to the entertainment portion of the night. Murphy was damned good at shooting fireballs at targets and as soon as we starting yawning uncontrollably, we decided it was time to head out.

Murphy asked me to keep talking so I'd keep him awake but it was late so I started running out of ideas of what to say.

Something he said earlier popped into my head and suddenly I was inspired, "You know, I can't quite remember where the nickname 'Wallflower' came from. Why did you start calling me that?"

"That's not exactly..." Murphy paused, trying to find the right words, "That wasn't your original nickname. See, you seem to always remember everything wrong."

"What was my original nickname? Booger face or something?"

"Nope," He let his lips pop on the p sound, "It was Wildflower."

"Wildflower?"

That sounds like a really pretty nickname actually.

"Yeah, you used to wander off and pick these flowers, I think they were called a bitterweed or something, and braided them into little crown or jewelry. I asked my mother what they were called but she didn't know, so she just said they were called Wildflowers so you became the Wildflower girl. I only started calling you Wallflower after the teacher read that book about the little Wallflower who was too shy to grow with all the other flowers."

"Is that for real?"

Murphy nodded and just as we passed under a street light, I noticed he was blushing all the way the to his ears. As soon as we reached a stop sign, I leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek.

~~~~~~~~~

So it's Super Sunday instead of Super Saturday (sorry) just because I had no time to write and I may have procrastinated a little.

I wanted to make their date a little longer but I wanted to get the update up ASAP.

Only a few chapters left, let me know what you think and if you have any predictions or guesses about anything. I still have a few surprises up my sleeve.