"What is your most embarrassing weakness?" Alice asked, before taking a sip of her coffee and scrolling through questions on her phone. She found a website called Truth Game for Heroes. Matt and Alice were taking turns answering the list to catch up. Matt raised an eyebrow.
"If I tell you mine will you tell me yours?" Alice laughed. Matt grunted.
"There was the time I tried running over an ice rink," He muttered. "Ice being my weakness, and combined with a slippery surface, you can guess what happened."
Alice laughed as she imagined Volt trying to run on ice. She gave him a 'Oh Lordy why did I agree to this face'.
"You actually did this to me once when we first starting fighting." Alice said flatley. "For some reason your lightning powers weren't working correctly and I only felt little shocks. It tickled soooooo much! Please NEVER do that again."
"Oh. You mean like this?" Matt asked, as under the table he stretched out his fingers towards her, letting the tiniest bit of Speed Force lightning arc off them and crackle along her leg. Alice burst out laughing, almost spilling her coffee.
"Stop!" She laughed, squirming in her chair. "Hahaha! Please! Hahaha! Stop!"
Matt grinned, letting the lightning flicker for a few more second before clenching his fist, extinguishing it. Alice let out a sigh of relief as it stopped.
"Please don't do that again." She tried to make a serious face but failed.
"Surely you remember just how much I enjoyed making you laugh, and how much I enjoyed hearing it?" Matt asked, smiling warmly at her. She smiled back.
"Ok but no more!" Alice laughed. "Next question, What was your worst defeat and best win ever?"
"Hmmm... worst defeat..." Matt said, leaning back in his chair to think. "Back after I first became a hero and became Volt, when the comics came out. You remember the second one where I faced Commander Ice for the first time?"
"Ya." She said. Matt smiled sheepishly.
"That was my worst defeat," He said, before continuing. "My greatest win however, was being reunited with you."
Alice gave him a big smile before saying, "Agreed, definitely the greatest win ever. Worst defeat is the little lightning strikes."
Alice scrolled down through the list and found another question. She smiled at Matt. "Out of all of the heroes, who is the hardest or worst to work with and why? Wow, whatever kid put this together definitely was going for the hard ones."
"Definitely Black Arrow," Matt said, grinning. "The guy has no sense of humor and is all business. Makes it hard to just have a good time while working."
"Really?" Alice laughed. "I thought he was only like that with me around. I have to agree with Arrow being the hardest to work with because I haven't worked with many heroes and I feel like he still doesn't like me."
"He doesn't really like anybody," Matt said flatly. Alice shrugged.
"Maybe that's just his cover?" She guessed. "Do you know him outside of hero work?"
"He's basically a real-life Green Arrow," Matt said. "Same story and all."
Alice gave him a blank look. "I really don't know anything about Green Arrow. I know Batman, Superman, and all of the Marvel characters."
"Basically kid from a rich family, dad shot himself in a boat, landed on an abandoned island, taught archery and survival in the wild for seven years by a rogue sensei, escaped the island to return here a changed man," Matt said in a matter of seconds. Alice suddenly felt bad.
"I can see why he has no humor." She said, twirling her sparrow ring. "That's a lot to go through."
"Yeah, I know." Matt said, before smiling at her. "Makes me glad I was just struck by lightning."
"I have to admit," Alice smiled. "All of the bad stuff was worth it. We get to be superheroes."
"And the best part is, we get to do it together," Matt said as he leaned across the table and kissed her. They were interrupted by the sound of gunshots and people screaming.
"I guess morning coffee is over." Alice mumbled. "Want to tell HQ or just go for it?"
Matt grinned at her, before tapping the earpiece he always had in his ear.
"Nick? Yeah, it's Matt." He said. "I need you to activate the fire suppression system at the coffee shop."
Alice slid her ring on her finger and quickly became White Sparrow in a matter of seconds. "Fire suppression system?"
"You'll see," Matt said, just as a thick white cloud suddenly flooded the cafe as alarms went off. The speedster raised his ring as lightning arced off it, his suit spiraling out and wrapping itself around himself, quickly becoming Volt as lightning began crackling across his suit.
"Ready to figure out who is shooting at random?" Sparrow asked, putting her hood over her head. Her wings turned into metal quickly and making small clinking noises.
"You had to ask?" Volt said as he picked her up bridal style, racing out of the coffee shop as lightning crackled around him. The buildings blurred as they raced down the street to stop several yards away from a man in some sort of mechanical suit with machine guns attached to his shoulders. In his hands were glowing objects that look dangerously close to small versions of their power dampeners. Volt set Spare down so she could stand beside him. Volt noticed Sparrow looking at the jumbotrons of Time Square and gave her a confused look.
"I have three cameras set up on this street for work." White Sparrow said, nodding towards one of the jumbotrons. "Time Square is probably the easiest place to hide cameras since no one bothers to look to closely at the edges to the screens. Mind if I use a couple for 'New York Times'?"
"Go ahead," Volt chuckled, before glaring at their enemy. "I'm going to see how our friend here likes electrical surges."
"Careful," Sparrow warned. "Those glowing circle things look like power dampeners."
"I don't have to get close," Volt said, before he began running in a circle at his top speed, and in a matter of seconds he stopped and pivoted on one foot, bringing his arm forwards and launching a bolt of black lightning through the air at their enemy. The bolt hit the armored man square in the chest, sending him flying several yards backwards.
"About time." The man said in a mechanized voice. "I am Mechman. Surrender now and you will feel no pain!"
"Why do all of our enemies have the same lines?" Sparrow mumbled, rolling her eyes. She launched herself into the air and threw two metal feathers at Mechman's machine guns. The first missed and stuck into his iron shoulder while the other landed perfectly. Mechman tried to shoot Alice out of the air but the metal feather broke his gun.
"Sorry!" She yelled. "No more guns for you!"
"Sparrow, those jumbotrons have speakers, right?" Volt asked through the coms as he raced around, getting all the citizens to safety.
"Ya." Spare said, pressing the button on her earpiece. "Why?"
"Nick, can you hack the jumbotrons and play a frequency that will render the metal hippo vulnerable?" Volt yelled as he skidded to a stop facing Mechman.
"I can do it. And seriously, metal hippo?" The technicians voice said in both of their ears.
"Sue me; I'm only good at insulting villains." Matt grumbled. Sparrow laughed through the coms.
"You did come up with some pretty funny names for me." She said, deflecting the bullets from the one working machine gun on Mechman's suit. "But I have to say, Sparkles was a clever insult."
"Just drop it Alice," Matt grumbled, just as the speakers on the jumbotrons came to life, a strange frequency blaring through them. Alice suddenly put her hands over her ears and missed several wing beats.
"What is that!?" She yelled in the coms, landing on the street.
"Sorry, forgot about that." Nick apologized. "Electronics can fry if exposed to a high enough sonic frequency. I'm hoping to fry enough of the insides of his armor to render it susceptible to one of Volt's punches at super speed."
"I think it's working." Spare said as she noticed several sparks flying from the metal man's suit. Suddenly a metal feather flew from her wings and crashed into a car window setting of it's alarm. "My powers are not reacting well to the frequency. I have to get out of here or I might hurt someone."
"I got that," Volt said as he suddenly raced past, grabbing her and picking her up as he shot away from Mechman. He glanced at her, and with a smirk he chuckled as the lightning arcing around him connected with her slightly every now and then. Sparrow burst out laughing when he finally set her down.
"Thanks but I am sooooo getting revenge sooner or later. I should put your bike in the middle on an ice rink and make you get it." She said with a small laugh as the lightning stopped. Volt rolled his eyes, before shooting off in the opposite direction of Mechman, quickly disappearing from her view.
"Three, two, one..." Nick said, before there was an air-splitting boom and a solid streak of black shot past, quickly disappearing again as it raced back in the direction they had come from when fighting Mechman.
"Did it work?" Spare asked Volt through the coms.
There was a second loud boom, followed by several cracking sounds.
"You tell me," Matt said flatly through the coms.
"I'm going to say yes." Alice said through the coms. White Sparrow lept into the air to land on top of a tall building to overlook Time Square. "Is the frequency still on?"
"Nope." Matt replied. "Nick turned it off as soon as I took down Mechman."
"Good," Alice said, jumping off the building. "I'm coming."