Velveteen vs. Temptation.
Title: Velveteen vs. Temptation.
Summary: What happens to a child superhero who finds that after everything she has done, everything she has endured...life goes on?
***
“No comment.” The person on the other end of the phone kept talking. The Princess listened with increasingly visible irritation, her lip slowly curling upward, until she was actively sneering. Finally, she snorted hard, and snapped, “I told you once, I told you twice, and now I’m telling you for a third time, if you want an interview, you go through my publicist. You certainly do not call me up in the middle of the damn night to ask questions you haven’t earned the answers to. Lose my number, and have a magical night.”
Cellphones lacked the heft for satisfying slamming down--not unless she wanted to risk cracking the screen--but since the other option was using the magic mirror, she had to settle for viciously swiping her thumb across the screen, as if to punish the person on the other end. They would be punished, she knew that much: people who were told to lose her number generally did, and they had an awfully hard time finding it again, assuming they ever managed. Even if somebody felt bad enough for them to give them a reminder, it would just get lost as soon as they took their eyes off of it. It would take a sincere apology, delivered in person, to get this caller back into her good graces.
Somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better. The Princess rose, her comfortable sweat pants and slogan tee (“Not Looking For A Prince, Just Here For the Shoes”) melting into a gold and rose ball gown much more suitable for sweeping along the castle halls. The weight was a reassurance as much as it was a burden. This was who she was, who she had to be any time she wanted to walk in the world. It wasn’t going to change. Not for her, and not for any of them.
That was really the crux of the problem. Who she was inside could change, and did, all the time, because that was being human. Something she’d said or done or believed a decade ago might be as false now as the lashes on a theme park dancer, molded by experience and opinion. Trouble was, people didn’t like to let things go. They’d dig out an interview she’d given when she first started speaking to the public (still a child, all crinoline and curls and wide-eyed, earnest determination to never disappoint anyone, to never let anyone down, because if she did, the magic might go away and leave her back as she’d been, back in the wrong life), and say “But Princess, we thought you believed...”
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It ignored the human capacity to change, and more, it ignored the fact that language shaped opinion, and many of those interviews and articles had been written by folks who were working from their own set of biases. There were more than a few nasty, snippy little articles about her, ones that claimed she was a liberal conspiracy to corrupt the children of the world. As if fairy tale magic and wonder gave a damn about what small-minded people believed? As long as the magic stayed with her, she knew she was doing right by those kids. But Vel...
Sometimes the Princess wished they weren’t the same age, because if there had ever been a little girl who needed a fairy godmother, it was Velma Martinez, better known to the world as “Velveteen.” If there had ever been a child who could have benefitted from having an adult mentor who actually gave a damn, who would actually teach, and not just endlessly train, it was her. But that ship had sailed, much like Jolly Roger’s Phantom Doll, and it was never coming back.
Velveteen had never done anything really wrong; had never had the opportunity to do anything really wrong. She’d been snatched up by The Super Patriots, Inc. when she was too young to have started down the road to supervillainy, and even though she’d walked away as soon as it was legal for her to do so, the habits of heroism that they had beaten into her thick little skull had stuck more than anyone could have hoped. She’d hung up her mask and headband, sure, and she hadn’t been doing anything to protect the cities where she’d lived, trying to eke out an existence on her own terms, but she hadn’t gone the other way. She’d never robbed banks or taken hostages or played the black hat in the endless superhuman game of capture the flag.
But as far as the Marketing Department of The Super Patriots, Inc. had been concerned, Velveteen had committed the ultimate act of villainy when she had chosen to tear up her contract and walk away. She had stolen an irreplaceable corporate asset: herself. And so they had, with cruel indifference, done everything they could to destroy her without violating the terms of their interactions with legally retired superhumans.
They had made calls to employers, implying that her separation from the team had been less voluntary than she would like to admit. They had contacted landlords, and when that hadn’t worked, they had purchased buildings through shell companies, evicting her for any offense the law would allow. They had pushed the boundaries of legality until they broke, and all the while, they had been delicately massaging the past, changing the documentation, updating the old films, until she was clearly painted as the team fuck-up and an inevitable villain in training.
They had been planning to make her a villain, and they might well have succeeded, if Velveteen hadn’t been smart about who her friends were, and lucky about where she’d landed when she finally took the risk and ran. Now...
Velveteen had changed the world when she had gone up against her former employers and won. That sort of thing didn’t just blow over. Most of the story as it had been written so far painted her as the bad guy. Now, with the press sniffing around, their window for changing the narrative was closing.
The Princess just hoped she could make Velveteen understand that sometimes, the true superpower was in knowing how hard to spin.
*
Envy, jealousy, and covetousness, with their gently divergent definitions and their functionally identical roots, have been a part of the human psyche since the beginning of recorded history and, presumably, before. Even animals can express the desire to own that which does not belong to them, whether it be the best territory, the most plentiful food, or the most fertile mate. Wars have been fought and nations have been divided by the many flavors of greed, both subtle and direct.
When the first superhumans appeared, the natural human response was awe. Here were men who could fly, women who could summon storms with a wave of their hand, people who could talk to animals or teleport or recover in the blink of an eye from what should have been fatal wounds. Here was the future, walking up to the door and ringing the bell, asking politely to be let inside. The first news reports of superhumans have an air of jovial futurism to them, implying if not outright stating that sooner rather than later, humanity would enter a new golden age of possibility.
Then more superhumans appeared, and more, and more, and it became increasingly clear that this new golden age was not going to be available to everyone, or to anyone outside of the chosen few--and those choices so often seemed to be wrong! Villains and n’er-do-wells and the obviously undeserving were granted the gift of super powers while those who would have made better use of those same gifts were left standing idly by, unable to compete, unable to even start playing the game.
Was it any wonder when those “more worthy” onlookers seized control of the narrative? When the story of the superhuman who fell, rather than flew, became infinitely more compelling? Envy has always found a home in the human heart.
Envy, which rejoices when the mighty are brought low.
*
An instance of the Night Shift was in the banquet hall when the Princess arrived, coaxing another cup of coffee out of an urn so covered with glittering crystals that it looked almost like a bedazzled beehive. (Corporate would never admit it, but the Princess’s need for coffee before she could face the morning was the reason they had finally allowed a major chain to open outlets in their theme parks. Seeing the coffee shops in conjunction with the fairy tale flourishes of it all had reinforced the idea that princesses liked espresso in the minds of children the world over, and had made it possible for the Princess to keep a steady supply of the stuff flowing in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle.)
“How’s our patient today?” she asked, walking up to the Night Shift and stopping a respectful distance away.
“Cranky,” said the Night Shift. She took a swig of coffee. “Belligerent. Making me think it may be time to up my rates again. But she’s healing. Her bruises are almost gone, that one bad break has managed to set, and she’s up ten pounds. You could probably dismiss me, as long as you’re willing to sit on her and make her take things easy for another week or two.”
“You really think we can keep that girl quiet for another week?”
“I think you’ve got three days before she starts climbing the walls and animating all your garden statues out of sheer nervous boredom,” said the Night Shift. “I’m removing toys from around her bed constantly. She’s not calling them on purpose, or she says she isn’t, and I’m inclined to believe her, because she looks unnerved every time I find another one. She’s anxious and she’s bored and it’s got her leaking energy in every direction. The sooner we can put her back on patrol, the better off she’ll be.”
“Now hold on,” objected the Princess. “You’re the one who tore strips out of my hide for letting her go on patrol in the first place.”
“Yes, four days ago,” said the Night Shift. “I’m good at my job. Probably the best in the world.”
“As you are the only one-woman emergency room and care staff in existence, I’m going to say that yes, you’re definitely the best there is at what you do. What’s your point?”
“That she’s stronger now than she was four days ago. If you asked what I thought of her going on patrol tonight, I’d say that it was fine. As long as she’s not trying to save the world solo, she should be all right.”
“Huh,” said the Princess. “She’s doing that well?”
“She really is,” said the Night Shift.
“Well, then, you think you could give us a moment’s privacy? I need to speak with her about something.”
The Night Shift blinked, clearly nonplussed. “What? I’m already leaving her alone. I only have three instances right now, and we’re all taking care of biological needs.”
“Look how well-behaved I am, not asking what that means,” said the Princess. “Why did you leave her alone?”
“She has company,” said the Night Shift. “I thought you knew.”
The Princess didn’t reply. The Princess was already gathering her skirts in her hands and running for all that she was worth for the door.
*
In the recovery room, painted with stained glass shadows and propped up by the softest pillows this side of Slumberland, Velveteen crossed her arms and scowled. The expression lacked the heat it would have possessed only a few weeks prior; it was, in its way, almost fond.
“I don’t know which is worse,” she said. “The fact that you came here to ask me that, or the fact that I opened the door and let you inside. You’ve got to be out of your mind.”
“I’m not,” said Action Dude, twisting his hands anxiously in front of him. He was back in his orange and blue costume, the very embodiment of truth, justice, and the corporate way. He looked like everything she’d been running from since she was eighteen years old. He looked like everything she’d ever wanted, all served up on a silver platter and ready for her to enjoy. “We talked it over, and we think it’s the right thing to do.”
“And ‘we’ would be...?”
“Me, and Dotty Gale, and the American Dream. We all think that, well. We’re not bad people, Vel. We were raised to be heroes, and we’re doing the best we can. But we were raised by The Super Patriots, Inc., and we know now what that meant. Supermodel set the curriculum. She guided our training. We don’t know whether what we think of as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is actually...good.” Action Dude grimaced. “It sounds sort of stupid when I say it like that, but really, it’s scary.”
“A lot of things are scary.” There was steel in Velveteen’s tone, and no forgiveness in her gaze. “You know what’s scary? Finding out how much of your paycheck got funneled to your parents in exchange for them looking the other way while a big corporation beat the childhood out of you. Having no high school diploma or place to live or idea of what things are supposed to cost. Not knowing how to survive without Marketing holding your hand. Have you ever cooked? Anything? Or done your own laundry, or paid your own bills?”
Action Dude’s face flushed. He turned away.
“Yeah,” said Velveteen. There was no rancor in her tone. “I thought not. People would have noticed if their heroes turned into villains, and so Supermodel never went there. She taught you--or she allowed her people to teach you, rather--the things real heroes had to know. You are real heroes. She just didn’t teach you how to survive in the wild, or how to think for yourselves. Why the hell do you think I want to step in and take her place as keeper of the Island of Misfit Toys?”
“Because you’re not like her.” Action Dude seized onto the question like it was a lifeline. “You could never be like her. Power corrupts, sure, but we’ve known people more powerful than her who didn’t get corrupted. You’re better than she was.”
“Tell that to Jolly Roger,” said Vel. “I am not interested. Tell Dotty and the American Dream that they aren’t getting what they want.”
“But...”
“No, Aaron,” said Vel. “No. I don’t want to come back to the team, and I don’t want to come back to the corporation, and I don’t want to lead anything. I just want to get better and go home to Portland before Victoria Anna decides that what we really need is a steam-powered septic system. I want to eat donuts and fight crime and do cheesy photo-ops at malls. I’m a small time girl. Leave me that way.”
“You weren’t always,” said Action Dude. “You used to want to lead the team more than anything.”
“Back when I thought we’d be leading it together, you mean,” said Vel.
“We still could,” Action Dude blurted. Then he froze, face going pale.
Velveteen was equally still. She stared at him, and he stared at her, and neither one of them spoke or moved for almost a minute. Finally, Velveteen took a slow, deep breath. “If I have done anything that would lead you to believe--” she began.
“No,” said Action Dude. He shook his head firmly, and repeated, “No. You haven’t done or said or implied anything, okay? And I’m not just here because of that.”
“Not just.”
“What?”
“You said you’re not just here because of that, which means you are here because of that, at least partially. You’re here because...what, you thought that as soon as we got a happy ending, I’d just fall right back into your arms? You’re the one who broke up with me, remember? If it had been my call, we’d be...fuck, I don’t know. We’d be married with three kids by now, and I would never have looked at another man. But it wasn’t, and we aren’t, and I did. Or did you forget about Tag?”
“I didn’t forget,” said Action Dude. “I still...we were kids, Vel. We were just kids. We didn’t know what we were doing. I loved you so much that I couldn’t imagine living without you. I thought that we’d break up for the sake of Marketing, so you wouldn’t be transferred, and then when we turned eighteen, we’d leave together. You and me, together. I could have learned to be happy as a civilian, if I’d been doing it with you.”
Velveteen, who had seen more than a few parallel realities, who had seen that in all the ones where she and Aaron were still together, they were together in uniform, shook her head sadly. “You never told me that. Not once. You never said ‘hold on and we’ll get out of here.’”
“I couldn’t. Marketing was listening.”
“So how did you expect me to know? You were cuddling with Yelena whenever there were cameras around, and she wouldn’t even speak to me. Every time I tried to get close to you there was someone waiting to get in the way. It was like I didn’t exist anymore.” Velveteen blinked back the tears that threatened to rise up and overflow her eyes. “You were my best friends, and you threw me away because someone in a position of power decided I was inconvenient. They broke us.”
“So that’s it?” Aaron raked his hands back through his hair, leaving it mussed and wild and completely camera-unready. “Lena gets a second chance, and I get you refusing to even look at me, forever? If you’re going to punish one of us, you should punish both of us.”
“You really want me to punish her?” Velveteen shot back. “Because there’s one big difference between the two of you, Aaron. She tried to get out. She looked at what The Super Patriots were doing, what they had become, and she ran, and yeah, I helped her, because she was finally making a choice for herself. You did do that. You fought against me, against us, me and Yelena and Jackie and the Princess! The fucking Princess said that The Super Patriots were corrupt, and you still stood against us! You never made a choice, Aaron. Sometimes I feel like you’ve never made a choice in your damn life. You go with what’s easy. You do what doesn’t challenge you. When the corporation said I wasn’t for you, you listened. Now the corporation is gone, and I’m suddenly good enough again. Well, guess what? You’re no longer good enough for me.”
“I never was,” said Aaron softly. “And you’re not wrong about most of what you just said. But you’re wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
“I made a choice. I chose you. Marketing was against it from the start. You were supposed to be the hero they could sell to the kids seven and under, the one with the cute stuffed toys and the playline accessories, and I was...I was supposed to be their jock. They were talking about hooking me up with Firefly, once she was out of the East Coast trainee program. We tested well with focus groups. But you were funny, and smart, and mean sometimes in that way that made you the most beautiful girl in the world. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be the kind of boy you’d be with.” He shrugged, looking down at his feet. “I got in trouble the first time I kissed you where the cameras could see.”
“I never knew that,” said Velveteen, after a moment’s stunned pause. “No one ever said anything to me.”
“Of course they didn’t. You weren’t the one who was acting against orders. But from that kiss, they knew they had me. You and Yelena were the hostages against my good behavior. Ask her. Ask her sometime, how often she saw me get pulled aside for a talking-to when she didn’t perform, or when we didn’t want to go looking for you. Ask her how many threats she overheard. Or get a telepath in here, and they’ll tell you that everything I’ve said has been the truth. You got out in part because when they said ‘stay,’ I stayed. Yelena got as far as she did because I did everything in my power to stop them from going after her. I fought against you. I can’t take that back. But we have always, always been on the same side.”
Velveteen looked at him for a long moment, eyes wide and very large in her still hollow-cheeked face. Finally, in a low voice, she asked, “Why are you really here, Aaron? You knew I was never going to come back to the team. So why did you come?”
“Because I don’t give two shits about the team,” said Action Dude. He walked cautiously toward her cot. When she didn’t immediately throw a pillow at him, he sat down on the very end, watching her all the while. “I don’t want you to rejoin The Super Patriots. Dotty and Dream do, but they’re as overwhelmed as I am, with a lot more left to lose. Me, I’ve already lost everything. I don’t actually care anymore.”
“So what do you want?”
He looked at her gravely. “I want you,” he said. “I want you to smile at me. Not the way you used to, because we were kids, we didn’t know anything, I was keeping secrets and playing hero and you thought I was some sort of a superman, and not just a superhero trying to get his shit together. I want you to smile at me like a grownup. I want to smile at you without worrying that you’re going to flinch away. I guess I want to be friends more than almost anything.”
“Almost.”
“What?”
“You said ‘almost.’ You want to be friends more than almost anything. So what’s the almost?”
Action Dude sighed heavily. “The almost is that I want you to remember why you loved me. I want you to realize that you never actually fell out of love with me. I want you back, and I know that’s stupid and childish and not going to happen, but you asked, and so I’m telling you. What do I want more than your friendship? Your love. Your approval. Your forgiveness. Not necessarily in that order. I want to be a part of your life again, whatever that looks like--and not as your nemesis. I miss you. I miss us, in all the different flavors that had before the end. Don’t you?”
“I miss the days when people called before coming over, mostly so I could tell them not to come,” drawled a new voice. They both turned to find the Princess standing in the doorway, arms crossed, scowling at them. “What in the name of happily ever after are you doing here? I do not recall inviting you back this soon.”
“I needed to talk to Vel,” said Action Dude. “The Night Shift let me in.”
“The Night Shift and I are going to have words about that, believe you me. I don’t want you here, Aaron. I don’t want you in my home, and I certainly don’t want you bothering Vel. She needs her rest.”
“You told me before that as long as Vel wanted me here, you were okay,” said Aaron. He glanced back to Velveteen. “Vel?”
“I want you to go,” said Velveteen. His face fell. The Princess’s lit up with triumph. Velveteen continued, “Not forever. Just for a few days. I need to think. Please. Can you do that for me?”
“I could do anything for you.” Action Dude stood, pausing only to give the Princess a respectful bow before fleeing out of the room and down the hall.
An iteration of the Night Shift was waiting by the door that would take him back to the theme park where it had opened. She looked him up and down before asking, “So how did it go?”
“I have no idea,” said Action Dude. His face split in a wide grin. “Isn’t that amazing?”
The Night Shift rolled her eyes. “If you say so. Tell Dreamy to pick me up at eight, and remind them that they promised me a really nice night. After dealing with that little girlfriend of yours, I deserve to be spoiled.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” said Action Dude, hand on the doorknob. Then he grinned. “Yet,” he added, and stepped outside, still grinning ear to ear. She wanted him to come back.
There was still a chance.
*
“What the hell were you thinking?” The Princess held her hands out toward Velveteen, voice and posture united in pleading for an answer. “That boy is nothing but trouble. He’s going to try to seduce you back to The Super Patriots, you see if he doesn’t, and when that happens--”
“It already did.”
The Princess stopped dead, staring at her. After several seconds of silence, she managed to demand, “What?”
“That’s why he came. Dottie Gale and the American Dream wanted him to tell me that if I’d agree, they’d hand the entire corporation over to me. I could be the new CEO of The Super Patriots, Inc. I could set policy, steer their course, everything. The shareholders would accept it, since technically I’ve defeated their entire current board in combat.” Velveteen shook her head. “I still don’t believe they codified the structure of superhero battles into their bylaws. That’s not just silly, it’s stupid.”
“But it fits the mythology they’ve been trying to build, and that’s what matters sometimes,” said the Princess. “What did you tell him?”
Velveteen snorted. “No. Fuck no, hell no, absolutely no, not going to happen. No. I’m done with that company, and I’m done with that team. They can figure their shit out without me.”
“Good girl,” said the Princess, not bothering to conceal her relief. Then she frowned. “What he was saying when I got here, now, that didn’t sound like the answer to a ‘no.’”
“I guess not.” Velveteen looked down at the silken blanket covering her legs. She began folding the edge between her fingers, swallowing hard. Finally, in a studiously casual tone, she asked, “Do you think he’s still in love with me?”
“Sweetheart, that boy is going to die still in love with you.”
Velveteen looked up, eyes wide. The Princess smiled, wry and wan and apologetic all at once.
“Sorry,” she said. “I wish I could lie to you, say it isn’t so, but I can’t tell lies where love’s concerned. He’s never been anything but in love with you. It’s a little sad, really. He couldn’t love you enough to tell his masters no, but he’s happy to love you so much he can’t leave you alone.”
“I think...” Velveteen took a deep breath. “I think he loved me so much that he told them ‘yes.’ When they asked him to do things he didn’t want to do, and told him that if he did them, they wouldn’t come after me. They lied. He didn’t know that. There are plenty of cases of the company going after people harder and faster than they did me, and the difference is that I had Aaron. Being the good boy. Being the hostage I didn’t even know about.”
“That doesn’t mean you owe him anything,” said the Princess. “He didn’t ask you if you wanted to be saved. You didn’t say ‘stay there and make us both miserable instead of telling me what’s going on and giving me a chance to save you back.’ You owe nothing for things that are done without your permission or consent.”
“I hated him for so long,” said Vel, looking down again. “I couldn’t understand how he could throw me away like that.”
“And now you’re questioning everything, and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter, because this is not your fault. How dare he put this on you. He had no right.”
“Cara? Why haven’t I tried to wake Tag up yet?”
The Princess was silent.
“Because if...if it were true love, if you were sure I could wake him, I would have expected you to bring it up as a part of my healing process. To say ‘hey, you know what would make the fairy tale logic of this place put you back together even faster? If you woke someone up with true love’s kiss.’ It makes sense. Only you haven’t said that. You haven’t mentioned him at all. He’s still there, isn’t he? In the glass coffin, waiting for me?”
Still, the Princess was silent. Velveteen nodded, mostly to herself.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You haven’t been mentioning him because you’re not sure I can wake him up. Because you think there’s a chance, maybe, that I’m still in love with Aaron.”
“Honey--”
“I guess I should be mad, because why put him to sleep if there’s no chance I’ll wake him up, but I can’t be. He’d be dead if not for you. He is dead. Until someone wakes him up.” Vel raised her head, tears shining in her eyes. “Do you think it’s going to be me?”
The Princess took a deep, unsteady breath. “I don’t know,” she said. “Honey, I’m sorry, but I don’t. Anyone with eyes knows you’ve been carrying a torch for Aaron for so long that we’re all sort of afraid you’re going to burn the house down. You seemed genuinely happy with Tad. It seemed like you were maybe healing a little bit. I think that you would have loved him enough to wake him up, if you’d had the time. Did you have the time? I don’t know. I honestly don’t.”
“He wouldn’t have been there to get hurt if he hadn’t been with me,” said Vel. “He was fighting with me. Because that’s what you do when you’re a superhuman and you love someone else who’s...who’s like you. You fight by their side. You make the world a safer place, together. That was all I ever wanted, was someone who would fight by my side. And Tag did, and he died because of me, and if I can’t bring him back because I’m still all fucked-up over Aaron, that’s just...that’s just unfair.”
“You call Tad ‘Tag,’ but you call Aaron by his name,” observed the Princess. “Why is that?”
Velveteen was silent for several seconds before she said, in a small voice, “I still believe Tag is a hero. I don’t know whether I believe that Aaron is one.”
“Oh, honey,” said the Princess, and went to her friend, and held her close while she cried.
It felt like there was nothing else to do.
*
It was almost six o’clock the next afternoon when Action Dude rang the bell at the door Uncertainty had indicated would lead to either the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle or a hipster speakeasy specializing in artisanal preserves. He was in street clothes, and supposed he should probably be thinking of himself as “Aaron,” but Vel made it hard. She almost never seemed to go back to her civilian identity anymore.
(That worried him, a little. A good balance between super identity and secret identity was vital to a healthy mind and attitude. Or at least that was what the therapists supplied by The Super Patriots, Inc. had always said, and he might have doubted it, too, if his older sister hadn’t decided to become a psychiatrist after watching what he went through. Sho agreed that the balance was essential. She also agreed that he needed to eat more and would it really kill him to call their mother once in a while? Sho was great. So yeah, he was worried about Vel. It just didn’t seem like it was his place to say anything about it. Didn’t she have people she trusted, at least more than she trusted him, who would notice if something was wrong?)
There was no answer to his ring. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, waiting for one of the Princess’s endless supply of overdressed woodland creatures to open the door and tell him that he wasn’t welcome, or for some skinny twenty-something in an “ironic” T-shirt blazoned with one of those same woodland creatures to open the door and try to sell him authentic vintage heirloom tomato parsnip jelly. Basically the same thing, right? Except that the Princess was more likely to offer jelly in the form of jam tarts, and she was less likely to share them with him.
He was considering the merits of knocking again when the door finally opened to reveal a statuesque blonde woman in jeans and a tight T-shirt that read NOT YOUR HAPPY ENDING in elaborate red and gold letters. She looked like a love letter to fan art, and he thought, privately, that most of her fans would have died of either shock or joy to see her like that.
There was something a little blurry about her features, like her makeup was made of funhouse mirrors. If any of her fans saw her tonight, they wouldn’t recognize her. “Walk with me, Aaron?” she asked, and it wasn’t really a question. It never was, with her.
“Um,” he said. “Sure.” Then: “How do you feel about parsnip jelly?”
The hipster speakeasy turned out to be three blocks over and one block down, sandwiched between a store that only sold mayonnaise and another that only sold small blind boxed toys imported from Japan. Aaron wasn’t sure any of these establishments had a very long life ahead of them. There was specializing to stand out from the crowd, and then there was...this.
But maybe that was easy for him to say. His power set was one of the most common and most all-around useful in the superhuman toolbox, after all. There had never been a question about his marketability. Only about his loyalty.
The Princess settled across from him, dropping a metal stand with the number “5” clipped to it on the center of the table. “There’s a good chance she’s still in love with you, and I want to know what you’re planning to do about it,” she said, without preamble.
“Um,” said Aaron. “Be...very, very happy, and very, very careful?”
“You bet your ass you’re going to be careful,” grumbled the Princess. “You don’t deserve her. She’s too good for you by half.”
“I’m not going to argue with that.”
“Good, because you’d lose.” The Princess folded her arms and slouched in her seat in a distinctly un-princess-like fashion. “I got us scones and jam. They do an assortment. It seemed efficient.”
“Um,” said Aaron. “Thank you?”
“You going to answer everything I say with a question, or what? Because if you are, this is going to be a long damn conversation.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Aaron. “We’ve never been friends, and that’s never been a bad thing, because Vel needed people in her life who weren’t also a part of my life. She needed people she could trust. You’ve been amazing for her. But it means I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know how to make you understand that I’m not trying to be the bad guy here.”
“It’s a funny thing, being the bad guy,” said the Princess. “Just about nobody does it on purpose. They do it slowly, and accidentally, and with all the best of intentions. You love her?”
“I’ve never loved anyone else.”
“You’re sure pushing your way back into her life when she’s scared and confused and trying to figure out how all this fits together is the best plan?” The Princess paused as a large, overly ornate tray of scones, cream, and tiny jam pots was delivered to the table. Meeting Aaron’s eyes, she said, “Braver thing to do might be leaving her alone.”
“Because look how well that worked out for the both of us last time.” Aaron didn’t look away. “I’m not going to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I doubt I could if I was planning to try. But I’m not giving her up again unless she’s the one who tells me to go. And if you have a problem with that, ma’am, you can stick it sideways up your own ass.”
The Princess blinked before giving a small, startled laugh. “Where was this Aaron before everything went wrong?”
“The usual,” he said. “Late-night talk shows and corporate brainwashing sessions.”
“I suppose that’s true.” The Princess picked up a scone, loading it carefully with jam and cream before she said, “The rabbits will let you in if you want to go and see her. There’s a to-go bag for the two of you at the counter.”
Aaron was gone almost before she was finished speaking. He did not, she noted with frustrated amusement, say goodbye.
“All right, you two,” she murmured to her scone. “Figure it the fuck out. There’s a lot of hearts at stake here.”
Her thoughts were full of glass coffins and poisoned apples, and the scone tasted like ashes in her mouth.
Summary: What happens to a child superhero who finds that after everything she has done, everything she has endured...life goes on?
***
“No comment.” The person on the other end of the phone kept talking. The Princess listened with increasingly visible irritation, her lip slowly curling upward, until she was actively sneering. Finally, she snorted hard, and snapped, “I told you once, I told you twice, and now I’m telling you for a third time, if you want an interview, you go through my publicist. You certainly do not call me up in the middle of the damn night to ask questions you haven’t earned the answers to. Lose my number, and have a magical night.”
Cellphones lacked the heft for satisfying slamming down--not unless she wanted to risk cracking the screen--but since the other option was using the magic mirror, she had to settle for viciously swiping her thumb across the screen, as if to punish the person on the other end. They would be punished, she knew that much: people who were told to lose her number generally did, and they had an awfully hard time finding it again, assuming they ever managed. Even if somebody felt bad enough for them to give them a reminder, it would just get lost as soon as they took their eyes off of it. It would take a sincere apology, delivered in person, to get this caller back into her good graces.
Somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better. The Princess rose, her comfortable sweat pants and slogan tee (“Not Looking For A Prince, Just Here For the Shoes”) melting into a gold and rose ball gown much more suitable for sweeping along the castle halls. The weight was a reassurance as much as it was a burden. This was who she was, who she had to be any time she wanted to walk in the world. It wasn’t going to change. Not for her, and not for any of them.
That was really the crux of the problem. Who she was inside could change, and did, all the time, because that was being human. Something she’d said or done or believed a decade ago might be as false now as the lashes on a theme park dancer, molded by experience and opinion. Trouble was, people didn’t like to let things go. They’d dig out an interview she’d given when she first started speaking to the public (still a child, all crinoline and curls and wide-eyed, earnest determination to never disappoint anyone, to never let anyone down, because if she did, the magic might go away and leave her back as she’d been, back in the wrong life), and say “But Princess, we thought you believed...”
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It ignored the human capacity to change, and more, it ignored the fact that language shaped opinion, and many of those interviews and articles had been written by folks who were working from their own set of biases. There were more than a few nasty, snippy little articles about her, ones that claimed she was a liberal conspiracy to corrupt the children of the world. As if fairy tale magic and wonder gave a damn about what small-minded people believed? As long as the magic stayed with her, she knew she was doing right by those kids. But Vel...
Sometimes the Princess wished they weren’t the same age, because if there had ever been a little girl who needed a fairy godmother, it was Velma Martinez, better known to the world as “Velveteen.” If there had ever been a child who could have benefitted from having an adult mentor who actually gave a damn, who would actually teach, and not just endlessly train, it was her. But that ship had sailed, much like Jolly Roger’s Phantom Doll, and it was never coming back.
Velveteen had never done anything really wrong; had never had the opportunity to do anything really wrong. She’d been snatched up by The Super Patriots, Inc. when she was too young to have started down the road to supervillainy, and even though she’d walked away as soon as it was legal for her to do so, the habits of heroism that they had beaten into her thick little skull had stuck more than anyone could have hoped. She’d hung up her mask and headband, sure, and she hadn’t been doing anything to protect the cities where she’d lived, trying to eke out an existence on her own terms, but she hadn’t gone the other way. She’d never robbed banks or taken hostages or played the black hat in the endless superhuman game of capture the flag.
But as far as the Marketing Department of The Super Patriots, Inc. had been concerned, Velveteen had committed the ultimate act of villainy when she had chosen to tear up her contract and walk away. She had stolen an irreplaceable corporate asset: herself. And so they had, with cruel indifference, done everything they could to destroy her without violating the terms of their interactions with legally retired superhumans.
They had made calls to employers, implying that her separation from the team had been less voluntary than she would like to admit. They had contacted landlords, and when that hadn’t worked, they had purchased buildings through shell companies, evicting her for any offense the law would allow. They had pushed the boundaries of legality until they broke, and all the while, they had been delicately massaging the past, changing the documentation, updating the old films, until she was clearly painted as the team fuck-up and an inevitable villain in training.
They had been planning to make her a villain, and they might well have succeeded, if Velveteen hadn’t been smart about who her friends were, and lucky about where she’d landed when she finally took the risk and ran. Now...
Velveteen had changed the world when she had gone up against her former employers and won. That sort of thing didn’t just blow over. Most of the story as it had been written so far painted her as the bad guy. Now, with the press sniffing around, their window for changing the narrative was closing.
The Princess just hoped she could make Velveteen understand that sometimes, the true superpower was in knowing how hard to spin.
*
Envy, jealousy, and covetousness, with their gently divergent definitions and their functionally identical roots, have been a part of the human psyche since the beginning of recorded history and, presumably, before. Even animals can express the desire to own that which does not belong to them, whether it be the best territory, the most plentiful food, or the most fertile mate. Wars have been fought and nations have been divided by the many flavors of greed, both subtle and direct.
When the first superhumans appeared, the natural human response was awe. Here were men who could fly, women who could summon storms with a wave of their hand, people who could talk to animals or teleport or recover in the blink of an eye from what should have been fatal wounds. Here was the future, walking up to the door and ringing the bell, asking politely to be let inside. The first news reports of superhumans have an air of jovial futurism to them, implying if not outright stating that sooner rather than later, humanity would enter a new golden age of possibility.
Then more superhumans appeared, and more, and more, and it became increasingly clear that this new golden age was not going to be available to everyone, or to anyone outside of the chosen few--and those choices so often seemed to be wrong! Villains and n’er-do-wells and the obviously undeserving were granted the gift of super powers while those who would have made better use of those same gifts were left standing idly by, unable to compete, unable to even start playing the game.
Was it any wonder when those “more worthy” onlookers seized control of the narrative? When the story of the superhuman who fell, rather than flew, became infinitely more compelling? Envy has always found a home in the human heart.
Envy, which rejoices when the mighty are brought low.
*
An instance of the Night Shift was in the banquet hall when the Princess arrived, coaxing another cup of coffee out of an urn so covered with glittering crystals that it looked almost like a bedazzled beehive. (Corporate would never admit it, but the Princess’s need for coffee before she could face the morning was the reason they had finally allowed a major chain to open outlets in their theme parks. Seeing the coffee shops in conjunction with the fairy tale flourishes of it all had reinforced the idea that princesses liked espresso in the minds of children the world over, and had made it possible for the Princess to keep a steady supply of the stuff flowing in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle.)
“How’s our patient today?” she asked, walking up to the Night Shift and stopping a respectful distance away.
“Cranky,” said the Night Shift. She took a swig of coffee. “Belligerent. Making me think it may be time to up my rates again. But she’s healing. Her bruises are almost gone, that one bad break has managed to set, and she’s up ten pounds. You could probably dismiss me, as long as you’re willing to sit on her and make her take things easy for another week or two.”
“You really think we can keep that girl quiet for another week?”
“I think you’ve got three days before she starts climbing the walls and animating all your garden statues out of sheer nervous boredom,” said the Night Shift. “I’m removing toys from around her bed constantly. She’s not calling them on purpose, or she says she isn’t, and I’m inclined to believe her, because she looks unnerved every time I find another one. She’s anxious and she’s bored and it’s got her leaking energy in every direction. The sooner we can put her back on patrol, the better off she’ll be.”
“Now hold on,” objected the Princess. “You’re the one who tore strips out of my hide for letting her go on patrol in the first place.”
“Yes, four days ago,” said the Night Shift. “I’m good at my job. Probably the best in the world.”
“As you are the only one-woman emergency room and care staff in existence, I’m going to say that yes, you’re definitely the best there is at what you do. What’s your point?”
“That she’s stronger now than she was four days ago. If you asked what I thought of her going on patrol tonight, I’d say that it was fine. As long as she’s not trying to save the world solo, she should be all right.”
“Huh,” said the Princess. “She’s doing that well?”
“She really is,” said the Night Shift.
“Well, then, you think you could give us a moment’s privacy? I need to speak with her about something.”
The Night Shift blinked, clearly nonplussed. “What? I’m already leaving her alone. I only have three instances right now, and we’re all taking care of biological needs.”
“Look how well-behaved I am, not asking what that means,” said the Princess. “Why did you leave her alone?”
“She has company,” said the Night Shift. “I thought you knew.”
The Princess didn’t reply. The Princess was already gathering her skirts in her hands and running for all that she was worth for the door.
*
In the recovery room, painted with stained glass shadows and propped up by the softest pillows this side of Slumberland, Velveteen crossed her arms and scowled. The expression lacked the heat it would have possessed only a few weeks prior; it was, in its way, almost fond.
“I don’t know which is worse,” she said. “The fact that you came here to ask me that, or the fact that I opened the door and let you inside. You’ve got to be out of your mind.”
“I’m not,” said Action Dude, twisting his hands anxiously in front of him. He was back in his orange and blue costume, the very embodiment of truth, justice, and the corporate way. He looked like everything she’d been running from since she was eighteen years old. He looked like everything she’d ever wanted, all served up on a silver platter and ready for her to enjoy. “We talked it over, and we think it’s the right thing to do.”
“And ‘we’ would be...?”
“Me, and Dotty Gale, and the American Dream. We all think that, well. We’re not bad people, Vel. We were raised to be heroes, and we’re doing the best we can. But we were raised by The Super Patriots, Inc., and we know now what that meant. Supermodel set the curriculum. She guided our training. We don’t know whether what we think of as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is actually...good.” Action Dude grimaced. “It sounds sort of stupid when I say it like that, but really, it’s scary.”
“A lot of things are scary.” There was steel in Velveteen’s tone, and no forgiveness in her gaze. “You know what’s scary? Finding out how much of your paycheck got funneled to your parents in exchange for them looking the other way while a big corporation beat the childhood out of you. Having no high school diploma or place to live or idea of what things are supposed to cost. Not knowing how to survive without Marketing holding your hand. Have you ever cooked? Anything? Or done your own laundry, or paid your own bills?”
Action Dude’s face flushed. He turned away.
“Yeah,” said Velveteen. There was no rancor in her tone. “I thought not. People would have noticed if their heroes turned into villains, and so Supermodel never went there. She taught you--or she allowed her people to teach you, rather--the things real heroes had to know. You are real heroes. She just didn’t teach you how to survive in the wild, or how to think for yourselves. Why the hell do you think I want to step in and take her place as keeper of the Island of Misfit Toys?”
“Because you’re not like her.” Action Dude seized onto the question like it was a lifeline. “You could never be like her. Power corrupts, sure, but we’ve known people more powerful than her who didn’t get corrupted. You’re better than she was.”
“Tell that to Jolly Roger,” said Vel. “I am not interested. Tell Dotty and the American Dream that they aren’t getting what they want.”
“But...”
“No, Aaron,” said Vel. “No. I don’t want to come back to the team, and I don’t want to come back to the corporation, and I don’t want to lead anything. I just want to get better and go home to Portland before Victoria Anna decides that what we really need is a steam-powered septic system. I want to eat donuts and fight crime and do cheesy photo-ops at malls. I’m a small time girl. Leave me that way.”
“You weren’t always,” said Action Dude. “You used to want to lead the team more than anything.”
“Back when I thought we’d be leading it together, you mean,” said Vel.
“We still could,” Action Dude blurted. Then he froze, face going pale.
Velveteen was equally still. She stared at him, and he stared at her, and neither one of them spoke or moved for almost a minute. Finally, Velveteen took a slow, deep breath. “If I have done anything that would lead you to believe--” she began.
“No,” said Action Dude. He shook his head firmly, and repeated, “No. You haven’t done or said or implied anything, okay? And I’m not just here because of that.”
“Not just.”
“What?”
“You said you’re not just here because of that, which means you are here because of that, at least partially. You’re here because...what, you thought that as soon as we got a happy ending, I’d just fall right back into your arms? You’re the one who broke up with me, remember? If it had been my call, we’d be...fuck, I don’t know. We’d be married with three kids by now, and I would never have looked at another man. But it wasn’t, and we aren’t, and I did. Or did you forget about Tag?”
“I didn’t forget,” said Action Dude. “I still...we were kids, Vel. We were just kids. We didn’t know what we were doing. I loved you so much that I couldn’t imagine living without you. I thought that we’d break up for the sake of Marketing, so you wouldn’t be transferred, and then when we turned eighteen, we’d leave together. You and me, together. I could have learned to be happy as a civilian, if I’d been doing it with you.”
Velveteen, who had seen more than a few parallel realities, who had seen that in all the ones where she and Aaron were still together, they were together in uniform, shook her head sadly. “You never told me that. Not once. You never said ‘hold on and we’ll get out of here.’”
“I couldn’t. Marketing was listening.”
“So how did you expect me to know? You were cuddling with Yelena whenever there were cameras around, and she wouldn’t even speak to me. Every time I tried to get close to you there was someone waiting to get in the way. It was like I didn’t exist anymore.” Velveteen blinked back the tears that threatened to rise up and overflow her eyes. “You were my best friends, and you threw me away because someone in a position of power decided I was inconvenient. They broke us.”
“So that’s it?” Aaron raked his hands back through his hair, leaving it mussed and wild and completely camera-unready. “Lena gets a second chance, and I get you refusing to even look at me, forever? If you’re going to punish one of us, you should punish both of us.”
“You really want me to punish her?” Velveteen shot back. “Because there’s one big difference between the two of you, Aaron. She tried to get out. She looked at what The Super Patriots were doing, what they had become, and she ran, and yeah, I helped her, because she was finally making a choice for herself. You did do that. You fought against me, against us, me and Yelena and Jackie and the Princess! The fucking Princess said that The Super Patriots were corrupt, and you still stood against us! You never made a choice, Aaron. Sometimes I feel like you’ve never made a choice in your damn life. You go with what’s easy. You do what doesn’t challenge you. When the corporation said I wasn’t for you, you listened. Now the corporation is gone, and I’m suddenly good enough again. Well, guess what? You’re no longer good enough for me.”
“I never was,” said Aaron softly. “And you’re not wrong about most of what you just said. But you’re wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
“I made a choice. I chose you. Marketing was against it from the start. You were supposed to be the hero they could sell to the kids seven and under, the one with the cute stuffed toys and the playline accessories, and I was...I was supposed to be their jock. They were talking about hooking me up with Firefly, once she was out of the East Coast trainee program. We tested well with focus groups. But you were funny, and smart, and mean sometimes in that way that made you the most beautiful girl in the world. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be the kind of boy you’d be with.” He shrugged, looking down at his feet. “I got in trouble the first time I kissed you where the cameras could see.”
“I never knew that,” said Velveteen, after a moment’s stunned pause. “No one ever said anything to me.”
“Of course they didn’t. You weren’t the one who was acting against orders. But from that kiss, they knew they had me. You and Yelena were the hostages against my good behavior. Ask her. Ask her sometime, how often she saw me get pulled aside for a talking-to when she didn’t perform, or when we didn’t want to go looking for you. Ask her how many threats she overheard. Or get a telepath in here, and they’ll tell you that everything I’ve said has been the truth. You got out in part because when they said ‘stay,’ I stayed. Yelena got as far as she did because I did everything in my power to stop them from going after her. I fought against you. I can’t take that back. But we have always, always been on the same side.”
Velveteen looked at him for a long moment, eyes wide and very large in her still hollow-cheeked face. Finally, in a low voice, she asked, “Why are you really here, Aaron? You knew I was never going to come back to the team. So why did you come?”
“Because I don’t give two shits about the team,” said Action Dude. He walked cautiously toward her cot. When she didn’t immediately throw a pillow at him, he sat down on the very end, watching her all the while. “I don’t want you to rejoin The Super Patriots. Dotty and Dream do, but they’re as overwhelmed as I am, with a lot more left to lose. Me, I’ve already lost everything. I don’t actually care anymore.”
“So what do you want?”
He looked at her gravely. “I want you,” he said. “I want you to smile at me. Not the way you used to, because we were kids, we didn’t know anything, I was keeping secrets and playing hero and you thought I was some sort of a superman, and not just a superhero trying to get his shit together. I want you to smile at me like a grownup. I want to smile at you without worrying that you’re going to flinch away. I guess I want to be friends more than almost anything.”
“Almost.”
“What?”
“You said ‘almost.’ You want to be friends more than almost anything. So what’s the almost?”
Action Dude sighed heavily. “The almost is that I want you to remember why you loved me. I want you to realize that you never actually fell out of love with me. I want you back, and I know that’s stupid and childish and not going to happen, but you asked, and so I’m telling you. What do I want more than your friendship? Your love. Your approval. Your forgiveness. Not necessarily in that order. I want to be a part of your life again, whatever that looks like--and not as your nemesis. I miss you. I miss us, in all the different flavors that had before the end. Don’t you?”
“I miss the days when people called before coming over, mostly so I could tell them not to come,” drawled a new voice. They both turned to find the Princess standing in the doorway, arms crossed, scowling at them. “What in the name of happily ever after are you doing here? I do not recall inviting you back this soon.”
“I needed to talk to Vel,” said Action Dude. “The Night Shift let me in.”
“The Night Shift and I are going to have words about that, believe you me. I don’t want you here, Aaron. I don’t want you in my home, and I certainly don’t want you bothering Vel. She needs her rest.”
“You told me before that as long as Vel wanted me here, you were okay,” said Aaron. He glanced back to Velveteen. “Vel?”
“I want you to go,” said Velveteen. His face fell. The Princess’s lit up with triumph. Velveteen continued, “Not forever. Just for a few days. I need to think. Please. Can you do that for me?”
“I could do anything for you.” Action Dude stood, pausing only to give the Princess a respectful bow before fleeing out of the room and down the hall.
An iteration of the Night Shift was waiting by the door that would take him back to the theme park where it had opened. She looked him up and down before asking, “So how did it go?”
“I have no idea,” said Action Dude. His face split in a wide grin. “Isn’t that amazing?”
The Night Shift rolled her eyes. “If you say so. Tell Dreamy to pick me up at eight, and remind them that they promised me a really nice night. After dealing with that little girlfriend of yours, I deserve to be spoiled.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” said Action Dude, hand on the doorknob. Then he grinned. “Yet,” he added, and stepped outside, still grinning ear to ear. She wanted him to come back.
There was still a chance.
*
“What the hell were you thinking?” The Princess held her hands out toward Velveteen, voice and posture united in pleading for an answer. “That boy is nothing but trouble. He’s going to try to seduce you back to The Super Patriots, you see if he doesn’t, and when that happens--”
“It already did.”
The Princess stopped dead, staring at her. After several seconds of silence, she managed to demand, “What?”
“That’s why he came. Dottie Gale and the American Dream wanted him to tell me that if I’d agree, they’d hand the entire corporation over to me. I could be the new CEO of The Super Patriots, Inc. I could set policy, steer their course, everything. The shareholders would accept it, since technically I’ve defeated their entire current board in combat.” Velveteen shook her head. “I still don’t believe they codified the structure of superhero battles into their bylaws. That’s not just silly, it’s stupid.”
“But it fits the mythology they’ve been trying to build, and that’s what matters sometimes,” said the Princess. “What did you tell him?”
Velveteen snorted. “No. Fuck no, hell no, absolutely no, not going to happen. No. I’m done with that company, and I’m done with that team. They can figure their shit out without me.”
“Good girl,” said the Princess, not bothering to conceal her relief. Then she frowned. “What he was saying when I got here, now, that didn’t sound like the answer to a ‘no.’”
“I guess not.” Velveteen looked down at the silken blanket covering her legs. She began folding the edge between her fingers, swallowing hard. Finally, in a studiously casual tone, she asked, “Do you think he’s still in love with me?”
“Sweetheart, that boy is going to die still in love with you.”
Velveteen looked up, eyes wide. The Princess smiled, wry and wan and apologetic all at once.
“Sorry,” she said. “I wish I could lie to you, say it isn’t so, but I can’t tell lies where love’s concerned. He’s never been anything but in love with you. It’s a little sad, really. He couldn’t love you enough to tell his masters no, but he’s happy to love you so much he can’t leave you alone.”
“I think...” Velveteen took a deep breath. “I think he loved me so much that he told them ‘yes.’ When they asked him to do things he didn’t want to do, and told him that if he did them, they wouldn’t come after me. They lied. He didn’t know that. There are plenty of cases of the company going after people harder and faster than they did me, and the difference is that I had Aaron. Being the good boy. Being the hostage I didn’t even know about.”
“That doesn’t mean you owe him anything,” said the Princess. “He didn’t ask you if you wanted to be saved. You didn’t say ‘stay there and make us both miserable instead of telling me what’s going on and giving me a chance to save you back.’ You owe nothing for things that are done without your permission or consent.”
“I hated him for so long,” said Vel, looking down again. “I couldn’t understand how he could throw me away like that.”
“And now you’re questioning everything, and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter, because this is not your fault. How dare he put this on you. He had no right.”
“Cara? Why haven’t I tried to wake Tag up yet?”
The Princess was silent.
“Because if...if it were true love, if you were sure I could wake him, I would have expected you to bring it up as a part of my healing process. To say ‘hey, you know what would make the fairy tale logic of this place put you back together even faster? If you woke someone up with true love’s kiss.’ It makes sense. Only you haven’t said that. You haven’t mentioned him at all. He’s still there, isn’t he? In the glass coffin, waiting for me?”
Still, the Princess was silent. Velveteen nodded, mostly to herself.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You haven’t been mentioning him because you’re not sure I can wake him up. Because you think there’s a chance, maybe, that I’m still in love with Aaron.”
“Honey--”
“I guess I should be mad, because why put him to sleep if there’s no chance I’ll wake him up, but I can’t be. He’d be dead if not for you. He is dead. Until someone wakes him up.” Vel raised her head, tears shining in her eyes. “Do you think it’s going to be me?”
The Princess took a deep, unsteady breath. “I don’t know,” she said. “Honey, I’m sorry, but I don’t. Anyone with eyes knows you’ve been carrying a torch for Aaron for so long that we’re all sort of afraid you’re going to burn the house down. You seemed genuinely happy with Tad. It seemed like you were maybe healing a little bit. I think that you would have loved him enough to wake him up, if you’d had the time. Did you have the time? I don’t know. I honestly don’t.”
“He wouldn’t have been there to get hurt if he hadn’t been with me,” said Vel. “He was fighting with me. Because that’s what you do when you’re a superhuman and you love someone else who’s...who’s like you. You fight by their side. You make the world a safer place, together. That was all I ever wanted, was someone who would fight by my side. And Tag did, and he died because of me, and if I can’t bring him back because I’m still all fucked-up over Aaron, that’s just...that’s just unfair.”
“You call Tad ‘Tag,’ but you call Aaron by his name,” observed the Princess. “Why is that?”
Velveteen was silent for several seconds before she said, in a small voice, “I still believe Tag is a hero. I don’t know whether I believe that Aaron is one.”
“Oh, honey,” said the Princess, and went to her friend, and held her close while she cried.
It felt like there was nothing else to do.
*
It was almost six o’clock the next afternoon when Action Dude rang the bell at the door Uncertainty had indicated would lead to either the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle or a hipster speakeasy specializing in artisanal preserves. He was in street clothes, and supposed he should probably be thinking of himself as “Aaron,” but Vel made it hard. She almost never seemed to go back to her civilian identity anymore.
(That worried him, a little. A good balance between super identity and secret identity was vital to a healthy mind and attitude. Or at least that was what the therapists supplied by The Super Patriots, Inc. had always said, and he might have doubted it, too, if his older sister hadn’t decided to become a psychiatrist after watching what he went through. Sho agreed that the balance was essential. She also agreed that he needed to eat more and would it really kill him to call their mother once in a while? Sho was great. So yeah, he was worried about Vel. It just didn’t seem like it was his place to say anything about it. Didn’t she have people she trusted, at least more than she trusted him, who would notice if something was wrong?)
There was no answer to his ring. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, waiting for one of the Princess’s endless supply of overdressed woodland creatures to open the door and tell him that he wasn’t welcome, or for some skinny twenty-something in an “ironic” T-shirt blazoned with one of those same woodland creatures to open the door and try to sell him authentic vintage heirloom tomato parsnip jelly. Basically the same thing, right? Except that the Princess was more likely to offer jelly in the form of jam tarts, and she was less likely to share them with him.
He was considering the merits of knocking again when the door finally opened to reveal a statuesque blonde woman in jeans and a tight T-shirt that read NOT YOUR HAPPY ENDING in elaborate red and gold letters. She looked like a love letter to fan art, and he thought, privately, that most of her fans would have died of either shock or joy to see her like that.
There was something a little blurry about her features, like her makeup was made of funhouse mirrors. If any of her fans saw her tonight, they wouldn’t recognize her. “Walk with me, Aaron?” she asked, and it wasn’t really a question. It never was, with her.
“Um,” he said. “Sure.” Then: “How do you feel about parsnip jelly?”
The hipster speakeasy turned out to be three blocks over and one block down, sandwiched between a store that only sold mayonnaise and another that only sold small blind boxed toys imported from Japan. Aaron wasn’t sure any of these establishments had a very long life ahead of them. There was specializing to stand out from the crowd, and then there was...this.
But maybe that was easy for him to say. His power set was one of the most common and most all-around useful in the superhuman toolbox, after all. There had never been a question about his marketability. Only about his loyalty.
The Princess settled across from him, dropping a metal stand with the number “5” clipped to it on the center of the table. “There’s a good chance she’s still in love with you, and I want to know what you’re planning to do about it,” she said, without preamble.
“Um,” said Aaron. “Be...very, very happy, and very, very careful?”
“You bet your ass you’re going to be careful,” grumbled the Princess. “You don’t deserve her. She’s too good for you by half.”
“I’m not going to argue with that.”
“Good, because you’d lose.” The Princess folded her arms and slouched in her seat in a distinctly un-princess-like fashion. “I got us scones and jam. They do an assortment. It seemed efficient.”
“Um,” said Aaron. “Thank you?”
“You going to answer everything I say with a question, or what? Because if you are, this is going to be a long damn conversation.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Aaron. “We’ve never been friends, and that’s never been a bad thing, because Vel needed people in her life who weren’t also a part of my life. She needed people she could trust. You’ve been amazing for her. But it means I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know how to make you understand that I’m not trying to be the bad guy here.”
“It’s a funny thing, being the bad guy,” said the Princess. “Just about nobody does it on purpose. They do it slowly, and accidentally, and with all the best of intentions. You love her?”
“I’ve never loved anyone else.”
“You’re sure pushing your way back into her life when she’s scared and confused and trying to figure out how all this fits together is the best plan?” The Princess paused as a large, overly ornate tray of scones, cream, and tiny jam pots was delivered to the table. Meeting Aaron’s eyes, she said, “Braver thing to do might be leaving her alone.”
“Because look how well that worked out for the both of us last time.” Aaron didn’t look away. “I’m not going to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I doubt I could if I was planning to try. But I’m not giving her up again unless she’s the one who tells me to go. And if you have a problem with that, ma’am, you can stick it sideways up your own ass.”
The Princess blinked before giving a small, startled laugh. “Where was this Aaron before everything went wrong?”
“The usual,” he said. “Late-night talk shows and corporate brainwashing sessions.”
“I suppose that’s true.” The Princess picked up a scone, loading it carefully with jam and cream before she said, “The rabbits will let you in if you want to go and see her. There’s a to-go bag for the two of you at the counter.”
Aaron was gone almost before she was finished speaking. He did not, she noted with frustrated amusement, say goodbye.
“All right, you two,” she murmured to her scone. “Figure it the fuck out. There’s a lot of hearts at stake here.”
Her thoughts were full of glass coffins and poisoned apples, and the scone tasted like ashes in her mouth.