Junior Hero Blues

by J. K. Pendragon

  Eventually, I got up from the floor and sat down on one of the benches that lined the side of the jet. Captain Justice came and sat beside me. At least he didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t want to do this anymore,” I said finally. “It’s all shit.”

  Captain Justice was silent for a while. I got the impression that he kept wanting to say stuff and then deciding against it. In the end, he just said, “If you want to go on leave for a little while, that is of course, your prerogative.”

  “Yeah.” My voice was low and brimming with anger. “I think I do. Really, really long leave.”

  It was weird to go back to the League building after that. I don’t know why. It just felt like, I don’t know, time should have stopped or something. At least long enough for me to lie in the middle of the street crying for a couple of hours. That was all I wanted to do. Instead I had to go get examined by the doctors, and then by Chelsea. Luckily she told me that I didn’t have to talk about it right away, but I’d have to come back in a few days and get a letter from her if I wanted to go on leave. At that point I didn’t want to go on “leave” at all, I wanted to quit. Which just goes to show how upset I was, because the League was the best thing to ever happen to me, financially.

  When I left Chelsea’s office, I was surprised to see Vanessa standing there waiting for me. She was looking way better. There was definitely still something fragile about her, and her cheeks were sunken, but she’d hidden it convincingly underneath some stylish clothes and makeup.

  “Ivana told me what happened,” she said.

  “Ivana?” The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Oh. The Raven. She’s, um, letting me stay with her.” Vanessa shrugged. “I couldn’t live here anymore.”

  “I don’t blame you.” I went and sat on one of the benches across from Chelsea’s office. The League building was set up like a really tall skinny donut, around a courtyard with big trees in it, so all the hallways are like balconies, open to the courtyard on the inside. It’s kind of scary looking down from that height, but I did it anyway. Vanessa came and sat next to me.

  “You almost got him back,” she said softly.

  “Yeah. But I didn’t.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I keep thinking . . .” I sighed, and tilted my head back. “Maybe if he cared about me more.”

  “It’d be romantic,” she agreed, “if his love for you overcame everything.”

  “I guess it doesn’t work that way.” I sighed. “I should just give up. Try to move on.”

  “Why?”

  I turned to look at her.

  “I mean,” she continued, “if there was even a chance that I could get Josh back . . .” She sniffed and rolled her eyes. “Not that you should take advice from me, considering the state of my mental health.”

  “How are you doing?” I felt guilty suddenly. “I should have come to see you or something.”

  “I didn’t want to see anyone.” She shook her head. “I’m . . . scared. I’m scared I’ll hurt people. I want to do good with my abilities, but I don’t think that’s even possible. And I’m afraid of becoming something, you know . . . inhuman.”

  “I don’t know if Hounds are necessarily bad,” I said tentatively. “Maybe it’s just the one working with the Organization who is.”

  “Ivana told me that a group of Hounds captured her brother when they were teenagers.” Vanessa flinched. “She said they tortured him.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t want to torture anyone. It’s not like I don’t have free will, but . . .” She leaned back against the railing. “You know, the Organization, they chose the three of us. It wasn’t just random. They observed us, and waited until we were going out of town, and targeted us specifically.” She was looking down at her hands now, white against her skirt. “What does that say about us, that we were, like, perfect villain material?”

  “I don’t know.” The thought made me uneasy too, but I didn’t want to admit it to her. “Probably says a lot more about the Organization than it does about you.”

  “Maybe. Honestly, Javier, I don’t know about me, but Rick . . . he was always such a good guy. If you can do anything to get him away from them . . .” She took a deep, shuddery breath. “Just, it would be good to have my friend back.”

  “Yeah, well, I . . .” I reached for my bag. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I feel tired. I’m going to take a break.”

  “You should come by,” she said as we stood. “Visit sometime. Ivana talks about you a lot.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe in a while.”

  “Javier.”

  “Hi, Mama.” I let my bag drop to the ground as I slouched out of my coat. “Hi, Papa.”

  They were both sitting on the couch, the news playing quietly in the background.

  “What happened?” asked my mom as I shuffled into the living room and flopped down on the old chair, lowering my face into my hands.

  “I don’t know,” I said softly. “I . . . I quit. That should make you guys happy.”

  They didn’t seem happy. “Why?” asked my dad.

  “Because I don’t . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all.”

  They were both silent. I stared down at the orange rug through my fingers.

  “I mean . . .” The words flowed out in Spanish like they never could in English. “They’re so . . . they’re so broken. The League. They’re supposed to be this perfect force for good, but all they do is argue with each other, and they can’t even save one person. I just want them to save him for me. And they can’t.”

  A big ugly sob burst up out of me, and I pressed my hands to my face. I’d been holding it together so well all afternoon, and now I just couldn’t anymore. “I wanted to do something good.” I wasn’t even sure if they could understand me through my crying, or if I was even speaking anything remotely resembling proper Spanish. “I wanted to be part of something good, but I don’t even know what good is anymore. I just wanted to help people.” I looked up at them, swallowing down a heavy lump in my throat. “Why can’t I do that?”

  “You can.” My mom reached out to take my hand. “Javier, you can do whatever you want.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

  “Then,” she said, “maybe you need to help yourself first.”

  “Javier,” said my dad. He glanced at my mom nervously. “We’re very sorry that we reacted the way we did about . . . all of this.”

  I twisted my mouth a little.

  My dad looked to my mom again, and she nodded. “You went through something very scary,” he continued. “And you wanted to do the right thing, and that’s admirable. And I’m sorry that you felt scared—”

  “Yes,” she said, “and that you felt you couldn’t talk to us, or tell us.”

  “It’s not your fault!” I said. “It’s not your fault I didn’t feel like I could tell you. You know that, right?”

  My mom shrugged. “Who else’s fault would it be?”

  “It’s mine!” I said. “I don’t know how to talk. I don’t know how to tell people things. I never have. It’s easier to be quiet.”

  “We should have known that,” said my dad.

  My mom nodded. “We should have been able to tell. You know you never cried as a baby. You had tears, but you never made any sound. Just this little, pathetic wailing sometimes.”

  I gave an ugly snort. “Thanks, Mama, nice to know you think I’m pathetic.”

  “I don’t think you’re pathetic,” she said, as my dad chuckled. “Javier, cariño.” She moved to sit next to me on the chair, curling her arms around me. “We love you. I’m sorry we treated you badly.”

  “I’m sorry I’m a bad kid.” I sniffed.

  “You are the best kid we could hope for,” said my dad. “It’s just that we can’t help worrying about you.”

  “Yeah.” I wiped my eyes. “I know.”

  “But you’re
done with it now, right?” said my mom. “I think it’s good. Maybe things can go back to normal.”

  “Yeah.” One of my contacts slipped a little as I wiped my eyes, and I hurriedly straightened it. “I guess so.”

  I didn’t go to school for a few days. My parents called and made excuses for me, which was nice. Kendall came over after school the first day and sat on my bed while I told her the whole story.

  “Did you see him at school?” I asked. “How did he look?”

  “Yeah, he’s at school. He looks fine. Javier.” She tugged the blankets down from where I’d pulled them over my head. “Are you, like, in love with him, or what?”

  I glared at her. “We dated for like a week.”

  “Yeah, and you’re still not over him. What am I supposed to assume?”

  “That I’m a moron.” I pulled the blankets up over my head again.

  “Well, I never doubted that. So what are you gonna do about it?”

  I told her that I was going to try to get over him, but instead I texted him again that night. I know, I’m stupid. Even not considering everything else, I was supposed to be taking a break from League stuff, not fraternizing with the enemy. But I couldn’t help it, okay?

  How are you?

  He texted back, which I honestly wasn’t expecting. Fine. How are you?

  Terrible, thanks for asking.

  I’m sorry you didn’t get everything you wanted.

  I ground my teeth. I don’t want to talk about it.

  So then why did you text me?

  I guess I just wanted 2 make sure u still remember me.

  You keep bothering me. I started to reply, but then he texted me again. You’re hard to ignore.

  I’m taking a break. From the league.

  You realized how full of shit they are?

  Yeah I guess. I mean . . . you were right about things not being black and white.

  So you’re just going back to being Javier?

  Yeah. For a while.

  He didn’t text back, so I went and brushed my teeth, throwing a sweater on before going into the hallway, just in case my parents were still up. I didn’t feel like being stared at, or not looked at, or whatever stage they were at now.

  When I got back, there was another text from Rick. I’m actually getting more training.

  I stared at the words. I thought about a million replies, but there wasn’t one that wasn’t rude and judgmental. And why wouldn’t they be? I mean, it’s not like I could tell from the tone of a text, but he seemed proud. He was proud of getting training so he could keep doing completely awful things for a completely awful group of people. How could I love someone like that?

  I didn’t text him back.

  “Rick Rykov.” The erasable marker squeaked across the board as the teacher wrote Rick’s name on it before returning to the bucket of names to pick his partner. She pulled out another slip and squinted at it. Just like the bloody Hunger Games. “Javier Medina.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath, and glanced over at Rick, who was squirming in his seat.

  “Um,” Rick said loudly as the teacher turned to write my name on the board next to his. “Are we allowed to switch partners?”

  The entire classroom burst out laughing. I didn’t know for sure whether it was because they all knew we’d dated, or if they were just laughing at Rick’s ill fortune in being paired with that weirdo Jay-ver. I had a feeling it was the latter.

  “No,” said Mrs. Kane. “That would defeat the purpose of random pairings.”

  She went back to pulling names, and I put my head down on the desk in defeat. When she was finally finished, Rick had to take all the initiative and come sit in the desk by me, nudging it with his foot to get my attention, like I had some sort of communicable disease.

  “Hey,” he said, and for a second I thought he was going to apologize. Instead he continued with, “Listen, I kind of need a good mark in this class. I have a football scholarship to LCU, and they’re actually pretty strict about grades.”

  I scowled up at him. “Isn’t it kind of unfair for you to play football?”

  “How so?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Whatever.” I sank my head down into my arms again. “It’s not like you haven’t done worse things.”

  “Javier,” he said, obviously trying very hard to be patient. “Can we please just be civil? We’ve had . . . disagreements—”

  “Ha!”

  “—but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together on this like mature adults.”

  “Ugh!” I swung my head back dramatically. “My life is a farce.”

  “Javier.”

  “Yeah, all right, whatever. I want to get good marks too, anyway. I’m going to have to start looking into scholarships now.”

  Well, since I was technically only on a break from the League, I could probably still count on them to pay for my schooling. But as of right now, I didn’t have any plans to go back to work at the League, so I was going to have to try to find another way to pay for school. Unless I wanted to actually make pizzas for a living.

  “What are you going to take in school?” Rick’s voice was tight.

  “I don’t know yet. General studies, to start with. You?”

  “Politics.”

  “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Rick’s mouth curved into a small smile. “Then why aren’t you laughing?”

  I gave him a deadpan look. “I’m laughing on the inside.” I rolled my eyes. “So what is this project even on?”

  It was on the history of Liberty City, which was great because I grew up here and basically already knew literally everything there was to know about Liberty City, and awful because like eighty-five percent of Liberty City history was superhero mania disguised as actual history. Which, for those of you not following along rapturously, was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

  I agreed to meet Rick in the library after school, and then bolted as soon as class was over to whine at Kendall.

  “Seriously?” she hissed as I slammed my locker shut. “Can’t you complain on the grounds of being morally against douchebaggery?”

  “Um. That would probably infringe on his rights.”

  “Good. He infringes on our right to not look at pasty-ass muscle-heads.”

  “Kendall. I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”

  “I appreciate that you appreciate.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She looked at me levelly. “Is it? Because I feel like this break has been good for you. From Rick and from the League.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was true. Sure I had more free time, and my family was happy that I wasn’t going out and putting myself in danger all the time. But the end of the school year was coming up, and stress about superhero stuff had been replaced with stress about school and graduation and university. I wasn’t getting paid from the League now, and I’d had to spend a pretty decent chunk of my savings on stupid graduation fees, and my parents had had to cut back on our budget, which was even more stressful. I was even skipping prom because the last thing I needed to spend money on was a tux to stand around feeling and looking miserable in.

  “I just . . .” I bit my lip. “I wish the League was better.”

  “Well, what do you want them to be?”

  “I don’t know. Just something I can feel good about belonging to.”

  “What’s that gotta do with Rick?”

  “Nothing I guess.”

  But it had a lot to do with him. Because Rick was proud of belonging to the Organization. And I guess I was jealous of him for that.

  I brought it up the next day, when we were studying in the library. I shouldn’t have, and I knew that, but I was getting tired of acting like there wasn’t a huge elephant just, like, chilling out behind us the whole time. We were taking notes about the Organization, and I said, sort of offhand, “I don’t know why anyone would want to be part of a group of villains.”
<
br />   Rick rolled his eyes. “Because I feel like I’m doing something. You know, something that will make a positive change. You’re automatically associating the word villain with something bad.”

  I hunched over my notes “I thought we weren’t gonna talk about it.”

  “You’re the one who brought it up!”

  “Yeah, but like. In a theoretical way.”

  Rick leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I’m just saying, you have to admit the Organization made some pretty radical changes when they were in power. And some of them are still in effect because they were good changes.”

  I glanced up at him, annoyed. “So?”

  “So.” Rick scrunched his nose up in a way that was far too attractive considering the crap that was spewing out of his mouth. “Sometimes you have to do things that might seem bad, or even evil, but for the purpose of the greater good.”

  “Okay Rick—” I shoved my book away and turned to face him. “Do you wanna know who you sound like?”

  Rick leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Sure. Who?”

  “Hitler. You sound like Hitler.”

  Rick’s face broke into a grin that was completely devoid of cheer. “You’re really gonna compare me to Hitler. You’re gonna go there.”

  “Oh, I went there.”

  “You’re a child.”

  “How is that childlike? You have similar political policies!”

  “You have similar political policies to a piece of sh—”

  “Shhhhh!” the librarian hissed across the library at us, so loudly that my ears actually hurt a little. She finished her assault on my eardrums and sat there, giving us the most horrific stinkeye I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Right.” I gathered up my books, my face hot. “I’m leaving.”

  “Good. We’ll finish this later.”

  “Fine.”

  Rick waved me away, and went back to his book. “Fine.”

  “You shouldn’t have compared him to Hitler,” said Ivana firmly. “Mussolini would have been more accurate.”

  Vanessa snorted and set a bowl of popcorn down on the table. “It’s so . . . not like him to say something like that.”