Vic hurried downstairs. Dan was at the table, drinking his coffee and reading his paper. He’d refused to take more than a couple of days off work. Quite aside from almost being burnt alive then crushed, sitting around was apparently driving him crazy. Martha was standing flipping pancakes behind her husband, looking radiant in the bright morning sunshine beaming in through the kitchen windows. Mrs Templeton tended to rise late, so her guests had the run of the kitchen for much of the morning.
“You look like you’re in a rush,” Dan said over the edge of his coffee mug as Vic raced by. He doubled back to give him a firm slap on the back, followed by a hug and a peck on the cheek for his mom.
“Today’s the day,” he said, snatching a white envelope from where it was sitting propped up on the kitchen counter. He slipped it into his back pocket and headed for the door.
“Already?” Martha exclaimed. “I didn’t think it was until this weekend!”
“Nope,” Vic replied, stepping out into a fresh September morning.
“Won’t you have any breakfast?” Martha called after him.
“Just save me a couple of pancakes,” he shouted back over his shoulder, and then he was out and onto the street, hurrying.
He got to the stop on West Main just as the bus was pulling up. He waited, equal parts excited and nervous. The letter felt heavy in his back pocket.
A few people got off the bus, none of them giving him a second glance. Then the whole vehicle seemed to tip slightly, the suspension groaning. A heavy shape stepped awkwardly onto the street, struggling to exit down the front door steps.
“Rocky,” Victor beamed.
“Lizard boy,” Santo said.
“We were wondering if this was the right stop,” said another voice behind Vic’s old roommate. “Jonas has been insisting on using a paper map instead of our phones.”
Santo stepped aside, and there stood Graymalkin and Cipher, the former in a plain black T-shirt, shades, and jeans, the latter in a gray hoodie, yellow bandanna, and lean black sweatpants.
“Welcome to Fairbury, kids,” Vic said, greeting each in turn. “It’s so awesome that you’re finally getting to visit.”
“I mean, it’s not quite a road trip through the Rockies,” Ci said with a sarcastic smile. “But hey, who doesn’t want to spend the last few days of their summer vacation in rural Illinois?”
“And we have so many sights to show you,” Vic said, beckoning the gang to follow as he set off along East Locust Street. “How was your trip?”
“Quiet,” Graymalkin said. “Which, given our recent occupation, has been a blessing.”
“Summers didn’t give you any trouble?”
“Summers is way too busy with the Institute’s internal review to care about where the students are headed for break,” Cipher said. “And after what we did, I think he’d rather not have us around at the start of school anyway.”
“We’re going to have to retell all this so many times next semester, aren’t we?” Vic said with a smile.
“Just wait until I have to tell the X-Men about it,” Santo added.
They swapped news as they walked. After the incident in Brooklyn they’d returned to the Institute with Victor’s dad, where there’d been a rather tear-streaked reunion between Dan and Martha. Cyclops had permitted the Borkowskis to leave with their son while Cipher and Graymalkin provided him with a detailed debriefing on their first successful assignment. Any remaining talk of being expelled had been put to bed. Santo had been granted leave from his own operations with the Hellions in order to rest and reknit his shattered frame. He admitted to Vic that he was secretly glad of the respite – he missed their dorm back at the Institute.
As they walked Vic asked cautiously about Sublime Corp, and Lobe. He’d been avoiding the news ever since that day in New York, refusing to let those desperate weeks take up a second more of the life they had almost ruined. Santo told him that apparently Lobe was being held at a secure location by the X-Men, and the Institute was handling his, Ci’s, and Gray’s side of things. There was no doubt that the eventual trial would be drawn out and fraught, but Sublime Corp’s stock had already nosedived, and its board of directors had closed up. The subsidiary companies were vanishing as quickly as they had appeared, and the facility on Rikers Island was now a federal crime scene. Whatever fate awaited Lobe, it would no longer be that of a so-called genius businessman.
“And what about the Purifiers?” Vic asked as they turned onto the shady lane he’d once called home.
“Xodus’s remains were recovered from the ruins of the Church of the Seven Virtues,” Cipher said matter-of-factly. “Almost all rallies appear to have been cancelled. It seems like local law enforcement and the state governments have found the guts to crack down on the cult.”
“Better late than never,” Vic said, and came to a halt near the end of the lane. Once upon a time he’d have been looking up the front yard at his home. He supposed that was still the case, though the home in question was currently only partially finished. Work on the new Borkowski residence, built over the bones of the old, had continued for the past two weeks, funded in part by donations from across Fairbury. Vic had successfully encouraged his parents to look at it as a fresh start. There’d be a huge underground garage where Dan could store his electronics surplus, and a trio of expensive glass cases in the living room to show off all of the new crockery Martha was already in the process of ordering online. It would never be their old home – it would be even better.
Vic greeted the builders in passing and stepped into the hallway, joking about Santo having to tread lightly. Most of the rooms were in the process of having their wiring installed and were still stripped bare. The living area was starting to take shape though, with a fireplace and a freshly laid carpet. Vic had already added the house’s first decorative item – his toy dinosaur was standing proud on the mantelpiece overlooking the otherwise empty space. He took up position in front of it, facing the other three as they came in and looked around.
“It seems nice,” Cipher said.
“Looks solid enough,” Santo rumbled.
“A pleasant abode indeed,” Graymalkin said with a smile.
“It’ll be fine,” Vic said. “Even better once we’ve got some more stuff to go inside. I didn’t just bring you up here to check out my new home though. I’ve got an announcement to make.”
He cleared his throat, drew the envelope from his back pocket and opened it. He paused after drawing out the sheaf of papers inside, clearly looking for a reaction from his audience.
“What is it?” Ci asked.
“Wouldn’t be very dramatic of me to just tell you, would it?” Vic said, flashing her a smile before beginning to read off the headed letter.
“The General Assembly of the State of Illinois hereby ratifies and makes note of the successful application of Mr D Borkowski and Mrs M Borkowski for the adoption of the underscored, Mr S Vaccarro, Mr J Graymalkin, and Miss A Tager. The Board of Adoption now awaits the formal response of those listed, and the binding agreement thereof. For more details, please see the enclosed documents, sections B1 through F7.”
He lowered the paper and looked up at his friends, suddenly nervous. They stared at him.
“Is this a joke?” Cipher asked slowly.
Vic shook his head. “I spoke to my parents not long after we got back to Fairbury. We thought, I mean, I thought, that this might be a nice way of paying you back for saving our lives. Even if it’s just symbolic… I reckoned that maybe we’d make it more than just friends. I thought we’d turn our first team into a family.”
Santo and Cipher stared, but Graymalkin rushed forward with a speed that belied the fact he was standing in a sun-drenched living room. He hugged Vic, and when he finally let go there were tears in his eyes.
“I do not know what to say,” he murmured.
“It’s going
to make for some crazy family reunions down the years, that’s for sure,” Cipher said, smiling as she tried to hide her own tears. Santo just grinned.
“Guess it’s lizard bro from now on, huh?” he said. Vic laughed and gave him a bump with his thick right fist.
“I wasn’t sure how you guys would take it,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to be too forward. But after everything that’s been said, everything we’ve done and been through, it just felt like it was the right thing to do. If you want, you can sign your names and I’ll send these forms back. If not, it doesn’t really matter.”
He took in the three of them as he continued.
“The important thing is we all know we’ve got each other’s backs. First team or family, it’s all the same thing.”
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank and pay tribute to my publisher or, more accurately, to the many personalities that constitute it – Anjuli, Gwen, Lottie, Marc, Ness, Nick and Vincent. You have all made my work as an author more than enjoyable. A thank you also goes out to the Marvel team making this book possible, and to the original writers who first came up with the wonderful characters that feature in the pages of First Team. On the shoulders of giants.
About the Author
ROBBIE MACNIVEN is a Highlands-native History graduate from the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of several novels and many short stories for the New York Times-bestselling Warhammer 40,000 Age of Sigmar universe, and the narrative for HiRez Studio’s Smite Blitz RPG. Outside of writing his hobbies include historical re-enacting and making eight-hour round trips every second weekend to watch Rangers FC.
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First Team Page 30
