by Ruth Diaz
“Sorry for the mess,” TJ said. “I’d like to say it’s going to get better, but I have a funny feeling it’s not. Nothing today is going according to plan.” She bent to reach into an under-bed drawer and came up with a plain black T-shirt.
“It doesn’t bother me.” Annmarie caught the shirt reflexively as the other woman tossed it to her.
“Mama, Mari’s gonna throw up,” a small voice called from the other room. TJ took off at a sprint.
Annmarie followed her, a few seconds behind in her reaction, T-shirt dangling from her hand. The voices led her to a second bedroom, where she found TJ rocking a little girl against her chest and crooning quietly while an unpleasant mass of vomit hovered nearby in midair. As Annmarie watched, a large plastic bowl levitated itself under the vomit, which then fell into it.
That might just be the most amazing superpower she’d ever seen.
From the other bed, a little boy watched her with fever-bright eyes. “Are you the babysitter?”
“I am. My name is Annmarie.”
“Oh good,” he said. “When Mama starts floating things, she needs help.”
Annmarie tried not to grin. “What’s your name?” she asked, draping the T-shirt over her shoulder and walking toward the bowl.
“Esteban.”
She gripped the rim of the bowl, noticing the exact moment its weight settled into her hand. “I’m sorry to hear you’re sick, Esteban. I’m going to go flush this and change my shirt, but I’ll be right back. TJ, should I bring ginger ale or something?”
TJ laid a quick kiss on the little girl’s forehead. “Please. It’s in the fridge. Cups in the cupboard to the left.”
By the time Annmarie came back with the rinsed-out bowl in one hand and three plastic cups balanced on a plate, TJ had finally made it out of her suit jacket and was propping the little girl up on brightly colored pillows. “Marisol, this is Annmarie. She’s going to help take care of you while you’re home from school. Can you say hi?”
“Hi,” Marisol said weakly.
Annmarie settled the bowl back on the floor in its former location and held out one of the plastic cups. “I brought you some water so you can rinse your mouth.”
Marisol took the cup eagerly. Annmarie stepped in-between the beds and put a cup of ginger ale on the nightstand for her, handing the other one to Esteban. “Do you need a bowl too, Esteban?” she asked.
He shook his head. Both children had the same dark, tousled hair as their mother. “Got one, it’s on the other side of the bed. I don’t feel like I’m gonna throw up, though.”
“We’ll hope that holds,” TJ said wryly.
“Would you read us a story?” Esteban asked.
Annmarie turned to Marisol. “Would you like a story, sweetie, or do you just want to sleep?”
“Story, please. I feel a little better now.”
“Okay, what story do you two want?”
“Mama’s gonna be in the other room, okay? I have to do some work, but if you need me, I’ll be right there.” TJ stood up, a frown creasing her forehead. “Annmarie, if you have any questions, just shout.”
The only question Annmarie had was how she could take that look off the superhero’s face. By taking care of the kids. It was the only superpower Annmarie had ever wanted, and it was its own kind of magic.
She could make the day better for all of them.
Leaning over, she brushed a sweat-dampened curl back from Marisol’s forehead. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
* * *
TJ watched, blank-eyed, as the plasma arc cut segments out of Singularity’s cell bars on her screen. She’d spent nearly two hours on the phone with Sean Lowe, her union rep, for this video. She’d gotten every piece of information the union had on the escape from Peacekeeper, but she didn’t know much more than she had before. Someone—presumably from within the Iron Fist—had smuggled a mitigator into the facility and used Singularity’s control over gravity as a skeleton key to break out some of their favorite gentleman villains.
God, she still remembered her last argument with Jon, that gentlemen were the ones who sat back with their brandies and their cigars and ordered other people to do their murders for them. He hadn’t even tried to tell her it wasn’t like that—he was too far gone. He’d pointed out that, from a historical point of view, a few well-placed assassinations could have saved the world a whole lot of bloodshed.
TJ watched her laptop’s screen as the fellow in the janitor’s uniform shut off the plasma arc and tossed it in the trash bin of his supply cart. From inside the incorporated mop bucket, he withdrew a matte-black box and put it carefully through the gap in the bars, avoiding the glowing edges. Singularity picked it up off the floor, still dripping, and opened it. In the security camera’s picture, she saw an alarm light start flashing.
That was the first that anyone in Peacekeeper had known something was wrong.
Singularity pulled an industrial-sized dog collar out of that box and fastened it around his neck. The bars on the front of his cell promptly collapsed under their own increased weight, shearing off several inches from the ceiling. The “janitor” said something to him. She’d ask one of the lip readers at her day job to take five minutes of personal time and watch the video. It was probably the Iron Fist’s grocery list of the men and women they wanted from the Peacekeeper facility, but she supposed she could always get lucky. The janitor and Singularity ran down the hall together, out of the camera’s view.
According to the report, Titanium’s team had been on the scene of the prison break within minutes, but they were already playing catch-up. They’d lost track of the escapees five miles outside of the facility. FarSeer swore they’d just blinked out of sight, and Gear Girl’s sensors had said the same. It wasn’t worth TJ’s wasting any more time on the logistics of the escape. No, her next move had to be figuring out where they…where Singularity…would go next.
Behind her, there was a quiet knock. TJ turned to find Annmarie standing in the doorway. “They’re both asleep,” the babysitter said.
TJ closed her laptop’s lid. She took a deep breath. “God, did I say thank you?” She ran a hand through her hair, knowing she looked like she’d been running and sweating and catching puke all day. Annmarie, on the other hand, remained cool and blonde and didn’t have a hair out of place, despite having pulled TJ’s T-shirt over that smooth fall of hair and then run straight back into the twins’ room to take care of sick kids. The T-shirt was a little too short for the taller woman, and the flash of pale skin where it didn’t quite come to the top of her slacks was…distracting.
Annmarie smiled, a dimple marking her left cheek cutely. “I think so,” she said. “I’d expected you to go back to the office after I got here. How long do you want me to stay?”
TJ sighed. Todd would give her the personal days to deal with a family crisis, no problem, and she could take herself off the union’s on-call list. But she still couldn’t track Singularity and be Mama at the same time. Even after the kids got well, all it would take was him luring her outside and Marisol deciding she knew how to make waffles, and TJ would have a disaster on her hands. Okay, the apartment’s fancy sprinkler system would probably keep the twins from burning the place down, but it was still just too dangerous to leave her endlessly curious daughter alone with electricity, or fire, or anything under pressure, or… “That’s become a very complicated question.”
“Then why don’t we go into the kitchen, and I can learn where things are in your cupboards while you’re working on an answer.”
TJ found her expression lightening in the face of Annmarie’s practicality. She stood up, twisting to both sides and then leaning backward a little to flex stiffened muscles. “Fair enough.”
They both left the bedroom, and after a few awkward moments where Annmarie went straight into the kitchen and b
egan opening cupboards and TJ stood around feeling weirdly useless, TJ sat at the dining room table. She rested her arms on the glass surface and folded her hands in front of her as if she could calm herself by sheer force of will.
“Have you worked for the union long?” she asked.
Annmarie shook her head, never turning away from her cataloging project. “Just a couple of months now. I’d planned to work with inner-city kids, but with the economy the way it is, everybody’s had their funding cut. I couldn’t even get my old job at the preschool back—with a master’s degree, I’m overqualified. I’m pretty sure my dad pulled strings to get me the job offer with the union, but at that point, I couldn’t turn it down, regardless of nepotism.” Annoyance drew her face into a frown TJ could only see in profile, while her hands clung to the dark wood of a pair of cupboard doors. She turned her head and her expression smoothed into a practiced sort of neutrality. “I still get to work with kids, which is the important part.”
“Your dad?” TJ asked, wondering if that meant what she thought it did. Annmarie hesitated. “It’s okay, Annmarie—you don’t have to tell me. I’m not after anything, I’m just trying to decide how much to tell you. Being a superhero isn’t always a picnic—that’s why the Superheroes and Metahuman Assistants Union was formed in the first place. It’s dangerous. Hell, sometimes just being around us is dangerous. Not all metas become superheroes, after all. Some of us become villains.
“Maybe I shouldn’t drag you into this any deeper. I’m sure I can get somebody else from the pool, but God, you just dived right in with the Super Twins and the stomach flu, and you seem totally okay with it. I can’t help thinking that if you can handle that, you can handle anything.”
Annmarie raised her eyebrows. “The Super Twins?”
TJ stuck out her tongue, annoyed with herself. “My sister Jo calls them that, and now she’s even got me doing it. They aren’t metas, or at least, not yet. My ex and I are both puberty-onset metas, so Jo firmly expects the twins to go meta just in time for raging hormones and sullen silences. Every time she says it, I tell her I’m going to send them to stay with her each summer as revenge.”
Annmarie was trying not to smile, but that dimple in her cheek betrayed her. “Family is great that way, huh? Tell her it’s no guarantee—both my parents are metas, and the only thing super about me is my immune system. It’s why I always volunteer for the sick kids—I’ve never been sick a day in my life.” She finished searching the bottom cupboards on that side and turned around, peering into the ones beneath the breakfast bar. “So clue me in. What’s happened, and how long do you need me for?”
TJ rested her face in her hands. People like Annmarie—beautiful, educated, competent—always made her own more dubious life choices seem even stupider by comparison. “Some days I hate those superheroes like Titanium, with their arch-nemeses and their superpowered duels above Trade City and their secret hideaways. It’s all so melodramatic. The problem is, some of that crap just seems to happen, no matter how I try to dodge it.” She straightened up again. Annmarie was half-hidden by the pantry door, only her legs and the smooth curve of her behind sticking out. Well, at least that meant TJ didn’t have to worry about hiding her expression when she said the words. “My arch-nemesis is also my ex, and he escaped from prison this afternoon.”
There it was—the stiffening of the line of Annmarie’s leg, followed by the moment where she straightened and stared at TJ. A few seconds later, she crossed the kitchen and opened an upper cupboard, standing on tiptoe to reach the top shelf. She pulled out a bottle of single malt. “Sounds like you could use a drink.”
Chapter Two
Annmarie couldn’t believe she was pouring Talisker for herself, but TJ had refused to drink alone. “But this is the good stuff,” Annmarie protested, even as she poured.
TJ shrugged. “I’ve got twins. One’s a mad scientist in training and one’s a…anime girl on crack, I guess, for Marisol. If her superpower is pulling giant mallets out of thin air, I’m screwed. Anyway, since I’m outnumbered, I can’t afford impaired reflexes very often. So when I drink, it might as well be the good stuff.”
Annmarie capped the whisky, putting it safely back in its place. She carried the glasses over, setting one small pour in front of TJ and sitting across the table from the weary woman. “So your evil ex really is evil?”
“You could say that. I’ve told the kids that Daddy isn’t a bad man, but he’s done some very bad things, and that’s why he’s in supervillain jail.” She lifted her glass, studying the amber liquid within. “We both wanted to change the world, back when we were in college. Trouble is, I plan to do it by working for the Foreign Service, while he eventually decided his way was the right way, the only way…”
TJ gave herself a little shake that made her breasts jiggle delightfully. Apparently she’d taken off her bra before she’d changed into the burnt-orange T-shirt she wore. She sipped her drink.
Annmarie brought her gaze back to TJ’s face, wrapping her fingers firmly around her own glass. She raised it and took a whiff of the fine single malt before daring a tiny sip. It was like being mugged by a peat bog in the best of ways, and it burned as it sat on her tongue. When she was sure she could talk, she said, “And now he’s out. What happened?”
TJ’s distant expression was at odds with her matter-of-fact shrug. “It looks like the Iron Fist Guild staged a breakout, and he was convenient. He didn’t get much chance to be a villain before I caught on and turned him in. But Singularity does have a very impressive control over gravity, and he was always a thinker. Give him twenty years, he could be running the Iron Fist. He’s dead smart, he just doesn’t seem to get certain basic rules of thumb. Like the fact that a benign despot is still a despot.”
And this woman in front of her, with the tousled hair and the feminine curves that begged to be touched—this woman who could throw grown men around with the power of her mind—she’d brought him down. Annmarie shivered.
TJ sipped at her scotch, less weary and more serious as she enjoyed the drink, even though it couldn’t be having an effect yet. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What matters right now is that he’s fallen off the map, so I don’t know what he’s doing yet, but sooner or later, he’s going to show up here.”
Annmarie choked on her scotch. She coughed and wheezed as it burned her throat, waving off TJ’s concern and an offer of water and trying not to die. When she had herself under control, she said, “Sorry. Looking for you, or for the kids?”
“The kids. I don’t know what Singularity thinks about me—hell, I don’t know Singularity at all. I don’t know who he is, but he’s not the man I thought I was going to marry. But we both love our kids. Even locked up in Peacekeeper, he never forgot their birthday or Christmas.”
That must be creepy, your kids getting birthday cards from your ex who was in prison. Annmarie eyed her scotch and then took another cautious sip. When this one failed to attack her, she asked, “Does he know where you live?”
TJ shook her head. “I did everything I could to fall off the face of the earth after he went to Peacekeeper. I moved out of DC. I made sure my parents and sisters moved. I’ve got the kids registered as protected at school, so nobody can trace them by test scores or other records.” She finished the last of her drink and worried her glass between her hands. “I was Dynama, and I dropped that whole identity. No more yellow spandex, no more smiling in front of the cameras to make sure Latina supers got airtime. This building is shielded against remote vision and dowsing-variant powers, and we’ve been here almost a year now.”
Annmarie tried to remember Dynama from newscasts or parental gossip around the di
nner table, but yellow spandex and flying was as far as she got. Eight or ten years ago, Annmarie was still a teenager, and she’d spent most of those years trying not to know anything about superheroes. She’d never even heard of Singularity. “But you’re still worried.”
“Yeah. He’s smart. He always was. He’s going to want the kids, and sooner or later, he’ll find us.” TJ leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to keep them out of school for a while and stay home so they’re never left unprotected, but I can’t work on tracking him and keep an eye on them at the same time. They’re at that age where they’re into everything—most of it trouble. So basically, I need a nanny for the duration, and I don’t even know how long that’s going to be.” She turned a dark, serious gaze on Annmarie.
Annmarie’s heart beat faster in her chest. Her glass clacked softly on the tabletop as she set it down. “Till they catch him, or till you decide he’s not coming after all.” She wondered if her parents would have done as much for her, if a villain had ever targeted them.
TJ stretched her arms out in front of her on the table, heedless of the prints she was leaving on the glass. She laid her head down on them. “He’ll come,” she said softly.
Annmarie laid fingertips on TJ’s wrist. “You’re a good parent, not to risk leaving them alone. Of course I’ll stay with them.”
TJ raised her head. She looked at Annmarie’s hand.
Annmarie felt herself blushing, but she’d just make it worse if she pulled her hand away. She waited until TJ met her gaze, and damned if it didn’t make Annmarie’s mouth dry and her breath catch in her throat. Don’t do it, Annmarie. Don’t go falling for a superhero. That kind of thing never works out—they run off and save the world. It’s just what they do. She’ll never stay for you.
