Velveteen vs. The Multiverse

by Seanan McGuire

  “Tag…” she began.

  “I brought dinner,” he said, cutting her off mid-sentence. He gestured toward his carefully-drawn table. A checkered picnic blanket covered the empty spaces in the tabletop, and mostly obscured the slightly sketchy-looking Sharpie legs. “It’s pizza from that place you like downtown. The one that does the chicken and artichoke hearts with extra mushrooms.”

  Some of the tension eased out of her smile. “You don’t like mushrooms.”

  “Ah, but you see, I am smart. I bought two pizzas.”

  The sound of Velveteen’s laughter was nothing like music, but it was still music to his ears.

  They both relaxed a bit as they ate. It helped that they were still wearing their masks, which kept them on familiar ground. Tag told jokes about Canadian superheroes and the impossibility of finding a convenience store in Montreal if you didn’t know to look for the winking red owl. Velveteen talked about teaming up with Blacklight, and what a relief it was to finally feel like she had a community of friends that she could really relate to.

  Eventually, of course, all the food that could be eaten had been eaten, and all the sodas were gone, and the legs of the table were starting to blur around the edges, signaling its impending disappearance. With a small sigh, Tag stood, starting to pick up the dishes. Velveteen moved to do the same, and he waved her back to her seat.

  “I’ve got it. I just need to get things put away before the table decides to turn two-dimensional again.” Tag placed the paper plates inside one of the pizza boxes, stacking it atop the other box before removing them both. “I’m getting better about keeping things animated for extended periods of time, but I’m still not up to more than a few hours.”

  “That’s still impressive,” said Vel. “I can keep my toys moving for as long as I’m paying attention, but they de-animate after they hold still for like, twenty minutes. I am not your girl for a stake-out.”

  “I don’t know,” said Tag, with a small, lopsided smile. “I think we could have a lovely stake-out together. Just you, and me, and a nice rooftop on a clear night…”

  Velveteen smiled back, amused. “Ah, but how much crime would we be fighting?”

  “Crime? What crime? I see no crime.” The table legs blurred a final time, and then dissolved. Tag grabbed the tablecloth before it could hit the ground, managing—barely—to keep the remaining debris from their dinner from spilling across the rooftop. “Looks like we’re eating dessert off our laps.”

  “Trust me, I’ve done worse.” Vel leaned forward, studying the table sketched on the roof. “Can you do that with anything?”

  “Mostly. Watercolors and pastels don’t have much cohesion. Chalk works a little bit better, but it doesn’t hold up in a strong wind.” Tag dropped the tablecloth next to the cooler, bending and rummaging with his back to her for a few moments. When he straightened again, he was holding a bowl of strawberries, a bottle of champagne, and two plastic wine flutes. “I was so disappointed when I realized that. I’d wanted to go dance with the penguins.”

  “You realize you just admitted to watching Disney movies, which is, by definition, uncool,” said Vel. “I say this with love. One of my best friends is basically a walking Disney movie.”

  “I want to come to one of your karaoke nights sometime. Which, I assume, happen wherever you happen to be, since hanging out with a Disney Princess means never having to say you weren’t prepared for a musical number.” Tag handed her a wine flute before setting the strawberries on his chair and popping the cork on the champagne. “It’s really good to see you, Vel. I missed you.”

  Suddenly aware that the mood was turning serious, Vel smiled somewhat anxiously up at him. “I missed you, too. It’s good to have you back.”

  “I didn’t mean to be gone for so long.” Tag filled her glass and sat, putting the strawberries down on the roof between them. He busied himself for a moment more with filling his own glass before clearing his throat and saying, “So…”

  “Yeah,” Vel agreed. “So. Very ‘so.’ This is about the most ‘so’ it’s ever been.”

  Tag took a deep breath. Then he laughed, nervousness mirroring Vel’s own. “I’ve never actually done this part before. The ‘let’s reveal our secret identities’ part.”

  “Me, neither,” Vel admitted. There had been Aaron, sure, but he was just…just Aaron, who trained with her, and lived with her, and had never really had a secret identity. Not where she was concerned. Except maybe for the part where he was secretly dating her best friend behind her back. Maybe “cheating bastard” was Action Dude’s real secret identity, and she’d never known Aaron Frank at all.

  “I guess that means I should go first,” said Tag. Reaching up, he touched the painted-on rainbow swirl of his mask with the tips of his fingers. It pulled away from his face for a brief second, a dash of color hanging in the air, and then it was simply gone, fading into the nothingness he called his creations from. “Hi. My name is Tad Sinclair.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” said Vel, automatically, before grinning. “Tad? Really? And you chose the superhero name ‘Tag’ for yourself?”

  “Hey, at least it meant I didn’t have to learn to duck when I heard it shouted during a fight,” said Tad, somewhat defensively. He dropped his hand. “Feeling a little naked here, Vel.”

  “Sorry.” Her grin faded into a timid smile as she reached up and removed her own domino mask. “Velma Martinez. At your service, I guess.”

  Tad blinked. Then he laughed. “Wait—you’re really a Vel? And you laughed at my code name?”

  “It was Marketing’s idea,” she said defensively. “I just got used to it.”

  “We can get used to anything,” said Tad, and leaned forward, holding up his plastic wine flute for a toast. “It’s nice to finally meet my girlfriend.”

  Vel’s smile was much less timid as she tapped her glass against his. “My sentiments exactly.”

  It wasn’t safe to sit around in public with their costumes on and their masks off. By mutual agreement—and after a lengthy make-out session, to properly celebrate the sharing of their secret identities—Velveteen and Tag both put their masks back on. Hers was the easier to apply, requiring only a few dabs from the tube of specially formulated adhesive she carried in her utility belt (“No superheroine should leave the lair without it!”). Tag’s had to be drawn on the rooftop in marker before it could be lifted off the concrete and slipped into position.

  “How come the table didn’t last, but the mask will?” asked Vel, watching him.

  “I’m just moving the mask from one surface to another,” explained Tad. “The table was sitting in three-dimensional space, and that’s a lot harder on the art.” Almost as an afterthought, he waved his hand across the Sharpie sketch that had been their table. It promptly disappeared. “There. Always clean up after yourself.”

  “You know, that’s about the only Junior Super Patriots lesson I’ve heard you mention,” said Vel. She adjusted her ears with one hand—now definitely Velveteen again—and asked, “What made you leave?”

  Tag paused. “I guess that’s something I should tell you,” he said, finally. “It’s not worse than giving you my real identity, right?”

  “Right,” said Vel, encouragingly.

  “Come over here.” He sat down on the edge of the roof, motioning for her to join him. Vel walked over, and he pulled her down to sit beside him on the barrier than separated the rooftop from the open air. She obligingly nestled against him, resting her shoulders on his chest. There was something very comforting about that position; something very decidedly right. A long, comfortable silence stretched out between them before Tag finally spoke, asking, “Did they make you do those once-a-week sessions with a counselor in the West Coast Division?”

  “Ugh.” Vel wrinkled her nose. “Yes. They were mandatory, even. I think the only ones I ever missed were when I was kidnapped or missing or off visiting Winter. Why?”

  “Visiting…never mind. I’ll ask about th
at later. We had them in the Midwest, too. But I had a serious crush on one of my teammates—Match Girl.”

  “Isn’t she Firecracker now? The one who does all the fire safety spots?”

  “That’s the one.” Tag sighed. “She was, if you’ll pardon the pun, seriously hot. And she barely even knew I was alive. I was being classed as a support string hero, and she only wanted to date a front liner.” He laughed. “I know how sour grapes that sounds, but seriously. That’s what she told me. ‘You’re nice and everything, but I want to go out with a guy who matters.’”

  “What a bitch,” said Vel.

  “We were kids. We were all horrible to each other, just so we’d have something to do. Wasn’t the West Coast Division like that?”

  Velveteen quieted for a moment, remembering games of tag with Sparkle Bright, flying with Action Dude, and playing endless games of Scrabble with the Claw. “Not until the very end,” she finally said, in a very small voice.

  “You got lucky. We all pretty much hated each other, and having Match Girl blow me off was the last straw. I decided to spend some time sulking.”

  “What does all this have to do with counseling?”

  “I’m getting there.” Tag kissed the top of her head. “See, my new emo image didn’t include making time for mandatory therapy. So I started making drawings of myself, pulling them off the paper, and sending them instead.”

  Velveteen tilted her head back to blink at him. “You can do that?” she asked.

  “I can do that. My doubles can do anything I can do, except use my powers—I guess a drawing can’t bring a drawing to life. I would make my sketches, send them to counseling, and use the extra time getting my sulk on. Only…” He hesitated, expression going a little vague. “Only it didn’t work the way I thought it would. I started sleeping better. I was happier, I had an easier time understanding things, I felt…I felt awake for the first time in years. All the way awake, I mean, not just like I was having a sort of slow day. I reacted better.”

  “What?” Velveteen pulled away, twisting to fully face him. “That’s what happened to me after I quit. It was like I’d been dreaming for years—”

  “—and all of a sudden you wake up, and half the things that made perfect sense while you were sleeping seem absolutely horrible now.” Tag looked at her gravely. “I dodged counseling for almost two months before they caught me and tried to make me go back. Lucky for me, it was the day after my eighteenth birthday. I said no.”

  “So they fired you?”

  “Yeah. For ‘inappropriate use of my powers.’” Tag’s face twisted like he’d bitten into something sour. “They said it was ‘conduct unbecoming of a hero,’ and promised that I’d never work with a Super Patriots-sanctioned team again. So far, they’ve kept their word. Every time there’s a big team-up, as soon as The Super Patriots are in, I’m out. But I can’t help feeling like it was worth it. I think…I think I got back something I didn’t even know they were taking away.”

  Velveteen bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth. “I think you’re right,” she said, finally. “And that scares me, because I left friends there when I walked away.”

  “They’re all grown-ups now, Vel.” Tag smiled wryly. “You can’t make them run if they don’t want to.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “But it’s hard.”

  “What isn’t?” he asked, and leaned forward, and kissed her.

  “But was it a good date?” Jackie pressed. She was sculpting a snowman as she talked, with her phone set on speaker and being held up by a helpful penguin. (Penguins, lacking thumbs, were always glad when she found them a job that didn’t require fine motor skills.) “Did he make you feel all warm and fuzzy?”

  “It was a terrifying date,” said Vel, slipping out of her bathrobe and sitting down on her bed. Her house was toasty warm, just the way she wanted it to be after spending a long night on the rooftops of Portland. “But yeah, it was a good date. Sort of a wonderful date, even. He brought champagne.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Did you go all the way?”

  Velma paused. “You realize that if I were anyone else in the entire world, I’d think you were asking about my sex life, right?”

  “Yeah, but we both know you don’t have a sex life, so we’re all good. Did you do it with him?”

  “Yes, Jackie, you incorrigible snoop, we did it.” Velma switched the phone to her other ear, sliding further back on the mattress. “He told me his secret identity, and I told him mine.”

  “And? Dish, girl! Was it magical? Was it amazing? Did it rock your entire world so hard that you’re still a little shaken? I demand details!”

  “It was…” Vel hesitated before finally saying, “It was good. I really like him, and I think maybe I can like him even more now that I know who he really is. But it was a little scary, too, and not just because of the whole ‘giving up the greatest treasure any superhero has.’”

  “And now we’re back to the bad sex jokes,” said Jackie. She took her phone from the penguin, clicking the button to switch off the speaker before pressing it to her ear. “What else happened that scared you?”

  “It was something he said.” Velma scooted over until she could get herself under the covers, drawing them up to her chest before she said, “He told me why he left The Super Patriots. I think I know what’s going on with them. And it’s nothing good.”

  The two superheroines continued to talk for the better part of an hour. When they were done—when Velma’s phone was off, and she was tucked safely beneath her blankets, eyes closed and curtains drawn—a patch of darkness detached itself from the shadows outside her window, retreating until it reached the street. Once there, it resolved itself into Diffuse, a shadow-manipulator who worked for The Super Patriots, Inc. She glanced back over her shoulder several times as she produced a phone from the pocket of her cloak, checking to see if she’d been followed. There was no one there.

  Pressing the first button on her speed dial, she raised the phone to her ear and waited for the answer on the other end. She didn’t have to wait for long.

  “Sir?” she said, hesitantly. “It’s Diffuse. I’m one of the agents assigned to the Velveteen situation.” There was a pause as she listened, brow furrowing. When she spoke again, she sounded more confident—and more afraid. “Yes, sir. That’s why I called.

  “I think we have a problem.”

  VELVETEEN

  vs.

  Martinez and Martinez v. Velveteen

  IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL AFTERNOON, which, for Portland, meant “it wasn’t actually raining at the moment, and the weather forecast indicated that this incredible state of affairs might continue for as much as six more hours.” The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Velveteen—official superheroine of the city of Portland, Oregon, which was arguably even weirder than the weather—was sitting on a brick retaining wall three stories above street level, watching one of the city’s other superheroes beat the living crap out of a supervillain dumb enough to interrupt his date. Their date, actually. After six weeks of giggling on fire escapes and unmasking behind locked doors, she and Tag were finally taking their relationship public.

  Good things about going public: not needing to pretend that they were “just friends” whenever the media was around (as if the media had ever believed them). Being able to officially list each other as approved for team-ups on the state roster. Jackie no longer threatening to “accidentally” post candid photos of them making out on every superhero discussion forum from here to Anti-Earth. Picnics in the park. The possibility that Action Dude would see a picture of the two of them making out and realize that he’d been wrong to ever let her go but ha-ha, too late now, sucker.

  (Vel understood that “My ex is going to be jealous because I’m dating you” probably wasn’t the basis for a long and healthy relationship. At the same time, she couldn’t quite muster up the capacity to care.)

  Bad things about going public: e
very stupid supervillain in Oregon suddenly thought that if the two of them were out together, they’d be an easy target, since they’d be so busy gazing stupidly into each other’s eyes that they wouldn’t notice the man sneaking up behind them with a lightning gun.

  “Are you almost done?” she called, adjusting her rabbit-eared headband with one hand. They weren’t quite to the “secret identities in public” stage. Sure, it meant fewer supervillains at your picnic, but it was considered gauche to bring both sides of your relationship out of the phone booth at the same time. “I don’t know how long the potato salad will stay safe to eat.”

  “Just about there!” Tag grabbed a Sharpie from his belt, ducking away from the madly swinging supervillain long enough to scrawl a quick lasso on the nearest wall. Yanking it free, he swung the lasso overhead before looping it neatly over the villain’s shoulders and pulling it tight. Finding his arms suddenly pinned to his sides, the supervillain staggered backward, and the ton of bricks Tag had sketched out a few minutes previously promptly fell on his head.

  Covered head to toe in pastel brick dust, Tag turned and grinned at Velveteen. “See? The potato salad is fine.”

  “Will the potato salad still be fine when we finish filling out the police reports?”

  Tag’s grin widened. “That’s why we eat while we wait.”

  Convincing the Portland Police Bureau to send officers to the roof was relatively easy; like any city with a healthy superhuman community, they had learned to adjust in little ways, like equipping all patrol cars with ladders and size XXXL handcuffs. The supervillain Tag had detained turned out to go by the uninspiring moniker of “Brick,” which just made his brick-based defeat all the more pathetic. Velveteen sat on the retaining wall chewing idly on a cookie, and watched as Tag finished filling out the last of the forms. Her own statement—“ Yup, I saw the fight, yup, he initiated super-powered combat without provocation, yup, I’ll be happy to come down to the station tomorrow and sign things confirming what I saw”—had taken less than five minutes to complete. Tag, on the other hand…