Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Joan yawned as she slumped onto the laminate tabletop. She propped her head up in one hand and shook her iced coffee with the other. Wrong move—the ice would melt. She used the straw to stir it instead.
Monday afternoon sunlight filtered through the cracks around the thick curtains inside the warehouse. Kind of a metaphor for her life: glimpsing bits of light wherever she could.
Mark picked up his coffee mug and sighed. He set it next to Joan. “Can you…?”
She tilted her head to give her twin brother a look. He made a pathetic face in return.
“It’s cold,” he whined.
She reached over and touched a finger just inside the maroon ceramic mug. His more-oat-milk-than-coffee began to steam.
“ Thank you, ” Mark drawled.
“Learn to embrace iced coffee.”
“Yeah, when you embrace a steaming bowl of chili.”
The thought would make her shiver. If she could shiver.
Joan shifted in her plastic chair with a groan. Just because it was their secret lair didn’t mean it had to be so…secret lair. A nondescript workshop that could be for a mechanic or a woodworker. Or a group of Villains staying on the down-low. The fridge hummed louder than a buzzsaw, and the faucet in their makeshift kitchen rattled every time a truck drove by. A handwritten sign above the sink declared “ Keep Our Lair Beautiful! Wash your damn dishes. That means you Irving. ”
Mark sipped his coffee, careful to use the mug’s handle. Like how Joan tried to only drink from a straw. Beverages were the worst when it came to temperature regulation.
“You’d think we’d have figured this out by now,” Mark said. “Spark and Ice, world-renowned Supervillains?—”
“Are we?”
“—can conquer any daring feat of villainy, but can’t drink coffee without it turning into room-temperature sludge.”
“The norms have the advantage there,” Joan said.
Mark reclined in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. His blond hair was in its usual polished perfection. As were his pink short-sleeved polo and tan chinos. Like he’d gotten a full night’s rest compared to Joan’s wet mess of hair, jeans and Vector City Vultures baseball shirt.
Her outfit said they’d had a tiring evening evading the Supers. But then she’d run into her cute neighbor.
“Speaking of norms, I met one of my neighbors last night,” she said with a smile.
Mark returned her grin. “And I’m guessing by you telling me, she was attractive and female.”
“She was indeed. She lives across the hall.”
“What’s she like?”
“Pretty adorable. Very colorful. She was wearing purple shoes. Her hair’s red and curled under, like you’d see on an old-time movie star.”
“Cute.”
“Her name’s Sadie.” Sadie Eagan. She grinned at the memory of Sadie saying her name so properly. “She made a joke about a taco emergency. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be dirty, but it could’ve been construed as very suggestive.”
Mark snickered. “Of course you’d take a joke about a taco emergency that way.”
“I have taco emergencies. They aren’t usually taken care of by women with normal lives. Which reminds me,” she said before her brother could wind up with a retort. “The coffee shop that got hit last night is where she works. I think you got tossed into it by Flight a few months back.”
Mark screwed his eyes up to the ceiling. “Oh, yeah. He knocked me off that sweet ice pyre I built in front of the jeweler.”
“You can’t build a pyre out of ice,” Joan told him for not the first time.
“My ice pyre ,” he continued, unbothered. “It was beautiful. Thick and high…”
Joan snorted.
“I like my pyres thick and high, like how you like your tacos to be emergencies.”
She shot a finger gun at him.
“And then Otis had to be all heroic and fly through it to break it up. I gave him a hell of a snow shower.”
“We should take care of the café,” Joan said.
Mark nodded. “God knows Otis and Company won’t.”
The Supers never paid for the damage they created. Otis—well, Flight, as the norms called him—relished all the glory and took the free shit people gave him. Even though he and his crew cost the city more than the supposed Villains ever had.
“So did you ask Cute Neighbor Sadie on this thing the kids call a date?” Mark asked.
“I don’t think the kids call it a date anymore.”
“If she has a funky, old-school vibe, she’d like to be asked on a date.”
“I might,” Joan said.
Sadie seemed nice. Friendly, chatty, open. The sort of woman Joan had always wanted to hang out with. But it was hard to date anyone not into villainy. The women who understood her were part of the criminal element, or else fans of the criminal element who thought it’d be cool to get with Spark. Which meant she had to wear her Spark getup with the facemask and long, dark wig. Which was kind of weird.
She wanted someone to like her for boring old Joanie, not for Spark.
Hmm. Sadie wanted her to stop by Vector City Coffee. Today might be a good day to inspect the damage while also seeing Sadie’s bright smile. Would she be wearing another fitted top that highlighted her ample chest? Dare one dream for a V-neck? Could a lonely lesbian get a little peek of cleavage?
Hell yes, please and thank you flickered through her lower abs.
Perry finally came out of the bathroom. He was dressed for a corporate business meeting in a sharp navy-blue suit that complemented his tan skin and sandy light-brown curls. He took these meetings way too seriously. He took everything way too seriously.
The newspaper tucked under his arm made Joan tease, “You’re really living up to the whole Breeze moniker with how much wind you just broke in there.”
“Joanie, you’ve been making jokes like that since you were sixteen.” Perry looked to Mark. “You two need new material.”
Mark grinned. “Like we’ve matured in the past nineteen years?”
The fluorescent light above the table reflected off Perry’s glasses. He noticed their doodles on three fast-food napkins. A logo idea for Hot and Cold, a proposed menu for the food truck, a badly drawn sketch of a food truck with stick figure Mark and Joan smiling big.
“That again?” Perry shook his head.
Tempting though it was to cover them up, Joan left them in place. “You know it’s our dream,” she said.
“It’s a pipe dream,” Mark said.
“All your dreams are pipe dreams.”
“Thick and high.”
“I don’t know why this appeals to you,” Perry said. “Serving the community that’s shunned you your whole lives.”
“It’s something different,” Mark said.
Joan touched the menu ideas. “You know we love to cook.”
Perry sighed. “I know, but?—”
“It’d give us the chance to go legit. Do something good for once.”
“You’ve tried, Joanie. It’s always the same. Your place is here.”
She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out. Mark made fart sounds with his mouth.
“Just because you love the life and have never wanted to do anything else…” Joan tried not to smirk at how much that’d bug the shit out of Perry.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“No, Joanie.” Mark got all dramatic. “Péricles Barbosa, the Brazilian Brain himself, earned an MBA and had the perfect career lined up at the most prestigious art gallery in Vector City. Only to have it all thwarted because, oh , such a powerful being cannot exist in normal society.”
“Let’s get to the agenda.” Perry sat across from them and pulled his all-important weekly agenda from his jacket pocket. “Item One. Any problems last night? I think everything went well other than the Supers giving us a headache at the end.”
Joan shook her head while sipping her iced coffee. They could do bank heists in their sleep. “I can’t believe all those old savings bonds were just sitting there.”
“Equal split of the cash,” Mark added. “Not a bad night.”
“Lunk broke that coffeehouse window. They’ve had multiple incidents. Can we slide them some cash to cover this time and the other times?”
“Ten grand?” Perry said.
“Sounds good,” said Joan. Mark shrugged his hands, not caring one way or the other.
It sucked that Sadie’s workplace had been hit so many times. The money would help with repairs and lost revenue. And guilt. Mom-and-pop businesses were just trying to get by, like them.
Perry scribbled a note. “Damn Kade. You’d think he could hold his own body weight. I didn’t push him with that strong of a gust.”
Mark plopped his chin in his hand. “Ah, Lunk. So beautiful. So clueless.”
“So straight,” Joan reminded her twin. “And such a Super.”
“I remain optimistic.”
“You don’t even know what he looks like under his mask.”
“With an ass like that, I don’t need to.”
Perry slid his pen down the agenda. “Item Two. Who keeps taking tools out of here and not bringing them back?”
“Joanie,” Mark said without hesitation.
“Way to throw me under the bus.” Joan told Perry, “I grabbed a few things to put my new shelving unit together.”
“It’s been going on for weeks. I needed a crowbar last night to get into that safe deposit box. Volt had to zap it open.”
“I’ll bring them back when things are set up at my place.”
Mark’s face crinkled in confusion. “Why did you need a crowbar to put together a shelf?”
“I used the crowbar to make sure my alarm system’s working,” Joan said.
“This is what happens when you move so far away from me.”
“I moved five minutes from you.”
“ Seven minutes,” Mark stated. “And do you know how long it takes to get up to your fancy high-rise apartment?”
Joan flattened her palms on the table. “I know you both aren’t happy I moved into a heavily populated building. But seriously, what better cover than to hide in plain sight?”
“Just bring the tools back,” Perry said. “And maybe get your own.”
“Joanie has a whole boxful of tools.” Mark ducked as she took a swipe at him. “It’s under her bed and?—”
She flicked a tiny fireball at him.
Mark snatched it and fizzled it out. “And it has a big, thick rainbow heart sticker on top.”
Joan shot several little fireballs at him that he neutralized mid-air with a burst of snow.
Perry crossed his arms. “Are you done?”
“Yes,” Joan said, then muttered to her younger-by-eight-minutes brother, “I won’t tell him what you’ve got under your bed.”
“If you need help settings things up, you can call me.”
“I know, Per.” Joan gave him a smile. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I’m always gonna worry about you two,” Perry said. “You’re my exhausting almost-children who I’ve tolerated for too many years.”
Mark made heart hands. “We love you too, Per.”
Joan copied his heart hands. “Thanks for raising us to be the upstanding citizens we are.”
They owed everything to Perry. Even though he was barely fifteen years older than them, he’d taken them in when their actual parents decided it’d be better for the twins in the city rather than destroying various parts of their hometown.
Breeze might be a hard-nosed Villain to everyone in Vector City, but he was also just Perry, who whooshed the first guy to break Mark’s heart into the river while the douche was on a date with someone else. He was the one who’d told them the Heroes’ real first names, which he’d learned over the years. He’d taught the twins the importance of balance. That a family could be made out of Supervillains. He’d shown them how to survive when everyone else had turned their backs on them.
“Next item.” Perry glanced up from the agenda. “Trick’s proposition.”
Joan and Mark groaned. Speaking of family I only want to see at Christmas…
“I know you don’t want to discuss it, but we have to make a decision.”
“I decide we ignore him like usual,” Joan said.
“I second that.” Mark raised his mug in a toast.
Perry quirked an eyebrow. “Trick wants us to?—”
“—stop calling him Melvin,” said Joan.
“Well, yes, but?—”
“Put a curse on his parents for naming him Melvin,” Mark said.
Perry sent them a weary glare. “Will you take this seriously for once?”
“Have we ever taken anything seriously?” Mark said.
“This time it’s different. Trick’s doing a lot of bad stuff, and he wants us to join him. Establish dominance over Vector City. Use scare tactics to make people submit. If we don’t want to be associated with him?—”
“We don’t,” Joan and Mark chorused.
“Then we have to tell him no. Let people know we’re not trying to take over the world or hurt anyone.”
Joan scratched her nose. “The three of us haven’t been connected to some of the worst things he’s done. Even the Supers can attest to our refusal to harm people. Not that they would.”
“We have principles,” Mark said. “No knocking off small businesses, only taking from heavily insured corporations…”
“I agree with you, but it’s not going to be easy with Mel’s whole…” Perry gestured to his head. “If we go against what he wants, he’ll manipulate the norms around us until we give in. That only creates more chaos.”
Thank god Trick’s mind control didn’t work on Supers. The altered DNA they were born with that gave them powers also gave them immunity from him. It drove him nuts. As long as there were people he couldn’t control, he’d never be able to completely take over.
Some Supervillains had grand visions of world domination, while others were more or less petty crooks. Crooks who could burn through bank vaults with a flick of the wrist, but still… A girl had to do what a girl had to do to survive.
“Eh, don’t worry about Mel,” Joan said. “He’s still got his henchmen.”
“Hench-people.” Mark tsk ed at her. “Don’t disrespect Ethel like that.”
“Sorry. His hench-persons Volt and Hide.”
“Thank you.”
“Boring Ethel and stinky Irving,” Joan muttered, to which her brother laughed.
Perry jotted a note on his agenda. “Which one of you wants to tell him?”
“You’re the Man, Per,” Mark said. “You can speak for us.”
“Does that make you my hench-people?”
“No, that makes you our democratically elected representative.”
“I’ll do it,” Joan said. She was not afraid of Melvin.
“Do it soon,” Perry said, and scribbled another note. “He’ll keep bugging me otherwise.”
She sipped her disappointingly bland home-brewed iced coffee. According to the clock on the wall, it was 3:15. Sadie might be at work. She could hook Joan up with something sweet.
“Anything else?” she asked. “I’d like to stop by Vector City Coffee to assess the damage.”
“That’s not why you’re going.” Mark waggled his eyebrows. “A cute woman works there.”
Perry gave Joan the stern look she’d been on the receiving end of more times than she could count. “You can’t go near there. We were seen.”
“It’s not like I’m gonna swing by in my Spark suit,” she pointed out.
“We have to stay low profile. Especially if we’re trying to disassociate from Trick.”
“Ah crap, that’s right.” Mark made an exaggerated frown. “You’ll have to run into Cute Neighbor Sadie at home.”
“Wait, she’s your neighbor?” Perry said, voice pitching higher in alarm.
Joan held her palms up. “It’s fine. She thinks I work at a gym.”
“Does she know where you live?”
“It’s literally across the hall.”
“Joanie—”
“Everything’s cool. Relax.”
Perry rubbed at his temples and muttered in Portuguese. “Nothing makes me worry more than when the two of you tell me everything’s cool.”
“Everything is cool, Per,” Joan said.
“Don’t go near that café. You know better than that.”
Mark looked at her. They shared the same thought in unspoken twin-speak: He hates it when we try to be normal.
Perry had worried when Mark tried culinary school. Worried when Joan had that brief series of office jobs in her twenties. Worried when she’d announced she was moving out of the same building as them to get a little breathing room. No matter how hard the Malone twins tried to live among the norms, it never lasted long.
Mark’s phone vibrated with an incoming text. “Ooh, I’m getting a hot tip that there’s gonna be a shipment of gold bars arriving from Australia on Wednesday.”
That would be a sweet score. The sort of thing they could use toward opening a food truck.
Perry perked up. “Get me the details. Let’s keep this one to ourselves.”
“Like I’d ever share with Melvin and Company unless they already knew about it.” Mark made a face.
Joan touched the napkin with her childlike rendering of her and Mark in front of their Hot and Cold food truck. It really was a pipe dream.
Damn it. They had to avoid Bromley Street until things cooled down. It’d be crawling with cops, and the Supers would be sniffing around. Which meant not seeing Sadie unless they happened upon one another at home.
She should probably steer clear of Sadie anyway, for her cute neighbor’s own good. Getting tangled up in villainy wasn’t something norms should do. Especially not someone unknowingly getting involved.
Joan sighed and slurped her lukewarm coffee.