Chapter 4 #2
People are always surprised that Clayton is not larger than life in person; he’s just an average guy.
Clayton is handsome in the same way a lot of Hallmark actors border on the term.
He looks a lot taller when he’s wearing his power armor—the thruster boots add several inches.
It wasn’t an issue for me when we started dating, until he started picking fights about my footwear.
I feel awful for resisting him on this issue; I should let him have a little vanity.
He protects this city. He gives and gives, and I worry that there isn’t anything left for himself at the end of the day.
I hate to admit that it makes loving him difficult, like it says something about me.
There were too many nights that I selfishly wanted more of him for myself.
But what kind of bitch would I be for saying he was more committed to saving this city than he was to our relationship?
I hate that I couldn’t love him better, but I didn’t know how to love someone who wasn’t there.
Things are quiet, a little cold even on the elevator ride down to the car.
“How’s your investigation on the ooze going?
” Clayton asks politely. When we were together, he would gently discourage it, but since the breakup he seems to have come around on it.
Maybe we would have stayed together longer if he’d been more supportive during the relationship, but now it’s not enough to make me reconsider.
“Delayed,” I sigh. “I swear, every time I get closer to figuring out where the source is, I get kidnapped again.”
Before I can tell him I met one of Maestro’s henchmen and actually talked to him, he laughs. “It’s a conspiracy.”
“And it goes all the way to the top!” I can’t help but smile as I wiggle my eyebrows at him.
He laughs and bumps my shoulder with his. I watch his smile fade a little as we fall into silence, feeling the echo of our old inside joke. I clear my throat and put a couple inches of space between us.
There’s a planter full of daffodils in front of the Steel Building.
It’s just a little too early for them to be blooming.
They’re already looking sickly, shocked by the dusting of snow, the puddle of ice that fills the planter.
The stems weaken at the base, letting the yellow heads of the flowers lean face first into the ice, staring into their reflection.
The ride is quiet; Clayton is playing one of those over-saturated app games while receiving texts from his lawyer.
I glance away. He’s said that because I am technically a member of the press, he didn’t want to put me in an awkward position by telling me details from his company’s ongoing environmental trial.
City traffic means the ride takes just about as long as it would have to walk there, but by the time we arrive, I’m ready to turn the car around and go home. Clayton puts his hand over mine when the driver gets out of the car, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Remember, don’t say anything about us, yet,” Clayton murmurs as the car door opens, and we step out.
The museum is brightly lit against the evening, and the sound of chatter from the shifting mass of gorgeously dressed guests greets us at the door.
I think every business owner or influential figure in the city is probably here.
Clayton takes my arm, keeping me close to his side as people call out his name, cameras flash blindingly just as press and his fans alike surge toward us, only kept at bay by the event’s security.
I’ve been to a number of events like this ever since we started dating. The smiling and greeting comes naturally now, and I can remember most of the important people’s names that approach us to thank Clayton for protecting the city.
Except, this time it’s not endless thanks. People look to him and instead of starting with the usual pleasantries, they jump to more difficult topics.
“Mr. Steel, what do you intend to do about the emergence of this new vigilante?”
“Is he a new superhero? Are you going to partner up with him?”
The current mayor hasn’t done much about the mutant crisis, or the ooze that’s been creeping up around town, and people have clearly been getting tired of the lack of answers. We’re halfway through the doors when I realize just as many questions are being directed at me.
“Ms. Vigil, what can you tell us about the new superhero? Did he say anything to you?”
“Does Channel 6 have exclusive interview rights on what happened?”
“Lacey! Look over here, Miss Damsel!”
Clayton glares at the photographer who shouted at me and protectively tugs me closer to his side.
My hand tightens around Clayton’s arm, and I’m doing my best not to react to the sudden onslaught of questions.
For all the time I’ve been on camera, I’ve at least always had a script to read off. I don’t have any answers for them.
Clayton stops in the doorway, faces the crowd, and thankfully shifts the topic in conversation. He’s never been one to catastrophize.
“I don’t believe in acting prematurely, especially on so little information.
I know the mutant variant has everyone all excited, but we should focus on what we do know, and what we can control,” he says in that calm, but firm voice.
I can see the way his tone and overall commanding presence relaxes them.
I flash Steel a brief, grateful smile as he turns and leads me into the museum. A few of the guests tonight still gather around us.
“Besides, I can’t remember the last time we had so many members of the zoning board in the same place; we ought to have someone take minutes down,” he says affably, and a few of the guests laugh politely at that.
Clayton returns my smile and says to me, “Sweetie, won’t you grab us some drinks?
I wouldn’t want to bore you with shop talk. ”
This too, is a familiar beat at these events.
I nod and release his arm to take a loop around the room, looking for wherever the bar is. The gala is all abuzz with talk about the “vigilante.” It’s all but inescapable.
“The number of mutant attacks have gone down, sure. But I don’t think we can attribute that to the new mutant or even speculate if there really is a new mutant. We don’t know that this isn’t just a kid in a costume.”
“We have to consider that Goethal has a new vigilante on its hands.”
“There isn’t enough known to confirm that.”
“Lacey!” Laura Beckingham calls out, nearly colliding with me as I squeeze through the crowd towards. The tall, Asian woman is hard to miss when she’s standing. She pulls me in for a quick hug and whispers in my ear, “Is it true you’re breaking up with Steel?”
I shush her and tug her aside, to a corner where hopefully no one will overhear us, while she’s still chiding me, in her clipped British accent, “Honey, he’s a genius and a philanthropist, and he looks amazing in a suit—”
“Lower your voice, ok?” I say, glancing over my shoulder. If Clayton finds out I didn’t keep it under wraps like we agreed, he’s going to be so disappointed with me, and I’ll just be adding stress to all the burdens he already bears.
“Darling, I’ve seen your taste in men. You’ve dated too many unemployed losers,” Laura tells me urgently, like I don’t know how much my friends have hated the guys I pick.
Anytime I ever complained about a problem, I got the same unhelpful boilerplate advice: Break up with him.
It was so clear they just wanted me to shut up.
“And you know there’s going to be fallout from it. People are going to hate you for breaking his heart.”
Before she can diagnose me as self-sabotaging, I placate her. “Look, it’s not official, yet. Don’t say anything to anyone, maybe it’s nothing.”
It’s not nothing; it does bother me that Clayton’s whole life is taken over by this superhero thing. It’s not the first time I’ve tried to end things with Clayton, either, and he asked me to wait for the right time in the news cycle to tell anyone.
Maestro’s two henchmen were, weirdly, the only two people in Goethal I could say it out loud to.
But Laura seems appeased by that much. Her attention is quickly diverted by someone else calling her name, and I slip away when she turns around.
I can barely make my way to the open bar once I’ve spotted it, so many people try to stop me and ask about what happened. I’ve had people recognize me before, either as the weathergirl from Channel 6 or Steel Heel’s repeated damsel in distress, but it’s never made it hard to walk around before.
Suddenly, I’m grateful I’m not two inches taller. I keep my head down and push through the crowd quickly, muttering, “excuse me,” as I lose anyone calling my name.
I’m biting my lips as I walk around the glossy tile floors of the museum, probably ruining the lipstick I put on before this.
I’m a little afraid that it’s just going to spill out of me that I’ve seen this guy in person, when it seems like no one else has seen any more of him than that one news segment. That’s the last thing I want to do.
No one’s talking about the ooze though. Too many news cycles have passed for it to remain relevant.
When it first appeared, people were concerned, but after a few of the Mayor’s public awareness campaigns, people just avoid it.
Most people don’t think it’s related to Maestro, because it was around for years before Maestro’s first attack.
But the mutant sightings date back at least that far, if not a little earlier, if you’re willing to cite the Goethal Post. It’s been my pet theory that the stuff will lead back to Maestro’s secret laboratory, if only someone would follow it to the source.
“And that explosion yesterday at the old Steel Industries plant, I imagine that sets back any plans to restore it to working order,” the mayor is saying when I loop back around to Clayton’s side.
“Not by much, there’s a lot of red tape around the contaminants Maestro’s terrorism spread to the surrounding environment,” Clayton says when I hand him his usual drink: an old fashioned. He gives me the briefest of thanks and a kiss on the cheek before he returns his attention to the conversation.
“You know, I can’t help but feel responsible.
Dr. Maestro, while a brilliant mind, was secretly performing his own experiments—dangerous ones—while he worked for my father.
He used company equipment, company time.
When I took over, I thought we could settle the matter civilly, in court, but then . . .”
He pauses then, allowing the memory of the first mutant attack to permeate the air, the panic and fear that flooded the city when Maestro destroyed half the Steel Industries factory. He raises his chin stoically and takes a thoughtful sip of his drink while he holds their attention.
“You couldn’t have known what drastic measures he would take,” one of the other guests assures him gently, a dark-skinned woman I recognize from the city council. He nods slowly, giving her a grateful glance.
I take that as my cue to keep wandering around. Clayton always tells this story the same way.
The museum is a lot harder to enjoy when it’s stuffed full to the brim like this, and I can’t even wander off to the hors d’oeuvres table without being mobbed.
Not every hall of the museum is lit, some wings are roped off with red velvet stanchions.
Luckily, it’s a simple matter to duck underneath one when no one’s looking, and I have an entire hall full of paintings and sculptures to myself.
The pieces on display barely warrant any attention when there are checks to be written.
Maybe I could do with being kidnapped again, honestly.
I glance behind me a number of times anyway, because, realistically, a girl does not get over being gagged and bound that quickly. The gala has security, unlike just walking around the street, and that does make me feel a bit safer.
And the defender of the city, Steel Heel is here to rescue me, anyway, I remind myself. He hasn’t let me forget about any of the other times, so what’s one more debt?
I prop the door open with my purse, just so that it doesn’t lock me out when I step into the gardens behind the museum. It’s well-lit and the hedges are low enough that only small animals could feasibly hide behind them.
My breath clouds in the air, the cold making me pull my shawl closer around me. It’s too far to get my coat from the car, wherever the driver ended up parking.
I chew the inside of my cheek, contemplating just going back inside. I finally found quiet out here, but it’s not the peace I was looking for. Something doesn’t feel right.
Just as I’m taking a long pace on the veranda to look around, I hear someone behind me.
“Done with the party?”
I swallow. Ok, again, I was being ironic about wanting to be kidnapped. I’m not that chill about it.
Turning around, there’s no one there. The garden, the veranda, even the hallway I came from are still totally empty. Slowly, I look up.
Bat-like wings sway in the wind, a tail flicking lazily beneath, as a figure reclines on the museum roof.
It’s him.