“Little tame for you, isn’t it?” said Chris. “No offense.”
Talking in this form had taken some getting used to. Considering that his face was in a completely different shape from how it usually was, he was lucky he could talk at all. The tongue got in the way sometimes, or cut itself on his teeth on certain consonants. But it was worth it for the gravely bass that puberty alone had never given him.
The three of them had retreated to the rooftop of an apartment building. Night was falling, and no one had noticed them scaling the fire escapes for some privacy. Howler was on alert, standing watch for anyone and anything that might disturb them. Hazard, on the other hand, sat near Chris on the low outer wall, airgun propped against his shoulder.
“You call armed robbery ‘tame’?” Hazard sounded amused. Friendly. Chris could feel his tail trying to wag again.
“I mean… My cousin went to Ramsey High.” A white lie, but for the best. Chris wasn’t about to tell him the whole truth. Not only would he look like a total fanboy, but if this was some kind of hero team job interview, the last thing he wanted was to reveal just how often he’d had to be saved back then.
Howler sucked in a breath through her teeth. Hazard went still for a moment. “Ah.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard all about the stuff you fought off back then,” Chris went on. “Pretty cool.”
The tension eased from Hazard’s shoulders, and he grinned. “I had my moments.” Howler elbowed him affectionately.
“LA had some of that stuff, too,” Chris went on, gesturing at himself. “I went for a walk in Griffith Park, and a rift opened up practically underneath me. I’m not sure if the faceful of rift magic did it or the thing that jumped out and bit me, but… honestly I’m not arguing with the results.”
“I’m just glad we fixed the Ramsey rifts for good,” Hazard said.
“He’s not exactly itching to go back,” Howler added.
“You went to Ramsey too?”
“N—nah. Heard enough about it from him, though.” Behind her muzzle, Howler bared her teeth. “That place was full of assholes.”
Joel Durante’s scowling face passed in front of Chris’s eyes, and he grinned back. “Yeah, you’re telling me.” He sat down beside Hazard, squashing his tail to keep it still. “So… I don’t wanna cramp your style, or anything. But San Fran’s pretty big for just two heroes, so if you want an extra set of hands…”
Hazard grinned again. “Paws,” he said. Chris’s fur fluffed up with embarrassment, before Hazard’s smile faded. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking. Whatever you heard, that was years ago. I was a kid taking care of one school. You know what kind of villains it takes to go after one school? Shitty ones.”
Chris forced a laugh. Those shitty heroes had been plenty intimidating back then. But things were different now—he was different. “Sure you’re not selling yourself short?”
“Yeah, maybe a little,” Hazard admitted. “I’m just saying, this isn’t glamorous. It isn’t fun. No one’s gonna thank you. Every time I walk out in costume, I know there’s a good chance I could die.”
“I know.” Chris fought to keep his voice steady. This was starting to sound an awful lot like rejection. “I’m serious about this. I want to help.”
“I’m not sure if—”
“Hey, since when are we so spoiled for help that we can afford to turn people down?” Howler broke in.
Hazard sighed.
“I’m just saying.,” said Howler. “We can’t be everywhere. Weird shit happens every time the fog comes far enough inland. We still don’t know what happened to that hitman that almost killed me. One of these days the De Younge’s gonna put another magic artifact on exhibit. And now we’re hearing those rumors coming out of the Mission District. We need more hands, Haz.”
Chris’s ears pricked forward. He lived near the Mission District. Was he missing something? He’d have to run more patrols.
He couldn’t see Hazard’s eyes behind the mask, but he could feel the hero lock eyes with him. “Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s not as glamorous as it looks in Youtube videos. There’s not much room for a life outside of it. If you do have one, it’ll keep pulling you away from it at the worst times.”
“He means if you have a girlfriend, you’re gonna get dumped before the month is up,” Howler said dryly. “Or boyfriend.”
“I, uh, don’t,” Chris admitted. “My last… well, it didn’t work out. Wasn’t meant to be.”
“Oh.” Hazard’s shoulders slumped a little, and he sounded sympathetic—genuinely, not just vaguely pitying. “Yeah, neither did mine. High school, you know?”
“Glad it’s over,” Chris agreed, and was rewarded by another one of Hazard’s smiles.
***
He’d been sixteen when Isabelle Giffard moved halfway across the country and wound up at Ramsey High. The moment he saw her standing outside the counselor’s office, class schedule in hand, he was smitten. She was red-haired and freckled, wild curls and a cheerful face. Her nose wrinkled cutely when she was deep in thought, and she was apparently very deep in thought over her classes.
A second later, she had looked up from her schedule and reached out to tap the nearest shoulder, which by her own bad luck just happened to belong to Joel fucking Durante.
Seeing him turn, focus on her, loom over her like a cat to a mouse, Chris had swung into action. Across the hall, Robby and Angela had caught his eye and clocked the impending disaster as well, and moved to intercept.
The coordination was unreal. Angela, fearless and audacious, had inserted herself between Isabelle and Joel, slinging an arm around her shoulder while Robby mean-mugged Joel over the tops of their heads. Once Chris reached them, the three of them had formed a protective wall around Isabelle before guiding her toward her first class, forcing Joel to sneer at them and retreat.
And now, a full year later, Isabelle was a firm and welcome part of Angela’s friend group and lunchtime gathering, and Chris still had the world’s biggest crush.
Isabelle was friendly to him, sure, but she was friendly to everyone. Not even Pearl, who screamed at everyone who so much as looked at her, or Joel, who looked down on everyone like they were dirt, whose presence sucked the joy out of every room he walked into, were exempt from her effortless charm.
“How do you do that?” Chris asked her once, while they did warm-up stretches together on the track. It was rare that they got alone time like this, but Isabelle was planning on doing a charity run with her parents, and Chris had leapt on the chance to help her train. Her stamina wasn’t quite up to varsity standards, but she was fast and her form was beautiful to watch. She ran like a deer.
“Do what?”
“Just… treat everybody like they’re your friend, even when they don’t deserve it,” said Chris.
“I think everyone deserves to be treated, you know, kindly,” Isabelle replied. “It’s like basic decency, you know? My grandma says it doesn’t cost you anything to be kind.”
“It might with some people. Don’t get me wrong, loads of people at Ramsey are cool.” Chris hesitated. “But Pearl’s so shitty to everyone, and Joel’s… Joel.”
She laughed as she tied up her hair. “They’re not that bad,” she said. “And if they are… like I said. It doesn’t cost me anything to be kind anyway. Sometimes you just gotta push past the first layer. Joel’s standoffish, sure, but like, that’s not a crime. And Pearl’s all bark.”
“Pearl put Trav in the hospital freshman year,” Chris said bluntly.
Isabelle frowned. “Wait, really?”
“Why do you think everyone avoids her?” Chris stood up, then stooped to re-tie his laces. “It was really bad. And Trav’s a harmless idiot. If she’ll do that to him, she’ll do it to anyone. And Joel…”
“What about Joel?”
“You know his parents let him do anything?” said Chris. “I heard that every time anyone tries to call them about the shit he pulls, they either brush it off or don’t show up?”
It took a moment for Isabelle to answer. She was thinking hard, nose wrinkling, glaring down at the track like it knew all the answers and wasn’t telling her. (God she was cute.) Eventually she said, “Sounds like he has shitty parents.”
“Doesn’t give him the right to take it out on the rest of us.”
“He’s nice to me.” Isabelle smiled cheekily. “Maybe he’s just misunderstood.”
Chris bit the inside of his cheek. Joel wasn’t nice to her; he was just marginally less shitty to her than he was to everyone else. “I almost quit track when he joined the team,” he admitted. “He never misses a chance to try and make me look stupid in front of everyone, especially Coach Whately.” Chris paused. “Sorry, I don’t mean to dump on you. You’re a lot nicer to him than he deserves, and I just don’t want him to take advantage of you.”
“You’re sweet,” Isabelle told him, unaware of Chris’s sudden lack of air. “But I can take care of myself. Race you!”
In true Ramsey High whiplash fashion, the day started out great, took a turn for the worse, than swerved straight into even better.
Isabelle could have qualified for the JV team if she wanted; she was just so naturally fast. Chris actually had to work to beat her at sprints, and the few times he let her win were easy to sneak by.
They had just started their fourth lap of their mile run when a fissure opened in the grass at the center of the track, and spiders the size of hippos chased the two of them screaming back to the gym building. As he always did, Hazard swooped in at the last minute, armed with a javelin from the track-and-field supplies, and saved the day.
It was terrifying in the moment, but later that night Chris would turn over the experience again and again in his mind, committing every moment to memory. His arm around Isabelle, holding her close, while they watched his hero kick ass against their worst nightmares. He’d been foggy from adrenaline so he hadn’t had the chance, but that night he made up his mind. Life was short. If Hazard could face four giant spiders single-handed, then he could ask out his crush.
The next morning, Isabelle walked into class on Joel Durante’s arm.
