“So we have a deal? You can teach me how to do that metal wiring stuff too, right?”

A girl and a boy sit in an uninhabited Napp Corp warehouse in the recesses of the dock district of Liberty City. They are alone in a nondescript but functional room, as they agreed prior to meeting.

Vicious stares at the girl impassively, his mask displaying only his emotionless face as his voice echoes from behind the polished black metal. “Yes. And you have my payment.”

Ginger Snap’s mask is, in contrast, a metallic mirror of her own very human face. However, it sports animal accents designed to obscure her identity. From behind it, she smiles and then indicates her acceptance with a nod.

“So,” she begins nonchalantly, “where do we start? Are you going to teach me how to do the wires or how to work with the black metal?”

Vicious simply lifts his hand and begins creating a tree of matte black metal. Then he says, “This is of my own design. The reason you cannot manipulate it is because your suit does not recognize it.”

Ginger Snap stiffens and says in a quiet voice, “How did you know?”

“That you have a suit?” Vicious casually finishes for her. “People who are born with powers act differently than those who acquire them later. You fit into the second category.”

She fixes him with a hard stare. “Unlike you?”

For a moment, neither of them says anything. Silence stretches out as they stare each other down. Vicious steps closer to Ginger Snap, closing the distance between them as he replies in a dangerously soft voice, “Yes. Unlike me. I was born with my powers, and they were honed through years of painful study.”

Ginny swallows lightly, thinking back to a conversation she had with her suit’s A.I. a few nights ago…

Lying in her bed, she grouses to her earring, “I don’t get it! He makes metal, that’s his power, right? And I manipulate metal, right?”

“You are correct, Ms. Napp,” the cool, mechanical, voice of her suit answers.

“So why can’t I manipulate the black metal!” Ginny hurls a pillow across the room in frustration and slams her head back onto the mattress. “It’s not fair!”

Rolling over onto her stomach she asks, “So how does he do it? Tell me everything about Vicious, I want to know all about his powers!”

Dutifully her suit’s A.I. replies, “Harold Peeteeyman, a.k.a. Vicious was born to the Peeteeyman family located in Silicon Valley, California. His parents were abusive until the age of ten when Harold killed them and fled the home. He then lived as a homeless drifter for many years until becoming a mercenary known for his adherence to the exact letter of his contracts.”

Ginny interrupts in a soft voice, “Abusive?”

“While no child service professionals were ever called on the Peeteeymans evidence collected after their deaths indicated they abused Harold with the intent of making him into a superhero. His training regime involved several acts that would be abusive even had he been a trained adult and not a young child.”

Ginny’s eyes cloud over as she stares up at the ceiling for a few minutes. Finally she says, “And his powers?”

“Vicious possesses the power of metal creation. He can generate small amounts of metal from his hands and other appendages at a slow pace. While the metal remains connected, he can continue to manipulate it to a limited extent.”

“So how does he create a metal we can’t manipulate?”

“I do not know Ms. Napp. It is impossible to know without additional information,” her suit answers.

“Well,” she begins, an idea beginning to form in her mind, “you did say he adheres to the letter of his contracts, right? Maybe I can hire him to tell me…”

Snapping back to the present and away from her thoughts, Ginger Snap’s voice softens as she responds to Vicious’ mention of painful honing, “Right. I didn’t realize.”

The mercenary simply nods in response and steps back. Then he offers her a hand and says, “Shall we begin?”

Ginger Snap nods and takes his hand. As she does, her suit begins pinging in her ear. “Ms. Napp, unidentified metals detected! Error! Error! Error!”

Ignoring the noise, Ginger Snap says to Vicious, “The black metal. Is it a kind of alloy? Maybe I can use it if I can break down the components.”

Vicious responds by placing his other hand on hers and forming a black layer over her hand like a glove. “Clever,” he says as he does. “The black metal is an alloy, but the component metals are not bonded together in the traditional way that alloys are. This will take some time to explain, now pay attention…”

A few hours later, Ginger Snap exclaims in triumph, “Yes! It’s working! Thank you!”

Vicious steps back, pulling his hands away and leaving the black metal behind. “Good. I’ll leave the rest of it to you. Tell me when you’re ready for the rest of the training.”

Ginger Snap rolls the black metal around in her hands for a few seconds, admiring how it moves. Flush with her triumph she says, “This was great. I should just pay you to teach me everything.”

Vicious stiffens. “Money can’t buy everything.”

Putting the black metal down and meeting his gaze Ginger Snap replies, “I know. Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I guess I forgot-”

“Forgot what?” Vicious snaps.

She studies him for a moment instead of replying. Then she balls up the black metal and tosses it to him. Vicious catches it in a swift motion, vanishing the accumulated mass into his suit.

“My mom is dead,” Ginger Snap blurts out.

“So is mine,” Vicious replies in a cold tone.

Plowing on as if she didn’t hear him Ginny adds, “I know your mom was a bad person. But mine wasn’t. Maybe that makes me lucky, I don’t know. But it does mean I miss her more.”

She grinds the black metal in frustration pushing it flat into a disk before tearing it apart and mashing it back together again. The metal in her mask starts to swirl as she begins pacing around the room.

Hurt leaking into her voice she exclaims, “I really miss my mom!” Wistfully she adds, “She was a superheroine. It’s why I want to be one too, so I can be closer to her.” Ginny glances away, a bitter longing filling her voice as she continues, “I’d do anything, give anything, to just know her for one day.”

Vicious takes a seat and pulls off his mask. His face is angular and hard like the man himself. He looks young, but his eyes are incredibly old as he says, “The money is for my father. Not the biological one. Black found me living on the streets and raised me for five years before a group of two-bit thugs beat him and left him for dead in a gutter. I can’t save him, not yet. But if I get enough money, someday.” He falls silent.

“Why tell me?” Ginny asks. “I know your file. Nobody knows how you spend all the money you get, but you just tell me?”

Harold looks at her. “You’re a heroine, right? Would your mother tell?”

Ginger Snap nods, understanding. Then she hesitates for a second before turning to the light switch and flicking it off. “If you’re taking off your mask, I can do the same,” she says with a deep breath. “But I’m not exposing my secret identity, okay?”

In the dark, Harold nods. “Would you like to learn how to use the wires?”

“Please,” Ginny says softly, her voice unregulated by her mask.

“I need your hands.”

Uncertain in the darkness Ginny makes her way over to Harold and places her hands into his.

“Metal carries vibrations. When shaped into cable or wire metal can carry vibrations over long distances. If you know how to listen, they can tell you everything you need to know.”

The two sit down on the floor across from one another. Their hands still touching, Harold says softly, “I’m going to recreate specific patterns. The impact of a body on metal. When wire collides with concrete. Air currents touching a cable. Memorize these.”

For a few more hours, Harold runs through different sounds and vibration patters teaching Ginny how to recognize each. Finally, he leans back and releases her hands. “Those are the basics. Practice and experience will teach you the rest.”

“That’s it?” Ginny asks. “I thought there would be more practical stuff, like how I can sling up wires to catch people unaware and all.”

Vicious responds. “Have you ever used a cheese slicer? If you want to be a heroine you can’t use wires the way I do. You’ll kill people.”

“Oh,” Ginny says, shaken. “Right.”

“Best not to stain your soul if you don’t have to,” Vicious says in a flat voice.

Ginny shakes her head in the dark, angry at his response. “No! That’s not it at all. You just surprised me.” She grabs his hands again and pulls them toward her. In an authoritative voice she says, “There’s nothing wrong with killing. I mean, don’t go murdering people for no reason but,” she bites her bottom lip, “some villains deserve it. I’ve seen what evil can do. I won’t shed any tears for the bad guys.”

“Like me.”

“No.” Ginny is emphatic as she speaks, her hands moving to emphasize her point. “You’re not evil. Maybe not good either, but not evil.”

Feeling his lack of reaction through his hands, she purses her lips and starts talking in an angry voice. “In case you couldn’t tell from how much I’m paying you, I’m rich. Like, really rich. And people are always making assumptions about me because of it. Like I should be the perfect little heiress or that I’m a spoilt brat or whatever. And yeah, maybe I am a little spoiled but I’m not just that! I can be more than just rich just a girl just an airhead, stupid, rotten heiress!”

Ginny pauses. She seems almost surprised at the intensity of her outburst before catching her breath and bulldozing onward, “You know why? Because I have power, whether it’s from my suit or my money, so nobody gets to tell me who I get to be! I’m Ginger freaking Snap! If I want something, I go after it because nobody gets to define who I am! And you have power too! So you can be more than just Vicious if you want and you can be more than just bad if you try!”

Then, in a sudden motion, she jerks his hands toward her and pulls him close. Surprised, Harold fails to adjust in time and finds himself caught as she grabs his face and kisses him square on the lips!

The two pull back after an intense moment. Panting, they stare at each other through the dark for a few tense seconds before Ginny grabs him by the front of his suit and pulls him back for a second round.

When they part a second time, Ginny has to take a moment to compose herself.

“Whoa,” she says with an exhalation. “Whoa.”

“I don’t understand,” Harold says in a soft voice.

“Ha,” Ginny exclaims, rolling her head back to look upward. “Ha-ha, oh boy that was awesome!”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to!” Ginny says with exhilaration. “I’m sorry, I should have asked first but I just really, really wanted to kiss you.”

“I’m not mad, I just don’t understand.”

“Because,” Ginny calms down and says in a sober voice. “I think you’re the first guy I’ve ever met who didn’t want to kiss me. I mentioned being a really, super rich heiress right? Do you know what that means to most guys? It means I’m the ultimate trophy. A rich, good looking, girl with limited parental oversight and that’s it, just an ideal combination of traits instead of a person. I think, for once, even if it was just this once, I wanted to kiss someone who saw me for me.”

“I think I understand,” Harold replies. “Thank you.”

Then he stands, and picks up his mask before fixing it back over his face. As he walks toward the door, he hears her voice and pauses.

“Will I see you again?”

“I wait six months minimum between each contract in a city,” he says.

“I know, I looked you up and all,” Ginny replies, “but the warehouse was built on the county line. It’s technically not part of the city.”

Vicious pauses, his mask fully back in place now. The black metal seems to shine slightly as if attracting every rare mote of light present in the dark room. “Like I said, I wait six months between contracts in the same city.”

With that he leaves, closing the door behind him before vanishing into the depths of Liberty City. Behind him, Ginny sits in the dark thinking.

And so, dear reader, Valentine’s Day comes to a close once more. Does it herald the beginning of an unexpected romance or a momentary fling? We cannot say. But perhaps the destination is less important than the experience, and a moment’s honesty is worth the gamble. After all, there are no promises in matters of the heart!