“Mister Webb? Seriously?” I asked as I curled a little, slightly, to kind of drape myself along the inner curve of the man-sized sphere. As usual, I was dripping wet, and as usual, I wasn’t wearing much, just the boxers I had worn under my armor. When you don’t know how your clothes are going to fare, you tend to try and avoid wasting them.

“I told you I would do my best to stay out of trouble. And I have. I am not in any trouble right now, I was just peacefully drowning while I went looking for my boat. No trouble at all.”

She was hovering in midair, blue starry costume swirling with the same starry-night theme as her bubble, her brown hair cut in a pixie bob. I, personally thought she was one of the most beautiful capes in existence, even though she wasn’t as popular as some. They tended to prefer the buxom types, like Seraph and Countess, not slender athletic types like Galactica.

Then again, she strongly favored her grandmother. She was only 17 right now, but girls of Russian descent tended to fill out a lot when they entered their twenties. I was just glad she didn’t have an OnlySimps website. She was entitled to do what she wanted, she had declared her independence last year from that rat-bastard drunk that claimed to be her father, but she looked nothing like him.

Thank god she looked nothing like her grandfather either, the ugly bastard.

She slowly shook her head, her locks bouncing, “You are actually in a lot of trouble right now. Peregrine said she detected a class B power surge in Miami, but couldn’t tell who or even what it was.”

I grinned at her. Yep, she was the most beautiful meta that I had ever seen, but then, I was biased. “Well, you know that wasn’t me. I barely blip even to you. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, as usual. Working to help prevent crime from getting too big for its britches from the inside.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Fine, grandpa. But tell me this, I found a meta at the site, a bit splooshed, who has a record as long as my arm and connections to the cartels. Off the record, did you have anything to do with this? Or am I going to have to start hunting down a murderous rogue with a grudge against metahumans?”

Okay, I had sort of lied to Karen Anchorage. Wouldn’t you? I did have one particular family member that I had sort of kept track of. I hadn’t seen her much, but I had watched her grow up, and I’d actually been in the same explosion that had claimed the life of her mother and forced her powers to manifest.

That’s why I didn’t plan to have any more children. Few things are worse than watching your daughter die and then trying to explain to your granddaughter why her mother wasn’t going to be coming home again.

Even worse, was watching her father, or at least the guy that was supposed to be her father, refuse to take responsibility for his own kid and live like a responsible adult. I had not been a great father to Victoria, or she would never have chosen to marry a guy like him, but it was the 80s, and every girl wanted to grow up to be Madonna and run through a string of men in their youth.

By the time she’d had Lindsay, In my opinion, she was a bit too old to be a new mother, and her options for men willing to give her a family must have been very limited.

Supposedly, metahuman powers don’t run in families, but in my experience, they do… they just tend to skip a generation or three.

“That depends. What was his record for?”

She shrugged, “A lot of rapes. No prosecutions, and a bunch of connections to Cartel-related crimes including murders. Mostly Mexican stuff, though. They are quick to get rid of their criminals, and while they will happily hand over people with American warrants, they don’t want to extradite their own criminals.”

I nodded, “Yep. That was me. He tried to rape me and I defended myself.” I shrugged, “I had to protect my virginal buttocks at all costs, at least as long as you are talking to me as Lindsay, and not as a Proteus operative or UN peacekeeper?” I sneered a little as I looked around, “Technically, aren’t I in international waters?”

There was a huge difference between a no which means ‘try harder this is a token protest’ and a no which means ‘get the hell away from me’. I figured that, with his whole Zorro persona, he fancied himself quite the romantic lady’s man, but people like that had no place near any woman… he should have contented himself with his hand and online porn, or paid for his girlfriends.

She shook her head slightly, smirking. “No, that’s twelve nautical miles. You are less than 3. Besides which, the UN has jurisdiction in international waters, which means I have to spank you if you are being naughty.” she shook her head, “Seriously though, what’s going on?”

I thought about it carefully, “Well, you know that thing you do, with the absorbing and controlling energy?”

She nodded, hovering with her energy fields, holding me suspended in an energy field made primarily of repurposed kinetic inertia, powered by the sun, gravity, and cosmic energy fields.

“I am not sure what you are talking about,” she snickered.

“Well, it turns out that it’s hereditary. Someone that’s a lot smarter than me figured it out. It doesn’t work like yours, but I can see the connection. Yours is active, but mine is passive. It makes me a bit stronger.”

“He was pasted against a twelfth-floor window. Like peanut butter on toast. He was a durable metahuman. That’s a lot more than just a bit,” she replied.

I shrugged. “He tried to kill me. It didn’t work, obviously, and I broke his wrist… great restraint on my part, I should add, but then he started ranting and threatening me.”

She sighed a little. “So? It’s still not really self-defense.”

I shook my head, “He said he would track me down, cut my woman open, and stuff the heads of my slaughtered children inside of her.”

“Was it a credible threat? Do you have another wife and kids now?” she asked, looking very serious. Not disappointed, her grandmother had died of cancer long before she was born, but I couldn’t tell if she was hurt or not.

I had to maintain the fiction, even with her, so I nodded, “No kids, but I do have a girlfriend. I am not going to have some two-bit class E hanging like a sword of Damocles over their head if I ever do have kids again, not that I intend to.”

I shrugged, “Besides, the whole thing was a front and money laundering operation for the Quattro Cartel. They will be removing themselves shortly. I was there to convince them of the error of their ways. The worst you could charge me with was vigilantism, and I heard the DMA is getting really friendly with vigilantes that avoid civilian casualties lately.”

She nodded gravely. “Well, he did have warrants, and if he were ever arrested, he’d be on the shortlist for lethal injection. I won’t try to connect you to the event. But what’s important is, are you?”

“Am I what?”

“A class B. I know you don’t show up in most scans. Heck, the only reason I could even find you is that I am very familiar with your… energy-sucking black hole aura. I had to look for where the energy wasn’t, rather than where it was., and the Cassandras were utterly clueless.”

I shrugged, “Honestly? I doubt it very much. Remember, I am technically not even a Metahuman. Sure, I am strong when I get filled up, but not more than a class C, and I don’t get any of the perks that come with superhuman strength, like metakinesis or thunderclap or anything.”

Well, maybe I didn’t get the perks, but then again, I had jumped several miles leaving only a little damage behind. But still, a thunderclap, or seismic stomp, might have come in handy.

Galactica, as one of the few class B’s still in existence, could release a bubble of energy that could utterly wreck a small city if she needed to.

I didn’t know if she was unkillable like me, but if she didn’t age in twenty years, that could be a clue. I do know that her basic energy field, what looked like a skin-tight costume made of energy, was unconscious… if she was hit by something she was unaware of, like, say, an explosion, it would protect her instantly. Was it a form of absorption as well?

She was looking thoughtful, and I had to ask. “Hey sweety, I have a very serious question, and I am asking Lindsay, not Proteus enforcer Galactica.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

“First, can you give me a lift back to the docks?”

She nodded and turned to start flying us back toward Florida. Heh. Somehow I had jumped out of FLORIDA. That was really weirdly cool. I hadn’t cleared an entire state, Miami was right on the beach, but I had jumped several miles clear of the border, under my own power. I felt a bit like a superhero.

“And secondly?” she asked.

“Yeah, please tell me you are wearing some clothes or at least underwear under that damned aura. Cause if you aren’t, God is my witness I will show up for my next trouble free-balling it, and make sure that the media gets a good eyeful.”

Seriously, she didn’t have to let me catch the tops of every single wave as we headed back toward the shore. I think she was just being childish, especially since I didn’t try to use my absorb trick on her energy field.

We were skipping over the waves, taking advantage of the small vessel’s raw speed as we headed back towards the ship, and I was driving while Naomi made herself comfortable on the passenger seat. She had switched out of her skintight suit, but had replaced it with a light wrap which still left a bit of skin exposed. Even in gulf, it would soon be chilly enough for slightly heavier clothing, but for right now, I heartily approved of her choice.

I’d gone ahead and put on a pair of trunks and an Izod shirt after getting back on board, combined with a set of those leather sandals insane people wear socks with. I wasn’t wearing socks.

“So why, exactly, did no less a personage than Galactica herself set you down on the docks? You know what we were doing was very, very illegal.”

I shrugged, “We have met before. She knows I never kill or seriously hurt people, and that I’d be out in a couple of hours after she dropped me off with the cops. Basically, I figured she probably saw me land with a splash and decided to help out. She knows I am hard to kill, so she gave me a lift back to the dock because I asked very nicely.”

“How does she know all this?” Naomi asked warily.

“Because we have had run-ins before. Mook, remember? When confronted with a cape you cannot escape, you surrender immediately and are incredibly polite to them and the cops. Do you know why so many thugs go to jail after minor stuff? Because they are rude and piss off the cops. Be polite, be respectful, cooperate fully, and ignore any provocations, but never answer any questions unless you have a lawyer. In general, they look at you and see someone that’s way more trouble than it’s worth to go after.”

I chuckled, “Even capes get bored when you are no trouble. If you are respectful, friendly, and polite, pretty soon they start calling you ‘citizen’ instead of ‘suspect’ because it looks good and sets a standard. They are trained that way.”

She shook her head at me, “You are literally the mastermind of the mooks, aren’t you?”

I laughed. “If I ever set up shop as a cowl, I am pretty sure my guys would never have any real complaints. Yeah, fear is a good way to keep respect and get a lot of hard work out of them, but they will turn on you in a second when they are far enough away not to fear reprisal. Respect, a common work ethic, and understanding their needs, That’s how you get the ones that you want working for you. There are a lot of lazy mooks, but you learn to recognize the ones that are just trying to skate through.”

I chuckled, “Muscles are actually a good sign. It means they have discipline, even if misplaced. They also are not truly desperate, which means you might not get immediately betrayed for better money. They may be meatheads, but a loyal meathead is way better than a guy who’s mentally sneering at you for being his intellectual inferior. He’ll betray you the moment he gets a chance and any profit is involved.”

She looked at me, “You aren’t a meathead.”

I nodded, “No, but I tend to act before I think, a lot. I am not a good thinker, which makes me a great mook. Smart enough to get the job done even with vague orders, but I know that thinking and planning are the cowl’s job. If a cowl isn’t smart enough to plan out a successful job, he needs to find a new line of work, rather than hiring some guy to do his thinking for him.”

I sighed, “That’s why I don’t think a partner is the best idea for what we are doing. You plan, I follow. We are both serious type-A personalities, so without an established hierarchy, things will get weird or bad quickly. I am crap at the planning stuff, which leaves you. I will be happy to be your first lieutenant, I can get people moving just fine, but in the end, I think it’s better if I defer to you.”

She scooted a little closer, “You know when I said partners, I meant… you know… PARTNERS.”

I nodded, “I know. But I don’t think that would work out well. I am a lot older than I look, and while you are amazing and I am half in love with you, it’s only half… If you just wanted sex, fine, we could do that and go back to working together with slightly weirder chemistry for a while. But umm… right now my only real appeal is that I am the guy you don’t have to worry about melting.”

I shrugged, “As we train, your control is getting way, way better. Plus, I am always a willing battery if you need to burn off a charge. Our act is great, but I am not sure if it should go any farther than that.”

She was looking at me irritably, but not like she was heartbroken. She was thinking, and after a few minutes, her face cleared a little and she started to smile evilly. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“It was staring me right in the face, wasn’t it?”

I shook my head, “Not as far as I know. I mean, you have seen me naked, but I like to think I am normal, not tiny, and I am not into guys at all.”

She smiled even more broadly, “You have been avoiding Caelo. And I have seen you looking at her. Like a teenager with a crush. You are totally sweet on my sister, aren’t you?”

I shook my head, “Of course not. She’s got mister hotness waiting for her, and your dad is super protective. If anyone could figure out a way to kill me, he could.”

She laughed. “Oh, wow. That just jingled the hell out of my bullshit detector. You play the boyfriend, but you don’t go too far in front of her. You are like, totally into her.”

She giggled a little, “I should be mad, but I am really not. George and Caelo, sitting in a tree. F.U.C.-”

I interrupted her. “That doesn’t solve any problems. Like I said, to quote a fake Chinese mystic, difficulties surround her.”

She smiled a little, “Still, it makes sense. Like you said, we both have dominant personalities, which means without a hierarchy we’d probably start to go crazy with each other. At least, we would after a lot of amazing sex.”

I changed the subject slightly, “Speaking of training, are you still wrecking your toys?”

“What?”

I chuckled, “I said, are you still wrecking your toys? Look, there is no chance you would just be going without anything at all, you are a healthy, sensible girl, not a nun. So… are you still turning your toys into ashes, or do they survive?”

She glared at me for a minute, and then answered, “It’s fine.”

I nodded, “Yeah, so you can enjoy yourself without popping off a disintegrate, and that’s with something you can burn without any sort of conscience. I think you might be more than ready to look for someone that spins your knobs a little better than I can. If you are really worried, we can burn you down to almost nothing ahead of time, but I am certain you have more than a few guys lined up that you are interested in.”

She nodded slowly, “Well, sure, I mean, I work in fashion. Not all models are gay, and some of them are actually pretty good company. At least, they wouldn’t start mumbling about type A personalities when sex is on the line. But are you sure that experimenting on a normal is really the best way to do it? If I burned him I’d never forgive you, even after I got out of Stronghold.”

She chuckled, “But not right now. I am okay right now. Seriously, how long have you been without sex?”

I shook my head, “That’s not really important.”

“I answered your question about toys. You owe me.”

I shrugged, “It’s been a while.” I hadn’t actually been counting. Every once in a while stuff took care of itself, but now that I thought about it, I’d only been with two people since my last wife died of cancer, one of whom was a cowl that decided she needed a little release, but it had turned things weird enough that I’d had to let her kill me a few weeks later.

“Right. So how long is a while?”

I started trying to figure it out. “What years is it? 2025?”

“Oh my god. Seriously? You are counting the years?”

I shook my head, “No, the decades. Does porn count?”

“Only if you use a lot of it.”

I shook my head, “Naww. About once a year, generally. That’s the answer to the toy question.”

She looked at me side-eyed, “No, it isn’t. You already know I haven’t done it for real. Answer me or I will tell Caelo that you are desperate to see her naked.”

I scowled. “Blackmail. Fine. 1995.”

“THIRTY YEARS?” she yelled. “Holy hell!”

I shrugged, “The last time I was with a woman. It was a cowl, and it was mostly casual. She was a type A like you, smart as a tack, but a good cowl. The problem was, she liked to spice things up a little too much for me. It ended up with her publicly putting an energy lance through my eye.”

“It was a hard break up? Ouch.”

I shook my head, “No, she needed her street cred boosted. We were going nowhere fast, so she paid me almost two thousand dollars to get killed for her. We were known to be in bed, and so we decided that would be the best way to end things publicly and turn her into a scary bitch at the same time.”

“Two thousand dollars?”

“Yeah, this was ‘95. That’s like ten thousand today. I’d gotten banned from just about every buffet in Detroit, so I used that to move out to South Charleston.”

“Was it willing?”

I had to think about it. “Let’s just say it wasn’t entirely unwilling. I’d buried my wife a while before, and hadn’t really had anything going on except when I could afford it. So when she made the offer, I went ahead and got to it… It’s not like my bits don’t work except for misses right, you know?”

She was unwrapping her wrap, and said “Stop the boat.”

We were in the middle of nowhere. “Why?”

She started untying her top after she shrugged out of her wrap. Yep. She was just as amazing as I had imagined. “You said nothing is broken, and you said you were fine if it was just sex. So we are going to do it one time. I am Catholic. This will be a sin, but I need to know… I would love to have the bragging rights of going to my wedding bed a virgin, but not if I melt whoever I fall in love with. So this is a test. One time, get it out of your system and mine, and I might even help you go after Caelo.”

“You know Caelo is an empath, right?”

She chortled and moved over to my lap, sans anything at all. “Yes, but she was also chasing Louis, who was kind of in love with three other women at the time. She will know full well that we aren’t in love, and it might not matter, and I know damned well she’s attracted. My ASL is still awful, but we can do some talking, and mostly it was about you.”

I sighed and gave in to the inevitable. She was right, it had been long enough that I didn’t know if I could deal easily with the pressure, and I suppose I understood her point of view.