The Nebulous Meaning of 'Hero'

Chapter 3: America's Greatest

prompt thirteen: write a chapter based on friendship.

 

    “We need a plan,” Billie told him later, as they stood on a train in the crowded Super-Subway on their way home. There was really nothing ‘super’ about the Super-Subway except for its highly unoriginal name and the fact that it provided transport in the centre of the Golden City, where all the superheroes and their sidekicks lived. The city faded into suburbs at its edges and was covered by a huge forcefield dome which let the city folk out but prevented unauthorised visitors coming in (because of course superheroes were targets- for both villains and disgruntled non-supers).

     Naturally the villains tended to live out of the dome, somewhere in the wilderness where they could build massive evil-looking castles or other villainous abodes (most superheroes had never seen such a place, but they assumed they were probably painted black with turrets and iron spikes because, villains. So predictable).

     Also naturally, those in the nicest districts tended to be the superheroes, because they were paid more (nope, it wasn’t just their altruistic spirits that made the job so appealing) than their sidekicks. Families like Wes and Billie’s lived in the not-so-golden bits, the bits where the houses were thinner and crumbly and the streetlights weren’t as reliable.

    “A plan to get us out of this mess,” continued Billie, hanging on to the pole in the middle of their carriage as the train whipped round a corner in the tunnel. The lights flickered on and off, signaling their return into sidekick territory where the electricity boards weren’t quite as caring.

    “I know,” Wes agreed unhelpfully. “I’m so fucked.”

    “Not just you,” she reminded him. “I’m the one who’s signed up to work for the Super Douchebag Werewolf for my whole life.” She paused. “I’d actually rather be Odisti’s sidekick, to be honest. At least he’s not constantly hitting on you.”

     Wes looked up, and grinned immaturely before saying,

    “Give him time! He may yet learn to see my charm.”

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    The train jolted to a stop at Green Square (hahahaha grey square, more like) and Billie and Wes hopped off, dodging the barriers like the seasoned Green Squarers they were.

    “You wanna come round mine?” Wes asked, knowing that at this time of day Billie’s house would be full of her screaming younger siblings and her older brother yelling at them all to be quiet. The older brother – Flynn - was, in part, why she hadn’t put up more of a fight when being placed with a super. His sidekick contract had been terminated two years ago when his super found out he liked guys, and he’d been unemployed for eight months before eventually landing a job as a shelf-stacker using his air-shifting powers.

     It was proof too close to home to Billie, of how hard it was to live your life as an independent sidekick. It had perhaps been worse for Flynn, since he’d been fired by a super and so had DISGRACE stamped all over his forehead. But even as a school leaver without one- it’d be a fight to get the wage you needed to live on, let alone move out (and Billie couldn’t bear the thought of staying at home, where her dad thought just cos she was a girl it should be her duty to look after her little brothers and sister; her duty to wash and cook and clean). She wanted so much more than that.

    “Sure,” she said in answer to Wes’ question. She probably would’ve said no to anybody else, because she didn’t need pity invites, but she and Wes knew each other like the back of their hands and she knew he wasn’t asking out of pity.

    “I have honeycomb ice cream,” he added with a grin. “Let’s comfort eat and cry over superheroes.”

     She giggled, then, even though it was a stupid silly childish sound. It was only Wes, after all.

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     They settled leaning on the end of Wes’s bed, tub of ice-cream on the floor between them.

     “So he’s not gonna release you from the contract then?” said Billie, picking out the honeycomb chunks with her spoon. He slapped her hand away.

    “Nah. Well, he says not. And I mean, yeah, he looked quite serious, but maybe he’ll change his mind when he sees what a crappy sidekick I make.”

     He was trying to make his voice light-hearted but it came out sort of bitter, because he wasn’t entirely immune to the jibes Eric Gold and his cronies came out with, even though he’d like to think he was.

    “You’re not completely shit,” said Billie, which was high praise coming from her. He let her steal all the honeycomb after that.

    “Our planning skills fucking suck,” he groaned later as they lay sprawled out on the carpet, stomachs full of ice cream and brains utterly empty of tactical ideas. She pushed herself up on her elbows and said,

    “Why don’t we take this week for data-gathering. See where the playing field lies. Then I’ll come round on Saturday and we can regroup.”

     He nodded, relieved she wasn’t pushing planning right now because really he wanted to think of Vincent Odisti as little as fucking possible. Yep, no thinking about his snideness, his smugness, his gorgeous freakin face- oh my god NO, screamed Wes internally, scrambling up like he’d seen a ghost.

    “Billie I’m so fucking fucked.”

     Billie hummed agreement absent-mindedly, scraping out the last of the ice-cream.

    “Billie. Billie. Oh my god Billie I think I might find him attractive.”

     That got a glance up and a huff of laughter, complete with eyebrow raise.

    “Don’t freak out,” she said exasperatedly. “Do I need to remind you how fucking weird your taste in crushes is, Wes? I mean, I remember when you told me you thought Eric Gold was-”

     Wes groaned, burying his head in the comforter hanging off the end of his bed.

    “Fuck no,” he mumbled, blushing furiously. “Those were dark days we promised not to speak of.”

     She stuck her tongue out.

    “Yeah, yeah. My point is that your crushes are usually odd and short-lived. Don’t worry about it.”

      Wes sank back down to the floor with an unconvinced ‘hmph’ because ugh, that new revelation threw a spanner in the works. Billie pulled his old dinosaur laptop into her lap and typed his password in, pulling up a new tab of SuTV Catchup. Soon there were re-runs of the USA’s favourite reality show, ‘America’s Greatest’, playing. It was a terrible show, but one they loved to hate, shouting abuse at the various stupid heroes and playing a game in which they muted it when one of the main characters was speaking and filled in the words for them.

     Soon enough they were both giggling hysterically and Wes’s forehead had uncrinkled again. Yeah, their situation was kinda shit, but he was sure they would figure it out in the end. …Somehow.