"I was wondering what kind of girl could have botched up a rescue attempt so badly. Now that I know it was you all along, everything makes sense."
"Go away."
Rome runs his nose down the side of my face, smiling at the way I shiver. "After all thes...
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(FOUR YEARS AGO)
"You did excellent work, Rome," Doctor Abernathy assures. He runs his fingers over his son's sprained ankle to examine the damage. "What you did today was stressful. You shouldn't be upset for not reaching perfection in such a sudden mission."
"Two people are dead. Sixty-eight have been injured. I would hardly call that a result of imperfection."
"That happened despite your interference, not as a result from it."
"What's the use of attending SAVE if they can't teach me anything?" Rome Abernathy winces as his father begins to heal his foot. His father doesn't answer for a while, choosing to focus on the injury.
Misty rain drizzles on their tent. He watches the shadows of the water droplets as they stream down the surface. Was it only a day ago that he was with Grace and Miles, playing games on the academy field? He feels like a whole different person now.
Rome has been on many missions before. With his father, he's worked in operation rooms, using his mind to guide medical tools through the patient's bodies. With his mother, he's transferred truckloads of herbs and nutrients. He's helped his siblings stop escaping trucks full of plutonium and tie up political assassins from a hundred meters away.
But he's never had to stop a collapsing hospital all by himself.
In Rio II, one of the most populated cities in Brazil, a supervillain organization bombed the foundation of a children's hospital. Rome managed to stop the pillars from crumbling. But the thing about crumbling buildings is that they tend to break apart. And it's much easier to control one big thing than a thousand little things.
Eventually, he couldn't keep up.
And now a mother and her son are dead.
Gradually, the pain eases and recedes from Rome's foot. But he still feels a numbing ache in his chest.
"The academy is a useful source for information, but nothing can substitute experience," Doctor Abernathy finally says, standing up to put his tools away. "This was your first mission that you failed. It happens to every super."
"So this was all some training exercise?"
"You know that isn't what I said."
Another super opens the flap of the tent. Doctor Abernathy and the super engage in a soft conversation. After another minute, his father returns back to his side.
"Some people want to see you," He says. "To thank you for what you've done."
Rome turns his head away, annoyed. To thank him for what? In a sudden flash, a picture of an invitation comes to him. The one Winifred Hart gave him yesterday, inviting him to Jill Smith's birthday ball. She's probably inviting you to test if you two are mates - didn't Winifred say that herself? He could use a mate about now.
