Friday, December 25
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The dads were getting along well.
Too well.
My dad had brought decorations from our storage unit, and now my apartment looked like The Grinch and Santa had gotten into a drinking contest, both had lost, and they’d vomited lights and garland onto every surface. Decorations I hadn’t seen since middle school festooned my door, and if it weren’t for how jealous my few thirteenth-floor neighbors were, it’d be embarrassing. It skirted the line as it was but leaned closer to endearing. For now.
Worse, they both had the same taste in Christmas music—the kind that was old and outdated when they were kids in the 2010s. I should have been gritting my teeth as Feliz Navidad rolled into White Christmas for what felt like the fiftieth time this morning. Instead, I was loving it.
The only thing I was disappointed about was Bee. She’d volunteered to be Santa, mostly to avoid having either of our dads do it. None of us had seen a problem with it at the time, but she was obviously picking on me. Everyone else had gotten two or three presents since the last time I’d opened one, and as much as I understood that the holiday was about giving, I wanted those damn presents.
Plus, my phone kept going off. I kept muting the calls, since they knew I was off-duty, but Rocko kept right on calling. Whether they had an emergency or not, we were between seasons, and I’d told them I wasn’t doing any superhero work until the new year. I needed the break, and they’d agreed after the last Episode that some time off would add to the suspense. So why were they bugging me right now?
I hung up for the fifth time as Bianca finally pulled out a gigantic package from the ever-dwindling pile, flipped the dangly bit of her Santa hat out of her face, and announced, “And one for Annie, from Mom and Dad. Yours, not mine!”
The wrapping paper revealed…a box. And inside of that box was another box! After the third box, I started glaring at Dad, who whistled innocently and wouldn’t look me in the eye. Mom was too busy trying not to laugh as I opened a fourth box to reveal…
“Thanks, you guys,” I said, grinning as I held up the soccer shoes. “You must’ve talked to Bee, then.”
“Yeah. The shin guards are in another present, but she said it’d be fine for you to play since there weren’t any prizes for the indoor soccer league or anything. You’re just going to have fun and get some exercise. We’re glad you’re getting back into sports and stuff, Anika,” Mom said. She smiled. “I think you’re doing great at being a superhero, and I know work/life balance can be hard when you’re getting pressured to work more and more. Believe me on that.”
I did. I really, really did.
“So, your mom and I are super supportive of anything you want to do that’s not your career. I know the superhero thing is a full-time job, but try to separate from the suit when you can. Did I say that right, honey?” Dad asked Mom.
“Yeah, Garret, close enough.”
“Bianca, give yourself one, too,” Bee’s dad shouted, a highly alcoholic mimosa in hand. He’d gone out and bought all the ingredients and some plastic flute glasses since Bee and I ‘didn’t have any booze.’ That had been a lie, of course. We’d just hidden it all in the Outback Stake-Out House so our parents wouldn’t find it. Not that it had stopped either of us from having a glass or two; Bee was a red-faced, red-nosed Santa, and I could feel the buzz, too.
“Oh, thank god,” she mumbled, her face relaxing in relief. I laughed, and so did her parents. Bee was a present hog, and being Santa had to be killing her. She picked the biggest present she had left, which happened to be the top I’d picked out for her.
My phone buzzed again, but it wasn’t a call this time. I decided that, what the hell, I’d at least read what Rocko wanted.
I rolled my eyes and watched Bianca unwrap the top, hold it up to her body, and face the audience. “So, what do you guys think? Did Annie do a good job?”
My face was already warm from the drink, but I turned beet red. The shirt was off-white, with a retro movie poster printed on it—something about a man in a red-and-gold suit of armor fighting aliens. “I’ve seen what you do to shirts, Bee, and you’re only wearing a couple of things instead of your whole ratty wardrobe. This is a start, but you and I need to pick out a style for you. That means more shopping soon.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“I do not abuse my clothes,” Bee said, faux-outraged, at the same time as she wiped her mouth on her pajama top’s sleeve. Everyone laughed, and she narrowed her eyes. “Okay, maybe a little. But sure, more shopping.”
She dropped the top into her bag of goodies, dug through the pile, and then handed a book-shaped package to her dad. “Here you go.”
As I watched him unwrap his book, my phone buzzed yet again, and this time, I didn’t bother reading it. Instead, I shut the damn thing off. I was missing out on moments that I hadn’t gotten to have last year because my boss couldn’t respect that I’d taken leave, and it was time to enforce some boundaries.
The presents were flying now; Bee looked hungry, and more importantly, she was acting hungry. Another package flew toward me, this one a pink puffer jacket from Bianca’s parents, which I really needed. King Cold had been acting—no. Even ignoring supers, the winter looked to be a cold one.
Rocko could wait. Whatever emergency Livestream had caused, some other superhero could deal with it.
I’d already worked one holiday last year, and I deserved this time off.
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The presents were unwrapped. The stockings had been un-stuffed. My pile of new clothes, a phone cover, headphones for my laptop, and half a dozen other things had been bundled into a bag and placed by my bedroom door so I could deal with them later. Bee’s dad and I had made Christmas brunch—I’d put on the Ramsey Fieri Costume since it hardly felt like a superpower—and now, we were all sitting around the Green Room’s conversation pit as Bianca explained the rules of the card game she’d chosen.
I’d already played it—it was a classic one about making your Victorian Gothic family sad before they died—so instead of listening, I let myself zone out on the couch between my parents and pretend I was twelve again.
This was what being a normal nineteen-year-old was like. Parents and girlfriend around, no worry about some supervillain trying a crazy stunt and you having to go stop it on camera…just good food and good times with good people. I could get used to this.
I couldn’t, obviously, because in eight days, it’d be the first of the new year, and I’d be back in my Understudy outfit, taking the fight to 3V1L. And, honestly, that had to happen. The Agent wanted me, personally, out of the way, and he wouldn’t stop until he had his revenge. That meant I couldn’t stop, either. But the last week or so had been really nice.
I set up my circus troupe family and nodded, staring at the other three families; Bee had an Addams Family-looking set of cards, Mom and Dad had mad scientists, and Bee’s parents had occultists. My hand looked pretty good, with a solid mix of happy cards to play on other people’s families and sad ones for mine.
“Okay, let’s get this going,” Bianca said, grinning.
“This is the least holiday-themed game I’ve ever played,” my dad complained, looking at his clear plastic cards. “But I guess we’re going to—“
“Make Anika’s ringmaster happy because he just won the lottery and can afford to buy a new elephant!” Mom shouted, stealing a card and slamming it down on my coat-tail-clad ringmaster.
I rolled my eyes. “Quit picking on me!”
Dad winked at me, struggling to keep a straight face, but Bianca followed up his card with one that doubled the ringmaster’s happiness score. I glared daggers at her as everyone else laughed at me.
No, not at me. I hated when my parents told me this as a little girl, but no one was laughing at me. They were laughing with me because I was laughing, too.
Bee’s mom looked at the cards and decided her cult leader needed to have an accident on the way to work. He broke his leg and had to walk with crutches. The game stopped for a moment as we debated a rule, and then we took another break while Bee went to make more hot chocolate, but even the pauses weren’t too frustrating. I was here with my people—most of them, anyway—and that was enough.
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“I can’t believe you did that to me,” Bianca complained, her cheeks even more red. Dinner had been a wine-fueled laugh-fest; after last year, it felt so perfect to have people to celebrate with. But now Bee and I were both a little past tipsy, and she wouldn’t let the card game go.
“Yeah, well, it’s not like my ringmaster died with a hundred happiness or anything,” I fired back.
She keyed open the door to her dorm, and we wobbled our way to her not-quite-as-messy room. The fight to clean it had been…a losing battle…but we’d managed to make it habitable. Even if three hampers worth of clean laundry were piled up in the corner because neither of us had the energy to fold for an hour, at least it was clean now.
Bee collapsed into bed, rolled over to a position that would have been sexy if she wasn’t so sloshed, and winked dramatically. “Hey, babe.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Sure am. You’ve got one more present for me, huh?”
“What makes you think that?” I demurred.
“I was counting. You bought me three things, but you only gave me two.”
Damn. She was right. And she hadn’t been digging in the laundry mountain where I’d hidden her present, so I couldn’t even be mad.
Or had she?
As I maneuvered my way through the dorm room to the pile and started digging, I caught a glimpse of her doing the same on the far side. I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t.”
“I did. Best place to hide something in the whole dorm room. Neither of us wants to match my socks.” She dove into the pile and came up with a suspicious-looking package. It wasn’t my gift to her, though.
“You don’t pay much attention, Annie. I got away from you twice at the mall, and now you’re going to pay for your…lack of…paying…shut up,” Bee trailed off, glaring as I laughed. She threw the package at me, so at least it wasn’t breakable. “Open it. Now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, sticking my tongue out and lobbing a similarly-sized package her way. “Go to the bathroom and open that one. You’ll know exactly what to do with it.”
“I bet I will.” Bianca disappeared, and I carefully popped open the wrapping on it. The package inside was all satin and straps, and I rolled my eyes. “Bee, this is gonna take forever to put on!”
“Don’t worry. You have time. I’ll stay here until you’re done, so it’ll be a surprise!”