Virgil glared at his older sister for a moment, then went back to watching television. Not getting a rise out of her brother, Sharon headed up the stairs, leaving Virgil alone again.
He hadn't seen Richie for two days, and that was just fine with him. The last time he'd seen his so-called best friend, the guy had started going on about his feelings, and then he'd gone and said something that just ruined everything.
"... and anyway, the point is, I think--" Richie paused and Virgil sank back in his seat, appalled. "I think I love you man. You know, love you? Like... not like brothers, but--"
"Yeah, I get it, Rich. Just because you've got meta powers instead of brains doesn't mean I don't have anything to work with." He could see Richie's face falling, but this was just too weird, like something out of one of Sharon's soap operas. Or... Or like with that stupid Marvel comics Ultimate Universe...
"Oh."
Virgil let out a sigh and changed the channel to some random news program.
It wasn't like he'd been all that good about it. Probably the best thing to do would have been to cut the other guy off before he'd said anything instead of letting him go on with his train wreck of a confession. But no, he'd let Richie just go on and on...
"I can't believe you're gay." Virgil shook his head, and suddenly something occurred to him. "Did you become a superhero just so you could watch me or something?"
"What? How can you say that? We've been friends forever."
"Friends, Rich? Or more than friends?" That was what his friend wanted, wasn't it? "You know, friends don't lie to each other. Remember last year when you said that you thought Daisy was cute, too?"
Richie looked taken aback. "Dude! That's just because--"
"I can't listen to this. We're not friends anymore, Gear." Even that wasn't enough. No. "We never were." He couldn't believe Richie had done this to him. To them! There was only one way for Static and Gear to be partners after this. "It's purely professional from here on out."
"Virg... I'm sorry, I... I was just joking--"
And Virgil laughed, but not at any joke Richie had told. "No you weren't, Gear."
And then Static had stormed out of the gas station, slamming the door behind him. Then he'd gone home and resolved not to go out as Static for at least a week.
If only it hadn't happened. Virgil blamed Richie entirely for this chain of events. Why couldn't Richie have just been normal like everyone else? Why couldn't he have just kept it to himself? It wasn't as if Virgil had given the other boy any... hints that he was interested in that kind of thing. Virgil just wished he could forget the whole horrible night.
It wasn't fair, Richie'd just taken it upon himself to--
Static from the Shock Vox caught his attention for a moment. "Static?"
Virgil shook his head. "Well," he said to himself under his breath, "look who's calling." Richie didn't sound panicked or anything, which meant that the other boy just wanted to talk. Well, Virgil didn't want to speak to Richie just now. He picked the little box out of his pocket and shook it a little bit, as if he could take his frustration with Rich out on one of Richie's inventions, then flicked the switch to turn the voice off. Richie could pester him with that stupid electric-current silent vibration thing as much as he wanted, and Virgil would just ignore it.
Problem solved, the electric powered teen went back to sulking.
It wasn't just forgetting the night. What Virgil really wished was that Richie would forget about the whole like-liking him thing altogether. It was... disgusting! Not only were they both guys, and practically brothers, but they'd talked about girls together. What kind of best friend talked about girls with you one moment and then... well, what had he done? Gone on the internet to talk about how hot Static was when--
"Ugh, I don't even want to think about that," said Virgil.
"Oh, hey, look," said Sharon, coming down the stairs with an empty laundry basket. "Isn't that Gear?"
Virgil looked up at the television. Gear was flying through the air after some... was that a giant, flying giraffe? Virgil shook his head. "Doesn't that gas have any limits?"
"This was the scene just minutes ago, when one of Dakota's two defenders, Gear, was chasing a new addition to the meta-human stock who was caught breaking into a bank earlier this afternoon," came the newswoman's familiar droning voice. "The police are looking into further charges... this just in. Police have entered the building and taken the metas into custody. Let's go to Trish in the field see if we can get a few words with Gear. Trish?"
The screen quickly flashed to another young reporter, running to be the first to get her questions answered. "Gear! Gear! Channel 47, can we have a quick word with you?"
Gear was leaning against the wall beside the door, his face looking paler than usual underneath the green visor.
"Some people," said Sharon in a huff. "Can't that woman tell when someone's not feeling well?"
Virgil frowned as Richie began stuttering an answer to the reporter's question. He really wasn't looking good. If he'd been having problems with Flying-Giraffe-Man or whatever the newest bang baby was calling himself, Gear should really have called for help.
The Shock Vox, still putting out light currents, made him a hypocrite.
"I've gotta go study, Sharon. Tell pops I went to the library, okay?"
"Hey!"
Virgil didn't wait for his big sister to finish her answer, just ran out the door and turned into Static as quickly as he could, lifting off into the air. "Gear," he said into the Shock Vox, "need to talk to you."
It took almost twenty second before the other hero answered. "Static? That you?"
"Who else would it be?" asked Static disparagingly.
"Yeah, I guess..."
"Saw you on the news. You looked green around the gills. Do you need some help?"
"Yeah, that'd..."
He sounded really strange... Static took that as his cue to hurry up. "Seriously, you sound like you're about to fall down, Gear. You should fly up to the top of the building away from the reporters and sit down or something."
"Huh. You must not have got a good look at me on TV. They took my skates."
"Took your skates?" That didn't add up. The police said they'd caught the bank robbing giraffe-man, so how could anyone have taken Gear's skates? And those things would be useless to anyone else, with the number of adjustments Richie had to do on the fly to wear them. Virgil had been bored one day a few months ago and tried to use them. He could swear that sometimes he still felt the bumps on his head.
"I thought you won," said Virgil, leaning into the wind and making a turn.
"I... don't think I had anything to do with winning," said Gear uncertainly. "But as long as the good guys won, right...?" Virgil frowned, and looked around the building. He could see the television crew, but where was his blond-haired partner? "Look, just get here, okay?"
Virgil let the radio wave show him where to look. Virgil smirked. There was Gear, standing off to the side of one of the buildings, looking like he was trying really hard to conceal the fact that he wasn't wearing anything but socks.
"Bunny socks?" asked Virgil, landing beside his long-time friend. Ex-friend.
Whatever.
"Uh?" Gear looked down. "Oh, guess they are. Uh. Could you give me a lift back?"
Virgil was just about to agree: after all, the guy didn't exactly have a way to get around now. But then, he thought about it just a little bit more, and was suddenly royally pissed off. "I get it," he said slowly. "You dropped your skates in there so I'd have to give you a lift. That is so... uncool, dude."
"What are you talking about, Static?"
"Look, I don't know about you, but I want to go home. I've still got that essay for history to do, which you probably did in an hour, but who's counting? I told you before that I'm not an idiot. You may have meta-smarts, but I was acing tests when you were lucky to get a C cheating off of my answers. So let's cut the crap and just go home."
"I... uh... okay. Look, this is kind of embarrassing, but... where do I live?"
So. Should I continue? I'm kinda-sorta happy with this, but probably more not, especially since I don't have much of this fully in mind right now. Should I take it down and think about it, or continue? Any comments about that would be appreciated, as I don't have a beta in this fandom...