AN: The idea for this was inspired by Bex_is_a_Slytherin on AO3. Technically, there is no underage drinking in this one-shot; while the age to purchase alcohol in England is 18, a child of 16-17 can legally drink alcohol at a restaurant as part of a meal if it's purchased by an adult. Felix and his friends are 17 (with one who's 18).
To Butterfly: The two of them definitely needed a chance to start processing.
To yellow 14: There's a reason the story after "The Darkest Nights" is titled "Group Therapy." And it's not just because the next story is titled "The Darkest Nights"!
It was Friday night, and Felix was just about to leave his house to make the drive into London for his patrol shift. While he still felt a little bad for leaving Iron Maiden to cover the rest of the week, it wasn't like he could just pop off to London every night to run around and hunt for the Stripper Ripper; the best he could manage was to tell the school he needed to go home for the weekends – which technically wasn't a lie. But according to Pegasus, this wouldn't last too much longer: he was testing out a streamlined portal ring that Felix could keep in his dorm. But for now, Felix was still racking up the kilometres on his car. Packing a bag of beef jerky in his backpack for Barkk, Felix grabbed his laptop and signalled for the Kwami to hide in his pocket before stepping outside and locking the dorm room behind himself. A solid hand clapped him on the shoulder before he could turn around.
"Felix!" called Aaron jovially. "Running off home to visit your mum?"
"As always!" Felix agreed, patting his friend on the shoulder and grinning nervously.
"You know you'll miss the rugby match tomorrow, though?"
Felix shrugged noncommittally. As much as he missed going to the games, that was the price of being a hero, at least according to his mother.
"Well…" Aaron pulled him in close and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "You know today's Charlie's birthday, right?"
"Really?" Felix smirked. "It must have slipped my mind. He's only been talking about it constantly all week!"
"So now he's 18…" Aaron wagged his eyebrows and grinned conspiratorially. Felix gave him a deadpan look. Aaron groaned in annoyance. "So he can buy beer, dumbass. The three of us are heading down to London to get the full pub experience to celebrate. Care to join us?"
Felix furrowed his brows in contemplation. A soft growl emanated from Barkk's pocket. He was supposed to go on patrol tonight; Friday nights were one of the Stripper Ripper's prime hunting times, and his attacks had started to increase in frequency. But at the same time, he could stop at the pub with the guys, have a beer, and then go out on patrol. After all, the Ripper usually didn't strike until the clubs' closing time, anyways. "Yeah, all right then."
"Excellent! We're taking your car."
Felix rolled his eyes. He should've guessed.
A little over an hour later, Felix parked his Bentley in a lot just off the Strand near the Waterloo Bridge. "So why here?" he asked, turning to Charlie.
Charlie grinned eagerly. "Why else?" he responded rhetorically. "If I'm going to a pub to celebrate my birthday, the only place to go is Irish! And besides," he added, wagging his eyebrows. "Only a couple blocks from King's College? There are bound to be some college girls at the pub on a Friday night!"
"Right," Felix scoffed. "Because I'm sure there's a college girl here just raring to go with the first Eton lad to give her the time of day!"
"That's the spirit, lad!" cheered Aaron, clapping Felix on the back.
"You never know when one of us could get lucky!" John agreed. "Last time I was here…"
Felix raised an eyebrow dubiously – in all the years they'd been housemates, the other three had only ever gone home on weekends a handful of times. All the same, he followed them down the street a couple blocks until they reached the pub in question, O'Shea's. When the green-and-orange door opened, they were assaulted by loud Irish music and the smell of beer, real and artificial shamrocks lining the walls and hanging from the ceiling. A server in a bright green skirt met them at the door and showed them through the crowded room to a table near the back. Felix looked around, taking in the décor as they went. Although he had been in pubs before, his mother had never allowed him to drink when he went with her, and his father had died before Felix was old enough to drink in public. Most of the tables were full, and there was a small group of girls who looked a year or two older than them standing around the bar, chatting with the redhead behind the counter. One of the girls wore a sweatshirt with "King's College – Strand" on the front.
Charlie stared at the redheaded barmaid, eyes wide. He elbowed Felix in the ribs. "Authentic Irish babe: now that's what I'm talking about!" he whispered, his voice barely audible over the din of music and conversation.
"You wouldn't even know what to say to a girl!" Felix whispered back, smirking.
"Is that a challenge?" Charlie grinned and raised an eyebrow at him.
No sooner had the four boys sat down at their table than Charlie picked up the menu and gave the server a food order for all of them, along with ordering a round of Guinness. As soon as the food and drinks arrived, he pounded down his first beer in two gulps and slammed the mug back on the table, shaking his head, before digging into his fish and chips. A couple minutes later, the redhead from the bar, whose nametag identified her as "Anne," came over to deliver another beer. "You know, sweetheart," Charlie told her, wagging his eyebrows suggestively, "today's my birthday."
"Oh yeah?" she asked, wagging her eyebrows back at him. "So what about it?"
"Well, we came down here for the full pub treatment." His eyes trailed down her form-fitting shirt. "And I mean the full pub treatment."
"And…" Her smile turned strained.
"And… how about a birthday kiss?" Charlie puckered his lips.
Anne straightened up, put a finger on her chin, and hummed, looking away as if deep in thought, the corner of her lip curling with a hint of amusement. When she turned away, Charlie reached around and squeezed her butt before giving it a swat. Surprised, Anne jumped and stumbled back, slopping half the beer into Charlie's lap. Charlie gasped in shock.
"Oh!" she yelped, handing him a dishtowel and rushing back to the bar to grab another towel.
Once she was gone, John smacked Charlie on the back. "Better luck next time, mate!"
Aaron burst out laughing. "You know you kind of asked for that, right bud?" he asked. Charlie glowered at him. "You told her you wanted the 'full pub treatment'!"
Felix laughed along with the others as Charlie tried to dry off his beer-soaked pants. "I think you're going to be walking back after that," Felix observed wryly. "I don't want the leather smelling like beer for the next month!"
Charlie fixed Felix with a deadpan look before his attention was drawn back toward Anne, who was rooting around behind the counter. Turning to follow his gaze, a flash of colour near the bar caught Felix's eye. A girl with bright dyed-blue hair that didn't quite reach her shoulders was leaning against the counter and nursing a bottle, staring at their table with a troubled look in her eyes. Felix cocked his head in surprise. Grinning, he got up from the table and walked straight over to her.
"Bonsoir, mademoiselle," he purred, placing his elbow on the bar next to her.
She eyed him suspiciously. "Bonsoir," she replied evenly. She narrowed her eyes and stared at his face. "You look… familiar."
He hummed and looked into her eyes. "Maybe I just have one of those faces, mademoiselle," he answered, raising an eyebrow. "Who do I look like?"
She furrowed her brows in thought and leaned back slightly. "I can't quite place it…"
"Your next-boyfriend, perhaps?" He wagged his eyebrows.
She arched one eyebrow and frowned. "Do those lines ever work on living females?"
He chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, straightening up. "Not as often as I would like," he admitted, taking a swig of his still-mostly-full beer.
"And doesn't that tell you anything?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Just that I might need to try a little harder, be a little more dogged in my pursuit… and speaking of…?"
"Dream on." She cocked her head to one side, staring at him. "Okay, seriously, do I know you?"
He smirked and leaned in a little closer. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and started to lean away as his mouth approached her cheek. "Not as well as I wish, mon Fer," he answered, his voice barely audible over the noise of the bar patrons around them.
Her eyes widened in recognition and she groaned, pushing him back half-heartedly. "I go out for a drink for the first time in four months, and I run into you?"
"Is that such a bad thing, cher?" he asked, watching her with an amused smile.
"That depends," she replied. He nodded for her to continue, and she smirked. "It depends on whether you're planning on making me throw you off another bridge! Any more of those terrible lines and I just might…" She frowned. "But speaking of… shouldn't you be out on patrol, Pup?"
He shrugged. "The Ripper doesn't seem to strike too early in the evening, so I'm sure I have enough time to get these three to a kennel somewhere to sleep it off before I go out." He jerked his thumb toward the table, where all three of his friends had by now moved on to their second drinks.
"Oh, so you are going to admit you know those three jackasses?" He followed her gaze to see Anne handing Charlie a stack of napkins. Charlie slipped his hand onto her inner thigh, and she grabbed his wrist and forced it back until he winced in pain. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a horndog like you would run with that sort of crowd." She snorted. "Your friend should be careful or my flatmate might just break his hand next time!"
"Wait–she's your flatmate?" Felix paled and watched her finally slap Charlie across the face, leaving a red mark on his cheek, to a raucous ovation from Aaron and John. Felix chuckled. "It looks like she can dish out as much as she takes."
The girl gave him a deadpan look. "And you think she should have to put up with drunken assholes like your buddy making passes at her all night?" Felix opened his mouth and she cut him off with a raised finger. "I would think very hard before answering that question, Mutt."
He let out a snort which quickly turned into a cough when his partner's eyes flared. He shut his mouth. "No–of course she shouldn't." Catching sight of the dirty looks the other customers were giving his friends, he frowned nervously. Suddenly his Guinness didn't taste quite as good as he had thought. He set it on the bar next to her, glad he'd only had a handful of sips. "Um… I should probably get them out of here before they get themselves into any more trouble," he decided. "Or before you use them for target practice!"
"Don't tempt me!" she teased, her lips curling up in amusement.
He smirked and took her hand, turning it over and lifting it as if to kiss it. She eyed him suspiciously, but he simply squeezed before leaning in closer. "Until we meet again, Fer Maiden," he whispered in her ear before releasing her hand and turning away.
"Hey, nice going, chatting up a college girl!" Aaron cheered, clapping Felix on the back as he sat back down.
"Nothing to it," Felix commented, grinning. He raised an eyebrow in a challenge before shoving half his fries into his mouth. "Step one is to not be an asshole!"
"So, did you get her number?" John asked as Felix dropped a few bills on the table and nudged his friends toward the door.
"I did not." Felix chuckled: he already had that maiden's number!
AN: Yes, Felix's friends are a bit over-the-top in their caddishness, but it's not entirely inaccurate. My wife waited tables in high school and college, and one time a customer caressed her inner thigh to get her attention… with his wife and kids/grandkids sitting right next to him.
Tomorrow look for the first of the "Superhero Liaison Department Case Reports": "The Andretti Investigation."