TINK TINK TINK

Lincoln McBride stirred in his bed as an extremely loud noise pervaded his bedroom, his body wracked with indecision as two sets of instincts warred for supremacy. The first, those of a crimefighter, urging him to track down the source of the disturbance, determine whether or not it was a threat to innocent people, and neutralize it if necessary. The second were those of an exhausted boy desperately trying to get some sleep on a school night, pleading with him simply yank the blankets over his head and pray that whatever it was would just shut up on its own. Both sides were extremely persuasive, and Lincoln settled in for a lengthy debate, resolute in allowing both sides to have their say—

TINK TINK TINK

However, given that the sound seemed quite close, and was only growing in volume, it seemed like the minimum modicum of reasonable behavior would be to see what he could ascertain from his bed, and evaluate the situation from there. His instincts agreed that this was an acceptable compromise, and tabled the discussion until a later date. The issue settled for the moment, Lincoln opened his eyes, allowing them a few moments to acclimate to the darkness—

TINK! TINK! TINK!

...but only a few, because that noise was seriously getting annoying.

And there, at his window, a beautiful blonde woman in a blue mask. This would have been noteworthy by itself, but it bore consideration that Lincoln's bedroom was situated on the second floor. Not to mention, she was rapping pretty emphatically on the glass—

TINK! TINK! CRACK!

And, in her impatience, vastly underestimating how much force a simple pane of glass could take. To her credit, Lincoln could see her wincing through the spiderweb-like cracks that decorated his window pane.

Sighing inwardly, Lincoln slipped free from the protective embrace of his blankets and allowed himself a moment to shiver as his body adjusted to the new, much lower temperature of his bedroom. Then he tiptoed over to the window and cautiously opened it, both to avoid further disturbing the compromised glass and accidentally beaning his guest.

"Nova!" Lincoln whispered. "Thank goodness you're here! Some ner do well just vandalized my window! I bet if you hurry, you can still catch them!"

"Har har." She replied, rolling her eyes. "You're literally hilarious. Now let me in before someone sees me!"

It was really tempting to continue to amuse himself at the older girl's expense. But an angry Lori was a temperamental Lori, and quite capable of snapping him in half in a manner that was in no way metaphorical. To say nothing of the fact that she was right. One random passerby with a smartphone and suddenly a lot of very uncomfortable questions would need to be answered as to why a heroine of her stature was spending her nights hanging outside his place.

"As you wish." He said, stepping aside and bowing deeply. "Come right in, madam."

"Dork," Lori grumbled as she floated into the room and lightly touched upon the ground. Joking aside, Lincoln did appreciate how quiet she was being. Late though it was, his dads were light sleepers, and if they caught him in this very compromising position, he wasn't certain what was going to be harder to explain. That girl he'd just snuck into his room, or the fact that she was very obviously a superhero.

"I'm living the fantasy of every guy in this city, right now, aren't I?" Lincoln mused rhetorically, as the significance of that previous thought just occurred to him.

"We've been dating for a month now, and you're only just realizing that?" Lori asked archly.

"I'm not that stupid." Lincoln protested. Lori's expression suggested that she had evidence to the contrary.

"I meant this, specific thing." He clarified, gesturing to the still open window. "Where you swoop in through my window and..." He trailed off as something about the situation only just clicked with him. "...Leni is nowhere to be seen."

"Oh, I see how it is. I'm not enough fantasy for you by myself, is that it?" Lori straightened up and gave him a haughty shake of her head. It would have been a lot more convincing if she hadn't also just tensed up very noticeably.

"None of us are patrolling tonight," Lincoln murmured, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "But you're here in full costume, sans Leni."

"I couldn't exactly fly over here in my jammies." Lori retorted, looking him up and down. "Speaking of which..."

Lincoln winced, and self-consciously tugged at his bright orange pajama bottoms. How his parents had managed to find them and a matching long-sleeved top in his signature color, he'd never know. But he hadn't exactly been planning on showing them to his girlfriend.

"It's cold." He muttered. "And I need to cover up because it helps hide the...changes, I've gone through." Referring, of course, to the Olympian physique he'd gained as a result of his little brush with destiny.

"Gonna be hard to keep that up when summer comes around." Lori tsked, shaking her head. "I don't envy you there."

Lincoln shrugged. "I've been putting in time at the gym every day, I'm hoping that'll make it a little more believable."

"Besides!" He countered, pointing one finger at her accusingly. "There's no way Leni would let you come over here all by yourself!"

"Shows what you know." Lori scoffed. "I'll have you know she didn't complain one bit!"

"Because...?" Lincoln prompted.

"Because when I told her, she was kind of...asleep, at the time." Lori grudgingly admitted, her posture wilting slightly at the confession.

"I knew it!" Lincoln crowed as loudly as he dared. Which wasn't very, given the circumstances, but the sentiment was there.

"Shut up," Lori muttered, crossing her arms under her breasts. "You know, I could go find someone else to rescue."

"Alright, alright." Lincoln raised his hands in mock surrender. "I give up."

Seeing that Lori still looked perturbed, Lincoln reached out, took one of her hands in his own, threading her fingers through his own. When no protests seemed to be forthcoming, he gave Lori a gentle tug and guided her to his bed. She seemed amused by the implication (though not displeased), but Lincoln instead moved to sit on the edge, patting the space beside him.

"I think you're deviating from the fantasy now." Lori quipped, a small smile forming on her face as she sat down next to him.

"Their fantasy." Lincoln corrected her, sliding his arm around her slender waist and pulling her close. "Mine's still playing out."

"Oh. Now you're charming." The readiness with which she returned the gesture, as well as the redness of her face, suggested that she was more pleased than she was letting on. For a time, Lincoln was content to leave things as they were, cuddling with his girlfriend in the wee hours of the day, starlight and the ambient glow of his various electronic devices providing just enough illumination for the pair to remain comfortable without the risk of drawing unnecessary attention from outside the room. But, as much as he was enjoying this, there was a question hanging overhead that still needed to be answered.

"Lori," He began, looking up at the older girl. "Not that this isn't great, because it is. But why are you here, exactly?"

Lori wasn't looking at him. Rather, she was looking around the room, her eyes flicking to and fro as they touched upon his various possessions.

"You know, this is the first time I've ever been in your room." She said at last. "Seems a little unfair, you've been in mine plenty of times."

"You live with your sister, who's perfectly fine with me hanging around as long as I also make time for her." Lincoln pointed out. "Which, I think means that I'm going to have to break into your apartment sometime soon."

"I'd appreciate that," Lori interjected, giving him a grateful squeeze. "She's going to be tweaked when she finds out I'm here. Might help smooth things over with her."

"I was...half-joking," Lincoln replied, nodding slowly. "But alright, let's put a pin in that. My point—"

"It's such a... you, room." Lori continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Comics, video games. Those little dudes you like to paint—"

"Imagine that." Lincoln deadpanned. "My room is filled with stuff I like."

"Choice words." Lori slowly extended one arm, and gestured past him. "So...where does that, fit in exactly?"

Despite his instincts warning him to do otherwise, Lincoln dutifully turned his head in the direction indicated. And immediately regretted doing so.

To refer to the item as a mere poster, would be a great disservice to art itself. To call it a mere illustration, even more so. What the item in question, was, in no uncertain terms, was nothing less than the manifestation of some virtuoso's soul, the essence of its creator given tangible form.

The fact that it could also be described as depicting a bikini-clad Nova, with great artistic liberty having been taken with regards to her already generous curves, was really quite incidental to the work as a whole. The question at hand was how to properly convey that to a girl who could explode things simply by pointing at them emphatically enough.

"There is an explanation." Is what Lincoln ultimately settled on as he turned back to his girlfriend, heartened by the fact that Lori had yet to engage her energy aura.

"Does it cover why I'd still be wearing my mask, even at the beach?" Lori asked, dryly. "Because I hate to ruin the fantasy, but that's a pretty firm no-go for me."

"It's from before I met you." Lincoln protested. "The gang and I—"

"You're a gang now?"

Lincoln rolled his eyes. "It's more inclusive than 'the guys'. And we do have girls in our group, you know."

A beat of silence. "Actually, I don't think I did—"

"So the gang I went to this new comic book shop that had just opened up over in Hazeltucky. It was a pretty big deal, they had catering and prize giveaways, and they even had a live band performing."

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Actually, now that I think about it, I think I remember hearing that they were a local group. They had this amazing female guitarist—"

"Poster. Lincoln."

"Err, right." He let out an embarrassed cough. "So my friends and I rushed into the building, and just as I crossed the threshold, a set of steel bars sprung up from the ground and trapped me in place."

Lori seemed to be processing this. "Was it an evil comic book shop?" She asked, hesitantly.

"Actually, no. Turns out their security system just happened to malfunction. Like I said, the event was a pretty big deal, and they had security to match. But it took the staff a while to get me loose, and once they finally did, they offered me a few things to encourage me to keep quiet."

"One of which was a poster of me?"

"It wasn't you back then!" He protested. "You weren't a...a person to me at the time!"

"I'm going to give you an opportunity to phrase that better."

He sighed, exasperated. "I just mean that...you were so far removed from me at the time. You were this...impossibly cool superhero that I could never imagine actually meeting at any point. Like, a concept that was just out there in the world. You existed, yeah, but you weren't real. It could have been a drawing of anybody, and it would have been about as meaningful." He looked to Lori, imploringly. The girl's face remained neutral. Which, to be fair, was a lot better than her being mad at him.

"But you still hung it up?" She asked.

He shrugged. "It's a really pretty girl. Maybe a little...too, pretty in some ways. But it wasn't you back then."

Lori leaned forward and rest her head upon Lincoln's shoulder, her warm breath tickling his ear.

"And what about now?" She asked, softly.

"It's still not you." He said, looking her in the eye. "Because she's not my girlfriend. You are." He hesitated ever so slightly. "...Right?"

"Good answer," Lori murmured, nuzzling her face against his neck. "But you're gonna take it down, and put it somewhere nobody can find it."

"Fair enough."

"You still haven't told me why you came here," Lincoln said after they'd sat there in the darkness for a bit longer, holding one another. "Pretty sure you would have brought Leni along if you just wanted to criticize my decorating."

"I just...wanted to," Lori said, shrugging defensively. "You've been busy lately. We have too. I thought it'd be nice to get a...refresher, I guess."

"On...what, exactly?"

"Lately we've spent most of our time together fighting bad guys." Said Lori. "I see you kick a guy's teeth in enough times, and you kind of start to become that person, in my head. It's nice to have a reminder that you're also this person." She gestured around the room. "The one who spends way too much time trying to get me and Leni to play Swords and Cyborgs—"

"Dungeons and Dragons."

"Whatever." Lori waved one hand dismissively. "Point is, you've done a really good job of filling in for Ace so far. Maybe a little too good a job. Which isn't to say that you don't have a long way to go. Like, a really, really, really..."

"Lori," Lincoln interjected, politely clearing his throat.

"What, only you get to tease me?" She quipped. "I'm just trying to say that you've got a lot of potential. And so far you've been doing a pretty good job of living up to it. But I like seeing proof that underneath the mask is still this sweet dork who comes home from a day of crime-fighting, and still pretends to fight dragons. Because that's the guy I fell in love with. Apparently."

"Apparently?"

"Yes." She growled, punctuating the statement with a less than chaste kiss to his lips. "That seems to be the case. You really want to argue the point?"

"I...thought I did." He said, honestly. But now, with his arms full of amorous superheroine, it didn't seem quite so important anymore.

"Good." She murmured, kissing him again, just a little more reverently. "Because there's one more thing I need to get done before I head home."

"Lori, it's a school night!" He protested as she pushed him down, though he made no move to actually struggle against her. In fact, once she'd climbed atop him, Lincoln began returning her affections with gusto, running one hand down her flank, even as he pulled her close for another kiss."

"W-was there something you were planning to add, to that?" Lori asked, panting once she finally came up for air.

"Uh uh." Lincoln shook his head emphatically. "Just...reminding you, I guess."

"Duly noted." Lori giggled as she sat up, still straddling his midsection. "Luckily, I asked Leni to modify my costume a bit. Watch how fast I can slip out of this thing."

"Wait!"

Lori blinked in surprise, having stopped right as she was about to get what she'd presumed was going to be the best part. Then she looked into Lincoln's eyes, and took his meaning.

"Fine." She said, sighing in amusement. "I'll leave the mask on."

"...you're the best girlfriend ever."

"And don't you forget it."