AN: Happy to finally get this done. Quite some time ago, Hero and I had gotten to talking about a scenario that eventually lead to me commissioning him to draw the picture currently serving as this story's cover art. Can't remember if this was before or after I'd started writing these Heroverse stories, but I knew I wanted to write something on the subject, I just had no idea how I'd get a hypothetical story to that point. I'm happy to say that as of the posting of this chapter, I have finally achieved that goal, though I can't speak for how competently it was done.
I'm also happy to announce that Gigant now has its own page on tvtropes, which never stops being humbling, no matter how many times I get to make that announcement. It's almost like people enjoy these stories...
Lori stifled a yawn as she glided in through her bedroom window landing a lightly as she could. Her excursion had been intended to be a relatively brief one, just an attempt to reaffirm her connection with her boyfriend and get a feel for his wellbeing, make sure the rigors of superheroing hadn't yet taken too big of a toll on him. To that end, she'd felt that she had succeeded, but...well, one thing had led to another. And in the afterglow of their union, with Lincoln's head pillowed against her breasts and their body heat intermingling, the urge to linger a little longer had been overpowering. Next she knew, the sun was well above the horizon and the ghastly specter of school was looming overhead. Lori had awoken Lincoln to give the dazed boy a hurried goodbye, along with suggesting that he might want to do some early morning laundry sooner than later, quickly dressed and then launched herself out the window, flying home as fast as she could without setting the early morning sky ablaze.
And yet, as she shed her costume once more, this time trading it for her typical sleeping attire of a loose undershirt and some shorts, she couldn't deny that in spite of the abrupt exit she'd been forced to make, it was probably the best night's sleep she'd ever had. Shame she hadn't spent more of the time actually sleeping.
Now dressed as if she hadn't snuck out for some late-night nookie, Lori turned and considered her bed. She'd had loved nothing more than to simply climb into bed and try to take advantage of what fleeting time remained before she'd need to get up for school. However, while the flesh was willing...as well as feeling rather weak, and a little spongey, her mind was still very much awake. Things about the previous night still processing. Many of them good, delightful even, but others...somewhat troubling. She worried that trying to go to sleep in her current state would simply result in her staring at the wall and...ruminating on things, which wasn't a position she particularly enjoyed being in, especially right now, with the added pressure of needing to garner what rest she could before school started. Finally, Lori settled on a glass of something to settle herself. Ideally milk, but she honestly couldn't remember if there was any to be had. That was the problem when you were responsible for your own groceries. Still, there was no harm in checking.
Her course decided, Lori opened her door as quietly as possible and tip-toed towards the kitchen, thoughts of nice, refreshing moo-juice dancing through her head. All seemed to be going well, with naught to be heard but the ambient early morning sounds of the apartment complex slowly stirring to life around them.
Then, just as her foot touched down upon the kitchen floor, her world exploded into blinding light. Ironic, given that her usual methodology of dealing with criminals tended to involve the same. Forcing herself to refrain from retaliating with a blast of energy (thereby violating her strict, "No exploding the kitchen" agreement with Leni), Lori forced her eyes open and squinted against the flood of illumination assaulting her eyes.
"Good morning, Lori." Said Leni, from her place seated at the kitchen table. "You're up early today."
"Leni? What are you..." Lori trailed off as she spied the source of her torment. A flashlight, floating in mid-air and hovering around her face. She let out a low growl of irritation and swiped at the object with one hand. She missed, but her point was apparently made, as the flashlight shut off and floated over to the kitchen counter, landing with a gentle thunk.
"You snuck out last night." Said Leni, taking a sip from a steaming mug of...something. As Lori strode towards the table, she caught a whiff of something herbal, and thoroughly unpleasant.
"And what makes you say that?" Lori asked, taking a seat across from her sister, all the while trying to exude as much nonchalance as possible.
"You're still wearing your mask," Leni replied, tapping her cheek demonstratively.
"I..." Lori reached up to feel her face and winced as her fingers touched upon the all too familiar fabric. "...Was not aware, of that." She finished, lamely.
Leni declined to respond, simply sipping her drink with an air of smugness nearly as palpable as the odor of herbs now permeating the kitchen. While she enjoyed herself, Lori yanked off the offending garment and, after a moment of consideration, shoved it into the pocket of her shorts. Slamming it down onto the tabletop would have been a lot more cathartic, but indulging in that sort of behavior one too many times had led to her and Leni needing to replace their previous table. Besides, she and Leni had a standing rule about leaving parts of their costumes out in the open, no matter for how long, lest they forget about them. Forgetting to put away your unmentionables until visitors chanced upon them was profoundly embarrassing, forgetting to put away your very recognizable superhero costume under the same circumstances could potentially ruin your chance of ever having a private life again.
"How is he?" Leni asked, shifting Lori's focus outward once again. "And don't say 'he who?', I know you went to see Linky last night."
"How?" Lori replied, not bothering to hide her irritation.
"Because you're still thinking about him." Leni's lips curled upward into a gentle smile. "You get all...fluttery, when you think about Linky. It's totes adorbs."
Lori felt heat begin to blossom across her cheeks. She could grudgingly admit that was not an...inaccurate description of her inner workings, but she still didn't like to hear it. Nova was fearless and tough as nails, it wouldn't do for her to get doe-eyed over her teammate. Small mercy that Leni was, to their knowledge, the only empath in the area.
"Also, you smell like fun." Leni continued, wrinkling her nose. She gestured to her beverage. "That's why I got this ready."
"You really could have stopped at that first thing, Leni." Lori deadpanned, her embarrassment now taking an entirely different nature.
"Ya huh." Leni waved her hand dismissively. "Now answer the question."
"He's fine." Said Lori, taking a moment to master herself. "More or less. I mean, he's about as fine as he can be expected to be."
She waited a moment, giving the younger girl an opportunity to opine on the subject, but Leni merely gestured for her to continue.
"He's just...tired." Lori went on. "Mentally, I mean. And he should be. The ki—the guy is balancing school against patrolling, training with us, and trying to keep his private life in order. I honestly don't know how he does it."
"And us," Leni interjected. "He still tries to make date night work. When he can, anyway."
"Thank you, Leni, I love being reminded that I'm part of the problem."
Her sister frowned. "Lori, I didn't mean—"
"I know, I know." Lori cut her off, holding her hands up apologetically. "I'm just—"
"Frustrated." Leni cut in. "I didn't need to use my powers, it's all over your face."
"...Fair enough." Lori conceded, nodding tersely. "But yes, I'm frustrated that my boyfriend is taking on so much responsibility. There's a learning curve to this stuff, and I'm worried that if he keeps this up, it's gonna...do...stuff, to him. Mentally."
"Like when you had to miss that really important golf game because old-Ace needed us to rescue those hostages? And then later that night you screamed really loudly and exploded the kitchen?"
"I thought we agreed to never talk about that." Lori's eyes narrowed.
"Talk about what?" Leni asked, innocently.
Lori said nothing, merely staring at her sister for a time.
"I'm just...worried." She said at last. "I eventually realized that I couldn't handle juggling all that stuff. And in the end, I had to drop golf, even though I really loved it. Lincoln's probably going to have to make that same choice, and I guess I was hoping I could give him a really good reason to pick something other than...me."
"Us." Leni gently chided her. Now it was Lori's turn to remain silent, simply leaning back in her chair and smiling smugly.
"Lori!" Leni protested. "That's not fair!"
She snorted, no longer able to hold back her amusement. "I'm kidding Leni, geeze. Obviously, I meant us."
Leni let out an annoyed huff, which was strangely gratifying to see. "Well, now I'm having trouble trusting you. So next time, I get to come along."
"Leni, we're trying to help him be less tired."
"Uh-huh." Leni looked unamused. "And how did that work out last night?"
"He...didn't complain?" Lori shrugged sheepishly. "But you're right. That probably wasn't the most productive thing to do."
"I felt you come home," Leni grumbled, sipping her drink. "Felt like you were plenty productive."
"Geeze, I'm sorry, okay? Next time we've got some free time he can take you to the movies or something. My treat."
"Or something," Leni muttered, in a tone that was probably supposed to be under her breath. "Definitely or something."
"Now help me think of something we can do to help Lincoln loosen up." Said Lori, opting for the diplomatic approach.
"Something that doesn't involve fun." She added, seeing the cat-like smile that briefly graced her sister's face. "And definitely nothing that involves...three-player games. We agreed to save that for an anniversary surprise, remember?"
"True." Leni mused thoughtfully. "I wanted to make us something special to wear for that anyway, and I'm still trying to find a fabric that won't chafe so much."
"I—" Lori began, before cutting herself off. "You know what? I probably don't want to know."
"Probably not."
"Alright then." Lori shook her head in exasperation. "So that's out. You got anything else?"
"Hmm." Leni adopted a thoughtful pose. "I...think, I might have an idea."
It was all Lincoln could do to simply stare at the scene before him. Conventional wisdom suggested that discretion was the better part of valor. And that was a philosophy he was feeling very much in favor of at the moment.
"Try some of my salad, Linky." Eclipse cooed, brushing her emerald-colored shoulder against his as she held a forkful of crisp lettuce up to his face. "I know you love your greens."
"Uh..." Lincoln uttered nervously, glancing at the crowd that had formed around their table. It would be an understatement to say he had been alarmed when his lunch period had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of his girlfriends, more so at the fact that they'd shown up in full costume. His kneejerk reaction had been to immediately start looking for a place private enough for him to change into his own gear. Because clearly Nova and Eclipse showing up somewhere had to mean that some form of villainy was taking place.
Then...they'd started talking.
"Lincoln Mcbride!" Nova had announced more than loudly enough for the entire school to hear. And then some, given the size of the crowd. "Eclipse and I were just talking about how cool our favorite fan was!"
"Yeah!" Eclipse chimed in. "And then we thought: 'how can we show Lincoln just how cool we think he is"?"
Things had continued in that fashion. It had been a fascinating mixture of the mortification one felt watching a terrible talent show performance, and the claustrophobia that generally accompanied the realization that one was stuck in the middle of a, particularly bad school assembly. At some point in the proceedings, he'd entertained the possibility that he might be able to pass this whole thing off as a prank, that someone had hired a couple of uniquely awful Nova and Eclipse impersonators to make him look bad.
...it was a shame, then, that they'd ended up spending the entirety of their speech hovering above the schoolyard. Two pretty blondes who could pass for superheroes? That was within the realm of possibility. Those same blondes with superpowers? Way, way less likely. What little hope he'd had left was dashed rather handily when someone (presumably with a death wish) had hucked something Nova's way, only for the object to be summarily disintegrated as her energy field sprung to life. Though he took some small comfort that even as livid as she clearly was, Lori still had the presence of mind to stick to whatever script she'd prepared with Leni. For ten. Whole. Minutes. Truth be told, Lincoln had gotten lost in whatever point they were trying to get across fairly quickly (proof editing was apparently not among either girls' power sets), but when they'd landed and taken up positions on either side of his now extremely vacant lunch table, he was able to put things together fairly quickly.
"Did she call him 'Linky'?!"
"Why's a babe like that crawling all over a dork like Mcbride?"
And then there was the audience that had seemingly only grown larger. This was getting out of hand.
Before he was forced to respond, Nova leaned over, grabbed the tip of the fork with her fingers, and rolled the tines into a little, useless ball of metallic mush.
"Hey!" Eclipse shouted, glaring at the older girl.
"Lincoln needs something a little more...robust," Nova replied, with a smug smirk. "He is a growing boy, after all." She reached for her plate and picked up her large, admittedly tasty-looking sandwich.
"Why don't you have a nibble on this?" Nova purred, batting her eyelashes at him. It didn't escape the boy's notice that she was holding the sandwich at chest height, almost certainly by design.
"Oops!" Eclipse growled, flicking a finger in Nova's direction. Immediately the older girl's beverage toppled over, releasing a spray of sugary liquid that was guaranteed to soak her already skin-tight outfit—
FWOOSH
Were it not for Nova's energy aura springing to life just long enough to incinerate the wayward liquid before impact.
"You wanna try that again?" Nova asked smugly. "Because I—HEY!" Something shot up off the table and slammed into the superheroine's face, so fast that Lincoln's eyes were barely able to register its movement. However, as it reeled from the impact and fell back to the ground, its purpose achieved. A french fry, from the looks of it.
"Yes." Said Eclipse, still waggling her fingers. "Yes, I would."
Lincoln groaned quietly to himself. Now he had a super sister in-fight on his hands. As if things couldn't get any worse!
"Do the thing with the fries again!" Someone shouted.
"Don't take that lying down, Nova!" Shouted another.
I stand corrected, Lincoln silently concluded as the air around him suddenly filled with airborne food and the pungent charcoal-like smell of that same food being flash-fried to a crisp.