Title: Superheroes and Friends
Chapter 2
*****
Harm and I are sitting in a restaurant down the street from his home. We came here to eat pizza and talk. Or bond, I suppose.
Harm has strange taste in food, so we decided to compromise on the pizza. Harm got every vegetable known to man on his half. I got ham and pineapple on mine.
Currently, Harm is pulling chunks of tomato off the pizza and popping them into his mouth. "So," he says casually. "Tell me about your dad."
"What do you want to know?" I ask. I'm not accustomed to telling people about my family. Not many people have ever asked.
He shrugs. "How old were you when…you know?"
"I was a sophomore in college when my father disappeared," I say.
"Were you close?"
"Yes, very close." I take a sip of cola. "I've never had a lot of friends, Harm, so my parents have always been important to me."
"I know you're close to your mother."
"Well, after my father died, we were all each other had left."
"Well, that's not true. You have me. You have Mac."
I glance up. Harm and I settled the Sarah issue earlier this evening. At least as much as it will ever be settled.
He leans back in the chair and stretches. "Did your mother ever think about remarrying?"
"No, of course not," I say quickly. I've never considered the possibility of my mother marrying again.
Harm laughs. "Well, it does happen, you know."
"I suppose."
Taking of bite of pizza, Harm asks, "So what was he like?"
I frown. Finally, I scoot forward in my seat. "If you tell anyone this, I'll have a sweeper on you so fast it'll make your head spin."
"What?"
I let out a long breath.
"AJ has always reminded me of my father."
"The Admiral?" Harm says incredulously.
"No, Baby AJ," I say. "Yes, the Admiral." I stir the ice in my glass with a straw. "Of course, my father was more cultured, and he had more hair." I glance up at Harm and smile. "But the Admiral shares a certain strength and forcefulness with my father. He can handle me."
Harm grins. "I haven't found anyone yet who can handle me."
"Well, no surprise there."
"So," Harm says. "You got into intelligence because of your father?"
"Yes."
Harm just nods. He joined the Navy because of his father.
Taking a sip of diet something, he says, "Did you ever want to do anything else?"
"Actually, I was planning to be a teacher."
He raises an eyebrow. "You? A teacher?"
I narrow my eyes at him. "What's so strange about that?"
"I can't imagine you with a room full of kids. You weren't very parental with Josh Pendry."
Glowering, I say, "I was planning on teaching college. I concentrated in history at Harvard."
He nods. "History. I can see that."
"I also flirted briefly with archaeology."
"Really?" He laughs derisively. "I can't imagine you digging around in the dirt."
I glare. This is what usually happens when Harm and I get together. I say something, and he devalues it. Harm can be an arrogant jerk sometimes. I don't know why I like him so damn much.
"Rabb," I say, my voice coming across a bit more flustered than I intend. "I've spent more time sleeping in a tent in the desert than you ever will. I brush down my own horse. And, incidentally, I've gone on digs."
"Come down, Clay. I was talking."
I let out a breath. "Did you want to do anything else?"
He shakes his head. "Nah. All I ever wanted to do was fly."
"So law was just a back-up plan?"
"Yeah. Turns out I'm pretty good at it."
I can't argue with him there. He's a superb lawyer. "Good thing AJ gave you your job back."
"Yeah," he says dramatically. "Especially since you saw to it I lost my job at the Agency."
"Oh, for God's sake, Rabb," I snap. "I didn't have you fired."
He looks at me intently.
I lean forward. "The
DDI had you fired. I fought for you."
"I just assumed," he says quietly.
"I'm not the Great and Powerful Oz of the CIA," I mutter.
We sit there in awkward silence for a long moment.
Finally, I say, "Actually, I rather liked the idea of you being a part of the brotherhood."
He gazes at me with this sensitive, emotional expression on his face. Outstanding. Now we're going to get touchy feely. I shouldn't have said anything. "I'm sorry we never got to work together," he says.
I shrug. "My hand was still healing. It's hard to keep up with a superhero when you have nerve damage."
He smiles.
"Besides," I continue, "I'm sure sooner or later you'll forget you're a mere mortal, and you'll go off on some tangent and drag me into the middle of it."
Leaning back in this seat, he grins. "Oh, sure. You complain now. But you'll enjoy it."
He's right. I probably will.
