Almost done, probably just one chapter to go after this, and I should have it up pretty soon - enjoy!
"What do we do with him, boss?"
Richie had guessed right. Agent Kruepke wasn't the leader; instead he stood in the back of the room, glaring uneasily, while a dapper old man in a well-pressed suit and tie looked Gear up and down. "So you're the local vigilante."
"That'd be me."
This gray-haired senior citizen must be the brains of the operation. Certainly he was too old to be as physically capable as the acrobat thief who had rappelled down from the roof to capture Gear. She was on his left now, holding his arm, having exchanged her plastic garrote for a good old-fashioned pistol. Since they had landed the gun had been pressed to the back of Richie's neck, wedged in the narrow gap between his suit's collar and helmet. The goon holding his right arm didn't have a gun, but was flexing enough muscles to make firearms superfluous. Looked like more of a hands-on kind of guy. Natural muscle-mass, though, not augmented by mutation. One zap trap would truss him up in a flash.
"Looks like you were right, Kruepke," the old man remarked, sounding amused. "They were onto you."
Except the capture units were with Backpack, and the acrobat had pried Backpack off Richie's back the moment they had touched down on pavement, before bringing him inside to meet the gang. Another member of the gang--six total, counting the acrobatic roof guard and Kruepke--held the computer now, poking at the buttons cautiously.
"He's not the hero," the agent said. "I told you, Static's the real threat. This is just the sidekick. Bright kid, but he's not the one we have to watch out for."
Richie wasn't especially worried that Backpack would get damaged, even if a gang of catburglars might possibly possess the diamond-tipped drill needed to breach the shell's titanium alloy. But the computer didn't do him much good in enemy hands. He could command it through the helmet, and Backpack might be able to capture the two closest guys, three if they were slow. But that wouldn't do anything about the gun against his neck. Capturing half the gang only to have his head blown off would be sub-optimal.
"So how many FBI agents do you got on your payroll?" Gear asked. Might as well keep them talking. Backpack's mic would be recording it all. And more talking hopefully meant less shooting. "When I followed Agent Kruepke tonight I wasn't really expecting you guys to be so friendly with him." Better to imply he had been maintaining visual contact all along, rather than start them searching for the tracer, and he picked his singular pronoun carefully. If they didn't think about it too hard, they might assume he was working on his own. Give Static the element of surprise, when he got here.
Shouldn't be too long. Static was coming. Hopefully. Maybe. Gear didn't actually know if his signal had even gotten through before the shockvox had been dropped to shatter on the pavement. On their way in the acrobat had stomped on the sparking pieces for good measure.
He wondered if V would be pissed with him for getting caught, or just make fun of him. It was becoming a tradition, it seemed. An annoying one, even if he did sort of enjoy the rescues. Why did he have to be the damsel in distress all the time? Couldn't they take turns?
"Sidekick or not, he's heard enough," the acrobat growled. "Let's just get rid of him and get on with it!" and she cocked the gun to make her point. Richie felt the click echo through the cold metal muzzle against his neck.
Pissed. Virgil would be really pissed, if he went and got himself shot. He wouldn't be too happy himself. True, getting shot in the head probably didn't hurt as much as getting shot in the leg. But dying a virgin? Totally uncool.
"You don't want to do this," Richie began to say, entirely honestly. Static would be too much for these non-super-powered hoods to handle anyway. Static pissed off would be more than the building could handle. Possibly the entire block. Obviously it would be difficult to give the criminals a fair trial if they were buried under several tons of rubble, but Richie wouldn't be able to point this out to his partner if he were, say, dead.
Virgil better be coming. And soon.
Before he could compose a more logical argument, an unlikely advocate spoke up. "He's right," Agent Kruepke said, coming forward. "If you kill a superhero, do you think the Justice League would ever stop hunting you?"
The old man watched the agent with the laconic calm and narrow eyes of a sunbathing serpent. "What would you suggest instead?"
"We're not going kill the kid," Kruepke said. "We're just going to see that he can't cause trouble. If you'll allow me..."
The old man nodded thoughtfully, then gestured to the acrobat, who reluctantly pulled back the gun, though she didn't holster it, or loosen her grip on Richie's arm.
Kruepke reached for Gear's head. His helmet. Richie instantly realized his game--once his identity was compromised, he could be blackmailed, or publicly exposed. If exposed--as a highschool student, genius or not, how much good would his testimony in court do against an FBI agent, or the kind of finances that must be backing this ring? Not to mention managing the superhero gig would be a lot rougher once Richard Foley went public.
Decidedly sub-optimal. Except, fortunately, the gun was no longer an issue. "Sorry, guys, can't stick around," Richie said, and kicked his heels to activate his boot rockets, sending himself into a jet-powered backflip.
The acrobat and the thug couldn't keep their grips against that force, and while it hurt like hell wrenching his arms free--probably tore something--at least he was free. "Backpack," he called over the gang's protests, "offense mode, six caps, now!"
Another shriek sounded as the goon with his computer received a several hundred volt jolt and dropped Backpack, just as six small charge-propelled capsules hurled from the computer's side compartments. Three bounced harmless off the walls, but the other three hit their marks, wrapping coils around the thieves in a secure metal embrace, leaving free only the agent, the acrobat, and her boss.
Before he could fix that, a gunshot thundered and something clanged hard off his helmet, ringing through his skull. He staggered, found his footing again and looked up into the wild eyes of the acrobat. Agent Kruepke was screeching, "I told you, no shooting, you dumb bitch!"
Either that distraction or the surprise of him surviving a shot to the head without even a dent froze her, long enough for Gear to kick the gun from her hands. Richie dove for one of the fallen traps as she somersaulted after her weapon, only to be brought up short by the cold-blooded hiss of her boss's command. "Stop, Wanda. No shooting, as the agent says."
Which was enough time for him to snatch up the trap and fling it at her, whipcord wires winding around her arms, forcing them to her sides so the gun pointed harmlessly at the floor.
But at the corner of his helmet's visor, Gear saw the old man move, swung around to see him draw a pistol--no, not a pistol, Richie realized a split second too late, as the boss aimed and pulled the trigger. There was no gunshot, just the soft poof of an airgun, and a sharp prick on his bicep.
He looked down, already knowing what he was going to see, remembering the knock-out darts which had taken down guards in previous burglaries. The drug was fast-acting; by the time he pulled the red-feathered dart from his arm, his head was already swimming.
If he fell unconscious here it was all over. Since he didn't have much choice about the unconscious part, the 'here' was all he could do something about. Richie tilted his boots and shot toward the window.
The glass shattered as he burst through the frame, arms folded against his body to protect them from the shards. The heat outside hit like a second tranquilizer after the chill of the air-conditioned building, and the night's darkness was blinding. Or his vision was going dark; probably a little of both, but he just about could figure which way was up through the dizziness. Up was definitely the best choice, the hardest direction for them to follow. Get high enough and Static would see him. He should be here by now.
Somewhere beneath him Richie could hear shouting, getting fainter. He wasn't sure how high he got, whether it was high enough, before he blacked out. Falling, but he wasn't sure if it was through the air or just dropping down into the tranquilizer's vertigo. Either way, he wasn't aware of hitting bottom.
* * *
So maybe he'd panicked. A little.
But Richie hadn't been waking up, and Virgil didn't know how far he'd fallen, and it had been too dark to see anything on that rooftop. The hospital was only a few blocks away but Richie had been so still in his arms as he flew, so heavy, with his head fallen back and his limbs hanging limp. Virgil hadn't been thinking about secret identities, or getting out of costume, he'd only been thinking about how Richie wasn't stirring, no matter how many times Virgil said his name.
It was a mistake anyone could have made. Anyone with a secret identity. Well, probably not the Green Lantern. Or Batman. Batman didn't panic. Batman wouldn't panic if the world were ending.
He wasn't the Green Lantern or Batman. It wasn't like he hadn't had reason, though. Gear's transmission had cut off so abruptly, before Static had even had time to pick up his shockvox. He hadn't heard any of the message, only felt the minute spark of the signal. But Agent Statler was looking like a dead-end, and Gear didn't answer his return call, and one didn't need to be a super-brain to put those two and two together. By the time he did, he had already changed course to track Agent Kruepke, hoping that Richie had run into the agent and the gang, rather than some other trouble elsewhere.
You'd think he'd be used to it by now. You'd think it would get easier, but every time Virgil's heart was still in his throat, pushed up by a sickening surge of fear and anger and a terrible helplessness that was the worst of all. That his best friend was in danger, that Richie might get hurt, or even...
It was worse now than ever, and Virgil didn't quite understand why, whether it was simply out of guilt left over from all their recent issues, or because he'd finally realized how much more he really stood to lose. He didn't know why, but following the tracer, he kept accelerating his flight, until the speed nearly blew him off his disk. Hunkering low to minimize wind resistance, he gripped the leading edge with one hand and forced himself faster still, racing towards Richie, the charged metal leaving an incandescent streak through the sky.
Even as the adrenaline pounded through him he tried to tell himself it was nothing. Maybe Richie had just gotten distracted; he'd been a little out of it lately. Or maybe he'd decided to take them out on his own. It wasn't like Gear wasn't a superhero, too. He could take care of himself. Usually.
If Richie had been distracted long enough for the bad guys to get the drop on him...
Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe the shockvox was just malfunctioning and Richie wasn't in trouble at all.
Even Gear would have to grant that past evidence did not especially support that hypothesis.
So Virgil had been a little worried. Enough that when he overshot the tracer's location he didn't slow down, just whirled a scorching u-turn a thousand feet in the air and dove toward the building. He generated a field strong enough to smash apart the boards over the window before he crashed through them, swooped inside the building and down the dilapidated stairs to burst into the room shining like an avenging angel.
Only to find most of the avenging already done, with the erstwhile victim nowhere in sight, four criminals trapped in zap caps, and Agent Kruepke holding up his hands in surrender, the last tenacious wisps of hair on his head standing on end in the ambient electric charge. He and the other four all gaped at Static. By the shock showing in their open mouths and the coruscating light reflecting in their eyes, Virgil guessed he was cutting a pretty intimidating image. It didn't hurt that they had no way to defend themselves, lying on the floor neatly cocooned in silver coils.
Standing up on his disk, Static crossed his arms and shook his head at the conquered gang. "Aw, you called him a sidekick, didn't you?"
He rotated the disk to face Kruepke. "Now how come you--"
"Save it," the agent said. "The boss has gone after Gear."
That was when Virgil noticed what he'd missed before, lying in the corner. He zoomed down and picked up Backpack. The computer, responding to his unique electrical signature, came to life and attached itself securely to his disk, as it was programmed to do in the case of being separated from Gear.
Which it wasn't supposed to be. Unless something had gone wrong. Very wrong. Virgil's heart, which had been slowing to a reasonable rate, skipped a beat and then started hammering at triple time as he grabbed Kruepke by the lapels. "Where?"
Kruepke pointed out a broken window. "Out there. You just missed him. There's still a chance if you hurry--go, I'll stick around."
"Yeah, you will," Virgil agreed, and fastened him to the window frame with extra-strong static cling before soaring out the window.
He had found the boss almost immediately--had to be him, no other reason for such a well-dressed elder to be out on these streets, and his look of pure venom when Static stopped him was a dead giveaway. Impossible not to recognize the glare of a hardened criminal confronting a superhero, even if it was almost immediately covered by a veneer of civilized patience. Ignoring the protests, Static attached the man to a streetlight pole by magnetizing his belt and watch and asked him, quite politely under the circumstances, where Gear was.
The answer he got was not nearly as civilized, and neither was his response to it, especially, but he had very little space to feel guilty. Not when the guy was in no real danger--he had checked for the charge of a pacemaker before zapping--and he could find no sign of Gear.
Naturally he was a little concerned. Trying the shockvox again got no response, and Backpack sounded no locater beacon, the computer sitting silently, stuck to his disk like a gigantic barnacle. If Gear could have signaled somehow, he would have by now, surely. He should have. Richie was smart enough to find a way. Way too smart to get himself...injured, not by these two-bit villains, not even Bang Babies, just jerks with a couple tricks.
Just a little concerned. No reason to lose it.
Static asked again, where his partner was. And funny thing, though this time Virgil didn't so much as raise his voice, much less his hand, the man didn't protest or even refuse to answer, just gulped and pointed up at the building towering beside them, with his eyes gone all round like a scared rabbit's.
Virgil didn't question it, though, didn't have the chance to because he was too busy shooting up to the roof of the ramshackle office complex. "Gear! Gear? Where are you?" Up above the streetlights, it was too dark to see anything clearly. Static fired off a bolt of electricity that burst like a flare over the nighttime city, throwing streets and rooftop into sharply shadowed relief.
In that glare he didn't see Richie at first, just the damage, a short trail where the tar had been seared off the roofing shingles by Gear's booster rockets. In his uncontrolled flight he had crashed through the remains of a long-abandoned gardening project, and Static had to throw aside a few fallen boards and buckets to uncover his partner, sprawled on his side with his arms over his head.
Richie hadn't responded to Virgil's shout or the flare burst; he didn't move when Static took him by his shoulder and shook. Looking back, Virgil reluctantly concluded that was when he actually did lose it.
At least he hadn't been so panicked that he had just decided Richie was--gone--and thrown himself weeping over the body or something nearly as embarrassing. He had had the presence of mind to realize Richie was still breathing, so had scooped his partner up, leapt onto his disk and soared straight for the nearest hospital.
Which, fortunately, was nowhere near the clinics Virgil Hawkins or Richard Foley usually visited, but that had been pure dumb luck, because he hadn't been thinking about it at all. He hadn't been thinking about anything, except how still and heavy Richie was, hanging in his arms like deadwe--like a sack of cement.
Once at the hospital he hadn't even dismounted the disk, just plowed through the emergency room doors screaming--or rather, calling for help, very urgently. The nurse at the desk, unprepared for the sudden appearance of superheroes in their midst, had stared at the two of them and hadn't moved at first, until he demanded she do something, and then she had jumped and summoned a couple doctors, but they just peered at him nervously without approaching, and maybe he had screamed a little. Or maybe it was because of the electric field snapping around him that they kept their distance.
Luckily at that moment a third doctor appeared on the scene, a matronly, no-nonsense woman who took one look and, firmly but kindly, sent the other doctors back to their patients, assigned the nurse to deal with the ER's panicked patrons, and ordered Static to stop sparking, get off his disk, and carry his partner to a private room.
Virgil obeyed and followed the doctor, tugging the disk with Backpack on top of it after him on an invisible cord of ions. Once they were all inside the room, she had him lay Gear down on the closest bed while she locked the door, then turned back to the bed and asked, "Is it all right for me to take off his helmet? From the looks of it I doubt there's anything wrong with him besides the tranquilizer, but best to be sure."
"The tranquilizer?" Virgil repeated blankly, upon which she reached past him and plucked a red-feathered dart from Gear's clenched fist, where he had completely failed to notice it.
"I'm guessing they shot him with the same drug used on their previous targets. This is from that burglary ring, yes?"
"Uh...yes?"
"Then barring any atypical allergic reaction, which he's showing no sign of, he should wake normally in a few hours. We could try to counter the tranquilizer, but I'd rather not introduce any more chemicals into his system if it's unnecessary. Did you get them?"
"Huh? Who? What?"
"The burglars, did you get them?"
Virgil gaped at her. "Uh. Yeah. We--he--he's going to wake--he's okay?"
The doctor placed a hand on his arm. "Almost certainly. If you'll let me take off his helmet I can be more sure. Besides, he's going to wake with a terrible crick in his neck if he sleeps wearing it. But if you're concerned about his identity--I can give my promise that I'll preserve doctor-patient confidentiality to this extreme, but I know how closely you heroes guard your secret--"
"No, it's cool--he's really okay?"
She nodded, smiling. "He should be fine."
Static helped her take off the helmet (Gear's equipment was difficult to handle without a special electric touch) and then watched her thoroughly and swiftly check Richie's vitals, nodding reassuringly at every juncture. It gave Virgil the time to sit down and take a few deep breaths and realize precisely how stupid he had been. Richie didn't look lifeless now, just asleep, stretched out on the bed but clearly breathing, his chest rising and falling evenly. If he had realized it was just a tranquilizer--well, it was probably best he did get examined, just in case, but if Virgil had known it wasn't an emergency he could have taken the time to strip him out of costume and check him into the hospital as Richard instead of Gear. Now Virgil couldn't call Richie's parents or anyone else, and a random doctor knew Gear's real face.
He'd panicked. His heart was still going at double time. Some superhero he was. Stupid.
But when the doctor finished her examination and gave him a cheerful thumbs up, it was hard to feel anything but relieved. Maybe Batman or the Green Lantern could have hid it, but lightning powers couldn't do anything about the smile that broke across his face, fit to hurt his cheeks. Richie was okay.
"Now," the doctor said, "I do want him to stay here for observation at least until he wakes up. I'll make sure the door stays locked and no one but me attends. You can stick around, but he should be fine, so if you want to be leaving--"
"I'll stay. Thanks," he said.
The doctor smiled at him again, kindly. "My pleasure," she said, "after what you boys have done for this city. It'll be a couple more hours. Feel free to take a nap, or I can bring some magazines--do you read People? I think this week's has a photo spread of The Flash. "
"I'm okay. Thank you, really."
"How about you sign something for my niece, and we'll call it even? I'd ask for my nephew, too, but the signature he'd really want will have to wait a bit," and she angled her head toward Gear.
"You got it," Static promised for both of them.
After the doctor left, Virgil took out his phone. First he called the police to let them know that the burglary ring had been shut down and where to pick up the perps. The static charge wouldn't have worn off yet, so he didn't have any worries as far as that went.
Then he called home, which was somewhat more stressful. He could have waited; his dad wouldn't expect him back before morning anyway. But his father would want to know, and it never did any good to put these things off. Not merely because a superhero could hardly be a coward around his own family, but because his father would find all sorts of ways to make him pay for it later.
Even if it was a little nervewracking, when the phone was picked up and he said, "Hey, Pops," and his father instantly asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I'm fine. Honest. Sorry to call so la--"
But before he could say anymore his father demanded, "What happened to Richie?"
"Nothing--nothing big. He's going to be fine. Just had a little trouble with those burglars. Richie got knocked out with a dart. But the doctors say he's going to be okay."
"Thank goodness."
"We're at the hospital now, and it'll be a couple hours 'til he wakes up, I'm going to wait up for him. We should both be back tomorrow morning. I mean, this morning," he amended, glancing at the room's clock. "As long as Richie checks out okay when he wakes up. Uh, Pops, if the Foleys call--"
His father sighed the sigh of a long-suffering parent who was the sole keeper of the secrets of a pair of young superheroes. Virgil had come to recognize the sound well; he had heard a lot of it in the last year. "If they call, I'll cover for you," his dad agreed.
"Thanks, Pops. For real."
"So what did happen?"
"We caught the burglars. Well, Richie did, really, he had it in the bag by the time I got there--we split up to look for the guys, there were two trackers..." The story spilled out in a couple minutes of disjointed babble, but by the few questions he asked, his father didn't have much trouble following it. He might sigh, but he was getting used to the superhero thing.
Virgil wondered if he'd be as good at getting used to other things. When they came up. If they came up. "Anyway, I flew Richie to the hospital, and he checks out okay, so it's all good. I'm just going to stick around in case anything comes up."
"It sounds like quite a night." His father paused a moment. "You're sure you're all right, Virgil?"
"I told you, I didn't get hurt. Couldn't even touch me, those guys."
"I could come down to the hospital, if you'd like the company."
"I'm fine, Pops! And I should be getting off my phone, the police might be calling back--there could be trouble with that agent going bad on them, might need testimony, or something."
"If you're sure..." His dad's sigh was softer, and inflected a little differently. The more usual sigh of a father realizing his son is old enough to take care of himself. "Good work catching those guys, son. I'm proud of you. You and Richie."
Virgil might be old enough not to need his father's approval for everything he did, but he didn't think he'd ever outgrow how glad it made him to hear it. "Thanks, Pops. G'night."
"Good night," his dad said, "take good care of your partner," and he hung up.
Virgil blinked at the phone before pocketing it, then glanced over to Richie's comatose form. "Uh, Rich? Don't look now, but I think Pops is onto us."
Richie just continued to breathe deeply.
"Onto me, anyway." Virgil leaned over his bed, propped his chin on his elbows and studied his friend's sleeping face. It didn't look that different from his waking one, really. Even with his eyes closed and without his glasses, there was still an intelligence in his expression, something about that tiny cute furrow between his dark brows, or the way his lips were slightly parted with his teeth white behind them, like he was about to speak and was just thinking of what to say..
It was a little weird, watching him like this and knowing he wouldn't get caught, that Richie wasn't going to wake up in the middle of his study, and no one was going to come through the door and interrupt. That no one was going to know, if Virgil reached out to touch Richie's short hair, a little stiff from dried sweat but still fine, not wiry like his own. If he ran his fingers down the curve of his scalp to his neck, not to check his pulse, just to feel his skin, warm, not too warm, smooth but not too smooth.
Richie was still sound asleep, neither aware nor caring. Virgil's cheeks were burning, and his fingers resting so lightly against Richie's neck were tingling, like static electricity used to feel like, long enough ago that he'd almost forgotten the sensation. It felt a little weird, a little dirty, even, like he was doing something almost wrong, but it felt good, too, the way it can, to break the rules a little.
And this close it was easy, it just slipped right out when he let his mouth open. "Love you, Rich."
Richie didn't stir, not even a twitch. But it felt like a weight off Virgil's chest, literally, like he had been drowning and suddenly his head had broken the surface and he could breathe again. Really not that hard to say, after all.
And it didn't feel wrong, or dirty, or weird. It just felt good.
"Gonna tell you again, soon," Virgil swore, and grinning, he settled on the chair between the beds, took out the Gameboy stowed in Backpack and started a new game, while he waited for his partner to awaken.
to be continued...
