Chapter Eleven: Raise Your Glass
"Honey, do you ever run into Vince when you go to Owl Island?" Jack asked.
"Sometimes," Dana nodded. "I remember the first time, it wasn't that long after we'd gotten divorced and he'd gotten the job there. I was wearing that orange suit—you know the one. And he's working security at the front and he stops me and says I can't go in there wearing that because the color's too close to what the prisoners wear."
"What happened?" Jack asked.
"I asked if we could talk privately and he learned not to make that mistake again."
~VF~
Jamie let out a little moan of pleasure as she put down her bottle.
"Do you know that that's the first beer I've had in about a year?" she asked the vigilante. "Last one I had was before John was conceived. Let me tell you—I love him and all, but you're lucky you didn't have to go through pregnancy and childbirth." She'd finally lost the weight that she'd gained (or at least most of it).
Not that her body was back to normal, as she was still breastfeeding. Oh, mental note: No breastfeeding John until after the beer's out of my system. Maybe she should make a note of it on her iPhone, too, to be on the safe side… But they had stocked up on formula and she couldn't imagine herself making such a stupid mistake (or Rollo letting her make it).
"Deveraux's always spoken highly of it," Vince countered, bringing her attention back to the conversation.
"Deveraux's out of his freakin' mind," Jamie insisted, before picking the bottle up again and taking a long pull. Their husbands were watching their respective kids tonight, allowing the two partners to catch up. And so they had gone to a bar for the first time in a long time.
"Could be," Vince assented. "Is John sleeping through the night yet?"
"Oh, I wish," Jamie scowled. "I can't remember ever relying so heavily on coffee—not even when we were in full swing war mode against Dad."
"Is that a good idea?" Faraday frowned. "Having all that coffee if you're breastfeeding?"
"Vince, I need my coffee. I tried cutting down on it during the pregnancy; it was not pretty. You can ask Rollo."
He shook his head. That poor kid was going to wind up addicted to coffee before ever sampling it firsthand. He was about to suggest that she either switch to decaf or stick to giving her son formula when she asked:
"This is going to get easier, right?"
"You mean parenting?" Vince smiled. "Well, eventually he will start sleeping regularly. And before you know it, your days of diapering will be behind you and he'll be able to talk instead of wailing incoherently whenever he needs something."
"I'm sensing a 'but.'"
"But there will be other concerns. Learning how to talk means he'll also learn how to talk back and it doesn't mean that he isn't going to fall back on crying and screaming when he's upset or frustrated. In a few years, he's going to start school and you will have to keep an eye out to make sure he's keeping up with his homework and that he's not getting bullied—or worse, becoming a bully himself.
"And then you'll turn around and he'll be a teenager. He'll be getting interested in girls—or boys—and just when he has lost all respect for your opinions, you'll have to convince him to behave responsibly, despite his hormones.
"Then he'll start college, move out, and if you're lucky, won't disappear from your life altogether," as she had done from Peter's went unspoken. Before Jamie could get defensive and assert that it was her father's fault, he continued, "and you'll look back on when he was this tiny little baby and wish you could relive those days again."
Jamie peered at her stepfather.
"I'm not sure if your grandson would have been born if we had this conversation a year ago," she joked. She noticed Vince's twitch. "Oh, come on. You know he's going to look at you as a second grandfather."
"I'm not old enough to be your father, let alone Rollo's," Vince said, before sipping from his own bottle.
"Even better; he won't complain about how old and broken-down you are. You might stand a chance of keeping up with him," the blogger gestured for the bar tender to bring them more chips to go with their beer. "So, I heard you finally saw the movie. How was 'The Cape'?"
"You haven't seen it?" he asked, surprised by this news. How could anyone skip the movie? And she wasn't just anyone, she was Orwell. If not for her, he would never have donned the cape in the first place. (Of course, he also would have started working for ARK and would probably still be married to Dana…)
"Hello, I've been busy taking care of a newborn. This is the first night out I've had in forever. When would I have seen the movie?"
"Right, I should have known that," he said sheepishly. "I guess you could always see it on DVD when it comes out."
"So how was it?" she prompted.
"It was…good," he replied.
"Just good?" she raised an eyebrow. "Under the circumstances," meaning that he was the Cape, "I thought you would be over the moon by now. They botch it up somehow?"
"Well, not exactly. The actors knew what they were doing, the sound track was great, the lines weren't all that cheesy, and someone's probably going to win an award for those special effects. It's just… I mean, it's nothing, I wouldn't have thought anything about it back when I was with Dana but…"
Jamie looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.
"In the movie, the Cape's love interest was a woman," he shrugged. "I mean, it's not that surprising. It was the same in the comics and it's the same with every other superhero movie. But Peter didn't take it well." Being the husband of the actual Cape, Fleming had taken it as another snub (the first imagined one being that Chess wasn't included in the movie).
Of course, no one knew that Peter was married to the Cape. For that matter, "no one knows the Cape is bisexual," Vince said, lowering his voice. "I mean I, he hasn't exactly announced he's in a same-sex marriage, so we can't expect Hollywood to know that, and even if the writers did, this was hardly supposed to be a documentary or 'based on a true story,'" he sighed. "It shouldn't bother me."
"But it does bother you," the brunette observed. "Do you want me to write about the Cape's sexuality on the blog?" Vince looked like he was about to start choking. "Calm down! I'm serious. Look, it's not like I'm going to announce that the Cape's married to Chess," she said the last in a whisper. "But clearly this is getting to you and the movies Hollywood has been churning out have been overwhelmingly heteronormative."
Vince blinked, trying to count the number of syllables in 'heteronormative.'
"How the hell can you pronounce that word after that much beer?"
"There's more caffeine in my system than alcohol right now," she waved a hand dismissively. "Listen, I won't post anything about this if you don't want me to, but I think you should think about it. Think about how it might be easier for men and women to come out of the closet if the Cape already has. Think about how this movie made you feel and remember that the Cape will have the same sexuality if not the same partner in the sequel—"
"They haven't announced that there's going to be a sequel," he interrupted.
"Please, did you see how the movie did at the box office? I have, and I didn't even read any reviews. Trust me, a sequel's inevitable. Might even be more than one, you know how they like to milk a franchise for all it's worth. Maybe a blog entry won't change the course of the series, but it would at least get people thinking about it.
"Although frankly," she continued, "I'm not sure that everyone assumes the Cape is straight. For a while there, people were positive the vigilante was gay."
"Because of Chess?" he asked, his mouth agape.
"Don't be ridiculous, Vince. No one suspects the truth," thank god. "No, because there were rumors going around that Orwell and the Cape were an item," she thumped him on the back when he started coughing and waited for him to stop before going on. "And everyone 'knows' Orwell's a man, right?" Her tone was only slightly bitter.
"Hm, seems to me you're a lot more bothered about the fact that everyone assumes Orwell's male," the former cop remarked. "If you really want to set the record straight, so to speak, why don't you start with that?"
She stared at him.
"It's been good for my cover! No one's ever suspected me because they have automatically ruled out all women—"
"And you needed that cover back when your father had no idea who you were and he was the enemy, but that hasn't been the case in a long time, has it? We are sitting here talking about your blog now, but you hardly even post to it anymore—and don't blame that on the baby, this goes back to way before you got pregnant.
"You came up with 'Orwell Is Watching' to combat your dad and you've long ago declared a truce."
"So you're saying I should, what? Retire the blog?"
"I'm saying, to a large extent, you already have. Now, I'm not telling you to post your identity on there or to announce that the blog is finished, I'm just saying, this clearly bothers you…"
"Nobody likes it when you use their own words against them, Vince. Alright," she ran a hand through her hair. Vince was right. It did bother her that everyone assumed Orwell was a man without ever considering the alternative. She knew the name sounded masculine, but it still seemed so sexist and it had been getting on her nerves for years. "I'll think about it if you think about the other thing. Deal?"
"Deal," Vince nodded and they clinked their bottles together.
~PF~
Several years later:
"Are you sure you're doing this correctly?" Amanda asked her classmate. Peter Faraday Fleming's class had been tasked with drawing up their family trees. Pete and Amanda were currently looking over each other's work and something seemed fishy to the pre-teen girl.
"What, you didn't know about me having two fathers?" Pete raised one black eyebrow above a startling blue eye. He knew that he had the most famous family in the city, though his dad, and his sister, and Elaine kept telling him not to let it go to his head. (Pa didn't seem too worried about his ego, though.)
"It's not that," she shook her head. Yes, she had seen pictures of his parents on the web; everyone had. Besides, Pete wasn't the only one at her school with two parents of the same sex. It might not be the norm, but it wasn't exactly shocking. And even the city's resident vigilante, the Cape, was gay or swung both ways or something. "No, see here? The way you've written this, it says you're an uncle."
"I am," Pete nodded.
"But you're only twelve!"
"So? My sister had John before I turned six," he shrugged. "Pa had Jamie way before me. So there's a big age difference between me and my siblings and a smaller one between me and my nephew."
"That's kind of weird," she told him bluntly.
"I guess you get used to it."
"Do you ever even see your siblings?" Amanda asked. "I mean, they don't live at home with you, do they?"
"No, they don't, but I still see them," Pete replied. "They drop by the penthouse often enough. And sometimes we visit Jamie and Rollo and other times we go see Trip and—"
"Trip?" Amanda asked.
"It's my brother's nickname."
"Oh! I was going to say your parents must've hated him to name him 'Trip.' How did he get a nickname like that?"
"His real name is Vince Faraday the Third, hence 'Trip;' he got named after Dad and I got named after Pa."
"Your parents aren't that original, are they?" she asked.
Pete thought about the comic book character Dad had chosen to embody and smirked.
"You have no idea."
Author's Note: Thanks to IronAmerica for reviewing!
As always, IA gets credit for being the first to figure out Trip's actual name. IA also gets credit for the rumors regarding the Cape's sexuality, as well as for inspiring the chapter's last scene. The bar scene, however, is dedicated to Orwell, who asked for some Vince & Jamie bonding.
The chapter title is from Pink's "Raise Your Glass."
Once again, if you have any suggestions for the fic, let me know! It's supposed to have two more chapters (or one chapter and one epilogue). Also, don't forget to drop by The Cape meme on LJ—now with more prompts!