The sunlight felt warm and amazing against Iggy's face. He was so relaxed that for a few minutes, he swore he dozed off. And he didn't mind all that much.
And that was how Max found him twelve minutes later: head thrown over the headrest, legs stretched out under the steering wheel, glossy Aviators glinting over his sightless blue eyes that perfectly matched the 1969 Chevy Convertible he was sitting in.
Max smiled vaguely at the memory of the old car...
XxX
The Flock had been living in their quiet little town, and things had been pretty calm. Max was relaxing with her back against their couch, playing a board game with Angel and Gazzy, when the door burst open.
The three snapped to attention, all on high alert, when an amused voice floated in, "Calm yourselves, geez. It's only us."
The youngest members laughed as Iggy shuffled past the doorway, hands filled with bags upon bags of food fresh from the market. With a little prompting, Angel and Gazzy followed him to help unpack and organize their new food. Fang came through the doorway next, sitting himself down on the couch just next to where Max was seated on the floor.
She looked up at him, eyebrow raised, "You're not going to help unpack?"
Fang's lip quirked slightly, shaking his head. "No way am I going to miss this."
"Miss what?" she asked, but he just looked towards the doorway to the kitchen.
Max followed his gaze and only had to wait a minute before Iggy slid down the hardwood floor, nearly losing his balance on his way to the window.
"Max, Max! Check it - Check it out!" he said. Iggy leaned to the window, opening the creaking window, letting in a cold breeze.
Rather reluctantly - and justifiably cautious - Max went to the window and saw it.
Parked in the middle of their gorgeous lawn were two deep tire tracks belonging to an old, rusting, decrepit car.
"You bought a car?" Max got out, still a bit in shock.
"Yeah," Iggy beamed. "Isn't she a beauty?"
Max hesitated. "It's broken."
"Well... yeah.." Iggy said, slightly put-out by her lack of enthusiasm.
Turning away from the window, Max asked Fang, "Does it even run?"
Fang shrugged, "We got it here, didn't we?"
Max glared at him, "Why do we even need a car? We can fly."
"But Max - "
"And how did you two even afford this?"
Fang raised his hands in surrender, "It's not my car. I just... handled the transaction."
"'Handled the transaction'? What does that even mean?"
"Max."ˆ Iggy said. She turned back to him. "I bought it. I had a deal with one of the guys down at the junkyard. For the scraps they would have gotten, like, $500, so I made them a better offer." Iggy paused. "$550."
Max opened her mouth, but Iggy beat her to it. "I had money saved for a... project of mine, but figured that we're, y'know, 'assimilating' that it would be better spent elsewhere. And what better way to blend in than to get a kick-ass car?"
"Igs, you can't keep a car - you can't drive," Max objected.
Iggy placed a pale hand on her shoulder, "I'm not a child, Max, and I'm keeping this car. My decision, not yours." Then, beaming up at Fang, "Ready?"
Fang smiled, "Absolutely."
The two worked feverishly on that car; every morning at the crack of dawn, both would make the trek down to the junkyard for parts or advice of what a car exactly needs. Then, with the small exceptions of meals, the two boys were attached to that car. From knowing almost nothing about the inner workings of cars, the two got it in running condition, and looking like it wouldn't spontaneously combust upon ignition, in a little over a month.
And when the night of the great unveiling approached, it was a big deal to the Flock.
No one except for the two boys were allowed outside that day, and all windows that might have been in view of the old Chevy were closed tight. They waited until it got dark before shuffling the rest of the family out onto the front yard. It was pitch black.
Until Iggy hit a button that ignited the sky. Dozens of spotlights and old Christmas lights illuminated the lawn, shining over the glossy paint of the car.
The top was up originally, but it was retracted before everybody was allowed - after taking off their shoes to ensure it stayed clean - inside. The engine purred sure and loud underneath them, and it didn't take long for it to be the envy of not only the rest of the Flock, but of all the onlookers whenever it roared into town.
Even Max warmed up to it.
Eventually.
XxX
Untying her apron, Max threw it in the strawberry blonde's lap.
"Please tell me you didn't drive this here," she said with a smile. Iggy did have his license, and he was fully capable of driving - somehow, Max was still unsure - but Max was never comfortable with him driving.
Iggy slowly pulled off his Aviators, wincing at the bright sunlight. "Nudge drove me over."
Max looked left to right.
Iggy waved her off, sliding across to the passenger side, "She flew back. Said she'd tather nap than go food shipping."
Flipping her hair back and putting the car in reverse, Max laughed, "Her loss."
XxX
"Hmm, chicken noodle soup!" said Max, dumping seven cans into their cart.
The metal shopping cart squeaked under the added weight, scuffling against the linoleum floor of the supermarket.
"Did you know that the first soup was made of hippopotamus?" said Iggy, as he nearly knocked over a stand advertising cup-cake tin liners.
Max wrinkled her nose, "Gross." Iggy laughed.
Picking up another can, she asked, "Beans?"
Iggy raised an eyebrow, "Really, Max? When we live with a guy named Gazzy?"
"True," Max dropped it back onto the shelf as if it had burned her.
The pair turned the isle. "Aisle.. 12," Max announced.
Iggy nodded, "Yeah, we need worcestershire sauce."
Max looked at him, "Worcher- what?"
"Black bottle, orange label, pretty water-y?" Iggy described as Max searched the shelves.
It took a little longer than it should have, but the blonde finally found it. She slammed it a little harder than necessary into the cart - Iggy might have winced - with an triumphant smile.
"Got it!"
The red-head nodded, "Good. Did you know it's made almost exclusively of anchovies?"
Max wrinkled her nose, "Did not need to hear that."
Iggy smirked, "Yeah, well. What's next?"
Max walked a few steps before grabbing something roughly from the shelves. "Animal crackers?" the girl asked, spinning around, the red box between her hands.
The strawberry blonde said nothing for a moment. He looked thoughtful, maybe even a little confused.
"What, nothing?" The girl's smile was teasing, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Have I finally stumped the great and all-knowing Iggy?"
He scoffed at her, untangling his hands from where they leaned on the cart. "You wish," he said, "I was only trying to decide if I wanted to let you know that the strings on the individual boxes were used to hang the treats on a Christmas Tree, or that fifty-four different animals have been depicted on animal crackers since their debut in 1902." His smile was much too smug as Max planted the boxes in the cart.
"You just wait," she said, continuing her walk towards the produce aisle, "one of these days I'll find something."
He laughed, following her voice. "Maybe one day. But that is not this day."
Iggy parked the cart nearby before skillfully making his way to where Max was standing.
The produce was, in Iggy's opinion, the worst aspect of the supermarket. It was always colder than the rest of the store, the different fruit scents all mixing and combining into one big toxic cloud hanging in the air and making his dizzy. And the worst part of it was that it wasn't an aisle at all; there were shelves and things on the walls, sure, but the whole section was tucked away into a corner, which created a confusing semi circle with no distinct in or out, and no precise places to walk. It made Iggy's life infinitely more difficult.
At that moment, he and Max were standing next to a long trough, with shallow, almost useless separators that sectioned one fruit from another. It was about waist high for Iggy, so as he followed Max's footsteps as she searched for the exact things they needed, he allowed his hands to ghost over the different fruits, identifying them one at a time. Oranges, grapes, blueberries, cartons of strawberries - Iggy shook his head. There was no order to any of it.
In front of him, Max's sneakers stopped. So did he. His hands sneaked over the produce.
"Bananas?"
Iggy had recognized the fruit just before she said it.
Max held the banana in her hand, facing out at him, looking at Iggy playfully.
"Ah, bananas, the most dangerous fruit," said he. "Did you know that Britain once had a reported three-hundred injuries involving bananas in one year?"
She laughed, "No way! That cannot be tru-"
A man tapped Max on the shoulder. She turned slightly, but his hand did not move. The guy was nothing new: dark brown eyes, maybe an inch or two over Max's own five-foot seven, but there was something in his face that made her want to run as far as she could away from him. It may have been the way he looked at her, raking his eyes down her body in an obvious leer, pausing much too long for her liking at some points. Or perhaps it was the fact that his hand tightened on her shoulder when Max tried to turn to look at Iggy,who was a little confused, but could guess well enough what was occurring.
Max turned back to the man, snapping her fingers in front of his face, "Eyes up here, bud. Can I help you with something?"
His greasy smile only got wider, "I sure hope so, Sweetheart. You like bananas?"
Both gazes went down to the yellow fruit still in her hand.
Max didn't answer. she was almost positive of what he was going to say, and she didn't like it one bit.
Normally, this guy would have been on the floor so fast for even touching her, but she couldn't - at least not here. The Flock wanted to stay in this town, they could blend into this town, and they had put too much work to throw it all away now because of some creep. And after lecturing the kids over and over about behavior such as, oh, I don't know, knocking out a guy taller and probably twice your size, in plain view, without breaking a sweat, for no reason besides that he touched you, Max had no platform to justify it.
Max cursed the security cameras mounted on the ceiling. Seriously, who was that worried about fruit thieves?
"'Cause I got a banana that's better than that one: when you bite it, it bites back."
The guy was leering down at Max, looking as smug as ever, like there was no way any woman could turn his down with a line like that. The brunette, on the other hand, was disgusted. She slowly and painstakingly uncurled his fingers from her shoulder. She held it in her hand, nearly crushing it, though not as hard as she would have liked.
"Listen here, you good-for-nothing scumbag: never touch me ever again. How you could ever think that that line will get you anywhere with a woman, and if I ever hear it or any other like it again, I will drag you outside by your hair and make you forget it. Understand?"
He nodded painfully. Max all but threw his hand down with a sharp, "Then go!"
The guy scrambled back across the produce section to his friend, but Max paid them no mind. She had turned back to Iggy, dropping the banana she had been previously holding in favor of another.
"So, what do you think," she asked Iggy, "banana split sundaes tonight, or what?"
But Iggy was too preoccupied. He was staring at a spot just above Max's shoulder, his forehead scrunched up in concentration.
"Excuse me," he said, brushing past Max. She turned, calling out his name, but he did not turn back.
He walked across the produce section towards the two men, including the one who tried to hit on Max. They were laughing.
Iggy walked right up to them, clearing his throat to get their attention.
Max was too far away to hear what was said, but some words were exchanged, and then...
all hell broke loose...
Well, at least for the two creeps.
Iggy punched the creep's friend, making him stumble backwards, before turning to the original Creep. A quick uppercut to his jaw, and a knee to the stomach, and he was on the floor, out cold. His friend stood up, then, and seeing the Creep on the floor, charged Iggy. Iggy, of course, knew it was coming, however, and was able to toss him over his hip. He crashed into a standing bucket of mangos, causing them to crash over him and the floor.
Iggy watched all this with detached interest, before nodding to himself, as if he had decided something. He turned back to the Creep, still laying on the floor, clutching his stomach in pain, before grabbing a crate of apples and upturning in over the man.
Seeming satisfied with the chorus of pained groans from around him, he carefully stepped over the two men - and various apples and mangos - until he was standing back in his original spot in front of Max.
He took a deep breath before reaching out and taking the banana out of Max's stunned fingers.
"So," he said casually, "You're thinking sundaes tonight?"
XxX