by A A Woods
Getting constantly lost and shouted at was a downside. But even so, the Big Apple had its perks. Here, there was no Ian to scold him for bad language, no Otto to call him a pest, no Tero to correct his grammar. And, best of all, no Aquila breathing down his neck at every turn. It was tough, but Moose was just going through his origin story. This was a part of growing up, right? He needed to break away from the chains of normalcy, the comforts of childhood.
And right now, he needed to find his way home.
“Why couldn't they have used spider DNA instead of housefly?” Moose said to himself as he picked a street at random and began to trek in the general direction of the apartment he'd found on Airbnb. “I could be swinging over all this mess in no time. It would be more fun, too, climbing walls and stuff.”
As it was, Moose had to fight hard to avoid catching the attention of the thick afternoon crowds. He had a bad habit of darting through the bodies with unnatural speed. It took a lot for New Yorkers to notice anything, but Moose had learned quickly that he was a lot. Even standing still (which almost never happened) he snagged eyes with his mess of brown hair that always looked windblown and the reflective orange goggles he never took off. When he'd first disembarked the Greyhound bus he'd taken from suburban Massachusetts to Penn Station and leapt to avoid a passing taxi, Moose had learned that the fine people of New York not only didn't like different, they outright hated it.
He shuddered, thinking of the way strangers had come at him, every line of their body etched with aggression, the word freak forming on their lips.
In that moment, he'd been glad to be fast.
Moose heaved a sigh. Slowing to a crawl (or a fast jog for most) as he looked around. It was becoming harder and harder not to accept the reality of his situation. He'd been here six weeks and had barely done more than save a couple of cats. He wasn't a hero and the city sure didn't want him to be one. However desperately he wanted to help people, make his mark, save lives, all he was doing was running through his savings at an alarming rate.
“You don't need to be famous to be a hero,” he said, thinking of his favorite comic book characters. Lots of them weren't loved, weren't even liked. Some were outright hated! It should be a badge of honor to be notorious in the world, to be misunderstood.
So why did it feel so terrible?
A shout rose down a narrow side-alley next to a pub. Moose jumped, ears pricked as the sound rose to a feminine screech.
A woman.
In trouble.
Moose grinned, darting into the shadows and streaking toward the struggling pair of bodies. The huge, multifaceted eyes that he kept hidden by his goggles took in the scene faster than any human eye could: a short, pale woman struggling to pull her wrist out of the grip of a larger, muscled, redheaded man. She was easily half his size, and even the wine bottle in her hand was no match for his bulk and strength.
Moose accelerated, plotting, planning, shifting his weight.
He hit the man like an avalanche, propelling them both into the dumpster.
“Leave her alone,” Moose said, regaining his balance instantaneously. Planting his hands on his hips, he stood over the staggering man. Or at least next to him. The dude was tall.
“Are ye crazy? Leave her alone?”
Moose opened his mouth to speak, but before he could answer something round and hard hit him in the ribs. He coughed in surprise, whirling to find the bottle coming at him again.
“Get the fuck out of my way you asshole,” the woman shrieked, pummeling Moose's shoulders, torso, even getting a lucky crack at his head.
“Hey, hey, what are you talking about? I'm helping you,” Moose said, hurrying out of reach.
“If you wanted to help me, you'd help me pound this cheating scumbag into the dirt.”
“Marcy, I didn't do anything! I just drove her home!”
But the woman had recovered from Moose's presumed salvation and was already resuming the effort to dent her partner's head.
Moose just stood there, wondering when, if ever, the world might make sense.
“Well… take care then,” Moose said, not sure what else to do.
The woman froze, as if rousing from a daze.
As one, the couple spun to face him.
“Wait a minute,” she said, slowly. “You're that kid from the news? One of those attention-seeking wackos?”
“Err, I need to be going,” Moose said, doing his best to edge around them.
Why hadn't he considered the fact that the alley was a dead end?
“He is,” the man agreed, nodding at her. “That's the one who says he's so fast. You think you're some kind of vigilante now, eh? Think you're special?”
It took everything Moose had not to quip back, Not as special as you, moron. Instead he edged along the brick wall, slinking away. “Have a nice day now.”
The woman was whipping out her phone, the man clenching his fists, and Moose decided that it was well past time to be keeping a low profile.
“See ya!”
He darted for the mouth of the alley just as the man shouted, “Get the fuck back here!”
“Lovely people, New Yorkers,” Moose muttered as he burst into the crowded street, wove through the throng of afternoon commuters, and sagged in relief when he recognized a corner store. “Small blessings.”
But he didn't feel blessed.
No, Moose didn't feel very blessed at all.
Grumbling to himself to hold back much worse things, Moose elbowed into the sidewalk and made his way toward a place that was very decidedly not home.
Chapter Five: Braving the Wilderness
Aquila stood out in the busy city street like a wine stain on a white shirt. Eliza tried to ignore the eyes that tracked them, the double-takes, the murmurs and whispers. As they roamed aimlessly, Eliza sipping a latte to calm her nerves and Aquila rolling his big shoulders to get rid of his own tensions, Eliza wondered how much the public could be pushed on this. A few excitable kids had stopped them for an autograph or a picture. A few others had shouted obscenities, even thrown things. But mostly, Aquila's bulk and wings got only disapproving side-eye and behind-the-hand outrage.
“How can he walk around wearing that thing? It looks so uncomfortable.” Eliza heard a skinny older woman hiss in an altogether too audible whisper.
Her friend tsked. “Some people will do just anything for attention.”
Eliza’s walk slowed to a crawl, her attention drifting to the gossiping pair.
Aquila grabbed her free hand, dragging her forward. “Down, Cujo. Don't let them get to you.”
“I'll get them to the bottom of a trash can,” Eliza grumbled, scowling at everyone around them.
Aquila laughed, but it was a harsh sound, edged with the kind of anger that hadn't existed last fall. “Much as I appreciate the effort, I don’t need you defending my honor.”
“Doesn't it bother you?” Eliza asked as they entered the park, ignoring the crowd that formed on one side of the walkway to watch them pass.
“Of course it does, which is why I want to get Moose and go home ASAP. But there's no point in trying to change their minds.”
“Yeah, because HNN brainwashed everyone,” Eliza said loudly, fighting the urge to punch a businessman shaking his head as they passed.
“Maybe. Or maybe it's what people want to believe.”
Eliza eyed him. “You are pretty unbelievable.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
She scoffed, but the knot of tension from the drive was loosening, easing. His fingers linked in hers was the balm her spirit needed, the comfort that had been so hard to come by these days. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and frothed milk and snow and cold.
And then Aquila cried out, swinging around with a quick flare of his wings.
Eliza almost dropped her coffee.
She saw the rock tumble to the ground, the loose group of kids scattering into the park.
She lunged.
Aquila grabbed her around the waist.
“Don't,” he said softly. “It's not worth it.”
Eliza snarled against the antagonism that swirled like a pounding, invisible storm. Everyone in the park hated them, not a kind eye to be found. No one seemed to care that it was rude or cruel. No, because Aquila wasn't human to them. He didn't have feelings. And wasn't that the greatest of ironies, that because they thought he was pretending to be different, they treated him like he really was.
“Maybe we should go back,” Aquila said under his breath. “Wait for Tero to find something.”
“You can go back,” Eliza said, shaking off the coffee she'd spilled over her hand when her fist had crushed the paper cup. She binned it, blaming the angry crowd for that too. “I'll keep hunting. No one will look twice at me.”
“It's not safe.”
Eliza scoffed, but that monster in her chest reared its ugly head. He thinks you’re helpless. “Not safe? Please, I was born in the city.”
“But people know you're associated with us.”
“So? I'm not super.”
“They might target you.”
“Let them. I can take care of myself.”
“I don't want you to get hurt.”
“I'll be fine!”
Aquila made to answer, but at that moment, his phone rang. He pursed his lips, put up one finger as if to say this isn't over, and then swung away to answer.
Eliza tried to contain the boiling, wild frustration that his protectiveness had been sparking lately. She was strong, dammit. She'd always been strong, independent, someone to be reckoned with. But she could feel Aquila and the others treating her with kid gloves, as if she was breakable, as if Fitzgerald had made her into what she’d sworn never to be.
A damsel.
Eliza prepared her arguments, lining up the reasons that Aquila should go back to Joe's apartment and she should continue to hunt for Moose. She'd be faster on her own. Less attention. She could ask innocuous questions, go into restaurants and stores.
But Aquila's expression made the words die on her lips.
“Tero found him,” Aquila said, expression shuttered again. “Some couple posted a video about a freak show getting involved in their martial disagreement. He sent the coordinates for a bar they run together.”
“That's good,” Eliza said, nodding a bit too enthusiastically. “A lead is good.”
“Yeah,” Aquila said, taking Eliza's hand again and letting the maps on his phone guide them. “Good.”
Chapter Six: Home Away from Home
Moose was so slumped when he walked up to the door of the Airbnb that he looked like a question mark. He couldn’t help it. It was impossible to walk down this hallway and not remember the day he’d arrived in the city, full of confidence and promise, ready for the rest of his life to start. Maybe his brain had been a little too full of Marvel quotes and billboards with his face on them, but he was special. He wasn’t like everyone else. He wasn’t born to live in some rural mansion and silently endure the world’s indifference. He’d been made for more.
Apparently, New York didn’t agree.
It took a colossal effort to straighten his spine and hitch a smile on his face before he unlocked the door, moving slowly even by normal-person standards.
“Honey, I’m home!” Moose called.
“How’d the interview go?” Delilah called from the kitchen.
“Great! Totally awesome, nailed every part of it.”
Delilah stuck her head around the corner, flour streaked across a dark cheek. She lifted one eyebrow.
Moose waggled his head. “Ok, fine, it wasn’t great.” He collapsed on the couch, letting his breath explode out of him. “But I’ll find something. You’ll see”
She pursed her lips, looking at him with a concerned expression as she continued to stir the bowl settled on one hip.
Even though Moose had no sense of smell, he could imagine the scents wafting through the apartment as Delilah crafted her famous whoopie-pie cupcakes. She’d become internet famous a few years ago when an entrepreneur asked her to cater his international convention. She’d been booked solid ever since.
Even though she was a self-professed luddite who never browsed the web or spent time on social media, she’d somehow managed to leverage the success and build a small but wildly popular business catering to high-end parties. The income had allowed Delilah to lease a generous two-bedroom apartment (at least by New York standards) and rent out the spare room on Airbnb. It had been strange to Moose at first, living with a single woman barely older than himself. It had been even stranger—and somewhat frustrating—that she seemed to have no idea who he was.
But even he had to admit it was a blessing in disguise, because Moose had been able to form a real friendship for the first time in his life with someone besides his brothers and Eliza.
He tried not to let it irk him that she was more famous for her baked goods than he was for his superpowers.
“Party tonight?” Moose said, eager to distract himself from his disastrous afternoon.
Delilah offered him a tired smile. “Yeah. Some media big-wig is visiting and HNN ordered two hundred of these bad boys to be delivered at seven.”
“You gonna make it?”
She huffed. “Of course.”
Moose smiled. Delilah was like no one he’d ever met. She was soft, quiet, calm. She didn’t do anything hastily and everything she touched was carefully arranged and measured. In many ways, she was his polar opposite.
Aquila would have said it was good for him.
Thinking of his brother, Moose had to move. He shoved to his feet and stretched noisily. “Well, I should get a nap in. I too have a job tonight.”
Delilah’s eyes lit up. “Where?”
“Some club downtown,” Moose lied, adjusting his goggles. It had been a gut-instinct fib when he’d first met her, to say that he was a DJ. He couldn’t think of anyone else who would wear such eccentric goggles all the time. It wasn’t like he could take them off in the house, not without her screaming and kicking him out and never speaking to him again. So he’d said he was an aspiring musician and sound mixer who specialized in late-night parties.
It had also been a perfect way to explain why he slept during the day and prowled the city at night.
“Well, I should focus,” Delilah said, pushing back her braids and leaving them dusted with more flour. “Miles to go.”
“Good luck!”
Moose watched her for a moment as she swung around to take the cupcake tops out of the oven, setting them aside to cool so she could smear them with her buttercream filling. His mouth watered. Thank goodness he could taste, unlike Aquila. Delilah’s confections would be entirely lost on him.
Dammit, I can’t even escape Aquila in my own stupid head, Moose thought as he went to his rented bedroom and closed the door, being very careful not to slam it. He’d broken enough doors in his adopted father’s mansion to learn that most physical objects didn’t like moving as fast as he did.
Standing in the small, undecorated room with one window, Moose let himself slump again. I too have a job tonight. What a joke. Moose didn’t have a job. He didn’t even have a lead on one. His money was running out. He hadn’t helped anyone, really, at least not in the ways he’d intended to.
And, if he was being honest with himself, he missed home.
No, he thought firmly, tearing off his windbreaker and throwing it across his bed with a little more vigor than intended. No, don’t go there.
He would not think about the video games he was missing out on or how much he wanted to challenge Otto to Mario Kart. Otto wasn’t home anyway, and Moose refused to go back to Aquila with his tail between his legs.
At least he could still talk to Daisy, even if it was only over texting.
Whipping out his phone, he unlocked it with blurred fingers, opening his laptop at the same time. Tapping impatiently on the IKEA desk that had come with the room, Moose waited. He longed fo
r the day when technology would be as fast as him…
Finally, his brother’s messages loaded, continuing the conversation they’d been having before.
There were three more after that.
Moose glared at his brother’s warning as the Twitter page for the NYPD loaded on his computer.
Of course Aquila was coming to get him. Why was he even surprised? Aquila couldn’t stand anything that didn’t align with his big dumb plan, even when his big dumb plan was wrong and safe and boring. Aquila, the taskmaster. Aquila, the control-freak. Well so what, it wasn’t as if Aquila was going to find him. New York was enormous and diverse and, even though Moose hadn’t exactly been discrete, Aquila wasn’t Sherlock Holmes either. Besides, Moose wasn’t going to go home even if they did find him, because he wasn’t done. He was going to be famous, dammit, and they weren’t about to stop him.
Moose pulled up the message app on his computer and typed a response so fast that most of the words ended up spelled wrong. Grumbling, he re-typed it.
Daisy responded right away,
Those three dots blinked for a long time. Moose used the silence to browse the NYPD Twitter page and a Reddit thread for anonymous crime reports.