Page 52 of All Superheroes Need PR
“No. Just itch sometimes.” Like when Vanessa stares at me too long with that funny look she gets when she’s deciding something—or anytime she does what I say. I don’t think she realizes what she’s doing to me when she does that. I couldn’t give a shit about the sexual aspects of it—okay, that’s a lie—but I don’t think she realizes that every time she opens for me on my command, she’s giving me her trust.
“What prompts it?”
“Random.” I shrug, forcing casual with every fiber of my being. I think this time she buys it.
“Fascinating,” she says, snapping on gloves. “I’m going to take some photos and a biopsy.” She drags a big metal arm, which I thought was an X-ray machine, down from the ceiling, but she swivels it around my body, taking pictures.
“Have you seen this type of thing before?” I ask Dr. Larsen.
She shakes her head and shoves the camera back toward the ceiling when she’s finished. “Nope.”
“You seem to be taking it in stride.”
She smiles, rounding her desk to return to her computer. Her teeth are a bit crooked in the front. She has freckles. She’s also definitely ...weird. Whether because her surprising and borderline erratic behavior reminds me of Vanessa or not, she’s been growing on me.
“I wouldn’t have taken a posting at the COE if I’d thought I wouldn’t see the strange and beautiful. You know when people say nothing surprises me, that expression?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, the truth is that here, things surprise me every damn day, and I love it.” She sighs, staring almost lovingly at her computer screen, on which I can see my abs and the funky markings on them in a slightly darker shade of brown than my skin in the reflection of her glasses. “I have the coolest job in the world.”
I snort.
“You really don’t have any idea what precipitated the forming or disappearance of these markings?” she asks again.
“Nope.”
She raises an eyebrow, making me wonder if this woman is twenty or seventy. She’s got the confidence of one or the other. “You’re lying again. That must mean it’s something good. Did they appear the first time you pooped your pants?”
“What? No.”
“The first time you had a wet dream?”
Sort of. “No.”
“Does it have to do with your heroic acts?”
That ... stalls me. I blink.
Dr. Larsen claps her hands. “It does? They appear when you do something heroic?”
“I ...” I shake my head and then sigh, defeated. “Not ... really.”
Nessa’s breath.
Nessa’s touch.
Nessa’s trust.
I wish I could say that I wasn’t so obsessed with her, but that’s a lie too. I crave my new obsession, fully committing to it like I’ve never committed to anything before in my life.
“Then what?”
I can feel my skin prickle, and I’m glad my skin tone doesn’t reveal the depth of my blush. “Nessa. Vanessa,” I correct. These changes happening to my body seem more pronounced anytime I get the urge to protect her. I’d never had the desire to protect or defend anything before her.
I felt it the first time she tripped, swooning when she saw me, and that strange and terrifying energy passed between us. My body moved before I had even registered what I was doing. Lunging forward. I had to catch her.
I shrug. “That’s all I got.”
I swear the look on her smug face is the reason I haven’t said anything until now. She takes her glasses clear off, a practiced move, I’m guessing, and crosses one knee over the other. She rests her elbow on top of it and says in a singsong voice, “Diamond was right.” And then she laughs. “Damn. I owe that woman fifty bucks.”
I frown.
