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Only the stupidest, meanest kind of villain would attack a street fair fundraising for the children's hospital. Unfortunately, Claverack City abounds with just that kind of jackass, as greedy and selfish as they are dimwitted.
The fight fractures into several smaller scrabbles. Libra and Radium concentrate on isolating La Venenosa, lest her toxin-spitting tentacles go off. Bluestocking and Tomboy take crowd control, funnelling the civilians as best they can out of the narrow byway and on to the avenue towards the EMTs. That leaves the low-level mooks for Buttress and Velox to neutralize.
Vel speeds around, blipping in and out of sight to tackle the thugs so Buttress can move in and cuff them. They've got a decent rhythm going. Vel is one of the few supers who works with regular humans like Buttress rather than micromanaging and ordering them around.
"Ahahaha, Buttress! So we meet again," a hoarse voice says from somewhere beyond that overturned popcorn wagon.
"Who's there?" Buttress shades his eyes, but the smoke from the failed neurobomb hangs low, obscuring the view. There's also Vel's blur to contend with.
"I think you know exactly who is there. That is, here. Speaking to you."
Sirens are screaming behind them, and Libra's shouting at La Venenosa, and kids are crying. Buttress doesn't recognize the voice, not even a little.
"Show yourself," he tries.
"If you insist."
Vel pauses beside him, his voice dopplering to catch up with him. "You need a hand?"
"I think I got this," Buttress says. Someone shuffles forward, knocks into the popcorn wagon and curses, prompting an intensely-whispered, very brief argument. As the smoke clears, a regular-looking guy appears, hands up.
Regular, that is, in the sense of Not a Villain (or a Hero). A civilian. Completely out of the ordinary, so far as Buttress thinks, in terms of handsomeness. Nothing regular about how great-looking this guy is.
"One false move, and the jabroni gets it," says that same shrill-yet-hoarse voice from behind his hostage.
"Man, I'm not a jabroni," the civilian says. "Come on. That's just insulting."
"Hush, you!"
The civilian looks at Buttress and rolls his eyes.
Buttress tries not to smile. "One more time: who's there?"
"You know who!"
The civilian coughs. "He calls himself The Ferret."
"I am The Ferret! Buttress knows my menace far too well, don't you, do-gooder?"
Actually, Buttress finds himself at a complete loss. He usually has a great memory for antagonists, from the street-level purse snatchers all the way up to mad geniuses like La Venenosa and Strip Mine.
"Right, so, uh — Ferret? Why don't you let the nice civilian go and we'll do this one on one?"
Ferret jerks the guy backward, presumably to press his knife against the guy's throat, but overbalances. The civilian twists neatly aside, driving his elbow as he goes into Ferret's gut and stomping on one of his feet. He clears the way just in time for Buttress to drive forward and shove Ferret against the dumpster.
"Stay down," Buttress tells him, knowing that Vel will be by in a second to ziptie him up.
Ferret blinks at him through his ugly mask and sneers. "You haven't heard the last of me, hero!"
"Yeah, okay," Buttress says absently. He looks around for the civilian. If the guy's smart, he'll have taken off for the avenue, but Buttress kind of hopes he's still around.
There he is, gathering up books and papers spilled from a worn backpack. Somewhere in the alley, La Venenosa cackles. Buttress stoops down to help the guy.
"Nice moves," he says. Now that he's here, he can't figure out how to start a conversation. It's a lot easier when he's ordering criminals around or accepting the gratitude of innocents. The mask and cape equip him with standard lines that work in almost all situations.
Not this one, though.
The guy grins. "Thanks. You, too."
"Well," Buttress says, then realizes he doesn't know what else to say. "Thank you."
"Pete Stockton." He holds out his hand. After a moment, Buttress shakes it. "Good to meet you."
"Buttress."
"Yeah, I know." Pete doesn't sound annoyed; if anything, his words sound amused, even fond.
"Right, of course." Buttress smooths his gloved hand down his chest. "I suppose the cape kind of gave that away."
When Pete smiles this broadly, his eyes crinkle up. "Also, the big shimmery B. That was a clue."
They're standing now, facing each other. Pete holds the backpack with both hands, Buttress shuffles from foot to foot. After a couple moments, Buttress says, "Are you injured? I should have asked. Let's get you to the medic —"
Pete shakes his head. "I'm fine. He pushed me around, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle."
Buttress nods. "Perhaps I should have left him to you?"
"Oh, shit! No, I didn't mean that —" Pete shrugs on his backpack and fidgets with the drawstring on his sweatshirt's hood. "I was trying to insult him, not you — you're great! You've always been great, I'm sorry, I —"
"Peter," Buttress says and lays his palm on one of Pete's shoulders. "I appreciate your —"
"Hey, Buttress!" Vel zips up to them, his form quivering for a moment before resolving into solidity. "Where's your last mook? Libra and Ray are all done and the cops want to get in and start processing."
"I left him for you," Buttress tells him.
"There's no one here," Vel says. He blurs around, then returns. "Nope."
Buttress bites back the curse he's about to utter and steps away from Pete. "I don't know how —"
"We'll find him, no worries!" Vel shouts as he disappears again.
Pete looks sheepish, head down, when Buttress turns back to him. "Sorry about that."
"You have nothing to apologize for," Buttress says, readying his grappling hook to shoot at the fire escape. "But if you'll excuse me, I have a ne'erdowell to bring in."
"Pete Stockton!" Pete calls after him. "I'm at City U! Look me up!"
*
In a safe houses downtown, Buttress changes from his full street costume — cape and mask, gauntlets and shimmery breastplate — into a Regular Joe disguise. He brushes some mascara through his hair and sideburns to hide the silver, puts on horn-rimmed glasses, and shrugs on a leather jacket.
What with real estate prices the way they are, it's no longer feasible for heroes to maintain their own safe houses and bolt holes. This one is a communal space; he goes in on the rent with four other heroes and one former sidekick.
Gemma, that sidekick, is in the kitchen nuking a bowl of orange nacho cheese when Buttress pauses on his way out.
"How do I look?"
She glances over her shoulder. "Normcoretastic."
He nods, unsure if he has been complimented or insulted. "And that's good?"
She stirs the cheese with her nuclear finger. "What are you going for?"
"Regular Joe, not out of place at the Salon."
Her eyes widen at his mention of the Salon. "That's new territory for you, isn't it?"
He crosses his arms. "I've been there before."
"Yeah, with Dynamo or Vel," she says. "Little different on your own and unpowered."
"So come with me."
Gemma stares at him. The power sparks off her index finger. "Yeah, okay, I'm bored anyway."
In the past, Gemma has treated him to long soliloquies about the irrelevance of costumed heroes and villains, especially when juxtaposed against intractable systemic inequities and injustice. Buttress steels himself for another such lecture on their way to the Salon, but Gemma is surprisingly quiet.
"You all right?" he asks when they're only a few blocks away.
She takes his arm and snuggles up against his side. Before they left, she insisted that he exchange his sweater vest for a snug t-shirt, slacks for black denim jeans, and he's grateful. He blends in much better among this motley Docklands crowd, especially with Gemma in a sparkly slip and fuzzy mohair cardigan on his arm.
"I'm great," she says. "You sure you are?"
"I know what I'm doing," he tells her, but Gemma just shrugs.
The line for the Salon snakes around the corner, but Gemma waves at the bouncer and after a moment, he unhooks the velvet rope and gestures them forward. Inside, the space is cavernous and poorly lit, though occasional blue and white spotlights arc through the dark. Gemma proceeds him through the super-screener. In accordance with the No Powers, No Violence policy of the place, she slips a lead glove on over her nuclear hand to neutralize it.
"He's a normie," she tells the security guard, all seven feet of him, but they scan Buttress nonetheless and make him recite the pledge to keep the peace.
It's a stupid policy, Buttress thinks. The Salon is supposed to be neutral ground for heroes and villains, supers and normies, costumes and civilians, but that only works in practice if everyone is sincere. He has yet to meet a villain who can be trusted. Trustworthiness goes against every element of villainy.
"Who are we looking for?" Gemma asks as they sip their beers. "The Weasel?"
"Ferret," Buttress murmurs.
"Who the hell is the Ferret?"
"My thoughts exactly," he says. "We're not looking for him, though. Just need some info about who he is, what he's up to, the usual."
Gemma hands him her mohair cardigan and shakes out her pink hair. "Leave it to me."
Buttress tries to look inconspicuous while he waits. He rehearses some standard questions for whatever informant Gemma's digging up for him and shifts his weight a little nervously.
A beer and a half later, there's no sign of Gemma, but a slight man with sallow skin and a strangely bulbous forehead is standing in front of Buttress with what looks like a Shirley Temple in one hand.
"Buttress," he says. "You were looking for me?"
"Who? I'm Conrad Pinewood, journalist."
He snorts a couple times. "Yeah, an alias that Buttress used when he and Dynamo busted up the Juan Bobo gang a couple years back."
He's not wrong. "Were you acquainted with Juan Bobo?"
"Motherfucker, you put me away for 18 months and you don't even remember me?"
"The Ferret was not part of Juan Bobo's gang." Buttress remembers the case well, not least for the fact that the criminals were desecrating the name of a folk hero with their half-baked plots to rob and pillage.
"Foreshore was!"
Confused, Buttress scratches his jaw. "Fourscore? Like the Gettysburg Address?"
Ferret pinches the bridge of his nose and repeats himself, exaggerating his enunciation: "Fore. Shore. Like the river at low tide? Things that wash up, get exposed?"
"Oh," Buttress says, drawing out the syllable, as recognition finally dawns. "You were the errand runner, right?"
"I was a junior member of the gang," Ferret says stiffly. "Probationary —"
"But you wouldn't take the plea, even though you didn't have any idea who was financing the spree."
"Professor Doctor Faustus was the financier!"
"Information which came out at trial," Buttress says, "not in your testimony or any interview."
"Whatever, that's not the point." Ferret draws himself up and tips up his chin so he can meet Buttress's eye. It's a struggle, given how much shorter and slighter he is. He looks at once petulant and absurd. Buttress cannot believe he let such a lightweight get the slip on him.
"What is the point, Fourscore?"
"Ferret."
"Ferret, sorry. What is the point?"
"You tell me." Ferret sips his mocktail through the stirrer straw, his cheeks hollowing. "You came looking for me."
"You ran away," Buttress reminds him.
"What do you want from me?" Ferret throws out his arms, spilling his drink on a passer-by. That guy is huge, even taller than Buttress, and gets Ferret by the throat.
Buttress has to step in. It's just the nice, decent thing to do, even if Ferret is a weird little jerk and the big man has a valid complaint about the grenadine-heavy stain down his nice shirt.
"Thanks," Ferret says, when Buttress has talked the guy down and bought him a round of drinks for his trouble.
"You ran away," Buttress reminds him. "You were saying?"
Ferret shrugs, his colorless eyes widening. "What, you expect me to sit and wait all quiet like a good boy at church while you wrap up your flirting? I don't think so."
"I wasn't flirting."
"Yeah, you were."
"I was not."
"Well, not very well," Ferret says and smirks. "But you sure were trying."
"I —" Frowning, Buttress realizes he's being distracted, so he shuts up.
"It's all right," Ferret says, as if Buttress requires reassurance. "I get it. Dude was cute as fuck. Smelled good, too. Fresh. One thing I've always disliked about the antihero community —"
"Villains," Buttress puts in.
"Tomato, tomahto. But I've always disliked our reliance on cheap, flashy scents, you know? Axe? Really?"
Buttress snorts. "You're an aesthete, Ferret."
He bobs his head. "Thank you, I appreciate that."
"I'm not taking you in."
"That's real kind of you, hero, I appreciate it —"
"Because of this club's stupid rules," Buttress finishes. "But I'll be looking out for you."
When Ferret smiles at that, he looks so much like his namesake that it's unsettling. "Like I said, we'll meet again." Buttress is already turning away, patting his pockets for his coat check ticket; Ferret raises his voice. "Nemeses can't help it! It's magnetic!"
*
Conrad Pinewood, independent journalist, puts Gemma in an Uber before heading for the subway. He takes the Docklands line up to Metro Station, then transfers to the east-west local. He has eleven stops before his own. That's almost enough for a catnap, but not quite. Not enough to risk it, anyway.
He misses living downtown. The job was so much easier then.
Tiredness is threading through his muscles, leaden and sluggish, getting stronger as the adrenaline drains. His left ear's ringing a little, first from a hit he took early in the fight, then from the noise at the Salon. He's also feeling the few beers he had; his tolerance plummeted after Derek moved out. Without him around, there was no longer a reason to look out for new reds or vintage cocktail recipes.
His apartment is silent, save for the out-of-synch beeps from four alarm systems. He hangs up Conrad's jacket and removes his glasses. In the bathroom, he washes the mascara out of his hair and brushes his teeth. The face looking back at him, heavy-lidded and drawn with exhaustion, is his own. Just Alex Alegría, freelance content designer who was out way past his bedtime and has a conference call with the coast in a little over four hours. Gray in his hair and the beginning of crepey droop below his jaw. A guy whose jobs, both of them, would be better performed by someone a generation younger.
He pads down the hall in his boxers and falls face-first onto his bed. It's so big these days, now that he has it all to himself, but tonight, that's a plus.
The last thought he has before sleep slips through him consists of Pete Stockton's grin and the sound of him saying you're always great.
*
Several nights later, while Buttress is on patrol, he comes across what looks like an ordinary criminal meet-up in the parking lot shared between Delish Donuts and Wong's Famous Imperial Chicken. The restaurants used to be a single space, but back in some recession, a landlord got the brilliant idea to split it down the middle and thereby double his profit.
It's a quiet night, and Buttress had been planning to pack it in early. He only stops at Wong's once a year or so, when he can no longer resist the craving for their deepfried wontons.
Usually the Delish/Wong's parking area is alive with music from car stereos and shouts of patrons, laughing, arguing, reminding their friends of what they want to order. Not tonight. A couple black Escalades are parked at loggerheads, preventing any other vehicle from pulling in, lots of shifty-eyed dudes milling around, but nary a sound.
Buttress doubles back to climb the roof access ladder and crouches behind the big red W of the Wong's sign. After a few minutes, Professor Doctor Faustus — wallet name, Herbie Franck, high school diploma, none — emerges from Wong's with an extra-large styrofoam container in his hand. He's decked out in full villainous drag, from the Einstein fright wig to the billowing white lab coat.
Faustus pops open the container, crowing, "get a load of this!", as he approaches the car on the left.
"How quaint," comes the drawled reply. Buttress can barely hear the words, but his lip-reading is superb.
And those lips: he'd know those anywhere. The Siren, all six feet of luscious curves and throaty hauteur. Last seen picking her way down a foggy, linden-lined path somewhere in Central Europe, traded for seven other spies and three preferential tariff discounts.
Buttress takes a few pictures with the blink-cam in his mask and sends them, marked urgent, to Libra's team.
Buttress hunkers down to watch. Faustus and Siren are so different — Faustus is all about the classic mad-scientist taking over the world, while Siren serves only her own inscrutable whimsy. They have never worked together, not that he can remember. Derek would probably know, but Derek is off-planet. Regardless of his current location, he would appreciate it if Buttress respected his boundaries.
The reply from Libra's team comes back after several moments: do not engage.
I wouldn't dream of it, he replies.
Leave it to the big guns.
That's fair, he supposes. Rude, quite harsh, but fair. He's a guy who's good to have show up for a fight; he's dependable and sturdy. He's not a high-level crimefighter, never was, never pretended to be.
*
Over the course of the next week, Buttress receives several different, confusing messages.
Velox texts him one afternoon: that guy pete sez call him 🍑 🍑 🍑???
When Buttress texts back, there's no reply. Vel isn't just the posterboy for ADHD, he's literally a human goldfish.
The next night, Bluestocking's junior partner, Tomboy, pulls Buttress aside after they break up an ATM robbery. "Heard you saved some dude named Pete?"
Buttress wrings out his cape, soaked from when the sprinkler system went off. "I wouldn't say saved. He —"
She shakes her head and sighs. "Whatever. He's looking to get in touch."
"How do you know that?"
She shrugs. "I know someone who knows a guy who heard from this other girl. You know how it is."
"I guess," Buttress says, not masking his confusion very well at all, then, because she looks vaguely irritated, "thanks."
The next weekend, in the midst of a major Guild movement against Faustus and Siren, Libra — Libra! Best hero the city's ever had, bar none — looks over her shoulder and says, "Hey, Buttress? Good looking out for that kid Pete the other night. You should reach out to him."
He's spoken to Libra herself maybe ten times in the last fifteen years. Amidst the exhilarating rush of being noticed, let alone addressed and praised, Buttress can barely sort out his thoughts. "Sure thing," he says at last, and then, even worse, "whatever you say."
She winks at him. Sure, she's wearing the blindfold, but it's still pretty clear.
The next time he's at the Guild's coworking space, he searches Peter Stockton on the network. He gets back a few old news stories about a spelling-bee winner and midfielder on a championship soccer team; the title and abstract of a proposed master's thesis in Urban Studies — "'Run, run, wash away memory': Buried Rivers in the Pre-Heroic Mythos of Claverack City" — and Pete's home address and phone number.
He doesn't know what to do with that information. He should just call the guy, see what he needs, and be done with it. Something, however, feels like it's lodged in his throat and his chest. A blockage, thorny and heavy, that makes it hard to breathe and harder to think. He files Pete's contact info away for another time.
You can be both a hero and a coward. Buttress is living proof of that.
*
Halfway through an ordinary patrol night, Buttress gets a ping from Libra's network that consists of an address and ASAP.
When he abseils down the back of a power station in the Docklands, he sees Pete Stockton standing on the corner holding a sign up and turning slowly. As Buttress moves closer, the text on the sign resolves: CALL ME, BUTTRESS. He hesitates, drawing back into the shadows for a moment to try to think this through. It certainly looks like a trap, but on the other hand, traps are rarely so obvious. And he would like to talk to Pete again, despite his procrastination and secondguessing.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Buttress asks as he approaches, winding his rope around his arm to stow it away.
Pete beams at him. "You came!"
"I did," he replies. "You're making a spectacle of yourself."
Pete glances down at his sign, then back up at Buttress. He's still smiling, unabashed and open. "I wanted to talk to you."
"That's kind of overkill, isn't it?" He points at the sign in Pete's hands.
"Nah." Pete rolls it up and crams it into his knapsack. "It's not like you have a Buttress signal, okay? Or, like, a toll-free hotline. You're pretty hard to get a hold of, frankly."
He doesn't know why anyone who doesn't already know how would need to get in touch with him, that's the thing. Occasionally he makes appearances at ribbon-cuttings or school safety days, but those are arranged through the Guild, which lets him know when and where to turn up.
"I'm not in the business of —"
Pete grins at him. He's not a small man — his shoulders fill out that hoodie quite well, and his arms look muscled, despite the layers — but he is smaller than Buttress. Most people are. Pete, however, doesn't seem fazed by Buttress's size. If anything, he seems comfortable with it. "Not in the business of what? Indulging curious bystanders?"
"Sure, something like that." Buttress puts his hands on his hips. "You've been looking for me."
Pete scratches behind one ear and bounces on his toes. He's got an energy that won't quit, constantly flowing through him, and Buttress can't help but smile at that.
"Can we go somewhere and talk, maybe?" Pete asks.
The Stoplight Diner occupies the corner of Stuyvesant and Cornelia. Open 24 hours, its neon sign never dims, such that during the day it looks both wan and lurid. Night, however, is the diner's time. The wide windows of the long chrome building shine like aquarium panels, casting glowing lozenges over the corner. Inside, the place smells like coffee and fry oil. The patrons and their food seem otherworldly under the fluorescent glow.
It's one of the few places left a costumed hero can get a coffee and trust that they won't be bothered for selfies or otherwise treated like a curiosity.
Time was, heroes were just another part of the city's ecology. That time was brief, certainly, but Buttress misses it.
"So I've been doing a lot of thinking," Pete tells him. "Something felt off about — that whole thing, really."
Buttress sips his coffee. "Go on."
"Besides the fact that it happened at all, I mean," Pete says in a rush. He smiles a little sheepishly. "Sorry, you must be used to this, but for me? First time up close and personal with the city's, um. Unique population?"
"It's a trip."
"Yeah, it was. You know, it's one thing to read about them all your life, know they're out there, hear stories....Whole other thing to get grabbed by one and shoved around, right? Let alone get rescued by fucking Buttress."
It takes Buttress a moment or two to sort through that rush of words. "So you're a Claverack native?"
He should have guessed, based on Pete's faint Docklands drawl.
Grinning, Pete salutes. "Livingston Street, born and bred."
Buttress almost replies, "de Peyster Street!", before catching himself. He hasn't had trouble maintaining the Buttress persona for over a decade, but apparently one cute fanboy is all it would take to blow his identity.
Pete's still smiling broadly. "So, yeah. This is all pretty heady."
"I can put you in touch with some help," Buttress says, leaning back so the waitress can refill their coffee. "Pro bono, a couple therapists, some LSWs that volunteer with victims. Support group, if that's your thing?"
"Thanks," Pete says. "I dunno, I think I'm good on that score."
"Oh." He's lost again. "So —"
"I don't feel like a victim," Pete continues. "I mean, yeah, technically I am, and I gave my story to the cops and all. But I don't feel, whatever the word is. Traumatized, victimized."
"Oh," Buttress says again.
"Besides," Pete says, sawing his enormous fig danish in half and taking a big bite, "I've got you!"
He has pastry bits all over his plump lips, and a smear of jam on his chin, and he's still beaming at Buttress like a kid at the circus for the first time.
Which, to be fair, he basically is.
Buttress shifts on the cracked, protesting seat. When Pete has chewed and swallowed a few more bites, he tries to say, "So what can I do for you?"
That sounds stupid. Luckily, Pete doesn't seem to hear, because he's talking again. He leans over the table, both elbows on the edge and hands bracketing his face, to say, "What do you think the chances are that Ferret's one of the two hundred?"
Buttress is not religious; he's not even spiritual. All the same, he has to quell the urge to cross himself or toss salt over his shoulder when he hears the phrase the two hundred.
"Let's get out of here," he tells Pete.
Sixty years ago, the Little Lambs Preschool and Enrichment Center vanished. The school was housed in a former municipal records office, which had been converted thanks to funds from various Great Society programs. Two hundred toddlers and kindergarteners from the Docklands and adjourning areas enjoyed free breakfast and lunch as well as age-appropriate education and recreation activities. The school was written up in Life and Newsweek; a segment about its successes aired on 60 Minutes, featuring a bemused Harry Reasoner acting as a jungle gym for several delighted kids scrambling over him.
At a time when Claverack was struggling with decades of job loss and the increasing effects of industrial pollutants in its rivers and air, the Little Lambs story was a much-needed, highly-beloved success. Maybe things were looking up, if not for the adults, then at least for the children.
And one Wednesday morning, the place disappeared. Like a tooth yanked out: the rest of the block stood intact, the buildings as squat and dour as ever. In the middle of the block, where the school had been, there was only a pit filled with old rubble and an unfamiliar scent. Some said it reminded them of smelters; others, of burned bread.
Thirteen investigations, special juries, task forces, and the like have never, in the sixty years since, managed to determine just what happened. Conspiracy theories abound, of course, blaming everything from tests of superweapons to reality-shifting transdimensional feeding.
The only thing certain about the aftermath of the Little Lambs disaster is that the city would never be the same. Trite as that statement may sound, it is undeniably, irrevocably, heartbreakingly true. Something broke in the city's soul that day. Whether that was grief at the loss of so many children, or the effect of their sudden absence from the city, the break itself is indisputable.
The first costumed hero and villain emerged that night, while search lights criss-crossed the site and bloodhounds nosed among the rubble. Three blocks away, Lammergeier faced down Robin Hood on the roof of City Hall. Within a month, more costumes appeared, some vicious and lethal, others boisterous and reassuring.
Claverack became a city of characters. Communal grief and disbelief fused to produce a strange, often nonsensical narrative, one that was simultaneously larger than life and remarkably intimate. It was simplistic, of course it was. From one perspective, there was good versus evil, hope against despair, aid and succor opposed to greed and exploitation. From another point of view, tiresome authority, always meddling, got challenged by freethinking individualists and entrepreneurs.
The two hundred children were never found. The costumed contests continue, night after night.
He takes Pete to the top of one of his favorite buildings. The Freedmen's Library is hardly as splashy as City Hall or the Municipal Savings and Loan, but its view of the three bridges across the rivers is unparalleled.
Pete's vocally disappointed that Buttress doesn't bring them up the edifice with grappling hook and line, but he cannot deny the charm of the old-fashioned brass elevator.
Once they're on the roof and Buttress has double-checked for bugs, they can talk more freely.
"You know the theory, right, that the kids who disappeared are actually back?" Pete asks. "In costume?"
Buttress nods. It's absurd, of course. They've unmasked plenty of villains, and he's personally acquainted with several heroes, and none of them are over sixty.
Pete jams his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "Maybe it's true."
"It isn't," Buttress tells him. "They've checked that angle out, dismissed it."
"Who has? Because if you say Claverack City PD or, like, the feds, I'll laugh in your face."
Buttress would laugh right along with him. "No, the heroes have."
"I feel like there's something to it," Pete says after a bit.
Buttress sucks the inside of his cheek and stays quiet.
Pete scratches his jaw and bumps his glasses back up his nose. "Ferret, anyway. He was...off."
"Ferret's not a sixty-five year old revenant, trust me," Buttress tells him. Pete blinks and cocks his head, so Buttress adds, "I tracked him down after he got away. If he's over thirty, then I'm president of MENSA."
Pete grins at that. "You're not?"
"Me big," Buttress says, and pounds his fist on his chest, "me hit hard, bad guy go down, boom."
"Sure, sure," Pete says. He's suddenly very close, close enough to make Buttress's cape stir. "And that's really hot. But that's not the whole story."
"It really is —" Buttress stops. Really hot? He wants to ask, or echo, or do something, but Pete's tilting his head just so and going up on his toes as he does so, his eyes closing behind his glasses, and the kiss starts as an awkward, fluttery thing as they shift and bob. Pete's glasses go askew, Buttress stumbles. Then the kiss simply is, a warm and spreading thing, and Pete's arm is around his neck and Buttress lifts him up a little, and they melt and swirl together. His sense of time dissolves as his heartbeat accelerates.
When, much later, Pete pulls back to breathe and straighten his glasses, Buttress sways, forgetting, for a moment, gravity.
"Holy shit," Pete says wonderingly. He touches his mouth, then points at Buttress. "You —"
"You're a very good kisser," Buttress says, and immediately feels like an idiot. "I mean —"
"Wow," Pete says. "Buttress." He says the name as if it's pregnant with meaning. As if it tastes good to speak.
"Pete."
Pete's smile cracks his face open and Buttress gets a flash, all over again, all over his body, of the sweet, slick feel of that mouth, that guy. "Hey."
He'd like nothing more than to grin dopily back at Pete, possibly for the rest of the night, before they head back to the Stoplight Diner, hand in hand, to share a waffle platter. Buttress draws himself up and squares his shoulders. He has to get ahold of himself.
"Peter," Buttress says, "As a rule, I don't do this kind of thing."
"What, blow dude's minds with one single kiss?"
He tries to frown, despite the compliment making his head swim. "Interfere with civilians."
Pete's smile flashes, then, abruptly, vanishes. "Interfere?"
"I should not have allowed myself —"
"I had something to do with it, too," Pete says. His brows are drawing in over his nose as he frowns. He lifts his chin and narrows his eyes. "Maybe I want to be interfered with, ever think of that?"
"Certainly there are many so-called 'cape chasers' out there, but —"
"Oh, well, now, fuck you, man!" Pete wheels away, shoulders hunched up to his ears, and kicks at the gravel. It sprays in a messy arc. Some tinkles when it hits the metal of a ventilation hood. "I'm not a cape chaser."
"I didn't mean —" Buttress's sinuses pound and he's suddenly very tired.
"Maybe I got this all wrong," Pete says after a moment. His head is hanging down and he won't turn around. "Forget it."
"I don't want to forget it," Buttress says. He sounds hoarse, and feels worse. "All I wanted to say —"
"I'm going home." When Pete opens the access door, the light nearly envelops him. "If I get any info or whatever, I'll be in touch."
*
After a night of shitty sleep, full of recrimination and replays of their argument, Buttress drags himself to his home office and tries to work on Alex's latest freelance assignment. It's not enough distraction. Even in the depths of Illustrator's hermetic mysteries, he finds himself thinking about Pete. The kiss, and how he messed everything up.
It takes him three hours, on and off, to compose the world's shortest email.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: all apologies
I'm sorry. I was an asshole.
He doesn't expect a reply, yet finds himself disappointed when none arrives. Even two days later, he's checking his Guild inbox every ten minutes or so, like worrying at a cavity with his tongue, getting that little burst of pain every time.
*
It's midday, an unseasonably warm and sunny day, when he finishes his project and decides to go for a run. He's coming up on the fifth mile, crossing the Clermont Bridge's upper deck, when his watch sounds a Guild alarm: A developing situation at the city archives, several costumes spotted, possible incendiaries.
He's pretty close to the downtown safehouse, so he runs there to change. On the way out, fully Buttress'ed up, he catches up with Velox and one of the newer heroes, Hunky Punk. Vel speeds ahead while Buttress briefs Hunky Punk on the usual approach.
"We'll hang back, wait for instructions from Libra or one of the other powereds, then move in," he says.
They nod, the spreaders distending their earlobes jingling slightly against the chain that's looped into their nostril. Their stiff red Mohawk bobs like a rooster's crest.
"You going to be okay with all that hardware?" Buttress asks, circling his palm in front of his face. "One yank, man, and that wouldn't be pretty —"
"I've got super-healing," HP says.
"No shit?"
"Yeah," they reply.
By now, they're moving through the crowds of onlookers, past a few police barriers, to the front of the building. It's one of those fin de siècle piles, an overwrought wedding cake in white marble and painted iron, that originally housed a shipping magnate or some other robber baron.
Vel speeds over to meet them. "Good thing you made it, B-man."
Buttress opens his mouth to ask why when Libra descends from the roof, toes pointed, toga floating. "They need you inside, Buttress."
"I —" No one has time for his hesitation and self-doubt. Buttress nods. "On my way."
Vel accompanies him, blurring back and forth to check on the situation and provide updates. "So this little weaselly guy and some hired goons have the staff backed up into reading room —"
"Weaselly? It's The Ferret, isn't it?" Buttress asks.
Vel disappears, then, reappearing, says, "yeah, that's the dude. Who the fuck is Ferret?"
Buttress grinds his teeth. "How many hostages?"
"Five," Vel says. He zips away, then returns. "Down to four. They let two go already. But he's asking for you."
"Me," Buttress repeats. "Who, Ferret?"
Laughing, Vel claps him on the shoulder. "Took you long enough, but it sounds like you finally got yourself a nemesis! It's like your big day!"
By now, they've crossed the wide foyer and near the double doors to the reading room. Three cops with rifles guard the entrance, mirrored by masked goons doing the same thing across the threshold.
"I'm Buttress," he says, and clears his throat. "What seems to be the problem?"
"Well, well, well," Ferret says as he rises from one of the broad tables. "There you are."
"What do you want, Ferret?" As he speaks, Buttress scans the room. Three hostages are tied up in the far corner, guarded by two more goons, but Ferret has one hostage beside him. He holds the hostage by the back of his shirt; there's blood down the front and the person sags.
"Finally figured out what would bring you...flying," Ferret says. Then he throws out his chest and waits expectantly. When no one replies, he adds, "Get it? Flying Buttress?"
"Let the injured go," Buttress says and takes two steps forward.
"Stop right there!" Ferret screeches. He shakes his hostage and steps behind him, using him as a shield.
The hostage remains limp; Buttress isn't sure how he's still upright, apart from Ferret's hold.
"Let the man go," Buttress says again.
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Well, yes," Buttress replies. "I would, very much. That's why I'm asking."
Ferret's laugh is grating, maniacal, thoroughly unhinged. "This guy won't leave me alone, you know that?"
"That's..." Buttress clears one table and pauses. "Who is he to you?"
"Who is he to you, hero?" Ferret jerks on the hostage's shirt, so his head snaps up.
Buttress's heartbeat gulps and sputters for a second. "Pete?"
Pete's nose looks broken — that accounts for all the blood on his shirt — and his eyes are hooded. "Hey there. Sorry about —"
"Shut up!" Ferret shrieks and shakes Pete again. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
"This must be a misunderstanding," Buttress tells Ferret. "Let Pete go and we can work this out, all right? You and me."
Ferret spits. "Never gonna happen."
Pete lifts his head fractionally, meeting Buttress's gaze. His smile twitches at the corners of his mouth. No, Buttress mouths, but Pete's grin spreads.
"Now, Vel!" Buttress shouts, diving for Pete and rolling with him under one table while Velox barrels into Ferret from the emergency exit at the side of the room. Hunky Punk follows with Libra to take down the rest of the goons.
As the fight rages around the room, Buttress pushes himself up to his elbows and looks down at Pete. "How hurt are you?"
"Nose is fucked," Pete says thickly. "Otherwise, not so bad."
"What are you even doing here?" Buttress asks, shielding Pete from a spray of bullets. They bounce harmlessly off his cape.
"I work here part-time," Pete says. It's getting quieter out in the room. "I've been researching the two hundred —"
"You need to stay out of that," Buttress says as firmly as he can.
"— for a presentation and exhibit," Pete finishes. "For my job."
"Oh." To cover his embarrassment, Buttress pokes his head out from under the table. The fight is winding down; Ferret is yelling futile threats as Vel wrestles him into a straitjacket and Libra is bonking two goons on the head with her scales. Buttress turns back to Pete. "Okay, let's get you to the ambulance."
"For a broken nose?" Pete asks in disbelief. "I'm fine."
"You're stubborn," Buttress says. "Don't know about fine."
Pete wriggles out from underneath Buttress. Crouching beside an overturned chair, before he rises all the way, he says, "Takes one to know one, hero."
Buttress scowls beneath his mask and lets him go.
*
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: all apologies
Thanx for the save. Can I buy you a drink? Got something
to show you.
They arrange to meet at the Salon. Buttress can't think of anywhere, other than the diner, that he can be in full costume but not get hassled by criminals.
He doesn't particularly want to be in full costume, to be honest. But he'd be even stupider than humanly possible to come out to a guy he's met three times and kissed once.
When he finds Pete in the crowd, Pete's wearing a snug button-down shirt and low-hanging jeans. His hair is braided in intricate whorls against his skull, in patterns that Buttress's fingers immediately itch to trace and learn.
"Nose looks better," Buttress says.
Pete ducks his head, acknowledging that. "Ice. So much ice."
He leads Buttress to one of the quieter rooms in the back, full of low couches draped in tapestries. There are a few people in one corner sharing a hookah and giggling softly, but otherwise, they have the space to themselves.
"I wanted to show you what I've been researching," Pete says. He hands Buttress his phone. On the screen is a PowerPoint deck. The first slide is titled "Return of the 200? Grief and Narrative Production in Claverack".
"You worked really hard on this," Buttress says, thumbing through the images. Pete has jumped to his feet, pacing a little out of nervousness while Buttress reads.
Both of Pete's hands are stuck in his front pockets, his arms lengthened, as he sways slowly back and forth. "Yeah, well. Anything to avoid my thesis, you know?"
Buttress nods, not sure what he's supposed to say to that.
"You sound disappointed, though," Pete adds as he sits next to Buttress on the couch. "About me working hard."
"No, I'm just —" Buttress exhales slowly. "I'm not the best audience for this."
"I thought, maybe, see," Pete starts, then stops. He bites his lower lip. "I really think there's something to the idea of them coming back. Did you get to the profile comparisons?"
Nodding, Buttress takes a breath. "I'm not a detective."
"Uh-huh." Pete sounds doubtful, at best.
"I mean, I'm not —" He gets to his feet, needing to move, then doesn't know where to go. "I'm not like Libra or Bluestocking. Hell, even Dynamo. I don't —"
"Dynamo," Pete says sourly. "That guy went off to space without a second thought. Turned his back on the city like he couldn't wait to get away."
Buttress swallows hard. "He did."
"So I'm glad you're not like him," Pete says. "Is what I'm saying."
"I'm not a detective, Pete."
"We covered that."
"No, man, you don't get it —" Buttress sinks back down next to Pete. "I don't solve criminal conspiracies. I don't take down rackets. I'm just one of those guys who fights pretty good."
"I think —" Pete starts, but when Buttress shakes his head, Pete nods and presses his lips together, indicating he'll be quiet. He also slips closer, so their knees and thighs touch.
"I punch hard, and take a punch even better," Buttress says. "I'm good in a fight."
"You are," Pete says. If he sounds fervent, that's probably just Buttress's imagination.
"But I'm nothing more than that," Buttress finishes. "You want to solve a mystery, you need a brain like Bluestocking, somebody with a network and powers like Libra."
"But I want you," Pete says.
"I can't really help you, that's what I'm saying. I can pass this on to someone who can, but that's about all I can do, until it's time to take them down. Then I'll be good in the big showdown."
"You're not listening."
"You're not listening!"
"Buttress."
He starts to say Pete's name, but Pete's leaning in, lips parted, and Buttress has nothing to say, nothing to think, but everything to feel as they kiss again. Far more surely this time than the first, as Pete swings his leg over to scramble atop Buttress's lap, and then his hands are on Pete's tight, round ass and Pete is pushing against his chest. The kiss just keeps ratcheting higher and hotter, deeper and faster; he's getting hard against his kevlar codpiece and Pete is gasping into his mouth, clutching at one of his costume's spaulders.
"We need to get out of here," Pete says, his voice low and urgent.
"What? Why?" Buttress looks around, fully expecting to see villains rappelling down the walls.
Pete grins, sliding to his feet and holding his hand out to help Buttress up. "Because I really need to fuck you? Like, yesterday."
"Oh," he replies. "Right, okay."
Pete lives in a new development just outside the main downtown; he shares the apartment, he says, with four other guys. Buttress can believe that, based solely on how the foyer smells like cabbage and old socks. Pete's tiny room, however, is clean and fresh. Jammed with books and posters and a few battered skateboards, its sheer ordinariness charms Buttress more than he can say.
"C'mere," Pete says as soon as the door is closed behind them. It's so small a room that the two of them, plus the bed, fill it up.
Buttress unhooks the cape and unlocks his breastplate, stepping forward, craning down to kiss Pete some more. He dropped the gauntlets somewhere back in the hall, so he can touch Pete now with bare hands, push his hands under that shirt, experience his flushed-hot, smooth skin for the first time.
They twist around, stumble, get the codpiece out of the way and Buttress on the bed. Pete straddles him again, kissing his mouth, then the length of his throat. When Pete shoves aside Buttress's under-jersey to rake his nails through Buttress's chest hair, they both groan.
"I want to get you off," Pete tells him sometime later. His lips are swollen and bitten, his lids heavy.
"Let me." Buttress rolls his hips up and reaches for Pete's cock. He wraps his hand around his own dick, too, and shivers at the friction of Pete's shaft atop his own.
Pete's head falls back, exposing his throat. He rides Buttress like that, thrusting into his hand, as Buttress jacks them together. Pete's shirt hangs off him; his bare skin shines, dappled with sweat. Buttress pulls him back down to kiss him some more, suck on Pete's tongue until pleasure is blazing down his spine and exploding his gut, until Pete is shaking against him and shooting come all over Buttress's jersey.
They collapse backward, finally, and Pete finishes Buttress off with his genius mouth, all tongue and slick, intent heat, before crawling up the length of Buttress's body and lying atop him. Buttress's nerves quiver and flash as he tries to find the logic of his own body again. Aftershocks keep twinging through. The crown of Pete's head smells like cococa butter.
"Even better than I fantasized," Pete murmurs. "You're amazing."
"You don't even know who I am," Buttress says helplessly.
"Sure I do," Pete replies, and kisses him. Very softly this time, almost shyly.
"But —"
"I know what matters," Pete says firmly. The weight of him against Buttress's body, the scent of him, the warm, mobile twist to his lips, all of that is inarguable. He curls his fingers into Buttress's chest hair and tugs lightly. "The rest? That'll come."