Sidekick: The Misadventures of the New Scarlet Knight (17 page)

“Just keep doing stuff like you did tonight, that’s all.”

I saluted him with my sword. Pandora rolled her eyes as she took off, carrying me in her arms as she headed out for the sand dunes.

“Funny, isn’t it usually the hero who’s supposed to carry the girl as they fly over the city?” She glared down at me to let me know she didn’t appreciate my attempt at levity. I wisely kept things quiet as we headed down through the trap door and along the tunnel to the base, but she still made a point of dropping me flat on my ass when we arrived. “Ow. That hurt.”

“Not as much as it should have.” Her tone was angry. She took off my helmet and looked me right in the eyes. “Please be a little more careful next time, okay?”

“Okay,” I meekly replied as she ran her fingers through my hair. My muscle aches were suddenly replaced by an electric feeling that shot straight through me and covered every inch of my skin as she leaned forward again and kissed me firmly on the mouth. I gently grabbed hold of her and kissed her right back. I swear we didn’t come up for air for at least two minutes before she looked me in the eyes again and grinned.

“Is that a sword in your hand? Or are you—”

I kissed her again before she could finish the terrible joke.

The Inevitable

Something I had pondered a few years before popped into my head. When heroes had sex, did their secret identities count as partners? Were you making love to the hero persona? Or to the civilian identity? Was it possible to shift halfway through the act? Might you find yourself going to bed with a perfectly normal person, then wake up next to someone you didn’t recognize who could bend steel with their bare hands and change the course of mighty rivers?

Even if you took sex out of the equation and only focused on the greater issue, you still had a major dilemma. What happened when you fell in love with a hero? Did you fall in love with the costume or the schlub trapped inside? And how could you be certain the person you thought loved you was really in love with you and not with the larger-than-life persona you put on to serve the public? I guess firefighters, cops, and soldiers had the same issues. Did you love the good deeds, or the deed doer?

The difference was that as far as the public was concerned, there was no dichotomy. The guy wearing the slickers and carrying the hose was the same guy when he was sitting alone in his kitchen eating cereal in his boxers. But for people like us, that doesn’t happen. If I rescued a family from a burning building, the Scarlet Knight got all the acclaim. But when I got home and took off the bulletproof pajamas, the world didn’t consider me the same person I’d been a few seconds before. And to be completely honest, there were some days when even I didn’t feel like the same person when I’d swapped the uniform for mufti. I’m sure there were thousands of women, and at least a couple of handfuls of guys, who would jump into bed with the Scarlet Knight at the drop of the hat, but what would they have to say about mild-mannered Bobby Baines? Could they ever fall in love with the real me, instead of the vision of me stuck in their imaginations? I wouldn’t want it the other way around, and despite the perpetual state of horniness we red-blooded American boys find ourselves in, I didn’t want anything less.

These thoughts had kept me up late at night a few times over the years I’d gone out in costume, but they resonated even more for me as I lay there, wide awake, listening to the soft breathing beside me and feeling the warmth of the body of one of my best friends in the world next to me. In less time than it takes to think, which is obvious because neither of us did much thinking before doing what had gotten us into this situation, we had gone from being comrades-in-arms to lost in each other’s arms and from there into parts unknown. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the gory details. All I’ll say about the act itself is that I’d never known two people could share so much true emotion with each other, and no matter what happened after that point, I would never, ever regret what we did.

As I stared at the woman curled up next to me, the old issues came racing back, and I found myself wondering exactly who I had gone to bed with. Had I made love to Sarah Marsh, college freshman, antiquities major, and assistant librarian from Buffalo? Or had Pandora, sidekick of the mightiest woman in the world, lured me into bed? Did I fall for the shy, retiring, bookish girl who had brought me my favorite food earlier in the evening? Or had I lost it for the strong and agile hero who wore a costume guaranteed to bring up more wood than a reforestation project?

And was there really a difference?

This naturally raised the more important question: where did she stand on the whole thing? Had she gone to bed with the kid she’d hung out with for nearly a third of her life? Or was it the guy in the suit who’d nearly sacrificed his life to save a trainload of people neither of them really knew? Was it me she wanted? Or my tights?

I thought about my Uncle Jack and Phoebe. No matter how much they might have denied it, everyone, hero and sidekick alike, could tell how much they’d loved each other and how they’d longed to be together. Yet, they’d never acted upon it, and now it was too late. Did they have the same concerns I had? Were they sure the Scarlet Knight and Prism loved each other but uncertain of the bond between Jack Horner and Phoebe Penobscot? Or vice versa?

If you weren’t careful in the superhero world, you could find yourself going from single to something right out of
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
without a second thought. Love me, love my secret identity, you get the idea. Two heroes getting together could sometimes mean four personae getting it on, and before long you’d find the bed wasn’t big enough for the two of you.

Then the words of Sergeant Simpson flooded back:
I know better than to put a wife through all this
. Was it fair to create an emotional bond with someone when there was a good chance you wouldn’t be coming home that night? Even before we’d slept together, remembering the look on Pandora’s face when she’d realized what I was about to do, of the risk, gave me an idea of what a hero’s romantic partner must go through every night, not sure whether their better half was going to survive patrol.

Then again, what about two heroes falling in love? No one could ever say there wasn’t full disclosure in such a case. You knew the risks involved because you faced them yourself. It wouldn’t stop the worrying, but at least when the inevitable happened you’d be a little less surprised. Besides, knowing the odds of one or both of you not surviving the next confrontation with the Big Bads, didn’t you owe it to each other to make the time you had left as pleasant as you could? What would I regret more: losing a lover, or maybe even a wife, or never sharing my life with them and losing them anyhow?

I felt a stirring beside me. Had I woken Sarah up somehow? She stretched and yawned, blinked twice, then looked up at me.

“Bobby?” Her voice was soft and full of meaning. “Bobby, are you okay?”

I thought about unburdening my soul, sharing all my doubts and misgivings, but she looked so happy and peaceful that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then her words clicked, fighting their way past the self-doubt and woolgathering I’d been engaged in, to make me realize the answer to at least one of my questions.

Bobby. She had called me Bobby. It wasn’t the suit she was interested in, but the guy who wore it. She hadn’t seduced the Scarlet Knight, she’d taken her old friend Bobby to bed with her.

Or at least it was enough of a suggestion for me to grab hold of and hope. And it told me what my answer would be.

“I’m fine, Sarah.” If it came down to having to discern between the two identities, I knew who I was in love with. “If anything, I’m actually a little north of fine.” I gave her a discreet peck on the cheek, then pulled her closer to me. She nestled her head against my chest and fell back asleep. A couple of minutes later, at least one of my great questions answered, so did I.

***

I’d often heard about how the morning after could be awkward, and for the two of us that proved to be the case. I didn’t know if Sarah had been plagued with the same questions and doubts that had kept me up most of the night, but she certainly had something on her mind.

I’d woken up first; to be honest, I’d barely slept at all. When you’re not used to sharing your bed with someone else your brain has a tendency to keep firing the “something’s different” message down your neurons, even if that something different is a pleasant something. I debated about whether or not to stay in bed, but since we were at my place, I figured she wouldn’t panic if she woke up without me next to her. There would be less of a tendency for her to think I’d run out on her or feel like she ought to check to see if I’d left cash on her dresser.

I got up, showered, and changed into some sweats and a t-shirt. After checking to see if she had woken up yet, I headed off to the kitchen to make breakfast. Again, I know it’s a cliché, but I can’t help it. I’m a traditional sort of guy—almost old-fashioned when it comes to these things, actually.

The smell of bacon must have woken her, because I’ve never known anyone to be awakened by the smell of pancakes, and the coffee hadn’t had a chance to brew up properly yet. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen dressed almost exactly the same as me, obviously having felt free to raid my clothes after her shower. For the record, there is nothing hotter than a beautiful woman wearing your clothes.

“Good morning. Do you always make such a big affair out of breakfast?” I couldn’t tell whether there was an unspoken “
… after sex
”
at the end of that sentence, so I gave her, and my self-esteem, the benefit of the doubt and assumed there wasn’t.

“Come on, gotta carbo-load. We growing superheroes need all the nutrients we can get. Can’t fight evil on an empty stomach.”

She chuckled. I’d heard that chuckle thousands of times over the years, but this morning I was able to appreciate nuances in it I’d never recognized before. Hell, I found myself appreciating all kinds of nuances about her this morning and loved them all.

“Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand you, Bobby. Yesterday you were ready to crawl under a rock and die. This morning … ” She let the sentence dangle, leaving it to my all-too fertile imagination to fill in the blank.

“Well, sometimes it helps to have something to want to live for.”

The wry smile on her face faded away. Had I gone too far? Pushed the wrong buttons? Did she think I was putting too much emphasis on what had happened between us? My usual self-doubt kicked in again, and I clammed up. That didn’t matter. I didn’t have to speak to tell her what I’d meant; she could see it in my beet-red complexion.

“How long have you wanted to … ”

“Years,” I said as sweetly as I could. “Practically since I met you. It took me ages to realize it, but … ”

Her lack-of-smile became a full-fledged frown. Yes, I had said the wrong thing, or at least she had taken the wrong meaning away from it.

“You’ve wanted to sleep with me for—”

“No, not that!” Yes, we were certainly talking at cross-purposes, which meant I had a chance to salvage the situation. “No, to tell you how I felt. For years I’ve wanted to tell you I love you. I’ve loved you since I met you. I’d be tempted to say even
before
I met you. Ever heard of love at first sight? This may have been love at foresight.”

Her jaw dropped like the blade of a guillotine on our prospective relationship. Great. No quicker way to scare off the love of your short life than letting her know she’s The One. “Love me? You—”

“Remember that sign I flashed you before I did that amazingly stupid move that should by all rights have killed me? It’s the sign language for ‘I love you.’ That’s what I’d wanted to do for years, and last night, I finally did it. The rest? Everything that followed? Well, that was unexpected, but not unwanted.”

“Bobby, I … I mean, I had a few suspicions, but I never realized you … ” Again, she left the sentence unfinished, allowing my brain to write in the worst possible answer, like some sadistic, romantic Mad-Lib.

“Regrets?” A simple one-word question, but only one word was necessary. All my hopes, dreams, and fears invested in two simple syllables.

Her grin didn’t return, but her frown retreated to lack-of smile. Her face looked like one of those pictures of cats you see on the Internet.
I are serious superhero. This are serious discussion.
“None. Not a single one.” She looked me dead in the eyes. “You?”

“Never. My only regret would be if it wound up driving a wedge between us. Because I really do love you, Sarah. Not some stupid teen-boy crush, either. If this isn’t the real thing, then I don’t know what is.”

She didn’t smile, but I got the impression she wanted to. She looked like she was fighting back tears, which brought me to the same state. She ran straight for me, and I took her in my arms. She started bawling like a baby into my chest, and I held her as tight as I possibly could. Of course, being too stupid to leave a tender moment alone, I spoke up.

“Remember what I said about something to live for? You know that old saying about how a guy is willing to die for his girl? Well, I want to
live
for you, and somehow I think that means something.”

She looked up. Her smile had returned, and she planted one firmly on my lips.

Phew. For once I didn’t screw it up.

***

The rest of breakfast was uneventful. Neither of us said much, both content to quietly enjoy each other’s company. There was plenty we still needed to say, plenty of issues to work out and questions to answer, but those were matters for another day. This was The Morning After and possibly the First Day of the Rest of Our Lives, and we both deserved at least a little time together unburdened by the bigger issues. The universe owed us a couple of hours of quiet enjoyment.

Of course, this being a universe with me in it, and the propensity of said universe to like to screw with me, we were not going to get those few hours. We barely got one. After we’d both eaten as much as we cared to (a morning-after breakfast is much more of a gesture than a viable first meal of the day, after all), Sarah helped me tackle the dishes. I was scrubbing the frying pan like a mad man, trying to loosen a piece of burned I-don’t-know-what, which didn’t resemble anything we’d had on either of our plates, when the doorbell rang.