Chapter Thirty-One - Right as Rain

“Is it going well?” Emily asked.

She didn’t know Fabien well, other than through third-hand accounts of his few exploits, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be concerned about his health. The boy--no, the young man--looked entirely too injured for his own good.

“He’ll be fine,” Sam said. She smacked Fabien the Fabulous on the knee, then grinned over at Emily. “He’s barely got a scratch on him, isn’t that right, handsome?”

Fabien was partially undressed, a fact that was making Emily’s cheeks warm up. There was nothing perverted to it though. He was sitting on one of the seats in the dining area of the mobile base, shirt on the table and bandages over his biceps and arms.

Emily wasn’t any sort of medical expert, but she could guess from the way he was bruised and cut that he’d crashed onto his side at some point. Some of the wounds had looked like simple scrapes. She’d seen a few of those recently, mostly on her sister’s knees.

Scrapes were nothing to worry about. A bit of disinfectant, a plaster or bandage, and a kiss on the boo-boo... though, maybe not for Fabien the Fabulous. In fact, she made doubly sure not to use the word ‘boo-boo’ at all.

Better to excise it from her vocabulary for the moment, than to accidentally utter the word aloud and have to dig a pit to bury herself in later.

The other wounds were more complicated. He had a lot of bruising on his side, from just under his pectoral muscle (which she made sure not to stare at... when he could see her) all the way down to the waist of his pants. They were ugly, mottled purple and blue, but after poking and prodding Sam had declared that none of his ribs were misplaced.

Even if he went to a hospital, the most he’d get out of it was an order to stay in bed for a week and maybe a dose of tetanus, if he wasn’t up to date. He assured them that he was.

“Thank you,” Fabien said. He was looking right at Emily as he spoke. “Truly, thank you. I didn’t know what to expect on meeting you, but it certainly wasn’t this level of hospitality. Don’t worry yourself over me any further, I’ll repay this debt I owe you.”

“Uh,” Emily said. “It’s nothing, really. Just some first-aid stuff.” Not even her own first-aid stuff. It had all been tucked away in a metal case above the sink, packed there with some instructions on how to use it.

There had been some MREs and some survival equipment as well. But the girls found the MREs and were ‘taste testing’ them in the next room over. She... didn’t care as long as they cleaned up the mess of crumbs they were no doubt leaving behind.

“Do you have a way to get back home?” Emily asked.

“I know how to get back from most anywhere in the city,” he said.

Sam snorted. “So, a local then, huh? Ah, don’t worry, not prying into your secret identity. Now, take off your pants.”

“Pardon?”

“What?”

Emily and Fabien spoke at the same time.

Sam rolled her eyes. “I saw you limping. Come on, off with them. Trust me, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”

Emily was quite certain he had plenty of things she hadn’t seen before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to see them.

“It’s just my ankle, I think,” Fabien hurried to say. He brought his leg up and placed it on one of the free chairs, then pulled up his pants and bunched them over his calf so that Sam could better see his foot. It was pretty swollen.

Sam hummed, then pulled another chair closer as she examined it. “Tell me if it hurts,” she said as she started to turn the ankle this way and that. She was being careful about it though, and other than a wince Fabien didn’t react too much.

“So, Lady... Boss?” he started uncertainly.

“Just Boss is fine,” Emily said.

“Very well then, Boss.” Fabien the Fabulous gestured around himself. “What do you need of me?”

Emily blinked. “What do you mean?”

He sighed. “I... I will be honest with you, as you seem to have been honest and fair with me. I have always dreamed of being someone whose name was known.” He paused and hissed.

“Sorry,” Sam said. “Let me go see if I can’t find some ice. There’s just a bit of swelling here.”

“Thank you,” he repeated before continuing on. “As I said, I have always dreamed of being well-known. And my power allows me to take the first steps onto that path. But... well, I find myself somewhat humbled by recent experiences.”

“The fight with Glamazon,” Emily said. Her eyes narrowed. “And Iron Chains.”

He paused before nodding. “I presume that’s the hero with the, well, iron chains.”

“That’s him. He was acting like a bit of a villain for a while. We captured him.”

“And now,” Sam said as she returned. She didn’t have ice, but she did have what looked like a lukewarm bottle of water which she poured into a little sealable bag and pressed to Fabien’s ankle. “Now the good guys have decided that he’s hero material.”

“I see,” Fabien said. “In either case, yes. I wasn’t ready to fight off either of them. Maybe if it had been just one I would have fared better. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I am not equipped to fight on my own.”

“That’s easy then, just join the Boss’ gang,” Sam said.

“I don’t have a gang,” Boss said.

“Right,” Sam agreed before correcting herself. “The mafia calls it a family. Much classier.”

Emily glared at the back of Sam’s head, but no one seemed to pay attention to that.

“I... I wouldn't want to insult your hospitality, Boss, but I don’t know if I’m quite ready to join your... ah, family,” Fabien said.

Emily sighed. That was some good news, at least. For some reason, the sigh had Fabien tensing up a little. “That’s fine,” Emily said. “We don’t need any more expanding, I don’t think.”

Fabian the Fabulous eyed her for a moment. “What are your goals, exactly? Just so that I don’t inadvertently end up working against you. I owe you some respect, and I imagine working against your goals would be the opposite of that.”

“Nothing much,” Emily deflected. She was impressed and proud of herself. That deflection had come quickly and smoothly, without even a stutter. All that practice deflecting her sister’s more awkward questions was paying off.

Sam then bulldozed over her accomplishment. “We’re going to take over the city, then the world.”

“We are not going to take over the city,” Emily said. “O-or the world.”

“Ah, I see,” Fabien said. He nodded. “A subtle take-over, then.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Sam said.

Emily shook her head. No, it was not exactly that. It was exactly not that!

Fabien’s eyes grew distant for a moment. “Yes, I can imagine it now. The beautiful Boss, feared by all, with a loyal army by her side. Her boot on the neck of the greatest heroes and the entire city in her grasp.”

Emily’s face warmed. She had never had a handsome shirtless man call her beautiful before.

“So, Boss, Fabulous here’s all bandaged up. Do we kick him to the curb?”

Emily shook her head. “No, of course not. Fabien, you can rest here. Alea Iacta will be using the base for the next few days. He can keep you company. Ah, we’ll try to bring some food down, maybe some pain-killers too.” She had some in her purse, but nothing that was stronger than the anti-inflammatory that Sam had given him already.

“Yeah, we’re going to have to restock the place. The brats have done a number on the MREs. And we just used up some of the medical stuff. I think it’d be wise to keep those supplies topped-up. Just in case, you know?” Sam said.

Sam had the gift to switch from foolish and silly to serious in such a way that it left Emily reeling. “R-right, uh, that’s a good idea.” She cleared her throat. “I’m going to go check on the sisters. Fabien, I hope you heal well.”

“Thank you,” he said, and it sounded entirely earnest.

She stepped out of the room and made her way to the next train car up. She found her sisters sitting around the big table in the centre of the room, eyes narrowed and cards held close to their faces as they watched each other suspiciously.

“Got a nine?” Teddy asked Trinity.

All three of Trinity grinned. “Go fish,” she said.

Teddy mumbled something that Emily suspected was on her list of ‘words not to use,’ but she couldn’t quite hear it well enough to tell.

“Hey girls,” she said.

“Hey Boss, want us to deal you in?” Teddy asked. She had a lot of cards in hand, and seemed eager to reset the game.

“Ah, I’m good,” Emily said. She took note of the MREs whose contents were divided up between the girls. “Wait, are you gambling... with crackers?”

Trinity raised a brown pack from her pile. “And omelette too!”

***