Chapter 28: Coming Out

 

Carefully, he stepped back onto the cold hospital floor. “Uh, sorry,” he said. “I must have been sleep… crawling.” He tried to smile apologetically for what he imagined to the doctors must have looked like something out of the exorcist, an unconscious girl suddenly jumping off of the operating table. Say something, Amaranth said. They’re getting very uncomfortable. Eric looked around. He owed them an explanation, at the very least. “Haha, superhero stuff,” he said. “You know.”

“No,” the man Eric figured was the head of surgery, “I don’t. How are you…”

“Alive?” Eric hazarded. “Superhero stuff.” Good one.

“I was going to say “awake”,” the surgeon answered. Eric shook his head. He couldn’t keep calling the man ‘the surgeon’ in his head.

“Sorry, what’s your name?” he asked. Everyone else in the room just stared. As long as they weren’t screaming or throwing things or attacking him with scalpels, that was fine with him. Yeah, I’d prefer not to get into any more fights.

“Uh, Stephens,” the surgeon said. Eric went over and shook his hand. Wet. Yuck.

“Okay, good to meet you, Stephens,” he said. He very briefly wondered if he was still anonymous, then realized he was still wearing the mask Arsonal had given him. Nobody had taken it off. Very considerate of them. Sorry I wasn’t able to keep it on for you. She had nothing to apologize for, of course. She’d been unconscious. Yeah, but still. “My name is Redshift. I hope you’ll forgive me for not, you know, secret identity, all of that.”

“Uh, yeah,” the surgeon said. His hand was covered in Eric’s blood. That was a little awkward. Eric wiped his own blood on his gown. “So, um,” Stephens said, “what?”

“Hm?”

“What?”

“What what?”

“Why are you… standing? We’d just pulled a shard of bone the size of a pencil out of your heart.” 

Yeah, thanks, that one was a bit rough to get out. 

“Not to mention the fact that we had to pump enough sedative into your system to take down an elephant.” 

Yum tasty. 

“This is something to do with that strange life-form, isn’t it?” Uh oh. 

“What, uh, what life-form?” Eric said suspiciously. Nice. Very convincing. 

“The life form wrapped around your spine that kept your head intact after an impact that was strong enough to rip a car in half,” Stephens said. “That life form.”

Jig’s up, Amy said. Let’s ditch this popsicle stand. Eric stared blankly for a second. I’m kidding. I can talk to them, if you like? Eric shook his head. “The life-form you saw,” he said, “is a part of my unique biology, doctor. It’s how I’m able to survive things like this.” Looking inwardly for a second, he waited to make sure Amy wasn’t missing any bits. All of me present and accounted for. They didn’t take any samples. “And I’m afraid I’m not sharing with the class. If you want to dig into my insides, you’re going to have to make a very convincing court case, I think. Call my agent!”

“You don’t have an agent,” Stephens said dryly.

“That’s very inconvenient for you,” Eric said, took an unsteady step forward, and sank to one knee. “I might want to, ahem, lie down for a bit. You guys know any good hospitals nearby?”

Eight hours later and he was inside a hospital bed. Stephens had been remarkably understanding once the shock had worn off. ‘Superhero biology’ was an easy sell, even if a lot of people seemed to want proof. Not that Eric cared. Most of his stuff had been destroyed on the way down, so he couldn’t call his mom or his friends, but he didn’t have to. Serena and Tony had been following everything on the news. It was Current Year, of course everyone had a phone on them. The battle didn’t look very spectacular, right up until Redshift got up dramatically and lifted the villain all the way up in the sky. There was a flash of bright light, and then the two of them falling. Redshift grabbing Arsonal and shielding him with their body. The way the car they hit was practically vaporized. 

“God, that’s such a bad angle,” Eric said. “Like, I get that in movies ‘news footage’ is just the footage from the scene played with bad news graphics overlaid on top of it, but you can’t see anything here.” He gestured in annoyance at the television in the corner of the screen. 

His attempt at levity did not work. Serena and Tony still looked at him with a lot of confusion and frustration. He couldn’t blame them. The cloth mask made of ripped shirt had been discarded and Amy was pulling duty as Redshift’s suit again. Well, the upper face mask, at least. They’d been let in past the security checkpoint after he had given their names. Mom, apparently, was on her way. That was going to be fun.

“Eric?” Tony said. 

“Alyssa?” Serena asked. 

Eric bit his lip. He nodded. Yes to both. You know, I’m still willing to help explain things… He thought about that for a moment. First off, he wasn’t nearly as confident as he had been with the surgeon. Second, having someone inside of his head who might be a bit more objective than he was. On the other hand, this very much felt like something he had to do on his own. 

“So,” he started, and thought back to the last thing he’d said. But also the fact that he was a superhero. “I’m, uh, Redshift,” he said. “Ta-daah.” He gave them weak jazz hands. Now that his body wasn’t in fight-or-flight anymore, Amaranth and Eric both needed to get some rest. 

“How?” Tony said. 

“You know how Penumbra pulled me out of that fire and I was mostly fine and recovering kind of weirdly well?” Eric asked, and gave them a sheepish smile. “I wasn’t fine.”

“Penumbra can heal people?”

“Apparently. Though I guess they, uh, left something behind in me.”

“Hi,” Amy said. “I’m Amaranth. The Super part.” Eric was happy to let her do the explanation. “Eric brings the Hero.” Oy. None of that. 

“Wait, Amaranth is a physical manifestation of your superpowers?” Serena said. “That’s, uh, a lot to take in.”

“I guess that’s a way to look at it, yeah. Though, you know, chicken, egg. I was here before the superpowers were. We figured those out together along the way. Like flying! I didn’t know I could fly! That was all Eric!”

“Well, I just asked,” he said, slipping forward again. “Sorry, we tend to keep these conversations on the inside. Anyway, yeah. Hi. Redshift.”

“So you can just… turn into a girl?” Serena asked, glaring. 

“I… yeah. Kinda.”

“And you’re still a girl.”

“Yeah, Amy is recovering so she can’t–” Eric started, and then felt himself shake no. That’s not true, and you know it. He hung his head. “I just don’t want to turn back.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, “I know. Like, we were talking about this before you went, well, girl, and flew off because of that… that maniac.”

“Okay, first of all, he’s, he’s, he’s not a maniac. I kind of get where he’s coming from–”

“He blew up City Hall, Eric,” Tony said, leaning forward and squaring his shoulders. He was in full protector mode. “He blew up the park.”

“He pulled the fire alarm. He didn’t realize it was going to set off the gas main,” Eric said, “but that’s not the point. I just… Like, yeah, he’s fucked up, but if you knew what he went through, like…” he trailed off. “Like, the city, everyone, it failed him, guys. He lost his family because of the government and people just doing their jobs and the law not, like, protecting him.” Eric explained what Arsonal had told him. There was a moment of hesitation as he tried to see

“So he just decided to–”

“Break the system that broke him, I guess,” Eric said. “I’m not saying he didn’t put people in danger, but like, I get it. If I lost you guys, if I lost mom, because some asshole in a uniform didn’t let me…”

“You’d burn it all down, too,” Tony said. “Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Eric said. “Jesus.”

“I mean, he got arrested. Maybe he can get the help he needs, now?” Serena asked.

“Cops broke his arm when he brought me into the hospital,” Eric said. “I get the feeling he’s not going to do great in prison.” He paused. That was his fault, wasn’t it? He saved the man’s life, and now he might lose it locked up. “Maybe I should have done more?”

“You quite literally broke his fall,” Serena said. “You can do more when you can walk again. You don’t have to save the world.”

“I… I know,” Eric said. “I just…”

“You feel responsible,” Tony said. “Right now, the only thing you’re responsible for is healing. You’re the most important person in your life. You should be. And speaking of which… there was the other thing.”

“The other thing?” Eric asked.

“The girl thing,” Serena said, and then her solemn nod turned into abject horror. “Oh, god, I flirted with you! In the diner!” Her face was redder than he’d ever seen it. He didn’t even know she could blush like that. Tony’s eyes grew wide. Of course, she had told them both about her encounter with the superhero, all giddy and excited. She was coming to that realization too, now. “I told you I had a crush on her what the hell and you didn’t say anything you monster you lied to me and made me make a fool of myself and –”

“In my defense,” Eric said, “the whole secret identity thing…”

“I’m going to kill you,” Serena said. “And then Amy is going to bring you back to life and I’m going to kill you all over again.” You know, I kind of think she could. Eric grimaced apologetically.

“Maybe… maybe the girl part, first,” Tony  said. “Was it true, what you said? About wanting to be a girl?”

“Yeah?” Eric said. “I mean, like, kinda. But I don’t want to lose you guys.” The looks on their faces slipped into an unamused glare.

“Yes,” Tony said. “Famously, I have made it clear that I do not support trans people, and that I don’t support you, you idiot.”

“Like Armstrong here, the queer community is alien to me,” Serena said in the same exasperated tone.

“I know, I know,” Eric said. “I didn’t… mean it like that, I guess.”

“Then what did you mean? Because I’m kind of lost here,” Anthony said.

“I like you!” Eric half-shouted with his eyes closed, gripping the bed sheets. “I like you like you and I’m scared of being a girl because that means that you won’t like me like that because you like me as Eric. And I’m scared of being a girl because that means that suddenly I might be the kind of girl that Serena likes and then I’m going to ruin that and I won’t even have you as friends anymore and–”

“Hi,” Lauren said, “I was going to be so mad at you but this might be the cutest thing you’ve done since you were five and you were talking about how much you wanted to hold Serena’s hand.”

“Whuh!!” Eric said.

“That said,” Mom said, “we are going to have a very long talk about what happened today. But also, do I, just, have a daughter now?” 

There was an extremely meaningful silence, during which even more meaningful looks were exchanged. “That’s up to…” Tony started, and then stopped. 

“Am I going to…”

“We’re absolutely also talking about what you said,” Serena said. “But you’re not losing me.” She looked at Tony. He shook his head and shrugged.

“Me neither.”

“Then… I think you do, Mom,” Alyssa said.

“Okay, good. About time you figured that out.” Lauren put her hands on her hips. “You two, out. I need to have a talk with my daughter.”