Chapter 20: Names over Coffee

 

“Well?” Serena said.

“Well what?”

“Well, this is my first time sitting across from a superhero,” she said as the waitress came by to give them their drinks. “Like, are you going to make me swear an oath? Or, like, threaten me or something?” She seemed almost excited at the prospect. 

“I, what, why, no,” Eric said. “I’m not going to threaten you. You don’t even know who I am, Se—“ Shehasn’ttoldyouhername! He hadn’t even realized he was about to say her name when Amy interrupted him. She still sounded groggy, too. “Civilian,” Eric said. Nice save. The symbiote was clearly still kind of out of it, giggling softly to herself. 

“You don’t have to call me that,” Serena responded with a grimace. “That sounds gross. My name is Serena Session.” She grinned when she stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you. Anyway, my point is that, like, you do have a secret identity and I know what you look like, so I didn’t know if there was a way that heroes like you keep people from knowing who you are. For all I know you’re like, famous or something.”

“How old do I look?” Eric said. 

“Uh… I don’t know. About my age. Maybe twenty at most?” Serena said, sipping her tea. “I’m not the best judge, though.”

“How many famous twenty year olds do you know?” Eric said. “Internet doesn’t count. Here in the city.”

“Uh…” Serena said, hesitating, “there’s that girl who did that concert last year?”

Eric smirked. “Do I look like her?” 

“Well, no…”

“There’s like three million people living in The Ridge,” Eric said. “I promise, nobody knows who I am.” Well, that’s certainly true, Amaranth said. She sounded like she was stretching, which was strange for Eric to think about. That said, he was glad she was back. Glad she was okay. Just taking a nap! I’ll be good soon.

“That’s… fair!” Serena said. “Well, is there a name I can call you by?”

“Redshift,” Eric said proudly. He was really happy with the name. 

“Oh,” Serena said. “That’s a cool name.” She sipped her tea again. “I actually meant, like, when you’re like this, you know? When you’re not in costume.”

Eric opened his mouth. If you say Eric, Amaranth interrupted his train of thought, the next few minutes are going to be very awkward. Eric looked down at himself and realized that he looked like a biker girl more than anything. He needed a name, and quick. “Alyssa,” he blurted out. Alyssa McCoy? Amaranth said. Jeez, Redshift, how come your mom lets you have two secret identities?

“I like that,” Serena said while Eric tried to stifle his laughter. “Allie, maybe?”

Thanks, Amy continued. Picked it ourselves. “Sure. Uh, yeah, Thanks,” Eric said. “What, uh—“ If you’re going to ask her what her name is, you already asked that. Maybe try asking her something about her. “What do you do?” Eric said, trying to seem like he wasn’t having a whole conversation in his head at the same time. 

“I’m a student,” Serena said. “When you, uh, when you caught me at the university I was considering going there.” She brushed some hair behind her ear. “Do you study?”

Eric looked at her and smirked again. “Thinking about it,” he said. “There’s a lot going on in my life at the moment, you know? A lot of big changes.” I’ll say. “But studying would be nice.”

“Well, if you go to my school, you’d have someone who can keep your identity a secret, and who can cover for you!” Serena said, perking up, and then slinking back into her seat when she realized people were looking at her. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” Eric said, laughing. “I’ll think about it!” I’d love to see how you’d explain that. I’d point out that you can’t really register Alyssa to the school board, but that feels kind of obvious. 

“Well, in the meantime… how are you feeling? You look like you took a pretty bad hit, earlier. Are you feeling any better?” Serena asked. The concern on her face was touching, but not nearly as much as her reaching out across the table and putting a hand on Eric’s just as he reached for his glass… “Are you okay?”

“I… yeah,” Eric stammered. You know, I could keep you from blushing, but I think this is much more fun. He clenched his jaw as he felt his face heat up. “Yeah, I recover pretty quick.” Sure you do. 

“I’m glad,” Serena said. “You saved me, so at least let me make sure, okay? Actually, let me…” She grabbed her bag and took out her phone. “If there’s ever something and, like, Penumbra isn’t available, you can call me if you want to, Alyssa.”

“Oh, I—“ If you tell her you have her number already, Amaranth said, blushing is going to be the least of your problems. “I don’t have my phone on me,” Eric lied.

“I can imagine it’s hard with the suit, yeah,” Serena said. “Here, how about…” She took a marker out of her bag. “Give me your arm.” With a blink, Eric did as he was told. Serena wrote her number on his arm, sending tingles up and down his spine. “There. This way, you’re not obligated to, but you can still contact me if you want to.” She gave him a faint smile. 

Eric glanced internally at Amaranth. If he changed back, he didn’t want to lose it. Eric. Alyssa. Whoever. You already have her number, you utter dweeb. It is in your phone. You’re literally just pretending. Oh. Right. “Thank you,” Eric said with a soft smile. “I’ll message you.” Looks like you’re going to need a burner phone, or she’ll recognize your number. Maybe Lauren will buy you one?

“Speaking of Penumbra, by the way,” Serena said, “are you two, like, a team?” She’d finished her tea and was dabbing her finger onto the grains of sugar that had spilled onto the plate, not making eye contact.

“Not… really?” Eric said. “They introduced me to a lot of the… hero stuff, but we’re doing things differently, you know?”

“I mean, not really,” Serena giggled. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like, Penumbra is like, a kind of first responder. Like a super-powered ambulance driver, you know?” Eric said. “We want the same thing — we want Lockridge to be safer — but I want to do it more actively. I think, with these kinds of powers, it’s my duty to help out.”

“Like a… guardian angel?” Serena offered, blushing again.

“I like that,” Eric said. “Yeah. Something like that. I want people to see my wings and know that I’m looking out for them, you know?” He leaned on his hand and looked out the window. “It’s going to be hard, but we can’t let people like that… arson guy walk around free. And he knows what he’s doing. The police might not be able to catch him on their own. Not in time, anyway. Not before someone else gets hurt. That’s not really what Penumbra does, you know? They’re more in the… disaster relief business.”

“You keep referring to them as, well, them. I thought Penumbra was a woman? Or are they multiple people? Oh my god, that would explain why they can take so much punishment and be around the next day!” Serena looked like she was going to pop out of her seat. 

And we can’t really say anything one way or the other, can we? “Oh, uh,” Eric said, “I just didn’t want to… I wanted to make sure to stay gender neutral.” He gave Serena a light smile. “But no. We aren’t partners. More like… colleagues. Penumbra just has seniority.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Serena said. “I imagine being a superhero doesn’t really give you time for stuff like that, you know? Like… partners…”

“Huh?” Oh, she means Partners-partners. “Oh! Uh… I mean… I don’t… have one… now… but like… it’s not… um… I mean… there might be…”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, that was way too personal, I didn’t mean to pry! I just, I’m not thinking straight, oh my god,” she grabbed her bag suddenly and jumped up, slamming a ten dollar bill on the table and running out.

“What just happened?” Eric said, dumbfounded. The waitress came by and gave him a reassuring smile. 

“Don’t worry, honey, she’ll be back. I’ve seen that look before,” she said as she refilled his coffee. 

“What look?” Eric said. 

“Sweetie,” the woman said, almost like an admonishment, and then just walked off. 

“What is with people today?” Eric said, shaking his head. He took out his phone and looked at the list of contacts. He couldn’t really talk to his mom about this. She’d embarrass him until it killed him. He couldn’t talk to Maxine. That needs to cool off for a bit, I think. Besides, she might still be tailing Arson Man. “We really can’t keep calling him Arson Man,” he mumbled. What about Tony? You like Tony.

He sent Anthony a text, and got a reply almost immediately. It rang a second later. “Hey,” Tony said. 

“Hey you,” Eric said, glad to hear Tony’s voice. It was like having a warm blanket gently placed over his shoulders.

“Uh… could you put Eric on? I don’t know who this is…” With a shock, Eric realized that he was still using the Alyssa voice. He felt something shift when Amy fixed his throat. 

“This is Eric,” he said. “I had something in my throat.”

“Huh!” Tony said. “Wow. Could have sworn that was a girl just now. Anyway, what’s up? I’m going to be honest, ‘I need someone to talk to’ messages are always a little scary.”

“Oh, uh, it’s nothing, like, that major,” Eric said. “It’s just… I’ve had a lot of stuff going through my head lately and I think it would help to have someone to bounce things off of, you know?” 

“Yeah, of course. I’m always here for you, Eric. You know that,” Tony said. You could melt an ice cube on Eric’s forehead. “So what’s up?”

“Just… recently I’ve been having to deal with some new things and changes, and I’m kind of struggling with how to talk to people about that.”

“What kind of changes are we talking here?”

“Like… physical and mental, I guess?”

“Well,” Tony said, “when you reach a certain age you might start to notice hair in strange places—“

“Shut up,” Eric giggled. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. No, I just… I worry that I can’t keep pretending to be someone else. What if I slip up? What if people don’t trust me anymore because I lied to them and kept things from them?” 

“I think— If that’s the kind of thing you’re struggling with, then I don’t think anyone can hold you keeping things to yourself against you,” Tony said. “I guess the biggest question is… who do you feel safe around? What do you feel safe telling them? And I guess, like, do you have someone who you can be you… yourself around? That’s important.”

You feel safe around him, Amaranth said. Why not tell him that? Eric realized he was blushing furiously again. Good thing nobody could see him this time. Of course he couldn’t say that out loud, could he?

“I just have some things to work through,” Eric said. “But I promise I’m talking to someone.” Yes! Hey! Hi!

“Okay,” Tony said flatly. “I’m glad.”

“And I’ll talk to you and Serena when I’m ready. When I’ve figured out how.”

“Take all the time you need. I’m here for you. All jokes aside. You’re important to me. To uh, to us.”

Eric had a mild aneurysm, squeezed his eyes shut, and then forced his voice out of his throat. “Thanks man,” he managed

“Any time, McCoy. Alright, I gotta go. Speak of the devil, I think Serena is calling me. Talk to you later!”

“Talk to you later,” Eric said and hung up, then gently let his forehead drop onto the table.