Chapter 24: Hesitation

“Plappingers for flight swip twine brie to Reykjavik, pleep retort to gate twelp. Repeep, flamingos to swipe sinks mine bee, regorg to kay shelf. Borping will offense soon.”

“I think that’s us,” Victoria said, and Max loved her for it. Despite being one of the largest airports in the Midwest, LRB Airport had one of the worst intercom systems in the country. How V managed to figure out what was being said without fault, every time, was a mystery to Max. 

“She called us flamingos,” Penny said helpfully. “How do you do it?”

“It’s just patterns. You learn to know what to listen for,” Victoria said, took her bag, and hurried to gate twelve. Max rushed after her, pulling two suitcases of her own. In theory they wouldn’t be staying in Iceland for very long, but in practice it was possible this thing was drawn out. V was planning on revealing some of her findings, and it was likely there were going to be some very exciting meetings, maybe a couple of interviews. On top of that, several of her colleagues in the field from all over the world were going to be there, and they would also want to talk to her about her research. 

Max, meanwhile, was happy to carry her bags and to be there when her amazing girlfriend got the recognition she deserved. Besides, it was nice not being the one in the spotlight for a change. Penumbra got a lot of airtime. 

“Do you think it’ll all go smoothly?” Maxine asked as they stood in line at the gate. Victoria looked at her watch and then up at her girlfriend.

“We’re on time. Why wouldn’t it?” She asked, then squinted. “Do you know something? Is this a superhero thing? Are we going to crash the plane? You know I love it when you two do your thing but you have to tell me if you’re going to do superhero stuff on the plane so I can ask for a barf bag.”

Max burst out laughing, nervous energy that had needed release, and shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’m not planning on doing superhero stuff. I mean the conference. Us being away from Lockridge for that long. All of it. I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“Honey,” Victoria said as her ticket was scanned, “this conference is a huge deal… for me. You’re not the one that’s supposed to be freaking out about this, I am.”

“Yeah, but are you?” Max looked out the window of the jetway as they walked through it. Victoria shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I have everything prepared, I memorized all of my notes weeks ago, I quadruple checked my research and nobody else knows even half of all the things I do because —“ she lowered her voice, “— I live with and am dating an extra-terrestrial entity and they aren’t.” 

They made their way to their spots easy enough. They’d made sure Max, and more specifically Penny, had a windowside seat and a good view. While the symbiote didn’t mind enclosed, cozy spaces, they were pretty new to this whole planet Earth business, and still very excited about seeing it from this high up. 

“It’s still weird. You’re going to be giving a speech in front of hundreds of people,” Maxine said. “You should be nervous.”

“They’ll be hanging on my every word. I have the math to back everything up. They can do calculations at home and get very embarrassed when they realize a girl from downtown Lockridge Bay knows more than them and their rich, upper-class educations,” Victoria said. “So no, I’m not nervous. I’m excited, but I’m going to do just fine.”

“You know,” Max said, “I don’t tell you this enough, but you are very attractive.”

“You told me this morning, like five times.”

“I stand by what I said,” Maxine said as she tried to get comfortable. Victoria was doing quite well for herself, but the problem with that is that ‘doing well for yourself’ in the scientific community didn’t necessarily mean the same thing as it did in other industries. They were in the cheapest seats on the cheapest flight they could find. These were not chairs made for human sitting. This was a seat with elbows. If this seat had been a person, it would have been a four year old waking you up in the morning by climbing on top of you. If it had been a fruit, it would have been a coconut. It was not a good seat.

Hold on, Penny said, and Max relaxed in her chair, the pain immediately going away. Victoria looked at her enviously. 

“How could you possibly be comfortable?” She asked. Max smiled.

“We no longer have a spine,” she said. “Thank you, Penny.” You are welcome! 

Victoria looked at Max like she’d just been told her girlfriend’s spine was missing. It was a very unique look. Very apt. “Could you do that to me?” She whispered. Penny and Max considered it for a moment, then shook their head.

“Probably not,” Penny said. “It would probably kill you. We are very closely bonded, Max and I.” They slipped back and Max smiled apologetically.

“Sorry, babe,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I’m basically barely human anymore.” She raised a hand and looked at it. “Penny is so much more than a suit. They’re the connective tissue between my cells. Hell, I don’t even wear clothes anymore, but that’s not all Penny, either. I’m pretty sure my clothes are made of ‘me’, too. Whatever I am…”

“It’s something new,” Victoria said, finishing her thought for her with a kiss on the forehead. “Something exciting. Don’t worry, honey. I had a look at your cells under a microscope, remember? But for what it’s worth, yeah, I don’t think you could survive without each other anymore. With or without a spine. So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, okay?” 

Max nodded and sighed, looking out the window as the plane taxied onto the runway. There wasn’t really a lot of time to talk as Penny marveled at the rapidly disappearing ground during takeoff. In their time as Penumbra the two of them had climbed just about every skyscraper in the city, but there was a limit to that height. Seeing the landscape turn from tangible to topographical was a new experience for the symbiote. 

“You still look worried,” Victoria said when the fasten-seatbelt sign was turned off. After a bit, the excitement had worn off. Penny was taking a nap.

“It’s the kid,” Maxine said, after thinking about the source of her anxiety for a moment. “We’re leaving them behind in a city that has someone in it that could just… kill them.”

“First off, no, you aren’t. Eric McCoy has received an invitation along with his mother to come to Iceland, all paid for by the institute. He’s a kid, Max. He’s not going to say no to that. They fly out in like two days…” she checked her phone. “Yeah. Two days. He already has a mother. He’ll be fine for a weekend. Second, you left him a message, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “I know kids these days don’t really do phone calls or voicemail, so I left a message with his mom. Backup cell phone number in case I’m not reachable, and the location of a couple of hideaway spots in the city in case he needs to disappear for a bit.” 

“He’ll be fine, Max,” Victoria said as she took out her phone and tapped away at it. “Besides, after what you told me happened last time, I have to imagine he’s not going to be so gung-ho about going ‘halt, criminal,’ at the man who knocked his symbiote out.”

“I gotta hope,” Maxine said. “But you know.” 

“I know.”

“And it’s not just that, by the way,” Max said. “This kid has shit to figure out!” She groaned and rubbed her face. “The cop worship is driving me up the wall. He needs to realize that what he’s doing every day skirts all the way up to illegal. He doesn’t seem to get the idea that you can’t do what we do and still pretend like the system works.”

“He’s a kid,” Victoria said. “A white kid from the suburbs with a cop dad. I’m glad he isn’t out there beating up the homeless for loitering or something.” The tapping of her fingers on the screen was strangely soothing. “I’ll be honest with you, babe, generally I wouldn’t give a kid like that the time of day. Every day, someone like him shaves his head and becomes a little fashy bastard out there. Kids like him have been dangerous to people like us since forever. But he’s bonded to a symbiote, and I think he really does want to do the right thing.” She reached over and put a hand on Maxine’s. “He has the best teacher I can think of.”

“Hrmpf,” Max said. She didn’t like Victoria’s assessment, but she probably wasn’t wrong. Eric’s adoration of his father, his love of justice and especially vigilante justice… it was a dangerous cocktail. “That’s why I’m worried, you know?” Max said. “It’s not really that I think she’s going to get hurt by this Arsonal character. I think it’s like you said, she’s probably going to be more cautious. But she’s likely to put him through a wall and forget that a normal person can’t actually get hit like that without organ damage and a brain hemorrhage. She’s liable to kill him just by accident.”

“He. And then you’ll stop him.”

“Yeah. He. And I can’t if it’s this weekend,” Max said. “But I take  your point.” She sighed again, and then perked up a little bit. “And another thing!” Victoria giggled at that. “This kid has some gender going on!”

V looked up from her phone, her giggle turning into a full-throated laugh. “Thank god,” she said, “you noticed it too. I thought it was just me.”

“He turns into a girl when he’s a hero! Like, girl voice, girl face, and he’s just fine with that,” Max said, shaking her head. “That goes beyond teenage boy behavior. And I don’t know how to help him with it! How did you do it?”

“Well, you were looking for a trans person to talk to and I was right there,” Victoria said. “I just answered what questions you had and that seemed to do it.” Maxine groaned. 

“There’s no way Eric would ask me questions about that,” she said. “He’s a teenager! They think being genuine and asking for help is cringe or whatever the fuck that means.”

“It just means cringeworthy,” Victoria said helpfully. She went back to typing.

“I know. I’m just grumpy because I’m old and out of touch.”

“The other thing you had, Max,” V said, “is that you had a group of queer friends locked and loaded. You had surrounded yourself with queer people. Our friends. So maybe that’s where you need to start. Get Eric some kind of support network.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll go over well. ‘Hey, Eric, here’s a bunch of gay trans people. Just in case you need to talk about some stuff. Wink.’ I don’t think he’ll be very receptive.”

“You underestimate him, babe,” Victoria said. “For what it’s worth, he seems like a nice enough guy. I’m sure the kid already has friends. And there’s no way someone who’s got those kind of vibes only has cisgender hetero friends.”

“If you say so,” Max said. “I just… I feel like he needs someone there who can walk him through all of it, you know? Like, I’m supposed to be the veteran here. If he really does have a gender thing going on, I’m not only the only superhero but the only trans superhero he could talk to.”

“It is weird that all the supers we know are trans,” V said. “That might be something worth studying.”

“Maybe after you gain international fame for your current project, yeah?” Max said. “But like… I don’t know. It feels wrong to leave him alone.”

“I know,” Victoria said, and handed Max her phone. The message on the screen was in ugly red and green. ‘Confirm: Y/N?’ Max looked up at her quizzically. “It’s for a return flight when you land. If you need to go back, baby, you need to go back. I won’t be mad at you. Just promise to come with them when they leave for Iceland on Monday.”

Maxine smiled. “You’re amazing, you know that?” She looked at the phone for a minute, then kissed her girlfriend and pressed the button.