You don’t think Juniper is listening. Behind his leafy, green mask, his eyes are very far away and his lips are pressed into a thin line. His curling vines are swaying gently in the breeze and are barely wrapped around your ankles and wrists. If you wanted to you could very easily escape, but, somehow, Juniper’s sudden openness has you frozen to the spot.
Maybe this is some sort of ploy to keep you contained until his teammates arrive?
“It’s not like I want to keep secrets from them,” he continues, seemingly ignoring your objection. “But what can I say? Oh, sorry, I have to go stop Discus from cancelling gravity at the Mayor’s birthday party? My dad could barely deal with me missing Superbowl Sunday to have my appendix removed.”
“Oh geez,” you say, “you’re sure giving me a lot of identifying information here.” You refrain from pointing out that your power doesn’t let you cancel gravity, only manipulate the forces already being exerted on an object in space. It’s never served any villain well to give power specifics to a hero.
“Or,” Juniper continues, leaning against the cedar sapling that’s been slowly thickening behind him, “like that time when I had to take my AP tests on the day my grandparents came to town? And then I had to stop you from levitating all that money out of the bank? So I got home super late? Mom totally melted down. It’s not even hero stuff at this point, it’s just life stuff. Is that too controlling? It definitely feels too controlling.”
“Maybe you should avoid giving me dates and locations that your secret identity can be traced to?”
“I mean,” Juniper says, “they know about all this-” he gestures to his costume and his plants that have burst through the asphalt “-but I just don’t have time to walk them through all the responsibilities the mask gives me.”
You look at the sky, wishing his vines would just drag you through the asphalt and out of this situation. You had enough teenage angst in your youth and, at the age of 26, you’re really not looking for more.
Juniper sighs, sagging further into his plants. “And even if I did explain, they wouldn’t be able to understand.”
Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s like listening to a more positive and less evil mini-you.
Without meaning to, you say, “How would you know they won’t understand if you don’t explain it?”
Juniper shakes his head, frowning as his eyes finally focus on you. “What?”
You’re not going anywhere fast so, if he’s so intent on telling you all this, this might as well happen.
You tilt your head so you can look up at his face. “Look, you say they know about the mask, right? And they let you join up with Cassius and his merry band of crusaders?”
“They didn’t let me,” Juniper protests. “It’s a calling I couldn’t ignore.”
If you were less evil, you’d have at least tried not to roll your eyes. As it is, they practically fall out of your head. “Kid, you’re, what, fourteen?”
“Fifteen.”
“Yeah, they let you,” you say. “If you live under their roof and eat their food and tell them when you need to go superheroing, then they let you. That shows that they understand your…calling a little. How many heroes your age do you know whose parents support them?”
Juniper is tellingly silent.
“Honestly,” you say, “they sound like they want you to have as much of a normal childhood as possible. Hanging out with family, doing well in school without super villain distractions, etc. If anything, you sort of sound like a bad son with all this lying and staying out late.”
Juniper’s shoulders tense. “I have a duty–”
You snort. “You really gonna stop me for your entire high school career? What happens if I strike on Prom night? You gonna bail on prom?”
“Being a hero,” he says as if quoting someone, “is seldom convenient.” His shoulders slump. “Though I won’t deny that that would be even more evil of you than usual. I actually got a date this year.”
“Dude,” you say, “people like me are always gonna be out here taking stuff. Sometimes people way worse than me are gonna be out here breaking stuff. You really wanna temporarily stop us and miss out on things you’ll only ever be able to do once in your life?”
“It’s my job,” he says but not in a very happy way.
“Oh my god,” you say, “how low is your self-esteem?”
He squints at you. “I’m fifteen and in high school.”
“Jesus, that’s rough.” You make a mental note to leave prom night the fuck alone out of pity. “Look, you deserve to have a life, okay? Would–would you ask a civilian to miss their sister’s wedding to–I don’t know–tell Cassius about a villain sighting?”
“…no,” he says finally, “but they should definitely tell him as soon as possi–”
“Then why,” you steamroll over him, “can’t you do important things like go to dances before dealing with people like me?”
“I’m a hero,” he says like that’s all the explanation needed.
“You’re a kid,” you retort. “And kids deserve childhoods. I’ve bitten my tongue for too long, apparently, but I really can’t overlook the fact Cassius recruited a child to deal with me.”
He puffs his chest out. “I’m more than enough to deal with the likes of you no matter my age.”
“Sure,” you say dismissively, “but what if I get lucky one day, huh? I’m super fucking evil, dude. I could seriously hurt you. What happens if you’re too tired from soccer practice or whatever and you make a mistake when fighting me?”
“I swim, actually,” he says.
You half-scream with frustration and break one of the vines around your wrists so you can scrub at your face. “Stop! Giving! Me! Identifying information!” You take a couple deep breaths. “Holy shit, I can find out who you really are, don’t you get that?”
“I’m not scared of you.” Juniper crosses his arms and tries to look intimidating. “I could take you in my sleep.”
“That doesn’t matter!” You warp your powers so that Juniper’s vines slide from your upper torso to around your waist so you can sit up. “I’m still an adult villain with motive to hurt you! We’ve been talking for, like, thirty minutes and your backup still hasn’t arrived!” That’s actually been bothering you for a while. “What the fuck are they doing?”
“Cassius,” Juniper says, “had work until 4 today. He said he’s on his way.”
Your jaw drops and it honestly takes a minute to find your tongue. “So…so he finished his work day? While you came here to stop me from making the Mayor’s dog walk on the ceiling? Skipping at least one class to do so? Are you serious?”
Juniper falters for a moment before squaring his shoulders. “He could get fired if he didn’t. Being a hero doesn’t pay very well.”
You scream again and bury your head in your hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t want to do this. Fuck!”
“Do what?” Juniper looks alarmed and takes a step towards you. “What are you going to do?”
“I have to make the worst fucking call in the world,” you say. You activate your powers, reversing the motion of the Juniper’s vines so that they arch away from you instead of pushing against you. He grunts in surprise but recovers too slowly to keep you from leaping a safe distance away.
“Hey!” Juniper cries.
You wave a hand at him and launch yourself over the rail separating the parking lot from the bay. There’s a jet ski waiting for you there which you were supposed to escape on after taunting Cassius about your next evil plot.
It’s all a waste now, of course, but still. It would have been so fucking cool.
“Fuck,” you say into the wind and gun it to your secret lair.
—————————————————–
Your secret lair is, of course, a studio apartment about twenty minutes away from the bay. Being a villain doesn’t pay well either, but at least you’re not using minors to make sure you keep your day job.
You pick up your secure landline, the untraceable one you’d bought on a lark for years ago and had never had occasion to use, and dial the fucking worst number in the world.
“Thank you for calling the Superhero Federation Hot Line,” a cool, monotone voice greets you. “Your call is important to us and will be monitored for legal purposes. Please press one to report an active crime. Please press two to report a past crime. Please press three to report a suspected crime. Please press four to report a super villain sighting. Please press five for other–”
You press five almost a little too forcefully judging by the way the button cracks. There’s a moment of silence before the phone actually begins to ring.
“Hello, this is Agent Jost,” a man says. “How can I help you today?”
“Yeah,” you say, “look. I don’t have time to be jerked around. Who do I call to report child abuse?”
“I can redirect you to your area’s Child Protective Services–”
“No!” You take a calming breath. “No, shit, his parents aren’t abusive. His leader is. His superhero leader. Cassius? He’s the leader of the Santa Cruz Crus–”
“The Santa Cruz Crusaders,” Agent Jost interrupts. His voice is very flat. “Are you suggesting that the hero Cassius is abusing a superpowered minor?”
“I’m not suggesting,” you say irritably. “I’m telling you.”
There’s a pause. “Caller, what is your name and location?”
“Not important,” you try. “Look, Cassius shouldn’t be sending a kid to fight villains no matter how low level–”
“Caller,” Agent Jost interrupts again. “These are very serious allegations. You need to tell me your name, location, and how you came by this information.”
You bite your lip.
Agent Jost sighs. “Caller, we are legally unable to take action without a witness in cases of underage heroes due to the League’s concern with compromising civilian identities. If you weren’t a witness to Hero Cassius’ misconduct–”
“My name is Discus,” you blurt out, nails biting into the palm of your hand. You can’t fight a kid anymore. “I’m a-a villain in the area and Juniper–without backup–told me that he’s fifteen.”
“Ah,” Agent Jost says. There’s the sound of keys clacking. “You wouldn’t happen to be the villain Discus, Class C, known to possess the power to subvert Newton’s laws of motion?”
“Class C?” you ask before you can think better of it. “That’s higher than I thought.” You freeze. “I mean, uh, I don’t know what power you’re talking about.”
“Discus,” Agent Jost says, “are you aware of our available immunity agreement? It states that any witness to a crime is entitled to both immunity and anonymity provided the information turned over meets the criteria. Protecting minors definitely meets that criteria.”
“Oh,” you say. Which means that, if you tell him everything, there’s a chance that they won’t be able to charge you for a bunch of crimes you’ve committed int he past few months since Juniper’s been on the scene of all of them. “Huh. Cool.” Apparently doing this one good thing might kill two birds with one stone.
“Cool indeed,” Agent Jost says dryly. “Now, please, tell me everything.”
You take a bracing breath and do.