He was worried he was already late by the time he arrived at the bleachers that surrounded the main event—an elaborate obstacle course that took up an entire soccer field. He found Ruby, Danna, and Nova near the front.
Ruby waved at him excitedly, indicating a seat they’d saved for him. “Come on, come on,” she said. “The twins are in this next round.”
“Where’s Oscar?” he asked, sliding in beside Nova. Opposite to Ruby’s enthusiasm, Nova looked vaguely bewildered as she observed the crowds of costumed children.
“Where do you think?” said Danna, cupping her chin in her hands.
Adrian didn’t respond. Food, obviously.
“There they are!” Ruby jumped to her feet and started screaming her brothers’ names, but either they couldn’t hear her or they were too embarrassed to acknowledge their older sister. They were huddled with a group of kids, all around eleven or twelve years old, but their identical heads of light blond hair were easy to spot in the mix. Adrian had only met the twins once before, at a Renegade family picnic last summer, but he remembered how much their faces had been just like younger versions of Ruby’s, freckles and all. He wondered if Ruby had had the same thick blond hair at their age, too, before she started dyeing it in layers of black and white.
“They look great,” said Adrian, admiring their gray-and-red suits.
“Thanks, my mom and grandma made their costumes. Jade hasn’t wanted to take it off all week. I’ll be glad when today is over so maybe he’ll actually let us wash it.”
“Make way, coming through!” Oscar shuffled down the bench, one hand clutching a paper bag, the bottom of which was already soaked through with grease. Adrian and Nova both turned their legs toward each other to make room for him to pass, their knees knocking together. “Sorry,” Adrian muttered, making eye contact with her for the first time since he’d arrived.
She smiled, the look oddly flustered. “Have you been to this before?”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot about it. Kind of fun, right?”
Nova pursed her lips. It took her a long moment to answer, and when she finally did, she sounded almost sad. “People sure do like their superheroes.”
“I brought enough to share,” said Oscar, who had plopped down beside Ruby and was handing out cardboard cartons overflowing with salty fries. “But pace yourselves, okay? There are also gyros and chicken wings out there, and I’ve got my eye on a strawberry shortcake cart for dessert.” Propping his cane between his legs, he peered out at the field. “Which ones are—oh, never mind, I see them.”
Ruby frowned at him. “You’ve never met my brothers.”
“I know, but they look just like you.” He pointed, then grabbed a fry from Ruby’s carton and chomped it in half. “Except, you know, the hair. How long before they start?”
“Any minute now,” said Ruby, eyeing Oscar speculatively. “Sterling’s going to be great on this one, but Jade’s more excited about archery later.”
On the field, the kids were told to line up at the start of the course. A referee was giving them instructions. Ruby started to bounce her legs so quickly the whole bench was trembling. Without warning, she cupped her hands over her mouth and screamed, “Come on, Sterling! You’ve got this!”
Danna flinched, covering an ear.
A horn blared and the race started. The contestants bounded forward and started scaling a faux brick wall. Ruby leaped to her feet, screaming at the top of her lungs. Oscar joined her, hollering just as loud. One of the kids scampered to the top shockingly fast—a dark-skinned girl with a gold capelet on her shoulders, reminiscent of Lady Indomitable’s costume.
Adrian’s throat tightened at the sight of her. She would have been too young to remember his mom when she was still alive, and it warmed him to think that her legacy was living on. That she could still serve as an inspiration to today’s kids.
He wanted that too. To be a role model. Like his mom and his dads and all the superheroes who had come before him.
But as the girl pulled into the lead, swinging across a series of monkey bars with Sterling trailing behind, he heard Oscar lean over and whisper to Ruby, “Do you want me to blind her with a smoke arrow?” He pointed his finger toward the course as a curl of smoke erupted from its tip. “Just a small one. No one would have to know.”
“Don’t you dare,” Ruby hissed, pushing his hand down. “Sterling will catch up on the barrel roll, you’ll see.” Still squeezing Oscar’s wrist, she set her carton of fries on the bench so she could lift her other fist in the air, cheering wildly.
Oscar looked down once at her hand, then over at Adrian with a giddy yet panicked expression.
Adrian flashed him a thumbs-up that he hoped was encouraging.
Leaning back on the bench, Adrian devoured a handful of fries. He offered his carton to Nova, but she shook her head.
“Are you okay?” he asked, noticing that her expression was as serious now as it had been when he arrived.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered distractedly.
“Nova?”
She glanced at him, then back at the field. “I just … have a lot on my mind.”
Adrian’s mouth twitched. He didn’t want to say I know the feeling, but … well, he totally knew the feeling. “You had your first day in the artifacts department, right? How’d it go?”
Her posture stiffened and she seemed to be debating something, watching as Ruby’s brothers bounded down a long trampoline, then scurried through a maze of transparent pipes. All obstacles that were incredibly relevant to real-life heroics, Adrian noted.
Nova leaned toward him, her voice lowering. “Did you know that Ace Anarchy’s helmet is down there?”
Adrian turned to her, startled. “Um … actually, I think it’s on display up in the Council offices.”
Nova shot him a clearly marked you’re-not-fooling-anyone glare.
He smiled sheepishly. “Oooh. You mean the real helmet.”
“Yes, the real one,” she whispered emphatically. “How many people know about it?”
“I don’t know. It’s not a secret, exactly, but it’s not something that gets talked about much either. It’s simpler to let people believe the one upstairs is the real thing.”
“And that it was destroyed,” said Nova. “Except it wasn’t destroyed.”
“Not for lack of trying.” He cocked his head to one side. “You seem concerned.”
“Of course I’m concerned. It’s dangerous!” Her voice dropped again and Adrian found himself tucking his head close to hers to listen, so close that a lock of her hair brushed against his shoulder. “And it’s just sitting there, completely unprotected. Do you know who they have running that department? A seventy-year-old woman with minor psychometry, and this guy who’s not even a prodigy. And they are supposed to provide security for one of the most powerful objects of all time? Anyone could just walk in there and take it.”
Adrian held up both hands to pacify her. “It’s not as bad as that.”
Nova folded her arms. “Why? Because of a big metal cube?”