The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism

Chapter 273: 273 | Romantic Subplot Material

"You can explain yourself." Hiro’s voice carried the kind of righteous indignation usually reserved for religious figures and HOA board members. "What you did in that exercise was a disgrace to the entire concept of heroic conduct."

"Pretty sure I won that exercise."

"That’s not the point!"

"Second time today you’ve said that." I turned back to my locker and pulled a clean shirt from my bag. "Starting to think maybe you don’t actually know what the point is."

"The point is that heroes are meant to be aspirational figures." Hiro stepped closer, his chest puffed up in a way that suggested he’d practiced this pose in mirrors. "We represent ideals. Justice. Honor. Professional standards that distinguish us from common vigilantes and criminals."

"And kissing someone during a fight violates those standards?"

"Obviously!"

I pulled the shirt over my head and turned to face him fully. The height difference was minimal but I had the positioning advantage, and more importantly I had the advantage of not caring what he thought about my tactical decisions.

"Hiro. Buddy. Do you know how many pro heroes have been caught in compromising situations? How many scandals Diane’s agency has managed over the years? How many ranked heroes have done things significantly worse than an unexpected kiss during supervised training?"

"That doesn’t make it acceptable!"

"No. What makes it acceptable is that it worked." I closed my locker and shouldered my bag. "I was pinned against a bathroom wall by someone who could shoot projectiles through my skull from three inches away. My options were kiss her, die, or let her capture me and lose the exercise. Which option would you have preferred?"

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"You should have found another way."

"Cool. Next time I’ll remember to ask the person trying to kill me for a timeout while I brainstorm hero-appropriate alternatives."

I walked past him toward the changing room exit, leaving Hiro to his moral certainty and his half-removed costume. Some battles weren’t worth fighting. Some people weren’t worth convincing. Hiro Sato had decided who I was the moment he saw that kiss on the observation deck monitors, and nothing I said was going to change that verdict.

The hallway outside the changing rooms was crowded with students heading toward the same destinations: dorms, cafeteria, anywhere that involved sitting down and processing the day’s events without having to actively think about hero work for fifteen consecutive minutes.

I scanned the crowd automatically, cataloging familiar faces and tracking the social dynamics that were already starting to crystallize into patterns I was going to need to understand if I wanted to survive Halloran’s social architecture.

Camille was nowhere in sight. Probably still with Radiant getting her individual assessment, or avoiding me entirely, or both simultaneously in a way that would be logistically impressive if it weren’t so obviously her preferred outcome.

Petra had also vanished from the immediate vicinity, which was either ominous or merciful depending on how you wanted to interpret her earlier promises of retaliation and whether she was the type to make good on verbal threats or just enjoyed the psychological impact of leaving them hanging.

Percy was walking with Rina toward the north wing, the two of them engaged in what looked like a genuinely engrossing conversation about something that required extensive hand gestures from Percy and frequent nodding from Rina, her white hair catching the overhead lights as she listened with the focused attention of someone who actually wanted to hear what he was saying.

They looked comfortable together in a way that made me suspect they’d bonded over something during the exercise that nobody else had witnessed.

I was about to head toward the cafeteria alone when a finger poked me in the ribs hard enough to make me jump.

"Boo."

Felicity Hardy stood approximately six inches closer than conversational distance required, her blue eyes bright with amusement and her blonde hair catching the hallway lighting in ways that were probably not deliberate but definitely effective. She’d changed out of her hero costume into civilian clothes that included a cropped hoodie in pale pink and high-waisted shorts that made her legs look longer than they had any biological right to be.

"Jesus. Do you always sneak up on people?"

"Only people who kiss girls during training exercises and then try to walk away without explaining themselves." She fell into step beside me as I resumed walking, her presence natural in a way that suggested she’d been planning this interception for a while. "So. Spill."

"Spill what?"

"Everything." She looped her arm through mine with the casual confidence of someone who had never once questioned whether physical contact was socially appropriate. "Start with Camille. End with Petra. Include all relevant details about tongue usage and costume malfunctions."

"There was no tongue usage."

"Really? The kiss looked pretty intense on the monitors."

"It was a tactical decision."

"Uh huh." Felicity’s voice carried exactly the level of skepticism that comment deserved. "A tactical decision that involved your mouth on her mouth for approximately three seconds while she had you pinned against a bathroom doorframe."

"Two and a half seconds."

"Oh, you timed it?"

"Percy timed it. He told me afterward."

"Even better. Your tactical kiss lasted long enough that your analytical friend felt the need to document its duration." Her arm tightened on mine as we navigated around a group of second-years blocking the hallway intersection. "That’s not tactical, bestie. That’s romantic subplot material."

I kept my expression neutral despite the accuracy of her observation. "It was strategy. Nothing more."

"So you didn’t enjoy it?"

"I didn’t say that."

"So you did enjoy it?"

"I plead the fifth."

Felicity’s laugh was bright and genuine, the kind of sound that made people in the surrounding crowd glance over to see what they were missing. "You can’t plead the fifth on kissing questions. That’s not how the fifth amendment works."

"Pretty sure the founding fathers didn’t anticipate hero academies or training exercises involving simulated hostage scenarios."

"Pretty sure the founding fathers would have had opinions about what you did to Petra after Camille though."

My jaw tightened slightly. "That was an accident."

"An accident that ended with her straddling your waist while her costume fell apart."

"My constructs got tangled in her utility belt."

"And then kept getting more tangled."

"She was struggling."

"And you were struggling right back from what the cameras showed." Felicity’s blue eyes sparkled with something that was equal parts amusement and something else I couldn’t quite identify. "Her face when she realized what was happening? Priceless. I’ve never seen Petra Lang lose composure like that. It was like watching a marble statue suddenly remember it used to be a person."