King of Storms: Part 6
The point where the whole secret identity thing begins to get weird is when you start hearing about your exploits secondhand in real life.
I found myself stuck a couple people behind Sean Drucker and Jody on the way to class. Sean moved slowly on crutches. Jody carried his books. Apparently he'd had knee surgery almost immediately after our fight. I didn't know the details. Anyway, with the hall as full as it was, it didn't seem worth pushing past him. With my luck, I'd knock him over.
And that's how I ended up hearing last night's five minutes of terror and destruction reduced to...
"Captain Commando's too thin and she's kind of flat, but I'd do Night Cat. She's short, but she looks okay."
"The claws?" Jody asked.
"Well yeah, those are creepy. And the teeth, geez..."
So what would the appropriate response to that be?
I didn't know. Going up and complaining about it would only blow everybody's secret identity which, honestly, I couldn't believe Sean hadn't already figured out. He knew who Vaughn's grandfather was. He had to have guessed that Vaughn and "Storm King" were the same person.
The only reason I could think that he hadn't pegged Cassie or I for who we were was that Vaughn hung out with everybody. If he suspected all the people who hung out with Vaughn of being superheroes, he'd be watching half the senior class.
Absorbed in that thought, I missed anything else they had to say about how hot (or not) the rest of the League was. I did catch Sean say, "Did you see the clip from the end of the fight? When the Rocket knocks that guy out of the air and slams him into the street? That was so fucking cool."
Jody nodded. "No doubt, but we'd do better."
Sean shot him a warning look.
Jody laughed. "What? Do you think the Heroes League is going to beat up our grandparents?"
"Stuff it, Jody."
Jody aimed an exaggerated, fake kick at Sean's crutch. It didn't connect.
"Fuck off, Jody."
I turned in to my classroom, trying to shake the feeling that if they approved of me, I had to be doing something wrong.