Running from Himself 2-2 (Patreon)

Good Morning America was high-fructose corn syrup dressed up as reality, all bright primary colors and aggressively upbeat energy that made Reggie's teeth itch. The plush couches were some cheerful blue brighter than his old costume, massive screens behind them displaying a sunny New York skyline that looked nothing like the actual city outside. 

He sat across from Michael Strahan, Sara Haines, and Keke Palmer, practiced smile locked in place. Breathe. Smile. Sell the book you didn't write about the life you didn't live.

"And I think that's what's so incredible about your story, Reggie," Sara leaned forward, the blonde woman managing to look sincere with that pregnant-woman glow radiating off her. "You had it all, and you chose to walk away, to be a new man. Your book, Flash Forward: The Reggie Franklin Story, touches on that beautifully. What's been the biggest change for you in retirement?"

Biggest change? Other than remembering his… my childhood? "Honestly?” Reggie laughed out loud a little. “Grocery shopping. For the first time in ten years, I had to actually go to a store and buy my own food. You have no idea how scary the cereal aisle is. I stood there for twenty minutes staring at all the boxes. I think I had a little panic attack somewhere between the Froot Loops and the Raisin Bran."

Complete fucking lie, of course. He hadn't set foot in a grocery store since waking up in this body; a private shopper handled all that for him. Paparazzi wouldn’t let him breathe if he walked up and down the aisles himself.

But this was the job now. 

Reggie Franklin, the Reformed Hero, comfortable enough to joke about his past crazy life in the Seven while promoting a ghostwritten memoir about a life he'd only witnessed in inherited flashes.

"I bet!" Michael's grin filled the screen. "But you seem to be handling it well, man. You look healthier, more relaxed."

"Aaaye, I'm trying," Reggie leaned back. "I've even been trying to get back into a normal workout routine. Been using some old oil tankers to benchpress,” He flexed one larger arm to the audience. “Is it showing yet?”

More laughter. They're eating this shit up.

"But that's the core of it, really," he continued. "You spend so long moving at top speed, you forget what it's like to just... stand still… for a little, at least. That’s what the last ten months have been about, you know."

"That's a powerful message," Sara's tone stayed sincere, seeming genuinely moved by the look on her face. "And the book is full of moments like that. It's incredibly vulnerable."

Vulnerable is one word for it. Fabricated is another. He'd read the book once, surreal experience of learning about a life he'd only witnessed in flashes. "Aaaye, well, when you hit a brick wall at a thousand miles an hour, it tends to give you some perspective."

"Okay, but for real, though, Reg,” Keke jumped in. “You're retired, you're rich, you're looking good. You just gonna count your money on that private island we heard about? 'Cause if you need someone to help you with that, Keke’s your girl, na’mean?"

Shit. He'd forgotten they'd leaked the island story. "Nah, the island's gone. Sold it. Too many mosquitoes." The audience sighed, a little let down by the answer. They loved living vicariously through celebrities. "Right now, the plan is just... living. Being an uncle. Figuring out what's next."

He flashed the camera a smile, something a bit more real pushing its way up. "Maybe… I dunno, medicine. I've always… always wanted to be a doctor.” Again. He wanted to be a doctor again. “Do some actual good, you know? Without the powers."

It was the perfect, heart-warming answer. He was giving them the redemption arc they craved, story of a man who'd seen the light. Reggie could feel the interview winding down, another successful performance nearly in the books when—

BOOM.

Something sounded off a good distance away, the sound reaching the building with a concussive force that vibrated the floor and rattled the massive lighting rigs overhead. The set flickered, plunging everything into a half-second of darkness before emergency lights kicked on with a low hum. All the applause died out at once, instantly replaced by a frantic wave of panicked screams fighting for dominance..

In the space of a heartbeat, the relaxed celebrity vanished and Reggie was on his feet, already feeling the energy rushing through him; energy he hadn’t used for anything serious in months. 

"Everybody stay calm." His hands came up, voice cutting through the initial wave of hysteria. Not loud, didn't need to be. Something about his presence, the way he stood, made people listen. "It's okay. I'll check it out."

Haven't done anything superhero-wise in months. Crime was harder to find unless you were actively looking for it, and he'd been trying real hard not to look. Been comfortable in this celebrity bullshit, fake relationships and ghostwritten memoirs and morning talk shows that paid better than actual heroics ever had.

But today's apparently changing that.

Another rumble from outside, closer now. Car alarms started going off in harmony, that urban symphony that meant something big and bad was happening. 

Showtime. Again.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

August in New York was fucking garbage. Really, any time of year, but August was special-level awful. 

LA was her city, her home, where the air didn't feel like breathing through a wet towel soaked in taxi exhaust and street cart grease. She was only here for Translucent's funeral, a mandatory corporate grief-fest she'd rather torch than attend, but it was pretty much mandatory for someone on her level.

Supes dying was a rare enough thing, but one of the Seven was pretty much a state funeral. It still raised the goddamn question of how the fuck an invisible and invincible supe ended up fucking dead.Only a man would be that stupid, Nubia thought with a roll of her eyes. Still, though, the real reason she was even in this fucking city was that looming meeting with Stan Edgar growing in her gut like a tumor. 

That was still a week away, though.

Right now, she was just trying to be a mom on 14th Street, ignoring the oppressive humidity while Maya vibrated with that pure uncut crackhead eight-year-old energy that could power Manhattan.

"But he was naked," Maya insisted, face sticky with rainbow ice cream cone residue. "Why was the cowboy naked, Mommy?"

"Because some people make bad life choices, sweetie. Now stop talking about the naked cowboy." Jesus Christ, only in New York would there be a fucking naked cowboy just standing around.

"Can we—"

"I said, n-."!!!!!!

The front to the jewely store across the street shook for a split second, glass warbling and ground shuddering.Nubia’s eyes went wide as she turned around, too late to scream.An instant later, it vaporized, the whole wall exploding outward in a rain of tempered glass and twisted metal. Moving like a swarm of insects, twitchy and unnatural, six figures rushed the wreckage, holding bags and ready to loot.

"Street supes," Nubia hissed both syllables, face screwed up as she spotted all of them.

It wasn't just the raw power leaking off them like a busted faucet; it was the wrongness. Being honest, both were pretty much the same thing and she knew it. It was that sickly, unstable aura clinging to them that any one with real powers could feel.

The first of them was a woman with eyes glowing silver bright, barking orders while a lanky Mexican gestured with one hand and ripped a mailbox clean out of the concrete. The thing just floated there around her, waiting to become a weapon.

"Maya." Her voice went cold as steel, and more jagged than her lightning. "You get in that building. Now. Get behind a counter. Do you understand me?"“But M-!“Now!”

Maya's ice cream hit the pavement, eyes wide with fear that made Nubia's blood temperature spike toward nuclear. Her kid scrambled for cover as Nubia shot into the air, a raw crackle of ozone snapping around her body. Time to ruin their fucking day.

The Storm of SoCal descended on them with all the subtlety of divine wrath. "You're ruining my day!" Blue lightning erupted from her fist with the last word, a jagged loud spear of power that struck the man with grotesque bony spikes square in the chest. Thirty thousand volts turned his nervous system into scrambled eggs and he dropped, convulsing.

One down. Five to go.

Others reacted instantly, movements chaotic but coordinated enough to piss her off. The lead woman screamed, "Chatarra, box her in! Espejo, now!"

The center of the street shifted from empty to a hurricane of urban shrapnel. Chatarra, the lanky ferokinetic, ripped parking meters and street signs from sidewalks, sending them hurtling toward her in deadly storm patterns. Meanwhile Espejo flickered and suddenly there were five of him, identical smirking targets designed to waste her time.

"Oh, you have got to be shitting me." Her flight shifted into a series of brutal high-G turns, the woman weaving through a debris field while batting a flying manhole cover aside with a backhand that sent it spinning into a bus. 

Another lightning bolt vaporized one hologram into glittering light. Fake. Fucking. Assholes!

While she was busy with the shell game, barbed insect-like shards shot from the partner of the one she’d already sent smoking to the ground. Nubia twisted mid-air in a violent high-speed corkscrew that dodged most of them.

Most.

One clipped her shoulder, drawing blood that made electricity dance between her fingers.

"Sonofa-!"

It wasn’t the fucking impact. That barely registered against skin that could shrug off a 50 caliber easy; Hell, she'd taken worse hits during sparring sessions back when Godolkin still treated the G-Men like they were more than a vehicle for reality shows.

No, it was the payload. 

Something ripped its way through her nervous system like someone had hooked jumper cables to her spine, every muscle fiber in a full-body cramp that made her flight stutter and wobble. Sh-shit! Nubia dropped a good fifteen feet — ass almost kissing the pavement — before she could compensate, wind resistance suddenly fighting against her like she was flying through molasses instead of open air.

"Escudo, cover me!" The lead bitch was already moving, rebar in her hands starting to glow with that sick orange light that meant molecular fuckery. The metal edge was sharpening itself into something that could probably slice through reinforced steel. Of course they had a molecular manipulator. 

Because it was just her luck that street supes were getting stronger now.

Focus. She needed to focus on the fucking fight. 

Everything else was just noise and distraction, standard pack tactics designed to overwhelm a single target. Nubia poured on speed, air shuddering behind her as she pushed her flight well into the triple digits, the world blurring into streaks of color and motion. One pissed-off mom with thirty tons of strength; all of it locked onto target.

A blue shield snapped into existence right in her path. Seriously? 

Nubia didn't slow down. 

No, Nubia couldn’t slow down.

Physics was physics; momentum was momentum, and shit didn’t always stop just because superpoiwers were a thing. Nubia grunted as she hit the barrier shoulder-first, a good twenty tons of kinetic energy transferred in a microsecond that sent spiderweb cracks racing across the surface. 

The first shield shattered like safety glass, fragments dissolving into sparkles of blue light. The second one behind it bucked and warped but held for exactly three seconds before her follow-through punch sent the shielder flying backward into a parked SUV, his concentration and defensive wall both collapsing.

While she was busy with barrier boy, Chatarra had been working. A yellow taxi, gushing red as it spun torn straight from the concrete, came spinning toward her at high speed end over end. 

No room to dodge, no time to catch.

Fine.

Nubia twisted mid-air and met it with her right fist. The impact was a full-body shock that rattled her teeth; her hand punched clean through the engine block in an explosion of twisted metal and hot oil, but the rest of the two-ton vehicle slammed into her like a freight train, bone jarring with the collision and letting her know she’d be paying for it after.

They were good. Almost professional-level teamwork that spoke to more than just basic street-level thuggery.

And she was alone.

Her boots hit asphalt with enough force to crater the pavement, flight momentum broken. They were grounding her, boxing her in, turning her advantages into liabilities. Motherfuckers.

Nubia roared, frustration and fury pouring out as raw lightning. Electricity tore from her in a radial burst, the force and shock shattering the remaining holograms into glittering static.

Escudo went stumbling backward as his shield flickered and died, bought her maybe three seconds of breathing room. But the effort left phantom aches in her bones, whatever bio-electric bullshit that was from before still scrambling her nervous system.

Ears rang and vision swam even as she was still untangling herself from twisted yellow metal when movement caught her peripheral vision.

A skinny supe stared at her with wild eyes, panic written across his face in neon letters as he hit the ground. Shit.

He opened his mouth and screamed, wordless terror leaving him. 

It wasn’t the only thing.

Thick orange flaiming gel erupted from his throat in a wide spray pattern, napalm-bright and spreading fast toward the street, the fleeing crowds, the front of the building where—

Maya.

Her body was already coiled to move, flight spinning up, but she was tangled in wreckage, momentum broken, too fucking far away, too slow.

"MAYA!"

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Every footstep blurred together as air pressure slammed against him like walking into a glass door made of wind, an invisible wall he had to break through every step. The city streaked past in electric smears of neon and brake lights, everything flickering in and out like a broken television.

Fire. Kids.

It was a single flash of clarity cutting through the roaring chaos of motion, that familiar shudder under his feet that meant he was pushing three-fifty, maybe four hundred by now. He didn’t have time to appreciat the speed, though, his eyes going wide as he  wave of liquid heat rolling across the intersection like ugly napalm, and three little bodies frozen right in its path.

No! Reggie’s stomach lurched as he shifted direction, and he was there. 

One fluid motion, and he scooped a crying boy under his left arm; a second later, he spun a terrified girl under his right, world tilting at impossible angles as momentum tried to turn him into street pizza. The third, an older girl, was frozen in time in his eyes scrambling toward the Apple store like glass and steel could save her from supervillain fire.

Reggie was there, pulling her onto his back in the same heartbeat. Wind pressure nearly ripped her off; he had to slow down just enough to keep her attached, speed dropping to maybe two-hundred as he carried all three of them clear.

Fifty feet away, he skidded to a halt on asphalt that felt hot enough to fry eggs, fire washing over the spot where they'd been standing seconds before. The metal of the building started glowing cherry red, then began to melt like chocolate left in a car. J-jesus… 

Letting out another breath, Reggie set the kids down gentle as he could manage, hands still buzzing from the adrenaline spike. "You're okay," he said, voice coming out raspier than intended, throat feeling like he'd been gargling sandpaper. "You're all ok-!”“MAYA!”

A golden blur landed next to him with a soft thud, and suddenly there was a black woman there, face showing that raw relief that was halfway to crying, halfway to smiling. 

Family. Reggie could tell that much from the way she rushed over to the little girl, pulling her into a hug that looked like it might crack ribs. "Thank you," she breathed, eyes locked on her daughter like she was checking for damage. "You saved her."

"No problem," Reggie said, still catching his breath. He looked at the woman floating there, brain finally catching up as he took in the fit, fine body, those eyes, and the beautiful dark skin wrapped in that tight white and gold bodysuit like a Hershey’s Kiss he wanted to open. "You're… uhhh… umm…"

The relief on her face evaporated, replaced by pure, hot-blooded indignation he remembered seeing on a couple girl’s faces in college. Her posture squared up, one hand on the little girl's shoulder, the other planted firm on her hip. Her voice, when it came, was already halfway to a yell.

"Oh, I see how it is. A nigga joins the Seven, gets a little taste of the top floor, and suddenly he's too good to know who any of the other black supes are. That it?"

Reggie blinked as he looked at her defiant stance, the lingering ozone crackling around her fingertips, and the sheer absurdity of the whole moment just washed over him. A slow, tired, sarcastic grin spread across his face. "…Yeah, that's probably it."

"Probably? I'll tell you what's probable, you arrogant—"

"Mommy, don't be mean to Mr. A-Train!" A small voice cut through her rant like a knife. "He just saved my life!"

The woman's mouth snapped shut as she looked down at her daughter, fury instantly deflating into the chided expression of a parent being corrected in public. Reggie winced internally at the name. Mr. A-Train. 

Right. 

Before the deeply awkward moment could resolve itself, reporters appeared from nowhere, swarming like angry wasps, a frantic wall of cameras and microphones and that hungry energy that meant someone smelled a story.

"A-Train! Was that your official return to hero work?"

"An incredible save! Are you considering rejoining The Seven after this?"

Some sleazy entertainment blog reporter shoved his phone past the others, camera light bright enough to blind. "You and Starlight are on the rocks! Is it true you're with Nubia now?"

Questions became meaningless white noise washing over him. Reggie's adrenaline-soaked brain, still processing explosion and fire and rescue and this bizarrely aggressive woman who apparently had a name, snagged on only the last, most ludicrous sentence. He stared blankly at the reporter, and live on tv, he said the only honest thing his short-circuiting mind could produce.

"Who the hell is Nubia?"