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I didn’t need his help. That damn South Valley asshole with his stupid cape and his stupid suave smile . Why does he always need to invade Centerview, my city? He always shows up when I don’t need his help. Well, I was falling from the sky after my boosters shorted. And I was plummeting to the earth like a rock. Okay, maybe I did need his help, but I certainly didn’t want it. I could’ve gotten my system up and running again with just enough time to catch myself before hitting the ground. Probably.
Yet here I was dangling through the air with his forearm wrapped under my armpit. He lowered me onto a rooftop somewhere on Main street and smiles at me from behind his mask.
“Professor Fowl got the advantage again, huh?” he grins.
“She just- I mean, it’s not like- ugh . Who asked you to show up?” I grumbled.
“Well, I was just passing through on my way to Verndale when I saw a person falling out of the sky. I didn’t know it was going to be Centerview’s own Hotman ,” he shrugged. “Guess it’s my lucky day.”
I lifted the mask that covered the top half of my face.
“I had the situation well underway and now, because of you , Fowl’s getting away! I’ve been trying to track her down for weeks!”
He just stared at me, stunned.
“ What ?” I hissed.
“It’s just- I’m sorry. You’re Leo Valdez, right?”
I was shocked. Very few people knew my vigilante identity, let alone my actual name . It wasn’t like I was famous or anything. I was just a guy. No one would have known that it was me. Especially not Bolt .
“What- how do you-” I started but then he removed his mask. I felt my heart flutter a little as I recognized him. I was struck speechless.
“It’s me! Jason Grace! We went to the same high school.”
I knew that the second he pulled up the cover around his eyes. In high school, Jason Grace was a cool guy. He got good grades, he was a Safety on the football team, widely adored by the school. But he was also nice. He often found himself hanging out with some guys on the football team who were real assholes , but Jason Grace never hesitated to call out rude behavior. In fact, he had defended me from a few of the senior football players. They’d been mocking my inability to sit still for more than five seconds and the way I fidget with really whatever is in my hands.
He was basically a god in our high school and I was a scrappy little nobody. How was it even possible that he remembered my name?
“Yeah, of course,” I stammered. “I didn’t know you could-”
“Fly? Shoot lightning out of my fingers?” he finished. “Yeah, I didn’t know until a couple years ago either.” His eyes flitted away and I wanted to ask what happened but decided against it.
“Anyway, I had no idea that you were meta too. I would’ve hit you up, but I guess I just kind of figured you were like the others in our high school.”
“Well, not everyone from our high school was ‘normal’,” I said, emphasizing with air quotes. “You remember Piper McLean, right?”
“I mean, yeah. We did date for a while after high school.”
“She’s persuasive.”
“Yeah, she showed me one time.”
There was an awkward silence. We didn’t talk in high school. We weren’t friends, we had nothing in common. Well, I guess almost nothing.
“So, I’m sorry. I haven’t done a lot of research on Centerview’s Hotman. What do you... do exactly?” Jason Grace was rubbing his neck, looking a little pink in the cheeks. It was cute. He looked like he was getting flustered, but why? It couldn’t be over me. His eyes met mine. Electric blue piercing through my brown. I felt myself getting lost in them, knowing that there was very little I could do to fight it.
“Sorry, what?” I half mumbled, feeling the tips of my ears get hot.
“I just was asking about your abilities.”
“Right, right. Well, I, uh. I build things,” I shrugged.
“Wait,” Jason said, moving closer to inspect the suit I was wearing. “Did you build this ?”
“I mean, yeah. They don’t exactly have ‘Vigilante Mart’ around here.”
Jason was circling me, looking at the various pieces of my suit. I felt like I was going to become a puddle in the bottom of my boots.
“This is incredible, but what powers it? I didn’t think I saw a source?”
I sighed. It was always hard for me to show people this, whether I was close with them or not.
“ I do,” I admitted, removing one glove and holding my hand out. A second later, a small flame started to dance around my palm, making lazy rings up my fingers.
Jason’s eyes widened as he stared at the flames. He started to reach his hand out, as though to touch mine but stopped just short of it. I figured he could probably feel the warmth of the small fire.
“That’s…” he trailed off, seemingly unable to tear his eyes from my hand. I waited for the inevitable “scary”, “terrible,” and/or “weird”.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, looking away and willing the flames to extinguish themselves, but they stayed as Jason’s hand touched my forearm. In fact, they burned brighter and hotter, turning from their usual orange-yellow color to a slight blue.
“It’s incredible,” Jason finished.
I felt my cheeks heat up and if Jason Grace kept touching my arm like that, it was going to set my entire body on fire. He was going to set my entire body on fire.
When I finally met his eyes again, I wasn’t expecting the kindness in them. He smiled at me, simply before withdrawing his hand. The flames dancing across my hand instantly retreated and I actually felt a little cold.
He took a few steps towards me, closer than anyone who’d seen what I could do had ever dared before.
He was inches from me and I could feel the familiar heat pooling at my fingertips and at the pit of my stomach.
“So,” he half-whispered. I could feel the breath leaving his mouth as he spoke. “Need a lift home?”
His mouth was impossibly close to mine now.
Feeling like an idiot, I nodded. I couldn’t say anything without giving away the breathless feeling he’d given me.
“Then let’s go,” he smirked, wrapping an arm around my waist. Before I knew it, he’d launched us into the sky.
I guess maybe his help wasn’t such a bad thing after all.