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“Like I said, I’m getting lunch with Henry, and I will be unreachable.” Ray said into his phone before tossing it out the van’s window.
“Did you just throw away your phone?”
“I always like to keep a spare,” Ray replied, pulling a second phone from his pocket. “Guess I’m just built different.”
Henry rolled his eyes and smiled. He missed this, and he always looked forward to visiting Ray to get lunch as often as he could make it to Swellview. He would love to stay for longer visits, but the longer he stayed in Swellview, the longer he was away from Dystopia, and as much as he didn’t care for Dystopia, he cared a lot about the one person who kept him going back: Jasper.
Jasper, the one source of light in Henry’s life when everything else about living in Dystopia was bleak and depressing. Sure, it was a privilege having a superpower that could help him save lives and all, but if Jasper hadn’t stayed there with him, Henry would have been gone a long time ago. Jasper enjoyed the city life, and Henry was just happy to support his boyfriend.
No, his fiancé, Henry corrected himself, catching himself smiling at the wheel, unable to keep from letting his teeth show. God, thinking of Jasper made him feel like a teenage girl at a sleepover.
“What’s got you giggling like a schoolgirl over there, kid?” Ray asked, pulling Henry back out of his thoughts.
Oops, guess he was kicking his feet and giggling.
Right, that was the purpose of this particular trip to Swellview. To tell Ray he was engaged, invite him to the wedding, and hopefully, Ray would accept his request to be his best man.
In all of the conversations they shared on the phone, it just… hadn’t come up that he was seeing anyone on such a serious level, that he wasn’t solely attracted to women, or that he was getting married to Jasper, of all people.
Henry knew Ray wouldn’t be weird weird about it; he’d only have that normal brand of Ray 'weirdness' that came with every interaction with the guy. Ray wouldn’t care that Henry was bisexual or getting married to a man, but he might care that that man was Jasper.
“Hello? Earth to Henry?” Ray prompted, when Henry didn’t reply to him right away.
Henry finally snapped out of it, realizing they were nearing their destination: the close Nacho Ball.
“Sorry, Ray, I was just…thinking.” He tried to hide his happiness, but could feel the smile creeping up on his cheeks again.
“Just thinking? Then why are you smiling like that?”
“Well, after we pick up our food and head to the overlook on Mount Swellview like we planned, maybe I will let you know what the big news is,” Henry teased, excited to share the news of his engagement, as nervous as he was.
“Ooo, there’s big news?” Ray asked as Henry unbuckled himself to go grab their food.
“Wait and see,” Henry teased again. “Be right back.”
He only took a moment to grab their to-go order off the shelf, and came back to Ray stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Henry said, climbing back into the van and tossing the bag onto Ray’s lap, carefully setting their drinks in the cupholders.
“Well, I’m just thinking of what my best buddy’s big news could possibly be,” He said excitedly, shuffling around in the bag for their straws and punching them through the drink lids.
“Well, don’t try to guess, because—”
“I’m gonna try and guess: you’re moving back to Swellview?”
Henry knew that would be Ray’s first assumption. He just started the engine and began to back out of the parking spot. “Nope, and don’t try again,” he said.
“If you’re not moving back to Swellview, then I don’t know what other news could be considered big.”
Henry chuckled and sat in a restless silence for as long as he could. All right, maybe he’d give Ray a little hint; it’d take them a few more minutes to get to the overlook, and he wasn’t sure he could wait that long without talking about his engagement now that he was thinking about it.
“Well, if you take a look at my left hand,” Henry offered, reaching across his body to show Ray the plain titanium band on his ring finger.
“Oh, you got your nails done? They look nice, but that’s not news—”
Henry should have expected this. “No dude, the ring? On my ring finger?” Henry made quick glances at Ray, switching between looks of annoyance and keeping his eyes on the road.
“Oh wow, yeah, look at that!” Ray took hold of Henry’s hand to focus on the piece of jewelry.
Ray still wasn’t getting it.
“And what do rings on the ring finger of the left hand usually symbolize…?” he prompted slowly, waiting for the lightbulb to go off.
Ray gasped. “No way! Henry Hart, you dog, have you gotten married since the last time I saw you?”
Henry laughed again, taking his hand back and replacing it on the steering wheel. “Actually, Ray, I’m just engaged. You really think I would have an entire wedding and not tell you about it?”
“Well, I haven’t heard anything from you about this girl you’re engaged to, so I wouldn’t put it past you to leave dear old Ray out of the loop entirely!”
And there it was, making Henry’s smile falter just a tad. This was fine. This was going to go fine. He wasn’t worried.
Not at all.
“Well…I’ll tell you about… everything in a few minutes,” Henry settled on leaving pronouns out of the picture entirely.
“Oh my God, kid, I have like, a million questions!” Henry could feel the energy coming from the passenger seat, and Ray kept on talking. “When did you meet? Where did you meet? In Dystopia? Have you even been away long enough to build that kind of relationship with someone?”
“Hey, didn’t you once get engaged to a woman after only knowing her for three hours?” Henry quipped, recalling one of the many memories he would never let Ray live down.
“I was drugged, and you know it. It doesn’t count,” Ray slumped in his childish way.
Henry couldn’t help but grin again. He was with one of his closest friends, about to brag about the love of his life, and it was a gorgeous day to take in the views of the city from the overlook. Life was good.
Ray spoke up. “Speaking of, didn’t that same woman make you fall in love with Jasper? Pfft, now that’s a story to tell at the wedding.” He cracked up at his own joke.
Ah. Nevermind.
This will be fine, Henry reassured himself, swallowing hard as he pulled the van into an empty space that was partially shaded by a tree.
“Oh wow, take a look at that view,” Ray said,
“And also the city,” Henry said in unison with him, used to the one joke that Ray made whenever they came up here: ‘no Henry, I’m the view!’
Once their laughter died down, the stillness of the engine suddenly had Henry’s heart beating louder than it had any right to.
He had no reason to be this nervous, right?
Henry took a rushed sip of soda as Ray began to unwrap one of his nacho balls. “So, tell me about the lucky lady! What was the proposal like? How’d you do it? Is it a Dystopia thing for guys to wear the engagement ring?”
Henry sighed and nodded to himself. He should have expected this. He could ease Ray into it.
“Well, for starters, it’s not a ‘Dystopia thing,’ it’s just an ‘us’ thing. We both got engagement rings so we could brag to the world about how much we love each other,” Henry flashed the piece of jewelry again. It was as simple as they come: a three millimeter titanium band, picked out by Jasper, who knew Henry’s preferences better than Henry did. Jasper’s ring was almost the same, with the only difference being a tiny green lab-grown diamond set flush in the band.
“I didn’t know you liked green that much,” Henry had asked when Jasper showed him his ring for the first time. “Is blue not your favorite anymore?”
“Nope.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since you crashed that blimp into Mount Swellview and I saw that little flash of green light that meant you were still alive,” Jasper responded, and Henry’s heart melted. He then felt panicked because he’d been buying blue decor for their apartment all along, thinking it’s what Jasper would have liked the best. Jasper just laughed and kissed him.
Henry pulled himself out of the memory to continue, “And, uh, actually, I was the one who was proposed to. I didn’t plan shit.” Henry admitted light-heartedly, taking a small bite out of his food, trying to feel out Ray’s reaction.
“Is that a Dystopia thing? For the woman to propose?”
What a dumbass.
Okay, here goes:
“No, Ray, I—I’m getting married to a guy, okay?”
Ray’s expression stayed confused. “Really?”
Henry had no idea what the hell that meant.
“Are you gonna be cool, or…?”
Ray quickly shook the confusion out. “Wait, no, Henry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, of course I’m cool with whoever you love, did—did you think I wasn’t going to be cool about that?” He seemed offended now.
“So then, why did you say ‘really?’ like that?” Henry imitated him, admittedly a little exaggerated for comedic effect.
“I don’t sound like that, and I didn’t mean—okay, hold on.” Ray took a breath. “I just mean…you never seemed interested in any guys when you were in high school. I’m happy for you, of course! Definitely! Just surprised.”
Funny story, Ray… Henry thought, and he was still not yet ready to tell him it was Jasper.
At Henry’s silence, Ray continued thinking out loud: “is that a Dystopia thing? Being gay?”
Henry let out a loud laugh at that, tears welling up in his eyes.
“What? Why is that so funny?”
Henry couldn’t wait to tell Jasper about this later. “No, it’s not a Dystopia thing, and you gotta stop asking that, dude,” he said between spurts of calmer laughter, “and I’m not gay, I’m bisexual.”
He expected Ray to follow up with, ‘is being bisexual a Dystopia thing?’ but instead, Ray just said, “Oh well, yeah. Who isn’t, honestly?” and took another bite as if he didn’t just… come out to Henry?
Is that what happened?
“Aaaanyray,” Ray continued after swallowing, “tell me about how he proposed, then. Were you surprised? Was it magical and everything you ever dreamed of?” He asked, only a hint of teasing in his tone.
Henry wanted to back up and address Ray being bisexual, but he also wasn’t going to give up a chance to talk about Jasper when Ray was so attentive.
“Well, I never really thought about being proposed to, and I didn’t understand why it was such a huge deal for some people, until he gushed about all the ways he dreamed of as a kid. He had, like, a thousand different scenarios cooked up in his head, and once we talked about the possibility of getting married, he started telling me about a few of them every day. I thought he was trying to drop hints so I could set up the perfect proposal for him, but there weren’t many things in common with each one that he talked about, and he never told me what specifically to avoid, or certain things that just had to be there.
“But then, one morning, before w—I went out on patrol, there was one proposal he described taking place on top of one of Dystopia’s tallest buildings, in the middle of the night, with only the lights and sounds of the city below. We would be above it all, on a crime-free night with no distractions, and we might light a few candles, share a bottle of wine and a slice of cake, and that was it. Nothing big or fancy, just a night for us. And I thought that was the best idea he’d had yet.
“And after that, he didn’t tell me about any more proposal ideas, so I thought, ‘oh, that’s how he wants to be proposed to!’ and then, ‘oh shit, how am I gonna make it perfect for him, since he’s obviously put a lot of thought into it, and I gotta find a ring he’ll like, and make sure he’s not busy on the right night to do it—’”
“So how’d you do it?” Ray interrupted, “or, no, wait, you said he proposed to you?” Henry honestly couldn’t believe Ray was so invested.
“Well, I got scared that I couldn’t do it perfectly, so my plan was to just put it off for the time being. But, a few days after that morning, on a Tuesday night—which, if you’re unaware, is statistically Dystopia’s most crime-free night—he called to tell me about an emergency on top of one of Dystopia’s tallest buildings. Now, I’m of course thinking about how my usual Tuesday night chill is being interrupted by crime, so I show up ready to kick some ass, only to find Ja—him there, waiting with a few lit candles, a bottle of wine, and a slice of my favorite cake from the diner we usually eat at.”
When Henry finished, he looked up at Ray, who was between bites of food, completely enamored by Henry’s storytelling.
“Henry, that is the single most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Henry broke into a huge smile again. “I’m not gonna lie to you, dude, there were tears. I…cried like a baby. I was sobbing.”
“Yeah, I bet you were, who wouldn’t be?”
They talked over each other like that for a few seconds, laughing between words.
Henry really missed this.
“So, your fiancé came up with a bunch of different proposals and waited until you gave a really positive reaction to one for him to decide that’s how he’d do it?”
“Yep, and I thought for sure I was supposed to be the one setting it up, so it took me completely by surprise.”
“That’s insanely clever. He sounds like a really smart person,” Ray commented, sipping the last of his soda.
“Hmm,” Henry nodded, humming through pressed lips and widened eyes.
“Wh—what’s that? That face you made?”
“Face? I didn’t make a face,”
“No, you did, that’s your ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do next,’ face. Why make it?”
“No, I didn’t even make the face, so—”
“You did, you did—”
“Enhhh—”
“Do you not think your fiancé is a smart person?”
“Well, I do, but you—”
Their bickering was interrupted by Henry’s ringtone.
Jasper.
“Who’s that?”
“Okay, hold on one sec, Ray,” Henry kept the caller ID out of Ray’s view, pressing his phone to his left ear. “Hey babe, how’s it going?”
“I was just thinking of you and how it went with Ray,” Jasper replied. “Did he say yes?”
“Uhhh…” Henry looked up at Ray who mouthed, ‘is that him? Your fiancé?’ Henry nodded. “I actually haven’t asked him yet; I was too busy telling him about how you proposed, and he said it was a very clever way to figure out how I would like to be proposed to. He thinks you’re smart.”
“So you haven’t told him it’s me you’re getting married to, yet?”
“Nope, I’m working on it,” He heard Jasper chuckle on the other end. “Can I call you back in a few?”
“Of course. Love you! Click.”
“Love you too. Click.”
“Aw, you do the ‘click’ thing with him? It was our thing first,” Ray complained.
“What? No it wasn’t, you stole it when—” When you heard me say it to Jasper for the first time like seven years ago, Henry finished in his head.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you did it with Jasper first, but then we started doing it, so I think that takes president over some ‘love of your life.’” Ray rolled his eyes and made air quotations to emphasize his point.
Henry opened his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “Do you mean precedence?”
“No, like, ‘president.’ Like, the job of the president is super important, and I am also super important because we’ve known each other longer than you’ve known your fiancé?”
Henry sighed. Wrong and wrong. Some things never changed.
“But wait, you said you wanted to ask me something?”
“Did I?”
“Yeah, on the phone, you told him you haven’t asked me yet. Asked me what?”
Damn Ray and his perfect memory today.
“Well,” Henry said, crinkling up the garbage in his lap and shoving it into the empty Nacho Ball bag, “I actually had, like, a whole thing to go through, so… I’ll do that now, I guess.”
Henry took a deep breath. This feels awkward.
“Ray,” he began, “For the last nine, almost ten, years, you’ve been one of the most important people in my life. You’ve always been there for me, even when my life was at risk, and frankly, I’m not sure how I lived into adulthood, but—”
“What is this, did you rehearse this? Is this rehearsed?”
“Will you let me finish? Stop ruining the moment, man—”
“This sounds like either a proposal, or you’re breaking up with me, and you’ve already been proposed to, so—”
“What? No, dude,” Henry was exhausted at this point. “Stop making it weird. I’m just trying to ask: will you be the best man at my wedding?”
Ray chuckled. “Well, of course I’d be the best man there, I’m literally Captain Ma— oh.”
Fucking finally.
Henry tried to pick up some more of what he had planned to say. “Listen, I just wanted to tell you that I’ve known you for a long time, you mean a lot to me, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you, so I would be honored to have you there on a very special day. We don’t have a date picked out yet, but it’s going to be a small ceremony here in Swellview, and—”
Ray reached over the console between them to wrap him in a hug, nearly crushing Henry with the awkward angle.
“Of course, Henry. Of course. I’d be so happy to be there for you.” Ray said, and Henry smiled.
Ray then pulled back from the hug with a quizzical look. “Now, you’ve already asked me and I’ve already said yes, so no take-backsies,” He paused until Henry acknowledged this, “but, I’m surprised you didn’t ask Jasper to be your best man. Haven’t you guys been attached at the hip since you were born, or something?”
“We’ve been best friends since we were five, yes,” Henry corrected.
“Yeah, so… why not ask him? Are you guys still friends?”
Henry smiled and sighed. “Ray.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m marrying Jasper.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m marrying Jasper.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s what I thought you said.” A beat of silence. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? You had two reasons yourself: he’s smart and clever.”
“I did not say—oh, I guess I did, then…” Ray stayed in thought for a moment that felt much too long for Henry’s liking, and then asked, “Does he treat you well?”
“The best.”
“Tell me more.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, the proposal he did for you sounded sweet, and it makes me happy to hear that you’re being taken care of.”
“Are you really just asking for more ideas of romantic gestures to try on women?”
“No!” Ray protested, before adding, “Men too,”
That’s right, he’s bisexual! I forgot!
But, before Henry could ask about Ray’s bisexuality, his mouth was already rambling about Jasper.
“We go out for dinner at least once every other week, at that diner I told you he got the cake from,” Henry kept smiling. “And there’s this park not too far from there, in the middle of the city, where we’ll take a walk together if the weather’s nice enough. And sometimes, we’ll get an alert in the middle of date night, but that’s okay, too, because it’s just more time we can spend together while also saving people’s lives, which is pretty badass.”
“Power couple.”
Henry snorted. “Exactly. You get it.”
Ray reached to grab Henry’s soda from the cupholder, and before Henry could get it back, Ray asked, “Did I somehow miss you guys dating in high school? When did you start going out?”
Henry, feeling like this was just a ploy for Ray to steal his soda without consequence, took the bait on purpose. He didn’t mind, if it meant talking about Jasper.
“Looking back now, I know I had liked him for a long time, and I learned he had felt the same way for years, too, even though neither of us understood those feelings until…” Henry leaned back and clicked his tongue in thought, “After I lost my hypermotility. When Jasper was telling me that I could still get back out there, superpowers or not, something just clicked, and I realized that considering everything that’s happened in my life—being Captain Man’s sidekick, having to lie all the time, putting my life at risk almost every day—it’s a lot for anyone to handle, but Jasper stayed by my side the entire time. Even when I was about to give up, knowing that not being Kid Danger anymore might’ve made our friendship a whole lot easier, Jasper was thinking about me. He’s always thought about me.”
“So you asked him out after that?” Another noisy soda sip.
“Hell no,” Henry said. “I could’ve ruined our entire friendship if he didn’t feel the same way.”
“But you said he also liked you for a long time,”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that then.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Will you let me, like, talk through my whole emotional journey here?”
“If you hurry up.” Sip.
“So, I had all these pent up feelings, and I tried to make them go away, because how could I possibly be in love with my best friend of thirteen years? I liked our friendship too much and I was too scared to ruin it.”
“You said that already.”
Henry ignored him. “But when we were on that blimp fighting Drex, and I pulled your cord so I’d crash into Mount Swellview on my own, I really thought I was going to die. I was about to die, and I never told Jasper exactly what he meant to me," Henry scoffed at his own stupidity. "I was brave enough to die, but too much of a coward to tell a guy I wanted to go out with him."
Ray was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, taking the time to remember the aftermath of the explosion and the few moments of panic surrounding Henry’s 'death' before the kid’s voice came back through the comms. “And then you lived,” Ray said gently.
“And then I lived, and I knew that I had to tell Jasper everything, even if it weirded him out and it ended our friendship. He had to know.”
“When did you tell him?”
“I’m getting there, Ray.” So impatient. “That night, Jasper came over to my house to see how I was doing, and we sat in my room, and…”
Henry thought about that night. How scared Jasper looked at Henry’s front door, with the tension in his eyebrows and the puffiness of his eyes that said he had just been crying. When they moved into Henry’s room, they sat side-by-side on his bed in silence. Henry wrapped an arm around Jasper’s shoulders, and Jasper leaned into Henry’s body, resting his head in the crook of Henry’s neck. Henry tilted his head to let it rest on Jasper’s, and all felt right in the world.
Henry remembered feeling his heart pound and his stomach flip. It was comical how nervous he felt in the moment, compared to his suicide mission on the blimp. He felt Jasper’s warm breath on his neck with every exhale, and Henry’s entire body stiffened. He should back out of this. Yeah, he couldn’t do it. He was going to take his feelings to the grave—
“Henry,” Jasper said, still tucked into his neck, “Are you okay? Like, actually okay?”
“Yeah, man,” Henry stuttered out on the third attempt, “I’m great.”
“Hmm.” Jasper hummed in acknowledgement and relaxed back into Henry.
Henry licked his chapped lips and swallowed, and he was just…aware of Jasper’s presence. Henry lightly rubbed Jasper’s shoulder with his thumb. They’d always been somewhat physically affectionate with each other, and considering the night’s events, this wasn’t technically out of their comfort zone.
And Henry could happily live in that comfort zone until he died, in a fiery blimp explosion or otherwise, because there was no way in hell he’d ever risk losing moments like these with—
“Henry,” Jasper began again, pulling his head away from Henry’s shoulder and looking him in the eyes, “I have to tell you something.”
The absence of Jasper’s touch felt heavy and cold. “Okay,” replied Henry, only thinking of Jasper hurrying up so they could keep cuddling.
“I’m in love with you, and I have been for a very long time.” Jasper stated, straight and to the point.
Hmm?
“I’m in love with you, and I have been for a very long time,” Jasper repeated, making Henry realize he ‘hmm’ed his confusion aloud, “And, please tell me you understood that, because I don’t think I can confess a third time.”
Henry forgot how to speak, but his face must have said something because Jasper continued, “and it’s okay if you don’t like me back in that way; I’ve accepted that it’s okay, but I just needed to tell you because you are my best friend first, and as we were rushing out of the Man Cave tonight, I—I thought you were dead, Henry, and I never told you how I felt,” Jasper blinked, keeping any potential tears at bay, “I thought you were gone, and I wished I was up on that blimp with you, because I didn’t want to live in a world without Henry Hart.”
Henry sat in silence for four painfully loud heartbeats before his mouth could catch up to his brain.
“I love you too, Jasper,” Henry finally managed, “and I would really like to kiss you, if that’s okay.”
Jasper’s expression softened, radiating the warm energy that made Henry fall for him in the first place. Jasper nodded, his eyes flicking down to Henry’s lips and back up to his eyes as Henry did the same.
Their first kiss was soft and sweet, in disbelief that this could really be happening. They found confidence and kissed again, hands cupping each other’s faces, and again, with hands finding purchase around each other’s bodies, and again, kisses moving from lips to jaws to necks, and—
Hoo boy, that whole confession should actually just stay between him and Jasper. Henry summarized it for Ray: “I was actually set on bailing on telling him how I felt, until Jasper confessed to me first, and that was that.”
"Jasper seems to do a lot of the 'doing' in this relationship," Ray remarked, followed by, “Did you kiss?”
Henry felt his face get hot; this was suddenly very embarrassing. “Yes, Ray, we kissed.”
“And then did you—”
“You are like a father to me and I am not telling you anything else. Don’t be weird.”
Ray shrugged with a loud sip, indicating he had finished Henry’s drink, too. “That’s fair.”
Henry stuck his key back in the ignition. “Are you ready to head back?”
“Yeah, but shouldn’t you call Jasper back first and tell him the good news?”
“Shit, I forgot. Thanks, Ray.” Henry said, pulling his phone back out of his pocket to select Jasper’s name from his contacts.
“Hey, that’s what your best man is there for.”
“And after this call, we’re gonna talk about some of the men you’ve dated,” Henry said, and before Ray could reply, Jasper was on speakerphone with the two of them, talking about his ideas for the wedding.
Life was good.