Project ROWDY 2-14A: Debbie

The backyard was full of capes — some of them actual physical capes — as much as it was packed tight with balloons of every color. The mass of superpowers and costumes in a normal setting was something that had stopped finding all that surreal about fifty-something disasters back. 

Now it was just another Wednesday, or maybe a Saturday.

She honestly wasn’t sure without checking, some of the days sort of blurring together into one long stretch of held breaths and tears. A year… It’d been a whole year now since Mark’s powers came in, since her whole life started falling apart. 

Barely five months since Nolan but a whole year since this all started. 

It felt longer, somehow.

“-nd and then, like the guy stopped right there!” A familiar bubbly voice carried over the low hum of conversation and right into her ears, electric and pitched high with the kind of enthusiasm only a thirteen-year-old could sustain after describing the same fight for the third time.

“So Brick just looked at him, right? Like this—” The blond boy demonstrated by floating a few feet off the grass, his face going flat and unimpressed in a way that would’ve been funnier if it the object of impression wasn’t just a few feet away.

“And the guy’s all confused because he can’t understand English, so he’s yelling in Chinese, and Brick’s just standing there like ‘are you done?’”

Butch snorted loud. “Yeaaaaahhh, he was lame.” The black-haired boy leaned up against the Dragon family’s wooden fence, arms crossed over his jade-green jacket. “Watch him throw a punch and he’d fly a mile with nothin’ even landing. Just a boring brick.”

“I mean…” Boomer corrected his brother, still grinning wide. “He was just like Vince.”

A scoff left Butch as he threw back his hair. “At least Vince speaks English. Guy had terrible timing too…”

“Terrible everything,” Brick added quietly from where he sat on the porch steps, his eyes still firmly on whatever piece of technology he was fiddling with. Debbie didn’t know why he’d come to a party with a set of screwdrivers but she didn’t really question anything the redhead did past a certain point. She watched him for a second, the way his shoulders stayed locked even when he was sitting still, unsure if he was actually bored or just being Brick. 

“Yeah.” Butch scoffed, kicking at a loose clod of dirt. “Like twelve seconds total.”

The birthday boy, skin as green as Butch’s eyes and a small fin atop his head to match his father, pushed his way through the small-crowd of other kids who’d surrounded the three teenage heroes to listen. “Twelve seconds? That’s it?” Malcolm Dragon’s voice cracked a little on the last word, a small frown pinching his nine-year-old face. “My dad said hero fights take longer than tha-”

“Your dad wasn’t there.” Butch’s answer came quick.

“Yeah, but he hear-”

“Kid.” Butch’s grin was all teeth as he leaned forward just enough to make the younger boy step back. “It was my fight. If I say twelve seconds, it was twelve seconds.”

“Stop asking dumb questions.” Blonde and eleven and already wielding her big-sister authority like a blunt instrument, Angel Dragon smacked her step-brother on the shoulder with one hand, the other holding an odd-looking red doll that seemed like some sort of caveman. “They’re heroes, Mal. They don’t have to explain stuff to you.”

“I wasn’t asking d-”

“You were.” She fixed him with a glare that quieted him, that doll seeming to grin at her side as she gripped it tighter.

Debbie watched them from the patio, a glass of lemonade sweating into one palm and a small, creased card tucked into the other. The same card Olga had given her; it’d been sitting in her purse for a whole week, ever since she dropped Mark off at college.

She still hadn't decided if she was actually going to use it. 

Or if it would even help.

“Twelve seconds is about right if you hit ‘em before they monologue.” The big man with a thick head of blond hair offered from the cooler, gruff baritone cutting through the bickering. Justice Farrell, still in full super-patriotic costume, tossed a bottle of Snapple to his sister. “Situation, plan, execute. Ya follow?”

Liberty caught the glass without looking, popping the cap with a bright laugh that sounded like talk-radio on a good morning. “Oh, absolutely. Though, normally dat’s when half of Freak Force shows up late and starts tripping over the rubble.”

Jennifer Dragon walked out the back door carrying a tray of sliced watermelon, another unrelated and super-strong blonde joining the other two. “Hey now, Freak Force does not trip over rubble. We strategically reposition it.”

“Sure you do, Jen,” Liberty teased, leaning against the siding. “I saw Ricochet step on a car hood last week and bounce straight into a dumpster.”

“The car was heavily waxed,” Jennifer shot back as she set the tray down. She looked over at Debbie, a maternal projection that could cut through bullshit from fifty yards away. “You eating today, Deb, or just drinking your weight in citrus?”

Debbie managed a small smile, as dry as the lemonade wasn’t. “Citrus prevents scurvy, Jennifer. I’m thinking ahead.”

It was easier to joke. It was a muscle memory she could reach for when being too serious felt like drowning.

Before her head could go under water, Claire Armstrong slid into the seat across from her, the blonde woman holding two fresh glasses and wearing a kind smile.

“Refill?” she held one out, voice bright as the sun above. The woman had been her invite to this party, as unexpected as that was. Even without Cecil’s help to make Nolan’s books sell, there was still money coming in from them and — surprisingly — Claire worked at the publisher that handled his worl.

“I’m good.” Even as she said that, she took the glass anyway, running the same motions she’d been running on since Atlanta. 

“John’s got the grill under control.” Claire nodded over toward where SuperPatriot stood with the Dragon himself, both man of steel and man of green deep in what appeared to be a serious conversation about charcoal distribution.

“Propane is a crutch, Paul,” SuperPatriot gestured with ridged arms, sounding oddly mellow for someone that was at least half-metal. “It’s chemistry without soul. You might as well microwave the damn hotdogs.”

The Dragon let out a gravelly grunt, crossing his massive arms and shaking that thick neck of his. “John, I’m green, not a purist. It cooks the meat.”

Claire leaned back, her voice dropping into fond exasperation. “Which means we’ve got about ten minutes before he starts lecturing about propane being for cowards.”

Debbie’s mouth twitched, her smile muscles fighting her. “Does he actually believe that, or is it just part of the All-American persona?”

“Oh, he believes it.” Claire sighed, watching her husband. “Lived through three of the big wars and a cultural revolution, but propane is where he draws the line.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the kind Debbie had been learning to navigate lately when grief made small talk feel performative.

Elizabeth Armstrong walked past them, balancing two paper plates of food as she spoke to her older cousin. “I’m just saying, Dami, if you’re going to use the telekinesis to flip the burgers, you should at least make sure they land on the grill and not in the grass.”

Justin trailed behind her, vowels dragging lazy and rhythmic. “Uh, no, but like, seriously, bro, like you need some practice?”

Liberty’s son, taller than she was and nearly as broad in the shoulders as his uncle, leaned up against a tree with a burger in hand. “I still cook better than you either way.”

“You burn toast, cuzzo.”

Claire watched her children and their cousin trade friendly shots, shaking her head before looking back at Debbie. Her smile softened a bit more as she leaned in. “How are you holding up, Deb? Really?”

Debbie looked down at the card in her hand and turned it over, the black cardstock holding nothing but a phone number and a promise of someone to talk to who specialized in spouses like… like Nolan.

“I… I really wish I knew sometimes, Claire.” The sentence stopped there, Debbie stopping it before it could break. “Twenty years versus five months, it’s…” She pursed her lips, words failing her in exactly the way she’d feared. “It’s a lot. Sometimes I only think I’m fine because of Mark and that I have to be strong for him, and I’m not really sure that counts as fine.”

“It counts.” Claire’s voice was firm.

Debbie nodded, not quite believing it, but appreciating the attempt. She glanced over at the boys — boys that almost felt like her own now — two of which who were now demonstrating some kind of mid-air maneuver to an increasingly wide-eyed Malcolm.

“Mark’s in space.”

The words slipped free before Debbie could stop it, her mouth moving for her instead of the other way around. Either way, the three words hung in the hot Chicago air like a dropped plate as Claire blinked.

“Saving some alien species from... I don’t even remember what Cecil said. Something about bugs.” Debbie took a breath. “Or squids. Maybe both.”

“Your son is in space.” 

“Yeah.”

“Saving aliens.”

“Yeah.” Debbie let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it had more air behind it. And he couldn’t even call to tell me himself. “Saving aliens.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –