Page 141 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“Not really, because I know you’re not going to believe me, but if I’m being honest with you, that’s what I need to tell you,” said the American Dream. “They must have gotten Tag’s paperwork at the same time as we did. We just reacted a tiny bit faster. I’m sorry you didn’t get more of a chance to process. This all sucks. But it really wasn’t Aaron’s fault, and it’s going to be a lot harder to justify helping you if you go and assault my co-CEO.”

Velveteen stared at them for a moment, then turned away, putting a hand over her eyes. Tag moved to settle a hand on her shoulder, while Polychrome and Victory Anna just glared at the three CEOs of The Super Patriots, Inc.

“I have a little bit of sway over government functionality, on account of how I represent the idealized dream of this nation’s future,” said the American Dream, carefully. “Let me make a few calls. I’ll need the Princess and her corporate sponsorship to make this go away, but I can at least make it settle down a little. You’ll need to stay with us until I can get things sorted.”

Velveteen laughed, sounding faintly hysterical. “Oh, just what I always wanted. Being locked back up in corporate housing. No way out until you can convince the entire US government to leave me alone. Should I just have my mail forwarded?”

“It’s not going to be that bad, Vel,” said Action Dude. “I just want to keep you safe. Can you trust me long enough to let Dreamy do whatever it is they’re going to do?”

“If you can’t trust me, trust Night Shift,” said American Dream. “She’s been dating me for over a year. You know she’d never stick around if I was some kind of double-crossing asshole. So let her good opinion fortify your own.”

Victory Anna looked at them with interest. “Fortify?” she asked. “Are you an actual denizen of this society with a reasonable grasp of the language you looted from Epona’s holy empire?”

“No gods no kings,” said American Dream, almost apologetically.

Velveteen lowered her hand, turning back to Action Dude. “You promise this is just until you can call the government off?” she asked.

He nodded, more earnest than eager. “Cross my heart,” he said.

“All right,” said Velveteen. “Let’s kick the government’s ass.”

Polychrome groaned. “Let’s maybe not put it that way, okay?” she suggested.

“Let’s go commit some light treason?”

“Not better!”

Uncertainty stepped in from the hall with a tray of assorted beverages. “I’ve prepared your rooms,” he said, and somehow that was the least surprising thing that had happened all day.

VELVETEEN vs. Uncomfortable Resolutions

Velveteen had spent most of her life sleeping alone. When she was in pain after a patrol or in a particularly bad mood, she still preferred sleeping alone, which was only a problem because they didn’t have any spare bedrooms. On those nights, Tag had to sleep on the couch, and although he always said he understood, asking him to leave the bedroom still caused horrible memories of her parents to rise behind her eyes, her mother throwing her father’s clothes at him as she expelled him from her bed, her father moping all the way into exile. She’d never wanted to be like her parents. Not since she was five years old and realized her mother was never going to protect her, never going to choose her over the bottom of a bottle.

Somehow, sleeping alone in a sterile guest room in The Super Patriots, Inc.’s main dormitory was even worse than sending Tag to sleep on the couch. Uncertainty had done his best with the rooms, but they were still the superheroic equivalent of hotel rooms, clean and white and designed to be cleaned with flamethrowers and bleach.

(Flamethrowers weren’t standard for the kind of hotel rooms favored by ordinary people, but in the few superhero-oriented hotels, the cleaning staff had to be prepared for everything from biological toxins secreted through the fingers to extradimensional nanotechnology that needed to be sterilized before it could go rogue and start devouring the unwary. These rooms were closer to those hotels than they were to anything else. Velveteen was quite sure once this was over and she was allowed to go home, this entire wing of the building would be doused in accelerant and set on fire for the sake of operational safety.)

Tag was two rooms down. Much as she’d wanted to, when the American Dream had announced their rooms were ready, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to demand to be housed with her boyfriend. It seemed wrong, somehow, to be in what was effectively her childhood home and asking to share her temporary quarters with her boyfriend. Now she really wished she’d been willing to push through that feeling, because this was terrible.

Rolling onto her back, she stared at the ceiling, painted the same industrial white as the ceilings in the wing where the junior team members had been housed. They were repainted twice a year, and the smell of fresh paint had always reminded her of those awful, impersonal days, when her living space had been regularly redesigned to fit the desires of the Marketing Department, to make sure the latest merchandise from her personal sponsors was openly displayed. When she’d moved into her first shitty apartment after leaving The Super Patriots, Inc., a newly-minted adult with no money and no prospects, she’d taken an unimaginable delight in leaving her underwear in the center of the bedroom floor, where no one was going to photograph it or demand she put it away.

If this was so hard on her, it had to be even worse for Polychrome, who had actually graduated from those postage-stamp junior hero rooms into a full luxury apartment that was supposedly “hers,” if she ignored the constant redecorating by that same Marketing Department. There was a reason that, after she’d moved in with Vel, she’d spent the first several months at their Portland address “accidentally” leaving her bra in the laundry room, and that reason didn’t have anything to do with an exhibitionist streak.

But at least Polychrome had been willing to insist Victory Anna stay with her, and out of all of them, Victory Anna was the one who had no negative associations with this place, no ghosts lurking in the white walls or the hotel-efficient en suite bathrooms. For her, this had to be an interesting change of scenery, and nothing more alarming than that.

Velveteen rolled over again, trying not to focus on how uncomfortable she was. They were here for their safety, that was all, and when this was over, they could go home. They’d probably find Jackie waiting in the front room, ready for a fight and angry that they hadn’t taken the time to call her before they ran for the hills.

Really, so much of her own backstory made more sense now that Jackie existed again. If she could just keep her entire team on the same plane of reality for a while, she’d have a substantially easier time of things moving forward.

And they were going to move forward. They were going to find a way to stop all this stupid governmental overreach, and they were going to go home, and get on with the superheroic version of living happily ever after. The Princess would probably be delighted to lend a hand in making sure that actually happened for them. They’d always been friends and allies, but after the last few years, Vel considered her a member of the team, someone she would be willing to lay down her life for. It was a wonderful change, being part of a team again.

Because that was the worst part of being here. Part of her—a deep, treacherous, indestructible part of her—had genuinely missed it.

* * *

Even the most megalomaniacal superhuman was still a human being at their core, and like all human beings, they tended to seek connection. Forming teams and social groups came as naturally to them as it did to anyone else, and like anyone else, those groups would be based on shared life experiences, interests, and beliefs. Because of this, even a team of “heroes” might hold positions that the people around them would consider more villainous. No one, not even a superhuman, is purely good or evil.

Most super teams, heroic or villainous, form out of people who have some preexisting association or relationship, or who share similar power levels. Someone who could bench-press a building was unlikely to form a productive team bond with someone who could lift slightly more than the human norm, unless they were related, or members of the same college swim team, or something else that rendered them willing to tolerate each other’s company despite the disparity in their abilities.