Nameless Superhero

"So, you were talking about your first time, before we got distracted."

"Yeah... It's actually fairly embarrassing now that I think about it."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Nah. I'll just try to convince myself it was nothing more than youthful foolishness. Anyway, what happened was I ordered a blow-up sex doll, and I got myself super horny. My power triggered and the sex doll became real."

"Like... alive?" I asked, genuinely horrified.

"No! Thank goodness not. That would've been terrible. No. It just became like a warm body of a girl that was laying there, starfish styling. It wasn't nearly as enjoyable as I'd hoped and when I was done so too was my wish and the sex doll turned back to plastic."

"Wow. That's... Pretty kinky," I remarked, bumping her with my hip.

"Hey! I was young and didn't know any better."

"Sure. Sure," I said with mock skepticism. "Still..." I laid my head against her upper arm. "I hope you weren't too disappointed with your first time. Mine wasn't really anything to write home about."

Remy didn't say anything but she practically vibrated with curiosity for me to continue.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. You told me yours, I guess I can tell you mine." I sighed. "It was with Robert Linderman, and although he wasn't terrible he had the usual adolescent problem of caring more for himself than his partner. At the end of it, I was left feeling quite unsatisfied."

"What happened to young Robert?" she asked, a hint of envy in her voice.

"I dumped him next week after I overheard him telling his friends how much I moaned." I smiled. "I had the last laugh though. Deciding I'd had enough of men, I seduced the head cheerleader, Mandy Summers. She was a much better lover and we lasted through the rest of high school until she went off for some engineering degree at a college on the coast. I think she won a national award in some sort of green energy research or something."

"Do you still keep in touch?"

Now the envy is fairly obvious.

I tightened my arm around her waist in a half-hug that was meant to be reassuring. "Nah. I keep pretty busy between my job and the whole superhero thing. Not a lot of time for socializing. Even less time trying to keep it a secret for my partner's safety." I could see a smug quirk to her lips in her profile at that admission.

"Don't really have to worry about that with me."

"Nope. You removed that option when you tracked me down. How did you do that?"

She tripped half a step and when she regained her stride she was blushing again.

"Wait, was it something naughty?" I prodded her with my elbow, eyes shining with mirth.

Her blush deepened.

"It was! You used dirty filthy thoughts to find me!" I crowed around her with my laughter.

She elbowed me in the ribs. "Yes. Okay. I thought some very sexual things about you and then typed the first thing I could think of into a search engine and clicked on the top link. It took me to your website. Your horribly formatted, barely navigable website."

My laughter stopped, and I felt a small need to defend my shitty little website. "Hey. It did its job. You found me didn't you?"

"Yes I did," she said softly, her voice full of wonder as she kissed my head and buried her nose in my hair for a moment. "Yes I did."

We walked in a companionable silence.

The joker in my throat couldn't leave it alone. "So, what position did the trick? Face down, ass up? Draw me like a french girl?"

She shoved me away and we both started laughing.

"On my knees?"

She chased after me and I dodged away.

"Was it my pussy or my ass?" I shouted, continuing to skip just out of her reach. "They both are pretty great." My taunts turned the walk into a pseudo game of tag that meandered back to her house. As I said my goodbye on the porch, I had my first inkling that she was the sort of woman I could fall in love with if given the chance.

And we gave each other chances.

Two or three times a week, she invited me over to her house. Occasionally I managed to coerce her into a more public venue, either dinner or a movie. And once, a surprisingly enjoyable round of bowling. But the more I hung out with her in public, the more I noticed how uncomfortable it made her. So, more often than not, we ended up hanging out at her house. Occasionally we watched a show. Sometimes she introduced me to her videogames, at which I was spectacularly bad. But I enjoyed how she liked to wrap her arms around me while trying to explain to me the motivation of my character to continuously enter into these deathmatch gunfights.

The one constant that remained the same, no matter what activity we did, was our growing closeness and intensifying flirting. I would've made a woman out of her several times already were it not for another mainstay with our dates: the way they ended. Eventually, I made a tally and was forced to wince at the results. Nearly ninety percent of our dates ended with Nexus informing me of a situation and me pulling out my mask. It actually seemed to bother me more than her as I was pretty apologetic when it happened. But she was unfailingly understanding and every time it happened it hurt a little more to leave like that.

It all came to a head when I got a call that had me a little nervous. My hands shook a little as I pulled on my suit over my underwear and sports bra.

"That still surprises me. I never would've guessed you had such excellent tits."

"That's kind of the point. Also, it helps that the girls aren't flopping around when I'm fighting Contessa."

Remy stilled for a moment before an outburst exploded from her mouth. "You can't fight the Contessa, she's too dangerous!"

I finished putting on my suit, my mask still dangling from one hand. "Sorry, I misspoke. I don't plan on fighting her, DeeDee's handling that. I'm just gonna go help make sure no one gets hurt in the crossfire." I leaned in and placed a peck on her cheek.

"But what if you get caught in the crossfire?"

"Then thems the breaks. Not exactly expecting to exit this world from old age." I shrugged and went to leave.

She caught my wrist and a metal manacle materialized to chain us together. "That is not okay!"

I shattered the cuff by pushing out with a ring of chitin. With a deft move, I pushed my nubs out from my toes and I slid back three feet, beyond the range of her power.

"No. What's not okay is you thinking you get to control my life. Trying to imprison me..." I couldn't hide the betrayal I felt in my eyes. "Goodbye," I said coldly, springing backward and away from her.

Later, after the destruction of the gods-in-all-but-name doing battle was over, and I had debriefed the local police, I hesitated outside my house. Startled into action by the barking of a nearby dog, I entered, making sure to lock up behind me. My keys fell from numb fingers to the floor. I made it two steps into my hallway before I let myself crumple. My chest ached from a familiar loss, similar to what I'd felt when Nexus informed me about the explosion. Grief assailed my body and I let myself cry. Pulling the mask from my head, I tossed it into the corner as if it was doused with poison.

Why? Why would she try to do that?

"Damn it. You sentimental fool," I berated myself. "This is why you avoid attachments. You can't get hurt if you don't get attached. They can't abandon you if you don't get attached." Emotionally hurting, I banged the back of my head against the wall, a futile outlet to relieve some of the shattering in my chest. It didn't help. But, for some reason, I couldn't stop myself from doing it. The thought of what my dad would think of it finally allowed me to stop.

I need to get myself cleaned up and eat a meal. That'll be a good start to getting myself feeling better.

I'd only managed to make it a couple of steps with that goal in mind before Nexus chirped with another update. A flash of anger made me consider ripping the earbud out and tossing it away before they had a chance to inform me of what new calamity was assaulting my city.

"Kelly, get to the graveyard. Quick as you can."

My blood ran cold, and I bounced off the walls of my hall, slowing only enough to scoop up my mask before I was flying through the night.

Nexus, never, never, uses my real name over the airways. She rarely uses proper nouns, and if she does she'll use my chosen moniker.

Despite my aching body, I forced myself to move faster, pressing my ability to the limit as I generated my chitin shell hard enough to leave divots in the pavement. Nexus refused to respond to my questions during my race across town. The area seemed remarkably quiet. I slid to a stop near the wrought iron gates that encircled the property. I hesitated at the border, taking in the scenery while listening closely for anything outside the norm. My hands tightened into fists as a series of images flashed through my mind.

The large boughs of the trees that rustled overhead. The blurry piece of paper that held my scribblings. A bouquet of flowers full of sunset colors. And a dark brown lid of the coffin, cold beneath my hand as I looked at it for the last time as it was lowered into the ground.

I shook my head, returning myself to the present. Pressing off the ground with my power, I flew into a large arc that allowed me to get a birds-eye view of the scene.

There's nothing. Nobody here. Not even a caretaker or a visitor. Wait...

I was wrong, my eyes instinctively had avoided a spot, leaving it for last. The lone person in the graveyard knelt at my father's grave.

Landing unusually hard, I marched at the woman who I only now recognized as Remy, preparing to give her a piece of my mind.

"What do you think you're doing here?!"

She turned her head glacially slow, her chin coming up to face me. I gasped and rushed over to her as she fell to the ground in a slow-motion tumble. She was breathing unevenly and her face was gaunt. It reminded me of a video I'd seen once of a stray dog that was adopted. It had the same skeletal look and had eventually grown healthier over the course of the thirty second story.

Only Remy's at the before picture stage.

It frightened me to the core. She shivered uncontrollably and I held her closer. Her eyes, though dull and unfocused, gradually recognized who I was. The clothes she had on seemed to hang off her frame and she seemed unusually light, like something was eating away at her substance. She clutched at me and began to cry. I scooped her up and began an even jog toward the entrance of the graveyard, away from the brown dirt that covered my father.

"It's okay. You'll be okay," I told her in an even, soothing voice, uncertain whether that was true. "Just gonna take you to the hospital and everything will be fine."

"I... I... I wanted to make you happy," Remy managed to say after a couple of false starts.

The admission broke my heart but I didn't let it show on my face. I picked up my pace, making sure not to jostle her more than was necessary.

"Never... Meant to hurt you. Just wanted you safe." The words had barely left her lips before she started convulsing in a seizure. It only lasted a handful of seconds before it stopped and she hung limp in my arms.

"No! No no no no no! Remy, stay with me. Don't leave me." I set her on the ground and checked for a pulse.

She's not breathing!

The pulse was thready and weak but still beating.

"I'm sorry." Remy struggled to get the words out through a chest that refused to cooperate, her body shutting down.

Tears streaked down my cheeks as I held her close, my mind racing for ways I could save her. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have left it like that. You deserve more from me. And you did. Make me happy that is. At my lowest point, you were there for me and that meant more to me than you'll ever kno-"

My vision was blurry but I could tell that something had changed. Her skin began to darken, like bread under an oven's heat. The color shifted to a deep red and spilled out everywhere that I could see. She grew lighter and lighter in my arms until she was actually floating in the air. The coloration seemed to drift off of her like she was sublimating into smoke.

"Please don't go," I begged as her clothes fell through her body to the floor, leaving her crimson skin uncovered by cloth, her perfect black hair swaying as it pulled from the ground as she rose higher and higher.

Her eyes popped open and they contained the entirety of the universe in their glittery black orbs. I dared to hope when her chest began to rise and fall. She rotated in the air and drifted slowly down to land lightly on a single foot. I stared at her and she stared back. Then her lips curled into a gentle, familiar smile.

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll be with you as long as you want me to."

Unable to respond, I stood there like an idiot. Remy wrapped me up in a hug that smelled of desert winds and woodsmoke. The red faded from her flesh and her eyes turned back to normal.

"I thought I lost you," I confessed, my arms moving to return her hug all on their own.

"Me too. I screwed up Kelly. Can you ever forgive me?"

I buried my face into her chest, my brain spinning from the events of the night. "I'm just glad you're okay. I thought you were... You can't scare me like that."

"That's a little ironic coming from a woman who just charged head forward into a known sighting of Contessa."

My jaw clenched and I pressed my head harder into her chest. "Is now the time-"

She kissed my head and ran her hand through my hair. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for shackling you and I'm sorry for making you worry."

I nodded into her chest, unable to speak with the lump in my throat. My mind kept returning to her dull eyes and her still chest.

"What do you say we go home?"

I nodded again.

She held me tight as the world around us blurred. When it stopped we were standing in the middle of her living room.

Astonishment returned my voice to me. "How? What happened?"

"You wanted us home and safe so I made it happen." The reflection in her eyes held a shadow of the cosmic galaxy that recently filled their gentle brown depths. "And I feel quite in tune with my power at the moment."

I gave her an even stare.

"Ah. You mean with the whole thing at the graveyard?"

My stare continued.

Shuffling her feet awkwardly, she made as if to let me go but I clutched her tight to me. I couldn't shake the feeling that if I let her go then she would go back to her deathly state or fade away into some sort of stardust.

"That was a rather foolish idea born out of desperation."

I waited for her to continue, my finger pressing divots into the firm muscles that were layered down her back.

"I guess you want the whole story then," she said with a sigh.

My ear twisted against her chest as she nodded, the firm thumping of her heart allowed me a small measure of relaxation.

"When you left, especially after I tried to chain you, I was rather distraught and panicked. I thought there was no way you'd even speak to me again, let alone stay with me. So I thought about a way I could make it up to you. You don't wear your loneliness as well as you think you do. It hasn't been as prominent as when we first began dating. But still... It lurks in your eyes when you think no one is looking." She swallowed heavily. "And I couldn't let you go back to that. So I tried to do something to ease that pain."

The realization dawned on me. "You tried to bring back my father. Is that even possible?" Horror and hope battled for dominance in my brain.

"No. I thought maybe if I wanted it bad enough... But tonight, I wanted to bring him back to you, to make you happy more than anything I've ever wanted in my life. It wasn't enough. I could feel my magic arching out of me in an attempt to fulfill that desire. But it was like pouring a bucket of water down the black hole and, well... You kind of saw the result from that."

I pounded my head into her chest. "Stupid Remy. Ask me."

"... Ask you what?"

"Ask me if I would choose you or him."

"No. I would never-"

My tears dripped down to those breasts I loved so much, on the woman who cared too deeply about others and too little about herself. "You. If I could have him back but it would hurt you to do it, I would choose you. I love you, you idiot. I would've come back. I don't know how to live without you anymore. Just... Please don't leave me alone. All my life people have left me. My species. My parents. My father. Don't you do it too."

"Never. I'm here for you Kelly. Forever and always."

I let those words seep into my body, holding them close as they filled in the cracks that'd formed when I thought I was losing her. Then I kissed her. It hadn't been a conscious decision. But, once it happened, I was fully on board. Remy returned my passion two-fold, curling her strong arms around my ass and tightening, making our connection easier to maintain. I poured the feelings I couldn't form into words into my lips and tongue.

Remy seemed to understand, but that didn't stop her from backing off just a bit so she could say, "I love you Kelly. And I won't ever get in the way of you being Nameless again. Even my stupid id understands that I'll lose you if it ever pulls something like that again."

My heart wobbled at her honest emotions. "Shut up. Too much words." I kissed up along the swell of her perfect neck.

Delicious.

"Too much clothing," I growled, fisting my hands in her dirt-stained top.

She seemed to agree with me as I found my skin totally exposed to the cool night air as my suit vanished from my body. The heat in my core and the warmth from Remy's naked flesh kept me from caring about my aching limbs or her actions. Just me and her.

"Bed. Find me a bed so that I can fuck you like we deserve," I begged.

Her eyes glowed with that starry night pattern and our surroundings dissolved into a wash of red smoke. When the smoke dissipated, we were standing in Remy's bedroom.

"You're fucking amazing," I whispered pushing her back onto the bed and hopping up after her. She settled back, her legs hanging off the side of the mattress, her beautiful breasts perky on her chest. My cock flopped between those perky tits.

I tilted my head to the side, admiring the sight. "I think it looks quite lovely framed like that."

Remy didn't seem to hear me, her gaze locked on my own tits, her hands coming up to palm them. Leaning back, they wobbled just out of her reach. It became a game of sorts, me leaning this way and that as her attention shifted between my stiff nipples. Her cock grew erect enough to press it's head adventurously against my buttocks.

"Ohhh. Somebody came to party. You ready to roll?"

"Are you sure you're ready? I understand I'm fairly large-"

I placed a finger on her lips. "Shhh. You just let me worry about that."

Making a show of it, I twisted my hips, making my cock drift down the muscular rides of her body and stomach like a slithering snake.

While not perfect, it certainly has Remy charmed. She can't keep those beautiful, rich brown eyes off it.

The way she looked at me, it made me feel sexy. Like she couldn't control her desire. And the thickness of her cock as it slipped between the crack of my buttocks only reinforced that idea.

I'm not one to deny myself pleasure, so...

Taking her firm heft in my hand, I carefully lined it up with my entrance. "We good?" I asked, giving her one final out. I knew she was sexually inexperienced so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't moving too fast for her. From the look in her eye and the way she bit her lip, I moved at an appropriate pace. Pressing down in a firm stroke, my engorged labia tasted every delectable inch of her on my way down.