“I just want to know, like, why it’s literally everywhere, where it’s coming from.”
“The waterways.”
Lacey scoffs and rolls her eyes. “I mean, like, where it’s being produced. This stuff clearly isn’t naturally occurring, right?”
I do my best not to roll my eyes. We’re getting awfully close to one of those things Maestro wouldn’t want me saying too much about, so I pivot. “Is that your hobby? You’re investigating the ooze?”
“Obviously.”
“Uh, not obviously, I thought you were just like a professional damsel in distress,” I return, tail flicking behind me.
She crosses her arms at that. Maybe the professional damsel thing was a little too much. She has to know that’s what people say about her.
“It’s not—I’m not getting kidnapped on purpose. Usually there’s some field expert that Clayton has a connection with, and like three times now when I’ve gone to interview them, I’ve found them either dissolving into a weird gelatinousgoo, or instantly petrifying, or whatever,” she rambles, clearly exasperated by her run of bad luck.
She lets my imagination fill in the gap between her opening some scientist’s office door and the TV footage I’ve seen of her flailing in the grip of a raging mutant, before she offers quietly, “I think that’s a big part of why people aren’t investigating it, everyone who has ended up over-exposed to it and mutated.”
“Yeah, adjacent fields probably don’t have quite the same mortality rate,” I nod sympathetically. She nods too, as a moment of quiet falls over the pair of us.
It’s nice to actually get to talk to her, get to know her a little. I had no idea she was so concerned with the ooze problem. By now it’s become a weird new normal that people just try to ignore and pretend isn’t there when it isn’t actively blocking traffic.
“Would you let me interview you? You seem...stable,” she asks after a few moments, and it’s not the best compliment I’ve ever received, but I’ll take it. Most chill guy to have kidnapped her so far is a weird bar to clear.
“This could be the kind of breakthrough that the mutant crisis has needed.”
Oh, you dingbat. She just wanted answers.
I glance back at the museum, the door propped open by her clutch, the hundreds of influential people who could make things happen just behind that door. I grimace, crossing my arms over my chest as I lean back against one of the decorative columns along the museum’s veranda. “No.”
Of course she would ask that, I try to reason with myself, instead of letting the disappointment sit with me. There’s an uneasy mix of feelings. As much as it stings, one of the things I liked about her was how visibly passionate she was about herjob, the energy she brought every time she was live on Channel 6.
I can’t just tell her whatever she wants to know. Maestro will probably relegate me to cleaning duty for the rest of my life.
I dare a look at her after the flat-out rejection. Her eyes are on the ground between us, as she’s chewing the inside of her cheek, clearly thinking hard on how to follow that.
I take a step closer to her, the movement catching her attention. Lacey’s gaze meets mine as I offer hesitantly, “But...maybe I can show you where the ooze has been coming from.”
Her eyes light up with interest. “Tonight?”
Oh my God. I can’t with her, she’s too fucking cute.
“No, you’re...gonna wanna wear rubber boots. Tall ones,” I say, daring to brush the side of my hand against her thigh to emphasize. The way her lips part makes me dare a little further, raising a brow at her. “But I’ve got one condition.”
Her long eyelashes flutter as she looks at me earnestly. “What is it?”
“Let’s get dinner first.”
She holds my stare and blinks, slowly.
“...You know my ex is Steel Heel, right?” she asks in a hushed voice, like there’s any possible way I could have somehow missed that. “He’s the guy who throws people through windows once a month.”
“Yeah, I know,” I shrug, and give her a wink. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
Maybe she thought I was joking before when I said I wanted her to call me ‘sweetheart,’ because it seems like it’s just now occurring to her that I am trying my best to genuinely flirt with her. It’s a little gratifying that it seems to fluster her, her cheeks and ears reddening.
“We—no, we couldn’t. I mean, no, I mean, like, my whole thing with Steel now is complicated, or it complicates things,” she says, practically a whisper, and why are we whispering? I don’t know, I’m doing it too now.
“Oh, you and Steel are still . . . ?”
