“…I see you.” Oscar sprints past a gaggle of green-shirted guys and then stops beside me. Curly pieces of his hair fall over a rolled blue bandana.
I grab a protein bar out of a first-aid bag. The medic stand is on the other side of the hill. So we’ve dropped a few emergency bags throughout the area.
“This is nuts.” Oscar bites into the bar. “Legitimately stressed right now.”
I shake out my crossed arms, my muscles tight. “Did you see how much money he made from the raffle?”
Oscar swigs his water. “The numbers are already in?”
“Seventy million.”
“Holy shit.”
Maximoff was glowing all morning. In truth, if he were stabbed in the middle of the night and wheeled into the hospital, he’d still declare this a success. Very few things can happen to where he’d call the Camp-Away a failure.
But him, being stabbed, would be my fucking nightmare.
“Quinn to security. They just saiddrag heragain. And I know they’re talking about Jane. That’s violent.”
Donnelly answers, “Still fandom language.”
“I don’t like it,” Quinn says, making his opinion known.
“Bro.” Oscar clicks his mic next to me. “Get yourself a Twitter account.”
“You’re not on Twitter?” Donnelly questions.
“He’s only on Facebook,” I tell the team, grinning.
Donnelly lets his laughter filter through the comms.
“Facebook is where it’s at,” Quinn rebuts.
Akara says, “This isn’t the best use of the comms.” He pauses, then adds, “But Facebook is better.”
Oscar wolfs down the protein bar and laughs.
“They just saidJane and Sulli are cancelled,” Quinn adds.
“They’re just passionate stans,” Donnelly explains.
“What the fuck is a stan?” Quinn asks and adds, “Alright, Ireallydon’t like this anymore. They just said Jane should go choke.”
I cut in, “Go talk to them.” That could be a threat. Or they could just be fans. When fandom culture comes into play, the lines blur.
Oscar knocks his arm with mine. “Look at you, helping my baby brother out.” He chews the protein bar with a wide grin. “You keep that up, Tri-Force is gonna put all the green ones with you.”
“Fuck,” I curse.
Quinn repeats another possible threat, but Oscar and I don’t bat an eye.
He tosses the protein wrapper in the red first-aid bag. “I hate how desensitized I’ve become to some of this shit. How do we even think that’s normal?”
“I know.”
I watch Maximoff depart from the huddle of girls. He lifts the corner of his red shirt and wipes sweat off his brow. Revealing his front-page-worthy abs—then he pulls the shirt up and over his head.
Damn.
