24
The rest of the time I spent at Momo's flew by as we talked about the next big thing going on, the hero internships. She wasn't surprised that Izuku and I had tons of offers, not after what we did at the sports festival. Unfortunately, it was soon time to leave and I stood up to face her.
“Thank you for indulging me tonight.” I said and she blushed a little. “That sounded dirty, didn't it?”
“A little.” Momo said and she looked into my eyes. “I don't mind.”
I reached up and ran my hand through her messy ponytail. “How many dates do I have to wait before I can see this set free?”
“At least a dozen.” Momo said with a huge smile on her face.
I smiled back. “Totally worth it.”
Momo laughed softly and leaned forward as she closed her eyes.
I did not miss the cue and slid my arms around her as I gently kissed her. Her arms went around my neck and she changed the gentle kiss into a more passionate one. I didn't mind that in the least and kissed her enthusiastically. We broke the kiss after several minutes and Momo's face was bright red.
“I better go before I stick my foot in my mouth.” I whispered to make her laugh and we stepped back from each other.
“Sandra will walk you out.” Momo said and the work room's door opened and there was the maid.
“Goodnight.” I said and she nodded before I left her and followed the maid.
“She really likes you.” Sandra said as we approached the front door of the mansion.
“I know. She laughs at my stupid jokes.” I commented and Sandra smiled.
“If you hurt her, there's nowhere you can hide from me.” Sandra said.
“I don't plan on doing anything like that.” I said.
“Who plans things like that?” Sandra asked with a question on her face and opened the door.
I chuckled and stepped out. “Okay, I get it. My fault or no, if she's hurt, I'm responsible.”
Sandra nodded and closed the door.
I walked down the driveway to the gate and it buzzed me through automatically. Once I was out on the street, I moved far enough away to take off the suit coat and tie, then jogged to the train station. I stepped off at the right stop to go to the flower shop and I picked up my order for three dozen roses for my mother. I boarded the train again and rode it all the way back home.
“Mom?” I asked when I entered the house.
“C-Connor.” Lois whispered.
I heard the tears in her voice and was instantly at her side and had my arms around her. “What happened?”
“One of... the villains from then... is back.” Lois whispered and her hands touched a file folder on the living room table.
I looked at it without picking it up and read everything inside. “I see.”
“Yes, he... was one of the worst.” Lois said and her tear streaked face lifted slightly to look into my eyes. “His old hero name was Joker: The Laughing Hero.”
I nodded. He had been one of the first ones that my mother had tracked down after dad died. He had a tendency to do cruel pranks to the villains he caught, then he turned bad just before the hero massacre and started to kill the heroes for not doing enough to stop the villains.
“Now he's a stain on the hero profession.” I said and she shook slightly. I had forgotten that Stain showed up around the time of the Sports Festival and I thought I had some time before I had to take things into my own hands. I would need to step up my training again if I was going to be ready for my hero internship.
“Connor.” Lois said with authority and I blinked my eyes as I looked down at her face. “Promise me that you aren't going to try to hunt this... man... down and capture him.”
I knew exactly what to say here. “I promise that I won't use any of my powers to capture him or have anyone else try to do it.”
Lois sighed in relief and leaned against me and into my embrace. “I'm sorry you had to come home from your date to see me like this.”
“What? Beautiful? What a horrible thing for me to see!” I exclaimed and closed my eyes as I turned my head away. “It's such a terrible sight! I will never forget it for the rest of my life!”
Lois snorted and then laughed. “Connor! That's not what I meant!”
“What did you mean, then?” I asked and opened my eyes to look back at her face. “I don't see anything wrong in front of me.”
Lois opened her mouth to say that her make-up was running and she had lost her hard-fought composure over finding out a man that had killed nearly two dozen villains before becoming one himself and killed heroes, was once again out and committing more murders.
I could almost read her thoughts and knew she was thinking about her breaking down, even though she hadn't done anything like it in years. “You could be covered from head to toe in blood and I would still say you were beautiful.” I whispered. “I mean, who else could make a bloody mess look good?”
Lois huffed and shook her head. “No, you're not biased at all.”
“Not even a little bit.” I said with a smile.
Lois eased her hold on me and stepped back. “Sit and tell me all about your date tonight.”
“Sure. Just a second.” I said and disappeared from her sight, grabbed the flowers I left by the door, and came back. “These are for you.”
“Connor!” Lois gasped at the three dozen roses.
“I promised I would get these for you.” I said and gave them to her.
“You...” Lois turned away to stop me from seeing a few more tears on her face. “You should have given them to Momo.”
I chuckled and zoomed to the kitchen to get a vase with water and came back instantly. “It's much too soon to do that with her, even if I do have her mother's official permission to date her daughter.”
Lois' head whipped back to stare at me, her attempt to hide her tears forgotten. “Excuse me?”
“Sit and I'll tell you all about it.” I repeated her words back at her and she smiled.
Lois added the roses to the vase and put it on the coffee table, then sat with me as I told her all about my visit that became a date. When I was done telling her everything, she looked pleased.
“You didn't try hard.” Lois said.
I shook my head. “I did the same trick I did with Helen. I pretended that we've been friends for a long time and we just didn't know a lot about each other.” I smiled. “In fact, I even told her that we've been friends since Izuku and I rescued her.”
Lois nodded. “Yes, she would relax a lot if you told her that.”
“She was surprised when I did the instant dress-up thing.” I said with a smirk.
“Not at you reversing it?” Lois asked with a knowing smile on her face.
I chuckled. “I didn't tell her I'm not always super-fast, since she would guess that anyway. Neither of us want to get caught using our quirks.”
“Like they could catch you.” Lois said and her hand rubbed my upper arm. “You can move almost as fast as your father.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, curious.
“He always leaves whooshing air when he super-speeds around.”
I grinned. “I probably should tell you that Izuku and I figured out how to not do that.”
Lois blinked her eyes at me for several seconds without saying anything.
“You want proof?” I asked and disappeared from the couch, stripped off the monkey suit, and dressed in jogging pants and a white t-shirt before going back to the couch. In barely a second.
Lois' mouth dropped open at me sitting there wearing my workout clothes and she hadn't felt anything pass by her. No breeze, no shaking as something moved around her, and no jostling as I got up from the couch and then sat down in the same depression my butt had left on the couch cushion.
“We worked on it as we sparred, because we couldn't have our punches and kicks disrupt any passengers on the train in the mornings.”
“But... Connor, you...”
“Yes, we can do it on purpose.” I said and made a quick jabbing motion at the coffee table and the three dozen roses swirled as if they were in a stiff breeze. “It's one of All Might's tricks, so we had to figure that out, too.”
Lois sat there and stared at me without saying anything.
“Well, I've got some training to do, so I'll leave you here to mull over me potentially being faster than dad... and being better at it.” I said and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Lois said.
I felt her eyes follow me as I left the living room to go to my bedroom. I started strapping on the weighted backpack before I heard her start to whisper.
“You really are getting better at your powers than Clark ever managed.” Lois said under her breath. “You even keep your promises, kidding around or not.”
I turned my head to look at her through the several walls between my bedroom and the living room to see that she was lightly stroking the roses. “Don't worry. I'll keep my word to keep you safe, too.” I whispered. “I just hadn't planned on having to do it this soon, which was shortsighted of me.”
I sighed and cranked up the weight until I could barely move, then floated up a foot into the air. To my surprise, it felt easy. When I examined my own mind about it, I chuckled. I was apparently using my telekinesis subconsciously to augment my lifting capacity.
I wasn't one to ignore such a blatant cheat, so I kept turning up the weight until I started sweating. Now that I was at a good training point, I held my hover for as long as I could and also held my breath at the same time. When I finally had to take a breath an hour and a half later, the strain was getting to be too much and I turned the weight down and landed softly.
“Hooo... hooooo.” I panted and bent over to catch my breath. “Not good enough.” I said and used a breathing exercise to calm down, then nodded. “I need to get stronger.”
I repeated the same actions and kept training until well into the night.
*
I walked onto the train to meet with Izuku and he saw that I didn't have my weighted backpack on.
“Do I need to ask?” Isuku asked with a grin.
I held up my arms and showed him my bruised forearms. “I maxed it out last night... or this morning, depending on how you look at it.”
“You broke it.” Izuku said and I nodded. “Well, damn. I thought I was getting ahead of you.”
“You were. Still are.” I said and sat down. “I've been forgoing my normal night workouts to train my flying as much as possible.”
Izuku stared at me with wide eyes. “You maxed out the backpack and broke it. While flying.”
I nodded.
Izuku took his off and sat down beside me. “I'm skipping my workout this morning.”
I chuckled and pat his shoulder. “Remember what my quirk can do.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Izuku said and sighed. “You don't realize what you did really means.”
“It means a need a new backpack, assuming Mei can make another one for me or reuse the old one.” I said.
“No, you're missing the point. The backpack adds to your personal weight for resistance training. It makes you heavier so that you can move easier when it's not on you.” Izuku said. “You were flying and...” He looked at me. “You. Broke. It.”
“I know, I just told you that.”
“No, Connor. You broke a machine designed to impede you as much as possible. I doubt you'll need to train your lifting capacity anymore. Ever.” Izuku said, pointedly.
I stared back at him for a moment and then laughed. “Her baby gave its life for my advancement!”
“I hope Mei sees it that way.” Izuku warned me.
“I didn't just toss it aside, just so you know. It's packed back up in the nice carrying case she gave me.” I said. “I was going to give it to you tonight to give to her, because it really did serve me well.”
“You can't move with it maxed, can you?” Izuku asked.
I closed my mouth and looked out the window.
“Dammit, how much?” Izuku asked. “Come on, you have to tell me!”
“I slowly walked the length of my room before I dropped to my knees and the thing gave out.” I admitted and Izuku let out a low whistle. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly.”
“I don't know if Mei can make anything for you to wear that can exceed that.” Izuku said. “She's pushed these things as far as they can go already.”
I sighed and sat back in the chair. “If she can't make me something better, with her being a genius, I doubt that any support company out there could make me something to replace it.”
My cell phone beeped at me and I checked it. I smiled at Momo's happy face. “Hey, there! I haven't seen you in forever.”
Momo laughed softly. “I thought you said you keep eating your shoes when you talk?”
“Give me a few minutes. You'll see it.” I joked and she laughed again.
“I just called because I forgot to ask what the dress code is for our double date.” Momo said.
Izuku waved a hand at me and made a 'silence' gesture.
“Izuku's making faces at me. Can you hold on for a second? I'll check with him.”
“Okay.” Momo said and I hit the mute button.
“Dude! She's calling because she likes you, not for the dress code! It's just an excuse!” Izuku said. “Tell her that she's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen this early in the morning and that she can wear whatever she wants!”
I chuckled at his words. “She's not stupid. She'll know I'm lying if I compliment her about being the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in the morning without seeing the rest of her.”
Izuku smacked my arm, hard. “Just. Say. It!”
I shook my head at him and hit the mute button to start the sound again. “Sorry about that.”
Momo's face was flushed to a deep red. “Now it's my turn to say hold on for a minute.”
I nodded and she didn't hit the mute button. Instead, she carried her phone over to a desk and propped it up in a standing charger, then she walked back to the middle of the room. She was wearing silk shorts and a silk top that hugged her like a second skin when she moved. She did a little twirl and both the thin shorts and the top billowed out to give me a wonderful view.
“Good god.” I said, not bothering to whisper.
Momo walked back over to the desk and picked up the phone to look into it. Her face was still flushed red and she bit her lip as if waiting for something.
“You read my lips.” I said, understanding right away, and she nodded. “Well, I can honestly say that I have never seen something so beautiful first thing in the morning.”
Momo's face went redder and she ducked her head slightly.
“Thank you, Momo. Thank you very much.” I said, sincerely. “Izuku said you can wear whatever you like on the date, and I have to agree. Anything you wear will be great. Unless it's a potato sack. Burlap itches too much to be comfortable.”
Izuku groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead in a classic facepalm. Momo laughed instead of saying how lame that was, which was a surprise.
“Hey, you're supposed to tell me my foot's in the way when I say stuff like that.” I said and she smiled.
“I thought it was cute.” Momo said. “I have to go. I need to get ready for school.”
“I'm already halfway to mine.” I said and showed her the train and no one else in the same car as Izuku and myself. “You've made this ride much better than I ever thought possible, so thanks again.”
Momo blushed again. “I'll talk to you later.”
“Can I say that's one of my fondest wishes without sounding too cheesy?” I asked.
“No.” Momo and Izuku said at the time time.
“I kind of like cheesy.” Momo said. “Bye.”
“Bye.” I said and hung up.
“That wasn't the complete disaster I thought it was going to be.” Izuku said.
“Yeah, me too.” I said and looked at the phone. “Should I text her and...”
“Give me that!” Izuku took the phone and tucked it into his pocket. “I'll give it back when we're at school.”
I glared at him, then chuckled. “All right, I won't pester her.”
Izuku nodded and we started to discuss where we were going to spend our internships. He had chosen All Might's old mentor, Grand Torino, just because he was the one All Might recommended.
I thought about Stain and where he had been committing his latest crimes. The report said he was moving all over and killing when the opportunity came, which meant he was hiding out during the day. Either that, or he was pretending to be normal and no one would find him that way. I debated asking Izuku to help me analyze Stain's crimes and maybe find a pattern, then realized he wouldn't be okay dealing with Stain.
No, I would have to deal with it myself. I just needed to wait for the internship and permission to use my quirk legally. The last thing I needed was to be declared a vigilante.