Chapter 24
by
micdan282
What's next?
Distracted
Rikki sat behind her desk, fingers steepled beneath her chin, a folder open in front of her. A usual day. A normal case. Or at least, it should’ve been.
"Thanks for waiting," she said, offering a small, practiced smile to the man sitting across from her. "Let’s get started."
Marcus Vale. thirty-two. Second offense for possession. No gang ties. Mild history of petty theft. Never gave her trouble. He was punctual, polite, and mostly kept to himself. She’d worked with him for months now—run-of-the-mill, by-the-book.
And yet, today… something felt off.
It wasn’t him exactly—he wasn’t doing anything differently. But Rikki found herself noticing things she hadn’t before. The way he rolled up his sleeves, revealing lean forearms marked by faint scars and fading tattoos. The gravelly rasp in his voice when he spoke. The way his dark eyes lingered on hers just a second longer than necessary.
"So… uh, how’s work been?" she asked, blinking hard to ground herself.
He scratched the back of his neck, giving a half-smile. “Oh you know, good enough I guess, except we got caught in that storm the other day. But besides that, yeah it's been good.”
"That’s good." She nodded, jotting something in her notes. But her pen paused. Why was she thinking about what his shirt might look like clinging to his back in the rain? She blinked. What the hell?
He shifted in his chair, and the slight pull of his T-shirt across his chest had her stomach tightening with something close to guilt.
This wasn’t her. She cleared her throat and **** herself to refocus.
“You okay, officer? You seem kinda… distracted.”
Rikki straightened in her chair, heat prickling at the back of her neck. “I’m fine. Just been a busy week is all.”
“Yeah? You don’t look like someone who gets tired easy.”
Her eyes snapped up. Was that flirting? Or just idle banter? She couldn't tell. Worse—she liked it. She found herself smiling back. It took every ounce of self-control not to let it linger too long.
She stood abruptly. “Alright, that’s everything for today.”
He stood too, and for a brief second, they were closer than they needed to be. Rikki’s breath caught—what is wrong with me?
“Same time next week?” he asked, his tone casual but his gaze steady.
“Yeah,” she said, stepping back toward her desk. “Same time.”
He gave her a nod and left with his usual quiet confidence.
The moment the door closed, Rikki sank back into her chair and let out a slow, frustrated sigh. Her thoughts were still humming with a low, unwanted pulse of curiosity. It was ridiculous. She’d never thought about Marcus that way before. He wasn’t even her type.
So why now?
Was it the stress? The fallout with Finn? The loneliness that crept in every time she came home and the apartment felt too quiet?
She stared down at Marcus’s file and shut it firmly.
No, this was not going to be a thing.
What's next?
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Perils of a Novice Superheroine
A generic superheroing setting drenched with sex and scandal
Acropolis City, the center of super-human and caped crusader activity in this particular world - with its own dizzying highs and lows, high-tech skylines and slums standing in stark, four-color contrast, it provided everything that a costumed megalomaniac or masked vigilante could ask for. In fact, as is usually the case where colorful masked characters are the norm, it has become something of an institution by this point. But although the mere existence of costumed heroes and villains no longer shocks people, these people - who, by their very nature, thrive on attention - keep finding new ways to stand out from the crowd and attract the eye. This last goal tends to get a lot of emphasis in the most simple, sexualized way possible. For reasons that the world's most brilliant scientists have yet to explain, latent super-abilities seem to manifest more often in women than men by a ratio of 3 to 1 or more. This is true even when the superpower isn't "natural"; paranormal artifacts fall into their hands, esoteric martial arts schools never seem to have a male heir, the technological prototypes they test always seem to be the ones that are most easily used or abused for good and evil. Unfortunately, the glory days of the past where citizens were happy to see any old masked do-gooder show up are over - in recent years, Acropolis City has established a ranking system of heroes where those who get high marks from the citizens and resolve incidents are rewarded with corporate sponsorships and (most coveted of all) seats at the prestigious League of Propriety. Those who intimidate the populace, cause excessive collateral damage, or simply don't excite anyone, garnering low rankings, get 'asked' to move to less prestigious cities. Few superheroes want to get stuck battling clans of villainous hillbillies and corrupt small-town sheriffs for the rest of their careers, so they're always eager to please the influential citizens of Acropolis City (judges, eminent scientists, first responders, and of course the all-important reporters). On the other side of the law, a similar dynamic predominates; only the most glamorous and charismatic costumed ne'er-do-wells can make it in this town. And so, the novice superheroines just learning the ways of battling for justice and order, without any team to back them up, always end up patrolling the skeeviest, most undesirable slums of the city and taking on the most thankless rescues. As if that weren't bad enough, most of them feel obliged to dress in ways that get more outlandish and revealing with every passing year while they fight the good fight and/or feed their craving for attention, depending on how you see the 'cape life'. As if that weren't troublesome enough, the superhuman mutations that make so many of these heroes' careers possible also result in greatly increased sexual sensitivity, particularly in females. The adventures and misadventures that these spandex-clad lady crusaders get into are often too hot to print for the kind of comics that their young admirers would read. Messy mistakes will be made, but you don't want to disappoint your readers, do you? So let the League know what kind of superheroine you are, your chosen name, powers, and appearance, and they'll send you out on your first patrols. Good luck.
Updated on Dec 27, 2025
by micdan282
Created on Nov 30, 2016
by fyreant
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