Raiding the Hamper

Trevor dressed slowly.

Plain jeans. Faded hoodie. An old Metropolis U t-shirt underneath. Just normal Trevor Tapper, age twenty-three, Metahuman Studies grad with student debt and grass stains on his socks. Nothing unusual. Nothing suspicious.

He glanced at the blouse folded on his bed—the one from earlier. His mom’s. He hadn't put it back. He hadn't really known what to do with it. But something in him had shifted when he wore it. His memory of floating, even just an inch, felt too crisp to be imagined.

He ran a hand through his hair and turned toward the mirror above his dresser.

The same narrow frame stared back at him. Not short exactly, but definitely not tall. Slender, but not defined. His landscaping job had given him a tan but not the build he'd hoped for. He still looked like a guy who got picked last for dodgeball.

"You're not a meta," he said quietly to his reflection. "You're a guy who took three semesters of Hero Sociology and wrote a paper on sidekick labor violations."

The mirror offered no rebuttal.

He took a breath and stepped into the hallway, quiet as a cat.

The laundry room light was still on. The dryer was still running. He crept toward the door and peeked inside.

Warm air, the scent of detergent and fabric softener. A half-sorted heap of clean clothes spilled out of a basket. His socks, some of her jeans, a bunch of indistinct laundry.

He didn't look too closely. That felt like a line he wasn't ready to cross.

Instead, he just reached in, grabbed a couple of handfuls of whatever was near the top, and shoved the fabric under his hoodie, pressing it flat against his stomach.

Footsteps behind him.

"Trevor?"

He froze like a guilty raccoon.

His mom stood at the far end of the hall, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

"There you are," she said. "Why'd you rush past me earlier when you got home? You didn't even say hi."

Trevor blinked, trying to control his breathing.

"Sorry! I was—uh—super gross from work. Wanted to shower before I tracked mud in."

Her expression softened. "Okay. Well, dinner's in thirty, alright? Stew’s almost done."

"Thanks, Mom."

She gave him a tired smile and disappeared into the kitchen.

Trevor hurried back to his room, shut the door behind him, and locked it.

Only then did he pull the bundled fabric from under his hoodie.

One piece at a time, he laid them out on the bed.

A silky, peach-colored camisole.

A tight-fitting black pencil skirt.

A light blue cardigan with a missing button.

Some kind of shapewear thing that looked like it belonged in a museum.

And—he groaned—a lacy thong. Pink.

He stared at the pile like it might bite him.

"What am I even doing?" he muttered. But he already knew.

This wasn't just curiosity. This was something deeper. Something that had lived in him longer than he'd ever said out loud. All those hours spent studying how metas first discovered their powers, writing case studies, dreaming of his own "inciting incident"...

Well. Maybe this was it.

He looked at the camisole. At the cardigan. At the skirt.

He could stop.

Or he could test a theory.

He could do what no other Metahuman Studies major had ever dared to do.

He could experiment.