Oasis entered the Royal Ontario Museum soon after the opening at 10 o’clock Monday morning. Karry had advocated for going on a weekend, when there would be more people visiting the museum, but Oasis had flatly refused. While their plan comported minimal risk, they still didn’t want anyone else caught up in it.
They dallied in the fist large hall of the museum, just past the ticket booths and the gift shop, and stared up at a truly fantastic dinosaur skeleton. By the same factor that made it so people always went to visit things that weren’t in their backyard, Oasis had lived in Toronto for years (thirty-three years, to be exact) and yet had never visited the Royal Ontario Museum before. They’d even gone all the way to Montreal to see museums, which they realized now was sort of ridiculous when there was one they could look at right here.
Alice, who studied in an art program, had for her part been here thousands of times. She would have been an asset to have in their little heist group, truly, but she still wasn’t speaking to them. Oasis had even cooked her favourite meal hoping to be forgiven, but this strategy probably would have worked better if Alice a) even knew they could cook and b) knew that this would eventually become her favourite meal. As it was, she’d just found it weird. She still really wanted to be there for them and help them save the future, Oasis knew, but they didn’t know how to involve her. Absolutely no part of their plans were things that she would feel comfortable doing, starting with robbing the museum and ending with potentially murdering a child. Or kidnapping him and bringing him really far away from Toronto, so that he couldn’t start on his path to world domination? Convincing his parents to forcibly enroll him in Catholic school? Whatever plan Oasis and Karry would eventually settle on, it would certainly involve doing illegal and/or immoral things to a child. Alice would probably rather murder Oasis herself than take part in any of it if she knew.
Still, she felt both angry and guilty about the situation, which in turn made Oasis feel guilty and depressed. The atmosphere in their apartment was absolutely rotten, and they were almost happy to be at the museum that morning and not have to deal with any of that.
They made their way slowly around the base of the display, completely absorbed by the bones towering over them. The complete skeleton of a Barosaurus was assembled in the centre of the room, domineering the space with its enormous size and dwarfing the visitors entering the museum. It’s front and back legs were braced on big metal bases, with a path between them that allowed people to walk under it and look up at its empty ribcage. Oasis stared up at it for a long moment, completely entranced.
After a while, they shook themselves off. They were carrying a large purse on one shoulder, which they placed on the ground in order to pull out a small sketchpad and a case of pencils. While they were circling the skeleton, pretending as if they were trying to get the best angle to draw it, they kept shooting glances at the two guards at the doors of the exhibition hall who were taking people’s tickets, and at the tourists that were streaming in.
Karry was supposed to arrive around noon and make her way to the further part of the museum from where the necklace was exhibited. Oasis sneaked a glance at their watch, and was about to slip their notebook back inside their purse when the worst sound that could possibly exist at that moment reached their ears.
Someone was calling their name.
Blood pounding, Oasis turned around to the horrifying sight of another superhero in the museum, walking toward him with a big and slightly patronizing smile on his face. And not any superhero, either, but one of the most well known in Canada: Richard Laforet, AKA The Big Leaf.
(The Pot Man!, thought Oasis semi-hysterically, the popular meme popping into their head like an unwanted aunt visiting at Christmas. Richard was a huge joke on the Internet and he didn’t even know it, and Oasis burned with that knowledge every time they were face to face with the man. It had only gotten worse after the legalization of marijuana in, what, 2019? Oasis couldn’t remember the exact date, but knew it was soon and that the jokes about Richard’s dumb superhero name would explode.)
“Richard,” they greeted between clenched teeth, their best customer service fake smile frozen on their face. “What a surprise! What are you doing here?”
They looked behind the man, to where his wife and kids were meandering around between the dinosaur skeletons. Shouldn’t these kids be at their fancy private school in OTTAWA?, they thought, caught between panic and resignation. Of course they would try to rob a museum on the same day that the founder of the Canadian Superhero League would visit it. Of fucking course.
“We’re on vacation!” Announced the man loudly, causing several heads to turn their way. “We’re staying a couple of weeks in town to see some family! And how have you been, huh?”
It made sense. Richard was the original superhero of Toronto, who had moved out to Ottawa several years ago on a personal request of the Prime Minister. The man could fly, had super-strength, and could create forcefields. He was a legend in the field. The people of Toronto had probably found SwordBright pretty lame by comparison at first, especially since Richard still considered the city part of his territory and tended to just pop in every once in a while, just to remind everyone of how awesome and powerful he was.
For many years, and despite their more understated powers, SwordBright had done their best to live up to their predecessor. Eventually they’d gotten shot and had realized that they didn’t have to be The Big Leaf to be able to protect Toronto, and that people liked them far better when they just tried to be themselves anyway. Their speciality was in handling magical crime, and they were better off staying in their lane than getting killed trying to deal with shootings or earthquakes. There were specialists, for that sort of things.
Oasis and Richard weren’t friends or anything, and he wasn’t even their mentor, despite what a younger and more naive Oasis had once hoped for. Their relationship was more akin to the rich white guy that goes on vacation and the teen that gets paid twenty bucks to look after the house and water the plants. Except that the house was a city, and watering the plants usually meant something more along the lines of “prevent the Vampire Queen from ruining the Christmas parade.”
Richard grabbed Oasis by the shoulders and held them at arms length, looking them up and down with a critical eye. They tried not to tense. The clothes they’d put on that morning were fine to visit a museum (and rob it), but they weren’t exactly up to the standard of a rich businessman who wore suits everywhere, and they were well aware of it. Their jeans had holes in them, for one, and they weren’t even deliberate holes put in there by the manufacturer. They were genuine, I-tried-to-learn-skateboarding holes. They had an old purple hoodie, perfect for hiding their figure and also a stolen necklace, but with maybe one too many toothpaste stain on the front and one long annoying tread that dangled out of one sleeve. As for their hair, it was standing up from running their hands through it one too many time, and there was also the matter of its alarming overnight whitening.
Oasis made a mental note to go shopping, as soon as they could remember the PIN of the old debit card they used to have before they changed banks. Like every adult, they were painfully ashamed of what their twenty years old self used to wear. The hoodies weren’t too bad, and they were comfortable, but Oasis was itching for a new wardrobe.
Richard, of course, was perfectly put together. He was a tall man in his forties, with a smile that aimed at paternal and overshot straight into patronizing. His hair was perfect, his cheekbones worthy of a Hollywood star, and his teeth were so white that they looked fake. He had traded his usual three pieces suit (or bright red spandex superhero suit) for a more relaxed blazer and shirt combo, and yet he still looked minutes away from telling you all about the stock exchange.
Richard finished his examination of Oasis and let out a slightly judging noise, but thankfully didn’t say anything. He let go of their shoulders and placed his hands on his hips with a grin. “What a coincidence, to run into you here!” he said. “I actually wanted to speak to you, and here you are!”
Oasis wanted to point out that it was their city, and therefore it wasn’t such a surprise that they were in it, but held their tongue. They settled for a mildly interested “Really?” while keeping an eye out for Karry.
They might have been panicking slightly, but for their credit, they were very good at not letting it show. Richard wrapped an arm around their shoulder and their stress level went up about twenty per cent. The other man pulled them slightly away from the other tourists, into a quiet spot near the wall. He looked around, then leaned toward Oasis with the very same stern look that their high school director had often directed at them. This never meant anything good.
“Right, so I wanted to talk to you about that incident in June.”
Oasis tensed. Had something happened in June of 2017? They honestly couldn’t remember. “Yeah?” they said, trying to mask the uncertainty in their voice.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Richard, rushing to reassure them, “Certainly not grave enough to warrant an official warning. But you’re still young, and I just wanted to give you some helpful tips so that this sort of situation doesn’t happen again. It might not seem all that bad now, but things like this can quickly spiral out of control. I should know - I’ve been doing this job for ten years now, you know.”
And I’ve been doing it for thirty, but go on, thought Oasis, annoyed. They wished Richard would just get to the point and tell them what the heck had happened in June, already. Something to do with Karry, maybe? The league had always found Oasis’ inability to apprehend her aggravating, but at least they were able to stop her, most of the time. When other superheroes showed up to ‘help’ Oasis, hoping to put her in magic jail once and for all, she always knew to make herself sparse. Like they weren’t even worth her time to swat aside like bugs (which they knew very well she could, even against someone like Richard. Her magic was spectacular.)
It had once felt like a privilege to be able to fight her, like their Nemesis-hood meant as much to her as it had meant to them. Their villain, the one only they could measure up against. An affirmation of their validity as a hero, so to speak. And then Karry had even teamed up with them against other villains seeking to conquer their town, and Oasis had read into it… oh, all sort of things. That she had wanted to keep Toronto and SwordBright to herself, maybe. But then everything had come crashing down over their heads, and not just with the Tyrant. Karry herself had played Oasis for a fool, and by the time the dust had settled, they no longer knew where they stood.
“Listen to me, kid,” Richard was saying when they tuned in again, apparently on a roll with the life lessons. “What’s the first rule of being a superhero?”
“Don’t be a class traitor?” deadpanned Oasis.
“No! Ah, but you’re a funny one, aren’t you?” Richard shook them a little with the arm he still had wrapped around their shoulder. “No, the first rule about being a superhero, kid, is don’t let them see your face!”
Had… someone seen their face in June 2017? If someone had then they hadn’t made a big deal out of it because Oasis honestly couldn’t remember.
“Now, as I said, this time it wasn’t too bad. Those fine ladies did post on Facebook about the incident, but they thankfully kept any identifying details to themselves and only called you a ‘sweetie’,” said Richard, making the finger quotes gesture in the air. “The league has already contacted them and made them sign an NDA. But for heaven’s sake, kid, if you absolutely must go to parades in the future, have the decency to wear the suit we made you! You know, the one in which you can drink water without having to remove your whole damned helmet to do it? That one?”
Richard raised his eyebrows at them, clearly waiting for Oasis’ agreement. They groaned and rubbed their hands over their face, having now understood which incident they were talking about. Or at least been able to deduce the circumstances of the incident, since they still couldn’t quite remember it. In their defence, this was probably about the Pride parade, and they had gone to a lot of those over the years. Never in their official league suit, because it would have signalled that they were there on duty, or as a representative of the state. Which they were not. SwordBright went to Pride as themselves, not as part of the league.
Obviously, though, the entire motorcycle helmet and leather jacket combo tended to get very warm, so they usually had to drink a lot of water. But it had never been a problem, and wasn’t about to start being one, no matter what Richard thought about it. They’d removed their helmets at Pride a loads of time through the last thirty years. The trick was to find a group of nice-looking people taller than them - which wasn’t hard - and ask them if they could please shield them while they had a drink so cameras or cell phones wouldn’t catch their face. Usually people were happy to help, and what did make it to social medias later were mentions of them being nice or polite or sweet, and never ever anything about their face. But of course, Richard wouldn’t believe that. He worked under the assumption that while a hero could love their city, it usually wouldn’t love them back, and that people wouldn’t protect their superhero if it came down to it. He fancied himself doing a thankless job, like some martyr out of the grittiest type of comic books.
For Oasis, up until the end of the world, their relationship with Toronto and with the queer community had always been mutual, the protection going both way. So they’d keep removing their helmet at Pride and trust their people not to make a big deal of it, thank you very much.
Richard was still looking at them expectantly. They were about to open their mouth to answer him when they saw Karry enter the museum behind him, and they promptly chocked on their tongue.
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