CW: Subtle Sexual Harassment

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧ 

The honey blonde woman’s arms were like irons as they closed tightly around his neck, and her legs latched around his waist as he bent backwards from the sudden weight to his front. This woman selfishly clung to his body despite the fact Giuseppe already had two women slung over each shoulder as it was, and he loathed the lady for it.

Plus, her breath smelled like burnt onions, and she was blowing it right in his face.

“Ma’am,” Giuseppe hissed. “I cannot take off with you in the front. You need to get off. Now.”

“No!” She tightened her hold around his neck and rubbed her nose along the exposed part of it. “You smell delicious.”

Giuseppe was not blind to the fact the majority of his fanbase were female, but sometimes he did forget just how crazy they could be in his physical presence.

“Okay,” Giuseppe sighed, angling his head away from the invasive touch. “Just…hold on tight and please, try not to do that when I’m running. It breaks my focus.”

“Mmmhmm.” The honey blonde breathed against his neck, and Giuseppe felt the exposed part of his skin crawl.

I need a real motherfuckin’ vacation, Giuseppe thought and one of his eyebrows started twitching.

Thankfully, none of the other women strewn about the area came barrelling toward him, so he was able to actually move on. The jump to the tall agency building ahead of him wasn’t too challenging, either, since his irritation level had sky-rocketed. He may or may not have put a little too much oomf into his initial launch, however, because the first landing jostled the women over his shoulders too much, and they grunted their protests.

“Apologies, ladies,” Giuseppe said as he stumbled forward, knees creaking from the impact. “I’m a little off-balance.”

The honey blonde—who was still latched onto his front—nibbled on his ear lobe, as if he was talking to her, and Giuseppe debated dropping her right then and there. He didn’t even think this woman was actively in labor or even in need of help at this point.

“Ma’am,” Giuseppe sighed, walking forward-and-back to gauge the distance needed for his upcoming series of jumps. “You seriously need to stop. I will drop you if you try this mid-flight. It’s distracting.”

And borderline harassment, shit, he thought. Ears are sensitive…

“Heehee, oookaaaay,” the woman giggled, but followed through on her agreement.

Well, aside from the whole rubbing her calf up-and-down Giuseppe’s lower back, where her legs were crossed. But he could live to deal with that, at least.

The Hero Corp. clinic actually would’ve been closer, but Giuseppe wanted to spite the nine-one-one operator, so he gritted his teeth and carried the three women the extra mile it took him to get to the city’s main hospital center. They would be better off there, anyway, and Giuseppe still doubted the woman on his front even needed immediate assistance (she was just in some sort of a crazed state, from what he could tell. Probably needed something to help her calm down, if anything at all).

“Rage!” the woman at Menthol Clinic’s check-in desk cried and stood up. “Do any of those women need urgent care?” she continued, landline already in her hand.

“Two of them, definitely!” Giuseppe huffed, and the people standing around the corridor parted for him to reach the desk. “Not sure about this one, though. She just latched onto me and refused to let go.”

“Gotcha,” the receptionist nodded. “Labor?”

He nodded back as she dialed in a few numbers on the landline’s keypad and held the phone to her ear. “Yes, I have Rage here with two women who are going into labor. Yes, I know the laboratories are full, but if someone could at least get them set up for the next opening, that would be great. Thanks.”

“I’m not leaving!” the honey blonde woman piped up. 

Giuseppe’s eyebrow began to twitch again, his irritation at an all new high. “Can you please get her off of me? Before I drop them all right here on the floor…”

“Don’t worry, Rage,” the receptionist said, already walking around the desk to meet him face-to-face. “A team is on their way with beds to bring the new mothers into  pre-op rooms.”

She paused to look up at the alert woman latched onto his front, who was now running her nose along the crook of Giuseppe’s neck. Patience was a virtue he had to practice every day as a hero, and every new test—such as the touchy woman provided—edged him closer and closer to his breaking point. The only plus side to his suffering was that his rage mode was kept activated the whole time, so there wasn’t a chance he would drop any of the women due to fatigue, at the very least.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” An elderly lady pushed her walker over to where Rage stood and snitched her nose up at the woman on his front. “He’s everybody’s hero, not your romantasy.”

Did this little old lady really just say ‘romantasy?’ Giuseppe thought and actually snorted.

“Did I ask for your opinion, grandma?” The honey blonde leaned away from Giuseppe just enough so she could glare at the older lady.

“Well, you don’t look sick!” the old lady gave her a crooked smile. “Perhaps you should get off of him. He needs to help the women who are sweating there, don’t you think, dearie?”

“Yeah, stop being selfish, bitch, and come wait out here like the rest of us,” said another woman from behind Giuseppe. She was sitting in one of the waiting chairs, clutching her enlarged belly.

Giuseppe felt heat rush to his face when more and more civilians chimed in around him, bullying the woman into finally releasing her death’s grip onto him. Granted, he really could’ve easily removed her himself, but he would have to drop his hold on the women slung over each shoulder.

“Oh, my god, fiiiiiine,” the honey blonde groaned, slipping her arms slowly from Gisuseppe’s neck so her feet could reach the ground without dropping. He was significantly taller than her, after all. “Okay, I’m off! Happy?”

The waiting crowd erupted into a series of cheers, and Giuseppe wondered if perhaps they were all equally on something. Or maybe he was the one losing it from over-exertion, and the civilians were a fever dream altogether.

As if on cue, the team of nurses arrived at the scene with two transport beds. Giuseppe left the fray and laid the hanging women down onto each bed, thrilled to be able to finally pass them on.

But his job didn’t stop there! The hospital’s staff was spread far too thin, so he was asked to help with transportation for a solid five minutes at least. After that, he’d remembered about the other women he’d left behind, so he got the location of the nearest triage unit and left the hospital to pick up the remaining women-in-active-labor. 

When he’d arrived at the triage operation with two semi-conscious women, Giuseppe was asked to assist in some loading and unloading. Then an obnoxious goat scream resounded from his pocket during the first unloading of new supplies, and he couldn’t be more grateful for the necessary break.

“Oh, thank God,” Conrad sighed on the other end as soon as Giuseppe accepted the call. “Please tell me you’re not busy.”

Giuseppe looked around the truck he was still unloading. He surveyed the aids running to-and-from tents, assisting each baby delivery on a priority basis. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he huffed. “I just took care of that Kaiju-level threat, but now I’m kinda stuck in…a predicament…”

“What kind of ‘predicament,’ exactly?” Conrad said, and Giuseppe imagined the short, angry man was furrowing his caterpillar eyebrows.

“Oh, well, you know,” Giuseppe chuckled, eyeing the wayward woman running toward him from one of the designated waiting tents. “The kind that involves sitting in hospital waiting rooms, and helping with triages?”

“What?” Conrad groaned into the phone, and Giuseppe pursed his lips. “Why the fuck are you wasting your time with that? Let the EMTs and CLSs deal with that shit!”

The woman running toward him was stopped by an actual EMT, and then she was guided back toward the tent, where more EMTs waited to assist. Yeah, please keep these crazy women away from me, Giuseppe thought as the woman was forced to look away from him.

“Yeah, don’t you think I know that?” he tittered, remembering he was still on the phone with his manager. 

Giuseppe cursed his own wavering voice. He couldn’t handle the sort of situations that involved multiple females coming at him, which very much happened every time he traveled back to the outskirts to pick up more victims. They weren’t all mentally there due to the nature of the widespread attack, of course, but it didn’t make it any easier for Gisueppe. He couldn’t apply force to remove women who took it to extremes—such as the honey blonde he’d left at the hospital—for fear of being marked a bad hero, so he had to take their invasive advances and hope they wouldn’t actually go overboard on him.

“Listen,” Conrad said. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but something huge is happening downtown, and I need you to get there pronto. Understand?”

“Yeah, uh huh,” Giuseppe chuckled dryly, “no problemo, Conrad…”

One of the guys manning the supply truck stepped into Giuseppe’s line-of-sight and motioned for him, likely needing to finish the unloading process soon so they could move on. Giuseppe nodded at him and side-stepped over to the open back of the truck.

“Good,” Conrad said, smacking his lips like he’d either just eaten something, or downed a cup of his nasty black coffee. Giuseppe didn’t understand how the man could drink coffee straight like that! “Then get to it. Bye.”

“Ah,” Giuseppe laughed, slipping his phone back into his tight pants pocket on his right. It’s just like him to hang up like that, he thought. He needs to drop that ridiculous business ‘tude.

Despite being his hero manager, Conrad was Giuseppe’s best friend first growing up, and sometimes he felt that maybe Conrad had forgotten that, too lost in his work.

“Okay!” Giuseppe shook his head and then called out to the men up top of the truck’s trailer. “S’all good, but I gotta get going so let’s wrap this up, boys!”

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧ 

While you wait for the next episode, try checking these other entries out. Links below (author desc)!

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧