Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here is a Valentine’s Day-related superhero story I wrote a few days ago. (Yes, these characters eventually end up together.)

---

“This has been the most boring Valentine’s Day ever.”

The bank teller, her gaze focused on her computer, produced only the most uninterested and dismissive of sympathetic sounds imaginable, but Milla wasn’t going to let that stop her complaining.

“I’ve been running boring errands all day. This is the last of them – no offense. I don’t even have something to look forward to tonight to make it better. All my friends will be on dates. I had a date planned, and he called this morning to cancel because ‘something came up’. Right. See if I give him another chance. Canceling your date on Valentine’s Day for no good reason is only a slight step above standing someone up at a restaurant.”

The teller nodded distractedly, counting out bills to trade for the check Milla was cashing.

“What are you doing tonight?” Milla asked, wondering if a direct question would get some conversation out of the older woman.

“I-”

“EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND!”

Milla whirled and gaped at the three masked intruders rushing through the doors. One fired a couple shots into the ceiling, straight from his fingers, and Milla dropped to the floor, along with the tellers and one other customer.

The robbers conferred in low voices, then one of them headed farther into the bank. The vault, which Milla could see down a hallway, had closed with a bang, she supposed from an employee hitting an alarm, but the robber melted through the tiny cracks around it.

Milla pressed herself against the counter, her eyes darting back and forth between the remaining masked men. This stuff happened in real life?

“I want everyone along this wall,” the gunman barked, gesturing with his fingerguns to the wall opposite the vault hallway. The other customer began crawling over, and Milla heard movement from the tellers on the other side of the counter. When she hesitated, he pointed at her and bang! something skimmed her shoulder.

She yelped, mostly from surprise; the pain didn’t sink in until she started to move. She made it to the wall and collapsed there, hand pressed against her bleeding shoulder. Why did she choose the cream-colored sweater today?

The taciturn teller, next to her, asked, “Is this enough excitement for you?”

Milla stared at her in disbelief. Finally said, “I guess that depends on who shows up to rescue us.”

Several minutes passed in a bewildered haze. Warm wet blood seeped between Milla’s fingers while she watched the melting robber bring money out of the vault for the others to stuff into bags.

And then the building shook. Electricity crackled through the air. Milla’s mind flashed to the calendar of up-and-coming heroes that lived in her kitchen. “Oh my gosh,” she whispered – and found she couldn’t hear her own voice – an instant before help silently crashed through the front doors.

The calendar’s February page featured Ash Harker, and here he was in person, tall and terrifying and even more beautiful than his picture.

The bank robbers attempted to flee, but two of them simply smacked into each other, thrown off by the lack of noise. Milla didn’t know how Ash and his two younger interns functioned without hearing, but in only a few minutes, they had the three men handcuffed to the vault door. The handcuffs must have some power suppressor, because even the melty one stayed where they put him.

Milla’s hearing came back as Ash left his interns to watch the prisoners while he checked on all the people on the floor. He came straight toward her, asking, “Is anyone else hurt?” After a chorus of “no”s, he knelt in front of her. “Hi, I’m Ash.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He gently moved her hand out of the way so he could see her injury. “What’s your name?”

“Oh. Milla.”

“Can you tell me what happened, Milla?”

“One of them shot at me. I think I didn’t move fast enough for him.”

“It doesn’t look deep. How does it feel?”

“I don’t know… It hurts, but… I don’t feel like I’m about to die or anything. How is it supposed to feel?”

A smile tugged at his mouth and the corners of his eyes. She liked that. He didn’t smile much in his pictures, but it did lovely things for his already lovely face. “That sounds about right. You are not about to die. Keep putting pressure on it, and someone should arrive to fix you up soon. After that you can tell us all about what happened.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Ash moved down the line to talk to the bank’s manager, and from Milla’s side, her teller friend asked, “So?”

“What?” But before the lady could respond, Milla figured it out. “Oh. Yes. Plenty exciting. How long do you think I can take to give a statement so he has to stick around?”