A/N: Due to this website's policies, we'll be skipping the Mary Marvel chapter, but if you'd like to read it, it is available on my Patreon under the name D.E. Skeen.
Mary leftâwithout getting dirty againâafter her bagel. There was nothing else for it. Ted had to call Booster. He dialed as he went to his fridge, grabbed a beer, and wrestled with the cap. Damn beer bottle caps. Why couldn't they just twist off like bottles of Sprite? Why'd you have to get a
special opening mechanism
when there were a billion better options? It wasn't even classy, like champagne corks...
"Hey, you've reached Booster Gold...'s answering machine. I'm gone, but I'm not time traveling right now. Honest. If I were time traveling, wouldn't I go back in time to pick up the call I missed? See? Logic!"
Ted growled before the beep cut him off. "Booster! Pick up! I've just gotten more action in the past twenty-four hours than I did in four years of high school and I think I may have committed a sex crime. Call me back!"
Phone in hand, Ted looked at his contact list. Who would understand, who could help him out? He'd just done perhaps the most indecent, scuzzy, schmucky, scummy thing of his entire life. He wasn't an antihero! Maybe in Gotham, they knew how to bounce back from underage sex scandals in-between almost killing the Joker and bondage sex with Catwoman, but this wasâwait.
Sleazy. Scuzzy. Slimy. Crooked. Dishonest. Shady. Untrustworthy. Max Lord!
***
Max opened up the bottle, let it breathe for a moment, tracing his nostrils delicately over the rim, then tipped it with languid carefulness into the glass. He did the same for Ted's cup, then brought the two glasses to Ted, who thought he was being a bit ostentatious for serving Smirnoff Ice in Maroney's Bar & Grill.
"First off, don't worry about the chick. We're in Connecticut, the age of consent is sixteen, plus, if all you did is masturbate, that's just indecent exposure. They barely make you register for that. It's like 'oh, yeah, whatever, he's a sex offender.'" Max made a jerk-off gesture.
"Stop that."
Max realized the double meaning. "Sorry."
"And 'first off,'" Ted griped, "that's a horrible way to begin a conversation on statutory rape. Second, I don't want to know how you know this."
"Well, you know, clones, they're technically less than a year old, but when you're artificially aged..."
"I said I don't want to know! And hey, Will Rogers, I'm not worried about going to jail."
"You should be, they hate child molesters in there."
"Shh!" Ted looked around to see if anyone had heard. Thankfully, they'd gotten a booth. "I'm worried about being the kind of creepy pervert
who would need to know his state's age of consent.
Wait, waitâshe's sixteenâit's your age, divided by two, plus eleven, so I was born inâcrap, I'm old. I'm a dirty old man. I'm gonna have to start listening to Katy Perry music."
"It's plus seven, soâ"
"I'm a dirty old man and I missed out on Britney being hot!" Ted thudded his head into the counter.
"I don't suppose you'd tell me how it is you're having sex with multiple beautiful women? And little girls?"
"If I knew, I wouldâwell, I wouldn't tell you! But I don't know!"
"Hmm... did you sell your soul to Neron?"
"No."
"Were you recently hit by a Genesis Wave?"
"
No.
"
"Have you merged with any counterpart with a parallel dimension; maybe someone over there has game."
"No!"
"Bitten by alien parasites Angon, Gemir, Glonth, Lissik, Pritor, Venev,
or
Slodd?"
"No!"
"Are you secretly a Manhunter?"
"No!"
"Okay then, I got nothing."
***
Ted left the bar a few beers later. Max had been spectacularly unhelpful, but it was only fairâTed had been spectacularly unhelpful to him numerous times. He was buzzed, but still smart enough to know better than to drive. Of course he was smartâhe was a genius playboy inventor philanthropist... how did that go? The good thing about living in a gentrified neighborhood was that he could just walk back to his apartment, and so he did, stolidly placing one foot in front of the other and only running into a lamppost once. Twice. Okay, three times, but he absolutely was not going to walk into any more lampposts, swear to Christ...
"Ted? Did you just run into a lamppost?" a woman's voice asked.
Ted growled. "Why are there so many lampposts anyway?"
"They... provide light and need to be at regular intervals?"
"Why can't there just be one big lamppost?" Ted insisted, cradling the lamppost now, possibly strangling it for the violence it had done to his forehead. "We can turn it on during the day, when people need the light, then in the evening, we lower it, and when people should be in bed, we turn it the hell off."
"That's the sun, Ted. You're talking about the sun."
It was Tora Ola... Ted wasn't even going to try to recall her last name. Tora Ice. She was a dainty platinum blonde with fine, soft Nordic features, sparkling blue eyes set in an oval face under a mop of bobbed hair. An oversized sweater and a knee-length skirt, both in maroon and green, made her look like the heroine of a young adult novel. Cute as a button. Not at all like that Elsa queen from the movie.
She
was a bitch.
"Tora!" he cried in final recognition, throwing his arms around her in a hug. "How the hell are you? What's new? Did you ever make it back onto the Justice League? I heard they let Congorilla onboard. What are they trying to do, hit a quota? Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are gorillas..."
"Ted, you're hugging a lamppost."
Ted shoved it away. "Screw you, buddy," he told it. "We're not friends."
Tora took his arm in her delicate hands. "Come on, Ted. Let's get you home. It's only a few blocks away."
Her hands were chilly, of course, but in a bracing way. He found himself sobering as they crossed Fisher Street to Ted Mark Drive to Williams Boulevard. On his block, he felt his mind was unclouded enough to attempt conversation again.
"You know, I must be really drunk. I thought maybe you were here to have sex with me."
Tora blushed. "Oh no, no, I was just going for a walk when I was lucky enough to come across an old friend. But I wouldn't say no to a drink."