Chapter Text
You stood in your principal’s office... again. Arms crossed, you tapped your foot, waiting for him to look up from his computer. He already knew what you were there to talk about, so he was checking his emails. Very... carefully. Very... slowly...
About once a quarter, your principal would put in a call to the SDN and ask for a superhero to come in and speak to the classes. He always requested the biggest heroes—Mecha Man Astral had come in to speak when you were a student. Your class, though, couldn’t care less about the A-listers, and you had seen Blonde Blazer’s signature golden hair bobbing down the hallway one too many times.
You taught the kids who needed a little extra support—some were kids who were learning English for the first time, others were kids whose attention spans were still developing, but almost all were kids whose powers made it difficult to get by without a little help. Hands too hot to turn the pages of a book, too sticky to punch the buttons on a calculator, too wet to write on a sheet of paper, too electric to type on a computer.
“We need someone relatable for these kids,” you said, keeping your voice low. Your principal took “open-door policy” a little too literally; the door to the hallway was wide open. “My students don’t give a shit about Blonde Blazer.”
He rested his chin in his hands. “All of our students have untapped potential,” he monotoned.
You pinched the bridge of your nose. “And every kid’s potential is different. It’s a slap in the face to have her come in there and tell them, ‘You can do it, I sure did!’ What has she ever struggled with?”
He shrugged. “Everyone has struggles.”
“Okay, yeah,” you acquiesced, “but my students are struggling with things that everyone else thinks should be easy or natural. They might actually listen if you could get someone in there who could show them that just because it isn’t easy, it isn’t impossible.”
There was a long silence. “Okay, fine,” he finally replied, meeting your eyes for probably the first time in the whole conversation. “You call SDN and tell ‘em what kind of hero you want.”
And that’s how you found yourself on the phone with SDN’s main office, who transferred your call to some guy who introduced himself as “Robert Robertson” with a monotone and an exasperated sigh. You had giggled, but you held it together—you figured they probably had the dispatchers using fake names so they didn’t get, like, smote in their homes by supervillains or whatever.
“Oh, this isn’t—uh, sorry, usually the guy that calls from the school is more—how can I help you, Ms…?”
“Yeah, hi, Robert! This is Miss Tate, from Torrance High.” You explained the issue, and as you spoke, you could feel “Robert’s” interest piquing.
“Okay, so you want… a more relatable hero, huh?” You could hear a keyboard clacking in the background. “We can absolutely do that. Overcame adversity… won’t traumatize kids… won’t set the building on fire… gotcha! I have the perfect hero. Monday work for you?”
You grinned, hopeful. “Monday is perfect, thank you!”
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Monday morning, during your first period planning time, your wall phone made you jump.
“Hey, Tate, you have a, uhh, visitor!” the front office secretary chirped.
“Thanks, Suse. I’m on my way!”
As you left your room, an announcement came over the PA system. “Mr. Joey to the front lobby, please. Mr. Joey, front lobby. Bring a mop, Joe.”
You grinned, wondering who had already spilled an energy drink or sugary coffee all over the lobby—but when you arrived, you the floor was just slightly damp. Was that… water?
“Oh, Tate, perfect. This is your visitor, uh, Wet…man?” Susan leaned out of her little cubicle window, her polite smile looking a little pinched.
In front of her stood a tall, lanky man with red hair and—was he dripping?
As he tried to stick his “Visitor” nametag to his blue-and-yellow outfit, succeeding only in smearing the ink, he glanced at you. “Nice to see you—meet you, Ms., uh, Mrs.—ma’am. It’s—I am—Waterboy, is how they call me.”
Throughout this entire exchange, Waterboy was leaking water all over the floor. You could see why Susan was so flustered. Her nervousness was apparently contagious, as Waterboy was refusing to meet your eyes and… was he blushing?
You could hear Mr. Joe’s mop cart rolling down the hallway. Whatever, you thought. A little water never hurt anyone.
“Nice to meet you! I’m Tate.” You reached out a hand for a shake; Waterboy stared at it for a second, his own lingering in the air a few inches away.
“Oh, I’m, but you already—nice to—I’ll make your fingers—hand, damp—moist—wet,” he mumbled.
You grabbed his hand. “Have you ever done this before?” you asked.
“Shook hands?” His eyes finally met yours, crinkled in confusion behind a pair of goggles.
You tamped down a laugh. “Talked to kids.” You let his hand go; his hovered in the air for a second, unsure what to do. You briefly wondered if it would be rude to wipe yours on the leg of your pants to dry it off.
He shook his head vehemently, water drops flying off. “No, I—usually, Blonde Blazer—”
Susan was glaring at you now.
“C’mon, Waterboy. Let’s get back to my room and I can give you a couple pointers about talking to kids before second period starts.”
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
“So, yeah, basically just don’t show any fear, or else they’ll go feral. But... they really are sweet kids, and I think it will be really helpful for some of them to get to talk to you.”
Waterboy paused in the doorway of your classroom, toes barely crossing the threshold. “Are you sure you don’t mind—”
You waved a hand in the air between you, interrupting him. “I promise, it’s fine. What’s the worst that could happen? The floors get a little too clean?” You grinned, beckoning him to follow you.
He wrung his hands, stepping gingerly into the room. “Somebody could—a student could—might slip,” he muttered, casting a glance at the droplets of water trailing him on the floor.
“I’ll have Joey leave us a mop when he comes back through,” you promised. You paused, taking in his slouched posture and nervous expression. “Is... it like this for you all the time?” you asked, hoping it wasn’t too personal of a question.
“Wha—well, this? The, um, that is, the... the water?”
You nodded.
“Yes, well, no. It gets, I get, worse when I’m nerve—nervy—nervous.” He wrung his hands. “So does the stutter—stammer—Robert says I shouldn’t care what they, what people think, but—it's hard.”
You sat on the top of a table, looking him over. “It’s fine to be nervous,” you said, your voice soft. “I’m nervous all the time. I stand up in front of, what, a hundred different fifteen-year-olds every day, some who barely have control over their powers, and I... talk. I try to talk to them, not at them. I try to make a difference. I try not to make a total ass myself.” The corner of his mouth tipped up into a smile. “Y’know... sometimes I really mess it up, put my foot in my mouth. But... I’m still here.” You shrugged a shoulder. “Kids are more forgiving than you’d think.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but the bell rang, and you could hear the sound of kids in the hallway. The blood drained from his face, and he choked on a breath of air.
“No, I’m fine,” he mumbled, pressing a finger to his ear, where you guessed his dispatcher had comms on him. “I’m doing better controlling it.”
The first of your students rolled in, dropping their backpack at their table and slumping into a seat, eyeing Waterboy curiously.
“Say hi to him!” you whispered.
“Hey—hi—hello!” Waterboy tried, making a concerted effort to unkink his spine. “How are, uh, good morning!”
Your student cracked a grin. “What’s good?” he responded.
Waterboy looked to you for help over the kid’s shoulder. You gave him an emphatic thumbs up. “It, uh, today, I think, is good!”
More students began to filter into the room, some alone, some in groups of two or three, and Waterboy greeted them all in much the same way, although his words got a little more smooth as he practiced.
You heard the squeak of Joe’s cart’s wheels in the hallway, and you flagged him down. “Hey, Joey! If you just wanna leave that mop with me—”
“Brought you a floor sign, too, Tate. You’re... prob’ly gonna need it.”
You laughed. “You read my mind.”
By the time you stepped back into your classroom, Waterboy was surrounded by a group of Super boys, all trying to show him their powers with varying levels of success. Waterboy, although clearly overwhelmed by the attention, was clearly trying to display the appropriate responses.
You shoo’d the boys back to their table, unpeeling a calculator from one of their extra-sticky arms and fanning away the smoke that had started to curl from another’s hair.
“Enjoying yourself?” you asked, tossing the now Super-sticky calculator into a bin next to the tub of sanitizer wipes and wiping your hands on the leg of your jeans.
Waterboy blinked down at you. Through his slightly foggy goggles, his eyes were shockingly blue. “Yeah—yes, I think I maybe, I actually am,” he said, his steady gaze briefly making you feel like you were underwater.
“Let me get them all settled, get attendance handled, and we can rock and roll, then!” You found your footing in your routine, making small talk with the groups of kids scattered around the room while you plugged attendance into the laptop chugging away on your desk.
“Check it out, Miss Tate!” One of your pyrotech kiddos snapped his fingers, and a small spark leapt from the tips to dance across the table, spelling out the first three letters of his name in cursive before zipping off in an unintended direction.
“Wow, great control, my guy!” You nodded approvingly while you rescued a paperback that was in the line of fire, pinching the smoking corner between your fingers before it could spark into a true fire.
“Oops, sorry, Miss Tate!” The student from whom you had already removed a calculator, bumped into you on his way back from the pencil sharpener. One of your long braids stuck to his skin, and you peeled it away, suppressing a grimace.
“No problem,” you assured. “Find a seat, we have a guest today!”
Your eyes found Waterboy again, who was still standing exactly where you had left him. You flushed; he was staring intently at you, watching you put out fires, both literal and figurative. You cleared your throat, hoping you didn’t look as flustered as you felt. “This is Waterboy. He’s a hero from the SDN, and he’s going to tell y’all his story!”
It was Waterboy’s turn to flush as twenty heads swiveled to stare at him again. He awkwardly held up a hand, caught between a wave and a surrender. He bobbed his head once, nodding; his dispatcher must have been giving him a pep talk in his comms.
He seemed to flounder for a moment, unsure how to start. You threw him a bone. “Say ‘hi’ to Waterboy,” you prompted.
“Hi, Waterboy,” intoned your dutiful children.
“Uh, hi!” He smiled nervously, pulling at the collar of his wetsuit. “I am Water—Waterboy is my name.” He glanced at you, and you gave him another emphatic thumbs up. “I am a, uh, hero for SDN. My power is—well, obviously, duh, I have, uh, water powers.”
The wet floor sign floated away slightly in the rush of water coating the floor. “How did you become a hero for the SDN, Waterboy?” you probed, gently trying to lubricate his social gears.
“Oh, uh, I, me—uh, a really good friend of mine, um, helped me get a job as, uh, as a janitor at SDN, and then—well, you know, that same friend, he also helped me get better with my powers, um, to control them better, and then—now, I am a hero!” He grinned, proud of himself. You were kind of impressed that he managed to spit out that many words in a row.
“You were a janitor?” One of your kids wrinkled his nose.
Waterboy nodded, a brilliant grin plastered to his face now. “Oh, yes! It was very, very—super fulfilling. I always wanted—want to help people, but my powers—my water, it’s hard for me to control, on account of—because I had a bad time, a hard time believing in myself.” He spread his hands wide. “I had to practice finding peace inside myself before I could be a real hero, but I didn’t—I still wanted to help in the meantime.”
You tilted your head. The water that had been gushing from seemingly every pore in the poor man’s body had slowed to just a steady drip-drip-drip. Despite your pep talk, you hadn’t really been sure exactly what this guy’s story would be. It turned out, he actually... might have known the exact right thing to say to motivate your kids?
A student at a different table threw her hand in the air. “Wasn’t it gross?” she asked, without waiting to be called on.
“For anyone else, maybe, it might have been,” Waterboy pondered. “But for me, it is, it was, the most natural way for me to help. It gave me a way to use my powers, really use them, to help—to help my friends. To practice.” He scanned the room. “Maybe being a janitor is not the way to practice your powers, to practice your confidence. But there is more than one way to be a hero.”
Your heart tugged in your chest. This moist man standing in your classroom clearly believed wholeheartedly in heroism, in helping people. He gained confidence as your kids asked more questions, giving passionate answers and taking every query seriously.
Your student with slime powers spoke up. “I’m just sticky, though. I would be the worst janitor.” The poor kid’s tone was the vocal equivalent of kicking rocks.
“You don’t have to be the—the janitor.” Waterboy’s voice was reassuring, friendly. “You have to find your own strength. If you do good—good, a good job, your confidence will go up, and that will help you become a hero.” He reached out for the most awkward fistbump you had ever seen before you could caution him against it. “You are, huh, you really are sticky, aren’t—you are.” Waterboy tapped his finger to his chin. “You would be amazing in the mail room. They close, seal, like, a LOT of envelopes every day.”
Your student’s face lit up. “Really?!”
Waterboy nodded decisively. “Abso—really.”
You grinned. He was perfect.
By the time first period ended, your entire class was enamored with Waterboy. “Do they make posters of you?” one boy asked, just before the bell rang.
“Of—posters, of Waterboy?” The hero blushed to his hairline. “I don’t—this is not, nobody’s ever wanted—”
The bell rang, thankfully saving him from himself.
“Say thank you on your way out!” you reminded your students. “See you tomorrow! Make good choices! I believe in you!”
Waterboy ran a hand through his hair. “That was—wow, Robert, I can hear you laughing, you know,” he complained. His eyes flickered back to you. “Is your day like this all the time?”
You grinned, chipper as you grabbed the mop leaning against the wall. “Always! You ready to do that five more times?”
Waterboy’s face fell as he slumped into a plastic chair, sitting for the first time since you’d met him. “Five more?!”
You held in a laugh and patted his shoulder, wringing the mop out in the bucket and swiping it through the new condensation.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Despite his misgivings, Waterboy continued to be a hit in all your classes. Periods three, four, and five went by smoothly, and then it was blessedly lunchtime. “Make good choices!” you called after the retreating backs of the final few stragglers leaving your room. “I believe in you!”
You pulled your door shut, then glanced at Waterboy. “Oh! You, uh, don’t have to stay in here, if you don’t want—you could grab lunch at the cafeteria, or go somewhere—I mean, my next class starts in thirty minutes.”
“You aren’t going to go eat?” he asked, blinking behind the goggles.
“I have a granola bar in my bag—I was going to get this place cleaned up a little before my afternoon classes start.” You shrugged; you usually just snacked between classes. There wasn’t enough time in the day to sit down and eat a real meal until you went home.
“I can help you tidy up,” he said, unfolding himself from the chair he had been steadily leaking into. “I’m not, uh, that is to say—I mean, I like—I wouldn’t mind—”
He broke off, his spine stiffening as he listened to what you assumed was chatter on his comm.
“Robert, I am not doing the job right now. It is—it’s my lunch break. Can I turn off comms?” He nodded once, seeming to respond to unheard words, before untangling an earbud from his ear, pushing a button.
As soon as the blinking blue light turned off, he sagged as if he was a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“You good?” you asked, fishing elbow-deep in a plastic tub to find the end of a string of sanitizer wipes.
“Good—peach—I'm a lot better without all of them making fun of me in my ear,” he admitted. He reached for the wet wipe you had finally found; but when your fingertips brushed, he snatched his hand away.
“‘All of them’?” you asked, although the part of that sentence that your brain was mulling over was making fun of me.
“The rest of my team. We can, a lot of the time, hear each other, not just Robert. I like to leave my comms open, you know, for, for emergencies. But they make fun of, you know, my—this—the way I talk, and the way I use my powers, and—other things.” He wiped down the calculator from this morning, the slime easily sloughing away with the extra water he exuded—though you weren’t sure the calculator would still function after its drowning.
You frowned, wiping a scorch mark from the wall next to the electronic board. “Your team... isn’t close?”
“I would trust them with my life,” he replied immediately. “They are my best, well, only friends. But they, they have a different sense of humor, I think, than me.” He shrugged, wiping his towelette over a marker that had been encased in and subsequently freed from a tomb of clay.
You pondered this information. “Are you happy, working with your team?” you asked.
He nodded his head vehemently, flinging water droplets onto your shirt. “Yes! Oops, sorry, that’s—it’s clean, my water. Potable, they say.”
“No biggie,” you assured, tossing your cleaning wipe in the trashcan.
“I lov—like my life a lot,” he said, his voice taking on the same seriousness that came through when he spoke of helping others. “I bring strength to my team, and they support me, too.” He shrugged. “They are just... a lot.”
You sighed out a chuckle. “I know a lot about being surrounded by a lot.” You slumped onto a wobbly stool next to your desk, rummaging through your tote bag. “You want a granola bar?” you asked, holding up an extra.
Waterboy hesitated before tossing his wet wipe into the trash can and taking a seat near you. His lanky frame dwarfed the plastic chair, all elbows and knees as you passed him the granola bar.
“Sorry for such a boring lunch.”
“It’s—it isn’t boring!” he exclaimed. “It has chocolate chips. Any food with chocolate chips is good.” He slid off his white gloves, and you watched his long, pale fingers slip free to tear open the wrapper. Your stomach flipped, and you forced your eyes back to your lap. Be normal, you willed yourself.
You were struggling to feel normal, though. Watching him speak with such passion all morning, genuinely treating every kid’s question like it was worthy of a hero’s help, being devastatingly honest about his own struggles to find success at the SDN... was all leading you toward what was unquestionably a small crush on Waterboy.
You chewed your granola bar slowly, acutely aware of the time ticking slowly away. I really shouldn’t say anything. You should just let lunch end, let Waterboy turn his comms back on, let him get through your last two classes, let him get back to the SDN.
But your resolve started to crumble when you looked back up and found his eyes trained on your face. When he flushed and looked away, you were done for.
“Do... you want to get dinner sometime?” you asked,
His brow furrowed. “Dinner...?”
You cleared your throat. “Only... y’know, no pressure, only if you want to.”
His face twisted. “I’m... not very good company, for din—for meals.” He held up his hands, palms out, and in the silence, the drip-drip-drip of the water rolling off of him did a whole lot of environmental storytelling.
You shrugged. “I could find us somewhere with outdoor seating,” you offered.
He still looked confused, but his blue eyes were glimmering. “Wh... why?”
“I’d... like to get to know you,” you replied honestly, twisting your fingers in your lap.
“You wanna... me?”
“You can say no,” you assured, giving him a small smile.
“No! I mean, yes, yes, I would like to... dinner... with you.” He flailed a hand in the air. “I, uh, I'm off on the, uh, on Friday?”
You could feel the heat spreading across your face. “I'm free on Friday,” you agreed. You checked your watch and saw that your lunch was nearly over. “I could give you my number and we could talk about the details later?”
His face turned scarlet. “Your number?” he repeated. “That’s, that—that works.”
You reached for a pen before your brain caught up with your actions. Paper and water... not a good mix. “Do you have your phone on you?” you asked.
Waterboy nodded, fishing around in the pocket of his wetsuit and locating a phone wrapped in a Ziplock baggie.
“Text me and then I’ll have your number, too,” you suggested. When he was ready, you read off your phone number. A few seconds later, your phone pinged in your pocket. “Herm,” read the message. “Herm?” you said aloud, looking up at Waterboy’s red face.
“Herm,” he repeated, “Herman, it’s short for. Or Hermy.”
You smiled softly. “Nice to meet you, Herm.”
He made a strangled noise, but he was saved from having to formulate a response when the bell rang.
You patted his shoulder, hoping your proposition hadn’t made him lose too much of his composure. “Think you can make it through two more?” you asked, tossing your wrapper into the trashcan.
He nodded, standing and attempting the same toss; his wrapper landed damply on the floor next to the can. “I have to—my comms, now that it isn’t lunch.” He shifted from one foot to the other as you gave his wrapper an assist into the trashcan. “Before I turn it back on, I just...” Herman seemed to be fighting a battle within himself, but with a sudden movement, he took your hand, caught awkwardly between holding it and shaking it. “I’m looking forward to, excited for, dinner.”
You had thought that butterflies in one’s stomach was simply a metaphor, but Herman’s earnestness was quickly proving that they did, in fact, exist. “Me, too,” you assured, squeezing his ungloved hand. You had expected it to be clammy, but it was warm, although it was quite wet.
He dropped your hand just as quickly, wiggling his fingers into his gloves and turning his comms back on before your first student arrived for sixth period.
Although the tips of his ears pinked every time he looked at you, he braved your sixth and seventh period classes with the same awkward ease as the morning. By the end of the day, his shoulders sagged with exhaustion, but he had a grin of triumph on his face.
“You do this every day?” he repeated incredulously as you walked him back to the front door of the building.
You laughed. “It gets easier with practice. Thank you so, so much for coming out today! The kids really loved you.” You glanced down at the comms you knew were located in his ear, cognizant of your audience when choosing your words. “I really enjoyed meeting you.”
Herman blushed again. “I, too, enjoyed... meeting you.” He saluted awkwardly. “I will... as soon as...” He mimed texting you.
You nodded. “Take care, Waterboy.”
Back in your classroom, you busied yourself mopping the floors so you could return the mop to Joey before you went home. In your pocket, your phone buzzed.
“I had a great time today,” Herman’s text read.
“The kids loved you,” you texted back. Your phone buzzed again while you wheeled the mop cart back down to Joe’s office. When you got back to your room, you checked it.
“You’re great with them,” he had replied; “I wish I would have had you as a teacher.” Almost immediately, a follow-up text came through: “No, wait, I didn’t mean to say that.”
You slung your bag over your shoulder, smiling. “No, don’t apologize. I get what you mean.”
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Over the next few days, it felt like you and Herman carried on one continuous conversation in little spurts. He seemed to be on a similar schedule; his first text would come through anywhere between six and seven in the morning, and he would sporadically drop in a handful of texts between, you assumed, superhero jobs, and you would answer them between classes. Once he was off work in the evening, his texts were fairly frequent until you both went to bed.
You were finding that Herman was a lot more articulate through texts—at least, most of the time. Even with his waterlogged fingers leaving some typos so egregious that autocorrect couldn’t save him, he was getting out entire thoughts—although the little dots indicating he was typing did sometimes appear and disappear two, three, four times during the interim between your response and his.
On Friday, after work, you were slumped on your couch, a cat in your lap, when Herman’s photo popped up on your phone.
“I’m sorry, uh, for calling,” Herman’s voice poured out of the phone almost before you had raised it to your ear. “I just, texting takes, ah, a long time, and I—the details, that is—I'm off work now, but—”
“Hi, Herm,” you giggled.
“Oh!” He paused. “Hi, Tate.” His next pause was so long that you pulled the phone away from your ear to make sure he was still there.
“Are you still okay for dinner?”
“Oh, yes, of—of course!” You could practically see him flailing his long arms. “But, I, um. Can I ask you something?
You sandwiched the phone between your ear and your shoulder, scratching your cat’s head mindlessly. “Of course,” you replied, curiosity piqued.
“Is this... are we friends?”
You stopped, trying to decide what he was really asking. “I would say we’re friends,” you replied, sitting up a little straighter.
“Oh, that’s—friends is, of course. Friends.” Did he sound... disappointed?
“I was hoping today would be... a date, though.”
“Friends is very—a date?” He sounded incredulous as his brain caught up to your words. “I... and you?”
You snorted; his stammer could be pretty charming, if you were being really honest. “Is that okay?”
There was a thump and a rustle on the end of the line. “Sorry, I—my phone, uh, slipped. That’s—I would be—I very much, um, yes!” he finished, his voice pitching higher than usual.
You were completely enamored. “Awesome,” you grinned. “Do you like sushi?”