When Gracie Met The Grump

by Mariana Zapata

The Defender let out another rattling breath; it was the most pained sound I’d ever he...

Even in the dark and at a short distance, I could tell his entire half-naked body was shaking. The sight of it stunned me. I had never seen any of the Trinity even stumble before. Never, ever, ever. Hadn’t I seen him carrying a fully loaded tanker?

Yet here he was, letting out these bone-rattling breaths as he struggled to move one knee, then the other, one hand, then the next, in front of him. Over and over like it was the single most difficult thing he’d ever done. Alarm pierced through my chest and skull and even my freaking soul as I watched him struggle before I snapped out of it and pushed the wheelchair the rest of the way to him.

“How can I…?” Get it together. Get it together. “Tell me what I can do to help you,” I told him breathlessly in the weirdest voice of my life. I was panicking, okay. I was panicking.

How the hell were these fires purple?

I could do this. I’d helped my grandparents countless times. In and out of bed, in and out of the shower, the car, the couch. He was just… A flying, invincible, super-fast, super-strong being that was breathing like he’d had half the bones in his body broken.

The Defender said nothing, and I took it as acceptance. Please, Jesus, don’t let me snap my spine in half. “Ready? On three. One, two, three!”

What the hell were his bones made of? Concrete? I groaned, my knees shaking, and chances were, I was going to end up with a bulging disc in my spine, but too bad.

I swore he leaned into me even more as his loose hand slapped the armrest wildly, giving me most of his five-hundred-pound weight—at least that’s what it felt like. I strained. I huffed and puffed some more.

And that’s when I recognized that my knees weren’t the only things wobbling. His whole body was. His lungs rattled, and I wanted to peek at his face to make sure it wasn’t turning blue, but even that was too much trouble.

“Oh fuck me,” I panted, tucking my chin down to catch my breath. I was never going to be able to move again. Seriously, how much did he weigh?

He moaned at the same time the wheelchair groaned. He had boulders in his pockets. He had to.

I’d just been joking earlier when I thought Things Going Wrong was the story of my life. I was never going to joke about that shit again.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen anything. Definitely not a pale purple twinkle that had to be a star.

The Defender’s head was drooped, but his frame wasn’t shaking as badly as it had been. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing though.

Setting my hand over his wrist, I snuck it under and pressed my fingertips to where his pulse would be and waited.

The familiar suit was mostly torn away from his body. A lot of tan chest was exposed; his bottoms clung to his legs for dear life. The entire right side of his cape was gone, like someone had ripped it right down the middle out of anger. That wasn’t terrifying.

But The Defender… He was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

Gorgeous wasn’t the right word to describe the smudged, dirty face. Thick, dark eyebrows highlighted a smooth forehead and sharp, lean cheekbones. His hair was so dark I wasn’t sure whether it was brown, black, or a shade in between. His perfect nose, rectangular jaw, and the fullness of his mouth tied all the pieces of him together into a package that was almost too fucking much. He was rugged and elegant at the same time.

He was big. Not hulking. Not bodybuilder sized, just… muscular but proportionate. Like a light heavyweight boxer t...

There was a reason I didn’t initiate talking to strangers. I had no self-control. I had a big mouth. Once you got me going, it was almost impossible to stop me.

The Defender—The fucking Defender—stared at me with glowing purple eyes, and I was pretty sure they were watering from pain. His chest rose and fell in small gasps that were terrifying.

Was he dying? I choked. “Please tell me what to do,” I begged, desperate.

Pale lavender lids framed with pure black eyelashes fluttered over those unreal eyes as another savage groan ripped its way up his throat.

His head barely moved, but I took it to be him shaking it, telling me no. Then he confirmed it. “No. Tell… no one.” He wanted to stay here? In… in secret? I already knew this was a shitty idea, and part of me knew damn well I was going to regret it, but….

What kind of person would I be if I didn’t help him? I knew that kind of person, and I fucking refused to be it.

Even though he couldn’t see me, I nodded at the man who had been made into little action figures that graced countless little people’s bedrooms. The man who had inspired characters in television shows and movie after movie. A champion of the earth, he’d been called. There was a giant statue of him in São Paulo in gratitude for his help after a massive earthquake.

And the same son of a bitch was in a wheelchair in my kitchen, injured and asking me for help.

He grunted, and I wanted to cry. I had to strain to hear him grit out, “Don’t… betray me.”

Like I hadn’t just dislocated my arms and given myself a bulging disc pushing him into my house while trying to help him.

But it made me really, really wary. “I won’t. I promise.” The Defender slightly opened those glowing eyes and stared at me through the crack of them for a moment, and I was pretty sure I felt hot all of a sudden. The Centurion could shoot lasers from his eyes, but I’d never heard of The Defender being able to. Could he?

He was unreal. A wet dream in the flesh. Perfection. A very fit, athletic-looking man. He didn’t have diamond skin or a third eye. Maybe he had a third nipple, but I wasn’t going to look for it.

Part of me had expected him to look… different—inhuman, maybe, whatever that meant. But he didn’t. He was normal.

But what the hell had happened to him? Whe...

Was this what the hell my stomachache had been about?

First things first. He’d said he needed food, and even though I had groceries, it wasn’t enough for both of us, but I’d worry about that tomorrow. Did he want to be fed now? Or had he just meant in general?

Because that would be my luck, finding one of the most well-known people in the world and then having him die in my house immediately afterward. I’d bury the body and a cop would come by, find his bones, and then I’d go to jail for murder.

Or The Primordial and The Centurion would search to the ends of the world for me, rip me apart limb by limb, and toss me into the ocean as a shark buffet.

reached over to spoon a bit of soup between his lips. They were a pretty dark pink color. His mouth was perfect.

With a towel under his chin, I poured a little bit of water into his mouth, and he didn’t let me down then either; he swallowed that too. Convenient. And weird, but I wasn’t going to overthink it.

I had to help him. Whatever I had to do, I would. If anyone deserved it, he did.

He didn’t wake up. Not that day or the next or the one after that.

But it wasn’t the sleeping part that scared me; it was the fact he didn’t pee or poo. For three days.

I fucking hoped it wasn’t a coma. I was trying to be positive and call it a nap. A nice, long, regenerative nap.

He ate, so he had to digest his food somehow. Did beings like him even go? Did they have… buttholes? I had so many questions.

Questions I had no business having in the first place, but curiosity was my second greatest flaw, after running my mouth.

He was still eating and drinking water, and even though he felt warmish, it didn’t feel high enough to be a fever. He’d been pretty hot the first day he’d arrived, but I figured that had something to do with those purple fires that hadn’t left a trace.

While he hadn’t gotten any better, he hadn’t gotten worse. I thought. So there was that.

I did skip my runs to be on the safe side, even though it felt wrong.

I fed him slowly, every three hours, five times a day. Soup—always soup—that resembled baby food. I slept on the couch to be close in case he needed anything. It was where I’d slept every night since. I’d made a deal, and I wouldn’t back out on it.