Heroes Wear Capes
Chapter 19: Studying = Student Dying

“I find the person. And then I put the fear of God into them until they talk. But we can try your way.”

~ Oliver Queen (Green Arrow)

Celeste, despite her best efforts, had been looking forward to today. The day when Ross was going to help her study for their test the next day in history. Ever since he proposed the idea, Celeste knew she would end up agreeing. She needed help with her history class anyways if she wanted to pass, not to mention she was starting to like Ross. Keeping him around let her have someone to make fun of.

She also needed something to take her mind off of the daunting task Trevor Rossi had hired her for. Wild Fire knew who Momentum was and she was going to beat it out of him if she had to. When she delivered the killer of Paul Rossi to his son, she would hold in her hand the most valuable piece of information she could ever have in her hands, Wild Fire’s identity.

It was getting increasingly frustrating, especially considering Momentum had been seen a few more times in public since the beginning of the week. Every time she tried to arrive to a scene where he’d been, she was too late. That was the problem with going after someone who was faster than a bullet, they could escape the scene of the crime within seconds.

So, a welcome distraction was needed in the form of studying over at Ross Gustin’s house. It was in no way a study “date,” Celeste was sure to get that through Ross’s head.

She was still recovering from her latest public battle with Wild Fire though. She had a burn on her side that hurt pretty bad, a present from her nemesis after she pelted him with a snowstorm so thick that he was temporarily blinded.

It was fitting that the one time he landed a good shot on her was because he couldn’t see where to aim.

To make it feel better she would cool her hands to a temperature not safe for normal humans and cover her burn. It was healing faster than it would on a regular person due to her ability to take away heat from the burn.

They were meeting after school, but Celeste declined his offer of a ride over to his house on the account of a quick errand she had to run. In actuality, she had no errand to run. Celeste was just doing the smart thing she’d learned from growing up in Oakland: you never get in a car alone with a guy you don’t trust. Things happen in bad neighborhoods when guys pretend to give a girl a ride home.

So, Celeste arrived in front of the address Ross had given her after walking half a mile from the school. She was unpleasantly proven to be right about how Ross lived. He was just like any other Kingdom Hills resident. Ross’s house was huge, bugger than anything Celeste had ever lived in. Don’t get her wrong, it wasn’t the mansions of the rich folks she usually robbed, but it was still a real house with a porch and a front lawn and a second story. It wasn’t a three room apartment in Oakland. The paint job looked nice as well, no paint chips peeling off or scratches on the posts from the neighborhood stray cats.

Celeste was suddenly struck with hatred for Ross. He didn’t know what it was like to go hungry for a night or to have the power shut off at random because the electricity bill was too expensive. He lived a comfortable life. He didn’t need to steal to survive.

In that moment, Ross was no better than the power hungry tyrants that she stole from.

She walked slowly up to his front door on an almost perfectly white sidewalk with grass vibrantly green and trimmed in a straight line. When she made it to the front porch, the door opened before she could ring the bell. It appeared that Ross had been eagerly waiting for her to arrive.

“Hey.”

Ross was all smiles, but Celeste couldn’t even fake one. Maybe a part of her had hoped Ross wasn’t the same as all of the other kids at her school.

“So, are we going to do some studying?” Celeste asked coldly, pushing past him into his house.

Ross turned around and closed the door, confused. “Um, do you want anything to eat?”

“Nope.”

“Anything to drink?”

“Not really.”

Celeste could hear a big sigh from Ross. He was trying. He really was.

“Do you want to start?”

Celeste nodded. Ross led her through his house and upstairs to his room. She noted that the house seemed strangely empty of other people even though it was big enough for a large family. She guessed his parents were out working at their big well-paying jobs. All the pictures on the walls showed a happy family. The kind you would see in ads and commercials, all smiles and bright eyes. A younger Ross and a little adorable girl in between an attractive blonde and a tall clean-shaven man. She wondered if his parents had been Remedist supporters, against anyone who was different – minorities. She fell into many minority categories. She was a woman, Latina, young, and a super. The Remedists especially hated young supers.

Though she wouldn’t be able to tell from a photo, Celeste was struck with the feeling that she knew all she would ever need to know about the Gustins because she knew the type.

It might’ve been a hypocritical move to judge a family she’d never really met, but people like them had done it enough times to her in her lifetime, judging her without a second glance. It was why she loved to bring them down a notch from their high horses. They may have thought they were all high and mighty, but Celeste was there to remind them that justice would be served where it was due.

Ross’s room was, in short, much blander than Celeste had expected. There were no Star Wars posters covering every inch of the wall, nor were there action figures lining every empty surface. In fact, Celeste couldn’t really spot any of the usually nerdy geek material that she would associate with a character like Ross. It was very strange suddenly being in someone else’s environment and realizing it was nothing like you expected it to be.

The walls were gray and the bedspread was a plain blue. The dresser and the windowsill were painted black, simply designed. The lone poster on the wall was of some band she’d never heard of. There wasn’t even a framed picture on his desk, just an alarm clock.

“Nice place.” Celeste commented, just because she couldn’t think of anything else to say about the shocking room.

“Thanks,” Ross responded, gaining his optimistic attitude back. “I’ve picked out a couple of eras that I think will be on the test Friday, especially the harder ones. We’re going to get you reciting the history of the American Empire yet!”

*

*

*

“Wait, say that again!” Ross exclaimed, bursting out with laughter.

Celeste frowned. “Why are you laughing? That was a genuine comparison.”

Ross sobered up, his eyes still bright. “I’m not making fun of you. It’s just . . . I’ve never heard anyone compare America in the 1890s to The Wizard of OZ before.”

“It’s really quite simple,” Celeste urged. “Think of it like this: The Yellow Brick Road represents the gold standard at the time and in the original book Dorothy’s slippers were silver, representing the sixteen to one silver ratio The Populists wanted because they thought it would help the small business man pay off debts. The ‘common man’s party’ didn’t like that money value was based on gold instead of silver. Dorothy – naïve and young – represents the American people. A common person led astray and looking for a way home. The twister that carried Dorothy to OZ is the Populist cyclone that swept across Kansas in the 1890s, getting people to believe in the movement in a rush. Toto is the Prohibitionists who were the Populists’ most faithful allies. Toto is always trotting behind Dorothy “soberly” just as the Prohibitionists who wanted to stupidly get rid of alcohol soberly followed the Populists. Since alcohol isn’t illegal now, we know how well that turned out for them. The Witch of the East that Dorothy accidentally drops a house on represents eastern American financial interests and their gold-standard political allies, the people Populists despised the most. The sweeping tornado of a political movement literally crushes the Populist witch. Midwestern farmers blamed all their woes on the Wall Street Bankers who were in a conspiracy to enslave the little people, right? Just like how the Wicked Witch of the East enslaved the munchkins, literal little people.

“The Scarecrow is the American farmer and their troubles. He falls a lot on the golden road because the American farmer blamed the golden road for all their problems, but he was never really hurt because the gold was not really what was hurting the common man like they thought. The Tin Man is the American industrial worker, especially those working in steel, for obvious reasons. The Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan, the leader of the Populist movement who was often viewed as a coward. Following the road made of gold leads them to the Emerald City, the fraudulent world of greenback paper money only pretending to have high value, ruled by a scheming, lying politician known as The Wizard who tricks the people into believing he is wise and powerful when he’s really selfish. Thus, the Populists views that the leaders of America were lying to the American people were proven.”

Celeste huffed at Ross’s blank stare. “Really, it’s not that hard to comprehend. I’m stupid and I can understand it.”

After a moment, Ross shook his head, more in disbelief than anything else. “Celeste, you understand a lot more about US History than you let yourself think. I can barely remember what the Populist movement is half the time and here you are with most of it memorized.”

Celeste shrugged, suddenly bashful. She was not used to compliments. “It’s nothing really. When I was little my mom used to read the original Wizard of Oz to me before I went to sleep. She would always tell me about how it connected to history. She was such a history buff like that. I guess I remembered more than I thought I did.”

“Celeste,” Ross urged, “you definitely aren’t stupid. Classes aren’t just about spitting out facts, it’s about comprehension. You just proved that you can understand this stuff just given the right format. If you would let yourself believe it, you could probably pass this test with no problem.”

Celeste let her hair fall in her face so she could hide the redness invading her features. That was the closest thing she’d gotten to a compliment in a while, and it felt strangely good. It was more than just some random internet troll calling Artic Frost “the greatest villain there ever was.” This was someone telling her that there was something desirable about her character, not her villainous abilities. It was refreshing and . . . satisfying.

She felt Ross’s hand tuck her hair behind her ear. She looked up into his eyes, a moment that any romantic movie would love to parody. If Celeste had been thinking straight, she wouldn’t have been leaning forward.

And then there was a yell from downstairs. An angry sort of tone that made Celeste jump out of her skin. Ross only stilled for a moment, not reacting, like he was used to it, before shaking it off and getting up off their position on the floor to turn on the radio. “Any particular station you want to listen to?”

Celeste furrowed her eyebrows, but it seemed Ross had already absentmindedly turned on the loudest punk station he could find. You could no longer hear the yelling from downstairs.

He went back to the floor with Celeste like nothing had happened, flipping to the next page in the textbook.

Celeste didn’t let it go unnoticed.

“Hey, shouldn’t we go check out if they’re okay?” she asked, assuming the yelling voices had been his parents. Maybe one of them had gotten hurt. Why would he blatantly ignore that?

Ross was still and his face was stone, betraying nothing and everything at once, concentrating more on writing down something from the textbook then her. “They’re fine. It was nothing. They probably just turned the TV on too loud. They do that sometimes . . . turn up the volume.”

She’d seen this kind of behavior before. Before mom kicked out dad she’d have to lie to the neighbors about the constant yelling in her house and the constant thumps on their floor. She’d done the same thing in her own home.

“Ross,” Celeste ventured.

“No.” Ross’s fingers were getting white as he clenched the edge of his textbook. “Can we please just talk about something else?”

Celeste nodded.

“I mean . . .” Ross trailed off after breaking their long silence. “This isn’t . . .”

She took his hand in hers and squeezed. She knew the words he wasn’t saying. Celeste remembered wishing and praying for her parents to finally separate because they had to be happier apart. Maybe then at least the yelling would stop. Maybe if the yelling and crashing stopped she’d stop making it snow in her room.

(Okay, that last one probably didn’t apply to Ross)

“I know,” She comforted.

“So, about the Prohibitionist era,” Ross started, getting them back to studying.

But, it was too late. Celeste realized she understood Ross now more than she ever thought she would. And she found herself actually liking him. He wasn’t another stuck up rich boy at Kingdom Hills. He didn’t have a picture perfect family. He was different, like her.

And Celeste found herself falling.

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