Bianca and I are currently working through one of the pages of her superhero coloring book when Amelia slides in holding two different swaths of black fabric.

  “Jason!” she yells, looking at me with an expression I can only call pure whimsy sparkling in her eyes.

  “Yeah?” I ask, turning my attention back to the coloring book. Whatever crazy question that’s about to be asked, I don’t imagine it’ll take that much concentration.

  “Would you rather… Me in a bunny girl outfit? Or… Me in a maid cosplay? For today? Not always, but today?” She asks as if it’s a perfectly reasonable question.

  When I look up at her, I see her taking turns posing with the two costumes while giving me a goofy grin.

  Why the decision is to wear costumes the week of Christmas I haven’t the foggiest but uh. I don’t know which one I’m supposed to pick.

  This feels like a situation where both of them feel like wrong answers, but I know Amelia, and she’ll absolutely wear one or both of them today for no other reason than to mess with me.

  As I open my mouth to finally answer, Amelia dramatically leans in, waiting for my answer. “Is it wrong for me to want to spend the day with my normal girlfriend in her normal clothes?”

  Amelia gasps in horror, shirking back. “You are cheating on me! With a normal person! How dare!”

  “Amelia, you're my normal. I just want to spend time with you and Bianca today.”

  “Well, it’s no fun when you react all cute like that. But normal clothes are boring, and I wanted to do something exciting.” She laughs.

  “If you really want, you can wear one. I’m not going to stop you; I just want you to be comfortable.”

  “Well, I’m at least going to wear the bunny ears.” Amelia grumbles before crouching down to look Bianca in the eye. “So B should I be a bunny or a maid today?”

  Bianca looks between the costumes before looking at me in confusion.

  She then scrambles through the drawings before pulling up one of a rabbit and pointing at it questioningly.

  “Are you wondering where the bunny is?” I ask gently, running a hand through her hair. I need to comb it today, but that’s a problem for future Jason.

  Amelia nods very seriously. “Don’t worry B the costume does have all the important bunny bits. A tail, ears, being heckin adorable as hell.”

  Part of me wonders if I should stop this train wreck waiting to happen, but by the time I try it’s already too late, Amelia having run off to change into her costume for the day.

  “Hey B, do you want to watch something while I comb your hair today, or do you want to continue drawing while I do it, or both?” I offer grabbing the comb I had set on the table this morning.

  Bianca scampers away to turn on the TV and select a show she likes before returning to climb into my lap and resuming drawing, which is all the indication I need to start slowly combing her hair.

  She doesn’t seem to notice as she happily continues to draw and watch tv and I resist any form of temptation of expanding my senses to check and see what Amelia is doing.

  I’m sure it would be incredibly funny, but I don’t really need to check anyway; she’s going to show up sooner or later, though part of me really wonders if she’s going to actually show up in a bunny girl costume.

  Or maybe she’ll show up in an actual rabbit costume. I really couldn’t tell.

  “Once your hair is done, do you know what you want me to do it up as? Or should I just leave it once it’s combed?” I ask, leaning down to peek at her face as she concentrates on her drawing. “Probably between pigtails or just a braid today?”

  Bianca doesn’t respond instantly, enraptured in the particular shade of her blue crayon as she colors in the sky, but she eventually responds, indicating she would like her hair in pigtails today.

  “Sounds good.” I agree.

  By the time I hear the door of one of the bedrooms open and close again, I’m almost done combing Bianca’s hair entirely.

  There're no knots or tangles, but I want to run the comb through once more properly before I put it into pigtails.

  “So how do I look?” Amelia asks, sauntering into the room and doing a little spin to show off her whole outfit.

  Low and behold, she was in an actual bunny girl costume. Complete with the tail and ears.

  “Did you use my cufflinks for your cuffs?” I ask, peering at her wrists.

  “You know, sometimes it’s really hard when you act like an ace. Could you be like a normal dude for like five seconds!” Amelia pouts, sticking her tongue out at me as she leans down.

  “You look gorgeous.”

  “Damn gay I do!” Amelia agrees, laughing as she throws herself across the table narrowly missing the glass of water before landing on the couch behind me. “Now I am going to dramatically pose and chat while you finish doing B’s hair.” Amelia says, her voice tickling the back of my head.

  Leaning my head back so I’m resting it against the couch, I look into her eyes, allowing myself to get lost for a moment as I let my hands function on autopilot. “Do I get a kiss?”

  “Well, you are cute, so I could be persuaded.” Amelia says, peering down at me. “So what’s the magic word, and It’s definitely not please.”

  “I love you.”

  “Well, technically the magic word was iloveyou because it was one word, but close enough.” Amelia laughs.

  Amelia pulls away slowly from the kiss, and I sit up straight as I pull one of the hair ties off of my wrist.

  “So do we have any plans today?” Amelia asks, plopping her head on top of mine and draping my arms around me.

  “Well, Bianca wanted to watch a family movie today,” I pause as Bianca nods excitedly. “And I was going to go out grocery shopping for a bit for a conspicuous hour and thirty minutes where you two could wrap or buy presents. Or longer if that is what’s needed.”

  “Bianca, do we want to watch the movie before or after we wrap presents?” Amelia asks, her voice slightly muffled.

  It takes a little bit of time to parse through what Bianca wants, but it’s pretty clear the choice is to do presents before we do the movie.

  “So, thoughts on the plan being, lazy morning for a bit, you go out for groceries while Bianca and I do stuff of dubious nature, you come back and make dinner, and we watch the movie?” Amelia asks.

  Bianca nods at that, and it’s easy to get my own agreement as well, and with that I’m finally done doing Bianca’s hair.

  “So, B, do you also want to play dress-up with me today and get you a costume? Do you want to just be in pajamas all day, or do you want to wear normal clothes?”

  Bianca ponders long and hard on that before dragging Amelia to her room so that the two can figure out what she should wear.

  With those two properly occupied at least for a few moments, I begin cleaning up the coloring supplies and turn down the volume of the TV a tad.

  Both the show and the art supplies will be returned to shortly, but I figure it’s better to put in a little bit of effort now into cleaning.

  “I’m going to make sandwiches real quick so that people can have something to eat now or later while I’m out shopping!” I call as I move into the kitchen, taking off the sweater I had been wearing as I pull out the ingredients in question.

  “You’re the bestest house spouse ever!” Amelia calls back.

  While the bread is toasting, Amelia and Bianca reappear, Amelia still in her incredibly distracting bunny girl costume and Bianca in what looks to be a bunny rabbit onesie, floppy ears on the hood most definitely included.

  “So, is the theme bunny girl and bunny daughter?” I ask, chuckling as I give each of them a hug in turn, politely ignoring where Amelia’s hands go as I hug her.

  “Bianca was incredibly distressed that I was only partly a bunny, so she also needed to be a rabbit.”

  I’m sure distressed was the right word for whatever was going on.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I feel like we should play cards tonight while I’m in costume. We could play poker and wager clothes instead of money.” Amelia says in a sultry whisper.

  “How about for every hand you lose you have to put on more clothes?”

  “Just because you’re technically correct doesn’t make you not a spoilsport!” Amelia complains, setting Bianca down on the counter before going to help me cook.

  “I do my best.”

  “Well, harharhar.”

  Bianca, also wanting to participate, grabs one of the tomatoes I had set down to cut and conjures a silver thread to begin dicing it.

  “Thank you for helping B. You’re the best.” I say, giving her a large grin as she giggles happily, showing me the slices of tomato.

  “If I don’t get compliments soon, I think someone’s sock might have to mysteriously freeze,” I hear Amelia grumble as I laugh.

  “You can have every compliment in the world. You’re incredible.” I remind her, bumping my hip against hers as I move what I had been working on next to her, leaving us just a hair’s breadth apart.

  “Well, what can I say? I have people I strive to be my best for.” Amelia smiles, leaning in as if she wants to whisper a secret or steal a kiss.

  “Like my beloved angel Bianca, I dedicate all my love to you!” She cackles, spinning past me to nuzzle her nose against our daughter’s.

  Once what I guess based on the time and food prepared for brunch is done, we enjoy a quick meal at the table before I bid them both a see you later and head to my car.

  I do need to go grocery shopping, but there’s almost no world where it takes me ninety minutes for me to get it all done, so instead I put on my music and begin driving out of the city to investigate Andromeda’s cabin.

  I hadn’t thought about it much recently because of everything going on, but the idea of having a safe place for me and my family has been weighing on me.

  The tower might be secure, but it’s not safe. And as much as I love my apartment, it’s not safe either, and while I had found her safe house, that doesn’t mean the place wasn’t built to be secure in the first place.

  The drive is quick, and the hike is relaxing as I trudge through the snow using only my normal abilities… Only normal abilities folks can see. I make heavy use of my spatial awareness so that I don’t have to see anyone try to accost me or follow me.

  Once I’m actually to the cabin, I have to use my phasing to avoid any of the traps, which is something I would need to figure out how they work.

  The odds of me accidentally setting one off while I’m auto-piloting is a lot higher than I think anyone would want their home to be.

  But there are many things going for it. Despite it not being connected to any power lines, I can tell it still has electricity, and it has running water.

  A normal fridge and a storage room for food.

  A full-on in-house movie theater setup that seems a tad bit excessive, at least to me, but it could be nice for movie night.

  All the rooms and bathrooms I could ask for, and that wasn’t even getting to the underground parts of the facility.

  Unfortunately, those fell under the problem of I would need to clear and check them for everything, and I wouldn’t even be able to do it all on my own.

  Presuming the traps were all single activating, I could just go be nearly impossible to hurt and go around triggering each and every one of them.

  All that stuff downstairs?

  I would need help with, and I don’t know who I could ask.

  Asher has the technological knowhow, but he’s not nearly durable enough that I would want to risk it.

  Cass is even harder to hurt than me, but she was a med student, so I doubt she has any better idea about what all this sci-fi looking stuff could be. I guess I could ask Travis if he could put me into contact with someone that would know what to do and be durable that I’m not afraid.

  I just didn’t like that option because there was already so much I owed him and others that I didn’t want to add more favors to the list of things I need to do.

  Though speaking of Travis and Sasha that reminded me I should see if they want to come over for Christmas.

  So while I’m puttering about through the safe house, I dial Sasha’s number since she’s historically been far better when it came to answering any phone calls I sent out.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the emergency?” Sasha asks breathlessly.

  “Uh, a zero do you want me to call back?” I ask, idly wondering what it would cost to get my super suit to be able to teleport to me.

  If I could do that, I could offer to help instantly. Presuming she was willing to spring for the teleporting.

  Though if she was doing that, I guess it wouldn’t be much of a problem to teleport me to my suit.

  “Oh, thank god I could use a zero. While most people seem to get quiet during Christmas, some of the big players decide it’s finally time to spring their traps.” Sasha explains, sighing in relief.

  “I was wondering if you and Travis had any plans for Christmas? Cass is already coming over, and I wanted to invite you guys as well.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet of you, but we already have plans, though do you know if you, Bianca, and Amelia have any plans on the twenty-third?”

  “Can I ask why you’re asking before I confirm or deny the existence of any plans we might have?” I ask suspicious.

  This reads suspiciously like someone wants to invite me to some kind of holiday party, and I do not enjoy those.

  “The group that runs the daycare and school for supers where Bianca goes to, my team we’re throwing a party. Both because it’ll be good for the kids and because some of the other parents have wanted to meet others in their boat.” Sasha explains.

  I am already mentally groaning in anguish because I desperately don’t want to go, but Bianca and Amelia will want to go, and I definitely feel obligated that I have to go, which means I’m going to go, presuming Amelia wants to.

  “How many of the parents are going to be supers like us?” I ask mostly trying to figure out if I’m going to be a minnow among sharks or something else.

  “You and Amelia are on the stronger end for the parents. Though the gap runs wide between normals with super kids to some really heavy hitters.”

  “So long as I’m not expected to be the one to try and fix something if something begins to go catastrophically bad.” I joke.

  “No, nothing like that.” Sasha laughs. “Others can handle it, but we would love it if you could attend.”

  “I’ll make sure to float the concept to Amelia. She’ll probably say yes, but I want to know what our team’s plan is for it.”

  “How considerate, Cass will be happy to see you guys there too.”

  Sasha and I chat for a while longer before some inevitable problem calls her away, leaving me all to my lonesome.

  Once I’m done puttering about the safe house, I make the hike back to my car and then to my favorite grocery store.

  Grocery shopping was easy. At least it always had been before becoming a super, adopting a daughter, and living full time with someone else that I actually wanted to cook food for and cooked food as well.

  For the brief stint I had roommates in college, the deal had been they bought food and I cooked for everyone, so I had never been the one to do the shopping.

  Now I wasn’t sure what all I should or shouldn’t get because I didn’t want to get something Bianca wouldn’t like. But I also didn’t want to just buy snacks that people would eat constantly without end.

  I don’t think Bianca would raid snacks even if she could. On the other hand, Amelia is a menace and would finish them all in one night even if she would share a good chunk of them.

  And my own bad habit of shopping without a plan is definitely rearing its ugly head, but that’s not too bad of a problem, all things considered.

  Instead of shopping for a specific meal, I move through the store picking up things I like that give me options on what I want to cook.

  Because I want to do some nicer dinners this week with it being Christmas and everything, I get some nicer cuts of meat and restock on the seasonings I really only use around the holidays before I go back to general exploration.

  Mostly involving me following my nose to see what smells amazing, which had already gotten me to buy some cider.

  I also buy a case of oranges because they smelled delicious before I go to the frozen aisle and begin looking at the options for ice cream.

  It’s my favorite dessert.

  I know it’s definitely Bianca’s favorite dessert.

  And if it’s sweet, Amelia is likely to adore it, so the ice cream gets finished incredibly fast, but I always want to buy more, so I’m not truly complaining yet.

  Imagining the puppy dog eye is all it takes for me to grab a carton of vanilla ice cream before I grab some various fruit-flavored sherbets. It’s not what I usually get for ice cream, but today it sounds delicious.

  With my war chest hopefully full of everything I could need at the moment, I make my way through the checkout, moving fast and bagging everything thoroughly before I check my phone.

  Between going slow at shopping and what I had done earlier it was almost time for me to head back and Amelia hadn’t texted that she and B needed more time so I was most likely clear to head home but just in case I decide to take the long way while listening to the newest audiobook in a series I like.

  But by the time I’m pulling into the parking lot, I am more than ready to call it a day for all of my outside and dealing with potential people who I don’t deem my family.

  “Did you buy enough for a full army?” Amelia jokes, wrapping her arms around my waist when I’ve finished putting away all of our groceries.

  “Nothing like that, just enough for the week.” I say, giving her a tender kiss as we sway in the kitchen.

  “Well, aren’t you affectionate? Did you have a long day shopping?”

  “There were just a lot of people.” I admit. “And Sasha was wondering if we wanted to go to some type of super Christmas party where both faculty and the parents of Bianca’s class will be.”

  “Oh my god yes, there’s so many things I want to ask other folks about. And it would be cool to have some super friends who I don’t go fight crime with. You have Travis, but, uh, you two just punch the shit out of each other three days a week.” Amelia teases.

  “We’ll go.” I agree.

  “How about before the movie you lay down, or play video games or something. Let yourself be introverted for a bit.”

  “I don’t need to do that.” I deny.

  “Jason.” She says sharply, tilting my chin so I’m looking her dead in the eye. “Just because I’m drunk on love doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Spending time with you is amazing, but I know who I’m in love with. Take an hour. Be alone. And then let me get some physical affection or whatever we want to do. Bianca and I were thinking about going ice skating anyway today. We’ll take an extra hour to do that.”

  I let out a sigh as I pull her closer. “You know me too well,” I mumble into her hair.

  “Obviously, how else would I have been able to figure out how to seduce you?”

  Once she’s pulled away, I eye her outfit once more. “Are you really planning on going ice skating in a sexy bunny girl costume?”

  “I have no shame.”

  “Point.”

  “But I was also planning on wearing a winter jacket anyway, so all anyone’s going to see are the fishnets and stockings so it doesn’t really matter.” Amelia waves off.

  “See you in an hour or two for the movie.”

  “Kiss before I go?”

  “Always.”

  Goodbye for Amelia prepped, I give Bianca the hugs and attention she wants before going, promising that we can watch the full movie and I’ll read to her tonight before bed before she finally agrees to go.

  The home feels empty with them gone, and I’m a little bit surprised to feel I feel similar.

  I’m excited for the chance to have a moment to myself, but I already do miss them. That change feels far more stark than any I’ve felt since becoming a super.

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