The lights are off for a full two seconds before I have the presence of mind to stretch my awareness out.

  Unsurprisingly, a substantial amount of this place is shielded, not letting my perception go too far; anything not directly in the main room is cut off from me, including where the kids are, but I don’t believe we’re actually under attack.

  While it was my first thought, as I consider for longer I realize that it doesn’t make any sense. Why else would Vince and Sarah go off to get good seats for something?

  Actually, looking back at that, several other people are moving to places, maybe to watch whatever was coming?

  “Jason, any idea about what’s going on?” Amelia asks, her voice sounding incredibly annoyed about the whole ordeal.

  “No clue, but I think it’s going to be some kind of surprise.” I whisper back.

  The world warps.

  One moment we were standing in the darkness near one of the edges of the party, avoiding the dance floor. The next moment we’re sitting down as snow and glitter stream down on everyone.

  “Ho! Ho! Ho!” a boisterous voice shouts, voice echoing.

  “Do you think Santa is upset that I stole his shtick of winter wonder?” Amelia grumbles as she swipes the snow out of her eyes.

  If she’s not willing it off, I wonder if it’s not actually real snow.

  These chairs weren’t all here when I had been standing a little bit ago. And it changed instantly.

  Even though we’re all still in the same room.

  “I am absolutely perplexed at the moment.” I finally admit after trying for a bit longer to come up with some kind of conclusion that would lead me to figure something out.

  “It seems pretty obvious to me we got kidnapped by Santa, and the dude is using our collective children as elves.” Amelia says, gesturing around.

  I had noticed kids walking around the chairs, but when I twist around to look around, I think she’s right.

  In the distance, there’s even Bianca with a Santa hat, elf ears, and new jingly shoes walking around waving at any person she walks by.

  “So if we were kidnapped by Santa, what exactly is going to happen next?”

  “Do you think it’s actually Santa or just some crazy super who thought it would be funny to use their time-stopping powers to break into folks' houses to leave presents in trade for cookies?” Amelia muses.

  “If this leads you to wanting to become Jack Frost and make infinite snow days, the answer is no.”

  “Jackie Frost.”

  “No, you can’t be a holiday-themed terrorist.”

  “I think it would only be terrorism if I decided to ice the whole world over unless they gave me infinite tacos.”

  “What would you even do with infinite tacos?” I ask, doubling over from laughing so hard.

  “Flex over everyone else that I have infinite tacos and they in fact do not have infinite tacos I think it’s pretty obvious here.” Amelia says, poking me in the side for emphasis, only getting more giggles out of me.

  “Hi!” a little girl says, flying over to us and standing on the air so she can look us in the eyes. “I’m here to tell you the rules for the stickup.”

  “Wait, this is a stickup!” Amelia gasps, pulling a hand to her mouth in mock horror.

  “I think so!” She nods. “So you have to promise you won’t use your powers or else we’ll be sad and you’ll have to put on the hat of shame!”

  Before I can ask what the hat of shame is, Amelia’s already bounding to her next idea at full speed. “What if I said I wanted to make it snow with my powers? Is that allowed?”

  The little girl in the air sits down, so to speak, mostly by bringing her legs up as she ponders. “I don’t know! I’ll be right back. I have to go ask Santa!”

  She zips off, almost becoming a blur.

  “Okay, that’s adorable.” I admit.

  “I really hope someone’s taking pictures of Bianca for us,” Amelia agrees.

  The flier, after a few minutes, zips back, standing before us triumphantly. “Santa says you can only make it snow if you promise to become an elf and join us.”

  “You drive a hard bargain. What do you think I should do?”

  “Hmmmmmm.” She says, considering it as she floats around us. “You don’t know the plan, so being an elf is going to be hard. And you’re Bianca’s mommy, so we’re doing this for you all, so I think you should watch!”

  “Alright, I’ll watch, and I swear I won’t use my powers.”

  The flier turns to face me with pleading eyes. “Mr. Ghosty man, do you also promise you’re not going to use your powers?”

  Ghosty man?

  Oh, please tell me that’s not going to be the name that sticks.

  “I promise I’m not going to use any powers.”

  “Even the sneaky brain ones Santa said you have? You’re not one of the people spying for safety, so you can’t do that either.”

  Mentally, I retract my awareness so that the supernatural sense is contained to my own body. “Just normal senses for me today.”

  The flier nods before zipping off to go see another group and do their spiel.

  “So, thoughts on the superhero name Ghosty Man?”

  “I’m not even going to bother with you.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  Glancing around, it seems like everyone’s in a good mood, happily greeting the kids playing the role of elves as we wait for the dramatic big reveal.

  It isn’t long before a robot rolls by offering us some drinks and food which we both happily take though just one sniff at the alcohol provided that supposedly would get Amelia or I drunk is enough for me to remember one of the reasons I don’t drink.

  “You can have it if you want?” I offer holding up my drink to Amelia as I grab a glass of non-alcoholic cider.

  Amelia happily takes both, knocking back the first drink in one motion before slowing down with the second one.

  It’s odd that every group is spaced just far enough away that we feel as if we’re in a private setting, sort of like a nice restaurant. If I focus, it’s obvious what people are saying and that we’re in a public place.

  But it’s also easy to get lost in the conversation, just the two of us.

  On a whim, I lean over and press my lips against Amelia’s for a moment, eliciting a happy hum from her before pulling away.

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  As I pull away, the lights dim in all but one area, where a platform is slowly being raised into the air.

  There’s a slight murmur of whispering going around before it’s like the world stutters, and standing on top of the platform is someone that could only be described as Santa.

  “Holy shit, we actually were kidnapped by Santa, who’s using our kids as unpaid child labor.” Amelia whispers in my ear as she quakes with laughter.

  “Now, I know most of you don’t know me. But I’m just a local hero around these parts, tend to only work a few nights of the year, yada yada.” Santa says, his voice booming. “But you see, I did have a gift I wanted to give the heroes of Earth this year. For the next few days.” He snaps his fingers suddenly, wearing a cop outfit over his Santa suit. “I’m playing copper, and you all won’t need to worry about work.”

  I sit there astounded about what I’m hearing because if this isn’t fake I’m looking at someone who’s at least strong enough to pretend to be Santa and he’s offering the chance for us to not work as heroes for a while to take care of it.

  “Your children have helped me set up a party that all of you will delight in. But before that, it is time to show the Christmas highlight reel for who were the nicest and naughtiest supers here.” Santa says, giving an exaggerated wink. “Elves, while the highlight reel is playing, you can return to your parents, but you have to get back to work after that.”

  Bianca, at that point, spontaneously appears in our laps looking up at us beaming.

  “You knew, didn’t you!” Amelia whispers, poking Bianca. “And you stayed silent about it the whole time. You sly angel!”

  Bianca silently giggles as she tries to squirm out of the poking though fails to do so.

  “Are you having fun helping Santa?” I ask quietly, running a hand through Bianca’s hair. We’re never getting the glitter out of it.

  Or my hand.

  Or my hair.

  I really hope one of the supers here has some kind of way that we can get rid of the glitter.

  Bianca nods and points excitedly at the screen lowering.

  “Are we going to be on it?”

  Bianca nods excitedly.

  The video starts out as any regular highlight reel showing some clips from various recordings of some of the famous acts of the heroes here.

  The fact that I’m in the same party and could have even talked to some of the people who have single-handedly saved the world from ending is staggering.

  It’s fascinating to watch, especially with the color commentary Santa is giving with every clip explaining where they are on the goodness scale.

  Though some of the clips are weird, it’s as if we’re watching them through a first-person lens.

  Bianca cheers, throwing her hands up when a clip of Amelia, Cass and I fighting back-to-back shows up as we’re beating down a super gang member. From when they had attacked the clock tower.

  “And here we see a new superhero trio doing their best to defend their new home. This clip was specially brought by request of the elf who helped with much of the setup to make our winter wonderland properly sparkle.” Santa said before the clip changed.

  Properly sparkled.

  Was the glitter made from fragments of her wires?

  The clip show goes on for at least an hour, maybe more, and I was surprised to see that Amelia and I were actually on it a few times.

  While seeing the superhero clips was great, the second half, where we got to see all the kids in Bianca’s class doing things, was much more adorable.

  Santa also gave them a much nicer rating scale, with not a single clip getting less than a four point five on the niceness scale.

  But like all good things, the clip show ended with Santa standing up to talk to us once more.

  “Now the question is, what is a party without dancing!” Santa shouts. “And with the kind help of our elves, we’ve been able to isolate space to give all the couples some alone time. While me and my elves do nothing, you need to worry about. Those of you not in a couple, well, good luck finding someone to dance with.”

  Before I can finish parsing through that, suddenly Amelia and I are all by ourselves in the meeting room as music begins to play.

  “So can I have this dance?” I ask, standing up and doing a small bow before holding my hand out.

  “I can think of literally nothing better.” Amelia agrees taking her hand in mine and pulling herself to her feet. “But I want to lead. It always looks more fun in movies to twirl and dip someone.”

  “You just don’t want me to accidentally drop you,” I laugh as I let her lead.

  “That is part of my concern, yeah.”

  “It’s odd how isolated the party is. Despite fostering a whole sense of superhero community, we’ve barely talked to anyone.” I note.

  “Private people. If they wanted to save everyone’s lives and be known for it, they wouldn’t wear masks. It’s why you wear it.”

  “Good point.”

  “I wear the mask because it’s sexy.”

  “Yes, mecha power armor is very seductive.”

  Amelia sighs at that, shaking her head.

  “Hey Jason?” Amelia asks quietly as we continue to dance around the room.

  “Yeah?”

  “So I know it's not your thing, and I want to preface this by saying I'm not asking you to say yes; I'm asking you to think about it.” Amelia says her voice in a rush as if afraid if she doesn’t ask it quickly my answer could change.

  “I promise to think about it long and hard.” I joke pretty positive I know what’s about to be asked, and I’m glad she’s putting so much thought and care into asking already.

  She gives me a glare to let me know that she does not appreciate the joking that I’m doing and that she certainly caught it.

  Regardless of my joking, she leans in to ask anyway. “Would you be willing to think about if you would want to be doing some definitely not ace stuff with me soon? Ideally tonight, but I’m happy to wait as long as you need.” She asks in a low, nervous whisper.

  My first thought is how viscerally odd it is whenever Amelia seems to be some kind of nervous or afraid. That’s not the person I imagine when I picture her. More exploding onto the scene with an axe in one hand.

  Regardless, I focused on the question and tried to engage in it, figuring out what my feelings were. Sex was something I was honestly was indifferent about. It was an activity like any other, and that was more or less where my feelings on the matter ended.

  I’ve done it with previous partners for no other reason than they really seemed to want to, but that didn’t mean I had wanted to at the time.

  So the question was, did I want to do it with Amelia, or could see myself wanting to do it soon? That answer was complicated because I did want to make Amelia happy, and doing so would definitely make her happy, but that’s not what she was asking, so I had to search for a deeper answer.

  “You know there is something I miss about your old eyes.” Amelia muses, breaking me out of my concentration. “They were substantially more expressive when you were working out a problem in your head or trying to find an answer. Now it’s just the same enchanting swirlyness.”

  “Spend a lot of time looking into my eyes?” I tease.

  “A lot more than either of us are comfortable thinking about, so moving on you can go back to thinking while we dance.” Amelia orders.

  With a statement like that, I, in fact, do return to thinking as I puzzle through it all. The answer this time is probably going to be yes.

  I do want to be intimate with Amelia. And more than that, I want to show my love in ways that resonate strongly with her. It seems really sad to me if I only showed love to Amelia in the ways that I loved instead of showing her in the ways she wants to be loved at times.

  “Yeah, we can have some fun when we get home and Bianca is asleep.” I promise.

  “Oh, thank god, because tonight was going to be a struggle otherwise. But you said yes, so no struggling involved.” Amelia says, slumping against me as she breathes in relief.

  “Was it really going to be that bad?”

  “Are you really so stupid about this stuff that I need to spell it out for you?” Amelia chuckles.

  “Unfortunately, it appears so.” I agree.

  “Well, this is the first time I’ve seen you dressed up in ages, let alone seen you dressed up while we’re romantically entangled and you look good. I’m buzzed for the first time since I got powers, so that’s great. I’m so in love with you I don’t even know how I got to this point definitely factoring in. And it’s a party. Honestly, if I didn’t have many thoughts about how I wanted to jump the bones of the person I plan on marrying, I would think something was wrong with me.” She laughs near the end of the explanation as my face goes hot.

  “Plan on marrying?” I ask those words playing repeat in my head.

  “Yup, I’m just in the plotting stage to plan something suitably romantic that it’s a good place to propose but not so romantic it sets off your psychic senses so you try to spring it on me first.”

  “It’s a competition?”

  “Yes, it’s a competition, and I want to be first!”

  “You can be first.”

  “That’s not how competition works. You need to be competing for first too silly.”

  “Alright, I’ll compete.”

  “It’ll be a battle for the ages.” Amelia agrees.

  I’m about to say something more but the song that was drifting through the air stops and the next moment every other person that had been in the area appears whatever power that had been used to isolate everyone’s space no longer having a hold over the world.

  Amelia and I separate just for Bianca to run into our legs, hugging us tightly. “Hey B, did you enjoy being an elf for Santa?” I ask, picking her up as she lets out a sleepy yawn.

  Bianca nods, but it’s clear she’s absolutely exhausted.

  “Was the glitter made out of your wires?” I ask, gesturing with my head towards the way we came in questioningly, and Amelia nods in agreement.

  Bianca nods against my chest.

  As Amelia and I begin picking our way across, it’s easy to see many other parents with small kids are doing a similar maneuver.

  Actually, looking around, almost every kid seems to have been run absolutely ragged. Did Santa use everyone’s powers to tire them out or something?

  “You ready to go home?” I ask Amelia.

  “I am home because I’m with you, but I am ready to be back at our place, yeah,” Amelia whispers, arm around me.

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