Issue #5: "Frost Bitten" Pt. 1

“Aw man…” Ronnie Raymond said as he held his chin up and pinched his nose, looking at himself in one of the bathroom mirrors. Ronnie had woken up earlier to a bloody nose and made a mad dash to the shared bathroom on the floor of his doom. When he got there, he immediately stuck two wads of paper up his nose and tried to clean the blood off of his chest, but any movement cause his nose to bleed more.

Ronnie had waited for a few minutes before he tried to lower his head. He slowly moved his head into its normal position before letting go of his nose. After no blood trickled down, Ronnie was ready to go and try and clean himself up. That guy didn’t even hit me that hard last night. Why would my nose be bleeding now and not before I went to bed? Ronnie thought to himself. The previous night, as Firestorm, Ronnie had encountered a drug dealer beating on one of his clients. Ronnie got a little careless and the guy managed to punch him in the face before Ronnie subdued him.

After Ronnie was finished cleaning his face, he thought about taking the wads of paper out, before deciding against it, worried that he might release the floodgates again. I’ve been hit harder than that, Ronnie thought as he exited the bathroom and walked toward his suite at the end of the hall. I’ve never had injuries carry over from being Firestorm. Maybe it’s just a freak occurrence. I hope it is…

Ronnie reached his door and walked into the suite he shared with his friend Jefferson Jackson. He found the young African-American on the couch, playing a game of Madden on the X-Box. Ronnie plopped himself on the other end of the couch, put his feet up on the table they had set up between the TV and the couch, and watched Jefferson drive down the field to score a touchdown.

“You okay?” Jefferson asked as he kicked the extra point. “You ran to that bathroom so fast, I thought you might have been eating the pulled pork from the dining hall again.”

“If that was the case, at least I would know the cause,” Ronnie said, feeling his nose. “It’s probably nothing.”

“That didn’t look like nothing. Your face was covered in blood,” Jefferson said as he put the game on pause and put the controller down on the table. “Maybe you should go see a doctor. It might have something to do with you playing superhero so much lately.”

“I don’t think so. The guy just got a lucky punch in last night. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

“Ronnie, dawg, you fought a guy a couple of weeks ago that had enhanced strength and could multiply himself, and you didn’t have a scratch on you the next day. Now you’re waking up with bruises, bleeding and complaining about pain in your joints. I’m not a pre-med, but it looks like you need to see a doctor.”

Ronnie saw the logic. Since they became Firestorm, Martin Stein had been urging him to see a specialist to see if there were any side effects of their powers. Ronnie didn’t see the point, since the only side effect seemed to be Martin’s not remembering anything that happened while they were merged. He also didn’t want to believe that this incredible gift could possibly have some kind of harmful effect on him.

And Ronnie enjoyed playing the hero and didn’t want it to stop. Since coming onto the scene, Firestorm had been viewed by the media and the general populace of New York as a breath of fresh air, with his carefree and lighthearted attitude. Many had believed that heroes had started to take themselves too seriously and were losing touch with people. It was believed that due to the increasing number of global threats that had arisen, they didn’t have time to stop common crimes like someone stealing a purse, robbing a store or getting a drug dealer off the street.

Ronnie was someone who felt this way, though not to the extent that he felt superheroes should be considered criminals like Doreen. After stopping Danton Black’s rampage a few weeks ago, Ronnie decided that if he was going to be a hero, he was going to be a street hero while the Justice League and the Teen Titans dealt with the stuff that threatened the world. And he was going to enjoy himself while doing it. He felt like he had finally found his purpose; a feeling that basketball or journalism didn’t provide.

“It’s probably nothing,” Ronne said. “Probably just need to take a break. Maybe I’ve overworked my powers.”

Ronnie and Jefferson sat in silence for a minute before Jefferson grabbed the controller and resumed playing his game. Their friendship had become a little frosty since Ronnie had begun spending most of his free time as Firestorm and had quit the basketball team. He also knew that Jefferson felt a little betrayed that he had had to find out Ronnie was Firestorm, instead of Ronnie telling him, and Ronnie felt bad about that.

“So, how did things go with the Rho house?” Ronnie asked, breaking the silence. “Did you get in?”

“No,” Jefferson said with a tone of disappointment and anger in his voice.

“Why? You’d think that after I messed up their house with that multiple guy they would need as many new members as possible to help with costs.”

“You remember that guy that was giving us an attitude when we showed up to the party?” Jefferson said without taking his eyes off of the television.

“Yeah, that guy was a real jerk.”

“Well, he blocked my membership. I knew it had to be him, so when I saw him on campus I asked him why?” Jefferson paused the game. “He said they had their affirmative action quota filled with Derrick and didn’t need any more of ‘us’ in their house.”

Ronnie’s jaw dropped in shock. “Are you serious? Did you tell Derrick, or your father?”

“I’m not going to snitch or start trouble,” Jefferson said as he looked down at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Jeff.”

“Yeah… whatever.” Jefferson turned to look at Ronnie. “I’m serious about what I said before. You should go see a doctor.”

“Alright, I’ll call my dad and he’ll probably have my stepmom make me an appointment,” Ronnie said. There was another silence between the two for a couple of minutes.

“Have you told Doreen yet?” Jefferson asked, taking his turn to break the silence.

“No.”

“You should probably start thinking about how you’re going to tell Doreen about your superhero career.”

“Um…yeah… I don’t know how well that’s going to work out,” Ronnie said.

“You might as well get it out of the way, Ronnie. It’s been almost three months. You should’ve done it in the beginning. Just think how I felt because you didn’t tell me. And you’d only had your powers for a couple of days. The longer you wait, the worse it’s going to be.”

“I know,” Ronnie said with fear and trepidation in his voice. No one he has faced so far in his brief career scared him more than his girlfriend and what her reaction would be when she found out he’d become the thing she’d spent her time crusading against.

Okay… calm yourself… breathe in and breathe out, Ronnie thought to himself as he stood in front of Doreen’s dorm. He held a small bouquet of roses to his chest and inhaled their scent with every breath he took. Ronnie planned on taking Doreen out for dinner and a movie and hoped by the end of the night, when he would tell her that he was Firestorm, she wouldn’t take it too hard.

What’s the worst that could happen? Ronnie thought. She could break up with me... Okay, she could break up with me and then get a mob wielding pitchforks and torches and camp outside my door calling for my head, but other than that, what’s the worst that could happen?

“Hey,” a female voice said from behind Ronnie, “I hope those roses are for me.”

Ronnie turned around and saw Louise Lincoln, the red-headed girl he’d met and danced with at the Rho Alpha Theta house, before Danton Black had crashed that party. Louise, unbeknownst to Ronnie at the time, was a reporter for the Daily Hudson, a paper that Ronnie had worked at. Louise had made a name for herself with the story of the fight, which was credited for popularizing the name Firestorm for Ronnie’s alter ego.

When Ronnie had found out who she was and that she had a couple of journalism classes with him, he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed her before. They’d subsequently studied together and gone out for coffee a couple of times before Ronnie quit his job at the paper.

“So what’s up, Ronnie? I haven’t seen you since you quit the paper and you haven’t been to class much either,” Louise said cradling her text books against her chest. “Is everything okay or are you trying to avoid me?”

“No… I just lost interest in it,” Ronnie said. “I didn’t have the running diary anymore because of quitting the basketball team and, to be honest, none of my articles were any good… I mean my first one was a disaster.”

“The Stein interview…” Louise said.

“Yeah, I just took it, as well as my bad writing, as a sign that maybe journalism wasn’t for me. And I only got into it because of my father. I’m just not the natural that you are.”

“Ronnie, your stuff wasn’t that bad,” Louise said. “If you worked on it, I’m sure you would’ve been fine. I mean… I just lucked into that Firestorm story.”

“Yeah, if only I had been conscious at the time,” Ronnie said with a chuckle, inciting a laugh from Louise.

“Well, I’m relieved that you’re just having a crisis of identity and not avoiding me.” Louise smiled. “Well, I have to get to the library. I have to study and then finish another story. It’s about that serial killer who’s been traveling downstate, freezing the victims after killing them. Plus, I’m sure those roses need to get to someone very special, so I’ll go ahead and let you go.”

Ronnie looked down at the roses and remembered why he was there. “Yeah…”

“Like I said, I wish they were for me.” Louise smiled as she walked down the street away from Ronnie towards the library. “Give me a call sometime. We’ll get coffee or something.”

Ronnie had a hard time keeping his eyes from looking up and down Louise’s body as she walked away. Even while wearing an ESU sweatshirt and sweatpants that hid her curvy figure, and without any makeup, Ronnie found her very attractive. She had a very sociable personality, followed sports and Ronnie had had a lot of fun spending time with her.

Ronnie couldn’t remember the last time he’d had as much fun spending time with Doreen. The last time he’d had any fun when he went out with Doreen was when they’d met up with Jefferson at Chuck’s for a couple of drinks right after he had his accident at the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant. Doreen was more reserved and conservative than Louise, which he was fine with, but Doreen had been spending most of her time crusading to save the world against the metahuman menace.

He knew that Doreen’s strong feelings came because of the death of her father, a police officer, who was collateral damage in a fight between two metahumans. Ronnie wanted to be understanding about it, but he felt that they were growing apart because of it and telling her that he was Firestorm could potentially make the wedge between them bigger. Maybe this is a good thing, Ronnie thought as he walked up the steps of the dorm. Maybe we just aren’t meant to be together. The anxiety Ronnie felt earlier returned as he swiped his student id in the magnetic reader and entered the building.

“Hold on a minute, I’m almost ready,” Ronnie heard Doreen yell though the door of her dorm room. Ronnie took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself, when he noticed orange smoke began to form all around him.

“Not now,” Ronnie said to himself before he vanished, leaving the bouquet of roses on the floor for Doreen to find.