Cody travels from Metro City to the Caribbean island lair of Dr. Devious to look after the place while the supervillain is in space for the holidays ... and maybe to mend his broken heart. With Christmas fast approaching, Cody is desperate to avoid reminders of his recent disastrous breakup, and a few weeks of sun and relaxation sound perfect -- until a drunk (but very cute) superhero crashes the party by literally crashing onto the beach.
And that’s just the start of Cody’s problems -- angry shark-men, mysterious lava creatures, and a malfunctioning AI all make his holiday getaway anything but relaxing. Amid the chaos of his adventures in lair-sitting, though, Cody might find just what he needs -- a new chance at love, and a chance to be a hero for the holidays!
The feed disappeared, and Cody was left with the same list of names as before. Only there didn’t seem to be anything on the list that covered mutant shark-men. Cody sighed and deflated. So much for getting help that way. Who could possibly have had experience with a gang of mutant shark-men?
Cody suddenly perked up again. A superhero might! Superheroes fought things like mutant shark-men all the time. And there just so happened to be a superhero Cody could ask. He raced back to the containment cell.
Sonny was pacing when Cody arrived, and the look of relief on his face was enough to make Cody pause, words dying in his throat.
“What happened?” Sonny blurted out. “There were explosions and the alarms stopped and after that, just silence, and I thought something must have happened to you.”
Sonny’s words had come out in a stream, and Cody blushed at the near-panic in them. He hadn’t realized that Sonny would be so concerned. Probably he should have. Probably he should have realized that after spending so much time together the last few days, Sonny might ... care.
Cody sucked in a breath, a whole slew of thoughts that were far too premature trying to claw their way into his brain. “I’m sorry. A shark-man named Finn broke through the front door while the defenses were down and I had to stall him until Aubrey came back online. Then I tried to use the communications here to ask for help, but that didn’t really work out. Aubrey says she’s going to be offline again, and that means that if the shark-men come back -- there’s apparently a whole gang of them looking for something called the Heart of the Arctic -- then we’re in big trouble.”
“Tell me everything.”
Sonny absorbed the words without question, nodding along as Cody continued to speak, relaying everything that had happened. For Cody, it was like handing off a burden he hadn’t realized was weighing him down. He wasn’t a superhero, wasn’t a villain, was just a guy hoping to get away for the holidays. This wasn’t his world, but it was Sonny’s, and having him there to talk to, to treat Cody like he wasn’t completely weird, was suddenly very important.
“I’ve never had much dealings with any shark-men,” Sonny said, “but it sounds like they had some sort of agreement with Dr. Devious that went bad. Which is possibly why the island was moved from the Pacific Ocean to here in the Caribbean.”
“Wait, what? The island was moved?” Cody had never heard of an entire island being moved before.
“We’re not entirely sure how,” Sonny said, “but yeah. It used to be part of a chain of islands up closer to Alaska. We thought maybe he just wanted to get to a warmer climate, but the entire island just sort of sailed all the way down around South America and then back up here. It was a pretty big international incident, but the governments kept things hushed because they didn’t want to cause a panic. Besides, Dr. Devious has mellowed out some recently, so no one tried to stop the move.”
Mellowed thanks, no doubt, to his relationship with Sanjay. But it fit with what Finn had said about swimming so far. If the deal was what Devious had been running from, then he must have assumed he’d gotten away with whatever it was. Unfortunately for Cody, that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Well, what do you suggest?” Cody asked. “We can’t just do nothing. And Aubrey won’t be any help if she’s offline again.”
Sonny inhaled deeply. “First thing we need to do is to find some way to stay in contact. I can’t do anything from inside this cell, and I can’t stand the thought you’d have to face this all alone.”
He looked at Cody, and there was a moment of electricity between them that had nothing to do with the containment field. Cody’s face heated, and his pulse quickened. He imagined leaning into Sonny, feeling those strong hands around him. He imagined Sonny lifting him into the sky, flying him far away to safety. He imagined --
“I can go search Dr. Devious’s labs,” Cody said before his thoughts could venture too far into desperate horny territory.
Sonny stroked his chin. “You’ll have to be careful. Those labs are probably full of incredibly dangerous devices. He might not have left too much out in the open, but regardless, don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
Cody smiled. “What could go wrong?”
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