“Fight! Fight!” Audra was screaming at the television, when Marie walked into the room. The nine year old was glued to the TV, and had been for weeks now that the NHL season was on full swing.
“I thought you were going to record that for her to watch later?” Marie murmured to her husband, where he was getting more snacks and another beer from the kitchen.
“She wouldn’t go to sleep,” he replied with a shrug, kissing her as he passed by her. “How’d it go?” he asked, as he settled back down beside his youngest daughter.
“It was—” Marie began, only to be almost immediately cut off by hissing.
“Shh, it’s started again!” Audra hollered, still sitting on the edge of her seat, watching the tiny black rubber puck being flung around the ice.
“He’s open, he’s open! PASS IT!!” she screamed at the screen. “You deserved that you dumbass!” she added sullenly, slouching back in her seat when the play ended after the player in question got slammed into the rink wall, the puck getting lost in the ensuing commotion.
“Daddy, I want to play hockey,” Audra announced suddenly.
“Sure sweetheart, the pond should be frozen over enough by now, we can play tomorrow,” Logan replied, managing to snag Marie’s hand as she walked past, and tugging her into his lap.
“No daddy, I want to play for real, on a team,” was the response, followed up by the perfect pout to get exactly what she wanted.
“Uh... I don’t know if there are any teams taking new players mid season kiddo,” Logan offered, caught between his daughters begging eyes, and his wife’s stern warning shake of the head.
“If there are can I play?” Audra demanded, ignoring her mother.
“I mean... there isn’t any harm in trying out, right?” Logan passed the enquiry on to Marie.
“Logan, you know damn well that won’t work, she’s not a team player, she’s got too much of you in her,” Marie replied, trying to smother her grin. She had no doubt any stint her daughter spent on a team would end quickly, and quite possibly badly.
“So, it wouldn’t hurt for her to try out then,” Logan pushed, as Audra tugged on his sleeve, her bottom lip almost fully folded over on itself as she begged.
“... You are such a pushover,” Marie said with a sigh. “Fine, if you find a team, she can try out, but one mess up and that’s it, it’s back to one-on-one with dad,” Marie told her sternly.
A month later the whole family went along to watch Audra’s first actual game. She was so excited when the coach said she would actually get to play this time, that she demanded all the family had to come and see.
It was a co-ed game, as there weren’t enough little girls and boys to have separate teams, but Audra hadn’t had any trouble keeping up with the boys so far in practice. Logan had been pleasantly surprised too when she had, so far, made good on her promise to Marie to not get involved in fights. It was too good to last though, he thought as he watched his daughter wriggling into the middle of a bust up late in third period. Thankfully she was pushing, not punching, and acting purely defensively.
“I said I can’t fight, or my mom will make me stop playing,” Logan overheard Audra hissing at one of the boys, one of the first friends she had made on the team, as she knelt on the ice next to him as time was called, and the referees sent various kids to literal time outs. “Are you okay?” she was asking a moment later.
“There’s blood!” One of the kids shrieked, pointing to where blood was rubbing off the kids arm, where he had fallen over and been hit by the sharp blade of a skate.
“It’s okay, he’s fine,” Audra announced, grabbing Austin, her friends, arm and inspecting the wound.
Logan watched as Audra put her hand over the wound, before asking the coach for a plaster. By the time the kid was carried to the box, and a first aid kit produced, Audra had been holding the kids arm for a good while, a funny look on her face. Logan began to get an uneasy feeling, as he watched the coach pause as he went to bandage the kids arm, before simply wiping it down and changing the kids shirt.
Audra and Austin sat the rest of the game out, not that either seemed to mind. After the game the coach called Austin’s parents, who had just arrived to pick him up, aside, gesturing for Logan and Marie to join them.
“So, um, Austin’s uniform got a little bloody, he got cut on a skate but when I went to bandage him up, there’s no cut... a cut like that should have needed stitches, I don’t know what happened, all I know is Audra saw the wound and covered it up so the other kids couldn’t see it, and by the time I got to it, it was gone,” the coach told them, looking confused.
“Aussie, what happened?” the kids loud mouthed, stereotypical New Yorker father demanded loudly.
“I don’t know,” Austin said with a shrug, “My arm was stinging like a paper cut, then Audra put her hand on it, and it felt warm, and then it didn’t hurt any more.” All in all, the kid didn’t seem the slightest bit phased by whatever had happened.
“So she did something to him,” the dad immediately declared, overly aggressively for no apparent reason.
“What happened Auddie?” Logan asked his own child.
“I don’t know,” Audra replied, parroting Austin but looking simultaneously scared and uncertain, “I put my hand on the cut and... it got warm, and I just knew it was fixing up, and then it was all gone,” she said with a shrug.
“Ha, sucks to be you buddy, your kid’s a fucking freak, you let freaks on this team?” Austin’s loudmouth father demanded of the coach.
“She’s not a freak, she’s my friend, and she made my arm better,” Austin announced, sticking up for his buddy.
“Shut up, go get in the car, I’ll sort this out,” the father replied, smacking the kid in the back of the head as he shoved him toward his mother and the door.
“Well, this a team for freaks is it? You going to let these little mutie scumbags in to take spots from our kids,” the other man began to loudly demand.
The coach looked perplexed, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Meanwhile Logan noticed other parents beginning to take notice of the conversation, and pulling their kids away, casting sidelong glances at Audra.
“Listen here asshole, yeah, my daughter’s probably a mutant, both her parents are mutants, and her two older siblings are, instead of being an insufferable prick maybe you should thank her, she just saved you a hospital bill,” Logan pointed out, hoping to end this interaction somewhat positively; I.e. douche canoe taking a hike.
“Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you freak, you like to be all superior huh, all your kind should be locked up, away from decent folks, away from our kids!” the aggro man began spewing. “Either you kick this dirty little mutant bitch out of the team or I take my kid out, and I’m not the only one by the look of it,” he threatened the coach, gesturing to the surrounding parents.
The coach was still speechless, not seeming to be able to form a coherent thought. Logan could tell by the look on his face he didn’t want to tell Audra to go, but he also couldn’t justify losing half his team if all the other parents chose to walk.
“It’s okay, we understand,” Logan assured the coach, taking the pressure off the coach, even though it pained him to do so.
“I’m sorry, I’ll refund your season fees,” the coach promised, even as Austin’s father began ranting about how he should get his fees back too, compensation for his son being ‘subjected’ to ‘the freak’.
“But daddy, I want to play,” Audra murmured, tears in her eyes as Logan turned back to her.
“I know sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Logan soothed her, picking her up as she started to tear up. He carried her out of the rink as she sadly waved goodbye to her friends, some if whom waved back, despite their parents reservations.
“Did I do something wrong?” Audra finally asked, as Logan settled her down in her seat in the car.
“No sweetheart, using your powers to help people is never wrong, you hear me, you’re a superhero kiddo, ” Logan told her with a grin, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He watched Audra smile sadly, even as she waved out the window to Austin and his mother as they left.
The next morning Audra woke to a picture of Super-Audra, kneeling next to a fallen friend, healing his battle wounds. She was a superhero, immortalized in one of her daddy’s portraits.
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