Victor woke in a cold sweat, scrambling free of a mess of quilts. His heart hammered, vision slowly focusing on the cold blue light streaming through the ocean and transparent elevator tube.

"Victor?"

Victor spun around. Dante stood in the midst of a multitude of plastic mall sacks, eyebrows furrowed. "Bad dreams?"

Victor rubbed his hair. "I don't remember," he glanced around. "Where is everyone?"

"Squirrel Girl and Ms. Marvel went to Squirrel Girl's place. Ms. Marvel has that dinner with her brother and they're trying to figure out what to do.

"Ivy and Ette went on a walk to clear their heads a little bit ago. And then I," he shrugged, "wanted to organize our stuff. Messy things stress me out," he blushed.

Victor shook out his arms. "What about the mess of boxes still waiting for Rescue to take somewhere?"

"Yes, that stresses me," Dante nodded toward said boxes, occupying the warehouse floor around Rescue's penthouse elevator. "So does all our food trash. That's in these two sacks," he poked them with his foot. "And I organized all our water bottles in the corner," he motioned behind him, past the water tube.

"Nice," Victor shivered again, unable to shake some nameless nightmare fear weighing on his shoulders.

"But I'm basically done," Dante continued, "we could do something. Go to the park. Do you think there's many people there?"

"I don't know," he crouched to fold up his quilts. "Would it be a bad thing if there were?"

"I mean..." Dante hesitated, then crossed his arms. "Okay, you might want to change into regular clothes first. Just in case. I'm not saying I want to run into people there, but just in case we do..."

"Right," Victor narrowed his eyebrows. Whatever had woken him had been about...constricting armor and twinkling shapes? How was that frightening?

"I put your clothes in these sacks," Dante pointed to the edge of the plastic sack gathering.

"Thanks," Victor trod over, digging around and pulling out a pair of folded clothes. He hesitantly glanced at Dante, but he'd gone back to sorting sacks. "These don't clash or something, right?" he held up the clothes.

Dante glanced over his shoulder, quirking an eyebrow. "Nope. I literally put them on top together so you'd find them," his lip twitched. "You're kinda predictable like that."

"I don't understand earth fashion," Victor protested. "Don't blame me for double-checking!"

Dante just smirked. Shaking his head, Victor marched off to the maze of crates taking half the ocean window space.

"But it's okay, I like that!" Dante called. "I get to be better at something than you!"

Victor ducked behind a dusty box. "You mean, in addition to being able to fly, and talking to people easily and--"

"I wasn't thinking about those."

"Well, I was. And also how you smile--"

Dante snorted. "Just hurry up and change so we can get to the park."

"Stop distracting me then," Victor's lip twitched into a half-smile.

"I'm not the one distracting you, you're distracting me. I'm trying to finish organizing our soap."

"You keep talking to me though. I can't focus with you making so much noise."

Alright. I'll be super quiet!" Plastic sacks rustled.

"When?"

"Right now. Are you ready yet?"

"No! Shut up, Dante," he couldn't keep a laugh from escaping so he coughed to cover it.

"Fine. Just give me like two seconds. Starting..." Plastic sacks crinkled.

Victor peered over the box and stuck his tongue out at Dante's silhouette standing among the plastic sacks.

"Now are you ready?"

Victor ducked behind the box. "No!"

***

Because of Dante's warning that the park might be busy, Victor portaled under the deep cover of a pine tree. He crouched coming out of the portal, nearly brushing the low hanging branches. He took Dante's arm and closed the portal, tugging to keep Dante from standing upright and catching his hair in a glob of sticky sap.

"Ooh, nifty," Dante knelt, glancing around. The edges of pine branches swept the ground, concealing them inside an umbrella-like canopy.

Voices of screaming children shook the pine needles. Victor crept forward, peering out at a playground teeming with brightly-clad earthlings. "That," he whispered, "is a lot of kids. And their parents."

"Different tree?" Dante whispered. "Or is the whole park this crowded?" he glanced up into the pine needles. "Is there a reason we appeared under this tree?"

Victor shrugged. "You said it might be busy here, so I portaled somewhere hidden. I can't tell how many people are about."

A piercing scream made Dante wince. "I vote we find a different tree that's somewhere less crowded."

"Why is this place so busy now?" Victor crept back toward the tree trunk. "I've never seen it like this."

"Probably because it's a late afternoon on a Saturday. Nobody has school or work. Unfortunately," Dante crept after him.

"That's lousy. So much for time with just the two of us," he clamped his jaw shut, turning away to hide his warming cheeks. Then he rubbed his temples. He blamed his slight headache for those words slipping out.

Dante didn't seem to notice. "We can just stay in the warehouse if you want. Or go on a walk from there."

Victor shook his head. "It's green here. I like that."

"Okay," Dante waddled around the tree trunk away from the playground, and Victor crawled after, brown pine needles jabbing his palms. "Sneak out on three," Dante whispered, peering through the pine branches. "I see a lull in the people walking the trail."

Victor squinted. A patch of yellowing lawn stretched before them, and a narrow asphalt trail curved behind a stand of trees, with people walking along it.

"Uno, dos, three," Dante whispered. He pushed aside branches, Victor following, sap sticking to his fingers and needles poking his face.

"Ta-da," Dante rose to a stand, dusting off his hands. "Magic appearing act, and no one caught us," he motioned to the now-empty trail.

Victor rubbed his sticky fingers in the grass. "Nice."

"Come on," Dante grabbed his arm, tugging him to his feet. "What do you want to do on our official first date as boyfriends? We have no money, mind you, so the movies or a fancy restaurant are out of the running. I was hoping we could," his voice dropped, "make out in the park, but there's too many people around." People promptly appeared around a bend in the trail and he let go of Victor's arm.

Victor slowly blinked. "What?"

Dante's eyebrows creased. "What what?"

"Do I know what a date is?"

Dante shrugged, still eyeing the couples walking along the trail. "A date is a thing two people do together to get to know each other better because they like each other. And have fun together," he paused, then smirked. "Maybe my codename could be Dictionary-Dante."

"Or earth tour guide Dante," Victor took his arm, but Dante slipped free. Victor frowned. "Wait," he stepped back. "Is this that thing from the mall about people being weirded out--"

"Yes," Dante folded his arms. He glared at the park trail. "No. Sort of. It shouldn't be."

Victor frowned. "So, that didn't make sense. And I don't think it's just my headache."

"Is...your headache okay?"

He waved a hand. "It's mildly distracting. But it's doing way better after I slept, I promise."

"That's good," his gaze lingered on Victor's face, but at a laugh from the trail Dante turned away. "Let's go somewhere else," he strode across the lawn, away from the path. Victor jogged to catch up, fingers itching to cut the distance between their arms. But instead he curled his hand into a fist, tucking it against his soft t-shirt.

"So," Victor said softly, "what is this thing about, then?"

Dante glanced back at the trail, eyes darting toward the shouts of the playground. "Back home, in my high school, I knew about a kid who got beaten up. Because he got caught kissing a guy. And there's stories online of things like that, and my parents would...say things and I just," he shivered. "I don't want people staring at me funny. I don't want to worry somebody's going to say something, or try to mob us when our backs are turned. You know?"

Victor folded his arms. "Not exactly?"

Dante led them around a stand of trees, but that opened into another busy path, this time with runners, white cylinders shoved into ears. Dante turned them around. "But this isn't home, you know?" Dante said. "And we're superheroes--or something like that. So I shouldn't care about some strangers in the park staring at us if we hold hands, Victor. But for some reason I do."

"Okay."

They approached the first trail of walkers, and Dante turned around again.

"Are we just going to walk back and forth?"

"I don't know."

Victor swerved them to the left, away from the playground.

Dante sighed. "I actually really want to hold your hand right now, but I'm not letting myself."

"Same."

Dante glanced at his folded arms. "I think your palm has become a planet and mine is drawn into your gravity."

Victor's eyebrows rose. "You say to the space alien."

"Ha," he snorted. "I didn't think about that actually. But it's true. I wanted to go on a date with you because you make me feel like that. Just," he glanced around, "I didn't think there'd be quite as many people here."

"So which would get people to stare more," Victor ducked beneath a wide tree and continued trudging over the lawn, "us holding hands, or me opening a portal to go somewhere with fewer people?"

Dante grimaced. "Neither? We can just walk until," he shrugged, leaving the sentence hanging.

"What about the river bed?"

"Do you think those inhumans are still living in that cave?"

"I sincerely hope not. Maybe with Hala gone they decided to go back to their homes," Victor wrinkled his nose. "Imagine if we hadn't found the warehouse and tried living in that little cave."

"We never would have met Rescue. Or Hacker," Dante grinned. "Hacker's entertaining."

"He...? It?" Victor looked to Dante for confirmation, but he just shrugged. "Hacker better not get us in trouble with that video. We barely even agreed to post it."

"Technically, we hadn't even done that. Hacker just did it."

"If somebody did discover the algorithm tweaking, what do you think they would do?" Through the trees, cars on a busy road glittered hot sunlight, and Victor's pace slowed. They ducked under rows of branches.

Dante snorted. "Probably try to take it down, honestly. But against an AI determined to spread that video everywhere? Good luck with that."

Victor pointed to the road. "Did you want to go somewhere in the city? Maybe a rooftop?"

"Nah," Dante shook his head. "City views kinda bore me. I'm used to giant corn fields, and all those skyscrapers basically look the same," he crouched, staring through a gap in the pine trees bordering the park. "If you squint and pretend like you're a giant, the buildings are all just silver plants trying to outcompete each other for the sunlight."

Victor crouched beside him, tilting his head. "But plants are green. And isn't corn yellow?"

Dante nudged his shoulder, nearly toppling him to the dirt. "Yeah, but you have to shuck the green husk to find the yellow corn, Mr. Alien. And that's why I called the skyscrapers silver plants."

"But..."

Dante sighed. "You ruined my romantic speech."

Victor stared. "What about that was romantic?"

"Well," Dante crossed his legs, leaning against a tree trunk. "It was going to lead into how I like the mountains, and sunrises over the ocean, but you didn't let me get there."

"Oh," Victor sat too, glancing around the edge of the tree. The nearest trail stood empty. "I don't hear any people."

"I don't either," their hands slid together. "So what about you? Do you like cityscapes?" he motioned through the narrow gap between the trees.

"When I was little," Victor said softly, "I lived on a planet with thousands of active volcanoes--so many of them that the sky was usually full of ash, tinging everything red."

"How did you survive that? Wouldn't everything alive have frozen to death? With the ash blocking all the sunlight?"

"No," Victor squeezed his eyes shut. "We had a really giant sun, so the ash protected us I think?"

"How did you breathe?"

Victor opened his eyes. "With our noses?"

Dante laughed.

"What?"

"Ash and smoke can't be good for your lungs."

"I was little. I probably stayed inside most of the time. I don't know.

"Anyway, when I went to a different planet, with these ginormous fungal trees, I discovered you could see the stars while actually on a planet. I thought that was only an onboard-spaceship thing. I kind of assumed every planet's atmosphere blocked out the stars.

"The fungal trees on this planet glowed, with blue speckles making little pinpricks in the black, so every night all these stars and glowing tree specks blended into each other. Like the whole universe floated right there within reach."

"Hmm," Dante closed his eyes. "Were they like giant mushrooms?"

"Pretty much. But they had tree trunks basically like this one," he thumped a hand against the tree trunk behind his head.

"That sounds pretty."

"It was," Victor grimaced. "I think I'm just now realizing it though. Not a whole lot of time for pondering pretty things while serving Hala."

Dante snorted. "Good thing you've quit."

"Yeah," Victor managed a thin smile. "What about you? I mean, not the prettiest place you've been. What was home like?"

Dante rested his head on the flaking tree trunk. "It was good? There was me, my mom and dad, and my younger sister. We also had a dog when I was like four. We have pictures, but I don't have any memories of him. We lived in a small town where my dad was pretty much the town construction company," he grimaced. "He took me to help him fix leaky roofs and re-do garage doors, until I was fifteen and my sister started volunteering in my place."

Victor perked up. "So you'd be good at putting together our warehouse base."

Dante frantically shook his head. "I didn't actually help. I broke my dad's nail gun two times in the same day. I dented somebody's car and nearly pushed my dad into a slamming garage door. And I hate construction work. But he was always like 'don't you want to help your neighbors, Dante?' 'hard work is good for you. You'd just sit around the house all day if I didn't make you work,' so what was I supposed to do? Say no, I hate helping my neighbors?" He rolled his eyes. "My sister actually liked it though. She was going to build her own house in the middle of Canadian woodlands one day."

"Oh," Victor frowned. "That sounds rough--for you. Not your sister."

"I'm kinda glad I left, honestly. Even though I feel awful about burning the kitchen out of existence. And I sometimes miss my bedroom. And one of my cousins."

"Were you happy there?" Victor asked.

"I--"

Laughter floated from the trail behind them. Victor moved to pull his hand away, but Dante didn't let go. So Victor blinked a silent question at him. "I didn't have many friends in high school," Dante said softly. "There wasn't anything bigger than a middle school in our town, so we had to ride the bus every morning to a school in the suburbs. Actually, scratch that, I didn't have any friends. I just sat alone on the bus for an hour every day.

"Though, there was this one guy named Dillon, and we sat next to each other at lunch out of mutual protection. Because if you got caught sitting alone in the cafeteria, at least three of the student body officers would come mob you, and act like they were your friends and ask how your day was going and wasn't high school so great?" he sucked in a ragged breath. "It was so...condescending.

"Dillon and I never actually talked. I knew his name back from elementary school. I don't even know if he knew mine."

"I'm sorry," Victor said. "Is that what I'm supposed to say?"

Dante awkwardly elbowed him. "Just don't say anything. I'm dumping my heart out and it's turned into a flood and you shouldn't stand in the way."

Victor nodded.

Dante sharply inhaled, and continued, "this would be my last year of high school if I was still there. That's weird to think. I dropped out of high school because I gained the ability to create flames from my hands," he snorted. "I never thought I'd drop out of high school."

Dante turned, gaze searching. "I didn't have any friends because I didn't trust myself not to let this," he squeezed Victor's hand, "slip out. There was no way I could fake bringing a girl to junior prom. There was no way my parents or pretty much the whole school would be okay with me showing up with a guy. And I wasn't about to secretly date somebody and live in fear of any of that getting out. So I just told nobody.

"Victor..." Dante bit his lip, blinking rapidly. "Okay, I don't know why this part is hard to say. Ugh," he sniffed.

Victor waited.

"Victor, honestly, I kinda wished for a long time I'd just magically turn into the kid my parents wanted. I literally walked around malls alone or with my sister, and that's what I did for fun. I didn't like that life, it felt like the only way I could be happy was if I was someone else. And I don't mean "someone else" as in, me pretending to act like the kid next door. I mean, if who I was inside, was just not me.

"And then I went and burned down half our house and figured my parents and my sister would hate me for real so I ran away," he sniffled loudly, wiping at his eyes. "Ugh. This wasn't supposed to turn into a sob story, I'm sorry."

Victor hugged him. "I love you, boyfriend-Dante."

Dante slowly exhaled, hugging Victor back. "Well. I love you too, boyfriend-Victor," a pause. "What was your question? That started this whole thing?"

"I asked about your home," Victor grinned into Dante's smoke-scented hair.

"Oh," he snorted. "I didn't even answer that. My home is right here. With you, and Ivy and Ette and Kamala and Doreen. And Hacker. And Tippy the squirrel."

Victor laughed. "I like your home, Dante. It's my home too, you know?"

Loud footsteps thumped against the trail behind them, and they broke apart. Victor quickly jabbed his fingers at the dirt, like he'd been intently studying it this whole time.

"I hate this," Dante hissed, peering around the tree trunk at the trail. "I feel like a dirty secret in plain sight. No matter what we do."

Victor rubbed the soil from his fingers. "At least this park is pretty," he whispered. "You know how much of my life has been spent around green plants?"

Dante frowned. "No idea? What's this got to do with--"

"Just earth. And a swamp city on a faraway planet, but there everything green colored was also muddy brown colored," Victor sighed. "Grass is nice. So are trees."

"Sorry...how did we get on this topic?"

"I just started rambling. About how the color green is a nice color. And you, Dante, are like the color green. I mean, you're more or a red-orange smoky hot type of person most of the time, but you're like the color green because I spent most of my life without much of it around."

"Aw," Dante's hands sparked red flames and he jumped. "Thanks Victor," he hopped to his feet, waving his hands until the fires sputtered out. "Maybe we should keep walking? I don't want to accidentally burn all these trees down."

"Okay," Victor clambered to his feet. "Lead on, earth tour guide Dante."

***

Author note: like Victor finding the color green, votes on this chapter help spread lovely colors across the galaxy