Page 27 of Game Misconduct

Mike tried not to think about the conversation he’d had with Garcia. It drummed in the back of his head any time he had a minute’s downtime. He still felt sick when he thought about it. What if Garcia was right? What if the key to being better had been with Mike the entire time and he’d wasted it? Why the fuck had Garcia—a guy who probably didn’t even like him very much because fuck knew Mike had spent a lot of time being a complete asshole to him—seen something in him that none of his coaches, in the twenty-one years he’d been playing hockey, had seen before?

He couldn’t afford to hope that Garcia was right, because if he wasn’t, it was going to crush him.

This was why it was better to know your place and do your fucking job. Then you were never disappointed when the inevitable things happened. He was a stupid fuck, that was for sure.

It was in this mindset that Halloween and Netty and Reed’s annual costume party blowout bash snuck up on him.

Mike wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten roped into doing a group costume, but Netty and Reed had gotten Singer in last year, and they’d bullied the rest of the team into joining in this year. The theme, unfortunately, was superheroes. Mike had picked theGuardians of the Galaxysuperhero he thought would require the least work. He’d basically owned Drax’s pants already. He’d only had to shave his head completely instead of buzzing it, and smear himself with gray body paint. It was sort of cheating to just let his own tattoos peek through, but even if he tried to copy the red, it probably wouldn’t have shown up over all of the black ink. It was chilly, and he was shirtless, but that was fine. He just had to try not to get the paint on the car seat, or, like. Anything else.

Mäkelä drove Mike and Bee to Reed’s town house, which he had purchased a month ago and hadn’t finished furnishing, so it was ideal for a party. It was, Mike had realized with some amusement but zero surprise, right around the corner from Singer’s place. The two of them, Singer and Reed, were really fucking weird about each other. And they lived out of each other’s pockets anyway, so almost no one on the team had blinked an eye when Reed bought it. Like: of course they’d live around the corner from each other even though they were attached at the hip anyway.

Mäkelä and Bee had done a couple’s costume, kind of. He was Thor, post eye-gouging. Because he was driving, he had the eyepatch flipped up in his hair, but the fake blood he’d caked around the eye socket was horrifying anyway. Bee was Valkyrie. She looked completely badass in the white-and-gray armor, but it wasn’t too far off from how she looked on the ice anyway.

“This is stupid,” Mike grumbled, as they walked from the parked car to Reed’s house, trying not to cross his arms over his chest and smear the paint.

“You look very frightening,” Bee said.

“Ifeelreally fuckingcold,” he said, because his nipples were trying to retract their way into his body.

“This is like summer weather,” Mäkelä said, flipping the eyepatch down. It was even more brutal because the way he said it was so friendly.

Mike sighed; he could probably learn a lot about chirping from Mäkelä. Instead, he knocked on Reed’s door and left a little smear of gray on it. Yeah, the costume was definitely not one of his better ideas.

Reed answered, Netty at his side, and Bee startled everyone by making a sudden, choked noise of laughter when she saw them. Reed was the Winter Soldier, long hair and metal arm and eyeliner and everything, but Netty...had unzipped his black leather catsuit down to his belly button, exposing his hairy chest and stomach.

“Is good costume, right?” Netty asked, cheerful as always.

“It’s—wow, it’s something,” Bee gasped.

“I tried to talk him out of it,” Reed said, sounding more than a little rueful, “but he insisted.”

“Had to be three.” Netty shrugged, gesturing to his costume and Reed’s. “Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and the Black Widow.”

“Well, if you don’t care about the circulation to your balls, that’s not our problem,” Mike said, thinking about how uncomfortable those pants looked. “Jesus Christ, will you let us in? It’s fucking cold out here.”

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Reed said, and stepped aside.

The house was kind of empty, though. Instead of dining room furniture, Reed had a ping-pong table covered in red Solo cups. The living room had one large couch and an entertainment station with video game consoles, but the rest of it was folding chairs. Because it was Reed, he knew a million people in the city and he’d invited guests who weren’t on the team, so there were crowds sitting and chatting on almost every available surface, including the floor. He saw a Batman cape and cowl and a woman he was pretty sure was an Instagram influencer in a Wonder Woman leotard. Even worse, Elliott had some pretty intense Joker makeup.

Mike left Mäkelä and Bee with Reed and Netty and went to find something to drink.

Singer leaned against the wall in the kitchen, away from the crowd, flicking his thumb against his phone screen as he scrolled. The costume was a reference to an in-joke Reed had made their first season together, but also, it fit, completely without irony, even if he’d grown out the beard and gone theInfinity Wartragic Cap route. It was a good look on him. Singer glanced up and smiled when he saw Mike there.

“Hey, buddy,” he said. His cheeks were pink. Apparently, everyone had gotten started before they’d gotten there. And like fine, so had Mike, but he was gray, so no one could see how red he got when he was drinking. “Nice costume.”

Mike shrugged. “It was easy. I’m probably gonna get paint all over everything here, though.”

“Well, it’s easy to clean,” Singer said, looking at the long marble counters, hardwood floors, packed bodies, and very little else. “I told him he should get some actual furniture before he had people over, but he said why buy it if it’ll just get trashed.”

“He has a point.”

“So how are you doing, Mike? You’ve been tearing it up at practice recently.”

“Yeah, I... I’m fine. I’ve been...trying some new shit, I guess.”

“Yeah?”

“Um. I need a drink, Cap. I’ll see you around.”

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