Rewrite an Ending or Two: Chapter Nine
“You made the right choice,” Robin says, setting down the box of glass bottles and the big kerosene funnel. Steve takes a bottle and holds it steady while Robin pours. “No matter what happens down there, whether we win or not, you and Bug will be up here, you know?”
“That’s not super comforting, Rob,” Steve says.
“I keep thinking,” she says. “What if this is the time our luck runs out? Just a rag-tag bunch of kids, not a superhero among us. What if this is it?”
Her hand doesn’t shake as she pours the kerosene, even if her voice does. She stuffs the rag into the neck of the bottle and sets it aside.
Steve swallows. She’s been trying hard not to think the same. “I think-he doesn’t know what’s coming, not really. He’s expecting El, and he’s planning for that.” She rubs the back of her neck. “It’s like when you set your defense up for a particular player and then she doesn’t play. If you don’t have any back up plans, your defense is in shambles, and you get beat. Vecna wouldn’t expect us to not play our superstar, so he won’t think about how to counter someone that isn’t El, you know?”
Robin looks like she doesn’t. Steve always loses her with sports metaphors.
“I just have to hope,” she says instead. “Because I’m not giving birth to this baby in the middle of some Hell-Hawkins.”
“Or at least no more hell than normal?” Robin manages a small smile. She tilts the neck of the Molotov toward Steve, and Steve taps the next empty bottle against it.
“To killing Vecna,” she says.
“Slash Henry. Slash, what was it. One?”
“Whatever he’s called, he’s toast,” Steve says, and tries to believe it.