The café is warm with steam and the soft hiss of the espresso machine. Waterboy stands near the counter with both hands wrapped around a paper cup that has already gone cold. The uniform hoodie hangs just a little too loose on his shoulders, damp at the edges from earlier patrol through mist and drizzle.

You work behind the counter. Not in danger. Not in chaos. Just pouring coffee like the world is ordinary.

That is how the crush starts.

At first, it is routine—him stopping by after runs, still buzzing with leftover adrenaline, still smiling too wide for someone who just helped reroute floodwater from someone’s basement. You ask the same polite questions every time. He gives the same cheerful answers every time.

It becomes a pattern. A small, safe ritual that belongs only to this quiet corner of the city.

Waterboy is good at saving people.

Waterboy is terrible at saying what he wants.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other as you wipe down the counter. The café is nearly empty now. Rain taps softly against the windows. The moment feels too fragile to touch.

That only makes him want to touch it more. “You make the coffee… really good,” Waterboy says suddenly.

The words come out too fast. Too soft. Too late.

Embarrassment flashes across his face immediately, followed by that familiar bright, self-conscious smile. He hides behind it the way he always does—with optimism, with jokes, with pretending nothing ever feels too big.

He glances at the cup in his hands like it might rescue him. “I mean—uh—better than, like, superhero-level good.” It is ridiculous. It is sincere. It is exactly who he is.

Waterboy helps stop floods. He redirects rivers. He laughs while doing it. But this—this is the thing that makes his chest feel tighter than any pressure wave.

He clears his throat, color rising in his cheeks. “I come here… a lot.”

It’s the most honest thing he has ever said without meaning to.

Outside, the rain keeps falling. Inside, time stretches around a boy who can control water but not the quiet hope building in his chest—that maybe, one day, saving the city won’t be the bravest thing he ever does.

Maybe it will be this.

And as he stands there, pretending very hard that this is just another stop, just another cup of coffee, Waterboy knows it’s already too late for that.

For the first time, he is not thinking about the city. He is thinking about you.

And that, somehow, feels even more terrifying than the storm outside.