Young Sentinels (Wearing the Cape) (Volume 3) by Marion G. Harmon

Blackstone froze the newsfeed at the moment of the hit: Shankman rocking back, spreading pastry and filling, the masked guy in the white chef’s uniform stretched out at the end of a throw so graceful it was balletic, arm extended forward at the end of the perfect delivery.
    It was beautiful. Shankman had been pied .
    The Pieman was one of those thrill-villains the public loved and public figures dreaded. Some kind of teleporter, he’d racked up an impressive “victim” count around the world. He always delivered two pies — the first nicely boxed and by courier, the second in person, in public, and in the face. Shankman had kept the first delivery secret (I could understand that; the usual response to someone revealing he’d gotten a delivery from the Pieman was late night comedy skits and a bet-making frenzy).
    Rush wasn’t holding back his laughter and Blackstone’s chosen moment was spreading smiles around the Assembly Room table, even to Mal. It would have been a perfect moment, too, if that had been the end of it. But when the Pieman made his delivery, a perfect pitch to Shankman’s face, I’d thought it was a real attack — and so did his bodyguards, who thought I was part of it. The one who shot me just moved faster than the rest.
    Seven took the idiot down before he got his third shot off, coming out of nowhere to plant him face down on the pavement in a hard armlock. Despite the Hollywood Knights movie franchise, with the way that Seven acts it’s hard to remember that he’s a kick-butt martial artist and marksman. The bodyguard drawing on him took a kick to the hand that flipped his gun into the air in a beautiful arc that ended on the third guard’s head, knocking him out cold — all before I’d had time to realize there was no real threat.
    But the damage had been done; one of the two shots bouncing off me hit Shankman in the chest. The second hit nobody, but the shots and the action turned the worked-up crowd into a fleeing mob. Nobody dead, but five trampling victims — luckily minor injuries — taken to the hospital with Shankman. All caught on camera for the evening news.
    “So.” Blackstone smiled, shook his head. “Let’s all get the humor out. The Honorable Mr. Shankman will recover, and no one else was badly hurt. It’s always good to have Seven at the scene of a riot.” Seven tipped his fedora and Blackstone waited for the laughter to die down. “Also, the two of you are to be commended. You both reacted swiftly and appropriately — had it been a deadly attack, you would have saved Mr. Shankman from any second assault. However.”
    He nodded to Quin.
    “Shankman’s PR machine is already spinning this,” she said apologetically. “They’re trying to make it look like you jumped into a situation that was obviously not dangerous, concussed Shankman by throwing him to the ground, and scared his bodyguards into opening fire.”
    I didn’t want to laugh anymore.
    “We’re issuing our own statement, but it looks like he’s going to sue us to keep this alive and in the news cycles. So if anyone is asked, remember ‘swiftly and appropriately,’ and move on. If pushed, you ‘cannot speak about a lawsuit under litigation.’” Her gaze focused on Rush, the one of us most likely to be caught by the newsies on the street during a response-call.
    He laughed. “If the asker is hot, can I still get her number?”
    Quin winced. Rush had gotten a lot more serious since last year — he surprised everybody by being a solid mentor for Crash — but he still lived life like a rock star; he didn’t do drugs or drink until he got faded, but he made up for it by chasing the wild sex. I was pretty sure Quin saw him as a walking, talking, sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.
    “ No ,” she said. “Lois Lanes are off limits — ”
    He held up his hands, still laughing. “Don’t get your — Don’t get hot. Joking.”
    “Moving on,” Lei Zi interjected, actually smiling. At