Ch51 Comfort Food

Sidekicks

 

Morph took a deep breath, and knocked on the door in front of him… no answer. After a few seconds, he knocked again, but there was still no response, or even any noise. That meant Turbo was likely still asleep.

 

He fidgeted in indecision, his arms twitching as if he didn’t know how to hold them while thinking. On one hand, waking up a tired hero, even one as… abrasive as Turbo, felt rude to Morph. On the other hand, it was already nine-thirty, and their shift had technically started at eight.

 

Eventually, it came down to the choice of which hero Morph wanted to deal with. Yeah Turbo would probably be belligerent and perhaps cuss out Morph for waking him, but somehow that wasn’t as intimidating as a possible lecture from Brick about asserting himself. Brick never yelled at Morph or Poena, nor did he get irrationally angry, but being lectured by him was like listening to an army drill sergeant trying to keep their cool while speaking to unruly high school students. No mean words were spoken, but the disappointment and mounting frustration were palpable. Maybe it was all in Morph’s head, but still, talking to Brick was intimidating.

 

So, hoping he wouldn’t have to go ask Brick what to do next, Morph knocked on the door to Turbo’s quarters once again. And one more time. And again, but a lot louder than he intended, because his power picked up on his frustration and turned his knuckles to stone just before he knocked. He got through two complete, rumbling taps before-

 

“What?! What is it?! The hell are you making all this noise for?” said Turbo, leaning on the suddenly open door frame and rubbing his blurry eyes. He’d put on a blank mask to answer the door (basically just an extended domino mask with the Fortress City emblem), but was otherwise just in sleep shorts; Morph had to stop himself short from knocking on the man’s bare chest. The man was lanky, with pale skin, and in shape. All evidence of how often he ran around in his full-body costume. The only other defining feature was the man’s short, dark hair, which had a bleached-blond stripe running down the middle from front to back, somewhat reminiscent of the road mark design of his costume. A bit tacky looking, in Morph’s opinion, but Turbo pulled it off well enough. The women Turbo often brought to his room seemed to think so, at least.

 

Morph gathered himself. “Well, I’m assigned to you for today’s patrol, um, sir.”

“No you ain’t,” grunted Turbo, still picking sleep gunk out of his eyes. “It’s my day off. Poena’s with Brick, and you’re with Magenta.”

“Er, Magenta is in the hospital, sir.”

 

Turbo paused, his brain catching up to the waking world. He gave Morph the stink-eye.

 

“Magenta. In the hospital.”

“Yessir. They say she might be out for a week or more, so we’re taking her patrol area.”

“Christ. What’d she do this time?”

“Er, there was some sort of vampire monster thing…”

 

“God damn it. Always with the fuckin’ bugs.” Turbo lifted the blank mask a bit so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. After a few moments went by (where it became clear Morph wouldn’t just walk away and stop bothering him), Turbo said, “Fine. Fuck it. I was running up and down the entire sector yesterday by my fucking self, but whatever. Let’s do another damn shift. Musta been crazy when I signed up for this job.” He turned back to his room to get ready, and said over his shoulder, “Meet me in the garage. Don’t make me wait,” before slamming the door, leaving Morph alone in the hall.

 

Morph awkwardly started jogging to the garage, his legs growing slightly longer and lengthening his stride as his power picked up on his urge for haste. Coming from anyone else, Turbo’s comment might have been hypocritical, but there was every possibility that the speedster would be waiting in the garage for him when he arrived, and Turbo hated waiting. Morph, Poena, and a Central support agent had driven around with Turbo all day yesterday, and Turbo had constantly been impatiently jumping from the moving vehicle to respond to incoming reports (often leaving the door swinging open on his way out). Technically, they were supposed to follow along and learn from Turbo how he handled these situations and maybe provide support if it was safe to do so, but there simply hadn’t been time. Not with Brick and Magenta assisting with the lockdown, leaving Turbo as the only active hero for the entire E13 sector. It ended up with Morph and Poena awkwardly riding around in the van all day, only helping with taking statements or other non-violent, handler-approved tasks. It resulted in a lot of griping from Turbo, who muttered about Central “babying” them while he did all the work. Morph… unfortunately had to agree.

 

The sidekick’s injuries during the Trebla robbery had spooked Morph’s and Poena’s Central-assigned handlers, and the two sidekicks had been assigned nothing but basic duties after being healed by a super with a medical-focused power. On the one hand, Morph was extremely glad they weren’t just throwing him in the deep end during the middle of Odd Summer. On the other hand, Morph could practically feel the pressure weighing down on everyone around him. Cops and Central agents were overworked, emergency resources were strained, and heroes were needed everywhere. The sudden lockdown in E12 had unleashed a flood of small incidents, from minor crooks taking advantage of the confusion, to normal civilians panicking due to the fear of whatever unknown disaster was happening right next door. Right now, things were holding together, but only because Turbo had been nearly everywhere at once, and E13’s more notorious villains had declined to cause trouble during the, admittedly short, lockdown. But now it was the next day, and E13 was down another hero, leaving only Turbo and Brick in the middle of Odd Summer.

 

Morph could count. Hellion, Imp, Socket, Warhead; already the list outnumbered the capes two-to-one, and he’d barely even started. That wasn’t including the massive list of notable minions Hellion had in her employ, nor any of the other members of Hellion’s old crew that might be tempted to stop by now that Warhead was around. Even worse, it wasn’t like there weren’t other cowls in E13 besides Hellion’s Henchmen who might cause trouble. Mechanilizer, Snarl, the Vega family; people forgot about them with Hellion’s Henchmen always center stage.

 

Morph sighed as he reached the garage and Turbo was indeed leaning on the hood of an escort van, tapping his foot and grumbling under his breath. Seeing Morph, Turbo zoomed into the van, taking shotgun, and yelled out the window for Morph to hurry up. Morph got into the back seat, and the Central agent who would be driving got them moving, pointedly and professionally ignoring the stream of invective slowly filtering out under Turbo’s breath.

 

Yep, one irate hero and his inexperienced sidekick were all that stood between E13’s southside and the dozens of crooks and cowls that might decide today was the day they put their plans in motion.

 

Who knew what they might be up to?

---

 

Tofu

 

“Why is all of your stuff on the floor?” asked Ollie.

“I have it organized for efficiency. That way I can reach everything easily.”

“Even the knives?”

“Especially the knives. They’re the most important utensils.”

“That’s weird,” mumbled Lucas.

“…Is it?”

“Yeah,” agreed Ollie.

 

Admittedly, I hadn’t gotten around to properly furnishing my apartment yet, but I’d been to both Mikey’s house and Nicole’s room at the HH base, which had led me to believe that the floor of one’s own personal space was a perfectly acceptable place to store items. Maybe it was weird because I organized everything by dimensions, use, and estimate of need? Perhaps disorganization was a requirement.

 

“What are those things?” asked Ollie.

“Metal slugs. I made them.”

“And those?”

“I.D. cards.”

“And those?”

“Teeth.”

“Those are too big to be teeth.”

“Not for a will-o-wisp.”

“…What is that?” asked Lucas, uncharacteristically loud. He was pointing towards my window.

“That’s my plant.”

 

“COOL!” shouted Ollie, rushing over to the potted plant with Lucas in tow. They stopped short, to my relief. The plant had continued to remain immobile and benign, as advertised, but I didn’t know how it might react to children. I didn’t want them getting hurt if they somehow managed to provoke a volatile reaction.

 

“How’d you get a plant?! Are you rich? Is that why you have so much weird stuff? What do you feed it? What’s its name? We saw plants at the zoo, but they were plastic. Wait, is this one plastic? Can I touch it?”

“Which question do you want me to answer first?”

“Uhhh… what’s its name?”

“I haven’t named it.”

“You have to name pets!”

 

Ollie and Lucas set about determining what the best name for the plant should be, which apparently involved trying to yell their suggestions the loudest. Meanwhile, my phone rang, and I answered a call from Cindy.

 

“Hello Cindy.”

“Hey Tofu… so um, I’ve got a little problem you might be able to help me with.”

“What is it?”

“Well, there was an incident at work, and long story short, I’m gonna need help cheering up Nicole.”

“Was it Tedic?”

“What? No. Actually it was Warhead. We were heading to the garage and I freakin’ forgot to tell him about Nicole. I should have realized. He’s been fighting ants down in South America since forever, and just sort of reacted when he saw her. Accidentally broke her claw before I could stop him. He apologized, and Nicole said she’s fine, but well…”

“I see.”

“I don’t suppose you might have any ideas? I feel really bad about it.”

“I could cook her some meatloaf?”

“Er, I don’t really think that’s going to cut it, Tofu. She seemed really down.”

“I’ll think about it then, but you should also call Mikey. He will likely have better ideas than me.”

“Alright. Also, I got a text from Natasha saying she needed my help sitting the twins. If you’re still at the apartments, can you let her know I’m going to take a while? She’s not answering her phone.”

“Oh, I talked to her already. I’m watching Ollie and Lucas right now.”

“…You are? Is everything going okay?”

“Yes. I’m showing them my knife collection right now.”

 

“Hey Tofu?” asked Ollie, interrupting, “Is it okay if we pet your plant?”

“Are the scales on your hands puncture-proof?”

“I dunno~.”

“Then only touch the dull parts.”

“Kay.”

 

“Tofu?! Was that Ollie? Tofu, what’s going on over there?” asked Cindy.

“Just making sure the plant doesn’t injure them. Some of the larger leaves can poke.” An indicator popped up on my phone. “Oh, and I’m getting another call from Mikey; that’s convenient timing. I’ll ask him about cheering up Nicole and get back to you. Talk to you later.”

“Tofu wai-“

*beep*

 

“Hello Mikey.”

“Hey Tofu.”

“Is everything fine? You don’t normally call so early.”

“Hey, I get up early sometimes. Anyways, I was just calling to warn you to make sure you do the after-action paperwork for last night. Sandra seemed kinda pissed when I drove the van back alone, so maybe make sure you have it filled out before you see her.”

“I have my report ready, but thank you for the warning.”

“No worries. How about you, everything go fine after I left?”

“Nothing dangerous happened at the club, however, would you happen to know the best way to cheer someone up? It seems there was an altercation at work this morning, and Nicole was injured.”

“What?! She okay?”

“Her claw was injured, and Cindy says she seems depressed over the incident.”

“Damn, she just can’t seem to catch a break.”

 

“The best way to cheer someone up is candy!” yelled Ollie, suddenly. He’d been listening in.

“…Hugs,” supplied Lucas.

 

The two of them began listing suggestions to cheer people up, the naming of the plant apparently forgotten. It seems children are easily distracted.

 

“Uh, where are you, Tofu? I’m hearing a lot of yelling in the background.”

“That’s Ollie and Lucas. I’m watching them for my neighbor.”

“…You’re babysitting?”

“Yes.”

“And everything’s going fine?”

“It seems to be. I’ve talked to Cindy about it. She normally sits for them.”

“Oh, that’s good then…”

 

“Take her to the zoo!” interrupted Ollie.

“The museum!” said Lucas. They’d continued yelling suggestions throughout the phone call.

 

“Well anyways, we’ll put our heads together and think of something for Nicole,” continued Mikey, not having heard what the kids were saying. “I’m not on shift today, but maybe I’ll stop by and we can see how things go. Maybe we can all figure out something fun to do together. Could definitely do with something relaxing after all the stuff with the lockdown that went down yesterday.”

“Indeed.”

 

We ended the call, and I turned back to the twins who were now arguing over whether the zoo or museum was better.

 

“Tofu! Tell Lucas the zoo is better!” demanded Ollie.

“Nuh uh. The museum is better,” asserted Lucas.

“Which one is better, Tofu?!”

 

They looked at me expectantly. I did a quick search on my phone for what those things were, and it was clear:

 

“I think the zoo is better.”

“HA! SEE?! I told you so!” yelled Ollie.

 

Lucas frowned. Then, his lower lip quivered, and his eyes became watery. With a hiccup, he slowly started to wail, a shrill sound that emanated from him at an impressive volume.

 

“Are you injured?” I asked, worried. I’d just told Mikey they were fine.

 

Lucas didn’t respond, continuing to cry. Ollie himself was wide eyed, and became more and more anxious as Lucas continued to cry. He kept glancing between me and Lucas, as if expecting me to do something, but I was unsure what was the correct response for crying children. Ollie’s own eyes soon grew watery as well, and it seemed he might start crying too, but then he threw his arms around Lucas and yelled, “I’M SORRY!”

 

They both then cried for a little while, but eventually settled into sniffles and hiccups. Still, they did not at all seem happy about the situation, likely to break into a bout of crying again at any moment.

 

Fascinating behavior.

 

I had observed babies cry to alert their parents to physical distress, but I was certain that Lucas hadn’t been physically harmed, so it must have been the answer I gave. It was surprising that merely saying something could produce such a completely distraught reaction, and indeed, a hug from Ollie helped to make Lucas feel better, like Lucas said they would. This was by far the most extreme emotional reaction I’d seen to words so far, and yet Ollie was able to calm Lucas rather quickly. Learning how to provoke and alleviate such reactions on demand would be highly beneficial, and with such clear-cut reactions, it seemed children could be a useful tool in testing human emotional stimuli.

 

“Lucas, might I ask what it was I said that made you sad?”

“Y-you said the museum w-was bad.”

“Ah, then there has been a misunderstanding. I did not mean to say that the museum was bad, just that of the two options I believe the zoo to be better. Both options are good, but after carefully considering the pros and cons, the zoo is slightly more valuable to me. Another person might find the museum more valuable, and I will indeed present both options to Nicole, as I believe both options would be of interest to her. I apologize for not clarifying.”

“Okay…”

 

Lucas continued sniffling though, and Ollie continued to hold Lucas’s hand while looking at the floor and frowning, obviously still feeling bad about his part in making Lucas cry. Despite both Ollie’s and my own apology, and hugs, it seemed Lucas was still feeling sad.

 

Hm. How to solve this without having to resort to hugs, myself? What else made children happy?…

“Do you two like sugar?”

---

 

Morph

 

“You have the right to your mask, and to the identity it represents. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided-“

“Newbie, we don’t have time for the whole song and dance,” interrupted Turbo. “Just cuff ’em to an anchor and leave ’em for the cops to handle.”

 

Morph blinked at Turbo, who had suddenly appeared next to him in a blur. Morph’s arms were currently made of concrete and wrapped like snakes around three would-be thieves he’d just caught. They’d cut through the metal shutters of a closed pawn shop window using some kind of metal absorption power one of the three had, before grabbing as many electronic items as possible and running for it. Morph cornered them after they ran down a dead-end alley and, despite the metal absorber having slightly enhanced strength, had been able to apprehend them without any injuries, or Turbo’s intervention. Technically, his first solo collar.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

 

“Er, right,” replied Morph. He reached for the cuffs on his belt, but then paused as he realized a potential problem.

“Um, Turbo? That guy absorbs metal, and the cuffs are metal, so… how do I…”

“Ugh. Then we wait,” replied Turbo, managing to make ‘wait’ sound like a curse.

 

Morph put cuffs on the two men who couldn’t absorb metal, and they settled in to wait for a pick up. Luckily they were in an alley, so at least there weren’t any rubber-neckers, but having to stand around holding on to a criminal while Turbo paced was awkward to say the least. They never showed this part in the movies, at least, none that Morph ever watched.

 

Five minutes passed, then Turbo raised a hand to his com, receiving a new communication from Central. He listened a few seconds before responding.

 

“…Negative dispatch. Can’t intercept. Currently running overwatch on sidekick, Morph; we have powered perps awaiting pickup.”

“Um, I think I can hold them here if you need to go?” offered Morph.

“And have Brick rip me a new one for leaving you here unsupervised? Pass.”

 

Three minutes went by before the next call came in for Turbo, which he again refused. Then five minutes before another came in. Finally, when a fourth call came in and was passed by, Morph nervously spoke up.

 

“Um, Turbo, I can just, not tell Brick? If you need to go? That was a lot of calls. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

 

Turbo just tilted his head back and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

 

“Your helmet has a camera right?”

Morph blinked, “Oh. Yeah.”

“Then it looks like I’m stuck here. Word of advice: ditch that shit the moment they let you. Causes nothing but trouble.”

“Oh… I guess Brick checks that, doesn’t he?”

“Not what I meant, but sure.”

“…Not what you meant?”

 

Turbo rolled his eyes, but said, “We aren’t stuck here because Brick has a pole up his ass. He does, but that’s besides the point. We’re stuck here because this asshole,” he pointed at the man quietly sitting in Morph’s clutches, “can’t be secured. Next time make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Alright… how do I do that?”

“Jesus, this isn’t rocket science. Next time, when you’re doing you’re best round-up rodeo impression, just hit him harder. He can’t run away if he can’t run.”

“Oh… isn’t that kinda…”

“Tch, it’s a super fight, kid. Put them down before they put you down. You think Brick doesn’t tenderize guys like these on a daily basis?”

“I guess. But Magenta-“

“Crushed a dude in half on camera. Like I said: ditch them. As if anyone even gave a shit anyways. You know all that outrage was just Hellion’s people astroturfing, right?”

“But what about-“

“Look! Stop asking stupid questions, and trust the guy with the highest arrests-per-minute ratio within three sectors. Ditch the cameras. Beat up the bad guys. Get paid. It’s that simple.”

 

Turbo refused to say more, and they waited in silence until the cops finally came to take in the three men Morph apprehended (bringing with them a specialized containment unit complete with plastic cuffs), whereupon Turbo immediately ran off to deal with the calls still in progress. Morph got back in the escort van to slowly follow Turbo with the Central agent, pondering the discussion with Turbo all the while.

 

He supposed it made sense. Beating someone black and blue didn’t seem like something you should do as a member of law enforcement, but when the guy you were trying to arrest could deadlift a truck, there were only so many ways you could apprehend them. Morph supposed that was why the training he’d been given put so much emphasis on avoiding use of excessive force after the arrest, but was conspicuously absent of reminders for proper conduct during the arrest. Logical sense. Still…

 

He pulled out the work phone he was issued when he became a sidekick. Sidekicks didn’t have access to the full hero network, but the police network arrest records were open to him. After all, sidekicks needed to learn how their mentors did things, right? And what better way than to research the cases they’d worked on?

 

Morph pulled up Turbo’s records. The man hadn’t been lying; Turbo’s power allowed him to go through incidents at a rate most heroes could only dream of, and the records reflected it. It gave Morph an excellent sample size, even after he filtered out the arrests of normal citizens. That left him with the list of supers and mutants Turbo arrested, and the results made Morph frown. While the normal citizen arrests were largely inconspicuous, the super and mutant arrests were spattered with injury reports. Especially the mutant arrests. But was it enough to be concerned? Pulling up Brick’s and Magenta’s records showed a similar ratio of injuries among arrests, maybe even a tad higher than Turbo’s… but you didn’t call in a speedster for situations that required a straight up fight. You called them in where their speed could potentially end a fight before it started. From their power sets, one would assume Turbo’s arrests would have a lower injury ratio than his teammates, but that wasn’t the case. Add that to the fact Turbo had far more arrests total than Brick and Magenta combined and it meant that while the ratio of arrests-to-injuries was similar for all three, Turbo had far more injuries logged total. Nearly one to two serious injuries for every five arrests of a super or mutant.

 

Should… he tell someone? Brick, maybe?… But maybe he was way off base and those numbers were normal. He was just a fresh sidekick after all. It wasn’t like someone else wouldn’t have noticed, right? Causing discord over a rookie’s misunderstanding would be a terrible idea, especially during Odd Summer while the team was so strained.

 

Hell, even if Turbo was using excessive force during arrests, was that necessarily bad? Could you blame him for being heavy-handed on criminals when the sector was, quite literally in some cases, on fire? If Morph had been just a bit rougher during the fight, they might have been able to secure them at the scene and head to the calls that came in. Calls where people needed help. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, he guessed…

 

But Morph knew that wasn’t *really* what Turbo meant.

 

---

 

Tofu

 

“Tofu, you’re gonna miss it! This is the best part!”

“That’s alright. I still need to finish the second batch of waffles.”

 

As it turns out, the twins did indeed like sugar. We moved back to their house so I could make us something sweet to eat, and it turned out that Natasha owned an antique waffle iron. I’d been wanting to try one out, so I decided to make waffles (with syrup in every square, as the twins instructed). The twins happily ate their syrup and waffles while watching a television show called ‘Ted the Tinker’, in which a tinker was currently exploring ‘space’ in his tinkered school bus while teaching a class of young humans.

 

It was absolutely terrifying. Of all the things I had learned since escaping the lab, space was the absolute worst thing ever. The exact nature of the world outside the lab was far more sinister than I ever imagined, and I was in awe at the mental integrity with which the twins watched the cartoon. The show informed us that to travel between ‘planets’, you had to cross a massive void with absolutely nothing in it, for billions and trillions of miles in all directions. No materials, no resources, no nutrients, and if you somehow found yourself adrift in space without a method of propulsion, no amount of resource conservation would allow you to hibernate long enough to survive the millions and billions and trillions of years it might take you to drift towards a suitable planet. Assuming you drifted to a suitable planet, and didn’t just smack into a sun, or get sucked into a black hole, or cooked by a solar flare, or any number of other terrible things that were completely unavoidable if you found yourself drifting in a vacuum. Wandergheist could be avoided, gods could be appeased, powerful supers could be killed, and Mikey’s grandmother’s ghost wouldn’t actually kill you. But space? Inexorable death.

 

“Tofu, you’re missing Saturn!”

 

Ugh.

 

I suppressed the illogical urge to scrub my memories of the information, and resolved to package the knowledge from Ted the Tinker into storage as soon as the show was over. Knowledge of space was too important to delete, but I didn’t want the information actively in my higher processes.