The Sidekick

Chapter One: Beginnings

Hey, I haven't written anything in a while so this may not be great. Some parts may have been inspired by other works I'll try to credit as I go. Feel free to leave any grammar corrections, I don't have a beta and sometimes I miss things.

Also there may be some swearing or mentions of things unsuitable for younger audiences like mental disorders and drug addiction among other things. I'm not going to put trigger warnings at the top of every chapter. You have been warned.

Marabelle Bronx Manchester looked out the window as students filed in, she couldn't really find it in herself to pay attention as the bell rang and her teacher stared talking about algebra; she knew if it came to it she could always use the Cerebral Data Transducer, a device her dad's friend Schwoz made before he was kicked out for sleeping with one of his many flings.

As she was settling in to zone out for the next forty-five minutes a disturbance came from the front of the class, a boy named Oliver was having an argument with his friend Sydney about something, a conversation that had started in hushed whispers was getting steadily louder.

The teacher—Miss Shapen—cleared her throat, the boys looked up sheepishly and she asked, "Is there something you'd like to discuss with the class?"

"Um, no sorry," Oliver said not making eye contact.

"Then be quiet," she all but yelled before carrying on with the mind-numbing lesson.

An hour later Marabelle—who had been going by her middle name Bronx for some time—walked into her father's store Junk and Stuff. It was a quaint little store with trinkets, antiques, and other bizarre items you wouldn't usually find anywhere but a city dump, it smelled of dust and old wood. She loved it.

"Hey Gooch," she greeted as the dinosaur head mounted on the wall breathed flames at her. Gooch looked up from the counter but said nothing, he wasn't exactly talkative but that didn't matter all that much, when it came down to it he was there to help as much as he could and that's all she and her father needed.

She went to the back room and into the elevator where she descended into a rapid free-fall hundreds of miles into the earth before crashing to the floor at the bottom. It was fun when you got used to it but her mother had been worried after she was born it would cause shaken baby syndrome so she forced Shwoz to make it go slowly for the first two years of her life.

Bronx's mother was a complicated woman, according to the pictures she was gorgeous, with long brown hair that cascaded down her back in waves and bright green eyes she passed onto her daughter. But she'd been only nineteen when she conceived a child with a man she'd only planned on seeing until she finished her degree. They'd both scrambled on what to do, and eventually ended up keeping the baby and moving in together, much to the dismay of her parents. Seven years later she ran away to Dystopia, leaving behind the mistakes of her youth and irreparably tearing apart their little family.

Bronx walked out of the elevator and sat on the half-circle couch in the middle of the Man Cave entrance room, pulling out a book she has to read for a class project on solar power. She reads for an hour until her father Ray comes down a tube in the corner, he's wearing his Captain Man uniform and looks exhausted; there's currently a crime wave in Swellview—the biggest since she was nine and Dr. Minyak broke the prison in half with a laser that propelled him from being a minor criminal into a real villain.

"Hey sweetheart, how was school?" he asks as he blows a bubble and returns to his civilian clothes.

"Same old same old, boring as ever, how was work? You were gone before I left."

"I actually just came home from yesterday, it's getting worse and I don't think we're even close to the height of it yet." Ray takes a seat next to his daughter throwing an arm around her. "You know, it would pass a lot faster if I had help. And I seem to recall knowing a very bright young girl with martial arts training and accelerated healing." 

He pokes her in the ribs before she stands, "You know I won't."

"Bronx, would you please think about it. It's getting worse out there and without help I'll be overwhelmed soon."

"Then maybe you should hire someone. And this time don't kick them out just because they take a girl you weren't done using." She grabs her bag and storms off to her bedroom.

 Bronx knows it's not exactly fair to get mad at her dad, he'd been trying to get her interested in becoming his sidekick and eventually taking over when he retires for years, but she really didn't want to. She wanted to be a scientist like Schwoz and her grandfather. And besides even though her bones couldn't break and she healed quickly running around in the night beating up people wasn't something she could see herself doing, she barely even participated in gym class.

~

An hour later Bronx walked out of her room and into the kitchen, the Man Cave had the auto-snacker where you could get any food you wanted but sometimes it was nice to eat homemade food.

Ray was already in the kitchen serving himself some spaghetti and humming under his breath. it was a tune Bronx recognized from her childhood, something her mom used to sing, "You say it best when you say nothing at all-Bronx, hey, I was thinking, it's not fair of me to keep asking you to become a sidekick, I know. However I really could use some help so maybe we could pre-screen some candidates and find someone who already has some fight training who would be open to becoming a sidekick."

"Yeah, sounds good. When do you want to start?" She asks pouring sauce on her noodles and walking over to sit at the table.

"Does later tonight sound okay? I have to run right after I finish eating."

"Yeah, I'll start finding people with some martial arts training after I finish with homework." Ray opened his mouth to reply just as the sirens went off in the Man Cave indicating an emergency. He pulls a gumball out of his pocket before transforming and running out of the room.

Bronx sighs and keeps eating, it'd been like that for a while, she was just happy he was finally going to get help from someone who actually wanted to help.

~

Later that night Bronx starts combing through Swellview records, a few years back-before they had a falling out-Schwoz had gotten hold of records on every Swellview resident, it wasn't necessary but it was pretty helpful in situations like this. She started by cutting off anyone not yet in middle school, and anyone older than twenty-two, knowing her father he'd throw a fit if he found a great sidekick older than that.

Eventually she narrowed it down to about seven different people, ranging from thirteen to nineteen, she printed out the details on each of them and laid it out on the table in front of the half-circle Man Couch and headed up to bed. 

Captain Man didn't return home until noon the next day.

Alright that wraps up chapter one, let me know what you think. Also the idea for Henry to be a pre-selected sidekick comes from The Danger Re-Written by Comicalarts on AO3. And the idea that Henry already had some martial arts training is something I've seen in a few works that I thought made sense.

Comments are always welcome -Lucille