The Sidekick Club

1.3

"What the Hell, man?" Ethan spread his arms wide once he saw Noah at school the next day. It wasn't uncommon for the boy to leave him hanging, but the superhero battle had him worrying more than usual.

"Yeah... sorry about that," Noah rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I looked for you for two hours, two hours, and you didn't have the decency to at least answer my texts?"

"My phone died?" he tried weakly. When Ethan gave him a look, his lightly freckled cheeks turned pink. Looking everywhere but at his friend, Noah grumbled a better answer. "Fine. I was with Curtis."

"Get a little distracted, did we?" Ethan teased. Noah's cheeks turned a few shades darker and he suddenly became very interested in the scuff on the toe of his shoe.

"I'm sorry, Ethan," Noah mumbled.

Ethan, swayed by how pitiful and downtrodden his friend looked, decided he couldn't hold a grudge. Reaching his hand out, Ethan flicked Noah in the forehead before saying. "It's fine. Just let me know you're not dead next time. It'll save me the trouble of trying to find your sorry ass."

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" Noah visibly perked up a bit.

"For now," Ethan narrowed his eyes at the boy and sent him the 'I'm watching you' gesture. As a slow grin crawled onto Noah's face, Ethan dropped the act and said, "Come on. We're going to be late for class."

Ethan had to sit through four lectures before anything remotely exciting happened. In his Media and Modern Culture class, which was one of his electives, Mr. Stanley started off his lesson by showing cellphone footage of yesterday's fiasco at the mall up on the projector screen. He paused halfway through the fight and started to address the class.

Honestly, it wasn't the most interesting fight to watch. One of the fighters was invisible after all. For all they knew, Talon could've been faking a fight with nothing but air.

But Ethan knew better, and even though he had been present for the battle, he tried to pay attention to his teacher's rambling.

"Hey. Is that Ethan?" one of the more popular girls, Gianna Barns, asked, pointing up at the paused screen.

Every set of eyeballs in the classroom, including Ethan's, returned to the screen to see him, in all of his blonde haired glory, kneeling next to a screaming Emily. The footage wasn't high quality, but you could definitely tell it was him.

Almost simultaneously, the whole class turned their eyes to him. Ethan shrank in his seat a little, massively unused to this many eyes focusing on him and him alone. It was kind of creepy.

All at once he was bombarded with questions.

"Did you meet Talon?"

"What was it like?"

"Who was that girl?"

"Was it exciting?"

"Is that really you?"

Ethan tried to sink lower in his seat, wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. Unfortunately for him, that was not his power.

"Alright class, settle down. Don't give the poor boy a heart attack," Mr. Stanley drew their attention back to the front of the classroom. Ethan frowned at the thought of having a heart attack simply because of people looking at him.

He'd had attention before. Granted, it was usually when Talon was beside him, but it wasn't an entirely foreign concept to him.

Ethan turned his thoughts back to the class as Mr. Stanley announced their assignment.

"Your next class project is to write up some media coverage about the Westington Heights Supers. I want articles, interviews, action shots. You can work alone or with one other partner, but I expect each group to have one page of coverage. By the end of the semester, I want to put all of the pages into our own superhero magazine. That means you all have two weeks to hand in your final drafts. It will be worth fifteen percent of your final grade. Is that understood?"

He received a series of confirmations from the class.

"Good. The rest of the class is yours."

The room erupted into chaos as people got up and moved to sit closer to their friends. Ethan didn't have any good friends in this class, only a few acquaintances, so he stayed where he was and stared up at his face on the screen.

After Talon had knocked out the Vanisher, Ethan had given Talon the needle that'd nearly incapacitated him. As a show of thanks, Talon had given him a Pin of Valor in return, which was basically just a stupid little pin the Supers gave heroic citizens and small children that'd been through traumatic experiences and needed the reassurance.

Ethan had thrown a curling iron. He threw a curling iron and got a Pin of Valor.

Such a great honor.

Granted, it was still more appreciation than Talon had given him as a sidekick. He supposed he'd take what he could get.

Ethan figured Talon was probably running some tests on the contents of the needle. He probably should've been with him, but it was 'hero work' and Ethan wasn't about to ditch school again. His mom had freaked the first time the superintendent called his home. He was definitely not going to repeat that whole mess. Not if he could help it, at least.

Ethan put his head down on his desk. He wasn't sure how long it took him to fall asleep, but before he knew it, the bell was ringing and forcing him to his next class.