The Undoing of Sidekicks | ✓

eleven

(a/n: dedicated to hugoborren for finally teaching me how the supers in smash works. and voting and supporting too, thanks.)

eleven

GETTING TO work on Monday was extraordinarily hard. I didn't want to move my feet more than one inch away from the kids, but I'd have to. I'd need to keep up the pretense of normalcy, in order to protect them. 

I'm all they have. 

The rest of the Sunday evening  — after Mistress had disappeared with Mrs. Cold — the kids had poked and prodded at me, urging me to use my powers. I'd been scared they would've been afraid of me, perhaps even apprehensive of me after they discovered I'd knowingly omitted the truth from them.

 Instead, they were ridiculously intrigued. I'd been forced to make small, swirling sand-tornadoes all night, and they'd been more than eager to smash them apart before urging me to do it again. I continued to amuse them, grateful they had their attention turned elsewhere. 

Perhaps they were just channeling their anxiety somewhere else. I didn't know much about child psychology, but after the entire mess we'd gone through — what with my old mentor bursting through the door, together with their supposed 'caretaker', threatening to take them away from the only home they knew ... I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd bawled their eyes out for the rest of the night. Their non-reaction, however, managed to scare me even more than if they'd broken down in hysterics. 

I had failed to stop myself from asking them if they were at all worried. They knew what was at stake just as much as I did, but when I asked the question they'd just bobbed their heads and smiled in confusion. 

"What'd you mean, Leo? You'll fix it. You always do."

The response reverberated through my head, echoing across every synapse in my mind. I couldn't explain to them just how worried I was that I wouldn't be able to fix it — that I would fail, and have them taken from me. 

I glanced up, toward the sky, and hissed as I noted I'd clenched my fist hard enough to dig crescent-shaped marks into my palm. 

You have to shove this away, Leo. Heaven forbid you let Maddy know of this — or Josh. 

Josh already knew too much for comfort. The fact that I'd been forced to rely on someone other than myself (and a goddamn superhero, at that.) had cut a deep and uncomfortable wound into my self-sustaining identity, and I struggled coming to terms with it. As the thoughts battered me, I clenched my hand again. I wanted to channel that emotional turmoil into something else, preferably Mistress' face.

Or Mrs.Cold's for that matter. A good fight's a good fight, after all. Their smug smirks seemed permanently imprinted in my mind, a vision I could never unsee. It mixed and mingled with the cruel teachings of Mistress herself, and I found myself on a trip down memory lane I'd never wanted to go on. 

There were a great many reasons I'd stopped being an apprentice to Mistress. She was cruel, in more ways than just physical. I hadn't been able to withstand her ... presence, the overwhelming evil and lack of humanity she harbored. It was only through begrudging respect none of us revealed the other's true identity, but other than that we were nothing more than strangers in the night.

Who occasionally beat each other up. 

It didn't matter. Mistress was a criminal, through and through. Sure, I robbed people, but that was only materialistic things. Mistress was a cold-blooded murderess, whose crimes were far more severe than the police thought. The authorities weren't aware of half the things she'd done, but I was. I'd even been a witness to it.