Robbie Remembered

2:2

Sportacus bounced lightly on the balls of his feet and shook out his hands. "We can do anything you like, Robbie," he said. "We could go for a walk, maybe pick some apples. It's your choice. What's it going to be?"

Robbie squinted one eye at Sportacus. "If those are the choices, I'd rather do nothing."

"Did you have something else in mind?" Sportacus asked.

The villain continued to scrutinize Sportacus with a narrow, probing look. "See if you can stand still for ten minutes without jumping around like some deranged blue kangaroo."

Sportacus' eyebrows rose, then smoothed. He settled back down flat on his feet and grinned. "Is that really what you want?" he asked.

"Have you got a stopwatch?" Robbie asked. Sportacus flipped open the cover on one of his arm guards to access the computer interface embedded within and pressed a few buttons. Robbie arched an eyebrow. "Why am I not surprised." Sportacus started the clock and dropped his hands to his sides, straightened his back, and locked eyes with Robbie.

Sportacus slowly curled and relaxed his fingers, trying to work out the tightness in his knuckles. He flexed his toes inside his boots to stave off a cramp and held in a chuckle that bubbled inside his chest. Robbie was always complaining before that Sportacus never held still for anything. Now he could finally put it to the test.

This felt familiar in a way. Hadn't they done something like this before, staring each other down in an impromptu standoff? Sportacus suddenly remembered. Play Day. The kids had been pretending to be cowboys when they were ambushed by the Rotten Kid. The outlaw was going to leave all the kids tied up when Sportacus came to see what the trouble was.

The corners of his mouth tickled and tightened, drawing up. Robbie's brow twitched and furrowed in response. The villain looked just as intent as he had on that day. He'd really gone all out, dressed up from the crown of a black Stetson all the way down to the spurs on his boots.

It had been hard even then for Sportacus to keep a straight face when their duel came down to tennis rackets and candy canes. But Robbie had been so convincing, so easy to play along with. Speaking in a different accent, fidgeting his fingers at his holster before he barked an enthusiastic "Draw!" To think, even Robbie Rotten liked to play on Play Day...

"All right, that's long enough," Robbie said. The man leaned back in the silo, almost sinking back down inside the metal chute. "You're creeping me out, Sporta-stare."

Sportacus refocused his gaze on Robbie and saw the man was fidgeting more than he was. He glanced down at the time still running in his arm guard. "Are you sure? It's only been a few minutes."

"Yes," Robbie said. "Just do some flips or something, you're giving me the willies."

"You mean like this?" Sportacus stepped back and crouched, then sprung into a back-flip. His shoes banged on the grating when he landed and Robbie winced as though the vibrations traveled all the way up the chute into his head.

"That's... better," Robbie muttered.