Sidekicked (7 page)

Still, the vast majority of Supers don't have sidekicks. I guess for them, a sidekick is just a liability. Just someone else to be saved. That's why it's sometimes difficult for Mr. Masters to find mentors. Why Gavin McAllister had to move halfway across the country. Because for every Fox willing to nurse a Lynx to herodom, there's a Super who just can't take it. Who, for some reason or another, can't handle the responsibility.

So it's not unusual to find a Super without a sidekick. A sidekick without a Super, though.

Those are one of a kind, too.

The Titan is “off the grid.” That's Mr. Masters speak for “doesn't want to be found.” The other Supers don't know where he is. Mr. Masters doesn't know where he is. The forces of darkness and eviltude don't know where he is.

But I do. At least I did. I just hope he's still there. After all, some deranged man in a bee costume went through all the trouble of capturing me and dangling me out to dissolve, maybe with the hope of luring him out of his hole. There's a chance somebody is gunning for him. It seems like something he should know.

Besides, I have a bone to pick. I don't care if Mr. Masters is right and the Titan is going through a little identity thing, there's still a Code. He has one. I have one. It's one thing not to show up to special H.E.R.O. training sessions. To never take me out on weekends the way the Fox does with Jenna. It's another to ignore my signal and leave me hanging. That's just unprofessional. And a little bit rude. Not to mention life threatening. Which is why I took off this afternoon with the hopes of hunting him down again.

The Last Hurrah is open, even though it is only four thirty, and I push my way in, having told my parents that I was staying after school to go bowling. I know what you are thinking, but the Last Hurrah isn't one of those hot spots for the differently powered. It's not a front for a top-secret headquarters that is accessed by an elevator that appears when you pull on the center beer tap. There are no poles you can slide down to get to your secret cave. It's just a beat-up hole-in-the-wall bar tucked away in a grimy strip mall, next to a nail salon and a Laundromat. For all I know, the Titan lives here.

The last time I was here, he made me promise not to tell anyone else where he was, and then he told me never to come back. He knew the Superhero Sidekick Code of Conduct forbade me to share his whereabouts—rule number two—but there was nothing in the Code about
me
coming to see him.

The bartender takes one look at me and frowns. I point to the corner, and he frowns again.

He sits in the exact same place as he did last time, nearly two months ago—when I spent every afternoon for two weeks walking into every bar, tavern, and pub the city had to offer before I found him. I was only operating on a hunch, based on the first day we met. Based on the smell of his breath and the look in his eyes. I knew I would recognize him if I saw him. I'm pretty good at picking up on the little details, and he hadn't failed to make an impression. Still, Justicia's not a small city, and I must have peeked into thirty dives just like this one before I found him.

That day I hadn't said much. Only reminded him that I was his sidekick and he was my Super and that, in general, that meant we were supposed to hang out, trade witty remarks, strike cool poses, and battle evil and stuff. I told him that he had missed our last three special training sessions. Suggested that Mr. Masters had expressed concern about his continued absence. I had tried to be cool about the whole thing. No pressure. Not wanting to push him away even further. Just letting him know I was still around. I remember him burping, and the sheer force of it shaking the glasses that hung behind the bar, clinking them together

He had been in bad shape then. I could only imagine things had gotten worse.

I walk in and take everything in briefly, instantly, letting my senses open up, but just as quickly battening it all back down. There's nothing to see except peanut shells and a few construction workers calling it an early afternoon. There's nothing to hear except the dull thud of glass on wood after every swallow and the hum of an announcer calling a baseball game on a television. There are lots of things to smell, but none of them merit a second whiff.

He sits at the far end of the bar, his giant frame taking up the equivalent of two spaces. It's a wonder the stool holds him. It's a wonder he can still sit upright. I can't see the look in his eyes because of the sunglasses he wears, but the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth tells me that he saw me come in the door. He takes a long drink, emptying his mug, and motions for the bartender to give him another.

“Hey,” I say, walking up beside him. Playing it cool.

He just grunts. This is exactly how our last conversation started.

He looks worse. The wheel around his middle has inflated more. He hasn't shaved, a thick beard adding a whole other dimension to his already expansive face. He hasn't bothered to change clothes in a while either, judging by the spread of the armpit stains on his dingy gray T-shirt and the smell that assaults me even though I'm mostly breathing through my mouth. If I took off his sunglasses, I'm sure I would be knocked over by the bags under his bloodshot eyes. This doesn't look like a man who once destroyed a giant mechanical spider by leaping onto it from a plummeting helicopter and driving his fist through the beast's armor plating. Still, his nearly seven-foot frame dwarfs mine, and his log-sized arms still bulge through his shirt.

I look at his hand to see if he is wearing the ring—my sidekick locator device. It's how Supers keep tabs on their charges. A ring or a chain or some other kind of trinket that acts as a tracker and communicator. The day after I took my oath to become a part of H.E.R.O., I had a nifty little computer chip implanted under my thumbnail that I can activate whenever I'm in trouble, sending my signal directly to his ring and allowing him to hunt me down. He can do the same if he ever wants to send me a message. Of course it doesn't do any good if your Super is so passed-out drunk that he doesn't notice. The Titan's knuckles are tufted in hair and thick with scars, but there's no ring.

“Mind if I join you?” I ask, acutely aware of how loaded this question is.

“You really shouldn't be in here,” he says, staring straight ahead as I take the stool next to him.

He said that last time.

“You really shouldn't be here either.”

I said that last time, too.

I try to somehow peer past the tinted lenses, to get just one glimpse of what is going on back there, but it's no use. His breath makes my eyes water.

“I've been busy,” I say.

“Yeah, me too,” he murmurs, raising his hand in appreciation as the bartender sets down a full glass.

“You're not wearing your ring.”

“I didn't know we were married,” he replies, taking a swallow.

I start to lose my cool, spinning around to face him. “Did you even see what happened yesterday?” I venture, bringing my voice to a whisper and speaking through gritted teeth. “At the swimming pool? All those bees and stuff?” I realize my hands are shaking, and I drop them to my sides.

“I heard about it,” he says.

“I could have been killed.”

“It turned out okay,” he says matter-of-factly.

“No thanks to you,” I snap.

I shut my mouth. The man sitting next to me could bench press sixty tons, though it seems to be an effort for him just to lift his glass today.

The Titan shrugs.

I feel the warmth working its way up my cheeks. “I played by all the rules,” I say. “And instead I end up getting saved by the Fox while you probably just sat here and watched the whole thing on television.”

“There was a game on.” He nods to the TV in the corner, then takes a drink and sets the glass down gently. “Besides, you didn't need me,” he adds.

And suddenly I want to hit him, too. But if hitting Gavin McAllister would be a bad idea, then throwing a punch at the man who once tucked a live hand grenade under his own armpit to protect a group of OCs should be at the bottom of my list. He shifts his weight on the stool, and I can feel a slight tremor through the floorboards, reminding me of exactly who I'm dealing with. When he speaks again, it's more of a growl.

“Listen, kid, I've told you before and I'll tell you again. I'm not your daddy. I'm not your savior. And I'm not your friend. Besides, even if I wanted to, there wasn't much I could do to help you anyway. You got rescued. That's what matters.”

“That's no excuse,” I say.

“I didn't know I needed an excuse,” he snaps back.

“I was counting on you.”

“There are plenty out there better able to do the job.”

I look at him, slouched there in his stool, foam in the stubble on his chin, the scars on his face, hands, and arms like bookmarks keeping tabs on every chapter of his life. In his prime, he was the Super to beat. Nearly indestructible. Fists of iron. Nerves of steel. Heart of gold. At least that's what the T-shirts said. The leader of the Legion of Justice. More than a hundred captured criminals to his credit. Kids around the world worshipped him.

Or at least one did.

But that was the Titan. Not this huge, soft shell of a man, sitting on this stool in his dark corner of the world. I realize he's right. There are plenty of heroes ready to take his place. Which is just fine for practically everyone else.

“Mr. Titan,” I whisper, looking around to make sure nobody else in the bar is paying attention.

“George.”

“Okay. Whatever,
George
. I didn't ask to be paired up with you, okay? It wasn't my idea.” Though I do remember practically peeing my pants the day I found out. “But I'd like to know that the next time some whack job captures me and plans to feed me to sharks or toss me off a cliff or drop me in a vat of bubbling toxic goo, you are going to come get me. Because if not, I need to find somebody who will. Someone who will stick to the Code.” I take a deep breath. My heart is pounding. I can feel the blood pulsing all the way down into my feet.

The Titan looks at the bartender, who is either ignoring us or is very good at pretending to. Then he turns to me, cocking his head to the side. It's the first time he's bothered to look at me squarely, and suddenly I'm thinking I should have listened to him the first time and not come back. He points a finger, a finger that, even now, would probably be all he needed to snap my neck.

“Forget the Code, kid. It's just a bunch of made-up nonsense designed to make things simple and easy. But nothing is simple and easy. Nobody's perfect, and I can't be there to pick you up every time you slip and skin your knee. So do us both a favor, and go save yourself for a change.”

He keeps his eyes on me a moment longer, then takes another long drink from the glass, leaving only the foam on the sides. He taps the bar.

And I can tell that's it. The conversation is over.

I should tell him what Mr. Masters said. About the possibility that I was captured in order to make him a target. That someone out there still considers him a threat. But then I look at him. And I realize that no villain with half a brain and an ounce of self-respect would bother to battle the man slumped across the stool next to me.

I stand up and sling my backpack across my shoulder. I make it halfway to the door before turning around. This time I don't bother to whisper.

“One day you're going to regret all the things you could have done differently.”

He doesn't look up. “Already there, kid,” he says. “Don't let the door hit you on the way out.” He smiles weakly, then buries himself back in his mug.

I do let the door hit me on the way out—only because he asked me not to—then hop on my bike and head for home. I don't know why I even bothered. What a waste of time. I pedal faster, the wind bringing tears to my eyes, listening to the police sirens in the distance.

D
eep down, all superheroes have problems. Mr. Masters says that's why they fight crime—because it's easier than dealing with their personal drama. The Scarlet Maiden spent two years hunting down the Posse of Doom just to avoid confronting her failed relationship with Captain Crimson. Angus “The Arrow” McClean admitted in his memoir that every criminal he puts away reminds him of his neglectful father. And Dr. Phil once told Titanium Man that his suit of armor is a metaphor for the barrier he puts around his emotions—causing T.M. to weep uncontrollably behind his metal mask on national television.

At some point, Mr. Masters says, most Supers come to a crossroads where they have to choose between saving the world or saving themselves.

Exhibit A: George Raymond Washington Weiss.

He was born George Raymond Washington to parents Thomas and Jenny on May 5, 1962, though admittedly Jenny did most of the work. Upon delivery, baby George weighed twelve pounds, four ounces. When he came out, he gripped the nurse's finger so hard it bruised, and the first time someone tried to draw blood, the needle broke against his skin.

It was clear from the start that George was not an ordinary child and would require special attention. So Thomas and Jenny Washington did what most OCs do when saddled with a superhuman baby—they gave him up for adoption. Better than putting him in a basket and shipping him downriver, at least.

So George grew up under the care of Jim and Janet Weiss, a middle-class Midwestern couple who knew nothing of superpowers, sidekicks, or capes, but who had open hearts and minds. Jim worked as a foreman for a construction company, and Janet tried to convince herself that selling cosmetics was more than just a hobby. They had been trying to have children for years, so to them baby George was a blessing, even though he once split their dining room table in half during a fit over having to eat cooked carrots.