ic Family Food

[R. Bluefish]

For a tiny, almost imperceptible moment, Starlight's face went curiously blank, then, just as quickly, her expression returned to normal. "Horrifying concoction, huh?" she said. "You had me at horrifying." She gestured commandingly. "Hey Richard, horrify me." Little trial-by-fire for my newly rediscovered taste buds, maybe. Should try some hot sauce later. She wondered vaguely if her powers would protect her from that.

She looked down at the little girl and held out her hand. "And I don't think I've introduced myself properly, Holly. Your parents keep bugging you and making you do stuff. I'm Sam."

The name just slipped out. She immediately clamped her mouth shut before remembering where she was and who she was talking to, and forcing herself to lighten the f--- up. Screw it, doesn't matter. I doubt that anybody here is going to put it on the Internet.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, it's not that sweet," said Richard with a wave of his hand. He took the big 64-oz cup Paige had filled for him from the Sodastream and poured a plastic cup full of a very, very dark brown soda for Sam. "You just take the syrup, cut it with water, and add the carbonation," he went on as she raised it to her lips. "I use two or three capfuls at once, but it makes something that's-" 

"So sweet Mom says we're not even allowed to touch it at the risk of our brains melting," said Holly with a smirk as she shook Sam's hand. "It's okay - soon my TK will come in, and then I'll be able to do all this from the comfort of my chair, heh-heh-heh." It had the feel of a running family joke from the way she winked at her mom. 

"All right, everybody, let's all get ready," Richard corralled his son down at the picnic table too, helping the ladies set the table and getting everything ready. "Just help yourself to whatever you want," he told Sam as he set out dishes laden with picnic food. "Just save some of the hot sauce burger for the boys," he added with a grin. 

[R. Bluefish]

The moment the...concoction (she immediately decided there was no other word for it) touched her tongue, it was like the ginger ale all over again, only magnified about a hundred times. Taste buds she didn't even know she had suddenly kicked into high gear. She was, at least, prepared for the carbonation this time, and managed to keep her composure relatively well. She coughed, rubbed her eyes, took another large gulp, and found herself now wondering if her powers protected her from tooth decay. There was really only one way to find out, and she didn't particularly feel like waiting for a year to see if her teeth turned into sponges, so she resigned herself to brushing again. Not having to brush was the one nice thing about not eating, she thought ruefully.

She put down the drink reluctantly to help in the setting of the table. "First come, first served," she said to Richard, glancing at the hot sauce with a gleam in her eye. She admitted inwardly that that was probably not the smartest thing to say to the fastest man alive.

 

[Avenger Assembled]

 Despite Richard's big talk - he was notably careful in how he nibbled away at his hot sauce-heavy burger, and zipped back into the kitchen for a glass of milk when he was done with what Will dubbed "Hummingbird Juice." The two men at the table quickly settled into an animated conversation about Will's superheroing - evidently the boy had run completely up the side of the Pyramid Plaza today while catching a particularly fleet-footed teenage outlaw, something Richard found extremely impressive but that sounded like a familiar story to the women. It seemed like conversations like this happened a lot around the table. 

"So what are your powers?" asked Holly around her considerably less spicy cheeseburger. "Are you like Lord Steam, where he's not really made of steam, or like Jack of all Blades where he really does have a lot of swords?" 

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight shrugged. "Pretty much what it says on the can. Tin. Whatever." She considered her burger cautiously, then took a massive bite. It took her several seconds to regain her composure after that, at which point she began adding an adventurous amount of hot sauce. "I control light," she continued. "That's it. Not a whole lot else to it, really. I light up dark places, shoot lasers, and if I'm feeling clever, I shoot really big lasers." She wadded more burger into her mouth, chewed contemplatively, then added just a dab more sauce. "If I can do more than that, I haven't figured out how yet."

She waved the sandwich. "And, uh, you may have noticed I've been reacting a little strongly to this stuff. That's because I haven't eaten anything in...quite a while now. I don't get hungry anymore, so for a long time I just didn't see the point." Another chunk of burger disappeared into her jaws. "Your parents have really opened my eyes."

[Electra]

Paige laughed as she scooped another burger onto her own plate, carefully avoiding the hot-sauced versions. "Eating as a recreational activity is a time-honored tradition among heroes who don't need to eat. I think you'll like the pie we've got for dessert. Not everybody here needs to eat five thousand calories a day," and here she gave an affectionate glare to her husband and son, "but nothing wrong with a little indulgence. We've got a bocce ball set we can put up afterwards to work off some dinner, if you'd like to stick around for that. Do you play any sports?" she asked Sam.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I was gonna be Princess Powerful, but that's lame," opined Holly seriously in response to Starlight's discussion. "I'm thinking Mind Queen now, after my Nana." She spread a generous amount of butter on her buns before digging into the burger again. 

"You can have whatever name you want, but you'll still be my baby girl," opined Richard, affectionately rubbing Holly's head. "I think you just want to wear that crown Nana promised she'd buy for you when you turn twelve." Turning back to his guest, he continued. If you don't like games, you could see if you can fly faster than the boy. We already know where you stand with me!" he added with a laugh, sounding like it was all in fun. 

[R. Bluefish]

"Used to play a little softball in school. Was never very good at it, though," Starlight said. She snorted. "The sun was always getting in my eyes, which I suppose isn't a problem any more. Also," she waved a finger at Holly, "Princess Powerful is a kicka - er - kickbutt name, and never let anyone tell you different. Although you might want to make sure it isn't taken by some other superpowered little girl."

"And come on," she said to Richard, "I think we both know I don't have much chance of outracing anyone related to you." She took another swig of concoction. "Unless I'm allowed to teleport, in which case I like my chances."

[Electra]

"Teleporters are tough to beat," Paige agreed with a nod, "especially when they know the territory. I've worked with a few in the past, and when they're on their own turf, even Richard can't keep up. Dou you find it easier to jump to places you've been before, or do you have an esper power built in that lets you look ahead? I've known people who do it both ways." She put a scoop of salad onto Holly's plate, then nudged the bowl suggestively in Will's direction as well. "Teleportation powers probably make you a heck of a fielder in softball, even if they can't help you run the bases. I've heard tell that Nicholson is going to put on a superpowered field day sometime this summer for the whole community, you should come. It'll be fun, letting the kiddos see what they can do for fun with their powers when they grow up."

[Avenger Assembled]

"The boy and I go out there and show kids with speed what they can do with themselves. Not everybody can get a Discovery Channel show, but there's courier work, tourism, photography...a whole lot of stuff. You know..." Richard had to interrupt himself to eat, making a point to take a scoop of his wife's salad and dig into that as a way of encouraging Will to do the same thing. Will had never been one to be persuaded by sweet words - but the sight of his dad eating something was usually enough, even with a teenager's sophistication, to make him eat it too. Anyway, speedsters got very hungry. "it's funny. Even twenty years ago, right after we got our pardons and hit the streets, when it was just Paige and me living out of our old RV, I never would have thought anyone would look up to us. Well, nobody at a school, anyway," he amended. "But we managed to turn things around." 

[R. Bluefish]

"You sure did," said Starlight, looking around. "Look at you now. Nice house, kids, barbeques, your own TV show, upstanding members of the hero community." Not bad for a couple who used to be junkie crooks, she thought to herself, but she decided it might sound a little tasteless out loud. Most of what she said seemed to end up sounding a little tasteless out loud, so she was pleased with herself that she caught it ahead of time for once.

"And," she said, in answer to Paige's question, "I usually need to know where I'm going if I want to beam myself there. Although the upshot is, I haven't yet found an upper limit on how far I can jump. I think I actually go at the speed of light for a fraction of a second, or something like that. So, yeah," her lips curved slightly, "that would probably be pretty useful in softball. Maybe I'll stop by."

She took another bite and chewed meditatively for a long moment, before swallowing and speaking again. "So...Nicholson is also for metahuman kids, then? What kind of methods do they have of finding new students? Do they have some kind of power-detecting gizmo that they can just use to tell if a kid has powers, or do they just keep an eye on the news?" And can they tell whether or not a kid has powers if they haven't shown up yet?

[Electra]

"A little from Column A, a little from Column B," Paige told Starlight. "Nicholson and Claremont both keep very low public profiles, for the safety of the students and their families. A lot of times families find them through referrals and word of mouth. If a working hero spots a child or teenager with powers who needs training, they'll pass the word along in both directions most of the time. And if an incident makes the news, they'll almost always look into it and see if they can help. I know that there are tools they can use to examine children to determine the sources of their power and sometimes make educated guesses about what their skillsets are likely to be. I suppose they could be used to detect powers in a child who has yet to manifest powers yet, but they're not using them on the general population or anything like that." 

[R. Bluefish]

"Must be some pretty serious work, looking after all those powered kids," Starlight said. "Most people can hardly deal with normal ones. How do the staff cope if there's an...incident? Do the staff have powers too?" She was starting to realize that there was a lot more to the hero community than she had first suspected.

"Also," she added after a moment's thought, "where do they get the resources to keep an operation like that going? Are they government-funded, do they run off donations from rich heroes, what? And are they based solely in Freedom City, or do they have branches in other states?"

[Electra]

"A little of all of the above," Paige explained, shooing a few flies away as she covered the uneaten salad with a plastic lid. "The school gets some government grants, like most private schools, but the bulk of the funding comes from private donors and tuition. There's a sliding scale, so families who can't afford to pay can still send their children, but most of the families make some sort of contribution either in tuition or volunteer hours or both. And there's funding from a lot of superheroes and hero organizations. Everyone realizes by now that finding, supporting and educating metahuman children is the best way of avoiding accidents and supervillainy in the future. 

"But it's definitely a challenge," she added with a laugh. "Daedelus and ArcheTech and some other groups have been great about providing state of the art technology for safety and powers management, but it still gets wild and wooly some days. They keep the student-teacher ratio low and a lot of the teachers have powers themselves, so it doesn't tip into any more anarchy than your normal elementary school most days. But it's the only school of its kind in the world right now. Nicholson sponsors student families to move into the city from all over the world, so their children aren't separated when they attend the school." She regarded Starlight with mild curiosity. "Do you know someone who might be a candidate to attend?" 

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight immediately cursed herself for her own transparency. Stupid, stupid. "Uh, no. I mean, maybe. That is...just wondering. Curious. You know. Don't know much about how that all works, so..."

She trailed off feebly. She felt as if she was digging herself into a hole, and every word out of her mouth was another shovelful of dirt. Out of nowhere, she felt a peculiar pang of guilt. Still lying, huh? said a nasty voice in the back of her head. I guess some things never change. Coming to their house, meeting their kids, eating their food, and lying through her teeth. All hail the noble heroine, savior of us all.

Heroine. Ha. The homophone drew an involuntary bitter chuckle from her. F--k it.

She leaned back in her seat and gazed up at the sky. Stars will be coming out soon. "I was wondering about my son." With those words, it felt like something that had been blocking her windpipe had suddenly been dislodged. "I'm worried that he might have my powers."

[Avenger Assembled]

As the conversation turned to more serious subjects, Will and Holly headed inside to load the dishwasher and to break into the Rocky Road - Will's speed meaning the kids could finish clearing the table in the space of only a few seconds. (Curious as she was, Holly had to get a look from her mom before she let the door close all the way.) 

"Well," said Richard, carefully keeping his tone light, "if you're going to bring him in for testing, I'd suggest doing it at Nicholson. At least with them you're not worried your boy's gonna get drafted or have his name go on a government watchlist somewhere. Are you in a place where you can have that done?" he asked as generally as possible. Given Starlight's background, he could make some guesses about why she might not have mentioned having a kid - and none of them were good ones.

He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he'd knocked Paige up while they were both using. 

[R. Bluefish]

"No. I'm not. Not exactly." The lump in Starlight's throat had returned. From what she remembered telling Richard of herself, she imagined he could probably put the rest together himself. Which would mean you don't have to say any more, said the nasty voice. And you'd like that, wouldn't you? It didn't happen if you don't talk about it, is that the idea?

She sighed heavily. "I don't have him any more. Haven't for...a while now." She rested her elbows on the table and pinched the bridge of her nose. She could feel a headache coming on. "Wasn't a very good mom. He's with...someone else now." For some reason, she still couldn't muster the energy to talk about Becky. Fatigue seemed to be seeping into every muscle in her body, filling her bones with lead. Her eyes were worn and very, very tired.

[Avenger Assembled]

"That's hard," said Richard quietly, his humor fading as the seriousness of the discussion settled in. It wasn't that he was surprised, really - but that made the subject no less difficult. At least the kids were all inside now; one benefit of telepathy in the family was that when the kids got the signal from Mom and Dad, they knew it was serious and they stayed out of the way. Well, most of the time, he amended, before putting his own kids out of his mind. "I'm sorry. Where he is now, do they know that powers are a possibility?" He didn't probe too deeply - the family, the state? None of the possibilities were especially attractive. 

[R. Bluefish]

"With my family." Where he should be. "And no, they don't know about me. You know. What I can do. What I am doing."

For a brief, absurd moment, Starlight wondered what Becky would think of it all. For years when they were girls, they had dreamed of nothing but becoming heroes. Now she was one. At least, she fit the profile. She had powers and ran around using a stupid goddamned comic-book name and terrorized people the law said it was okay to terrorize.

Becky had always been the nice sister. She had always had a kind word for everyone, while Sam had never been able to resist the opportunity to make a sarcastic remark. Becky had been the one who would stop and help if she saw someone who she thought needed it. Sam had maintained a pretty strict "not my problem" policy.

So why was she the one with the powers? Why her, the selfish junkie, and not Becky, the kindhearted straight-A medical student who would make a better hero than Sam could ever hope to be? All she could think was that someone upstairs had made a serious mistake. God grabbed the wrong file.

[Avenger Assembled]

Richard shot a glance at Paige, glad his wife was there. He wasn't always the most diplomatic person when it came to matters like this. "Can you tell them?" he asked. "Even if you're not in his life, he still has your genes - and if that means powers, they need to know that." He smiled thinly. "Raising a superpowered kid is tough enough when you have powers of your own. When he was about four, Will went through a phase where he thought the funniest thing in the world was to run around wearing a cape yelling "I'm a superhero!" - and he could already run faster than a car. Luckily we were both home to raise him." He kept moving. "Mundane parents can raise super kids, though, we have a lot of friends who are doing the same thing. But they'll have to know something." 

[R. Bluefish]

The corners of Starlight's mouth tightened. "Yeah. I suppose I have to." The thought of facing Becky again made a deep ache form in the pit of her stomach. "Looking forward to that conversation." Hey, I know I haven't seen you in years, but I thought I should just drop by and let you know that Arthur might have superpowers. Okay, sayonara. She imagined it would end with her receiving a well-deserved punch in the face.

Didn't have much of a choice, though. Now that she was actually stopping to think about it for five f---ing seconds, the possibility of Arthur having powers was very real. And more than that, what if his powers were dangerous? Hers certainly were. She had been able to control them well enough to not accidentally destroy any buildings, but he was just a kid. Kids could barely ride bicycles without being dangers to society, not to mention themselves.

[Electra]

Paige had been quiet through most of the conversation, letting Richard take the lead both because he had a more natural rapport with their guest and because familial estrangement was not an easy topic for her to deal with. But she gave Starlight an encouraging smile, empathy in her eyes. "It probably won't be easy," she agreed, "and it's a big first step to take. But maybe it's also an opportunity in disguise. You did a brave and unselfish thing, turning your little boy over to someone else when you knew you couldn't care for him. It doesn't matter the reason why, that can't have been easy to do in the first place. But now look how far you've come, how much you're doing to change your life."

She extended a hand to indicate Starlight, pointing without pointing in the manner of a seasoned traveler. "You should be proud of yourself, and hopefully your family will be proud of you too, even if there's still friction there. You're becoming somebody that your little boy can look up to. Even if you aren't in a position to take him back, even if you decide that taking him back isn't what's best for everyone, you could still be part of his life. If he does turn out to have powers, having that mentorship will be really helpful. And if he doesn't, there's still something very special about a child's relationship with their mom." Her smile was bittersweet for a moment, showing a very old hurt that she probably wouldn't have allowed to slip out under other circumstances. 

[R. Bluefish]

Several long seconds passed in silence as Starlight stared fixedly at a small tear on the sleeve of her jacket. At last she opened her mouth to speak, but found that no sound came out. She took a gulp of her drink to wash away the lump in her throat before at last finding her voice. "Um. Yeah. You...uh...I think maybe you're right there." Her words sounded weak even to herself. "I mean...I suppose I never really thought about it like that." Vaguely-entertained notions of slipping an anonymous note under Becky's door vanished. That was the coward's way out, and she was tired of taking it.

Proud of herself. That was a concept she hadn't seriously considered in a very long time. Even now she wasn't sure she quite accepted it. Nevertheless, t was true that, no matter which way you sliced it, she was a superhero. Most people weren't - which was probably for the best, come to think of it. But she had done a few good things. Not great things. But good things. Things she supposed she was...if not necessarily proud, at least glad she had done. She wasn't ashamed of having done them, which was for her a step in the right direction.

She was quiet for another moment, then laughed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Anybody ever tell you you're great people?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Not enough people," said Richard seriously before breaking into a quick smile. "You've got my card, and I know Paige has given you her number by now." He'd already programmed her number into his cellphone, of course, but he tried not to think about that kind of thing in an emergency situation. "Call us if we can help. We haven't been in your shoes - but we've walked down the same road." He thought for a second, then borrowed his card back to write a quick number on the back in black ink. "This is the number of our friend Austin Ames, he works at DeVries, the meta talent agency. He can't get you a contract without a lot of paperwork, but he can set you up with a temp job. If you want. Tell them I gave you the number."

He knew it might mean nothing more than a phone call and a consultation fee for her - but if it paid off, what could it hurt? "You want a nightcap?" he offered. "Believe it or not, I actually can make something besides hummingbird juice in the Sodastream - we've got creme soda and root beer in glass bottles, some of the celery stuff the boy swears by..." Not knowing everything she'd wrestled with, he left liquor off the list. 

[R. Bluefish]

Celery? Waste of perfectly good taste buds, Starlight thought to herself as she pocketed the card with a nod of thanks. The omission of alcohol was not lost on her, and she found herself oddly appreciating it. Booze didn't affect her any more than anything else did, but it was the thought that counted. Besides, once you couldn't get drunk, you realized just how plain nasty the stuff actually tasted.

"Creme soda sounds good," she said. After her unexpected burst of honesty, she found herself eager to move on to lighter topics, which in this situation meant just about anything. She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the card. A job? She tried to think what kind of position she would be actually qualified for, and ran out of ideas around "improvised floodlight."