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tebtoscaTitle: Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 10,427
Warnings: 500-year-old Misha, supervillain monologues, and tentacles
Summary: Starting a specialized high school for Superhero progeny with his best friend Jensen sounds likes a blast to Jared--until he discovers that he's the only one there without any actual powers
Author's Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
j2_everafter based on the movie Sky High
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fiercelynormal and cha because without them, I literally would not have finished this. Thanks to the Everafter mods for being so awesome. And, most importantly, thanks to ldyghst for the amazing art, the speedy beta, and the ability to put up with my whiny ass. Love you, bb! ♥
AO3 ♥ ART MASTERPOST ♥ WEBSITE ♥
“Toast?”
“Yes, please,” Jared says, flopping down on the bar stool at the kitchen counter. He watches as his mother aims her eyes at the unsuspecting pieces of Wonder bread and uses her X-ray vision to prepare breakfast.
“Perfect,” she replies, beaming as she spreads a thin layer of butter over the perfectly crisp pieces and slides the plate across to Jared.
“You’re totally gonna get radiation poisoning from that,” his best friend Jensen insists, barging into the room like he actually lives there and stealing one of the slices for good measure.
“Dude, get your own laser-eyed mother.” Jared huffs, attempting and failing to get his toast back. Jensen just grins at him and sticks out his tongue to show the food chunks.
“No one is getting radiation poisoning,” tsks Samantha Smith Morgan, the legendary superheroine known as ”The Golden Glider.” She’s also Jared’s mom and pretty freaking cool. “Jared would have three heads by now if that were the case.”
“Did someone say three heads? Don’t tell me we got invited to Kripke Manor again,” Jared’s dad says as he comes into the kitchen. He sees the boys at the counter and taps Jensen on the shoulder hard enough for him to fall off the bar stool.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan chuckles. “Sorry, son. Don’t know my own strength.”
Jared snorts, and his dad winks at him. What’s the use of being ”The Silver Strongman” if you can’t joke about your superhuman ability?
Jensen groans as he picks himself up off the floor. “Are you guys trying to kill me before I even start high school?”
“I remember high school,” Jeffrey starts, and Jared recognizes his “those were the good old superhero days” face anywhere.
“You were so young then, baby, what happened?” Samantha asks with a smirk. Jared starts gagging when his dad lifts her up like a ragdoll and starts kissing her neck. Jensen starts cheering and elbowing Jared in the ribs, because his best friend is such a douchebag.
“We met at the Academy,” Jeffrey informs them, and Jared just rolls his eyes again. He’s heard this story a hundred times, but he knows that reminiscing about the time before the wrinkles—that even innate superpowers can’t stop—makes his parents happy.
Jensen’s a total kiss ass, and leans forward on the counter to put his fists under his chin and bat his eyelashes with rapt attention. “Was it love at first sight?”
Samantha pushes her husband off her, but she’s got the happy smile that Jared loves so much on her face, and it’s kind of contagious. “More like love at first flight. Your father was overdoing it in his building-scaling class and fell.”
Jeff wraps his arms around her waist again—his dad is nothing if not persistent— and holds her back against his chest to pick up the story. “Luckily for me, there was this gorgeous blonde dame in my class who happened to be able to fly.”
Samantha chuckles. “But he was so heavy that I could barely hold him, and we ended up in a heap on the floor of the gym.”
“Best sixty seconds of my life,” Jeff says with a smile, and Samantha turns her head to give him a peck.
“You guys are so gross,” Jared insists, jumping up from the counter and picking up his backpack from the floor.
“Just wait until you find ‘the one’, son. You’ll understand then,” Jeffrey insists, but Jared just laughs. He turns to Jensen, expecting to see the same face as his own, but Jensen is strangely silent with a slight flush in his cheeks. Oh man, maybe the toast has radiation poisoning after all.
“C’mon, we’re gonna miss the bus,” is all that Jensen says after a long moment, and Jared shrugs it off as nerves. Starting their first day at the Academy is totally terrifying, if Jared is being honest with himself.
“Make us proud, son.”
Jared can’t help feeling a little sick to his stomach as well.
**
“This looks like a regular bus,” Jared proclaims, as the door to the totally nondescript yellow vehicle opens up in front of them on the street outside his house.
“What were you expecting, a hover board?” the bus driver calls out from behind the wheel, and waves them into the bus impatiently. “Get in, you’re the last ones.”
Jensen just laughs and climbs up, Jared close behind. The bus driver peers at them over his shoulder as they barrel into the empty front row. He’s a funny looking fellow, kind of scrawny for a superhero of his age, with a five o’clock shadow that is so not professional. Then again, a real superhero probably wouldn’t be driving a bus, right?
“I am DJ Qualls, bus driver,” he announces over the PA system that he suddenly has an inch away from his mouth. The feedback hisses, and a couple of kids groan. He hits the microphone a few times with a mumbled “Sorry. Sorry.”
“You want a standing ovation or something?” yells the guy in the seat across from them, his blond hair spiked and gelled to elaborate heights.
“Shut up, Chad,” says the girl behind him, reaching forward to smack him on the back of his head. Jared laughs and she glances over at him and makes a face, but she follows it with a quick smile.
“Actually,” DJ starts again after he manages to get the microphone turned down. “What I really want is world peace and an oven that bakes pies by itself. Since this isn’t my lucky day, I’d like you children to buckle up and prepare for the ride.”
“This thing looks like it can barely go thirty miles an hour,” Jensen insists, and DJ turns around and smirks at them over his shoulder.
“Lesson number one, kids: Never doubt the bus driver.”
Twenty seconds later, the bus is filled with screaming fifteen-year-olds as it flies straight up in the air at supersonic speeds.
The first moments are excruciating, but then suddenly the bus breaks through the clouds. Jared looks out the window and realizes the school must sit on an entirely different plane. He reminds himself to curse his parents for not sharing that little fact with him before he got on the Yellow Bus of Doom.
When the bus finally stops—completely smoothly, to DJ’s credit—back on solid ground in front of the school, the kids pile out in various states of distress. Chad with the spiky hair pushes right past Jared and starts puking his guts up in the grass.
“Ew,” Jensen says, crinkling his nose. He’s standing next to Jared and, not withstanding a little swaying and a slightly green tint, looks pretty okay.
“Can we do that again?” exclaims a tiny Asian kid as he barrels down the steps of the bus and hops up and down a few times.
Chad groans from where he’s lying hunched over on the ground.
“Is he going to be okay?” Jared asks the girl from earlier on the bus, since she seems to at least know the poor guy. He’s guessing that some of his new classmates went to the middle school two towns over together, which has a concentration of superhero families. Jensen and he were a unique breed in their school, which was kind of nice in that big-fish-small-pond kind of way.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. He’s just a drama queen,” the girl says with amusement, before turning back to introduce herself. “I’m Genevieve, but you can call me Gen. The smelly guy on the floor is Chad, and the roller coaster-loving freak over there is Osric.”
Jared gives a little wave. “I’m Jared, and this is Jensen. I’m assuming you guys went to Singer? We went to the Turner School.”
“You are tall,” the tiny kid—Osric—proclaims suddenly, standing in front of Jared and looking up about a foot.
“Or you could just be short,” Jared offers, and Gen snickers next to him.
“You have no idea what my power is. I could totally expand and be taller than you,” Osric insists, and that is actually a good point that Jared is going to have to get used to thinking about now that he’s around a school full of special people like his parents.
“Is that your power?”
“Not even remotely.”
Jared starts laughing when Osric grins at him.
After gathering up Chad and forcing a few sticks of Dentyne in his mouth, they head towards the front of the school, only to be stopped by two smirking guys who have to be at the very least sophomores, if not older.
“What do we have here, Rosey? Looks like fresh meat,” says the bigger one, blue eyes glinting silver in a way that makes Jared uncomfortable.
“Smells like it, too, X-Ray,” the smaller one agrees with a slightly feral grin. Faster than they can blink, he’s in motion, spinning around the small group of them like a whirlwind until poor Chad looks like he’s ready to puke all over again. He starts humming what sounds suspiciously like “ring around the roses” and his apparent nickname makes stupid sense.
Rosey stops even quicker than he had started, and he and X-Ray start laughing before walking away.
“Have a good first day!” Rosey calls back mockingly.
“Yeah, like they aren’t going to turn out to be total supervillains,” Gen deadpans, handing Chad another preemptive stick of gum.
Jared swallows hard, smoothing down his suddenly wind-swept mess of hair. He looks over at Jensen, who is almost as dazed as he is.
This day is already a disaster, and they haven’t even made it through the door yet.
“Is it too late to go to normal people school?” Jensen whispers to him, and Jared looks at him helplessly.
**
“Welcome, new students, to the Academy. I’m Principal Rhodes, and I speak for my entire staff when I thank you for coming here and allowing us to guide you on your journey to discover how very special you all are.”
Mild applause breaks out amongst the crowd of students lined up in the auditorium, and Jared spies a tiny eye roll on the principal’s face as she steps down from the podium. She walks off, hair bobbed to perfection and heels clacking on the shiny surface of the floor.
“She’s a technopath,” Gen whispers conspiratorially to them. “Controls all the computers in the building, so don’t even think about looking up porn.”
Chad looks so sad that Jared actually snorts. Unfortunately, that catches the attention of the gym-short wearing guy standing on a platform five feet over them. He’s wearing aviators and a perma-smirk and looks like someone his dad would probably want to super-punch on sight.
“I’m Coach James Patrick Stuart. But you can call me Master,” the punchable guy says and a scared squeak comes from someone in the crowd. It almost sounded like Chad, but Jared can’t confirm.
Osric raises his hand primly. “We really don’t have to call you that, right?”
“Silence, child!” Coach Stuart barks, and the squeak is definitely Chad this time.
Coach Stuart paces back and forth on the podium dramatically, before whipping off his sunglasses and staring down at them with disdain. “I am here for one purpose and one purpose alone—to mold the skinny scraps of nothing that you currently are into greatness.” He pauses, head thrown back like he’s posing for a trashy novel cover. “It will be hard and some of you will break, but in the end, the world will be a better place because of the things I am going to teach you.”
“Jimmy, get on with it. The day is only so long,” the voice of Principal Rhodes comes out loud and clear over the speakers in the corner of the room.
“I bet she doesn’t even need a mic to do that,” Jensen whispers, nudging Jared with his elbow.
“Right, of course,” Coach Stuart blusters, momentarily flustered. That lasts half a second before he is puffing out his chest again. “First things first—testing. Don’t let the ability of your parents fool you—not all of you will inherit powers.”
A slight gasp goes up in the crowd, and Jared feels his face heat up unexpectedly. He’s just a late bloomer, that’s all. His powers can be triggered at any time, he knows it.
Coach Stuart starts pacing again. “Those of you who do not have the gene will be relegated to Sidekick Class.” He grins. “But don’t worry, sidekicks are necessary, too. After all, someone has to shine our boots.”
A groan goes up in the crowd, but Coach Stuart just claps his hands together and starts directing students one at a time up in front of the podium. He gives each of them two minutes to demonstrate their powers, and they do, in a dazzling display that impresses Jared at the same time that he thinks it’s going to make him throw up like Chad.
“You next,” Coach Stuart points at Chad, and the boy trudges up to the front slowly. “Go on.”
Chad just looks out at them with slightly panicked eyes, before squeezing them shut and grunting. About twenty seconds later, his hair starts glowing like a high-powered flashlight, but then starts dimming immediately. Someone snickers in the crowd, and Chad turns bright red before running back to Gen in the audience.
“Sidekick,” Coach Stuart intones, and poor Chad looks like he’s going to cry.
“Nice highlights you’ve got there, Glow Worm,” X-Ray scoffs from the side of the room, where he and Rosey are standing aside from everyone.
“Mr. Welling, that’s enough,” Principal Rhodes’s voice commands, and Jared is terrified of her already.
“It’s okay,” Gen whispers to him, patting Chad’s arm soothingly, before heading up to the podium herself.
“I’m a shapeshifter,” she announces, and Jared can tell that she’s trying to look calmer than she is. Her dark hair is piled up in a bun on top of her head and she starts itching at it nervously.
Coach Stuart looks pleased. “That’s always a fun ability. So what can you become? Wolf? Feline?”
“Um,” Gen starts and then does a helpless little shrug before a shimmer overtakes her form and she turns into the tiniest creature that Jared’s ever seen. It has gigantic black eyes just like hers and a furry tail and he’d probably want to adopt it if it wasn’t his new hero friend.
“Sidekick,” Coach Stuart announces with utter disappointment.
Gen turns back to her normal self immediately and shuffles back to her friends dejectedly.
"What was that? You were pretty cute," Jared smiles, and Gen pushes him.
"Japanese flying dwarf squirrel. And if you say anything to me ever about my furry tail, I'll kill you."
“You, little guy, get up here,” Coach Stuart insists, and Osric heads up to take his turn.
“Maybe I’m not little. Maybe you’re just too big,” Osric offers, and Coach Stuart points at him menacingly.
“Alright already,” Osric grumbles, and then just proceeds to stand there.
“Well, get on with it.”
“I need to touch you.”
“Not until senior year, boy.”
“Jimmy,” Principal Rhodes’s voice warns.
Osric huffs and climbs up the podium and grabs onto Coach Stuarts arm. Before he realizes what’s happening, the Coach’s arm expands straight out at least thirty feet, just missing punching X-Ray in the face from where he’s leaning up against the wall.
“What the hell!” X-Ray squeals, and then scowls when the crowd starts laughing at him.
Osric hops off the podium as quickly as he hopped up and runs back to the group.
“You’re like a battery pack,” Jared whispers to him, grinning, because that’s seriously cool.
“Sidekick!” Coach Stuart barks at him and a few of the students boo.
Jensen’s up next, but he refuses to go. Jared’s surprised by that, since he knows that Jensen got his powers six months prior when Jared almost fell out of the tree house in his backyard. Jensen had sprouted the most awesome tentacles and grabbed him by the ankle at the last minute. Jensen wouldn’t talk about it for over a week after that, and swore him to silence, but over the last few months, he’s been more open about it and sometimes even lets Jared see them.
“You can’t refuse,” Coach Stuart insists, glaring at Jensen like he just smelled something funny.
“This entire charade is classist, and I will not have any part it in. Send me to the Sidekick Class, which I’m sure will be full of people who are just as talented as the ones in the Superhero Class.”
Jensen’s wearing his best fake-cocky expression, but Jared knows him well enough to know he’s totally freaking out inside. Gen and Osric are looking at him with awed expressions on their faces, and Jared can’t help the rush of pride that fills him. His best friend is kind of amazing sometimes.
Or all the time, really.
Coach Stuart doesn’t even bother answering and then sets his sights on Jared, who is the only one who hasn’t gone yet. An odd searching look comes over the Coach’s eyes before recognition strikes, and his lip curls up into a snarl.
“You’re Silver’s boy,” he says, and Jared really has to remember to ask his dad where that hostility is coming from.
Jared gulps. “Um, yes?”
“This should be good,” Coach Stuart grins wickedly, as Jared stumbles up to the platform and looks out at the expectant faces in front of him.
And then nothing happens.
Jensen’s biting his lip but giving him a little encouraging nod. Jared doesn’t know what he thought was going to happen. His best hope was that being around so many other special kids would somehow activate whatever latent ability was hiding and—boom—superhero.
“I…” Jared looks at Jensen, who just stares at him with a helpless shrug. “I don’t have any powers.”
A loud gasp goes up in the crowd, alongside snickers from Rosey and X-Ray in the corner. Jared slumps his shoulders and heads back to his friends.
Coach Stuart looks torn between shock and glee, and Jared feels like the biggest failure that ever existed.
“Silver’s boy,” Coach Stuart starts, pausing for dramatic effect. “Sidekick.”
“Sorry, Jay,” Jensen says, squeezing his hand as Jared attempts to not burst out into tears in front of the entire freshman class.
“It’s not so bad, Jay,” Jensen insists, bumping his best friend with his shoulder as they walk down the corridor to Sidekick class. Jensen knew standing up to Coach Stuart like he had wasn’t the best way to start his high school career, but there was no way he was going to let Jared do this alone.
And, besides, it’s not like it’s a hardship to be around Jared all day.
Jensen flushes involuntarily when Jared looks over at him with those big puppy eyes and a pout. Jensen has to look away, but he can still feel Jared’s body heat next to him, and it makes him feel a little bit better.
“At least we’re together.”
The classroom is much smaller than the Superhero Class in the gym, but besides their small group of five, there are only a few other students in the class. One kid is drawing on himself with a Sharpie. Another is pressed into a ball in the corner of the room. A girl with bright red hair and glasses sits in the back row silently, eyes wide and watching.
“Great, we got stuck with the freaks,” Chad grumbles, but Gen shushes him when Sharpie kid starts hissing at them.
“Statistically speaking, we are probably at the bottom of the gene pool right now,” Osric points out, zipping quickly around Jared to take the seat next to Gen.
Jensen nudges Jared into the next seat with his hip and sits down next to him. Technically, if they’re talking freaks, then the boy who has tentacles bursting out of his limbs at inopportune moments is probably going to fit right in. He doesn’t say anything, but he can tell Jared knows what he’s thinking from the little look he gives him.
Before they can think too hard about it, a short guy with gigantic mutton chops wearing a white leather jumpsuit and a cape literally springs into the room and up on the desk in front of the class. He strikes the cheesiest possible pose and then does a spin that looks like it’s going to send him face-first into the front row.
“Freaks,” Chad repeats on a not-at-all-subtle cough, and Gen pokes him in the rib with a pencil.
Mutton Chops jumps down off the desk with only a minimal wobble and grins at the class. “I am Richard, and I will be your teacher this year in the great art of the sidekick.”
A sharpie goes flying across the room, just missing Richard’s head. Richard retaliates by jumping on the kid’s desk and giving him a wicked noogie.
“Richard,” Principal Rhodes’s voice intones over the loudspeaker, and Jensen’s beginning to think she’s an all-seeing alien instead of just a superhero.
“Don’t do it again,” Richard threatens a chastened Sharpie kid one last time before jumping off the table and skipping back to the front of the room.
“Having a proper sidekick is the greatest tool a superhero can have.” Richard pauses. “Well, okay, super-strength and the ability to fly are pretty nice too, but I digress.”
He pulls down a screen from the top of the black board, and Jensen feels Jared startle next to him when they realize it’s a huge poster of a young version of Jared’s dad--wearing tights and winking--with Richard in a go-cart beside him.
“I was once the sidekick to the greatest superhero that the world has ever known—The Silver Strongman,” Richard announces proudly. Half a second later, his face turns dark. “That was, until he hooked up with The Golden Glider and didn’t need me anymore, the bastard.”
“Don’t talk about my parents like that!” Jared blurts out, and Jensen almost starts cracking up at how indignant he looks.
Richard looks at him shrewdly, before recognition sets in and he bounces over to sit himself on Jared’s desk. “Does he talk about me? Does he have the poster up? The poster’s cool, right? We were great together, me and Silver.”
Jared looks uncomfortable and sits back as far as he can go in his chair. “Um, I’ve never heard of you before. Sorry?”
Richard looks stricken, and trudges back to the desk, flopping into the chair and waving his hands at the class. “First lesson, kids: Never trust a superhero with dimples and strong manly thighs.”
“Oh my god,” Jared starts wheezing, and Jensen pats him on the back, pointedly not thinking about Jared’s dimples and maybe-one-day strong manly thighs.
**
Jensen’s just gotten Jared’s breathing back under control by the time they get out of class and head towards the lunchroom. If there’s anything that makes Jared feel better, it’s food, so lunch should cheer him up again after their disaster of a morning.
“You could learn how to play basketball and be the Bronze Baller?” Jensen suggests, and that gets a half-smirk out of Jared, so it’s a start.
Jensen tries not to stare at the woman with three arms dishing out pasta to several students at once, or the bowls of soup that are levitating in the air over to the trays. Jensen’s family is way more low-key than other superhero families, especially when compared to the legends like Silver and Golden. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that they were completely normal.
The skin around his forearms starts itching, and Jensen realizes bitterly that “normal” is just a pipe dream.
The five of them take a table in the corner, far out of the reach of the various groupings of heroes around the room, and nowhere near X-Ray and Rosey’s table. The pasta seems to be cheering Jared up already, and as they listen to their new friends talk about their old school, Jensen starts feeling more comfortable.
Osric is practically sitting in Gen’s lap, and Jared must notice too, because he asks them if they’re together.
"He's totally hot for me," Gen says, pointing a thumb at Osric, who looks at her adoringly.
"Actually, I'm in soul deep love with you," he corrects, fluttering his eyelashes.
"Except every time turbo-fingers touches me, I turn into a squirrel."
"I am not adverse to interspecies couplings."
"You kinky bitch!" Chad snorts, orange juice coming out of one nostril.
Jensen can’t help laughing as Gen starts patting Chad’s face down with a napkin.
“What about you two? Any soul deep teen love we should know about?” Osric asks, looking between Jared and Jensen.
Jensen just blushes—stupid fair skin—and goes for the denial because, really, there isn’t anything going on. “Nah, me and Jay don’t have time for that—“
“Oh yes,” Jared interrupts, and Jensen is stunned. Could Jared really be saying what he thinks he’s saying?
“Jay?” Jensen asks, and if there is the tiniest bit of hope creeping in, it’s can’t he helped.
Unfortunately, when he follows Jared’s enraptured gaze, he sees a lithe gorgeous redhead sitting regally at the table in the very middle of the room. She’s surrounded by obvious sycophants, including, oddly, the redhead with the glasses from their Sidekick Class.
“Who is that?” Jared asks on a dreamy sigh, and if Jensen thought his morning sucked, it was nothing in comparison to this moment.
“Siren,” Chad replies, with an eyebrow wiggle.
“Danneel,” Gen clarifies. “She’s Queen Bee, although that’s probably just because her power is basically making people like her.”
“So, she’s putting some kind of spell on him right now?” Jensen asks hopefully, nodding at Jared, who is still staring at Danneel like a love-sick puppy dog.
“Nah, she has to be focused on you to use her power,” Gen replies, crushing Jensen’s last bit of hope. “Besides, look at her—I’m sure people like her just fine without any fancy hoodoo.”
Jensen thinks he manages to hide his disappointment, but Gen’s knowing look of pity tells him he’s failed again today.
“Jared,” Osric interrupts, leaning over the table and waving his hand to get Jared’s attention. “Why is that guy staring at you like he wants to murder you?”
Oh great, this is all they need.
“Huh?” Jared asks, before he notices the stocky guy with a long black coat, hair in a ponytail, and a death glare staring right at him. “Oh.”
“That’s Christian Kane,” Gen replies, her voice suddenly low like she doesn’t want Mister Death Glare to hear her. “But everyone calls him Sonic because he can let out a wicked burst of sound waves that will demolish your eardrums.”
“You are like Wikipedia,” Osric says, grinning at her with pride.
Gen rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are flushed. “Nah, my mom is just the town gossip. Plus her brain is a computer, so some of it wore off obviously.”
“So why does this Sonic guy want to dismember me?” Jared asks, and Jensen would like to know this as well, because he likes Jared’s members.
Gen leans further into the table, and they all instinctively follow her movement. “Because his dad is the supervillain Spark Bomb, and Jared’s parents got him locked up in the Nitro Asylum.”
Jared groans. “Great, just great. So first I have no powers because I’m a gigantic loser, then I find out that my father might have a tiny stalker wearing a white leather jumpsuit, then I fall madly in love with someone who will probably barely even look at me, and now a mean-looking dude with a ponytail wants to kill me. Worst day ever.”
Jensen barely hears that last part because he’s still stuck on Jared falling madly in love with someone who is not him.
Being in love with your best friend sucks.
**
“Do you think his head is going to just, like, explode?” Chad asks a few weeks later, as they sit in their mad-science class.
Jensen looks up from the book in front of him and peers over at their teacher. Dr. Collins does have an unusually large skull, but that’s probably because he’s five hundred years old and has all the knowledge of the universe inside of his brain. Or at least that’s what he informed them the first day of class.
“My cranium is perfectly intact, Mr. Murray,” Dr. Collins intones gravely from the front of the room, as Chad grimaces. Guess that whole being ancient thing is not bad on guy’s hearing either.
“Hey, Ninja,” says X-Ray from the back of the class in his most obnoxious tone, throwing a pencil at the back of Osric’s head.
“I’m not a ninja, you racist douchelord,” Osric replies with a scowl, rubbing his head.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re just a sidekick,” Rosey joins in, snickering like the asshats they are.
“Just ignore them,” Gen says, smiling at Osric, who just sighs happily.
“Yeah, listen to Chock Full O’Nuts over there. Just ignore us,” X-Ray calls out.
Gen turns around so fast Jensen thinks her head’s going to come off. “I will kill you in your sleep.”
“It is unfortunate that the enhanced genetic ability that some of you have does not instill either knowledge or tact,” Dr. Collins interrupts, looking pointedly at Rosey and X-Ray, who shut up fast.
Dr. Collins looks at them one last time just to reiterate his point and then turns to the rest of the class. “Now, if you all don’t mind, I’d like to actually teach you something. But first, lets partner you up.”
Jensen turns to Jared automatically, but to his utter dismay, Danneel is standing right next to him and smiling down at a gob-smacked Jared.
“I don’t think we’ve talked before. I’m Danneel,” she says, pushing a lock of auburn hair over her shoulder demurely.
“I’m…I’m…uh,” Jared starts mumbling incoherently.
“Jared,” Jensen fills in, sighing deeply.
“Yeah, Jared,” Jared agrees, his dimples in full force and aimed entirely in the wrong direction.
“Want to be partners, Jared?” Danneel asks, and when she smiles, she has a tiny little dimple at the bottom or her cheek. All Jensen can picture is the magical dimpled superhero babies that they will someday have while Jensen sits in a corner somewhere, alone, and probably writing on himself with a Sharpie stuck to his tentacle.
“Yes. Yes,, oh god yes!” Jared replies and Jensen has to get away from the spectacle. He turns around wildly, and finds everyone already paired off. The only one left sitting alone is—of course—Sonic, who is too busy scratching marks into the desk to look up.
Jensen heads over to him tentatively. “Um, hello?”
Sonic looks up warily. “What do you want?”
“Do you want to be my partner?”
Sonic starts chuckling, and Jensen doesn’t like that one bit. “Ah, I get it. Your boyfriend ditched you for Siren and now you need someone to help blow up the lab with.”
Jensen makes his best indignant face, but there’s a part of him that tingles at the word “boyfriend.” “Look, buddy, if you don’t want to pair up then I’ll ask Dr. Collins to find me someone else.”
A shrewd expression overtakes Sonic’s face, and then his lips curl up in a smirk. “You’re feisty. I like that.”
“Thanks?” Jensen says, not knowing what to say now that Sonic apparently doesn’t want to murder him for being Jared’s friend. He takes a seat tentatively next to Sonic and looks over at where Jared and Danneel are pressed together over the floating Bunsen burner.
“Your friends are losers,” Sonic says helpfully.
“Shut up,” Jensen scowls, sinking farther into his seat.
It’s just pot roast. Jared loves pot roast.
“Potatoes, honey?” his mom asks, and her face is so expectant that he knows her question has nothing to do with potatoes.
“No thanks,” Jared replies, pushing his meat around the gravy on his plate with his fork.
He can almost feel the questions his parents want to ask him like a physical vibration. He’s been at school for over a month now, and hasn’t told them anything about how it's going. Not about the bullying, or his crush on Danneel, or—oh yeah—the fact that the son of the greatest superheroes known to the world is a powerless sidekick.
The table starts shaking and Jared just prepares himself for the blow when his dad pounds his fist on the table and sends mashed potatoes flying across the dining room.
“Jeffrey,” his mother huffs in warning, and his dad looks chastened.
“Sorry, Goldie,” his dad says, flashing the dimples at her until she practically coos. Ugh, his parents are so cheesy sometimes.
“You’re still cleaning that up,” she says and Jared snickers.
“Now, Jared,” his dad says, putting on his lower-by-an-octave Silver voice. “I think your mother and I have waited long enough to hear about how the Academy is treating you.”
“It’s fine,” Jared mumbles, looking down at his plate again. He can feel his cheeks burning, and knows that there is no way he’s getting out of this conversation. He wishes Jensen was here right now to help him through it. He’d know what to say to make things better.
“Jared,” his mom says, and her voice is suddenly gentler than before. One of her many powers is empathy, so it’s not completely shocking. “Is there something going on that you want to tell us? You know your father and I will support you no matter what.”
Jared looks up at their open, waiting faces, so ready to hear about how wonderful their kid is, when their kid isn’t wonderful at all.
“I…”
“Yes, honey?” his mom prompts.
“Idon’thaveanypowers,” is what comes out, all in a rush, and if his father didn’t have super-hearing, then he probably would have missed it.
“Excuse me?” his dad says, and his fork drops with a clang to his plate.
Jared doesn’t know whether he could make it to his room before his mother could fly over and drag him back, but it might be worth a shot.
“I can catch you,” his mother answers for him, and she claims to not be able to read minds, but Jared doesn’t know sometimes.
Jared sighs deeply and puts down his silverware. “They did the testing and it turns out I don’t have any powers. None, zero, zip. I’m so powerless that I’m actually less advanced than a guy whose hair lights up like a Christmas tree. I am, quite literally, the most useless person in the world.”
He shudders. That almost felt good to get all that out.
“Oh, Jared, honey,” his mom says, and he closes his eyes momentarily to block out the look of pity in hers.
“Why didn’t you tell us, son?” his dad asks, and, for the first time, The Strongman actually looks a little hurt.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” Jared admits, and before he can even blink, his mother is up and has him wrapped in her arms.
“We could never be disappointed in you, sweetie. You’re our baby,” his mom insists, stroking his hair and holding him tight to her chest. Jared wraps his arms around her waist and clings tightly, not realizing until just this moment how scared he was of losing their affection.
“I think we should tell him, Sam,” his dad says after a long pause, and Jared looks up when his mom stills against him.
“I think you’re right, Jeff.”
“Mom? Dad?” Jared questions, pulling back to look at his mother’s now-grim face.
“C’mon, son,” his dad says simply, standing up and holding out his hand. His mom nudges him towards his dad, and he takes his hand, feeling like a little kid all over again, but finding comfort in it.
Below their nice suburban house, accessible only by coded subterranean elevator, is an elaborately high-tech bunker that holds all the various gadgets associated with the Silver/Golden hero team. Jared used to go down there a lot when he was a kid, but he’s been avoiding it in recent years as the powers he expected to come haven’t done so.
“You see this, buddy?” his dad says, leading him over to his most prized possession, a freeze ray that he wrestled off his arch-nemesis Winter Shadow before she fell to her doom off the cliff outside Nitro Asylum.
“That’s Shadow’s freeze ray,” Jared says obediently, and his dad nods in affirmation.
“It’s also something else, too.”
Jared looks up in surprise, not sure what he could mean and how it relates to Jared himself.
“After I took Shadow down, I stopped all of my hero work for a year. Your mother, too.”
Jared’s definitely shocked at that, since he can’t imagine his dad as anything other than the world’s greatest superhero. “Why would you do that?”
His dad runs one hand affectionately over Jared’s hair, and Jared instinctively leans into it. “Because you came into our life soon after that, and we wanted to spend every single minute with you.”
Jared freezes. “What do you mean, came into your life?”
His dad sighs and pulls back a bit, but never breaks eye contact. “I never want you to think that you are anything less than the most important person in our lives.”
“Dad, you’re scaring me.”
“No, buddy, don’t be scared,” his dad says soothingly, trying to reach out for him again, but Jared pulls back. “It’s just that you didn’t actually come from your mother and I. We adopted you soon after I took Shadow down.”
“Adopted?” Jared spits out, tears springing to his eyes. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“We didn’t think it was important,” his dad insists and Jared scoffs at that. “You are our boy, and have been every single second of every single day since I first held you in my arms. You don’t need my blood or my genes for that.”
“That explains why I’m not special,” Jared replies, misery coming off of him in waves, but he clings to his father—his father--when Jeff pulls him in his arms and hugs him tight enough to bruise his ribs.
“Oh, Jared, you are the most special person I know. You make your mother and I the happiest people in any dimension, and for that alone you are better than any stupid superpower.”
Jared just keeps holding on, burying his head in his dad’s chest.
**
“What’s wrong, Jared? Aren’t you having fun?” Danneel asks, poking Jared in the ribs and giving him that pretty little smile of hers.
It’s a week after his parents dropped the bomb on him, and even though he’s more or less forgiven them, he’s using the excuse of them being away saving a small island off the coast of Venezuela to have what has turned into a huge party in his house.
“I am…” Jared says, drifting off before sighing. “It’s just Jensen. Things have been kind of weird lately, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Danneel looks at him sympathetically, and slips a plastic cup of punch in his hands. “That’s too bad. I hope it’s not because of me.”
Jared shakes his head quickly, although he suspects it does have a tiny bit to do with her and the amount of time they’ve been spending together these past few weeks. “Of course it’s not you, Danni. Jensen thinks you’re great.”
She cocks an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t say anything, and for that Jared is grateful.
That ends a second later, when he sees Jensen coming into the room with freaking Sonic, of all people. Jared barges over to them, a little woozy from something that someone—likely Chad—slipped into the punch.
“What’s he doing here?” Jared snarls, nodding his head at Sonic.
“I invited him—got a problem?” Jensen replies, tipping his head back in defiance. Jared’s never seen that face directed at him before, and it hurts him somewhere deep.
It must show on Jared’s face, because Jensen’s expression starts to flicker, and he almost looks like he’s going to reach out and touch him. Jared pulls back before he has the chance.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Jen, but maybe we can talk about it in private.”
Jensen’s eyes look over at where Danneel is standing a few feet away, and Jared tracks them. “So, that’s what this is about? You’re jealous because I’m making other friends?”
Jensen starts gritting his teeth, and Jared almost regrets the words. He and Jensen have been best friends since they were toddlers. Fighting with him feels wrong.
“Have you considered the fact that Siren is messing with you? I mean, we all know what kind of power she has,” Jensen suggests and Jared’s taken aback at that.
“Have you considered that someone might actually like me for me? And not just because of who my parents are?”
A rush of pain overwhelms Jensen’s face, and his freckles are bright against the flush on his cheeks. “And I guess I don’t count, huh?”
“Jen—“ Jared starts, regret washing over him, and he wishes his mind was clearer so he could rewind time and undo the last few minutes.
“It’s okay, Jay. I get it. You just want to feel special,” Jensen bites out his words, before turning and stomping out as quickly as he came.
“You’re an idiot,” Sonic says simply, giving him a little salute before following Jensen out the door.
Jared thinks that truer words have never been spoken, and is about two seconds away from rushing out after his best friend. Before he gets a chance though, Danneel’s hand is on his forearm.
“Jared, is there anything I can do to help?”
He looks down at her, and her eyes glimmer in the low light of the party. Her hair is burnt fire, and her hand is a comfortable weight on his arm.
Forget stupid Jensen, what does he know? Jared is special, his dad said so. Danneel thinks so, maybe.
“Hey, Danni, want to see my dad’s secret bunker?”
Danneel grins.
“Good morning, students.”
“Good morning, Principal Rhodes.”
She looks out at the gym with a pleased expression. “I gathered you all here to tell you some wonderful news—next week we are holding a ceremony to honor the greatest superheroes among us—The Silver Strongman and The Golden Glider!”
Jensen looks over at Jared, who looks as surprised as the rest of them. Guess his parents aren’t telling him anything, like usual.
“Greatest, my ass,” Coach Stuart huffs from where he’s slumped against the wall, aviators firmly in place.
“Jimmy, don’t make me forward your entire browser history to the Council again.”
The audience snickers, and Coach Stuart bears his teeth at the crowd.
“Can I be on the award committee?” Richard calls out eagerly, as he pulls his cape around himself and shivers.
Principal Rhodes’s perfectly arched eyebrow belies her disdain. “The committee will be headed by the lovely Danneel Harris.”
Sonic chuckles beside him when Jensen mumbles “whatever” under his breath. Danneel stands up from her seat next to Jared and waves primly.
“I didn’t want to help anyway,” Richard insists. His voice lowers. “Ruggedly handsome bastard.”
“Miss Harris will have help from her cousin, Felicia,” Principal Rhodes continues, and the silent girl with the glasses from their Sidekick Class wiggles her fingers meekly in the air.
Huh, Jensen thinks, Danneel’s cousin. Now it makes sense why she’s always hanging around her when she is so obviously not in Danneel’s league.
Jensen’s face heats up when he realizes the stupid generalization he just made. This school is completely skewing his principles, and he wishes Jared could see it was messing with his as well.
Principal Rhodes releases them with instructions to invite their parents to the celebration—fat chance of that—before Jensen heads off with Sonic to join Gen, Osric, and Chad in the lunchroom. He listens to them chat amiably as he picks at his pizza.
Jensen looks up and sees Jared standing in the doorway. His face looks conflicted, and Jensen wants to go over and tell him that everything was cool, but he doesn’t. Jared sees him looking and gives a tentative smile, dimples just barely popping out, and Jensen can’t resist giving him a look in return.
“Jared was freaking before class this morning,” Gen announces, and Jensen’s head snaps to her.
“Why? What happened? Is he okay?”
Gen starts chuckling. “Whoa there, Jen. Breathe.”
Jensen scowls at her and glances back at Jared, looking for signs that he’s growing another head from toast-inspired radiation poisoning. He looks fine though, except for how long his bangs are getting, and oh how Jensen wishes he still had the right to push them back for him.
“You have it so bad,” Osric laughs through a spoonful of strawberry yogurt. “Like, soul deep love bad. I feel your pain.”
“Dude, even I can tell, and I’m a moron,” Chad throws in, and Jensen can’t help but agree with the last part.
“Will you assholes shut up about my unrequited love for a second, and tell me what happened to Jared?” Jensen scoffs. When even Sonic is looking at him with pity, he knows he’s pathetic.
“Someone stole Winter Shadow’s freeze ray from his dad’s secret bunker,” Gen whispers.
Jensen stills. “How do you know about Silver’s secret bunker?”
“Duh,” Gen says, rolling her eyes and popping a piece of pineapple into her mouth.
“I think we know who did it,” Sonic says, nodding over at where Danneel has just entered the room and draped herself over Jared’s arm.
“But why would Siren steal a freeze ray? It doesn’t make any sense,” Chad asks.
“What do we really know about her except that she has the power of manipulation? That’s total supervillain territory,” Osric points out, and Jensen has a sinking feeling in his chest as he watches Jared beam over at Danneel.
“We have to tell Jared. He deserves to know our suspicions,” Gen insists, and the others nod in agreement.
“You gotta do it, Jensen. He’ll listen to you,” Sonic says, but that just makes Jensen laugh harshly.
“He’s not going to listen to a word I say. He already thinks I’m jealous of Danneel. It’ll just make things worse.”
“But you are jealous of her, aren’t you?” Gen replies knowingly, and Jensen drops his gaze to the table.
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what happens to Jared. He’s still my best friend.”
Jensen glances over to Jared one last time, as the table is silent.
“Jeffrey! Samantha! So good of you to attend our little shindig,” Principal Rhodes says, beaming, as she comes over and air kisses Jared’s parents.
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world, Kim,” Jeff replies, then pauses. “Well, maybe if the world needs saving!”
The three of them chuckle in amusement, and Jared gags, looking around the room to see if anyone he knows is here yet.
“Silver,” comes a sneering voice that could only belong to Coach Stuart. The Coach saunters over to the group haughtily, his expandable legs creeping him up a few inches in height.
Jeff reaches out to shake the Coach’s hand against his will and Coach grimaces at the squeeze. “Heya, Gumby. Long time, no see.”
“My name’s The Rubber Ranger, goddammit, get it straight,” Coach Stuart hisses, pulling back his hand and holding it to his chest.
“How are you, Jimmy?” Samantha asks with a smile and a twinkle in her eye that Jared knows means she’s mocking him.
Coach Stuart swallows hard and moves his uncrushed hand to smooth down his hair. “Samantha, you are looking utterly lovely this evening. It’s like you haven’t aged a day since high school.”
“A lot of things have changed, Stretch,” Jeff replies, narrowing his eyes with his best Strongman menace.
Oh god, how embarrassing. Jared thinks, trying not to laugh.
It only gets worse a second later, when Richard springs out of nowhere, wearing a blue sequin jumpsuit and platform shoes, and practically starfishes his father.
“Dickie Speight! Well, I’ll be damned,” Jeff chuckles, patting Richard’s back awkwardly as Richard rubs his mutton chops into Jeff’s shoulder.
Richard pulls back and presses his hands excitedly to his mouth. “Yes, oh god, Silver, you remember. Do you have the poster? Tell me you have the poster?”
“God, Speight, have some dignity,” Coach Stuart snorts, and Richard shoots him a dirty look.
“Gentleman,” Principal Rhodes interrupts, then nods at Samantha. “And lady. Let’s save the reminiscing for later and head into the main room, shall we?”
Jared’s happy to get inside, if only so that he can finally sneak off by himself. He spots Danneel, and tries to push down the part of him that is sad that it’s not Jensen instead.
Fortunately—or maybe not, depending on the conservation that is happening—turning the corner reveals that Jensen and Sonic are having a heated discussion with Danneel, who does not look like she’s enjoying herself.
Jared can’t believe that Jensen is still jealous of Danneel and harassing her like this. After all, it’s not even like she and Jared have actually done anything. She kissed him, once, and it almost felt like he was cheating, which is ridiculous, because, c’mon, Danneel is Danneel.
Jensen gesticulates wildly as he talks, his hair all messy and his eyes bright and green.
Jared sighs. And Jensen is Jensen.
“Oh, Jared, thank god you’re here,” Danneel says, her face flooding with relief when she sees him approaching.
“Are they bothering you, Danni?” he asks, and tries to ignore the hurt that flickers across Jensen’s face.
“We thinks she’s the one that stole the freeze ray,” Sonic states bluntly, and that’s the last thing that Jared expected.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Danneel insists, hands on her hips and a royally pissed-off expression on her face.
“Who else had access to the bunker?” Jensen asks, and he’s staring at Jared challengingly.
“No one, but—" Jared replies, looking helplessly between Jensen and Danneel. Could it really have been Danneel playing him this whole time? She was the only one he brought down into the secret lair that evening.
“Jared!” Danneel exclaims. “You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with this.”
“Attention, everyone,” Principal Rhodes interrupts from the microphone on the stage.
“This isn’t over,” Jensen hisses as Danneel looks ready to turn around and stomp off.
“Damn right it’s not.”
They all spin around at the completely unfamiliar voice and gasp at the sight of Danneel’s silent cousin Felicia holding Winter Shadow’s freeze ray and the form of Principal Rhodes, suspended in mid-air.
Jared turns to see his dad start making a move, but Felicia sees it too and aims the freeze ray directly at him.
“Not so fast, Silver. You try anything fancy and techno-babble here gets it.”
“Felicia, what are you doing? I’ve barely heard you speak in the past fifteen years,” Danneel says, her confusion so obvious, that Jared’s relieved that she doesn’t seem to be in on whatever is going on.
“Maybe you just haven’t been listening, cousin,” Felicia replies, her eyes, no longer hidden by the glasses, fierce and stony.
“That’s enough, kid, put down the toys and lets end this before you get hurt,” Jeff states, voice firm and his hands on his hips. Jared can practically see Richard’s poster coming to life before his eyes.
Felicia laughs gleefully. “Oh, Silver, someone is going to get hurt alright, but it’s not going to be me.”
A scream breaks out in the crowd as she points the freeze ray and zaps Jeff into a block of ice.
“Dad!” Jared yells, running towards them but hitting what feels like an invisible wall right before he can reach his mother. Felicia must be stronger than she appears, and her telekinesis is holding him back.
“I’ll save you, Silver!” Richard yodels, throwing himself bodily against the force field and then crumbling to the ground. “Ouch.”
“Oops,” Felicia mocks, zapping Jared’s mom, Coach Stuart, and Dr. Collins in quick succession. She drops Principal Rhodes to her feet and then snarls a warning before freezing her, too. “And don’t even think about calling the Council.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jensen yells out, and suddenly he’s right by Jared’s side, as he’s supposed to be, even if they are behind a force field.
Felicia narrows her eyes and her lips curl up into a smile. “Revenge.”
“Typical,” Sonic snorts.
“And you, Jared.”
All the unfrozen people turn to look at him, but he just stills. “What do I have to do with anything?”
Felicia pauses for dramatic flair. Fucking supervillains.
“You’re my brother, Jared.”
”What?” all the unfrozen people say in unison.
That’s exactly the reaction she wanted, because Felicia starts giggling and waving the freeze ray around. “That’s right, Jared. Our mother was Winter Shadow, the greatest supervillain the world has ever known. Her pièce de résistance was going to be the night she released her brethren from Nitro Asylum but no! stupid Silver Strongman and his golden canary had to swoop in and ruin her plans.”
Felicia looks stricken for a moment, and it’s like she’s re-living something that she didn’t even experience herself.
“That man, that beast murdered our mother, and then stole you from her arms. Stole you from me, your rightful sister, your only blood. Don’t you see, Jared, now that we have Mother’s greatest weapon back, we can flee from these insignificant little ants and fulfill the destiny that our mother set out for us!”
Jared doesn’t know if he would still be able to be on his feet if Jensen wasn’t suddenly behind him holding him up. It was bad enough that he finds out he was adopted, but now he’s the son of a supervillain? And his dad killed her in cold blood and stole her child?
Jared doesn’t know what to say, so he goes with the first thing that pops in his head. “But I’m not special. I don’t even have any powers.”
Felicia looks at him, her face a mask of confusion. “What do you mean? You are destined for great things, just like your family, your real family. Of course you have powers.”
“Actually, each of you only have a three-in-four chance of getting the mutant gene.” Everyone turns to look at Dr. Collins, who has somehow managed to melt himself from the top of his enormous cranium to his chin.
“How are you talking?” Felicia growls, looking at her freeze ray like it’s defective.
Dr. Collins chuckles. “Five hundred years of evolution puts a lot of tricks in your tool belt.”
“Touché.” Felicia nods, before remembering her supervillain stance and waving the ray with menace.
“Silver didn’t steal Jared from your mother. After she attempted to raid Nitro Asylum, the Council sent a hero squad after her to neutralize the threat. They were the ones who killed your mother, not the Strongman,” Dr. Collins tells them.
“But that can’t be true. Everyone knows that Silver killed Shadow! How did he get the freeze ray otherwise?” Felicia demands, but she’s starting to look unsure, and Jared can feel the force field weakening.
“The Council gave it to him as a parting gift, along with the child. It was supposed to a symbol of the importance of raising Jared in the light. Shadow had kept the existence of her older child—you—a secret, and her sister, Danneel’s mother, took you in to raise as her own.”
Felicia swirls around to Danneel, who is holding up her hands with tears in her eyes. “I swear I didn’t know, Felicia. I swear it.”
Jared stands there stricken, still held up by the solid weight of his best friend behind him. “But, Dr. Collins, why didn’t you ever say something? Why not tell me the truth?”
Dr. Collins’ slightly frosty eyebrows bow apologetically. “Most of the stories inside of my head are not mine to tell, Jared.”
“That’s enough!” Felicia screams, beaming the freeze ray at Dr. Collins’s head at the same time that she points her hand at Jared and lifts him straight up into the air.
“Jared!” Jensen screams as his best friend is ripped out of his arms and shot straight up into the air in front of the podium. Felicia’s face is thunder and lightning and Jensen has no fucking clue what he’s supposed to do now.
A sudden loud boom goes off from behind the podium, and suddenly a giant yellow school bus is bursting through the door and heading straight for the podium.
“Holy shit!” Sonic yells, and Jensen’s jaw drops to the floor when he realizes that Chad is on the roof of the bus with Osric strapped to his back. Coming out of Chad’s head is a gigantic laser beam that the path of the bus is aiming directly at the frozen superheroes.
“He’s turbo-charging the flashlight into a fucking laser,” Sonic continues and Jensen is stunned that none of them ever thought of that over lunch. Also, that Chad is actually useful for something.
A now thoroughly pissed off Felicia is trying to aim the freeze ray at Chad, but holding up Jared at the same time is using too much of her power, and she keeps missing. DJ, in a masterful display of driving, starts circling the room until all the frozen superheroes start melting right before their eyes.
Suddenly, a tiny creature comes flying off the top of the bus, and Jensen realizes that it must be Gen in her shifted form attempting to distract Felicia from her freeze ray attempts.
“Squirrels can fly?” Danneel asks, and Jensen is about to answer when it dawns on him with horror that Gen hitting Felicia in the face with her furry little body is going to cause her to drop Jared from twenty feet up.
“Jared!” Jensen screams again, and flings his arms out in the direction of where Jared is falling. A surge of power rushes through Jensen as the tentacles rip from his flesh and shoot directly towards Jared, wrapping him up and pulling him back like a rubber band towards Jensen. The momentum is too great and they fall backwards, Jensen huffing as Jared, still tangled in his new appendages, lands squarely on top of him.
“Hi,” Jared breathes, two centimeters from Jensen’s face.
“Hi,” Jensen replies, and probably would kiss him if it wasn’t for Sonic’s astonished hollering.
“You have fucking tentacles, and you didn’t tell me? You son-of-a-bitch!”
“Get it off me!” Felicia is screaming from somewhere behind them, and Jensen just manages to glance over Jared’s shoulder to see still-mini Gen clinging to her face. He sees a now-unfrozen Silver rushing over to incapacitate her and reclaim the freeze ray, and Jensen lets out a sigh of relief that it’s all over.
"Best sixty seconds of my life," Jensen mumbles, and Jared smiles, still pressed tight on top of him.
Jensen realizes a beat too late how utterly awkward this is, and retracts his tentacles gently so that they can both stand up. Jared brushes a bit of dampness off his shirt and Jensen grimaces.
“Sorry, I know they’re gross.”
“Nah, I think they’re totally cool,” Jared replies, bowing his head shyly. Suddenly, Jared’s mother is rushing over to them and dragging Jared away, as he looks apologetically over his shoulder back at Jensen.
“Well, that wasn’t part of the committee’s plan,” Danneel sighs, smoothing down the imperceptible wrinkles in her cocktail dress.
“So, um,” Jensen starts, embarrassed. “Sorry about thinking you were a supervillain.”
Danneel waves her hand in the air and smiles. “I’m a redhead with the power of mind control. It could have gone either way.”
Jensen laughs, but then realizes that nothing has really changed. Danneel is innocent, which means that there’s nothing stopping her and Jared from being together. He says as much and she looks at him like he has radiated toast for brains.
“First of all, it turns out he’s my cousin so ew,” she says, making a face. “And second of all, the guy is so stupidly in love with you that he actually looked guilty when I kissed him.”
“You kissed your cousin? That’s kind of hot,” Chad announces from his place on top of the bus now parked in the middle of the floor next to them.
“Shut up, Chad.”
“You really think he likes me?” Jensen says, still unsure, although the heavy weight of Jared when he was wrapped all snug in Jensen’s tentacles did give him a warm feeling all over.
“Duh,” say all his friends in unison.
“Go get ‘em tiger,” DJ says, climbing out of the bus and stretching. “Oh, and kids, what have we learned today?”
“Never doubt the bus driver.”
Jensen sees Jared waving from across the room, as Silver has Felicia flipped over one super-powered shoulder and heading towards the door.
“Take her to Nitro Asylum. Let the Council deal with her,” Principal Rhodes pronounces grimly.
“I’ll come back for you one day, Jared! I’ll avenge our Mother!” Felicia keeps yelling all the way out of the building, but suddenly all Jensen can see is Jared as he makes his way over to his best friend.
“You saved my life,” Jared says, his face so open and vulnerable that Jensen wants to pet it.
“It was no big deal,” Jensen mumbles, but he can’t help smiling.
“You’re a big damn hero, is what you are,” Jared continues, and his smile is getting wider as his dimples get impossibly deeper.
“Not my fault you were a total damsel in distress.”
“But I’m your damsel.”
Jensen swallows hard and searches Jared’s face for any kind of mockery. “Yeah?”
Jared just leans forward all up in Jensen’s space and buries his fingers in Jensen’s shirt.
“Totally yours,” Jared murmurs, as he presses his lips to Jensen’s for the very first time.
“Get a room!” hollers Chad.
“Or at least a bus!”
Jensen just laughs and throws his arms around his best friend’s—boyfriend’s—neck. And if the tips of his tentacles come out to tickle Jared’s messy hair, well, no one has to know.
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 10,427
Warnings: 500-year-old Misha, supervillain monologues, and tentacles
Summary: Starting a specialized high school for Superhero progeny with his best friend Jensen sounds likes a blast to Jared--until he discovers that he's the only one there without any actual powers
Author's Notes: Written for
j2_everafter based on the movie Sky HighThanks to
fiercelynormal and cha because without them, I literally would not have finished this. Thanks to the Everafter mods for being so awesome. And, most importantly, thanks to ldyghst for the amazing art, the speedy beta, and the ability to put up with my whiny ass. Love you, bb! ♥AO3 ♥ ART MASTERPOST ♥ WEBSITE ♥
“Toast?”
“Yes, please,” Jared says, flopping down on the bar stool at the kitchen counter. He watches as his mother aims her eyes at the unsuspecting pieces of Wonder bread and uses her X-ray vision to prepare breakfast.
“Perfect,” she replies, beaming as she spreads a thin layer of butter over the perfectly crisp pieces and slides the plate across to Jared.
“You’re totally gonna get radiation poisoning from that,” his best friend Jensen insists, barging into the room like he actually lives there and stealing one of the slices for good measure.
“Dude, get your own laser-eyed mother.” Jared huffs, attempting and failing to get his toast back. Jensen just grins at him and sticks out his tongue to show the food chunks.
“No one is getting radiation poisoning,” tsks Samantha Smith Morgan, the legendary superheroine known as ”The Golden Glider.” She’s also Jared’s mom and pretty freaking cool. “Jared would have three heads by now if that were the case.”
“Did someone say three heads? Don’t tell me we got invited to Kripke Manor again,” Jared’s dad says as he comes into the kitchen. He sees the boys at the counter and taps Jensen on the shoulder hard enough for him to fall off the bar stool.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan chuckles. “Sorry, son. Don’t know my own strength.”
Jared snorts, and his dad winks at him. What’s the use of being ”The Silver Strongman” if you can’t joke about your superhuman ability?
Jensen groans as he picks himself up off the floor. “Are you guys trying to kill me before I even start high school?”
“I remember high school,” Jeffrey starts, and Jared recognizes his “those were the good old superhero days” face anywhere.
“You were so young then, baby, what happened?” Samantha asks with a smirk. Jared starts gagging when his dad lifts her up like a ragdoll and starts kissing her neck. Jensen starts cheering and elbowing Jared in the ribs, because his best friend is such a douchebag.
“We met at the Academy,” Jeffrey informs them, and Jared just rolls his eyes again. He’s heard this story a hundred times, but he knows that reminiscing about the time before the wrinkles—that even innate superpowers can’t stop—makes his parents happy.
Jensen’s a total kiss ass, and leans forward on the counter to put his fists under his chin and bat his eyelashes with rapt attention. “Was it love at first sight?”
Samantha pushes her husband off her, but she’s got the happy smile that Jared loves so much on her face, and it’s kind of contagious. “More like love at first flight. Your father was overdoing it in his building-scaling class and fell.”
Jeff wraps his arms around her waist again—his dad is nothing if not persistent— and holds her back against his chest to pick up the story. “Luckily for me, there was this gorgeous blonde dame in my class who happened to be able to fly.”
Samantha chuckles. “But he was so heavy that I could barely hold him, and we ended up in a heap on the floor of the gym.”
“Best sixty seconds of my life,” Jeff says with a smile, and Samantha turns her head to give him a peck.
“You guys are so gross,” Jared insists, jumping up from the counter and picking up his backpack from the floor.
“Just wait until you find ‘the one’, son. You’ll understand then,” Jeffrey insists, but Jared just laughs. He turns to Jensen, expecting to see the same face as his own, but Jensen is strangely silent with a slight flush in his cheeks. Oh man, maybe the toast has radiation poisoning after all.
“C’mon, we’re gonna miss the bus,” is all that Jensen says after a long moment, and Jared shrugs it off as nerves. Starting their first day at the Academy is totally terrifying, if Jared is being honest with himself.
“Make us proud, son.”
Jared can’t help feeling a little sick to his stomach as well.
**
“This looks like a regular bus,” Jared proclaims, as the door to the totally nondescript yellow vehicle opens up in front of them on the street outside his house.
“What were you expecting, a hover board?” the bus driver calls out from behind the wheel, and waves them into the bus impatiently. “Get in, you’re the last ones.”
Jensen just laughs and climbs up, Jared close behind. The bus driver peers at them over his shoulder as they barrel into the empty front row. He’s a funny looking fellow, kind of scrawny for a superhero of his age, with a five o’clock shadow that is so not professional. Then again, a real superhero probably wouldn’t be driving a bus, right?
“I am DJ Qualls, bus driver,” he announces over the PA system that he suddenly has an inch away from his mouth. The feedback hisses, and a couple of kids groan. He hits the microphone a few times with a mumbled “Sorry. Sorry.”
“You want a standing ovation or something?” yells the guy in the seat across from them, his blond hair spiked and gelled to elaborate heights.
“Shut up, Chad,” says the girl behind him, reaching forward to smack him on the back of his head. Jared laughs and she glances over at him and makes a face, but she follows it with a quick smile.
“Actually,” DJ starts again after he manages to get the microphone turned down. “What I really want is world peace and an oven that bakes pies by itself. Since this isn’t my lucky day, I’d like you children to buckle up and prepare for the ride.”
“This thing looks like it can barely go thirty miles an hour,” Jensen insists, and DJ turns around and smirks at them over his shoulder.
“Lesson number one, kids: Never doubt the bus driver.”
Twenty seconds later, the bus is filled with screaming fifteen-year-olds as it flies straight up in the air at supersonic speeds.
The first moments are excruciating, but then suddenly the bus breaks through the clouds. Jared looks out the window and realizes the school must sit on an entirely different plane. He reminds himself to curse his parents for not sharing that little fact with him before he got on the Yellow Bus of Doom.
When the bus finally stops—completely smoothly, to DJ’s credit—back on solid ground in front of the school, the kids pile out in various states of distress. Chad with the spiky hair pushes right past Jared and starts puking his guts up in the grass.
“Ew,” Jensen says, crinkling his nose. He’s standing next to Jared and, not withstanding a little swaying and a slightly green tint, looks pretty okay.
“Can we do that again?” exclaims a tiny Asian kid as he barrels down the steps of the bus and hops up and down a few times.
Chad groans from where he’s lying hunched over on the ground.
“Is he going to be okay?” Jared asks the girl from earlier on the bus, since she seems to at least know the poor guy. He’s guessing that some of his new classmates went to the middle school two towns over together, which has a concentration of superhero families. Jensen and he were a unique breed in their school, which was kind of nice in that big-fish-small-pond kind of way.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. He’s just a drama queen,” the girl says with amusement, before turning back to introduce herself. “I’m Genevieve, but you can call me Gen. The smelly guy on the floor is Chad, and the roller coaster-loving freak over there is Osric.”
Jared gives a little wave. “I’m Jared, and this is Jensen. I’m assuming you guys went to Singer? We went to the Turner School.”
“You are tall,” the tiny kid—Osric—proclaims suddenly, standing in front of Jared and looking up about a foot.
“Or you could just be short,” Jared offers, and Gen snickers next to him.
“You have no idea what my power is. I could totally expand and be taller than you,” Osric insists, and that is actually a good point that Jared is going to have to get used to thinking about now that he’s around a school full of special people like his parents.
“Is that your power?”
“Not even remotely.”
Jared starts laughing when Osric grins at him.
After gathering up Chad and forcing a few sticks of Dentyne in his mouth, they head towards the front of the school, only to be stopped by two smirking guys who have to be at the very least sophomores, if not older.
“What do we have here, Rosey? Looks like fresh meat,” says the bigger one, blue eyes glinting silver in a way that makes Jared uncomfortable.
“Smells like it, too, X-Ray,” the smaller one agrees with a slightly feral grin. Faster than they can blink, he’s in motion, spinning around the small group of them like a whirlwind until poor Chad looks like he’s ready to puke all over again. He starts humming what sounds suspiciously like “ring around the roses” and his apparent nickname makes stupid sense.
Rosey stops even quicker than he had started, and he and X-Ray start laughing before walking away.
“Have a good first day!” Rosey calls back mockingly.
“Yeah, like they aren’t going to turn out to be total supervillains,” Gen deadpans, handing Chad another preemptive stick of gum.
Jared swallows hard, smoothing down his suddenly wind-swept mess of hair. He looks over at Jensen, who is almost as dazed as he is.
This day is already a disaster, and they haven’t even made it through the door yet.
“Is it too late to go to normal people school?” Jensen whispers to him, and Jared looks at him helplessly.
**
“Welcome, new students, to the Academy. I’m Principal Rhodes, and I speak for my entire staff when I thank you for coming here and allowing us to guide you on your journey to discover how very special you all are.”
Mild applause breaks out amongst the crowd of students lined up in the auditorium, and Jared spies a tiny eye roll on the principal’s face as she steps down from the podium. She walks off, hair bobbed to perfection and heels clacking on the shiny surface of the floor.
“She’s a technopath,” Gen whispers conspiratorially to them. “Controls all the computers in the building, so don’t even think about looking up porn.”
Chad looks so sad that Jared actually snorts. Unfortunately, that catches the attention of the gym-short wearing guy standing on a platform five feet over them. He’s wearing aviators and a perma-smirk and looks like someone his dad would probably want to super-punch on sight.
“I’m Coach James Patrick Stuart. But you can call me Master,” the punchable guy says and a scared squeak comes from someone in the crowd. It almost sounded like Chad, but Jared can’t confirm.
Osric raises his hand primly. “We really don’t have to call you that, right?”
“Silence, child!” Coach Stuart barks, and the squeak is definitely Chad this time.
Coach Stuart paces back and forth on the podium dramatically, before whipping off his sunglasses and staring down at them with disdain. “I am here for one purpose and one purpose alone—to mold the skinny scraps of nothing that you currently are into greatness.” He pauses, head thrown back like he’s posing for a trashy novel cover. “It will be hard and some of you will break, but in the end, the world will be a better place because of the things I am going to teach you.”
“Jimmy, get on with it. The day is only so long,” the voice of Principal Rhodes comes out loud and clear over the speakers in the corner of the room.
“I bet she doesn’t even need a mic to do that,” Jensen whispers, nudging Jared with his elbow.
“Right, of course,” Coach Stuart blusters, momentarily flustered. That lasts half a second before he is puffing out his chest again. “First things first—testing. Don’t let the ability of your parents fool you—not all of you will inherit powers.”
A slight gasp goes up in the crowd, and Jared feels his face heat up unexpectedly. He’s just a late bloomer, that’s all. His powers can be triggered at any time, he knows it.
Coach Stuart starts pacing again. “Those of you who do not have the gene will be relegated to Sidekick Class.” He grins. “But don’t worry, sidekicks are necessary, too. After all, someone has to shine our boots.”
A groan goes up in the crowd, but Coach Stuart just claps his hands together and starts directing students one at a time up in front of the podium. He gives each of them two minutes to demonstrate their powers, and they do, in a dazzling display that impresses Jared at the same time that he thinks it’s going to make him throw up like Chad.
“You next,” Coach Stuart points at Chad, and the boy trudges up to the front slowly. “Go on.”
Chad just looks out at them with slightly panicked eyes, before squeezing them shut and grunting. About twenty seconds later, his hair starts glowing like a high-powered flashlight, but then starts dimming immediately. Someone snickers in the crowd, and Chad turns bright red before running back to Gen in the audience.
“Sidekick,” Coach Stuart intones, and poor Chad looks like he’s going to cry.
“Nice highlights you’ve got there, Glow Worm,” X-Ray scoffs from the side of the room, where he and Rosey are standing aside from everyone.
“Mr. Welling, that’s enough,” Principal Rhodes’s voice commands, and Jared is terrified of her already.
“It’s okay,” Gen whispers to him, patting Chad’s arm soothingly, before heading up to the podium herself.
“I’m a shapeshifter,” she announces, and Jared can tell that she’s trying to look calmer than she is. Her dark hair is piled up in a bun on top of her head and she starts itching at it nervously.
Coach Stuart looks pleased. “That’s always a fun ability. So what can you become? Wolf? Feline?”
“Um,” Gen starts and then does a helpless little shrug before a shimmer overtakes her form and she turns into the tiniest creature that Jared’s ever seen. It has gigantic black eyes just like hers and a furry tail and he’d probably want to adopt it if it wasn’t his new hero friend.
“Sidekick,” Coach Stuart announces with utter disappointment.
Gen turns back to her normal self immediately and shuffles back to her friends dejectedly.
"What was that? You were pretty cute," Jared smiles, and Gen pushes him.
"Japanese flying dwarf squirrel. And if you say anything to me ever about my furry tail, I'll kill you."
“You, little guy, get up here,” Coach Stuart insists, and Osric heads up to take his turn.
“Maybe I’m not little. Maybe you’re just too big,” Osric offers, and Coach Stuart points at him menacingly.
“Alright already,” Osric grumbles, and then just proceeds to stand there.
“Well, get on with it.”
“I need to touch you.”
“Not until senior year, boy.”
“Jimmy,” Principal Rhodes’s voice warns.
Osric huffs and climbs up the podium and grabs onto Coach Stuarts arm. Before he realizes what’s happening, the Coach’s arm expands straight out at least thirty feet, just missing punching X-Ray in the face from where he’s leaning up against the wall.
“What the hell!” X-Ray squeals, and then scowls when the crowd starts laughing at him.
Osric hops off the podium as quickly as he hopped up and runs back to the group.
“You’re like a battery pack,” Jared whispers to him, grinning, because that’s seriously cool.
“Sidekick!” Coach Stuart barks at him and a few of the students boo.
Jensen’s up next, but he refuses to go. Jared’s surprised by that, since he knows that Jensen got his powers six months prior when Jared almost fell out of the tree house in his backyard. Jensen had sprouted the most awesome tentacles and grabbed him by the ankle at the last minute. Jensen wouldn’t talk about it for over a week after that, and swore him to silence, but over the last few months, he’s been more open about it and sometimes even lets Jared see them.
“You can’t refuse,” Coach Stuart insists, glaring at Jensen like he just smelled something funny.
“This entire charade is classist, and I will not have any part it in. Send me to the Sidekick Class, which I’m sure will be full of people who are just as talented as the ones in the Superhero Class.”
Jensen’s wearing his best fake-cocky expression, but Jared knows him well enough to know he’s totally freaking out inside. Gen and Osric are looking at him with awed expressions on their faces, and Jared can’t help the rush of pride that fills him. His best friend is kind of amazing sometimes.
Or all the time, really.
Coach Stuart doesn’t even bother answering and then sets his sights on Jared, who is the only one who hasn’t gone yet. An odd searching look comes over the Coach’s eyes before recognition strikes, and his lip curls up into a snarl.
“You’re Silver’s boy,” he says, and Jared really has to remember to ask his dad where that hostility is coming from.
Jared gulps. “Um, yes?”
“This should be good,” Coach Stuart grins wickedly, as Jared stumbles up to the platform and looks out at the expectant faces in front of him.
And then nothing happens.
Jensen’s biting his lip but giving him a little encouraging nod. Jared doesn’t know what he thought was going to happen. His best hope was that being around so many other special kids would somehow activate whatever latent ability was hiding and—boom—superhero.
“I…” Jared looks at Jensen, who just stares at him with a helpless shrug. “I don’t have any powers.”
A loud gasp goes up in the crowd, alongside snickers from Rosey and X-Ray in the corner. Jared slumps his shoulders and heads back to his friends.
Coach Stuart looks torn between shock and glee, and Jared feels like the biggest failure that ever existed.
“Silver’s boy,” Coach Stuart starts, pausing for dramatic effect. “Sidekick.”
“Sorry, Jay,” Jensen says, squeezing his hand as Jared attempts to not burst out into tears in front of the entire freshman class.
“It’s not so bad, Jay,” Jensen insists, bumping his best friend with his shoulder as they walk down the corridor to Sidekick class. Jensen knew standing up to Coach Stuart like he had wasn’t the best way to start his high school career, but there was no way he was going to let Jared do this alone.
And, besides, it’s not like it’s a hardship to be around Jared all day.
Jensen flushes involuntarily when Jared looks over at him with those big puppy eyes and a pout. Jensen has to look away, but he can still feel Jared’s body heat next to him, and it makes him feel a little bit better.
“At least we’re together.”
The classroom is much smaller than the Superhero Class in the gym, but besides their small group of five, there are only a few other students in the class. One kid is drawing on himself with a Sharpie. Another is pressed into a ball in the corner of the room. A girl with bright red hair and glasses sits in the back row silently, eyes wide and watching.
“Great, we got stuck with the freaks,” Chad grumbles, but Gen shushes him when Sharpie kid starts hissing at them.
“Statistically speaking, we are probably at the bottom of the gene pool right now,” Osric points out, zipping quickly around Jared to take the seat next to Gen.
Jensen nudges Jared into the next seat with his hip and sits down next to him. Technically, if they’re talking freaks, then the boy who has tentacles bursting out of his limbs at inopportune moments is probably going to fit right in. He doesn’t say anything, but he can tell Jared knows what he’s thinking from the little look he gives him.
Before they can think too hard about it, a short guy with gigantic mutton chops wearing a white leather jumpsuit and a cape literally springs into the room and up on the desk in front of the class. He strikes the cheesiest possible pose and then does a spin that looks like it’s going to send him face-first into the front row.
“Freaks,” Chad repeats on a not-at-all-subtle cough, and Gen pokes him in the rib with a pencil.
Mutton Chops jumps down off the desk with only a minimal wobble and grins at the class. “I am Richard, and I will be your teacher this year in the great art of the sidekick.”
A sharpie goes flying across the room, just missing Richard’s head. Richard retaliates by jumping on the kid’s desk and giving him a wicked noogie.
“Richard,” Principal Rhodes’s voice intones over the loudspeaker, and Jensen’s beginning to think she’s an all-seeing alien instead of just a superhero.
“Don’t do it again,” Richard threatens a chastened Sharpie kid one last time before jumping off the table and skipping back to the front of the room.
“Having a proper sidekick is the greatest tool a superhero can have.” Richard pauses. “Well, okay, super-strength and the ability to fly are pretty nice too, but I digress.”
He pulls down a screen from the top of the black board, and Jensen feels Jared startle next to him when they realize it’s a huge poster of a young version of Jared’s dad--wearing tights and winking--with Richard in a go-cart beside him.
“I was once the sidekick to the greatest superhero that the world has ever known—The Silver Strongman,” Richard announces proudly. Half a second later, his face turns dark. “That was, until he hooked up with The Golden Glider and didn’t need me anymore, the bastard.”
“Don’t talk about my parents like that!” Jared blurts out, and Jensen almost starts cracking up at how indignant he looks.
Richard looks at him shrewdly, before recognition sets in and he bounces over to sit himself on Jared’s desk. “Does he talk about me? Does he have the poster up? The poster’s cool, right? We were great together, me and Silver.”
Jared looks uncomfortable and sits back as far as he can go in his chair. “Um, I’ve never heard of you before. Sorry?”
Richard looks stricken, and trudges back to the desk, flopping into the chair and waving his hands at the class. “First lesson, kids: Never trust a superhero with dimples and strong manly thighs.”
“Oh my god,” Jared starts wheezing, and Jensen pats him on the back, pointedly not thinking about Jared’s dimples and maybe-one-day strong manly thighs.
**
Jensen’s just gotten Jared’s breathing back under control by the time they get out of class and head towards the lunchroom. If there’s anything that makes Jared feel better, it’s food, so lunch should cheer him up again after their disaster of a morning.
“You could learn how to play basketball and be the Bronze Baller?” Jensen suggests, and that gets a half-smirk out of Jared, so it’s a start.
Jensen tries not to stare at the woman with three arms dishing out pasta to several students at once, or the bowls of soup that are levitating in the air over to the trays. Jensen’s family is way more low-key than other superhero families, especially when compared to the legends like Silver and Golden. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that they were completely normal.
The skin around his forearms starts itching, and Jensen realizes bitterly that “normal” is just a pipe dream.
The five of them take a table in the corner, far out of the reach of the various groupings of heroes around the room, and nowhere near X-Ray and Rosey’s table. The pasta seems to be cheering Jared up already, and as they listen to their new friends talk about their old school, Jensen starts feeling more comfortable.
Osric is practically sitting in Gen’s lap, and Jared must notice too, because he asks them if they’re together.
"He's totally hot for me," Gen says, pointing a thumb at Osric, who looks at her adoringly.
"Actually, I'm in soul deep love with you," he corrects, fluttering his eyelashes.
"Except every time turbo-fingers touches me, I turn into a squirrel."
"I am not adverse to interspecies couplings."
"You kinky bitch!" Chad snorts, orange juice coming out of one nostril.
Jensen can’t help laughing as Gen starts patting Chad’s face down with a napkin.
“What about you two? Any soul deep teen love we should know about?” Osric asks, looking between Jared and Jensen.
Jensen just blushes—stupid fair skin—and goes for the denial because, really, there isn’t anything going on. “Nah, me and Jay don’t have time for that—“
“Oh yes,” Jared interrupts, and Jensen is stunned. Could Jared really be saying what he thinks he’s saying?
“Jay?” Jensen asks, and if there is the tiniest bit of hope creeping in, it’s can’t he helped.
Unfortunately, when he follows Jared’s enraptured gaze, he sees a lithe gorgeous redhead sitting regally at the table in the very middle of the room. She’s surrounded by obvious sycophants, including, oddly, the redhead with the glasses from their Sidekick Class.
“Who is that?” Jared asks on a dreamy sigh, and if Jensen thought his morning sucked, it was nothing in comparison to this moment.
“Siren,” Chad replies, with an eyebrow wiggle.
“Danneel,” Gen clarifies. “She’s Queen Bee, although that’s probably just because her power is basically making people like her.”
“So, she’s putting some kind of spell on him right now?” Jensen asks hopefully, nodding at Jared, who is still staring at Danneel like a love-sick puppy dog.
“Nah, she has to be focused on you to use her power,” Gen replies, crushing Jensen’s last bit of hope. “Besides, look at her—I’m sure people like her just fine without any fancy hoodoo.”
Jensen thinks he manages to hide his disappointment, but Gen’s knowing look of pity tells him he’s failed again today.
“Jared,” Osric interrupts, leaning over the table and waving his hand to get Jared’s attention. “Why is that guy staring at you like he wants to murder you?”
Oh great, this is all they need.
“Huh?” Jared asks, before he notices the stocky guy with a long black coat, hair in a ponytail, and a death glare staring right at him. “Oh.”
“That’s Christian Kane,” Gen replies, her voice suddenly low like she doesn’t want Mister Death Glare to hear her. “But everyone calls him Sonic because he can let out a wicked burst of sound waves that will demolish your eardrums.”
“You are like Wikipedia,” Osric says, grinning at her with pride.
Gen rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are flushed. “Nah, my mom is just the town gossip. Plus her brain is a computer, so some of it wore off obviously.”
“So why does this Sonic guy want to dismember me?” Jared asks, and Jensen would like to know this as well, because he likes Jared’s members.
Gen leans further into the table, and they all instinctively follow her movement. “Because his dad is the supervillain Spark Bomb, and Jared’s parents got him locked up in the Nitro Asylum.”
Jared groans. “Great, just great. So first I have no powers because I’m a gigantic loser, then I find out that my father might have a tiny stalker wearing a white leather jumpsuit, then I fall madly in love with someone who will probably barely even look at me, and now a mean-looking dude with a ponytail wants to kill me. Worst day ever.”
Jensen barely hears that last part because he’s still stuck on Jared falling madly in love with someone who is not him.
Being in love with your best friend sucks.
**
“Do you think his head is going to just, like, explode?” Chad asks a few weeks later, as they sit in their mad-science class.
Jensen looks up from the book in front of him and peers over at their teacher. Dr. Collins does have an unusually large skull, but that’s probably because he’s five hundred years old and has all the knowledge of the universe inside of his brain. Or at least that’s what he informed them the first day of class.
“My cranium is perfectly intact, Mr. Murray,” Dr. Collins intones gravely from the front of the room, as Chad grimaces. Guess that whole being ancient thing is not bad on guy’s hearing either.
“Hey, Ninja,” says X-Ray from the back of the class in his most obnoxious tone, throwing a pencil at the back of Osric’s head.
“I’m not a ninja, you racist douchelord,” Osric replies with a scowl, rubbing his head.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re just a sidekick,” Rosey joins in, snickering like the asshats they are.
“Just ignore them,” Gen says, smiling at Osric, who just sighs happily.
“Yeah, listen to Chock Full O’Nuts over there. Just ignore us,” X-Ray calls out.
Gen turns around so fast Jensen thinks her head’s going to come off. “I will kill you in your sleep.”
“It is unfortunate that the enhanced genetic ability that some of you have does not instill either knowledge or tact,” Dr. Collins interrupts, looking pointedly at Rosey and X-Ray, who shut up fast.
Dr. Collins looks at them one last time just to reiterate his point and then turns to the rest of the class. “Now, if you all don’t mind, I’d like to actually teach you something. But first, lets partner you up.”
Jensen turns to Jared automatically, but to his utter dismay, Danneel is standing right next to him and smiling down at a gob-smacked Jared.
“I don’t think we’ve talked before. I’m Danneel,” she says, pushing a lock of auburn hair over her shoulder demurely.
“I’m…I’m…uh,” Jared starts mumbling incoherently.
“Jared,” Jensen fills in, sighing deeply.
“Yeah, Jared,” Jared agrees, his dimples in full force and aimed entirely in the wrong direction.
“Want to be partners, Jared?” Danneel asks, and when she smiles, she has a tiny little dimple at the bottom or her cheek. All Jensen can picture is the magical dimpled superhero babies that they will someday have while Jensen sits in a corner somewhere, alone, and probably writing on himself with a Sharpie stuck to his tentacle.
“Yes. Yes,, oh god yes!” Jared replies and Jensen has to get away from the spectacle. He turns around wildly, and finds everyone already paired off. The only one left sitting alone is—of course—Sonic, who is too busy scratching marks into the desk to look up.
Jensen heads over to him tentatively. “Um, hello?”
Sonic looks up warily. “What do you want?”
“Do you want to be my partner?”
Sonic starts chuckling, and Jensen doesn’t like that one bit. “Ah, I get it. Your boyfriend ditched you for Siren and now you need someone to help blow up the lab with.”
Jensen makes his best indignant face, but there’s a part of him that tingles at the word “boyfriend.” “Look, buddy, if you don’t want to pair up then I’ll ask Dr. Collins to find me someone else.”
A shrewd expression overtakes Sonic’s face, and then his lips curl up in a smirk. “You’re feisty. I like that.”
“Thanks?” Jensen says, not knowing what to say now that Sonic apparently doesn’t want to murder him for being Jared’s friend. He takes a seat tentatively next to Sonic and looks over at where Jared and Danneel are pressed together over the floating Bunsen burner.
“Your friends are losers,” Sonic says helpfully.
“Shut up,” Jensen scowls, sinking farther into his seat.
It’s just pot roast. Jared loves pot roast.
“Potatoes, honey?” his mom asks, and her face is so expectant that he knows her question has nothing to do with potatoes.
“No thanks,” Jared replies, pushing his meat around the gravy on his plate with his fork.
He can almost feel the questions his parents want to ask him like a physical vibration. He’s been at school for over a month now, and hasn’t told them anything about how it's going. Not about the bullying, or his crush on Danneel, or—oh yeah—the fact that the son of the greatest superheroes known to the world is a powerless sidekick.
The table starts shaking and Jared just prepares himself for the blow when his dad pounds his fist on the table and sends mashed potatoes flying across the dining room.
“Jeffrey,” his mother huffs in warning, and his dad looks chastened.
“Sorry, Goldie,” his dad says, flashing the dimples at her until she practically coos. Ugh, his parents are so cheesy sometimes.
“You’re still cleaning that up,” she says and Jared snickers.
“Now, Jared,” his dad says, putting on his lower-by-an-octave Silver voice. “I think your mother and I have waited long enough to hear about how the Academy is treating you.”
“It’s fine,” Jared mumbles, looking down at his plate again. He can feel his cheeks burning, and knows that there is no way he’s getting out of this conversation. He wishes Jensen was here right now to help him through it. He’d know what to say to make things better.
“Jared,” his mom says, and her voice is suddenly gentler than before. One of her many powers is empathy, so it’s not completely shocking. “Is there something going on that you want to tell us? You know your father and I will support you no matter what.”
Jared looks up at their open, waiting faces, so ready to hear about how wonderful their kid is, when their kid isn’t wonderful at all.
“I…”
“Yes, honey?” his mom prompts.
“Idon’thaveanypowers,” is what comes out, all in a rush, and if his father didn’t have super-hearing, then he probably would have missed it.
“Excuse me?” his dad says, and his fork drops with a clang to his plate.
Jared doesn’t know whether he could make it to his room before his mother could fly over and drag him back, but it might be worth a shot.
“I can catch you,” his mother answers for him, and she claims to not be able to read minds, but Jared doesn’t know sometimes.
Jared sighs deeply and puts down his silverware. “They did the testing and it turns out I don’t have any powers. None, zero, zip. I’m so powerless that I’m actually less advanced than a guy whose hair lights up like a Christmas tree. I am, quite literally, the most useless person in the world.”
He shudders. That almost felt good to get all that out.
“Oh, Jared, honey,” his mom says, and he closes his eyes momentarily to block out the look of pity in hers.
“Why didn’t you tell us, son?” his dad asks, and, for the first time, The Strongman actually looks a little hurt.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” Jared admits, and before he can even blink, his mother is up and has him wrapped in her arms.
“We could never be disappointed in you, sweetie. You’re our baby,” his mom insists, stroking his hair and holding him tight to her chest. Jared wraps his arms around her waist and clings tightly, not realizing until just this moment how scared he was of losing their affection.
“I think we should tell him, Sam,” his dad says after a long pause, and Jared looks up when his mom stills against him.
“I think you’re right, Jeff.”
“Mom? Dad?” Jared questions, pulling back to look at his mother’s now-grim face.
“C’mon, son,” his dad says simply, standing up and holding out his hand. His mom nudges him towards his dad, and he takes his hand, feeling like a little kid all over again, but finding comfort in it.
Below their nice suburban house, accessible only by coded subterranean elevator, is an elaborately high-tech bunker that holds all the various gadgets associated with the Silver/Golden hero team. Jared used to go down there a lot when he was a kid, but he’s been avoiding it in recent years as the powers he expected to come haven’t done so.
“You see this, buddy?” his dad says, leading him over to his most prized possession, a freeze ray that he wrestled off his arch-nemesis Winter Shadow before she fell to her doom off the cliff outside Nitro Asylum.
“That’s Shadow’s freeze ray,” Jared says obediently, and his dad nods in affirmation.
“It’s also something else, too.”
Jared looks up in surprise, not sure what he could mean and how it relates to Jared himself.
“After I took Shadow down, I stopped all of my hero work for a year. Your mother, too.”
Jared’s definitely shocked at that, since he can’t imagine his dad as anything other than the world’s greatest superhero. “Why would you do that?”
His dad runs one hand affectionately over Jared’s hair, and Jared instinctively leans into it. “Because you came into our life soon after that, and we wanted to spend every single minute with you.”
Jared freezes. “What do you mean, came into your life?”
His dad sighs and pulls back a bit, but never breaks eye contact. “I never want you to think that you are anything less than the most important person in our lives.”
“Dad, you’re scaring me.”
“No, buddy, don’t be scared,” his dad says soothingly, trying to reach out for him again, but Jared pulls back. “It’s just that you didn’t actually come from your mother and I. We adopted you soon after I took Shadow down.”
“Adopted?” Jared spits out, tears springing to his eyes. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“We didn’t think it was important,” his dad insists and Jared scoffs at that. “You are our boy, and have been every single second of every single day since I first held you in my arms. You don’t need my blood or my genes for that.”
“That explains why I’m not special,” Jared replies, misery coming off of him in waves, but he clings to his father—his father--when Jeff pulls him in his arms and hugs him tight enough to bruise his ribs.
“Oh, Jared, you are the most special person I know. You make your mother and I the happiest people in any dimension, and for that alone you are better than any stupid superpower.”
Jared just keeps holding on, burying his head in his dad’s chest.
**
“What’s wrong, Jared? Aren’t you having fun?” Danneel asks, poking Jared in the ribs and giving him that pretty little smile of hers.
It’s a week after his parents dropped the bomb on him, and even though he’s more or less forgiven them, he’s using the excuse of them being away saving a small island off the coast of Venezuela to have what has turned into a huge party in his house.
“I am…” Jared says, drifting off before sighing. “It’s just Jensen. Things have been kind of weird lately, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Danneel looks at him sympathetically, and slips a plastic cup of punch in his hands. “That’s too bad. I hope it’s not because of me.”
Jared shakes his head quickly, although he suspects it does have a tiny bit to do with her and the amount of time they’ve been spending together these past few weeks. “Of course it’s not you, Danni. Jensen thinks you’re great.”
She cocks an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t say anything, and for that Jared is grateful.
That ends a second later, when he sees Jensen coming into the room with freaking Sonic, of all people. Jared barges over to them, a little woozy from something that someone—likely Chad—slipped into the punch.
“What’s he doing here?” Jared snarls, nodding his head at Sonic.
“I invited him—got a problem?” Jensen replies, tipping his head back in defiance. Jared’s never seen that face directed at him before, and it hurts him somewhere deep.
It must show on Jared’s face, because Jensen’s expression starts to flicker, and he almost looks like he’s going to reach out and touch him. Jared pulls back before he has the chance.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Jen, but maybe we can talk about it in private.”
Jensen’s eyes look over at where Danneel is standing a few feet away, and Jared tracks them. “So, that’s what this is about? You’re jealous because I’m making other friends?”
Jensen starts gritting his teeth, and Jared almost regrets the words. He and Jensen have been best friends since they were toddlers. Fighting with him feels wrong.
“Have you considered the fact that Siren is messing with you? I mean, we all know what kind of power she has,” Jensen suggests and Jared’s taken aback at that.
“Have you considered that someone might actually like me for me? And not just because of who my parents are?”
A rush of pain overwhelms Jensen’s face, and his freckles are bright against the flush on his cheeks. “And I guess I don’t count, huh?”
“Jen—“ Jared starts, regret washing over him, and he wishes his mind was clearer so he could rewind time and undo the last few minutes.
“It’s okay, Jay. I get it. You just want to feel special,” Jensen bites out his words, before turning and stomping out as quickly as he came.
“You’re an idiot,” Sonic says simply, giving him a little salute before following Jensen out the door.
Jared thinks that truer words have never been spoken, and is about two seconds away from rushing out after his best friend. Before he gets a chance though, Danneel’s hand is on his forearm.
“Jared, is there anything I can do to help?”
He looks down at her, and her eyes glimmer in the low light of the party. Her hair is burnt fire, and her hand is a comfortable weight on his arm.
Forget stupid Jensen, what does he know? Jared is special, his dad said so. Danneel thinks so, maybe.
“Hey, Danni, want to see my dad’s secret bunker?”
Danneel grins.
“Good morning, students.”
“Good morning, Principal Rhodes.”
She looks out at the gym with a pleased expression. “I gathered you all here to tell you some wonderful news—next week we are holding a ceremony to honor the greatest superheroes among us—The Silver Strongman and The Golden Glider!”
Jensen looks over at Jared, who looks as surprised as the rest of them. Guess his parents aren’t telling him anything, like usual.
“Greatest, my ass,” Coach Stuart huffs from where he’s slumped against the wall, aviators firmly in place.
“Jimmy, don’t make me forward your entire browser history to the Council again.”
The audience snickers, and Coach Stuart bears his teeth at the crowd.
“Can I be on the award committee?” Richard calls out eagerly, as he pulls his cape around himself and shivers.
Principal Rhodes’s perfectly arched eyebrow belies her disdain. “The committee will be headed by the lovely Danneel Harris.”
Sonic chuckles beside him when Jensen mumbles “whatever” under his breath. Danneel stands up from her seat next to Jared and waves primly.
“I didn’t want to help anyway,” Richard insists. His voice lowers. “Ruggedly handsome bastard.”
“Miss Harris will have help from her cousin, Felicia,” Principal Rhodes continues, and the silent girl with the glasses from their Sidekick Class wiggles her fingers meekly in the air.
Huh, Jensen thinks, Danneel’s cousin. Now it makes sense why she’s always hanging around her when she is so obviously not in Danneel’s league.
Jensen’s face heats up when he realizes the stupid generalization he just made. This school is completely skewing his principles, and he wishes Jared could see it was messing with his as well.
Principal Rhodes releases them with instructions to invite their parents to the celebration—fat chance of that—before Jensen heads off with Sonic to join Gen, Osric, and Chad in the lunchroom. He listens to them chat amiably as he picks at his pizza.
Jensen looks up and sees Jared standing in the doorway. His face looks conflicted, and Jensen wants to go over and tell him that everything was cool, but he doesn’t. Jared sees him looking and gives a tentative smile, dimples just barely popping out, and Jensen can’t resist giving him a look in return.
“Jared was freaking before class this morning,” Gen announces, and Jensen’s head snaps to her.
“Why? What happened? Is he okay?”
Gen starts chuckling. “Whoa there, Jen. Breathe.”
Jensen scowls at her and glances back at Jared, looking for signs that he’s growing another head from toast-inspired radiation poisoning. He looks fine though, except for how long his bangs are getting, and oh how Jensen wishes he still had the right to push them back for him.
“You have it so bad,” Osric laughs through a spoonful of strawberry yogurt. “Like, soul deep love bad. I feel your pain.”
“Dude, even I can tell, and I’m a moron,” Chad throws in, and Jensen can’t help but agree with the last part.
“Will you assholes shut up about my unrequited love for a second, and tell me what happened to Jared?” Jensen scoffs. When even Sonic is looking at him with pity, he knows he’s pathetic.
“Someone stole Winter Shadow’s freeze ray from his dad’s secret bunker,” Gen whispers.
Jensen stills. “How do you know about Silver’s secret bunker?”
“Duh,” Gen says, rolling her eyes and popping a piece of pineapple into her mouth.
“I think we know who did it,” Sonic says, nodding over at where Danneel has just entered the room and draped herself over Jared’s arm.
“But why would Siren steal a freeze ray? It doesn’t make any sense,” Chad asks.
“What do we really know about her except that she has the power of manipulation? That’s total supervillain territory,” Osric points out, and Jensen has a sinking feeling in his chest as he watches Jared beam over at Danneel.
“We have to tell Jared. He deserves to know our suspicions,” Gen insists, and the others nod in agreement.
“You gotta do it, Jensen. He’ll listen to you,” Sonic says, but that just makes Jensen laugh harshly.
“He’s not going to listen to a word I say. He already thinks I’m jealous of Danneel. It’ll just make things worse.”
“But you are jealous of her, aren’t you?” Gen replies knowingly, and Jensen drops his gaze to the table.
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what happens to Jared. He’s still my best friend.”
Jensen glances over to Jared one last time, as the table is silent.
“Jeffrey! Samantha! So good of you to attend our little shindig,” Principal Rhodes says, beaming, as she comes over and air kisses Jared’s parents.
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world, Kim,” Jeff replies, then pauses. “Well, maybe if the world needs saving!”
The three of them chuckle in amusement, and Jared gags, looking around the room to see if anyone he knows is here yet.
“Silver,” comes a sneering voice that could only belong to Coach Stuart. The Coach saunters over to the group haughtily, his expandable legs creeping him up a few inches in height.
Jeff reaches out to shake the Coach’s hand against his will and Coach grimaces at the squeeze. “Heya, Gumby. Long time, no see.”
“My name’s The Rubber Ranger, goddammit, get it straight,” Coach Stuart hisses, pulling back his hand and holding it to his chest.
“How are you, Jimmy?” Samantha asks with a smile and a twinkle in her eye that Jared knows means she’s mocking him.
Coach Stuart swallows hard and moves his uncrushed hand to smooth down his hair. “Samantha, you are looking utterly lovely this evening. It’s like you haven’t aged a day since high school.”
“A lot of things have changed, Stretch,” Jeff replies, narrowing his eyes with his best Strongman menace.
Oh god, how embarrassing. Jared thinks, trying not to laugh.
It only gets worse a second later, when Richard springs out of nowhere, wearing a blue sequin jumpsuit and platform shoes, and practically starfishes his father.
“Dickie Speight! Well, I’ll be damned,” Jeff chuckles, patting Richard’s back awkwardly as Richard rubs his mutton chops into Jeff’s shoulder.
Richard pulls back and presses his hands excitedly to his mouth. “Yes, oh god, Silver, you remember. Do you have the poster? Tell me you have the poster?”
“God, Speight, have some dignity,” Coach Stuart snorts, and Richard shoots him a dirty look.
“Gentleman,” Principal Rhodes interrupts, then nods at Samantha. “And lady. Let’s save the reminiscing for later and head into the main room, shall we?”
Jared’s happy to get inside, if only so that he can finally sneak off by himself. He spots Danneel, and tries to push down the part of him that is sad that it’s not Jensen instead.
Fortunately—or maybe not, depending on the conservation that is happening—turning the corner reveals that Jensen and Sonic are having a heated discussion with Danneel, who does not look like she’s enjoying herself.
Jared can’t believe that Jensen is still jealous of Danneel and harassing her like this. After all, it’s not even like she and Jared have actually done anything. She kissed him, once, and it almost felt like he was cheating, which is ridiculous, because, c’mon, Danneel is Danneel.
Jensen gesticulates wildly as he talks, his hair all messy and his eyes bright and green.
Jared sighs. And Jensen is Jensen.
“Oh, Jared, thank god you’re here,” Danneel says, her face flooding with relief when she sees him approaching.
“Are they bothering you, Danni?” he asks, and tries to ignore the hurt that flickers across Jensen’s face.
“We thinks she’s the one that stole the freeze ray,” Sonic states bluntly, and that’s the last thing that Jared expected.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Danneel insists, hands on her hips and a royally pissed-off expression on her face.
“Who else had access to the bunker?” Jensen asks, and he’s staring at Jared challengingly.
“No one, but—" Jared replies, looking helplessly between Jensen and Danneel. Could it really have been Danneel playing him this whole time? She was the only one he brought down into the secret lair that evening.
“Jared!” Danneel exclaims. “You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with this.”
“Attention, everyone,” Principal Rhodes interrupts from the microphone on the stage.
“This isn’t over,” Jensen hisses as Danneel looks ready to turn around and stomp off.
“Damn right it’s not.”
They all spin around at the completely unfamiliar voice and gasp at the sight of Danneel’s silent cousin Felicia holding Winter Shadow’s freeze ray and the form of Principal Rhodes, suspended in mid-air.
Jared turns to see his dad start making a move, but Felicia sees it too and aims the freeze ray directly at him.
“Not so fast, Silver. You try anything fancy and techno-babble here gets it.”
“Felicia, what are you doing? I’ve barely heard you speak in the past fifteen years,” Danneel says, her confusion so obvious, that Jared’s relieved that she doesn’t seem to be in on whatever is going on.
“Maybe you just haven’t been listening, cousin,” Felicia replies, her eyes, no longer hidden by the glasses, fierce and stony.
“That’s enough, kid, put down the toys and lets end this before you get hurt,” Jeff states, voice firm and his hands on his hips. Jared can practically see Richard’s poster coming to life before his eyes.
Felicia laughs gleefully. “Oh, Silver, someone is going to get hurt alright, but it’s not going to be me.”
A scream breaks out in the crowd as she points the freeze ray and zaps Jeff into a block of ice.
“Dad!” Jared yells, running towards them but hitting what feels like an invisible wall right before he can reach his mother. Felicia must be stronger than she appears, and her telekinesis is holding him back.
“I’ll save you, Silver!” Richard yodels, throwing himself bodily against the force field and then crumbling to the ground. “Ouch.”
“Oops,” Felicia mocks, zapping Jared’s mom, Coach Stuart, and Dr. Collins in quick succession. She drops Principal Rhodes to her feet and then snarls a warning before freezing her, too. “And don’t even think about calling the Council.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jensen yells out, and suddenly he’s right by Jared’s side, as he’s supposed to be, even if they are behind a force field.
Felicia narrows her eyes and her lips curl up into a smile. “Revenge.”
“Typical,” Sonic snorts.
“And you, Jared.”
All the unfrozen people turn to look at him, but he just stills. “What do I have to do with anything?”
Felicia pauses for dramatic flair. Fucking supervillains.
“You’re my brother, Jared.”
”What?” all the unfrozen people say in unison.
That’s exactly the reaction she wanted, because Felicia starts giggling and waving the freeze ray around. “That’s right, Jared. Our mother was Winter Shadow, the greatest supervillain the world has ever known. Her pièce de résistance was going to be the night she released her brethren from Nitro Asylum but no! stupid Silver Strongman and his golden canary had to swoop in and ruin her plans.”
Felicia looks stricken for a moment, and it’s like she’s re-living something that she didn’t even experience herself.
“That man, that beast murdered our mother, and then stole you from her arms. Stole you from me, your rightful sister, your only blood. Don’t you see, Jared, now that we have Mother’s greatest weapon back, we can flee from these insignificant little ants and fulfill the destiny that our mother set out for us!”
Jared doesn’t know if he would still be able to be on his feet if Jensen wasn’t suddenly behind him holding him up. It was bad enough that he finds out he was adopted, but now he’s the son of a supervillain? And his dad killed her in cold blood and stole her child?
Jared doesn’t know what to say, so he goes with the first thing that pops in his head. “But I’m not special. I don’t even have any powers.”
Felicia looks at him, her face a mask of confusion. “What do you mean? You are destined for great things, just like your family, your real family. Of course you have powers.”
“Actually, each of you only have a three-in-four chance of getting the mutant gene.” Everyone turns to look at Dr. Collins, who has somehow managed to melt himself from the top of his enormous cranium to his chin.
“How are you talking?” Felicia growls, looking at her freeze ray like it’s defective.
Dr. Collins chuckles. “Five hundred years of evolution puts a lot of tricks in your tool belt.”
“Touché.” Felicia nods, before remembering her supervillain stance and waving the ray with menace.
“Silver didn’t steal Jared from your mother. After she attempted to raid Nitro Asylum, the Council sent a hero squad after her to neutralize the threat. They were the ones who killed your mother, not the Strongman,” Dr. Collins tells them.
“But that can’t be true. Everyone knows that Silver killed Shadow! How did he get the freeze ray otherwise?” Felicia demands, but she’s starting to look unsure, and Jared can feel the force field weakening.
“The Council gave it to him as a parting gift, along with the child. It was supposed to a symbol of the importance of raising Jared in the light. Shadow had kept the existence of her older child—you—a secret, and her sister, Danneel’s mother, took you in to raise as her own.”
Felicia swirls around to Danneel, who is holding up her hands with tears in her eyes. “I swear I didn’t know, Felicia. I swear it.”
Jared stands there stricken, still held up by the solid weight of his best friend behind him. “But, Dr. Collins, why didn’t you ever say something? Why not tell me the truth?”
Dr. Collins’ slightly frosty eyebrows bow apologetically. “Most of the stories inside of my head are not mine to tell, Jared.”
“That’s enough!” Felicia screams, beaming the freeze ray at Dr. Collins’s head at the same time that she points her hand at Jared and lifts him straight up into the air.
“Jared!” Jensen screams as his best friend is ripped out of his arms and shot straight up into the air in front of the podium. Felicia’s face is thunder and lightning and Jensen has no fucking clue what he’s supposed to do now.
A sudden loud boom goes off from behind the podium, and suddenly a giant yellow school bus is bursting through the door and heading straight for the podium.
“Holy shit!” Sonic yells, and Jensen’s jaw drops to the floor when he realizes that Chad is on the roof of the bus with Osric strapped to his back. Coming out of Chad’s head is a gigantic laser beam that the path of the bus is aiming directly at the frozen superheroes.
“He’s turbo-charging the flashlight into a fucking laser,” Sonic continues and Jensen is stunned that none of them ever thought of that over lunch. Also, that Chad is actually useful for something.
A now thoroughly pissed off Felicia is trying to aim the freeze ray at Chad, but holding up Jared at the same time is using too much of her power, and she keeps missing. DJ, in a masterful display of driving, starts circling the room until all the frozen superheroes start melting right before their eyes.
Suddenly, a tiny creature comes flying off the top of the bus, and Jensen realizes that it must be Gen in her shifted form attempting to distract Felicia from her freeze ray attempts.
“Squirrels can fly?” Danneel asks, and Jensen is about to answer when it dawns on him with horror that Gen hitting Felicia in the face with her furry little body is going to cause her to drop Jared from twenty feet up.
“Jared!” Jensen screams again, and flings his arms out in the direction of where Jared is falling. A surge of power rushes through Jensen as the tentacles rip from his flesh and shoot directly towards Jared, wrapping him up and pulling him back like a rubber band towards Jensen. The momentum is too great and they fall backwards, Jensen huffing as Jared, still tangled in his new appendages, lands squarely on top of him.
“Hi,” Jared breathes, two centimeters from Jensen’s face.
“Hi,” Jensen replies, and probably would kiss him if it wasn’t for Sonic’s astonished hollering.
“You have fucking tentacles, and you didn’t tell me? You son-of-a-bitch!”
“Get it off me!” Felicia is screaming from somewhere behind them, and Jensen just manages to glance over Jared’s shoulder to see still-mini Gen clinging to her face. He sees a now-unfrozen Silver rushing over to incapacitate her and reclaim the freeze ray, and Jensen lets out a sigh of relief that it’s all over.
"Best sixty seconds of my life," Jensen mumbles, and Jared smiles, still pressed tight on top of him.
Jensen realizes a beat too late how utterly awkward this is, and retracts his tentacles gently so that they can both stand up. Jared brushes a bit of dampness off his shirt and Jensen grimaces.
“Sorry, I know they’re gross.”
“Nah, I think they’re totally cool,” Jared replies, bowing his head shyly. Suddenly, Jared’s mother is rushing over to them and dragging Jared away, as he looks apologetically over his shoulder back at Jensen.
“Well, that wasn’t part of the committee’s plan,” Danneel sighs, smoothing down the imperceptible wrinkles in her cocktail dress.
“So, um,” Jensen starts, embarrassed. “Sorry about thinking you were a supervillain.”
Danneel waves her hand in the air and smiles. “I’m a redhead with the power of mind control. It could have gone either way.”
Jensen laughs, but then realizes that nothing has really changed. Danneel is innocent, which means that there’s nothing stopping her and Jared from being together. He says as much and she looks at him like he has radiated toast for brains.
“First of all, it turns out he’s my cousin so ew,” she says, making a face. “And second of all, the guy is so stupidly in love with you that he actually looked guilty when I kissed him.”
“You kissed your cousin? That’s kind of hot,” Chad announces from his place on top of the bus now parked in the middle of the floor next to them.
“Shut up, Chad.”
“You really think he likes me?” Jensen says, still unsure, although the heavy weight of Jared when he was wrapped all snug in Jensen’s tentacles did give him a warm feeling all over.
“Duh,” say all his friends in unison.
“Go get ‘em tiger,” DJ says, climbing out of the bus and stretching. “Oh, and kids, what have we learned today?”
“Never doubt the bus driver.”
Jensen sees Jared waving from across the room, as Silver has Felicia flipped over one super-powered shoulder and heading towards the door.
“Take her to Nitro Asylum. Let the Council deal with her,” Principal Rhodes pronounces grimly.
“I’ll come back for you one day, Jared! I’ll avenge our Mother!” Felicia keeps yelling all the way out of the building, but suddenly all Jensen can see is Jared as he makes his way over to his best friend.
“You saved my life,” Jared says, his face so open and vulnerable that Jensen wants to pet it.
“It was no big deal,” Jensen mumbles, but he can’t help smiling.
“You’re a big damn hero, is what you are,” Jared continues, and his smile is getting wider as his dimples get impossibly deeper.
“Not my fault you were a total damsel in distress.”
“But I’m your damsel.”
Jensen swallows hard and searches Jared’s face for any kind of mockery. “Yeah?”
Jared just leans forward all up in Jensen’s space and buries his fingers in Jensen’s shirt.
“Totally yours,” Jared murmurs, as he presses his lips to Jensen’s for the very first time.
“Get a room!” hollers Chad.
“Or at least a bus!”
Jensen just laughs and throws his arms around his best friend’s—boyfriend’s—neck. And if the tips of his tentacles come out to tickle Jared’s messy hair, well, no one has to know.
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Date: 2013-02-17 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 03:09 am (UTC)