Title:
"A Simple Conversation"
Author: Destiny's
Creator
Disclaimer: I don't own any Static Shock besides what's
in the piles of laundry needing folding in the hall… it'll be
waiting for a while. Song lyrics by Dido.
Genre: um, how about
'general', does that work? Yeah sure, I guess. Humor too,
maybe…
Rating: PG
Warnings: none really, this is my first
ever PG fic because, as the title implies, all they really do is
talk, sorry. Only thing making this even hint at slash is the song
used. Take that away and you got nothing on me!
Summary: A simple
conversation over trig homework...oh look, something good actually
came out of that evil for once...
Pity
routes seemed to be my forte…
"Just come off of it already Rich! Admit it, this is impossible!" Virgil fumed over the vilest aspect of existence there was, and as he paced back and forth in frustration, Ritchie was finding it harder and harder to hide his growing amusement.
"It's just math V and there's always a solution to these things. There has to be, otherwise they wouldn't teach it…"
"I bet they would, just to irk me," was the grumbled reply.
Ritchie was going to crack a rib soon; he just knew it. Any minute now, his best friend's ears would start billowing steam and his face would probably flush to an overly ripe tomato red…he mutely snickered at the mental picture.
"But – it – doesn't – make – any – sense!" Virgil whined, enunciating all the while as if he were the one explaining it to a very slow child. "I mean just look at this stuff! What type of sick, twisted person sits in a dark room all day and comes up with this? Pathetic if you ask me…"
"They're just the average bored-out-of-their-minds mathematicians who are out specifically to make your life miserable. Yes, it's all a conspiracy. Now sit down and figure this out!"
"They call that a career choice?"
Ritchie just raised his eyebrows in
what he hoped was a disapproving air.
Virgil let out a comical
noise in reply -—somewhere between a sigh, a groan, and a stifled
yawn—- very original on his part.
"Alright already, I'll try it again, but stick to the English language this time would ya? Not everyone here's got enhanced brainpower…"
"Hey, one out of two isn't bad! Okay, now you see how the quadratic formula has a plus or minus square root? That means if you have a complex or irrational root, it'll come out in pairs when you solve; conjugates —-like a-bi and the other being a+bi —-the 'i' of course standing for the square root of a negative number like so…"
Virgil rubbed at his temples with a whimper. His friend meant well enough to be sure, but just didn't quite grasp his whole situation... couldn't. After being smarter than a supercomputer for little over a year now, Ritchie tends to forget sometimes that the average vocabulary word for any normal person was four, not eighteen, letters.
"It just went in one ear and out the other again didn't it?"
"Yeah, you lost me, right about the part where you opened your mouth."
"Then catch up."
Virgil's glare made it quite clear that the satirical sense of humor was not appreciated in the situation at hand.
"But you've already used up half a page though, and we've only done one problem so far, that can't be legal!"
"Still going strong too…"
Virgil froze at the impossibility of it all, looking ready to faint. "Please, tell me you're joking..."
There was no attempt made at hiding that wry grin Ritchie chose to flash, "As funny as that was, nope. I wish it were too, waste of a good tree if you ask me…"
"See, we agree on something!" Virgil promptly jumped off the bed, as if having the pointlessness now justified out in the open finally ended the tutoring session.
"…especially since I could do it all in my head. Yeah we do, for once, but just relax V-man; we've got a long ways to go yet before we're finished…"
"I can't stand this though! We've been at this for hours and I'm still getting no where!" Virgil threw up his hands, fists clenching at air in an overacting show of exasperation.
Ritchie glanced at his wristwatch, "Actually I've got ten minutes..."
"That's it, I've had it!" And with his trademark arrogance, he used his powers to pick up the offending Trigonometry book and threw it forcibly across the room, where it proceeded to stick to the opposite wall with a dull thud.
Then they heard the crash from the next bedroom over.
Ritchie blinked once, twice, before they simultaneously turned to stare at each other in growing horror, both pairs of eyes widening, waiting for it…
Three…
Two…
One…
"VIRGIL!"
They winced in pain. Sharon's screech was loud enough to wake the dead, and the walls separating them weren't exactly sound proof.
"Sorry!" Virgil called back, naturally not being too apologetic over the whole thing, before rubbing at his sore ears and mouthing an understandable 'ouch' towards his best friend.
Ritchie, who had long given up on feigning sympathy for the brother-sister complex constantly televised between the two, now simply fell over laughing at the other's predicament; wearing the broadest and most amused grin ever…
"Oh sure, Rich, pleasure at my pain, I see how it is…" His anger didn't last though; an instant later he had faded into good-natured mirth as well, flopping back on the bedside opposite his companion.
They both continued laughing at each other for some time, eventually forgetting what it was that had been so funny in the first place. But that never mattered much, it just felt good sometimes was all, getting it out of your system with your bestest buddy… what else were close friends for, if not a few satisfying hoots and giggles?
After awhile Virgil relaxed enough to lean back and admire his ceiling, where Ritchie had once -—in a fit of exceptional boredom—- recreated a near-perfect replica of the outside night sky for him. All the major constellations were there, made up of those tiny little glow-in-the-dark stars Virgil had once thought purposeless, but not anymore of course...
Ritchie really seemed to like stars for some reason.
"Camus the Swan, Pegasus the Flying Horse, Lady Andromeda, Draco the Dragon…" Next to him, Ritchie quietly ticked off all 88 constellations to himself, not necessarily aware he was thinking aloud.
"Why do you bother?" Virgil asked, glancing over at him, actually curious about this one.
"Sirius the Dog Star, Polaris the North Star, Vega… huh?" was the distracted reply after a few moments, apparently he had already moved on to the main star systems.
Ritchie never really paid much attention to anything said
around him; well not immediately that is, but somewhere his
consciousness always recorded the conversation, evaluated its
importance, and then played it back at convenience, which was most
likely when he was done with whatever task he was working on.
And
right now, he was still off in his own little world of mathematics
and astronomy.
So Virgil just learned to ignore it and push on.
"I mean, why do you do that? Learn all this rubbish and stuff when it's so, so… worthless, I guess."
"Worthless? Worthless to who?"
"Us… School stuff maybe I can see as being useful, and defense intelligence from the government is always a plus, but stars? What does that help?"
"Hey, if we ever plan to join the Justice League someday, we might need to figure where we are from time to time, saving galaxies and all that…"
Completely evading the question while still sidetracked, Ritchie didn't immediately notice the sudden drop in the shared comfort zone.
"Yeah, I guess…"
He did detect the painfully long pause afterwards however, knowing neither why it was there nor where it suddenly came from.
Finally, after careful deliberation, Ritchie took something of a calculated guess, and when he spoke again it was half-knowingly, half-accusatory.
"They don't like me very much, do they? Batman, Superman, the others…" He deduced quietly, trying to keep the hurt he felt out of his tone.
Apparently he failed.
Virgil shifted, suddenly finding a speck of dirt on his sheets to be very interesting.
"That's not true… exactly…"
"You're not denying it."
"…"
"Okay, so they hate me," Ritchie flatly stated for him, not straight away admitting to the stabbing disappointment attached to that discovery. A short while later he finally demanded, " Why do they hate me?"
"It's not hate precisely. It's just, it's more of a… a misunderstanding."
"Well what then? What did they say? Is it the whole sidekick issue again?"
Ritchie rolled onto his side in exasperation, eyes narrowed in frustration. But when he next met his friend's own wounded gaze, his softened considerably, and no matter how bitter he truly felt about the matter, he decided to call it quits on the interrogation… in the name of friendship.
He turned away, once again intent on the inspection of his imitation stars.
"Forget it V, I don't need to know -—not really—- and I don't need them… besides that, someone's gotta stick it out here for Dakota! You'll make it to the team for sure though, end up having your own theme song and everything, you'll see..." He gave a lop-sided grin to lighten the mood, realizing that Virgil appreciated the effort, half-hearted or not.
Silence pervaded a moment more.
Virgil turned onto his back, finding the squeaking noises the bed made as it shifted oddly reassuring. "I saw the future though, remember that? We'll still be partners then, I just know it… After all, I saw it…"
That didn't exactly help matters as much as he intended; instead, an old resentment stirred and frothed within Ritchie.
"Oh sure, then what exactly was I doing halfway around the world when you were in trouble?" His voice took on a harsh edge, his facial expression hardening too; all at once he became much colder then his 16 years of age allowed.
Then, just as abruptly, his sudden outburst hesitantly subsided to a whisper.
"Where was I when you needed me?" he finished, at a loss for words for a wrong he had never committed but felt terrible about nonetheless.
"It wasn't your fault man, you didn't know, and apparently I didn't either. We'll just rule out leaving each other in the dark about missions from now on, okay? We good?"
"Yeah, peace," and two fists met, one on top of the other, then side by side, in pact and promise.
Then something oddly humorous occurred to Virgil about the whole thing, and he chuckled…
"I already told you too, the second I -—well the future me that is—- found that fake message and thought you were in trouble, I rushed off to save your butt without a second thought about mine! I got myself captured because of it, but well -—everything worked out in the end all right, didn't it?" The last bit came out in a rush of embarrassment and sure enough, Ritchie was chortling again with him.
"Yeah, not exactly at your smoothest to be sure, but
some things never change…"
That got him an elbow in the
gut.
The tension finally lessening, Virgil eased back contentedly from his rigid upright position, hands knotting behind his head as he sank further into fluffed pillows.
"Point is, we're partners you and me, superhero and sidekick --superhero and superhero if you want—- whatever, doesn't matter… and even with all that aside, we're gonna stay partners and best friends for a long time to come, get it?"
"Got it!"
"Good."
"Alrighty then," Virgil declared, breaking the ice after a much more casual breather passed between them. He partially sat up on his forearms as he recalled something else important that had happened that day, something he hadn't yet told… his grin became slightly goofy and even more than slightly mischievous.
"You'll never guess it Ritchie!"
"You're right, I won't." Of course, he just had to go and ruin all his fun like that...
"Fine then, I'm not telling!"
"Trust me… I know you, I know that look, and you can't stand not to, so yes, yes you are 'telling'."
Virgil let out a low growl; there's nothing more maddening then when reading your best friend apparently becomes as exact a science as physics, and Ritchie's too good at all kinds of physics!
That didn't mean he had to stay true to his word though…
But yes, he did finally burst.
"I have a son Rich! I mean, I will… Can you believe it? Batman -—well the future Batman that is, definitely not the same guy—- he told me so! A Static Junior!"
"Ha! Seriously? I can't even begin to imagine… a miniature you? Not in my worst nightmares!"
"Will probably have my eyes and good looks…"
"Egad!" Ritchie gasped, acting out the dramatist of the pair once more, "Please God, no, no more! One is enough… more than enough!" He feigned silent weeping into the nearest pillowcase.
"And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?" Virgil asked in annoyance, always the cool, calm, and collected norm… yet a little threatening was in order.
Face still squashed in the bedding, Ritchie lifted one quizzical eyebrow at him, and underneath it gave Virgil his signature 'look.'
And, as it never failed, mask of seriousness deftly removed, Virgil cracked up again.
A while later he managed to calm himself enough to wipe his eyes of the sudden increase in moisture. Sufficiently composed once more, Virgil looked up to about where the Milky Way was and inquired sensibly.
"Wonder who I ended up marrying...? I've just got so many questions now, it's driving me insane!"
"You shouldn't dwell too much on the future, V-man. Come will come, you know that."
"But…"
"Nope, no way…"
"I mean…"
"Uh-uh…"
Virgil glared petulantly.
"Come on…"
"Shh!"
Virgil, giving up, clamped his hand over Ritchie's mouth warningly.
"Rich, I gotta know! Do you think my kids will inherit my powers?"
Ritchie actually looked thoughtful over this for a moment, before mumbling something unintelligible against V's palm.
"What? Oh, sorry 'bout that…" Virgil sheepishly removed it.
"Better and it's entirely possible for the most part, but to be sure…? Well, I could do some tests I suppose, but when we compared blood before, yours and mine looked exactly the same… give or take a few thousand strands of RNA."
"Yeah, but we can't be too sure about that anymore either. I mean, we didn't even know you were a bang baby back then, or what to look for…"
"Because I hadn't changed yet," Ritchie shrugged, "and we still don't, true, but if it means that much to you then sure, we can do it no problem."
"Thanks bro," relieved, Virgil seemed to contemplate something more, something vastly amusing… to him at least. "Hey Rich, I wonder what your kid will look like?"
The other teen snorted, "Nothing, I'm not having any."
"Oh come on! Sooner or later everybody has kids…"
"Not everyone does… Why are you so hung up on this?"
"I'm not! Why are you so defensive about it?"
"I dunno…"
After a moment's consideration, "Yeah you're right, truth be told, I can't really see you as a dad…"
"Oh great, thanks a lot there V…"
"I didn't mean it like that! You're always so into your technical gear and gizmos, I just can't…"
"Have it your way then."
Another awkward pause, these were getting old fast.
"Well I guess it doesn't matter much anyways, I hear superheroes never actually marry… I mean just look at Batman! We'll probably be bachelors forever! Rich maybe, cause of your inventions and stuff, but definitely bachelors… and together that way. Forever."
"Then where do you think your son came from?"
"For all we know," another offhanded shrug "could've been a test tube baby. They should have those by then…"
"I guess so… but, Virgil?"
"Hmm, yeah?"
"…"
"What is it?"
For a minute, it looked like Ritchie wanted to say something -—really wanted to say something—- almost as if he was having this massive internal battle with himself. Only, in the end, it was just…
"Never mind, it's nothing."
Moment over.
"Hey, are you hungry? We can call for pizza or something…"
"Hay is for horses Virgil and sure, then we can get back to hitting the books… and not the way you're intending…"
A moan was his only answer and Virgil, mumbling something -—a cross between his wanting to do more than hit the stupid textbook and how it must be nice to have a photographic memory—- left the room.
A few minutes more passed before Ritchie sat up and glanced over ruefully at the empty doorway. Shaking his head, he muttered beneath his breath.
"Virgil, you are a fool."
"I
know you think that I shouldn't still love you, But I
will go down with this ship, I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again, But I will go down with this ship, And
when we meet, I will
go down with this ship,
Or tell you
that…
But if I didn't say it,
Well I'd still have felt
it,
Where's the sense in that?
I promise I'm not trying to
make your life harder,
Or return to where we were…
And I won't put my hands up and
surrender…
There will be no white flag above my door,
I'm
in love and always will be…
And I caused nothing but
trouble,
I understand if you can't talk to me again…
And if
you live by the rules of 'it's over,'
Then I'm sure that
that makes sense…
And
I won't put my hands up and surrender…
There will be no white
flag above my door,
I'm in love and always will be…
Which I'm sure we will…
All that was
then,
Will be there still…
I'll let it pass and hold my
tongue,
And you will think that I've moved on…
And I won't put my hands up and
surrender…
There will be no white flag above my door,
I'm
in love and always will be…"
A while later, after having sufficiently stuffed themselves with pizza and ice cream, they decided to have just one more go at it…
"Okay then, go ahead, and find this fourth degree polynomial, with a root of three, multiplicity of two and…"
"Ritchie, English I say! Just use English!"
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