So, while doing research for a new crossover, I ended up pulling up "Max VS Max," one of my all-time favorites. I watched it initially because I wanted to see the Mighty One fighting for his destiny – it helps me put him in character for the new fic. But it occurred to me that, while citizenjess has done a beautiful piece on Virgil's perspective of that adventure ("Wrong?"), no one had yet spoken to Norman's. And I like Norman. And I like that he was right about things and Virgil wasn't for once. So…this happened.

Sadly, I don't own Mighty Max. If I did, the series would be on DVD by now. So don't sue me – nothing to gain from it anyway. This is purely for character-study purposes, not profit.

Enjoy!

"I told you so."

It was easily the third or fourth time he had said it, but it gave Norman no less satisfaction to have been right upon repetition. By now, Virgil seemed to be fully and entirely ignoring him, irritated beyond even "hmph"-ing in response. Which meant that the Guardian was almost done rubbing it in his face. Almost.

But then, Virgil deserved a little payback for the experience of the last few days, especially given his stubborn refusal to admit all the ways in which he had been wrong to the person he had most hurt. He had, over the course of a very few short hours, managed to almost get the Mighty One killed, nearly broken the boy's confidence and trust in them both, permitted Skullmaster to gain hold over the Lemurian Arcana, and come far too close to losing the Cosmic Cap. Quite a day of work for one small fowl with an overly-strong love for prophecy, all things considered. And it had all started so simply.

The traveling to Tibet was nothing new; Virgil and Norman spent most of their time not spent with the Mighty One finding ways of getting wherever he would next need to be. As the Cap-Bearer was the only one with the Cosmic Cap, it left his friends doing a lot of walking. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But their afternoon arrival in a remote mountain village had become unexpectedly unusual when the pair was met by a boy named Maximilian. A boy who, as Virgil said, was prophetically interchangeable with the Max they knew so well.

Except that Norman didn't like him. Not one bit.

Right off the bat, something about the kid had rubbed the Guardian the wrong way. Maybe it was Virgil's immediate confusion, the threat that the Cap-Bearer was not, in fact, the true person meant to carry the Cap. In all their years together, Norman could count on one hand the number of times he had known his Lemurian friend to be drastically wrong. This would have been perhaps the most momentous of those times. Could Maximilian be the true Mighty One? And the other, therefore, just…Max?

This insinuation, of course, bothered the Viking, too, and deeply. After all, hadn't the presumptive Mighty One already faced Skullmaster successfully more than once? Saved the world dozens of times? Coped with fear and danger rarely seen by adults, let alone kids? Given up his childhood to answer a call that was by its very nature unfairly heavy on his small shoulders? But his Cap-Bearer, not the pasty version with the accent, had proved himself again and again to be worthy of a hero's mantle and duties. What did some stuck-up Brit have that his Max didn't? But, of course, Virgil argued logic and prophecy, and those were apparently more worthy than Norman's instincts. Well, to each his own – the Viking knew what he thought of things no matter what Virgil said.

Besides the kid's basic attitude and treatment of him, or lack thereof, given that Maximilian had not even looked at Norman with more than a quick and distaining eye, there was something else about him that just didn't feel right. It was far more vague than his usual gut reactions; the Guardian trusted his feelings, extensions of his usual five senses, and when they shouted "wrong wrong wrong" at him, he believed them. The kid may have been smart, and he certainly seemed happy to talk on Virgil's level, but there was something, something intangible, that he didn't have. The Viking could no more have identified it than he could have counted the stars in the sky, but that didn't make it any less true.

And then his Max had arrived.

Contrary to his appearance, Norman was not a brainless ox with a sword. He had had ten-thousand years of painful humanity to harden him, certainly, but his heart was still admirably sized and he knew it. And his heart had recognized his Cap-Bearer the day the boy slid from a portal and landed face-down in the dirt at his feet. It was, he figured, probably something to do with the Oath Virgil had made him swear eons ago. Norman knew he was named in the same prophecy that called Mighty Max, and he would be very surprised indeed if that didn't also mean he was inevitably bound to the Cap-Bearer. The Cap-Bearer; in his mind, there was no "whichever boy he is" qualifier. There was the Mighty One, and there was some new imposter trying to take his boy away. He had known the Cap-Bearer on sight, and with the two boys standing side by side, he knew it again.

But he still had to play by Virgil's rules. Mostly.

Truth be told, the Guardian didn't care that his Lemurian friend was wise and knew practically everything, not if Virgil obviously didn't know this most simple thing about their young charge. But he had learned through the many, many years shared between them that Virgil could be a downright pain in the neck if ignored or disobeyed, and he held a grudge. Norman had faith that his boy would prove himself to Virgil's satisfaction one way or another, and so, to appease the fowl, he stayed out of it. Or, he tried to.

When his Max had jumped into an unsteady house to rescue what sounded like a baby, Norman had found himself moving without conscious thought. He caught the support beam beneath the cottage and held it until his boy was safe, and endured Virgil's criticism in silence. Inwardly, he was fiercely annoyed. Not only did the Lemurian appear to prefer this new Max over their own, not only was he completely unconcerned for the boys' safety overall, but he was actually upset with Norman for doing his job! Virgil might have been comfortable trusting to fate and prophecy and destiny that the boy meant to defeat Skullmaster would come out of these "tests" unharmed, but Norman felt differently. After all, if that were the case, a Guardian would never have been needed in the first place. The very point of his existence was to protect the Cap-Bearer. From anything. Including, potentially, Virgil's odd ideas about what constituted a fair trial. Norman had spent thousands of years sitting through lectures from the Lemurian about how his Oath was binding and absolute – he must protect the Mighty One at all costs, no matter his personal feelings or the circumstances at hand – and suddenly it was as if Virgil wanted him to forget all that.

Never. Even if the Oath meant he had to protect the Mighty One from the ancient fowl himself.

So he made up his mind to ignore Virgil whenever it seemed prudent, just to be certain his Cap-Bearer, and, all right, the other kid, were safe. Of course, he had thousands of years of experience ignoring the Lemurian, so it really wasn't anything new.

Later, in the ice cave, it was only because his own boy did need to prove himself to the fowl that Norman let Virgil drag him through the portal. He knew, though, that he'd be cursing himself for weeks for that poor decision. The tattered coat that had floated down from the portal, followed by a very angry Yeti, had very nearly unhinged the little control Norman had over his rage. It was only the fact that he didn't know who to avenge Max upon that had held him still in his fury for the first moments of shock. The way he saw it, everyone was to blame: the Yeti for hurting his boy, Virgil for being too wrapped up in prophecy to notice his boy's safety, the kid for daring to try to replace his boy, and himself for allowing it to happen. Virgil's grief was quicker, though, and if that laughing voice hadn't floated from behind the Yeti, clinging to its back with a wry grin and eyes alight with adrenaline, the Guardian would not have trusted himself to remain near anyone he didn't want dismembered. Even so, he still disobeyed Virgil and tripped the monster while his Max continued to deal with it and the other kid stood by and watched. It wasn't Norman's fault; he was just doing his duty as Guardian. The rest was Virgil's problem, as far as he was concerned.

Through the course of the long night that followed, Norman had plenty of time to think. He hadn't missed that his Max didn't take the Cap back from Maximilian after the cave, nor that Virgil was suddenly far more subdued than he had been. The Viking could see in his boy the doubt that had taken root, although it had not yet eliminated the stung pride that made him fight for his destiny, and it bothered him. Curse Virgil for introducing such worry when his Max was just beginning to come to terms with his destiny! And the Lemurian knew it – Norman could see it in his face. While the boys slept, Virgil ran calculation after calculation, again and again, becoming more and more agitated with each repetition. It seemed to occur to him for the first time the consequences of the "tests" he had been setting the boys. Not only could one of them get hurt, or worse, but if the boy they had called Mighty One for so long were, in fact, the true Mighty One, they ran the risk of having shattered his confidence anyway, effectively defeating him even if he won.

"You want it to be him, don't you?" Virgil asked accusingly in the dead of the night while Norman kept watch. Obviously the Lemurian had noticed that the Viking preferred to sit where he could see his boy and any potential threats, ignoring Maximilian almost entirely.

"Don't you?" he returned with a touch of heat.

"I…don't know. We must serve the true Mighty One, whoever he is."

"Well, watch it," Norman felt himself snapping at the fowl in sheer defensiveness. "Because it won't do any good to figure out which one's the real Mighty One if you've gotten him killed. Or made him not trust you anymore," he added, as if an afterthought. Which it wasn't. It was something that his Max would never say to his mentor, his friend, so the Guardian took it upon himself to say it on his behalf. Virgil recoiled from the words as if stung, and they passed the rest of the night in silence.

And when the attack came, Norman's mind had been made up, if it hadn't been months before. He faced down the lizard-men at Skullmaster's command without fear, but he was just as glad to hear his boy calling him to protect the Arcana. Of course, without Virgil to point out what a stupid plan it was for Max to go swinging down onto Skullmaster like a flea trying to knock over a bull, he followed the unspoken, and obviously not-well-thought-out tactic, thus landing his boy firmly in Skullmaster's grip. He endured his boy being held hostage only out of desperation, and he fumed at everybody in the vicinity, not including Max, for putting them all in such a position.

And when Skullmaster revealed that Maximilian was a plant, a slave, and in no way the true Mighty One, he rejoiced. The prospect of being Guardian to that kid had been hanging over him, though he knew in his heart that his loyalty to his Max would never change, but this pronouncement warmed him entirely. He had been right, his heart had known what Virgil's brain hadn't – their boy, and only their boy, was forever their Cap-Bearer. Now, if only he could get him away from the evil that threatened him.

But Mighty Max was two steps ahead, as always. And a well-timed Yeti attack certainly caught Skullmaster and Warmonger by surprise. The down-side of which was that the Mighty One himself ended up alone with the Yeti in a closed room. Again, the Guardian's blood boiled. He heard himself growling a threat, but it lacked the fire of his barely-contained rage. If that Yeti had harmed his boy, if he had failed after letting Virgil talk him into not believing his own heart, if their boy was lost, everything in the world would suffer. Norman knew he was a berserker when the Cap-Bearer was in danger; now he also knew it was Max, not the Cap, that he would die to protect.

Or something else would die if he had failed.

And then the door opened upon the Mighty One, unscathed, outwardly confident once more. After that, it was merely tackling Maximilian and reclaiming the Cap, and while the Guardian could easily have done it for him, he thought Max might want the chance to regain some of his own. When he re-donned the Cap, the warmth and certainty that washed into his bright eyes was all the evidence Norman would ever need of who he really was meant to become. Virgil may have squawked about the Arcana having been damaged in the confrontation, but the Guardian barely cared. After all, as the Cap-Bearer said, better in pieces than in Skullmaster's hands. And, all things considered, they had not lost as much as they could have in this particular instance: their boy was unharmed, Skullmaster lacked the most dangerous spells, and the Cap was back where it belonged.

But two days later, walking along a country road somewhere in Greece on their way to the train that would connect with their flight to the next adventure, Virgil finally spoke of it. Finally spoke at all, actually. For since they had seen the Mighty One safely home, the Lemurian had not uttered a single word besides his "hmph"-ing. In spite of Norman's attempts to goad him into saying anything, period.

"Did you really know it was him all along?"

"Yes." The Guardian felt the perverse joy of being right rumble through his chest.

"How? How could you be so sure when I wasn't?" he asked. The question had no fire, but it was also not the usual tone of Virgil's questions. Where he would normally have been curious, if a bit offended at his error, this sounded discontent. Ashamed.

"I just knew. And I told you so. Not anybody's fault but your own that you didn't listen." There would be time for sympathy later – now, Norman needed to take what little revenge his boy deserved for being so doubted by the teacher he had trusted. The Guardian, was, after all, still a barbarian, and proud of it.

"Do you think the Mighty One doesn't trust me anymore?"

Norman weighed the question, considered what he knew about his boy and what the Cap-Bearer might be thinking. Actually, he made a mental note to try to ask the boy about it anyway – he wanted to be sure Mighty Max knew he was still safe with them both. That they believed in him, would stand with him to the end. But none of this helped Virgil, and his silence, the fact that he didn't have an answer for the Lemurian that would ease his guilt, seemed to be answer enough. Virgil sighed and kept walking, deep in thought. The Guardian took a breath to say something, then decided against it. Probably better to wait until he knew what Virgil needed to hear and what was true. In the meantime, the Guardian could content himself with being right. After all, there were worse ways this could have ended than feelings being hurt. Hearts, even young ones, could be mended.

They still had their Mighty One. Norman's boy was safe. And that was all that mattered.