A small boy sat in an alleyway, sniffling slightly as he rubbed his nose that was agitated from him crying. It was in the middle of the night, and a storm was raging on much too violently for the small box he sat in to handle for much longer. He was crying- it was December and honestly it was a miracle it was only raining and not snowing or something worse; but God was it cold. Too cold for the small boy to be out here with nothing but a box and tattered clothes more fit for a nice day at the beach. Wiping away his tears with the palm of his hand he scooted forward, almost out of the shelter of his makeshift home, and grabbed a small upside down bucket nearby with a stick on it. A particularly loud crash of thunder caused him to squeak and hug the bucket to himself for a moment. He slowly let go of it with a shiver, and then experimentally tapped the plastic with the stick. When he was scared or needed a distraction from the hunger or cold he would always tap a little rhythm out on makeshift drum until he forgot about the world outside of the dark, dirty little path that he had come to know as home the past few days. Done with 'warming up' (which was just him tapping repeatedly with no real beat to it) he began to pound out the familiar tune that he had grown used to playing; little drummer boy. Being only about 12 he didn't really notice the irony in that, and therefore put no second thought into it. It was just a simple song; easy enough for someone like him with nothing to play.
Down at the end of the alley, walking along the sidewalk with a bag of groceries from the super market that was right there, was a man. Seeing him on the street you'd probably be a bit weirded out, he had a drawn on mustache (With sharpie too, that just makes it worse!) and a black tooth. (Was that sharpie as well?) His original intentions were 1.) go to store, pick up what was on the shopping list and then 2.) go back home with nothing more and nothing less, but, unfortunately, it appeared fate might have had a different plan for him as he heard a noise coming from the dark street in between the market he had come from and the safety of returning home. Maybe if it wouldn't had been constant, or if it wasn't raining or so cold he wouldn't have gone down there. But it was, and he did.
And honestly? That man would never regret the decision one moment in his life.
The noise got louder the closer he got the dumpster near the exit of the alley, and soon the man realized that, hey!, don't I know that song? The realization soon dawned on him that, yeah man you know that song it's a crude rendition of some Christmas song. However along with that realization came that one that old him someone was playing out here.
"It must be a homeless thug, it's better I just turn back." The man attempted to rationalize to himself in a quiet mutter, but never really being one to give up the chance at an adventure he ventured forward more. "This is a terrible ideeeeaaa..." He sung to himself very quietly, noticing the noise had stopped and that quick little sounds of someone scrambling replaced it for a few seconds.
Finally able to see behind the dumpster the man realized that, God it was a kid. A tiny little thing staring up at him nervously with wide eyes. The man felt sick for a moment when he saw how little clothes he was wearing in the cold like this.
"Hey little homie..." He quietly said, crouching down with his bag. "What are you doing out here all alone?"
The boy just continued to stare up at him, eyes possibly even wider as it darted from the mans face to the top of an apple coming from his sack. The adult, a little less quickly than he would have liked, made another realization that night. This kid must be hungry.
Gently offering out the bag of food, the man was honestly surprised to see (errrr, not see?) the kid grab the apple on top and begin eating it almost as fast as a blink of the eye.
Rather than begin to question what had just happened, he just smiled down at the boy as normally and as friendly as possible, and introduced himself. "I'm the Commander."
The boy didn't reply, and instead blinked owlishly up at him with the almost finished apple in his hand.
"Do you need a place to sleep tonight little buddy?"
At some point on the short journey home, the boy had fallen asleep on the Commander's back. (He was unsurprisingly light, and he honestly had no problem in slinging him over his shoulder and giving him a piggy back ride all the way to where he was living)
The Commander opened the door to his house, which was more like an RV (The boy would later find out he called it the 'battletram') and made a beeline to the living room, gently laying the small child on the couch and tossing a blanket over him and turned around to come face to face with an opening door.
"Hello Commander." The voice in the doorway greeted. A slightly taller man stood there, wearing a white lab coat and holding some kind of cup in his silver, robotic hand.
"Hey there Jimmy." The Commander responded, with an obvious 'I am hiding someone right behind me please don't look for the love of all that is holy' look plastered on his face.
The robot raised his eyebrow, moving the same black mask that both he and the Commander donned on their faces. "What's behind you?"
"The couch."
"What's on the couch?"
"A blanket."
Unfortunately for the Commander (Who was so obviously about to win the debate too!) the second he responded was also the second a sleepy groan came from behind him, and the blanket moved to reveal that a person was what was behind him. (In the Commander's defense, a couch AND blanket were also back there. No one can call him a liar about it that's for sure.)
With a look of something similar to shock, Jimmy looked back at the now rather guilty faced Bat Commander. "Commander, is that a child?"
"Maybe." Came the response.
"Did you really think you could fool me by putting a blanket over it?"
"Hey now-! It would have worked if he wouldn't have moved it! I had you on the ropes and was just about to win too..." The Commander finished in a grumble, shooting a dirty look to the boy behind him.
"Commander- do you even know how to take care of a child? There's no way we can keep him he isn't a pet." Agh, there Jimmy went being the ever present voice of reason.
The Commander stared hard for a moment, the room full of silence. And then, solemnly, in a voice that he rarely used; he spoke. "No. I don't know how to raise a kid. But I do know he's an Aquabat now, and we have to take care of him."
Jimmy didn't say anything about it after that.
Surprisingly, the kid was a pretty good drummer once he got a hold of a real kit. His rhythm was on point and his beats were usually pretty good too. The raw talent was there that was for sure, but he wasn't quit...refined yet. But wasn't a real problem; the band had a drummer that could teach him just fine.
What the REAL problem was, was his teeth. They looked like a horrible mess, and at some point while laying in bed together Jimmy had whispered about him needing braces to the commander. Unfortunately, as he so often was, he was right.
They'd only had the kid for a few days, still a shy little thing they still didn't know the name of, and already such an expensive problem was rearing its big ugly head at them.
"We'll make it work." Had been the Commander's firm reply to it. They weren't exactly rich, but they'd make it work. Somehow.
Speaking of making things work, the kid turned out to be a pretty big help around the battletram. Jimmy thought it was nice to have someone to help clean up (the Commander wasn't exactly a SLOB, but he wasn't very clean either.) and as an added bonus he seemed pretty health conscious too. (This was something the Commander was not very pleased with, upset to discover even with a kid he had to eat a lot of candy by himself. "WHERE DID I GO WRONG?!" He would shout each time the child turned down any and all sweets.) All in all between cleaning, helping with food shopping, and even just moving small things for the band the kid was a great help and did a lot more work than most people at his age could admit to.
Crash, a large man that seemed to be more of a child than even the kid was, kind of liked having the boy around. They'd play games together like tag ("Isn't he going a little fast?" Jimmy would always ask, only to get his question answered with "It's probably because he eats so much healthy food.") and hide and seek (Everytime the commander would freak out a little, worried that the kid had gotten lost or hurt. Needless to say, they didn't play that game very often.).
Honestly, the kid seemed to like Crash the most; which one day was justified when Crash came into the room with Jimmy and the Commander only to say "His name's Ricky."
That night the Commander would stay up in bed, complaining to his robot companion about how messed up that seemed. "We're like, his mom and dad! Why didn't he tell us his name first?"
And with a quiet, "sh", Jimmy kissed the commander on the cheek. "He'll tell us when hes ready."
Luckily for them, it only took about a day until Ricky was ready to tell them his name himself. ("You promised you wouldn't cry." Jimmy laughed as he watched the bat commander get down on his knees and throw his arms around the small boy, tears streaming almost amusingly down his face.)
After that, the boy seemed a lot more eager to do everything and anything. He was more bouncy and happy and would do any task they asked with a energetic "I'm on it!"