All characters © Tiger and Bunny

Summary: Twenty years later, Bunny starts to lose his powers. He visits a retired Kotetsu, who provides some advice.

Die in Harness

It was right before Barnaby Brooks turned forty-four that it happened.

He, like Kotetsu, discovered it at the most inconvenient time; he had a Nintendo pickpocket on his hands—a greasy kid with lots of spunk but no brains who thought he could rob any gaming store he pleased and get away with it. And Barnaby meant greasy in the most literal sense, since the kid was a contortionist NEXT and a pro at slipping through the iron bars of the law. But they had him this time.

Was this how Kotetsu had felt? Barnaby wondered as he unintentionally unearthed the pavement less than a meter from the thief's leg. The power was amazing, thrilling. He heard the beeping of his heart rate accelerate through his suit to a speed that couldn't have been healthy. More pavement went flying. The kid shrieked, scampering out of the way and disappearing into a public alley as fast as his slippery little feet would carry him. Soon after (much too soon), the lights in Barnaby's suit sputtered once and fizzed out. Well, so much for that.

Barnaby tapped his wristband once, deciding to let Blue Rose finish the job for him.

In a somewhat futile gesture, he tried to arrange the pile of rubble that used to be a street so it looked less messy. Soon they'd be calling him the Crusher of Justice. Barnaby shuddered. All in all, he had a lot of thinking to do; some choices to mull over, and his future to decide.

But most importantly, he had a phone call to make.

/

"Three of the nine subspecies of modern tiger have gone extinct," was the first thing Kotetsu said when Barnaby walked in. "The remaining six are classified as endangered."

Barnaby rolled his eyes. "Hello to you too. I don't see you for five months and that's the kind of greeting I get?"

Kotetsu grinned and leaned back against the kotatsu in his dining room. It was only September; too early to use the kotatsu, but the pillows surrounding it proved comfortable nonetheless. "I see you're still wearing the pin," he said brightly, pointing to Barnaby's jacket and effectively diverting the scolding. At this Barnaby smiled a little, rubbing the lines between his eyes that had settled in sometime during the past week since he had called.

"How's Kaede? I never see much of her these days," Kotetsu pouted. "She should at least take some time off to care for her poor old man!"

Barnaby snorted quietly. "You don't look like you need caring for." And it was true. Even approaching sixty, Kotetsu looked good. His hair was still streaked with black, and years of toning muscle had left little to sag. He was wearing a silk Japanese yukata (which Ivan would have undoubtedly gotten a kick out of) tied around with a sash, and his feet were bare.

"Anyway, at the rate she's going she'll be the next King of Heroes," Barnaby added, watching Kotetsu's eyes crinkle up fondly.

"Following in my footsteps, eh? Daddy's so proud! Give her a big hug from ol' tiger when you go back, okay?"

Barnaby didn't answer, instead opting to get himself a mug of tea from the kitchen in the next room. Although he didn't visit often, he had gotten to know his partner's house as well as its owner over the years. Kotetsu was a man of habit, and everything always stayed in the same place.

When he returned to the dining room, Kotetsu had set a bottle of rosé wine on the table, smiling faintly. "Always be prepared," he said as he held up a bottle opener. Barnaby shook his head and set down his tea, knowing by now not to be amazed that Kotetsu still remembered his favorite wine.

Despite the cup of steaming green tea in front of Barnaby, Kotetsu poured two glasses of wine and picked up his, twirling it experimentally. He was more of a beer guy, but visits from "Bunny-chan" always marked special occasions. With a clear, tawny eye he observed Barnaby over his wine glass. "It's scary, right?" he asked quietly. "Are you relieved? Disappointed?"

Barnaby shrugged, sipping his tea. "I'm neither," he replied, to which Kotetsu chuckled.

"Same old Bunny."

"We know more about NEXT powers now," Barnaby went on, "ever since the Ouroboros thing. There are boosters I can take."

Kotetsu raised an eyebrow and stroked the short hair of his beard. "Yeah, but d'you really want to do that? You should just let it run its course naturally."

"And you're as old fashioned as always. There is nothing natural about NEXT powers."

Kotetsu floundered a bit at this, since Barnaby had a point. "Well. Uh, y'know...that..."

Barnaby sighed into the curling white steam of his tea, his glasses fogging up momentarily. He had to remind himself that Kotetsu had gone through most of what he was now going through alone (although that had been the idiot's own choice). Barnaby knew he was lucky enough to have Kotetsu, and that Kotetsu was there in a way that Barnaby had not been twenty years ago.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'm not going to take them."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kotetsu asked, eyeing Barnaby in that way of his that made you think he could sometimes see everything. Old tomcat's eyes. "That's why you called, right?"

"I suppose," Barnaby replied, sighing again and letting his eyes rest on a long shikishi by the window. "I need to start thinking about what to do now."

"I had a friend who told me the exact same thing, long ago," Kotetsu reminisced. "But remember Bunny, you can still be a Hero even if you lose your powers. Look at how long Saito-san kept modifying my suit! I was like Batman or something! But seriously," his expression hardened, "it's not even about the suit or the powers. It's about what's in here." He tapped his temple. "And in here." He tapped his chest.

Barnaby resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. "I appreciate the corniness, Kotetsu-san, but what about the more fundamental things?"

"If you're worried about the money, you should know that HeroTV financially supports you for life," Kotetsu replied. "It's one of the extra perks." Looking at that fine silk yukata, Barnaby silently agreed.

"You can always keep up with the news, provide information to our sponsors, work with the scientists, even fall back on a hobby," Kotetsu went on, stretching languidly and fluffing the kotatsu's pillows with his toes. His hair, unfettered by the hat he usually wore, fell comfortably around his face. "Heck, I didn't even know I could write until I was fifty. Or teach, for that matter."

"You never struck me as good with words," Barnaby agreed with a little half-smile. But then again, Kotetsu always managed to surprise him.

"Hey now," Kotetsu pouted. He sat up and gulped down a good third of his wine. "You never know what you can do until you try," he added after swallowing. "You know what the kids at the Academy call me? Professor Kaburagi, hah! Can you imagine?"

"Isn't that only because you got too many inappropriate jokes about 'One Minute Wild Tiger'?"

Kotetsu laughed. "Keep going to the very end—die in harness, I say. But back to you, Bunny. How are you feeling?" He had learned to be more patient over the years; even though Barnaby had opened like a flower to the spring air, it could still be like pulling teeth at times to wrench answers out of him.

Barnaby gave another shrug. "Honestly, I don't know," he replied. "But do I know we have the Second Leagues and the next generation to rely on. I suppose I'm a little nervous, now that I'll have to start finding different ways to help the people. I will have to try not to be a liability—" Kotetsu suddenly snorted, half-choking on his wine.

"Liability?" Kotetsu echoed, still laughing. "You kidding me, Bunny?"

Barnaby looked at his partner pointedly. "I'm serious, Kotetsu-san." He frowned, pushing his spectacles farther up his nose. "What are you thinking?"

Now it was Kotetsu's turn to stare. His expression was one he had unconsciously picked up from Barnaby over the years, and seeing it mirrored on Kotetsu made Barnaby feel a little unsettled. "If you really want an honest answer," Kotetsu began, "I think you're an amazing person, with or without your powers. That's the fact of it."

"Can you please not say such embarrassing things?"

"It's true, it's true," Kotetsu protested as he picked absently at a crease in his yukata. "You'd do just fine even if you weren't a NEXT. You're smart, practical, dedicated..." His expression turned sly. "Although I can still out-drink you any day of the week."

"Don't remind me." Bunny rubbed his forehead, groaning, although he felt strangely flattered.

"You also made a good point back there," Kotetsu added. "Our Heroes are stronger than ever. We have our children: Kaede, what's the old mayor's—oh yeah, Sammy, and all the others, y'know? We can trust them to take good care of us. Don't run away from losing your powers, Bunny. Embrace it."

Barnaby sat in thought for a moment. The afternoon sun trickling in through the sliding door in topaz rays cast reflections on his glasses. "What did you do?" he asked finally.

"You know what I did."

"I know what you did after two months of hiding it," Barnaby retorted.

Kotetsu sighed, twirling his now-empty glass of wine. "Don't do what I did," he said. His words were tinctured with regret, the shamefulness of it almost dripping onto the table. "I was terrified, so I just acted like nothing was wrong. Everybody simply thought I pretended to power down early so they could take the credit. Nobody asked, so I never told." Barnaby felt a dull pang of guilt at this, a little twinge exhumed despite having been buried under the decades.

"The feeling that I wouldn't be able to save people any more was the worst feeling in the world," Kotetsu went on. "The thought of becoming a paper tiger frightened me. What could I be if I couldn't be a Hero? I wasn't good at anything else besides saving people and breaking public property..."

Kotetsu spoke for a little while longer. His sentences were punctuated by the occasional sips of rosé wine, and once he'd downed his glass he moved on to Barnaby's. Barnaby found that every word made him feel a little lighter inside. It was a slow, pleasantly lifting sensation that Kotetsu probably didn't even know he was generating. Barnaby finished his tea, listening, glad he had come out to the countryside after all. It didn't occur to him that he was absently fingering the pin on his jacket lapel as Kotetsu spoke.

As Barnaby washed his cup in the kitchen sink and gathered his things, Kotetsu was still talking. "Back then, Kaede was finally starting to respect me, you and I were making a great team, business was good, and I couldn't bear the thought of letting anyone down."

With a twist Barnaby turned off the faucet and dried his cup off with a towel. "So?" he pushed. "What finally changed your mind?"

"Nothing!" Kotetsu said happily, looking past the dining room to the open sliding door. The autumn leaves drifted down from the trees in slow showers of reds and oranges. A few of them breezed into the room, left behind by the passing wind. "Old tigers, us, we never go extinct. We're the King of Beasts, after all."

"...meaning?"

Kotetsu broke into a grin. "Meaning I simply realized something that I had known all along: powers don't make a Hero."

end.

Author's note: Thanks for reading! I'd been wanting to do a piece like this for some time, but I decided to wait until T&B ended. I incorporated a lot of personal fandom theories (I'm not much for those usually, but I have a strong prediction that it was Ouroboros who created the NEXT) such as Kaede and Sam becoming Heroes, Kotetsu settling down and teaching at Hero Academy, etc. It was difficult to write a future piece when we still don't know much, but I had fun with this.