When Gwen was two, she ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. Her face was smeared with the remains of a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.
"Daddy! Daddy! Play with me!" And he twirled with her around the room, matching her leaps and speed until they both collapsed laughing and out of breath.
When she was three, he found that his powers were well-suited for keeping up with a rambunctious toddler who could go for hours. They played Tag and Hide and Seek and he always let her win. She liked to jump out at him from hiding places, yelling "Boo!" while he pretended to be scared.
One day, she jumped out and he let her tackle him. She tickled him until he was gasping for breath with laughter. "Uncle! Uncle!" She stared at him strangely.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I give up. It's just a rule that if someone says that, you have to stop what you're doing."
"But you told me rules were meant to be broken."
"So they are!" And jumping up, he pretended to be a dinosaur and chased a giggling, shrieking Gwen around the house.
When she was four, she listened with solemn, wide-eyed attentiveness as he told her that she was a mighty ruler in exile but she mustn't tell anyone. Because keeping secrets was another sort of game and if she could win that game, she'd grow up to be the queen she was destined to be.
When she was five, he escorted her to her first day of kindergarten and admonished her not to tell the other kids that she was really secret royalty but not to let them push her around either. She looked up at him with brown eyes that practically glowed with happiness.
"Silly daddy! I know how to keep secrets. Love you."
And then she'd let go of his hand and rushed off with the other kids and he beamed with pride. No crying for his little girl or him. This was just the first step back on her way to the top.
When she was six, she presented him with a hand-drawn picture for his birthday. It showed a reasonable representation of him holding up a lop-sided globe. At the bottom was the title, "World's Best Daddy."
When his daughter was eight, he bought her an Erector set for her birthday. Her face lit up and she spent the better part of the day building various models with the pieces. Her powers wouldn't return until puberty but in her hands, the metal pieces could become anything she imagined. His heart soared for his beautiful, talented little girl until the happiness made him start to dance around the room, clapping his hands for joy. Gwen promptly dropped the pieces and ran to join him in dancing to the point of contented exhaustion.
For her tenth birthday, he gave her Sue Tenny's diary among all the other presents. It was locked with some unique contraption of Sue's and he'd never read it. But Gwen figured it out in minutes. Smiling, she hugged the unlocked diary to herself, thanked him, and then sat down and began to read.
At the age of eleven, she asked to see the secret hideout Royal Pain had built to hold all her inventions. He brought her down to the basement and showed her the hidden entrance. Inside, she walked around the room slowly, touching many of the weapons and technological marvels lightly. Her face was blank as she looked up at him and asked him to show her his costume.
So he donned the costume of Stitches and he danced about for her, his jester's cap bobbing in his face. He teased her in Stitches odd voice, not his normal one. She watched all of this impassively and then walked out without a word. He took the cap off and wondered what he'd done wrong.
By the time she was twelve, he was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to be Royal Pain again. She never talked about her destiny or any evil plans. She barely talked to him at all and spent much of her time out with friends. She was much more socially successful than Sue Tenny had been. Sue had been cold, withdrawn, and kept to herself. Gwen was confident and popular. Her teachers sent home notes praising her intelligence, work ethic, and leadership qualities.
Maybe he'd done something wrong in raising her because she seemed more in line to become a politician than an evil genius. Perhaps he should have been sterner with her growing up but it wasn't in his nature to be a disciplinarian. He preferred to have fun. There was also the thought that if she did become Royal Pain, she might take revenge on him for any perceived slight as a child.
"Oh 'Daddy'. Remember when I wanted that Princess Barbie for Christmas and you didn't get it for me?" Bam! Fist-to-the-face time. No, it was easier and safer just to indulge her every whim.
On her thirteenth birthday, he arrived home with her cake and walked into the kitchen to find her standing in the middle of the room staring at her hands. She slowly raised her head and looked at him with a completely overwhelmed expression. Before he could even ask what was wrong, every appliance in the room turned on. The blender blades whirled around while the toaster popped up and down. Electricity crackled out of every outlet and the clock hands began spinning in a blur. He dropped the cake and clapped his hands in glee.
"Daddy's little girl has her powers back! Oh, I'm so happy for you, princess." His first indication that he'd said something wrong was when her expression changed from fear to fury. She lunged forward and wrapped a hand around his throat, slamming him back against the wall. Stitches stared at her in utter shock, for once without words.
"I'm not your little girl! You're not my father! This is all a farce. Now that I have my powers back, there will be no 'princess' or 'cupcake' or 'daddy's little girl.' There's only Royal Pain. But you, Stitches, can call me master. You will do what I say when I say it and I don't want to listen to any of your babbling." Her hand tightened on his throat to the point where he could barely breathe. "Say it and I'll let you go."
"Please,...master, I..." That evidently wasn't what she wanted to hear and her scowl deepened. He finally realized what she wanted him to say. It was so easy to fall back into the role of the subservient again. "Uncle! Uncle!"
The hand was removed from his throat and he shuddered and looked up at her. Thirteen years as Gwen were gone. He only saw Royal Pain staring back at him now. Still, that meant he'd succeeded in mentally rebuilding her as a supervillain and despite his confusion, he couldn't help but giggle just a little. She glared at him but made no move to resume the abuse.
"In public, we will still maintain this charade of a family. But in private, I'm in control. Understood?" He nodded and giggled nervously again. "I'm going to get the Pacifier back but it will take time. I need to make my plan foolproof this time. The Commander and Jetstream will pay for the hell they put me through." Mentally he winced at hearing her childhood with him described as a "hell" but he knew better than to show it.
"Why don't you just build another one, prin...errr, Master?"
"Fool! Some of the components in it are unique. I had to steal some of the rarest items on Earth to make it. There's no way to duplicate it. I have to have it back. My first step is to be accepted to Sky High. Then in a few years, everything will be in place and I will be victorious." She gave him a look of disdain.
"I suppose I should thank you for helping me regain all that I'd lost. I never would have remembered so much of my past if not for you and your stories. As a reward, you get to live. But don't think of crossing me, Stitches."
Crossing her? Didn't she realize that everything he'd done for the past thirteen years had been geared towards this moment? It was almost funny how much effort he'd put in all this time only for her to be clueless as to his true intentions. He giggled again.
It often was the oddest things that struck him as being funny. So people didn't understand why he laughed when he did and wrote him off as a lunatic. Even Gwen didn't understand but that was okay. As long as he understood her, then it would work out in the end. He would be her loyal sidekick no matter what.
It was child's play for Gwen to get into Sky High's records and alter it so that they sent her an invitation to enter the school. There were so many Heroes and Hero Support out there, who bothered to check the background of one girl? Everything was so much easier for Gwen then it had ever been for Sue. The Internet and the leaps and bounds in technology gave her almost unlimited access to anywhere and anything in the world.
She'd told Stitches that her plan was to gain admittance to Sky High, be accepted by everyone there and find a way to get revenge on the Commander and Jetstream. She was determined to use the Pacifier on them and go ahead with her original plan. It might take years but she was patient.
Privately, he thought it a silly plan. She could take over the world so easily now. Why bother with all that nonsense about raising babies as villains? Just destroy the Heroes and be done with it. But he knew better than to voice any such doubts.
Gwen was far more volatile than Sue had ever been. Sue had only hit him when he wouldn't listen. Gwen seemed to enjoy choking him at the slightest provocation. If he were a different person, he might have learned to keep quiet but he couldn't help the unbridled enthusiasm, the fawning remarks that sometimes came out more sarcastically than he'd intended, or the thousand little mannerisms that had been so endearing to Gwen when she was younger. So he learned to live with her abuse and if he had to say "Uncle!" at least once a day, it would be worth it when she succeeded.
Gwen made Hero this time and was privately smug about it. She made her first recruit in Penny Sanders, a snobby girl who could create multiple copies of herself. Gwen Grayson excelled at all of her classes at Sky High. The teachers praised her, trusted her, and gave her responsibilities that only made it easier for her to put portions of her plan into motion when the time came.
Gwen had to be careful and she only managed to make two more recruits over the next couple of years. Stitches thought that Speed and Lash were too undisciplined to be of any use, powerful as they were. But beggars couldn't be choosers. She had to be sure the people she chose could be trusted with the plan. One wrong word and the whole thing would come crashing down on them.
There were students here and there who Gwen thought might make good recruits. A disgruntled freshman who was angry that his powers of sound duplication relegated him to Hero Support seemed promising but Gwen decided he was all talk and no action. There was a girl who kept to herself and barely spoke to anyone that Gwen was keeping an eye on for a while. It turned out she was merely a telepath who was carrying on lively and inane psychic conversations about shoes with her friends while enjoying the peace and quiet of her own table.
Then there was Warren Peace. He seemed perfect for Gwen's plan. Not only was he powerful but everyone expected him to be a villain anyway. Gwen tried every way she could think of to approach him and get a feel for his intentions in life. But he ignored her every effort and eventually she abandoned him as a lost cause. Stitches privately thought she might be a little afraid of the brooding pyrokinetic but it would have cost him his neck to suggest such an idea. So he just giggled over it in private as Royal Pain made sure her armor could withstand high levels of heat.
In Gwen's senior year, she saw her chance to strike. Will Stronghold, the son of the Commander and Jetstream arrived with the freshman class. She was determined to get to them through their son. It proved pathetically easy to manipulate the boy. A warm smile, a toss of hair, and he was smitten. Stitches didn't like this either, even knowing that Gwen was only using him but he kept that to himself as well.
The night that Will walked Gwen home from his parents house, Stitches came to the door, playing the overprotective father. It wasn't difficult to do since he already disliked the Stronghold boy. Not that the little fool was any threat. He looked flustered and was as eager as a puppy to be polite even in the face of "Mr. Grayson's" cold distrust.
As soon as he closed the door, he broke into a fit of giggles over the ease of the deception and then moved aside for Gwen as she ran out to kiss Will goodbye. That just cemented Stronghold's puppy love and Stitches fell over laughing as he watched the boy knock over a lamp post in his enthusiasm. That earned him a good smack from Gwen but it was worth it. Everything was going according to her plan.
The night of the party, he opened the door and took the Pacifier as Speed shoved it into his hands and zoomed back to the party. He looked at the weapon fondly. It's familiar weight brought back memories of Sue and all her wonderfully twisted plans. What fun they'd had together...
It was only a short time later that he looked out the window to see Gwen walking slowly towards the house. Her head was slightly bowed and she looked stunned. He put the Pacifier down on the coffee table and went hesitantly to meet her. She raised her head and looked at her "father." There was the glint of madness in her eyes and he chose his words very carefully.
"Are you all right, master?"
"In the house. NOW." He nearly backed in through the door, afraid to take his eyes off of his adopted daughter. He'd never seen her like this. Both as Sue and as Gwen, she'd had screaming fits where she'd rant and rage about the Heroes and their hypocritical ways. He'd always known enough to stay out of her way and offer no more than quick agreements to her statements. But this quiet, rage-filled stare was something different and despite the nervous grin he wore, he was secretly very afraid. It was always possible that she might be angry enough to kill him despite his devotion.
He stopped in the living room next to the Pacifier, hoping the sight of it would calm her down. She slammed the front door hard enough to rattle the windows and simply stood there, fists clenched, and breathing deeply. She wasn't even looking at him. Her gaze was fastened on the Pacifier.
"HOW DARE HE? THAT MISERABLE LITTLE BRAT. I'LL MAKE HIM PAY. HOW DARE HE TURN ME DOWN!" Everything electronic in the house began to sizzle. The hands on the mantel clock began to spin wildly, every light in the house flickered, and the T.V. came on, the channels flipping far too fast to even register their images.
Stitches stood perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle until Gwen suddenly slumped to the ground and buried her head in her hands. Everything went still again. Part of him wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her as he'd done when she'd been little but he valued his life too much to risk trying it.
Will had actually dumped Gwen? The boy must be mad. He was lucky that a pretty, smart girl like her would even give him a second look. Of course, she was only using him to get at his parents but he didn't know that. Stitches imagined the look on Stronghold's face when his parents were blasted into infants in front of him and grinned widely. Oh, he'd pay for hurting Stitches little girl, yes he would.
The next day, a poised Gwen held a meeting at the house for her little gang. There was no sign of the crying, angry girl that had come home the night of the party. This was all Royal Pain standing at the front of the room in full armor except for the helmet.
Speed and Lash were sprawled on the couch with their shoes up on the coffee table. Penny sat in Stitches favorite chair while he stood next to Royal Pain in his jester's outfit. The three teens looked bored but he knew they were all afraid of Gwen, at least somewhat. She was ruthless enough to kill any one of them if she thought they'd endanger her plan and they knew it.
"All of you understand the plan. I'm confident that if you all do your part, we'll succeed. Those fools won't know what hit them and then we'll rule the world together."
Tonight, the heroes and their beloved school would fall. Tonight, Royal Pain and Stitches would have their revenge. Tonight was show time.
