August, NC 1969, Stern Bild
"Four unknown heroes have suddenly appeared! They appear to be in the middle of combat- they appear to be fighting each other! We can identify Frozone, and that seems to be Mr. Incredible with him. It appears that one of these individuals is not actually a hero, but a criminal these heroes are trying to apprehend- and meanwhile Wild Tiger has just broken through a brick wall with the last civilians from the building damaged in the blast! The third hero from the group that mysteriously appeared has now been identified as Apogee! Apogee is a former member of the recently disbanded- we've just been informed that the criminal in question is an individual using the alias Negatide. We don't know who that is! The building has now collapsed thanks to Negatide being punched into it! It's a good thing all the civilians have been cleared out of the area! And now the Purple Panther and Wild Tiger are attempting to help apprehend this Negatide! Wild Tiger has forty seconds left of his power!"
Kotetsu could really do without the loud, extremely enthusiastic commentary right in his ear - the headset was a new and unwelcome development, and the announcer kind of sounded like he was going to have a stroke from all the excitement - but the countdown part was helpful. Negatide, huh? Like the guy was trying to mimic heroes or something.
"Where'd you find this guy?" he shouted to Frozone, swinging from the ice bridge to a girder.
"Municiberg! Don't ask me how we got here. You got much time left?"
"Not much, so I need to make this count."
"Get over here, I'll get you closer."
This ice-surfing thing was pretty cool, really, but there wasn't much time to enjoy it - they were closing in on Negatide, who was wearing a black-and-white suit with some kind of fin on the back like he thought he was a penguin-shark or a weird-looking orca, and seemed to be grappling with Mr. Incredible - and Kotetsu fired right past him, zipped into easy range of him, and got a forearm around his throat. And then he yelped as something really, really hot seemed to explode in his vicinity, and then the Panther landed on the front of Negatide as well.
"See, I didn't even know he teleported," Lucius was explaining, in the locker room of the Apollon training center. They'd dressed the visiting heroes in whatever promotional tee-shirts and track suits would fit them; Bob was dressed head-to-toe in Odysseus apparel because they went up to XXXL, since their current hero, the Cobalt Commando, was another massive man. Apogee (someone had called her Carol, Kotetsu thought) had selected Apollon and Helios because of the sun links, and Lucius had blue Top Mag gear, to Kotetsu's secret delight.
"I knew he teleported, but I didn't know he had this kind of range," Mr. Incredible said. "No wonder he's been so hard to track down."
"You get a lot of these crooks with fancy names and costumes?" Kotetsu asked. "I can kind of see why they'd do it, but you'd think they'd want to be totally anonymous, not just keep their real names secret."
"We're getting more and more," Mr. Incredible said. "It is pretty weird, when you think about it. Bomb Voyage, Baron von Ruthless, Sister Euthanasia, Dr. Chemoblood..."
"Looks kind of like you have a sunburn," Frozone said to Kotetsu. "Should've warned you about Apogee."
"Nah, there wasn't much time. I'll live, and my hat'll cover it up some." He hoped it'd fade soon; he had an unburned area exactly the shape of his cowl. He settled the hat on his head, pulling it down over his forehead, and wandered over to a mirror to check the effect. "Dr. Chemoblood sounds creepy. Does he bleed on people?"
"You'd think," Frozone said. "He's actually kind of like a werewolf, he gets all hairy and his strength increases."
"Like a hairy verison of me!"
"Yeah, but I wasn't gonna say it. He does glow in the dark. I guess that's why he picked the name."
"Doesn't seem like a very good idea to become a crook, though. 'Hey, here I am!'"
"Oh boys..." a feminine voice trilled through the locker room. "Is everyone decent in here?"
"Come on in, Fire Emblem," Kotetsu called out.
"That wasn't really an answer," Fire Emblem said, but that didn't stop him from strolling into the middle of the room. "Oh. I see it would have been a yes."
"Sorry," Kotetsu said cheerfully.
"The car's here to take our guests to the airport, unless we can persuade them to stay..."
"Nah, I'm ready to go," Lucius said. "Bob?"
"You go on ahead. I'll be right out."
"Make sure Fire Emblem keeps his hands where you can see 'em," Kotetsu suggested.
"Do I want to know why?"
"You're going to give me a bad reputation, Tiger," Fire Emblem pouted, before he followed Frozone out. Kotetsu listened for any yelling, but if Fire Emblem got all gropey, it was after the door closed.
"What's he do, exactly?"
"He has fire powers. Oh, you meant - he's kinda handsy," Kotetsu said, settling back down on a bench and stretching his legs out in front of him. "So what's up? Did you need something to take with you for the trip?"
"No, not that, um... how'd you propose to Tomoe?"
"Oh man, you're going for it? Congratulations!"
"She hasn't said yes yet! I haven't even asked yet!"
"Well, you guys have been dating for like a year, right? And working together before that. You should know pretty well how it's gonna go."
"I guess so, but I still want to do this right. And she could always just say no. She's always talking about how much she likes her independence, she wasn't dating anybody at all for quite a while... I mean, she might want to stay together without getting married."
"Has she said that? Have you dropped any hints? You know, 'if we get married,' that kind of thing?"
"Sometimes, yeah. She's been okay with it. Really okay with it, actually." He got kind of a silly grin on his face, then he snapped back to reality. "No, I want to propose, I just get stuck on the details. If you're supposed to surprise her with a ring, how do you make sure it fits? Or that she likes it? And if you get her ring size and take her shopping for one she likes, it's not exactly a surprise, right?"
"She is Elastigirl. Her ring size could change, right?"
"She's Elastigirl, not Play-doh Girl. It'd just be like squeezing a tight ring onto anybody else, it's just you can squeeze a smaller one onto her."
"Okay, so much for that. I dunno what to tell you. I proposed to Tomoe by asking 'so when do you want to get married?'"
"...huh," Bob said.
"It worked?" Kotetsu said. "Not much help with the way you want to do it, though."
May, NC 1970, Stern Bild
"Welcome back, princess!" Kotetsu cooed, accepting his squealing daughter from Tomoe. "And queen," he added, kissing his wife.
"The princess was a champ on the plane," Tomoe said, shifting her carryon to her other shoulder. "Totally made up for the flight out, if you ask me. Maybe not if you ask the other people who were on the flight out. I hope you parked close, because I cannot wait to tell you all about the wedding."
"Wow. That good, or that bad?"
"That... incredible?" She snickered as he groaned at the pun. "Let's go. I'll tell you all about it in the car."
"So Bob was late," she said, twisting around in her seat to reunite Kaede with a thrown toy, as Kotetsu maneuvered through the parking garage. "Not ceremony-cancelingly late, but noticeably late. Helen told me at the reception they'd both been out hero-ing most of the evening, and it turns out Bob totally lost track of time, or maybe forgot what day it was. Did you hear on the news about him destroying some train tracks, wrecking the train to stop it...?"
"Oh yeah. I was so proud."
"I told him you would be! That was the night of the wedding."
Kotetsu whistled. "That's my idea of a bachelor party."
"The day of? Shouldn't it be the night before?"
"Close enough. But look at all the lives he saved! Can you think of a better way to get ready for getting married?"
Tomoe just smiled fondly. "I think you're an influence on him."
"A bad influence? I'm not so sure. I mean, he got started three years before I did."
"I'm not sure. Just an influence."
September, NC 1970, Stern Bild
"You are a terrible influence on him," Helen said, laughing.
"I didn't blow up the train tracks!" Bob protested.
"No, of course not, you just threw the bomb."
"I didn't throw it, I landed with it. It had to go somewhere! Better with me than blowing up that annoying kid. If I'd had time I would have taken it somewhere else."
"I would have done the same," Kotetsu said mildly, coaxing a hamburger's edge up to check on it.
"Exactly!" Bob and Helen said, practically in unison.
"Injuries are no fun, definitely, but compared to the alternatives..." Tomoe said. "Nobody died, right? And it wasn't like you screwed up the train lines at rush hour, unlike some people who shall remain my husband. So why all the complaints?"
"I just wish I knew," Bob groaned.
"Would you believe a guy he saved from committing suicide is suing him, now?" Helen added.
"Why, so he can pay for therapy?" Kotetsu flipped a hamburger on the grill. It was a beautiful evening, warm and summery, mellowed now that the sun was setting; you could hear kids playing somewhere else in the neighborhood. The Parrs (okay, mostly Helen) had been impressed with all the work Tomoe had done on the yard, so Tomoe was all proud and happy. They were actually using their backyard for something, for once. Kaede was toddling from adult to adult, and everyone was in full agreement that she was the most adorable kid in the world. He was ranked second for the season so far, neck and neck with the Panther, who was in first, and Antonio was a close third in his first Stern Bild season. Life was pretty great.
"That's the upside to the Stern Bild arrangement," Antonio said. "Your company covers the liability."
"We do have the NSA," Bob said. "It's not like we're going to go bankrupt personally."
"Which is good, since we still can't get used to a joint checking account," Helen added. "How did you guys do it?"
"We got married when we were twenty," Tomoe said. "We were barely used to having separate- Kaede honey no!" Helen shot a hand out to grab the little girl, and Tomoe pounced, extracting something from her daughter's mouth.
"What was it?" Antonio asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Kotetsu, I want mine medium rare, remember?"
"I know, I know."
"Just a rock. I was afraid it was a bug." Tomoe bounced Kaede on her hip. "Are you two thinking of having kids?"
"That's a very good question," Helen said.
"Maybe someday," Bob said. "It'd be nice. But not yet, that's for sure."
"I'm not ready to step back just yet," Helen said. "I sort of feel like I need to prove I'm not retiring just because I got married."
"Who'd expect that?" Antonio asked. "Most people don't even know you're married, right?"
"Oh, other supers..." Helen sighed.
"It's that whole independence thing," Bob said. "The other supers and NSA agents all sort of got it in their heads that her being single and her being a hero were connected. Like getting married has slowed her down any!"
"Well, yeah! Now I got something to prove!"
"I swear, she's sniping my arrests now. Though she started before the wedding."
"Think how much worse it'd be if you actually got points for it," Kotetsu said. "I got a couple of well-done burgers here and YES, Antonio, the first medium rare is coming right up."
"'Bout time."
"Cannibal cow."