Sometimes I feel like Thunderbird Five should be renamed "The Orbiting Headquarters for the Official Thunderbirds Babysitter." This is usually after my day has been filled with conversations like this:

"Scott, don't you dare – Scott! What did I just tell you? I want you to wait for – Scott? Scott!"

"This is your own fault, Virgil. If you had just listened to me when I told you to refill your snack stash yesterday – and the day before – and the day before that – then you wouldn't be 'starving' right now."

"Gordon, stop picking on your brothers. I mean it! Don't make me call Grandma!"

"Alan, please stop flying circles around my space station. Alan, I'm warning you…all right, you know what? That's it! If you're still doing that by the time I count to three, you're losing all rocket privileges for a month! One…two…"

I have to listen to every word they say, but sometimes I feel like they don't bother to return the favor.

Today, Gordon's my particular troublemaker. It seems like my every order is met with an obstinate reply – except for the times when he doesn't answer me at all.

He's rescuing multiple passengers from an unusually large, privately owned submarine that has gone down in the Mediterranean Sea. Virgil dropped him off there on the way to another rescue, so using Two to raise the entire sub isn't an option; Gordon has to ferry each load of people all the way to a large GDF vessel that's sitting five miles out. And since he can only carry three passengers at a time, it's proving to be a very long, very tedious rescue.

All the more so because he won't listen to me.

"Thunderbird Four, come in."

There's a long pause, and Gordon sounds distracted when he answers. "Thunderbird Four. Go ahead, John."

"Gordon, that submarine's only got an hour of air left, and you're averaging one trip every fifteen minutes. You're going to have to step up the pace a little bit if you want to get everyone out of there in time."

"Well, thanks, John," Gordon says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I didn't know that! Maybe I'd be a little faster if you weren't calling to breathe down my neck every five minutes!"

I sit back, startled. It's unusual for Gordon to be so openly angry. "Keep it professional, Thunderbird Four," I say sternly. "Just remember – lives are at stake."

"FAB," he growls, cutting the connection.

The next few minutes, I'm busy monitoring Scott and Virgil's rescues, but the conversation with Gordon sits in the back of my mind, nagging at me. Why is he so angry?

When my radio finally quiets down for a minute, I think back through my interactions with Gordon, trying to figure out if I've said anything different than normal that would have irritated him. Nothing comes to mind, other than our final bit of conversation. I mean, most of my calls have been warning him about different things – such as advising him to watch out for some particularly turbulent currents in his area, and letting him know that a bit of a storm was approaching on the surface…the usual stuff. He was cheerful when Virgil dropped him off, but ever since he first boarded the other sub, he's been growing increasingly snappy.

My curiosity is piqued now – what's got my normally cheerful, laid-back brother so worked up?

I hesitate, then tap into the damaged submarine's internal security cameras – she's on emergency power, but most of her electrical systems are apparently still online. I flick through various cameras until I find the one that's pointing toward the airlock.

There's Gordon, along with…let's see…one, two, three, four, five, six passengers still remaining. I glance at the clock, and my finger twitches toward the comm. switch – Gordon's cutting it awfully close.

One of the passengers speaks up then, an unpleasant, leering smile on his face. "'Bout time for your boss to call and check up on you again, eh, kid? Wonder what you've done wrong this time?" He elbows Gordon exaggeratedly, then sways and nearly falls over.

I realize with a jolt, as I look over the other passengers, that Gordon is dealing with a boatload of drunks.

Aha. That could explain the snappishness, all right. I wince, feeling a little twinge of guilt that all of my calls so far could have been interpreted negatively – in fact, the passengers have evidently been using my words to cast a slur on Gordon's abilities. For all of his big talk, Gordon's actually a pretty humble guy at heart, but if there's one thing he takes pride in, it's his expertise as an aquanaut. To have my words twisted into insults would be a real slap in the face.

Well. I know how to fix that.

"Thunderbird Four, come in please."

Watching the video feed, I see Gordon's shoulders tense slightly. Raucous laughter sounds from behind him.

"Ooh, you're in for it now, kiddie – the big man himself is calling again to tell you to stop toddling along!"

"Go ahead, Thunderbird Five," Gordon says from between gritted teeth.

"Sir," I say, and watch Gordon's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "Sorry to bother you, sir, but if it's not too much trouble, the press wants an interview with you after you're done rescuing these people. They're calling this the rescue of the century, and they want to know if you'd rather they used the headline 'World's Foremost Aquanaut Saves Dozens from Stranded Submarine' or 'Move Aside, Aquaman – We've Got a New Hero in the Sea.'"

And now Gordon is doing his dead level best to hide a grin as the people behind him begin to ooh and ah.

I see Gordon searching for the camera, and when he spots it, he mouths, "Thank you." Then he clears his throat and says, "Well, I don't know, Thunderbird Five. That seems a little strong." He turns to the passengers. "What do you think?"

The primary loudmouth stares at Gordon wide-eyed. "You're Aquaman…and you didn't tell us?" He holds his arms spread wide. "C'mere and gimme a hug, buddy!"

Gordon quickly steps out of his reach. "Uh, maybe later – right now I've got to get all of you fine people to safety." He begins herding the next-to-last group of passengers toward the airlock, checking their scuba equipment as he walks.

The loudmouth watches him go, muttering, "Man, I gotta tell my kids about this! Real honor, sir, real honor…"

The rest of the rescue goes off without a hitch. The only thing Gordon has to watch out for now is overly long handshakes and the toxic breath of the people trying to hug him.

Once he's offloaded the last of the passengers onto the GDF vessel, and he's making his way to the rendezvous point to wait for a pickup from Virgil, he calls me.

"Hey, Johnny?" he says softly. "Sorry for yelling." He grins. "And thanks for the help at the end there. I shouldn't have let those people get under my skin like that."

I shrug. "Hey, it happens to the best of us – even Aquaman, I'm sure."

He starts laughing – and then I start laughing, and we can't stop for a couple minutes. Every time one of us starts to catch our breath, the other will say, "Did you see his face?" or "Real honor, sir," and we'll be off again.

Scott calls in the middle of all that, casts one disbelieving look at me, and says, "Uh, I'll check back in a little bit."

And that sets me off again, which in turn gets Gordon going again.

Finally, the last of the laughter dies off into tired little chuckles, and we're both wiping our eyes.

Gordon takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, one last little laugh hitching in his throat. "Thanks, Johnny," he says. "That was awesome. You're awesome."

He signs off, and I go back to my routine, although I have to admit that it takes a little while to get my brain back in gear.

Once I've checked in with Scott and answered his question, I call Alan and ask a favor of him. He's a good kid – he quickly agrees to my request without asking questions, as long as I promise to tell him the story later.

So when Gordon gets home and goes to his room, there'll be a bright new poster on his wall, featuring Gordon in his IR uniform and holding a trident, with big words splashed across the top stating, "Move Aside, Aquaman – We've Got a New Hero in the Sea."

Hey, what can I say?

I'm an awesome babysitter.