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Author's Note: Hello all! How are you doing? Hope you're doing well and the hot summer weather isn't burning you out too much. Today I have for you a new installment of "Hidden Stash Box" and before I talk more about it I just and to say thank you for the wonderful support you all have given me for this collection. I'm very glad that you're enjoying these little stories. There are still some more to come! Now for today's installment n it's Donna and Eric though I think Eric plays the bigger part in this…you'll see why. The idea that helped me get a story with this word was a some somewhat similar but not really situation with my dad, I expanded on it and turned in into this. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for all the support and feel review if you do have the time whether you've reviewed the others or not,. Thanks for reading, hope like, please review if you get the chance I'd love to hear your thoughts, and as always Enjoy!
The word that inspired this mini oneshot appeared 6 times in this story. Can you guess it?
"I can't believe you're actually wearing that shirt."
"What?" Eric Forman looked down at the shirt he was wearing. He didn't see anything wrong with it; it was a faded blue t-shirt and it wasn't as though it had any offensive writing on it, in fact it didn't have any writing on it at all, instead there was blotch of red in the chest area with a large black spider in the middle. This shirt had the Spiderman logo on it, what wasn't there to love about it? "It's a good shirt!"
"To a six year old maybe." Came her reply, "It looks like you just got out of bed."
He did have to agree on that, the shirt's light colors did look like it was the top part of a two piece pajama set—of course he couldn't let his girlfriend know this.
"Well good, because for your information that was exactly the look I was going for." He said with a smirk.
Donna rolled her eyes as she tried her best to keep her smile from cracking onto her lips by making her tone sound somewhat annoyed, "Then how about we get this over with so we can get you back in bed where you belong?"
"Oo I like the way you think!" Eric was quick to say with his smile growing and his eyebrows rose with much interest. "Especially if you're thinking of joining me in there."
"Shut up!" the tall redhead ordered, shoving her boyfriend so that he couldn't see that he'd broken through and gotten her to smile; however Eric managed to catch himself from tumbling over and did catch the amused look on her face, he grinned triumphantly but Donna ignored him and looked at the paper in her hands, "Come on, we need to get started."
His smile dropped and Eric began to follow Donna's footsteps through the mall—not looking very happy as he did so.
"Explain to me again why we have to do this." He said already sounding bored.
"Because it's Jackie's birthday." She explained, as she kept moving her feet and scanned the stores around them.
"And…"
Donna frowned, clearly not a fan of the tone of voice he was speaking in, "And when it's someone's birthday you buy them a birthday present."
"Yeah, but don't you I don't know…."Eric paused, trying to phrase the next part correctly, "Have to actually like that someone to get them a birthday present?"
This time Donna stopped in her tracks and turned to face her boyfriend, shaking her head slightly, "Eric, you like Jackie."
"Yeah…Donna…I really don't." he said not in a mean tone but in that Eric-y way of his.
"You've known her for years."
Eric shrugged his shoulders, "So? That just proves that time does not always ease the pain."
Now Donna knew he was just being difficult and she rolled her eyes before pointing out, "She's dating your best friend."
"You know Hyde and I really aren't that close." He said and his voice gave away the lie he was obviously telling, "I mean know we live in the same house and all but really we're like two strangers…did you know Hyde isn't even his first name?"
She wasn't convinced for a second, but she wasn't giving up either. Her boyfriend and best friend might not get along very well but there had to be something that he liked about her…something they had in common. Then it hit her.
"She hates your sister as much as you do."
A smile started to slowly crawl up onto Eric's lips, "I always knew Jackie was a good egg."
Donna shook her head again but was happy to see that she finally got Eric to admit to liking Jackie…well in his own way.
"Come on, let's see if we can find anything on the Good Egg's list that we can actually afford to buy her." she said before setting off again.
Eric exhaled loudly, "Fine."
He had to give himself a good push to get moving again and even then his feet dragged, making a slight shuffling sound against the ground. He was close to catching up to Donna when a sudden force came crashing into him.
"Spiderman!"
Confused, Eric looked down and found a little boy no older than five clutching onto his leg.
"Whoa there little guy." Eric said calmly, putting his hand on the small boy's shoulder keeping them both from tumbling over. He looked around a bit awkwardly, he wasn't used to being hugged by small random children…this wasn't normal was it?
"Spiderman I'm so glad I found you!" the little boy said, looking up at Eric but still attached to his left limb.
Spiderman? Eric frowned wondering why this kid thought he was Spiderman. Then he realized, his Spiderman shirt! He gave a slight chuckle, he was flatted but really couldn't take credit for being the great superhero.
"Um sorry, kid I'm not Spiderman." Eric said gently, not wanting to upset him.
"Yes you are." The kid argued firmly, "You're Spiderman and she's Mary Jane."
Eric followed the child's pointed finger and found Donna standing at the end of it. She must have stopped and turned back around when she heard some of the commotion. Eric thought over the details that the boy had pointed out…he was wearing the Spiderman suit—or at least some form of it—and Donna was his girlfriend and a redhead…A large grin sprung onto his lips.
"You're right, I am Spiderman!" he declared, his grin now matching the young boy's; he cleared his throat and made his voice sound deeper and more affirmative, "Now what can I, Spiderman, do for you little guy?"
"You gotta help me Spiderman please, I can't find my mommy." The little boy explained, he sounded scared but wasn't in tears—having his favorite superhero by his side probably had something to do with that.
Knowing how scary it was to be in a situation like that, Eric knew he had to help the boy out, "Okay, okay, don't worry. I'll help you and we'll find her together. Okay?"
"Yay!" the boy cheered letting go of Eric's leg only to reattach himself seconds later, "Thank you Spiderman, thank you!"
Eric held out a hand, "Hold on now, don't thank me just yet. We still haven't found her." the boy's smile dropped just a tad but Eric caught it so he added—making sure to use his superhero voice—"But rest assure we will find your mommy! But we have some serious matters to take care of first."
"Right." the boy nodded in agreement, as if he already knew Spiderman's agenda,
"First of all," Eric bent down to be at level with the young child, "what's you name little guy?"
"Tommy."
With a grin on his lips, Eric stuck out his hand to Tommy and Tommy shook it, "Well it is very nice to meet you Tommy. I'm gonna help you find your mommy but I'm gonna need your help too, think you can do that?"
Tommy's head bobbed up and down very quickly making the young couple grin.
"Great." Eric said, "Now, what does your mommy look like, Tommy?"
"Um…uh…she's tall. And um she…she has yellow hair." He shared thinking that was enough to help find him his mommy.
It wasn't but Eric wasn't about it let the kid know that, "Okay good. Do you remember what she was wearing?"
"A dress!"
"What color dress was she wearing?" Donna asked stepping in front the sidelines.
"Mary Jane, please." Eric said with a halting palm up in front of her, before turning back to Tommy, "What color dress was she wearing?"
"Uh…" was all that came from Tommy's mouth.
Seeing his struggle, Eric stepped in to try to help, "Was it green? Or blue or red or pink or….'
"That one!" the boy exclaimed, "That's the color she was wearing."
While Donna wasn't very convinced that this was really the color of Tommy's mom's dress, he might've just hear the color and that thought that was it, Eric was staying positive and remained in his Spiderman role.
"Alright, Tommy you're doing great, pal." He praised placing his hand on Tommy's small shoulder, "Now this next question is very, very important, okay?" seeing him nod, Eric continued with his inquiry, "Where was the last place you saw your mommy?"
Luckily, Tommy knew the answer to the question and provided his response to Spiderman as quickly as he could.
"At the shoe store by the toy store." He explained, "She was shopping for boring shoes so I went to look at the toys."
"Tommy, you can't sneak off to toy stores by yourself. You need to tell a grown up where you're going so they can go with you." Eric scolded the child just slightly, because he knew part of being a superhero was helping kids learn to do the right thing and to stay safe.
Feeling ashamed, Tommy looked down at his sneakers and spoke in a small voice, "I know. I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Eric assured with a smirk, "I'll tell you a secret…I used to do the same thing when I was little."
Tommy's head snapped back up, showing off his large grin, Eric returned the smile before straightening himself back to his true height and grabbing a hold of Tommy's hand.
"Come on Tommy, let's go find your mommy!" he declared.
The young boy gave another affirmative nod and with his hand still in Eric's, he walked head with him while 'Mary Jane' walked behind them not being able to contain her smile at the sight she was following.
0o0o0o
Not more than five minutes had passed when they reached the shoe store with the toys store next door to it, but there was no sign of Tommy's mommy. The three continued to look around but had yet to find any blonde woman wearing a pink dress as Tommy had described—or any frightened woman frantically searching for her missing child, a description Donna and Eric had come up with in their own minds. Then suddenly when they reached the food court, Donna saw something that quickly caught her eye.
"Um Er…Spiderman." She corrected herself, for Tommy's sake, "I think I might have found Tommy's mom."
With Tommy now in his arms, Eric continued to scan the crowds of people, "That's great Mary Jane that you think you found Tommy's mommy but my spidey senses are telling me that Tommy's mommy is right over…there!"
Eric's arm popped up and his index finger pointed towards the same woman Donna had suspected in the first place. She was a young woman looking nervous and a bit scared as she hurriedly walked through the crowd, her teary eyes never staying focused on one spot. She was not only blonde but wearing a pink dress too!
"Tommy? Is that your mommy?"
The little boy turned his head and instead of answering the question with words, Tommy began to try to squirm his way out of his hero's arms while shouting 'Mommy!' joyfully. The woman in the pink dress froze and then followed the sound of the little voice and found her little boy in the care of a young couple. She practically ran towards the three.
"My baby!" she exclaimed and once she was close enough Tommy ran into her open arms for a great big hug.
Eric couldn't help but smile at the sight before him, feeling quite proud of himself, after all the real Spiderman would've been proud of him and he knew his Mary Jane was also proud by the grin she wore on her face.
Tommy mother looked up at Eric with tears still her eyes, only now they were happy ones, "Thank you, sir."
"Mommy," Tommy pulled out of the hug, "He's not a sir, he's Spiderman! Thank you Spiderman!"
"All in a good day's work, little citizen." Eric replied, using his superhero voice again.
Tommy continued to smile and wave as he and his mom walked away from the pair. Meanwhile Eric just continued to stand there with that proud smirk on his face.
Donna knew that look but still had to ask, "You're never gonna take that shirt off again, are you?"
"Nope."
Author's Note: So what did you think? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? Lemme know what you think!
The word that inspired this story was…Hero. Anyone get it? Congrats if you did guess right! :)
Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, stay tuned, take care, and have a nice day!