And we're back! Like I mentioned in the last chapter, Mo is thirteen, old enough to properly get into mischief. I'm excited to see how this mini-arc plays out. Nothing too dramatic lol. Not until chapter 54 at least.
I know it's different but I hope y'all enjoy.
"Dads!" Mo called through the house, rocking on his feet impatiently.
He was 13, nearing his freshman year of high school after skipping sixth grade a few years back. He was still as smart and stubborn as always, and he treated his summers pretty seriously, not wanting to waste much time lazing around. Mo wasn't into any sports but that didn't mean he wasn't full of energy, always fidgeting with stuff and getting a lot of joy out of long walks and hikes. This summer, though, he was entirely focused on an elaborate research project centered around an old unsolved mystery that he'd gotten obsessed with in June. Which meant at least one trip to the library a week, which could become an all-day affair.
"Mo," Louie laughed, exiting his bedroom and running a hand through his morning hair, "breakfast, kiddo."
Mo rolled his eyes, "Oh my gosh, pop, I'm not a kid. Hurry up."
"Sit at the breakfast nook while I get the poptarts and then we can go after you eat something."
"Where's dad?" Mo whined, "He makes real breakfast."
"Let him sleep late, Bug, he overheated last night."
Mo frowned, "Is something wrong?"
Sometimes Boyd overheated when he got stressed out, but sometimes it just happened because it was the summer, as was the case this time.
"Nah, it just gets hot here. Your granddad is coming over to make sure he's okay, he's in the room with the AC and the fans running."
"Okay, I'll just pop in and say hi…"
"And then breakfast, Bug."
"And then breakfast," Mo agreed, hopping up from the breakfast nook where they pretty much ate all their meals and darting into his dads' room.
"Louie?" Boyd mumbled with his eyes closed.
"Guess again," Mo laughed a little, "You okay, dad?"
"Oh yeah. I'm just probably gonna have to update my internal cooling system. Dr. Dad will do it when he gets here."
"Does that hurt?" Mo asked, brow furrowed in concern.
"Don't worry, Bug, repairs never hurt they just leave me tired."
"Oh, okay. Well me and pop will take care of things today. We'll cook dinner! Or, uh. Pizza. We'll bring home pizza."
Boyd adored his son and husband and how hard they tried, especially on the rare occasion when he wasn't feeling well. Usually, it was Boyd taking care of his frail, human family, but sometimes the roles were reversed.
"I'll see you later, Bug. Love you."
"I love you too." Mo held up the sign for 'I love you' before heading out to eat breakfast.
"Don't forget to take your books back!" Boyd called after him, before closing his eyes again, feeling warm and tired.
Louie and Mo headed out and soon Gyro swept in (he'd had his own key since Mo was a toddler) and began to fuss over his adult son.
"We're going to get you working as good as new," Gyro said.
"I'm outdated," Boyd laughed, "retire my weary bones and replace me with the new Waddle phone."
"Don't mention that dingy dimwit developer in my presence ever again. You, my son, are a thousand times more valuable than anything Beaks has ever stolen or designed."
"Of course, because I have humanity."
"Sure, yes, that too. But I built you to last. A few minor repairs are par for the course."
Boyd hummed in agreement while Gyro began to work, his hands a little shakier than when he first began as an inventor but still just as skilled.
"If you'd let me fix myself I could have done it," Boyd said.
"So that you could only call on the holidays? I don't think so. Until I, and my clones, are no more, it is my duty as a father to protect and repair you."
Boyd smiled at that.
"I know you can take care of yourself, Boyd. You're a dad, you have a life of your own, you could have done these repairs and I wouldn't have stopped you."
"But I'm glad you're here," Boyd said, "Sometimes I just want to have my dad around."
"Are you sure you're not saying that because you're overheating?"
"Well…" They both laughed.
"How's Mo?"
"Still obsessed. He thinks he's going to solve this whole big mystery before the end of the summer."
"Well, maybe he will. He's a smart kid."
"Yeah, or maybe he'll drop it by the time August rolls around, it's always hard to say with him."
"You're doing a good thing, Boyd, encouraging his curiosity. That's what I always tried to do for you, and you're happy, right?"
"Well, right now I'm overheating."
"Aside from that, you're happy, right?" Gyro pressed.
"I'm… Yeah. Of course I am, this summer has been lovely, my marriage is perfect, and Mo is doing good…"
"That's not what I asked, Boyd. Are you happy?"
"Why are you asking that, dad?"
"Why can't you answer it?"
Boyd and Gyro stared at each other for a moment before Gyro gestured at the mechanisms spewing from Boyd's chest.
"You've spilled your literal guts, why don't you tell me what's wrong, as well?"
Boyd sighed, "You're not going to leave me alone if I don't, are you?"
"Nope. That's what dads are for."
"I've been thinking a lot about Limitless," Boyd said with a small shrug.
"Yeah? It's a good company, you and Louie are doing good work there. You're helping a lot of people."
"Yeah," Boyd nodded, "we are helping a lot of people…"
"But?" Gyro prompted.
"Louie works with a lot of good doctors and scientists. He doesn't need me in this business and I can't help thinking that there are better ways for me to help people."
"Like Silverwing?" Gyro guessed as he finished repairing Boyd. He'd been worried, at first, when he'd found out his son was a superhero. That had been right after the accident, and Gyro hadn't known how to feel. There had been such relief when Boyd hung up his mask. But time healed all wounds, and Gyro was finally able to accept that being a hero wasn't such a bad thing.
"Yes," Boyd said, cringing a little.
"Have you talked to Louie yet?"
"No…"
"Well, walk me through it, what would you tell him?"
"I would talk about how Mo is older now and how his business, the one that we built together, is doing great in his hands, and then I would remind him how Gosalyn recently stepped down as a hero, and how, as Scarlett, Emerald, and Azure step into heroics in their own way they need someone established to aid them."
Gyro nodded, "I think Louie would understand."
Boyd smiled, "I sure hope so."
"What are you going to tell Mo?" Gyro asked then.
"What?"
"Boyd, if you become a superhero again you have to tell your son."
"Why? Louie never told him that he used to be a supervillain."
"Louie isn't currently a supervillain, though. Your choices affect Mo whether or not you want them to. It's up to you, of course, but you should probably talk to Louie about all of this."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
"I'm always right. I'm going to make you some brunch, when will the boys be back?" Boyd thought it was sweet that Dr. Dad considered Louie to be one of his boys at this point.
"Dinner. They're bringing pizza."
"Mind if I stay until then?"
"Of course not, Mo will be delighted to see you. Just know that if you stay you will have to listen to him talk about his research for at least an hour."
"I would love that," Gyro said with complete sincerity.
"It gets old after two months."
"But I bet seeing him happy doesn't get old."
"No, that'll never get old," Boyd agreed.
Louie had to drag his son out of the library's newspaper archives for lunch. Fortunately, he had the incentive of going to see his best friend at work. Paige worked at a diner near the library and Mo always visited her on his study break.
"Babe," Mo said when he saw Paige across the diner, his whole face lighting up. Like Shiloh had guessed years prior, his friendship with Paige really did mirror Louie and Shiloh's friendship, right down to the excessive platonic affection.
"How's my favorite customer?" Paige laughed, still maintaining the ability to look on the bright side of everything, even a crappy minimum wage job.
"I'm doing amazing, P. I think I've made a breakthrough." He said this every week and he'd had yet to make an actual breakthrough.
"That's fantastic, Mo. You'll have to tell me all about it later, for now, what can I get you guys to drink?"
Paige stole a couple minutes longer at their table than she technically should have, with Mo telling her the Crash Course version of that morning's research and Paige sharing bits of gossip about the weirdest (and hottest) customers that had come in today.
"Kimber came in again?" Mo asked after Paige had spent a moment gushing about a cute softball player who came in almost every day.
Paige shrugged and blushed, "Yeah, I guess she likes the fries."
Louie refrained from mentioning that it was very likely that it wasn't the fries that this Kim girl liked. He'd let her moms and dads handle this one.
Mo frowned, filing it away as a mystery to solve later, and went back to his own fries as soon as Paige got back to work.
"I can't wait to go to school with her and Leo," Mo said after a minute, surprising Louie since Mo had pretty much only talked about his case all summer.
"Yeah? I'm sure they're just as excited." Louie certainly hoped so. Mo loved his best friends and they loved him, but they were both two years older than him and kids could get a little prickly at that age.
"I'm going to join the debate team," Mo added.
"When did you decide that?" Louie asked, raising an eyebrow.
Mo shrugged, "Just now, I guess."
"Well if that's what you want to do we'll support you. We'll come to every debate, or however it works."
Mo laughed, a laugh Louie couldn't get enough of.
"Are you done? We could probably get another two hours in of research before the library closes if we leave now."
"Yes, Mo, almost done, just have to pay."
"Leave Paige a good tip."
Louie shot his son a look since he always left good tips wherever he went.
In the car on the way back to the library, Mo was still feeling pretty talkative, apparently. And pretty thoughtful.
"Pop? Do you have any regrets?"
That took Louie by surprise.
"Well, sure. But everything in my life led me here to you and your dad so I wouldn't go back and change anything."
"What about losing your mom?"
Louie inhaled sharply, "None of what happened was really anyone's fault but her own, I have no reason to feel regret for what she chose. That doesn't mean I don't wish things had turned out differently, but I'm still happy with the life I have now."
"You still love her, right? Even though it was her fault?"
"Yeah. Why are you asking, Bug? What's up?"
Mo shrugged, "I guess I'm just thinking about my mystery, you know. The people from it are long gone but many of them spent huge portions of their life trying to figure out what happened and wondering what if. I wonder if they ever regretted spending time searching for someone who was never going to be there."
"Well, I don't wonder what if anymore, but I don't regret the time I spent wondering if that answers your question."
"Yeah. Maybe." Mo fell silent again and Louie knew there was something below the surface that Mo wasn't ready to bring up yet. Louie wasn't worried, he knew his son would come to him when he figured out how to voice his thoughts.
Boyd was still trying to figure out how to voice his thoughts when Louie and Mo came home with the pizza. As suspected, after dinner Mo immediately launched into his excited infodump, with Gyro listening attentively. So Louie and Boyd had a moment to themselves in their room.
"How was your day?" Louie asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Much better. Dr. Dad fixed me up and then we spent the rest of the day watching soap operas."
"You're so predictable," Louie laughed, leaning over to kiss Boyd.
"Oh yeah? Well… If I'm so predictable, then what was I going to say next?"
"That you love me," Louie guessed, kissing Boyd's face.
"I do, but that's not it."
"That you have a new idea for Limitless," Louie said, kissing in between each guess.
"Nope."
"That you are so tired of hearing about Mo's case?" Louie asked, guessing between each kiss.
"You're getting colder."
"That you…" Louie pulled away and frowned, "No, I have nothing. What's up, love?"
"I was thinking, recently, that I want to become Silverwing again."
"Oh. Yeah, I uh… I wasn't going to ever guess that." Louie busied himself with straightening their bedroom.
"Louie? Can we talk about it?"
"Sure, sure. Talk." Louie glared at himself in the mirror, fussing with his hair which he swore was thinning a little. It wasn't.
"Mo is almost fourteen. He's starting high school and doesn't need one of us to be home all of the time."
"Yes he does," Louie argued immediately.
"Louie. You know he doesn't."
"Okay, he doesn't. But that doesn't mean that you should be out there risking your life. He was worried about you today just because you were overheating. Imagine how he'd feel if you got hurt in battle?"
"You mean how you would feel."
"I think we're both allowed to be worried about you, Boyd."
"I know you're worried about me, love. I know you care about me. So you should care when I say that I'm not happy right now being unable to help people."
"We are helping people, we're helping people every day at Limitless."
"No, Louie. You're helping people at Limitless. I'm just an accessory to your generosity and your scientists' ingenuity. I love you, but I don't want to work with you anymore. Not like that."
Louie sat down on the edge of their bed and Boyd sat next to him, resting his head on Louie's shoulder.
"I want you to take some more time to think about it. When you're feeling better."
"Okay, but I've been thinking about it for a while." Louie frowned. It felt like he was in the series finale of a sitcom and he wasn't particularly fond of the script.
"What if we worked together as heroes?" Louie asked after a moment of tired silence.
Boyd's head shot up.
"Louie-"
"Don't you dare say it's more dangerous for me, it's dangerous for both of us. I don't know if I want you to do it alone. I'm happy with Limitless, it's my passion, but you're my partner. I would do this for you, for us."
Boyd cupped Louie's face, pressing his forehead against Louie's.
"No, listen to yourself. You're happy where you're at, you shouldn't jeopardize that. Sometimes paths just diverge. It doesn't mean we love each other any less, we just have to trust each other to do what's best for ourselves. Do you trust me?"
"Of course I trust you, Boyd. I'm just scared you'll get hurt."
"There will always be someone to put me back together. I want to do this, Louie. Please let me do this."
"Okay, but you have to tell Mo."
"I will. Eventually."
Louie sighed and stood up, "I'm going to get some fresh air. I love you, Boyd. I trust you."
"I trust you too," Boyd said quietly, as Louie went outside to smoke in secret.
Mo stayed up late that night, which wasn't anything new. But there was another mystery brewing in his mind tonight. He'd been searching for a missing person from decades ago, someone entirely disconnected from him. But for the first time in ten years, he thought about another missing person, a blur of a memory, his biological father.