Snuggles the Symbiote

I awoke to the sound of creaking bedsprings and fearful murmuring. At first, it took me a second to remember why I was on the floor before the last night's events came back to me. I shot up to find Ashley sleeping fitfully in my bed. The morning light was pouring in through my window, this was later than I usually got up. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I just grabbed the younger girl by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake.

Ashley snapped awake all of a sudden and flinched away at the contact. She was breathing heavily… despite having claimed not to need to breathe last night, and pulled her arms and legs in tight and her eyes darted around the room for a moment.

I didn't know what to do, but eventually her eyes settled on me, she sighed and calmed down a bit.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

"No, I'm sorry," I replied, "I woke you up and didn't think that maybe you wouldn't..." Damn it, how was I supposed to say this?

"Oh, it's okay." After a moment, she tilted her head. "...Why did you wake me up?"

"You looked like you were having a nightmare."

"No, I wasn't!" Ashley replied a bit too quickly while avoiding eye contact.

I didn't press the issue, instead, I checked my clock. Yeah, it was a bit late for my morning jog. I looked back at the girl in my bed and decided that I could skip one day. "So, Ashley…" I wanted to change the subject but couldn't think of something… Then I remembered her Cape Geek tendencies, "so last night you said that there were a bunch of different kinds of Superhumans where you're from. We've really only for the one kind here. Well, here we call them Parahumans," I explained, "or Capes. I'm a little curious, could you tell me a little bit about the different kinds from where you're from?"

"Oh," she perked up, "yeah. Uh… There's mutants like me, and symbiote hosts, also like me," she said counting off on her fingers, "and mutates like… Actually, there's like a bajillion kinds of mutates-Spider-People, cosmic ray mutates, goblins, gamma ray mutates, Super-Soldiers, artificial mutants…." Her face scrunched up. "I think that's all the important ones, and there's unique ones too. There's like a dozen kinds of aliens-OG Captain Marvel was a Kree, current Captain Marvel I think is half-Kree or something and the Skrulls invade the earth every so often." I had no idea what either of those were. "There's magic people, Like Doctor Strange or the Scarlet Witch, and people who become Mutates because of magic instead of science…" Magic? She scrunched up her face even more. "Should I count vampires? There's at least two kinds: The normal kind and serum that turns you into 'living' ones but I don't know the difference and I think Morbius is the only living one. Uhh… Immortal Iron Fist is kind of like those martial artists in the Japanese cartoons..." She trailed for a second but held up a finger to stop interruptions, "I think werewolves are a thing but there's different kinds-I've seen pictures of Manwolf and I've seen pictures of Werewolf-By-Night and they don't look the same. Then there's the Inhumans, who are kind of jerks, and their descendants the Nuhumans, who are kinda like mutants except instead of getting their powers automatically they get it from clouds of this weird gas that the Inhumans let out because it gives people Super Powers if they've got the Inhuman Gene but it kills mutants and the Inhumans don't seem to care about that." She sounded a little angry, and I felt angry for her if there were people out there who were fine with people like her dying so they and others like them could get powers... "And then there's guys like Thor or Hercules, who are like, the Thor and Hercules."

I blinked. "The Thor and Hercules?"

"The Gods," she explained cheerfully, "from the legends. I don't know if there's a difference between the Asgardians and the Olympians other than who was worshipped where, but I know that they're both real and a couple of each are Superheroes or Villains in the modern day. I think Loki's both."

I wanted to question that but thought better of it. "Okay then..."

"Actually, my Grandpa Patrick used to say that we were Thorites," Ashley continued, "but we still celebrate Christmas and Easter and Mommy said once or twice that he only said that because he was in a bar when Thor and Wolverine came in and Thor bought a round."

I blinked. Superheroes just going out drinking in costume? But still, I kind of had to ask. "How… how do Thorites worship?"

"Celebrating jovially," she said as though quoting someone, "drinking, but I'm not old enough for that, and whomping on bad guys with hammers."

"Seriously?"

"Okay, okay," she admitted, "the hammer's optional."

I sighed. "Okay then." Then a thought occurred to me. "You were really excited when you realized that you could be a hero… Is that why?"

It seemed to take her a second to get what I meant. "Oh, no… Actually… This is a little embarrassing," she said with a blush and looked down. "When I… I was sick all the time, I didn't get out much. I did my homeschooling work, some video games when I wasn't feeling too crummy, but otherwise, I was just reading stuff. Books, articles online, that kind of thing." She looked back up. "Also I wrote a couple of fanfics, but that's not really relevant. Anyway, what mostly drew my attention were things about superheroes." She scooted to one end of my bed and I sat down next to her. "Like, a long time ago, I think before I was born, this guy called The Champion showed up and challenged all the Earth's greatest heroes for reasons I don't know but it would somehow have been bad if he'd beaten them all. Ben Grimm, the Thing, was the only one who was able to defeat him, not because he was stronger than him, or faster, or a better fighter, but because he was just so determined not to lose that he kept getting back up no matter how badly he was beaten and the Champion admitted that he'd never be able to truly beat him and left."

"Really now?" I asked, trying to keep her talking. I wasn't super-geeky about this stuff, but I was still interested in capes and she seemed happy enough to be talking about it.

"Yeah," she said, "and one time, I read a statement a Holocaust Survivor gave in an interview, about how she'd consigned herself to die in the camps until the day the allies led a rescue mission with a tank forcing the fence down and soldiers there to fight off Nazis and save everyone and in the front leaping over the part of the fence that wasn't knocked over was Captain America, a nazi's bullets bouncing off of his mighty shield." She smiled, "I must have read that article a hundred times because the way the woman described just… I can't really explain it, I can't remember the words she used, but just how determined Captain America was to save everyone and end the suffering."

"He had a shield?" Why would you give a soldier a shield?

"Yeah!" She said, "he doesn't believe in killing unless it's absolutely necessary. He didn't carry a gun during the war and some sources say that he never even once killed an enemy soldier," she explained. Honestly, she kind of sounded like Greg Vader ranting about whatever video game or Anime he was into this week, except about something that was actually interesting. "He didn't really need a gun, since the Super-Soldier Serum made him immortal and like, as strong and fast as it's possible for a normal human to get and he's got a special indestructible shield made of vibranium-based proto-adamantium, the most indestructible metal in the universe," she finished with a geeky smile. "And then there's Spider-Man," she finished with just a hint of reverence.

"The one who caught you when you fell out of the window?" I asked, more to be conversational than because I couldn't remember.

"Yeah!" She said with a big smile, "he's my favorite," obviously. "I read his official biography, Webs, like a million times! He wasn't always a hero," she explained, her mouth moving a mile a minute, "when he first got his powers, he tried to use them to make money by entering a pro-wrestling tournament and beating some guy named… Uh, I can't remember who he was," she admitted sheepishly, "Crusher Hogan or Bonesaw, one of those guys, the biography didn't spend much time on the details," I raised an eyebrow at the second name. "Anyway, he won, but then the place got robbed and he didn't stop the robber because he was just a wrestler," she got super serious, "the biography was kind of vague, since Spider-Man's got a secret identity, but according to secondhand interviews via his friend Peter Parker, basically that robber went and killed someone he loved. After he realized, he decided then and there that nobody else would suffer or die because he was there when something went wrong and he didn't try to help. He became a Superhero because he had the power to stop criminals and help people and, and this is the exact words in the book, 'he learned the hard way that with Great Power there must also come Great Responsibility,' and then he took that as his personal motto."

"That," I began, not sure how to go from there, "that's a bit intense."

"Yeah," she said a bit sadly, "A lot of bad stuff happens to him, but he turns his pain and mistakes into ways to help more people-He was a teen when he started and I've found stuff by a lot of teen heroes that says that he gives good advice based on his own experiences, and a lot of places I've read have said that he's a good influence on people. And if there's something wrong, and he knows about, and he can help, then he will help. And he never gives up. And Captain America never gives up, and the Thing never gives up. They just keep going until the fight is won and the problem is solved. They're the most looked up to, the most befriended, the most inspiring Heroes from back where I'm from. The kind of people that other people can sleep better at night knowing that they're out there. The whole world could be falling apart and then they show up and suddenly you know that everything's gonna be alright." She got wistful all of a sudden. "And I, I… I used to think that, maybe, maybe if I'd had a better power, like if I had a secondary mutation or something, if I had a power that'd let me help people, save people, protect people, that maybe I could be that kind of hero and then I could make people safe and happy," she finished with wide, starry eyes. Then she blushed again, "but that's silly, isn't it?" she said, looking at the floor.

I gave her a hug. She leaned into me. "Not really," I said, "that's a pretty good reason to want to be a hero." Honestly, it was better than mine-I wanted to help people but I also wanted some control. "Tell you what," I said, "we're gonna be heroes together, so how about we save everyone together?"

"Yeah!" She declared.

"It's gonna be hard though," I went on.

"That's okay," she replied, "Mommy always used to say that all the stuff that's important to do is gonna be a little hard. We just have to keep trying. Like Miss Marvel, she's new but she's another one who never gives up." Then she sat up and looked at me with a look of the purest determination. "We're going to need adjectives."

I blinked. "Adjectives?"

She nodded. "Lots of Heroes from back home have adjectives. 'Incredible, Amazing, Invincible, Immortal, Unbeatable, Uncanny,' and most of them-I smell bacon."

That was an interesting segue, and then I remembered the time and her enhanced sense of smell, "it's probably my Dad making breakfast."

I had Ashley step out into the hall so I could change my clothes, and then escorted her downstairs.

As predicted, Dad was in the kitchen cooking bacon. The toaster went off a second after we came in and Dad went to put it on a plate, which caused him to notice us.

"Good morning," he said awkwardly.

"Good morning, Mister… Hebert." Ashley paused like she'd forgotten but then somebody had given her the answer. Probably Mister Snuggles.

"Do you need help with that?" I asked, gesturing vaguely to the cooking he was doing.

"A little help setting the table would be nice," he said as he put more bread in the toaster.

And so I did, getting three plates and three glasses to set the table with. It seems that finding orphans on the street is the key to having a family breakfast again.

"So," Dad said, "...We've got a lot to talk about today. I can call Alan after breakfast but-"

"I'm still not sure about that," I said. "I mean, this is a big deal and-"

"What are you talking about?" Ashley asked.

I looked at her. The entire plate of bacon and toast had already been eaten. "Well, Ashley, how would you feel about staying here with us permanently?"

She sort of shrank into herself and looked down. "Uh, y-ye-yeah. I'd like that."

"Well, last night my Dad and I talked about how to make that happen," I explained, "but he thinks we might need some help with that, and wants to call his best friend Alan, who's a lawyer. But I'm not so sure that's a good idea," I continued, "since we'd have to tell him, at the very least, or maybe another lawyer our secret identities, and that's risky."

Her brow furled up in thought. "But… If he's your dad's best friend, can't we trust him?" Damn it.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just being a little paranoid. I haven't seen him in a while," I said with a fake smile.

"...Why are you being paranoid though?" She asked. "I mean if he's your dad's friend..."

"Uhh… A few months ago," I said, "some people at school… Let's just say that they hurt me bad, and the people who were supposed to be making sure that didn't happen didn't do it and haven't been doing it, and now..." I waved my hand in a circular motion, "it's a little hard to trust people."

"Okay," she said and finished her milk. "Do you trust me?" she asked, almost out of nowhere.

"Huh?" I said, taken aback, but I quickly answered "...Yeah."

"But you just met me," she said, "and you not only told me your secret identity but you're brought me into your home." She blinked. "If you can trust me that much, why can't you trust your Dad's friend?"

"That's different," I answered.

"How?"

'Because,' I thought, 'you're a lost, sheltered, orphan girl and he's the father of the bitch who betrayed me and spent the last nearly two years torturing me.' I sighed. "Fine. Dad, you can call Alan."

I turned back to him. He was just staring into space. "Your Principal looked me in the eye and said they'd be keeping an eye out for you after-"

Shit. "That," I interrupted, "is a problem we can deal with later. What we need to do right now is focus on one thing at a time."

He sighed and we finished breakfast in mostly silence, other than Ashley asking a few questions here and there. Afterward, Dad went to call Alan and I took Ashley up to my room to talk about the kind of things we should and shouldn't talk about when Alan was here.

Snuggles the Symbiote

"So," Alan said from his seat in the living room, "Taylor, young miss, what is it that you want to get out of this?" Dad had informed him of what exactly he'd needed to know, and Alan was staring warily at the black widows dangling from my fingertips. Dad stood to the side, letting Ashley and I talk with the other man.

"I'd, I'd like to stay with Taylor," Ashley said awkwardly. She was sitting next to me on the couch, her outfit back in the clothes she'd worn last night but with the addition of a gold and blue scrunchie holding her hair back in a ponytail.

"That's it?"

"Well," Ashley began, "this Ward thing is them teaching me how to be a superhero and paying me for it." She blinked. "Am I going to have to go to real school?" She asked all of a sudden. When Alan shrugged, she continued, "if I have to go to school, if it's possible is there some way to skip to big kid school so I can stay with Taylor?"

"You don't want that," I interrupted.

"Yes I do," she argued.

"Okay," Alan said before we could get into a fight over this, "I don't know if I can get you something like that, but I'll see what I can do." He said in the standard adult 'we'll see' tone, "but even if I can you'd have to pass some really, really hard tests," he explained as though talking to a small child. "Do you think you can do that?"

Ashley smiled. A wide, toothy, malevolent smile. "We think we can do that."

"We?"

"It has something to do with her powers," I explained quickly

"Okay then," he said, "now Taylor, what are you wanting out of this deal?"

"First," I said, "to reiterate: Nobody who doesn't need to know about this can find out about-"

"Yes," Alan interrupted, "I know. Taylor, I'm a divorce attorney. Half my job is keeping secrets and lying about things people have told me."

"Okay," I said, "it's just, this is a big deal." I took a deep breath. "My primary concern is Ashley," I said, "the way the director spoke last night makes me feel that the PRT doesn't necessarily have her best interests at heart and I would strongly prefer that she not go into her custody. I want her to get fair wages, since she has some very valuable information that the PRT wants, and I want to be able to get her out if they start treating her poorly." Breathe in, breathe out, "as for me… a fair deal on the costumes I've offered and as much freedom and control of my life as I can get. I'm willing to trade pay for freedom if I absolutely have to."

Alan hummed. "That's a little vague, but I think that it's workable," he said confidently. "Now, if you want to take custody of Ashley, Danny is going to have to have to become a foster parent. Normally this is a long, detailed process, but if I remember a few things correctly, the PRT is able to speed that up quite a bit, so it'd be more productive to try and work with them than against them on this. Likewise," he continued, "Danny told me about the Youth Guard contingency you discussed last night. Calling them in with your concerns about Ashley's wellbeing in PRT custody might keep her out of their control," he explained, "but it wouldn't necessarily end with her in your custody. They could just take her into foster care in some other city." Ashley grabbed my hand at that. "However, there's one last thing for us to discuss: Specifically, whether the two of you should be physically present at this meeting."

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"With a child of Ashley's age present as part of the negotiation," he started to explain, "the PRT's representatives might try to get her to agree to things or take advantage of her youth and naivety to undermine our position," he looked at her. "I doubt that her homeschooling program covered contract law, and they'd jump on that. As for you," he turned back to me, "while I generally think you're a smart girl, chances are the PRT is just going to see you as a teenager. They'll probably dismiss anything you say out of hand and ignore your demands, no matter how reasonable, just because you're only fifteen." My blood started to boil. "I think that the best thing to do would be for the two of you to sit this out and let your father and I handle the negotiations. With our combined training and experiences, we should easily be able to get you what you want."

I wanted to protest. I wanted to scream and demand my place in deciding my life, but… he was right. And besides, I honestly had no idea how to do this kind of thing. Knowing my luck, it'd end with someone choking on spiders. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Okay."

Dad went to call the PRT to arrange the meeting, giving the silly password he'd been given.

"Taylor?" Ashley asked, "What does 'molested' mean? And why would someone do it to a penguin?"

"Uhhh..." I looked to Alan, who shook his head. No help there. "I'll explain later."

"Okay," she said cheerfully. Hopefully, I'd find some way to get out of that.

"Okay, okay, thank you," I heard dad say. He came back. "Tomorrow at noon," he explained. The meeting time. "Taylor, I know you're not going to be there, but I think I'll be calling you off of school."

"Oh, didn't you hear?" Alan interrupted. "Someone broke into Winslow last night. Stole all the chemistry supplies. The School's closed for the rest of the week."

My first thought was that it'd probably been the Merchants, the local drug-dealing scumbags, but the director had said something had happened to Skidmark after Ashley mentioned the vampire from her world, and without their leader, they might not be… Eh, whoever it was was screwed: All the gangs recruited from Winslow and wouldn't take well to it being messed with.

Alan left, saying that he'd meet Dad tomorrow before the negotiation, and I prepared myself for my worst case scenario.

Snuggles the Symbiot

"Holy Shit!" I exclaimed, staring at a contract that promised me almost total freedom. Specifically, the lines that told me the size of my trust fund and paycheck.

Dad and Alan both looked incredibly smug.

I looked over Ashley's shoulder to see that she had more or less the same perks and pay. She was signing her name. "Ash-ley, Tan-Shin, Oh-Leary," she said as she was signing. Tan-Shin was hyphenated.

I blinked. "O'Leary?"

"My Grandpa Patrick was Irish," Ashley explained without prompting. "Of course, I only know that since when I was five or six I asked why he was a different color from the rest of the family," she continued sharing, "my other grandpa, Mommy's Daddy, he was Tan Shin or Shin Tan or something. I never met him, but Mommy said that she took the pieces of his name and mushed em up together till they sounded nice for my middle name." I was starting to think that maybe we'd have to work on her tendency to share like this unprompted.

I looked back at my contract, gave it one last look over-they'd put me in some vocational program and…. A transfer to Arcadia? I smiled and signed. Perhaps this wasn't going to be so bad after all.