Disclaimer: I don't own Sky High.
Hoeing Around
She looked lonely. He understood that feeling. More than anyone else at this school, he understood what it felt like to be alone.
He'd first noticed her last year when she was a freshman. She tended to stick out like a sore thumb among the Sidekicks she hung around with, always willing to throw in her opinion on an issue, no matter how unpopular it was. He didn't have any classes with her, but that didn't stop her from catching his eye.
But her heart belonged to someone else. It was obvious to anyone watching (which was an activity he engaged in often) that she was smitten with that idiot show-off who wouldn't know how to ease her loneliness any better than he did how to dress like he hadn't just been vomited on by Uncle Sam.
He'd wanted to ask her to Homecoming last year.
When he later found out that while he spent the evening alone pining, the school had nearly fallen as hard as he did for her, he kind of wished that it had.
The upstart Stronghold was just a sweet childhood crush that would fade away, like all childhood dreams. And he was prepared to wait it out until the time came when she outgrew him. Her naive idealism about first love only made her all the more endearing. Peace, on the other hand, was a much bigger problem.
He knew that she'd befriended Warren Peace out of the very loneliness that he had sought to soothe, but he hadn't expected for her to take things so far with him. Unlike all of those sheep that were living those half-shadows they called lives, he was aware that the whole relationship was a sham. He'd overheard the two of them talking in the cafeteria the first day she dared to sit with him, right before all of her Sidekick friends showed up and scared Peace away. The ruffian had stuck around, kept his word, and provided support for her when Stronghold barely regarded her immense feelings for him as a blip on the radar. It was quite infuriating at the time.
As if having the loyalty of the most volatile student on campus wasn't bad enough, when he'd returned to school after the weekend, everyone was going on and on about how cute "Will and Layla" were together. How romantic it was that they saved everyone, and finally declared their love on the night of the dance.
So, he kept to the shadows, and bided his time, doing the gentlemanly thing.
Apparently, Peace never had such an inclination. The moment Stronghold leaves town, he's thick as thieves with the braggart's girlfriend. The two of them were sitting together so comfortably, if a passerby didn't know any better they would think they were a couple. In fact, many people still believed that they had feelings for each other.
She had rocked the school when it came out that she was dating Warren Peace, and it made a lot of guys in his class give her a second look, even if she was a Sidekick. He remembered having to hurt a few of them when their locker-room talk became too inappropriate. The looks on their faces alone made the risk worth it - they never knew what hit them.
With the Stronghold Three off on some international press tour, according to the news, she would be in need of someone to pay her attention, give her comfort, maybe a shoulder to cry on. He could do all that for her, all that and more. If only he could get close enough to her.
This was the exact same thing that happened last time. Just when he's about to make his move, Warren Peace steps in and plays the suitor. But he wouldn't be denied a second time.
And neither would Layla.
"Incoming!" The Commander shouted, throwing a motorcycle through the air like it was a football. It exploded on impact with the chest of a man dressed as a yellow bird.
"You can't stop me, Commander! Not when my power core draws from your very life force!" The bird man yelled back, aiming a metal egg down at the Commander as he flew above him.
"Tell your power core to stop mooching off of my husband, Captain Canary!" Jetstream surprised the flying villain by soaring up behind him and nailing him across the back of the head with the handle bars off the destroyed motorcycle she'd caught on the way up. The handlebars bent in the shape of his skull, but didn't phase him a bit.
Captain Canary whipped around in the air, his majestic golden wings flapping behind him, and grabbed Jetstream by the throat. "It's going to take more than you to stop me, Josie, when I now have your husband's strength of one hundred idiots!" He yanked her around by her cape, wrapped the egg in it, and pushed her away, spinning.
"Mom!" A smaller form dressed in blue jeans, a white jacket with matching cape, and a red ski mask grabbed her before she blew past him. He hurriedly unraveled the metal egg from Jetstream's cape, and tossed it behind him, where the egg-bomb exploded in mid-air, thirty feet off the ground.
The panicked villagers scurried around below, and the Commander herded as many people he could to the relative safety under the forest trees while trying to dodge the egg-bombs that Captain Canary rained down upon him. A humungous, clear, indestructible egg was placed in the center of the village, where a pretty teenage native struggled to escape, yelling, and pounding her arms soundlessly against the rounded walls of her prison.
The Stronghold Three's antagonist was less than intimidated by the youngest member of the team. "This is your newest recruit?" Scoffed Captain Canary, watching the masked boy flit about in the air. "What's his moniker, 'Ms. Useless?'"
"Oh come on now, Barry!" Jetstream scolded, patting the crestfallen masked-boy on the back comfortingly as they hovered a few feet away from the villain, "He doesn't even have his license yet, you know he hasn't gotten his superhero name!"
Captain Canary rolled his eyes, and launched another egg-bomb down at a screaming crowd. "Oh that's right, I forget. You Strongholds always did have a habit of jumping the gun. That explains why you lost the lead in Oklahoma, Steve - you always started in on the chorus a second before everyone else," he jeered at the Commander.
This infuriated the leader of the Stronghold Three. "All right, that's it! You can disrupt our charity tour, you can hold the village chief's beautiful daughter hostage, you can call me an idiot, you can try to blow up my wife, you can even call me an idiot, but nobody, and I mean nobody insults my son's masculinity!"
"He's running a few seconds behind, now," the masked-boy mused, flying beside Jetstream.
"Shhh," she chided, frowning at him in disapproval. "You know there's only one way to end this without risking the lives of any more villagers, and keep Captain Canary's scrawny neck from being wrung until his head pops off."
Captain Canary threw down an egg-bomb from each hand, and one of them landed right in the middle of a group of photographers who were desperate to get the best shot of the battle in the sky. They quickly dispersed right before it detonated, sending debris shooting an all directions. The Commander caught the other, and rocketed it right back up at their winged enemy like it was a baseball.
"I may have lost the lead, but at least I wasn't voted "Best Victim in Save the Citizen" in the Yearbook!" Unfortunately, the Commander's triumph was short lived, when Captain Canary abruptly swerved out of the way of his egg-bomb, and it made a perfect arc into a stockpile of fireworks that were to be used later that night in celebration of the Stronghold Three's visit.
The masked-boy nodded and sighed as he observed various multicolored eruptions surround he and Jetstream, one of them nearly nicking his ankle if Jetstream hadn't pulled him out of the way in time. "Okay, mom. What's your plan?"
Jetstream pointed down at the Commander, who was ushering a family away from their flame-engulfed hut that had been set alight by the fireworks that landed on the roof. "You handle your father. I'll take care of Captain Canary."
"And here I was, afraid to leave the house in case my VCR didn't tape my program," gloated Captain Canary. "I've never had so much fun in my life!"
"Hey!" Called Jetstream, suddenly soaring into his field of vision. "I wouldn't fret over it - in prison you'll never have to worry about stepping out and missing your show again."
The Commander was frantically waving his arms at one of the flaming huts in attempt to put out the fire, but it only seemed to be making things worse. The girl in the middle of the village was still trapped inside the egg-prison, but never stopped fighting to get out. The masked-boy landed on the ground behind the Commander, and quickly ran to him.
"Hey, Dad!" He shouted, and The Commander turned around with a look of surprise. "Will, shouldn't you be helping your mother?"
"I will, but only if you promise not to ground me for it," The masked-boy requested nervously, clenching his fists.
The Commander chuckled obligingly. "Of course I won't! Why, I'm so prou-"
The praise of the Commander was cut violently short by a sucker punch to the face from the boy in the red mask. The senior superhero crashed to the ground, out for the count. The masked-boy dragged his unconscious body away from the flaming hut, and gave Jetstream far up above him a thumbs up.
Captain Canary jolted in the air, falling a few feet, then regaining his flight. "What? What just happened?" He pulled a small pulsating red, white, and blue egg from his feathered belt, and watched as the color drained from it, along with the color from his face. "No! My power core! It's empty!"
Jetstream smirked at him, her cape billowing dramatically behind her in the wind as fireworks went off in the sky behind her. "Oops. Looks like you're back down to the strength of one idiot, Captain Canary." She lunged at him through the sky, and delivered a sucker punch to his face much like the one the Commander had received a moment earlier.
Captain Canary plummeted to the earth, and was caught reluctantly by the masked-boy just before he hit the ground. He promptly dropped him, and the supervillain rolled a few feet away, his wings twitching. "I'm not sure why he sings, but I know how the soon-to-be caged bird got his butt kicked."
Jetstream landed gracefully next to her prone husband, and the masked-boy rushed over to them. "Is he gonna be okay? I didn't hit him too hard, did I?"
The female superhero leaned down to gently pry open one of the Commander's blue eyes, smiled softly, and stood to place a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. "He'll be fine. You did good today, honey. I'm proud of you."
A loud cheering roared from the forest, and all of the villagers and reporters started filtering out, hands clapping and cameras flashing. The egg that was holding the girl captive had cracked open when the Commander was KO'd, and now she was enveloped in a tight hug by her father, the village chief. The waiting news crews bombarded Jetstream, shouting excited questions to the preening superheroine in a dozen different languages.
The masked-boy stood to the side, next to the previously burning hut that was now nothing but ashes. He was so amazed at how well Jetsream handled the over-zealous reporters, he didn't even notice the village chief's daughter until she was standing right in front of him.
He also didn't notice that all of the cameramen had focused on him until the girl reached up, slightly lifted his ski-mask, and with a rainbow of colors still exploding in the sky, pulled him into a passionate kiss.
The girl wrapped her arms around his neck, and from somewhere behind the blinding flashes and clicks of hundreds of cameras, the booming from above, and the whooping of the villagers, he heard the Commander's groggy voice call out, "Way to go, son!"
Finally, after what felt like the most mortifying hours of his life, the girl broke the kiss, released him, gave a grateful smile, and skipped away to rejoin her father and her family. When his eyes adjusted from the flashbulbs, he was met with the sight of Jetstream cocking her head quizzically at him with her hands on her hips, and the Commander nodding sagely with a grin plastered on his face, his legs outstretched in front of him on the ground.
A few of the reporters were giving wolf whistles, and even though he hardly understood a word most of them were saying, he distinctly heard one of them request for him to "kiss your girlfriend again."
This is very bad.
He tried his best to shrug off the attention of the media, and scurried over to his parents, but he knew from the sinking in his gut that he was already too late, and the damage had already been done.
The image of the teenage protege to the Commander and Jetstream kissing an exotic princess whom he helped heroically rescue would be all over the news.
Layla, I hope you were only kidding about that knowing my kryptonite thing. 'Cause I get the feeling that after you see this, you're gonna want to get it out of that little lead box.
"Wow, I can't believe you don't have a TV," Layla said, allowing Warren to lead her through his living room.
His home wasn't at all like she expected it to be. She knew Warren lived in a bad area, and usually poverty-ridden families didn't have much in the way of possessions. But from the looks of it, Warren and his mom did okay. There was nothing too extravagant, but there was a lot more color than she anticipated. The walls were decorated with seething paintings that looked as though they wanted to bleed out past the frame, and soak into anyone who dared to stare at them for too long. Somehow, just by looking, Layla knew that Warren was the artist who brought them into being.
It was just this side of cramped, but the apartment was certainly homey, and it was obvious to anyone who entered that it was a place of familial warmth.
She'd ridden her bike over, but Warren was so paranoid about someone stealing it despite her bike chain, he carried it inside with them, and propped it up in the kitchen for safe keeping.
"I told you it was boring," he reminded, motioning for her to bring her backpack over to the kitchen table. "What did you bring?"
Layla placed her bag on the table and pulled each item out one by one. "Baby carrots, rice crisps, some apples, and-" she stopped at the look on Warren's face. "What?"
He picked up one of the apples she'd taken out of her bag, and practiced tossing it in the air and catching it. "All that great food, and here I am on an all-cardboard diet. You don't happen to have any sawdust for seasoning, do you?" He stopped playing with the apple, and moved to grab her bag from her instead.
Layla yanked it away from him, and wagged a finger in his face when he leaned over the table towards her. "I brought pretzels, too," she said, pulling them out, and tossing them on the table with a crunch.
Warren eyed the bag of pretzels without interest. "Mmm. Those will go great with some gravy I made the other night." He lowered his voice to a comical whisper. "The secret ingredient is glue."
Layla gasped, aghast. "That's not even funny, Warren." Will once told him about an epic incident in third grade where Layla threw a full-out, obscenity-riddled, chair throwing, desk-jumping, temper tantrum. It was Valentine's Day, and in the midst of pouring glitter on the red and white construction paper, one of her classmates informed her offhand that the cows on the glue bottles weren't mascots, they were ingredients. According to Will, she spent the next two weeks grounded, trying to convince her parents to start a "blind cow charity" for the brave survivors of the victimizing glue factories. Her mother hadn't the heart to tell her the truth, and instead bought her a stuffed bull, named Toro. And that's the story of the very first time Warren laughed so hard, milk shot out of his nose.
"Relax, it's only the secret ingredient. The rest is made of one hundred percent pure manatee. I call it 'gravitee.' Get it?"
Layla narrowed her eyes at him. "Well if you're going to be like that, I won't show you what I brought for you," she threatened.
Warren went silent, and raised his eyebrows for her to continue.
With flourish, she pulled out the rest of the snacks one by one.
"Cashews."
Warren's head raised a miniscule amount, considering.
"Graham crackers."
Warren's brow creased in thought.
"And pudding."
Warren immediately shot out a hand to reach for the pudding pack, and this time, Layla let him have it.
"Fat free, of course." Warren hesitated with the chocolate pudding for only a second, then shrugged and pulled out two spoons from a drawer. Looking at them jogged a memory.
"So did Will call you to tell you he was leaving, or did you find out on the morning news like everyone else?" She asked, as he pulled out some bowls from a cabinet.
"Moratorium," he muttered, too low for Layla to hear.
"What?" She couldn't see his face.
"He texted me last night," Warren answered, placing the bowls on the table in front of her, and ripping open the pretzel bag first.
"Really? What did he say?" Layla felt like she was being nosy, but she knew Warren would understand.
"OMG b bk n 1 wk XOXO Will."
After a moment, Layla's brain caught up with her ears. "No, he did not!"
Warren chuckled, and finished dumping the crisps and pretzels in bowls. "Don't forget your spoon," he said, nodding his head the spoons on the table.
Layla picked up the silverware and her backpack as he gathered up the junk food, and she followed behind him as he walked into the living room, carefully balancing the snacks in his arms. Sometimes being a waiter had its perks.
There was no overhead light in the ceiling, and it was fairly dark except for where some tall floor lamps lit up the corners of the living room. "You know, Will left his fork in my bedroom last night," Layla said, only half paying attention to her words, and instead focusing on the soft light that hit the spoons when she slowly spun them between her fingers.
Warren abruptly placed the food on the coffee table, and stiffly straightened up to regard her. "Does your mother know that you and Will have been forking in your bedroom? Was it a "good-bye" fork? Did he cry?" He asked empathetically.
Layla threw a spoon at him, and it bounced harmlessly off his chest to land in the bowl of rice crisps.
Warren grinned. "Imagine the betrayal he'll feel when he finds out that you and I have been spooning together."
The second spoon hit him right between the eyes.
"Geez hippy, whatever happened to make love, not war?" Warren asked, gently rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Layla sighed disgustedly. "That whole thing was a hoax. It's an anagram for "weak valet moron." The guy who started it wasn't really a hippie, he was just a really clever actor dressed as one for research, and some kid at a restaurant had trouble getting his car door open one night. He didn't want to openly insult the kid in case anyone was listening, but I guess someone heard anyway, and it caught on."
Warren sunk down onto the cushy tan sofa, and leaned back, glaring at her. "You are making that up."
Layla shrugged. "It's what I do." She joined him, slumping down on the cushion next to him. "You should know."
Warren glanced down imperceptibly to make sure that their thighs weren't touching. They weren't. Will really would be back in one week.
"How could I forget. You're the first girl to ever get away with shamelessly using me as a boytoy, and the only one to ever actually care about me in the interim." Warren's eyes went distant and thoughtful, and his stare bored a hole into one of his paintings on the wall that was blue and white and gray. "I would have preferred to end it my way, but I suppose hers sufficed." He closed his eyes and smiled grimly, like he'd made a morbid joke.
It was jarring for Layla to hear him talk like this. She'd heard a saying somewhere about how people's homes were an externalization of their minds, and it made her feel warm inside to pretend that Warren would be so trusting as to invite her into both of his homes in the same night.
Layla stuck her out bottom lip in a sympathetic pout. "Aww. I'm sorry, Warren. She didn't deserve you anyway."
"Hm."
"Wouldn't you have preferred ending it sooner, rather than later, when things had gone too far?"
"Mm."
"Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all, right?"
"..."
"She was a cold, hard, ice queen bee-otch, and you're better off without her."
Warren's head snapped to her so fast, she burst out laughing. She knew she was flushed with surprise at herself, but she was so completely delighted at his shocked reaction, it was worth it.
"Just when I think I've got you figured out..." Warren watched her with half-lidded eyes, a strange smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Layla smiled sheepishly, willing her blush to go away. "I'm sorry if I was out of line."
Warren tsked, and leaned his head back with a smirk. "As if you ever fell into line." He shook his head, and reached towards the coffee table to get a handful of pretzels.
Layla discreetly checked to see if their thighs were touching. They weren't. She shifted a few inches closer to the arm of the sofa.
"So I've got some music here," Layla suddenly mentioned, after Warren leaned back, chewing, with his eyes locked on her. Sometimes when Warren met eyes with her, he got quiet and she could never tell if he was intentionally trying to make her uncomfortable, or if his mind was exploring someplace far back in his memories, some area so dark that he needed his conscious thoughts to navigate through the shadows. "Guess what I brought." She handed him her bag that had been resting between her feet on the floor.
"U2 and Sarah McLachlan?" Asked Warren skeptically, without checking.
"Don't worry, I took into account that you mainly like music that showcases the world as a dark place composed of one part black pit of never-ending despair, two parts screaming at the top of your lungs at God." Warren frowned, and Layla tilted her head cockily. "And you'd be surprised at what I listen to."
Warren spoke without looking at her as he examined the cds she'd brought. "I've learned by now to expect the unexpected with you." He flipped through her cd case quickly, reading titles and rejecting albums before Layla even had the chance to catch what he was looking at. He stopped flipping suddenly, and pulled out one that had a dark red label. Warren jumped up from the couch, and went around behind them to a shelf with a boombox on it, squeezed between some books.
Layla whipped her head around to observe him carefully place the cd in the machine. "Which one'd you pick?"
When Warren told her, she was surprised.
"But, those are all breakup songs! Not the kind that make you wanna drop your hairdryer in the bathtub on purpose."
"I always figured the two genres were blood brothers."
"Maybe," Layla pondered.
Warren pressed play.
Author's Notes: I can honestly say that I have never had more fun writing fanfiction than I did when writing the Stronghold Three fight scene. To think I almost chose to have Will be off-panel the whole fic! Hooray for goofy superheroics!
-Warren's "morbid joke" is a reference to the poem "Fire and Ice," by Robert Frost (I almost included his last name in the fic, but I was afraid it would be confusing). If you haven't read it, you can Google it; it's pretty short, but I think most people will recognize it since it's a classic.
-I don't know what the hell happened with the "gravitee" thing. I'm insane. Gravy plus Manatee, and it all comes together with the glue, because it keeps you stuck to the ground, just like "gravity." I've been watching way too much Arrested Development.
- Weak valet moron proves that I'm insane. And shouldn't have bought those AD box sets.
- The cow-glue thing happened to me in second grade, only without the tantrum. And I didn't get a Toro...
-Warren's cd pick is random, and not based on any existing album.
-FFdotnet's formatting is really annoying.
Review, and let me know what you think. Funny, or just weird?