"This is so humiliating." Dexter says looking at himself in the reflection of the side of the oven.
His parents were happy to hear that he wanted to find a part time job after school but out of all the places he had applied to over the course of a week, only the Pizzeria had offered him a job.
While working he had to wear a white apron and a paper hat and was not allowed to wear his lab coat or his gloves so he felt a little out of his comfort zone.
It was the first day at his new job and he was already starting to not like it. He had to sit through a safety talk by his manager about the do's and don'ts of the restaurant and had to clean up a few messes made by the children of the family's that have eaten. And now he was bringing out a pitcher of soda and three cups of ice to his own family.
"Here are your drinks, your pizza will be out soon." He says setting the glasses and pitcher down.
"Thank you son." Dad says as he poured himself some soda.
"You're welcome." Dexter says before he walked away to attend to the other customers in the restaurant.
The bell above the door rings and he look to the door and sees the Utonium's walk in.
"Hi Dexter." Bubbles says when they spot him.
"Hello, table for four?" Dexter says remembering his training on how he is to greet the customers.
"Yes please Dexter." Professor Utonium says.
Dexter walked them over to an empty table. "Here you go." He says gesturing to the table.
"Thank you, so did you just start here?" Blossom asks as she and her family sits down at the table.
"Yes today is my first day." Dexter says as he set the menu down on the table and pulling out a small note pad from his back pocket. "Would you care for some drinks?" He asks again remembering his training.
"Could we have a pitcher of Sprite please Dexter." The Professor says picking up the menu.
"Ok, would you like to order now or shall I come back later?" Dexter says writing down the drink order.
"I want mushrooms." Buttercup says.
"I don't like mushrooms, I want pineapple." Bubbles says.
"I would like pepperoni please Professor." Blossom says adding what she wants onto the pizza.
"I think we will need a minute or two please." The Professor says looking at his daughters.
"I will be back in a few minutes then." Dexter says before walking back to the kitchen to see if his family's pizza is done.
"Thanks Dexter." Dee Dee says as Dexter sets the pizza pan down on the table.
"You are welcome, can I get you anything else?" Dexter asks as his family starts pulling slices out of the pan and onto their plates.
"No, but thank you son." Dad says picking up his own slice.
"I think your new friends are ready Dexter Dear." Mom says pointing at the Utonium's.
"Ready to order?" Dexter asks when he reached the table the Utonium's were sitting on. He had already brought over their drinks a few minutes ago and he noticed that their pitcher was getting low and he would need to bring another one out to them.
"Yes we finally came to a compromise." The Professor says picking the menu up.
"Ok." Dexter says taking his note pad out.
"We'll have one medium pepperoni pizza." The professor says.
"With mushrooms on one quarter." Buttercup adds.
"And pineapple on another quarter." Bubbles says adding her toppings of choice to the order.
"One medium pepperoni pizza with mushrooms on one quarter and pineapple on another." Dexter says reading back the order he's written down. "Anything else?" He asks looking up.
"That will be all." The Professor says holding the menu out to Dexter.
"Ok it will be just a few minutes." Dexter says putting the notebook into his pocket.
Later that night after his family had left, leaving a generous tip and the to go box with a note written on it saying; "Have a good night sweetie, you can have the rest for your dinner while you're working. Love Mom, Dad and Dee Dee."
'Thanks Mother.' He thinks recognizing his mother handwriting as he cleared their table.
"Hey Dexter, could we get a to go box." Blossom asks walking up to him.
"Sure, just give me a minute to put this stuff away." He says pointing at the stack of dirty plates and pizza pan with his left hand thumb.
"Ok thank you." She says catching a glimpse of the scar on his hand.
When he brings the box over to the Utonium's table he sees that it's just Blossom sitting at it.
"Where did the rest of your family go?" He asks setting the box down on the table.
"Buttercup and Bubbles are off playing one of the old arcade games and The Professor needed to use the restroom." She says opening the box.
"I see, we'll have a good night then." He says as he turned to walk away.
"Sit down for a minute Dexter, you look a little worn out." She says grabbing his shirt sleeve and pulling him down into an empty chair with a bit or force so he couldn't fight back.
It was the first time all night that he's had a chance to sit down, and when he did the strain of the night finally caught up to him.
He lets out a long sigh as he slouches in the chair. "Working is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be." He says crossing his arms across his chest.
"It's something we all have to do in life." She says as she put the last uneaten slices of pizza into the box.
"Says the girl with superpowers." He says looking at her.
"To the self-proclaimed boy genius." She says grinning at him. "Were both going to have busy lives as adults."
"You saving the world and me hopefully doing something that betters it." He says describing what the two of them might be doing in the future.
"Do you have plans for after high school?" She asks closing the box.
"MIT has already sent a recruiter to my house before I moved, but Mother and Father wanted me to finish high school first before I go off to higher learning. They claimed that I should have a normal childhood like everyone one else."
"Global Security has done that to us too. But we turned them down, they do some pretty shady stuff in the name of world security."
"We really are going to be busy." He says sitting up in the chair.
"Yeah. Um, Dexter do you mind if I ask you something?" She says feeling a little nervous about what she wanted to ask him.
"Sure go ahead." He says. He has only know Blossom for little over a week but he already becoming good friends with her and her sisters.
"What happened to your hand, that scar looks like it must have hurt?" She says pointing at his left hand.
"Oh this." He says lifting his left hand and looking at the X shaped scar on the back of it. "It's a reminder to never use pressurized hydrogen as a fuel with Dee Dee as your sister." He says looking from the scar to her.
"What does that mean?" She asks confused by his answer.
"Long story short, Dee Dee caused one of my inventions to blow and I was trying out hydrogen as a fuel source so the explosion was a decent size resulting in my hand getting cut up." He says setting his hands down on the table.
"Wow, that must have hurt." She says feeling sorry for him.
"It did, but that was years ago." He says shrugging. "I should get back to work. See you tomorrow Blossom, tell your sisters and father I say bye." He says standing up.
"Ok don't work too hard Dexter." She says smiling as she got up to go find her sisters.
"I won't, I'm saving all the hard work for when I'm older." He says joking with her.
School became very routine after the first two weeks of living in Townsville for Dexter. Every morning he would ride the city bus to school with the Utonium girls, sit with them during Math and then sit alone for English and American Government due to Morbucks turning the school against him as well. But he really didn't care about being shunned by the rest of the school, the girls were great friends and he was already used to being alone.
He would find himself joking and laughing with all three of them and he was getting to know them pretty well. Blossom was a strong but caring leader to her sisters, Buttercup was the tough bad girl but she has a secret soft side that she keeps hidden and Bubbles is kind hearted and always sees the bright side of everything.
He would eat lunch with them then walk to AP science with Blossom like normal teenagers would. He didn't notice it, but he's spent more time talking to her than either of her sisters. But they were anything but normal, He'd tell her about the things he's invented, most ended up being broken by Dee Dee and she'd tell him about the fights her and her sisters have had.
He enjoyed his science class because Blossom was in it with him, even though there was little to no challenge from the work they would do.
Unfortunately the rest of the day was not as enjoyable as the first half. The PC class was not what he had hoped for, he would spend most of the time in the class reading from the digital textbook on the computers. What little work they did do was very basic stuff in Dexter's mind, assembling a computer, replacing bad parts and diagnosing problems with them.
What little homework he did end up with he could easily get done during study hall period and then spend the rest of the time drawing up ideas for inventions in a graph paper notebook he kept in his backpack.
Gym was probably the worst out of all of his classes. The Meat Heads, as Dexter has come to refer Brick, Boomer, and Butch as in his head, haven't said or done anything to him directly since his first encounter with them but they would find ways to passively give him a hard time. Like putting gum on the dial for his locker lock, throw various objects between each other just barely over his head and the one they seemed to really enjoy was beating him in every activity they did in the class. The girls don't partake in any of the activities of the class, having super powers make things like running a mile a joke so he had to deal with The Meat Heads on his own.
After school he would walk back home with the girls and if he had to, he would part ways with them and head over to the pizzeria for work.
On one walk home a thought came to Dexter. "If you don't mind me asking, why don't you fly everywear? Wouldn't it be faster?" He asks as a cold wind blows by.
"The Professor wants us to keep as low as a profile as we can." Buttercup says as she floated by him on her back with her arms behind her head.
"Which is why we don't fly or use any of our powers unless it's needed." Blossom says pulling her sister down to the ground by her foot.
Bubbles laughs at her sisters and Dexter grinned holding back his laughter.
"Is this what it's always like having friends?" He asks wondering if laughing at your friends is part of what he had missed out on at his old school.
"Na it's better than having normal friends, life is so much cooler as a superhero." Buttercup says as she fixed her green scarf that had fallen out of place when Blossom pulled her back to the ground.
With his first paycheck he started buying supplies to start working on his first invention after moving to Townsville. He was happy to get back to building things again and would stay up late working.
One night while working he had chosen to leave his bedroom window open to enjoy the cool night air as he worked.
He was so focused on his work that he didn't notice the red haired girl float up to his window. "Hey Dexter, do you ever answer your phone?" Blossom asks as she crosses her arms on the window sill and sticking her head through the window.
He quickly hits a button on his laptop hiding COMPUTER's chat program as he turned to her. "Oh, hello Blossom." He says surprised to see her.
"Hey, so do you?" She asks grinning at the surprised look on his face.
"Do I what?" He asks having missed the question she had asked.
"Answer your phone, I've called you three times and sent you a few emails." She says looking over at the mess of tools and parts on his desk.
He picks up his phone from where he had set it face down after turning off the ringer and sees that he does have several missed calls and a couple of emails from her. "Sorry, I had put it on silent to work." He says looking over at her.
"It's ok The Professor gets lost in his work too. I just needed to ask you a question about the AP science homework." She says looking away from his work.
"Ah, what is your question then?" He asks spinning around in his desk chair to face her properly.
"I was hoping I could borrow your copy of the reference guide, I left mine at school." She says feeling a little silly that she had forgotten hers.
"Yeah sure, come in and I'll get it." He says getting up from his chair to walk over to his bed where he had left his backpack when he got home.
Blossom pulls herself into the room and looks around as Dexter sits down on his bed to dig through his backpack.
Aside for his desk Dexter's room was very cleaned and organized and she was impressed by the large bookshelf he has full of books.
"Here you go." He says holding a sheet of paper out to her.
"Thank you, so what are you making?" She asks taking the paper from him and looking at his desk.
"It's just a simple self-preservation device to keep me safe from Brick and them if they try to get rough with me when you and your sisters are not around." He says explaining what he is building but at the same time not telling her what it really was.
"I see, just don't blow yourself up Dexter." She says confused by what he had said.
"It's Dee Dee that tends to cause things to explode." He says standing up from his bed.
"Still, I'd hate to visit you in the hospital because you hurt yourself." She says smiling at him again.
"I bet Mother and Father would enjoy that." He says smiling back at her.
"Do they not know about your inventing and building things?" She asks.
"No they don't, I don't think they would understand that their son is smarter than they think he is." He says as he spun his desk chair back around.
"Or that you've been doing science in secret?" She says he smile growing.
He lets out a little laugh at her joke. "Yeah that would freak them out too." He says as his smile grows.
"Well I guess I should get back home." She says taking a step backwards towards the window.
"Oh, Ok." Dexter says remembering that she did just come over to borrow something.
"Have a good night Dexter." She says as she climbed out of his window. "And remember not to blow yourself up." She adds with a smile before flying off to her own house.
He watched her leave then continued to stare out the window day dreaming about Blossom and the time he has spent with her. Waiting for then riding the bus in the morning with her and her sisters, the few classes he had with her and having lunch with her and her sisters.
He shakes his head snapping himself out of the daydream about Blossom.
'Come on Dexter, back to work.' He thinks sitting down in his chair to return to his work.
After a few days of working on his invention after school and work he had finally finished it. He had built a low powered laser meant to stun whoever he fired it at.
It wasn't exactly what he had wanted to build as his first invention since moving to Townsville, but he figured after he got it fully working it could be used as a nonlethal way to stop a bank robber or something similar so he didn't feel as wrong about it as he would have if he had just built something just to defend himself.
When they reach about half way home from school Dexter stops at a cross in the road. "So I need to go and take care of something." He says to Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. He wanted to test the laser, but didn't want the girls to know he was.
"Ok, see you later then." Blossom says stopping and turning around.
"See you tomorrow then." Bubbles says waving as Dexter started down a different route than they normally take.
"Bye." He says waving back at them.
He had already picked out a place he figured would be safe to use as a testing area. He had found an empty lot with a tall wood fence around it with an opening in the fence down an alleyway.
He took a look around to see if anyone was watching him before he walked into the empty lot. Inside it looked like the lot was meant to be a site for a new building but was abandoned years ago. There was tall grass growing all over and a pile of trash stood in one corner next to a discarded couch.
He sets his backpack down on an old tire and opens it and takes out the fruits of his labor over the past week.
He had wrapped the laser in a spare pajama shirt early that morning and now carefully unwrapped it from its protection.
It was still an early design and didn't have a proper handle or trigger so Dexter had rigged up a simple button as a trigger and was using a pair of pliers as a way to hold the device.
"Ok, power is on." He says as the device hums on.
"Everything seems to be working." He says looking the device over.
He points it at the pile of trash and says; "Here we go." And pushes the button to fire the laser.
A purple beam starts to come out of the laser and Dexter smiles at the sight of it working, but then the beam starts to blink. "No, what are you doing?" He says as the blinking speeds up.
He drops the device and it explodes into a puff of smoke just as it hits the ground.
"Crud." He says kneeling down to look at the device. There was a hole in the side of the laser the size of a quarter and when Dexter looked inside the hole he could see all the components were black and burned.
"It is trashed." He says lowering the device disappointed that it didn't work.
He pulls off the pliers and the power supply off before throwing the broken pieces into the pile of trash before heading home disappointed in himself.
'So much for that one.' He thinks walking down the sidewalk home.
Later that night after dinner he opens his door and saw someone he was not expecting.
"Hello Dexter." A tall black haired lady in a black jumpsuit sitting on his opened window sill says.
"What do you want Honeydew?" Dexter asks not happy to see her.
"I'm here to talk to you Dexter, if you want to keep your amnesty we gave you you can't go around building weapons." She says holding up the remains of his laser.
"It wasn't a weapon, it was something that could be use to keep someone safe if they got attacked." He says trying to defend himself.
"This looks like a weapon to us, it could easily have been used in a robbery, or holding someone hostage." She says looking the burnt laser over.
"I just want to be helpful to the world." He says crossing his arms realizing that she was right.
"It's not your job to fight crime Dexter." She says looking at him.
"I can't just sit around and do nothing. The Utonium girls shouldn't have to defend this city all on their own, they are just three teenage girls." He says pointing past her at the Utonium's house.
"Who can fly, are bullet proof, super strong and can fire lasers from their eyes. You are just a normal human boy Dexter." She says standing up from the window.
"I'm just a normal human boy, I'm probably the smarted teen since Einstein." He says crossing his arms again getting mad at her calling him normal.
"Actually Mr. Utonium holds that one." She says walking over to him.
"How do you know that?" He asks looking up at her.
"That is classified, the point is Dexter we can't have you risking your life for some silly power trip." She says placing her hand on his shoulder.
"It's not a power trip, I want to help people." He says looking at her hand.
"You've met Major Glory haven't you?" She asks bending down to look at him
"Several times, and none of them were good." he says remembering the last time he ran into Major Glory.
"Then I'm sure you know how busy he is and can't always come to save you when your inventions go astray in an attempt to help. If you really want to be helpful then do it in a way that actually would help people. Volunteer to pick up trash off the side of the road or help get people to start recycling. Put that brain of your to work to make a real difference." She says putting her other hand on his shoulder.
Dexter looks at her and see the look of caring in her eyes. "Fine, you win. I won't build anything that could be used against people." He says looking away from her.
"Good to hear Dexter but just so you know, they wanted to send an agent to come through your front door for you. But luckily you know Monkey and he knows me so you got off easy this time, next time I won't be able to save you." She says standing up.
The mention of Monkeys name stung Dexter, he's always been a little mad at her for taking Monkey away from him, even though he know that he is doing a lot of good for the world.
"Here." She says holding a business card out to him. "If you ever need to get ahold of me or Global Security." She says as she started to climb out his window.
"Thanks, I'll remember that." He says looking at the card and seeing a few phone numbers and an email address.
"I'll tell Monkey that you said hello and that you obviously miss him." She says before she disappeared into the dark of the night.
The next day Dexter retold the tail of what happened the previous day to Blossom as they walked to their science class.
"You know Dexter, not everyone is meant to fight crime, you should do what you are good at." Blossom says after Dexter finished his story.
"I'm good at coming up with inventions and building them, despite what happened yesterday afternoon." He says naming the one thing he knows he's good at.
"Then do that Dexter." She says as he pulled the classroom door open for her. "Just no WMD's, I'd hate to have to take you down." She adds smiling as they took their seats in the classroom.
Right after the bell rang signaling the start of class the principal bust into the room. "Blossom The Mayor just called, you and your sisters are needed." He says sounding out of breath.
"Later Dexter, take notes for me please." She says before grabbing her backpack and running out the door.
Less than a minute later he sees the pink, green and blue streaks of light that the girls leave behind as they flew off into the city from the window.
'They have no real way to communicate with one another, or The Mayor.' He thinks as the teacher continues the lecture.
Dexter let this thought mull over in his head as he took notes for Blossom, and when the bell rang an idea came to him of something he could build that would help people and couldn't be used for any wrong doings.
He spends the majority of his study hall class drawing and writing down things related to his brain storm. And when that period ended he hand a basic design drawn up and a list of parts he would need to get with the word "Communicator system for the Utonium's." Written in bold letters across the top of the page.