Start Notes

Watch me single-handedly keep this fandom alive, woo! This hyperfixation is beginning to smell a lot like a special interest…

Chapter 3: We Gotta Stop Meeting Like This

Bose had no idea what to think about Mika's outburst about his superhero alter-ego. On one hand, it was really sweet that she thought so highly of him. On the other hand, it would never not be weird hearing her talk so passionately about him without her knowing he was himself… God, his brain hurt.

It really didn't help that Chapa was doing everything she could to stir up drama between the two of them, or well, three of them if you counted Brainstorm as a separate person like Mika did.

"I'm just saying," Chapa elbowed Bose's rib from next to him on the Man's Nest couch, "it's not like Henry never used his mask to flirt. We could totally do the same!"

Bose's eye twitched. "Didn't it turn out horrible for him, though? Like didn't the girl he liked kiss him in his mask while he was dating her without it?"

"You're not dating her, dumbass," she rolled her eyes at him, "I'm just saying you know she's into you as Brainstorm," Bose made a noise of complaint, but Chapa glared at him, daring him to correct her, "so, you should turn up the flirt game."

"I'm not going to flirt with her as Brainstorm!" Bose protested, scooting away to avoid another elbow to the rib.

"Well, you're not flirting with her as Bose, either!" Chapa threw a piece of popcorn at him, now that she couldn't reach him with her arm.

Bose's face heated up, but he couldn't argue.

It just felt so awkward trying to flirt with her as Bose. He wished he had Chapa's confidence. She flirted with everyone all the time, platonically or not, and she wasn't even attracted to half the people she flirted with!

"She would just think Brainstorm is a player anyway, because of those stupid thousand dates," he grumbled, flopping his head back over the couch.

Chapa had the decency to cringe, "I said I was sorry, didn't I? I was just trying to improve your confidence, man."

"I know," he sighed, giving her a tired smile. "It's fine. Thanks for trying."

Bose's phone buzzed, making him groan again. Likely, his stepfather had noticed his absence and was demanding he come home.

He glanced at his phone but nearly dropped it after seeing Mika's name pop up.

Hey, sorry about today. I didn't mean to have a go at you

I know you had a tough day

I'm still here if you want to talk

Bose's heart skipped in his chest. She was apologising. Why? He was the one who'd been out of line, taking his frustrations at himself out on her just because she was there.

Don't apologise!

I'm sorry I got weird

It's been a weird day

We cool, then?

The coolest

Bose looked up when Chapa audibly groaned. "I don't even need to try and guess who that was."

"Shut up," he laughed, mood already lighter than it had been minutes ago. His phone buzzed again.

Get home. Now.

The smile dropped instantly.

"Don't need to ask who that was either. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, he just wants me home," Bose sighed.

"Screw him. Sleep at mine."

"You know I can't," he shook his head. "It's probably nothing. Something to do with Poopsie," he stood, stretching his back.

"See you at school. Don't forget the thing for your arm."

"Yeah, yeah, mum," Chapa rolled her eyes, flipping him off as he left.

Bose didn't really know how it worked, but Schwoz had made a special cast that reacted whenever Chapa blew a bubble. In her suit, the cast became a hologram over her right arm, so long as she didn't move it too much, hiding the break.

So, to the rest of the world, (minus Mika, Bose cringed) Volt the hero would just look like she was left-handed. Meanwhile Chapa the teen girl could pretend that she broke her arm during basketball practice.

Which is exactly what she told them happened, the next day when Mika gasped and pointed the second, she saw the other girl.

"When did that happen?" Miles asked, confused. "You were totally fine at practice on Saturday!"

Chapa cringed for the slightest moment before recovering, "yeah, I thought it was fine too. Then I woke up yesterday and it hurt really bad. Bose took me to the hospital, that's why we disappeared before lunch."

Mika silently eyed Bose with a raised eyebrow, but he avoided her gaze.

He knew she was smart, and a little bit too perceptive. He couldn't let her find anything out. He'd just pretend yesterday didn't happen.

"Does it hurt!" Miles asked, poking Chapa's arm.

"Only when you poke it," she deadpanned, letting him do it twice more before smacking his hand.

"How long will it be until you get the cast off?" Mika asked, clearly the more concerned of the twins. "Do you have to stop playing basketball?"

"Nah, Doctor Schwarma said my bones should snap back into place within two or three weeks if I drank some weird smoothie he made," Chapa shrugged.

The hero team had agreed it best to tell the half-truth to anyone who asked, rather than having to later explain why it was that Chapa healed so miraculously quick.

"Oh cool, I think mum took us to see that guy, once," Miles nodded along.

"Did she? When was that?" Mika focused her full attention on disproving Miles' lies.

Chapa and Bose shared a quiet fist bump. They'd passed the broken arm test. The same one that even Henry had almost failed.

They were in the clear.

Until both of their phones beeped simultaneously.

Thankfully, the twins were now yelling over one another, trying to prove the other wrong, and hadn't heard the beeping.

"Oh, my mum's calling, sorry," Bose spoke quickly, walking backwards. He was gone before the twins even fully looked up.

"And I gotta go do my arm stretches to make sure it heals right," Chapa excused herself next.

Miles and Mika just exchanged a look, used to the pair's random flakey-ness by now.

Brainstorm was just wrapping up the last of his solo patrol- which he'd insisted upon doing every night until Volt's arm was healed- when he saw her.

Mika Macklin, coming out of Swellview High.

What was she doing at school this late? LIMP should have finished at six at the absolute latest, and it was now almost 8pm. The sun had been set for nearly an hour now. Didn't she know how dangerous it was to be walking around Swellview, alone, at night?

Brainstorm pursed his lips, trying to decide between turning back into Bose and making up some excuse to walk her home, or just following behind her.

Deciding it would be almost impossible to convince her of a good reason for Bose O'Brian to be at school this late, he decided it was best to just follow at a safe distance. Just until she got inside, and he knew she was safe.

He followed her for a few blocks, keeping out of her sight line by sticking to the rooftops and jumping across the railings.

The hair on the back of his neck raised.

Someone was coming.

A shadow approached Mika, walking in the opposite direction of her on the same side of the footpath.

Mika clearly stiffened, slowing her step as she saw them.

Brainstorm's eyes darkened as he saw the silhouette reach into their pocket.

The person was getting closer.

Bose raised his hand, ready.

When the silhouette was only a few meters from Mika, they pulled their hand out of their pocket, quickly.

"Give me your-" he froze, trying to move his hand- and the silver glinting knife- closer to the girl, but couldn't.

"No way," Bose jumped down from the rooftop, still holding the man's hand in place.

"Brainstorm!" Mika cried; part alarmed and part relieved.

"Are you okay?" He asked, stepping closer to his friend while keeping his eyes on the would-be mugger.

"I'm fine, now," Bose tried to ignore the dreamy tone of her voice.

It was nothing. Chapa was just getting into his head. It didn't mean anything.

"You stupid-" the criminal snarled before Brainstorm twisted his arm behind his back without touching him. "Let me go!"

"As if," Bose scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I think I'll take that," he plucked the knife out of the man's hand, still holding him in place with his mind. "I think I'll walk you over to Swellview Police Department."

Bose punched the man, knocking him out cold.

"What was that?" Mika cried, surprised and still very clearly shaken.

"I have to walk you home first," Brainstorm stated simply, the 'duh' heavily implied. "Didn't want him to see where you lived."

"So, you punched him?"

Bose shrugged, "it'll keep him here until I get back."

"Wait, you're just gonna leave him here?" Her voice was shrill.

Bose couldn't help but chuckle. Ugh, why was she so cute? It wasn't fair.

"It'll be totally fine," he took a step forward and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, let's get you home."

Realistically, Bose knew he shouldn't be talking to her so familiarly as Brainstorm. The more they interacted while he was in the mask, the bigger risk they ran of her finding something out.

He just couldn't help it. She was intoxicating.

The two teens completed the short walk, talking idly on the way.

Mika was way less chatty, Bose noticed.

"Hey, are you sure you're okay?" He finally asked as he saw them approaching her street. "Tonight must have been tough for you."

Mika shook her head, "I'm fine, really. It was a shock, sure, but you saved me," she looked up at him with doe-eyes.

The teen hero swallowed, forcing himself to break eye contact. "I'll always save you," he muttered anyway, looking anywhere but at her for the last minute of their journey.

"Thank you, again," Mika pressed her lips to his cheek in a quick peck. "Bye," she raced off before he could react, running up the driveway to her front door and quickly unlocking it, slamming it behind her.

Bose stared after her, unmoving.

"Shit," he groaned, running a hand through his hair.

The next day was torture for Bose, having to sit there ignoring Chapa's smug smirks and jibes while Mika talked up his alter ego to the group.

"He was just so sweet!" She fished for the third time since the start of lunch.

Miles groaned, "ohmygod, we get it Mika. Shut up!"

"I for one find this hilarious," Chapa input, beaming the whole time. She nudged Bose with her foot under the table, as she had been all morning.

"Sorry," Mika looked embarrassed this time.

Bose wanted to reassure her that it was fine, normally he would. There was nothing wrong with talking about a crush with your friends. But this was him that she was crushing on, and she didn't even know it. A fact that was slowly killing him.

Idly, he wondered if she was only interested because he'd saved her.

What was it about Brainstorm that drew Mika in so fully, that Bose didn't have? It had to be the hero thing, right?

Who could he even talk to about this? Chapa and Ray would both just insist that he pursue her in the mask, which he didn't want to do, even ignoring all the dubious consent that came with that option. Schwoz would offer to build a robot version of her, which, creepy. Who else did he know that might get it?

Bose's eyes widened. There was one person he could ask. One person who had literally been through everything he was experiencing.

"I gotta go," he blurted, accidentally cutting Miles off mid-basketball rant. "Uh, my stepdad texted, he wants me home."

"Wait, what? It's the middle of the day?" Chapa questioned, but Miles and Mika just shrugged. "Are you going to be okay?"

"This happens a lot, why are you surprised?" Miles asked the girl.

Bose winced. Every other time he'd said this lie, it'd been about hero stuff, so of course Miles and Mika were used to the random excuses and ditching. Chapa wasn't.

He didn't like lying to Chapa. She was the one person in his life who knew everything. He'd have to text her later and explain his epiphany.

He scooted out of their lunch booth, waving awkwardly as he left the cafeteria.

He'd barely made it out of the building before he was dialling Henry Hart's number.

"Come on, come on, come on," he muttered, pacing in circles.

"Hello?" Henry's voice was raspy.

He'd clearly been asleep, which, oops? Bose had forgotten that Dystopia was eight hours behind them, meaning it would be like five in the morning there. He'd apologise later.

"Henry!" Bose shouted into the phone, feeling only slightly bad when the older hero groaned. "Thank god, I need help."

"What's wrong?" The man sounded more awake instantly.

"Everything's fine," Bose quickly reassured him. "It's more of a personal crisis."

Bose rushed to fill Henry in on everything. The awkward crush on his best friend, the secrets, the lies, all of which he knew Henry could relate to.

"What do I do?" He finally asked.

"That's a tough one, man," Henry winced, trying to be soft on the younger hero.

Henry knew exactly what it was like to not have a single mature mentor he could to go about these things, and by sixteen it had really started to catch up on him. He wanted to be that mature support for the younger hero.

"The best plan is to just stay away from her as Brainstorm as much as possible," he finally said. "Don't give her crush any ammunition to grow further."

"And then what? After she stops finally crushing on Brainstorm?"

"Then comes the hardest part. Telling your best friend you like them romantically."

Bose groaned, running his hand through his hair. "What if I just never do that? Then what?"

"I don't know man," Henry sounded agitated. "You miss out on years of happiness, like I did?"

Bose pursed his lips. He'd heard the story over and over from Schwoz (he was a big shipper) about how messy Henry and Charlotte's relationship was in their young adult years.

Charlotte had thought Henry didn't like her, so tried to skip town to Dystopia the second she'd graduated. Only for him to follow her like he always did.

It all really blew up when they moved, and everything should have been different, but nothing changed, again. Charlotte began pulling away from the hero when he started dating people in Dystopia, and Henry got mad at her for abandoning their friendship.

In the end, it was Jasper who had to smack some sense into Henry, and outright tell him about Charlotte's crush on him.

Henry finally got the clue, and they were happy, now, but it took a long time to get there.

Bose didn't want that.

If Mika didn't like him, that was fine. But he didn't want to hold onto those feelings and have them slowly turn into resentment.

As soon as this whole Brainstorm drama was over, he'd tell her. She'd either reciprocate, or she wouldn't. And he'd get over it if she didn't. Their friendship was too important for him to lose because of his own stupid feelings.

"Thanks, Henry. I think that helped."

"I didn't say a lot."

"I know."

Bose hung up. It felt mean to admit that just remembering what Henry went through and how he'd handled it, had helped Bose figure out, at the very least, what he didn't want to do. The rest was easy. Or not.

Why did this keep happening to him?

Why did the universe keep putting Mika Macklin right in the front lines of the danger, when he was around?

Why was it never when Volt was around that their recently appointed damsel-in-distress best friend needed saving?

Why did Doctor Minyak have to be basically a real-life Doctor Doofenshmirtz? Like seriously, blowing up an administrative department because they refused to renew his driver's license without an original birth certificate? What kind of petty crime was that?

"Okay team, split up. I'll take the first three floors, Volt will take the middle two, and Brainstorm the top two." Captain Man ordered, the building still crumbling around them. "We gotta comb this entire building for any straggling civilians."

It was weird hearing Captain Man sound so serious.

"There could be mums in here."

There it was.

"Pay special attention to elevators, stairwells, and bathrooms. Go, go, go."

And so, they split up.

Bose and Chapa both raced straight for the stairs, climbing them and calling out as they went up, listening for any responses before moving to the next flight.

Chapa separated on the fifth floor, deciding to work her way down.

Bose went to the top to do the same.

"Brainstorm here!" He called, dodging the occasional falling rubble as he made his way through the top floor. He went into all bathrooms, calling out again as he did, knocked on the elevator doors, and checked all offices, breaking windows if they were locked.

Clear.

He headed down to the sixth floor and repeated the process.

"Hello? Is anyone in there?" He called, knocking on the elevator doors again, after checking the bathrooms. No response.

He was about the head to the stairwell when a frantic knocking on the window made him jump.

Bose's eyes widened. Mika? What was she doing here? Why was she outside? Was she okay?

"What are you doing out there?" He shouted, hoping she'd hear him through the thick glass.

He watched her mouth move but couldn't hear whatever she'd said. He shook his head, letting her know he couldn't hear her.

She mouthed something at him slowly.

Balcony.

The balcony!

He ran back through the offices, looking for whichever one had a balcony on the same wall.

There!

He ripped the door open, and his heart dropped.

There was no balcony left. Live electrical wires moved about chaotically, and the concrete floor had caved in all the way around the side of the building.

If Mika had been standing on here, it was a miracle she wasn't dead, either by electrocution or the eighty-foot drop straight down.

He ran back to the window.

"Stand back," he spoke slowly, making sure to enunciate his words in a way she could read. He mimed kicking the glass, just to make sure she got the message.

She moved to the side, out of his sight.

She must have been on a ledge, he concluded.

Maybe she heard the bomb go off or noticed the balcony falling apart before it did, and managed to climb onto the ledge. He'd ask later. After he knew she was okay.

Bose took a deep breath before kicking the glass in, hitting the middle where the support was the weakest, with his heel.

The window shattered easily, with the structural integrity of the building already in shambles.

Mika yelped as glass sprayed outwards, but her hands were occupied gripping the bricks to ensure she wouldn't fall.

"Grab my hand," Bose stuck both arms out of the building, leaning till he was right in front of her.

The building shook again.

Mika's foot slipped, just as her hand grabbed his.

She screamed as she fell from the ledge, Bose's arm tugging at his shoulder painfully as her full weight was held in one hand.

"I need your other hand. It's fine, you're okay, just take a deep breath and grab my hand," he levelled his voice, knowing that if he freaked out, she would too.

Mika struggled but managed to raise her other hand so he could grab it.

"Now, lift your feet and slowly walk up the wall," he instructed.

"I'm scared," Mika whimpered, not moving.

"Hey, look at me," Bose leant further out the window. "I've got you. I've got you."

Her eyes sparkled with fear, but she eventually nodded, looking down for a minute and yelping.

"Don't look down," Bose spoke quickly. "Just look at me. Don't look away."

Mika looked back up at him.

"See, we're fine. You got this," he tried to reassure her. "You're so brave, and you're doing amazingly. You've got this."

She took a deep breath and nodded okay. "Okay," her voice cracked, her eyes not leaving his.

He felt her shift, moving her legs and slowly walking her way up the wall, but didn't break eye contact.

Bose readjusted the closer she got, holding onto more and more of her arms as she got closer to him.

She hit the top of the wall, and he moved quick, dropping her hands and grabbing her waist just as her body tipped away from him.

"I've got you," he whispered, finally breathing.

He pulled her into the building, slowly, and held her close when her feet were finally on the ground.

"You did aweso-"

He was cut off by her lips.

She kissed him desperately, stealing his breath away.

Bose knew he shouldn't have, but he got caught up in it. He forgot about all of the drama with secret identities and friendships, and just breathed her in. She was okay.

His hands rested on her hips as he pulled her closer, giving in with no fight.

The two broke apart seconds later, both gasping for air.

Bose blinked, his breath still heavy. The two were still only inches apart.

Mika smiled at him sweetly. "I've wanted to do that for a long time," she whispered, afraid to break the spell between them.

Bose stuttered, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. They'd kissed. He was Brainstorm.

"Shit," he muttered, pulling back from her. "Shit, shit. That was a bad idea."

Mika's face twisted with hurt instantly. "Oh. Sorry," she blinked quickly, turning her head down.

Shit, now he'd made her cry.

"It's not your fault, it's mine. I shouldn't have," he trailed off. He wasn't making it any better. "Let's just," he nodded his head at the staircase.

She followed silently behind him.

Internally, Bose was freaking out.

He'd kissed her.

Or, well, she'd kissed him. But he let her.

She didn't know who he was.

His stomach churned with guilt and frustration.

So much for crushing her crush.

End Notes:

Watching the Swellmelon Fest episode literally broke my heart, this poor child has such low self-esteem, he needed literally all his friends to help him get a date, baby bean. He is my child now. Also, I just had to mention the fact that Chapa (or more so Havan) has chemistry with literally everyone she has ever spoken to in the show. It's like the law, okay?

God, every single chapter I add makes me wanna add more. I haven't been this inspired to write in the longest time and it's genuinely so nice. But I think (I do not promise) that 5 is a good number. I have a few full future scenes written, and I think I can get to where I want to go in two chapters (as long as I don't end up writing another super short one. Crazy that Chapter 1 had over 2700 words, but 2 somehow only had 1800? Wack. This one is more back to my norm at 3700… I might need to go back and add a scene in Chapter two, eventually. I'll make it clear in the summary of Chapter 4 or 5 if I do end up doing that, so people can reread if necessary.)