Cloud
Push and Pull
As I got older I found myself roped into helping raise my younger siblings. It wasn't that our parents didn't have time for us, they did, but after all... Four of them, nine of us. And when your dad controls the military base you live on while one of your moms controls day-to-day operations, another mother is the special forces agent from hell, and one mom was a former rebel who knows all the tricks? You don't get away with anything.
Except for porn... I remember a very embarrassing conversation with dad where he told me about the birds and the bees and how he was plainly going to ignore some things, for both his and my sanity. It wasn't a conversation I wanted to exactly have but I know he meant well.
So nine kids in total. I would help them train to use their water powers correctly, along with dad. Those water lessons were fun, dad took any losses he got in good spirits and he trained us well. Of course some of us showed off, especially the younger kids, but dad's rules were firm: We were allowed to show off our skill, allowed to brag about our personal accomplishments, but we were absolutely positively not allowed to brag about our family.
When I was a child I resented that rule. When I became a teenager I didn't feel like bragging about him. When I became an adult I realized that dad was, in his own way, just trying to help me, help all of us, to become our own people. That said when I was a teenager I wanted to deck him, because dad could be incredibly embarrassing. Hugging me in public, dressing like a dork, and his complete inability to give a single fuck about what other people thought of him.
You know that he wears the same outfit every day? He literally has rows of black slacks, white shirts, and lab coats. All of them the same. The only time he didn't wear it was when he was wearing armor for space stuff and even then, I shit you not, he would just wear an oversized lab coat over it.
I asked him about it once.
"I'm a mad scientist."
"But do you have to wear it every day?"
And he looked at me and said something I won't forget.
"It's not about me, you know. As much as I have accomplished... it's about society, it's about our culture and country. I want our people to know that they have a crazy mad scientist in their corner, I want them to have hope that even if things get dark we can pull off some miracle to make things right. I have a role I play, and sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's boring and sometimes I hate it. But I play that role all the same because the people who matter, the ones we fight for? It gives them a sense that things are going right in the world."
Dad was in many ways simpler than expected, but every now and then he could be just a little bit deep.