Author's Note: Anybodys' dead name, Susan, is a tribute to Susan Oakes, because I needed it to be something to be able to write this story so it might as well be a tribute to her. The full name is Susan Iris Gordon, for Iris Menas and Maxine Gordon, and his chosen name is just Anybodys Gordon without a middle name. The reason I headcanon that Anybodys is a chosen name and not a gang name is that he uses it to refer to himself, and there's no way he would do that if it was something derogatory the Jets came up with. If they had come up with a gang name for him it would probably be Beat It with how often they say that to him. Also I know the internal monologue is way more mature than a ten year old's thoughts would be, I like to do this thing where I filter the POV characters' thoughts through my writing style. It's a translation of sorts of his actual thoughts.
...
This week's fight between Susan's parents had unfortunately not been unusual in its loudness or length or content... they'd fought about thinking that one or the other was seeing other people before, that was just another Tuesday, only a little less routine than their more typical fight about how his dad should live up to his promise to try and start his own car repair business to provide for the family and make something of himself instead of just working at someone else's...
What was weird about it was there had apparently really been genuine substance to his dad's accusations that his mom was cheating on him this time, because when he had come home from work early, one of those random stranger guys she sometimes went to their bedroom with had hidden in the closet, and he had discovered him.
If he had just asked Susan about his suspicions... well, he would have been able to tell him that that happened a lot, mostly with guys but sometimes with girls, but he wouldn't have told him the truth, because he would have correctly suspected that it would only make the constant fighting worse.
Susan wished grimly that it had been one of those times his mom was in there with a random girl instead of a guy, because he suspected somehow that that wouldn't have riled his dad up as much.
That was the thing, though, apparently he wasn't his and Antonia and Toby's dad, at least, not by blood.
Susan usually didn't get hopeful about things; he'd learned from brutal experience that that often didn't work out for him and anyway it wasn't his job to stare up at the stars wistfully, it was his role in life to look straight ahead and do what needed to be done for his siblings so they could be as okay as they could be in their dire circumstances and retain some starry-eyedness for themselves, but this new possibility of someone else being his dad that hadn't really occurred to him before brought some flutter back to his chest.
Maybe this new guy was wonderful, maybe he wouldn't do all the shouting that their parents did, maybe he'd even take them in and firmly be the parent of all three of them instead of Susan having to essentially be the third parent of his siblings with all the slack their parents weren't picking up like usual.
Maybe he'd really care about him for him... Antonia and Toby did already, sure, but as their older brother slash third parent, as someone who provided for them and protected them.
He'd never really had anyone who cared about him in a different way that wasn't transactional or conditional at all... his mom claimed to care about him that way, but if she really did then she would have found a way to leave his dad who apparently wasn't really genetically his dad by now like she should have done long ago, to stop exposing him and Antonia and Toby to so much fighting and shouting and sleeping with other people that it felt like it was gonna rock the apartment off its foundation.
This new guy, though, might be able to tell the truth about caring for him, for them in that way.
Susan heard the sound of the front door slamming in a way where it was surprising that it didn't just break off its hinges like it seemed to be threatening to, which signaled that the fight was finally over and his mom was probably now in the kitchen drinking vodka and was thus free to be asked about his and Antonia and Toby's genetic father... or maybe multiple fathers, that would get complicated... the best case scenario would be that Susan's father would take them all in and they wouldn't get separated by the other guys coming into the picture, which would be the worst case scenario... hopefully that first thing would happen.
Trying and mostly succeeding to shake off the hold that the thought of that second possibility had on his mind, Susan jumped off his bed, headed to the door of his and Antonia and Toby's room, cautiously and quietly opened it to make sure that the fight was really over and his dad wasn't gonna come back in for round two as had happened sometimes, and then left the relative safety of his sanctuary after deciding that it would probably be fine to do so.
Sure enough, his mom was in her usual post fight position, slumping over the kitchen table a little with a fake plastic wine glass full of probably more vodka than she should be having that she was staring at blankly.
Her eyes traveled over to him slowly, retaining their sullen and a little blank look for a long moment before gaining a note of... guilt? resignation? forlorn contemplativeness?
...No time to think about that, he had to ask about his dad!
"Mom, who's my real dad? Cause Dad isn't, right?"
After a long pause in which her expression didn't change much except for a little residual anger bubbling back up to the surface from probably not that great of a distance after he had referred to his non genetic father... she wasn't angry at him, Susan noted, she was angry at the guy who was her husband for some reason and herself... she took what clearly wasn't her first long swig of vodka before answering him.
"I dunno, you could be anybodys'. I... I've failed you and your siblings by bringing that man into our lives, I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me someday."
Saying what he was about to say hadn't done anything in the past, but...
"Just kick 'im out now, then we won't have to forgive you!"
She didn't seem to be fully looking at him now, even though her gaze was still on him, but rather some far off, theoretical distance.
"I wish it was that simple, I really do. But we need the money from his job, even if he can't get it up to make a better opportunity for himself like he claims to want..."
The tension and anger in her voice had raised in the crescendo of a pot boiling over with that last part and then abruptly, almost unsettlingly dropped back down like a lid had been dropped onto it as she cast him a guilty glance, as if she was suddenly aware of him again after getting back from staring into the distance.
Susan nodded slowly, thinking what she had said over.
He had known that money was the biggest issue in their lives besides his parents' fighting, of course, and that it was one of the more important causes of their shouting matches, but hearing his mom essentially say that she was only with his dad for the money gave him some hesitant hope that maybe she would finally leave him if he made up the difference in cash that him finally being booted out of the apartment would create.
He was good at slipping in and out of the shadows, a talent he had discovered while trying to get himself and his siblings home from school without any of them getting harassed by the weirdly appealing gangs that inhabited the neighborhood and the much less intriguing bums that did the same, and although he was much less proud and even a little ashamed of being so good at something so passive and unmacho in comparison to stuff like fighting and providing for and being provided for by a brotherhood of guys who all supported and stood by each other like those gangs did, a plan to set his sights for that talent higher was slowly forming in his mind.
He could totally use it to skillfully take money and other necessities from unsuspecting strangers, and take on whatever odd jobs that would hire people of whatever the oldest age he would be able to pass himself off as on the side, and then his mom wouldn't be trapped in not only a romantic relationship but one with that jerk any more, and he and his siblings wouldn't be stuck with him either!
The stuff he'd been learning in school hadn't helped him with the dire straits his family was in, and it seemed to mostly be for people who had a chance to make something of themselves as adults who hadn't been shot in the foot right out the gate by life even though that description fit almost none of his classmates, so really, what did he have to lose besides his awful father who wasn't really his father by blood or by Susan caring about him?
"Don't worry, I'll help you with this."
After receiving a dulled, inquisitive look from her, he left the kitchen, going back to the relative safety of his and Antonia and Toby's room before his luck with his dad who wasn't really his dad not being in the apartment ran out.
It wasn't what she had said about him that he was mulling over in his mind, though, it was what she had said about his genetic father.
'I dunno, you could be anybodys'.'
Even though his hopes of meeting his genetic father and having him fix the situation for him and his siblings had been thoroughly dashed against the rocks as most of his hopes but hopefully not his current one of making enough money for his mom to leave her husband were, he liked the sound of that.
He could be anybodys'.
Anyone out there could be the guy who would care about him non transactionally, unconditionally, who would make things better so that he didn't have to worry about stuff like making ends meet and mitigating as much of the damage of his parents' disastrous first meeting as he could.
Anyone out there could be the guy who he could be the son of, and that made the world seem a little less hostile even with the measures he had to take to get himself and his siblings from school back home safely.
None of the guy names he'd tried for himself seemed quite right, quite cool enough, but that had a weirdly nice ring to it.
Anybodys.
Yeah.
Anybodys closed the door to his and his siblings' room behind him, making his way over to his Batman comics and trying to distract himself by going through them deciding which one to reread as he heard the ominous sound that he would recognize from a mile away of his dad who wasn't really his dad coming back into the apartment.