Fic: Lima City Heroes; Episode two: Grand Davina
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So Kurt goes visit the lab first thing in the morning, running away from Mike Chang’s training from hell. By the time he got there, he realized that the boy was already waiting for him…creepy…
“Hi, Kurt;” he said from his desk, while fidgeting with a new engine his dad must have helped him with. “No, I’m not psychic.” Kurt was starting to think otherwise, seeing as how he was just about to ask that, but Artie just pointed over to the several screens on top of him, a live video feed of the outside of the lab.
“Hey,” Kurt started, not quite sure what he should ask, or how, so he blurted out the first thing that came to his head. “I always wondered; you can do so much with these machines, couldn’t you have, you know, fixed your legs?”
Artie actually looked up from his work, looking at him with genuine surprise. “You don’t know,” it wasn’t a question. Wheels sighed and rolled towards a table. “Get a chair, this will be long.” Kurt obeyed, just as surprised as the other boy had been.
“When I was eight,” he started, “my powers manifested; my mom used to belong to the Defenders, as did both your parents, so they managed to keep things quiet about the new boy genius and get me into training quite early; at least that was the plan.”
“I started working under your dad, which is why I got so many of his designs; he taught me a lot of things while our moms patrolled the city; my mom had the same powers as me, but her specialty was as a field agent and I was kept as support.” He stopped for a second, letting Kurt take it all in. “Unfortunately, security was quite lax at the time; some criminal groups found out our moms’ identities and staged a traffic accident; your mom was driving both of us to an assignment in the outskirts of the city when a truck crashed onto our car…”
He fell silent once again, looking at the ground. “They died instantly, but the crash broke my spine. I won’t lie to you, at first I was really depressed, especially when your dad walked out and it was just me and two other agents; but, eventually, I learned to respect and even like the chair; it forced me to improve and think outside the box.”
Kurt was a little stunned and very ashamed, he had been jealous of his dad spending so much time with Artie but he didn’t stop to think about the why.
“I don’t blame her,” Artie said, after he was sure Kurt wasn’t about to talk. “Or you, for that matter; Grand Davina was awesome, and you got the potential to be like her.” That got a smile out of the singer along with a quiet “thank you” that was enough until Artie broke the silence once again.
“Anyway, you think of a name for yourself, yet?” He was changing the subject, trying to get another smile on the countertenor’s face. “I can’t outfit you if I don’t know your specialty.” That earned him a smirk.
“I think I have an idea,” Kurt said, and now both kids were smirking.
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Geez, that took a long time, and it's mostly exposition, too. Next episode will feature more action and introduce more of the ND kids.
Just bear with the exposition a while longer :P