Ditto Ditto (12 page)

“I love you,” she says, pulling away and looking me in the eye.  “And I forgive you for cheating on me with other doppelgangers.”

“I--how would that be cheating?” I finally get out.

“It’s totally cheating, right, Trent?” Ditto says to Trent.

“I’m not getting in the middle of this one,” he says, holding up both hands.

“Like ALWAYS,” Ditto complains.  “I yelled at him for that bad habit while we were in the park,” she tells me, draping an arm over my shoulder, which is a bit awkward since we’re the same height.

“She’s got a point,” I have to agree, looking over at Trent.  “You never take sides on anything.”

“Hey, I like to think there are always plenty of you on the same side already,” he declares, putting one hand on my head and the other on Ditto’s.  He ruffles our hair affectionately before heading for the apartment.  “It’s lunchtime, right?”

“Oh--oh crap, I totally forgot!” I say, starting to freak out.  “I’ve got to go to the dorms!  Liz, I’ll be back later, I’ve got cooking class to go to--”

“No you don’t--someone needs to go with you,” she says, starting forward.

“You’re under house arrest,” I say.  “It’s only twenty feet away!  You can watch me from here, right?”

“Trent, go with her,” Liz says instead.

“Sure,” he says.

“It’s not like Skystep has even gotten out of the ER,” I complain.  “I’ll be perfectly fine!”  But arguing about this is taking up more time and if I’m late, who knows what Vinny will do?  He might swear off teaching me!  He’s got important things to do, after all--like feeding the entire dorm!  He’s also got a would-be girlfriend to flirt with and--

Instead of all this thinking, I really need to go, I decide, only to blink as Ditto pats me on the shoulder.  “I’ll go!” she says, poofing away.  For a second I get an image of a picnic table and Trent, and then it’s gone.  She’s already at the dorm.

“I wanted to go,” I complain.

“How about this?  You take classes with Mom while Ditto takes classes with Vinny?” Trent offers.  “Mom should be back from her rounds for church by now.”

“So... two classes at once?” I ask.

“Yeah, two classes at once.”

“Jeanie wouldn’t mind, would she?” I ask, more of myself than him.  Maybe... maybe I’d been going about this a bit wrong.  Maybe I should take more advantage of having more than one of me.  “I’m going to go ask her!” I declare, racing up the stairs to their apartment.  The sight of Ken and Jeanie in the kitchen was no surprise.  The intimate moment between the two, though, doesn’t register until I’m already in the kitchen.

“Oops, um--I’m interrupting,” I say, blushing brightly as they turn to me.  Ken starts laughing even as Jeanie pulls out of his hug and crosses over to wrap her arms around me.  I let out a little “eep” when her hug is a bit too strong and she loosens her hold, blushing slightly.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad to see you’re out of the ER already!” she says, kissing me on the cheek before pulling back. 

“Yeah, but, um, I can leave the room if you want to continue doing the whole kissy stuff--” I offer, still stuck on that.

Ken bursts out laughing, making my blush get even worse.  Jeanie shoots him a look before placing both hands on my shoulders.  “Sweetie, we’re married,” she says.

“Yeah, I know, I was just--”

“There’s nothing wrong with kissing your husband,” she tells me with a brilliant smile, “or yelling at him when he’s being a brat,” she adds with another pointed look at Ken.  “Now how are you feeling?  Should you go back to bed?  Where’s Ditto?” she asks in machine gun fashion, leaving me no time to reply.  “I know that Liz is under house arrest, but she’ll be fine--”

“Yeah, she’s fine with it,” I say, just jumping in the middle of her sentence because it seems like she won’t stop.  “The house arrest thing.  She’s thinking of knocking out the wall between our apartment and the empty one next door--I’m not sure why, but,” I shrug, “maybe she’ll put in a game room or something,” I decide.

“Oh good,” Jeanie says.  “I hope,” she adds with a hint of worry.  “I heard Aubrey is back, too--the two of you should keep her occupied enough.  Hopefully.”

“Honey, you just used the word ‘hope’ twice,” Ken points out.  “Liz will be fine.”

“I know, I know--it’s just she gets a bit antsy when she’s stuck in one place for too long,” Jeanie says.  “Maybe we should go rent her some movies, or video games!  Video games would be good!”

“Okay, we’ll go out and rent her a dozen video games,” Ken says.  “Maybe I’ll stop by and play a few rounds with her--”

“Nope, won’t work,” I say, not surprised to see Jeanie shaking her head as well.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Liz goes into the game,” I explain.

“She enjoys playing her own version,” Jeanie adds helpfully.  “Well, when you’ve got that ability it’s rather hard to ignore, don’t you think?”

“How come I’ve never seen that?” Ken asks.  “It sounds awesome.”

“It is!  I’ve watched Zoe do it a dozen times,” I say, grinning cheerfully as I remember.  “She kicks butt.”

“Must be a family hobby,” Ken says.

“Nah, Sunny can’t do it--he’s tried,” I say.  “It’s just the ones with tech based abilities, like Nico, Zoe and Liz.  Liz counts because she can wiretrip,” I explain, having asked the same thing before.  “Or at least that’s what she told me.  I think there’s more to it, but hey, she gets so distracted all the time that it was difficult to get that much out of her--it came with a half hour long story about Nico training her when she was a kid,” I finish with a grin.  The story had been funny.

“She does that,” Jeanie agrees happily, “especially now that Nico is out of the Cape Cells.  When he was in them, well, she was a lot more quiet about what happened in her past.”

I nod, not knowing what to say to that, really.  I hadn’t been around when Nico was in the cells.  “Hey, um, I know this is a bit off topic, but can you give me another cooking class?” I ask.  “Ditto’s over at the dorms, learning from Vinny, and Trent suggested having two different classes at once might be a good idea.”

“Of course, I’d love to!” Jeanie says, hugging me again before rushing off.  “Let me get the matching aprons!”

Yes, she said matching aprons.  I’ve caught Trent wearing one before–they have ruffles! Jeanie comes out of the pantry, holding out one of the aprons to me and tying on her own.  “I think we should do hamburgers this time!” she says.

“Sounds good,” I say, glancing up as the door opens and Trent comes in.  “We should make extras, right?” I ask.

“Oh, sweetie, haven’t you figured it out?  In this household there’s no such thing,” Jeanie says, pulling out a massive thing of hamburger.

This is going to take a while, I think dryly.  At least it’s calming.

***

“So...” Flint says as he steps into the large office.  Mastermental is sitting at his desk, flipping through a file with a curious expression on his face.  “What’s the big problem?”

“Skystep is,” Mastermental says, closing the file and tossing it onto the desk.  “When I agreed to let you transfer I didn’t plan on bringing in a new super villain, as well.  We’ve got a schedule for that sort of thing, you realize.”

“Skystep isn’t--”

“She chased down Firefly just to see what she was like,” Double M interrupted bluntly.  “Do you know how stupid that is?  Firefly doesn’t fight super villains for a reason, Flame.  She’s strictly for spying, flashy rescues, and showing the world that the Hall is completely fine with gender equality--but that’s a lie,” he says bluntly.

“So you don’t believe in gender equality?” Flame asks sharply.

“No, I don’t, purely because most of the men I know AREN’T her equal.  And yet your foolish little nemesis hunts her down when she’s already feeling protective.  You should be on your knees, kissing Emily’s ugly combat boots as thanks for stopping her from killing the woman.”  Flint winces, the image of Skystep’s tattered body flashing through his mind.  He finds her troublesome, to be honest, but Mastermental is right.  “I want to know what you know about Emily’s parents’ death,” Mastermental goes on, looking the tall redhead straight in the eye.  “Either you volunteer the information or I get it straight from her.”

Flint hesitates before turning and closing the door.  He crosses the room, dropping down in the chair across from Mastermental.  “She didn’t kill Melody and Helter Skelter,” he says slowly, “but she might have been... a part of it.”

***

Lunch went well--neither the apartment or the dorm kids died or anything, and I’d only burnt the burgers a bit--the charred parts actually added to the flavor!  Or at least that’s what Ken told me.  Ken’s really nice like that.  I’m tired.  Ditto went to afternoon classes for me, she’ll be back soon.  Me being this tired is ridiculous, it’s not even three in the afternoon, but I am.  I grab my phone, calling Aubrey and getting her answering machine.  “Hey, Aub, just thought I’d check in,” I say, feeling extremely lonely, “call me when you get the chance, okay?”  I hang up the phone and slip it into my pocket as I drop down on our couch.

I almost jump as I realize I’m sitting on Liz’s lap.  She’d crashed out on the couch, sound asleep even after I sat on her.  I didn’t realize she was tired.  For a moment I just sit there, wondering if she’ll even notice, and then I reluctantly get up, tugging the throw off of the back of the couch and pulling it over her.

The knock on the door makes me glance up.  It opens before I can say anything and Taurus walks in.  “Em?” he says.

“I’m here,” I say.

“Is Liz?”

“Yeah, but she’s dead to the world,” I say, reaching down and gently touching her white hair.  She mutters something and rolls away from me, still asleep.

“I’m not surprised,” he says as he walks in, looking down at my foster mom.  “Dad said that she manipulated the electric field.  I bet that took a lot out of her.”  He smiles slightly at the sight of the sleeping super before turning to me and hauling me into a hug.  For a second I’m shocked, especially when he literally picks me off of my feet, holding me close.  “Thank you,” he says, burying his face in my neck.

“Wh--what?”

“You stopped her.  You risked Ditto to do it, but you didn’t even think about that, did you?”

“I couldn’t let her be a killer,” I say, leaning into his hug now that I know what it’s about.  Taurus is a huge guy–maybe even bigger than Ken.  “Shouldn’t you be hugging her, instead?” I ask.

“No, last time I woke her up she shocked me so bad my hair stood on end for a week,” he says, making me snicker.  “That’s not easy to do with dreadlocks, you know?  I had to wear it in a ponytail to make it look like it was on purpose.”

I’m flat out laughing by this point because I remember that week.  “She did that?” I ask, grinning at him.

“Yeah, she did,” he says, letting me down and looking over at Liz.  “Want to talk about it?” he asks seriously.  “I know Ken will show up sooner or later, but... we all have that moment.”

“What moment?” I ask.

“Where we’re sure we’re going to die,” he says, dropping down on a chair and looking me in the eye.  He barely has to tilt his head up to do so.  “You went to Double M after you got out--what did he tell you?”

I drop down on the armrest of Liz’s couch, hesitating for a moment.  “We walked through my memories,” I say quietly.  “He says my telepathy–that I unconsciously affected Liz.  I was... I was afraid of Skystep,” I admit, looking down.  “Pathetic, huh?  Here I am supposed to be Kid Liberty’s partner-in-training and I’m afraid of someone.  Maybe I should... maybe I should tell him to find someone else--”

“I really doubt that’d go over well,” he says, smiling crookedly.  “We aren’t perfect, Em.  We all run into something we fear sooner or later.  Liz did last night, I think.”

“She wasn’t--”

“If she wasn’t afraid, she wouldn’t have reacted so strongly,” he says.  “If I’d been in her place, I would have been.”

“What?” I ask blankly.

“It’s not just Liz that I love,” he says so calmly that it takes a moment to sink in.  “I want to be part of this family, Em,” he tells me.  “Going too fast will get me in trouble, though, so I don’t push it with Liz,” he admits, glancing at the couch, “but I’ve got some big plans--I like to think of them as long term goals.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like family vacations,” he says, grinning at me, “trips to Colorado or Florida, or some other tourist trap.  We’d have to talk Double M into letting Aubrey off work, but I think we’ll be able to manage.  We can dress in stupid outfits and carry massive cameras around.  It’d be fun.”

“YOU can dress in stupid outfits,” I inform him, already picturing it.

“Hey now, I’ve SEEN your cowgirl hat,” he says.

“So?  That’s not stupid!”

“You can carry a bowling ball in that sucker.”  I bite back a laugh, because he’s right.  “We’ll go diving and try skydiving, I’ll teach you to drive and ride a motorcycle,” he goes on.  “We’ll be a cape family--I didn’t even realize a working cape family existed until I met Ken, did you know that?  But I want it--I want you and Aubrey to be my little girls,” he declares.