Electra Rose
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Aiko- Problem Child cuts
🕑 Added 2024-10-26 00:32:32 +0000 UTCthese scenes were cut when I reworked the plot, which was originally mostly just a gag about her churning though JL mentors on her unstoppable path to ruin Batman's life. I still like them for characterization, you get a little more Minato than in previous.
“Mr. Marvel, come in. Come in!” Mom gestured the huge man inside their house, hopefully before the neighbors saw.
“Thanks, ma’am.” He edged his way inside, looking phenomenally out of place in their middle class home. He was wearing a red sweater and simple black elastic pants over his superhero uniform. She could see the other material peeking out at his wrists.
Aiko stared up at him, peripherally impressed by how built he was. She tugged at his sweater sleeve to get his attention. “What’s your protein intake?” she demanded.
She’d been small in her past life, but her genetic template clearly wasn’t the exact same. Her face was probably the same, but both of her parents were taller than she thought they’d been in Konohagakure. Generations of food stability, probably. She was willing to bet that she could get up 5 foot 6.
He looked stymied by the question. “I- I don’t measure it.”
Aiko sighed.
“Do you have a designed dietary program?” Mom asked, all but pushing him to the dining room. “My husband made dinner, but we couldn’t get any information about any preferences or restrictions. We have a pescatarian main dish, tofu in a side-”
“You don’t need to go to that kind of trouble!” Marvel seemed flustered. “I’m here to help you, not the other way around.”
Mom clicked her tongue, which was her polite company equivalent of ‘fat fucking chance.’ She was a product of a good Japanese elementary school in California and had ideas about hospitality requirements.
“She thinks that you’re dead wrong,” Aiko helpfully told Marvel, since he didn’t seem to get the subtext. “You’re helpless against her sensibilities. You should tell her what you like to eat. Or I can just pick.” Her tone went up hopefully. In the current system of tyranny, she only got to pick dinner once a week, same at Nathan. Mom and Dad picked what to cook most of the time based on what was in the fridge.
Marvel choked on a laugh. Mom went a little pink. “Thank you, honey,” she said ruefully. “But you will absolutely not be designing the menu for our guest dinners until you concede some artistic ground.”
“I will never compromise.” Aiko climbed up one of the counter stools and patted the counter to indicate where Mr. Marvel should sit. “So, tell me why you think you’re qualified to be my mentor.” She folded her hands in front of her.
“This is not an interview,” Mom said, for the fourth time.
Aiko nodded to indicate that she’d heard, but not agreed. “I have been looking at the current roster of the Justice League. I didn’t expect them to send you.”
She tried to be open to it, because he seemed like a nice guy. But she had kinda expected someone mundane. She didn’t need guidance from a magic user because her powers were totally different. What she needed to get her jutsu proficiency back to where it should be was space and opportunity to use her abilities without damaging property.
By contrast, she probably needed a lot of training to get physical athleticism and weapon proficiency back. Her muscle memory was all gone.
If they’d asked her about who she wanted for a mentor, she would have requested Green Arrow. She had always regretted that she didn’t know archery.
Captain Marvel looked huge when he gently sat on the stool next to her. The wood creaked under his weight. “There are some similarities between our abilities. I might be able to give you opportunities to practice them in a controlled environment, although the possible commute to patrol with me in Fawcett City is a potential issue.”
Reasonable. She took note.
“I can take her in and have a coffee while you take her out,” Mom suggested. She put down drinks for all of them and settled like a bird on a stool on the other side of the counter. “You do mostly daylight work, right?”
“Right.” Captain Marvel fidgeted. Aiko glanced down to see him hook a foot through the bar on the underside of the stool in an oddly childish motion. “That was one of the considerations, of course. I assume that Ali- that Aiko has a pretty early bedtime?”
“I could stay up until nine,” Aiko offered.
“It’s eight,” Mom said. “She’ll have to finish up by six so I can get her home and in a bath.”
Ugh.
Captain Marvel just nodded as if that wasn’t a wretched indignity. “I have heard that you are not a fan of Superman,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I understand that his actions negatively affected you, but he is a coworker who I respect.”
“I can be civil,” Aiko said generously. Mom’s eyebrows shot up and she snorted into her barley tea.
She could. Ugh. There was no respect.
Captain Marvel’s trial as her mentor was the next week. Mom drove them all to Fawcett City. Both of the twins squirmed the whole ride, excited. Aiko was going to fight crime! Nathan was going to go to an arcade and play games!
She met Captain Marvel in a public park and held her arms out. “Look!” Aiko demanded.
He gave her outfit an approving up and down. “You look ready to go,” he said. “Did you pick the colors yourself?”
“The outfit was a present from- your organization.” Mom was still a little flustered about what they were pretty sure was a Batman designed combat uniform for 6 year old. It was helpful, though. Aiko hadn’t really thought about how to protect her identity in a world where there were cameras everywhere.
She was color-matched to the yellow of Captain Marvel’s outfit. Her accent colors were pink and purple, which showed up as a riotous pattern of stars that bled out from the hems. She also had little white boots and gloves that would complement Marvel’s big white cape. Her mask was white, too.
Batman, Aiko thought, was a man who understood style.
They waved off her mom and got to work.
Sort of.
“You just fly around and wait for someone to attack someone?” Aiko summarized. She cocked her head to the side. What? What kind of operational procedure was that? She didn’t want to sign on for an amateur operation. What was he, ten?
Captain Marvel shrugged. “It’s patrolling,” he suggested weakly.
Her lips thinned out. She crossed her arms. “You lack discipline.”
He snorted. “You sound like Batman.”
Aiko ignored that attempt at a joke. “I can’t fly and will never be able to. How do you propose that I patrol?” She had ideas, but she wanted to see if he had any.
His lips worked soundlessly. “Uh, I.” He floundered.
Unimpressive.
“I can follow you from the air, or I can carry you.”
“If you carry me indefinitely, you’re going to be at serious disadvantage if there’s an aerial opponent or if you need to go at supersonic speeds- you can fly much faster than is safe for a human. That plan doesn’t work.”
He looked stunned. Ugh! He didn’t know anything.
She stomped her foot before she could control her temper. “What’s my patrol route? What’s the logic behind where I should be going? Is there a reason we can’t do it on foot together until I learn it? Do you have any transportation for me that’s faster than walking? Also, I’m 6. I’ll get tuckered out if you make me walk all day.”
Captain Marvel stared down at her, looking lost. “I… didn’t think about that.”
“I think you’re underqualified for this,” Aiko decided. She shook her head. “Call my mom, please. Thank you for your time, but I think I’d better go with a different mentor.” She hesitated. “You should still come over for dinner tonight. Dad thinks you’re really funny.”
He ended up taking her to the arcade and hung out with her and Nathan. Mom was embarrassed that Aiko had rejected him and wouldn’t let the poor guy leave without filling up on the terrible arcade pizza and playing games with the twins. Captain Marvel helped them collect enough tickets for all three of them to leave with sets of plastic vampire teeth.
The day wasn’t a total waste, but she needed a better option from the Justice League. She laboriously typed up a report and request on Mom’s laptop.
“I’ll definitely make sure the Justice League gets it,” Mom promised solemnly.
Good.
Mentorship, take two
“I don’t want to do this,” Oliver Queen said, sounding more like he was being sent to war than being assigned to a 6 year old civilian. He had categorically refused to go to her house. He was not going to prowl around suburbia. Marvel shouldn’t even have done it, what if he’d lead Lex Luthor there?
He followed Batman a few steps around the table and kept arguing. “I’m clearly not the right kind of mentor for her. Don’t we have anyone on JLD who has time? Or a brawler, honestly. She has fists and magic. That’s not me, Spooky.”
“I don’t really care,” Batman said, and swept out of the room.
Green Arrow scowled about it for a few minutes, bare arms crossed. Grumpy wasn’t wrong. That was the annoying part. This was genuinely important. They couldn’t afford to abandon a young child with superpowers, especially not when she had concerning tendencies.
The problem child was presented by her doting father a few minutes later, clad in a little suit that had Batman’s fingerprints all over it. Ollie stared down at her dubiously, not flattered to be requested second. Her first choice had been a literal demon, and it wasn’t like he had a void in his life for a child. He already had a sidekick. Why wasn’t Wonder Woman taking this one?
Luckily, Speedy thought this assignment was funnier than anything, but Ollie really didn’t want to take time away from his current relationships.
“Good morning,” said the child. She was approximately 2 feet tall and had oddly orange hair and blue eyes for an Asian-American child, but her dad was outrageously blonde, so… Weird genetics, he supposed.
“Good morning, Aiko.” He gave her a smile. “I thought that we’d go to a training room and play around a little while we talk. What do you think?”
She brightened up at that. “I really want to do that.” She reached out and took his hand unselfconsciously. Oliver blinked at the warm little palm. Her dad gave him a rueful, laughing nod, and then let her tug them both to the open gym door.
“What should I do?” She let go of them both and spun around to face them even as she walked backwards. “I can do anything. Like this.” She tipped over backwards to walk on her hands without breaking her stride. Then she stopped, balanced on one arm, and held the other up. “I can throw like this. Gimme, please.”
Aww. Oliver leaned over to grab one of the hacky sacks he had prepared and put it into her hand. “See that target there?” He pointed. Her eyes followed the line of his finger to a dangling circle.
…She was cute, he had to admit. “Pretend it’s a bad guy. Go!”
Her face scrunched up in hatred. “Die!” She launched the toy at the target. It hit with a soft smack and fell to the ground.
And creepy. It was important to acknowledge that she was very, very creepy. But hey, she had some talent as a marksman, actually. Oliver felt his forehead wrinkle with consideration. This might not be a bad use of his time.
Aiko whooped and did a cartwheel to get up on her feet again, rushing at the box of toys. “Can I?” She pointed her big blue eyes up at him in a surprisingly endearing question.
“Of course, that’s what they’re here for.” Oliver crossed his arms and felt them prickle in the air conditioning as the little darling showed off her pinpoint accuracy with thrown projectiles.
‘Do normal kids imagine killing their enemies? I don’t think that Roy does.’
“I don’t know where she learned this,” the dad confided quietly. He seemed the faintest bit uneasy about it. “Or any of it. Nice flip, honey!” He lifted his voice to cheer as Aiko finished her barrage with flair.
‘That’s concerning. Kids don’t just come with acrobatics downloaded. Has someone already gotten to her?’
Oliver nodded and clapped. “...Have you ever tried a bow and arrow?”
Aiko beamed.
