“Isn’t this what we’re here for? At the heart of things, I mean. We’ve pledged to use our powers to do the right thing. They’re training us to cut out crime and corruption, roots and all, so doing the right thing starts here. Now.”
“They don’t deserve to graduate,” Rosario said, nodding. “Cowards.”
“Agreed. We’ve gotta make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m feeling the need for a vote,” Maks said, waving his scratching-fork with his good hand. “All in favor of throwing rules and caution to the wind and becoming the Super Magnificent Seven, raise your hand!”
Zip quickly shot her hand up into the air. They all did. It was unanimous.
“Well, alrighty then. Let’s talk team names!” Maks said excitedly, drumming his cast on the table like a gavel. “Remember, this is just our initial spitballing, so there are no bad suggestions— ”
“No,” June and Mal said, in unison.
°
Maks’ broken jaw was one of the worst things that June had dealt with all year. His injuries didn’t keep him in bed for long, but they lingered. It wasn’t so much bad as it was seriously depressing. For two months, he was on an all-liquid diet, his right arm in a cast. Talking was difficult, and he could only flail and sign with his non-dominant hand.
Maks worked around it, doing an alarming number of flips and stunts for a monkey with a broken arm, and learned how to write left-handed. The one thing he couldn’t work around was the weight loss. He went from lean to gaunt within the first month, despite Ernest unleashing a blender full of liquidized creativity.
Even when the wires came out and his arm mended, bouncing back was a process for Maks. Before his accident, he’d hung out at the Wright home whenever he and Ernest had homework for acting class. After, he didn’t need an excuse. By the beginning of November, Maks spent almost as much time with her partner as June herself. And he’d grown a little on her, though June would have had to be under great duress to admit that aloud. She’d gotten comfortable with the boys, and that was sort of a big deal for her. Old June had viciously mocked cliques from a distance, but New June was starting to see the perks.
It was nice, knowing that on any given Wednesday night at five o’clock, Ernest and Maks would be on the couch in the Wrights’ living room, discussing how much they didn’t want to do their homework while they waited for her to show up. It was nice, being comfortable enough to walk into the house without knocking— nice, because her hands were full of white garment boxes, and they were heavy.
“Moment of truth time, gentlemen!” June said, setting the boxes down on the table. After months of work, it was finally time to show them the finished products. “Did you bring your appropriate undergarments?”
Ernest nodded, mumbling something that sounded a little like mock slap. June smothered a grin. They’d had a long and involved conversation about the things that were and weren’t worth getting embarrassed over. Since she was a seamstress and he was the target of her seamstressing, he didn’t get to be embarrassed about the fact that he needed to wear a cup when he was out doing the heroics. She wasn’t sure what he could possibly tangle with that would endanger the Wright family jewels, but she enjoyed how embarrassed he got while discussing his jock situation.
“Good stuff. First up, we’ve got Sideshow,” June said, handing Maks the first two boxes in her stack. “You were the easy one, for the record. You’re big on the flips and the jumps and bendy crap like that, so I kept things aerodynamic.”
Maks held up his green and gold leotard with a reverent “Ooooooh”.
When it caught the light, the fabric shimmered in a ripple of iridescent copper, lime, electric blue, and eggplant. When June had seen the bolt in a pile of similarly garish shell fabrics, she’d instantly known that it was the one. Like a jewel beetle’s shell, the base color was leaf green— perfect for a showy peacock of a green-band. It’d just screamed Maks. Loudly.
The top was long-sleeved, with a high angular collar. A heavier vest made out of the same shimmery shell material went overtop the more flexible undersuit, piped with sections like the boning of a corset. The metallic piping ran the length of the suit, trailing down the leggings and the attached booties. She hesitated to call them actual boots, since they were mostly the leotard material, but they had semi-solid soles.
“I kept your lack of regular footwear in mind when designing this. The toes are split like your sandals, and the soles are silicone. The boots hook into the rest of the suit, so you won’t accidentally kick them off in a fit of stupid,” June explained. “On the reverse side of the tunic, there are slots for light bodyarmor— y’know, for the days where you’re willing to deal with more weight in the name of being slightly more bullet-resistant.”
Maks held it over his head, still stuck on the fact that the fabric was shiny and changed colors. “The undersuit has long sleeves,” she said, pulling the sleeve out and demonstrating. “Long enough that they can cover your palms if you put your thumbs through the loops hidden in the cuffs here. It’ll protect your hands if you need to climb ropes or whatever. Look, I’ve never actually been to the circus, so I designed this with a crime-fighting monkey in mind.”
She waited a beat. Still, Maks didnt say anything. Considering that he was the guy that had done a stupid amount of talking when his jaws were wired shut, that was an un-Maks-like reaction.
“So. Thoughts?”
“It’s— ” His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, hard. “— it’s the nicest costume that I’ve ever...”
Maks threw his free arm around June, kissing her.
And it was definitely a kiss. She saw it coming, so she probably could have dodged it had the thought crossed her mind. She was too surprised to react to it sensibly, so the belated realization was overshadowed by the sensory assault that was Maks. The press of his lips against hers made her mouth tingle faintly, like the fizzy bubbles of soda carbonation. Licking her lips made them tingle more.
“Yeah, whatever, how about you see if it friggin’ fits your skinny behind before you start slobbering your thanks all over me,” June said, rolling her eyes. She fished her compact mirror and tube of everyday Marilyn red out of her purse, carefully re-applying it. “PS: next time, ask first. You always ask first.”
“You can change in my room,” Ernest offered, an odd hesitancy in his voice. June glanced up at him over the top of her mirror. She had no idea how to interpret the flustered color in her partner’s face. Pursing her freshly redone lips, she shut the compact with a castanet click.
“On a scale of one to ten, how terrified are you to see what I’m expecting you to wear?” June teased him as Maks scooped his costume up in both arms and scampered upstairs to try it on.
“I’d like to say that I’m below a five, but I’m afraid I can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust your expertise or nothing, ‘cause I do. Really, I do. It’s just that fashion and I have a sketchy relationship, see, and— ”
“Your first costume experience was scarring. I understand. In your heart, you’re still a chunky baby pumpkin in a polyester capelet,” June said, heading him off before he could work himself up into a froth. “But I’m here to tell you have the kind of build that spandex doesn’t look terrible on, and that is a rare blessing from the puberty fairies. Also, keep in mind that I have high standards, and I won’t be seen with you in public if your fashion choices embarrass me.”
“Hey! Do I look as awesome as I think I look?”
It was the only warning that they got before Maks came tumbling down the stairs. She couldn’t tell if he meant to trip down the first half of the flight, or if he’d just decided that throwing himself down the stairs was more time-efficient. He caught himself before he fell-fell, turning it into an effortless handspring at the last minute. He stuck the landing at the bottom of the stairs, glittering proudly.
“’Cause I almost slapped the hallway mirror and called it a liar for reflecting an image of awesomeness I could bar
ely believe was true.”
He did look good. She’d expected that. June wouldn’t have let him so much as see the fabric if she hadn’t been happy with what she’d made. It didn’t fit him quite as perfectly as she would have liked, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault. June had taken his measurements before the Night Games. Maks had dropped weight rapidly while on his all-liquid diet, and though he was starting to gain his muscle definition back, he was still just to the left of bony.
So it looked good, but it would look better once Maks was fully put back together again.
“Wow,” Ernest said, managing to pack a whole lot of wonder into that one little word.
“Not bad,” she agreed. If she gave him too high of a compliment, there was a good chance that he’d actually explode.
Maks preened, nonetheless. When he lit up, the sparks illuminated the shimmery layers of color.
“Hear that? I’m not bad. That’s practically ten out of ten.” Poking Ernest’s side, he grinned up at him. “Your turn to play dress-up! C’mon-c’mon-c’mon! I’ve been dying to see what she made for you. Dyyyyyyyiiiiiing.”
It might have been the bluish Maks-lighting, but it looked like Ernest had gone a few shades paler.
“Your turn indeed.” June untied the twine from the second stack of boxes. Ernest’s nerves were contagious. Suddenly, she found herself second-guessing the uniform she’d designed for him. That was not something that June was in the habit of doing, but she didn’t want to have hyped up his expectations for nothing.
June held up the trousers first. They were dark brown, made out of a heavy, canvas-like material that’d been sheer hell to get a needle through.
“Unlike Thing One, you don’t need a suit that can do acrobatics with you, but you do need something that at least tries to be as durable as you are. I noticed that in the post-fight pictures I found of you, your spandex getup was almost always a casualty of the war on crime. These big boy pants are reinforced in every way my textbook could think of. We’ll see how they hold up.”
June took out the main part of the costume. It was heavy, even without all of the additional body armor. Lugging around some extra weight wasn’t a problem for her partner, so she hadn’t worried about balancing lightness with durability. The burnished metal piping in Ernest’s top wasn’t metallic fabric— it was metal. The brace that she’d built into it would function like a weightlifter’s belt, but it looked way classier. His original costume had reminded her of a luchadore’s garish getup. She’d gone back to the drawing board, pulling in more elements of art deco than luchadore. It looked militaristic enough to match the Commander, and he had the symbol built into the front panels of his vest.
“The latching mechanisms might take some getting used to, but you’re going to have to suck it up. It’s designed to support your lower back and spine when you’re lifting junk. When I was doing my research— ” See also: when I was caught in the endless parade of articles that mentioned Wright family costume malfunctions and other assorted embarrassments. “— I ran across an article about that time a couple years back where your dad threw his back out catching an airplane. The bracing built into the tunic should help you from following in your father’s less than graceful footsteps.”
“This is like...it’s like professional-level,” Ernest said, still marveling over the tunic. “When you said that you were going to make us uniforms for your project, I didn’t think...”
“Going overboard is my hobby. PS, I’m quoting you on that professional-level remark if I get anything less than an A.”
“I’ll argue your case myself if you don’t get an A,” her partner said, though she had serious doubts about is ability to both present and argue a case. “This is incredible.”
“So where’s my kiss, handsome?” June demanded, pointing to her cheek.
“Yeah, Ernie, where’s her kiss?” Maks said, firing up the peer pressure. “The lady made you a nice thing. Pony up.”
Ernest leaned over, resting one hand lightly over the curve of her hip, and thanked her for her work. His kiss was appropriately chaste, but he didn’t place it on the cheek that she’d indicated with a pointed finger. He kissed her firmly on the mouth, his lips chapped and dry but not totally unpleasant.
When he straightened again, Ernest’s mouth was smeared Marilyn red. He wore the color well. She could practically see him inwardly congratulating himself for not chickening out. It’d taken her weeks to accept that his transparency was actual transparency and not a front, but she was learning to appreciate having a genuine nice guy around
“Thank you,” Ernest said, giving her an oblivious smile.
“You just have to promise to keep the muffins in moderation. I can let the waist out, but it doesn’t give the same way that spandex does,” June said, patting his cheek. Probably not the appropriate response to getting a seriously nice smooch, but June didn’t have much practice in receiving positive tokens of attention. Besides, while it’d been a seriously nice smooch, it hadn’t been a nice and serious smooch. They were just playing. Big kidders, all around. Maks had started the dumb game, as usual.
“Go try it on. The suspense is killing me here.” Pointing to Maks, she added, “You, go up there and help him. The latching mechanism might end up being a two-man job, and you count for at least half of one.”
“Aye-aye, cap’n,” Maks said with a sharp salute.
Typically, June didn’t give a single damn about what people thought about her designs. Fashion was her passion, so she made things that made her happy. She’d never put so much work, time, and energy into something for someone else. She’d never poured so much of herself into something that wasn’t hers. Whether or not she’d thought about it while she was in her hurricane mode of creation, her goal was more sophisticated and important than the grade she got on the project.
She’d wanted to make something that would show Ernest that he wasn’t a shy pumpkin of a kid in a terrible wrestling outfit anymore. Maybe he’d stop freaking out about never ending up as big and as bright a hero as the Commander if he saw how big and bright he already was, she’d justified to herself.
After ten minutes of waiting, June decided that the suspense might actually kill her.
“Still alive up there?”
“Oh. Sorry! Yeah, I’ll— we’ll just be a sec.”
“Having trouble?”
Both boys were suspiciously quiet.
“You, uh— you weren’t kidding about the latching mechanism!”
“I’m useless!” Maks yelled, as though apologizing to the heavens. “I’m sorry!”
“Make yourself decent and bring it on down,” June called, breaking down the garment boxes and folding them up for the next grand reveal. “I’ll show you guys how it works.”
June did a double take when he walked down the stairs, his top draped over his arm. Stripped to the waist, wearing fitted trousers, boots, a domino mask, and nothing else, Ernest was awkwardly hot. June wasn’t sure how to feel about any of that, so she determinedly ignored it and occupied herself with fastening him into his uniform.
It startled June whenever she caught herself checking Ernest out. It was hard to deny the fact that he was a good looking guy, but at the same time, it was Ernest. That was almost as bad as cruising a puppy. When he stuck to his grandpa sweaters and baggy slacks, it was easier to ignore how cut he was. Hero uniforms were form-fitting, so she had no choice but to acknowledge that he was kind of a babe, but he was also Ernest, so it made his babeness weird.
June straightened, huffing a stray tendril of hair out of her face. If she didn’t know better, she would have said that Maks was doing as much not-checking-out as she was. When he noticed that she’d caught him looking, he grinned at her. That was yet another thing that she willfully ignored, because she was convinced that no good could come of cracking the enigma that was Maks Petrov.
And now, for the real moment of truth.
“You’re not quite done yet. There’s one more piece,” Ju
ne said, opening the last box. She’d wrestled with the concept for months, going back and forth on whether or not it’d be appropriate. She’d hesitated to wedge any father-son traditions into the design. It was obvious to anyone that saw the two of them together that Ernest worshipped the ground his father walked on, but she didn’t know how he’d feel about visually connecting his new costume to the Wright legacy. The Commander overshadowed everyone around him without even trying.
But she’d felt like the uniform needed something to tie it all together. Something to dress it up or dress it down, to make him look more average or more heroic, depending on the image he needed to project.
“It’s, uh. It’s non-essential, so you can take it or leave it. It’s just a thought.”
Ernest opened up the box, apprehension tightening up his features. It did not help her stress level when he acted like every potential surprise in his life was going to end in broccoli and tears.
The last part of his uniform was a leather jacket, just like his dad’s. It wasn’t an exact replica, but it was close enough that she knew that was what he saw when he pulled the lid off the last box.
Ernest’s mouth dropped open.
“Holy cats,” he breathed, picking it up to get a better look at it. His fingertips ghosted over the shooting star insignia embroidered into the cap of the upper-sleeves. It was his dad’s symbol. The Champ didn’t have any registered branding, but she figured that it’d be cool with Mr. Wright.
But she wasn’t exactly sure how cool his son was with it. He traced the burnt orange piping down the sleeve, but he didn’t make a peep.
Maybe someday, Ernest would start using sayings that hadn’t expired shortly before the decline of the nuclear family. Today was not that day, and June wasn’t sure how to interpret holy cats.
“I wasn’t going to do it at first, but then I thought people might think your bare arms look cold. I know you don’t get cold, but they don’t. I tried to make it look like you, but...” June forced herself to stop. She did not make apologies for her work. “What do you think?”
The Posterchildren: Origins Page 32