Electric (Bapa, Chapa x Henry x Drex

Tales of Henry

"Tell us more about Henry!" Mika had asked one day.

Her twin nodded eagerly to Ray "Yeah, we barely got to talk to him much before he left!"

Ray leaned back in his seat, always happy to talk about his old sidekick, his best friend. "What do you guys wanna know?" He replied, and winced as the kids immediately bombarded him with questions.

"Did you guys ever fight?"

"What did his hypermotility look like?"

"It sure sounds like you guys had a lot of free time. How the hell did you get any crime-fighting done?"

"Oh-oh! Was he a total ladies' man? I just know he had to be an absolute heartbreaker!"

Ray stuck his hands up to silence them, ignoring the amused look Schwoz shot him from where he was fiddling with something across the room. "Woah! Geez. calm down, I didn't think you guys wanted to know so much about him! You sure weren't kidding when you said you wanted to know 'more'." He ran a hand through his hair and hummed in thought. "Me and Hen may have had a scuffle or two, but we never actually fought fought, ya know? We were way too close for that." Ray puffed his chest out as if proud of his and Henry's closeness.

Chapa rolled their eyes, motioning for him to continue. Despite the twinge of jealousy they felt knowing they'll never be liked by Ray nearly as much as he likes, no, obsesses over Henry, the kids liked to hear about the sidekick before them. Even if Ray always got that faraway look in his eyes when he talked about his time with Kid Danger, a fondness that Chapa never saw pointed in their or the rest of the team's direction. There was a certain connection there that, deep down, Chapa feared they would never be able to hold with the hero, unable to see the shimmering pride in his eyes that was always aimed at Henry. They shook their head aggressively to dispel the thoughts, tuning back into whatever Ray was saying as he rambled on about his old sidekick.

"We sure knew how to fuck around." He paused, pressing a hand to his chin and furrowing his brows for a moment. "Huh. Yaknow, you'd think Henry would have dated a lotta girls, yeah? Funny thing is, I can only remember like three. Don't get me wrong, that kid flirted with anything that moved," Ray chuckled. "But the only actual girlfriends he had were few and they were years ago. There was that rude little Walldog girl...and he seemed to be going steady with Chloe and Bianca before they left for some reality show...I guess he stopped dating when he stopped worrying about school so much. Kid was just too occupied with work.." He trailed off, then shot up, spooking the group. "Hero teaching moment!"

The kids groaned at the lecture they knew was coming, and Ray rolled his eyes and waved a hand at them as if swatting a fly, saying "Ah, get over it." he hopped off the couch and stood in front of the others. "Henry's lack of a serious relationship reminded me of an important part of being a hero!" Ray looked suddenly serious as he spoke, "Look, it may not seem like it yet, but this is a pretty lonely job. You can't exactly have a good relationship with the huge secret you'll always be keeping from your partner. It's hard enough dealing with a family as a hero, but dating is like a brazillion times harder. Seems like Henry realized that early on and decided to quit trying for serious relationships. Why do you guys think I'm single and not dating some hot mom?"

Chapa smirked and muttered, "Right, that's the reason." and Ray scowled at the responding snickers from their teammates.

As the laughter died off, Miles perked up with a confused look on his face. "Hey wait a minute! Did you say Henry had a relationship with two girls? Like at the same time?" He tilted his head curiously as the other kids echoed his question with equally puzzled expressions.

Ray nodded, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Right, see Henry was into this thing called 'polyamory', it's where you date more than one person. But it's not cheating!" He added quickly when Mika opened her mouth to comment. "They talked it out, it's like consensual cheating. You gotta talk about it for it to work. I guess? Look, Hen explained it better than I can. and he's very persuasive, so I guessed it worked for him. Basically, he was attracted to both Bianca and Chloe, so they had a loooong conversation about it, and decided he could date both of them at the same time. It worked for a while, Bianca and Chloe even became closer over it, but they had to move away to work on a tv show, so they all decided to break things off." There was a chorus of ahhs and ohhs when Ray finished, and he muttered "Worked for him, I guess."

Schwoz laughed from his little project. "May have worked for Henry, but some people get jealous wayyy too easily to do it," He said pointedly, raising his eyebrows at Ray, who had a dark look on his face.

Ray frowned angrily at Schwoz, and Chapa noticed that look in his eyes again, the one they had named "the Henry look", for when something pertained to Henry but for some reason, Ray or Schwoz didn't want to specify. It happened more often than you'd think. Ray liked to keep secrets about Henry almost as much as he liked talking about him.

"Well, sor-ree I didn't like that he fucked anything with a pulse, Schwoz!" Ray snapped, and the kids gasped. Mika's hands shot up to cover a horrified Bose's ears.

"Wwwwow," Chapa spoke slowly, breaking the short, stunned silence the younger heroes were left in. "That's kinda...judgy, coming from a guy who tries to get the number of any mom in Swellview." They had trouble choosing words, still stuck on the line Ray had spoken about the person he adored so much.

"Well, you know, that's different! I just mean that Henry could have at least not hooked up with anyone who spoke to him just because he can't date anybody."

"Ok, Cap?" Miles cut in, "You're digging yourself deeper here bud. You can't say that about someone you knew when he was thirteen."

Ray looked miffed. "He didn't start doing it till he was like 15 or 16. God I really wish he was here right now, he would totally tell you guys himself, it's not even a bad thing to him!"

"Hokayyy, mebbe this isn't the best thing to discuss with children, eh Ray?" Schwoz said, shoulders tense and eyes alert.

"Oh please! Henry was getting dicked down at their age-"

"RAY!!"

The man paused as several voices shouted at him in a short burst. He realized his mistake, face turning pink as he took in the wide eyes and shocked faces all staring at him. "Okay that was my bad uhhm, forget I said that, I think we're done Henry talking for the day. See ya!" He spoke quickly, speeding off, probably to his room.

The rest of the group looked at each other and Schwoz sighed. "That's ehh sensitive subject for him, he really doesn't mind the polyamory thing, he just gets jealous easily."

Chapa let out a low whistle as the kids exchanged glances, equally confused and uncomfortable. Something about Ray's words kept echoing in Chapa's head, unable to free itself or present meaning, just spinning endlessly in their mind. They shrugged and the group eased back into their previous tasks, though Henry was still stuck on all of their minds.

(A/n: Please comment if you enjoyed, I know it's a lil slow rn sry 😞