(Attendance please!!!)
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"Hi there," he said, his voice a bit softer now. "I'm Gojo Satoru. I heard you wanted to talk to me?" He then tilted his head a little, his smile becoming a bit sheepish. "And, uh, just to let you know... I'm really sorry for not making it to that dinner you invited me to. I've been super busy, you know, other stuff came up. And then, well, I was actually about to head over... but then this whole mess happened," he finished, gesturing first to Eve and her cane, and then to the unconscious Mark lying in the bed.
Debbie, Mark's mom, looked up at Gojo. Even though her face was full of worry lines from everything that had happened, she managed a small, tired smile.
"Mr. Satoru," she began, her voice a little shaky, "Cecil told me... he told me what you did. How you saved Mark. If it wasn't for you..." Her voice trailed off, and she looked at her son lying in the bed, her eyes filling with tears.
"He would have been... well, it's better not to think about it." Of course, Debbie and Cecil didn't know the full story.
They didn't know that Battle Beast probably wouldn't have wasted his time actually killing Mark once he realized how outmatched the kid was.
To Battle Beast, Mark was probably just an annoying insect, not worth the effort of a final, fatal blow.
Gojo nodded, then asked, his voice surprisingly gentle, "If you don't mind me asking, why did you even let him become a hero if you were so scared of him getting hurt like this? To be honest... it's kind of partly your fault too, isn't it?"
Debbie sighed, a heavy sound, and nodded in agreement. "I know, I know you're right," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. "But... he wanted it so badly. As soon as he got his powers, that's all he could talk about. And then my husband, Mark's father… he agreed to it too. He said he'd train Mark, look out for him. I thought... I thought if Mark was with his father, and if he was as strong as his father, there wouldn't really be any danger to his life."
Gojo thought to himself, 'Well, sorry to burst your bubble, lady, but if Mark was as strong as your husband, he'd probably be just as dead as the rest of the Guardians by now. And the end result wouldn't have been much different in this fight either.' He didn't say that out loud, of course.
Instead, Gojo waved a hand dismissively. "Eh, it's all just his teenage hormones, I think," he said, trying to sound casual. "You know, all that 'I'm a superhero, I can do anything!' stuff. Now that he's gotten a taste of what he's really getting himself into, he probably won't be so gung-ho about this whole hero thing, not like when he first got his powers. On the bright side, I think this whole experience will probably make him grow up a bit, get a little more mature, you know?"
Then, Gojo added with a mischievous grin, "Though, if he does decide to keep doing this hero thing, he might really have to think about changing his name. From 'Invincible' to, like, 'Vincible,' or maybe even 'Occasionally Vincible-But-Mostly-Gets-His-Butt-Kicked.' Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" Gojo was joking, trying to lighten the mood, but he didn't quite get the reaction he was hoping for.
Debbie just looked at him, a little confused, and Eve was actually darting her eyes at Gojo, probably wondering if he was serious.
Gojo quickly backtracked, waving his hands a little. "Ahh, sorry, sorry! I was just trying to, you know, lift the mood a bit. Bad joke, my bad."
Debbie managed another small, weak smile. "Don't worry, I know," she said. "And again, thank you. Thank you so much for saving Mark."
Well she doesn't know yet that the one who did this to mark is now here in this facility and have joined the guardians too… if she had than you can just inagine how furious and angry Debbie would have been by this… and to be honest no one know it yet except Gojo, Cecil and Donald.
Gojo shook his head. "You should thank me, sure, I'm awesome," he said, his usual playful tone returning, "but I think Eve here did more than I did, at least at first. The second she saw Mark all bloody and beaten up, she charged straight at that giant furry monster without a second thought. I think your son has got himself a pretty good friend there, a real keeper."
Eve, who had been quiet up until now, suddenly blushed a bright pink. "Oh, um, no, I just... I was just..." she stammered, looking down at her cane and denying it, though her blush told a different story.
Debbie let out a small, soft laugh, the first genuine one Gojo had heard from her. She looked at Eve with a warm, grateful expression. "Yes," she said, nodding. "Yes, I think he does."
Debbie let out a soft sigh, and for the first time in what felt like two very long days, a little bit of the tension seemed to leave her shoulders. That small laugh, even though it was quiet, seemed to have helped her stress a tiny bit less from constantly seeing her son, Mark, lying there so still and hurt.
"You know," Debbie said, turning to Gojo with a slightly more relaxed expression, "Mark always talks about you. He told me all about how you saved him from crashing that night he was trying to fly, way past midnight. And how you were the one who introduced him to the Teen Team. He said training with them, with other kids who had powers, helped him improve a lot." She paused for a moment, then looked at Gojo with a curious, almost apologetic smile.
"Though, if you don't mind me asking... and please, no offense... but from the looks of it, you seem a little... well, a little older than a teenager. What were you doing with the Teen Team when you're, you know, this old?"
Gojo chuckled, a warm, easy sound. "Well, it wasn't exactly part of a grand plan or anything," he said, leaning back in his chair. "But just to be clear, I didn't exactly join them like a full-time member. It was more like... I was just crashing there for a little while, you know, helping them out here and there when they needed an extra hand. Think of it like using a ladder. It's not like I could just, poof, jump straight to the very top of the hero world, right? So, I saved the Teen Team that one time, and then I kind of just... joined them temporarily. Of course," he added with a quick grin, "I would have saved them anyway, whether I wanted to hang out with them for a bit or not. That's just what awesome guys like me do."
Gojo then slumped down a little further in his chair, looking very relaxed. "And besides," he continued, "I was totally new in this city, didn't know much about anything or anyone. So, I just stayed with them for a little while, just temporarily. Cecil, now my government buddy, he actually agreed to it too." Gojo then lowered his voice a little, like he was sharing a secret.
"Though, to be honest, he didn't really believe a totally random me popping out of nowhere and actually defeated a villain which a group of super heroes wasn't able to do. He was super suspicious of me. So, he told Robot, their team leader, to let me stay, but to keep a very close eye on me. So, yeah, I temporarily joined them, but I was basically under watch by Cecil and Robot the whole time."
Atom Eve, who had been listening quietly, gasped. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Really?" she asked, looking at Gojo. "You were under watch the whole time you were with us? I... I had no idea."
Debbie, however, just nodded knowingly. "Well," she said with a wry smile, "that definitely sounds like Cecil. I can totally believe he would do something like that."
Gojo then continued his story, "So, after all that, one night I was just strolling around, minding my own business, and then I saw Mark. He was flying, or rather, falling, and he was about to make a very messy pancake on the road. So, naturally, I saved him. And then he told me how he'd just gotten his powers and all that. So, I thought, 'Hey, why not introduce this new super-powered teen to a whole team of other super-powered teens?' You know, so he could be with people like him, other kids with powers. Seemed like a good idea at the time."
….
A/N: So how was it? And I have nothing more to say except… Sorry! 😣
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