My Parents are Super!

Super Parents!

Mom's putting pressure into scrubbing the skillet again. Well, actually, it only looks that way. In reality, she's putting emphasis on not breaking it, generally unsure of how much strength she should put into her cleaning in order to strike a balance between tidiness and super strength. She's also making sure not to focus on the pan too hard, lest she'd want to melt a hole through it. Yeah, that's my mom, Mrs. Yolanda Mars. Although, I'm sure that name means nothing to you. The name you're probably more familiar with is Sinistrix. She's been out during the day, robbing banks in broad daylight. She can move from shadow to shadow to remain undetected and can basically slink into any place that's completely shaded. These days, it's less robbing banks and more figuring out how to kill the man that's been putting a stop to her crimes.

That man is Magnus Supreme. Essentially her mirror image of a nemesis. Super strength, heat vision, super speed. Don't think he can do the shadows thing, but it seems like he becomes stronger whenever people cheer him on. He once became completely golden during a fight for the world against Nemotox, the Mid-Life Crisis. I'm not kidding, that's actually what the guy calls himself.

How can I know all of this about Magnus Supreme? You have to know where this is going, right?

Dad walks into the kitchen and promptly sneaks up behind mom. Footsteps so quiet, you would swear he just floated over to her. I could tell that she noticed him coming before the surprise hug, but she took it as it the shock was legitimate.

"Honey!" She jumped. "Don't do that!"

"Oh come on," he responded, raising her up a little. "I'm keeping the excitement in our relationship."

Incredible, the both of them. I suppose you don't make as many evil declarations as Sinistrix does without becoming a decent actor. It doesn't help that all the one-liners that dad blurts out has made him a generally witty person in his day-to-day conversations.

At this point, you might be wondering why our kitchen hasn't become a bad episode of 60s Batman. Naturally, because both of them are well masked, they haven't figured out the other's identity. If I'm being fair, I really only know because neither of them were home when I got out of school early and yet mom pretended to be here the entire day. After that, you start recognizing how weirdly scheduled dad's job is and how consistent it is with Captain Magnus swinging around the city. Yeah, dad doesn't fly. He can . . . he just doesn't. Uses some apparatus attached to both of his wrists. Someone probably made it for him. It's funny, all I can imagine is Uncle Curt tinkering with a supersuit in a basement now.

"Hey honey, schedule change today, so I won't be working until late tonight. Maybe you and I can spend a little time together today once I drop Jason off at school."

"That's great!" My mom responded with too much joy.

At first sight, it may seem like she's excited to spend time with my dad (and she is, don't get me wrong), but really, she's more excited to commit her villainy at night. You see, her shadowstalking works extremely well at night due to the lack of daylight. Not to mention, there will always be significantly less people to cheer on Captain Magnus, giving her the advantage. Unfortunately, since dad's always home at night, she's been forced to do her business during the day, leading to public confrontation, leading to dramatic speeches, leading to being forced to retreat.

The bad news is that dad got a tip she would attempt to raid a lab containing some chemical that can help boost her power. He was texting with some person named "Toolkit". God, I hope that's Uncle Curt. Mom doesn't know the first thing about chemicals, so I'm sure that was just bad info, but it means he'll definitely notice when she tries to rob some place.

----~----~----

Here I am, playing hostage in the recent bank heist attempt in the middle of the night. I thought it smart to take this opportunity of them being out of the house and do something with it. I should definitely be more terrified, right?

Sinistrix stands with her goons, all shielding themselves from Captain Magnus, standing behind me feigning violent intent. Those ladies don't have any powers, I'm sure, so that just leaves mom.

"Captain Magnus, once again, the proclivity you have for human decency has immobilized you!" She altered her voice and really dragged out any word ending in 's'. I'm not going to lie, it's really uncomfortable hearing my mom talk like this.

"Seriously, Sinistrix? I mean, I knew you were evil, but c'mon. This is just not a good look on you," dad said, standing atop a building. He talked like he was a younger person. He was trying so hard to sound cool that I imagine the only reason mom couldn't notice was because of the fact that she was just as old.

"Well, I think you should take a good look, Magnus! Follow us and I'll . . . seriously harm this boy."

For context, mom has never said "seriously harm" in the entirety of her villain career. She uses terms like "maim", "eviscerate" and "rip apart". Her facade was wearing thin as she struggled to avoid saying things that would cause me to panic. Meanwhile, dad was up there with his usual pose, but definitely a lot more fidgety, probably seething with anger and fear. His worst enemy holding his son hostage. I couldn't wait for them to both race home in order to tell me off about sneaking out, mom pretending she checked my room and dad pretending he spotted me during lunch.

Why haven't I stopped this yet? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, a chunk of our income comes from mom's bank robbing cut. Dad's sales salary is kind of bad considering that he's hardly at work. He works odd jobs to make a basic salary, she supplements it, and neither of them even bother to question the other. Day and night, they basically supported and undermined each other. I'm not going to lie, it takes a lot of power to keep from cracking a smile.

I mean, I could always teleport away from this scuffle if I was in any real danger, but I'm sure that would raise some flags.