Sidekicks and cupcakes

You're six feet tall, with traces of a semi uncut beard and armpit hair enough to grow thousands of bacterial colonies, towering over a boy half your height, both of you had each others fingers curved over the two ends of the final comic copy left in the store from the latest release. You obviously got to the comic first, but the kid staring up at you just wouldn't let go of his grip.

You would've called it a battle of the wits, but you were already at your wits end and the little guy was going to cry sooner or later. You kept thinking of a process to accelerate it so you could walk out with the comic in hand like a champion. 

 "Let go already," You say frustrated.

"You let go." He says once again taking you both back to square one. A couple of other people pass by your aisle glancing to stare at you both, yet couldn't be bothered enough to interfere. 

It was a fine Sunday morning and for once you thought life would go your way, when the bird pooped one step in front of you missing your head and your hoodie, the minute you stepped out of the door. Turns out it wasn't. 

A familiar 'rippp' sound came from the middle of you both and you didn't have to look at your hands to figure out the source. Both of you let go instinctively and the comic with a semi torn front page fell on to the ground. You cross your arms in front of you as you enter another staring down contest with the kid and this time it was the blame game. 

"Your fault!" You both say in unison, almost harmonising with each other. 

"I'm younger than you old man. So you pay," he says and you could feel your nerve twitch.

"No." 

There was no way you'd pay for a comic with a ripped front cover. Every page of a comic had it's own value and a torn comic was like a stamp without it's wavy borders. Plus you weren't that old to begin with. You're about to turn thirty. Not thirty yet, so twenty nine is the prime of being a youngster. Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked down at the kid.

"I have all the volumes of this comic series," He says looking up at you, challenging you.

Within a few minutes you both were seated on the floor of the store's aisle number seven, with a torn comic in the middle, playing the ‘who's horse is bigger’ game in a modern way, for no reason, until by some point it didn't even make sense. 

"I have a comic pile three times your height," You say lifting an eyebrow. 

"I have friends." He says and you wonder whether he had a diploma in being rude. 

You did have a friend one time, way back in high school. You both were quite an unusual pair, he was the hero who saved the day and you were his sidekick who, as he liked to put it, "saved" him. You wonder whether he's doing well out there. You indeed missed sitting down under a big oak tree, bunking lectures to talk about comic endings to him as he talked about basketball to you. Those were the days. Your heart tightens a little, but you ignore it as you spoke again. 

"I have two dogs." You mentally slap yourself at your own words, but dogs were better than human friends, right?

"Cool. Are they Pit bulls?" His little eyes sparkled.

"No Labradors." 

"Still cool," he then pauses as if a wave of realisation hit him, "I have a mom" He retorts.

"I live with mine too," you say, but then bit your lower lip. You were in your late twenties, living at your mother's place yet not one bit ashamed about it. Your mother was the only woman whom you loved and received an equal amount or even more love from. However you usually don't go around boasting about it.

"Hero or sidekick?" He asks and you by reflex reply, "Sidekick."

"Batman or Superman?" He asks. You were confused by that question. You loved batman's outfit and setting, but also superman's personality and outline so it was hard to say, "Neither," was a better answer.

"What?!" He lifts his arms up dramatically. "How can you not like either of them?!" 

"I like Green lantern" You shrug with a smirk. 

You don't quite know what happened afterwards as you both got drawn into talking about superheroes and villains obstructing aisle number seven for quite sometime until you remembered that you had some work left to do and hopefully read a comic if time permits. 

"I'll pay," you say ruffling the kid's raven hair after hoisting yourself up from the tiled floor. You decided to let him off the hook for he seemed like a good boy after all.

"Last question.” He scratched his head, looking up at you.

“Okay. Fast.”

“Cupcakes or cookies" The boy asks and you say, "Cupcakes" no arguments there for cupcakes were the best.

"Kevin!" 

Your heart jumped out of your ribcage at the mention of the sole word, as you dramatically closed your eyes. The last thing you wanted was someone from work or one of your clients recognising you inside a comic store. Not that you were ashamed of being a comic maniac, but because it didn't quite go with your new image; Kevin, a cool lawyer; working towards a partnership at the best famous law firm in the city. 

You turn to look at the source to stare at a familiar face, dating all the way back to high school. The owner had shoulder length raven hair longer than it used to be, with curled tips.

"Mom!" The kid responded, looking up at her as he stood up from the floor fast.

You take a deep breath in as you closed your eyes, hoping invisibility was your superpower. But you weren't a superhero, but a sidekick and most sidekicks don't have a superpower.

Sidekicks were the ones who gave the superhero a basic game plan so that he could save the day and get the girl. They were the ones who drove the car around waiting for the superhero and his date to get in. They were the ones buying the cute cards and gifts on behalf of the superhero, so that he could please his girlfriend. They were also the ones who bought the ring so that the superhero can propose to his girl. Even when the superheroes were actually approaching the girl they liked. 

In short the sidekicks are the ones behind the curtain, underappreciated and camouflaged in to their surroundings, secretly wishing the whole world happiness and peace, even at the cost of their own. 

"Hey, excuse me. Do I know you?" Her voice was like those glass door chimes clicking together as the breeze blew by. 

***

"I know you, don't I?" She brings her face closer to yours and you feel a burning sensation spread over your cheeks like a wildfire.

"You're definitely from my class" she says tilting her face, as if to get a different dimensional view. She smelled like jasmines and pine trees, clad in a dress reaching her knees highlighting her skin tone. 

"Umm... I'm here to babysit Mark" you say changing the topic. It was embarrassing enough that you were babysitting neighbourhood little boys for extra pocket money to afford your comics, but now you were at the doorstep of one of your classmates. That too at this girl's house of all places. You had no idea she lived two blocks down to yours for you had always pictured her as one of those girls living in a palace guarded by dragons. 

"Oh that's you? Come right in" She closes the door after you and you were too self conscious to make eye contact with her again. 

"I'll be leaving now. Mark's room is the one to the left" She leaves after waving at you and you were too nervous to wave back. She was probably headed to one of those parties, where famous sixteen year olds gets invited to, where you wouldn't dare to even set foot at. 

Maybe it was love at first sight.

Maybe you liked her for her smile or maybe it was the way her eyes softened as she spoke with you. Or maybe it was those little things about her that you could write a book about, that kept drawing you in, like a moth to a flame. 

Maybe.

***

"No," you reply avoiding eye contact as you bend down to pick the torn comic from the ground. You started to walk down aisle seven as fast as you could. 

"You are Kevin, aren't you?" You hear her voice from behind and you stop. 

You were afraid to face her after all those years. Especially after your so called friend, her hero, broke her heart even before she could celebrate their one year anniversary together with him. Some how you felt responsible for what she had to go through, so you ran away from their lives like a coward. You weren't a good enough sidekick either for him to depend on. Otherwise he would've probably came to you for advice and you would've helped him before he created a mess. Now you still couldn't forgive him even after all those years, for abandoning her. For she deserved better. Not you, either. Someone way better.

"It's been awhile," she says taking your momentary pause as an answer. You take a deep breath.

"Hey," 

You turn around to finally look at her. Her brown eyes looking more mature, but her face looked younger than her actual age. You didn't know what to tell her after all these years, for you were surrounded by comics featuring heroes who lived up to their names, unlike you.

Compared to them you were a mere a sidekick. 

You made eye contact with the sketch of Superman's eyes, resting on the top shelf. It was an old volume from the series, which also had a cliché ending. In fact most of the comics had a cliché ending, where the hero finally wins and the villain either becomes a good guy or just gets wiped away from the face of earth. As a child, it was through comics that you saw how bad people were punished and the good people got what they deserved. It transiently made you forget all the pain from getting bullied for no reason at grade school and eventually you were too much engrossed in to comics to be bothered about getting bullied. It became a vicious cycle where bullying lead you to comics and comics lead you to get more bullied. However in the long run you made it through, and your past shaped you in to you, for which you were thankful. 

Now that you look back at your path as a lawyer, you've done quite a good job as a sidekick by making sure that the people who wronged the others will get the punishment they deserved and by defending the innocent ones, overall saving the world your way. You were too preoccupied by self doubt to see that you indeed possed a superpower and that was, "the law" that you used in order to wave the flag of justice. You've been an alright sidekick, you think to yourself.

Then you remembered, that you actually chose to be a sidekick.

Initially it was to justify your lack of self confidence though deep down maybe you wanted to challenge yourself. Or maybe you wanted to prove yourself that even a sidekick is a hero though he wears no fancy cape. Funny how you forgot such an important fact as the time passed.

"Sidekicks are cool" At the mention of the words, you look towards the little kid who did the peace sign with his little fingers from afar encouraging you to speak. His superpower was clearly telepathy. 

"Good to see you again." You say to her finally. It was indeed good to see her.

She smiled at your words. "Yeah." 

She rubbed her palms together. Something she did when she felt awkward. You probably reminded her of him and that's probably the last thing she wanted. You come up with an excuse to leave fast. You bid her farewell and did a fist bump with the kid. He looked so much like her, now that you took a good look at him. 

"Mom! He's paying for the comic that I ripped." The little kid stated, pulling the hem of his mothers floral patterned dress. "Shouldn't we thank him?" 

You just looked from the kid at his mother as you stood there motionless. 

"You're right," She patted his head as she made eye contact with you, her hazel eyes glistening, just like they used to when she was clearly up to something. "Do you want to join us for lunch?"

You hesitate.

The little guy smiles cheekily at you.

"Mom bakes tasty cupcakes."