Chapter Text
It was a regular day in the treehouse. Well, as ordinary as it could ever be with a superhero housed in it.
Captain Underpants was engrossed with the first few comic pages they managed to finish so far. Harold was waiting. And George scribbled out one of his many, many ideas for the issue with a furious passion. It was one of those days where he could figure out the basic set-up, but nothing past that.
“Whoa, you’re gonna tear a hole through your notebook at that rate,” Harold gave a sympathetic wince before giving a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Don’t think about it so hard, we have plenty of time, so don’t stress yourself out.”
“Correct!” the hero stood up suddenly and made his way over to them. “I’m sure that whatever you come up with will be splendid.”
“Thanks, guys,” George gave a small smile. He turned his attention to Captain, gears turning in his head. “Hm... what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have any ideas for the new issue?” he clarified.
“Ooh, ideas straight from the man himself!” Harold chimed in. “Why haven’t we thought of this before?”
The Waistband Warrior’s smile faltered. “I’m not, uh-- I’m afraid I don’t have either of your gifts, with…” He waved his hand around. “Story-making?”
Harold let out a playful scoff. “Not yet!” He took Captain’s hand and placed a pencil in it before sliding a fresh sheet of paper in his direction.
“No pressure, though--” George offered. “It can even be a little idea to jump off from.”
“That’s how some of our issues were made, like The Horrible Harm of the Hideous Hair-Razer!”
“-- and The Maelstrom from Mess-opotamia!”
As the boys continued to list off comic issues, Captain Underpants stared at the blank page so intensely that, well, it was a good thing he didn’t have laser vision. For something that was no pressure, it sure was a whole lot of yes pressure. He placed the pencil down, pushing at it as he made miniscule scratches over and over and over and over--
The lead hit a deep groove of the plank underneath. The pencil immediately sunk at the pressure and ripped a small hole. Captain jolted up and dropped the pencil like it had turned into a snake. The boys flinched back in kind at the sudden movement.
“Apologies, sidekicks.” He scratched at the back of his head. “I’m afraid I got a-- what do you call it-- a brain fart?”
Silence.
And then the boys erupted in laughter so loud that it shook the treehouse.
“What are you talking about, that’s great!” George said between wheezy giggles. He turned the page to a clean sheet and began to write.
“See, you’re a natural,” Harold grinned before leaning over the other boy’s shoulder. “Alright, alright, so… fart-propelled brains--”
“-- that creates a literal brainstorm from their farts! Oh, how about…”
The boys continued their figurative brainstorm, making comic page after comic page at a breakneck pace. Occasionally, Captain would chip in with a nod or shake of his head or strike a quick pose if they asked, but it was clear that he was engrossed in his own work. And by work, the boys meant that Thing you do when you pencil over a textured surface and get a vague tracing out of that.
In the haze of late afternoon-slash-nearly-sunset, George and Harold held up the newly-stapled issue of Captain Underpants and the Boorish Flurry of Brain Farts in one hand each. You could practically hear the disembodied choir voices as a beam of sunlight hit the comic just right.
The Waistband Warrior looked up from his own page-- now he had taken to drawing tight loops-- with a small gasp.
“Our finest work yet,” Harold wiped a tear from his eye.
“I couldn’t have said it any better myself,” George nodded. “-- And we couldn't have done it without your help, Captain!”
Said Captain waved his hand, looking away bashfully. “Oh, stop.”
The boys set it down and slid it over to the hero. Captain’s expression was blank for a few moments before he connected the dots. “Oh--” He picked up the comic, idly leafing through the pages quickly. “Y-- you want me to read this?”
That gave Harold some pause. “You always read our issues anyway.”
“I mean-- never before anyone else! What an honor!” Captain Underpants added before quickly opening the issue and putting it up to his face. His brow furrowed, lips pursed comically in contemplation like some snooty art critic. He pored over each page and panel with the same intensity as earlier. Once in a while, he would nod gravely.
It was so strange seeing the hero look so serious-- or at least, playacting what a serious expression was supposed to be without being disguised as Krupp.
“Sidekicks?” He shut the comic gently and placed it aside. “That. Was. Amazing! Better than that! Super-Amazing, I daresay!”
The boys beamed at the praise and then let out another round of laughs as the hero noogied them both. For quite a while, actually. Like, a few moments too long that it now seemed kind of awkward.
But before either of them could say anything, two voices rang out:
“George, dinner!”
“Harold, it’s dinnertime!”
Captain froze, giving the boys an opportunity to escape his grasp.
“Whoa, already?” Harold un-mussed his hair.
“I know, right?” George began packing up his things, the new issue in hand. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Do you have to ask?”
“Um, sidekicks?” Captain piped up.
Both boys froze in mid-exit.
“Is there any way that I could… bunk in either of your houses for the night?” He twiddled his thumbs anxiously.
The both of them glanced to each other before looking back to the Waistband Warrior with varying degrees of worry. “Why?” George ventured.
Captain’s face scrunched up like he ate a lemon. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “The other guy’s house is soooooo lonely and boring,” he whined. “It’s all so… drab. No bright colors! No fun! No underwear decor!”
Oh, right.
Before, they could have just led him to the house and trick him to splash himself. But they can’t really do that anymore. The boys gave each other an uncomfortable Look, silently gesturing their head Captain-ward to say something.
“I, uh, don’t think that’s such a good idea.” George scratched the back of his head. Having Krupp and Captain Underpants know about each other was a big enough headache-- who knows what would happen when they threw in their parents into that. It would just be a Mess With a Capital M waiting to happen.
“Sorry, mom’s a real stickler for no shirt, no service,” Harold added sadly.
“I see.” Captain’s expression fell. “Do you mind if I stay here in the treehouse a little longer, then?”
The boys shared another set of Looks as they weighed their options.
“Harold!”
Said Harold nearly jumped out of his skin. “Oh boy, that’s mom’s Serious Voice--”
“George!”
“You know what? OK, yeah that’s fine,” George said hurriedly. “We really gotta go, I’ll try to see if I can sneak out to check on you later but no promises--”
“Thank you, sidekicks--”
“OK bye see you later!”
And just like that, both boys scrambled out and down the treehouse and into their respective houses, leaving the Waistband Warrior alone in the treehouse.
Once in a while, the boys would glance out the window as they ate their dinner in case of… something. Dread welled up in Harold’s gut as he poked around his vegetables when he realized, oh he could accidentally destroy a part of the treehouse by being his usual self. Besides, he seemed weirdly distracted-- super strength was no laughing matter if he tripped on something.
George glanced at the window anxiously as he watched the vague egg-shaped silhouette bumble around the treehouse. And by the end of the day, he didn’t even need to sneak out-- Captain Underpants just flew out once the sky was getting dark.
And in between then and school the next day, he’s back to being Krupp, and of course they don’t question it.
If the boys had one word to describe the following weeks that followed Krupp and Captain Underpants’ discovery of each other, it would be complicated. If it wasn’t Krupp leveraging the potential punishment on the horizon if they couldn’t reverse the hypnosis, then it was Captain Underpants acting weird.
Now, it wasn’t like the routine they had before was normal, but at least they developed a system for that brand of weird. At least they knew what to do when Melvin’s new invention made a bunch of brains in a jar into farting brains in a jar. At least they had an inkling of an idea on how to counter that smelly storm.
And while Krupp was cagey and tried to cover his ears whenever they tried to snap his fingers around him, hey, it would have been just as difficult if he didn’t know. The only difference was that they would’ve gotten detention for turning him into Captain Underpants and not something else.
But-- and this was a pretty big but -- they’re not prepared for this new brand of weird.
Captain stumbled back into the door leading into the teacher’s lounge, leaving a perfect cutout silhouette of him as he did so.
George and Harold peered into the Captain-shaped cutout-hole, and their faces fell as they saw the hero’s face: it was the same ate-a-lemon scrunch from the other day. His chest was heaving. His fists were clenched tight. And as much as the Waistband Warrior had made his disdain for clothes clear, the way he threw his clothes off was less I feel uncomfortable and more, these clothes feel like they’re made of sandpaper.
“...Captain Underpants?”
And then his eyes snap open.
There was a distant look to them, but it wasn’t a vacant sort of distant. The exact opposite, really, which was the strangest part.
“Are you OK?” George’s brows pinched with worry. “Did you hit your head weird?”
They could practically hear Captain’s train of thought screech and try to backtrack. He shut his eyes tight as he nursed the back of his head. When he opened them again, it was like nothing happened and he was smiling again. “Right on the money sidekick!” He pulled a nearby curtain down and tied it around his neck. “Got me thinking total gonneldyggok!”
“You mean ‘gobbledygook’?”
“That, too!” He stepped out of the him-shaped hole with his chest puffed out and hands on his hips. “Now, let’s brawn some brains, sidekicks! TRA-LA-LAAA!”
Before they could ask, the Waistband Warrior flew off to face the monster of the week… before being propelled back into the wall. There was no time to pick at the hero’s brain when they had to pick him off the wall. There were still craniums to collapse and flatulence to fan away.
But, that near-trainwreck stayed at the forefront of their mind.
“George--” Harold’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie on his nightstand. “George, you up?”
The boy let out a tired groan as he stared up at the ceiling. In the gloom of-- what time even was it? Nine, ten at night?-- he could see the barely-glow-in-the-dark gel dinosaur stickers he managed to place on the ceiling. George began to blindly grab and poke around at the nightstand at his side before getting a firm grasp of what he was sure was the antenna end of the walkie talkie.
“Am now,” he yawned, sitting up into a more comfortable position. “What’s up? Got a nightmare?”
There was silence on the other end for a moment. “Have you noticed anything… weird with Captain Underpants lately?”
“Besides the usual?”
“Yeah, like--” Harold let out a small gasp. There was a moment of silence that stretched on for minutes, and then, “-- Sorry, I heard Mom walking around and I didn’t want her hearing. Just like… I dunno, he doesn’t seem like… himself? You noticed it too, right?”
“Notice what?”
“You know when you asked if he was alright? He was clearly lying.”
George’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, his gaze lingered on his backpack that had all his stuff, the latest issue included. “I know,” he said. “Maybe the whole... thing with him knowing Krupp is getting to him-- I’d act weird too if I learned I turned into the worst person in the world.”
There was a moment of silence. The quiet hum from the vents kept it from being too quiet.
"I can’t imagine what it’s like for him back there,” Harold mumbled after a moment. “Krupp probably set up, like, some sort of water system that’ll splash him every time he switches.”
George let out a little snort at that. “Probably put a parental lock on all the cartoon channels, too. Like, a literal one.”
“Exactly! There has to be something we could do to help him out.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno, he did say how bored he was over there.”
“We do have some leftover confetti...” George mused out loud. Before he could continue his train of thought, a yawn punctuated his words. “Tell ya what, we’ll fine-tune this idea tomorrow.”
“That’s a plan.”
And with that, the walkie-talkie on the other side clicked off.
George and Harold weren’t sure what they were expecting when they made their way to the lonely house at the end of Curmudgeon Boulevard. They were only here for reconnaissance for now, trying to piece together if there was anything specific they could do to help the hero’s plight. At best, Krupp would be out, and at worst they’d be caught and suspended if they didn’t spin a good enough lie as to why they were there.
So, the usual odds.
But as they peered in through the sliver of window uncovered by a curtain-- singular, that was important-- they weren’t expecting whatever this was.
Captain Underpants paced around the living room. Once again, there was the scrunched look that they now recognized was him overthinking. He was talking out loud, speaking to a cassette player propped up on the coffee table.
“What do you think he’s saying?”
“Hold on, I think I can read his lips--” Harold squinted, clearing his throat as he tried to mimic the hero’s baritone. “Why, your ruse is blown wide open! Caboose the turkey baster.”
George gave him a deadpan gaze.
“Hey, I’d like to see you do better,” he whispered loudly.
“Something’s happening."
Their eyes were glued back to the glass. Captain stopped recording, and surprisingly enough, took the glass of water right next to the cassette player and dunked its contents on his head. Krupp began to splutter and cough, untied the cape around his shoulders and threw it to the ground. He exited the room for a bit before returning with a fresh set of clothes, picked up the cassette player and played it back.
Played Captain’s message back.
The principal’s expression was hard to see, but they’d recognize that scowl in their sleep, let alone faced mostly away. He placed the cassette down roughly and took out a small packet of sticky notes and began to write.
George squinted. “‘Was pouring the entire thing necessary?’” he read aloud, before his mouth went agape at what he just said.
Krupp shuffled over to the coffee table and slapped the sticky note on top of the cassette. The force had caused a flutter of more sticky notes to fly off the table and onto the floor.
“They’re talking to each other,” Harold said, voice as shocked as the other boy looked. And with the amount of sticky notes sent flying, they’ve been talking for quite a while.
The principal raised his hand up, thumb and middle finger pinched together. And for the longest time, he hesitated. He shut his eyes tight and snap! Captain Underpants was back and immediately began to wrestle out of Krupp’s clothes.
George and Harold ducked down as the balled-up shirt hit the window. They didn’t dare look back up.
Or stay.
In fact, they’ve already left the neighborhood as fast as their legs could take them. They weren’t even sure why they were running; it wasn’t like Krupp-- or Captain Underpants for that matter-- had spotted them.
Once they felt like they put enough distance between them and the house, the boys stopped to catch their breath. George leaned on a nearby signpost. “Well, I guess that answers that question.”
“...What do you think they were talking about?” Harold wondered aloud, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his fist. “Captain Underpants looked really worried.”
“Probably something bad.” His fingers began tapping on the post.
“What if Krupp’s blackmailing him?”
“Wait, hold on: what’s he supposed to blackmail him with--” George reasoned, despite worry creeping in his tone, too.
Oh, Harold held on, alright-- his hands flew up to George’s shoulders. “I don’t know, but he could be fooled to spill stuff--” His voice began to rise as he began to shake him. “Like any of our prank plans Captain overhears.”
“…Or how his superpowers work,” George mumbled.
“Or how--” the other boy’s face fell. “Oh, that is so much worse than what I was gonna say! If Krupp ever figures it out--”
“I know.” George could feel how clammy the other boy’s hands were, even through the fabric. And if he had to be honest, he was sweating bullets at the thought.
If Krupp knowing about Captain Underpants was complicated, then Krupp being able to use Captain’s powers and be a superpowered tyrant was a nightmare. Specifically, the Nightmare.
Harold broke the silence. “What are we gonna do?”
George’s brow creased into something determined. “We’re gonna figure out what’s wrong with Captain Underpants, fix it somehow, and make a new plan,” he replied. “Not necessarily in that order.”
If future versions of themselves told past George and Harold of a few months ago that they’d spend this particular Saturday renovating Krupp’s house, they’d laugh in their faces.
Sure, it was more of a prankovation (Prank Renovation, trademark) with ulterior motives, but still. The shadow of the lonely house loomed over the both of them. Harold adjusted the strap on his backpack, the weight of its contents weighing heavy. He nodded to George before the both of them approached Captain Underpants, and said--
“-- We know what’s wrong.”
That made the hero tense up. His mouth moved for a moment, but no sound came out. Another attempt. “…You do?”
Harold held his tongue as he looked over to George. They’ve been in this game for too long, seen that face before, usually on each other’s faces whenever they got called out by their parents. His brow pinched together-- yeesh, it felt weird to be on this end of this particular discussion.
George came to his side and patted the hero on the arm. “Yeah, I mean you said so yourself-- Mr. Krupp’s house is super boring.”
“So we thought that maybe, we could help make living there bearable for you!” he finished.
“Oh,” Captain mumbled, surprised and letting out a small sigh of relief. “Oh! Yes, that is exactly what’s wrong.”
“Thought so!” Harold beamed as he shrugged off his backpack and opened it--
-- showing its contents: old prank supplies they never used, streamers, party balloons, toilet paper, and other odds and ends. “Take your pick!” He made a grand gesture bag-wards.
Captain Underpants let out a small gasp. He fished out the roll of toilet paper with a fervent glee and began to float up to the roof’s edge. He tapped a finger on his chin before deciding to string it along the roof’s edge like it were decorative banners. The boys let out a small snicker before letting out a full-belly laugh, holding onto each other as support.
“Ah-- artisanal TP’ing,” George said, wiping a tear from his eyes.
“Hey, Captain!” Harold yelled up once he got over his giggles. “Are you good out here? We’re-- uh-- Gonna do some stuff inside.”
And then said Captain inexplicably got tangled up in his own TP. “Absolutely, sidekicks! I--” he let out a little grunt of effort as he tried to worm his way out of it. “I’m doing better than fine! I’ll be right with you once I’m finished with this.”
“Great!” And the both of them immediately scurried into the house, its door wide open thanks to Captain. It was the exact same as it was the first time they snuck in.
Well, same for the most part, George thought.
They tiptoed to the coffee table until they realized, oh, right they were literally the only people in here, and just walked normally the rest of the way.
The table was strangely scarce of the sticky notes from the day before.
“Hold on, I stepped in something,” Harold mumbled.
George made a disgusted face.
“No, not like that--” and he picked up a sticky note that got stuck to his shoe. This is pathetic, the note said in neat script, its heart dots criss-crossed out. His gaze shifted to the floor, to a few sticky notes that were jutting out awkwardly from under the TV stand.
George knelt down and squinted. Besides the sticky notes, there was a suspiciously boxy thing under all that clutter. He glanced up to the ceiling and the muffled sound of Captain still struggling. He took the poker from the fireplace and began to fish out both cassette and sticky notes that happened to be in its way when it was pulled out.
There were so many sticky notes that it looked like the makings of a classic sticky notes prank, where you’d cover every surface with the thing. The other messages were more of the same derision. For goodness sake, put on some pants, one said. Sure, real heroic, leaving behind construction bill a mile wide, another needled.
One was ripped up, its top half gone to who-knows-where. Must be nice, not having to care about real world consequences.
“Yeesh,” Harold winced. “No wonder Captain Underpants wanted to bunk with us.”
“Krupp must’ve hid all this,” George mumbled, picking up the cassette. He blew off the dust. Said cassette was a clunky thing, with a handle at the end. Half-ripped congratulatory stickers-- the same kind Melvin sometimes had on his tests when they were handed back-- were scattered across its surface.
And on its side, in big, bold permanent marker-- CAPTAIN. It was clearly scrubbed and re-applied and scrubbed again, leaving a cloudy blur behind the name.
It was clear who was, quite literally, trying to scrub Captain Underpants’ personal touches from this. His brow creased as he continued to flip the cassette in his hands.
“Hey, are you OK?” Harold asked, noticing the other boy’s contemplative expression.
“No, yeah-- I’m good,” George answered. “Just… surprised, I guess, that Krupp didn't just throw all this out, you know?”
“I guess figuring out he’s also Captain Underpants is taking a toll on him, too?”
“Hm,” George hm’ed. He looked out the window, and once he was content that Captain was still preoccupied with his own project, quickly stuffed it into his bag under his other books. Well, at least the hard part was done.
They looked at each other and smirked. Harold held up a set of party poppers with a mischievous grin. George held up a laundry line lined with underwear.
“Well, we might as well do what we came to do,” George said with a matching grin.
One prankovation, complete with Tasteful Underwear Decor and Strategically Placed Party Poppers later, and the boys shuffled back into the treehouse in the late afternoon. George slid his bag off, and slid it forward like a curling rock. Its contents slipped out, supplies and all… including the cassette.
It now sat at the center of Treehouse Comix Inc. like a cursed artifact. All it needed was a platform with a trap to set the scene. The shaft of sunlight that filtered through the windows will have to do. George pressed the rewind button. The box whirred as the tape began its loop back. Time felt it was being pulled and dragged at the same pace the bit of tape made its way backwards. All that was left to do was wait until it was done.
Maybe it was because neither of them had ever been keen on sitting still and waiting, or maybe it was guilt, or both, but the boys felt a wave of unease.
“How long do you think they’ve been talking to each other?” Harold piped up. “There were a lot of sticky notes under there. Like, a lot-a lot.”
“A few days?” George surmised. On the one hand, there were literally a bajillion sticky notes. On the other, each sticky note had a few sentences at most, and considering how often they’d have to switch back and forth to just have a regular conversation... “Maybe they started as soon as they found out about each other, I dunno.”
Harold scratched the back of his head. “But then wouldn’t Captain Underpants tell us about that right at the start?”
“Would he?”
Harold frowned, unsure of how to answer. His now-clammy hands wrung at the end of his shirt. They should be making comics right now, or-- or something that wasn’t going behind Captain Underpants’ back like this. His gaze shifted to the now-quiet cassette player.
“You wanna press play together?” George asked.
Harold nodded.
The boys picked up the cassette together, a finger hovered on the play button each.
Click.
And there was another click sound, from the recording. “--Principal, your attempts to convince me are bad and terrible--” Captain then proceeded to blow an absurdly long raspberry before it was cut off by the recording's click. The boys couldn’t help but snicker.
“Maybe we should skip forward a bit?” Harold suggested.
George was already pressing fast-forward. “Way ahead of you.”
“-- Yes, fabric softener is important!--”
Fast forward.
“--Principal, your hostile scrawlings are not appreciated,” the recording of Captain said.
Harold was about to press the fast forward button again, but George grabbed his wrist and shook his head.
The tape stopped abruptly and started back up as the hero continued his half. “Our body,” he corrected. “And it’s not like I like… leaving, and then have you terrorize my sidekicks like a second-rate villain!”
They were working with a blind spot and trying to piece together a conversation they only knew a part of, but the picture it did leave them with was… unsettling.
Stop. Another conversation fragment. “I’ll have you know, as a hero, I’ve done more for this fair city than you ever will.”
Harold held onto his half tighter.
“Of course I care. It’s part and parcel of being a hero, Principal.”
Stop. Another conversation fragment--
“Sidekicks, have you seen...”
There were two voices now: one from the cassette, and one...
They whirled around with wide dinner-plate eyes to find the Waistband Warrior himself looking at them with a stricken expression.
Thinking was never Captain Underpants’ strong suit. Suits weren’t his strong suit either-- they should really change that expression. Unless you counted birthday suits, in which case, yes, it was his strong suit.
Wait, he lost his point. Let’s try this again.
He mostly went with his gut in most cases, and he had plenty of it to spare anyway. So when he got chewed out by the other guy through strongly worded sticky notes about-- and he’ll stand by this-- improvements he and his sidekicks made to the house, and couldn’t find his usual method to reply he did what any good hero would do.
He naturally went to his sidekicks. Maybe they had thrown it out, or put it somewhere else.
Well, the Waistband Warrior wasn’t wrong, per se. Something cold settled in his gut as he heard his own voice crackle from within the treehouse, from behind his sidekicks.
“Sidekicks,” he said again.
There was an emotion that the hero instinctively wanted to grab, but it felt wrong. Out-of-character. Sharp taste, throat-burning, heat rising to his face ready for that energy to be released somehow. So Captain super-stomped it down in the deepest part of his mind or heart or gut or wherever the other guy goes.
And now his sidekicks were looking up at him with dinner plate eyes and the cassette was still playing.
“I-- I see you’ve found… that.” Captain’s voice isn’t quite at his usual brassy timbre-- it’s too forced, too tight, and the more he tries not to, the more his voice veers too close to the other guy’s voice for anyone’s comfort-- “It’s quite an amazing contraption, is it not? A machine that records voices--”
“We already know you talk to Krupp.”
“Haha, what?”
The boys only gave him a Look. Captain shrank down.
“I’m sure there’s some sort of misunderstanding at play here,” he tried to explain himself. “Taking things without permission-- from a hero no less!-- is not sidekick-ly behaviour.”
“Neither is keeping things from your sidekicks,” Harold shot back, his guilt apparent on his face. His fingers gripped onto the cassette tighter as it continued its background noise of incoherent babbles.
“What he means to say is, we were worried,” George offered.
“You could have asked,” the hero mumbled.
“Could we?” Harold interjected. His fingers were getting so clammy it was getting more difficult to hold his side of the cassette.
The whimpers from the cassette continued.
“Yes, because I would have reassured you that nothing is wrong.” He struck a Classic Superhero Stance-- hands on hips, shoulders leaned back, reassuring smile that was all teeth. “See? I’m still the same ol’ Captain Underpants!”
“M-- my backstory is real,” his own voice warbled from the cassette. It almost felt mocking, considering the timing of it. “ And-- and the things I do are too, s-- so stop saying they aren’t.”
One of the boys, thankfully, pressed stop. All three of them stewed in the silence uncomfortably. Harold’s hands fidgeted. George had taken the cassette in his hands fully, a thumb grazing over one of the half-ripped stickers.
Captain’s smile shifted to a wince. He glanced away for a moment, but his body was still in that Stance stubbornly. “Ah. That.”
“Yeah, that,” Harold echoed.
The branches shuddered in the wind. Captain was shuddering in the same way. The boys looked on, unsure of what to make of the expression on the hero’s face. It felt… strange, to see his eyes look so… sad? But that wasn’t the right word, was it?
“Y-- you know how it is in each issue-- of course you do, you’ve made it!” He gestured to the cassette. “The foe appears, I defeat it, we move on to the next story without a second thought.”
George and Harold gave each other worried glances.
“I miss what it was like before all…” His hands gestured wildly to the air around him. “...this. I know you do, too.” Captain shut his eyes tight, into that familiar scrunched-up expression. “But at the same time I don’t?”
George tilted his head. “But, Krupp’s been nothing but mean to you.”
Captain’s hands stop. They clench and unclench, as if that would give form, give words to his thoughts he wasn’t used to thinking. He wasn’t built for something this… continuity-heavy. For such dour a tone. He was vaguely aware of that much, at least.
Funny how much he could do that when his time in the sun wasn’t interrupted by monsters terrorizing the city or an errant water droplet, in the safety of a sad house.
“I know, but--” Captain can’t really blame him, can he? He was lodged into a story that was never his, but he didn’t have the words to voice everything. It would be difficult to describe, he thought, even if he did have all the words. His sidekicks were still boys, but more importantly, would probably never be able to understand on his level, what this was like.
All he had were symbols and grawlixes and so he settled on, “It’s--”
“Complicated,” the boys chorused.
“I was gonna say weird, but that works too.” His hands began to pull at the cape tassels around his neck, his head bowed down. “Lying may be unbecoming of a hero, but know that I did it for you two. I didn’t want to hurt you or make you sad, but… well, I still did, and I’m so sorry.”
Two pairs of arms encircled him. His Stance wavered. His shoulders loosened. And then his knees buckled and sent him kneeling down to take the hug in proper. His sidekicks buried their faces into each shoulder.
Thank goodness they can’t see his face right now. Thank goodness he can’t see his own. The hero could feel heat rising to his face and his eyes getting watery.
“We were telling the truth about wanting to help you,” Harold insisted.
Captain’s arms hesitantly circle them back-- one hand gingerly placed on each boys’ shoulder. It was good-familiar-grounding.
“And I do not doubt that, sidekicks,” he said finally.
“You know you’re real to us, to everyone you’ve saved, right?” George said.
A lump formed in the hero’s throat. He held them tighter before letting himself nod. As much as he wanted to stay in this moment for longer, it was clear it was overstaying its welcome. He took a deep breath, before pulling away.
“One question.” Captain hazarded to crack a smile, and this time it reached his eyes.
“Yeah?” Harold perked up.
“Does this mean I have to call you something else besides sidekicks?” he asked. “Since you, um. You know.”
The boys let out a little laugh.
“Don’t think about it so hard,” George said. “Besides, I think calling us your creators would feel really weird and hokey.”
“Besides, we like being your sidekicks,” Harold added.
“And, um,” George held out the cassette player. “Sorry again.”
Captain took it back and put it by his side. There were things he didn’t want to touch on yet, things he wanted to leave dog-eared and in a box, but this was enough. More than enough to feel a little bit lighter. “Now, I think we’ve had our fair share of sorries for today. I think it’s time for me to head out.”
The boys chorused their respective noise of agreeance as they waved Captain Underpants off. As soon as he was just a speck in the sky, George and Harold gave each other a knowing Look.
They didn’t know what they were going to do, but one thing was for sure: this was going to be one of those long-term plans, wasn’t it?