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the-sidekick-club · 11 months

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A Little Family

Origins: Kim - Part 2

Written by: @heroes-villains-side-blog★@tratieisdabest★@just-a-space-rabbit

TW: Implied child abuse, Theft, Break in, Fighting

Part 1 : Part 2

☰☲☷✪☷☲☰

Life with a villain.

Once Kim's fever had gone down, they and Lukas had a long talk. Lukas learned that, apparently, Kim had come to Boreas in the hopes to sneak over the mountain into the neighboring country. But they got mugged on the way and got stuck in the city since the roads down had snowed over.

When asked why they wanted to go to the country in the first place, Kim shrugged and said they just wanted to, that they had no goal other than to just travel. In hindsight, Kim felt stupid for saying it, but it was the truth.

Days turned into weeks. In the beginning, Emma kept visiting almost every day to make sure that Kim was healing well, then the visits slowly got further and further apart, until she and her family moved away to Nizorro.

There was no more blizzard, but neither Lukas nor Kim wanted to bring that up.

Lukas feared that Kim would want to leave out into the cold again, and Kim feared that Lukas would remember the weather had gotten better and send them away. So the two kept on going in this strange limbo of ‘just staying for a few more days’ until the last part of winter had left them, and they both had forgotten about it all together.

It did not take long before Lukas saw some improvements in Kim. As they slowly got healthier and more used to living with a villain, it was strange to see them go from so small and silent, to becoming more and more outspoken by the day. However, that didn’t mean everything went silky smooth.

Lukas learned quickly that a 12-year-old needs entertainment when, after leaving for a few hours to meet with a client, he came home to Kim having kindly sorted all of Lukas’s books by color, much to his annoyance and inconvenience… but also amusement.

They would also steal his tools from time to time, and hide them around the base. Their favorite spot seemed to be in the kitchen since, when he would look there, they could ask him to make them a cup of hot chocolate resulting in them spending a good amount of time chatting over chocolate and cookies.

Slowly, Lukas got to learn more about Kim. They were both surprised to learn that they were both born, and grew up, in neighboring countries. Although they technically didn’t have the same mother tongue, their languages were still close enough that they could understand each other. Kim seemed to open up a lot more after that.

He learned that Kim used to live with their grandma in their homeland of The Nortusen Isles while their parents worked in Nizorro. At seven, they moved to Nizorro, then Kim’s Grandma got ill and later passed away not long after.

But Kim still didn't tell Lukas why they had run away from their parents.

Until a chilly evening in late autumn, over a year later. Kim was now 14 years old, and was left home alone.

…

Lukas had left only an hour prior, having planned to rob a local ski lifts to get a needed part for one of his projects.

So, Kim was sitting by one of the tables doing the homework Lukas had given them.

‘Just because I’m a villain, that doesn’t mean I’ll let you get away with no schooling,’ Lukas’s words kept repeating themselves in Kim’s brain as they pouted at the still unsolved math problem.

‘Yes, I get it! But why so much MATH?!’ they thought. “Just three more! Then, I can have a cup of hot chocolate!” they mumbled to themself.

Kim was lost in thought when they were startled by a sudden loud click as the door was unlocked.

‘That’s not Lukas!’ they thought and began looking for a hiding spot. ‘He never unlocks the door! He goes through the shadows!’ Lukas did not have the budget for a grand security system, but he was smart enough to have some makeshift security measures in place. Kim was bolting to the small hidden room by the stairs, just in time for a stranger to enter the room.

“Wow, that idiot Shadows!” the thief cackled. “Got to be the worst security system I've ever seen, this has got to be the easiest break-in in my life!” he mocked as he began rummaging around the base.

Kim’s heart was rising against their chest. They could hear the sound of stuff breaking as the thief tried to find something valuable.

‘How dare they,’ Kim thought with an angry huff. But instantly regretted it as the thief turned to look in their direction.

“WHO’S THERE?!” they snapped.

‘Oh no, I said that out loud!’ they felt the cold sliver up their spine, as the thief saw the small door handle.

“I know you’re in there! Get out here!” they said, moving closer to the door.

Kim took the best fighting stance they could in the small space. They might be just half the thief’s size, and Lukas was so far away, but they were not going down just like that, they knew they could take him.

‘5 meters away, if they just got a bit closer,’ Kim thought as the thief kept talking.

“You don’t want to make me mad,” they said.

‘4 meters.’

“Let's just have a nice chat...”

‘3 meters!’

“Why are you hiding in there?”

‘2 meters!’

“You don’t know if I’m going to hurt you...”

“ONE!”

To say the thief was shocked would be an understatement, as Kim bolted full force forward and punched hard on what they had calculated to be their weak spot in those few seconds, causing the intruder to fall back in pain.

But Kim did not stop, and kept up the punches and kicks faster than what the thief was able to keep up with, until he found an opening and kicked Kim as hard as he could, causing them to fall back on the ground.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?” the thief snarled as he got over where Kim lay.

Kim got back up on their feet, and was about to attack again when Shadows grabbed the thief from behind.

“That is my kid,” he yelled and threw the thief to the ground. “Get lost. If I ever see you here again, I’ll make you regret it.”

At that, the thief fled almost in tears.

Just as the door closed, Lukas stooped down and wrapped his arms around Kim, his face looked like he was at the break of tears.

“Kim, I’m so sorry…” he whispered. “I should have been more careful.” The hug lasted for quite some time.

"But I… I should've been able to stop them!" Kim protested, upset with themself.

Lukas looked down at them with concern. No anger or disappointment or annoyance was in his eyes when he replied. "Oh, Kim, no. That's not your job, you're just a kid!"

But Kim seemed to disagree. "No, I should've been able to win! It was just a thief, and he didn't even have powers! I…" Kim paused, as their breathing grew faster, they were wondering if they should tell Lukas before making up their mind. "I was a hero sidekick. I have training! I should've beaten them easily! If I just–"

"– Kim, stop. I need you to breathe." Lukas said calmly, leading them onto the couch.

Kim was quickly bundled up in a plethora of blankets which Lukas hoped would calm them down.

After his child's breathing returned to normal, he began, "Kim. I don't care if you were a hero sidekick. You were, and still are, a child. Anyone who expects you to be able to fight off a thief at 14 is being unreasonable."

Kim sniffled. "Yeah, but, like… I was taught how to – wait… you don't care that I was a hero sidekick?"

Lukas looked over from the chair across from them; as much as he wanted to cuddle the sadness away, he knew Kim needed a bit of space right now.

"Listen. I'm going to let you breathe for a moment while I secure the base. I need to talk to you, but you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." Lukas wanted to have this conversation now, but he'd already waited longer than he should have to make sure everything was safe. Kim was, of course, his priority, but having a second attack happen wouldn't help their nerves.

Truth.

Lukas re-entered the room, having finally secured the area. The thief was long gone, but Lukas knew that it was only a matter of time before the rumors would start to spread that there was a child here. Soon, it wouldn't be safe for Kim to be here anymore.

But he could think about all that later.

“I know that you were a hero sidekick… I’ve known for a while now.”

“WHAT! How?”

“Well, I only half suspected it.” Lukas sat down on the sofa next to the pile of blankets Kim was sitting in. “You were always too calm around people with powers, no normal child would be that casual about it, and then when you told me your parents worked in Nizorro, the city with the largest population of supers in the world, well… the odds were a bit too high.” He had so many things he wanted to learn about them, and was not quite sure where to start. So he went for the easiest questions first.

“What is your power?”

After some silence, Kim answered. “Aura Blocking. I can block my aura from being felt by others. So even if you look straight at me, I’m hard to notice, if not completely invisible.”

“So that is why you were always so good at hide and seek? Cheating little villain,” he joked.

“I never used my powers to cheat on purpose!” Kim yelled, “I can’t control it at times, if I get too calm or too scared it just happens…”

Lukas apologized for the joke, it was clearly bad timing. “How long were you a sidekick for?”

“I… I have trained since I was five, maybe even younger. But I was only a sidekick for 2 months. I graduated from the academy only five days before I turned twelve” Kim said shamefully.

Lukas could see the tears beginning to form, but he knew not to stop them.

“Both of my parents, they were… they’re both heroes. Since I was their sidekick, I was allowed to start earlier than everyone else.” Kim's sentences cut in and out, interrupted with tears and gasps that they struggled to hold back. “I hate them… No matter how hard I trained, they just kept pushing. The other kids got to go and have fun all the time, but I always had more and more and more training! I had to be the best in everything!”

Kim curled up into a ball on the sofa. Lukas sat still for a moment, before moving close to them. “Your parents sound like real bastards…”

At that, Kim moved to Lukas’s side before continuing in a tear filled mumble, “No matter how well I did, or how hard I worked, I learned that I would never be good enough for them… so, why even try? Might just as well leave… I just took all the money I had saved up with me, and left while they were busy chasing down a villain…”

“Are they looking for you?” Lukas asked.

Kim shook their head. “Not long after I disappeared… they faked my death, probably to make themselves look good. I don’t know if it was just my parents, or if the agency was in on it. I saw them declared it on the news and that was it… my hero name was removed from everywhere and life went on like I never existed”

Lukas looked at them, shocked at all these revelations. “I have so many more things I want to ask you… but it will all have to wait for another day…”

Not much more was said after that, and, some hours later, Kim was fast asleep in their room.

Lukas, on the other hand, was wide awake.

He did not know who or when, but that thief could not have found the base on their own. That he was starting to fall out of favor with the supervillain Lynx was not a surprise to anyone, but to send someone to his base like that? He had avoided thinking about it by just focusing on Kim, not wanting to worry them.

In the end, he knew that he had three choices.

Find a new base.

Give Kim enough money and supplies and tell them to get as far away from here, as Lynx would definitely target them to get to him.

Uproot everything and leave with Kim, to go who knows where…

He knew the answer… he just needed to get himself to do it. He took it one room at a time, just going through each and mentally planning what he was going to take with him.

After going to almost all of them, he sat down in the living room. But he was soon startled by the sound of small bare feet as Kim appeared half asleep with their blanket still wrapped around them.

“Nightmares?” he asked, and Kim nodded. “You want me to make you the special drink?” Kim smiled. “All right, then. Why don’t you go sit down while I make you a glass then.”

In the two minutes that it took Lukas to make the drink, Kim had almost fallen back asleep. After they finished the drink, Lukas had to lift them up and bring them back to bed.

When Kim was safely in bed, he whispered “Good night, little bird” just as he was about to leave.

“Night, dad,” Kim sleepily replied.

Apparently the word did not register until he got back to the living room. It was only after he sat down and turned on the TV that it clicked in place.

“Dad?” he whispered to himself. “DAD?!”

Leaving Boreas.

“So, where are we going?” Kim asked, as they came down the stairs with the suitcase in one hand and a backpack filled with snacks, their favorite teddy and games in the other.

By the look of the room, you would not think that the people living there were going anywhere permanently. Most of the books were still on the shelf, no furniture had been moved, there was food in the kitchen, and even Kim’s homework lay unfinished on the kitchen table. But soon they would both leave and never return.

“Nowhere specific, think we can both just travel for some time, see the world like you wanted and whatever place feels like home will be the place we stay” Lukas said, bringing Kim a warm winter coat and taking their suitcase.

“I wonder where that will be?” Kim thought out loud, as the two of them left hand in hand.

…

“Hey, look, we can just about see them now!” Lukas said, pointing to the horizon line. “The peak of the half moon mountains, just one more hour and we’re…”

“Back in Nizorro…” Kim said, joining him on the front of the ferry.

“Yeah… feel weird, right?”

“Totally, I still don’t know if I'll like being back” Kim looked over at their parent, mentor, and partner in crime. It had been three long years since the two left the cold mountain town of Boreas.

Kim had grown quite a bit since then, and did not look much like the tiny child that Lukas had taken in so many years ago. Which was the main reason he felt it was safe to come back, the years would easily hide Kim’s old identity.

At the moment Kim worked as Lukas’s assistant and trainee, helping him make gadgets and machinery. But it was already planned that when they turned 18, they would take on the role as Shadow Wraith’s Right Hand in crime.

Lukas himself had also grown a lot since the cold Boreas. Going from small theft, to full on schemes and advanced missions, he had quickly started to make a name for himself internationally.

“Hey, the city has gotten a lot better after the child sidekick ban.” Lukas said “Also, I might be able to train you in a lot of things, and don't misunderstand, your skills have grown excellently. But if you want to grow more within engineering you need a proper education; and what better place than my old uni! Good old, Mirmir Waters University, the perfect place to grow your brilliant mind! But that is still some months away, so relax, okay?”

Kim did not look nearly as excited about the idea of college as he did. But even they couldn't deny it, after everything they had been through, they have missed the city. And as the peaks of the mountains grew closer, they were struggling to hide the excitement.

“But first things first!” Lukas said, smiling, "I got an old friend for you to meet, and he… is a real egghead!"

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#heroes and villians #hero x villain community #young villain #henchman #sidekick #the sidekick club #Kim #Lukas #TW Implied child abuse #TW Theft #TW Break in #TW Fighting #snippet

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