Calm Before the Storm

February 26, 2020

Ernest walks through the Super Macho Mega Man Mall, keeping an eye out for any of the alternate Ellens that might be causing trouble. The hole that he blasted in the ceiling during the Gambite attack a few months ago has finally been repaired, although it’s easy to tell from the disjointed architectural styles that part of the roof was replaced. A handful of shoppers seem to recognize him, probably from the video clip of that incident the news stations won’t stop airing, but he hurries past before any of their comments can reach him.

As he makes his way towards Tech Titans, he spots a pair of familiar faces leaving the store. “Hey Atlanta! Jasper!” Ernest places his shopping bag on the floor so that he can sign for Jasper while he speaks. He ends up missing words here and there when he can’t remember a sign quickly enough, but he manages to include most of the key ones. “I wasn’t expecting to see you two here, what’s up?”

Atlanta is tucking her name tag into her pocket when she hears her name. “Oh hey Ernest. Yeah, I uh, work here.” She signs as she speaks as well, to keep Jasper in on the conversation.

Jasper grins up at Ernest. ***We’re going to get ice cream! Want to come?***

Atlanta raises an eyebrow, trying to look stern, but a grin creeps onto her face. “I’m pretty sure I just said maybe about getting ice cream.”

Jasper gives Atlanta a wide-eyed look of obviously fake surprise. ***It’d be rude to cancel on Ernest now.*** He fingerspells “Ernest,” and looks to the boy in question to back him up.

Ernest has to stifle a grin of his own as he recognizes Jasper’s scheming for what it is. “Well, I was going to check out the headphones here, since I accidentally fried my pair while watching a scary movie. But I suppose I could always come back later.” He taps his foot against the floor as if seriously considering his options. He can’t hold out against Jasper’s hopeful expression for long, though. “I’d say it’s a little cold for ice cream, but I can help in that department,” he says, finishing his last sign with a flourish and raising the temperature around them by a few degrees.

Jasper jumps up and down in excitement as Ernest agrees. ***It’s warmer!*** He looks up at Atlanta victoriously.

“Great, now there’s two of you plotting against me.” Atlanta shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “I concede my defeat. There’s a Baskin Bobbins in the food court we can go to.”

Jasper punches the air in victory. ***Mint chocolate chip!***

Jasper runs ahead, leaving the other two to follow behind. Atlanta chuckles. “Thanks for indulging him, Ernest.”

Ernest picks up his bag and starts walking in the same direction as Jasper at a leisurely pace. “Yeah, no problem. It’s always great to hang out with you two, and I’ve got more than enough free time on my hands.”

He glances to make sure that Jasper is focused on the path to the food court and not looking back at them before continuing. “Sorry if this is a weird question, but… is there any chance that Jasper has powers?”

Atlanta stumbles but catches herself. “What?? No! He couldn’t! I mean…” She looks at her brother bouncing along. “No,” she says firmly, maybe like she’s convincing herself? After biting her lip for a moment, she asks, “Why would you think he did?”

“I found out that my mom and your dad have been going to some kind of support group thing? My mom was there because of… my powers,” he eventually settles on, although ‘me’ feels like the more accurate end to that sentence. “I figured you would have mentioned if you had powers when we talked about hero stuff, so I thought maybe Jasper…” Ernest shakes his head. “Never mind, forget that I asked.”

“Right. Yeah…” For a brief moment, Atlanta considers coming clean, but then she remembers the look of betrayal on Tay’s face when she found out and pushes that thought aside. After what happened during their last mission together and Ernest’s fear of her new power, she can’t imagine him taking it well. And as selfish as it is, she doesn’t think she can take that again so soon. “Verve told me about that...since Samantha’s shitty ex was there, too, and warned Dad not to trust him and warn the others in the group...how are you doing? Knowing that your parent...sometimes parents can hurt us more than they realize...and we can hurt them, too…” Atlanta trails off, feeling like she said too much of the wrong thing.

“Well, I can’t say I didn’t know I was a problem child, but it’s a little different to hear it out loud.” Ernest tries to laugh it off, but it comes out slightly strained. It’s not as if he isn’t used to hearing adults complain about his powers, particularly his dad and the teachers at his old school. But his mom had never talked about them that way, at least not in front of him. Which he supposed she technically still hadn’t, given how he’d overheard. “I don’t know. I found out by accident, so I haven’t actually talked about it with her yet.” He takes a slow breath, consciously relaxing his tight grip on the shopping bag. “Sorry to bring the mood down.”

Atlanta reaches up and squeezes his arm. “Hey, I asked. And you don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to. Sorry if I overstepped? I mean, we’re not exactly…” She pauses, eyebrows furrowing as she realizes something. “Wait. Um. Are we friends, Ernest?”

“Oh. Uh, I guess I kind of assumed we were?” The temperature nearby climbs another few degrees as his face flushes in embarrassment. “At my old school there were only a handful of people willing to talk to me?” Not that he blamed the others, he hadn’t exactly made it easy. “So I’m still kind of figuring out the whole having friends thing. But you hang out with like, Melody and Ellen and Carm, right? You’re probably used to having way cooler friends than me.”

“No! That’s not what I meant!” Atlanta holds up her hands placatingly. “I just. Okay, so you know how sometimes you have like situational friends? Like people who talk to you during swim practice and you like each other but don’t really do anything outside of that? Or like how some of your coworkers are nice at work but they won’t make eye contact with you if you see them anywhere else? Or some people who you play board games with at the community center will pretend like you don’t exist if you try to talk to them at school? I uh, kinda just realized that we weren’t really situational friends anymore? Sorry.” *Maybe if you weren’t so self-centered you’d have realized you meant a lot to Tay, too. Imagine how Ernest will react when he finds out you’ve been lying. Soon more people will hate you than not.*

Atlanta looks down at her feet as she’s quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry about your old school. You might not have total control over your powers but that’s pretty mean.”

The list is specific enough that Ernest can’t help but wonder if they’re all real ’situational’ friends of Atlanta’s. Although they don’t sound like particularly good friends if they refuse to interact with her outside of a particular context. “Have I been ignoring you in the hallway at school or something? I promise that’s not personal or anything. It gets really noisy, so I usually just have to keep my head down and walk if I want to make it to class.”

He shrugs in response to Atlanta’s last statement. “Thanks, but even aside from the powers, I didn’t really try to make myself someone you’d want to talk to. I was kind of angry at everything for a while? Plus I basically dropped out, anyway.” He pauses for a moment, reflecting on how much has changed in the past year. “I’m glad that I got to sort of start over here in Halcyon.”

“You haven’t been ignoring me that I’ve noticed. We just usually only see each other in one context, you know?” Atlanta rubs the back of her neck. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just also kinda new to having non-situational friends?

The two catch up to Jasper, who is bouncing on his heels in front of the Baskin Bobbins. ***Hurry up!***

“I’m glad you got a fresh start here, though. And for the record, you're pretty cool, too.” Atlanta gives him a reassuring smile, then ruffles Jasper’s hair and starts to sign what she says again. “Strawberry for you, yeah?”

Jasper sticks out his tongue at her and tugs on Ernest’s sleeve instead. ***You’ll get me mint chocolate chip, right?***

***Sure thing, bud,*** Ernest signs before turning to the person behind the counter. “I’ll have an orange sherbert and a mint chocolate chip.” Watching Atlanta’s voice often made him start craving orange sherbert, and for once he could act on that. “And a ton of marshmallows on the orange sherbert. Like, as many marshmallows as you can give me without getting in trouble.” He looks back down at Jasper. ***Did you want any toppings on yours?***

Atlanta grins as Ernest’s marshmallow obsession rears its head. “Love marshmallows?” she asks, then looks up at the menu. “I’ll have blueberry white chocolate, please!”

***More chocolate chips!*** Jasper grins like he’s getting away with something.

“And extra chocolate chips on the mint chocolate chip,” Ernest adds before paying the cashier. He moves to the side to wait for their orders to be made. “What’s there not to love about marshmallows?” he asks, resuming signing and speaking at the same time. “They’re like tiny, perfect, sweet little snowballs that you can eat.”

Atlanta shrugs. “They’re kinda flavorless and chewy? Not my thing I guess, unless they’re in hot chocolate or s’mores.” *Definitely not in tea,* she thinks, grinning, but doesn’t add that part. “Do you want me to pay you back? We didn’t invite you to have you pay for us.”

“See, you say those things like they’re bad, but that’s exactly what I like in a marshmallow.” He waves off her offer. “Hey, don’t worry about it for now. You can just pay next time we get ice cream together,” he says with a wink towards Jasper.

Their orders are called up at the counter, and Ernest passes Atlanta and Jasper their treats. He uses his spoon to flick one of his many marshmallows towards Atlanta. It looks like it’s going to miss, but at the last second, a sharp breeze corrects its course to land squarely on top of her ice cream.

Jasper signs ***Thanks!*** before running off to claim a table for them.

Atlanta shakes her head at Ernest and flicks the marshmallow back at him. It bops against his forehead and leaves behind a spot of melted ice cream. “I’ve been warned about you mister.” She shakes her spoon at him in a mock threatening manner, but giggles.

Ernest catches the marshmallow as it bounces off of him and pops it in his mouth. “What, is someone going around ruining my element of surprise?” he jokes. He makes a show of raising his hands in defeat and walks towards the table where Jasper is sitting. Before he’s taken more than a couple of steps, he whirls back around and launches a barrage of marshmallows in Atlanta’s direction. “Gotcha!”

Atlanta throws up an arm to protect her face from the sugary attack, laughing. "Hey, using powers is cheating! And I have no ammo." One of the marshmallows landed in her ice cream again, but this time she picks it up and eats it. "I get the feeling that you like playing with your marshmallows more than eating them."

“I think you’re underestimating how much I like eating marshmallows,” Ernest says, scooping a spoonful from the top of his sherbert. “It’s probably close, though. And it’s not my fault you didn’t stock up when you had the chance. But I suppose my powers give me an unfair advantage if you don’t have any of your own to defend yourself with.” He takes a seat next to Jasper and holds a hand out across the table. “Truce?”

Atlanta tentatively takes a seat, not sure if she should trust the offer of peace. After a moment, she extends her hand and shakes Ernest’s. “Truce. But next time I’ll be prepared.”

Jasper has already dug into his ice cream. A smear of chocolate has somehow ended up on his cheek. Atlanta takes a bite of her own ice cream and closes her eyes as she parses through the flavors. White chocolate chunks and blueberry swirls. This would make an excellent cupcake combination. Blueberry cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream? Or maybe the other way around. Then they’d have blue/purple frosting, and colorful is always a good choice. Add on a blueberry and white chocolate shavings as decoration, and there’s a cupcake. Atlanta nods to herself and reopens her eyes to continue enjoying her ice cream.

Ernest polishes off the rest of his marshmallows before moving on to the sherbert itself. Watching Jasper making a mess brings a sudden wave of memories of Timothy at the same age, getting ice cream on the way home from school. He can picture Timothy’s lime green voice, higher pitched than his current sky blue, despite the years that have passed since then.

He pauses eating so that he can begin signing again. “Man, I wish Timothy could have hung out with you two more. He wanted to come to more of the meetups at the community center, but he ended up having rehearsal during most of them.”

“Yeah. I talked to him in class but we were both always on the go. I know Jasper likes getting to talk to new people.” Atlanta hands Jasper a napkin for his face. “How is he liking being back in New York?”

In a move that doesn’t surprise his sister, Jasper ignores the napkin. ***He was nice. Is he happy?***

“Yeah, he’s got a lot of friends in New York that he’s happy to be back with. He had a hard time in Halcyon making anything more than situational friends.” His hands falter on the last phrase, unsure of how to translate the concept into sign and not confident in his ability to fingerspell “situational.” He glances to Atlanta for help.

Atlanta spells out ‘situational’ for Jasper, then spends a moment explaining what that means to the 10-year-old. She goes fairly quickly, which emphasizes that she’s been signing slower to accommodate Ernest. After a moment, Jasper nods in a way that shows he knows what she means but doesn’t quite understand. Figuring that was as good as she was gonna get for now, she turns back to Ernest.

“I’m glad he’s happy at least. How are you doing without him? New York isn’t super far away, but it’s gotta be hard being apart from him. I know I’d hate to be separated from this gremlin for long periods of time.” Atlanta grins at Jasper, who lightly kicks at her under the table.

***Mean. Ernest she’s being mean to me. You’re a hero, make her stop.***

“You better watch out. Making little brothers sad is one of the worst crimes. I might even have to break our truce over it.” He reaches out and tousles Jasper’s hair.

“But yeah, I miss him a lot. We email and video call a bunch – Tim had the idea of turning off the volume sometimes to practice signing, which has been fun. But it’s not quite the same, you know.” Ernest hesitates briefly, but presses on. “Timothy used to be one of the only people I talked about my powers with. I guess I’ve got Big Team now but… I don’t know, it’s just harder to bring up when you don’t see each other every day.”

Jasper makes a face at Ernest as his hair is ruffled, but looks triumphantly at Atlanta as Ernest sides with him. ***See? A hero told you to stop, and you have to listen to a hero.*** He gives Atlanta a big grin, knowing that she’s also a hero but can’t say so.

Atlanta shakes her head at Jasper. She starts to offer that Ernest can talk to her, but stops when she remembers his feelings about Verve. As much as she’d like to, it feels deceptive to offer when he doesn’t know. You know, more deceptive than her usual. After her hesitation, she asks, “Is there anyone on the team who you can talk to? Who you’re close to? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind, or would even love to help you out. They’re like that. You’re friends with Boon, right? She’s a good listener. Maybe she doesn’t always have the best solutions,” she can’t help but grin, remembering when Boon tried to help her be able to fly again, “but she tries.”

“Boon and I have talked about our powers some, yeah. She’s been having some troubles with her own powers, though, so I don’t want her worrying about me on top of that.” Ernest stares down at his sherbert, lost in thought, before shaking himself back into the present. “Sorry, I don’t mean to keep bringing up my problems. I’ll figure something out. How have things been with you and Boon?”

Atlanta glances at Jasper, hoping he wouldn’t have noticed, but of course he does and immediately asks, ***Who’s Boon?***

“We’re doing a project together in science,” Atlanta says quickly, flushing slightly.

Jasper nods and looks at Ernest. ***Is Boon a pretty girl? Atlanta’s face looks like that when she talks about pretty girls***.

Without signing, Atlanta says quickly, “Jasper doesn’t know I’ve been on dates with her, either, and he’s worse at keeping secrets than I am.”

“Oops, my bad.” Ernest responds without signing. He hardly ever kept secrets from Timothy, especially not anything he’d mentioned to anyone else, so he’d assumed that Atlanta had told Jasper. Jasper is much younger though, which he supposes doesn’t help when it comes to secret keeping.

He does his best to keep up the charade when he signs for Timothy. “I was just wondering how the project was going, because it’s a difficult one. Boon isn’t pretty.” Ernest immediately starts backtracking as soon as his brain catches up with his words. “I mean. Not that she’s ugly or anything. She’s fine.”

“Yeah. Science. It’s uh. Science. I’m going to explain it to Ernest so I’m going to stop signing, okay, Jasper? You don’t know what the periodic table is anyway.”

Jasper rolls his eyes. ***I don’t want to talk about girls anyway***.

“We’re not--nevermind.” Atlanta stops signing. “Wait, you don’t think Boon is pretty?”

“Jasper was asking if Boon was a pretty girl, I didn’t know what else to say? Boon somehow always manages to look great, even when she’s a giant gargoyle. And now I feel weird talking about thinking your girlfriend is pretty.” Ernest buries his face in his hands. “Please don’t tell Boon I said any of that.”

Atlanta flushes and waves her hand in front of her. “What? No. We’re not, I mean, we have gone on dates but we’re not like dating dating, you know?” She clears her throat and looks away. “I mean you’re right, though. She’s really pretty. All the time. But I won’t tell her you said that.”

Jasper rolls his eyes, now positive that the other two were not, in fact, talking about science.

Atlanta pauses again as she remembers Ernest’s first question. “But it’s going well, I think? I mean, our first date went really really well. The second didn’t go great, but we’ve hung out since then and I think she still wants to have another one?” Atlanta rests her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands. “I don’t know. Feelings are hard.”

From what he’s heard from Boon, Ernest had definitely thought Atlanta and Boon had been on more than two dates. But then again, he also thought they were girlfriends by now, so maybe they’re labeling things differently. “Yeah, feelings are weird. But you two are really good together. I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

Jasper is looking more impatient by the second, especially now that he’s finished his ice cream, so Ernest starts signing again to loop him back into the conversation. “Alright, enough boring science talk. What’s up with you? Any post-ice cream plans?”

As soon as Ernest starts signing again, Jasper perks up. ***We need to go grocery shopping. Atlanta ran out of sugar again. And we’re going to make spaghetti tonight!*** He signs this next bit smaller, like he’s whispering. ***I want her to get stuff for pizza though. I’m gonna sneak it into the cart.***

Atlanta sits back to eat her own ice cream as Jasper and Ernest talk, rolling her eyes affectionately at her little brother.

“Again? Working on some big baking projects?” he asks, raising an eyebrow towards Atlanta. He mimics Jasper’s smaller signing style to add, ***Pizza and spaghetti both sound great, but you know what would be even more fun? Spaghetti pizza.***

“Um, yeah. Just a thing.” Atlanta makes a face at the idea of spaghetti pizza, but Jasper’s eyes light up in excitement. “You’re both disgusting.”

***How would that work? Do the noodles make the crust, or do you put the noodles on top?*** Jasper lets out an audible gasp as he has a wonderful realization. ***That would be so much cheese!***

***Don’t listen to your sister. She doesn’t even like marshmallows, I doubt she’d recognize a masterpiece like we’ve got here.*** Ernest winks at Atlanta, continuing to sign conspiratorially with Jasper. ***See, I’d been thinking of putting the noodles on top, but now I like your noodles for crust idea. You’ll just have to try both and see which one is tastier.***

Jasper nods seriously. ***For science. Real science. Not talking about girls and calling it science.*** Jasper looks at Atlanta and starts to sign normally again. ***You owe me for having a secret conversation in front of me.***

Atlanta flushes a little when Jasper calls out her lie. ***You didn’t want to hear about science anyway.*** She exaggerates “science,” making it clear that she doesn’t really mean science. ***But it’s not going to be spaghetti pizza. I draw the line there.***

Jasper considers this, then nods and signs to Ernest. ***I’ll let you know how it is. I’ll get her to agree to spaghetti pizza before dinner. She is very bad at telling me no.***

***I expect a full report,*** Ernest signs with a grin.

“Well, I should probably let you get to grocery shopping for dinner,” he says, standing from the table. “But it was great to run into you two! We should hang out more outside of community center meetups and signing lessons.”

Atlanta smiles and stands. She knows she needs to tell him that she’s Verve, and that he won’t want to after that, but she can’t bring herself to ruin the day. One last nice time with Ernest. “I’d like that. And I’m sure Jasper would, too. He doesn’t get to talk to new people all that often. But you’re going to be disappointed to hear about our very normal pepperoni pizza that does not have pasta on it.”

Jasper makes a face at Atlanta, then stands up on his chair. ***I’m the bigger sibling now, and that means I get to pick the food. Spaghetti pizza for all!***

“Get down you goof.” Atlanta shakes her head, but she’s still smiling at his antics. She also knows that this will be an argument she won’t hear the end of soon, as he’s only about six inches shorter than her right now, and kids grow fast.

“He’s right, you know. The bigger sibling is always in charge. That’s why Timothy isn’t allowed to grow any taller.” Ernest scoops Jasper up and places him on his shoulders.

“With our powers combined, we’re unstoppable!” He can’t sign while holding Jasper’s legs, and Jasper wouldn’t be able to see them from up there anyway, but he hopes the general message comes across.

Jasper lets out a whoop as he’s scooped up, and beams down at Atlanta from Ernest’s shoulders. ***I’m so tall!***

Atlanta translates for Ernest, then adds. “Well that’s just cheating. You’re conspiring against me, Ernest, that’s not very hero-like.” She can’t bring herself to actually pretend to be upset, though. Not when Jasper looks so happy.

***I’m twice as tall as you! That means I get twice the pizza!***

Atlanta shakes her head. “Well I can’t argue with that logic.”

***Spaghetti pizza!***

Atlanta looks at Ernest. “Look what you’ve done. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“Oh, extremely.”

Knowing his sister, Jasper punches the air in victory, knowing spaghetti pizza would soon be his.

Ernest walks with Atlanta to the mall’s exit, carrying Jasper until just before they reach the doors. After placing him back down on the ground, he explains, “They make the doors too short because they think they can contain us. We’ll just let them keep the illusion of control for now.” He turns back Atlanta. “Well, see you two around! I hope dinner is delicious.”

“Thanks for the ice cream. And hanging out.” Atlanta ruffles Jasper’s hair as he joins her back on the ground. “Even if you have been a bad culinary influence on my brother.”

***Yeah, thanks Ernest!*** Jasper grins up at him. “Ernest” wasn’t fingerspelled this time. Jasper used the sign for weather - which is both hands in a W shape in a wavy motion downwards - but used the finger shape for E instead.

Atlanta looks confused at the sign for a moment before realizing what it means and looking up at Ernest to see if he understood.

“Yeah, no problem! Although I don’t think I’ve seen that one before?” Ernest mimics the last sign Jasper made, tipping his head to the side to ask Atlanta for clarification.

“That’s your sign name. Weather with an E.” Atlanta ruffles Jasper’s hair. Both of them are looking at Ernest with similar excited expressions.

Ernest repeats the sign again, a wide smile growing on his face. “Jasper! Thank you so much, I love it!”

Jasper nods, looking proud of himself. ***See you later, Ernest! I’ll tell you about the spaghetti pizza!***

Atlanta rolls her eyes at her brother as he grabs her hand. She waves at Ernest as Jasper pulls her away. “Bye Ernest. You will regret this someday.”

“See you, Jasper! Bye Atlanta.” Ernest waves them off, hanging back in the mall as the two of them exit.

As a final farewell, he pulls a few clouds over the parking lot into the shapes of pizza slices and bowls of spaghetti.

As they walk to the grocery store, Jasper asks, ***He’s your teammate, but he doesn’t know who you are?***

Atlanta sighs. ***No. He doesn’t. I’m going to tell him. I just didn’t want to ruin the afternoon.***

Jasper shrugs. ***Hero stuff is weird.***

Atlanta nods. ***Yeah. But about that abomination pizza.***

.

A few hours later, Ernest receives a text update from Atlanta:

**Look what you made me do**

**Everything was a mess**

**But it was good**

**And Jasper is thrilled**

Photo and recipe credit: https://www.createdby-diane.com/2013/05/spaghetti-meatball-pizza.html