Growing Pains Novel Growing Pains - Chapter 54

Well this sucked, I thought as I looked around the inside of the Sidekick Squad’s mountain base.

They had a cooler hideout than I did.

And yeah, yeah. I knew my old hideout was still just a cave large enough to fit my attack pod and so rough stone furniture I had found, while the Sidekick Squad apparently were moving into an old Justice Society base the Justice League had taken over and eventually abandoned after the Watchtower was completed, but…

They had doors and stuff.

I briefly considered going back and claiming the lizardn’s base for myself before I realized that even if it wasn’t still crawling with hostile aliens anymore, I had kinda blown a hole through the middle of it. Even if anything in it still worked it wouldn’t impress anyone.

Whoops.

But yeah, a half destroyed mountain base didn’t compare with a secret superhero mountain base. Not when the second one had lights, power, and a cool ship that could turn invisible on command.

I’d never tell, but I was really jealous of that last one.

“There you are!”

“Oh, hey Donna!” I said casually before having to fend off a strangulation attempt from the angry Amazon.

“We were supposed to go straight to the mountain and et Red Tornado, so why did you fly off on your own without telling ?!”

“I thought I sensed so familiar people nearby and wanted to say hi, I called out to you but you didn’t hear !”

“Liar!” Donna slipped an arm past my guard and pulled

into a headlock and imdiately started grinding the knuckles of her other hand into my skull. Ow, ow, ow! “Even if I didn’t hear you for so reason we were flying more than slow enough that you could have caught up to

easily! You’re just using that as an excuse!”

I tsk’d quietly. Guess I should have figured that excuse wouldn’t work.

“Woah, first an older Cali and now a younger Wonder Woman? Anyone else seeing this?” Kid Flash comnted from the sidelines of our scuffle.

“We are seeing…sothing. Does anyone know who she is?” Aqualad comnted back, which was enough to convince Donna to stop noogieing

and turn to face the rest of them.

She didn’t let

out of the headlock though, and even tightened her grip around my neck when I tried to escape!

“Sorry for that. My na is Donna Troy, apprentice under the Wonder Woman, Diana Prince.” Donna formally introduced herself to the group. “It’s a pleasure to et all of you.”

“Likewise.” Aqualad said cordially, which covered up Kid Flash rudely wondering when Wonder Woman had gotten a sidekick and why they hadn’t heard of her. “I am Kaldur'ahm and protege of King Orin of Atlantis, otherwise known as Aquaman. Though I go by Aqualad in the field. This is Superboy, Kid Flash, Miss Martian, and the one sulking over there is Robin.” He said, pointing at each of the Sidekicks in turn.

“It’s nice to et you!” Miss Martian said with a mix of cheerful shyness. “You can call

M’gann if you want.”

At this point, Donna had released

so I could properly wave at the Martian. But before I could actually talk to her I was unceremoniously kidnapped by most of the Sidekick Squad, leaving Donna, Superboy, and M’gann on their own for a bit.

“So, Cali. You don’t call, you don’t write, and next thing we know you show up as the new hotness with Wonderbabe. What gives?” Kid Flash asked once we were on our own.

“We were worried when we didn’t hear from you after the incident with the stolen mirror.” Aqualad admitted.

I tilted my head, confused. “But Batman was there when I got out? Shouldn’t he have told you I was fine?” I looked towards Birdbrain, but he just huffed and turned away.

“He did send a notice to the League that you were safe, but we heard little more than that.”

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“Huh, sorry about that I guess.” I said, awkwardly scratching the back of my head. “I guess with the ti difference I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

“Ti difference?” Birdbrain finally spoke up.

“Yeah, I don’t know if anyone told you guys but the mirror was supposed to be a training tool for Wonder Woman when she was a little kid. Ti worked differently inside it. Donna knows more about it than I do though. I just know it got sped up a bunch towards the end.”

“Ti got sped up?”

“Yeah, it was crazy. Anyway I only want to go through the whole thing once, so when is Red Arrow showing up?” I asked since they were all in casual clothes. Obviously Speedy wasn’t hanging out with them when they had to deal with the wind robot.

Except there were uncomfortable looks on all their faces. “Ah yeah, well…” Kid Flash stalled. “Speedy kinda ditched us. Said the team would never work out and went solo.” he perked up a bit. “Shows what he knows. We kicked butt!”

“Yeah, how did that happen anyway? Cause last ti we all talked I don’t rember any of you ntioning wanting to make your own superhero team.” I pointed out.

“It started out with us trying to get more involved with the League. We ended up getting a backstage tour of the Hall of Justice instead.” Birdbrain comnted. “Did you know the League actually operates out of a space station these days and not any of the old Justice Society bases?”

I tilted my head at him. “You an the Watchtower? What about it?” Wait, crap. Was the Watchtower still a secret base at this point?

The boys turned to

with incredulous looks on their faces which ant that yes the Watchtower should be a secret for most people still. Oops, quick deflect, deflect, deflect.

“You guys know I have a spaceship, right? Well, spacepod. But it's not hard to notice sothing in orbit if you ti it right.” I lied blatantly.

Thankfully for

they bought that without digging deeper for now. “Yeah, well, we didn't know that.” Birdbrain groused. “So we were kinda miffed about that when a call ca in about a fire at sothing called Project Cadmus, I decided we should handle it instead of leaving it to the League.”

I frowned at him. “Umm, how? Did you like, just tell them you were going to deal with it and they accepted? Cause that doesn’t sound like the full story.”

“The League was called away to deal with a larger threat.” Aqualad confird my suspicion that Birdbrain was leaving so stuff out. “Wotan was attempting to blot out the sun at the ti and the League felt the local authorities would be enough to handle a fire.”

“Whoa, hold up!” I exclaid, crossing my arms in an ‘X’ pattern. “So guy was going to turn off the sun!? Why? HOW!?”

“He was just going to block it, not turn it off.” Kid Flash said dismissively. “It’s not really part of the story. So if we could focus?”

“I kinda want to hear about the guy trying to get rid of the sun now instead of you guys fighting a fire and deciding to be a team.” I said honestly.

“Co on Cali. Story! Let us tell it!” KF exclaid. “That’s not what happened!”

“Besides, it's not like you were doing anything impressive either.” Birdbrain added. “We ended up unearthing an illegal Superman cloning experint!”

“Donna and I fought an elental that’s the champion of all plant life while hunting down a dinosaur.” I pointed out casually. “And that was a bit after I snuck into a hidden alien base alone to rescue a scientist and fought their boss who was supposed to be as strong as Wonder Woman.”

Also another cloning experint getting revealed so soon?

“...okay, one, you have got to share those stories. Two, are you saying you fought soone as strong as Wonder Woman?” KF asked.

I shook my head. “Nah, he wasn’t that strong. He hit hard though.”

“And you beat him? Alone?”

Images of Hawkman jumping in and stealing the end of my fight flashed through my mind and made

grit my teeth.

“...yes…alone…”

“Cool, have to hear. But first! There we were, infiltrating the Cadmus facility…”

I settled into so sort of kitchen area as I listened to Kid Flash give what was probably an exaggerated retelling of their adventure with Aqualad and Birdbrain chiming in every so often to expand on sothing or straighten him out.

I couldn’t wait to blow their minds with my own stories…

-o-

So ti later we finished catching up and I noticed that the others were making their way over to where we were.

I was halfway through a bowl of ice cream when the missing two mbers of the Sidekick Squad’s team and Donna rejoined us. Aqualad, being the more generous person that he was, offered what was left of the three gallon tub to the new arrivals. Donna and M’gann happily grabbed so for themselves and joined

at the counter while Superboy just kinda shuffled off to a corner and leaned against a wall with his.

“What’s up with those two?” Donna asked as she took a bite, pointing at the two slumped forms nearby.

“Pouting that I just live a more aweso life. They can’t handle the truth.” I replied dismissively, eating my own victorious bite. “Anyway, what were you guys up to?”

“Oh - we spent so ti trying to talk about things we had in common.” M’gann chirped happily. “But it, uh, didn’t go so well when we realised none of us had anything in common to talk about.” Right, because Donna was an Amazon that had spent nearly all her life in a magic mirror dinsion, Superboy was a clone with the sa amount of life experience as a potato, and M’gann was a martian. “So instead I was talking about one of my favorite shows episode by episode until I ntioned one where one of the cast was going to work at an ice cream parlor and got sidetracked asking everyone about their favorite flavors and Superboy ntioned he never had ice cream so we decided to head over since you guys were done catching up.”

I tilted my head at the excitable martian. “How did you know we were done?”

“I asked Kaldur.” She said simply, before looking over and realising I had raised an eyebrow at her. “Ah, hello M’gann, you weren’t there when we went over powers! Martians are telepathic.”

My look didn’t change. “Yeah, I know. I’ve t your Uncle. I was just wondering why you didn’t ask everyone or just call his phone or sothing.”

“Oh.” M’gann seed to fold in on herself a little. “Ah, well, the last ti I did that without asking was well…um, it seed people thought it was rude? Kinda forgot about the communicator too…”

“Eh, it’s fine.” I waved her off. “I get it, you put the mission first.”

“...mission?”

I nodded seriously. “Food is serious business. You t soone suffering from a severe lack of desserts, neglected of them even! And you decided to fix that,” I gave her the most proper salute I could, spoon still in hand. “Good job, soldier!”

That got a few laughs from the group despite Birdbrain complaining that wasn’t the right way to use a word, though Donna just sighed and shook her head.

“Do you have to be so dramatic? It’s just food.”

I shot her a glare. “Just food huh? Sure, I’ve got so ti before I have to go beat up Superman. I’m guessing you didn’t tell them about what happened the first ti we ate after we got out of that mirror then?”

Her eyes widened dramatically. “Califa, don’t you dare….”

“But I do dare!” I shot back, equally dramatic. “So get this, we get out of the mirror, right? I drag Donna, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to a buffet because she’s never had real food and I feel like I need to fix that!” “Califa, I’m warning you!” “So we finish with dinner and I go, ‘well now you have to try dessert’ and then she–” “Okay, that’s it!”

I suddenly had a faceful of angry Amazon trying to strangle

as Donna threw herself over the counter. For once I was more interested in getting out of a fight so I could continue embarrassing her, at least I had been until I processed what Superboy said while I held her off.

Both Donna and I froze and my head slowly twisted around until I could fully glare at the kryptonian clone.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. Do you want to repeat that?”

Superboy huffed and t my glare with a dismissive look of his own. “I said there’s no way you could beat Superman. You’re too weak.”