Chapter Text
"Doctor Magma!"
He heard Tabitha yelp loudly as they all turned around, some unsaid choice words hovering between them at the sight of Magnetocell standing proudly at their door.
"Don't you have anything better to do with your time than to pester me?" He wondered out loud, finding himself once again glad of his habit of keeping his costume on at all times, even while in his lai-BASE.
(His base, definitely. Too many negative connotations to the word "lair".)
Point being, being paranoid helped when you had the entire Hoenn League and then some trying to hunt you down and discover your secret identity on a daily basis.
Though, that was maybe the point where it couldn't be considered paranoia anymore.
"Have you considered just... not being a supervillain? I assure you that that does wonders to get heroes off your case."
As if he was some no-name criminal, instead of a benefactor of humanity! When he finally won, everyone would be fucking sorry.
(For opposing him instead of just helping him and getting it over with much faster, that is- truthfully, the idea of hurting someone made him feel kinda queasy.)
"Have you considered not being part of a system of power that allows superpowered state sanctioned vigilantes to wreck havoc completely unpunished?"
Magnetocell tilted his head, a hand going to grasp at his chin thoughtfully. "Well, that's a standard ethical issue with any superhero scenario, isn't it? I think that we can file that in the "it's really not that deep" category. Secondarily, wasn't the Metahuman Protocol created because they realized that training superpowered kids in controlled enviroments and allowing them to use their powers in more productive ways actually reduced the total amount of related incidents and damage to people and objects? It was only after a while that the Leagues proper were created."
"Wait- really?"
"How do you not know this? I was there when they added the Hero Program to the Protocol, and there is no way you're younger than me."
"Are you calling the Leader old?" Piped up Tabitha, which was well enough because Maxie was currently very busy trying to pretend that he hadn't just admitted to being this badly out of the loop.
Well, it wasn't really his fault! It's not like the Protocol had ever involved him, powerless as he was, he never had any reason to research... about it...
He cleared his throat, the humiliation and inferiority complex-induced blush thankfully hidden by his helmet. "Well then, I guess that since you're in here the rest of the Hoenn League will be waiting outside, ready to rummage through our files once you arrest us. Am I wrong?"
Magnetocell stiffened, his stupid x-shaped mask barely hiding his panicked expression as he correctly guessed his next move.
With a pained smirk, Maxie turned to Courtney. "Mauve, initiate the self-destruction protocol."
Tabitha and Magnetocell were nowhere near quick enough to stop her from hitting the button.
"Boss, no offense but this is fucking ridiculous."
"Language, Tabitha" he muttered, carefully checking his cape to make sure it wasn't too badly burnt. After all, he could only ask Brendan to make him a new cape so many times before the kid started catching on to the fact that mayhaps it actually was not just a cosplay prop.
"Language!? Forgive my Kalosian but, language my ass! This is the fourth base we lose this month, I can only make so many backups of our work before all the necessary hardware starts weighting on our budget, you know?"
He didn't answer. His mini- admin was right, loath as he was to admit it. Blowing up bases the moment something went wrong was not a good stress response to have when you had limited funds, but also what else was he supposed to do? He and his admins both knew what the data they'd collected was for, but he also knew that to someone not in the know it would look... bad.
As in, catastrophically bad.
As in, "oh god oh fuck these people are trying to destroy the world" bad.
And maybe trying to do the right thing when everyone assumed the worst about you... well.
He stopped walking, Courtney and Tabitha both making a quiet, confused noise as they realized he wasn't following them and turned to look at him.
"Boss?"
Maybe it was getting a bit too exhausting for his tastes.
He was getting old(er), after all.
"Say, would you hold it against me if I were to retire?"
Regardless of what would happen, he knew that the spectacle of Tabitha's eyes widening a frankly unhealthy amount would remain fire branded in his brain for ages.
No amount of superhuman reflexes could've saved the pumpkin spice latte from falling from Brendan's slackened fingers onto his papers.
He cursed for only a second, shoving them aside to keep them from getting even more ruined, before his eyes glued themselves to the tv again.
The news hadn't been too interesting lately. He'd only been half listening as he sketched half-heartedly, trying to gather some new ideas for his costume designs from those new twin vigilantes (or whatever they were) who apparently had been running about Castelia for the past few weeks, and when the news changed to yet another "totally the final showdown this time we swear" between Doctor Magma and Aqua Guile his level of attention hadn't changed much. After all, this happened at least once a week: expecting it to go in any way but the usual was an exercise in futility.
Until it wasn't.
What got his attention was the journalist's scream, a genuinely panicked sound that never before had he heard associated to Hoenn's villain fights, used as he was to the almost folkloristic nature of the local messes, as opposed to the social threats in Kanto and Jotho and the world-ending efforts of the likes of Sinnohian or Kalosian villains. Nobody really took these matters seriously in Hoenn: their League was competent enough (and the villains incompetent enough) that it was seen more as entertainment than anything else, even with the occasional property damage.
That scream? That had no businness coming from the mouth of a hoennite.
And so he'd looked up, just in time to see a big piece of debris falling right on Doc's head, and him crumbling to the ground unmoving.
"No," he whispered, eyes widening in horror as the camera briefly zoomed on a slowly spreading dark stain on the asphalt before being averted, either out of respect or because the cameraman was busy puking his innards out like a sea cucumber, which incidentally was exactly what Brendan planned on doing after a quick run to the bathroom because holy fuck, he was pretty sure he'd just seen one of his dads die on camera.
(Unofficial and non-legal dad that was more adopted by Brendan than the other way around, at least. Then again, for how he seemed to talk more to him than Norman did these days, he may as well have been his real one.)
It was only after a short freak out session, and then a fifty-minute long phone conversation with May (who had called him the moment she heard the news) about how stupid and selfish Maxie was for getting himself killed like this, and then another freak out session, that he realized:
How the fuck was he going to break the news to Archie?
This was bad.
This was worse than bad- while he was busy feeling sorry for himself he hadn't even thought about Archie. He couldn't even imagine how devastated he would be when he figured out-
He cursed, loudly, as his doorbell rang, and he all but ran to the door with half a mind to punch straight in the teeth whoever was the unlucky fucker to come to his place at such an unfortunate time. Not really a dignified reaction, a lack of elegance and poise he would normally abhor, but Maxie was...
... Maxie was standing in front of his door, skull perfectly intact, clothes remarkably un-stained, and a smile creasing his face that dropped the moment he saw him.
"Brendan, have you been crying? Why are you looking at me like that?"