Over the next few days, the day-to-day occurrences became repetitive.
0600: Lessons from Nolan on how to best use their powers
0700: Lessons are over. Getting a shower and dressed for school
0730: Get to school after picking up Caitlin and Eve
1500: No longer think about killing himself due to the classes he could sleep through and still get an A
1600: Be at HOMRA and continue to act like everything is normal. Strategize and plan
1900: Dinner with family
2000: Night training with dad
2100: Free time. Either more HOMRA planning or late dates with Caitlin if she wasn't with the Teen Team
0200-0300: Sleep until it was time to start it all over again
It wasn't until Saturday that the cycle was finally broken. Nolan had to deal with a kaiju in Japan so the boys were given the morning off. Each of them slept in until 10 that morning. After getting an extra 4 hours of sleep, the brothers reluctantly got out of bed.
Mark had to leave in order to get to his job. As much as Mark hated his job and wanted to do his hero training, he had to continue to work. It was a requirement of their mother.
Conner had much more free time that day. With their dad being busy all day, Caitlin having a girls' day with her friends, and not actually having to go into his job to get paid, Conner could have sat at home all day. But when his mother noticed him lying on the couch until noon, she had a different plan in mind.
"Are you doing anything?" asked Debbie
"Actually, yeah. I'm going to do the same thing we try to do every night, Pinky. Take over the world," Conner said in all seriousness.
"Good that you're free. I could use some help setting up for an open house later. While everything is set, I just thought of the perfect way to rearrange the furniture and could use some super strength," Debbie said, ignoring the playful comment in his voice
"Am I at least getting paid?" Conner asked
"Sure. I can either pay you 1,000,000 dollars an hour but I round the hour or I can get you something from that Mexican place you really like," Debbie offered
"Well since I have super strength and you will only need me for about 5 minutes, I will take the Mexican food."
"Smart choice. Get changed and meet me in the car in 5 minutes."
Conner went up to his room and changed into some casual clothes. Since Debbie was doing an open house, that meant that it would definitely be clean. All he had to worry about was moving some stuff around.
Conner got in the car and rode peacefully with his mom to the house. When they arrived in front of it, he saw that he had been tricked. The house that he had to rearrange furniture for was a high-end villa. When she saw the look of betrayal and shock on her son's face, Debbie could not help but laugh. She loved the feeling of pulling one over on her son.
"Hurry up. We need to get this place done within the hour," Debbie said while still laughing
Conner shook his head and went along with it. The pair made for an excellent combination when it came to working. The mother directed while the son did the heavy lifting. They were able to finish in just under an hour after putting every piece of furniture in the house in 5 different positions.
Conner did it all without complaint though. He had always loved helping out his mom and the pair hadn't spent much time together except at dinner or breakfast over the past few weeks. Conner felt it was a good time to enjoy some mother-son bonding.
Debbie felt the same as well. Conner had always been very independent as a child and had grown even more so as a teenager. She was always worried that he would get bored of hanging out with his plain mom but he was always surprising her with his earnest interest in her work and being with her.
Once they were done setting up, Debbie offered to let Conner fly back while she picked up dinner later but he decided to stay through the open house. For the rest of the day, the mother and son spent the day trying to sell this house to the right people. At the end of the day, the villa went unsold but neither of them seemed displeased.
On the way back home, Conner decided to drive while he let his mom rest in the passenger seat. While she was sleeping, he decided to grab dinner on the way home. Instead of his favorite Mexican place, he decided to go to Cafe Allure. It was his mother's favorite Italian restaurant.
Debbie was surprised when she woke up in the driveway and smelled the familiar scent filling the car. She looked at her son in surprise before silently laughing to herself.
'I guess I will grab him stuff from La Luna tomorrow.'
By the time they returned home, Mark and Nolan were already there waiting for them to return, hoping they had dinner. Lucky for the pair of them, they did. Otherwise, the 4 of them would starve if they had to rely on Mark and Nolan's cooking skills.
Dinner was harmonious and peaceful. Once it was over, Debbie had Nolan and Mark do the dishes while Conner was free to go. He decided to head up to his room and check out the final draft of his costume.
Mark would be getting his costume any day so he needed to make sure he had one as well. Even if he did not want to be a traditional hero like his brother or how his father pretended to be, he still needed a public identity when he used his Viltrumite powers.
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Author's Note:
Ok so I am indecisive, so you all can pick the costume and name. Image of costume will be in the paragraph comment along with the name.
Original costume idea, name suggested by JOKER-JAY:
- Sentry
Costumes I think are interesting but have no names:
- ???
- ???