Little Blue spends his nights as a young child without the embrace of the starry sky overhead.
His little cell, much like all of the other little cells, is made from three concrete walls, a wall of bars, a ceiling and a door.
He can wave at his uncles on the other side of the walkway to him, and every night when he says goodnight, everyone on their row says it back together like a family-- and he feels lucky.
He's never lonely.
-
When the days begin to grow short and dark, he's been going to Shool for four whole months. Hot on the heels of the dying autumn, the chill of winter is starting to set in.
The kids are weird here in this Shool. Kind of whispery and stare-y. Are all kids like this?
Little Blue wonders how long Shool lasts for. Hopefully not very long. His uncles are nicer and more fun to be around.
The dusk-turning-night-sky catches his eye for the first time as he's being lead from the door of his Shool to the prison bus. It's never quite been so dark before when he's allowed outside.
Did the sky always get this dark? Every day?
This is new, this is exciting, this is-
Oh...
Wow.
He slows and stops, and the guard- Mr Leon- leading him by the hand turns around with a raised brow. Little Blue is wide-eyed and staring at the vast expanse of sky, tiny pinpricks of the stars reflected in the shocking green of his pupils as he barely allows himself to blink. Like it might disappear if he does.
"What's that?" Little Blue asks softly in wonder, pointing at the thing in the sky partially covered in a wisp of cloud.
"What?" asks the guard, tipping his head up to the sky quizzically.
"The round thing?"
"Oh. S'the Moon, kid. That's the Moon.''
Little Blue nods, not once taking his eyes off the sky, "How did it get up there?"
"Hell if I know, piece of string?" Mr Leon chuckles a bit, and shakes his head. "There's a reason I became a guard and not a scientist."
Little Blue makes a little humming noise to himself, still intently watching the Moon. The cold breeze makes him shiver a little.
"C'mon." Mr Leon ushers with a gentle wave of the hand, "It's time to go. Bus is going to leave without us."
Little Blue looks like he wants to stay. There's hesitation in the way he stretches his hand out for the guard to take it again, finally looking away from the vast sky above him.
"...Okay."
He stares out of the bus window the whole short journey home. It feels like something has slotted into the hollow place in his chest-- like a missing piece in one of the 1000 piece puzzles he'd been given by The Warden last Christmas. It feels... Right. Like home. Like a little part of him is solved and finally fits together.
He's been up there before. He has. He must have. He dreams sometimes about sailing through the sea of fireflies, past spinning rocks and blobs of fire, following a golden light just ahead of him like a beacon...
The Moon is on it's own surrounded by a thousand little shiny dots-- but it glows brighter than them all in the dark tide of the sky.
He's always felt an emptiness, a yearning in him unexplained. Gravitational pull with no source.
He feels the loss with the Moon's absence as soon as he is lead through the gates and into the main entrance.
He knows what he is missing now.
-
The next time Little Blue goes to Shool, his hand holding to and from the doorstep has been upgraded to a pair of tiny cuffs for his tiny wrists and a clinky, awkward chain.
It might have something to do with accidentally putting a hole in the wall and letting out half of the inmates with an explosive, laser powered toothbrush. The Warden still had singed nose hairs and half a mustache.
It had been very distracting during his you-could-have-been-hurt speech, and even more so when he got to the what-would-I-do-if-I-lost-you part.
The guard opens the door to drop Little Blue off at Shool and-
The other kids stare.
And stare.
And stare.
-
Shool, unfortunately, keeps going.
And going and going and...
He's tired.
The lessons are too easy, the other kids won't play with him, the teacher... Doesn't notice when they whisper to each other, look at him and laugh. Maybe... Maybe she doesn't care. Little Blue tries not to either.
The only thing that truly makes him excited to go to Shool is seeing the Moon when he leaves. That little glimmer of light outside his little world of bars and books and nursery rhymes. A reminder that there is so much more for him outside this little life he was stuck in.
He knew what was past the night sky now, those little things in the sky were called stars. He's stolen a book from the prison library about space and hidden it in his cell under his bedroll. He couldn't place why he felt strangely lost when he began the chapter about black holes and supernovas. Minion huddled a bit closer to him that night.
-
An astronaut.
He was going to be an astronaut!
A fantastic wayfarer of the stars. Like Buzz Aldrin! He was going to get out there, one day, and touch the stars.
He would go to the Moon and see it for himself-- and put his flag up there like the other spacemen had so many years ago.
He was going to build a rocket. With lightning bolts on the side. Blue ones.
With so much time to spare at Shool, Little Blue was quickly becoming proficient at building all kinds of things. Mastery of generating a beam capable of dehydrating objects into little cubes has been a welcome change from the brain numbing, too-easy numeric exercises his class was being subjected to. They were nothing like the advanced calculus book he'd smuggled into his growing secret library. The exercise pages were his favourite- he'd save bits of napkin from the cafeteria and solve them after lights out.
The books no longer all fit underneath his bedroll- not without it being sharp and lumpy to sleep on. Instead, Little Blue had found out that a little bit of dedicated wobbling of the panel of this new allegedly re-enforced cell door eventually made the whole thing come off. He'd gotten the new door a few days after his (very) successful practice of lockpicking.
The Warden caught up to him eventually, finding him perched on a bench in the cafeteria- reading 'The Hobbit' to Agnese the Lunch Lady, a cup of hot cocoa in front of him. (Agnese gave Little Blue her marshmallow. She was nice.)
Every night, Little Blue would pull a book from his door and read and read and read.
-
The short days passed as fast as the longer days and warmer weather arrived again-- and though Little Blue was sad to see his friend, the Moon, disappear into later and later hours of the day, he didn't feel too bad.
Because one day he would visit the Moon himself! And he wouldn't have to wait for the night time any more.
Little Blue had made a prototype robot suit for Minion a few days ago, and he was so excited to test it! If it worked, it meant that Minion could walk by his side when they made it to the Moon. He'd promised Minion the best and coolest pair of Moon boots- he didn't want him floating off anywhere by accident.
Maybe... Maybe he could show his teacher the robot suit? He really was proud of it. It's the first time Minion's ever walked, well, anywhere.
And! And! What if Minion's new suit could make the other kids popcorn? Wayne- the boy that floated- had made popcorn last week with the lasers from his eyes! The other kids had clapped and cheered so loudly.
Perhaps...
Perhaps the other kids were offended that he never gave them a gift when he met them? Maybe they would clap and cheer for him too if he gave them popcorn and gifts? Maybe... Maybe they'd want to play with him after that?
It was worth a go.
That night when the lights went out, Little Blue turned over in his bed and counted under his breath. It'd only be five minutes until the guard outside his door checking he was sleeping would go... And then he could enact operation 'meecrowave heist.'
After much consideration, he had found that the meecrowave had the parts he needed to make the popcorn-popping-laser a reality.
As it turns out, even his new secure door wasn't as secure as the prison had hoped. What with the door panel already being loose, it was an easy guess that the inner workings of the door couldn't be too far away from some small hands and an even smaller specially-miniaturised-for-small-screws screwdriver. Sure, the door latched and sounded like it locked... But Little Blue knew better.
Not that the guards needed to know that. Little Blue was careful to keep that little detail to himself.
Sometimes, when the little ache in his chest would come back and hurt, he would leave his cell to sit in the dark cafeteria. Through the little gap in the ceiling, he would watch her; the Moon.
Serene and sailing overhead, with her blanket of rolling clouds and all of her star friends. Minion would sit on his lap and hum songs he doesn't recognise to him-- if he was sad.
One day, Little Blue wanted to see it for himself. He was going to.
Three minutes have passed.
The guard clears his throat and... Leaves early.
Little Blue can barely believe his luck, glancing at Minion with a satisfied sound and throws off the covers quietly, dropping his bare feet on to the cold concrete. The gap between his feet and the floor when he sits on his bed is getting smaller and smaller now. His uncles say if he eats more broccoli, he could even turn into a palm tree.
Little Blue had told them how that barely makes sense- and his uncles had laughed and laughed.
He reaches over and takes hold of Minion with a small smile, placing him gently down on the ground before padding to the corner of his room.
"Thanks," Minion whispers with a conspiratorial smile.
There's a little dip in the ground. A polystyrene block set in the floor that he'd carefully (painstakingly) painted to replicate the rest of the dull concrete. When lifted and turned over, it's... Full of tools, toys and his schematics.
The guards always checked the walls and toilets and showers and sinks for things, but never the floor.
Pulling a small, well-rolled wad of cloth out of the polystyrene hiding space, he pressed down to count the items hidden inside. Still six-- two screwdrivers, a slim set of pliers, a flat smooth piece of metal, a hex key pilfered expertly from the day the Warden asked him to help make sense of the IKEA instructions for his new office desk and a small pair of scissors.
Perfect.
Little Blue rolled the left cuff of his jumpsuit up and tucked the cloth in the folded material, taking care to roll it up twice afterwards when it was properly situated. He then rolled up the right sleeve to match, and made his way to the door.
With a gentle push he was free, Minion in tow.
"Code: Let's go, Minion," he whispers.
-
Halfway through their heist, on the way through the cafeteria to the kitchens, Little Blue sees the dazzling Moon from the gap high up on the ceiling. He's so transfixed it takes Minion bumping against his heel to get moving again.
-
Little Blue learnt two things the next morning.
That 'meecrowave' was actually pronounced as 'microwave.'
And upon discovering the deconstruction of said microwave; that Agnese knew a lot more colourful language than she let on.
-
It was a disaster!
There was fire and smoke and-
Minion was still spinning dazedly in his sphere.
Then he was being hauled roughly by the collar of his prison jumpsuit by Wayne into the corner. Little Blue's corner. Where he always was, these days.
Quiet Time again.
It was hard to stop the tears once they stung, listening to the kids clap and cheer for Wayne behind him.
He had just wanted to- he had tried to-
Biting down the sob in the back of his throat was harder than he wanted it to be. He wanted his uncles. They knew that kids were mean. 'They's just scared of diff'rent, Blue,' his uncle Marcus had once told him when he showed him his scraped knee after all the kids had thrown dodgeballs at him that day.
(He made a helmet that deflects projectiles the next week, after he had every kind of dinosaur plaster from the medicine cabinet on his scrape to help it get better.)
Were... Were the other kids scared of him?
He was a nice person, wasn't he? He wanted to make them popcorn and play with them. That's what nice kids do, isn't it?
Little Blue thinks about Wayne. Wayne that floats and has laser eyes. He's different too, right? But... But the other kids like him.
Little Blue swipes the tears from his face, lip trembling. He hesitates, stares at his own hand as he lowers it, and feels something cold in the pit of his stomach.
Wayne's not blue.
Wayne has hair.
Wayne has normal eyes and... Normal parents and a normal house and...
Can be different all he likes because, in the end, he looks the same as them-
"Nice drawing," says a kid quietly behind him-- just to his left. Mandy, the ginger one with the freckles and lilypad green eyes. Never wears a matching pair of socks.
She's taken something off his desk (that has conveniently gravitated to the Quiet Time corner as a permanent fixture.)
It's his new rocket schematic he had been sketching before lunchtime.
He can see his little scribble sketch of Minion smiling and waving his fin up at him in one of the portholes.
No.
Please don't-
Please give it back-
"Are you going back to space where you belong?" The question hits like it has physical force. It stings. The hurt gets caught in his throat as he tries to swallow the lump- but it doesn't go away.
He doesn't have to look to know Mandy is scrunching his schematic into a tiny little ball. He doesn't want to look.
"My mom says you're a 'problem child,' whatever that means. Maybe it's for the best you're going back to space." Mandy says brightly and matter-of-factly before she leaves, dropping the little ball of paper. It patters across the ground a little before coming to a rest at his heel.
Little Blue wants to cry.
Little Blue wants to scream and cry and-
And-
He can't do this any more.
If Little Blue is a Problem Child-- If that's all he really is good for on this planet-- then Little Blue is going to be the biggest Problem of them all.
He reaches for the science chemical shelf, and pours his frustration and shame and hurt and anger into a tall beaker.
And he breaks free-
With a bang, a cackle, and a gigantic plume of blue smoke.
He was a spaceman no more.
He was going to be a Supervillain.
And nobody would do it better than him.
-
Dusted in blue powder on the prison bus, he watched as the Lil' Gifted Shool disappeared into the distance upon Wayne's back. A flicker of self doubt curled itself into his belly- just for a moment.
Minion nudged against his side from where he was perched on the seat and smiled, swimming in a little circle as Little Blue grazes his palm gently over the surface of his sphere gratefully.
It would be okay. He had Minion.
It was him and Minion versus the world.
They should be worried he had such a fierce friend and ally.
"We need to get you a better suit," he says softly, so the driver can't overhear, "One that doesn't explode."
"You got it, boss," Minion says excitedly and wiggles his fins.
-
The Warden is furious.
I'm-yelling-and-so-disappointed-at-you kind of furious.
And Little Blue hurts, it hurts- like his dad is yelling at him. Like his dad is-
The Warden isn't his dad
Something in him mourns- deep and painful. In the wake of the flickering anger that's subsided only recently, it's easy for his tongue to turn acidic with a bitter retort of, "Well, you're not my real dad anyway, so-"
And it makes the Warden go quiet. And for a moment, Little Blue curses his tongue- because he sees the hurt, then the anger, and watches the anger get washed over by more hurt.
The warden told him once-- how he had no children of his own.
"No, I know I'm not your real dad. But you're as good as my son, and you always have been."
And.
And Little Blue sobs.
And sobs and sobs and sobs.
"It's okay, son. C'mere," The Warden sits down on the floor in the middle of his office and pats the ground next to him, "Tell me about everything. What happened?"
Little Blue, blinded by his tears, shuffles forward pitifully until he's close enough to sit down next to The Warden. Minion rolls forward to join him. He's picked up and cradled close- there's a steady patter of tears on the solid casing of his sphere, but he doesn't mind. He's just sorry he can't do more-- sorry he can't hug him like he's seen hurting people do with one another. He makes do with pressing his cheek as firmly as he can against the sphere- so at least he can be as close as possible.
It takes a little while before he can do more than hiccup and make little mournful sounds in-between ragged breaths.
Minion can feel him trembling.
Little Blue tells The Warden.
About the other kids and their dodgeball and their whispering and their distrustful stares. About the Quiet Corner and his desk that Never Leaves It. That Nobody wants to sit with him, Nobody shares his pencils. Nobody asks him to play. About the fire and the popcorn and Mandy and his drawing and Wayne-
"Everyone hates me," he whispers softly, like he can't bear to believe something he knows is true.
"That's not true, Little Blue," says The Warden, but it's clear there's worry under his gentle tone, "What about your uncles? What about Agnese the lunch lady? Doesn't she give you her marshmallow when you get cocoa? Agnese never shares her marshmallow with anyone else. We all like you, even when you break out all the time and give me lots of paperwork to fill out."
It earns him a small, wobbly, watery little smile.
But it crumples soon enough, and Little Blue turns his head gently to shake it in rejection.
"But what about when I leave here?"
The question is softly spoken, but it feels like it weighs a tonne.
He was just a child. He shouldn't have to have things like this on his mind.
He should be being excited about being a firefighter or a race car driver or an astronaut-
"Normal people are scared of me, aren't they." Little Blue sounds like he wants to cry again, but he's all cried out. What's left of him is raw and exhausted with defeat. "Am I a bad person?"
"Oh, son..." The Warden sounds choked up when he catches the little boy's gaze, wondering what stroke of ill fate decided to play him so many terrible cards, "You're not a bad person, you hear me? There's not a bad bone in you. Not one."
Little Blue hurts.
Even with such conviction from The Warden, he can't find it in himself to believe it.
Minion wishes harder that he had arms to hold him close.
-
Little Blue leaves his room alone that night to talk to the Moon.
The little whirlpool of hurt/panic/unsure/worry in his mind won't switch off- can't switch off. No matter how hard he tries.
And he needs-
He needs the way the Moon makes him feel calm. Centered. Safe.
Padding through the empty hall of his cell block to the cafeteria, he hums one of Minion's songs in his mind and counts the doors until he gets to the large swinging ones that make way to the shadowy space that still slightly smells like the evening's spaghetti.
Agnese isn't there tonight, and that's okay. He doesn't think he could handle having another tearful breakdown at the sight of her messy apron, crinkly smile and gentle, motherly Latvian accent. He's too exhausted from breaking into a thousand tiny little pieces in The Warden's office.
Little Blue is tall enough to reach the hot drinks machine himself now if he hops up on to a step (which he finds neatly tucked away by the bench he was helping to cut onions at earlier in the week. For some reason, people cried when they cut them. He didn't, though. 'It was a very good talent,' Agnese had said.)
After a moment of sputtering, the machine begins to pour hot chocolate into the little chipped blue mug reserved just for him. It won't have marshmallows tonight-- he never had managed to guess where Agnese hid them in the end.
In the end.
He supposed, in a way... This was the end?
The end of being here, anyway. The end of being the bad kid at Shool. The Prison Child.
He eyed the hot chocolate critically and frowned. It had a frightening finality to it, but...
At least now, if this was his destiny, it was him calling the shots.
He can make his destiny work for him.
Maybe, after all this time, this is exactly what his father meant with his parting words- regardless if he heard it all or not. He was destined to be a bad boy, and he would be the baddest of them all if it meant making his parents proud.
The machine gurgled to a halt with a cheerful kind of beep.
Carefully, Little Blue made his way back through the cafeteria to his usual spot; the one that, on a good night, caught the glow from the moon and lit up a slither of the cafeteria with a ghostly wash of shifting light and cloud. If he sat up on the table, he could see the light on his skin. It would make him look pale and washed out. Less... Blue.
He carefully placed his hot chocolate down.
"Moon...?" He whispers, sitting on the table and staring up high into the gap where the Moon peered in, "Are you listening? It's me. It's Little Blue."
Somewhere in the distance, a pipe drips lightly as someone runs some water-- and the hot drinks machine in the kitchen area makes a little groan as it cools and powers down.
"I... Can you tell my parents something for me- please?" he asks nervously. "Can you tell them that I think I know what they sent me here to do now? And that- that I'm going to make them proud?"
A beat of silence passes before the wind picks up softly- the tree that sits somewhere outside the cafeteria creaks as it sways. Little Blue takes it as a sign of 'Yes, yes I'll tell them, my friend.'
Wants to believe it is.
"I'm sorry Moon, but... I can't be a spaceman. I can't build a rocket to come and see you. I have to follow my destiny now. I hope you understand. Please don't be sad."
He sounds like he's telling himself as much as he's telling the Moon.
-
Minion stirs when Little Blue gets back to their cell- he can smell cocoa and the salt of his tears when he lies down under the covers next to him.
A little smile is on his face as he gently pats Minion's sphere, a resolute look of determination sparkling in his eye. He has a plan, and Minion is very excited to hear it.
"What's the plan, boss?" Minion whispers.
Little Blue leans close and tells him.
-
It takes about a week of tinkering and well-timed theft to get the parts Little Blue needs. His uncles help a little when they get wind of what he's trying to do- they've always been good at starting distractions, after all.
Admittedly, The Warden gets very suspicious when the second washing machine magically breaks down on Wednesday. The search of Little Blue's cell turns up nothing other than a pencil he'd forgotten to give back to the library, though, and The Warden goes about the rest of his day pleasantly confused.
Minion giggles and lets Little Blue borrow some of the water in his sphere to rehydrate the part he's working on later that night.
"You fantastic fish," he smiles proudly, "What would I do without you?"
It takes around two more days of fine-tuning to get the parts operational, and Little Blue is practically vibrating with anticipation when he clicks the last armor plate on to the exoskeleton he has created. It's the fine hour of two in the morning by the time everything is in place.
Minion picked the design after they'd spent an evening looking at an animal encyclopedia trying to find out if Minion's species was in there somewhere. (Minion's species was not, but he'd been very taken with the artfully painted silverback gorilla.)
They'd even fashioned the suit a dark, furry set of quilts (four of them!) to make the suit look closer to the animal it paid homage to. If all went correctly, this suit would run much faster than it's real-life counterpart (a paltry 20-25mph) and they would be away into the night before the guards knew what hit them.
"You know, Minion... I've been thinking," Little Blue says pensively, stepping back to admire his work.
"What's wrong, boss?" Minion quirks a brow at him.
"I don't think Little Blue is very scary."
"It isn't, no." Minion agrees.
"I think it's time for me to change my name."
-
In the small hours of Saturday night, an Earth-shaking crash rocks the prison west wing following a destructive, loud round of smashing glass.
The guards are on their feet and hollering through the disarray and rubble dust that fills the air in a heartbeat, flashlights held aloft. The lights have been tampered with, overclocked with energy to the point that the whole circuit has been blown and shattered the bulbs into oblivion. There's only one individual that had the technological know-how to do something like that and he was-
He was gone.
His little cell, much unlike all of the other little cells, is made from a wall of bars, a ceiling and a (very wobbly and spitting out books) door, two walls and a gaping, still slightly smoldering hole where the third should have been.
The Warden felt his stomach do a little somersault as he approached the cell door, swinging on its hinges. The skyline of Metro City lit up the space of the now-visible-outside, a trail of gigantic footprints disappearing into the distance.
On the wall, his son had left a note;
'Thanks for everything,
Megamind, rising Master of Villainy.'
