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Danny was having the best week of his life. First, he’d been selected as the Diamond Dynamo’s apprentice, and then, he’d met his soulmate!
After he’d finished in the middle of his class at Superhero University, he’d known his best shot of breaking into the biz would be to apprentice for a few years as a sidekick. But he’d started to lose hope after he’d been turned down for interviews with Helios and Madame Noir and never gotten a callback for Agent Argent. Then, out of the blue, he was invited for an interview with the Diamond Dynamo. One quick interview later, and he was getting fitted for his shiny new costume.
If he had one complaint about the Diamond Dynamo - and really, it felt petty to complain at all about getting to apprentice for a major superhero like the Diamond Dynamo - it was that he was pushy. Danny had chosen the code name EMP for himself, but the Diamond Dynamo insisted that his sidekick’s code name had to coordinate with his own and dubbed him “Sparkler”. Danny had tried to explain that his powers were lightning-based and not sparks, but once the Diamond Dynamo had made up his mind, there was no changing it.
But at least now he had Frankie.
Danny had kept his job at Full of Beans after he signed on as the Diamond Dynamo’s sidekick. As fulfilling as superheroics were, they didn’t exactly pay the bills. One of the benefits of working at a coffee shop was that he had dozens of opportunities each shift to hear strangers' names in case any of them matched the name on his forearm. Three or four Franks and Frankies had already come through the store in the four years he’d worked there, but none of them had been his soulmate.
When the tall, lanky guy with messy platinum blond hair and striking pale blue eyes behind a pair of thick glasses gave his name as Frankie, Danny tried not to get his hopes up. “I usually write customers’ names on their cups, but do me a favor and sign this,” he’d requested as he handed the man a cup sleeve and a marker. He grabbed one of each himself and wrote his own name on the sleeve before exchanging signatures with the other man.
As soon as Danny saw Frankie’s handwritten name, he knew it was a match to the name on his forearm. He rolled up his sleeve anyway to show Frankie, who happily showed Danny the soulmark on his wrist that matched Danny’s signature.
Frankie was cute, funny, and so smart. He was getting his PhD in Environmental Science with a specialty in glaciology. He became passionate when discussing climate change and was endearingly dorky when he delved into his research in too much detail. He was studying something about self-replicating ice to rebuild the polar ice caps, but Danny had a hard time following it.
If Danny had two complaints about the Diamond Dynamo, the second was that he was not very good at warning Danny of danger. Case in point: while he and DD were breaking up a bank robbery, DD slammed the Lynx so hard against the building that a slab of concrete broke loose directly over Danny’s head. Danny had been so focused on the Diamond Dynamo that he didn’t even notice the danger he was in until a thick sheet of ice suddenly appeared above his head, catching the concrete before it reached him.
“Hey, kid, are you invulnerable like your boss?” Frostbite called out to him. The villain was dressed in a skin-tight blue-and-white union suit with a pale blue half-mask that covered his head.
Danny shook his head wordlessly in response.
“Then you’ve got to keep your head on a swivel for occupational hazards!” Frostbite advised.
“Get your own sidekick, this one’s taken!” The Diamond Dynamo growled at Frostbite and swung a glittery fist at him. But he wasn’t fast enough. Frostbite jumped neatly out of DD’s reach and soared off on a path of ice.
“What’s wrong, babe? You look down,” Frankie asked on their dinner date that night.
Danny sighed. “I think my new boss is a bit of a jerk.” He clapped his hands to his mouth. “Oh no, I shouldn’t say that, I’m lucky just to have this job.”
“Your boss at Full of Beans is giving you trouble?” Frankie asked. “Do you want me to have a talk with her?” He bristled and flexed his fists. Danny had never seen Frankie look so aggressive before. It was very attractive.
“No, it’s my boss at my, uh, second job,” Danny explained. “He never listens to my feedback and always gives me the worst assignments.”
Frankie shook his head ruefully. “That sounds like a, uh, guy I know. At the university. He’s always hiring research assistants, and then he gives them all the scut work until they burn out and quit. He just brought on somebody new; I feel bad for the new guy.”
“That does sound like my boss,” Danny agreed.
“You should quit,” Frankie advised.
Danny shook his head. “I can’t quit. You have no idea how difficult it was to get this job.”
“I’m sorry, babe. Bosses can really suck sometimes.” Frankie reached across the table and linked fingers with Danny. “Better things are coming for you; I’m sure of it. Just keep your head on a swivel so you don’t miss your opportunity when it arises.”
“Thanks, hun.” Danny squeezed Frankie’s hand in return. He really had the best soulmate.
If Danny had a third complaint about the Diamond Dynamo, it was that he insisted that Danny precede him into all crime scenes and hot zones. He said that it was a sidekick’s job to scout ahead, and that Danny should feel honored that the Diamond Dynamo had his back. Still, being the first one in often meant he didn’t know what was awaiting him.
In his second week as the Diamond Dynamo’s sidekick, he and DD investigated a report of a break-in on the top floor of the ToxiCo building. Danny didn’t feel great about defending a corporation infamous for polluting the environment, but Diamond Dynamo sternly reminded him that a real hero will protect anyone, no matter what he might think of them.
“Well, you first.” DD gestured to the closed door to the CEO’s office.
“Right.” The handle on the door felt hot to the touch, but Danny reminded himself that the Diamond Dynamo would say that real heroes never hesitate. He turned the handle and opened the door.
A plume of fire and smoke shot directly at him. Danny flinched in anticipation of burning heat and choking smoke, but was surprised by a sudden chill as the doorway iced over just in time to stop the flame.
“Hey!” Frostbite shouted through the wall of ice. “Never walk into a crime scene blindly. It’s dangerous! And use your common sense. A hot door means there’s fire inside!”
“Thank you,” Danny replied reflexively. Frostbite’s face looked blurred through the thick ice, but there was something about that voice…
“Don’t talk to my sidekick!” The Diamond Dynamo smashed through the ice with one powerful punch.
Frostbite leapt backwards and turned toward the other supervillain in the room. “Pyromaniac! Time to grab what we came for and run!”
“I’ll deal with these losers. You fight fire with fire,” DD instructed Danny.
“Fire with fire? I told you I don’t have fire powers! And lightning doesn’t do anything against fires!” Danny tried to explain, but the Diamond Dynamo was already locked in a battle with Pyromaniac. “I guess I’ll just…” he triggered the fire alarm with a lightning bolt and rode another bolt to the fire extinguisher hanging on the opposite wall. He hoped the fire department would arrive soon; there were too many flames to put out with one fire extinguisher alone.
As he crossed the room to put out the burning desk, he heard a familiar voice shout, “Heads up!” A moment later, he found himself lying on the ground next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, with Frostbite crouched protectively on top of him. Behind them, a flaming ceiling beam crashed to the floor exactly where Danny had been standing.
Danny looked up, past the face mask, into a pair of pale blue eyes that he knew better than his own. “You keep saving me,” he murmured. He felt breathless, and he knew it wasn’t only due to the smoke.
Frostbite blinked in sudden recognition. “You’re —”
Danny placed his fingertips against Frankie’s lips. “No names. We’re not alone.”
As if on cue, the Diamond Dynamo roared, “Don’t touch my sidekick!” He picked Frankie up by the back of his uniform and threw him out the window.
“What did you do?!” Danny shouted at him in horror.
“I told him to stay away from you; he should have listened to me.” The Diamond Dynamo squeezed his fists, making his knuckles crack.
“He was protecting me!” Danny jumped up, staring furiously at the taller hero.
The Diamond Dynamo shrugged dismissively. “He was a villain. He deserved to die.”
“No one deserves to die!” Danny shot a lightning bolt out of the window and rode it to the ground.
Frankie’s body was too still. Danny checked for a pulse and breathing, but found neither. “Damn it!” he shouted to the skies. He unzipped Frankie’s uniform down to his waist and spread it open over his chest, then rubbed his hands together. He placed his left hand on Frankie’s right chest and his right hand on Frankie’s left side, and delivered a shock.
Frankie’s body shook, but he remained pulseless.
“Come on!” Danny tilted Frankie’s head back, pinched his nose, and delivered three rescue breaths. Then he knelt over Frankie again and delivered a second shock to his heart.
Frankie gave a shuddering gasp and resumed breathing evenly.
“Frankie, can you hear me?” Danny placed his hand gently against Frankie’s cheek.
Frankie opened his eyes. “Danny?” he asked. Danny nodded in response. “It really is you! You saved me!”
“I figured it was my turn,” Danny chuckled.
“Sparkler!” The Diamond Dynamo bellowed from the sixth-floor window, still surrounded by flames. “Get your ass over here and fly me back to HQ!”
“Fuck you, I quit!” Danny shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Your codename is Sparkler?” Frankie wrinkled his nose.
“I know, it sucks,” Danny agreed. “But I can change it now that I’m going solo.”
EMP was a street-level hero best known for saving people from accidents, sticking up for the little guy, and rescuing kittens stuck up trees. Frostbite was a villain known for striking against corrupt corporations and polluters; he usually tussled with the Diamond Dynamo, Agent Argent, and other big-name heroes who were more interested in protecting the status quo than their fellow citizens. There was no reason for anyone to suspect they’d ever interact, let alone be happily married soulmates.