CHAPTER 3

FRIED RICE SOUP FOR THE SOUL

Rest was an elusive friend. Hours of tossing, dozing, sweating, and shivering finally gave way to illusion-laced oblivion.

Through a heavy fog of slumber, Kotetsu felt someone holding his hand. But they were doing it wrong. Not holding his hand like Tomoe used to do - fingers intertwined or palms cupped together. More like holding his hand… as though holding his hand was incidental. And icy fingers fumbled with his wrist.

Taking his pulse.

Barnaby's fingers.

Kotetsu retreated back into slumber.

"Look at me." Gruff, always so gruff. But gentle, too. Like his face - smooth, and youthful, and stern, and kind - all at once. "Kotetsu, wake up and look at me."

With great effort, Kotetsu tilted his head off the pillow - his soft, inviting, but too warm pillow - and squinted up at the voice. Everything seemed out of focus and dreamy, but sure enough there was his partner - "Lil' Bunny…" he mumbled with an unbidden smile - hovering over him.

He was rewarded for his efforts with a cold, rough spike shoved under his tongue. "Keep that there," Barnaby's voice instructed.

Kotetsu scowled, shut his eyes and buried his face in the pillow again. But he kept his teeth clamped on the spike anyway. It was easier to obey him than fight him - he was so stubborn! So stubborn…

After too many agonizingly-long seconds, the spike came out. He heard Barnaby sigh. Kotetsu tried to mumble a retort - probably something clever, and biting, to put the younger man in his place. He was half-aware that the pillow muffled his words.

Then he dove back into the deep end of sleepfulness.

He was more aware of himself this time. Aches throbbed through him. He wanted to sleep, but all he achieved by closing his eyes was to shut out the world.

Only not entirely, because there were smells and sounds from below that drifted up to him. He started - had he left the stove on? Hadn't he come home and started a bowl of rice cooking?...

No, someone was in the kitchen. Thank goodness, because he doubted his ability to make it down the stairs to put out a fire.

He reached for his watch on the bedstand, ignoring the scream of his muscles, and found the table covered in things he was sure hadn't been there before. Water bottles, drugstore flu medicine, a thermometer… Now that he was noticing things that were out of place, he touched his shoulder and found that it was bandaged, with a cool-but-not-cold ice pack wrapped onto it. He touched his forehead and found a damp hand towel there - and he started to pull it away, but decided it felt soothing and left it.

Someone had really been taking care of him. Kotetsu wasn't sure how to feel about that - he was used to taking care of himself.

And then a fresh wave of aches rolled over him, and he shivered, and felt fine with it.

Kotetsu huddled under his blankets. It had to be Barnaby down there. Right? Or had he dreamt that Barnaby had been here before? Maybe Barnaby had come over, found him, and called someone else to take over, he thought hopefully. Maybe it was his mother. Or Antonio, or Sky High.

You're a terrible person, Kotetsu, he told himself. Two months ago, before Mark Schneider fired him, Barnaby was the only person he would have wanted downstairs in his kitchen, taking care of him while he was sick. How had he allowed them to get to a point where Kotetsu dreaded Barnaby's company?

If only he'd hurried home yesterday! Then Barnaby would never have had the chance to open the door to this awful conversation...

Because if Barnaby was here, it meant he wanted a talk - and Kotetsu was sure that little good would come from talking. ("Something's going on with us," Barnaby had said in the van. "We should fix it, don't you think?" ...Sure, that was a nice idea, but what if shining a light on it made it worse? Broken is better than obliterated, right?)

He got the watch and pulled it close to his face. Eight-thirty - p.m.?! It took a few moments for his fuzzy brain to comprehend the math. That meant he'd been in bed for almost twenty-four hours. How could that be? He remembered returning from the chase… calling home… starting and abandoning dinner… stripping down and climbing into bed, and then tossing and turning and dozing on and off…

And then nothing. Hours of lost time. And now it was evening again. And Barnaby (or someone) was in his kitchen cooking.

What day of the week was it? Had he had anything scheduled today?

He decided he did. Not. Care.

Sleep, Kaburagi, he commanded himself. Sleeeeeep.

Too late. Barnaby appeared at the top of the steps, a bowl of something and a soup spoon in hand. Kotetsu shifted under the blankets to signal in the loft's low light that he was awake. "Barnaby…" he greeted. He barely recognized his own voice.

Barnaby's eyes found him in the darkness. He wasn't frowning, but he wasn't quite smiling either. Kotetsu couldn't place the expression, but it was, somehow, quintessentially Barnaby. And it made Kotetsu a little bit nervous. "Good, you're up."

He joked weakly in reply, "Well, I wouldn't say that." Barnaby set the bowl down on the table and flicked the lamp on. Kotetsu squinted and blinked in the sudden brightness. He would have preferred to dig in under the covers, roll over, and aim for sleep again. But, he sensed he was on Barnaby's time now. He struggled onto his elbows, and pulled the cloth off his head so he wouldn't feel so much like a five-old-old being cared for by mother.

"Here…" Barnaby adjusted the pillows to help him sit. Kotetsu felt a chill as the blankets slipped off his shoulders. He manfully ignored it.

The younger man sat next to him on the bed. His eyes seemed to scan over Kotetsu's face like he was looking for information. That was when Kotetsu recognized the expression - it was Barnaby's research-face.

Nothing good ever came from that face.

Another chill - from the fever or Barnaby's scrutiny? Screw it, Kotetsu thought, and gathered the blankets under his chin again.

"Thanks for coming over, I guess," he said. It seemed like the right thing to say.

Barnaby smiled and shook his head. "You should eat," he said, gesturing to the soup. "I brought fried rice over, but soup is better when you're sick so I put it in a broth."

"Fried rice soup?" He laughed a little, but graciously reached for the bowl. Barnaby helped when he saw him struggling to reach it, placing the bowl in his lap and handing him the spoon. "Thanks…"

"You look terrible," Barnaby declared.

Kotetsu raised the spoon in a mock salute to Sky High. "'...and again, thanks.'"

He swept the spoon back and forth in the broth to help it cool. The apartment felt awfully silent with Barnaby perched there on his bed, watching him. "What made you come over? Did I miss an interview? Or a hero call?" He gave a weak smile to lighten the mood. "Did you hear me calling to you with my mind, 'Barnaby! Bring me soup and medicine!'"

Barnaby indulged him with a smile in return, but it faded quickly. "It doesn't matter. We can talk about it later."

That means it's going to be serious. Or a serious lecture. But it was fine by Kotetsu if Barnaby wanted to put it off. "Okay."

Everything about this was awful. He was Barnaby's only friend, and Barnaby was his only partner. They liked each other, they relied on each other. Why was there this invisible thing between them now? It was awful that Kotetsu didn't want him around, and it was awful that he felt too awful to simply send him away. These were deep layers of injustice.

"How's your shoulder?"

"Oh," he wiggled it experimentally. "Better. The bandage probably helped a lot." Actually he thought the bandage was overkill, but it would be rude to complain.

"I saw replays of the accident. It's lucky that was your only injury," Barnaby commented, tapping a nervous rhythm on his knees.

Kotetsu grimaced at the memory - and was wary of discussing any topic related to yesterday's chase. He sampled the soup - a melange of flavors that was probably unique to the soup world. Kotetsu decided that 'good' and 'bad' were evaluations best left to those whose judgment was unimpaired by illness. "Mmm," he said. But it was a non-committal 'mmm'.

The younger man advised, "You should try for the rice and shrimp, if you're up for it." Now he was clawing at his knees - and obviously floundering for conversation topics. Kotetsu was surprised - why was Barnaby just as uncomfortable as him? "I guess you haven't eaten anything since lunchtime yesterday. You need the calories."

He wasn't hungry for solid food - and he felt decidedly ambivalent about the food that lurked at the bottom of his bowl - but he nodded. "Sure. I will."

Barnaby nodded, too. A nod of finality. "Okay. Well. I'm glad you're a bit better. I'll let you finish your soup and get back to sleep."

"Oh-" Had he said or done something to drive Barnaby off? Kotetsu wasn't at his best, but he knew he shouldn't be rude to someone who'd spent the day taking care of him.

On the other hand, maybe it would be easier for them both if he let Barnaby escape… "You don't have to go," he offered feebly.

Standing now, Barnaby glanced away. "I don't- To tell the truth, I feel a bit out of place here." Involuntarily or not, his eyes darted across Kotetsu's bed to the window ledge. Kotetsu followed his gaze...

Pictures of Tomoe. He and Kaede were in some of them, too - but always Tomoe, smiling down on him. It had never occurred to him that he'd built, in essence, his own private shrine to his late wife. Of course Barnaby felt like an intruder in such an intimate space.

Looking at the pictures, Kotetsu felt a sharp pang of longing.

Then came smothering guilt. If Tomoe were here, she would be taking care of him just the way Barnaby had done. And she would take him gently by the hand and advise him - without speaking - that he'd been behaving shamefully. Not just today, but for a while now. ("You know why I love you?" she'd asked him once. "Heroes don't give up, and heroes always put others first. That's who you are, even when you're not using your powers. And that's why I'll always love you.") Always put others first...Kotetsu hung his head in shame. If Barnaby needed a certain kind of partnership, what did it matter why, or whether it made logical sense?

He closed his eyes. Tomoe. I'm sorry. You always made me better. "No… stay." He caught Barnaby's hand to emphasize the point. "Tomoe would be grateful to you for helping me today. I'm grateful, too. So, thank you."

The younger man still looked uneasy, but he sat down again and tried to brush the thanks aside. "It was nothing. You would have done the same."

He tried to settle back against the pillows. His head felt heavy, but the floodgates were open now - he figured, if Barnaby wanted a conversation, Kotetsu owed it to him, and he might as well be comfortable for it. "I'm sorry about yesterday," Kotetsu said. "I made a stupid rookie mistake losing that guy like that. Or better yet I guess I should have called in sick if I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with you. It wasn't smart of me, and I just ended up hurting our team image. I'm sorry."

Barnaby looked surprised - even pleased - and then a flash of shame overtook his features. He turned aside. Kotetsu heard him snort quietly at a private amusement. "No…" He laid a hand on Kotetsu's ankle. When he looked up again he was wearing a smile of disappointment. "It was my fault. I think I've been taking the fun out of your life lately, with my insistence on looking good for the cameras and timing our powers carefully. You probably felt pressured to come yesterday, even though it was dangerous for you to be out there like you were."

He couldn't help his brow from lifting. He'd expected a lecture, and got an apology... Maybe that was why, when he tried to laugh to lighten the mood, he chuckled nervously instead and achieved the opposite effect. "Well, I don't know about 'dangerous'..."

"And I shouldn't have left you," Barnaby continued. "We would have seen the accomplice in the car, and you wouldn't have been hurt - and we could have stopped him and arrested him as a team."

Ah. There it was. More 'team action'.

The thought must have shown on Kotetsu's face, because Barnaby suddenly stopped himself. "Or, wait, I mean… I didn't mean…"

Idiot! Hide your reactions better. "It's okay, Bunny."

"No, it's-" The younger man sighed and looked down at his feet, clutching at the edge of the bed. Blonde locks fell forward to obscure his face. "I know I've been heavy-handed with all the synchronized action and public image advice lately - and I know that's not the kind of hero you want to be and I've been making it hard for you. I'm sorry." He looked up - and this time his sigh had a more determined note. "That's why I brought the fried rice over earlier. To say that from now on, I'll tone it down."

Barnaby's sincerity struck a chord through his heart. He remembered how Barnaby used to be: selfish, a bit bratty, points-obsessed. He'd come such a long way. And now here he was, putting Kotetsu's needs before his own. Maybe Barnaby's the better hero now…

Kotetsu closed his eyes and laid his head back, gathering his thoughts and fighting off a wave of dizzying heat. If this is the last thing I ever do for Barnaby as my partner, then at least I'll have done things right.

"Barnaby," he began quietly, reluctantly, "maybe we should be realistic. I'm having a couple of bad days here, but even on my good days, I can't be the kind of partner you need…"

Barnaby started. "What? Wait - what do you mean?"

He forced himself to keep going. "You know that I hold you back. It was one thing when we were on the Second League and there wasn't any pressure, but the First League is important - I mean, higher profile." He did his best to look serious while smiling kindly. "You'll do better with a partner with equal powers - someone who can synchronize with you for more than a minute. Then you can get maximum effectiveness - you can score points and do the most good."

Barnaby tried to interrupt, shaking his head, "Kotetsu…"

"And you can find someone who wants to focus on the things that you're focused on, like public appearances and points and 'team action'! Golden Ryan may have been a serious jerk, but he was a good partner for you for all that."

"Please stop talking now!" It looked like Barnaby might claw through the mattress.

He smiled again, hoping it would soften Barnaby up - though saying these words did not inspire him to smile. "I'm just saying, it's not smart for you to hitch yourself to an old horse like me. And, look, Bunny, we'll always be friends, but I know you were pressured back into this after we saved Schneider - with the cameras and the crowds and Agnes." Kotetsu paused to catch his breath. There was a good reason he hadn't wanted to do this today. He worried Barnaby might interrupt again, but he seemed to be busy grinding his teeth. "I promise it won't hurt my feelings if you want a different partner, or if you want to be a solo hero. We could talk to Lloyds and Agnes, I'm sure they would work something out-"

Barnaby launched off the bed, roared: "That's enough, Kotetsu!" It made Kotetsu jump - he almost spilled his soup.

Barnaby paced the tiny space - he was basically turning in circles - his face taut with pain and probably a dozen conflicting thoughts. Finally he came to loom over Kotetsu's bedstand and grabbed a water bottle, shoved it in Kotetsu's face. "Drink this," he commanded.

Kotetsu complied, sipping, eyes wide and wary. Barnaby sat down on the bed again, almost as forcefully as he'd jumped off it. Kotetsu watched the wheels continue to spin behind his eyes as Barnaby glared at the floor, using the time he'd borrowed with his water bottle diversion.

Finally, still not looking at Kotetsu, he asked tersely, "Are you saying you can't handle being in the First League anymore?"

He lowered the drink to reply, "No…"

"Are you saying you want to quit being on a hero team with me?" Barnaby's green eyes darted a warning at him. "I'm asking if that's what you want. If you want to be a solo hero or change careers."

"No." He emphatically did not want to go back to being a cab driver.

"Then stop talking about this, please," he said, polite but stern. Very stern. He faced him, and his eyes had an accusing look, but also a gloss of apology in them. "You think I've been focused on teamwork and public image and points because I care about those things? I don't care about those things. You're the one who taught me that those things don't matter!" He flattened his hands, slapped his legs in emphasis. "But I don't want anyone at Apollon Media getting the idea again that their stock prices would be higher if I was teamed up with somebody else! Understand?" Kotetsu blinked, not one-hundred-percent following in his bleary state. "We need for the audience to want to see us together. If people love Wild Tiger and Barnaby as a team, then we'll get to stay that way - no one will get any bright ideas about splitting us up again. Do you see? I don't want another Golden Ryan, and I don't want to be a solo hero - I want you as my partner, Kotetsu, and no one else."

Tears sprang to Kotetsu's eyes. "Jeez, Bunny."

"Sorry…" Barnaby turned to the side and wiped at tears on his own cheeks. "I wasn't pressured into being your partner again. And Golden Ryan was never my partner. They just made us work together - it's not the same."

Kotetsu looked to the side as well. It's just because I'm sick, he told himself, to explain why he couldn't stop his eyes from watering, or his throat from closing up.

Barnaby continued, "The only reason I didn't quit when they brought in Ryan is because you made me think you wanted things that way." He closed his eyes. "I want to make sure that doesn't happen again. That's all. But - I guess I've been going overboard with it lately. I'm sorry. I can tone it down."

"No," Kotetsu said past the lump in his throat, "I hadn't thought about it that way. You're right, we want people to see us as a team, and we want to be good heroes. We should coordinate more."

"But to work effectively as a team, we both have to be able to play to our own strengths, right? So maybe we don't always have to coordinate exactly." He repeated, "I can tone it down."

Kotetsu smiled - and in an impromptu burst of affection, reached over and patted the back of Barnaby's hand. With his other hand, Barnaby wiped at his face again. Kotetsu was so relieved to have been wrong, there was almost no room to feel foolish.

Except he did feel like a fool, and a self-deprecating laugh slipped out. So Kotetsu surrendered to it, laughing and then crying with mock exasperation, "Bunny! I thought you wanted to fire me." He gave Barnaby's shoulder a shove.

Barnaby chuckled, too. "I thought you wanted to quit." They finally found one another's eyes again, smirked at their misunderstanding. "I guess it's a good thing I came over."

Kotetsu glanced at Tomoe's photos again, her image frozen forever in a loving smile. "Yeah, a good thing." And then back at Barnaby, who for the first time in weeks was smiling, too - really smiling, one of his genuine smiles, full of warmth and affection. "Say, Bunny," he said, "I've done enough sleeping for a while. Help me downstairs and we'll put on a movie or something." He made the suggestion knowing that he would likely fall asleep on the couch next to Barnaby within five minutes, but there was some appeal in that, too.

"Sure." He moved the soup bowl to the table and stood to let Kotetsu rise.

Barnaby's wristband chimed. They both looked at it, and a moment of hesitation passed. "I'll tell them I can't come," said Barnaby, reaching for the band.

Without thinking, and with speed and strength that surprised himself, Kotetsu's hand shot out to catch Barnaby's arm. "No, Bunny, you should go."

"But-"

"What did we just finish talking about? How it's okay for us to be heroes on our own sometimes." He released Barnaby with a smile. "Go for it, Lil' Bunny. We put others first, and we don't give up - that's our job, right?" He settled back into the pillows again. "You can come back and take care of me more, after. Right?"

Barnaby gave him a conciliatory smile and a nod. "Right." He touched Kotetsu's shoulder, then glanced at the bedstand. "You don't need anything before I go?"

"You're wasting valuable seconds. The criminals are getting away. People need saving."

"Okay, okay!" He practically bounced down the stairs. He called before closing the door behind him, "I'll see you later."

Kotetsu laid back and stared at the ceiling again, still feeling heavy, still stiff, still warm - and now lucky, too. He turned to the side and found Tomoe's photographs. You're still watching out for me and making me better, aren't you? Smiling to himself, he thought the empty space on the ledge might be ready for some new photos, with pictures of the other people who did the same.