Chapter Text
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"Excuse me, Mr. Barnaby... Mr. Lloyds wanted me to tell you that he wants you to stop whatever you're doing and report to him straightaway. Um... and just to warn you, he's really mad about something."
"Huh?" Kotetsu looked up and frowned at the young intern standing at Barnaby's desk. "You sure he didn't mean ME...?"
"Well, he was kind of ranting incoherently... I suppose he could've mixed your names up."
Barnaby looked over at Kotetsu and shrugged. "I guess we'll both go then."
They got up from their desks and headed down the hallway toward Alexander Lloyds's office. "You're off to a good start this week and it's not even 9 am yet," Barnaby teased. "Do you have any idea what you did this time to make Mr. Lloyds so upset?"
"Who knows? I could forget to dot one of my i's and it would piss him off."
"I don't blame him. That would set me off too."
Kotetsu glanced at Barnaby, taken aback. "Eh? Really?!"
Barnaby chuckled good-naturedly as he knocked on the door to Mr. Lloyds's office. They heard a voice yell, "ENTER!"
Lloyds, who was sitting at his desk, gave Kotetsu a hostile glare. "Why the hell are you here? I only asked to see Barnaby. Get out!"
Barnaby looked stunned. "Wait... I'M the one who's in trouble?"
"Trust me, I'm no less shocked about it than you are." Lloyds turned back to Kotetsu. "WELL? What are you waiting for? GO!"
Kotetsu glanced back and forth between Lloyds and Barnaby, conflicted over feeling relieved that he wasn't in trouble for once, but concerned that Barnaby actually was. He began to slowly back up toward the door. "Yeah. Okay... I'll be out here in the hallway, just in case anyone needs me—"
Barnaby grabbed Kotetsu's arm. "Hold on..." He turned back to Lloyds. "If there's a problem that I've caused, Kotetsu should remain here. Since we're a team, it could affect him as well."
Lloyds tried to give Barnaby a knowing look. "Have you considered that this might be about something you would rather Tiger not know about?"
"He's my trusted partner. I have nothing to hide from him."
"Very well." Lloyds opened one of his desk drawers and retrieved a flat rectangular box. He tossed it on top of his desk. "Know what this is?"
The color immediately drained from Barnaby's face.
Kotetsu saw it was a DVD case. There was a picture of a barely dressed dark-haired woman in a very suggestive pose on it. The title read: "Naughty Nonnie 4: Delivery Service".
Kotetsu could barely contain his glee as he guessed that his supposedly wholesome partner was being reprimanded for possession of porn; probably something Barnaby accidentally left behind in his locker. He tried to cover up a laugh by coughing, but remarkably failed at it. "Oh come on, Mr. Lloyds! Is it really that big of a deal? I mean, surely it's not unusual for a man to have a small collection of, uhh..." Kotetsu suddenly looked embarrassed and nervously scratched his head, "...private entertainment..."
"That's not the issue, you idiot!" Lloyds flipped the case over. "THIS IS!!"
Kotetsu looked down at the case. On one of the back panels, there was a picture of the woman from the front cover with someone who looked a hell of a lot like a very young Barnaby. The bottom half of the picture was pixelated, but it was obvious what they were doing.
Lloyds looked at Barnaby and tapped on the picture. "Is that you?"
Barnaby glanced at the picture and quickly looked away. "Yes, sir."
Lloyds sat back in his chair and regarded Barnaby. "Unbelievable. The King of Heroes in a damned porn video! Do you have any idea what kind of PR nightmare you've dumped on us? Your largest fan demographic is school-aged children!"
"I was promised information about Ouroboros in exchange for filming a scene for a small adult video company. I was THAT desperate to find out anything about that organization." Barnaby shook his head. "I regret that I ever did it. It was a terrible mistake... and I ended up getting scammed."
Lloyds picked up the case and looked at the back of it. His angry expression softened slightly. "You were really young when you did this, weren't you? This says 'Barely 18'."
"I was closer to 20, actually."
"You should've disclosed this when we hired you."
"I'm sorry, sir. You're right. I honestly didn't think this would ever come up. You see, Mr. Maverick found out about it and took it upon himself to find and destroy all the copies. He found all but one."
"Are you telling me that THIS," Lloyds picked up the case and waved it, "is the last one?"
Barnaby held out his hand and Lloyds handed it over. Barnaby examined the case and then opened it and looked at the disc. He took a deep breath and shook his head. "This appears to be a pirated copy."
"So there may be more out there after all."
Barnaby swallowed hard. "I will resign, effective immediately."
"You will do no such thing!" Lloyds snapped. Then he sighed. "I'm sure our PR department will find some way to spin this if it gets out. Perhaps we can claim it's a fake fan-made computer-generated look-alike, or something..."
"Excuse me, Mr. Lloyds," Kotetsu interrupted. "I think if this gets out, you should just go with the truth-- that Bunny was so obsessed with finding his parents' killers that he got tripped up and made a mistake."
Lloyds narrowed his eyes at Kotetsu. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"
"No matter how you spin it, you're never gonna convince everyone that it isn't really Bunny," Kotetsu said sternly. "People are always ready to believe a conspiracy. Getting caught lying would be way more damaging to his reputation than just admitting the truth, no matter how bad it looks."
Lloyd looked at Barnaby as if to say, Can you believe this idiot?
Barnaby had a doubtful look on his face and was shaking his head, but then his eyes suddenly widened. "I agree with Kotetsu."
"You do?" Lloyds said, astonished.
"You do?!" Kotetsu said, flabbergasted.
"I think it would be for the best for everyone if I take full responsibility for my mistake." Barnaby looked at Kotetsu. "I believe that's what a real hero would do."
Kotetsu gave a firm nod of his head in agreement.
Lloyds rolled his eyes. "You two..." He covered his eyes with one hand as if he had suddenly come down with a headache, and waved the other hand dismissively. "You can go, for now." They both turned to leave. "Not you, Tiger. As long as you're here, you and I do need to discuss some issues stemming from your own brand of reckless behavior. You can join your partner later. MUCH later."
Kotetsu looked sheepish. "Uh oh..."
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Barnaby sat despondent on the bench in their locker room. He should've listened to Lloyds. "Have you considered that this might be about something you would rather Tiger not know about?" He had no idea it would turn out to be the one thing he never wanted Kotetsu to find out. He felt humiliated. The uncovering of the sex video threatened to undo everything that he had done to be worthy of being a hero in Kotetsu's eyes.
He had worked hard at maintaining an impeccable reputation, trying to forget that one short dark period several years ago had ever happened.
He felt his communicator band vibrate on his wrist. When he raised it, the image of Agnes Joubert appeared. "We've got a robbery in progress at Go Baroque Jewelers at the Silver Stage Promenade. There are reports that hostages have been taken. All heroes are to report immediately. Staging will take place at Fire Station #12, located 2 blocks east of the store."
Barnaby jumped up and ran out of the locker room. He tapped his wristband. "Agnes, this is Barnaby. Tiger is presently in a meeting with Mr. Lloyds. I'm on my way to fetch him now. Our ETA should be—"
"Forget about Tiger. I've just been notified that he's been suspended from HeroTV. We need you to get here as soon as possible."
Barnaby stopped dead in his tracks. "WHAT?! Wait, there must be some kind of mistake..."
"Look, I'm not too pleased about it either, but now is NOT the time! You can take it up with Mr. Lloyds and the Board of Directors after this situation is resolved."
Barnaby growled angrily and turned around to head to the transport. "Yes, ma'am."
"Oh... and Barnaby, when you do talk to them, feel free to give them a piece of my mind as well!"
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After the situation at the jewelry store had been resolved-- with the hostages rescued, the criminals arrested, and points given out-- Barnaby headed straight back to Apollon Media. He didn't bother changing out of his hero suit, though he did remove his helmet before storming into Lloyds' office.
"Why is Kotetsu being suspended? He couldn't possibly have done anything that bad!"
Lloyds was in the process of trying to solve a level 6 Hanayama puzzle. Without taking his eyes off of it, he responded calmly, "Well, he did some hero work off-the-clock trying to catch a burglar and ended up damaging the storefront of a struggling Mom and Pop business. That's particularly bad optics for us, sooo... "
"Incidental damage caused by apprehending a perpetrator is not grounds for suspension! How is it that I did what I did and don't even get a slap on the wrist, but Kotetsu gets suspended for basically doing his job?"
"Calm down, Barnaby. It's only for 2 weeks."
"Two weeks?! Do you know how many points he stands to lose over 2 weeks?"
"It's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be... in fact, you might call it a mini-vacation."
Barnaby walked over to Lloyds's desk and angrily slammed his gloved fist down hard on it. "This is wrong and you know it!"
Lloyds sighed and put the puzzle down. "The owners of the shop can't afford to fix the damages that were caused by Tiger. One of his sponsors agreed to foot the bill themselves, but they insisted on Tiger's suspension in return. Apollon was happy to accept their offer, so naturally we agreed to their conditions."
Barnaby shook his head. "I don't believe this! None of what you just told me makes any sense. Why would a sponsor want their hero taken out of action for two weeks? And why would you agree to it? Removing an essential crime-fighting resource like Kotetsu will leave us short-handed should a major disaster—"
"Then we'll call in the Second League. I'm sure all them combined can make up for one First League hero's absence. Look, if it makes you feel any better, Tiger did mention something about his mother severely injuring her back... so his family needs his help right now. It's a win-win for everybody."
Barnaby narrowed his eyes at Lloyds. "What's the name of the shop that Kotetsu damaged?"
Lloyds looked back at him coolly. "Why do you need to know?"
Barnaby nodded as his suspicion was confirmed. "I know when I'm being 'handled'. What I DON'T know is the real reason you're punishing Kotetsu... but I WILL get to the bottom of this." He turned around and left abruptly.
Lloyds sighed. "Such drama... I swear they don't pay me enough to manage those two."
He picked the puzzle back up and began fiddling with it again. "What kind of maniac designed this stupid thing...?"
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Barnaby tried to call Kotetsu several times, but it went directly to voice mail. All the texts he had sent were unread. It appeared he had turned off his phone, so Barnaby decided to call Kotetsu's mother's number.
"Kaburagi residence."
"Hello, Mrs. Kaburagi? This is Barnaby... Kotetsu's partner?"
"Oh... Barnaby! How are you? Please, I wish you would call me Anju."
"Okay... uh, Anju. I was wondering if Kotetsu was busy? I really need to talk to him."
"Oh, you just missed him! He's taken Kaede camping. They'll probably be gone for at least a week."
"I see. Well, can you leave a message that he call me as soon as he returns? It's very important and it doesn't matter what time—" Barnaby paused. "He's not at home with you...? How's your back?"
"My back? Why are you asking— OH! Yes... that turned out to be nothing really. Just a few twinges due to overwork. It's fine now."
"I see. I'm glad to hear that. Well, I'm sorry for disturbing you. You take care, Mrs. Kabur—, uh, Anju."
"You too, Barnaby. I'll be sure to let Kotetsu know that you called."
Barnaby ended the call.
He looked bewildered. "What the hell?!"
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Anju Kaburagi hung up the phone. She had a troubled look on her face. "You could've at least let me know you were going to use my back as an excuse, Kotetsu...," she muttered to herself.
Her granddaughter Kaede was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Why did you just lie to Barnaby about Daddy being here?"
Anju turned around, startled. She tried to give Kaede a reassuring smile. "Apparently, there's something going on that your father can't talk about. He had to go away for a while. He asked if I would cover for him because he doesn't want Barnaby to worry about him right now."
"Why wouldn't Daddy let Barnaby know what's going on? He's his partner! Did... something bad happen?"
"I don't know, sweetheart. I just wish your father would understand that Barnaby is not the only one who would be worried about him."
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