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Wayne Scott perched awkwardly in his chair, large powerful hand holding that of his father, his adoptive father, as a respirator hissed and pumped tirelessly while silent green lines scrolled and feebly jiggled across a small display as faint beeps metronomed a slowly failing heartbeat.
Thirty-five years since Wayne had become his son that long ago Christmas eve. Outliving Mother by seven. The past three in palliative care.
A vast family fortune utterly impotent.
Wayne wasn’t even completely certain his father knew he was in the room.
Not that his paternal figure had ever paid that much attention to him. Well, except during Wayne’s first few escapades as a superhuman do-gooder, when he nodded conservative approval. Just so long as he didn’t bring bad press to the Scott family name.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, Dad”, he mumbled.
It would be over soon.
Wayne drifted out the door, wandering the hospital corridors, mind occupied by the multitude of impending tasks that would soon confront him. Lawyers. Wills. Codicils and funeral planning, trusts funds that would have to be managed.
Hospital staff politely gave him space, allowing him the opportunity to begin grieving while offering muted, practiced professional condolences.
He was Metroman. Capable of lifting a skyscraper with childish ease, of flying faster than the eye could ever hope to register.
And there wasn’t a single thing he could do in this situation. Except wait for it to be over.
Wayne didn’t realize he’d been crying, tears streaming down his cheeks in a silent howl of anguish until a timid hand gently touched his drawn up knee as he crouched on a tiny chair, barely more than a foot stool.
“Are you alright, Mister Man?”, the small voice inquired.
Wayne looked down at the child in the tiny hospital gown, enormous, earnest eyes peering up at him from beneath the hospital-issue beanie covering the small bald cranium.
The heart-broken superhero shook his head.
“You should come to storytime then”, the diminutive sage offered. “Storytime always helps us feel better. You can have a cookie too.”
Unable to deny the young patient, Wayne allowed himself to be led by the hand to the sunlit recreation room, his guide maneuvering their faithful IV stand with practiced ease.
“Mister Mind is the best!”, the child nodded emphasis. “He does all the voices and everything!”
Megamind? Here?!
In the hospital??
Brilliant acid green eyes locked on his as Wayne entered the room, nodding polite, if strained greetings. “Juice boxes are on the table. Cookies too – “
“Minion made ‘em!”, another juvenile chemotherapy patient interrupted jubilantly. “Choc’lit choc’lit chip!”
“You may have one”, the azure villain instructed.
Wayne nodded meekly.
Megamind smiled at his captivated audience. “Are we ready to begin?”
A high-pitched cheer in the affirmative.
“No last minute trips to the bathroom? Or the ER?”, the famous felon teased.
Many overlapping replies to the negative.
Juice box punctured by its straw in one hand, Minion-made double chocolate chip cookie in the other, Wayne Scott, alias Metroman, Hero of Metro City, sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor with a double handful of young survivors, and listened intently as his lifelong rival lifted an ornately tooled red leather volume, opened it to the first page, and began to read.
“The Princess Bride, by S. Morganstern, Chapter One. Buttercup was born on a small farm in the country of Florin…”