Tiger & Bunny/タイガー＆バニー Silence

Silence

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Ivan's hero suit felt like a second skin to him. He'd designed part of it, and the team at Helperides had helped to put it together into a surprisingly functional outfit, lightweight despite of all its trimmings, and enabling him to move like the wind. What Ivan did not particularly enjoy about the suit was what he was often told to do when he had it on - to disappear.

In the beginning his job had only been to make sure that the sponsors' logos would be guaranteed to be visible as often as possible. That had been a job that Origami Cyclone had been very good at. He would disappear into the lights and sounds of Sternbild, reappearing when a camera was pointed somewhere, and sprinting over rooftops to where it would be pointed next.

After his run in with Edward, and after their reconciliation, Ivan had promised to become a better hero. Origami Cyclone emerged from the shadows, proving to Sternbild and to the other heroes that he was every bit as valiant as the rest of him. He had become popular. More people were following his blog, and even more clamored for a glimpse of him. He was no longer a sideshow attraction, but part of the main cast of one of Sternbild's greatest performances.

Even so, when he donned the suit, he was expected to vanish, and vanish he did. He used to rely on ninja tricks to sneak in the shadows, but with practice, he learned that his NEXT powers let him do so with the greatest of ease.

It bothered him sometimes that his role was to disappear. Ivan was not a very noticeable person. He was not particularly picked on nor popular in school. He was not too tall or short, nor did he dress in a way that would attract attention. Even without his powers, outside of the suit all he'd need to do would be to slip into the crowds of the Sternbild millions and he would disappear.

But Ivan did not want to be prominent, either. He loved being a hero, but he was happy just to keep up with everyone and to do his job well. He was happy to receive attention, but was not jealous of the fame that Barnaby Brooks Jr. and the other high ranked heroes received. He was happy thay his blog was finally getting good press, but he didn't need to get hundreds of thousands of people in traffic. Some of his more toxic critics called him mediocre, but even they thought that he wasn't doing a bad job.

What Ivan did not enjoy was disappearing. He liked being an active part of the team. He liked being seen. He liked being in the spotlight. He didn't like being overlooked, and he especially didn't like it when he was concealed, and peoples' eyes would fall on him only to turn away. He sometimes hated being made to feel like he wasn't there, no matter how advantageous it was in chasing down criminals. It was a feeling that he had known while growing up, and it was a feeling that he knew wouldn't quite go away.

Sometimes after work, Ivan would climb up to the observation deck of the Helperides Finance building and just disappear. He didn't mind disappearing when nobody was looking. It didn't make a huge difference. Up there it was quiet, except for the hustle and bustle of Sternbild down below, the occasional passing dirigible overhead, and the very rare moments when Sky High would fly by on one of his patrols.

Ivan would look at his hands and they would look like the blue afternoon sky, crisscrossed with clouds. He would look down at his feet and see nothing but glass and metal streaming down through the Stages all the way to the ground. He would look at his body and see thin air. Sometimes he liked to imagine that it wasn't just light that passed through him, that air could pass through him too, and that he would completely and utterly vanish into the winds like the ninjas he read about, and then there would be nothing but silence.

Sometimes Ivan would breathe and feel like he could disappear with the wind whenever he wanted to and nobody would ever find him. It scared him sometimes. It certainly scared any criminals he'd get into fights with. They would point their guns at him and he'd vanish without moving an inch, and it would scare the holy hell out of them. The first few times he had tried that, his heart was pounding. Now it was second nature to him.

He would put on his suit in his hero trailer, praying that disappearing for good would never become second nature to him. He would start with the armor on his legs, then his platelike body and shoulder joints. He would carefully put on his gauntlets and secure his weaponry.

He would set his helmet in front of him, facing away from him. He would close his eyes and breathe, and Ivan would imagine that with each breath, his insecurities would vanish. The calm would settle around him like a veil. He would hear everything around him at first. His Helperides team, the hum of the engines of his trailer, and then the sound of his own heartbeat. He would breathe. And then there would be silence.

Only then would he put his helmet on, reminding himself that his job wasn't to disappear, but to appear when and where he needed to. That was what all good ninjas did, and Origami Cyclone wasn't just a ninja, he was a hero.

He would silence his heart and his mind, and open his eyes, and disappear into the colors of Sternbild, and woe to any that would cross him.


End file.

Tiger & Bunny/タイガー＆バニー, Angst, Spiritual