Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00005. First words.

I was “playing” with my blocks and watched as Peter crawled over to his parents and said, “Mom, UP!”

Everyone smiled at that as his mom picked him up into her lap to hold him. I figured I might as well do something cute too, so I set down my blocks and walked over to my parents. Everyone looked down at me as I glanced at my mom first before looking at my dad.

He was looking down at me and I put my arms up to him as I slowly started to stutter out, “kw…”

His face at first went into shock then joy as he looked down at me and said, “Come on, you can do it Theo. Say daddy! Da-D.”

He glanced at my mother and I could see a smug smile flash on his face as he did that. She didn’t respond to him but instead said to me. “Say mommy, mom-e. You can do it sweetie.”

I looked over at her for a moment, but then looked back to my father and spoke out again, “Kwi..”

May said, “It doesn’t sound like he is trying to say mommy or daddy. He is trying to say something else. Kwi something? I wonder what that is?”

Ben looked over at my parents and asked, “Do you know what he might be trying to say?”

My dad shaked his head no in reply, but my mom just stared at me silently. I looked at her and smiled a little as I said, “Kwik!”

“Quick? His first word is quick?” Richard asked.

Everyone else looked confused at this, but my fathers face was turning into a frown. As my mother began to smile. I went in for it again and said “Quickshooo!”

May asked this time, “Quick shoe? What does that even mean?”

At this point my father had a look of horror on his face and my mother was doing the best impression of the Cheshire cat I had ever seen. I went in for the kill at this point and said, “Quickshot!”

My fathers face crumpled at this and my mother, May and Mary started laughing like crazy. A second later my father slowly looked at my mother and said in a defeated voice, “This is all your fault.”

She couldn’t reply because she was too busy laughing. Richard and Ben looked a little out of the joke at first but they caught on and started laughing also. Even Peter started laughing, but I know he had no idea what was going on. I figured I should do my dad a solid since I just threw him under the bus as it were. I looked at him and said, “Daddy!”

At that point everyone actually settled their laughter down, the others looked happy. My mom looked a little shocked and my dad was actually smiling now. But that stopped as soon as I said, “Quickshot daddy!”

His face fell again, and everyone started to laugh again. He looked at me as if I had betrayed him. I just smiled back at him and said “Daddy” as I shook my raised arms at him. He smiled down at me and picked me up. As he did he looked over at my mother and said smugly, “Well it looks like he likes me more.”

She calmed her laughter and replied, “Yup, he just loves his quickshot daddy!” Before erupting into laughter again.

After that the day mellowed out, my mother and father gave a brief account on how I had heard quickshot. She would tease him with it a good bit, and they assumed I had picked it up from there. After the party I was fed and put to bed. I knew I was gonna be left alone because I could hear my parents start up their nightly routine. You would think they might slow down once she was pregnant again, but that just seemed to make it worse. I tried my best to tune it out and began to practice my next technique to learn. I was going to try and climb my cribs bars tonight.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, putting a foot on a bar and sticking to it was easy. Trying to pull my whole body weight up at the same time? Not possible at this point, I just didn’t have the muscles for it at all. The next step was to try with my knee, it was a little different. But once my right knee was stuck to the bar, I stuck both of my hands to the bars. Once I was secure, I moved my left knee up and was suspended from the bars. It was a weird feeling at first, but after I stuck my other knee to the bar I tried to move. My first attempt had me fall back into my crib because everything was released at once. I would like to say it only took me a few tries to release only one body part at a time. But that would be a lie, I attempted it for almost an hour before I gave up exhausted. That and my parents were still going at it and I was tired of listening. You can only tune out so much, before it begins to leak through.

Over the next month I spent at least an hour a night trying to climb my crib with mixed results. Mostly because I was just too weak to carry my body weight and second because my chakra control is terrible. It was a very good way to expand my chakra each night though, so I kept at it. Another thing I did this month was say mommy and a few other words. My mother was very happy at hearing me say it, and she will get a little smile anytime I call her that. I have also started to look at books whenever I can, they are all kid books for now. But I am using it as an excuse to learn to read, my parents already picked up a few ABC books for me and I have started to ask, “What’s that?” To find out stuff, so my vocab has been growing quickly thanks to that.

Another thing I learned over this past month is that the two girls in daycare are actually MJ and Jean. I was a little shocked to learn that, I really thought she should be older timeline wise. Because Jean tends to be older than Peter most of the time in the comics, but then again Peter would also be older at this point. I am surprised other people aren’t in daycare with us at this point. So far whatever changes the other person did to the world seem kinda tame.

Something I learned just before my first birthday was where my dad and Ben worked. Or more to say I visited the business they owned together. My father and mother took me for a walk for the first time and we actually walked to his shop. They had taken me outside a few times for walks up around our neighborhood, but this time we actually left the neighborhood. We went a few blocks away, about a 20 minute walk and came upon my dad and uncle Ben’s shop. It was at the edge of a warehouse district from what I could tell. It seemed like a really good spot to run a repair shop honestly.

My dad picked me up out of the stroller and pointed to the building while he said, “Theo, this is daddy’s shop. It might not look like much, but me and your Uncle Ben own this whole building and that fenced off parking lot over there.”

He looked down at me and smiled as he said, “One day this will be yours, hopefully you will be into cars as much as I am.”

My mother smiled and said, “He can be into cars as much as he likes, but we should push him into a good career field. Maybe something in computers? Programming makes a lot of money.”

“We will see, I would rather see him make less money and be happy in life, than doing something he hates.” My father said as he placed me back into the stroller, then opened the door for my mother to walk inside.

My mother looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding in reply before walking inside the building.

The building used to be a decent sized warehouse as far as I could tell, but they converted it into a garage with 5 car lifts. The garage itself had pretty much every tool you could think of in it. A paint booth, a metalworking and fabrication area. There was also a small office area they had built so they could order parts, talk to customers or just take a break. The warehouse also had a basement which was almost the same size area as the warehouse itself. They mostly used a small part of it for storage of extra parts or used parts.

“So why did you want us to come here, honey?” My mother asked as my father was leading us to the back area of the shop. It looked like it was used for storage.

I was curious myself, my dad had been adamant about bringing us to his shop with him today when my mother got home from work. But he didn’t say why. Now we were here and he was walking into one area of the shop, the area where he had a few cars parked. But behind those cars were two items covered with tarps, as we got closer my mother said, “You can’t be serious!”

My father just smiled and pulled the tarp off of one of the items. It was a car almost completely stripped, the few parts on it were worn out and rusted. He proudly turned to my mother and me and said. “This is a . And this will be Theo’s when he turns 16.”

“I thought you were joking! A 16 year old shouldn’t have a car like this.” My mother said, clearly upset about what my father wanted to do.

“It will be fine honey, I have a plan. Look at it.” He pointed at the car and said, “The car needs a lot of work and a lot of parts. My plan is to restore it with Theo helping me the whole way. It will help him build appreciation for the car and responsibility at the same time. I also plan to pay him for his time, so when he is 16 he can pay us for his car insurance and gas for the vehicle. He will also have to work a set amount of hours here each week and keep passing grades if he wants to keep using the car. Not including that he will also have to help around the house.”

My mom is quiet for a few minutes, afterwards she lets out a sigh. “It looks like you actually did plan this out. I still don’t like the thought of little Theo having a muscle car when he is 16.”

My father laughed as he walked up to my mother and embraced her in a hug. After he released her, he reached into my stroller and picked me up. Walking closer to the car he pointed at it and said, “You might not understand right now, but one day this will be yours and you will be the envy of all the boys in your high school.”

My mother asked, “What's under the other tarp?”

My father turned around with an even bigger grin on his face and said, “The car that Ben picked out for Peter. He will be under the same restrictions that Theo has to use it”

Well it looks like me and Peter are gonna be pretty popular in high school if we both have cars.

“Ben is doing the same thing for Peter? Did he ask Richard about it?”

“Ya we all talked about it, Richard loved the idea. He was also happy it would give Peter a reason to spend time with his uncle. Ben and I also planned to work on the cars at the same time. That way Peter and Theo can hang out together as well.”

“What car did Ben pick out for Peter?”

“ .”

“You and Ben I understand, you are both stupid gear heads. But Richard also? The whole lot of you are idiots! You plan to give two 16 year old boys muscle cars?!?!” My mother’s hands go up in the air as she talks.

“You realize they will probably race each other in those things!” The smile on my fathers face is all she needs to know. She shakes her head in frustration before asking, “Why did I marry an idiot?!?”

My father laughs and says, “Because you love my cooking and charming personality.”

My mother stares at my father for a few moments before she says, “You are still an idiot, a lovable idiot. Kinda like a puppy.”

Laughing again my father pulls my mother into a hug while still holding me and I hear her ask, “Has anyone even talked to Mary or May about this?”

My father pulled back and looked slightly guilty as he said, “We were all kinda hoping you would talk to them for us…”