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The Kobra Kid pulls his motorcycle to a stop on the sidelines of the crashtrack, taking his helmet off and wiping the sweat from his brow.
He’s been doing laps, around and around and around, for about four hours now.
The sun is high in the sky, no clouds in sight— not that it would be much of a relief if there were. Acid rain’s more likely than normal rain at any given chance. Kobra tucks his helmet under his arm as he fishes around in his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, wiping the sand off them with the hem of his shirt before putting them on. With his surroundings at a much more comfortable level of darkness, he makes his way toward the ticket booth at the entrance and the nearby drink station.
“Drink station” is an extremely generous term for what’s really just two large coolers, devoid of ice but stocked full of soda, beer, and—if it hasn’t already all been taken by the other ‘joys littering the track—water.
Flipping open the lid of the cooler closest to him, Kobra rummages around inside. Jet keeps nagging him to drink water whenever it’s available in lieu of soda, and he knows he’s going to get found out some way or another if he grabs a bottle of Red Rocket Fizz instead.
He shifts aside 30-year-old bottles of Bud Light and the dusty cans of Cranberry Crash, searching for the flimsy plastic of Better Living brand distilled drinking water, until he finally spots the white cap among the sea of aluminum cans and amber-tinted glass.
It’s warm, like every other drink in there, warm like everything in the desert is warm, but it doesn’t stop him from chugging half the bottle, water running down his chin as he drinks too fast. Kobra starts walking toward the bleachers on the sidelines to rest before getting on the track again, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and thinking to himself that maybe Jet’s right about water being better than soda.
“Hey,” someone calls out, and he ignores it at first because they could be talking to anybody here, “ hey! Blonde mohawk with the shades, make a U-turn!”
Kobra stops.
“Yeah, jackass, I’m talking to you,” they continue. “Aren’t you The Kobra Kid?”
Kobra turns around. A group of three other killjoys are standing around the coolers now. One of them—a tall white man with a face full of piercings, a dyed blue buzz cut, and a black leather vest—is staring Kobra down. A girl with hot pink hair and a rose tattoo is next to Buzzcut, baring her teeth at Kobra, and a third ‘joy with an eightball charm necklace is snarling.
“You come out here and hog the track for almost five fuckin’ hours,” Buzzcut growls, “and then you drink the last damn bottle of water?”
Kobra shrugs. There was nothing stopping anyone from driving on the track at any time; his singular motorcycle doesn’t take up much space on a track that’s 22 feet wide. None of the other ‘joys here even brought bikes with them, instead hanging around the ticket booth or drinking booze underneath the bleachers. A few waveheads are sprawled out in the sand to get as much sun as possible. And the water could have been snatched up at any other time. He just got lucky.
Buzzcut crosses his arms and saunters over, flanked by his friends. His gaze sweeps over Kobra, scrutinizing. “Sand pups like you really piss me off, y’know that? You got anything to say for yourself, punk?”
Kobra starts to shake his head, then thinks better of it, and holds out the half-full water bottle toward the other ‘joy. Better than nothing.
Buzzcut immediately smacks Kobra’s hand away, sending the bottle flying, water spilling out onto the parched desert sand, useless to both of them now. He takes another step forward and sets his jaw, trying to stare past Kobra’s sunglasses and into his eyes.
Kobra gets it now. The water wasn’t the problem, this guy just wants to pick a fight. But Party had said “be safe” when Kobra left the diner this morning, and getting into a fight wouldn’t be very safe. He’s been reckless on the track lately, but today he’s drinking water for once, and he’s taken smaller breaks to stretch or to rest. He’s been staying safe.
“Are you gonna say somethin’, or just stand there with that dumb look on your face?”
Kobra clenches his fists at his side and takes a deep breath, turns on his heel, and starts heading back toward the bleachers. The bleachers are safe. Behind him, Buzzcut scoffs.
“Guess the rumors are true,” he calls out, “you’re so stupid you won’t even try to string a few words together in a sentence.”
That’s it.
It only takes a moment for Kobra to whirl back around and clock Buzzcut in the jaw, a hard left hook that sends him toppling over, and the other two grab onto him to try and peel him off. Kobra’s got the man by the collar of his shirt, straddling him as he reels his fist back for another punch, but he’s hauled off by Eightball before it connects.
He thrashes as he’s lifted up, landing a solid kick to Buzzcut’s stomach that pushes all the air from his lungs in the process. Eightball catches an elbow to the face.
Rose rushes him, tackling him to the ground and knocking his sunglasses off, grinding his face into the sand, but she quickly stops when Kobra reaches up to grab her hand off the side of his face to break her fingers. She howls in pain, scurrying off, and Eightball aims a kick toward his head.
He grabs them by the boot and yanks, sending them crashing down onto the sand with him, and they roll around as they grapple eachother. Eightball’s arm gets too close, so Kobra sinks his teeth into their skin until he tastes blood.
“Fucking freak,” Eightball screeches, face contorting in a way Kobra can’t see clearly, and their fist meets his nose with a crack. He bares his teeth, and the blood in his mouth from biting them mixes with the blood now pouring from his nose, running down his face and staining Eightball’s shirt like tie-dye. Eightball fights to break free from his grip, tripping over themself to run and duck under the bleachers with the rest of the ‘joys that are too spaced-out to pay attention to the brawl.
Chest heaving, Kobra grabs his sunglasses and gets back to his feet, staggering over to where Buzzcut is gasping for air. His boot slams into the man’s sternum.
“ Not a moron! Not a freak! Not an idiot,” he snarls, landing another kick to Buzzcut’s ribs. The blows keep coming, harder, “ Not stupid! Not! Fucking! Stupid!”
Three more kicks punctuate his words, until Buzzcut’s curled up protectively, wheezing and trying to shield himself from any more abuse.
Kobra backs off, staring Buzzcut down to make sure he won’t get up, before stalking over to his bike and taking off, leaving the crashtrack behind in a cloud of dust.
With a white-knuckled grip on the handlebars of his motorcycle, Kobra speeds through the wasteland, putting as much distance between himself and the track as possible. His stomach churns as the adrenaline ebbs away, and he’s left with a tight feeling in his chest.
He can’t go back to the diner, he realizes, because Party and Jet and Ghoul and the Girl will wonder why he’s back so early and they’ll see that he’s hurt. They’ll know he didn’t stay safe.
It’s not like he didn’t try. He really, really did. He wore his helmet like always, and he was drinking water, and he was trying to turn around and head to the bleachers. But those other ‘joys had called him stupid. And Kobra is not stupid.
Maybe that makes it worse, gives people the idea that he really is stupid, too dumb to do anything other than throw a punch.
But he’s good at throwing a punch. Kobra knows how to break someone, fast and hard. Sometimes Jet has to pry him off, because he gets so caught up with kicking and punching and breaking breaking breaking that he won’t notice the other guy has lost all the fight that was in them.
No one can call him stupid if they’ve got a broken jaw.
He’d never spoken a single word until he was three years old, and he knows that the way he talks—when he does talk—isn’t what people are used to hearing.
Any time he opened his mouth as a kid, people in marketplaces and settlements would always seem a little bemused at first, like they thought it was some kind of joke they couldn’t quite understand the punchline to.
Adults would fix him with some weird look, and they’d keep looking at him but they’d really be talking to Party when they asked, with a tone like they were asking about some kind of horrible accident, scared to hear the answer—
“Is he slow?”
And Party would grit their teeth and say no he fuckin’ ain’t and they’d both decide to look for supplies elsewhere.
Sometimes folks would use different words, they’d flash him with a sunshine-y smile and they’d hide the car-wreck in their voice with a much more cheery tone and they’d call him special .
Special is just Slow with a glossy new paint job, like if they make it pretty then it’ll be less mean.
Both those are still refurbished versions of a much, much uglier word.
Kobra speeds up like he can outrace his thoughts, as if the roar of the engine and the dust cloud in his wake will prove once and for all that he’s not slow .
He’s not .
After several minutes of driving, it takes a moment for him to realize that he’s on his way to Doctor Death-Defying’s radio station— he’d sped off in a random direction just to get away, but must have had a destination somewhere in the back of his mind.
It’s not like he has anywhere else to go, so he gives in and keeps on the trail. Eventually, the building comes into view as a dot on the horizon, gradually getting larger, and Kobra swerves to park around back.
As Kobra’s bike skids to a halt, he sees Show Pony from the corner of his eye, stepping out and making their way through the sand to meet him.
“Heard you coming a mile away. What’s got you in such a rush, sugar? Dracs on your tail?”
Kobra keeps his head ducked down as he dismounts and rips off his helmet, shoving his sunglasses over his eyes and starting toward the station, but Pony skates over and intercepts him.
“Kobra, what’s—“
They stop, finally noticing his busted knuckles and bloody nose, the scrapes on his cheek, the way shame has painted his face red. “Oh, sweetheart ,” they gasp, pressing their hand to their chest as their expression softens, “are you alright?”
He nods and offers a half-hearted thumbs-up, just wanting to get inside the station, and Pony goes in front of him to lead the way, holding his hand.
Doctor Death-Defying is in the middle of a broadcast, paying no mind as Pony and Kobra walk in. Pony squeezes Kobra’s hand before ushering him over to the old beat-up olive green couch in the corner of the room, nestled among the boxes full of recording equipment and vinyl record sleeves. “Sit,” they tell him, “I’ll be right back.”
Pony skates off into another part of the studio as Kobra takes a seat, picking at the peeling upholstery of the couch, digging his thumbnail into the exposed foam stuffing. Doc is rattling off some announcements; sales at Tommy Chow Mein’s, a warning to stay away from the western perimeter of zone Three, an advertisement for next week’s big race at the crashtrack.
“Speaking of the crashtrack, my beloved little wrench-monkeys,” Doc drawls easily into his microphone, “I’m gettin’ my ears chewed off by reports of a disturbance out there not even ten minutes ago, some kind of a fist-fight what broke out. Stay cool out there, the heat can make you do some crazy things.”
Kobra sinks down further into his seat.
Pony comes back with something in their hands; a bundle of damp rags and some bandages. They kneel down in front of him, and Kobra squirms away when Pony tries to wipe the grit off his face. He makes a low noise in the back of his throat to warn them, and Pony raises their hands in a placating gesture.
“There’s just water on this washcloth. It’s not disinfectant, so it won’t sting, okay? It might hurt a li’l when I touch those scratches on your face, but it won’t last long. You gotta get cleaned up, sugar. Could you take your shades off? I need to get at that blood by your ear, oh, sweetie, you got all kinds of scraped up…”
Doc switches on some music now that he’s done with announcements and commercials, swiveling his chair around and wheeling over to the couch. “Now, why do I hear an impromptu check-up goin’ on over here? You wipe out at the track, roadrunner?”
Kobra shakes his head while he takes his sunglasses off, wincing as Pony wipes the blood and sand from his face. He tries to keep his squirming to a minimum, but the washcloth against his skin is too cold and the texture is horrible, even with how gentle Pony’s being. He makes another noise to express his discomfort. The scent of iron hangs in the air as his blood is wiped away.
“He pulled up out here an’ looked pretty flashed,” Pony says, glancing over their shoulder at Doc as they continue their work, “I don’t care what happened, I’m just makin’ sure he’s not too busted up. Got a couple good scratches here. Hold still , sweetie, please.” They purse their lips as they pinch the skin around one of the cuts together and stick a butterfly bandage onto his cheek, then they gather up another washcloth to try to staunch the bleeding from his nose.
Kobra resists the urge to bite their fingers in retaliation when they get too close. Pony’s a droid, he knows, so it’s not like that would do much except break his teeth on the metal endoskeleton under their synthetic skin. Instead he forces his attention away and tries to focus on something else, replacing his sunglasses once Pony’s done with his face, while they switch gears and start cleaning up his hands.
A little metal fan on the desk across the room is slowly blowing stale air around the station, humming as the blades spin lazily, rotating and occasionally making a few papers rustle in the open binder Doc keeps notes in. The music has changed to some demo sent in by an up-and-coming group; Doc had announced it as Flashbang by Fireworks For Teenagers. Gauze scratches against his fingers as Pony starts bandaging his busted knuckles, and he reminds himself that this is the exact same way that boxers tape their hands up before they go in the ring. Nothing to get worked up about, as Jet would say.
Doc’s propping his head up in one hand, leaning against the armrest of his wheelchair, watching the both of them. Behind his sunglasses, Kobra refuses to meet his gaze. Doc’s eyes are dark, dark brown, almost black, and it’s hard to look at him straight-on. Kobra feels like he’s being stared through.
“Kobra,” Doc says, slowly, gently, “were you at the track when that fight started?”
Hesitantly, Kobra nods. Pony weaves the gauze between his fingers and winds it around his palms. Doc continues.
“Did you have anything to do with that fight?”
Kobra’s heart crawls into his throat as he nods again. Doc sighs, squeezing his eyes shut and dragging a hand down his face.
“Lord, have mercy… ”
Pony moves on to his other hand. “I’m just glad it wasn’t some whackjob going at it out of nowhere. Almost done with this, sweetheart, you’re doing great.”
Humming, they tie off the last length of gauze and tuck it under the rest of the bandages, wiping their own hands off and sitting down gingerly next to Kobra on the couch once they’re done. “There we go. All taken care of.”
Doc leans forward and tilts his head this way and that, inspecting Kobra’s now cleaned wounds and giving a low whistle, like he’s impressed. “You sure got your clock cleaned, kid. Now, you know I’m no yellowbelly, I just don’t want my ‘joys gettin’ their domes cracked. What prompted that brawl, huh?”
It takes Kobra a moment to realize Doc expects an answer. He usually has no problem talking in front of Pony and Doc, but the shame from earlier comes creeping back in, and he feels his face get hot. He clenches his fists and the bandages dig into his palms. His lips move soundlessly for a moment before he can get the words out.
Doc leans in, tilting his head to the side. “Say that again?”
Frustration and embarrassment are building up inside him until they well up at the corners of his eyes in the form of tears, stinging the scrapes on his face as they roll down his cheeks.
“Didn’t wanna fight. Trying to leave. Called me stupid .”
His voice is always quiet whenever he speaks, but he feels almost strangled now, breathing shakily as a lump forms in his throat until he can’t take it anymore. Kobra latches onto Show Pony, hugging them as his emotions come rushing out in loud, shuddering sobs. “ Not stupid. ‘M not stupid.”
“Oh, honey,” Pony coos, wrapping their arms around him tightly, “I’m so sorry .”
“Not stupid,” he cries, squeezing his eyes shut and reaching up to smash a fist into the side of his head, “not, not, not stupid .”
Pony carefully snakes their hand up toward his, lacing their fingers together with Kobra’s and bringing his hand away from his head, gently rocking from side to side as they hold him. “Let’s keep our hands down, honey, I’d hate to make you sit through getting patched up again. I got you, it’s okay. You’re not stupid, sweetheart, of course you’re not…”
They let him cling, stroking his hair as he cries, rubbing little circles on his back in between his shoulderblades, until he takes another shaky breath before speaking.
“W-Wanted to leave. Tried to leave. Sorry, ‘m sorry.”
Doc lays a hand on Kobra’s shoulder. “Kid, we’re not mad at you for this. You know that, right? We’re just old and we like to worry a lot, ‘specially if you come rollin’ up in here with blood all over your mug.”
Kobra holds onto Pony tighter, tensing up, and Doc backtracks a bit. “We’re not upset that you came here, either. You can always come here if you need to— Hell, if you just want to. But we still worry when you’re hurt.”
“Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay . You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re here, you’re all cleaned up. Nobody’s gonna start whalin’ on you again. I’m gonna radio yer crew, chickadee, let ‘em know you’re alright—“
“ No ,” Kobra sobs, “no, no, no! Gonna be mad! Don’t call!”
Pony pulls away from the hug to look at Kobra, cupping his face in their hands. “Honey, your folks aren’t the type to get mad at you over something like this. You know that.”
Kobra tries to get up and stop Doc from grabbing the mic, but Pony tugs him back down.
“ Don’t , Kobra. They need to know you’re okay, I bet they heard that announcement earlier. Doc’s gonna let your crew know that you’re safe here with us, sugar, and they won’t be mad at you.”
“…Promise?”
“I promise, darlin’.”
Doc adjusts the mic and turns the dial on his personal radio to tune in to the right wavelength, picking up nothing but static for a moment. The music broadcast plays on in the background, uninterrupted, as he fiddles with the controls. “Paging Four Aces, do you copy? Over.”
On the other end, Kobra hears someone startle at the sudden transmission, then rustling as the radio is picked up. “Ten-four,” Ghoul says, and Kobra feels a wave of relief at just the sound of his friend’s slurred speech, “y’ got any updates? We been itchin’ fer news— Kobra went out to th’ track a while ago an’ we got all shades ‘a worried when we heard y’r report. Over.”
“Sorry ‘bout the scare, Ghoul. Kobra’s with us here at the station, he got into a li’l scuffle at the track, but it’s nothin’ too serious. We got ‘im all patched up already. Over.”
Ghoul heaves out a sigh of relief. “Thank th’ Witch. He doin’ okay? He ain’t too freaked out?”
“Yeah, we’re… we’re workin’ on that right now. You mind if he hangs with us for a bit? I promise we won’t bite.”
“Y’ already know he’s more likely t’ bite you . Can he hear me right now? Hey, critter, if y’ get yer chompers on Doc,” Ghoul snickers, “try not to tear ‘im up too bad, yeah?”
Doc rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t fight the smile spreading across his face. “Look, go gather up the rest of your posse an’ tell ‘em we got y’all’s brother, okay? You don’t gotta come fetch him yet, just let everyone know he ain’t dusted.”
“Yessir. Thanks fer lookin’ ‘im over, Doc. Four Aces over an’ out.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Ghoul. One-Oh-Nine, over an’ out.” The roar of static returns before Doc switches the radio off, swiveling back around in his chair and spreading his arms out demonstratively. “See? Like I said, nobody’s mad.”
Hesitantly, Kobra nods. “Nobody’s mad,” he echoes, swiping a hand across his face in an attempt to dry his eyes, but the tears are still flowing freely down his cheeks as his shoulders shake.
“Pony, darlin’,” Doc says, “would you go get him something to drink?”
They’re on their feet in a flash, and Doc wheels closer to make up for the lack of contact from Pony. “C’mere, kid, let’s talk shop,” he says, so Kobra scoots to the edge of the couch and bumps his knees against Doc’s. “I wanna know just what’s got you shook up. Are you feelin’ bad that you hurt those other ‘joys? You feel guilty?”
Kobra shakes his head. No.
“You think your crew’s gonna be cross with you for hurtin’ ‘em?”
“No… Earlier, nii-san said, be safe. Didn’t stay safe. Got hurt.”
Doc raises an eyebrow. “You’re safer now than you woulda been if you’d let those ‘joys escalate shit further. Nipped it in the bud, seems like.”
“But—”
“Kobra, it’s a shitty world out here, if ya don’t mind me sayin’. Y’all get into fights an’ brawls all the time, this is no different. If you get scratched up showin’ some ratchet-jaw what for, then so be it. You didn’t break any kinda promise this time. If you hadn’t got the jump on ‘em, you might be dealin’ with worse than what you got right now. You get me?”
He keeps his voice low and gentle. Kobra’s always loved that about Doc; he never yells at anyone unless he needs to. And he’s never needed to yell at Kobra.
“…Yeah.”
“Good,” Doc says, warmly. “You played it safe as you could, Kid, that still counts. In my book, at least.”
Almost everything’s okay in Doc’s book. Kobra would love to see that rulebook and pick apart the loopholes and technicalities that the man is so keen on getting into whenever the Fab Four are involved. It seems like a lot to keep track of.
Doc leans forward and runs his thumb under one of Kobra’s eyes, wiping away the newest track of tears on his cheeks.
“‘M proud of ya, roadrunner. Y’ stand up for what you know’s right, you don’t take shit from nobody. That kinda integrity’s important out here.”
Integrity . Kobra hadn’t thought about it like that before. He nods again, leaning his face into Doc’s touch, and the old DJ cups his hand around Kobra’s jawline, stroking his thumb near one of the bandaged cuts. Kobra lets his eyes flutter closed.
“Thank you.”
“Of course. An’ I mean what I said earlier, about comin’ here. You ever get yourself in a bind, you can get your butt over here an’ we’ll help ya. Ever just wanna chill? We’ll be here for that too.”
Kobra hums, and Doc pulls him in for a hug. He smells like cigars and some kind of bold, earthy cologne. Kobra breathes in deeply, taking in the scent, and exhales slowly, finally starting to calm down.
As the anxiety fades, another feeling starts to come in; the increased awareness of how everything hurts. He’d been too preoccupied to notice it until now, and the full force of the brawl earlier is starting to set in. He must have made some kind of noise when the realization hit, because Doc is gently pulling out of the embrace and fixing him with a small, knowing smile.
“And there it is,” he says, “that ol’ post-battle come-down. Get comfy, Kid. I gotta get back to the broadcast, but you can crash right here as long as you need to.”
Kobra nods, feeling every part of his body start to ache as he lays across the cushions and rests his head on the arm of the couch. A headache threatens to spill into the center of his face where he was punched in the nose.
The sound of rollerskates across the floor makes him squint his eyes open to look at Pony as they return
“I brought you some Tylenol,” they say, “and a drink.”
Kobra makes a little noise in thanks, reaching out to take the painkillers and the drink.
It takes a moment for him to realize what it is, but once he sees the red cap and the white letters on the sleek glass bottle, he can’t help but crack a smile.
A nice, cold bottle of Red Rocket Fizz.
It hurts his ribs to laugh, and Pony gives him a look.
“What’s so funny, sweetie? You see Doc’s reflection in that bottle?”
“Hey,” Doc interjects, but Kobra waves them both off with a dismissive hand.
As he downs the painkillers and the syrupy-sweet soda, he pictures Buzzcut and his gang, wanting to brawl over a superiority complex and half a bottle of water.
If Kobra had picked up a lukewarm soda in the first place, this all could have been avoided.
But it’s best served cold, in his opinion.