He looked at the uniform on the mannequin in the middle of the Wolf-Den, illuminated by the glow of dozens of computer monitors. He looked at the 6-foot-2-inch man in the gray and brown costume with the clawed gloves, the wolf-like helmet-mask combo, and the fur-topped black boots.
He looked back at the new costume.
“There is no fucking way I am going to wear that,” Sparrow said.
“Please mind the language, Sparrow,” Wolfman said.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. How about ‘Holy no fucking way am I going to wear that, Wolfman’?”
“Sparrow, there is nothing wrong with…”
“That costume has no fucking pants, Wolfman! No. Damn. Pants. You want me to wear a no-sleeve tunic top with a V-neck, a pair of tight shorts and some short boots, along with a cape that kind of looks wing-like and has some tail-feather attachments at the lower back to probably call attention to my ass when I run and leap.”
“You’re kind of blowing this out of…”
“Are you a fucking pedophile, Tom?”
“What? Are you out of your mind, Danny?”
“No, seriously. Look, I get that you had a huge damn trust fund and a desire to avenge yourself on the criminal world. I get that you idolized the whole nostalgic old-style, pre-transhuman-emergence Batman and Robin meme. I get that when you decided on the whole Wolfman theme—and by the way, it was smart to pick an actual predator instead of a flying rodent like the DC people did with Batman—you wanted a Robin archetype. Great. So you adopted me at the age of 12. You trained me so that I could actually keep up with you in combat as your sidekick for these past few years, even though I’m not an Acro like you are. You had your Wolfman and Sparrow dynamic duo. But have you been wanting to get in my ass all this time?”
“Sparrow…Danny…that’s…damn! Cut that crap out. No. I’m your father. Pedophile indeed! I’ve never laid a hand on you improperly in your life, or any other child. And you’re not even a child anymore. You turned 18 six months ago, so even if I did have some psychosexual thing going, it wouldn’t be pedophilia. Where the hell is your mind at?”
“My mind is on sex 24/7, Tom. I’m a teenager who’s had to be home-schooled so I can patrol as Sparrow with the Wolfman and strike terror into the hearts of bad guys. Which means I haven’t had a date since puberty hit. I haven’t had any prom. No girls to ogle. I hardly have time to go to convenience stores to buy nudie magazines and you’ve blocked all the porn channels on the satellite TV. I am socially stunted by crime-fighting, and now my foster-parent-turned-adoptive-father is presenting me with the gayest costume I have ever seen.”
“That’s not very politically correct, Danny.”
“Holy obviousness, Wolfman! It’s not all that politically correct to beat the crap out of people without due process of law, either, now is it? It is so…gay. Seriously, what the fuck is up with that costume?”
Wolfman sighed heavily.
“Danny, part of it is nostalgia for the old-style Robin costume from the comics and the 60s television series. Part of it is distraction so that the villains are kept off-guard. Also, I had those boots custom-designed by Julian Gregori to subtly suggest bird’s feet without looking stupid. You wear pants, it ruins the whole bird-leg/bird-claw aesthetic.”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“This whole time, you’ve been rubbing the side of your nose while you’ve been explaining this. Sure sign that you’re lying. Look, I admit that the costume is a nice design. The feather motif is subtle. The touches of red in a few places to accentuate the brown, black and white elements are excellent. And the cape looks hella-cool. I even dig the boots. But I gotta wonder about a grown man as a crime-fighting mentor who wants me out showing off my legs—nice though they may be—and my ass and junk while on patrol.”
“I really need you to do this for me, Danny. C’mon, Sparrow, I need you on this. Please.”
“You’ve been happy to have me in pants this many years, so I need more than that by way of explanation. Otherwise you’re gonna have to add a chastity belt to your costume, and I’m gonna want a serious lock on my bedroom door.”
“Blast it, Danny!” Wolfman huffed. “Look,” he said in a conspiratorial little whisper, “I’ll tell you, but this cannot get out. I mean it. You have got to keep it to yourself. For-damn-ever. Well, at least for the next few years.”
Sparrow looked at him hard for a few moments, then shrugged. “OK. Deal. Give it up.”
“Wolfgirl,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Wolfgirl. She wants you in that costume. She’s…she’s got exotic interests.”
“How would you know?”
“I hacked her computer once. You would not believe the stuff she had on there. And I thought the pile of porn I found and trashed from your room a year or so back was mind-boggling.”
“I don’t get it,” Sparrow said.
“Of course you don’t. That comes from having that socially stunted upbringing, son,” Wolfman said. “She’s got a thing for you, and now you’re legal. I mean, Wolfgirl hasn’t really been a ‘girl’ for two years now. But you cannot let on. She really wants to ogle you for a while and do a really elaborate seduction thing. She’s got some baggage, Danny. Nothing sick, but she’s got just a touch of crazy going on. She’s got some massive roleplay fetish, among other things.”
“Um…I might be able to deal with that. She has the hots for me? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never seen her without her mask. Have you?” Sparrow asked. “I mean, her body’s tight; no doubt.”
“Did some surveillance on her once when I figured out where she lived. Not beautiful, but a solid 7 on a 1-to-10 scale,” Wolfman said. “Look, are you in or out?”
“OK, now I get the ‘why’ about the costume showing off my man-parts, but why are you going along with her on this? She have photos of you or something?” Sparrow asked.
“Stock market,” Wolfman said.
“You lost me again, man.”
“We took a serious hit in the stock market. Wolfgirl’s rich from the money her late daddy made while in the Mob. She invested wiser than I did, and kept a lot of cash in hidey holes. She’s underwriting our crime-fighting, and probably will be for the next two or three years while I dig out from our financial hole. Her equity investment in Wolfman and Sparrow comes with a proviso: You wear her boy-toy costume there—and you absolutely cannot let on that you know what she’s up to, or that I let you in on it.”
“Wolfgirl’s honestly not a dog, though? No pun intended.”
“She’s cute. I swear on my grandmother’s grave.”
“The one who died of cancer, or the once murdered by a Mafia enforcer?”
“The latter, Danny. Or both if it will convince you.”
“Hmmmm.”
“What do you think, Sparrow my boy?”
“All I can think of is Wolfgirl laid out on top of that fur-trimmed cape of hers in front of the fireplace in the great room of the mansion, wearing nothing but her bulletproof bustier. Is her rack really as big as the costume suggests? Or is that just padding?”
“Now why would my surveillance get that personal…”
“C’mon, Tom.”
“Yeah,” Wolfman said, and his neck flushed red with embarrassment. “No false advertising there. She’s a natural blonde, too, by the way.”
“Holy young adulthood, Wolfman. I’m in. If it gets me laid on the regular, I’m so holy-fucking-yeah in.”