Chapter 4
"Did you always have wings?" Roman asked.
Namor shook his head. "They grew in when I was fourteen."
"Will I get wings when I'm fourteen?" Roman asked. "That's..." he stopped and counted. "Seven years."
Namor shook his head. "You won't." He corrected himself. "I mean you probably won't." There'd been news reports of surface-dweller children born with strange abilities.
"That's not fair!" Roman pouted. "I want wings! Why can't I have wings?"
"Most people don't have wings," said Namor. "I'm different."
"Different how?"
"I'm a prince of the sea."
"I wanna be a prince of the sea!", said Roman.
Namor knelt down and smiled. "And a fine prince you'd be. I would take you down to the palace and teach you to ride sharks."
"I wanna shark!"
"You have your shark." Roman's toy shark, named "Shark" in High Atlantean, was one of his favorite toys.
"No, a real one! That I can ride! I wanna be a prince and ride a shark and live in the sea!"
"I am sorry," said Namor. "I cannot give you that. I would if I could."
Roman started crying.
Randall popped his head in. "Everything okay?"
"He is sad because he cannot be a prince of the sea, and ride a shark," said Namor. He spread his hands helplessly.
He had no idea what to tell Roman.
"I'll take care of it," said Randall. He picked Roman off. "Come with Grandpa for a bit."
-
"Are you like Superman?" Roman asked.
Namor laughed. "Superman isn't real. He's just from a comic book." Roman's ninth birthday was soon, and he'd developed a fondness for comic books and superhero cartoons. Nae was practicing trying to figure out how to draw Superman in cake frosting.
"You were in a comic book."
"That's right," said Namor. "But it was a long time ago."
Apparently Randall kept several of the old wartime comics. Namor had looked through a few, after he'd regained his memories.
Several things about the comics were inaccurate. And they'd put racist words into Namor's mouth. He'd hated the government of Imperial Japan, and the atrocities they'd perpetrated, and he'd unrepentantly killed Japanese soldiers, but he held no more hatred for Japanese people than for any other surface-dwellers.
Some of them were...kind.
("Half-breed?", the old woman asked, but there was no malice in it.
He'd shrugged. "I don't remember.
"Probably a half-breed. That would explain the color of your eyes." She scooped him a bowl of soup. "Here. It's not much more than boiled weeds, but that's all I have. The ration system is a mess. Stay away from cities. People will starve."
"Thank you." He took the soup, and started eating gratefully. Then he reached into his kimono, and pulled out a broad gold arm bracer.
He'd been wearing gold bracers when he'd come to in the ruins of Nagasaki, along with a small green...undergarment? He'd hidden the bracers when he scrounged the kimono. They were, he suspected, real gold, and he didn't want to fight to protect them.
The woman looked at it, then shook her head. "No, you will need it. Tomorrow, if the bomb sickness doesn't get you, then you can pay me back with work. Chop wood, catch fish, something fair."
She grinned. "If you die, tell your spirit not to haunt me for taking the gold off your corpse."
He nodded, and finished his soup.)
Besides, the comic had him saying it was "mistake of nature" that he had slanted eyes. He would never say that. The shape of his eyes was perfect.
"Superman is an alien," said Namor. "I'm from the sea."
"Like Aquaman?"
"I don't know about Aquaman," said Namor.
"He's one of the Superfriends, along with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. People think he's stupid, though. He can breathe underwater and talk to fish. Can you talk to fish?"
"Not really," said Namor. "Fish aren't intelligent enough to communicate with on that level. I can...mentally command them, to an extent." Octopuses tended to be intelligent, but were mostly loners, and if you didn't command them carefully, they would wriggle out of doing what you wanted. Sharks had a bit of personality, as did rays. Sea mammals were more intelligent, but tended to be clingy and demanding.
"Like Aquaman!" Roman's eyes went wide. "Can you teach me?"
"I don't know if your mind sends off the correct signals. It's not like speaking Atlantean." It was more...logomancy? And for logomancy, blood was often significant.
Roman gave a brief, annoyed click.
"Where did you learn that word?" Namor asked.
"You say it sometimes when you're mad."
"Don't say it in front of your mother," said Namor. If she knew Roman was swearing in deep Atlantean, she'd be furious.
"Why not?"
"It's not polite."
"Okay."
They walked a little way.
Roman looked up at Namor. "You're really strong and you can fly. Are you fast?'
Namor nodded. "Faster than a sailfish."
"A sailfish?"
"Fastest fish in the sea. But I'm faster."
"If you got shot, would bullets bounce off you?"
Namor nodded. "This has happened several times."
"Can you shoot heat rays out of your eyes? Or blow freezing breath?"
Namor shook his head.
Roman tilted his head. "So you don't have all the powers of Superman and Aquaman put together. But you're better than either of them."
"I would hope so," said Namor.
Roman took his hand. "You're my superhero, and you're the best one there is!"
-
Roman waited until he and Namor were alone on the beach before he asked, "Are you my father?"
"No."
"Could you be?" Roman looked down and scuffed the beach sand with his toe. "I know my mom loves you, and you live with us already, so you could get married, and then you'd be my father."
Namor shook his head. "That would not work. Your mother and I...we do not have the kind of love that is appropriate for marriage." Namor did not think Nae had those kinds of feelings for him, and he knew that how he felt about her would always be influenced by remembering her as the little toddler who used to run through the garden.
"It's just sometimes the other kids tease me about not having a dad. And I know, having a Namor is better than having a dad, but I can't really explain that, because no one else has a Namor."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Namor. "My father...was not around when I was a child. He and my mother were separated before I was born." Namor had heard contradictory stories about Leonard McKenzie, and was not sure of much beyond the name. But he knew that Roman's biological father was a rather unimpressive middle manager at the accounting firm where Nae had worked, who'd seduced her and then, upon learning she was pregnant, denied it ever happened. He'd started some rather cruel rumors about Nae.
(Nae had discussed it a few times, when Roman wasn't around. Namor was hoping to gather enough information to find the man and teach him a lesson. Nothing fatal. He wouldn't want to bring down trouble on the Peterson family. Just something unpleasant enough that he would know better than to lie about Nae.)
"Really?"
Namor nodded. "And the other children used to tease me. I wasn't the same color as them, so they'd call me 'pink crab'." Krada. In Atlantean, the word somehow had more of a sting.
"What did you do?" Roman asked.
Namor opened his mouth, then paused. He'd mostly gotten into fights, relying on how much stronger than he was than everyone until no one dared to tease him to his face. And he'd survived the dangers Byrrah had repeatedly lead him into due to being incredibly strong, nearly indestructible, and able to breathe air for as long as he wanted.
Perhaps this was not the wisest advice for a surface-dweller boy.
"I grew strong," he said at last. "I developed my abilities, and succeeded at many things. People grew to respect me, and the insults and petty bullying stopped. I found other, kinder people to spend time with. My cousin Namora was fun." He smiled. "I miss her."
"A girl?" Roman asked. "You played with a girl?"
"Sometimes," said Namor. "I wish I had played with her more. She was cleverer than I was, and nearly as strong, so we could have really good adventures."
Roman looked thoughtful. "But what if the mean kids won't leave you alone?"
"If you need to fight, then fight. Your mother would not approve of unnecessary fighting," said Namor. "But if you have to protect yourself, she would understand."
"What if I get beat up?"
"That is a danger of starting a fight," said Namor. "Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you win, but it hurts. It's good to remember that before starting a fight."
"Thanks." Roman looked down at his shoes again. "At school, we're supposed to make Father's Day cards. I know you're not exactly my father, but would you want it?"
Namor smiled. "That would be one of my greatest treasures."