Birthday

"Say, Kidd, when's yahr birthday?" Bluegrass asked out of the blue one day.

Kidd looked up from where he'd been tinkering with his rocket skates. "•Hv'nt pik'd wnn•" he told him.

Doing the math between three different planets, two species, and like four calenders wasn't exactly easy, okay? Not even for a math prodigy like him. So all of the Hawks tended to just more-or-less randomly decide on new birthdays after they arrived in Limbo.

All of them had gone through their birthdays already. Stargazer had forgotten about his until the Steel twins set up a long-range communicator so he could talk with his Earth buddies. Quicksilver had obligingly accepted a small cake and a song on his, but didn't seem to make a big deal out of it. The twins had mysteriously disappeared on theirs, and no-one was entirely sure what they did but they know it involved at least one explosion and they were both grinning when they finally returned. Bluegrass had somehow managed to pull together an entire rodeo-themed birthday with fireworks, because of course he did.

They were approaching the end of their first Limbo year, now. And Kidd still hadn't celebrated.

"Really, Kiddo?" Bluegrass sounded baffled. "Hell, ah thought yah would've been roarin' to celebrate. I'm still surprised yah didn' pick one right at tha beginnin' o' tha year."

Kidd shrugged. Stared at Bluegrass in an awkward silence for a minute. Turned back to his tinkering.

It wasn't that he was putting off celebrating his birthday, exactly. He just...

Was putting off celebrating his birthday.

This would be his first one away from his family.

That shouldn't have meant much to him. Each of their birthdays had already come and gone, he'd read about it in their letters. It shouldn't have meant much to him. His family was mostly deep space explorers and researchers anyways, they were spread out quite far. Most of his interactions with most of them had already been letters and video calls years before he left.

But it would be his first birthday away from them. Away from all of his people. And he couldn't sing properly anymore, anyways, not that he had any Mimes to sing with in the first place. And he'd never really done much on his birthdays before, so...

So.

So he didn't want to celebrate, was all.

It wasn't that big of a deal. His official age would be updated end-of-year. It wouldn't really affect anything.

So it didn't matter. And he didn't need to celebrate.

So he wouldn't.

It didn't matter.

"Hey, little lady," Bluegrass greeted, tipping his hat as he entered the twins' lab.

"Hey, Tex." Steelheart waved absently, distracted with trying to force a jagged metal piece into shape. The Colonel wasn't entirely sure what she was working on, but it looked like it might be a new thingamajig for the Mirage, so that was exciting. He waited patiently for her to finish and turn to him. "Need something?"

"What? Can't a fella just wanna give a purty lady a call?" Bluegrass asked, grinning at her. He chuckled at the look she gave him. "Alright. Ah'm here about tha Kidd."

"What about him?" Steelheart asked, moving to wipe off her hands with an oil-stained rag. Bluegrass would never understand mechanics, he thought.

"It's just..." He didn't quite know how to put this next bit. He moved his hands about a little awkwardly, searching for the words to put his thoughts into. "Have yah noticed 'im actin' a little off, when he's a'tinkerin' down here with yah an' Will?"

"Not really, no." Steelheart's brow creased in concern. "Did something happen?"

"Not exactly." Bluegrass shook his head, frustrated. "Ah've been tryin' tah read through that cultural packet thing they gave us, tha one about Mimes? Never got 'round to it when ah was busy learnin' tha Mirage inside an' out. Anyways, it says they have birthdays like we do– well, not exactly like we do, but that's not tha point."

"What is the point, then, Hayseed?" Steelheart asked, lips quirked up in amusement at his rambling.

Bluegrass rolled his eyes. He was well aware that the others thought his attachment to the Copper Kidd was 'cute', but dang it, the little guy really was just a kid. He needed someone looking out for him — could Bluegrass help it if he had ended up as that someone?

"Ah think Kidd's tryin' tah avoid havin' a birthday fer some reason, an' ah can't figure out why," Bluegrass explained. "Far as ah can tell, there's nothin' 'bout tha way his kind celebrate that'd be hard fer us tah pull off. They eat nice food, they sing a little, do something fun together... Ah don' get why he wouldn' be hoppin' eager tah choose a birthday fer himself. He liked each o' ours well enough."

"Have you tried asking him?" Steelheart asked, leaning her forearms against a metal worktable and quirking a brow at him.

"Sorta? Not really," Bluegrass admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. He sighed. "He jus' doesn't seem tah wanna talk 'bout it. Ah'm almost thinkin' of pullin' off a surprise party fer him, but ah don't know. There might be more tah this than ah know, after all. Ah don't wanna rush inta it an' risk hurtin' 'im somehow."

Steelheart hummed in consideration, thinking deeply about the situation. Between her and Bluegrass, they were almost certain to figure out the problem given enough time.

Unfortunately, Stronghold heard everything. And while just as fond of the Kidd as everyone else was, she wasn't nearly as patient as they were. She took off and swooped out of the lab as stealthily as she could, unnoticed as she thought up a plan of her own.

Mayday was easy to find, and even easier to tackle. He squawked in outrage, wings uselessly flapping beneath her talons, before going limp in defeat. He was a Fighting Hawk, sure, but he was more of a recon model than most of them — he couldn't beat her in a pure strength struggle unless he used his Sonic abilities, and he wouldn't risk hurting her like that unless she tried to actually hurt him first.

Still, he glared at her in a most Displeased manner, screeching a few times for good measure.

Stronghold opened a communication channel between them. Everyone knew that Kidd used Mayday as his emotional support bird, chances were he'd told him about whatever was going on with him; the perfect information source, really.

[Stronghold]: May, why doesn't your user want to have a birthday?

[Mayday]: How dare you think I would just betray my user's confidence like that, Strong.

[Stronghold]: I guess I'll have to go to extreme measures, then. I had hoped I wouldn't have to do this.

[Mayday]: What? Do what?! Stronghold, let go of me–

[Stronghold]: I will orchestrate a situation where you are left unsupervised in the lab for an extended period of time, if you tell me.

[Mayday]: ...

[Mayday]: So it all started when my user got to thinking about his damaged voicebox, again, right around one of the early mail calls...

"It's homesickness?" the SilverHawks — sans the Copper Kidd — said in unison, looking at the Fighting Hawks Private Communication Network transcript on the screen in front of them. Stronghold squawked in confirmation, nodding, while Mayday sulked and shifted guiltily next to her.

"An' seems like he's more torn up 'bout that buggy voice box o' his than he's been lettin' on, too," Bluegrass added, reading through the conversation again. "Dang it. This may be bigger'n ah thought."

"Hard as it's been getting used to Limbo," Quicksilver mused, looking around at his fellow Hawks, "at least we still have other humans around."

"He's the only Mime for light-years," Steelwill said the part that Quicksilver had left unspoken. "That's... not really something we can fix, though."

"And we've already done the best we can for his voicebox." Steelheart sighed. "I can't see how we can solve this."

"We can't," Stargazer grunted. His camera eye whizzed, zooming in and out in irritation. "Some things don't get fixed. Some things don't change. Some things just suck and stay that way. My life would've gone down the crapper a long time ago if I'd let that stop me, though." He straightened, some internal decision made, and activated the comms. "Kidd, get down to the lab. We've got to talk."

"•Ntt bii'g d'lll•" Kidd insisted, not meeting any of their eyes. He didn't know why they were confronting him with these things after they'd apparently tricked Mayday into tattling on him. Facts were facts. He had learned to live with his messed-up voice and the lack of interaction with his own species. He knew more-or-less what he was getting into when he signed up, and even if the price had ended up a little higher than he'd expected, it was still well worth it.

He was in another solar system. He got to have adventures and help people and meet new species and–

Oh Hell (as Bluegrass would say), all of this would be worth so much worse than some metal in his throat and a bit of homesickness. It really wasn't that big of a deal.

So why was everyone staring at him with such open concern? Even Stargazer was barely hiding behind his usual gruff exterior.

Mayday landed on Kidd's shoulder, nuzzling his cheek. He let out a soft, apologetic skwa. Kidd patted his head, letting him know he forgave him. He sighed, the sound made buzzing by his artificial voicebox — and that, of all things, was what caused him to tear up.

"•I ly'k ths ly'ff•" he explained. "•B't iit's a b'itt hrrrd, summ'tymz•"

"Ah know, Kiddo," Bluegrass told him, smiling gently. "It's hard fer all o' us, though ah guess we weren't thinkin' tha toll it must've taken on yah. There's a real reason we didn't want tah have a kid wit' us, an' ah think we forgot that."

Kidd bristled. He thought they were past this, already. Yes, he was a bit younger than his people typically allowed to volunteer for things like this (not that anything was really like this, of course). But the science council had deemed him an exception, and his clan had signed off on it, and he did not spend years proving himself just to still be told–

Bluegrass put a hand on his shoulder, breaking Kidd out of his mental tirade. "Ah ain't sayin' yah don't belong here, Kidd."

"None of us are saying that," Quicksilver told him, stepping forward. "We're just realizing that some things are going to affect you more than the rest of us. And that's okay."

"You're allowed to be young, Kidd," Steelheart told him.

"Even when you're being brilliant or tough," Steelwill added.

"But what's not okay," Stargazer continued roughly, his tone angier than Kidd thought he probably meant it to be, "is you not dealing with that. Some things aren't great, Kidd. And if you keep pretending you're fine with it, you're never gonna move on. Take it from somebody with a few centuries under his belt — have a good cry, pick a damn birthday, and try to focus on what's going right without pushing down everything that's going wrong. Got it?"

Kidd looked at the people standing around him. His team. His friends.He smiled, sticking his thumb against the inside of his cheek to chirp, "•Gtt iit•".

Kidd couldn't sing. But, as it turned out, he wasn't too bad at playing. Bluegrass got him his very own instrument, some Limbo thing with a keyboard and too many openings that resembled deformed trumpets, and Kidd took to it like a regular Mime took to chirping.

Painting was still a new hobby of his, and he didn't have much of an eye for colors, but the Steel twins assured him that the ones he'd chosen to paint his room with were beautiful. He covered his walls in swirls and dots like the ones that covered most of the buildings back on his home, able to appreciate the patterns a lot better than he could the colors, and hoped the shapes brought the colors out well.

Stargazer very much regretted giving Kidd actual permission to skate freely around HawkHaven. What he regretted more was taking Quicksilver's suggestion to distract him by letting him try running the control room for an hour. They all regretted that one, actually.

Mimes usually ate their favorite food on their birthday. The SilverHawks gathered a bunch of native Limbo food that Kidd couldn't recognize. He grinned when he saw it; Kidd didn't actually have a favorite food, he liked trying new tastes more than old ones. And they knew that.

Of course they did. They were his team, his friends, and they cared about him. And he still wished that his family could be there, but he got a bunch of photos to send them on the next mail day, which was almost as good.

Okay, it wasn't almost as good. It was kind of terrible, actually. But that was okay. Because some things in life aren't all that great. You don't need to ignore the bad things to enjoy the good.

So Kidd let himself freak out, a little. He let himself think about how much he missed his voice, his family, his people. He let himself think that, he breathed, and he moved on with his birthday.

Because even with all the bad, his life was pretty great. He wouldn't give it up for the world.

And not for all the worlds in Limbo, either.