Poem: "The Family Business"

This is the freebie for today's session.  It was inspired by a prompt from rix_scaedu.  It also fills the "childhood romance" square on my 10-6-13 card for the Origfic Bingo fest.  This poem belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.

It's not easy being
the only one in your family
without superpowers.

It's not easy growing up
when your father can
literally read your mind,
when your mother can
still pick you up with one hand,
when your brothers and sister
all have powers of their own.

You learn to keep up anyway,
any way you can.
You figure out other ways
to do what they do.

You lift weights and wrestle
to compete against your oldest brother
who inherited your mother's strength.
You can't outrun your middle brother,
but he's a track star, not a star student,
so you beat him with speed-reading.
You make your mind a fortress
that not even your older sister can breach.

You watch them go into the family business,
one by one, following your parents
your uncles and aunts, and especially
your superhero grandfather
and supervillain grandmother
who started the whole shebang.

They tell you to stick to your books,
because you're a good student,
because they don't expect you
to be able to follow them.

There's a girl across the alley
that you've been eyeing since you were six,
daughter of your grandmother's youngest ally,
and you don't care that she's full of mischief,
you're still sweet on her.

Sometimes she turns her siren voice on you,
but you just smile and brush it off
the same as you do your sister's wiles.
Just because your heart is already set
doesn't mean it's free for the taking --
you expect to get together the old-fashioned way,
with flowers instead of superpowers.

When you turn eighteen,
you put on the damn mask
and join the family business anyway.

You don't need powers
to keep up with them.
You never have.

You'll show them all.

* * *
Notes:

Riposte (Jacob "Coby" Wade) -- Coby has fair skin, light brown hair, and blue eyes.  He is average height with considerable muscle.  He grew up in a family of superheroes but never developed powers himself.  His mother is a strongwoman and his father is a telepath; his oldest brother has super-strength, middle brother has super-speed, and his older sister has telepathy.  Coby's fashion sense is such that he can put together the wildest outfit and still look good in it instead of ridiculous.  He wore a glass-green smoking jacket to his senior prom and had girls hanging all over him.  His specialty is fighting supervillains with telepathic, empathic, or other abilities that allow them to manipulate people.  He is still touchy about lacking real powers, though.
Origin: Coby is the youngest of four children in a super family, and the only one without powers.  So he pushed his ordinary abilities until he could compete on a super scale, finding ways to accomplish the same things.
Uniform: Colorful and expressive, the details change but the flair remains similar.  Riposte likes poet shirts, fancy coats, and hats.  The most common color is yellow-green contrasted with blue-violet and red-violet.  He wears a tricolor half-mask.
Qualities: Master (+6) Armor of Iron Will, Expert (+4) More Than One Way to Skin a Cat, Expert (+4) Soup Culture, Expert (+4) Family Connections, Expert (+4) Strong, Expert (+4) Tough, Good (+2) College Student, Good (+2) Deduction, Good (+2) Speed-reading, Good (+2) Unusual Fashion Sense, Good (+2) Wrestler
Poor (-2) I Can TOO Keep Up With You!
Powers: None.

Ligeia (Lily Acquarone) -- She has long straight black hair, black eyes, and olive skin.
Powers: Expert (+4) Siren Song, Average (0) Flight, Average (0) Water Powers

* * *
A color wheel shows the relationship between complementary or contrasting colors.

This is one example of a tricolor half-mask.

Sirens are mythical creatures associated with the sea, music, seduction, and danger.  Ligeia is among the traditional names.