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Girls only.
The words echoed through Roberto’s head, looping around and around, punctuated only by the memory of that sharp slam! of the door in his face. All he did was ask if they could use some company! A hand to fluff their pillows! Where was the crime in that?!
Stupid girls and their stupid sleepovers with their stupid ice cream and pillow fights and giggling and secrets and—
Sam clapped a hand onto Roberto’s shoulder and gave him a firm shake. He’d been muttering darkly under his breath for the last half hour, and honestly, it was starting to freak Sam out. “You all right?”
“Yes.” Roberto slowly raised his head, a wild look of revelation in his eyes. “Sammy-boy, we’re having a sleepover.”
*
The Best Sleepover Ever (No Girls Allowed) fell on the Friday after midterms. The girls already had one scheduled for the same evening, which aligned perfectly with Roberto’s calculated plan — now they’d see what a real party was like! But no matter how many times Roberto declared his own party’s superiority, the girls only nodded and smiled like they knew something he didn’t. It was infuriating.
Determined to throw a party that would put them to shame and have them begging to join, Roberto spent every waking moment planning the festivities. A Magnum, P.I. marathon was the obvious choice, for nothing could surpass Magnum’s wits and wiles, and once they were in a properly adventurous, macho mood, they could go run a Danger Room simulation or two with flashy cars and bikini babes. Truly, what could be better than that?
Once it was settled, Roberto even had the invites professionally printed — if feeding Warlock ink and paper could be considered professional — and slipped them under Sam and Doug’s doors. He kept one for himself, too, and laid it on his bedside table to keep his spirits high.
A fancy invite was poor compensation for Sam’s sad lot. While Roberto devoted himself to planning, responsibility for the entire affair rested on Sam’s shoulders alone. He was the one who had to nod along to all fifty-six revisions of their Magnum Marathon viewing schedule, mathematics homework be damned. He was the one who had to bribe Warlock away from a much more alluring invite to the girls’ own sleepover, knowing full well that Doug would never show up to one of Roberto’s parties without his partner as backup. He was the one who had to crumple up and swallow a page of Roberto’s R-rated Danger Room simulation scripts on the spur of the moment, only barely keeping it from their Headmaster’s prying eyes and saving them all from a world of trouble.
It was only a sleepover. Nothing could go too wrong. Sam just had to keep telling himself that.
*
When the chosen night finally arrived, the girls all disappeared through one of Illyana’s stepping discs with their arms full of snacks. Dani had chosen a more secretive location in the school for their party this time around, a preemptive strike against Roberto’s usual attempts at snooping. Sam promised them nothing would happen, but reluctantly had to admit they were all better off that way. He’d try his best to contain their own party in the living room, where Roberto and Warlock were already trying on various false mustaches.
Still, he had everything under control. Perfectly under control.
Until Doug finally slumped downstairs to join the festivities, and all hopes for a peaceful evening were dashed. Doug wasn’t wearing the shirt. The shirt . Roberto’s swanky invites had clearly dictated a very specific dress code of matching aloha shirts, but there Doug stood with a cranky frown and a plain white nightshirt.
Roberto’s eyes narrowed.
At that very moment, Magneto poked his head into the room and cleared his throat. “A word, Samuel.”
Sam ducked into the kitchen and stood at attention, grateful for the timely rescue even if it meant listening to the Headmaster list off dozens of ground rules for the evening. Only one of them was really important — the Danger Room was off limits. Thank the Lord. Even though Doug had already shot down all of Roberto’s program designs (and rejected the resulting bribes, too), it was still a relief to have the matter taken out of their hands entirely.
A crash and a harsh squeal of static interrupted Magneto’s lecture, and he glanced toward the doorway in distaste. “Well. I trust you.” His grimace said otherwise. “You’d best get back to your…” Another loud thump, the sound of bodies hitting the carpet. Magneto raised his eyebrows.
Sam scurried back to the living room and found his teammates wrestling on the floor, red-faced and long past any semblance of modesty.
“PUT ON THE SHIRT, RAMSEY.” Roberto grabbed once more for Doug’s collar, trying to rip the offending fabric straight off. “We had an agreement!”
Doug tried to throw him off with one hard shove. “You don’t control me!”
“ALOHA OR NOHA!”
“Sam, help! He’s nuts!”
Warlock echoed Doug’s plaintive cry by turning an expression of dismay in Sam’s direction, begging him to step in and preserve the harmonious friendship experience that he’d promised. The deluge of angerfrustration hitting his sensors had Warlock curled up tight like a spring, already wishing he’d taken the girls up on their invite instead.
“ALOHA OR NOHA!”
Sam knew he should intervene. Probably. (Definitely.) But the more energy they spent now, the less they’d have later. Without the girls around to put them on their best behavior, Sam didn’t have many options. Sometimes his younger brothers acted this way, too, and they always tuckered themselves out eventually. He just had to wait.
“ALOHA OR—”
“NOHA!” Warlock shrieked, frayed nerves snapping with one ear-splitting screech. He pounced on them, yanked them apart, and let Roberto dangle in the air as he checked over his selfsoulfriend for damage.
Doug played injured, whining about a hurt arm, and shot Roberto a smug look over Warlock’s shoulder.
“Lemme at ‘im!” hollered Roberto, though he was quickly silenced when Warlock gave him a good shake.
“Noha,” Warlock repeated firmly. His own aloha shirt shifted back into his torso. He gave his friends a few moments to obey his cryptic command, then went about doing it himself. Off went the shirts, button by button, so swiftly that Doug and Roberto didn’t even have time to protest before Warlock balled up the fabric and gobbled it down for safekeeping. “…Selfriendsam?”
“Ah better get it back,” Sam laughed as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it into the Technarch’s waiting mouth, like a basketball into its hoop.
The sharp spines of Warlock’s crest curled into a blinking scoreboard awarding Sam 1,000 points for the shot. He glanced around the room at their new state of undress and chirped proudly. “Wearables unity established!”
Shirtlessness wasn’t the dress code that Roberto had planned. No matter. Magnum hardly ever wore shirts either. If anything, their accuracy had only improved…though their tragic lack of chest hair was now on full display.
Fiddling with his manly mustache, Roberto considered their options for one solemn moment before crawling forward on his knees to pop the first tape into the VCR. “Prepare yourselves for the most magnificent viewing experience known to mankind—”
“Do we really have to watch Magnum again? ”
“Shut up, Doug.”
“But we watch it every time . ” Doug leaned back against Warlock for support, but instead of backing him up this time, Warlock simply started combing his tussled hair back into place. “I thought this party was supposed to be fun .”
“Like you know anything about fun,” Roberto growled under his breath.
The theme song started playing, helicopters zooming across the screen, and Roberto loudly hummed along. For a glorious moment Sam thought Doug might actually leave it at that. Then he saw Doug’s fingers inching towards the remote.
First the volume dwindled to its lowest point, so quiet that only Warlock could hear. Roberto kept humming to supply his own dramatic background music, and whenever Magnum was on screen, he filled in his own lines. His performance was so convincing that no one could tell whether he actually remembered the words or was making it up spur of the moment.
Next the volume grew louder and louder and louder until Sam tossed a pillow at Doug’s head to make him stop. They’d summon the Headmaster at that rate, which was probably the point, and Sam wasn’t having any of it. He gave Doug a stern look, jaw set tight, just the way his father always did when he caught the kids on the verge of misbehaving.
Finally the audio returned to normal. Grumbling about his boredom, Doug chucked the remote away from him and watched it bounce along the carpet.
The television blinked.
The picture skipped and fizzled into static.
The VCR hissed, popped, and let out a small burst of shiny tape.
“What a Magnumentous tragedy,” Doug whispered into the silence.
The bug-eyed look of horror that Roberto gave the television sent them all into hysterics.
Biting his fist to contain himself, Sam tried his damnedest to sound sympathetic as he asked, “Can ya fix it, Berto?”
As he stared despondently at the busted tape, Roberto let all five stages of grief wash over him at once. He rose and crossed the room, flopped back onto the couch, and turned his gaze onto the ceiling above. “You’ve ruined the marathon. Fine.”
“It wasn’t my fault! The remote couldn’t possibly have—”
“FINE,” Roberto snapped back. Suddenly filled with a frantic energy, he began digging between the couch cushions, searching for the hard-won prize he’d stashed there hours earlier. “But I am a resourceful man, Douglas, and you won’t destroy my hard work so easily!” His fingers closed around the neck of a bottle, and he raised it triumphantly above his head. “Aha!”
“Bobby! ”
Cradling the wine bottle to his chest like a precious treasure, Roberto tsked at his teammate’s shock and horror. “I told you this would be a party of exceptional standards. We are adults, experienced beyond our years, and this is merely a symbol of—”
“The heck were you thinking,” Sam shouted, storming over to snatch the bottle from Roberto’s hands. “Not on my watch!”
“Come on man,” whined Roberto, “We’re legal in Brazil!”
“No. We’re not.”
Roberto whirled toward Doug, his expression dark. “How would you know?”
“I checked. I figured you’d try to pull some stupid stunt like this someday. Guess I was right!”
"God , Doug, do you have to fucking ruin everything? ”
Meanwhile in the kitchen, Sam popped the cork and poured the whole bottle of wine down the drain. He ignored the new round of screeches emanating from the living room — mostly about the swear jar, but considering Roberto always paid his dues well in advance, Sam really didn’t want to touch that debacle. He slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Selfleaderfriendsam?”
A selfsprout had stretched after him, and it rested on the table with its head propped up on tiny elbows. As soon as Sam was paying attention, it grew teary-eyed and let its frown droop all the way off its face. “Regretful evaluation: Self unhappy with party experience.”
Sam sighed and reached out to tap at the selfsprout’s prickly head. “Ah know. It ain’t what Ah wanted either.” They couldn’t even get along for one damn night. This was exactly why they’d never had a boys’ night in the past, but that knowledge had somehow managed to escape Roberto entirely.
“Humble request for Self relocation to Chiefriendaniandfriends.”
“No, no! You’re the social glue, ‘Lock.” Sam clasped his hands together, pleading. “Ah can’t do it alone.”
“…Self = glue?”
“Stick around and you’ll be a hero.”
Everyone knew that the h-word could get Warlock to do almost anything, but that wasn’t permission for Sam to use it himself. A tiny spark of guilt flared up in Sam’s chest as the selfsprout nodded in instant understanding, gave a thumb’s up salute, and zipped back into the living room on its esteemed mission. It had worked a little too well. He’d have to make it up to Warlock somehow later.
For now, Sam dragged himself back into the living room and tossed the wine bottle into Roberto’s lap. “Fifty lousy bucks for an empty bottle. Good deal, Bobby.”
“It was a great deal,” Roberto grumbled miserably. He had one of Warlock’s hands firmly glued to his cheek, and had already given up on prying himself free.
Warlock’s other hand was of course stuck to his selfsoulfriend’s own cheek, though Doug scarcely noticed. He’d nestled back into Warlock like the alien was a bean bag chair, warm and snug and perfectly content. “Can’t do much with an empty bottle,” he teased half-heartedly.
“Yeah huh!” Suddenly the bottle held just as much power and mystery as before, and Roberto’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper as he declared, “We can spin it!”
The others exchanged a look, each urging the rest to say something.
Carefully, Doug asked, “And then what?”
“And then we…” Roberto gulped, a blush rising to his cheeks. “…There are no women at this party.”
“Y’know, if you’re that starved for affection—”
“Shut up!”
“Berto, Ah’m flattered, really, but—”
“Shut up!”
“Query: Selfriend suffering smooching deficiency?”
Roberto covered his face with his hands, flopped face-down on the couch, and groaned in despair. One of Warlock’s hands was still glued to his face, and those techno-organic fingertips started peppering tiny kisses on his cheek.
“I hate all of you,” he wailed.
The tiny kisses intensified.
*
“King me.”
Roberto flicked a checker at Doug’s forehead and tried to resist the urge to upend the board. “This is the worst party ever,” he huffed. “You’re all party poopers, you took a huge dump all over my party. I hope you’re happy.”
The only answer Doug gave him was a cheeky grin and the click, click, click of his red king hopping over Roberto’s unwisely placed checkers.
“Hey Sam, do you ever wish fun was a language?”
“Maybe if you’d planned a better party,” Doug said under his breath. A moment later the checkers board landed in his lap, pieces strewn everywhere, and with a resigned sigh he set about putting it back into its box.
Roberto snatched up a few rogue checkers and started tossing them at Sam and Warlock’s own game board. “Someone come up with something better to do before this loser suggests Scrabble again.”
Before Doug could protest, Warlock piped up with the question that had been bothering him all night. “Query: Slumberparty definition? Self comprehends oxymoronic quality. Sleepstate occurrence minimal.” He scratched at his head. “But what is purpose?”
“Fun. The purpose is fun.”
“How is this achieved?”
“Ain’t that the question,” Sam chuckled.
Falling backwards, Roberto sprawled out on the floor and rested his hands on his stomach. “Meu Deus, even Warlock thinks this party’s a total snoozefest.”
“…Snooze/Slumber fest/party?” Warlock hummed to himself, pondering the conundrum intensely.
“We could always go to bed,” Sam said. His voice was so calm and even that no one could tell if he was joking or not. “It’s been a heck of a week.”
“Blasphemy.”
“Ah’m just sayin’ it’s an option.”
“Clearly the real problem’s that none of us knows what you actually do at a sleepover,” Doug explained. “At least not when the TV’s busted.”
“I had plenty of ideas,” grumbled Roberto. He just hadn’t prepared that many backup plans…
“Wonder what the girls are up to.”
“Pillow fights.”
“That only happens in the movies, Bobby.”
“No, I’m telling you the God honest truth. They have pillow fights and dance and talk about boys.”
“That da Costa’s sooooo dreamy,” Doug squeaked in the highest pitch he could manage. “Do you seriously think that’s what they’re doing?”
“Well they’re sure as hell not talking about you! ”
For once, Doug let Roberto’s comment pass without comment. He rubbed at his chin, trying to decipher an old slumber party-related mystery. “Hey, weren’t the girls having a sleepover when Warlock turned up?”
“Yeah. We weren’t invited.”
“But what did you find to do?”
Sam glanced down at Roberto and swallowed hard. “Uhhhh.”
“…It’s too cold,” Roberto offered cryptically.
“Yeah. Too cold.”
Doug squinted at them both, searching their silence for clues. He hadn’t forgotten Sam’s sudden shirtless appearance at his window all those months ago, and—wait, he was shirtless now too. Pot, meet kettle. He pulled his knees up to chest and turned to look at Warlock for an easy out. “Hey partner, what do the tvbeings do at sleepovers?”
Scooting over to join their brainstorming circle, Warlock ran a quick survey of his mindbank and answered, “Truth/Dare!”
They hadn’t played Truth or Dare in months, not since…some debacle or another. Sam couldn’t quite remember why it had been taken off the table, but knew with every fiber of his being that it was a bad idea. Even without Illyana around to offer her typical wicked dares and ruthless truths, it wouldn’t end well.
“Ah dare ya to forget he said that,” he commanded sharply.
“Roger that.”
Roberto gave him a mock salute. “Sam, yes Sam!”
A bit of yelling aside, they’d been strangely well-behaved for the past hour. Maybe a reward was in order. Sam gathered up the game boxes and carried them back to the closet, rummaged a bit, and came back with a deck of cards.
“Poker?”
In an instant, the room’s stifling lethargy gave way to actual excitement. Warlock’s circuits flickered with curiosity, and Roberto let loose a joyous whoop, pumping his fists into the air. “Hell yeah! Now you’re talking!”
“I’ll deal,” Doug sighed. He caught the cards and started shuffling, grateful no one protested. Games like poker fell a little too close to his powers, and though his skill with body language was still a far cry from his verbal fluency, it was enough to feel like he was cheating. All the stress, without any of the benefits. Not really his idea of fun.
Roberto’s idea of fun was far more costly. He looked Sam dead in the eye, then turned an equally stern gaze on Warlock. “Real bets. High stakes.”
“…Ah’ve got about five bucks in my wallet.”
“It’ll do.”
“Concern. Self does not possess moneypaper.” Warlock raked his gaunt fingers over his face, letting them rest over his open mouth. “Self will not be successful pokist…”
Doug reached out to clasp him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy. You’re better off without a life of gambling.”
“’Lock, come on, you know you wanna play,” Roberto said. They’d finally all agreed on something, and he wasn’t about to let it fall apart so easily. “Just go grab something from Doug’s room and bet that.”
Doug opened his mouth, closed it again, and sighed. “…As long as he doesn’t bet me.”
After a quick jaunt upstairs for their betting materials, the boys all reconvened around the kitchen table. All the lights had been dimmed except for the one directly above them, a poor attempt at recreating the forbidden atmosphere of the poker games they’d seen in the movies. Roberto served their drinks in Wolverine’s personal whiskey glasses, now defiled by what he proudly presented as coke on the rocks. They reviewed the rules with Warlock just in case, then the cards hit the table and the game began.
Sam bet a nickle. The pleading look he sent Roberto resulted in a raise of only another dime. Everyone turned to Warlock, who narrowed his eyes at them over the top of his cards and didn’t move.
“…You can fold if you want,” Doug reminded him gently.
“Negative. Self will be pokist.”
With great reluctance, Warlock added his prized Godzilla action figure to the pot. His solemn resignation made the others feel like the scum of the earth. He only had three toys to his name, his only possessions in all the world, and if he was seriously betting them then the game had already gone too far.
“Here ‘Lock, you can borrow some of mine.” Sam pushed half of his change across the table, but Warlock pushed it right back.
“Self will be pokist,” he repeated, eyes glittering dangerously.
They all discarded a few cards. Doug dealt out the new ones, and silence fell over the trio as they considered their options and prepared their most unreadable faces. After the bets were in, the pot held $1.50 and a very angry lizard.
Three handsome kings revealed themselves in Roberto’s hand, and he leaned back in his chair with his arms proudly crossed behind his head. “Read ‘em and weep.”
The pair of tens in Sam’s hand were no match. He knew he should have folded when he had the chance, but Roberto’s bluffs were nearly indistinguishable from his exaggerations, so Sam had counted on a fifty/fifty chance at least.
When it was his time to show his hand, Warlock flushed brightly, lights flickering on his cheeks, and revealed five matching hearts. “Exclamation: Victory~!”
Sam and Doug broke into stunned applause.
“Beginner’s luck,” Roberto grumbled as he tossed his cards back to the dealer. It was better this way. Now that Warlock had enough change to bet without risking anything too valuable, the odds were more even. Damn shame his kings went to waste, though. “We’re just getting started.”
Round Two saw $3.00 in the pot, and every penny went to Warlock’s pile in the end.
Round Three. Pot: $10.50. Winner: Warlock.
By the time the pot climbed to thirty bucks, the game had become a spectator sport. Though Sam had long since bailed for his wallet’s sake, he wasn’t about to miss the sight of Warlock’s smile and Roberto’s squirming for anything. The Technarch’s winning streak broke here and there, bolstering Roberto’s pride and hope in equal measure, but his pile of cash continued to grow.
“Alright. That’s it. Ramsey’s fired.” Roberto reached out and snatched the cards away from him, sick of Doug’s smarmy delight over Warlock’s winnings. “Bet you’re cheating with your creepy soul link thing,” he grumbled as he made Sam start dealing instead.
It didn’t help.
A last ditch double-or-nothing bet left Roberto a hundred dollars poorer. Warlock clutched at the bills like they were trading cards, plotting what action figures would best compliment the small army he and Doug shared.
“Self told selfriends that Self would be pokist! Bestwinning pokist!” Warlock glowed with delight, and in the face of that happy sun, even Roberto couldn’t stay in his loser’s funk for long.
“Warlock. Buddy. You gotta teach me your secret!” he begged. “Is it Godzilla? Is he lucky? Do you feel the lifeglow of the cards? Secret alien card prediction powers?”
“Negative. Secret is secret even to Self.”
As Roberto continued begging Warlock to spill the beans, Sam slipped away to check on Doug, who’d been sitting by himself near the television for the past half hour. He’d managed to tease the whole tape out of the VCR without further damage, and was diligently winding the loose tape back into its case.
“Figured it’s the least I could do,” Doug explained quietly. “Since Warlock’s taking him for all he’s got, he’ll need a pick-me-up.”
“That’s mighty kind of you.”
“…I didn’t actually break it, you know. I don’t speak VCR.”
Maybe not, but he sure spoke da Costan and knew exactly which buttons to press. Sam shook his head, kept silent, and decided to take Doug’s gesture of good will as the peace offering it was. Anything to keep them from butting heads again.
Doug looked back down at the tape with a sly smile. Everyone was perfectly welcome to attribute the timely deus ex machina to him instead — he’d win the TV remote a lot more often if they thought he could make it malfunction on command. “It’s more an annoyance than anything. Don’t worry about it.”
“Ah’m not wonderin’ about the TV.”
“You haven’t figured out Warlock’s trick yet?” Doug chuckled to himself. “It’s pretty simple.”
Nobody had remembered to tell Warlock not to count cards. Combined with his innate understanding of mathematics and probability, it made him a force to reckoned with — and a cheat, too.
The last bit of tape slipped back inside the case, and Doug turned to offer it to Sam. “There, all fix—”
A pillow struck him right in the face.
“Saboteur! Unhand my Magnum!” An enraged shout sounded from behind the sofa, and then a second pillow came flying through the air.
“Hey!”
“Sam! Behind me!” Roberto motioned him over and covered Sam’s retreat with another round of pillows, this time pulled off the back of the couch itself.
Doug caught one of the couch cushions in midair, then ducked and used it to defend himself against the barrage. When the pillows finally stopped flying, he peeked over top of his shield and glowered across the room. “You want a war, da Costa? You got one.”
*
When Magneto peeked in at three in the morning to check on his young charges, he found the living room eerily silent. The girls would never let them live it down if the boys had fallen asleep already, but their secret would be safe with him. He tiptoed into the living room.
Locating the boys proved more difficult than expected. The room was littered with pillows, snatched and hoarded from every unlocked room in the mansion, strewn across the floor like the aftermath of a war zone. A long list of chores would await them in the morning, but no further punishment — suitable leniency for a prank that harmed no one.
Yet even after a thorough search, the boys were nowhere to be seen. Magneto could only conclude that they had cocooned themselves beneath the pillows, and he nudged one gently with his foot.
In an instant, a vine grabbed him by the ankle and swept him into the air like a rag doll. Magneto dangled there upside-down as dozens of long, sleek limbs emerged from the darkness, each one wielding a pillow most threateningly. A hissing shriek blared on all sides, then cracked and waned away.
Magneto sternly crossed his arms.
The shriek turned to disconsolate blubbering, but before Warlock could set him down, the missing boys tore into the room hollering a war cry. They’d decked themselves out in pillow armor, and Roberto had a cardboard spear clutched between his fists. They shut up the moment they saw just who Warlock’s trap had caught.
Warlock slowly lowered Magneto back to the ground, dropped all the pillows, and hid behind his many hands. Doug tried to duck out of sight using Sam as cover, while Sam stood bolt upright and awaited the coming lecture. They were doomed.
“Hey, Teach.” Roberto flashed a grin, utterly unapologetic. “Come to help us defeat the Pillow Kraken?”