Chapter Text
Once again, Grunkle Ford had done something in the past that had made people angry and now Mabel was having to get them out of a tight spot. What would he do without her?
This would take some thinking.
The planet they had appeared on was kind of like Earth. It was a little more advanced, and there were a few things Mabel saw every now and then that made her go whaaaat? but on the whole, it was pretty similar. Moreover, everyone she had seen so far was human.
As a matter of fact, everyone she had seen so far was also a police officer. She wasn’t really liking any of them.
They’d arrested Ford and taken him to a holding cell immediately upon arriving at this building. Mabel had been escorted to some sort of break room with a lock on the door. They hadn’t put any handcuffs on her, but until the officer in charge of her had locked the door, he had maintained a tight grip on her shoulder. Now, she was sitting in an admittedly comfy chair at a table near a wall. There were a few cheerful mugs in a cupboard above it, a sink near the back of the room, and some sort of fancy-schmancy microwave looking thing plugged into the wall at her end of the table. She was already eyeing it for possible use as a weapon. It looked pretty hefty.
For some reason, they hadn’t searched her, so she still had her grappling hook. The microwave could still be useful though. She was beginning to like the idea of how she might be able to describe her escape to her uncle later.
“Mabel? Are you listening?”
Oops.
She focused back on the lawyer guy who had come in soon after her.
“Yes!” She said brightly.
The lawyer looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t think you were,”
“Well I was,”
“Could you tell me why I’m talking to you, then?”
Mabel was starting to dislike him more and more. What was she, five?
“Weeeeell, I may not have caught that last bit, but I think you did say something about how-” she made a mock-serious face and deepened her voice – “‘Stanford Pines does not provide an appropriately nurturing and safe environment for a nice young lady such as myself to live in’,”
The lawyer guy frowned a bit at that. “Yes. And as he has committed felonies in multiple dimensions before finally being arrested in this one, where he will be convicted and sent to jail very shortly-” Mabel wasn’t inclined to believe him – “it is my job to find some new people to take care of you,”
Mabel’s stomach dropped.
Oh. That’s why I stopped listening to him.
Mabel put her elbow on the table and tried to adopt a cocky expression like she had seen on Grunkle Stan’s face whenever he’d tried to talk his way out of something with the cops.
“I bet your job would be a lot easier if you just let my grunkle go. I mean, think about it! You wouldn’t have to do any boring paperwork, you wouldn’t have to find people to take me, yadda yadda. Hey! Maybe you should just let me go to prison as well!”
The lawyer did not seem convinced. Dang it.
“Mabel, you do know you can’t take care of yourself, don’t you?” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken.
Mabel frowned in disagreement.
“Your guardian is going to prison-”
“Well, I mean, hopefully he’s not going to be there for very long,” muttered Mabel.
“-and quite frankly, your living situation up until now-”
“-was pretty safe and nurturing until you and your police friends showed up,” she finished as politely as possible.
The lawyer looked a little annoyed at that.
Suddenly, sirens started wailing through the complex. The police officers who had been supervising looked concerned and hurried out into the hallway, the door locking again with a click behind them.
Well. If there was one thing Mabel knew, it was how to seize the moment!
(Or the microwave!)
She yanked the box out of the wall and threw it as hard as she could at the lock.
How to carpe that day!
She’d been getting stronger since she’d come through the first portal from Gravity Falls, and it was worth it. Near the handle, the door sparked and sizzled, and then simply swung open.
How to diem the heck out of an opportunity!
Leaping up from the table amidst a surprised cry from the lawyer about how nice young ladies shouldn’t do that, she sprinted out into the corridor, the sound of alarms letting her know that Ford had most likely made his escape. Later, they’d probably ride off into the sunset on the back of whatever the equivalent of a horse was in this dimension.
⃝
Ford was about ready to kick the door down when the alarms started blaring, magnetic sealing be damned. He did not know why they had started up, and he did not care. All that mattered was getting out and getting Mabel back, because he had been waiting, stomach churning at the thought of her being taken to child services or the equivalent, for far too long. She had already lost too much to be dragged away from the people who loved her yet again. And so had he.
That was not going to happen. Neither he nor Mabel would let it.
The sirens most likely meant that she had already escaped. The thought made him happy; there was nothing that could contain that girl.
A click and a beep from the door signalled that it was opening.
“Alright, let’s go. Until we get this sorted out I’m taking you to a more secure location,” said the officer who came through.
Ford disagreed.
⃝
Mabel’s grappling hook thudded into the ceiling, swinging her neatly over a troop of – fairly incompetent, she was starting to think – police officers. She dropped and rolled as she hit the ground behind them, taking off running before they realised what had happened.
She wasn’t even out of breath yet, she realised with a wild grin. Not only that, but she wasn’t afraid either. She had been in far scarier situations over the past several months, and these guards weren’t even using lethal weapons. The most she had to do was keep moving, keep her wits about her, and keep looking for her uncle.
She wished there was a sign or something that pointed the way to the holding cells.
“How the hell can you have failed to capture a thirteen-year-old girl?!” She heard an angry voice demand from a hallway up ahead. “What do you mean she had a grappling hook?! Okay, just, shut up, we have bigger problems to worry about-”
A crackle from a radio. “Sir! Sir, it’s Pines, he’s gone! It must be a jailbreak, there’s a whole crowd of them running around looking for the others we arrested!”
“Are you kidding me?”
A jailbreak? That was weird. Had someone helped Ford escape?
She could puzzle about that later. Right now, there was a stairwell at the end of the corridor with her name on it. The only reason she wasn’t hurtling towards it right now was because the police officer in the adjoining hallway might see her if she did.
What would Dipper do?
Well, he’d probably be smart about it. Alright, so how could she be smart about it? She could . . . cause some distraction to lead him away, and then make a break for it! Mabel grinned until she realised she had nothing to cause a distraction with. Okay then. She could wait and see if the police officer would leave by himself! But that was pretty risky. He could come back her way, and then he’d see her and be blocking her escape.
Fine then.
The Mabel way it was.
She took a deep breath and stepped right up to the edge of the hallway, readying herself to fly past it towards the stairs as quick as possible. Who knew? He might not see her at all. She could just be that good. Yeah. She probably was.
Mabel made her first step at the exact same time the officer came around the corridor.
⃝
It had barely taken two minutes for Ford to reclaim his gear. He ran through the building, doing his best to avoid squads of officers.
The alarms cut off, and he heard shouting up ahead, like orders being given. They were harsh, impatient, and very different to the way he had heard the police here speak to each other.
He tightened his grip on his gun and moved cautiously forward, nearing one of the wider main corridors.
It sounded like the people were travelling away, spreading out to search the place. Ford waited a beat, then stepped around the corner. There was one person remaining, back facing him, checking over the weapon in his hands. Ford heard him grumble and mutter something unflattering about the people who had left him a stun gun of all things.
That makes things easier, Ford mused.
He shook out his wrist for a moment, then stepped up to him, considering the amount of pressure he would need to apply for a choke-hold. He must have made a miniscule sound.
The man whipped around gun raised, Ford exacting the movement barely a millisecond behind, fully intending to fire an incapacitating shot that would ensure he could get away, but then –
- then they saw each other’s faces.
“Holy shit,” the other man breathed. Ford stared in shock.
He had been an interdimensional traveller for thirty years. It was unlikely, but not impossible, that he would encounter other versions of himself in that time.
He wished this was one of those times.
“Ford?” Stan asked.
There was silence, stillness, not even disturbed by breathing.
Ford fired.
So did Stan.
The bolts collided in mid-air, showering the hallway with blue sparks, flashing into blinding non-existence.
What the hell were the odds of that happening?
Ford shifted his aim from his brother’s – no, not his brother’s, NOT his brother’s – shoulder to his thigh, which would probably cause more damage, but if Stan wasn’t alone here then he would fine, he could get help easil-
Stan had targeted his forehead. Ford froze.
“Jeez, it’s always shoot first, ask questions later with you, isn’t it?” Stan snorted.
It was only a stun gun, but regardless, a shot to the head would knock him out for several hours and he could not afford that, not when he needed to find Mabel. He doubted even Addi could recover quickly fro-
He wrenched himself out of his thoughts.
Stall.
“You shot at the same time as me,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I asked a question first,”
Ford restrained himself from rolling his eyes with difficulty. It did not seem to fool Stan, who grinned.
“So what are you doing here, bro?”
“You’re not my brother,”
Stan’s face did not move an inch away from that easy expression. It did not move at all.
“So what are you doing here, not-bro?” he said.
“Escaping,” said Ford through gritted teeth, furiously trying to think of a way to get out of the situation.
“What a coincidence. You’re heading the wrong way though.” Ford knew his expression gave nothing away, he knew it. Stan drew the right conclusion anyway. “You looking for someone? Bet I could help,”
“No,” Ford said instantly.
“You sure? I got some buddies that could make the job a lot easier than just you by yourself.” When Ford continued to glare at him resolutely, Stan shrugged. “Alright, fine. I guess that’s how you prefer things, isn’t it? Alone?”
Stan was still grinning comfortably, but now there was something sharper in the gleam of his eye. Ford said nothing, tensing more with every passing moment.
“Well, if there’s no one you wanna pick up, let’s go,” Stan said finally.
“What?”
“I got some buddies to slip away from and the price on your head is getting bigger every day, so let’s move it, nerd.” He jerked his head sideways, at the corridor Ford had just come from.
“You’re a bounty hunter,” Ford realised, unsure why he was surprised. Fear spread coldly through him.
Bill Cipher set those wanted posters you’re not safe he’s working for him –
“No idea what you mean,”
“You’re not taking me anywhere!”
“Hope is nice, but after a while it’s just a delusion. Now hurry up, someone’s gonna be here soon,”
Ford fingered his trigger warningly. “Move out of my way or you’re down a leg,”
“Ehhh,” Stan said doubtfully, “I don’t think so. I’d still be able to walk, and you would be unconscious before you got to see what happened next. Face it, Ford: you either turn around and start walking, or you shoot me, I shoot you, and then I drag you out.”
Ford readied himself to spring out the way, hand tightening on the gun’s grip. He was not leaving.
Stan cocked his head a little, eyes flicking back to the junction of halls. Ford heard it too.
Footsteps, light and fast. More, following, heavier and faster. Wordlessly, both men swung their weapons around to the new threat, putting their own quandary on hold temporarily.
⃝
The officer looked down in surprise as he bumped into Mabel. Then his eyes widened, and he tried to grab her.
Mabel dodged with a yelp, twisting out of reach. The movement sacrificed her balance however, and she had to take a second to regain her footing before trying to sprint away. Her boots squeaked on the floor, but a hand was grabbing her coat and hauling her backwards.
A surge of cold adrenaline poured into her veins like ice water. She lashed out but her wrist was caught in a tight grip. A wordless yell erupted from her, and she wrenched her grappling hook hand up so fast she could feel the G-force. Pulling the trigger, the disc clanged into the stairwell door so hard that it swung open, and almost at the same time Mabel was clicking the trigger again, and then she was ripped out of the grip of whoever had her, arm yanking painfully, her feet flying off the floor as she shot –
- towards a wall.
Lights burst into being behind her eyes and it was a few seconds before she realised she was on her hands and knees, her shoulder and neck aching, her head splitting. She couldn’t see through tears in her eyes and she dimly heard the door close with a sound that seemed far too soft compared to the ringing in her very being.
What was happening, again?
She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, not even able to breathe through the pain. There was a roaring in her ears.
What was she...?
The lights in her head dimmed a little. She drew in a quick breath, testing the waters. The sensation didn’t overload her, like everything else was. She took another, and another, getting back under control, the pain in her head lessening from a continuous pressure on her brain until it was only throbbing with every beat of her heart.
There was another thudding sound. Footsteps. Beyond the door.
She opened her eyes.
That was important. Seeing was good, she needed to see, she needed to be on the lookout because she – she was running from some people, people who wanted to take her away.
Her grappling hook was by her hand, ready to fire again if needed. Mabel raised her head a little.
What was she doing, again?
Go NOW.
Something made her clutch at the gun and stumble to her feet, a blurry and muddled wash of urgency that compelled her to move no matter what. There were steps under her feet, her boots meeting them one after the other, faster and faster. She didn’t know how she wasn’t falling over.
Mabel’s knees almost buckled when suddenly there wasn’t another step to go down. She trailed her free hand on the wall, using it as a slight brace, and forced herself to keep heading forwards. Where was she going? She wished Dipper was with her. He’d know what was going on.
She pushed through another swinging door. Was there someone behind her? She was so sore. Where was Grunkle Ford? He’d know what was going on. Why wasn’t he . . . there was a word, on the tip of her tongue. Super-something. Well, he was definitely super-great. He knew every single thing ever, and he was especially good at helping the pain go away. Where was he? He should be, like, supervising her.
There were definitely footsteps behind her. They were getting closer.
Nonononno. That was bad, that was really bad, and she couldn’t move any faster. Where was her uncle, she wanted her uncles so badly, and they weren’t here . . .
She was shaking and gasping and she fumbled at a door handle and shouldered it open. She felt like she might be able to run.
I mean, I definitely feel like I should be running, so that’s kind of the same thing.
She picked up her pace, noticing this hall was a lot wider. Her head was thumping and hurting even more, and she heard a shout behind her. She went faster, now almost at a full run. Her eyes and nose were starting to hurt. What the heck?
“Why, body . . .” she moaned, her voice sounding too loud in her ears. There was something wet on her collar and neck, and a tickle near her ear.
There was another large hallway, intersecting up ahead. If she could just get to that, she would be safe. She didn’t know how she knew, but she would be.
Something tinged off the wall to her left, and she veered to the right, seeing the glint of metal, like a flash, like a laser, like it had sizzled right by her, like there was a control panel up ahead she needed to stab with a sword and the security guard behind her was gaining and she –
- swung herself around the corner, didn’t jump, didn’t stab, because that wasn’t where she was anymore, that was in the past, and there wasn’t anything she could have done –
- and she stopped, gasping for breath and ready to collapse, but she wasn’t scared any more. She’d made it. And there were her uncles.
Another ting, and something pricked her leg.
⃝
Mabel appeared around the corner, out of breath.
Ford flinched, vigorously jerking the barrel away from her. Stan’s response was more measured: he raised an eyebrow at Mabel and glanced briefly at Ford, but other than that did not change his stance. Ford was tempted to tackle him to get him to stop aiming at her, but something more important drew his attention.
Mabel was bleeding.
From a head wound.
The red was in her hair, on her collar, a small trickle down her jaw. All of a sudden it was like she was caught in a time-field, every detail becoming apparent to him as it all slowed: her deep breaths, the forward sway of her hair as she stopped.
The wound would have been rather horrifying if he had not been fairly accustomed to seeing and experiencing similar things. Head injuries always appeared as though they bled much more than they should, so whatever it looked like, it was not as grievous as it seemed. He knew how to treat it, and he had seen Mabel bleed far more. In fact, by comparison to some things, the amount was barely a splash! She was going to be fine. In addition, he doubted he had ever known her to not have scrapes and bruises on her person from some adventure or other. Mabel was someone at whom injury looked at, sighed, and exasperatedly visited daily, and as a result she had a toughness and a determination that rivalled even the Pinesiest of Pineses.
He still itched to hug her close and not let go for an unreasonable amount of time.
Ford processed all this in barely a second before one more thing caught his attention.
She was unsteady, her eyes unfocused and vacant. She did not look confused in the least to find Ford side by side with Stan of all people, not to mention at all worried about the gun still being held on her.
Oh shit. Does she have a concussion?
Ford instantly rejected his initial thought about it not being serious and felt his heart start to race. Was there swelling? How long had she been hurt? Where exactly was the trauma?
How the hell did this happen?
Like some higher power had heard his question, time sped up again. Another person appeared around the corner, wearing the uniform of a police officer and mid- angry shout for Mabel to stop.
Ford’s gun came up, flashing with blue light and a pulse of sound and the officer dropped, gasping, clutching his shoulder. Ford did not feel much remorse.
“Are you alright?” he asked, mustering up a smile for Mabel, who smiled back. She was safe. He would take a look at her injury, she would tell him an exciting and probably embellished story about how she got it, and everything would be absolutely fine.
Mabel opened her mouth to reply. Behind her, the officer’s arm moved.
Ting.
“Oh,” Mabel said dazedly, looking at her leg. Like it was magnetically attached, Ford’s gaze followed. A small metal dart was embedded innocently through the thigh of her pants.
“Woooo, that feels weird,” Mabel grinned at him again, swaying with even more emphasis than before.
“You didn’t,” Ford said to the officer in disbelief. The man had just enough time to look afraid, but before Ford could even begin to stride forwards, he was nailed in the face with a jet of light, rocked, and then went motionless.
Oh, yes. Him.
Ford spared a glare at Stan, got one back, and then returned his attention to Mabel.
⃝
“Mabel sweetheart, I need you to look at me,” Ford urged.
If Stan was surprised at the appearance of a random kid on the scene (which was already pretty unexpected), that was nothing to how he felt when he heard that all hostility had completely vanished from Ford’s voice, leaving only a forced sort of calm and authoritative tinge that told him quite plainly his brother was freaking out. And then that was nothing to the way this kid (this tiny, drugged, injured, probably concussed, somehow not scared kid) giggled as though Ford was being silly, and turned to Stan.
His surprise reached new heights at the way she was looking at him. He’d never thought the word beaming could ever so accurately describe the way a person’s face might light up. The sheer joy there was like he was her hero. Like he’d hung the stars in the sky for her or something just as amazing. It was like she loved him.
So yeah, all in all, this day was turning out pretty strangely.
The girl stumbled toward him, legs shakier by the second. Stan definitely did not envy how she was going to feel in a few hours' time. She looked up at him, her eyes struggling to focus, and took a breath to say something. It must’ve been important, going from the amount of effort she had to expend to keep her eyes open. Stan found himself leaning in to hear better.
“Ya beard’s funny, Gunk Stan.” She slurred. “S’Like you’ve gotta face on y’r cloud,”
Then she passed out.
Okay. Stan liked her.
He quickly grabbed her upper arm before she fell to the floor, then holstered the stunner and lifted her up properly. It wasn’t like he was just going to leave a kid lying on a prison floor, after all. Especially not one that had . . . well, sort of. Not really. Come on, he couldn’t just be swayed by a little- by a huge smile from a very dazed girl who probably hadn’t been thinking straight and who had referred to him by a nonsense title. He’d been out in this uncaring multiverse for thirty years! What was he supposed to do if a tiny kid with a cute sweater and a – grappling hook? – could stop him in his tracks so easily? Not that she had. At all.
He looked down at her and saw that she had curled up in his arms as unconsciously as she had kept a tight grip on the grappling hook.
There was no avoiding it. She had definitely made a little burrow in his gnarled old heart.
Turning, he saw Ford standing stock-still.
His brother was attempting to burn a hole through him with his eyes alone, which was kind of the only option he had left – seeing as how there was no way he’d be shooting Stan with the kid in the way.
He figured he’d hold onto her for a little while longer.
“Give her to me now Stan,” Ford said in a low voice.
Whaddaya know, Sixer’s learned how to be scary, Stan thought with a modicum of pride.
He pretended to consider, then shook his head. “Nah. Y’know, I’d say all the usual – congratulations, she looks just like you, et cetera, but to be honest, she’s more like Shermy. Or Ma.” He frowned, taking the girl’s features in. “A little different to them, too, though.”
“I said hand her over, Stan.” His brother’s voice was rising. That wasn’t good; they’d been here too long as it was. It was a miracle no one else had come across them yet.
“How about we get out of here, huh? Then we can waste time talking.” Stan made for the junction, scanned it quickly both ways to check it was empty, then turned right, heading for the nearest exit. Hopefully they could slip away down an alley before anyone noticed them – including the team that was almost certainly waiting for the jailbreakers to bring him out. He grinned as he thought of their expressions when they realised he’d gotten away yet again.
“Stanley, for God’s sake, I need to see her! She’s hurt!”
“Relax, Sixer, the champions of the law here wouldn’t put anything harmful in their tranquilisers,”
Even while he was several steps in front, he could sense Ford’s seething. “I understand that fine. I’m starting to think you don’t realise the exceptional amount of danger that comes of a child being unconscious with a concussion,”
Okay. That was a good point.
“I’ve got a good friend who we can go see. Guarantee she’ll be able to help with whatever.” Stan could see the exit point, conveniently unguarded. He checked left and right once more, then sped over to it. Locked. Well, not everything could be perfect.
He carefully adjusted the kid so he was holding her with one arm, then pulled out a card he had swiped from some high-up officer. Pressing it against the scanner, and praying to no one in particular that it was of a high enough clearance not to be questioned, he waited until it beeped and went green.
“That’s how ya do it!” He crowed.
“Stan, please!”
He had to admit, he hadn’t thought he’d hear that from Ford. He turned to look at him.
Ford glared back determinedly. “I’ll go with you, whatever you want, just please let her go,”
The choice of words rattled him. Not “give her back” or something else along those lines, which was fair enough, he could understand that. Instead, Ford had said “let her go”, like the most important thing to him at the moment wasn’t having the kid with him: it was having her away from Stan. Which hurt more than he’d ever care to admit.
His brother was shaking slightly. It was almost imperceptible, but he could still see it. More than that, Ford had been ready to get into a fistfight with him before the kid appeared, but since then he hadn’t made a single hostile move.
Shit. He was afraid of him. Hiding it well behind a good, furious, mask, but once Stan knew it was there, it was easy to see past.
He doesn’t actually think I’d do something to her, does he?
Stan felt cold.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” he answered after a moment.
Judging by the speed with which Ford got his arms under the kid’s knees and back, practically snatching her away, he’d been right on all counts. Suddenly, he didn’t really feel like taking them with him.
But he had to eat somehow, and the money the bounty on Ford was worth would pay for more than enough meals including whatever else he needed for a good while.
Thankfully, his brother didn’t seem to have noticed his unusual silence, as he was busy gently tilting his kid so her head rolled to face him and he could examine her cut. Stan got back to business.
“Alright, all your commands fulfilled, my liege? Then let’s get out of here,”