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“He jumped out a window?”
“A million dollars?!”
“Through the glass?!”
“What were you thinking?!?!”
“Why? Is he possessed again?”
“You’re supposed to be the responsible one!”
As entertaining as it was to see Dean be the one on the receiving end of a top notch Rusty Venture flip out, Hank had to admit that the experience was somewhat undercut by Dean having one of his own. How they’d managed to not inform him that their dad was in the hospital, when they all had communicator watches, Hank had no idea. Dean seemed really upset, though.
“As far as I can tell, he was just possessed with stupid.” Brock eyed Jared. “Good to see ya in clothes.”
“You too,” Jared replied.
Brock’s face twitched, but he said nothing in response.
“You’re not going to say anything about him writing a check for a million dollars??” Rusty sputtered, gesturing at Dean.
“I think he over-estimated Monarch’s worth. He’s like, what now? A five?” Brock said. “But it holds up, anyhow, the strategy for handling this stuff. You’ve paid The Monarch off before.”
“Not for that much! And I at least tried to talk him down!”
Dean pulled his checkbook out of his bag and shoved it toward his father. “You’re right, okay? I went overboard. I didn’t do it right.”
“What are you doing?” Rusty stepped back.
God, why were they so bad at this? They were both so awkward and weird, like they couldn’t figure out which one of them was supposed to be the parent. Hank reached forward to snatch the checkbook, but Rusty grabbed it.
“Absolutely not. You’re just going to buy video games and kayaks and zoo animals and throw parties.” Rusty pointed the checkbook at Hank. “Get a job.”
“Oh, come on! I didn’t blow a million dollars!” Hank protested.
“No, you blew nearly half a mil, on nothing but crap, when all the fees for having and getting rid of that damn giraffe were finally done with!”
Hank sulked. He shouldn’t have gotten in the middle of this.
“I only bought the giraffe for Dean,” Hank grumbled. “That’s what he said he wanted. A big giraffe.”
“I meant a stuffed giraffe,” Dean protested. He shook his head, looking a bit embarrassed. “Not the issue. Did Dr. Von Helping talk to you, Dad?”
“15 thousand isn’t a drop in the bucket, mister,” Rusty snapped.
Dean looked to Jared and then back to Rusty. “I don’t think he could ever pay it all, but he’s really determined to take responsibility.”
“What am I supposed to do with you now if I can’t trust you with a checkbook? How are you going to buy food and books and—“
“I already have my books for the semester, and I’m looking into a job on campus,” Dean argued. “I don’t need anything.”
Rusty put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. “Oh, so you need absolutely nothing from us, huh? You don’t need your room here, you don’t need money, you don’t need science—“
“I’m taking three science classes,” Dean objected.
Wait, what? When had that happened? Hank dropped onto the arm of the sofa. He should really just leave until everyone got done fighting about Dean.
“What? Which classes are you taking?” Rusty demanded.
Dean ticked each off on his fingers. “Botany with Dr. Von Helping, Human Genetics with Professor Isles, and Beginning Robotics with Dr. Marsters.”
“This Von Helping got you to take some science classes?” Rusty narrowed his eyes guardedly.
“I mean, yeah, a couple of them.”
“Well, if that’s the case, he can forget about paying back the rest,” Rusty said.
Hank threw his hands in the air and fell back onto the cushions. Jared came over and sat a few inches from his head. Hank looked back at him, annoyed still, but a little amused that he wasn’t the only one getting ignored.
“That Von Helping performed a damned miracle. I’m lucky you’re not taking a theatre class. Do I know this guy? Marsters, I know.” Rusty clicked his tongue. “He’s an asshole, but a good scientist, I’m told.”
Dean opened his mouth, then closed it, in that way he did when he was about say something that was only half true. “No, I don’t think you know Dr. Von Helping. He’s involved in Greenpeace, and Doctors without Borders, and all that stuff.”
“Ah.” Rusty’s interest in The Good Doctor seemed to fade. He smacked the checkbook against his hand. “And you’ve found a job?”
“I put in at the cafeteria, library, and a couple of places right near campus, because I don’t have a car.” Dean drew in a sharp breath. “I’ll find something, Dad. I won’t starve. And I have all the books I need for the semester.”
“And you’re wearing this hobo’s jacket over a hoodie, because, what? It’s the style?”
“I lost my coat.”
Rusty pointed at him. “I’m getting you a new coat. But this’ll do for now.”
Dean sighed. “Can I ask you what happened to your face now? And why no one called me?”
“C’mon, Dean. It was your first day of school,” Brock said. “Nothin’ you could do. The doctors got him all patched up and shot up with morphine. He wouldn’t’ve even known you were there.”
“Know, care, what’s the difference?” Hank grumbled.
Jared looked down on him curiously.
“I would’ve still come,” Dean said to Brock. “Just because I don’t live ‘at the compound’ doesn’t mean I don’t want to know if one of you nearly dies.”
“Don’t argue with your bodyguard, Dean. It was nothing.” Rusty waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve been through worse.”
“That’s not the whining I heard when you were in the hospital,” Hank said under his breath.
“So you’d rather I just go to class than visit you whenever you or Hank jump off a building?” Dean said.
“I’m fine when I jump off a building!” Hank said. “I know how to use a grapping hook gun and not fling myself through glass face first!”
“I covered my face!” Rusty said.
“Not very well,” Dean muttered. His breathing hitched.
“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. I’m fine. I’ll be healed up in no time!”
Hank sat up at the softening of his father’s voice. Dean was reaching to touch the stitches and looking like he might cry.
They should’ve called him. But Dean shouldn’t’ve left them.
Hank flopped back and stared at Jared. “So, how come you follow my brother everywhere?”
“I don’t.”
“What, he can’t come back here without a friend?”
Instead of looking offended or laughing, like he might, Jared frowned. He was serious. And worried.
“Wait.” Hank sat up. “Am I right? Does he not want to come back unless someone’s with him?”
“No, it’s not like that.” Jared glanced over at Dean guilty, then said, “I’d prefer he didn’t come alone.”
“What?” Hank screwed his brows together, trying to unpuzzle that one. “What do you think is gonna happen to him?”
Jared frowned and raked his eyes over Hank. Sort of the way Brock did when he and Dean got back from a kidnapping or something, and he was assessing how much shit he needed to beat outta somebody.
“How are you doing, Hank?” he asked.
“Pfft.” Hank got up and went to his room. Dean’s old room. His room.
He kicked one of the boxes of stuff Dean left.
* * *
“—definitely not the way they were in their original state. I don’t think we could possibly get them out now.”
“Were you still hoping for that?”
“I think I was. But at least they aren’t still evolving. I mean, they could, but they aren’t right now. Dr. Von Helping was right. I do feel a little better now that we’re looking into this.”
“I’m really glad. I wouldn’t tell anyone to just suck it up, y’know, but that middle ground… Phew. It’s just a really tough place to live.”
What the heck were they talking about? Hank peered into the laundry room where the washer was running and Dean was folding underwear and sweaters. He was standing there in a tank top and his jeans, and he just… looked different.
He’d known Dean all of his life, and he’d never stood like that before. His shoulders seemed a little broader, his biceps a little more prominent. And he was taller. Had he grown in the last month? He couldn’t have changed that fast, could he?
But yeah, he could. Dean changed fast. He was lightning fast. From the budding boy scientist to the kid dreaming of being a reporter. From daddy’s boy to the kid dressed in black head to toe snapping that he didn’t eat “face.” At the beginning of the summer, Dean had practically died running laps. Now he was taking science classes again out of nowhere and seemed to have gotten knocked around with the puberty stick.
Dean was going full speed, round and round, while he lapped Hank. And Hank… He was jogging in place. He was practically running backward. Brock had stonewalled him on the OSI thing. Being a billionaire playboy wasn’t an option, since it wasn’t his own money and his dad wouldn’t budge on fronting him any cash. Hank didn’t have the nighttime routine to justify it anyway.
Dean would change directions ten times before Hank even found a single path to follow.
Jared spotted Hank first. Hank should’ve known he would with those spider powers. He nudged Dean’s shoulder and, weirdly, Dean quickly slipped one of those university hoodies over his head before turning to face him.
“Oh. Hey, Hank.”
Huh. So that nervousness wasn’t about Hank. Dean turned back to his laundry.
“Have you seen my coat? It’s okay if you borrowed it.”
“No, I don’t have your stupid, old coat. It makes you look like a blue and white marshmallow.”
“Maybe it was in my closet somewhere?” Dean walked out toward the bedrooms.
“I stuck most of your old stuff in the toddler rocket room,” Hank said.
Dean paused, just for a second, then corrected course and headed for the smaller room. Inside, he went to the boxes piled bedside the bed and opened one up to dig through it.
“Does it matter where it is? Dad said he’d get you a new one.”
“I don’t want him to have to do that.”
“Because of the cool mil you gave to our enemy?” Hank gloated.
Dean’s lips twisted to the side, and he gave Hank a flat look before he returned to digging. Dean pushed the box aside and reached for a new one, then did a double-take and stared at the sides of the boxes.
“Virginity protectors?” Dean said incredulously.
Hank grinned proudly. “And dork supplies!”
“I set my dork supplies up in the dorm,” Dean deadpanned. “But the virginity protectors are working pretty well so far.” He moved on to another box, then made a noise of frustration and sat on the bed.
“Just let the guy buy you a coat. It’s not like you’ll get another penny out of him for the rest of your natural life,” Hank said.
“Maybe after one of my unnatural lives.” Dean leaned back on his palms. “You know the money for my college comes from a fund Uncle JJ put away for us.”
“Then how come I don’t get any of it?” Hank leaned back against the closet.
“Because the lawyers won’t release it for anything but tuition. It’s ours, but we can’t get it unless you or I go to school.” Dean tapped his toe against one of the boxes. “I think Uncle JJ was trying to make sure Dad didn’t waste it.”
“I’m not going to college.”
“… Why not?”
“What? I’m not a dork like you, Dean. I don’t wanna sit in a classroom for the rest of my life!”
“At most, it would probably be four or five years. No one expects you to study science and get a doctorate,” Dean pointed out. “You could get a degree in… I dunno. Communications, or musical theatre, and it wouldn’t make a difference. Except that you’d have one.”
“I’d never get in. You have to take all those dumb tests and learn all that dumb math,” Hank grumbled.
“I can promise you that wouldn’t matter. If you decided to go for it, Dad would make it happen.” Dean tented his brows. “I’d help you study, too. I know all that dumb math.”
Hank scowled and stared at the wallpaper. It was easy for Dean to say that. He’d just studied for a night and aced the test. Whatever he’d written on his application had wowed the university on the first try.
“I don’t have time anyway. You guys take classes all day long.”
“You can take fewer classes. I’m taking five. Sirena is taking six, which is the maximum allowed. I’m 90% sure she wants to get her degree and move out of her father’s place as soon as possible.”
“So you guys have something in common.”
Hank wished he hadn’t said that as soon as it came out of his mouth, but the look on Dean’s face was enough to add another kick of guilt. Dean opened his mouth slightly, then closed it.
“I had to.” Dean got up quickly. “Everything was too crazy here for me to study. Dr. Nidaba basically told me the work I was turning in was terrible because I couldn’t focus at home.”
Hank crossed his arms. “He was a super-villain.”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t right.”
Dean was definitely hiding something. Hank just couldn’t tell what it was.
“Are there any more boxes in my- your room?” Dean walked out before getting an answer.
Hank sighed. After a few minutes, he heard Jared and Dean talking again in the hallway and went out to see what the deal was. They sounded intense.
Jared sensed Hank before he arrived again and vagued up his language right away. “So I can go do that thing I have to do and be right back.”
Dean frowned and then looked right at Hank. “Oh. Well, maybe I could help you with that um, thing, you have to do?”
“Really?”
“Unless you want to do it alone—“
“Oh, no. It’s just that you didn’t seem like you, uh, had a very good time last time.”
“It was definitely a new experience…”
Hank stared at them for another minute and then retreated to the living room. What were they talking about? Were they banging or something? The thought almost made Hank want to go back in and listen to the rest… but at the same time, it made him really, really not want to hear it.
Dean and Jared departed moments later, with a few cheerful words from Dean that he’d be back to finish his laundry. Hank pretended to be distracted with his phone, even though Sirena was definitely in the middle of some study group and had told him she’d bite his toes off if he texted her before 8pm.
“Hank. Shove over.” Brock glided into the room, picked up the remote, and dropped next to him on the sofa. “Where’d Dean and that man go?”
“I dunno. Off to do something. They’ll be back.”
Brock grunted in dissatisfaction.
“You don’t like Jared, huh?”
“Not even a little.”
Hank shrugged. “He seems nice. Kinda nosy.”
“He’s a weird one. OSI has had an eye on him for a while, but he’s hard to pin down. Doesn’t recognize treaty rules. Ignores patrol borders. Made friends of his last two arches.”
“That sounds cool.”
“Eh. Neither side likes that much. You start blurrin’ the lines, things get fuzzy, people don’t know where one side begins and the other ends. Puts people out.” Brock started flipping through channels to get to a football game.
“You don’t like him because he makes friends?”
“Hm. Maybe.”
“I dunno. Gary lived in our backyard for a while. Uncle Vatred flipped sides twice. Does it matter if Spider-Jared doesn’t fit in a box? He’s not what you’d call a big player.”
Brock glared at the screen. Maybe it did matter. Or he was grumpy about something else Jared did. Hank propped his feet on the coffee table. Partially because Brock was doing it. Partially because as long as his dad wasn’t around, no one would complain.
“How come you went so easy on Dean for what he did with The Monarch?” Hank asked finally. “You guys would’ve flipped out and grounded me forever if I confronted the guy while he was arching someone else. Plus, the way Dean did it was super dumb.”
“It wasn’t finessed, that was for sure. But I wouldn’t’ve gotten there in time, and remember Monarch had a blade to your girlfriend’s neck. Not to mention, I was kinda distracted by some home intruders.”
Hank bit his lip and pretended watch the television.
Brock sighed heavily. “He should’a offered less. Monarch is broke. Or he was. Not too many people knew that, but he was off trying to rob a bank that day, before Widow put the beat-down on him. The Monarch would’ve definitely accepted as low as maybe 50 thou.”
“So Dean and I can pay off enemies, as long as we get the right amount?”
“Look, ya can’t ground someone who doesn’t live here,” Brock pointed out. “Frankly, Hank, I think your dad is just glad The Monarch didn’t do more to Dean. It makes him nervous that Dean’s out there on his own.”
“He’s got Jared.”
“Doesn’t count. He’s not one of us. Things could get bad, and it would take time to even get to Dean.” Brock looked down. “Doc fussed some about Dean leaving, but I tried to talk him out of it longer. Never seen that boy so stubborn about something. It’s… strange. He’s not like you, Hank. He’s not strong like you. We’re gonna worry about him more.”
Hank grimaced and sunk deeper into the sofa. “I don’t think that’s true. He left home. That’s hard. He walked right up to Dad and said ‘Hey, I screwed up, lemme fix it.’ That’s hard, too. He’s taking all these classes and doing his own laundry and stuff. Using public transit. Getting a job. It’s all hard stuff. I don’t think I could do it.”
“But if some huge hulk of a hench attacks him? Some cut-throat with decades of training and a mountain of muscle? You think he’s gonna get outta that one alive? If he gets kidnapped and tortured? You think it won’t break him?” Brock shook his head. “I’m amazed he made it through the first semester. Had visions of someone jumpin’ him on campus before he could run those skinny legs of his away.”
Hank thought about that. His brother actually having to face some of the crazy shit they’d dealt with all their lives by himself. Would he even call his family for help?
“We should call him next time Dad gets hurt, though,” Hank said.
“Yeah, dropped the ball on that one. This is all pretty new for us.”
Hank nodded. “Hey, have you seen that coat Dean has been searching for? He’s acting like he left a treasure map in the pocket.”
“Dunno. I haven’t seen it since the Blue Morpho sting when I stuck it on ‘im.”
“He wasn’t wearing a coat when we went out with Shore Leave,” Hank said.
“Then he lost it before he got to the ground floor, because that coat was definitely on his back.”
“Huh.”
Hank was done with the mystery of the ugly coat. He watched the game in silence with Brock (apart from a couple of disgruntled barks at the ref), and then went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Rusty was down in the lab right now, working on another wild idea that would probably come to nothing.
He checked his phone. It was only 6:45pm. He tapped it against the table and tried to think of something to keep himself occupied until then. Maybe next time the ambiguously nerdy duo asked him to do something on campus he should just go along with the dorkness. Dermott had been on radio silence for the past couple of months, and even though Hank considered himself to be the more sociable twin, he didn’t really have anyone else in New York. Everyone he interacted with was an adult, his girlfriend, or his brother.
And his brother wasn’t around. And he wasn’t coming back any time soon. That was super obvious.