Work Text:
When it's over, the Man Cave is quiet.
This is a strange, sharp contrast to the chaos that Piper had fallen into before, but now Captain Man's—Ray's—memories are back, and he's sleeping off the side effects in his room, and Henry, Charlotte, and Jasper are upstairs in the store and Schwoz is...somewhere. He went off with a vague explanation, and he's sort of a strange man so Piper's not really sure she wants to ask questions.
(Come to think of it, she's pretty sure she's seen him before—the German 'neighbor' who came to Henry's birthday party, the 'plumber' who came to fix their sink—she thinks she's even seen him around at the high school. Which makes a lot more sense now, but is still mildly unsettling.)
Piper tugs the headband out of her hair and fiddles with the bow in her hands. She's probably ruined her hair, and really the outfit isn't complete without the accessory but she can't really bring herself to care. She needs something to do with her hands, and her mind is running in circles that are way too fast to be satisfied by scrolling mindlessly through Instagram right now. There's too much to think about.
Before, she'd gotten so caught up in all of it—trying to stop Captain Man from erasing her memories, then trying to get his back—that she hadn't really had time to process this. And now she does. And it's making her head hurt.
Because, well. Henry is Kid Danger.
And if she really thinks about it, it's not that hard to reconcile the two. They've got the same hair, the same smile, the same stupid sense of humor—the same bravery that Piper pretends she doesn't see. And, if she really thinks about it, there's a part of her that's known for a while. Since he broke his arm, maybe. Or even before then.
But she never wanted to believe it. The difficulty comes when she tries to put Henry in that position in her mind. She's seen Kid Danger fight off villain after villain, take punches and be shot at and thrown into walls and god knows what else that wasn't broadcasted on TV, and she's always known that there was a teenager behind that mask but realizing it's been her brother this whole time is something entirely different. Something that's hard for her to wrap her head around.
She wonders how many times he'd snuck out and come back in the dead of the night without any of them noticing, wonders how many injuries he'd hidden just to pretend things were normal. She wonders why she and her family never even asked about his disappearances. She wonders, briefly, how many times Henry has almost died without them knowing anything about it, and then stops that train of thought before it goes too far.
That's not something she wants to consider.
Piper rubs at her eyes with the heels of her palms.
Then, the elevator dings, and she makes a show of putting her headband back into place and trying to look like she's just re-adjusting her hair and not her entire view of the world. Henry steps out, and there's still glitter in his hair and on his cheeks—the bubblegum-ploy Ray had come up with had been less than successful. He looks at Piper, sitting on the steps near the elevator, and tilts his head curiously as he takes a seat next to her.
"So I'm guessing you were never actually the playground pooper?" she says first, because she's not really sure what else to say.
Henry laughs, sounding a little relieved, like he was expecting something else. "Nope. I swear on my life I have never pooped on a playground. Or broken my arm doing it."
"That's kind of a shame," she hums. "It was really good blackmail material." This gets him to attempt at bumping her in the ribs with his elbow, but she dodges before he can and sticks her tongue out at him. "It was also a pretty shitty excuse, y'know," she adds.
He scoffs incredulously. "Uh, first of all, it was Jasper's idea, and also, you fell for it," he retorts, defensive.
Piper sort of glances at her feet, then, furrowing her brow just a little. "Yeah, but I shouldn't have." She shakes her head. "I should've figured it out a long time ago."
"I was worried you would," he says after a moment, and scoots closer to her. "All the disappearances, right?"
"Yeah, and your terrible lies, like...the 'makeup excuse'? You can't do a decent wing to save your life."
Henry scoffs at that but doesn't argue, and then it's quiet for a beat and Piper tries to figure out how to say what she wants to. She's not good at this part; she's honest and bold and unwavering with her words, always, but this is different. This is trying to voice the mixture of pride and worry and frustration and fear that's been sitting in her chest for the last few hours.
She takes a breath. "And," she starts, without really knowing where she's going, and she sees Henry look up out of the corner of her eye but doesn't meet his gaze, "I should've known that your stupid junk store was just a ploy."
He opens his mouth to respond, but she keeps going; it's hard to stop now that she's started. "And I should've known that your boss was way too intrusive for it to be normal, and I should've known your watch was suspicious. And you never let anyone near your bubblegum, I should've figured out that there was something weird about that a long time ago, and I should've—" her breath catches, and then her voice quivers a little and she hates it, "—and I should've known you'd be the only teenager dumb enough to risk your life every single day—"
"Piper," Henry says, and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Piper, it's okay—"
"Don't say that!" She stands up, trying not to have a full-blown meltdown, because those are reserved for Jana Tetrazzini and Wi-Fi crashes, but then again, she decides, this outscales both of those things by miles. Her hands are shaking. "What if you had died? What if someone had—and we wouldn't even have known, and don't—" she says when his mouth opens, "don't try and tell me that you were fine; I've seen the news, I've seen you fight villains, I've seen people shoot at you with-with actual guns and you're not like Ray, you're not indestructible—"
"I know that, okay?" And Henry's standing now, too, and his voice is sharp—not angry, really, but frustrated, and maybe just tired. Piper deflates a little.
"I know," he says again. "But, Piper...Ray needs me. Swellview needs me. Someone has to do this, and...it just happened to be me, okay? This is my job now." He pauses, and then his lips quirk upward into a small smile. "I might not have the 'great power', but I still have the—"
"If you finish that sentence, I will hit you," Piper warns, and he shuts his mouth.
She's never seen him look this serious about anything, though. It's strange to her, that she could've missed a part of her brother that's so big, and now that she knows it feels like the mask couldn't change a thing. There's a voice in the back of her mind that wants to tell Henry to put his suit up for good, walk away while he's still living and breathing and okay (because maybe she'll never admit it, but her love for Kid Danger is significantly outweighed by her love for Henry Hart), but the rest of her knows that it wouldn't matter either way. He'd still be the same; brave and reckless and stupid, and her brother.
And she's trying to decide if she hates him for it.
"You're such an idiot," she says finally, and hugs him. She feels his laugh more than she hears it, and his chin comes to rest on top of her head and she's sort of trying not to cry, especially because she thinks her makeup looks good today and Henry's wearing something that isn't a flannel for once and she really doesn't want to ruin it.
"So...are we cool now?" he asks hopefully, after a moment passes, and she shakes her head against his chest.
"Nope. No way. We are so far from cool, Henry."
She doesn't let go, though.
Neither does he, and they just stay like that, and she can't remember the last time they've hugged like this and she would never say it out loud but she missed it. When they finally pull apart, he grins at her and tousles her hair like he used to do when they were kids.
"Come on," he says then, and steps up the low stairs. "I want to show you something." There's a familiar glimmer in his eye, the same look he gets when they sneak out to watch R-rated horror movies or pull pranks on their parents together, and she lifts an eyebrow.
"Show me what?"
He gestures for her to join him. "Just, trust me." His voice is tinged with a fond sort of exasperation, and she scoffs as he continues, "It's like, a rite of passage."
Piper hesitates a moment longer before going to stand next to him. Henry glances at the ceiling, and then positions himself on the floor, and then tugs Piper close to him. She tenses, but wraps her arms around him. "Um. What are we doing?"
"You'll see," he says, and then looks up again. He clicks something on his watch, and a glass tube descends around them, and Piper yelps. Henry laughs. "You're gonna love this part. Ready?"
"For what?"
"Just hold on tight," he grins, and then, "Up the tube!"