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Chapter Text

Professor Venomous’s caller ID was the last thing Carol expected when she checked her phone to see who was calling.

Neither she nor KO had heard a word from him since he’d been granted that dumb planet to destroy by the President of the Universe. She had heard from whispers about town that he and Fink had finally returned and now lived at Boxmore again, but that was nearly a month ago.

What was the man calling now for?

Carol was highly tempted to just ignore the call, maybe even block the number. After the Shadowy Venomous debacle, she didn’t really want him near herself or her son ever again.

But before she could do anything, KO hopped from his bed and plopped down beside her. “Who’s that, Mommy?” he asked, stealing a glance at the screen. When he saw who it was, his smile faded. “Oh.”

The screen faded to black as Carol missed the call.

KO looked up at her. “Are you gonna call him back?”

Carol sighed. “I don’t know, KO. I don’t know what he wants. I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure he was on the planet until this minute. I don’t trust him at all after what he did to you.”

“Yeah, but… he’s still my dad, isn’t he?”

“Of course, Peanut, but—” The phone began to ring before she could finish. Venomous again.

Carol glanced at KO, who tensed his shoulders and then nodded. Well… what’s the worst that could happen? she thought. All I have to do if he gets nasty is hang up. She accepted the call. “Hello?” she said, trying not to let any disgust seep into her voice.

“Hey… Carol.” He already sounded completely defeated. That was something Carol had not expected. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…”

“Get tired of destroying your planet already? Got it all of your system?” The words almost seemed to explode out of Carol. She knew it was a low blow, but in many ways she was sick of this man-child and his destructive behavior.

“I… yeah. It’s… it’s all out.” Venomous swallowed audibly. “Listen, I—I know it’s weird… for a villain… to want to make things right. But—I know I massively fucked up—”

“You’re on speaker, Venomous.”

“Oh—uh—KO is there?”

“Yup.”

“Can I—”

“You may not speak to him. You talk to me or I’m hanging up.”

“Alright. Fine. I—I understand. As I was saying, I messed up… pretty bad… and I’m… sorry.”

“Wow, an apology from the great Professor Venomous. Incredible. It changes nothing. You took my son from me, you taught him to unleash whatever—whatever dark power was inside him and use it to hurt people—” Carol’s voice shook. “I want you to hang up right now and never—”

“Mommy?” KO put a hand on Carol’s arm. “Can I talk to him?”

“Peanut, I—I’d really rather you have nothing to do with him anymore.”

“Please? One last time?”

Carol was on the verge of tears because of how much she hated Venomous at that particular moment—but the man was still KO’s father, and KO was begging her with his eyes…

“Alright. You get one minute. That’s it.”

“Thanks, Mommy.” KO climbed into her lap and settled himself in front of the phone. “Hi, Professor.”

“Hey there, KO.” The man’s voice was even more subdued than before. It almost seemed like he was trying to be gentle… but there was no way. Carol wouldn’t believe it.

“I, um… wanted to apologize to you. I can’t really explain it all in a minute, so just… know that I’m sorry for what Shadowy Figure and Shadowy Venomous did… and I take responsibility for it.”

“Why, though?” Carol interjected. “You’ve never been one to humble yourself like this before, Venomous. You want something. I can tell.”

“Sp—Carol. I promise… what I want isn’t… bad.”

“So you do want something.”

“Mommy!” KO protested.

“Sorry, KO. Say what you wanna say.”

KO gazed into the phone, the little wheels of his mind turning. “Professor… I wanna forgive you… but… I don’t feel like I can do that yet. I’m still… I don’t get why you let Shadowy take control. I don’t get why you wanna hurt people.”

“KO, I—I don’t. That wasn’t me—”

“Venomous, if you’re just going to make excuses, you can’t talk to KO anymore.”

“Sorry, Carol. KO, all I can say is that I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to make things up to you, if you’ll let me. I want to be a real father to you. I want to try weekend visits again.”

“Absolutely not!” Carol gripped the phone so hard the screen almost cracked. “Venomous, we’re done here. I—”

“Mommy!” KO grabbed her wrist. “Wait, please… I want to try, too.”

“What? KO, you just said you don’t feel like forgiving him yet. Why—?”

“Maybe it would help if we had a face-to-face talk first?” Venomous interrupted quickly. “I can explain things, you can set ground rules—I’ll show you I don’t mean any harm.”

“No. Well… alright. KO, what do you wanna do?”

KO sat quietly for a minute, thinking. Finally he looked up and said, “I think talking first is a good idea.”

“…Alright, then. Venomous… I don’t want you in my house, so if Boxman’s good with it, we’ll come over this Saturday. And we’ll talk, and that’s it. No funny business, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come.”

“Fair enough, Carol. Okay, then. Boxy—er, Boxman should be fine with that. So, K.O….” Venomous’s voice became quieter again. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Okay, Professor.”

“Goodbye, Venomous.” Carol hung up. “Well. I didn’t like that conversation one bit.”

“I know, Mom.” KO crawled out of her lap and back up to his bed.

“KO, why do you still wanna give him a chance?” Carol wondered aloud.

“Because he’s my dad,” KO said simply.

“KO, just because he’s your dad doesn’t mean you have to give him a chance if you don’t really want to.”

“But I do want to. Because he’s my dad.”

Carol sighed. “Alright. But like I said, he pulls any funny business and he’s never having anything to do with you again.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Carol got up from the couch and went to the kitchen to start doing the dishes. She thought about Venomous and her son and everything to do with them the entire time.

She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by allowing KO to see his father again.

‡

Venomous had finally finished the hardest phone call he’d ever had to make.

KO seemed on with trying to make up, but obviously it was Carol who had to be convinced he wasn’t up to anything villainous. And that wasn’t going to be easy.

Venomous slouched over his desk and then jumped straight up as a hand was placed on his shoulder.

“How’d it go?” Boxman’s voice was uncharacteristically soft.

“It went… okay. KO seemed… okay. Carol’s…” He trailed off.

“Well, did you make any plans?”

“They listened to my idea of having a talk before starting visits again. Carol says no funny business or she’ll blow us—well, me—to kingdom come. And presumably I’d never see KO again.”

“You really care about him this much now?” asked Boxman skeptically.

Venomous didn’t answer for a while. Finally, he responded, “He’s my son. I should care.”

“Why? I mean—” he started to amend when Venomous glared at him, “—he has his mother, he’s been without you for six to eleven years—does he really need you?”

“It doesn’t matter! I—I should care. I’m—not good or strong if I don’t.”

Boxman’s gaze fell the floor. He must have guessed there was something more to this than what Venomous was telling him, because his next words had a clear measure of disbelief in them. “Well… if you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“I am.”

Boxman kissed Venomous’s temple and squeezed his shoulder. “Well, let me know if you need any help with him, or if I should send one of the bots to play with him.”

“Will do.”

Venomous stayed slumped over his desk for almost an hour after that, wondering if he had made a mistake by trying to see KO again.

But if he didn’t try… he didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself.

Chapter Text

For Venomous, Saturday seemed so far away. Yet somehow it crept up on him like a cat about to pounce on a mouse.

Or a snake, in this case.

So when Saturday morning came, Venomous felt completely unprepared, despite having written out and practiced what he wanted to say to Carol and KO.

He didn’t quite understand why he was so anxious about this. How many calls had he made to the Board of Villains without breaking a sweat? How many business meetings had he pulled off flawlessly? Dozens, easily.

But then, that was all the work of a villain. Reconnecting with his biological son and his very angry mother—that wasn’t something a villain would do. It was something a good man would do.

And Venomous was not a good man.

For a few seconds, he considered calling the whole thing off. It was cowardly, but Carol would probably be happy about it…

No, he thought. I have to do this. It’s the only way I’ll ever feel better about myself.

He finished dressing himself for the meeting—just his usual navy turtleneck and black pants, no labcoat. He figured he should look as unintimidating as possible.

He was just about to go into the bathroom to apply his makeup when someone knocked on his bedroom door and opened it. Fink came into the room, followed by Boxman.

“Hey, Boss? After your meeting today, will you watch me play my videos game? I’m really close to beating my record in the new one you got me!” Fink looked at him with big, begging eyes.

“Not today, Fink. I probably won’t be up to it after… this.” Venomous waved his hand vaguely, sighing and rubbing his temple with the other hand.

“Aw, come on, all you gotta do is watch!”

“No, Fink!” Venomous glared at her. “I’ll be lucky if I don’t come out of the meeting with a headache. Boxman can watch you if he wants.”

Fink looked at the ground and rubbed her arm. “Okay. Sorry,” she mumbled before scampering out of the room.

Boxman watched her leave, his expression full of concern. Then he turned to Venomous. “Are you sure you don’t want me to be there with you?”

“No, I think it’ll be better if I’m by myself,” Venomous lied as he snapped on his wristwatch. He didn’t make eye contact with his boyfriend.

Boxman saw through him. “You need moral support, PV. I think I should be there. At least I could help keep the peace, if that’s needed.”

“…Fine.” Venomous didn’t have the energy to argue. “Just… leave most of the talking to me, alright?”

Boxman crossed the room to Venomous and slipped his arms around him. “Of course.”

Venomous gladly accepted the hug, running his fingers through Boxman’s hair. It was a long time before Boxman let go.

“Well, I should probably go wait by the front door for them to arrive. Why don’t you go wait in your office? I’ll text you when they’re here,” offered Boxman.

“Right.”

Venomous moved off to the bathroom before going to his office, however; there was no way in hell he was letting KO and his mother see the bags under his eyes.

Once he got to the office, he waited for about ten minutes before his phone buzzed. His stomach gave a jolt.

They were here.

He peeked out the window through the blinds. Sure enough, he could see Boxman greeting Carol and KO and leading them inside.

Venomous took some deep breaths. Whatever happens, happens, he tried to convince himself. If it doesn’t work out, then—it’ll be okay anyway. It won’t be my fault.

He wasn’t quite sure about that last part.

He didn’t let himself think about it anymore, though. He had to focus on the now.

In just a few minutes, Venomous heard a knock at his door, and Boxman gently opened it.

Venomous tried to arrange his face into a smile, but he must have failed, as Carol gave him a rather withering look.

KO, however, gave a little smile back. “Hi, Professor…”

“Hi, KO.” Venomous relaxed slightly. The kid didn’t seem any more nervous about this than he had seemed the first time they had hung out together as father and son.

Boxman offered Carol and KO chairs in front of Venomous’s desk, then stood off to the side. “I’m just here to make sure everything’s alright. Don’t mind me!” he laughed nervously when Carol glanced over at him.

Luckily, Carol didn’t protest. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Right. Of course.” Venomous took the seat behind his desk and resisted the urge to play with a pen sitting on it.

Carol waited. “Well?” she said when Venomous was silent.

Damn it—all that practice, and now Venomous couldn’t remember a word of what he’d wanted to say. Now he’d have to improvise.

“Well, I, uh… I understand, from your perspective, that I’ve done some… things… that go beyond regular villainy and kind of fall into the territory of—well, I think we all know what I mean. And I’m really, truly sorry for the pain I caused everyone. It wasn’t right—”

“I don’t believe you.”

Venomous looked up from his desk at Carol. “What?”

Carol crossed her arms. “Why should I believe you? You’re a villain. You all thrive on destruction and ruling the world and all that. Why would you be sorry about that?”

“Because—because I hurt people I care about.” Venomous looked to Boxman, then to his son. “Including KO.”

“And why should I believe you care about my son?”

“I—shouldn’t I care? He’s—my biological child.” Venomous swallowed. This wasn’t going well.

“So?”

“Well, blood is thicker than water, you know…” Venomous trailed off, then tried to pick it back up. “Look, the first time around, I felt like… maybe we had something. I’ve never had a child of my own before, and when KO and I had those few visits, I thought… maybe I could be the father he’s never had.”

“Eugene has been the father he’s never had. A better one than I could ever see you being.” Carol looked Venomous up and down.

“Euge—oh. El-Bow. I mean, Gar.” Venomous scratched the back of his neck. “I mean—I’m sure he’s better suited for it—but still… I just want the chance to show you that I do care. I may not be as good as Gar, but I can still be something.”

Carol sighed. “KO, whatcha thinking?”

“I think he’s right, Mom.” KO met Venomous’s eyes. “He’s my dad. I’m his son. We should care about each other. I want to try again.”

“Hold on there, Pumpkin. I gotta ask something before we talk about that.” Carol looked straight at Venomous. “Maybe you’re telling the truth. But I can’t guarantee that, and until I can, KO isn’t staying anywhere near you.

“I want to know who exactly this Shadowy Venomous person is. I want to know what exactly you had to do with him and why KO was dragged into it. And believe me, Venomous, if you lie, I will find out. And when I do, I’m never letting KO anywhere near you again.”

“That’s—fair.” Venomous gulped and cleared his throat. “Of course—you would want to know about that. Well… Shadowy Venomous was simply—simply a fusion of myself and Shadowy Figure.”

“And who’s that?”

“My—alter ego, I suppose you could call him.”

“You have an alter ego?”

“Had. He’s gone now. I haven’t been able to communicate with him, and Fink and Boxman and the others have confirmed I haven’t transformed since, uh… that whole taking-over-the-world thing.”

“So what did he do?”

“Stole glorbs for some kind of power trip, I guess. I think KO could probably fill you in on him better than I can. I didn’t realize he existed until our first visit.”

“You didn’t know he existed?” Carol was incredulous. “KO, what’s he talking about?”

KO quietly filled her in on the events of his first visit with Venomous. By the time he got to the end, Carol looked like she was about to boil over.

“So you promised you’d get rid of Shadowy Figure? I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”

“No, I—you don’t understand. I did try at first. But I got—curious. I tried communicating with him in my mind, and he offered me a deal. He said if we worked together, I could have all the power I wanted. He said I could protect them.” Venomous looked to Boxman. “So I agreed. We fused, and for a while we just used my body. He told me to get KO to release TKO again—that way, we could work together to protect what we loved. But once TKO came out again, Shadowy’s part of me took over. I couldn’t stop him. He hurt… he hurt everyone I didn’t want to.”

KO was watching Venomous with wide eyes. It was almost as if he knew exactly what Venomous was talking about. Venomous took advantage of that.

“You believe me, don’t you, KO?” he asked quietly. “TKO did the same thing to you sometimes, didn’t he?”

“Yeah… he did.” KO’s gaze fell to his lap. “He wasn’t all bad, though. Just a part of me that was hard to control. Not like Shadowy.”

“How’d you even get this alter ego?” Carol wondered aloud. She didn’t seem quite as skeptical about Venomous’s story as before.

“I’m not sure. It was probably around the time I turned into… this.” Venomous picked at his purple skin. “But you have to believe me, Carol. Shadowy’s gone. I’m all that’s left, and I won’t hurt KO.”

Carol looked to KO.

“I think he’s telling the truth, Mommy. It fits with everything that happened.” KO swung his feet and looked back at Venomous. “I want to try the visits again.”

Carol leaned back in her chair and thought for a good long while.

Venomous was afraid she would say no.

But eventually she sighed. “Alright. If KO says it sounds right, then I’m thinking it probably is. I’m willing to let KO try visits again. But not by himself. I want either myself or Eugene to be present for the first few. If things seem to be going okay, then we can try letting KO come over by himself.”

“Thank you, Carol.” Venomous’s heart felt uplifted. He got up out of his chair and came around the desk to grasp Carol’s hand. “Thank you so much.”

Carol removed her hand. “You’re welcome, I guess.” She ruffled KO’s hair. “You sure you’re good with this, kiddo?”

“Yeah, Mom. Can we come over next week?”

“We can figure that out in a little bit, sweetie. I need some space right now.” Carol got up and picked up her son. “I’ll call you later, Venomous. Thanks for the talk.” She gave a nod to Boxman, who was still standing beside the desk, and began to leave.

KO gave a small wave to Venomous just before the door closed.

“Now that didn’t go so bad, did it?” Boxman smiled and came over to Venomous to take his hands. “You’ve got your chance. I just know you’ll blow them away!”

Venomous smiled back weakly. “I sure hope so.” He kissed Boxman’s forehead. “I guess I’d better start making plans for our first visit.”

“Let me know if you need anything, PV. You know, the bots know KO fairly well, they might be able to help you find something to do that he’ll like.”

“Thanks, Boxy.”

After Boxman left, Venomous sighed and collapsed back in his desk chair. Thank cob they had accepted his explanation. Not that he’d even been lying to them—but he’d thought the truth would sound too far-fetched. Apparently it didn’t.

Now, what should they do on their first visit? Something KO would like and Carol would approve of. Venomous wasn’t really sure what that might be. Maybe watching the bots play megafootball again? No, too mundane. He really wanted to impress them.

Well, KO and Carol weren’t too well off, were they? Not nearly as rich as him. Maybe he could take them shopping or something. Or out to eat.

Suddenly Venomous knew exactly what to do. He picked up his phone and dialed a number. “Yes, hello? This is Professor Venomous. I’d like to make a reservation.”

‡

Fink was forlornly playing some kind of first-person shooter game on one of her videos game consoles as the talk went on.

At least, she was until Darrell suggested she and the rest of the bots go listen at the door to see what would happen.

The thought of snooping around cheered Fink up a little, and she, Darrell, Shannon, Ernesto, Raymond, Jethro, and Mikayla all went to park themselves in front of Venomous’s office door.

“I’m really, truly sorry for the pain I caused everyone. It wasn’t right—”

“Wow, is Stepfather actually apologizing for villainy?” Raymond whispered in awe.

The others shushed him and then cringed as Carol took Venomous to task. Poor Boss, Fink thought.

But all of Fink’s sympathy vanished at Venomous’s words.

“I’ve never had a child of my own before…”

The robots turned to look at Fink, and Fink felt hot all over. Never had a child of his own before? Did she not count? Maybe not, she was only a minion, not his daughter…

And yet the words stung as though she’d been slapped.

Without a word, she ran back down the hall to her room.

The robots found her back at her game, pounding the controls nearly to the point of breaking them.

“Fink?” Darrell said.

“You okay?” asked Shannon.

“Yeah. Go away.”

“You know, he probably didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Raymond offered kindly.

“I don’t care what he said. He’s just my boss. Why should it bother me? Just leave me alone.”

Ernesto gestured for the others to back off, and they let Fink be alone.

In a few minutes, Fink ended up losing the game, and she threw down her controllers and curled up into the fetal position. Tears stung her eyes.

For a long time, she’d secretly hoped that Venomous would come to see her as more than a minion… as his child.

But he now he was more focused on bonding with some hero kid he barely knew.

Well, whatever. She didn’t need to be her boss’s kid to be important to him. Venomous wouldn’t forget about her just because there was another kid in his life.

Probably.

Fink picked her controllers back up and restarted the game, determined to beat her high score this time. She didn’t allow herself to think about KO, or Venomous, or anything that would happen between them in the future.

She had to focus on the now. That was all that mattered.