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In the years that he had been attending the Galaxy Garrison, Matt had become firmly entrenched in a routine. Cadets were all required to stay in the dorms during the week, but were permitted to go home on the weekends, an especially easy feat for Matt when the Holts lived only blocks away from the Garrison’s campus. Once his last Friday class ended - a planetary geology lecture that lasted two hours but felt like two years every time - he would dart back to the dorm to grab his overnight bag, and then head straight home.
Once he was through the front door and in the empty house - Pidge’s bus didn’t drop her off until a half hour or so after Matt got home, and their parents came an hour later - he would toss his bag down in the entryway (no matter how often his mother told him to stop doing that and instead take his stuff to his room when he got home), flop onto the couch in the living room, kick socked feet up onto the coffee table (again, firmly against his mother’s wishes), and turn on the most mindless television show he could find within one minute of channel surfing. After a week of Garrison classes, garbage TV was like junk food for his brain after days of strict dieting; it was bad for him, sure, but god it felt good.
He was in this position, feet up, eyes on a home renovation reality show on the TV, sunk so deep into the couch that he wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d ever be able to get up again, when the front door opened again, and his eyes roved over to see his sister’s ponytail whipping around as she slammed it shut behind her.
“‘Sup, Pi- ” Matt started to say, but Pidge was running right past the living room, her stomping feet echoing down the stairs before Matt had gotten more than a glimpse of her as she rushed by. He harrumphed, rolling his eyes back to the TV. “Hello to you too,” he muttered.
He could hear her moving around upstairs as his attention returned to the show, and he drowned the sound out focusing on the people on the screen arguing about… something to do with windows, he was pretty sure. Apparently some types of windows were “tacky” and others were “classy”, and this house would be basically worthless if they didn’t install the “classy” ones. Matt was learning so much.
Just a few minutes in, he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket, and he groaned as he had to lift himself up off the couch to dig it out and read the text message. It was from his mom, labeled ‘Maternal Unit’ in his phone: “I’m bringing Raising Cane’s home for dinner. Do you and Katie want anything?”
Matt thought for a moment before texting back “samwich combo w fanta thx” and setting the phone aside. Seconds later it vibrated again, and Matt read the new text, marveling as much as ever at how fast his mom managed to type while still bothering with grammar: “Could you ask Katie if she wants anything too?”
He sighed, but like the good son he was, he obligingly rolled off the couch and headed toward the stairs. “Hey, Pidge!” he called up the staircase and down the hall where he could see the light from her room starting to leak into the hallway.
“What?!” came Pidge’s response.
“Mom’s gonna swing by Cane’s for supper when she’s off work, you want anything?”
Pidge said something in reply that Matt couldn’t make out, so with a huff, he started up the stairs. “Hang on, I couldn’t hear you, say again?” he said as he climbed.
“No, wait, don’t come up!” Pidge shouted. A little too late, as Matt had already reached the top of the stairs, and he raised a brow as he realized the light he’d seen in the hall hadn’t been coming from Pidge’s room, but his parents’ room. More specifically, the master bathroom adjacent to their room.
“Pidge?” Matt said. “What are you - ?”
A drawer slammed shut in the bathroom and Pidge snapped, “Don’t come in!” right before the bathroom door started to swing shut. Immediately Matt ran up and stuck his foot into the doorway, the movement an instinct leftover from all the times years ago when they’d slam doors while chasing each other through the house after one of them had done something to tick the other off.
Pidge grabbed the door and started trying to force it shut, and Matt frowned. He could only glimpse her through the edge of the mirror, but she was fully dressed, so he hadn’t caught her when she wasn’t decent, and even so, it was odd that whatever she was doing, she was doing it in the master bathroom instead of the one the two of them shared down the hall. “Hey, what’s going on, Pidge?” he said. “You doing drugs in here or something? If you are, you have to share.”
“I’m just busy,” Pidge said. “Go away.”
“Busy with what?”
“... Feminine stuff. Leave me alone.”
“Bullshit.” Matt leaned against the door, pressing his weight against it to open it, and slowly it began swinging inward; he may not be the tallest or heaviest guy around, but he was still bigger than Pidge. “Come on, seriously, what’s up?”
He finally barged his way through, and Pidge turned away, her ponytail whipping him in the face as she brought her hands up to hide her own. “Get out!” she shouted. “What the fuck is your problem?!”
“If you wanted to hide something so bad, you should’ve shut the door in the first place,” Matt said, his frown deepening with worry as Pidge still kept her face away from him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are - ?” His eyes roamed over the counter by the sink, and that’s when he pieced it together. His mom’s makeup bag was out, half-zipped and with the items inside in disarray, as if they had been hastily shoved in there - very unlike his extremely organized mother. And Pidge had missed a bottle of concealer that had rolled into the sink and was sitting on the drain.
A relieved laugh escaped him. There wasn’t anything bad going on here; Pidge was just trying makeup. And that explained why she was in the master bathroom instead of the one down the hall, as to Matt’s knowledge Pidge didn’t have any makeup of her own aside from a tube of lip gloss he’d only seen her use a couple of times for special occasions. “Aw, Pidge,” he said. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“Matt - ”
“Seriously, you actually could’ve come to me if you wanted to try makeup, I’ve got a little bit. I mean, I don’t use it often, but I know the basics. At least enough to help a newbie.”
“Would you just - ”
“Can I see what you’ve got so far? Give you some pointers?” He tapped her back. “Come on, please show me? I won’t laugh, I swear.” Pidge still didn’t turn around, and Matt let out a resigned breath and backed away a step. “Okay, okay, fine, you win. I’ll leave. Just let me know if you need any - ”
And now that Pidge’s guard was down, he had the opening to grab her by the shoulders and spin her around to face him. Pidge let out an angry yelp, and Matt grinned. “See, now, that wasn’t so - ”
He froze, letting the rest of the thought fall away along with his grin. All traces of the playful and teasing older brother vanished as he took a breath and let go of her shoulder. “Pidge?” he said, voice low and solemn. “What happened?”
Pidge bit her lip and glared at a spot on the counter, refusing to meet his eye but not bothering to turn away. It wasn’t as if doing so could undo what he’d already seen: the bruise spreading along the top of her cheek toward the glabella, red bleeding into purple and the swelling skin half-closing the watery eye beneath it.
“Nothing,” Pidge growled. “It’s stupid.”
“Pidge,” Matt said, leaning in to force her to look him in the eye. “You need to tell me how this happened, so I know who to kill.”
“Oh my god, Matt!” Pidge cried, shoving him away. “See, this is exactly why I was trying to hide this! Because you’ll make a big a whole big thing out of it and Dad will be fretting over me and getting all worried and protective and Mom will call the school and get the principal involved and then I’ll be the snitch and things will just get worse!”
So it was definitely someone from school. Matt had figured as much, but the confirmation just made his blood boil even more. Still, he tried to rein it in, at least for now. “Okay, okay, um, look, I won’t kill anyone. Or beat anyone up or hack anyone’s social media or - or tell Mom and Dad. I just want to know. Please?”
“Matt - ”
“Look, Pidge, if I don’t know, then every time I see any of your classmates - or, hell, I don’t know your classmates, every time I see someone who looks like they’re the right age to be one of your classmates - I’m just gonna be thinking to myself, is that the fucker who gave my little sister a black eye? And I’ll never be able to trust anyone again, ever.”
Pidge huffed, her breath blowing a couple of hairs out of her face. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack. Spill.”
For a few seconds more Pidge stayed stubbornly quiet. Then, her eyes flicked to Matt before switching to the floor, and she muttered something in a low voice that Matt didn’t quite catch. “You’re gonna have to speak up,” he said.
“I said, Brianna Reed,” she snapped. “There, I answered your question.”
“Who’s Brianna Reed?” Matt asked.
Pidge let out an annoyed growl. “See? That’s why it’s so stupid of you to ask! You don’t know her! You don’t know anyone in my class, so what’s the point of asking in the first place, huh? And trust me, you don’t want to know my classmates, they’re assholes. They’re all - and it’s all so stupid anyway, you know? The only reason she and her stupid friends were getting on my ass was because apparently the rest of the class thought the chemistry test we’d had was really hard and I was the only one who got a perfect score, and she got it in her head that the teacher was just bumping my grade up because I was his little teacher’s pet, because I guess the idea that I actually study was just too logical for her to wrap her head around.”
“And she punched you for that?”
“No,” Pidge sighed. “She and her stupid lackeys were getting onto me all day about it and doing stupid-ass things like trying to trip me and pull my hair, and they were following me in hall after the last bell and running their mouths about how, ooh, this is why no one likes you, you know, no one wants to hang around a know-it-all and a kiss-up, and I astutely pointed out that maybe if she had a functioning brain she would have noticed that her boyfriend had been making out with Kiera Woodham in the band locker room after school for the past month, so maybe don’t knock the whole ‘knowing things’ thing.”
“And that’s when she punched you.”
“Yeah.” She sighed again. “Guess I probably should have seen that one coming, but, you know, turning the other cheek gets really exhausting. Not like I was going out of my way to piss her off, but after everything she was doing all day - ”
“I get it.”
“Even as thick as she is, she still would have figured that out eventually anyway. Kiera’s not exactly a criminal mastermind. I guess Brianna’s never heard of ‘don’t shoot the messenger’.”
“Look, Pidge,” said Matt. “No matter what you said to her, it doesn’t justify her punching you.”
“I’m aware. Can’t do much about it now, though.”
“You could report it.”
“No,” Pidge said sharply. “Reporting this stuff just makes it worse.”
“Pidge - ”
“Don’t even try to convince me it doesn’t. For all that teachers talk about how much they intend to crack down on bullying, they’re total shit at it. Their solution is to have me meet in the counselor’s office with the other kid, shake their hand and play nice for a few minutes, and then for the rest of the semester I’m the snitch who can’t fight her own battles and it all just gets worse. Happened back in elementary school, and trust me, no one has learned a damn thing since then.”
“Pidge - ”
“Matt.” She sighed. “Look, just - just leave it, okay? It’s for me to deal with and - look, right now I’m just trying to get it covered enough so that Mom doesn’t explode when she sees my face, so unless you’ve actually got something useful to do, could you just go?”
Matt chewed at his lip as Pidge turned back to the sink, searching through the makeup spread across the counter. He felt a vibration again at his hip - he didn’t even remember pocketing his phone, but he must have done so at some point. He pulled it out to read the new text from his mom: “Did you talk to Katie?”
He looked back up at Pidge’s reflection in the mirror, then back to his phone. His thumb hovered over the touch screen’s keyboard, debating, before he sighed and typed, “she wants the chicken fingers and diet coke” . Now really didn’t seem like the right time to be asking about chicken, but he figured that was a safe bet. He knew his little sister’s tastes well enough to guess her order with a fair degree of certainty.
As he pocketed the phone again, he cleared his throat. “Pidge?” Pidge grunted in reply, and he continued, “The makeup’s not gonna do you any good until you get the swelling down a bit. We should go downstairs, grab an ice pack from the freezer, just focus on that for a little while.”
“I don’t need - ”
“Yeah, you do. Trust me. After that, we can come back up, and we can actually do the makeup right, okay? I told you, I’ve got experience. You can let me help.”
Pidge hesitated, but slowly she set down the bottle of concealer that she’d been examining in her hands and acquiesced. “Fine,” she said. Her ponytail whipped Matt in the face as she led the way out of the bathroom, and Matt didn’t comment on it.
He also didn’t comment when they were down in the kitchen, and she winced when the ice pack he pulled from the freezer made contact with the swollen skin on her face, and he maintained that quiet the whole time they sat in the living room, watching the TV together as they waited for the ice to do its job. Pidge didn’t want him making a fuss, and as much as it went against his every instinct, he wasn’t going to.
At the second commercial break he got up to beckon her upstairs again, and he took the lead this time as he rummaged through the makeup. “The problem was, you seemed to just be trying to pile on foundation,” he explained. “You’ll actually want to use a base first. The bruise is all red and purple right now, so green and yellow concealer - like this here, see - that’ll cover it up. And you’ll wanna do it to both eyes, to make sure they look even, otherwise it’s a dead giveaway.”
“Okay...” Pidge said.
“I can take care of that for you,” Matt said, selecting a brush. “Close your eyes, and just let me know if I’m hurting anything, all right?”
Pidge nodded and closed her eyes, and although her brow and nose scrunched in distaste as Matt started applying the concealer, she held still and didn’t stop him. It wasn’t until he had finished with the concealer on both eyes and was moving on to the liquid foundation that she spoke again.
“Hey… Matt?” she said slowly.
“Yeah?” he replied.
“You said you’ve got some experience with makeup. Did you ever - I mean, were you - did this happen to you too?”
“What, the black eye? No, no, that’s not it. Mostly just used it to cover up acne and eye bags. I’ve tried a little bit of fancier stuff a couple times for nights out, but that’s it. Still, I mean, those eye bags could wind up looking pretty bruise-like when my sleep schedule got bad enough, so the skills are definitely transferable. Keep your eyes shut.”
Pidge obliged, squeezing her eyes shut tighter as Matt carefully started painting the liquid foundation over her bruise, trying to keep his touch as light as possible. “That’s, uh, not really why I asked,” she said.
“Hold your face still if you’re gonna talk, Pidge.”
“Right.” Her face stiffened and she kept her lips closer together as she continued, “I asked because, like, if you had been covering up black eyes in the past, then, that would mean you had to, um, you know. Deal with this sort of shit too. And if you did… I didn’t realize.”
“You’re my little sister,” Matt said. “It’s not your job to worry about your big brother dealing with bullying.”
Pidge’s brow twitched; she probably had been about to raise it, but fortunately remembered to keep her face still. “So, wait, does that mean you got bullied too?”
“Well, I never got punched in the face.”
“That doesn’t answer the question, Matt.”
Matt couldn’t help but grimace a little; fortunately Pidge still had her eyes closed. “People are assholes, you said it yourself. Not all of them, of course. But, you know. Somehow some people still get it into their heads that things like science and computers are uncool, or that being a bit on the short side or not being a star athlete is shameful, or - or all sorts of things, really, the list of ‘things that deserve derision’ is endless. It’s all ridiculous. And we both know it.”
“Yeah,” Pidge said. “But it being ridiculous doesn’t stop them.”
“I know,” Matt sighed. “Definitely got more than my fair share of assholery. Gum in the hair, broken glasses, stupid rumors. Was hours late coming home one time because I’d gotten stuffed in a gym locker.”
“Holy shit.” Pidge’s eyes shot open. “How did you even - ?”
“I dunno, they bent me just the right way and apparently I fit. You probably don’t remember the day I stayed home sick from school because of muscle cramps? Yeah, that was the day after that whole debacle.” He set down the sponge and peered at his handiwork. “It looks better than it did. The swelling’s still there a little, though. I’m starting on the powder now, don’t sneeze.”
“Don’t act all casual, Matt.”
Matt shrugged as he picked up the powder. “Look, here’s how I see it. Those people who messed with me back then were total jackasses, yeah, and the shit they put me through never should have happened. And I’m not gonna pretend it didn’t get to me, or that I’m just over it now, because I’m not. Don’t think I’m ever gonna stop being self-conscious about things like, oh, if I start geeking out over this cool program, are people gonna laugh at me and judge me and try to kick me down.
“But, right now, I’m at the Galaxy Garrison with a handful of actual friends who don’t do shit like that to me, and I’ve recently been selected to go on a mission to the edge of the solar system because of the very skills that those jerks thought made me a target. And there’s not a damn thing they can do to take that away.”
Pidge quirked the corner of her mouth up into a little half-smirk. “Great. So all I gotta do to get rid of this problem is be selected for a mission to Pluto?”
“Not saying it’s the most simple solution, but knowing you, I figure you’re going to end up in outer space at least once.” He set the powder brush down on the toilet lid and nudged Pidge’s chin with his finger, a cue to tilt her head up so he could check the makeup at a different angle. “A lot of astronauts say that when they’re up in space, looking down on Earth, it kind of changes their view of, like, pretty much everything. Makes everything about life on Earth seem small. Petty. It’s an existential crisis I’m looking forward to.”
“I guess.”
“In the meantime, Pidge… you know, the Garrison allows visitors sometimes, and I’ve got a group of classmates who I hang out with whenever we take outings to the city. If you ever are up to meeting some people who actually know a good thing when they see it, well. I think they’ll think my nerdy know-it-all sister is pretty damn cool.”
“Would this be the same group of people you play D&D with every week?”
“It doesn’t get any cooler than that. Don’t forget: these are tabletop players who also happen to build rockets and fly fighter jets. They’re also your future classmates, you know. And commanding officers. You get in good with them now, they’re more likely to look the other way when you want to do the occasional midnight cafeteria raid with all the cool nerdy friends you’re gonna make.”
“True. I’ll, uh - ” She allowed a small smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“You about done with that powder?”
“Yep. You can open your eyes now.”
“Good,” Pidge said, blinking her eyes open. “How does it - hey!” She yelped as Matt jabbed a powder-covered brush onto her nose, a cloud of powder billowing over her face. “You said you were done!”
“I was. That was just your punishment for being grumpy at me earlier.”
“God, you suck.”
Matt grinned. “But you love me anyway, right?”
Pidge rolled her eyes, then, moving far too quickly for Matt to react, she whipped a tube of lipstick up off the counter and jabbed it at Matt’s nose. “Of course I do, oh brother of mine.”
“Wow. Uncalled for,” Matt said. He reached around to grab some toilet paper and start wiping the lipstick off. “And here I was being all nice, giving you a makeover.”
“It’s your punishment for getting sappy. And… thanks. For, you know.” She gestured up to her eye. “Think it’ll fool Mom?”
“For a few seconds, maybe,” Matt replied.
“Well, you know. Thanks, all the same.”
Matt smiled. “If you really want to thank me,” he said, picking the powder brush back up, “Maybe you can help me clean up and put away all this makeup we - ”
When he turned back, Pidge was already out of sight, and he could hear her clattering down the stairs. Leave it to Pidge - smarter than half the longtime staff at the Galaxy Garrison, capable of doing everything from building robots to hacking government databases, but cleaning up a mess was still just too monumental a task for her. Still, he smiled to himself as he set about collecting the bottles and tubes strewn across the counter. She’d had a long day - what’s one more little bit of big brother duty to make things a little easier? That’s what he was here for, that’s why he always came home.
They had the rest of the weekend to squabble and get on each other’s nerves. After all, that was part of his duty as a big brother too.