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The Rust Bucket shifts under Kevin's weight when he lands on top of it. The sky paints in red and orange hues as the sun inexorably makes its way down behind the treeline surrounding the RV lot, where the Rust Bucket stands by its lonesome. Ben is already sitting there, legs dangling off the edge of the roof. He doesn't turn to look at Kevin.
"Got your message," Kevin growls. He spreads his arms wide and says, "Here I am!" Then he leans forward, rolling his shoulders in preparation for a fight, and he bares his teeth in a grin, "Ready for your turn?".
No response comes. Ben doesn't even move and Kevin is forced to get a better look at him. That's when his eye catches sight of the Omnitrix, resting beside Ben's right leg. Dormant. Just a watch.
What the hell? "You took it off?" He doesn't have to mention what "it" is.
Ben hums.
Why?
"What, not gonna put up a fight?" he spits out, thrown off. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Ben was supposed to be angry. Not...whatever this is. He needs him angry. He needs Ben 10, not...Ben.
"What's the point," Ben shrugs. "You're never going to stop until you get what you want. You're just going to keep coming back unless I kill you." There's something hidden in his tone, but Kevin can't parse it with the red flash of anger burning through his chest.
Kevin shifts his weight and the Rust Bucket creaks uncomfortably under his feet.
"Think you can beat me that easily?" he grits out. Ben just shrugs again. He's fiddling with something, but his back covers it from view.
Irritation snaps through Kevin. He's tired of being ignored. He takes one step forward denting the roof with his weight. A snarl tears his lips back, words on his tongue ready to cut through the air, but Ben's shoulders slump like a string holding him up was cut and he turns around.
"Here," he says as he throws something at Kevin, who easily snatches it out of the air. Then he just turns back around to look at the stupid trees surrounding the parking lot again, before Kevin can get a good look at his face.
Kevin looks at the object in his hand. It's a small holo-viewer, plumber tech, the kind that's usually encrypted. He blinks. Frowns.
"You gave that to me," Ben simply says, his tone mild. Ben's back is inscrutable, so Kevin looks back at the holo-projector and sure enough, he can recognize it. It's the one he got from Vulkanus, back when Max Tennyson was missing.
He looks back up at Tennyson. "So?" When he doesn't answer Kevin scoffs, "You really think I'm an idiot? Am I supposed to think you kept this" — he waves the stupid thing in the air even though Tennyson can't see it — "because of me?"
"Yes!" Ben exclaims. He says it like it should be obvious. His arms twitch at his sides, like he wants to spread them wide to punctuate that fact.
"Yeah, right."
"What, you think I was just cleaning out my room and saw this and thought to myself 'Oh, this random piece of junk, might as well just give it to Kevin, maybe he'll recycle it or something after he's done killing me'?"
Kevin's chest pricks with something uncomfortable. There's something he's lost since this conversation began, that slipped through his fingers and he's struggling to grasp back. He shifts his eyes from Ben's back to the treeline. Maybe that'll help Kevin ignore him.
"I'm sure your grandpa has nothing to-"
"You seem to forget that my grandpa is alive and well and I have better things to hold onto in his memory than something from when I thought he might be dead."
Ben sounds frustrated. It's what Kevin wanted, really.
Kevin squints at the last dredges of the sun that's peeking through the trees even as the roof of the RV seems to tilt under his feet. Control, that's what he's lost, and so easily, too.
"I kept that because of you. Because it's the first thing you gave me that I got to keep." Ben's voice tinges bitter, "The first nice thing you did for me since you got that grudge on me and tried to kill me."
The sun dips below the horizon. The cicadas keep screaming. But they go unnoticed, their song a droning sound that's become background noise long ago. They will stop, but not until much later. On top of the RV, though, it's silent. The ghost of the words now swallowed up by the song swirls through the air and sticks unbearably to Kevin's skin like the summer's heat.
The Rust Bucket groans like it just remembered its own age.
Ben's shoulders climb up to his ears and he quietens his voice, something thick coating his words. "Look, nevermind, this was- this was stupid."
Kevin wants the anger back. He doesn't know what this is. This wasn't the plan. The plan was to fight. To beat each other up until...and then...he doesn't know. He doesn't know what then. What came after fighting never figured in the plan.
"Just do your thing, or whatever," Ben mumbles.
But there was a plan and Ben fucked it up. Now Kevin's left staring at his back while the cool metal slowly warms in his hand.
Ben doesn't say anything after that. He doesn't move to touch the Omnitrix. Doesn't turn around. Doesn't move at all.
Kevin's eyes lower and he raises his hand. He turns on the holo-projector with a click. He doesn't know why he does it, what he's hoping to gain from it. He doesn't know if the same message is going to be on it.
An image of Max Tennyson pops up and it begins to speak.
"Ben, if you found this message, you must be in pretty deep. There's a lot I can't reveal yet, but here's one thing I can. You can't go at it alone. By now, you're probably meeting some of the other plumber's kids, but you have to find more. You need to put together a team." And with that, the device clicks off.
He's left staring at the disk in his hand long after the hologram disappeared.
Ben shifts and brings his knees up to his chest.
Kevin could attack him. Free hit. He could swipe the Omnitrix and absorb more of its powers. Become even more powerful.
He takes a breath and in two steps he's beside Ben. Choosing the side with the Omnitrix, he plops down beside him. Ben doesn't move, but the Rust Bucket swings violently in surprise from the change in weight and Kevin thinks it might topple over, but against all odds it holds strong and proud and remains standing.
Kevin looks at his lap. He fiddles with the projector for a bit, debating, then he turns it on once again and Ben's shoulders relax from a tension that Kevin couldn't even tell was there before.
Words wash over him as the recording plays, and when the quiet returns he starts it up again, the same way Ben did what feels like a lifetime ago.
Something about the words pulls at him, chest filled with a need he can't comprehend. Even when the message wasn't meant for him, the words reach him. Or maybe he just needs the strained quiet to be filled up with sound.
He listens to it until the words begin to blur together and the sounds start to lose meaning, until he wonders if this is how Ben felt back then listening to it on repeat.
"You need to put together a team...you must be in pretty deep...you can't go at it alone...must be in pretty deep...find more...put together a team...can't go at it alone...by now, you're...alone...must be in pretty deep...you need...to find more... you can't go...you have... a team...you can't..."
So much has changed since then.
A flickering sound startles him and he whips his head around to see Gwen walking up to the Rust Bucket's roof using her glowing platforms. The sound was deliberate, she could've made herself silent if she wanted to, which means she wasn't trying to sneak up on him.
She gives a little wave. He doesn't do it back, but she doesn't seem to mind as she walks her way over to him and plops down on his other side. Unlike when he did the same earlier, the Rust Bucket barely shakes from the action, as if it's used to her and has learned to compensate. Most likely, Kevin's weight just rendered her own completely irrelevant.
Gwen bends her knees, mimicking Ben's position on Kevin's other side, so she can rest her head on them as she casually wraps her arms around her legs. She then stills and stays quiet, saying nothing at all.
Kevin feels distinctly trapped, even though his frame is easily twice their size and he has proven that he can hold his own against them.
They planned this. He hunches his back without meaning to. But he doesn't know why it was Ben he met first. Kevin's more likely to lose his cool around him and try to bite his head off rather than with Gwen. Or maybe that was the point. Guess Ben was a better lure.
He wishes they would get on with it and say something. The silence is thick and Kevin finds himself fiddling with the holo-projector. Even though the quiet grates at him he doesn't turn it back on. It feels wrong somehow. He could ignore Ben, pretend he wasn't there for his own peace of mind, but he can't do the same with Gwen, hasn't been able to since they had all met each other again.
He taps his nails against the metal but the sound just succeeds in making him more agitated.
Just talk dammit!
A deep clang resounds in the night as he unconsciously smacks his tail against the roof of the 'Bucket and he has to will himself to stop with warm cheeks.
The quiet after that seems almost louder, but Kevin can't keep the tension up for long and it gradually drains from his shoulders as time passes slowly with nothing happening, sky steadily darkening until the only light remaining is from the lampposts lining the streets further away from the parking lot, until he's sure the other two can barely see a thing while his own vision stays sharp and clear. It almost feels like usual, sitting together. The only thing missing is a couple of smoothies that really only Ben actually likes.
It's only then that Gwen finally moves and lets herself fall backwards to lay her back against the cool metal, adjusting her position to rest more comfortably. Ben follows suit not long after that.
Kevin's the one who doesn't move this time, instead staring straight at the trees while their faces disappear out of his periphery. Now the only clue they're there is their feet beside his thighs and the quiet breaths he keenly hears behind him.
"Me and Ben used to come up here at night when we couldn't sleep," Gwen says softly, interrupting the silence. "We started during that one summer. It was the only time we weren't trying to get under each other's skin. Sometimes we wouldn't see each other, only one of us would be up on the roof while the other slept," she explains, "but once in a while we would meet each other up here and pass the time together. Sometimes we would talk. Usually though we would lie there quietly, left to our own thoughts, and watch the stars together. "
Kevin tilts his face toward the sky and finds a few pricks of light dotted around the black expanse. Nothing impressive, too much light around for that, but the edges of the trees he can see around the corners of his vision make him feel like he's sitting in the woods.
"It was nice," she murmurs. "It felt peaceful, something I wouldn't be able to get during the day, what with all the villains we kept running into, and it somehow made me feel like I was closer to home, closer to myself, like I could just reach out and," she pauses, searching for words to describe what she felt, "pluck my own self out of the stars. Like who I was, was just...more...during those nights."
He doesn't get it. The words don't click in his mind. Something about them resonates with him but...not really, not in the way he thinks she meant. He doesn't get how she could like feeling like that. He always feels like more, too much, and he craves more, constantly, but he just wishes he could just...be less.
He hears Ben take a breath before he speaks, "I wanted to feel closer to my aliens, understand them better. I thought showing them the stars might be nice. Would make them feel closer to home." He pauses, seemingly embarrassed, and Kevin's eyes trail down to the Omnitrix.
It's still there, still left untouched, still close at hand, easily snatched if he wants. He doesn't move to get it and neither does Ben.
"I didn't usually think of my aliens as separate from me," Ben continues. "Apart from the obvious exception, they're me and I'm them. But I feel like such a different person when I'm transformed that sometimes I couldn't help but treat them as if they were someone else and I was just borrowing their powers."
A rustle comes from one of the trees as a squirrel or something scurries up the branches. Ben falls quiet for a while, long enough that Kevin thinks he's done talking, but then he continues, more hushed, like he's telling a secret he's not sure he wants to say.
"Those times I would feel a little bit less lonely."
Oh. Kevin shifts his eyes to his lap, to his hands and the device he's still holding onto. He's not sure what he should say, if he should say anything, but Ben doesn't take as long to start talking again.
"I didn't really have friends growing up, no one really wanted to be around the loser with a hero complex who kept attracting the bullies' attention," he chuckles. "Even now that I'm older, now that I'm different, now that I'm famous, I guess, I'm still just someone's classmate, someone's soccer teammate, just an acquaintance to brag about. They like me when I can throw the ball in the net and not for much else."
Kevin traces random patterns with his thumb along the warm metal surface. It makes a grating noise, diamond against metal.
"Because I've never really had any friends, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do when arguing with one of them."
Kevin's thumb stops. He blinks, then flexes his hands. "It's not really an argument," he says.
"It pretty much is." Kevin hears Ben shrug. "Just a bit more of a murdery one."
He opens his mouth to argue, but no answer comes to mind and he slowly closes it again.
His neck prickles, despite his wings covering him all the way to his head his back feels too big, too exposed.
Gwen shifts behind him. "I feel that way too," she says. "I didn't really have a problem with people liking me per se, but I always struggled to feel close to anyone. Other people make friends so fast but, while I can enjoy their presence, I seem to need so much more time before I actually start to care." Her breathing gently stutters as a silent chuckle softly escapes her, "In the end, there's very few people I genuinely connect with."
Kevin doesn't think that tracks. "You seem to have befriended me very fast," he mutters.
"Yeah," she says, and she doesn't try to hide the smile in her voice.
A lump forms in his throat and his face twists as a pressure builds behind his eyes. He looks down at the ground, at the dirt and the scattered clumps of grass that spring out from it, but the tightness in his throat grows bigger and he shifts his gaze to the treeline again as his jaw tenses and he swallows.
She doesn't say anything after that and neither does Ben.
His feet are cold. He's not wearing any shoes. There wouldn't be any shoes his size. His teeth bother him and he passes his tongue over them in an effort to make the feeling go away. It doesn't.
It's his turn, he thinks. He notices the other two are also not wearing shoes, just socks. His chest rises. He opens his mouth. Then closes it again. The base of his nose tingles. He wonders where they left their shoes.
They're waiting for him, maybe. His chest hurts. He blinks a few times. He opens his mouth, breathes, and shuts it again. The night is warm, but his back is big and empty and cold and he curves it forward until all he can look at are his hands on his lap. They're huge and weird and too different. One is barely even a hand, more like a wrench-shaped abomination.
He wants to say something.
He looks at the holo-projector. His throat is so tight it hurts. He thinks he can say something.
He places it aside. He takes a breath. It feels too small, too short. He swallows again. He's ready, he thinks. He opens his mouth.
Everything stills. He's left with his mouth hanging open as the cicadas take that moment to stop their deafening chant and let true silence fall. Like they wanted to bear witness to his words as well and couldn't allow even one of them to be missed. Kevin closes his mouth.
He wishes they would start again.
He'd wanted to hide behind the noise — he realizes — hoping his voice would be swallowed up in the dark and he'd be speaking to nothing and no one. He hesitates, but the pressure in his chest and throat doesn't stop. The feeling behind his eyes that makes him blink too many times doesn't stop either.
He hears a shifting of clothes behind him and his heart jumps in his throat and he quickly starts talking.
"I'm a monster," he croaks out. He doesn't clear his throat, even as his voice continues to come out raspy. "Always have been and always will be." He swallows thickly. "Just look at me. I can't even manage to look right. It's only a matter of time until you'll realize it too. I'm sure deep down you already know. Soon enough you'll realize that I'm not worth it and that being friends with me was a mistake."
Kevin's face twists harshly and he swallows again, blinking rapidly when the corners of his eyes become wet. He wants to stop talking, but the words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. "You already hate me. I know you do. You're not my friends, you're just fooling yourselves into thinking you are." He sniffles. "I took advantage of you because I didn't want to be alone. I've been faking it" — his voice quivers — "this whole time. I'm not- I'm not nice, I'm not a hero, I'm just a big ugly monster in disguise."
He takes a breath, but it stutters in his chest. "You're idiots. You're too trusting." He squeezes his eyes shut. "If you're going to figure me out anyways I might as well just show you how much of a monster I really am."
The parking lot doesn't have an echo, but his own words sound so loud in his ears he's sure the next city over must've heard him. Shame fills his cheeks. He regrets saying anything. In his head the words made sense, out loud they just sound whiny and stupid.
No one says anything.
He knows they're looking at him, can feel it in the silence. His shoulders shake but he refuses to cry. His back is so bent forward his eyes can barely focus on the hands in front of them. He flicks his thumb, picking at the skin of his index with its nail.
He hears a faint tapping sound behind him, very slight, skin on skin, coming from Ben. Against his wrist, maybe. Ben probably wouldn't be able to hear it himself. Kevin focuses on that while he stares at his hands and tries to swallow down the lump in his throat and quell the ache in his chest.
A breath on his right and then Gwen speaks, carefully, "I don't like it when you take what we say and do and turn it into something else." His chest stings. "It hurts when you choose for us how we feel. And it hurts when you run away from us without talking to us." She stops, breathes again.
Ben continues, "It hurts when you don't trust us."
There's quiet as Kevin grits his teeth and squints his eyes.
"It really freaking hurts," Ben murmurs, "but... we're still here."
Kevin sniffles.
"We know you did bad things. We know you're not perfect," Gwen says. "We know you better than you think we do. And we know you're a better person than you believe you are. No matter how scared you are to accept that you deserve what you have."
He lays his forehead on his fists as pressure builds in his eyes. He sniffles again.
"Please, Kevin," he hears.
"Come back home."
Tears slip out of his eyes as he squeezes them shut and his chest stutters as he sobs. He tries to make himself even smaller as he hides his face in his hands.
He cries, and they let him.
When his shoulders stop shaking and his breaths turn slow, someone pats the roof behind him, and he tiredly leans backwards until his back lays flat against the cool metal.
He looks up at the sky, black, a few dots for stars, more than before, and a paper-thin moon peeking out behind a faint cloud.
They don't touch him, but they're close enough that he can feel their warmth hanging in the space between them.
It's silent, but for his occasional sniffles and the wind rustling through the trees. The holo-viewer lies forgotten beside the Omnitrix.
With time, the moon makes its trek across the sky. And when the Rust Bucket becomes warm beneath his body, his skin starts to shift, until all that's left is him.
Ben and Gwen don't say anything, but he knows they're smiling.