Archive of Our Own ^beta

“When I said ‘make yourself at home,’ I didn’t mean literally.” 

Douglas whacks his head on the underside of the kitchen counter, swearing profusely. For all his glitz and glamor, Donald knows how to be quiet when he wants to be; Douglas hadn’t heard him come in the kitchen, much less waltz up to the counter to lean on it all smug-like. But that’s precisely what he’s doing as he watches Douglas root around in the cupboard. Douglas half expects him to pull a bowl of popcorn out of nowhere. 

Ignoring the jibe, he shuts the cupboard with his foot. “Just trying to find the cereal.” He nods to the carton of milk and the empty bowl on the counter. 

Donald points at the fridge. A handful of neon-colored boxes sit on top. 

“Why,” Douglas begins. 

“If Chase can reach it, Chase will eat it. In about five minutes.” 

Douglas gauges the distance. It looks a little too far to reach, and his ribs ache at the thought, but maybe if he stands on a chair… 

“Need help?” 

“No.” 

Donald clicks his tongue. “All right, suture self.” 

And then he spins on his heel and heads back to the lab, laughing at his own joke. Evidently all he came out here to do was make fun of his brother. 

Douglas waits for a full minute to make sure he’s not coming back, because the last thing he wants is for Donald to catch him standing on a chair like he’s five, but Donald’s apparently busy with whatever he’s doing downstairs because he doesn’t resurface.

Sighing, Douglas goes to fetch a chair from the living room. 

He gets it halfway to the kitchen before wondering if he should have just tried jumping, because dragging a chair one-handed is proving to be laborious; his side is throbbing already and he’s delegated one hand to press on his bandages under his sweater. But just as he’s thinking of giving up and putting the chair back into place— probably by kicking it this time— he hears footsteps. As quickly as he can, he shoves the chair against the breakfast bar and sits down, crossing his legs inconspicuously. 

A millisecond later, Adam and Leo round the corner. 

“—not always, though,” Adam’s telling Leo seriously. “I mean, sometimes even I can’t burp for that long.”

If he thinks it’s odd that Douglas is sitting in a chair that puts his head level with the breakfast bar counter, he doesn’t say anything as he heads to the fridge and fishes out a jug of OJ. Leo, meanwhile, looks pointedly from Douglas to the set of stools sitting beside him. Douglas looks away, but traitorously, his eyes flick to the top of the fridge. When Adam shuts the fridge, the cereal boxes wobble, and Douglas’s stomach gives a petulant growl. 

“Hey, Adam,” Leo says quickly. “Pass me the Frosted Flakes?” 

“Sure thing, shortstuff.” Adam grabs the box, which is about at head-level for him, and tosses it over.

Leo catches it in his bionic hand, wincing when it gives a crunch under his fingers. “Thanks.”

Adam nods, takes a swig of OJ straight from the bottle, and puts it back in the fridge. He’s in his mission garb, Douglas realizes. Leo, meanwhile, looks like he’s about to head to school.

“Catch you later,” Adam says, and then jogs off towards the lab. Douglas watches the doors close, hears the elevator descend, and then the holographic wall fizzles back into place. 

When he looks back, Leo’s holding out the cereal box. 

Douglas grabs it and hobbles to the kitchen counter, scowling. 

Leo snorts. “Would it kill you to say ‘thank you’?” 

Douglas doesn’t miss a beat. “Don’t know, it’s never been tested.” He pours himself a heaping bowl of Frosted Flakes, about half of which is nothing but powder. 

If Leo were Donald, he’d make some sort of annoyed sound like guh or tuh, throw one more well-worded quip in Douglas’s face, and then stalk off to work on a project— or at least pretend to work on one. Anything to solidify distance between them. Douglas would know, because as of this morning, it’s happened sixteen times since he started living here.

But Leo isn’t Donald, and he just hops on the stool beside him.

Douglas raises an eyebrow. “What.” 

Leo shrugs. “I'unno.” 

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?” 

“It’s Saturday.” 

“Shouldn’t you be training?” 

Leo shakes his head. “Adam, Bree, and Chase have a mission today, so they’re not gonna start my training until tomorrow.” 

“Then shouldn’t you be—” Douglas looks around desperately. “Bonding?” he settles on. “With your dad?”

“Nah, he doesn’t like me hanging out in the lab when he’s busy. I mean, I still do, but then he gets all mad, and if he’s mad he might tell me I can’t be on the team. Or take my phone.” Leo shudders.

Ignoring this, Douglas pours a generous glug of milk onto his bowl. Leo watches him like he’s welding the last panel onto the casing of an atomic metabolizer. 

“What.”

“I dunno.” Leo shrugs again. “It’s just weird seeing you eat. I never pictured you doing random human stuff, like eating breakfast and going to the bathroom. Not that I picture people going to the bathroom all the time,” he adds quickly. 

“Uh huh.” Douglas stuffs a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. 

Leo just watches him, waiting for him to get bored and go do something else. And after the fifth bite, when he still hasn’t gone away, Douglas abruptly realizes Leo’s only here because he wants to be. Adam, Bree, and Chase are off on their mission, Donald has made himself scarce down in the lab, and Tasha must be at work. And instead of holing up in his bedroom to play video games or… do other things that teenage boys do in their spare time, Leo’s here. Talking to him.

Douglas swallows his mouthful of Frosted Flakes. 

“I’ll train you.” 

Leo nearly falls off his stool. “What?” 

“I’ll train you,” Douglas repeats. “I made your arm, didn’t I? Who better to teach you how to use it? Besides, I got nothin’ better to do today.”

Leo folds his arms. “I thought Big D told you to rest.”

Douglas waves him off with his spoon, splattering milk onto Leo’s forehead. “I’m fine, he just wants me out of the way. Look, since you guys don’t have to hide anymore, why don’t we head to the park?” he suggests. “You can try for some target practice.” 

He expects Leo to light up like a Christmas tree, but to his surprise, Leo folds in on himself, kicking his feet nervously over the edge of the stool. “I dunno, I’m probably not supposed to.”

Douglas frowns. He’d thought Leo would jump at the opportunity to use his new bionic abilities, given how enthused he’d been once he’d realized exactly what he could do. And hadn’t Donald stressed just how badly Leo had wanted to be part of the team?

Leo gives the cereal box a furtive glance.

Ah. 

Douglas clears his throat. “You know,” he says, “if you want, I could do some tweaking to, uh, ‘downgrade’ your arm. Make it normal.” 

“No!” Leo yelps immediately, “no, no, that’s not—” He bites his lip, and when he says his next words they come out quiet and stilted, like he’s afraid to say them aloud at all. “I’m just… worried I’m gonna hurt someone again. Without meaning to, this time.”

Douglas looks him up and down. If he hadn’t singed off half an inch of Douglas’s hair, the idea that Leo was worried about hurting someone else accidentally might have been laughable. But it’s not, so Douglas chooses his next words carefully.

“You’re scared because you can’t control your powers yet. That arm still takes you by surprise.”

“Yeah,” Leo says. “But—” 

“The only way you’re gonna control it is if you get comfortable with it.”

“I guess, but—”

“And the only way to get comfortable with it is to use it.”

“Would you stop being nice?” Leo snaps. “It’s weird.” 

Leo carries their gear, less to save Douglas’s ribs the pain and more to show off, and they set up shop in the back corner of the field. It looks like it used to be a baseball pitch, but it’s so overgrown by now that they can barely tell. In any case, there’s plenty of space.

Donald, for reasons Douglas can’t fathom and has no interest in ever knowing, had had a very convenient stash of cardboard cutouts of himself stuffed in the hallway closet. He sets them up in a semicircle around the pitcher’s mound for Leo to aim at, and Leo misses all but the last one, which he manages to graze on the shoulder. It wobbles, but stays upright. 

“I don’t get it,” he huffs, glaring at his palms. “I’m aiming at the targets, why can’t I hit them?”

Douglas walks over to him. “Make a ball.”

Leo opens his palm and concentrates. A golden sphere materializes between his fingers, and when it flickers he takes a cautious step backward. 

“You’re still scared of it,” Douglas tells him gently. “It’s like a baseball. You gotta get a good grip before you let go, otherwise you won’t have much control. So just hold it, get used to how it feels. It’s not gonna hurt you.” 

Leo takes a deep breath, focusing on the laser sphere. It crackles and fizzles, but after a few breaths his expression changes. “It’s…” Leo frowns. “It’s, like, pulsing. Like it’s alive.”

“That’s your heartbeat. It’s part of you, Leo. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” 

Leo smiles. The sphere glows just a tad brighter.

Douglas steps behind Leo’s shoulder. “Now, make sure you stay upright. Keep your center of gravity here the whole time— you lose your balance, you lose control, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Have a good grip?” 

“Yes.” 

“Okay. Stagger your feet—” Douglas shows him how and Leo quickly copies him. “Now pivot— lift— and throw.”

Leo throws. The ball soars perfectly through Donald’s nose, punching a hole in the cardboard. The cutout wobbles, then topples over onto the grass, defeated once and for all. 

Leo leaps about three feet into the air. “Yes!” 

“Watch the hair— watch the hair!”

Emboldened with his success, Leo hits all of the cutouts this time around, though he never manages to hit them dead center again and only a couple actually fall over. He’s still hesitant.

Douglas pulls on a laser-sphere repellant glove, a prototype for a full-body suit he’s been working on for the last few days. 

“Here,” he says, holding his gloved hand up. “Let’s try this. Throw it to me, and when I throw it back to you, try to hit it. Give it all you got.”

Leo frowns. “Is that safe?” 

“Perfectly,” Douglas lies.

Leo hesitates, then produces the smallest sphere he’s ever made and swings. It lands three feet away in the grass. 

“Come on,” Douglas eggs him on, “bigger. You can do it.”

He has to know how hard he can hit. If he doesn’t know his limits, he can’t gauge how much he’s giving at any given time. And besides, Douglas is a little curious what hitting a laser sphere with another laser sphere will actually do.

Leo bites his lip, takes another deep breath, and then puts his hands together and slowly pulls them apart, creating a perfect golden sphere that grows, and grows, and keeps growing, and— keeps growing. Soon it’s engulfing the width of his shoulders, and even from across the field Douglas can hear it humming with power. 

“Um,” Douglas says. But before he can add stop or let’s try making it smaller or actually maybe this was a bad idea after all, Leo gives a shout and launches the laser sphere into the air.

It’s so heavy that though he’s aiming for Douglas, it only gets halfway across the pitch before it starts losing altitude. Douglas skids forward, stretching his arm out as far as it’ll go, but he’s not going to make it— panic jolts in the pit of his stomach; if that sphere hits the grass it’ll explode, wiping them both out and probably taking half the field with it. He reaches as far as he can, feels something tearing at his chest that might be his stitches— he jumps— 

The ball lands solidly in his palm. With a grunt, he tosses it as high into the air as he possibly can. Which is, admittedly, not that high. He’s bought them maybe five seconds of air time.

“Hit it, Leo!” he shouts, pointing up. “Hit it!” 

But Leo’s frozen in place, staring up at the sphere like a deer in headlights. Douglas would physically smack him out of it, but there’s not enough time to hobble over before the sphere touches ground again.

“Hit it!” 

The ball’s started to fall, slowly at first but gaining speed, glowing brighter, it’ll descend on Leo in a matter of seconds—

“Leo—” 

Leo moves.  

Like a firework going off, the sphere explodes. Glittering shards of laser energy shoot out over the pitch in every direction like golden raindrops in a hurricane, knocking the cutouts clear off the ground, melting marble-sized holes through the cardboard wherever they hit. After a few seconds the energy fizzles out, dispersing into thin air.

Douglas limps over and pats Leo weakly on the back. “Good job.” 

He’s definitely torn at least one of his stitches, if not two, but he straightens up when Leo looks back at him, beaming from ear to ear. 

“Dude, that was so cool.” 

Douglas holds his hand up for a high-five, realizes a half-second too late that he’s set Leo up to swing with his bionic hand, and has to bite his tongue so hard that it bleeds to keep from keeling over.

He redoes the stitches himself. 

Even though Donald’s still hunkering down in the lab, Adam, Bree, and Chase are still off on their mission— it’s turned into a two-day affair— and it’s past midnight so Leo and Tasha won’t be roaming around, he still locks the bathroom door. 

For some reason, Donald doesn’t keep any Percocet in his bathroom. There might be some in the lab, but like fuck is Douglas going down there, so he just pops four ibuprofen dry and sets to work. 

He goes slow, not that he has much choice. The ibuprofen doesn’t dull the pain as much as he’d hoped, but the bright pink bathroom rug is so soft under his legs that it’s almost enough to distract his brain while he spears his chest with a needle twenty times in a row.

After he finishes the first set, he leans back against the bathroom wall and just breathes for a little while. He’s bleeding, but not badly, so he doesn’t bother with a towel. 

Maybe he should just bite the bullet and head downstairs, he thinks dully. What’s the worst that could happen? 

Donald would gloat, obviously. Maybe he’d offer his services in exchange for something unpleasant. Or maybe he’d wonder how Douglas ripped his stitches in the first place, and pull up the kitchen security logs— 

Douglas grabs the needle. 

A case could be made that Donald’s stitching had been, objectively, better than Douglas’s new repair job. But not because Donald’s better at it. He just hadn’t had to operate on his own damn chest. If he’d seen the stitching Douglas did on Leo’s arm, he’d have wept. 

Probably for multiple reasons. 

In any case, Douglas’s chest starts itching the very next morning. He spends an extra half hour in bed trying not to scratch his chest, and then another half hour lying in agony and regretting his life choices. But eventually his body takes the reins, demanding food, so he gets up, pulls on an oversized sweater to hide the redness on his chest, and hauls himself to the living room for— well, he can’t really call it breakfast at this point. 

He makes it two steps down the stairs before stopping short.

Perry’s standing by the front door, a garish yellow balloon held in her fist. “Duggie!” she shouts as she sees him. 

Donald, standing beside her, shoots Douglas a glare as if to say, nice of you to finally show up. Douglas glares right back. 

“I heard you were hurt and I needed to see my little Duggie,” Perry coos, advancing on him like a one-woman herd of rhinoceroses. Douglas sidesteps her at the last second and stumbles to the bottom of the stairs.

“Girlfriend,” he reminds her firmly, taking a step behind Donald for safety.

Perry shakes her finger. “Unless you’re married, I don’t wanna hear about it.”

“Yeah, Duggie,” Donald says, smacking his shoulder and sending a fresh flare of pain and itchiness up his chest. It takes every last shred of self control not to rip his sweater off and start clawing at his stitches. Perry probably wouldn’t complain. 

“She came all this way to see you,” Donald goes on, and though his face is a perfect mask of politeness, his eyes are positively sparkling with mirth. “Why don’t you show her around?” 

“Oh, I know my way around here fine,” Perry says, like this is her summer home. “But,” she adds, giving Douglas a nausea-inducing wink, “I’ve haven’t seen any of your bedrooms yet.” 

She scoots closer and curls her fingers around his bicep. The balloon, which says Get Well, Grandma! bumps Douglas’s hair, static electricity tugging at the strands.

“Well, I just got up,” he says, delicately taking another step back. “So— no point going back there now.” 

“I’m sure she’d love to see it,” Donald says, and, to Douglas’s horror, he pushes them both towards the stairs. If Perry wasn’t already walking that way, Donald wouldn’t have budged her an inch, but the hand on Douglas’s back sends him stumbling over his own feet. His ankle hits the edge of the stairway, hard, sending tears to his eyes.

He runs through his options as he grabs the railing to keep Perry from tugging him up the stairs. What can he do? Pretend to faint? She’d carry him herself. “Get a call” from his “girlfriend”? It might have been a good idea if he hadn’t left his phone up in the bedroom. Plead to Donald for mercy?

Ha. Right. 

Perry yanks his arm again, sending a fresh wave of pain down his side— and the lights go out in a sudden rush, replaced instantly by harsh, red LEDs.

“Code red alert!” Eddie screeches from the wall panel. “Distress signals received from Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie! Code red alert!” 

In an instant, cold fear drops onto Donald’s face, dissolving all the glee at Douglas’s predicament. He abandons them both, sprinting for the lab.

The next second, Leo comes running down the other stairwell and skids to a halt beside Douglas, looking bewildered. “What’s going on?” 

Perry’s frowning at Eddie’s panel in mild curiosity, and Douglas squirms his way out of her grip at last. “Something’s wrong. Adam, Bree, and Chase sent out a distress call.” 

Leo’s eyes widen. “Oh no. I knew their mission got extended another day, but I didn’t think—” And then he catches sight of Perry. “What are you doing here?” 

She spins around and straightens up; evidently the news that Adam, Bree, and Chase might be in danger isn’t even remotely concerning. “I’m here to take care of my Duggie.” She reaches for his arm but Douglas swerves and her fingers close around air.

Leo either doesn’t see or doesn’t care. “You need to get out of here,” he tells Perry seriously, “it’s not safe.” 

“But—” 

“Go,” Leo shouts, suddenly carrying the gait, confidence, and voice of a full-grown man. He points at the door. “Take shelter at the school, we’ll call you when it’s safe to come back.” 

Miraculously, Perry heeds his advice, stumbling out the door and leaving her balloon behind. It soars up to the ceiling, hits a light fixture, and promptly explodes. 

Douglas sinks against the banister, fighting to keep his hands at his sides. His first instinct is to clutch his chest in relief, but he doesn’t want to flare up his stitches again. Besides, there’s no room for relief, not until Adam, Bree, and Chase are safe.

And then Leo shouts, “Okay, Eddie, that’s enough!” 

The lights switch back on abruptly. 

“Whee,” Eddie says gleefully from his monitor by the door. “That was fun. I like scaring people.” 

Leo smirks. “I know you do, buddy.”

Douglas pushes himself up off the banister. “That—” He points at Eddie’s panel. “That was you?” 

Leo grins. “I was watching from the monitor upstairs, figured you could use a hand. Also I really didn’t want her hanging around here all day.” 

“Oh.” Douglas blinks. “Thank you.” 

He hadn’t actually meant to say it. He hasn’t said those particular words in… honestly, he can’t remember how long. But though he’d teased Douglas about it just yesterday, Leo doesn’t so much as bat an eye.

“No prob.” He snorts. “I seriously don’t know how she still hasn’t figured out you’re gay.” 

Douglas slips off the banister entirely. He stumbles to the bottom of the stairs, opens his mouth, closes it again, and, after another few seconds of trying and failing to come up with an excuse, a lie, or a distraction, eventually drags a hand down his face with a groan. “All right, what do you want?” 

Leo raises an eyebrow. 

“Keep up, kid,” Douglas says, snapping his fingers. “What, you want rocket boots or something?” 

“I’m not gonna say anything,” Leo says seriously. “I mean, rocket boots would be pretty cool—” He shakes his head. “Seriously, though? Your own brother doesn’t even know?” 

“Oh, he knows,” Douglas says darkly.

And, speaking of the devil, Donald chooses that exact moment to storm out of the elevator. 

“Leo Francis Dooley,” he thunders. 

Leo gives a little salute. “Gotta go,” he whispers, and sprints out the door.

After catching him, Donald shouts at Leo for a while, but finishes up after about twenty minutes because he has to head out for a press conference down in Los Angeles.

So naturally, Douglas hunkers down in the lab to redo his stitches. Again. 

As if he knew Douglas would wind up in his lab searching for medical supplies, Donald has no Percocet, but instead keeps a hefty supply of loaded morphine needles in his medical stash. It takes a few minutes to mentally prepare himself, but eventually Douglas forces himself to grab a needle and stab his chest. From there, it’s relatively easy to cut out his botched stitches and start cleaning the wound properly with an alcohol rag. 

“Are you supposed to be down here?” 

Douglas drops the rag on his chest. The alcohol hits his open wound and he has to bite his lip not to scream. He glowers at Leo, who steps out of the elevator, hands in his pockets. 

Douglas throws the rag on the counter. “Probably not.”

Leo hums, wandering over as casual as can be. He looks at Douglas’s chest with mild interest, but doesn’t seem all that freaked out by the sight of an open wound. 

“What,” Douglas snaps, “not gonna run and tell dad? You could use some brownie points.” 

“Thanks to you.” But Leo shakes his head at the question. “Half the time I’m not supposed to be down here either. Well—” He holds up his arm. “I guess now I am.” 

“How’s it holding up?” Douglas asks, picking up the needle and thread. “Any glitches yet?” 

“Yet?” Leo raises an eyebrow. 

Douglas shrugs. “What? I’m not perfect.” 

“And you had me so fooled,” Leo says flatly.

On paper, the words should hurt. It’s an obvious jab at Douglas’s questionable life choices, framed in a smarmy tone of voice that says and I’m a better person than you, so there. But… there’s something undeniably friendly about the way Leo delivers it, with a lighthearted snark that bounces right off Douglas’s shoulder. 

“None so far,” Leo answers at last, “though it’s kinda weird being heavier on one side.” 

Douglas finally threads his needle. “That tends to happen when you’ve got metal for bones. Nothing doing about that, I’m afraid.” He ties a knot at the end of the thread and, after biting his lip, plunges the needle into his skin and starts sewing.

“Hm,” Leo says. He doesn’t look like he expected anything different. And then he brightens up again. “Am I gonna get hidden abilities too?” 

“Maybe.” 

Leo beams. “What are they? Can I fly? Disguise my face? Geo-leap?” 

Douglas holds back a laugh so he doesn’t miss his next stitch. “Uh, no.” 

“Whaaat.” Leo sticks out his tongue. “I could totally see myself geo-leaping again.” 

“Geo-leaping,” Douglas says firmly, as he pulls his next stitch tight, “is extremely dangerous, and requires months of training to— wait, did you say again?” 

“Uh huh.” Leo hops on the counter. “This one time, I was sucked into a parallel universe— long story— Big D made a proton fuser and I got sucked into it— okay, I guess it’s not that long of a story—” 

Fuser, Douglas thinks, mentally smacking himself upside the head. All this time he’d thought it would take a collider. He pulls another stitch through. “So what happened?”

“Well, first I got dropped into the lab, and that was all the same,” he says, swinging his legs back and forth. “But then I got upstairs and the furniture was all different— I mean, we had a piano. It was crazy. Anyway, mom came out, and she was this total tech mogul billionaire. And then as soon as she left, Big D showed up, only he was all different too.”

Douglas stops stitching. “Yeah? What’d he do, part his hair on the other side?” 

“Well, he had it kinda gelled down,” Leo says. “But I mean he was way different, like, all shy and nervous and stuff. He said none of his inventions had ever worked before, so I ended up having to convince him to try again so he could finish his version of the proton fuser to send me back home.” He smiles, evidently at the memory. “He was a dweeb, but, I dunno. I think I almost liked him better.”

Something sharp pricks Douglas’s palm. He pulls out the needle and forces his hands to relax. A bead of blood swells up at the base of his thumb. “What was I like?” 

“I dunno," Leo says, "you weren’t there. I mean, it was before we even knew you existed.” 

Douglas swallows something very heavy in his throat, looking down at his chest. The first set of stitches is almost complete, but the end is still tearing itself open. He tugs the stitches shut and fixes up the last ones, trying not to think too hard.

“Anyway, the feds tried to hold us, but I geo-leapt— geo-leaped? —us outta there.”

“You took him with you?” Douglas gapes at him. “And you’d never done it before?” 

Leo puffs his chest out proudly. “Nope.” 

“You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed. Or worse, leave something behind.” 

“What, like my pants?” 

“Like your legs.” He snips the thread and takes a look down at his handiwork. They’re still a little off-kilter, but at least they’re sterilized this time so they won’t start itching again. Still, new threading means they’ll take longer to heal.

“Well, I didn’t,” Leo says, hopping off the counter. “So what do you say? Upgrade?”

“Sure.” Douglas grabs the thread scraps, suture needle, and the alcohol rag and heads over to the trash can to dump them all. “After you turn eighteen.”

Douglas checks every nook and cranny once Leo leaves, but there’s no sign of the fuser in the lab; Donald or Leo must have destroyed it after that little adventure.

And no, he hadn’t immediately decided to build it just from one conversation with Leo, like an idiot. 

He gives it careful consideration while he stares at the ceiling all night. When it hits 4:30, he pulls out the blueprints he stole from the lab, lays them over the bed, and pores over them as he sips a cup of chamomile and sets fresh bandages over his Polysporin-covered stitches. He can’t decipher much of Donald’s chicken scratch, but it doesn’t matter. The models tell him everything he needs to know. 

He can find or rebuild most of the parts himself, either from household appliances or Donald’s car, but two components will be a bit more difficult to find: a magnesium booster and a set of tantalum-carbon cables. The lab’s off limits again now that Adam, Chase, and Bree are back, but thankfully there’s still one place that might have what he needs.

Unlike his last lair, this one looks just like he left it, barrels strewn everywhere and skid marks on the floor. The wall even has a couple of blast marks from Krane’s last and nearly successful attempts to take them all out for good. 

But he’s not here to reminisce. 

He stops by the bedroom first to pick up a couple things he left behind when he first abandoned this place— namely, a well-worn volume of Kidnapped by the Pirate, a stress-relief ball, and at long last, his fast-charging phone cable. The spare charger Donald reluctantly lets him keep only works if he tilts his phone at just the right angle.

Unfortunately, the bedroom looks like the only place around here that the feds hadn’t bothered to raid. His main lab table’s been completely disassembled, but he can barely tell because it’s also been buried under a mountain of garbage. Everything from metal scraps to old prototypes is lying in a gigantic heap in the middle of the room. Just from where he stands Douglas can make out a cubic-carbon ray and a zirconium zapper lying on top of one another.

“Great,” he mutters. “Six weeks of alphabetization, wasted.”

“How exactly do you alphabetize evil sci-fi weapons?” Leo asks. 

Douglas jumps half a foot, dropping everything in his hands. “Kid, you have got to stop following me.” He bends over to pick it all up, but his side twinges before he even gets close. Leo grabs his things apologetically, but pauses when he sees the book cover. Douglas snatches it out of his hands and heads to his backpack to stash everything away. “What are you doing here?” 

Leo folds his arms. “Uh, I saw you taking Big D’s car back to your old lair and I got concerned?”

Douglas raises an eyebrow. “Worried I’m gonna turn traitor?” 

“Not that anyone would believe me if I tried to tell them,” Leo grumbles, “but no. I just came because, if you haven’t noticed, bad stuff tends to happen in these places.” 

“Your arm happened in here,” Douglas reminds him. 

“Fair, all right. Anyway, what are you doing here?” 

“Grocery shopping,” Douglas says. “Help or leave.” 

“I’ll help,” Leo says. “What are you looking for?” 

“There should be a prototype for a magnesium-phosphate engine somewhere around here, it’ll be about this big.” Douglas makes a shape with his hands. “Kinda looks like a metal box with a slot on the top.” 

Leo nods. “Nerd toaster, got it.” 

He sets off to sift through the mountains of debris, and Douglas starts looking for the cables. He’s pretty sure there’s a box of them somewhere around here, they’re dead useful. 

“Krane’s not gonna bust in here again, is he?” 

“I really hope not, but I did bring a blaster gun just in case.” Douglas points to the wall, where the gun sits in front of his bag, guarding Kidnapped by the Pirate under pain of death. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Leo waggles his fingers.

“Uh huh.” Douglas snorts. “Just make sure you aim at me so I know I won’t get hurt, all right?”

Leo makes a short, affronted noise, but to Douglas’s surprise he doesn’t fire back another retort. 

He’s kind of the opposite of Donald. Donald always has to have the last word on everything, ever, always, all the time, forever. But while Leo does go for closing snappy quips sometimes, he’ll just as often back down when someone else fires off a good zinger. And in this case that’s exactly what he does, turning back to root through his designated pile of junk.

“Hey,” he says after barely a minute. Another difference between them; Donald thrives on silence, but Leo apparently does not.

“Hm.” 

“Can I ask you something?” 

Douglas holds up a wad of copper-plated wire to the light, squinting. “Not like I can stop you.” He loops it around his fingers, creating a loose spool.

“Why did you do it?” 

Douglas tosses the copper wire onto his keep pile. “Kid, it’s not a big deal if you want to be normal again. Just say the word and I—” 

“No, no, no, no—” Leo clutches his arm to his chest, like he thinks Douglas can shut it off just by looking at it. “I just meant, like— it was a lot of work. And I don’t know why you… y’know. Cared.” 

Douglas’s picks up another cluster of wires, these ones color coded with plastic casing. They’d be useful if they weren’t tangled into an enormous knot. He trails the blue cord through the mess until he finds one of the ends. 

There’s an answer to Leo’s question, but he’s not sure he really wants to give it. He settles on a vague, poetic interpretation.

“I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of your older siblings,” he says, threading the blue end under a yellow loop. “To not be as… good as they are.” The wire snags. He picks at the yellow loop until it pulls free. “And maybe you hate them sometimes.” As he pulls, the blue wire tightens, knotting itself around the center of the tangle. “But in the end, honestly—” He tries to backtrack, to push the end of the wire back through its knot, but it’s too tight, too irreversibly tangled, and it bounces right off— 

“You just want them to see you eye to eye,” Leo finishes for him.

Douglas sets down the ball of wires. “I thought it’d put you on a level playing field. Keep ‘em from picking on you too hard.” 

Leo looks at him for a long second before turning back to the pile of junk. Douglas doesn’t push it. 

He hadn’t given Leo a bionic arm in order to earn a thank you or a lifelong debt of servitude like he might have done a couple years ago. He’d done it because of the mass of nebulous, swirling emotions in his gut that had chosen that exact moment to thaw out and start punching him with things like empathy and compassion.

And the less anyone knows about those, the better.

The sound of screeching metal pulls him out of his thoughts, and he turns to see Leo throwing his weight back to extract a rusty metal box from the mass of garbage. With a grunt, he finally pulls it free and falls squarely on his back, the contraption landing on his chest. 

“I really hope this is what you’re looking for, because I am not doing that again,” he grunts, pushing it off with his bionic arm.

Douglas squats down to look, turning it this way and that. It’s the magnesium-phosphate engine all right, but it looks like it’s been run through the wash. The plating is rusted, it’s missing a handful of screws, and it rattles around when he shakes it— but none of that matters, as long as—

“The core’s intact.” He pumps his fist into the air. “Perfect. See if you can rip away the casing so I can get it out.” 

Leo nicks his thumb in the process, but eventually manages to tear off the metal plating wide enough to extract the glowing blue core. Douglas pulls out a plastic baggie. 

Leo eyes him warily. “You sure that’s gonna hold?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s harmless as long as it doesn’t touch your skin.” At Leo’s sudden panic, Douglas pokes his wrist to remind him. “Not skin, remember?” 

“Oh, right.” Leo dumps the core into the baggie, and Douglas stuffs it in his pocket. “Was that everything?”

“Pretty much.” Douglas gets to his feet and, after slinging his bag over his shoulder and tucking the gun under his arm, makes for the door. “I was hoping to find some cables, but Donnie might have some I can borrow.” 

Leo hops up to follow him. “You mean steal?” 

Douglas shrugs. “Semantics.” 

He skips dinner to work on the proton fuser. Not that he really minds. Dinner usually consists of dragging a stool to the dining table— since Donald only has six chairs and hasn’t sprung for a seventh by now— and pretending not to notice everyone else pretending not to notice him. Really, he’s doing them a favor by not showing up. 

And that’s why he doesn’t expect the knock on his door.

“Occupied,” he calls, shoving the fuser into his closet. 

“Somehow I gathered that,” Chase’s voice says, dry with his signature sarcasm. He’d make a killer sitcom lead. 

Douglas opens the door. Chase holds out a plate of spaghetti. “I brought you dinner.” 

“Think I’m good.” He tries to tug the door shut, but Chase stops it with his foot.

“Dude, you need to eat. Even Adam doesn’t go this long without at least a granola bar.” 

“And you care, why?” Ignoring the fact that Chase has apparently been monitoring his nutritional habits, including the fact that, yes, he technically hasn’t eaten all day, Douglas reluctantly takes the plate. It’s only half-full and there’s sauce smeared on the rim. “Is this yours?” 

He’s not surprised Donald hadn’t made him a portion. He’s also not surprised Chase only made it through two bites of his.

Chase looks over his shoulder to make sure no one’s listening. “Look, I didn’t want to hurt Mr. Davenport’s feelings. Would you just eat it?”

Douglas smirks. “Bet you wish you had some of my soup now, don’t you?”

Chase doesn’t laugh. He folds his arms, like he does whenever he gets awkward and doesn’t know what to do with them. Douglas supposes he should probably feel awkward too; they’ve both got something to feel guilty about. Douglas, for trying to turn Chase against his own family, and Chase, for double crossing him and freezing him in a block of ice. But he also supposes they’re even in the end; they’ve both saved one another from Krane.

He takes a bite of spaghetti and immediately wrinkles his nose. “Tell you what.” He checks over Chase’s shoulder, they’re still in the clear. “If you don’t tell anyone I’m ordering pizza, you can have some.” 

Chase nods. “Deal.”

Sneaking back into the lab to get the cables proves to be nigh-on-impossible. Not only do Adam, Bree, Chase, and now Leo constantly train in their off time, but after finding Douglas’s little self-appointment in his lab security logs, Donald’s been taking every opportunity to squirrel himself away down there— either to make sure Douglas doesn’t go sniffing around anymore or maybe even just to keep from having to talk to him.

Whichever it is, it’s working. They’ve barely spoken ten words to each other in the last three days, and Douglas is no closer to getting those cables. After three days of waiting for an opening, Douglas is just about ready to give up.

And then Adam hits him in the head with a basketball. 

“Oh, hey Douglas. Didn’t see you there.” 

“Somehow I gathered that,” Douglas mutters, rubbing his head. He kicks the basketball back over the carpet towards Adam. “Don’t you have a hoop outside?” 

“Well, yeah, but then I don’t get to smash stuff.” Adam kicks it back up to his hands and then promptly hucks it at the kitchen, knocking over a bowl of fruit. “Nice, ten points. Oh— knocking anything to the ground is ten, an extra five if you make something spill, and if you bounce it off the ceiling it’s fifty.” He frowns. “It’s more fun with Leo.”

“Right,” Douglas says, rubbing his head. And then he gets an idea. “Listen, Adam, you wouldn’t happen to know when your next mission is, would you?”

“Nope. Mr. Davenport usually just calls us whenever one comes up. Why?” 

“Uh…” Douglas chews the inside of his cheek. “Just. Curious about your work-life balance. That’s all.”

Adam takes a couple seconds to figure out what he means, but eventually it seems to click. “Oh, yeah. No, it’s good.” And he throws the basketball at an array of fancy bowls sitting beneath the TV.

“Really?” Douglas hears himself ask over the sound of shattering glass. He hadn’t walked into this conversation expecting to actually be interested, but here he is. “You never wish you had a more… normal life? Like Bree did?”

“Not really.” Adam wipes off the glass from the basketball and jogs back to the kitchen. “I like training; I get to hit Chase. Oh, and the helping people thing is cool, too.” He looks at Douglas curiously. “Do you ever wish you were normal?” 

“I am normal.”

Adam keeps looking at him.

“Point taken,” Douglas mutters. “But no, I guess not. I mean, if I wasn’t an evil tech genius, then you, Bree, and Chase never would have come along.”

Adam does a weird thing with his lower lip. It almost looks like he’s about to cry. And then he jogs over to Douglas and leans over, lowering his voice. “Look, I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but you seem lonely so I’m gonna. We’re going to a Taylor Swift concert tonight. You wanna come with?” 

Douglas blinks. “You’re going to a Taylor Swift concert?”

“Well— Mr. Davenport really wanted to go, but after the whole thing with the mice he doesn’t let me stay home alone with Leo and Chase anymore, so we all gotta tag along. It’s okay, though,” he adds quickly, “Chase made us bionic earplugs.” 

Douglas closes his eyes so he doesn’t scream at the fact that Adam’s going to a Taylor Swift concert and purposefully deafening himself so he can’t hear it. “And Bree?” 

“I dunno, I think she’s doing girl stuff.” 

Douglas’s heart skips. Donald, Adam, Bree, Chase, and Leo, all gone on the same night— and Bree out of the picture too? No wonder Donald hadn’t wanted Douglas to know. If he’s ever sneaking back into that lab, tonight’s the night. Even if it means missing a night at the Ace of Spades theater. His only consolation is that he won’t have to sit through Ed Sheeran’s opening set.

“So, you wanna come?” 

Douglas fights back tears. “I’ll pass.”

“Girl stuff” turns out to be Spanish homework in the living room, because apparently “this is my only chance to work in a peaceful environment without lab gizmos or brothers to distract me.”

Douglas tries everything. She’s still on the same problem after ten minutes; if he waits it out Donald will come home before he even has a chance to touch the elevator. He offers her a bowl of cheese puffs and a giant glass of water in hopes of inducing a bathroom break, but she insists that she can’t concentrate when she’s eating. He even messes with the lights by slowly dimming them so her head will start to hurt, but she just pulls out her phone to use as a flashlight.

“You know, it’s been scientifically proven that taking breaks helps you study better,” he remarks after nearly an hour of trying and failing to get her to budge. “Why don’t you take a walk outside?” 

Bree sets her pencil down and fixes him with a glare. 

“What?” Douglas folds his arms. “I said take a walk, not betray your whole family.” 

“With you, I never know,” Bree says. “What are you doing?” 

Douglas scoffs. “I— nothing.”

“I have three brothers, you’ll have to try harder than that.” 

Douglas chews his lip, thinking. Bree won’t move unless he makes her, and he has a feeling that won’t go over too well. She obviously thinks he’s up to something. His best bet will probably be to lie— but pad it with just enough truth that she’ll buy it. 

He leans down to the couch and cups a hand by his mouth, like he’s worried someone will catch him even though it’s just them. “Look, I know I’m not supposed to be in the lab, but I need to get down there.”

“Why?” Bree asks, narrowing her eyes. She clearly trusts him as far as she can throw him, and given that her bionics can’t help her there, that’s not saying much. 

“I need to check your capsules,” Douglas lies. “I know Donnie messed around with your chips trying to block my Triton app— sorry, again,” he adds, at Bree’s expression. “I just need to make sure he didn’t mess ‘em up too badly. But if he knew I was down there he’d think I was up to something…” He makes a vague gesture. “Nefarious.”

Bree still looks suspicious, so Douglas pulls out the big guns. He gives a small, sad sigh, looking off to the middle distance. 

“I just don’t want you guys getting hurt again,” he says quietly.

Bree takes a few, long seconds to think it over. “Fine,” she concedes at last. “But if anyone asks, you snuck in when I wasn’t looking.”

Donald’s baby armory is easy enough to find and easier to hack his way into. 

It’s a cute little room, with a handful of blasters and heat cannons on neat shelves, a laser crossbow hanging on the wall, EMP gloves lying on a table, a thermal ray hung up next to the crossbow, and a dozen more gadgets littered around the place. Douglas hums to himself as he picks through them all, searching for any trace of tantalum cables. Most of them are standard plasma-based weapons with hemihydrate calcium generators, little one-and-done weapons that aren’t complicated enough to warrant fancy wiring. Personally, he’d have gone with particle beams; they might be trickier to make, but they don’t run out of juice quite as fast. 

He tosses the crossbow to the floor after a quick inspection and starts opening drawers.

Donald may judge him for making weapons, but he’s no better. The only difference between them is that Douglas makes a profit while Donald keeps his artillery to himself. 

“Spike bombs, smoke bombs, glue bombs,” he mutters as he sifts through them all. “Magnet gloves, laser sphere capsules, carbon-fiber… what are these, batteries?” He slams the drawer shut. 

The gun on the wall wobbles for a half second before crashing down on the table, knocking off the gloves and the thermal ray. It’s beautiful, twice the length of Donald’s arm with a fresh, shiny coat of paint.

“Oh, now we’re talking.”

Along with the two blaster cannons on top that actually fire the weapon, it has a six-round chamber— not for bullets, Douglas quickly discovers, but for different chemical charges. And most importantly, the chamber’s connected to the loading cannons by four perfect, mint-condition tantalum-carbon cables.

Within minutes he’s back in the upstairs lab. With the cables in place the rest of the fuser comes together perfectly— though he has to redo a little wiring on the left module, and he must have missed a bracket somewhere in the code because when he tries to boot it up for a trial run nothing happens. It’s not a huge problem, though, it just means he’ll have slightly less time to sneak this thing back out of the lab before—

“Unbelievable,” comes Donald’s voice from the doorway.

“Gah—” Douglas clutches his heart. “Would you people stop doing that?” 

Donald folds his arms. He’s flanked on one side by Adam and Chase— both wearing fresh tour T-shirts— and on the other by Bree and Leo.

Douglas scowls. “You weren’t supposed to be back until ten.” 

“Yeah, well, Bree called me and said you were acting suspicious.” Donald tuts. “I don’t believe this. You break into my lab, steal my stuff—” 

“Seems pretty believable to me,” Chase mutters. 

“—all so you could, what? Remake one of my inventions? Using my blueprints?” 

“Yeah, because it’s all about you.” Douglas rolls his eyes and turns back to the keypad. This chunk of code looks fine, it must be somewhere else. He scrolls up to the next section, skimming the lines for any sign of error.

“Wait a minute,” Chase says suddenly. “Is that what I think it is?”

“My proton fuser?” Donald says. “Yeah. What are you gonna do with it?” he snarks to Douglas. “You can’t sell it, I’ve tried.” 

Maybe he needs a different command here, because this one isn’t working— 

“Oh my god.” That’s Leo’s voice. “He’s going to use it.”

“What?” Donald barks. “Douglas, you— what?” 

That does it— the chunk of code slides right into place, and with a rumble and a hum the proton fuser springs to life. 

SMACK. 

Donald staggers back from the force of running headlong into his own holo-wall, but he’s back the next second, banging his fist on what looks like thin air. “Stop it. Douglas, stop it, this is crazy—” 

The twin cores fizzle- pop with electricity, and blue light begins to glow from their twin tips. 

“Adam, get through this thing,” Donald demands, and though Douglas knows it won’t work he still looks up to watch Adam throw his entire weight against the holo-wall— and then stumble back an instant later, clutching his head. 

“Bree,” Donald begins, but Douglas cuts him off.

“Don’t bother, Bree, you’ll just hurt yourself.” He has to raise his voice over the growing hum of the proton fuser as it starts powering up, the blue light growing brighter and brighter. Every few seconds a spark flies out in a random direction, firing off excess energy, and then with a thrumm the blue energy solidifies into a sphere on either end of the fuser.

“No!” Donald shouts, pounding his fists against the holo-wall. “Douglas, you don’t understand—” 

He’s not angry, Douglas suddenly realizes. He’s afraid. 

“Yeah?” he shouts back. “So teach me, O Wise One.” 

It’s not the best quip, but that’s only because Douglas’s brain is distracted by the sudden feeling of something pulling at him insistently at his chest. It feels like something’s grabbed ahold of his chest— specifically his stitches— and started trying to tear them straight out of his skin. He flattens his palm over his stomach, but it doesn’t help in the slightest— the twin spheres pulse with energy, drifting towards one another— 

“Shut it down!” Donald yells, “shut it down, you’ll kill yourself!” 

Leo grabs his arm. “What? What do you mean, he’ll—”

Donald shoves him back. “Leo, get out of here.” His hands are shaking. “Bree, get your brothers upstairs, now.” But Bree’s rooted to the spot, wide-eyed and terrified. 

The twin cores collide at last in an explosion of light and rushing air, twisting into a vortex that starts pulling in everything around it— papers from Donald’s desk, a handful of pens— Douglas lurches off balance but his feet just skid off the floor as the proton fuser starts sucking him in— he feels his sutures snap one by one—

“Douglas!” Donald shouts, “Douglas—” 

Everything hurts.

That’s the first and only thought that enters his mind as the air spits him out onto the ground and he lands on his feet with a wobble. Everything, from his forehead to his fingertips to his goddamn side, hurts, so much more than it did a mere second ago, and it’s not stopping. He clutches his chest. 

It’s wet. 

He looks down— and lurches on the spot at the sight of his sweater, completely soaked in blood. He’s never been queasy about blood, so he can only conclude his head must be spinning because he’s just lost a lot of it. He takes a shaky step backwards in a last-ditch attempt to balance himself, and collapses to the floor.

His eyelids start to sink, and he thinks he hears something crash to the ground off in the distance. It sounds like an armful of microwaves, metallic and banging and cacophonous. And then there are footsteps, hurried and frantic— a hand presses to his side, another cups his face. 

“Douglas?” Donald’s voice breaks, his soft, frightened eyes darting to and fro between Douglas’s as they fill with tears. 

“Hey, Donnie,” Douglas mumbles. 

And everything goes dark.

Douglas has never made a habit of dreaming. Very occasionally, if he has one too many drinks before bed, he’ll wind up in the back-alley of his subconscious, sometimes trying to get dressed on his way to school, sometimes catching his teeth as they fall out of his mouth, sometimes trying to free himself from a lab table as hundreds of needles descend upon him. 

But this dream is pretty nice. 

He’s floating in a shapeless, empty void, warm air buffeting his limbs. For what feels like the first time in months, his chest doesn’t hurt, and he just sighs and lets the wind carry him wherever it wants to. A pinprick of light on the horizon makes him squint. It’s tiny, but somehow blinding— and then at once it opens wide, throwing the whole void into light, and then—

“There we go,” says a soft, gentle voice. 

Douglas blinks, and a room swims into focus. It’s the lab, except it’s not the lab he remembers. Well, no, he does remember it, but mostly from when he blew it to smithereens. He’s also strapped down to a lab table that’s propped up to keep him upright— though it’s thankfully devoid of needles. 

“Welcome back,” Donald says. “You have a lot of explaining to do.” 

Douglas opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. 

Donald’s hair is, as Leo promised, gelled down and tamed. He’s donned in a non-threatening sweater vest underneath an off-white labcoat. And his eyes are soft at the corners and wide with concern. 

“I thought you were dead.”

Douglas winces, looking down at his chest. “Close call, huh?” He’s once again bandaged up, but in a stark contrast to the last week or so he feels amazing. There must be a quarter cup of morphine in him because there’s no pain whatsoever, and moreover— yes, he definitely lost a lot of blood back there because it’s back in his veins now and he can feel the difference. He flexes his fingers, sighing in relief when they do as he says. 

“No,” Donald insists. “Well, yes, but—” He shakes his head. “Douglas, I thought you were dead for years.” 

“Oh.” 

From what Leo told him about this world, it’s not really a could-have-been . It’s more like an opposite-world kind of deal. Tasha, the Tasha that Douglas knows, would never have dreamt of becoming a tech mogul; she can’t even change the clock on the microwave. Leo would never have grown up bionic. Adam, Bree, and Chase would never have been normal kids. The differences here aren’t logical, they’re just different. 

“I think,” he says slowly. “I think I might be.” 

Donald blinks. “What?” 

Douglas waits for him to catch up, but after a few seconds he realizes Donald’s not putting the pieces together. 

Right. Not his Donald. Not a genius. 

“I’m not your Douglas.”

Donald still looks lost for a good full second before his jaw drops. 

Douglas holds his hands out in a tah-dah gesture. “Surprise?”

Donald stares at him, heartbreak playing over his face like a neon banner. He wipes his eyes, schooling his expression into something more resembling neutral. “Well,” he says, and his voice cracks spectacularly. He clears his throat. “You were right about nearly dying. You lost about a liter of blood before I got you stabilized. I’m just glad I dropped out of med school after I learned how to give stitches.” 

Douglas chokes. “You dropped out?” 

“Well, yeah," Donald says, like it's obvious. “You know me, I can’t stand blood.” 

Douglas looks down at his chest, guiltily. “Sorry.” 

“Are you kidding?” Donald swats his arm. “You have nothing to apologize for.” 

The absurdity of that sentence hits Douglas like a slap to the face. A laugh barks its way out of his throat, followed by another, and soon he’s bent over double, giggling madly. When at last he catches his breath and sits up again, Donald is frowning at him. 

“Why is that funny?” 

“Oh, just—” Douglas waves his hand vaguely. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.” 

Donald looks like he’s about to cry again. 

“I mean, I deserve it,” Douglas adds quickly. “I, uh, kinda blew up your lab.” 

Donald blinks. “Well,” he says, after a few seconds, “I’m sure you had a good reason.” 

It turns out to be Percocet after all, not morphine. 

“I know you hate needles,” Donald says like it’s obvious, as he hands Douglas the pill bottle. “You can stay here in my room. Tasha probably shouldn’t know you’re here.” 

“Where will you sleep?” 

Donald points to the rug at the foot of the bed, which is marginally less plush than its pink parallel counterpart. “The floor’s pretty comfy once you get used to it.”

Douglas shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I’ve slept on plenty of floors before. You keep your bed.”

But Donald insists, five more times, and at long last Douglas has to admit defeat. He spends the night prodding his chest, still unable to believe that it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s the easiest night’s sleep he’s had in days. 

He wakes up to Donald’s face hovering five inches away. 

“Gah—” 

“Sorry!” Donald says, darting away. “Sorry, sorry, sorry— I just wanted to bring you this.” 

And he heaves onto Douglas’s lap what must be the most enormous breakfast tray in the world, filled to the brim with food. There’s a stack of pancakes that look like they’ve jumped off the picture on the box, a plate of eggs steaming with cheese and sweet peppers, a bowl of fresh fruit salad complete with a little paper umbrella, and a tub of yogurt that tastes exactly like cheesecake. 

“This is heaven,” Douglas moans, finishing off the last spoonful. “What is this stuff?” 

“Cheesegurt,” Donald says brightly. “My newest invention.” 

Douglas taps the spoon on the rim of the tub. “My friend, invest in that. But give it a better name.” 

As Donald pulls out a little notebook and starts scribbling, Douglas looks around the room,  finishing off the rest of the tray. They’re alone, as far as he can tell, and apart from the faint humming of some background machinery, the lab is deathly quiet. 

“Where is everyone?” he wonders. “Where’s Leo?”

“Oh, he’s been out for a while,” Donald says. “Probably won’t be back until at least next week, you know how missions go. Or— I guess you don’t, do you?” 

Douglas raises an eyebrow.

Donald snaps his notebook shut and pockets it. “After the FBI got wind of Leo’s bionics, they recruited him,” he explains. “We were worried at first, but he took to it like a fish to water. He’s not around most of the time; he only comes home for a couple days between missions with Seal Team 6.” 

Douglas sits up so sharply that a couple cubes of watermelon bounce off the tray and into his lap. “Are you crazy? He’s gonna get himself killed, how could you let him do that?” 

“It wasn’t up to us,” Donald says, completely nonplussed to the idea that his teenage stepson is out fighting literal terrorists with the U.S. Navy. “And anyway, Leo wanted to go. I think he felt kind of constrained around here. He didn’t have any friends at school, and it’s just Tasha and me at home. She’s at work most of the time, and, well, he just got bored around me.” He gives a lopsided little smile. “It was for the best. Now he’s got a team.” 

“What about a family?” 

Donald takes a second to think about it. “Well, he writes to us every other week.”

Donald confines him to the lab bedroom for the day, insisting he needs the rest.

“Your ribs don’t look like they’ve sustained any more damage than their original break, and your lung has fully recovered,” he says, pointing to different sections of Douglas’s x-ray. “But the stitches just need a little more time to heal.” 

And no matter what Douglas says, he doesn’t budge. Parallel-Donald is still Donald, and Donald is stubborn. 

He spends his day watching TV, doing a double take when he sees the local newscaster, Eddie Wallman, reporting on city traffic and potential rainfall with the enthusiasm of a high-school football star giving an oral presentation on European history. He watches a good half hour of Wallman’s disastrous broadcast before flipping to the cooking channel instead— it always calms him down— and winds up marathoning nine episodes of The Great Australian Bake-Off before nodding off at last. 

He wakes up to another breakfast tray, this one laden with waffles, sausages, a bowl of cornflakes, and homemade lemon curd. 

“I take it I was never a good cook in this universe?” he guesses through a mouthful of whipped cream. 

“Awful,” Donald confirms. “Why?” 

Douglas wipes powdered sugar off his chin with his thumb. “No reason.”

After two days and a very long and very thorough examination, Donald finally agrees to let him get up and explore the lab. Without a Douglas to blow it up, this Donald had never had to rebuild it, and it still has the old argon-lit pillars by the doorway, the holo-desk is flush to the wall, and the floor’s lined with a series of straight diamond-plate metal strips.

But there’s only one capsule in the back, and it’s covered in a thin layer of dust. 

Also covered in dust is a twisted-up looking machine that he finds stuffed under the holo-desk.

“Oh, that,” Donald says, when he asks about it. “That’s nothing, just a dumb idea. It doesn’t work, anyway— I meant to toss it out to scrap but it’s so heavy that I just never got around to it.” 

“Of course it doesn’t work,” Douglas says, tapping the side. “You didn’t line up the tungsten nodes or polarize the lithium core. Here—” He pulls it out from under the table, and with Donald’s help gets it up onto the desk. “Pass me a Triwing— perfect— see, she just needs a couple tweaks, and… there we go.” 

The machine turns on with a satisfying noise, like an old television being plugged in. 

“It works,” Donald says faintly. “It works?”

“Yep, she’s up and running.” Douglas pats the machine fondly. “All powered up and ready to… what does this do, exactly?” 

“Oh, it cleans shoelaces,” Donald says proudly. “You know, it’s such a hassle to take them off every time, so I figured, why not invent something that washes them without getting your shoes wet?” 

Douglas claps him on the shoulder. “Donnie, you never cease to amaze me.” 

Donald makes him breakfast in bed every single morning, insisting that “I wake up earlier, since I sleep on the floor,” and “it’s nice to have something to do.” 

Douglas spends the days poking around the lab, fixing various half-finished inventions and offering tips. To Donald’s great surprise and overwhelming gratitude, most of them end up working just as he’d originally designed— though Douglas isn’t sure why he’d thought the world really needed a turbo hair straightener or a levitating door de-squeaker. It doesn’t matter, though, since every time he says thank you or good idea, Douglas, or wow, you’re amazing, his chest fills with warmth. 

And it’s not from his stitches. With the combination of Percocet, Re-Cell, and Donald’s firm insistence that he not overexert himself by walking more than three combined hours a day, they’re healing faster than ever. On the fifth day Douglas bends over to pick up a pen twice and doesn’t feel a thing. 

Still, his stomach turns whenever he sees the dusty capsule in the back of the lab, and he can’t get over how quiet it is all the time. There’s no adolescent whining, no competitive burping, no girly screams, and no squabbling. He tries, one day, to bicker with Donald by pointing out that he’s told him, what, four times by now to always align erbium oxide crystals symmetrically and Donald still forgets every time, but winds up having to apologize for five minutes straight when Donald starts crying.

But what makes him sneak out of bed on the seventh night is the fact that Donald won’t leave him alone. 

From the second Douglas wakes up— literally— to the second he falls asleep, Donald hovers around him like a puppy, constantly asking if he’s hungry, thirsty, in pain, or needs anything at all, whatsoever. The scant few minutes Douglas spends in the bathroom each day are the only ones without that pair of soft, worried eyes watching his every movement, and even then he’s not entirely sure Donald hasn’t rigged the bathroom with security cameras. 

There’s a part of him that can’t help but feel guilty for feeling annoyed. Donald’s attention might be infuriating, but it’s so blatantly rooted in concern that every time Douglas feels the urge to shove him away, penitence keeps his hands at bay. Donald’s done nothing but worry over him since he got here, and Douglas can’t hate him for that. 

Hating himself, on the other hand, that’s still on the table. 

“What is the matter with you,” he mutters to himself, keeping his voice low under the roar of the shower so Donald, who’s undoubtedly standing guard outside the door, won’t hear him. He can’t stay in here for too long, or else he’ll risk infecting his stitches. And even that doesn’t matter; if they get infected Donald will treat them in minutes and the worst he’ll have to endure is another few days of bedrest.

The thought of it makes his stomach turn.

Why do you feel like this? he thinks, pressing the back of his head to the shower wall. Wasn’t this what you wanted, a world where your brother cares about you?

“Don’t stay in there too long,” Donald’s voice calls through the bathroom door. “And make sure to pat your stitches dry when you get out!”

This Donald cares, all right. 

But he’s not Douglas’s brother.

Douglas pushes his face into the spray and takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with steam. Tonight, then, he decides.

And so that night he climbs out of bed, silent as a bionic mouse. He steps over Donald, fast asleep on the rug, creeps out of the bedroom and into the lab, and starts poking around. 

He doesn’t have the blueprints memorized, but he still has his mental list of components to work off of. If Donald— his Donald— had managed to design it, surely Douglas can reverse-engineer it once he has all the parts compiled. The only problem is finding those damn cables again and getting a magnesium— 

“I know what you’re looking for.” 

Donald’s voice is so quiet and calm that Douglas doesn’t startle this time. Donald’s standing in the bedroom doorway. He nods inside. “Follow me.” 

Once they’re both inside he walks to the closet and pulls open the doors. 

“It was the only one of my inventions that ever worked,” he says, smiling fondly. “I didn’t have the heart to get rid of it.”

Douglas looks at the proton fuser, and then at Donald, not saying a word.

Donald’s smile slips a little. “You want to go back, don’t you?” 

Douglas nods.

“You don’t have to, you know. You could stay.” 

Douglas doesn’t say anything. 

“I can build another bedroom. You can keep helping me with my inventions— you were always smarter than me, anyway.” 

Douglas’s heart twists, but still he bites his tongue. 

“We can work together,” Donald presses. “Build things together. Maybe even sell a few, if you wanted.” He looks desperately at Douglas, and then seems to realize he’s not going to win this fight. 

It makes sense. Douglas is the only one between them with fighting experience. 

He shakes his head. 

Donald nods sadly. “I thought so.” He pulls the proton fuser out of the closet. 

Douglas takes it, positions it in the center of the room, and types a few lines of code onto the keypad. It whirs to life, its twin generators humming. 

“Listen,” Donald says. “Do me a favor when you get back?” 

Douglas nods. 

“Tell me— I know he won’t listen, but tell him anyway.” Donald swallows. “Tell him he’s lucky to have you.” 

Douglas nods again. He won’t, because this Donald is right, but he’ll never forget hearing the words come out of his brother’s mouth. He enters another series of commands and the machine starts to vibrate, its twin cores starting to glow blue as it hums, louder and louder.

“Douglas,” Donald says. He grabs the machine, not to pull it away but to pull Douglas’s attention. Douglas looks at him. “I love you. And I know he loves you too. There’s no version of me that wouldn’t.”

Just like there’s no version of Donald that doesn’t invent. There’s no version of Tasha that doesn’t love Leo. And there’s no version of Douglas that doesn’t hurt his brother.

He’s not crying, but the blue light catches his eye at just the right angle, sending sour pricks to the corners of his eyes. He wipes them with the back of his hand. 

And then— a memory swims to mind, a little spark, and it ignites an idea.

“Hey, Donnie,” he says, raising his voice over the hum of the proton fuser, and Donald looks up. “You should take a vacation.” 

Donald frowns.

“To the Swiss Alps.” The blue lights sparkle, the spheres begin converging towards one another. “There’s a little cottage in the Canton of Fribourg, great if you need a place to hide for, uh—” He smiles apologetically. “Sixteen years.” 

And because he’s not Douglas’s brother, not a genius, Donald just blinks in confusion as the proton fuser crackles, and the blue lights finally collide into a swirling, howling vortex.

Douglas topples onto his feet in the middle of the lab. This time, he swings his arms to keep his balance, and after a second of wobbling he rights himself. There’s no blood on his sweater or on the ground this time, and nothing but the faintest memory of pain in his chest. 

Adam rounds the corner, halfway through a subway sandwich. “Oh, hey Douglas,” he says, and disappears up the elevator.

Douglas waves after him, warmth pooling in his heart. Man, he missed that kid. Maybe he should head upstairs; if the kids aren’t training down here then they’re probably pulling some stunt or another in the living room, and as their designated Ex-Evil-Now-Fun Uncle, it’s his job to make sure they don’t accidentally kill themselves.

Something glass shatters on the ground behind him, and he whirls around, fists halfway to his chest. 

Donald’s standing behind the lab table. 

He looks awful. His hair’s sticking up in every direction, overgrown on the sides and falling into his eyes. He has a week’s worth of a beard on his chin, and it looks just as unwashed as his clothes, which are speckled and smeared with crumbs, dirt, and grease stains. Sitting in front of him on the lab table is the charred, melted wreck of Douglas’s proton fuser, and beside it is a mass of metal and wires that looks vaguely similar.

But he can’t pay attention to it for long because Donald’s suddenly advancing on him with quick, frantic strides. “Uh,” Douglas says, a second before Donald’s fist collides with his cheek with a fat smack.

Douglas reels back, glaring at him. “Ow.” 

Donald moves his arms again and Douglas throws up his hands in defense— but Donald just grabs him by the shoulders and yanks him into a hug so tight he thinks his ribs might crack all over again. Donald’s hair brushes Douglas’s nose, pungent and greasy, and the white-knuckled fingers that grip Douglas’s sweater are shaking.

“Um,” Douglas says delicately. “What’s going on?”

“What’s—” Donald shoves him away, wiping his eyes furiously, and whoa, when did he start crying— “What’s going on? You broke half my weapons vault, made a proton fuser in my basement, and then you jumped in it—” 

Douglas bites his lip. “Right. Well—” 

“You’ve been gone for a week—”

“About that—”

“I thought you were dead!” 

His voice breaks so violently on the last word that Douglas’s excuse dies on his tongue before he can conjure it. For a long second they just look at each other, Donald’s heavy, wet breath the only sound echoing off the lab walls. 

Eventually Donald turns away and wipes his eyes furiously, like he’s ashamed they’ve betrayed him by shedding tears. 

“Jeez, Donnie,” Douglas says carefully. “I didn’t know you cared.” He means it as a joke, but it comes out a little too literally. 

Donald still doesn’t look at him. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I dunno.” Douglas shrugs. “Kinda.” 

“Well, I did,” Donald snaps. And Douglas knows that’s the closest he’ll actually get to admitting— “You’re my brother, Douglas, and I— I—” 

Douglas’s jaw drops. 

“At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what happened between us,” Donald says, clearly struggling to get the words out. “Because you’re my brother, and I— and I almost lost you, and— and I—” 

Douglas takes pity on him. “I love you too, Donnie.”

Donald hugs him again, this time with less shaking and sniffling.

He hears what sounds like a very small dog being stepped on and sees, over Douglas’s shoulder, all four of the kids poking out from behind the wall. Bree’s got a hand over her mouth, Adam’s pressing a fist to his chest, Chase looks vaguely worried, and Leo’s grinning like he’s just been gifted his own personal spaceship. 

Douglas gives them a thumbs up. Leo makes a salute.

“The blueprints got destroyed when the machine blew up,” he explains to Douglas later over breakfast, which— thank god— is just two slices of burnt toast and a spoonful of expired marmalade. “Big D tried to recreate it, but he was kinda…” He checks to make sure Donald’s not listening. “Well, you saw.” 

Douglas winces. “Yeah. Let that be a lesson to you, Leo. Don’t go inventing when you’re upset. Never ends well.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Leo swigs the rest of his milk. “Anyway, what happened? Who’d you see?” Douglas opens his mouth to answer, but Leo barrels right over him. “Did you see me? Am I awesome? Or, wait, since I’m bionic now, is parallel-universe-me not bionic anymore?” 

“Actually, you weren’t—” 

“Did you meet yourself? What was parallel-universe-Douglas like? Was he not-evil? Or— since you’re good now, did he turn evil? Or—” 

“Kid, I lost about an eighth of my blood mass when I got there, I don’t remember a whole lot.”

Leo narrows his eyes suspiciously, but before he can press Douglas for details, Donald jogs straight through the kitchen, making a beeline for the lab. 

“What, no breakfast?” Douglas calls. 

“Too busy,” Donald says, tapping his watch. “I’ve got to finish my mood altering perfume by noon. Just toss me an instant oatmeal packet.”

Leo’s halfway to the cupboard when Douglas stands up. “You know what, I’ll make breakfast.”

Donald blinks, halfway into the elevator. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” Douglas makes his way over to the stovetop, grabbing the sugar bin and a bottle of olive oil from the cupboards. “Been meaning to try this new crêpe recipe anyway. I’ll bring it down to you.”

“Oh,” Donald says awkwardly, clearly not used to receiving acts of good will. They’re on the same page at last; Douglas isn’t used to giving them. “Uh. You sure?” 

“Course,” Douglas says. “It’s the yeast I can do.”

The elevator doors slide shut in front of Donald, and at the very last second before they close Douglas sees him crack a smile.