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It was laundry day at the Venture compound. Actually, it had been piling up for a few... weeks? Months? It had finally gotten to the point where Hank was out of neckerchiefs and Dean was wearing a speedsuit with a chili stain on the rear end.
"How'd you get chili on your ass?" Brock asked as he sorted. Lights - the boys' shirts, just about everyone's socks, his Hanes XXL tank tops. Colors - assorted sweater- vests, speedsuits, Mexican wedding shirts, and Hank and Dean's Underoos. Spider-Man for Dean, Aquaman for Hank, and one pair of The Thing, which neither boy would admit to owning, but which, judging by the occasional cries of "It's clobberin' time!" that would emerge from their bedroom, were probably communal property.
"Hank put it on my chair," Dean grumbled, "and then called me 'Chili Willy' the rest of the day."
Hank snickered in fond remembrance. "Oh yeah, that was epic."
"You boys need to get out more," said Brock. Then again, he was one to talk. Here he was, one of the top agents OSI ever produced, checking pockets for tissues so he wouldn't wind up having to pick fluff off everything. "Operation Rusty's Blanket" had turned into "Operation Rusty's Live-in Maid and Babysitter" somewhere along the line. He pondered the decline of his career simultaneously with the fraught question of whether to put his striped red-and-white polo shirt into the left basket or the right.
Dr. Venture stepped back, admiring the gleam of his latest invention under the fluorescent lights. It was good. Better than anything that little show- off Jonas Junior could crap out. Dad would have been proud. Maybe. If he didn't take one look at it and steal the idea himself.
That had happened a surprising number of times when Rusty was a kid. Usually his discoveries were accidental, of course. He'd trip and spill some beaker of green liquid and it would mix with the fungus growing on the jungle floor and form a powerful explosive that his father could use to defeat the sinister snake-men. But the Protonic Destructivator? That had been his science fair project, that one year he'd actually gone to school. Jonas Venture had sold it to the military for half a million dollars, which was actually a lot back then, and he'd bought Rusty a new bike to thank him. A green ten-speed with a banana seat. Not even a flying one. Rusty had put it in the garage and never looked at it again.
The garage. He hadn't thought about it in ages. It had always smelled like old boots and mothballs, and was completely cluttered with crap, weird stuff his dad had picked up here and there in his travels over the years. There might actually be something worth dusting off and trying to sell in there, if his new Automated Pancake Flipper didn't ...pan out. Ha ha. His entire life was one long lame punch-line. He went looking for the keys.
"Kitten, have a little confidence in our team." The Monarch quickly glanced at his legion of henchmen, and amended his statement. "In me, then. It's the best plan I've come up with yet."
"That scares me," muttered Dr. Girlfriend. "You'll have no way out once you're in there. You need to have an exit strategy!"
"Bah! The Mighty Monarch needs no exit strategy! Let them be the ones to exit with their tails between their legs, leaving me in complete control!"
Dr. Girlfriend resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "What are you going to do once you're in control of the compound, then?"
The Monarch looked momentarily confused, but recovered quickly. "Do? Do? I shall make them rue the day they ever crossed my flight path!"
What that meant was, he had no freaking clue, she decided. "Why not start smaller, though? This seems awfully extreme."
"The Monarch is extreme! To the max, even. So buckle up and hold on for the ride, sweetheart! Besides," he added in an undertone, so the henchmen wouldn't hear, "if I don't stage a major attack before the end of the month, I'll be called before the Guild to explain what I've been doing with my grant money from the N.I.V."
Dr. Girlfriend sighed. She was the one who had slaved over the forms for the National Institute of Villainy grant, written the proposal and gotten him to sign it. His trust fund kept them in costumes and tunafish, but it wasn't enough to splurge on elaborate hardware. Hence, the grant applications. It was supposed to be for upgrades to their weaponry - she'd envisioned turret-mounted lasers, maybe, or at the very least working wings for the henchmen. Not ...this.
"If they think I've squandered my resources, they might even take away the Cocoon," he continued in a whisper. "I bet they'd give it to Admiral Larva, he's had his eye on it for years..."
"Don't worry, honey," she reassured him. "That's not going to happen."
"You are truly a pearl among women." He perked up once more. "Imagine the look on Venture's face when the Cocoon erupts like a terrible gopher of doom from the very ground beneath his feet!"
"Come to think of it, I don't think I understand the logic of giving the Cocoon a tunnelling function," she added. "I don't think butterflies burrow..."
"Shh," he murmured, placing a gentle finger on her lips.
The garage door creaked up slowly, as Dr. Venture heaved with all his strength, such as it was. Beams of light filtered through the dust that was raised when he finally stepped inside. It was as he remembered, musty and crammed full of junk. At the very least he'd be able to put together a kick-ass yard sale once he'd sorted through it to make sure there was nothing valuable. Brock would hate it - all those confirmed villains and other ne'er- do-wells roaming unsecured about the compound - but the boys would probably have fun. Hank loved to haggle, even if he wasn't very good at it ("You're the one selling it, Hank, you're supposed to get him to pay more.") and Dean loved to roll coins.
He picked his way past some cardboard boxes, trying to conduct a quick inventory of the more obvious items. Tennis rackets, fondue set, a mummified thylacine, a chest expander. He picked the last of these up, trying to draw the half-corroded springs apart and failing. He tossed it aside with a jangling clatter and continued his journey of exploration. No death rays or anything else obviously marketable jumped out at him, but you never knew what you might find...
Moving further into the crowded storage area, he came across a dusty glass display case. Running his hand across the grimy surface, he peered inside. His father's medals, tokens of gratitude from governments around the world. He flipped the latch and opened it, picking out one at random. An Albanian double-eagle, dated 1968. What the hell was that for? A vague memory of a rampaging horde of Soviet killbots surfaced from the mental vault where he kept all of his repressed childhood traumas, and he put down the medal with a shudder and stepped away.
He backed into something with arms, and freaked out for a second, flailing around and knocking over a teetering pile of boxes before he realized it was just the golem the Rabid Rabbi had used to attack them on his seventh birthday. No wonder no one ever came to his parties... The parchment that made the thing work had disintegrated, of course, but it might still make a good coat rack or a planter or something. If you liked your home décor nine feet tall, made of lumpy clay, and nightmare-inducing.
He turned to the boxes he'd knocked over, picking up the top one and opening it. To his surprise, it contained photo albums. He remembered H.E.L.P.eR taking pictures when he was a kid, of course, but he hadn't thought his father ever bothered developing them, let alone organizing them into albums. These books were put together with something approaching love, though, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, all the pictures carefully labelled. Maybe H.E.L.P.eR had done it himself. It was oddly touching, in a pathetic sort of way. After checking that it would bear his weight, he perched on the edge of a Mesopotamian sarcophagus and started flipping through the pages.
Folding was the worst part, thought Brock. The actual washing and drying weren't so bad - you could at least do other things while the machines were working away. But folding laundry was like an extra kick in the teeth after the chore should already have been done. And you knew you were just going to wear the clothes anyway, which made it extra-annoying. But he hated ironing even more, so folding it had to be, unless he wanted all of them to be walking around with wrinkled clothes all the time. People would think they'd let themselves go - moreso than they already did.
The boys were helping, sort of, but mostly they were goofing off. At that moment, Hank had a bath towel wrapped around his head like a turban. "Come on, Dean, let Swami Ramalamadingdong read your palm!"
"No!" said Dean, turning away and sticking his hands into his armpits. "The last time you told my fortune, you said I was going to die in ten days!"
"Oh, whatever," Hank sneered. "Is the widdle bitty baby scared?"
"I'm not scared, I'm just being sensible. I'm not going to waste my allowance money on a fortune teller who's been wrong before."
Actually, thought Brock, Hank had probably been right. He'd lost count of how many times the boys had died. It still freaked him out a bit every time it happened, but he'd gotten more or less used to the clones, even when they were all drippy and floppy and brainless. The boys always turned out the same, after all, just a bit less drippy and floppy. He just had to be careful not to say anything around them that would spill the beans.
"Hey, what's this?" Dean asked, picking something pink out of the basket. "A slingshot?"
Brock glanced over and gave a mental facepalm. "It's a thong, Dean. Just... just put it down, would you?"
Instead, Dean pretended to shoot his brother with it, making pew pew pew noises as he hopped around. "I got you, Hank, you're dead, I got you!"
"Dude," said Hank, making a face, "that thing was wedged between Brock's buttcheeks, stop playing with it."
"Eww!" Dean dropped it back where it had come from. Brock sighed and didn't bother to correct them about the item's rightful owner, or about the fact that slingshots didn't go pew pew. He was more worried about the way the floor was shaking and that rumbling noise that was getting steadily louder, audible even over the noise of the dryer. Maybe the washer had gotten unbalanced.
Dr. Girlfriend kept her eyes glued to the sensors, carefully making sure they didn't tunnel into an abandoned mine shaft or a 7-11 by mistake. "We're directly beneath the compound," she finally told the room at large, in case any of the other idiots were listening.
"Onwards and upwards!" screamed the Monarch, jabbing the air with one skinny finger. "The hour of our most glorious victory is near!"
The henchmen clapped and cheered, until then one of them accidentally triggered his wrist darts and then the others all had to clean up the mess.
The photos were strangely fascinating. Dr. Venture had blocked out many of the events documented in them, and yet each one conjured up some half- remembered moment of his childhood. Kano lifting him up to reach his Sonic Superflyer down from a tree. Age eight, standing on the steps of an Aztec temple. Colonel Gentleman and Action Man arm-wrestling, with himself as the arbiter. A Christmas morning from the late 1960s, everyone with eggnog (generously spiked, no doubt) and a huge pile of presents under the tree. His father had a bow from one of the packages stuck to his head, and Rusty was dissolving in a fit of giggles.
He cleared his throat. He wasn't getting emotional, it was just a bit of a crumb stuck there from lunch. That was it. He turned the pages avidly.
He came upon a series, clearly all taken on the same day. It was summer, a picnic. Rusty and Jonas Venture, the Quymns and Colonel Gentleman, sitting on a blanket in a grassy field. He remembered that day - it had been fun, until the French Tickler attacked and he and Tara had to go wait in the X-1, not even allowed to watch out the window while the grown-ups dealt with him. He pried up the corner of one to see if they were dated on the back. It was really stuck in there, but he eventually managed to get it free, only to have the whole book slip out of his hands and crash to the floor. Grumbling, he picked it up, and found that the fall had jarred something loose - an envelope. It must have been stuck under the cover, or maybe between two pages. It was yellowed with age, but still sealed.
Flipping it over, he saw that it was addressed to his father. The return address was somewhere in Omaha, Nebraska. He didn't know anyone in Omaha, he'd never even been there as far as he could recall. Of course, there was no name. Hands shaking, he popped his fifth diet pill of the day and then opened the envelope.
Nope, the washer wasn't unbalanced. Brock closed the lid and turned around just in time to see a huge drill bit burst through the basement floor, spraying chunks of cement and dirt all over the piles of clean, folded laundry. Someone, he decided, was going to pay for that.
"Holy crapadoodle!" yelled Hank, jumping out of the way just in time to avoid the burrowing... whatever the hell it was.
"Get out of the way, boys!" Brock positioned himself between the encroaching machine and his charges.
"Is it a Mecha-mole?" Dean asked, peering around his shoulder curiously.
"No, it's a... it's a... giant, tunnelling... dog turd?"
"Cocoon!" yelled a muffled voice from inside the monstrosity. A hatch on the side flew open and out poured a bunch of guys in yellow henchmen get- up. The Monarch followed at a dignified yet excited distance.
Brock sighed. "Cocoons don't burrow," he explained as he dispatched the first wave of attackers with his bare hands, letting the yellow-clad bodies fall in front of him so the second group had to climb over their fallen compatriots to get to him.
"Shut up!" screamed the Monarch, wings trembling with rage. "Death from below!" He shook his fist menacingly. Or at least, that's what Brock thought he was doing.
The fucking wrist dart launcher was jammed again. The Monarch made a good show of shaking his hand around, hoping something would shake loose, but privately he suspected it would take Dr. Girlfriend and a pair of needle-nose pliers to get the thing working again. "Surrender or face your doom!" he cried, trying to keep up the momentum. The attack had been going so well. Why did these things always happen to him, dammit?
Dear Jonas, began the note. You probably won't open this. "Good guess," muttered Dr. Venture. He had long ago ceased to be surprised at flagrant displays of assholishness on his father's part.
I haven't forgotten what you said about letting go, and I still appreciate the sentiment. I'm not asking for anything from you, though the check at Christmas time was a nice thought. I used it for some new clothes and shoes - he's growing so fast! I forget if I told you this before, but he watches your show every chance he gets. He even asked for Rusty Venture pyjamas and a lunchbox, and so eventually I got them for him, even though it felt a bit bizarre. Don't worry, though, I haven't told him anything. I've included a picture, in case you're curious. I think he looks like you more and more as he gets older!
"Jesus." Maybe she was some Billie Jean-type nutcase who'd fixated on his dad... Except, somehow, he didn't think so. With everything he knew about his father, it probably shouldn't have come as a shock that he'd have a few extra kids around, but it did. He skimmed to the bottom of the letter to read the signature, even as he fumbled around in the envelope for the purported picture. The letter was signed "Hilda". No last name. But, as it turned out, once he saw the picture, he didn't need one. The boy glared at the camera, unsmiling in his reindeer sweater. He was probably five or six years old, but he was already huge. His blond, curly hair looked like his mother had struggled to get a comb through it for the picture, and it was all frizzed out. Rusty would have recognized that face anywhere...
"How many of these guys you got, Monarch?" Brock yelled. The pile of corpses was nearly a wall by now. "You're gonna run out pretty soon, aren't you."
"Never!" The Monarch stamped his foot angrily and threw up his arm. With a loud clang, his wrist-guard made contact with the cocoon's frame, and suddenly the air was full of flying darts. "Oh, now they work!" Two of his own henchmen dropped, but improbably, the Venture boys were still standing.
Brock deflected three darts with the blade of his knife, ping ping ping. "Give me something to throw at him!" he shouted over his shoulder at the boys. He stuck his hand out, waiting to receive whatever they offered.
Hank and Dean looked around, helpfully if fruitlessly. "Here, Brock," said Dean after a moment, and pressed something soft into his hand.
Brock looked at it, puzzled. "What am I supposed to do with a thong...? Oh, man," he broke off, annoyed, as yet another wave of henchmen burst from the cocoon. "Where do you get all these idiots?!" He fumbled on the ground for the deflected darts and launched them, one by one, from his impromptu pink slingshot, taking down each new winged chump as he emerged.
"Job fair," said the Monarch, ducking the thong-flung projectiles. "Henching's a growth industry. Plenty of opportunity for advancement."
"Yeah, I guess if all your co-workers die, that would happen. You got any more, or are you ready to turn that thing around and dig your way out of here?" He held the thong menacingly, just in case.
"Uh." The Monarch looked a bit awkward, and scratched the back of his neck. "I don't think we can turn it around, actually. I was kind of banking on getting out that way." He pointed up hopefully.
Brock grimaced. "Well, I can't let you just tunnel through the whole damn compound, messing up the place."
"Yeah, I know, but, ah, maybe if we tried to stick to the hallways or something...?"
"No way."
The Monarch's shoulders slumped. "Okay, hang on." He retreated into the cocoon. "Honey-pie? Remember what you were saying about an exit strategy? You didn't happen to come up with one, did you?"
"Oh, and send a couple of henchmen out to fold the laundry you messed up, too!" Brock shouted after him. "If you've got any left!"
When Brock and the boys emerged from the basement, each carrying a basket of freshly-folded laundry, they found Dr. Venture sitting at the kitchen table, just staring off into space.
"Hey doc," Brock said, setting his load down on the table. "Everything okay?"
"Huh?" The doctor looked up, as if surprised to see anyone else in his home. "Oh, fine, fine."
"Great. Look, there's a bit of a mess in the basement, you probably want to stay out of there until it's cleaned up."
"Boys, what did you...?" he began, but Brock cut him off.
"No, no, it wasn't their fault."
"We were helpful!" said Dean brightly. "And I learned about thongs, and..."
"Okay, boys, why don't you take your laundry along to your room and put it away," Brock suggested quickly.
"Sure thing, Brock!" The boys bounced off down the hallway, arguing about who was going to get to be The Thing.
"Everything okay?" he asked again, once they were gone.
"I said, I'm fine!" Dr. Venture snapped.
"Okay," said Brock, clearly unconvinced. He fished around in the laundry basket for a moment and tossed something on the table. "Here, this wound up in my stuff. Don't know how that could have happened." He hefted his basket again and strode off towards his room.
Dr. Venture eyed the thong. "Thanks," he called after his bodyguard. Nothing's changed, he told himself, as if thinking it could make it true. All it means is now I have access to an extra kidney if I need one.