Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His mother called it “snooping”. He called it “looking for a pencil”. It just so happened that the mechanical pencils he preferred were hidden in his parents’ room so he couldn’t lose ten of them at a time. 

9 year old Henry searched high and low. His red pencil had been misplaced and the yellow #2 pencil his 5 year old sister had offered had been in her mouth, the eraser chewed beyond recognition. The last thing he needed was her mouth germs all over his paper. So he took a chance while his parents were gone and went into their room. He could have waited for his mother to come home; she would’ve handed him one. But homework could only wait so long before it was forgotten about and he didn’t want to get in trouble again. Not after last time.

He scanned the organized mess of his mother’s bottom nightstand drawer. There was a binder he recognized. His mother had filled it with everyone’s birth certificates, social security cards, health cards, copies of doctor’s notes, allergy lists, just about anything they would need in an emergency, something she could just grab in case of a fire, something she called insurance . He had only seen it a handful of times, usually right before a doctor’s appointment or while his father was filling out tax information. He hadn’t known that she kept it there but decided he should keep it in mind. His parents had had him babysitting a lot lately. He had learned at an early age that he was a fast healer, but his sister was always quick to scream about being not okay for one reason or another. Whether or not she actually was, having her medical information on hand would be useful.

Forgotten mail and a store bag crowded the rest of the drawer. He tugged on the bag, but it didn’t budge. He would have to move the binder. Loose papers fluttered to the floor as he slowly lifted it from the drawer. He muttered in dismay, prefaced by a sharp, "shoot!" as he collected the papers off the floor.

Something caught his attention as he opened the back cover: a picture similar to the one hanging on Piper’s bedroom wall of their dad standing behind their mother, both with their hands on her swollen belly. But this picture was different. Jake Hart had never had dark hair, and his was much curlier than the person in the picture. He couldn’t really see the man’s face because half of it was covered by his mother’s as he kissed her cheek, eyes closed. She was much younger and very happy. He guessed she was laughing, based on the way her nose crinkled and her mouth was slightly agape. Like Piper’s picture, both of them had their hands on her baby bump. Also like Piper’s picture, it was professionally done with a colorful backdrop. She was a sucker for professional photos. They were all over the house, more prevalent in shared spaces.

He pulled the photo out of the small flap and flipped it around to see if she had written on the back of it, like she did with their school pictures before sending them to their grandparents. He recognized her signature, along with a messier signature that started with an R, one he couldn’t read because he was still learning cursive, and a little pointy heart after the name. Seven months , it read.

“Henry!” His sister’s shrill voice rang through the house, breaking his thoughts. He stuffed the picture in his pocket, the loose papers into the binder, and the binder into the drawer before running out of the room.

Henry’s body gave him away. His father called it “body language”. He called it “betrayal”. Whenever Henry lied or hid something, it showed from his head to his toes. His brain struggled to filter secrets from everyday thoughts. His fingers tapped, shoulders tensed, legs bounced. His eyes and ears failed him. He would concentrate so hard on making a straight face that his eyebrows would furrow and his jaw would clench. He was blissfully unaware of the melody his body sang to others when he tried to be inconspicuous. He thought he was good at it.

Maybe it was the way he shoveled food into his mouth at dinner, or his inability to sit still or make eye contact, especially when mom looked at him. Maybe he was too eager to clear the table and load the dishwasher, or too quick to grab his backpack and run upstairs, back a little too straight and mind a little too aware of his steps.

He grabbed pajamas from his closet, mind set on a shower, when he found his mom appeared in the doorway with an unreadable expression, startling him out of his skin. Her stance was neither hostile nor defensive, arms slack at her sides, leaning against the door frame. Henry looked her over cautiously and waited for her to speak.

“Do you need to talk, honey?” she asked, tone as neutral as the rest of her body. She almost seemed concerned. Almost. 

He shook his head.

“Are you sure? Nothing happened at school or anything?”

He shook his head again.

“Really? Because you’ve been awfully quiet." Her tone held a dull undercurrent of accusation.

“No mom,” he said finally, “Everything’s fine at school.”

“Okay.” She nodded thoughtfully as she sat down on his bed. “And what about here? Are things okay here?”

Henry narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I’m fine. I promise.”

“Okay,” she echoed, her legs crossed at the knee, fingers interlocked around her leg. "Did you lose something today?”

Henry’s mouth opened and closed, his expression confused but guarded.

“Like your mind,” she added, “since you thought you could find it in my belongings.”

He felt the color drain from body in a wave, like the plug had been pulled from his heel. She probably hadn't noticed. He could still save this. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about my drawer being open.”

“Well…well how do you know it wasn’t Piper?”

Kris gave him a long look, one she used to invoke a fear response without a word. “I don’t,” she admitted, “but if you don’t want your father to get involved, I suggest you tell me the truth.”

She had him there. Henry would rather Jake stay in the dark. He knew he wouldn’t be hit, but the reprimanding always made him wonder if he’d be better off taking a slap every once in a while. When the oblivious man had things brought to his attention, he turned from goofy, air-headed and fun to straight up hurtful. There had been a handful of times where Henry, his sister or both of them had been reprimanded for breaking rules or doing things deemed unacceptable or to not to Jake's standards and he had made them cry over a conversation that shouldn't have been harsh.

“Henry,” his mother’s voice broke through his thoughts. He wasn't sure how long he'd been staring, but he knew the jig was up.

“I’m sorry.” His eyes hit the floor and shoulders drooped.

“Why were you in my room?” 

“I was looking for a pencil. But I forgot.”

Kris held out an arm and beckoned him with a gesture. Henry shuffled over and sat in her lap. His head rested against her chest, his eyes focused on his shirt, fingers pulling a loose thread. Mom smelled like flowers and coconut shampoo, and her hug felt safe despite his rigidity.

“Honey, you can’t just go through my stuff. If you need something from my room, you ask.”

“You go through my stuff,” he reasoned.

“That’s my job as a parent. To keep you safe," she added, “I am an adult and I need my privacy. You'll understand soon enough.”

“I want to understand now.”

“Well there are plenty of reasons why I won't let that happen. I'm not good with awkward conversations. We know that, don't we?” Kris gave him a playful smirk and attempted to make eye contact.

Henry giggled. A number of instances came to mind, usually involving Piper, where she passed an explanation off to their father to make light of or avoided entirely; Piper had learned a new word at school recently and returned home with a question that led to more questions and Kris had become so stressed from the onslaught of uncomfortable questions that she had banned them from asking anything else for the rest of the day.

Then Henry remembered the picture he had shoved in his pocket. The awkward questions hit him like a truck. The last time he had asked a question about a woman he had seen his dad with on the walk home from the bus stop, the situation had devolved into an argument. But this was different. This was just a picture. It couldn’t hurt to ask, could it? Besides, Jake wasn’t in the room.

“Hey mommy?” he began hesitantly. He reached around her arm to pull the photo from his pocket and handed it to her. He felt her face drop in the slackening of her jaw and pulled away from her chest to confirm. She didn’t look angry, but some other negative emotion he couldn’t place, and he could feel it directed at him. “Who’s that guy?”

“Henry,” her tone carried a warning, “Where did you get this?”

“It fell out of your binder.”

Her eyes scanned the photo. He wished he could read her mind. Her face softened the more she took in. Her mouth never moved, gaze never faltered. It was like she was in a trance, like the very essence of the picture had pulled her deep under an unbreakable hypnosis. The arm around him adjusted to rub his head.

“Who is he?” Henry repeated.

Finally, she cleared her throat and moved him off her lap. “We can’t talk about this right now. Don’t go through my stuff again.”

“But mom—”

“Not now, Henry.” She tucked the photo into her shirt. “I’m going to get you a pencil. You’re going to get your homework done before bed. And not a word about this to your father.” She pointed a stern finger in his face.

Despite his mother’s protests, Henry could not drop the subject. Every time they were alone, he would ask about the picture; in the car, at the grocery store, or over the phone, the same question dropped. Who is he? His body continued to betray him in front of his dad. Jake grew vigilant to his cues over time. Henry’s continued stimming and fidgeting started to wear down his temper.

Then one night, he heard his parents arguing. Jake shouted, "Would you please find out what his problem is? I can’t handle all the acting out. Take care of your kid." Henry hadn’t realized he'd done anything wrong, but dodged the man for some time after he'd heard it.

After a few weeks, Jake went on a business trip and Kris crept into Henry's room before lights out. “Alright, kiddo. You want answers? Here they are,” she said, holding a bulky spiral bound notebook with things sticking out from all sides, front to back. “I have to put Piper to bed. I’ll be right back.”

Henry’s fingers traced over the indents the pen had made as he read the bright pink cover. Kris’ Journal. Keep Out , in curly letters with swirls at the end of each one. There were doodles of hearts, stars, dots and squiggly lines all around. The edges of the book were tattered and torn, yellow seeping into the white of some of the pages that were falling out. There was what appeared to be a year written in the corner, smudged beyond recognition by a long-dried water stain. He didn't need to know the year to recognize that it had aged with her. His fingers itched to open it. His mind yearned for the answers to Kris' dodging. But he patiently waited as he listened for her footsteps.

She reappeared in her pajamas, a teal cotton, striped button-up shirt and pants to match. She looked ready for a slumber party as she climbed onto his bed and crossed her legs. The tight nervousness on her face that mirrored how his stomach felt did not match the brightness of her wardrobe.

“Listen, Henry. Before we do this, I want you to know I love you.”

“I love you too,” he smiled innocently.

“I don’t want you to be mad, or hate me, or think I was hiding this from you to be mean or…” she trailed off. Her ramblings made no sense and she could see it on his face. “But I think you’re old enough to know.”

Henry’s mind and body buzzed as she gingerly opened the cover of her notebook. Taped directly to the back of the cover was a picture of a man, his eyes a bright blue, his hair dark and falling in his face in a pattern similar to Henry’s own. His smile was perfect and his shoulders were broad. Beneath the photo was a caption with the same swirly, curly letters: Ray with several hearts bordering the name.

“I used to have a journal for everything,” she said, smiling fondly. He believed it; Kris was nothing if not thorough. She pointed at the picture. “This is the man from the other picture. His name is Ray.”

“Was he your boyfriend?” Henry raised an eyebrow, a mischievous smirk playing at his lips.

“Yeah, he was. One of the best people I’ve ever met, too. I was lucky to know him.”

“Wow,” he breathed. She wasn't one to give a negative opinion about anyone, except for the Tetrazini’s, who she thought were raising their daughter to be a brat. But it was rare to hear her so highly compliment someone.

“We met when I was 16,” she continued. “We were together for about three years. We almost got married. Then I met Jake.”

Henry’s eyes widened. “You mean, if you didn’t meet dad, that guy could’ve been my dad?” He thought about the picture with the guy — Ray — holding her baby belly. “You had a baby with him, didn’t you?” He looked up to see her chewing on her bottom lip. “The other picture is just like the one Piper has.”

“Why don’t we read a little?” she offered. She adjusted so her back was against the pillows with him. She put an arm around his body and stretched her legs out. It felt like story time when he was small…well, smaller .

He listened intently as his mother read the contents of her Ray journal to him, detailing specific parts and showing him notes that were paper clipped to some pages and pictures taped to others. His mother accomplished what his teachers could not; he was interested in what she had to say.

She started the journal when she was 17 after this Ray guy asked her to be his girl. He had written her many, many love notes, which Henry barely understood between chicken scratch penmanship and spelling like his sister’s, only some very basic words spelled correctly. She claimed there were so many of them she had to stack them in a shoebox at one point. Only a select few made it into the notebook, relevant to the entries. Some of the photos were of him just doing things, like fixing a leaky pipe or talking on a phone connected to a cord, which Kris called a landline. These ones gave Henry a good look at his physique, a bit scrawny, but his muscles only got bigger with each picture. Others were selfies, not yet called that, she had explained. Most of the pictures were dark in the background, which was due to the flash on her camera, and almost all of them were polaroids.

She skipped over a few pages, which she brushed off as being emotional at the time of writing. Whether that meant they had been arguing or she was just pouring her heart out, he couldn’t be sure. Her chest rumbled against his ear as she spoke and he found himself yawning halfway through. He willed himself to wake up while Kris talked about flowers lining her porch and counters and being used as centerpieces, with photographic evidence to back up the addiction this man had to buying her flowers. She detailed how he made her feel like she was the only woman in the world. She offered anecdotes of getting caught in the rain and grand romantic gestures gone wrong, a candlelit dinner fire that made her swear off candles for a year. What they had seemed very movie-like. The pages got shorter as she got closer to the end of the book, the entries smaller until they were only short paragraphs long when she stopped reading and closed the book, her mood suddely somber.

“We got engaged when we were 19. And I found out I was having a baby just before I turned 20.” She finished after what felt like hours. She pulled a paper from the very back of the journal, folded in half the long way. “You want to see our name list?” Henry nodded, curiosity barely keeping him awake. She unfolded the paper and handed it to him. An uneven line was drawn down the crease, a list titled Girls on one side and Boys on the other. The girl side was almost full. Many names had been tossed around, Maribel circled and a few crossed off, scrapped entirely. There were only two names under the boy side. The first was crossed off, scribbled out and barely legible, but the R sticking out at the beginning hinted at a junior. The second name was circled, a name he recognized, a name he’d been writing since before he entered school.

The name he had carried his whole life.

Henry looked up at her. That pesky image knocked at his brain once more, all knuckle, as realization dawned on him.

She kissed the top of his head. “That’s why you don’t have a picture like Piper’s.” A question he had been asking her since Piper’s room had still been a nursery. A question that, whenever Jake heard it, had been shut down with a topic change.

Henry wasn’t sure how to feel. He paused for a long moment. “So Jake isn’t my dad?”

“Of course he is, honey,” she tried, taking in his downcast expression. “He’s always been there for you and loved you and did all the things dads do. He’s just…not biologically your father.”

He didn’t know what biologically meant, but other questions took hold of his tongue before he could ask. “So then my real dad didn’t want me?”

Kris sighed, resigned to her lack of preparation despite weeks of sitting on the topic. She cursed herself for choosing bedtime to do this. “Yes he did. He wanted you very much. He was so, so excited to see you. He talked to you in my belly every day. He made plans for you. He wanted to be a dad more than anything.”

Henry’s brow furrowed. “Then why isn’t he here?”

“He had some stuff to take care of at home.” She'd scripted the answer years ago, and hoped she'd never have to use it.

“Where does he live?”

“He lives in Swellview. As far as I know,” she added quickly.

Henry's mind spun as he took in all the new information. “Why didn’t you stay with him?”

“Things change.” She shrugged. “People change. I don’t expect you to understand that yet but when you’re older, I think you’ll get it.” There's that pesky older business again. “Maybe I can take you to see him one day,” she mused.

“All the way in Swellview?” he gaped.

“All the way in Swellview.”

There was a beat as Henry's mind wandered slightly off topic.“If you have this book, why was the picture in your binder?”

“Because I found it in a box,” she explained easily, “and I had to dig this out of a different box and I didn’t have time between work and taking care of you kids…and dad.”

Henry snuggled against his mom. “Does dad know?” She hummed affirmatively. “Do you think he’ll hate me now?”

“No baby, of course not.” She looked at her watch. “I think it’s too late for you to be thinking about this right now. You’ll feel better in the morning, okay?”

“But I still have questions,” Henry protested.

“And we’ll talk about them. But for tonight, you need to sleep. School in the morning.” She kissed the top of his head and ruffled the fluffy blond mop before scooting off of his bed. He laid down and pulled the blanket to his chin.

“Just one more question?”

“Alright, but make it quick.”

“Do you think,” he rubbed his eyes, “he would ever want to see me?”

She smiled sympathetically. “I think he would love that. If you ever needed him, or something happened to me and Jake couldn’t take care of you for whatever reason, I think he’d still be waiting for you in Swellview. Goodnight, pal.”

“Night, mommy.”

Kris flicked the light switch and quietly exited the room, journal tucked protectively under her arm. The last thing her husband needed to know was that she’d held onto it.

Back in her room, she clicked the power button on the TV remote and stuck the notebook in a shoebox atop a pile of old letters while she waited for the screen to come to life. She climbed onto the step ladder in front of her closet and shoved the box to the back of the shelf.

“I’m Trent Overunder.”

“And I’m Mary Gaperman.”

“And in just a few minutes, we will have Captain Man here in the studio to talk about the recent spike in criminal activity here in Swellview.”

Kris sat down on the queen size bed and lowered the volume of the television. Normally she would change the channel but tonight, after weeks of her son begging to be let into her life, into her past , she felt tied to the broadcast. She let it drone on in the background while her mind wandered into forbidden territory, to the depths she refused to share and tried to forget.

She wasn’t sure when she closed her eyes, but when they opened, he was there on screen, staring down the camera, a confident smirk on his face. He could fool everyone else in that town, charm their fears away like they were mere butterflies fluttering in their stomachs. They couldn’t see through the smile that never reached his eyes. But she had always been able to see behind the mask.

Chapter Text

When the initial call came in, he felt his heart stop. There was no way he had heard correctly.

His last memory regarding his ex-fiancee Kris was the disappearance of her and her things from his apartment 13 years ago while she was several months pregnant, about to pop. His father had called him away for an emergency while he was still a lesser known hero looking to be recognized and he had stupidly taken the job. He agonized over the half empty apartment when he returned, wondered where he went wrong. Everything had been so wholesome until then. He had been distraught, refused to take calls for days. If her voice didn’t come through the receiver he hung up. He attempted to drown in the bottle, but his densitized body forbade it. He could only manage a couple of tipsy moments before the alcohol had already been processed. His father had snapped him out of it, had taken advantage of his grief and convinced him to take his anger out on the new upcoming villains, people he’s been fighting for years now. In his prime and with an outlet, he became the hero everyone looked to for guidance. The city created a budget for him to run his operation and he remained solitary, save for the company of his friend Schwoz and a new girl under his arm every other week or a one night stand in the making. But nobody could replace her.

Despite disappearing into the void, she had written his name on the birth certificate, probably a form of insurance. Insurance that just paid off.

… Bordertown hospital…we have your son…Henry Hart…

Hart, they had said. Henry Hart. Kris had been certain she wanted to name the baby Henry. But Hart? That wasn’t even her maiden name. And Ray was positive it wasn’t from anyone on his side. Perhaps it was a mistake. But if it had been, they would not have gone out of their way to track him down.Would they? He was meticulous about staying out of the public eye, lest anyone put two and two together about his secret identity. The junk store was the only part of him he publicly displayed. The less anyone knew about him, the better. He could keep a wall up, keep from getting hurt again, by family or by love.

Still, the call came, turning a bright, warm Wednesday afternoon into a cloudy, uncertain, anxious nightmare of a day.

Ray had spent years attempting to convince himself it had just been a bad dream. She had died the day she left. Or she had been stolen by some nasty villain that was really good at hiding and their son was growing into a cold-hearted demon he may have to one day fight. But that would have been okay because he’d never know. He could ignore his own blue eyes staring back at him. He could write off his own features as a failed attempt at cloning. He could pretend that the past had never happened. He could just convince himself the offspring never existed. But this pulled him out of his daydreams. This planted his feet firmly on the ground, sent him flying backwards in time to a tiny apartment, a bedside bassinet, curlers on the bathroom counter and coffee for two at the kitchen table. This reminded him of belly kicks and butterfly kisses, of TV dad fantasies where they played catch in the summer and built snowmen in the winter.

If Schwoz noticed the overwhelming grief in his face, he said nothing. He patted his friend on the back and returned to his station at the monitors. 

Fatal car accident…no family here…

If you don’t claim him, he’ll be sent to an orphanage until he can be placed with another family.

But they didn’t know each other. He could be placed with another family and it wouldn’t matter anyway because it was the same thing; they were strangers. It was possible the kid had seen pictures of him. But Hart? His mind echoed the name in question. If there was another man, there was little to no chance of that. More alarmingly, how did the kid survive? With minor injuries at that? Ray was subconsciously thankful to hear he had injuries at all. Not that he wanted that for his child, but it meant his densitized DNA had not been passed down. The kid could live a normal life. 

I’ll be there soon, he promised without thinking. The tube came down around him before he even hung up the phone and he was driving to Bordertown before sunset.

The two hour drive felt so much longer as images flickered through his mind. All the things he had definitely missed up until now; sleepless fever nights, toys littering every surface, first words and steps, smart remarks that might have been genuine questions to an unknowing little mind, trick-or-treating, believing in Santa, tooth fairy excitement, comforting hugs, rushed school mornings, sudden realizations, slow and steady personality shifts, terrible knock-knock jokes; all things he had agonized over for years whenever he was alone. He saw fathers with their kids at the park, wished he’d had that with his own father, cried because he couldn’t with his son. The opportunity for automatic unconditional love had been ripped away from him.

And to think they had only been a few hours away the whole time.

Tiny voices filled his ears. Daddy, daddy! A giggle here, a whine there, a sniffle, boo-boo kisses. He never realized how sentimental he felt about the things he’d never witnessed.

The thoughts shook themselves away as he entered the parking lot of the hospital that claimed to have his son. Uncertainty clawed its way to the surface and struggled against a feeling akin to hope. He pushed the feelings down, flipped his visor down to look in the mirror, smoothed his hair to his forehead, wisped it to the right so it wasn’t in his vision and put on a neutral face. He could do this.

Upon entering the building, the sterile scents and bright lights overwhelmed him. As Captain Man he sent people off to the hospital without ever having to set foot inside. As Ray Manchester, he was still indestructible and hasn’t needed so much as a flu shot since he was 8, not that he could get one anyway. The needles would just bounce off his skin if they came too fast or bend when they attempted to push past his skin. His own father had quickly realized this and forged proof of vaccination documents right up until he was 18 to avoid having his son taken from him. Swellview was corrupt and didn’t pay much mind to their youth, but his father had been in the public eye for some time and he wasn’t taking any chances.

I received a phone call about my son being here. Henry Hart.

Every word felt wrong. Raymond Manchester did not receive phone calls. He had not raised a kid to call his. That last name felt like a blow to the chest every time he thought about it. But whatever he felt, he must have hidden it well. The receptionist had not so much as cast him a second glance. She spewed off a room number and pointed him in a general direction.

The final stretch.

He could do this, he reminded himself. After today, he wouldn’t be alone anymore. He might never have a moment to himself again. There was no telling how clingy or distant the kid might be in the face of grief and new beginnings. Distantly, and while ignoring stares from elderly people crowding the hallways, or bedded addicts with no rooms to sleep in, he found himself making plans for the near and distant future; enrolling the boy in school was a priority and an opportunity he hadn’t had for himself after second grade. Honestly, if they hadn’t taught him to spell his own name in Kindergarten, he might not exist to the public at all. Schwoz did all of his writing, all the techy stuff, and was in the process of teaching Ray how to do his taxes. He was talented in areas Ray faltered in and wouldn’t be denied the credit.

Ray found himself in front of a partially cracked open door. He listened for voices. When nothing came, he took a deep breath, clenched his jaw to neutralize his face as he scattered his crowding thoughts again, and pushed it open some more. 

Nostalgia, longing, grief, and a hundred other emotions washed over him in a tsunami of sadness as his eyes settled upon her face. Well, not hers. But it could have been. The boy looked up from where he had been staring at the floor and it hit Ray like a bullet train. Those brown eyes searching his own face were like windows into the child’s grieving soul. His blond disheveled mop covered his ears and half of his left eye like he couldn’t be bothered to push it out of the way. His arms wrapped tightly around his backpack. Save for a cut on his cheek and an ace wrap around his wrist and hand, he seemed generally unharmed. 

“Henry,” Ray greeted. He wanted nothing more than to drop to his knees, hold the boy’s face, swipe the hair out of his eyes and get a real good look at him, but he might have lost all composure if he did. He settled for holding his hand out. Henry shook it hesitantly. “The name’s Ray Manchester.”

Henry nodded. “I know,” he said simply. 

He would learn on the ride to Henry’s apartment to collect a few things that Kris had in fact talked about him to her son. She had reminded him on more than one occasion that if something had ever happened to her that he could find his father in Swellview, as if she had planned on it happening at any moment. He would also learn on the ride back to Swellview that the name Hart came from a man by the name of Jake, a man she had run away with so they could be together. Henry had thought the story was pretty romantic. Ray, fighting off a new wave of heartbreak at the revelation of the affair, would not squander that thought for the kid. He clearly had not done the math yet.

The rearview mirror was turned on the kid the whole two hours. Ray didn’t miss the way he froze before each red stoplight, silently detailing the crash with his actions. Henry didn’t do much in the way of conversation. He wasn’t expected to. He shook like a small dog sometimes, cried quietly, covered his sniffles with coughing and throat clearing, made a comment about stupid allergies as if he were ashamed of having just lost the only family he’s ever known. When he stopped at the Nacho Ball drive-thru on the way home, Ray watched the kid fiddle with his arm wrap and test the mobility in his wrist before ultimately deciding to take the bandage off. Though he hadn’t meant to, Ray narrowed his eyes at this. Once his hand was free, Henry circled his wrist a few times and curled and outstretched his fingers, satisfaction peeking through his features at the things he couldn’t do about an hour ago. Ray made a mental note to have Schwoz test him. He couldn’t see the cut cheek from this angle, but if what he was seeing was real and not feigned bravery, he couldn’t imagine the cut would be there much longer. That scared him.

Henry glanced into the bag he was handed, muttered his thanks and plopped it onto the seat to be forgotten about. Ray’s attempt at conversation for the next hour was more like several popped thought bubbles. Every thought revolved around a freshly deceased woman he hadn’t seen in over a decade. Small talk wouldn’t help any. How have you been might have been the dumbest question to cross his mind, and tell me about your life could probably be saved for a less grievous time. 

“How’s your cheek feel?” he asked finally as he drove into town. Henry put a hand up to where he had been playing with the cut earlier.

“Better.”

Ray nodded and fell silent once more. Mentally he scolded himself. How was he expected to be a father to this kid when he couldn’t even start a conversation with him? Part of him reasoned that this was no fault of his own, mind falling back to that dreadful evening. But the way he had handled it, everything between that point and now, shutting everyone out of the civilian side of his life, isolating in a cave half a mile below the surface that he had built with a mix of his city budget and his inheritance from his father, suffocating his feelings with criminal hands around his throat and streetwalkers in hotel rooms, never talking, only acting. He was to blame for all that. He could only communicate with a handful of people, and the number was marginally lower when he wasn’t Captain Man. His head had once been so full of conversations he could have with his children. But now, one on one with the kid he had so highly anticipated all those years ago, his curiosities couldn’t be quelled at the moment, half falling into currently forbidden territory and the rest falling on Schwoz, who he would have to explain his suspicions to when Henry wasn’t in the room. 

What did teenagers even talk about? He had been a teenager once. Sure he had. Not that it mattered. He spent all his time pumping iron and learning to desensitize himself to danger and emotional turmoil at the behest of his father. A lot of good that did, he thought bitterly. He watched the kid wipe another round of tears in the mirror. Like Ray’s thoughts were on blast over the car speaker and he was sympathizing, though he knew this wasn’t the case.

His cell phone buzzed in the center console and he cursed. Based on the panicked look Henry shot in the direction of the sound, only furthering Ray’s knowledge of the situation, he couldn’t pick up right now. It was hard to ignore and every instinct told him not to. It must have been an emergency if Schwoz was calling right now. He couldn’t be wondering where Ray was. His location was sent to the Man Cave monitors almost consistently and he was nearly home.

Then Ray had a thought. The bedrooms were through the sprocket. The sprocket was located in the Man Cave. He didn’t want Henry to know about the Man Cave, but he’d had absolutely no time to plan. Realistically he was in no position to have a kid living with him at all, especially one who had just lost everything. He’d have to lock up all the blasters, have Schwoz put all his weird inventions away as they were dead center of the cave right now for spring cleaning. Curiosity could only be contained for so long. Ray knew that all too well. He was less prepared for this than he had ever been for anything. But it wasn’t like the government had cared enough to scope out his home. 

Ray fought with himself all the way to his parking spot. He contemplated opening up one of the apartments above the store, but didn’t want Henry to feel like he was being left up there to deal with this alone. He didn’t want the kid to feel like an obligation he was trying to balance, although it was hard to see it any other way at the moment. He considered the future as his seatbelt clicked. Henry would eventually stumble upon the elevator anyway, wouldn’t he? How would he react to Ray hiding all that from him when he was supposed to be building trust from the ground up? Then there was the fact that he needed Schwoz to check him out anyway. How could he explain that away? There just wasn’t any time as he stepped out of the car. 

He met Henry on the sidewalk and audibly sighed. “You ready, kid?”

“What is this place?” Henry stared up at the store sign.

“This is my home.”

Henry slung his backpack over his shoulder and grabbed Ray’s hand. Ray hadn’t expected the contact, yet squeezed back reassuringly.

As he held the door open and ushered the kid inside, he added, "and I think it’ll blow your mind."