Chapter Text
It was another sunny Sunday, specifically eight in the morning, when Henry woke up.
His feet dragged lazily down the stairs and into the kitchen. Like every morning since he'd quit being Kid Danger, he made scrambled eggs and bacon, sat on the couch, and ate his breakfast while watching another episode of Game of Thrones.
He used to be addicted to that show when he was younger. When he wasn't solving crimes on the dirty streets of Swellview, he was at home, sitting on that same couch, watching epic and disturbing scenes from the show on that same TV.
And he wanted to believe nothing had changed. He wanted to believe everything was still exactly the same: the electronics, the furniture, him. He wanted to believe his parents hadn't remodeled the guest room and turned it into a little blue nook with stuffed animals, a rocking chair, a crib, and a humidifier that changed the whole essence of the room to the point where it no longer felt like it belonged to a house weighed down by despair.
Above all, he wanted to believe Piper was still there, even if in the form of some kind of matter his limited brain would never fully process. Whether as stardust, that material made of carbon, oxygen, and iron, forged inside stars and flung into space when they explode or die. That dust accumulates to form new stars, planets, and, fundamentally, the atoms that make up human beings. Or as DNA stamped on some forgotten shirt at the back of a closet, or as that expensive perfume he used to hate because he thought it was too strong.
He wanted it to be strong enough to enter his airways and lodge itself in his sense of smell and in his brain forever.
At the same time he wanted to believe that, Henry couldn't ignore the visible changes that had adorned his house and his spirit. He was far from liking them, but before he could even reject them, his body and mind were already far more tied to the new responsibilities that came with those changes than anyone else.
Everything about him screamed exhaustion and agony; his blond hair, which had always been so vivid, was now as messy and gray as his mind. His face, once so adored by the girls at school, now had deep dark circles that overshadowed his blue eyes, a mouth that had taken on a pallor, and a sick, troubled expression that repelled any human being who valued their own well-being.
But despite all that, he couldn't afford to give up. He could scream silently all he wanted, he could refuse to do what life had tasked him with, but in the end, his attention would always go back to the same place at the slightest sign of trouble.
So, like any normal day in his life, he finished breakfast, brushed his teeth, took a long cold shower in a miserable attempt to clean all the filth that lived in his soul, put on the baggiest, most comfortable hoodie he had, went to the former guest room, checked if anything was even slightly out of place and needed his attention, and then went outside.
If he were still seventeen, he'd be on his way to the Man Cave, texting Charlotte and Jasper to come along; the walk to work went by much faster when they were gossiping about school kids. When they went down that horrible elevator, they'd find some weird invention of Schwoz's. Ray would probably be trying to fix it — or trying to kill the little guy.
But he wasn't seventeen anymore. Charlotte and Jasper had moved away from Swellview when high school ended, and he was no longer the renowned Kid Danger. He was now a twenty-year-old young man carrying the weight of the entire world on his back, unable to blame anyone for it but this fucking life.
He looked at the streets of Swellview, at the shadows of the trees, at the people eating bright-colored snow cones and living the sunny day the way he was meant to live it: with smiles, beaches, clubs, pool parties. He looked at the teenage couples walking hand in hand, feeling not only nostalgia for what he'd lived through in his own adolescence but also anger, because he remembered that a relationship like that never worked out in the long run. Illusion is an innocent mask that prevents us from seeing the world as it really is, and it can even be a blessing to enjoy it in certain situations, but in this case, it was nothing more than a venomous, treacherous snake. There are promises, confessions, vows of love under the pale moonlight that, in the end, become the worst kind of pain anyone can feel.
As he studied every detail of Swellview's streets on his way to the grocery store, he tried to find Piper in some corner of his memory. Some day he'd seen her walking on that same sidewalk, next to that same tree, sitting on the same bench where old people usually sat to throw crumbs to the pigeons. He tried to find an echo of her scream through those alleys, but when he got to the store, nothing had brought his sister back.
And he didn't do it on purpose. Most of the time, he tried not to think about Piper. He knew it was unfair and a horrible way to deal with everything, but he couldn't help rejecting memories of her just to make the pain a tiny bit less sharp. But his brain was at war with his desires and always went against the protests of his core.
Luckily, he lived on autopilot, like now as he was checking out at the grocery store. The smile he gave the cashier wasn't anywhere close to friendly, and the way he helped a pregnant woman put her groceries in her car trunk wasn't anywhere close to that either, the few things he still did for Swellview and its inhabitants carried no kindness whatsoever.
This time, he didn't go straight home.
He went back to wandering the streets with no set direction. He could taste his childhood in every little piece of that city, but he still found it so strange.
His feet dragged him to Nacho Ball (the fancy one). He looked at the sign out front and entered the establishment, smelling the fried food smell he used to like so much. He'd never been to that fancier location, but it looked just like the others, except for the slightly more elegant structure and the clientele from the wealthier part of Swellview.
He ordered a Black Cow milkshake and french fries. The place was empty, maybe because it wasn't the most famous of the fourteen locations, but there was one specific person who caught Henry's attention. They were sitting in a swivel chair, eating nachos, wearing headphones, and bobbing their head to the beat of the music. Seemingly without a care in the world.
For a few seconds, Henry's eyes clouded over and his face went rigid. But only for a few seconds. He focused on his fries, trying as hard as he could to ignore not just the person, but the contagious aura they gave off. And for a moment Henry even managed to go unnoticed, but soon he felt the person moving, and when they were about to leave the restaurant, they came face to face with him.
Henry didn't take his eyes off the food in front of him, even though he could feel the person's eyes burning the side of his face. They walked over like it was nothing and sat down in the chair across from him with the most innocent smile in the world.
"Hey, Henry! Long time, man!" They patted Henry on the back. Henry did nothing but glare at them with utter contempt for a split second before setting his milkshake down on the table.
"What happened to you? I haven't seen you since I left this shithole city. Thought you were dead." They laughed, but Henry kept ignoring, trying to eat food that now wouldn't go down his throat. "What's with the face, Prudence?"
Henry, again, didn't answer. Mitch Bilsky's voice was starting to fade against the mix of feelings bubbling up inside him. He hadn't felt anything like this in months, and he didn't even know if he wanted to feel it again, knowing all the crap he'd piled up.
"I got it! You got dumped again! Was it Bianca?" He laughed, banging on the table, completely oblivious to the boy who was firmly ignoring them. "Or Charlotte? I always felt a chemistry between you two!"
Henry picked up his milkshake again and took a long sip, trying to soothe the burning sensation rising up his legs.
"What the hell is wrong with you, man? I know we weren't exactly best friends in school, but… we always got along, didn't we?" He smiled and grabbed one of Henry's fries. "Is this still about that day with the Venetian ham? I know that…"
The burning sensation shot to his head and shut down Henry's prefrontal cortex. The mere mention of Piper in that pig Mitch Bilsky's filthy mouth made him suddenly get up from his chair. It fell to the floor with a crack, drawing the attention of the few customers. As if that weren't enough, he lunged at Bilsky and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt without any fear of hurting him.
Henry dragged him to the nearest wall. The impact made Mitch's head and body hit the concrete with an almost extraordinary force.
"What the fuck are you doing, Henry?!" he shouted.
Henry's hot breath hit Mitch's face, and his eyes, for the first time in nearly a year, weren't hollow and gray. They were blazing with so much hatred it didn't make sense to direct it solely at Mitch.
"God knows how hard I'm trying not to shove that pig smile off your face with that boiling oil." Mitch turned his eyes to the side, able to see the kitchen in the back of the counter and, with terrible clarity, the oil used for frying fries. "If you even think about bringing up my sister's name out there, you can bet that bitch you call a mother is only gonna see daylight again when she has to go to a funeral.”
Mitch was hyperventilating. His chest rose and fell at an abnormal rate, a thin drop of sweat ran down the corner of his left temple, and his eyes were almost popping out of his head. He looked at his opponent with genuine horror — not because he didn't understand the reason for his hatred, but because he knew exactly what he'd done and hadn't expected Henry to have the audacity to confront him like that.
Mitch's head nodded desperately. He was silently begging for mercy, and Henry even thought about giving it to him. He stepped back, picked up his grocery bags from the chair next to him, and turned around. He took two steps toward the door. But something inside him snapped — a dry crack, like a bone breaking. The hatred he'd been drowning for months rose up his throat, hot and bitter, and took over every fiber of his body.
Then he turned back to Mitch and simply lunged at him like a hurricane of flesh and pure hatred. The first punch, a cross, hit Mitch's face with a thud that made him stagger backward, slamming against the tiled wall. Then Henry grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, lifting him partially before hurling him into an empty table. The wood broke.
Mitch, more out of survival instinct than skill, tried to fight back. A desperate punch caught Henry's jaw, but it was like hitting a concrete wall. Henry didn't even flinch, didn't even register it. Instead, he grabbed the arm that had hit him and twisted hard. The crack of Mitch's shoulder dislocating echoed through the nearly empty restaurant, followed by a sharp scream of pain that mixed with the clatter of glasses falling from nearby tables.
Henry landed a sequence of punches to Mitch's face without measuring his own strength, each impact accompanied by kicks whenever the other tried to crawl away. Bilsky dragged his destroyed body like a puppy, but Henry didn't stop. The fight turned into a true massacre. He only stopped the blows when he realized Mitch was almost unconscious.
He threw him to the floor, giving him the false hope that the beating was over.
Mitch, now incapacitated and panicking, tried to crawl away. Henry followed him, a bloodthirsty look in his eyes. Every table and chair in the way became collateral damage. A table was knocked over, spilling ketchup, mustard, and a salt shaker that shattered on the floor. A chair was ripped up and broken across Mitch's back when he tried to hide behind it. The restaurant, once a quiet, ordinary place, turned into a chaotic battlefield, covered in shards of glass, splintered wood, and sauce dripping across the floor.
Henry breathed like an enraged bull, his eyes glazed over with terrifying focus. He no longer saw a man; he saw the source of all the evil in his life, a monster that needed to be annihilated. He shoved Mitch toward the counter where the fryers with boiling oil sat. And with a swift motion, he grabbed a soda bottle from the nearby table and smashed it violently against the edge of the counter. The glass exploded, leaving an improvised, lethal weapon in his hand, its jagged, sharp edges glinting under the restaurant's cold light. He broke it over Mitch's head, then started another sequence of punches.
Bilsky's face was bloody, almost unrecognizable. He couldn't breathe properly and prayed to the heavens for some strength to return Henry's hatred, but Henry was so blind in his own feelings, with a strength bordering on inhuman, that Mitch knew he could never match him. All that was left was to hope for a quick death.
Henry was practically a god there, possessed by all the nefarious powers the Olympians have. He saw in Mitch all the hatred in the world materialized, all his failure. And he wouldn't stop trying to defeat that evil like he had in other times — after all, it was the only way he used to face things.
Before he could annihilate him, he felt someone grab him from behind, pulling him away, lifting him off an unconscious Mitch Bilsky. When he looked back, he saw Ray in his Captain Man uniform. He didn't have the same hatred in his eyes as he did for everyday enemies. Beneath the mask, he looked at Henry with pity.
Ray picked up the scattered groceries, carried Henry without any effort, and threw him into the Man Car, an extremely flashy vehicle. They didn't exchange a single word until they were in the Man Cave — which was strange for Ray, who saw no signs of reluctance in Henry. He was no longer filled with rage like minutes ago. He was, again, with a clouded gaze and a stiff posture.
Ray sat him down on the swivel couch and asked Schwoz, who was startled to see Henry again, to get the medical kit.
"You wanna tell me what happened?" Ray asked as he applied ointment to Henry's bloodied right hand.
Henry didn't answer. Inside him, again, everything was empty. He couldn't feel Ray's touch, much less the pain of a nearly broken hand, what truly hurt couldn't be fixed with punches and honoring someone's memory.
He'd given Mitch the beating he deserved, but he still missed her so much. So, so much.
"Henry, you almost killed someone. Do you realize that?" He finished applying the ointment and carefully bandaged the kid's hand, then pulled back, looking at his former sidekick, who seemed indifferent to the fact. "I'm not saying this because of Mitch Bilsky. I'm saying it for you. This is worrying me."
"Then, don't worry."
"How can I not worry? You're practically a son to me! And I don't want to see you in jail over a piece of shit like Bilsky."
Henry stared at the floor of the Man Cave. His treacherous mind took him back to the day delicate feet first touched him. There was hysteria in them, anger, and an incredible sense of urgency. He remembered that day perfectly. Piper, as sly as she was, falling through the tube and seeing him in his Kid Danger uniform. The rest of that day was a hilarious story they relived for months.
Ray with amnesia and the two siblings stuck in his head to reverse the situation.
He also remembered the days that followed after the discovery. Piper slowly joining the team, even against Ray's wishes.
The days in that Cave were never sad or dreary. There was always something happening to turn the day into a story. But with Piper, the atmosphere became more complete, spiced with an acidity only she had. Henry watched her mature, receive Ray and Schwoz's paternal love, get even closer to Charlotte, and become a sort of best friend/boss to Jasper. No one there knew it, but she was the missing piece that completed them; she was the youngest heart, still beating frantically with every mission. Everything was new to her, and she made it new for everyone else with another one of her antics. And Henry worried about it most of the time, but he knew he was losing the strength to stop her from doing things. She was maturing too fast, and he couldn't do anything but keep close.
If he could go back in time, he would have been much stricter. He would have become a bad brother, and he'd probably get punched for it, but he'd still have a sister to call his own.
Thinking too much about her wasn't good. So he came back to the surface, and Ray's voice stopped being muffled. He was still saying things Henry no longer understood and didn't want to understand.
"I know he…"
"Ray," Henry said stiffly. "I know you care about me, but you have no idea what I'm going through. So please, don't try to say things you don't know."
Ray took a deep breath, unshaken by Henry's words.
"You think you're the only one who suffered when Piper left?" Henry felt his body freeze at Ray's words. Saying something like that out loud shouldn't be normalized by anyone. "She was a child who left suddenly. She, like you, was a daughter to me. Everyone's still suffering from this shit. Not just because we lost her, but because little by little, we're losing you too."
Henry got up from the couch and grabbed the groceries on the table. Before he could take a step, Ray took the bag from his hands.
"Say what you need to say, kid."
Henry took a deep breath, filled with a rage that wasn't nearly the same as the one that had taken over him at Nacho Ball. He didn't want to hit Ray, but he felt a much more primal hatred looking at him now. It was such a melancholic hatred it was even worse than the other. He tried to grab the bag back, tried to be peaceful with Ray, but his body simply couldn't stand gesturing kindly to anyone anymore.
"Please, Ray, let me go home. I can't be away for too long."
"No! You've been like this for months! MONTHS, Henry! No one knows what to do to turn this around anymore. Even your dad noticed and called me asking for help!"
Ray put the groceries on the table and stood face to face with Henry. It was definitive — no one was leaving until further notice.
"Sorry, kid, but you're not leaving. Not until you let it all out."
"There's nothing left inside me wanting to come out."
"Then what are these dark circles? This hair? This clothes? This face?"
"This is me now, Ray."
"No, Henry, that's not you! I know you! That guy is not you!"
"Then what am I?" Henry asked dryly. Ray tried to answer, but Henry cut him off. "A kid you think still belongs to this place?"
Henry tried to feel something, but all that came was that same emptiness. An emptiness that glued Piper's images to the walls with permanent glue. Paradoxically, he still felt that hatred, but it was a hatred that was beginning to take on a form just as empty as everything he felt. All his feelings, in the end, were empty. They were feelings that didn't know how to be whole feelings.
"This is fucking reality. And in it, I lost someone who isn't just someone I consider family because they work with me. She's my real family."
Ray tried to speak, but Henry shut him down again.
"Do you even know what happened that day, or does your fatherly love for her only go as far as the store door?"
"Henry, don't put what I feel for you two on trial here! That's unfair and…"
"So you know she was left alone in that apartment."
A deathly silence spread through the Man Cave. Even Schwoz, who was behind the sun door listening to everything, swallowed hard.
"What?" Henry's expression hardened even more. "What are you talking about, Henry?"
"Neglect. That's what I'm talking about."
Henry picked up the bag from the table and walked past Ray.
"She died because she fell for the wrong guy, and the price she paid was her life."
"Henry…"
"You have no idea what it's like to wake up every day knowing you could have done so much more. You don't know what it's like to live trying to learn the meaning of absence, and one night, accidentally shout her name when dinner's ready because a second of happiness is enough to forget she's not there anymore." Henry shook his head.
"I've lost people too, Henry. I know what it's like, man…"
"No, Ray, you don't. My sister died because someone denied her a cry for help. She didn't graduate from school, and she won't get the chance to see her son do it either. The only way I found to honor her was to try to put that fucker in jail, but his family helped him run away, and now my sister is just another sad story for this fucking city."
Henry swallowed hard for the first time that day.
"I know you care about me, but I don't need a lecture. I'm not like this because I want to be, and even if I were, I have plenty of reasons. I'm like this because I have responsibilities. I work part-time at a pharmacy, and I'm getting ready to leave Swellview."
Ray's eyes widened.
"You're leaving?"
"This city isn't for me anymore, Ray. And it's not for Thomas either."
Ray's shock deepened.
"Wait. The baby is going with you?!"
"I bet Jake didn't tell you that on the phone."
"Why would Thomas go with you? I thought your parents had custody of him."
"I have custody of him."
"Why?"
"Because no one else cares." Henry replied like it was nothing. "It's just the two of us."
"Man, how are you going to rebuild your life somewhere else with a baby who's less than a year old?"
"I'll figure it out."
"You could stay here. I can find you a job…"
"The problem isn't the job. I have my savings. The salary here is great, the pharmacy's is great. I sold everything of value I had, and all the money my sister earned was given to me because I'm her son's guardian. It's not a little, and I can get by just fine. I just don't want him to grow up here."
Ray looked at Henry with bewilderment. He seemed not to recognize the person in front of him.
"Henry, you don't have to pretend to be strong for me, kid. I can help you."
"The only thing I can do is cry, but I'm so fucking sick of crying. I still miss her every day, every second. It's a kind of missing that doesn't fade, that crushes me and makes me worse every single day, and I'm never going to get used to it. Never. There will still be parts of me living in this place and in the days when she and I would leave work and decide to go to the movies or the park, but now I have a pair of eyes identical to hers waiting for me."
Ray's forehead furrowed. He approached cautiously and surprised Henry with a warm hug. Henry felt Ray's warmth, the Captain Man uniform against his skin, and sighed. That made him realize he would never return to that job again.
"I'm still here."
"I know."
They kept hugging until Henry realized he'd been away from home too long. He said goodbye to Ray and Schwoz and walked through Junk N' Stuff for the last time in his life.
His feet started dragging on the asphalt again. The heat was mild, but people still had that same contagious aura; which awakened a new feeling inside Henry. This time, an uncomfortable one. It rose from the deepest part of his core, spread through his bloodstream, and erupted with a burning sensation at the tip of his nose. His fingers gripped the grocery bag tighter, and his eyes tried to find some uninteresting spot on the dirty asphalt. They began to water without any fear of the burning they caused, although they wanted to expel the extremely empty suffering their owner felt, there was no more liquid left to pour out, not even a drop. They had done their job a long time ago, but it hadn't had any effect in even comforting Henry.
He used to cry almost all day, which led to severe headaches. Leaving his room also ceased to be an option, as did eating properly and taking care of basic bodily needs. He wouldn't move an inch from his bed until, eventually, he developed a severe urinary tract infection. If Kris hadn't been checking on his room frequently, she would never have noticed, because Henry simply didn't say anything. What he wanted most at that moment was to indulge in that horrible feeling, that unbearable pain, and, with luck, succumb to it.
The days in Swellview's hospital treating the illness were the least pleasant. There were countless disadvantages to living in a small town, and among them, the worst was that everyone knew everyone. The medical team that treated him only needed to read his last name on the chart to connect him to the case of the girl who had arrived at that same hospital already dead. The case drew attention not only because it was about the biggest influencer the city had ever seen, but because it was hard to believe that a fifteen-year-old girl's life had been cut short by a pulmonary embolism. And everything surrounding her premature death left room for conspiracy theories.
She had just gone through a difficult childbirth, and the baby's father was Billy Bilsky, a criminal from a family with a terrible reputation who had been arrested several times. Everyone could see the relationship was abusive on both sides, Piper's pregnancy only made the terrible situation worse. Billy stopped appearing on her stories as soon as the news spread. She tried to get his attention several times through social media, but of course, it didn't work. And he was the one she was with on her last day alive. After that, he was never seen in Swellview again. It was also no secret that Henry had gone to court, though the reasons, as far as everyone else knew, were unknown.
When Henry was admitted to the hospital looking his worst, rumors spread that he was using drugs because he couldn't handle losing his sister. Everyone knew it was a lie because the toxicology report confirmed he was clean, but the truth was boring, and people needed to create a legend around a teenager's death to have something to talk about over afternoon coffee. The nurses treated him with a kindness that was almost uncomfortable — there was pity in their eyes, in the way they put IVs in his veins and helped him eat flavorless vegetable soup. Even so, Henry knew what they really wanted was to satisfy the doubts eating away at their fertile imaginations. He saw the looks from patients, from the doctors who examined him, and said nothing, even though he wanted to curse them out with very well-chosen swear words. He felt excruciating pain in his pelvic region, and even urinating required effort. Sometimes there was even blood, but he only accepted help when they noticed he had a fever and was delirious from pain.
Still, he learned not to fall apart. He could be literally bleeding and still never ask for help. He didn't allow himself to suffer in front of anyone if it meant opening the door to more speculation about lives that, apparently, no one understood weren't fictional. They were real. And real people suffered from them.
Since then, he's been living one day after another. He accepted life's injustices, accepted the responsibility he'd been given, accepted that his parents had moved on too fast. But it was a strange kind of acceptance because at the same time he got out of bed day after day, he silently cursed not only the world but whoever was pulling the strings of fate. At the same time he accepted death as something natural, he found himself praying to every god from every religion, begging them to bring his sister back. Whether to Jesus Christ or some pagan god from Ancient Greece, he silently begged them to use their powers and pull her out from the bottom of the earth.
And that was what he was doing as he dragged his feet back home. He was praying to wake up from the nightmare, even though the nightmare was the best alternative he had to live in. If his sister were alive, he would renounce this reality without a second thought.
But he could still feel the softness of his own fingers, the smell of things, the taste of food, and, above all, the weight on his back.
He finally reached his front door and opened the knob quickly when he saw through the window next to the door his parents' worried expressions.
"What happened?" Henry asked, scanning the area urgently.
Kris stepped forward.
"Thomas is crying, and we can't figure out how to help him."
Henry dropped the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and ran up the stairs, skipping steps. With every step he took, the baby's screams grew louder. He ran to the end of the hallway and entered the guest room without ceremony. Thomas's screams became even more piercing to the naked ear; his face was red as a tomato, and endless tears streamed down his blue eyes.
Henry picked him up carefully and studied him seriously. He considered the possibility of a tooth about to come in, but the crying took on a painful quality with each passing second. He tried giving him his bottle, checked his diaper which was still clean, and even rocked him in his arms, but it all only resulted in more screaming and crying.
Henry started to panic and went downstairs with Thomas in his arms.
"How long has he been like this?"
"Since you left the house," Jake answered.
"Mom, can't you help?" Henry felt his heart pounding.
"I've tried everything, Henry! Nothing worked!"
Henry rolled his eyes and took Thomas out to the porch. Maybe some fresh air would help. When he lifted him into the sunlight, he noticed the baby pull up his chubby legs, scrunch up his little face, clench his tiny fists, and thrash about in distress, screaming even louder. Henry's mind went to the pediatrician's instructions, and he immediately recognized the symptoms. Thomas had colic.
He sat down in the rocking chair and nestled Thomas in his arms. With the tips of his injured fingers, he pressed lightly on the baby's abdomen, which immediately caused spasms. Having confirmed the diagnosis, Henry laid him down on his lap and began moving his fingers in a circular motion on the baby's belly, pulling from memory the little lessons he'd had with the doctor two months earlier.
Even so, Thomas wouldn't stop crying. So Henry got up from the rocking chair and started patting his back to make him burp. He tried rocking him again because, according to the internet, continuous motion soothes. But that didn't work either.
He then stepped back inside from the porch, believing the sun was contributing to the stress. The screams got louder with the movement. Henry, who was starting to consider taking him to the hospital, went back upstairs to the guest room as a last resort. He turned on the humidifier and tried to stop any little noise that might disturb his peace. There was also a rocking chair in the corner of the little room. Henry sat down and placed Thomas on his lap, now belly up. He held both little legs, bent them, and stretched them slowly as if making him pedal. This way, he pressed on the abdomen and stimulated the intestines to release gas.
Finally, the screams began to subside. They were still far from quiet, but Henry managed to calm them down until they turned into hiccups. He noticed Thomas pass some gas and celebrated as if he were watching the Lakers score a three-point shot at the end of a major game.
The baby stopped crying and fell asleep like an angel in his arms. In that peacefulness, Henry found himself studying the tired little face of the miniature person. He was chubbier now, his cheeks were red like ripe strawberries, his little mouth was plump, and his hair was blond like that sunny day — and it was extremely voluminous for a baby only eight months old.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he was the spitting image of Piper. This was exactly how Henry remembered the first time he held his sister in his arms; he was four years old, but he remembered perfectly the blue eyes looking at him with curiosity and something resembling disdain. That was the first of many times. Piper grew fast, just like Thomas. Before he knew it, he was helping her put pink bows in her hair for school.
Their relationship, in truth, was far from perfect. Most of the time, he was being hit and insulted by Piper, just as he retaliated sometimes when it was his turn. But that was during childhood. After they grew up a bit, Henry became a sort of supervisor for his sister, even a friend. They were in the best phase of their relationship until she got involved with Billy Bilsky.
He knew Piper wasn't the kind of person who could be tamed. She matured too fast because no one was watching over her. He was spending most of his time saving the city. Their parents were too busy with something else that wasn't even close to being important.
The positive outcome was when she broke into the Man Cave and joined the team, but even then, Henry didn't have eyes all over the city — not to mention Piper knew very well how to dodge lectures and supervision. When he tried to stop her from continuing to see Billy after the chaotic dinner that led to a stolen Venetian ham, he found out she was already weeks pregnant, and that whole thing had been an attempt to unite the two families.
Of course, Billy disappeared when he found out about the pregnancy, and so did the rest of his family. The only one who still tried to contact her was Jeff, but he was arrested soon after. The rest of the pregnancy was supported by her family. They were the ones who took her to the hospital, to appointments, through the terrible days that came with a premature pregnancy. Even Jake showed up. But over time, the one who actively participated in everything was Henry. They kept going to school together, then to work, and even went out together during lunch to go to routine checkups.
Schwoz even became a sort of pediatrician for Piper when her belly got too big and emergencies at the Man Cave didn't allow her to be absent — even though Ray insisted she take time off. She never stopped the routine she'd established. She was still present in every aspect of life, even with swollen feet and constant nausea.
Henry openly admired her for that. She was becoming a mother, but she was still his little sister and always would be. He spoiled her more than usual; massaged her feet, brought her breakfast in bed, and even stooped to doing her schoolwork.
Charlotte and Jasper were no different. They did everything for Piper. Charlotte took her to the movies, and Jasper held her when she cried because she was too sensitive.
Everyone understood her situation. They understood she was carrying a life, but they also understood she was a child.
A flash of memories always passed through Henry's head when he looked at Thomas. He rocked in the rocking chair, feeling the small body move in serene breathing. He got up from the chair carefully and placed the baby in the crib on his belly in a curled-up shape. He spent a few more minutes watching and checked the security camera installed on the ceiling before closing the door, trying to make as little noise as possible.