Disclaimer: The Thunderbirds do not belong to me. They are the property of Gerry Anderson and his affiliates. The original characters come from my imagination, and have appeared in some of my other works. I am pretty sure that my imagination belongs to me, unless it runs wild and becomes a law unto itself.

AN: So, I'm not too sure if there was a canonical way Brains was introduced to the Tracy family. If there was, please consider this an A/U story (to an extent – hopefully the characters are still in character). It there isn't, then this is my take on it.

In Their Blood

It was inevitable that they accepted the offer to join International Rescue. After all, helping people was an innate response for them, as they first discovered on a long trip home.

From the backseat of the car, sixteen and a half year old Virgil Tracy groaned, clamping his hand over his mouth as his stomach performed a backflip.

"How you holding up, Virg. Need Scott to pull over so you can spew in the gutter?"

Virgil gagged as his immediate elder brother mentioned the 's word'. But Tracy pride wouldn't let him admit to his weakness, so he shook his head and weakly showed a thumbs up. Maybe Scott would show him more empathy.

"I told you not to order rare steak for dinner last night, didn't I, Virg? I told you that there was a chance you could get food poisoning," Scott stated, his triumphant I-told-you-so lacing his voice. "You get no sympathy from me."

Virgil issued out another groan and let his head loll against the window.

"And if you throw up in my car, you're cleaning it up," Scott continued.

Charming.

It was nice to know that his favourite brother had his back, Virgil bitched sarcastically. Well, that wasn't strictly true. Scott and John had been there for Virgil for years, ever since he had been born. Even when they had moved out of home to attend Yale and Harvard respectively, they still made sure that their little brothers could rely on them and approach them for advice with their problems.

In fact, it was one such problem that had sent Virgil over to the East Coast for the weekend. He was fast approaching the time where he had to make some serious decisions about his tertiary education, and as his father had instructed, Virgil had opted to visit some prospective campuses to get a first-hand experience of what college life was like.

It was just a coincidence that he got a trip to visit his older brothers out of it as well. Of course it was.

The older Tracys had organised a weekend for Virgil to spend the Saturday in New Haven with Scott, before they headed up to Boston to spend the Sunday with John. In conjunction, the weekend had fallen just before March recess, so Scott had insisted that they all returned home together. A road trip, Scott had called it, claiming that it would be some good brother-bonding time. An odd notion for Scott to have, given he was a pilot, and loved to fly, but Virgil suspected that his reasoning was genuine.

And that was how they had spent the last twenty six hours; with Scott and John alternating behind the wheel, while Virgil focussed on not defiling the interior of the car.

"We're almost home, Virg," Scott said. "Half an hour out. Think you can hold it in?"

A strangled yell from Virgil. John took it as a yes.

Breathing in deeply, Virgil watched the wheat fields flash by as the car sped past them. Strangely enough, he could feel the knot in his stomach loosen, could feel the sickly feeling diminish as he realised that they were closer to home, closer to family, all together again. Even though he had only been away from home for a weekend, he couldn't quite believe just how much he had missed his little pests of little brothers. How the hell did Scott and John manage being away from them for three months at a time? Not to mention Grams' cooking; that was the thing Virgil missed the most on his weekend away.

After a while, though, the view became monotonous. It was just wheat stalk after wheat stalk after wheat stalk. But there was something else that stood out in the background. Something out of place.

Even though it was March, it was a clear, sunny, if crisp day. There was no reason for a plume of smoke to be prominent on the horizon.

John had seen it too, and his neck craned around. "Scott, pull over."

"What?"

"Pull over!"

Rolling his eyes, Scott complied. "I don't hear Virgil throwing up, so what's the problem?"

John simply pointed out of the window.

"Oh, shit. That's bad. We gotta go help them."

A quirked blond eyebrow, so Scott elaborated.

"On an isolated road? What's the likelihood of anyone else coming across them? Nope, we're gonna help them, right?"

Even though it was posed as a question, John and Virgil both knew that Scott really meant it as a statement. Neither were surprised when Scott revved the engine of the car and raced towards the smoke.

"Team Tracy to the rescue," John joked, pulling the Superman pose. "We're superheros for the day!"

"And don't you forget it," Scott replied, flooring the accelerator, face set in grim determination.