AUTHOR'S NOTE: Happy birthday to AgentMaryMargaretSkitz! This one is inspired by one of my son's school science projects. Thanks to Jael for the quick beta!

"What were the two of you thinking?"

The two miscreants shifted uncomfortably under Rip's glare as he went on, "Do you have any idea of the damage you could have done? The innocent people you could have hurt? The…"

"I think they know, Rip," Len interrupted coolly. "Give them a chance to explain themselves."

Jonas and Mickey exchanged a dubious look. Then Jonas said, "Well, we needed it for our boat project."

Rip blinked and looked over at Ray, who said, "Stein and I were running a contest for the STAR Labs Museum's Kids' Science Club. Building cardboard boats."

"The waterproofing on the bottom wasn't going to work," Jonas went on.

Len frowned. "So, how does stealing my Cold Gun fit in?"

The boys looked at each other again, and Ray answered for them. "It's easier to show you, Len. Let's go to the dock, fellas."

Ray and the boys led them from the Cortex to STAR Labs' dock room, a cavernous space which once took shipments from the river during the facility's heyday of tech development. Now, instead of cargo barges tied to the docs, there was a small flotilla of cardboard rafts and boats, each large enough to hold one or two kids. There was even a cardboard catamaran, decorated with cheap party leis.

Stein stood at the end of the pier. He turned to the others with a carefully controlled expression, and waved at the last of the entries: A craft painted blue and white, with a pointed prow. It was swathed in a sheet of clear plastic that was secured with blue and white duct tape.

And it all sat on a sheet of ice, floating in the water.

"They decided to put it on an iceberg," Ray announced.

Len bit firmly back on a bubble of laughter. "Actually, it's an ice floe," he corrected.

"Glaciological terminology aside," Stein said, "like fathers, like sons, it seems, when it comes to having a certain disregard for the rules."

"The rules didn't say we couldn't use ice," Mickey said, smirking.

Stein blinked, and after a moment, he said, "Indeed, they did not. We'll have to remember that for future contests, I suppose." He leaned down toward the boys with a stern look. "But there is such a thing as the spirit of the law. And there's the matter of a stolen Cold Gun."

"We only borrowed it," Mickey countered. "I was gonna put it back."

"Mm-hmm. And when we get home, we'll sit down with Mom to talk about how you broke into the gun safe in the first place," Len replied, pleased to see Mickey stop smirking at that. "But for now…" Len looked back up at Stein. "What's their sentence?"

"Dr. Snow says she has some scut work to be done. Filing and cleaning, I believe," Stein told them. "With your permission, I'll take them over for that now."

After getting a nod of consent from the two fathers, Stein took the boys back into the main lab. Len managed to maintain an icy expression until they went through the door. Then he looked over at Rip and Ray, and all three men began laughing.

"I know we'll have to punish them for taking the gun," Rip finally said, catching his breath, "but…" He started laughing again.

Len nodded. "Did you ever think you'd hear me telling someone that stealing is wrong?"

"Never!" Rip agreed.

"Didn't hear you actually saying that now, either," Ray pointed out, wiping a tear of laughter from one eye. "But the really sad thing is, until Professor Stein said his bit about the spirit of the law, I was going to give them points for creativity!"

Glaciology is real. The study of ice.