OOO

The afternoon, many weeks later, that Otto and Rosalie finally came to pick them up and take them home for good, Harry and Peter entered the car to find two wrapped packages in the backseat, labeled with their names. While Peter was methodically picking the tape off of his and unfolding the paper, Harry tore into his present, revealing a sleeping bag, Harry's green and Peter's blue.

"Cool. Are we going camping?" He poked the fabric with his finger.

"Maybe sometime," Otto smiled as he got into the car. "But those are for tonight, just in case we don't get your rooms finished."

"We thought about furnishing your rooms," Rosalie explained, "but then we decided that you two are big boys so you would probably prefer to decorate your rooms yourselves and get the furniture you wanted."

"I want a race car bed!" Harry shouted. "With Batman sheets!"

"I think we could manage that." Otto grinned, first at his wife, then at the boys. "And what would you like Peter?"

The boy shrugged. "I'm ok with anything."

"Come on." Harry poked him. "What about Star Wars? You like Star Wars. I bet they have Star Wars stuff."

Again, he shrugged and Rosalie looked at him sympathetically. He was so used to accepting what he got without complaining that he was reluctant to accept such gestures from adults, even when freely offered.

"We want to do this Peter," she reassured him. "We're going to be a family and we will do the best we can to make you happy."

Peter considered this for a moment then looked at her. "Do we call you mom and dad now? 'Steada Otto and Rosie?"

She smiled. "You call us whatever you're comfortable with."

Slowly, he nodded, and then looked back at her with concerned eyes. "Ros… mom? You said rooms." He chewed his lip. "Harry and I won't have a room together?"

"No dear, you get your own rooms. Why? Don't you want a room all for yourself?"

He shifted uncomfortably in the seat. "Harry and I always shared a room. Well, us and lots of boys. But how will I get to sleep with Harry all the way in another room?"

"Peter's going to be in another room?" Harry looked up now, upset. "Why?"

Rosalie looked mildly surprised. "We thought you would want your own space. You are getting older." Seeing that they were still upset, she looked at them sympathetically. "But there will be room for your sleeping bags if you want to spend time in each others rooms."

Harry looked over at Peter and rubbed his hair. "See? We'll be OK."

For the first time during the ride, Peter managed a smile and started to relax. "Can I get the top of my room painted with stars? Glow in the dark?"

"Might take a bit of effort but I think I could manage that," Otto told him with a nod.

"I want stars too!" Harry chimed in. "And can we get posters? And a toy box? And can I have a TV in my room?"

"Harry!" Peter looked at him, a bit abashed that Harry was asking for so much.

"Please?" Harry finished, blushing a little bit.

"No promises, but I'll do what I can."

OOO

Later that night, they laid out their sleeping bags next to one another in the Octavius' living room. A variety of boxes holding yet-to-be-assembled furniture were lying about and the faint scent of fresh paint came wafting down the hall from the rooms. Otto assured them that the base would be dry by the next day and their rooms would be ready to have things moved into them by the late afternoon. While he went off to wash off the paint, Rosalie cleared the table of the remains of the McDonald's dinner they'd bought for the boys and went over to where Peter and Harry were snuggling down into the sleeping bags.

"So what would you like me to read for you on your first night here?" She asked them. "Unless you're too big for a bedtime story."

"I like stories," Peter replied softly.

Harry looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Well, I guess," he said. "If it's a good story. You have good stories, right?"

"I think I could find a good one." She held up a book with a cover of mountains and trees bearing the title The Hobbit. "Have you heard this one?"

"I love that story!" Peter burst out, then settled back down. "But if you would rather hear something different…"

"It's OK," Harry grinned and shrugged. "Never read it," he said by way of an explanation. "Peter told me 'bout it. But maybe if you read it…"

"Well then, if you've never heard it and Peter wants to hear it again, I'd be glad to begin."

She had barely gotten to the run-in with the trolls when she looked up to see that the two boys were fast asleep and snoring lightly. Shutting the covers, she set the book on the table and covered each with an extra blanket from the couch, giving each as kiss as she did. When she turned towards the hallway, she saw her husband standing in the doorframe.

"Sleeping?" He whispered.

"Yes," She replied and shut the lights off. "A good first night, I would say. How are the rooms shaping up?"

"Very well, actually." He gave her a wry smile. "A shame that those prototypes we were sketching out at work aren't a reality. If they were the job would be going a lot faster."

She laughed. "Bit of a frivolous use of the technology wouldn't you say?"

He took her in to his arms and kissed her. "Well who says I can't bring my work home with me on occasion?" He sighed. "But, since I only have two arms and not six, I suppose I'll have to settle for working at the pace I'm working at."

"I'm sure the boys will love it no matter how long it takes to get done."

"The constellations will be accurate, you know," he told her with a touch of pride.

"Oh?"

"That's right. Peter's will be the northern hemisphere during summer and Harry's will be the southern hemisphere during autumn."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Well you are nothing if not thorough dear."

"It's what makes me a good scientist." He kissed her forehead. "Since it has been a long day for us as well as the boys – shall we retire, Mrs. Octavius?" He smiled.

"Remember darling," she teased. "There are children in the house now."

He laughed lightly as he followed her into the master bedroom, being careful all the while not to disturb Peter or Harry.

OOO

The next day, while Otto continued to paint the rooms, Peter and Harry helped Rosalie to build the bookshelf that they'd bought for Peter's room. They held the boards in place while Rosie tapped in the nails, thanking them both for being such a big help. Once the light work was finished, she nodded for them to go off and play while she finished up. They sat by the bay windows playing Uno while Rosie began laundering the new linens they'd purchased.

"Well boys, want to come and see how your new rooms look?" Otto came in and asked as Rosalie was loading everything into the dryer.

"Yeah!" Harry jumped up and pulled Peter down the hallway to see how they rooms looked.

"Coming?" Otto asked Rosie.

"Of course." She shut the door after throwing in a few dryer sheets and turned it on before accompanying her husband into the two newly painted rooms.

"Wow!" Harry stared up at the ceiling of his. "This looks awesome!"

"Glad you approve." Otto smiled as Harry turned and gave him a hug.

"Thanks dad!"

"And what do you think Peter?" He asked the boy who stepped out of his own room and peeked into Harry's.

"It's right," he said with a smile. "The stars, I mean. They're in the right places."

"Sharp," Otto remarked with a glance at Rosie.

"Is mine right too?" Harry looked up at him.

"Indeed it is. And I'll bet that before long, you'll be able to name every one of the constellations up there."

Harry grinned again and hugged him more tightly.

"So," Otto began when he finally loosened his grip, "shall we start on the beds?"

By the end of the day, the empty rooms were filled with beds and bookshelves, dressers and desks, toys and posters. Peter's room had a large periodic table framed and mounted on one wall while Harry's had an easel in the corner. Each had a matching desk with notebooks and school supplies for when they enrolled in the local grade school. Peter's shelves were already lined with a few books he'd had since his days of living with the Parkers while Harry's were stacked with the games they'd gotten and action figures.

They each explored their rooms and one another's, peeking into drawers and poking around the closets, until Rosie called them to the table for dinner. That evening she'd made a pot roast; while the boys devoured it, Otto promised them that he would be cooking the next night and that he hoped they would like his meal just as much.

And for the moment all was well.

OOO

Three weeks into their new lives, Otto and Rosalie found themselves called into the principle's office for the fourth time. Harry was sitting there, just as he'd been the last few times, arms crossed and looking at the floor.

"Fighting again?" Rosalie asked quietly.

"Yeah," he grumbled.

She knelt in front of him while Otto took the seat beside him. "The principle told us that you punched a boy in the face, Harry. Knocked him down and bruised him up."

"He wouldn't leave Peter alone," Harry retorted. "Again. He just wanted to read during recess and he wouldn't leave him alone!"

"Why didn't you get the teacher?" She asked in a gentle tone. "The teacher can help you work it out if he's being mean to Peter."

"I'm not a tattle," Harry protested. "And Randy wouldn't care; he'd just go back to doing it once she was gone."

She sighed. "Harry, you mustn't keep doing this. Fighting won't solve all your problems. Can you promise me you'll try not to do this? To not hurt other boys, even if they're being mean to Peter or to you?"

Nervously he looked from Rosie to Otto. "You're mad at me," he said at last, faintly accusing. "You want to give me back, don't you?"

"We're not mad," Rosie insisted. "A bit disappointed perhaps – we know you can be more grown-up – but we're not mad. And we certainly don't want to give you back."

"That's right," Otto added, setting a hand on Harry's diminutive shoulder. "I understand how you feel. And it's a credit to you that you care about Peter so much, that you want to help him. But you cannot go around punching everybody who says something that makes you upset." He gave Harry a rueful smile. "The world wouldn't be a very good place if everybody acted like that, now would it?"

"I still don't like it," he muttered. "They're always being mean to Peter. They laugh every time he raises his hand and whisper behind his back and nobody but me plays with him. With us," he added, frowning. "I hate school!"

"Oh, Harry, you don't mean that." Rosie rubbed his hand. "You need time to get used to it, to let the kids gets used to you. I'm sure they'll come around."

"Hnh." He made a derisive sound then looked at Otto, then back at Rosie. "They say other stuff too you know."

"Like what?" Otto asked in a guarded tone.

"Say that we can't be brothers. Peter said that we were adopted and all the kids thought it was weird and said things about it. That Peter's family didn't want him, that mine didn't want me."

"Harry, you know that isn't true," Rosie told him firmly.

"Not for Peter. And anyway it doesn't make it hurt any less," he replied.

Following that they had a conference with the principle in which they were warned in the strictest terms to bet Harry's behavior under control. Rosalie nodded and agreed to try, noticing Otto grow more agitated all the while. As Harry headed back to class and they went out to the car, he turned to her and snapped.

"I don't like it, Rosie."

"Otto…"

"They go blaming Harry?" He slammed the door. "For what? Sticking up for Peter when nobody else is going to do anything about it?" He started the car. "I'm starting to think that this was a mistake."

"The boys?" She sounded stunned.

"Public school," he rejoined. "Peter's talents will never be appreciated, will never be encouraged in a place like that. I know what we discussed," he said, cutting her off as she went to speak. "And I know we thought that it might make them more comfortable at first. That it would be a supposedly more 'normal' setting.

"But if it's going to be a decade more of this, I'd rather pull them out now, send them somewhere better. Somewhere where they might at least find some encouragement for their talents."

Rosie looked at her husband with a sympathetic look. Early in their relationship he'd discussed his own rather alienated childhood; it was no wonder, then, that he would be particularly sensitive about any teasing that Peter encountered and accepting of anything Harry did to stop the mocking or pay it back.

Even so, she worried about them growing up too fast and losing out on childhood. Otto was a marvelous scientist but he needed to be reminded from time to time that there was more to life, and to child-raising, than simply encouraging talent and promoting ability. Besides, teasing and untoward remarks could occur anywhere; the boys needed to learn how to deal with it, she thought, not run away from it.

"Please. Give them some time. At least another few weeks?"

He sighed. "For you, dear."

By the end of the month, Peter had come home in tears twice and Harry had been given three more detentions. Otto pressed, Harry pleaded and Peter backed away from the conflict until eventually Rosie threw up her hands. Peter ended up in an academy, placed two grades higher than he'd been at the public school, while Harry transferred to a magnet school that focused on the arts. At first they were apprehensive about not going to school together. But they managed to find others not unlike themselves and enjoyed their new schools despite the absence of the other.

If anything, Otto and Rosalie noticed, it brought the two closer when they were at home together. Despite the initial turmoil, they fell into a pattern of family life, settling in and becoming comfortable with one another. Peter became gradually more sociable, Harry became slowly more tractable and both moved from seeing Otto and Rosie as benevolent heroes bringing them up out of state care to parents that they could talk to, fight with, tease, play with and ultimately trust.

Even so, there were times when the conversation drifted too far into the past and the boys fell silent. Peter talked more frequently as he grew more at ease, but always with Harry there was reluctance that his parents puzzled over. Whatever had happened was not, as far as they could tell, sexual or physically violent; yet he never willingly discussed much of anything that had happened before he met Peter, especially in particular terms.

The past was dead and buried, and as far as Harry was concerned, it was better if it stayed that way.

OOO

A/N: Once again, a lot of foundation laying. And yeah… for some reason I always tend to see Harry as artistically gifted in some way, in opposition to Peter being scientifically gifted. It's Peter David's novelization of the third movie influencing me I suppose. So there's that. And I threw in a few hints thrown in of things to come. ;) There's still another chapter or two before everybody winds up in New York. The first few chapters won't be continuous but will rather be a set of snapshots, showing the development of their relationships before everything begins to change.

Hope you enjoyed; there's more to come.