"Argh! Why is he crying again?" Royal Pain gritted her teeth and a pile of parts fell onto the floor. "He was fed less than an hour ago, he can't possibly be hungry! Why isn't he working?"

Battle walked over to the crib she'd set up in the lab and looked down on it. "He needs to be changed."

"Stitches!" She screamed. "Get in here and fix him!" The older lackey appeared after a moment and lifted the child out of the crib.

"It's a child, not a machine." Battle remarked once Stitches left.

"And that is why I prefer machines," she growled. "At least I can figure out what's wrong with a machine and can then easily fix it. And know that it will stay fixed unless something happens."

"So why are you keeping him in here if he bothers you so much?" Battle sighed as he ignited his hand and began welding a couple of metal plates together. "A lab isn't a safe environment anyway."

"How else is he supposed to pick up what he needs to know about what I do?" She waved together parts of a guidance system. "Stitches couldn't teach him as well as I could.'

"Stitches managed to raise you," he pointed out. "I trust him with Victor when I'm busy, like now. And you hardly pay attention to the boy even if he is in the same room as you. If you really want him to learn something you have to pay attention to him."

"I didn't know you had a degree in child psychology," she snapped.

"I've picked up enough over the years. You see I, unlike you, now have a son because I wanted a son, not because I see him as the burden I have to put up with in some overly complicated and lengthy revenge scheme. And yes, I will admit, I have read things."

Pain burst out laughing. "What? You mean like What to Expect When You're Expecting for Villains?"

"Laugh all you want. But do a poor job and he'll end up rebelling against you as a teenager and wind up a hero all the same," Battle warned.

"I can do a better job than that," she insisted before falling silent in order to concentrate on the mecha in front of her.

"He's all cleaned up now," Stitches told her when he re-entered a few moments later.

Leaving the half-finished robot aside, Pain walked over and took him from her companion. "So how am I supposed to do this?" She glanced back at Baron Battle.

"Rock him a little. Bounce him. Don't you know how to play with children at all? Don't you have any memories of your own childhoods? You had two of them. You should recall something and know at least a little about what works from experience."

"I don't need reminded," she snapped, lifting him up and down. He gurgled and reached out a chubby hand to tug on her lengthy brown hair. "Ow!" She barely held on and looked at Battle. "This little monster…"

"It's what babies do," he sighed. "They're curious. They like to pull and poke at things. Get over it. You're a villain. You've been shot at, punched, put through walls, and you're going to be upset at a baby?"

She turned back to Will with a set look on her face. "You are not getting the better of me," she whispered.

He smiled and reached again for her hair, so she held him out at arms length. Behind her, Battle shook his head.

"Here, let me see him." He gingerly lifted the baby out of her grasp. "Like this," he said bouncing Will with one arm and tickling him a little bit with the other. "Gently. Hey there!" He smiled at Will, an odd sight on his face, Gwen thought. "You're going to be big and strong like your father, aren't you?" He murmured. "Yes, you are! But you're not going to be like him at all in other ways, are you? No, you're going to be a big bad that everybody fears, aren't you little guy? You and my boy Victor!"

Will laughed and clapped his hands.

"Doesn't look so hard," she said with her arms crossed.

"It isn't," he said, setting him down into the crib. "Although it would help if you had some actual affection for the boy."

"As if that's likely," she sneered.

"You could at least pretend."

"What I can't understand is why you don't hate him," she said, reaching down and handing the boy a stuffed dinosaur. "He's the child of your worst enemy."

"And if he cares for me, what greater revenge is there? That's why you're raising him, isn't it? Besides, if he and my son were as close as you say they were, they had to be of similar temperament, of similar mindset. If I am to believe that it is nurture which has the most effect, that I can change my Victor by raising him one way rather than another, I have to believe it of Stronghold's scion as well." He laughed. "And the simple truth of it is that over these past few days he's shown himself to be a well-tempered, cute baby. You should open up a little. You might like him more than you think you would."

"Never figured you for the good father," she grumbled.

"Neither did Victor's mother," he said dryly. "But wanting power does not signify how I feel about family." He went back to sealing metal seams with his own inner fire.

"Perhaps I could try again," she mused.

"You don't need to ask my permission," Battle said with a smirk. "He's your son, not mine."

Scowling, she lifted the boy, still clutching the plush t-rex, out of the crib a second time. "I supposed I could read to him or something. That would be suitably intellectual, I suppose."

"Victor has an alphabet I've been reading to him. Ask Stitches, he'll know where it is."

"This had better not be anything banal," she warned him.

"I think you'll approve."

A quarter of an hour later, and Royal Pain was settled in a chair in a more domestic wing of their compound with Will settled in her lap and book in her hand. "A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs…"

"Magenta," Josie opened up her arms and pulled the girl close. Wearing black was not an odd occurrence for her, but on this day there was not a stitch of color to be found on her anywhere, not even purple, and her hair was completely dark and somewhat unkempt. It was only the beginning of the wake but already her makeup was streaking. "Thank you for coming."

"Of course, Mrs. Stronghold," she said, her tears starting again. "Will was… he was the best of all of us. Everybody really loved him."

Josie rocked her back and forth and rubbed her back. "He loved you guys too," she replied.

Magenta unwound her arms from around Mrs. Stronghold and looked over at her husband. "Mr. Stronghold?"

Steve looked at her with an impassive, stony glare. "Magenta," he said with a brief nod.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said, reaching for his arm to squeeze it.

"So am I."

"Steve!' Josie looked over at him.

"What?" He snapped.

Magenta quickly backed off and went over to Zach who was staring at a wide array of photos of Will that was nearly buried under flowers, most of which Magenta suspected were courtesy of Layla. She would have probably offered a greenhouse if she thought the funeral home would have allowed it. They were more brother and sister than boyfriend and girlfriend, Magenta knew, but that didn't mean she didn't love him as much, if not more than the rest of them.

Well, perhaps with the exception of Warren. Magenta looked at a photo of Will and Warren in the corner, wrestling over something one of them was holding. She'd always wondered…

"What's wrong with Mr. Stronghold?" She whispered urgently to Zach, trying hard not to dwell on both their losses at once. "Why is he acting so strangely?"

"His son just died in the line of duty," Zach said, looking down at her like she was crazy. "This isn't exactly a time for normal behavior."

"I know that, but it's still really weird!" She wiped beneath her eyes, smearing her mascara even further. "He's so cold, silent…"

"Some people deal with grief differently," Zach said with a subdued shrug. "I remember with this happened," he said with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sniff. "That was the night Warren turned 21."

"And he could drink but none of us could and he insisted on staying home with us, so Will set up a fake bar in his parent's sanctum and spent the whole night making faux drinks and giving them weird names," she said with a brief smile that soon melted into weeping. "Warren…"

"Yeah." He pulled her close.

"We didn't even get a chance to bury him! He probably wound up a pile of ash because of his father," she said, muttering the last in a vicious tone.

"Perhaps it was a mercy," Zach whispered. "Will wasn't the same those few weeks without Warren. He was reckless, he was distracted… I tried to cheer him up but he wasn't having any of it. Didn't smile, just obsessed about where he might be, doing over the fights again and again in his mind. You know I suggested me being his sidekick for a bit, just to hold him over? He practically took my head off for that one. Only time I ever saw Will genuinely mad." He touched the glossy photo in the center of the display, the one with Will in costume. "He missed him real bad. Don't know if he could have gone on for long, knowing Warren was never coming home. If he ever allowed himself to accept it."

"Zach, I don't know if I'm cut out for this any more," she gasped. "I don't want to lose anybody else! I don't want to watch anybody else die, don't want to think about any of my friends broken so badly we can't even see him at his wake!" She shook her head. "I can't, I can't…"

"To be honest I'm not sure I can either," he said with a shake of his head.

After this, there will be time skips made evident by the beginnings of each chapter so the effects will play out more quickly over a long stretch of time. And kudos to anybody who recognizes the book Royal Pain read to Will!