0o0o0o
Max finds that as tired as he is, he has a terrible time sleeping this night. There are nothing but bad dreams to be had, nothing but hours of seeing Phoebe's twisted body over and over again, hearing her voice plaintively asking why he didn't come sooner. In a dark corner of the pier house there's a shadow lurking and for the first time, he feels a fear he can't bear to face.
The nightmare comes slithering like a snake over their twin bond, his sister's memory of horror shared and he can sense Phoebe's terror and pain as if it were his own. He can't see the assailant's face, try as he might, only feel their fists bruise flesh and break bones with a sickening series of cracks, then, later, cold hands touching in ways that make Max want to scream.
With a gasp, Max sits up in his bed, shaken. Wipes a clammy hand over his face before sliding out of bed, wishing not for the first time he'd had thought of rigging up his own coffee maker in the lair. He checks on Dr. Colosso who is sleeping peacefully in his cage and decides to let him doze for a while longer before putting him back to work finding Phoebe's assailant.
The stairs are silent and dark as it's not even dawn yet. Max climbs them slowly feeling older than his years, his joints aching with fatigue. He shuffles into the kitchen and decides to put on the kettle for tea as the coffee maker is too complicated to be bothered with so early. He sits at the table, scrubbing his hands over his hair, trying futilely to clear his head.
It doesn't work. The kettle goes off with a whistle and Max makes two cups, deciding to bring one into Phoebe's room. She likes it strong and lukewarm anyway, it'll be that way when she wakes up to it on her dresser. Yawning, he climbs the stairs to the upper floor and only knocks perfunctorily on her door with a gentle tap.
Surprisingly, she's wide awake, lying on her back, staring at the ceiling with her cast-covered arm cradled on her chest. She looks like hell - correction, she looks just like Max knows he does - and he tiptoes over, grimacing at how pale she is.
"Did I wake you up?" He puts the tea cup down on the nightstand by her good arm. "Didn't mean to."
"No. I've been awake for a while. What are you doing up?"
"Bad dreams," he replies, offering a hand to leverage Phoebe into a sitting position. It only take a minute - they're already getting better at this. He blows on the tea first before giving it to her and she waits for it patiently, with a thin grin, amused at the care he's taking with it.
He helps her take the first sip so it doesn't spill as she can only hold the cup in one hand. She takes it from there and they drink the steaming tea together in companionable silence as the dawn edges up between her lace curtains. Max has never told Phoebe but he likes her room, it's neat and not overly feminine, at least not in an obnoxious way. It has a certain touch of elegance to it, with her swing chair being the only overt sign of a teenage girl's whimsical nature.
"I had bad dreams too. What were yours?" Phoebe is looking at Max over the rim of her cup, curiously.
Max snorts. "You can't guess? Okay, I dreamt I was a good guy, wearing one of Dad's old suits. That hadn't been dry-cleaned after he'd been wearing it a week. How's that for scary?"
Her look remains level ... searching. "That's pretty frightening. Are you sure that was it?"
"No, that wasn't it. Why are you even asking? You know we have the same dreams when ... " With an exasperated sigh, he smacks down his tea on her dresser, not caring as it splashes. "When we're stressed out. Do you really want to talk about this right now?"
"Not really," Phoebe replies, with a tired shake of her head. Her hand is trembling slightly as she gives him her tea to put aside. "The less we think about it, the better."
"Right." The space between them grows awkward as the sun shifts through the room, brightening it, heralding morning. "I guess I got to get ready for school. Do you want me to get you something to eat? Help you get another pill down?"
She picks up a pill bottle that's sitting by her bedside and shakes it proudly. "Already down and away. Thanks to your neat trick. And Mom will bring me some breakfast later, so no worries. Get to school and don't let Principal Bradford get you down."
Max finds that his head is starting to hurt just at the thought of having to suffer through another day of school. "He's the least of my problems, for now. See you in a bit." He leans in to press a quick, embarrassed kiss to the top of her head and bounds out of the room before she can make fun out of him.
She does yell out something, but Max doesn't listen. He has a busy day ahead of him today ... and a busier night as well.
0o0o0o
Getting suspended from school for a couple of weeks but not going as far as getting expelled is simply a matter of doing what he usually does, times five. Max calculates that flooding the bathrooms on the higher floors at the same rate as he usually does on the lower floors, two toilets, but with a more destructive rate due to the greater elevation along with changing his own grades in the school computer (but not taking pay for changing others) will get him booted on a temporary basis for a substantial period of time.
His calculations pay off. A red-faced Principal Bradford proclaims Max suspended for two weeks and banned from sophomore prom, which is fine as he's in no mood to think about proms and not sure he ever will be. He gathers up his assignments - there's no getting out of homework at any rate - and heads home, steeling himself for his mother's angry response.
Which, to his surprise, he doesn't get. When he arrives Barb is already in a panicked state, running in circles looking for the car keys, her face pinched with irritation. He doesn't get time to explain why he's home, she's already yelling and waving her arms at him about something unrelated, a situation which suits Max perfectly.
"Great, you're here. Do me a favor and give Phoebe her lunch, it's already on the stove," she says in a rapid staccato.
He treads cautiously, from long practice. "Sure. What's up?"
"Your brother super glued his lips together again and I have to bring him to the Metroburg clinic this time or else they'll charge us for transportation," she says, grabbing her jacket and the wrong purse, which she comes flying back in to exchange for the right one. "You're a lifesaver, sweetie. I owe you one."
"I'll remember that," Max says, waving her off with an inner sigh of relief. Sure, she'll be mad but it will be the muted anger of exhaustion and he sends a thought of thanks to Billy and his glue addiction.
On the stove is a warm pot of tomato soup and a freshly made grilled cheese, which he would have normally ate himself, to heck with anyone else, but this time, he can share it. Max loads the tray, carries it upstairs and is glad to see Phoebe sitting in her bed, scrolling through her phone with her good hand.
"Lunch is served," he announces with a flourish.
Phoebe's eyes widen. "It's noon, Max. What are you doing home?"
He puts down the tray and pulls up a spare stool. "Bradford seems to think I'm the Mad Plumber of the Fourth Floor. I tried to tell him I'm the Demon Pipe Breaker of the Second Floor but he didn't buy it. Oh, and we're not going to the prom. I said you did that other thing I did, but you'll have an alibi when you get back, I think."
Her jaw drops. "Max!"
"Eat up or I'll eat it for you. Wow, tomato soup and grilled cheese," he says, taking a bite from the still-warm sandwich. "I think Mom does like you better."
"Why did you do that?" Visibly upset, she pushes away the cup of soup he offers her. "That's crazy! Did you get expelled?"
"Calm down, it's just a two-week suspension. No biggie."
"No biggie? Mom's going to kill you. Dad's going to ... well, I don't know what Dad's going to do, but Mom's going to hit the ceiling worse than Dad does. How did you get by her anyway? Didn't she freak?"
Max tries not to look smug, but he fails. "She had an emergency appointment with Billy's medical team. He's been in the Superglue again."
Phoebe holds a hand to her forehead "Eyelids or lips?"
"Lips. So I have only three hours this time, but that will be enough. Come on, sis. It's not so bad. You'll get to hang out with your favorite twin for fourteen days of endless fun." He cuts the grilled cheese into quarters, surprised when she turns down a piece. "You have to eat, Phoebe."
"I don't want to eat!" she cries and Max is taken aback by the vehemence of her tone. "Everyone around here is acting stupid, including you! Mom and Nora keep crying when they think I'm not looking, Dad's been gone all day for days and you're getting yourself suspended to bring me lunch ... I hate this!"
"Billy's acting normal," Max points out weakly, glad that Phoebe has no idea of his true intentions. He puts down the food, his appetite gone as well. "So that's something."
"Is it?" Her eyes turn bright with tears. "I feel like I'm hurting all of you by being an idiot enough to get hurt. It's bad enough I was such a moron but when I see what it's done to all of you ... "
Her sentence ends on a muffled sob and Max feels the anger at Phoebe's attacker well up again, like acid in his veins. "Don't say that. No, really, you need not to say that. What this person did was not your fault." He leans close and tilts her chin up with his finger, forcing her to meet his gaze up close. "You can't lie to me, Phoebe. No one knows you better than I do. I know what happened to you. I may not know every detail, but I know for sure it's not anything that you did wrong."
Phoebe starts to cry in earnest. "I was so stupid, Max. I thought I could handle a real supervillian, I was so sure. But I'm just a stupid kid with stupid powers that I don't know how to use and ..."
Sobbing, she leans into his embrace and Max gathers her into his arms, breathing hard. "It's not your fault," he repeats hoarsely, feeling as if he's choking on every word. "No one blames you."
"I wish I'd died," she whispers thickly against his neck. "I really do."
"Do you want me dead too?" he replies, his eyes burning. "Because that's what would have happened if you hadn't come home to us. Don't pretend that you don't know that."
She shakes her head. "No. You know I don't want that. I just want this to stop."
"It will. Give it time," he says, not telling her that everything will be over once he takes care of the man who hurt her ... for good. "Come on, stop crying. I'm getting dweeb tears all over my favorite hoodie and those never wash out."
Her chuckle is weak, but it's something at least. Eventually, he gets her to sit up and blow her nose, which she does with a very Phoebe-like honk. It takes him a while but he gets her to take a few sips of soup and slide back into bed, tucked beneath the covers, with another pain-killer to help her take a rest.
0o0o0o
Max waits until she's deep asleep, this time without dreams. He silently slips out of the room and back into his lair, where Dr. Colosso is waiting for him, nervously chewing on a bit of headphone wire.
He ignores the rabbit for a bit, changing out of his school clothes and into one of the form-fitting black suits that he's had lying in wait for him to have an opportunity to use it. There is no Thunderman's emblem on the suit, it's as blank as a starless night, leaving him as a faceless menace too all who come in contact with him, which is just what he wants.
So better to face and annihilate whomever or whatever it was that hurt Phoebe, Max thinks, feeling impatient that it's still so early in the day. But from the nervous tapping of the good Doctor's paw, he - hopefully - has news for him.
"Give it to me," Max orders, pulling on his custom made belt the one that all sorts of nasty items attached, some internet-inspired, some homemade. "Do we have a name?"
"No. But I have an address. However, you might want to ..."
He ignores the rabbit's anxious tone. "That's all I need."
"But ..."
Max's temper flares to full life. His tone is low, but deadly. "Give it to me. Now."
The rabbit sighs, sadly even. "I sent it to your phone. All I can say, is be careful. We old time bad guys used to have a code of honor - I'm not so sure about this new batch."
Max wants to laugh, but he doesn't have the energy. He saves the message without looking. "This 'new batch' is going to get schooled from an even newer batch."
Who is going to be worse than they ever dreamed, Max thinks, waiting impatiently for night to finally fall.
0o0o0o
continued in Part Five...
Thank you for the reviews, all are appreciated!
PT