Sorry for the delay in getting this out. Wanted to edit for grammar and spelling before posting, and work started kicking my ass again. This one is a little shorter, but I hope to get the next chapter out sometime this weekend. Enjoy!

chapter 2: instances & incidents.

Logan

Even if he tried, Logan doesn't think he could come up with the number of times in his life wherein he was summoned to the principal's office. He has had a plethora of experience, slouched sitting in the hot seat 一 from long lectures he'd mostly checked out of to legitimate disciplinary hearings.

It is entirely different territory altogether, stepping into a similar situation as an authority figure. It feels fraudulent, somehow 一 ingenuine, even.

Oddly, he finds this situation all the more nerve wracking.

Logan looks at his nephew for a moment. Henry shifts on the bench he is seated on, fingers tugging at the sleeves of his blazer, brows furrowed with guilt.

The boy is far from a model student, but he is an even further cry from the type of child Logan had been. From his understanding 一 at least, how Honor tells it, there'd been instances and incidents in the past, but nothing beyond concerned comments from teachers, or simple calls home.

He wonders, briefly, if this is the beginning. And if so, he feels a twinge of sympathy for his sister. Would she have to spend her entire life keeping boys like him in check?

"Hey," he calls out to the boy, "is there anything you want to tell me before I head in there?"

In lieu of a real response, Henry instead drops his head to the floor, which only leads Logan to question what he's in for when he steps into the headmaster's office.

Logan absentmindedly scans over the event notices and photographs that line the bulletin board on the wall behind the bench, taking a second to mentally prepare himself before turning to walk into the headmaster's office.

It is then, though, that he becomes aware of the dark-haired woman sitting to Henry's left. He recognizes her immediately; her pale blue eyes, for the briefest of brief moments, close in on his. He throws a nod in her direction, smiling in acknowledgement; a silent greeting she drops their hold to evade, just as quickly as she'd left his apartment on Saturday night.

Although he's been unable to think of much else since their encounter, he forces the thought of her to the back of his mind, turns on his heels and opens the office door.

••

The moment he steps out of Headmaster Moises's office, Logan zeroes in on Henry, who 一 unsurprisingly 一 is now sitting solo, and picking at a loose thread on the bench cushion, eyes still in the same downcast position.

He takes a seat in the open space next to him, and watches the child intently, quietly, until the boy lifts his head to meet his gaze.

"So…," Henry starts.

"Yeah," Logan nods in agreement. "So."

"You're mad."

"Well, I'm not exactly thrilled about this, no," he tells him, shaking his head. "You are very lucky they weren't able to reach your parents first."

Henry asks a question he already knows the answer to. "Are you gonna tell my mom?"

"You got into a fist fight with a girl, bud."

"What difference does it make?" Henry crosses his arms again, turning away from his uncle. "Mom says we should treat boys and girls the same way."

"Okay," Logan sighs. "You've got a point. But I'll counter it with the fact that we shouldn't be getting into fist fights with anyone."

"Well," he huffs, "she started it."

"You're smart enough to know that's not the point, man."

"And…" he lowers his voice, "she kicked me in the you-know-where!"

"So I've been told. And that was really not nice of her. At all. Believe me when I say I deeply sympathize," Logan says sincerely. "But I hear you threw some punches, too. So you're not entirely innocent in this."

"Well… You're the one who is always telling me to stick up for myself," Henry looks up at him in defeat. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"There are other ways to stand up for yourself," he says, trying his best to sound reassuring.

Logan had been on the receiving end of disappointment more times than he could count as a kid. Most of the time, it felt like the people around him genuinely believed he was incapable of making good decisions.

Maybe it's easier because Henry isn't his own kid, and most of the parenting isn't actually up to him, but Logan refuses to ever be that person to someone else.

Henry sucks his teeth. "I can't believe you're going to tell mom."

"Oh, please. She's going to find out about this one way or another, and she would kill me if I knew about something like this without letting her know," he explains. "Besides, I'm not going to tell your mom. You are going to tell your mom."

"What?! But Uncle Log-"

"Old man Moises wants your parents to sit down with Sutton's parents at some point, so she's going to find out, anyway," he explains, interrupting his nephew's protests. "Better it comes from you than someone else."

He throws his head back on the bench cushion. "Ugh. Mom is going to be so mad at me."

"Hey, your mom is way cooler than you give her credit for," he tells him. "At the end of the day, she's on your side. She just wants to make sure that you grow up to be a good human."

"Yeah, whatever. She's still mean."

"Moms are supposed to be at least a little mean."

"Your mom is not mean."

Logan genuinely laughs out loud. Oh, the naivety of youth.

"Oh no, of course not. Not to you. You're her little monkey. But believe me, growing up, your grandma could be a little mean sometimes."

He leaves out the part that she still has the tendency to be more than a little mean sometimes. It's neither here nor there; his issues with his parents don't concern Henry in the slightest.

"Well, mine is a lot mean sometimes," the boy argues.

"If you say so," Logan says, rising to his feet. "Here's the thing. Luckily, Headmaster Moises isn't suspending you. Said something about a mandatory disciplinary lunch hour. I don't know. So, here's my proposal..."

Henry straightens his posture, waiting to hear the rest of his uncle's idea.

"How about I sign you out of school and take you over to my house for a little while?" he proposes. Immediately, Henry's eyes light up, and Logan signals him for him to stop by raising one hand, "Ah, ah, ah. This is not a reward. We are going to sit down over a slice of pizza and talk about what happened at lunch, and then I'm going to help you figure out what you're going to say to your mom when she gets home. Got it?"

Henry pretends to consider the offer before standing on his own feet and extending his hand out to Logan.

"Deal."

Logan releases a sigh of relief as they make their way to exit the office. One day, perhaps, when it's his own child, things would not feel this simple, but for today, for once, it's enough to walk out feeling as though he's made the right decision.