There they were, two adorable little blonde tops barely visible through Vanzilla's door window, sitting there just separated from him by a few feet of tarmac and the odd vehicle.

(Some of) His girls.

Lizy and Lops.

Sure, he couldn't see their faces or anything else just yet, but he could tell from the way their little head tops flopped back and forwards that they were getting bored in that old, boring Van with the seats always seemed to have something wrong with them no matter many times they were fixed or replaced (it was a very well used vehicle after all). Lincoln easily remembered being in that position, sitting in the van, stuck next to a sibling with nothing else to do but get bored and salty until the grownups came along with a tasty treat that would drive away all the tedium of waiting with delight and gratitude towards the beloved bringer of Burgers.

And as the wind tugged at the bag in his hand, Lincoln was reminded that today; he got to be that bringer!

With a rudimentary glance to ensure he wouldn't end his marathon at the start line, Lincoln strode across the carpark and half-jogged to Vanzilla. Lana and Clyde could joke about femboys all they wanted in the Woofers; Lincoln had kids to feed-

WHAP

"Ooof!"

Alas, he was a little too enthusiastic in his speed and he nearly tripped over as he went to stop himself, landing against the door with a slap. But dazed as he was, his upper body had landed upon the glass next to the girls and he could see them staring at him with their big, blue eyes with something like wonder.

His lips tugged up into a warm smile to let them know he felt the same way. And as silly as he knew he looked (or just plain weird considering he was a grown man presently all but hugging a museum piece of a van), he couldn't help but practically sing out his greeting with glee.

"Hiii Kiiiiiddsss!"

And then the screaming started.

In his defence, it almost immediately turned to laughter as the girls recognised him.

A shame he still had to explain himself to Woofers security.

"And you're their Uncle?"

Lincoln shamefacedly nodded, blushing with embarrassment as the burly man took notes.

"He Dad!" Lizy piped up her 'correction' from within the Van.

The guard looked at Lincoln with a raised eyebrow as the platinum blond felt a nervous trickle of sweat run down his temple.

"He's like their Dad," Lana interjected, presently slouching against Vanzilla herself. "He's my brother and he helps me out a lot so they call him Dad."

The short woman glanced at Lincoln for just a moment, and the man quickly followed up; "yeah, I love the little guys, so they call me Dad."

The guard looked between the two adults, then back to his tablet. Lincoln took the chance to examine him. He was a short man, with grey hairs where his dye had faded. But there was a good solidity to his build under the dark blue uniform that belied the idea that his advancing age had sent him to seed, and he'd clearly had been in 'the business' long enough to know a transparent save when he saw one.

But as the man swiped the notes away on his tablet and looked up with nonplussed eyes, he'd evidently also been in the business long enough to know when an incident didn't need to be his problem. "All right Ms Loud, if that's everything I think we can let you go. Just maybe keep 'Uncle Dad' here from scaring the kiddos next time, random men trying to get at screaming kids raises eyebrows."

"Yep, yeah- I'll get him a leash or something," Lana nodded- then shot Lincoln another glare.

Lincoln himself bit his tongue, knowing how many eyes were on him.

The guard nodded and having taken their contact information started to make his way back into the Woofers.

Lana's eyes followed the guard until he was out of earshot, then she looked back at him, "Seriously Dude?"

Lincoln flushed. "Sorry Lana, I just really wanted to see them."

Lana gave him a flat stare but rolled her eyes at his earnestness. "… Fine. Let's just get to the park and we can have brea- uhh, lunch there."

A set of high-pitched happy squeals came from the car.

"But not until we get there!" Lana insisted, pointedly putting the deliciously scented bags into the 'shotgun' seat. "We just cleaned this heap out last week!"

Lincoln looked over the ancient Van again at that, and much to his surprise- the nigh antique's surface indeed had a fresh shine over the now pale-markings, and the seats within looked almost new- with no trace of the old stains that he knew practically as well as the back of his hand.

"Wow… you really went all out on the old girl didn't you?"

"Yep!" There was a distinct click of a seat belt, and Lincoln looked up to see Lana settling herself into the driver's seat, she looked back at him with a little smile. "C'mon, hop in and we can go over it when we get there- you can squish in between the Stinkbombs if you want."

Lincoln grinned, and quickly pulled the unlocked door open to reveal the two child-seated toddlers, squirming in their little 'thrones'.

Lizy seemed happy enough, extending an arm out to touch his face but Lops folded her arms and glared at him, slowing his approach.

"You scare us!" The green-hatted toddler grouched. "Scare us really bad!"

Lizy stopped her little reach out and frowned as she suddenly remembered why she was scared. "Yeah, why you scare!?"

"Sorry girls," Lincoln sighed, and tried to look as apologetic as possible. "Dad just got too excited, okay? It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Lops thought for a moment, sucking her lips in a little as she thought back over the eternity that was a few weeks to a less than two-year-old. Her little eyebrows unfurrowed as she looked back to him and unfolded her arms a little, "… yeah. You gone for long time."

"Where you go?" Lizy poked at his face, a sharp little fingernail poking into his check. "Not even know you go outside house!"

"I…" Lincoln paused.

He was going or say that he went out to a lot of places, but when he really got down to it, he'd more or less been continuously in The House ever since the first five were born.

There was a good chance that most of the kids had never even seen him anywhere but the Loud House.

"Dad got sent to Time Out for scaring kids!" Lana interjected, flashing Lincoln a quick smirk. "He's gonna sit between you two until we get to the park so you can let me know if he scares any other guys until then, okay?"

"Dad, you been bad!?" Lops folded up her arms again, but there was a smile on her face even as she tried to be 'serious'.

"… Yeah kids," Lincoln rolled his eyes, reaching over Lizy to quickly resettle and lock in Lops a seat over. "Make sure to keep an eye on me for Mommy okay or I have to go back."

"Do we gets more Ice-cream if we do?" Lizy 'slyly' asked.

"Tell you what," Lana called from the front seat. "If you catch Daddy scaring people, you two even get to get his Ice-cream!"

"YEAAH!" Two little bodies immediately started practically bouncing out of their seats in excitement.

Lincoln winced at the stereo cheering as he buckled himself in, shooting Lana a glare into the front window (where she wore an unrepentant grin). He looked back one last time to the Woofers to see Clyde standing next to the Woofer's entrance, the keys to his expensive car already in hand.

The other man caught his line of sight, and gave him a friendly smile, raising his empty hand to wave him farewell, and Lincoln did the same- hoping his eardrums would last the trip to the park.

"… You alright there Lizy?"

Lizy nodded, keeping her eyes on Dad.

"…"

"…"

"… Are you just going to watch me all the way there?"

"Yea." Lizy nodded again, then pointed at Dad. "You been bad, so I make sure you stay good in Time Out!"

Dad rolled his eyes and looked sulky (which was like grumpy but sillier- Lacey told her!), but Dad was a jerk before so he deserved it.

Lizy could sort of see some of Lops' yellow hair when Dad leaned back and it looked like she was doing the same thing which was good in case Dad was bad on the side Lizy couldn't see.

(Lizy didn't really mind if Dad was bad but she wanted more ice-cream)

Dad looked like he was thinking for bit, then he smiled again!

And it was his naughty smile, the one he got when he was planning stuff…

Dad looked right at Lizy with his naughty plan face. "Well… I'm going to have to watch you right back then!"

He leaned down and stared at her with his big blue eyes-like he was trying to see inside her head.

"All. The. Way. Theeeeerrrreeee!"

His voice got all silly again- then his eyes went in the middle like he was looking at his nose so his entire face was silly!

Lizy felt laughing coming up but she was trying to be a big girl in case Dad was bad so she put her hands over her mouth to hold it in.

The blue and black part of Dad's eyes moved to see her hands and his smile got bigger- then he opened his mouth bigger too and his long tongue stuck out like a snake.

"Thaaaareeeee!" He said again with his tongue out, but it wasn't right because his tongue was out and Lizy felt her face get hot and her laughter was-

"No-Hehhe-" Lizy tired to keep them in but Dad's staring was too strong! "Hehe-ha! ha! Ha! HA! HA!"

Lizy's laughing kept coming out even through her hands over her mouth- and Dad's own hand came out fast to Lizy's tummy with his tickling fingers before she could move her hands!

She gasped and pushed Dad's arm where it became a hand to try and stop it- but as hard as she pushed the hand was just a little stronger and the tickly fingers started making tickle wiggles as they got closer until they pressed into her tummy and tickled out more laughing from inside her!

Lizy tried to fold over so the fingers couldn't get in but her chair wouldn't let her and it just let the fingers get deeper in anyway.

"Aaaandd-" Dad turned to see Lops, but left his tickling hand in Lizy. "I'm going to watch you too!"

"No Dad- hehe!" Lizy could hear Lops getting tickled too! "N-NO CAN BREATHE!"

Neither could Lizy, but Dad's tickles slowed down so she could a little in between giggles.

Mom spoke up; "If you make 'em pee you have to change 'em."

"Aww…" Dad looked at Lizy again. "You guys aren't gonna pee are you?"

"I will!" Lops said. "I pee on purpose if you no stop tickling me!"

Dad looked confused. "… You'll pee yourself if I stop tickling you?"

Lizy was confused too- but she didn't think Lops wanted more tickles even if they felt fun so Lops probably just got the words wrong.

"No, I- no hehe!" Lops gasped as Dads fingers tickled more (on both sides so Lizy was laughing more too). "I no want- haha!"

"Ha, ha…" Dad was laughing now, but it was an evil laugh like on T.V. "Now you see girls, you have made a grave miscalculation… for my secret is… I'm always cleaning pee!"

Lizy gasped in horror as she felt more tickling happening and remembered all the times Dad cleaned up Lizy or Lops or someone else after they got messy! "NOOOOO-"

The Van stopped all of a sudden, and Mom turned around to look at them. "Knock it off you three; we're here!"

"We here!?" Lizy shoved Dad's hand away and it went back to him this time, and when she looked up at the window it showed trees that looked like the ones at the park. "We here!"

"Yep!" Mom sounded happy. "C'mon girls, Dad's gonna change you into your play clothes!"

Lincoln honestly didn't mind changing the girls while Lana went out and found them a nice spot to eat under. The two were relatively well behaved and he hadn't tickled them nearly hard enough to actually make them pee (after all, he knew exactly how much each child of his could take before their bladder gave up after all their Bathtime escape attempts) and Lops hadn't made good on their threat.

Now the two girls sat naked (save for their pull-ups) in the van while Lincoln fished out their clean clothes from Lana's carry-on luggage bag.

"Arms up!" He commanded, and Lizy happily obliged, letting him pull a bright red shirt over her hands before she pushed his fingers way so she could pull her head through on her own.

He smiled as her eyes appeared and held her twin's light green shirt over her slightly fluffier head.

"Arms up!"

Lops however sat there with folded arms.

"Lops?"

The little blonde glare at him.

He almost pushed down anyway, but something obvious occurred to him. "Did I tickle you too much?"

Lops frowned and nodded, and something in the way that she held herself seemed familiar- like he'd been here before except-

Where Lops was, staring up with frustration at someone else.

Memories of countless otherwise fun activities that he'd been pushed into by his sisters, that had sparked resentment if only at the time flashed across his mind. Back in those days, he'd been the sole boy of the family, and whenever the sisters wanted something and something he didn't- he'd have to swallow it or try and scheme his way around them because they could somehow get away with so much more than him.

Now he'd crossed Lops' boundaries, and even if it was a little thing…

"I'm sorry," Lincoln sighed. "I just excited to see you both again and I got carried away."

"… Mmmm..." Lops' mouth screwed up as she thought. "You already scare us, then tickle went no want to."

"Yeah, I did," Lincoln scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he was called out by his toddler. "But I promise to be good now for the rest of the trip, okay?"

Lops narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion.

It was honestly cuter than anything else, but Lincoln remained still and wore as earnest an expression as he could manage.

"… Okay!" Lops nodded. "But no more tickle! No unless I say so!"

"Okay, that's fair. I shouldn't have tickled both so much without asking first." Lincoln agreed and Lops' expression softened while she uncrossed her arms. "Arms up?"

He held the shirt above her once more, and this time she let him pull it over her.

It didn't take long after that to strap them into their little identical overalls so reminiscent of Lana's childhood getup and give them their hats to complete the whole look.

They even had little pull up boots, so they didn't have to tie their shoelaces yet.

"Mine the green one!" Lops helpfully pointed at the hat in the travel bag, resting on the seat next to Lincoln and all her upset already forgotten "Make puffy please!"

"Puffy?" Lincoln fished out the hat, and true enough it looked a bit flat after being at the bottom of the bag. "All right!"

Lincoln held the thing in front of his face by the rigid rim, then exaggeratedly blew into the underside.

"More!"

He blew harder, and added a bit of a whooshing sound, then quickly poked the softer part of the hat out into a rounder shape with his free hand.

"Boo! Cheating!" Lops griped.

"A little," Lincoln admitted as he settled the hat upon Lops' fluffy head, then lightly patted it down to make sure it was firmly on. "But it's only because I want us to go get food and play, okay?"

"Mmmmrpp… okay…" Lops folded her arms but lifted up her face.

Lincoln dutifully lent down and gave her a peck on the forehead.

"Me next! Me next!" Lizy demanded.

Lincoln smiled, leaned over to make Lizy even with her sister. He gave an exaggerated "mwwwuah!" As his lips made contact with her (slightly salty) forehead, then quickly plopped her red hat upon her head as he retracted back up.

"There we go," Lincoln stuffed the discorded onesies and tiny slippers into the travel bag and tossed it to the seats behind him. "All ready?"

"Yea!" The two announced in unison.

"Then let's get going before Lana goes and eats all our Woofers!" Lincoln grasped a twin in each arm and scooped them up from their unbuckled seats, drawing them in close and secure.

"Yea, WOOFERS!"

"WOOFERS!"

Lincoln winced as his eardrums took another point-blank blast from the two child-shaped megaphones he'd provoked, but carried on scooting out of the Van until he pulled himself up out of the open door with his legs and stomach muscles alone. He intended to take the girls to where he could see Lana under a tree in the distance, but they promptly startled wriggling.

"H-hey!" He knelt down to release them before they dropped. "Wha-"

"WOOFERS!" The stereo echoed again, and Lincoln winced once more.

In the blink a of a second the girls were gone, but Lincoln followed their trail to see them darting to Lana and the assorted sweet and savoury offerings arranged before the short woman. She'd set up the food upon one of the park's tables, and apportioned the food into roughly four groups on the table; one to be shared between the twins, two more for himself and her and one more made up of dips and drinks.

"You comin' Linc?" The woman waved him over.

The man rolled his eyes, shut the van door and marched over to the table, where the two toddlers sheepishly waited next to one of the benches, the bottoms of their overalls already dirty where from when they'd evidently tried to pull themselves up to the accompanying bench and fallen back.

Lincoln snorted, then grabbed the girls around their stomachs to bodily lift them upon the bench.

"Thanks Dad!" They uttered in stereo, then promptly ignored him in favour of sitting down to demolish their offerings of greasy food and sweets.

Lincoln shrugged and marched over to his own seat on the other side of the table, where his own slimmer portion was waiting for him.

A nice, fat drumstick.

A tall cup of Funta, as orange as his shirt (and whose colour was probably as artificial),

Hot chips with just the right amount of salt and-

A suspicious lack of ice-cream.

Lincoln's eyes narrowed and turned to an equally suspiciously large portion of Ice-cream sitting before Lana.

"What? You were in Time Out and I saw you bein' naughty." Lana smirked. "Wasn't Daddy bein' naughty girls?"

Lops stopped mid chew and tried to speak but only succeeded in spraying chicken,

Lizy however happened to be between bites and helpfully piped up, "yea- Dad tickled us too much and made weird faces!"

"Yep, just what I thought." Lana sighed 'regretfully'. "And since I caught 'im bein' bad; I get his Ice-cream!"

Lincoln stared at her flatly.

"Really Lana?"

"You really called me to get Vanzilla ready for a cross-country trip this morning and showed up less than half a day later," Lana pointedly griped. "So yeah, I'm takin' your Ice-cream."

Her hands shot out to grab both cones in front of her and drew them close.

"Hey-"

She looked up at him with twinkling eyes, and then darted forward a flash of pink. Her fleshly tongue gouged out a chunk from the tip of the soft serve in her right hand, and she let him see her prize rest on the tip before she drew it in with an audible gulp.

"Lana!"

He reached forward to try and rescue the molested dessert in her left hand, but the Loud woman looked in him right in the eye- then opened her jaw as wide as she could and bit down on the exposed white.

There was a definitive crunch, and Lincoln's hand hung useless in the air as the tradeswoman lowered the ice-cream, cone semi-broken where her teeth had crunched through the top but with a still whole bottom for her to grip. She grinned at him toothily so that he could see the sharps of cone and liquefying dessert in her mouth, and then started rapidly chewing.

"… How old are you, Lana?"

The woman gulped down her dessert and wiped away an odd tear from her brainfreeze with the back of her hand. "Old enough to know growin' up is for suckers." She grinned at him. "Besides, didn't you already eat?"

"Yeah, I did," Lincoln sighed. It had been a long drive with Clyde though and he'd missed breakfast playing with Gloom, so he could still could have packed some more food in.

Oh well, Lynn would've called him out for eating so much without sticking to a workout routine anyway-

"You're gonna get brainfreeze too y'know" Lana's voice pulled him from his train of thought. "And what does Lacey say about dessert before dinner?"

Lincoln blinked in surprise, but Lana's eyes weren't looking at him. Instead, they lead to the two children at the table- now with bulging cheeks and white-smeared lips.

Lizy looked like she about to somehow protest through her full mouth-when Lana's prophecy evidently came true and her expression shifted to pain. Her jaw opened as she cringed and her greedily half-swallowed treat fell wasted upon the wooden table.

Lops meanwhile apparently managed to get hers down before having to let it escape but looked little better with tears in her eyes.

"Yep, that's about right." Lana sighed, then pulled a wet wipe from somewhere to clean up the spill. "Food then dessert, okay?"

Lops swallowed again and spoke up defiantly. "But you eat dessert first!"

Lincoln snickered, and Lana rolled her eyes, "yeah, well; you can tell Lacey on me when we get home."

"Really!?" Lops gasped with big eyes. "I get to tell on you!"

"Yep," Lana's lips got a bit tighter. "Just so long as you and Lizy eat your food first, then-"

Lincoln could have sworn he could hear demolition sounds as the two girls suddenly attacked their food like it owed them money.

"Not that fast!" Lana facepalmed. "No- seriously Lizy, Lops; if you don't chew it proper I'm gonna come over there and chew it for you!"

Lizy's face screwed up, "no! Taste weird when you do that!"

Lincoln raised an eyebrow, but Lana ignored him, and instead started creeping closer to the girls where they sat.

Immediately the two started slowing to human speeds. Lana smirked, and moved back to her seat, but pointed to two fingers at her eyes, then back at the twins in the old 'keeping an eye on you' motion.

"Lana, you don't really chew their food for them do you?"

Lana kept her eyes trained on the kids, but a smile grew on her face. "A Mom's gotta do what a Mom's gotta do Linc."

If Lincoln hadn't spent most of his childhood knowing Lana's antics, he might have been surprised.

As it was, the man simply resigned himself to the reminder that adult or not, Lana would always be Lana. On that note, he set himself to demolishing his own food before she got any ideas about the rest of his lunch.

It took him approximately thirty seconds to notice the silence from the rest of the table.

He looked up, still attempting to pull at the last threads of flesh from his drumstick with a mouth-semi filled with hamburger to see all three females staring at him.

"Dad, you eat like Birby!" Lizy gasped.

"And you break rule!" Lops protested. "Mom no chew your food!"

"Yeah, I'm with the kids here." Lana looked a little impressed. "Dang- I know you ate with Clyde, how're you packing it away now?"

"I skipped breakfast to get here as quick as possible." Lincoln admitted. "I missed dinner last night too since I got distracted- don't start, it wasn't like that. I'm just filling up for what I missed out."

Lana pointedly took a slurp from her own drink, but when she put it down, she mercifully left the night with Maggie off the table. "Sure Bro, I gotta say; you kind'a rushed out here don't you think?"

She gave him a pointed look, "I mean, I just got up this morning thinkin' it was gonna be a day like usual then I go get your call and suddenly I've gotta go get you and get Vanzilla ready this week for some kind of cross-country trip?

Really could've used a heads up for today, that's all I'm sayin'." The woman shoved some fries into her mouth.

The man winced at the blunt summary of his ill-thought-out action. In hindsight…

"Yeah, I'm sorry." He admitted. "I just got excited after Maggie suggested it and rushed through things again, I should've just waited at the hotel until I'd gotten the details sorted out."

Lana savoured her chips for a moment, letting the flavour and his words settle in. Then she swallowed with a smile. "Aaahh, it's alright, can't do anything about it now anyway unless… that hotel Lisa hooked you with will take you back?"

"I've already checked out," Lincoln flushed.

"Eh…" Lana shrugged. "I guess we can put in you in the Van or something while we get things sorted, y'know since my housemates might have something to say-'"

"Dad staying in Vanzilla?" Lops piped up. "Dad staying over with us?"

"Can we stay in Vanzilla too!?" Lizy gleefully inquired. "Have sleepover!"

"Maybe if you're good." Lana bit down on her burger. "But realtalk Linc?

You really should've given me a heads up about a week ago if you wanted to get going any time soon. I mean, I've been givin' the house my all lately- when I'm not doing my job y'know. I didn't think I'd even need to look at the old girl 'till Mom and Dad get back- I've barely done anything with Vanzilla, and let me tell you, she's gonna need work done."

Lincoln's eyes flicked over to Vanzilla. Honestly, apart from the faded colours it seemed in pretty good shape for its (decisively ambiguous) age. "Are you sure? I mean, it seemed fine just now-"

"Uh, uh." Lana held up a hand to stop him. "No. Linc? I'm the mechanic here, so listen up."

She motioned for him to lean, and he reluctantly abandoned his meal to do so.

The short woman leaned down to his ear, and whispered;

"Vanzilla. Is. Fucked."

He stared at her as she leaned back and pointed to the vehicle in the distance. "I've been working on that thing since before Lily was born and let me tell you; it's basically held together by duct tape and prayers at this point. There is not one part of the mechanics that works right from the driveshaft to the fuc-friggin battery. You don't even want to know what I did to make it seem road-worthy and guess what; I figured out what model and year it came from!"

She leaned forwards again, "it doesn't have one."

She snickered at Lincoln's confusion, "I don't know when or where the original design came from, but between all the times it's been rebuilt 'cause of us and all the weird changes we did to make it work on a budget- and just how much has had to be replaced- as far as I can tell there's nothing left of whatever it was originally. Now it's just a semi-legal combination of parts from other Vans- and let me tell you; what's under the hood looks more like some experimental engine than anything else.

She's a completely unique construction at this point."

"Wow!" Lizy gasped. "Vanzilla's special!?"

"Yep!" Lana nodded to her, "but there's the problem. Unique's all fine and dandy if you're some kind'a collector or something, but for a regular family vehicle that has to actually be used and deal with wear and tear? Unique means expensive or unfixable unless you're someone who knows the thing in and out of course." Lana puffed up her chest. "Course, I know everything there is about the old girl.

Problem is; she's got years of fix-its that are comin' loose and a lot of stuff that just won't stand up for a cross-country trip like you want. If you wanna use 'er, you're gonna have to wait a few days while me and Skippy get or make the stuff we need to get her roadtrip worthy."

"Oh…" the full weight of his lack of foresight sank onto Lincoln's shoulders. "How many days?"

"Dunno," Lana shrugged. "A week maybe if Skippy's boys can get their printer up and running- but you're probably staying a while."

"Dad's staying over for long time!?" Lizy's squeal cut like glass. "Dad, you stay with us?"

"I mean, I was going to anyway." Lincoln nodded, "but looks like I'll be here a bit longer than I expected."

A/N:

Thanks to Nuuo for a read over.