Need your help! More info in bottom author's note. :)

Underground Lab, Anderson Residence, Chicago, IL 9/3 4:33 PM

"OOOH! What's that?!" Donald says excitedly, pointing at a sleek white cube that JD has on a nearby shelf.

'At least he has the gumption to know not to touch it,' the younger man thinks wryly. Aloud, JD says, "That's my L.A.M.P."

"Really? It doesn't look like much. What is it, a nightlight?"

"Not a source of light, lamp, a L.A.M.P.. A 'Laser Action Music Player." At Davenport's raised eyebrow, JD waves his hand over the device, powering it on. The chorus of a Linkin Park song blasts out of the speakers. Donald winces at the volume, but JD stands unfazed and turns it off.

"Well, why do you call it a Laser Action Music Player?"

JD turns it back on, this time making a different hand gesture over it. Immediately it resumes the song, this time accompanied by an impressive display of lasers that flash and jerk to the time of the music. It instantly gives the room more energy. (What? Despite what Jack or anyone else may think, JD can "loosen up" occasionally. Sue him.)

"I have got to get me one of those! Heh heh, but ah," Donald straightens, his trademark 'I'm-totally-more-awesome-than-you' smirk on his face. "I'd have to reprogram it with the soothing sounds of my own voice."

"…what."

"Yep. I have an album."

"You're still just as self-centered as I recall."

"Thank you."

JD rolls his eyes at his narcissistic friend and walks over to his holo-desk.

"Awww, you modeled your lab after mine," Donald coos, ruffling JD's hair. The action is slightly awkward due to the fact that Davenport is shorter than the other scientist by a good half foot.

"Don't kid yourself. It's an efficient use of limited space that I happened to recognize the proficiency of," JD grumbles, ducking away from the other man's hand and running his own hand through his wild curls. And it's true; he'd modeled his lab after Davenport's, not because he looked up to the man or anything, but because the billionaire had a way of organizing his space so that everything had a place, and every place could easily be accessed.

Of course, in the case of someone breaking into the lab or something, JD had installed an extra security system that would pump a strong sedative into the air that's guaranteed to knock the person out for about twelve hours at least.

Or, in the case of Jack, five hours. Possibly six.

Either way, it should incapacitate the perpetrator long enough for JD to arrive and do something about it. Emphasis on should. He sure hopes it does. He was out for around fourteen hours back when he was still testing the stuff in his old lab. He had missed a meeting due to his… unconsciousness, and Marissa immediately suspected the man he was supposed to be meeting with, George, kidnapped the JD or something. Poor George still nightmares of her… "interrogation."

Donald immediately gets situated in JD's favorite wheeled chair, making the taller man grit his teeth (it is, after all, JD's favorite chair). Instead of commenting, though, the younger scientist simply pulls up another (less comfortable) chair.

"So," Donald says, rolling around JD in circles. "It's been a while."

"Yes. It has." Almost a decade, JD realizes. Sure, the two had had the occasional correspondence to ask one another's professional opinion over a compound or invention parts or something, but they hadn't actually laid eyes on each other in more than a few years.

They'd first met when JD was kicked out of college for blowing up his entire dorm after an experiment gone horribly wrong. No one had gotten hurt (thank God), but the incident had put him on CARDINAL's radar. A group of agents had come and none-too-kindly picked him up from his rented apartment (since he'd blown up his dorm room) and, for lack of a better word, interrogated him.

That's where Davenport entered the picture. He'd managed to get JD off the hook with a promise that he'd keep an eye on him. In reality, the two of them became "science bros" (as Donald called the both of them) giving JD free reign over his lab to do whatever experimenting he wished (though, understandably, distancing him away from a young Adam, Bree, and Chase).

After a while, Donald had offered him a job at Davenport Industries, which JD accepted. Eventually, though, he got roped into working with CARDINAL, where he would eventually meet Marissa, and then later Jack.

"How'd you manage to screw Jack up so bad?"

Speaking of Jack. "I may have unintentionally shot him with a prototype tranquilizer."

Donald stops rolling and stares. "Wow. Not even I have screwed up that bad… actually I probably have."

JD huffs. "You have definitely 'screwed up that bad.' Remember the WaterLemon?"

"Oh, yeah. Heh heh. I'm not destined for genetic engineering."

"Which is ironic considering the three superhuman adolescents you currently reside with."

"Heh heh… moving on. I have the replacement arm—" Donald holds up said cybernetic limb. "—and since this tranq is dangerous to metal or whatever, then you should probably get him here so we can bio-shock his chip. Maybe install a self-repair app and have it coat itself in some sort of protective substance."

Wow. That's… "Interesting. A great idea, I dare say."

"I know! Full package right here. Rich, handsome, and a genius." Donald flashes him a dazzling smile. JD is unimpressed. "And I even cleared Logan's med records!"

What. "What."

"Well, Jack and Logan's chips work together. You said Jack's chip went into partial emergency shut down, which is part of why he was out so long right?"

"So Logan's would have done the same," JD breaths in realization. "And from what you told me, Logan is as social as one would expect someone his age to be… at four thirty in the afternoon he's bound to be around people. People that would have taken him to the hospital when he randomly passed out." JD groans, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. "They would've done a CAT scan or MRI. Either of those would have easily picked up the chip's signals—"

"Oh, ye of little faith, how you underestimate me," Donald teases, earning a glare from the younger scientist. "Don't you think I would have thought of that? Logan is a growing boy. From the time that he left my care to now, he's bound to have ended up in the hospital sooner or later. Especially during his soccer phase."

He crosses his arms, tilting his chin up with a smug grin on his face. "I set up a system that notifies me if he's ever in the hospital. If they do a CAT scan or something while he's there, then my system takes the results, alters them so that his chip isn't there, and then sends it back. The whole process takes about five minutes."

JD sighs, relieved. "Oh. Good, then."

"You're lucky that Logan's chip is silicon. An MRI could have killed him if it was metal like Jack's."

After a couple seconds of silence, Donald (uncharacteristically serious) says, "So… What's he like?"

JD already knows who the other man is talking about, but he isn't quite sure exactly what Donald wants to hear. "What do you want me to say?"

Donald stares at his hands. "I dunno… It's been years since I last saw him. Just… tell me about him."

"Well, he's… just as snarky and rebellious as you'd likely expect any other teenager his age to be." JD pauses, searching for words to describe the teen he'd been looking over for the past eight years.

"He can't eat or be in the presence of strawberries for some odd reason. His chip went haywire the one time he did, and he shut down for a day and a half. It was a long time ago, I'm not even sure he remembers it, but he knows he doesn't like them and gets nauseas or feels pain with prolonged exposure."

"…this is a teenage superspy, and his weakness is strawberries?"

"Everyone has a weakness."

"But… strawberries?"

"Shut up," JD deadpans as the other man starts laughing. When the chuckles subside, JD continues. "He doesn't play pranks often, but when he does they're… interesting, to say the least. Like, he once replaced everyone's desktop picture with a photoshopped one of a giraffe surfing on a dolphin and cussing in Swedish." He chuckles at the memory. There was no way to prove that Jack did it, but everyone knows he did.

"He's extremely protective of his hair," the scientist continues. "One of the other agents played this little joke on April Fool's one year, where he had some brown extensions that matched Jack's hair color, and he went into Jack's room while he was reading or something. Jack had headphones on, so he didn't hear the man come in. Anyways, we'd had a camera set up so we could all watch Jack's reaction. The guy tiptoes in pretends to cut some off Jack's hair and… Jack just kinda sat there for a minute, but then he calmly got up, found the camera somehow, and disabled it. When we finally got the camera back online, he was sitting there in the exact same position as he was before the other agent went in… but there was no one else in the room."

JD shivers slightly, remembering the blank but terrifying look on Jack's face right before the camera cut out. "The man was found in a storage closet a week later, bound, gagged, wearing nothing but his underwear and covered in sewer water and cactus thorns. Needless to say, no one messed with Jack's hair again after that."

Donald's eyebrows are high on his forehead in surprise, awe, and a bit of fear. "What did Jack do to the guy?"

"No one knows. Neither of them talked about it, and everyone was honestly too scared to ask. Though, the thorns were from a really rare species of cactus found only in a remote Chinese desert, and the guy did look a little tanner now that I think about it…" JD shakes his head. "Jack can be terrifying when he's angry. Who knows exactly what he can accomplish?"

"Uh, shouldn't you know?"

"When he's mad, genuinely mad, there's no predicting him."

"Ooook, then."

JD thinks some more, before his expression sobers. "He's gone through some pretty bad experiences. His trust issues stem mostly from something that happened a couple years ago. It was an honest mistake, given his age, but he's never forgiven himself for it…"

"What happened?"

JD shakes his head. "It's his story."

Donald pouts. "Come on. Tell me, please?"

JD glances at his watch and realizes what time it is. "No… we really need to get him here."

So! How was it? I know this was kinda filler but it's important. I think. Anyway.

Do I need to explain JD and Marissa more? Since they're my OCs and all, I 've kinda got them all characterized in my head, but I dunno if I'm communicating that characterization enough. Then again, it's only the third chapter.

What I need help with: storyline/story arc ideas? I'm not normally the person to go asking for plot ideas from other people, but I'm kinda stuck. Like, you guys know how each episode of Lab Rats has its own storyline, but oftentimes they're encompassed within an overall story arc? For example, you have the "Concert in a Can" storyline in which Adam and Chase befriend a suspicious new kid while Bree tries to bond with Davenport, but the Marcus story arc also starts in this episode and spans from the end of season 1 and ends some point in season 2.

I kinda wanna do that in this story, if that makes any sense. Like, each chapter should have its own story line, but there should be an overall arc. I have a couple arc ideas, but I need chapter storylines. So I'm totally open to suggestions.

Thanks so much! :D Until next update,

~BH