Well, this is a totally re-written chapter because I hated the original with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

So, for my first time readers, there's some stuff packed in here about Phil that I will expand on in later chapters. And for people reading who have already read ahead and are coming back cuz of the update, well, you get foreshadowing that you already know what it means. Hooray?

And mostly cuz I like to expand on the Phil/Mark brotherly type stuff.

So Mark and Phil are both sixteen. Time span is from February and skips over to September (literally almost a day before 'chapter seventeen yelling match' and I won't reference this in that chapter because I'm honestly just lazy and you have to deal with it)...(and for those who have not read 'chapter seventeen yelling match', I suggest you keep going to that. That chapter is like my baby. I love it. Okay, I'm gonna shut up now)

"Mark?" Phillip called gently when his brother started to shift ever so slightly in his bed. The redhead sat up from where he was perched on the windowsill, the rifle placed in his lap moving along with his hips. He turned to try to peek out the doorway to see if Darcy or Bruce were coming back in the room. Empty hallways. Markus shifted again and tensed up, pain hitting him full on. He groaned and Phil was by him in a second.

"Mark?" He called again. The dark haired boy slowly dragged his suddenly heavy eyelids open and ended up giving Phillip and weak grin. "Hey, kid." Phil huffed. "You're okay, you're home."

"Hey," Mark forced out, not realizing how hoarse and completely shot it sounded.

Phil let his shoulders drop and let out an exhausted laugh. "Yeah," He huffed. "Hey." Phil sat down on the chair Bruce left out before Darcy dragged him off to possible eat something. "Next time, baby brother," He said with a smirk. "Take the fucking ride home."

Mark let out a laugh that sounded more like a wheeze and let his eyes fall closed again. "Probably should." The wave of unexpected pain that rolled over in the next second had him tightening every muscle he had, feeling the particularly painful pull of the ones in his legs. "Ow." He groaned.

Phil didn't hesitate to press the small morphine button someone installed on the side of Mark's bed. He didn't realize the overdosage that would've taken place if Mark had a lower tolerance for drugs. Not the Mark even told anyway about his recently discovered heritage. "You okay?" The redhead asked, hovering over him.

"Mmmhmm." Mark hummed as the painkiller flooded his system. "Tired."

"Alright," Phil smirked and let the younger boy drift off again.

"Markus?" Phillip's head whipped around when he heard Darcy from the doorway. She looked from Phil to Mark and sighed. "Did he wake up? Is he okay?"

Phil nodded and got up from the chair, offering it to his aunt. "Yeah, tired, sore, you know."

Darcy nodded back and sat on the bed instead. She placed a gentle hand on Mark's shin and rubbed her thumb over the sheets. A thought struck Darcy unconsciously and she looked back to Phil with a frown. "Why aren't you in school right now?"

"Um," Phillip took a step back and bit his lip. "The strong bond of family..negates the need for a crappy education?"

Darcy crossed her arms and legs simultaneously and raised an eyebrow. "Crappy? Kid my parents would've killed for me to go to your school."

"But it's catholic." Phil drawled out the word. "I'm not even religious. Or enough of a genius to even go there."

"It's just a branch of Sebastian's, Phil. There aren't even classes about loving Jesus, or anything like that. Why does it matter so much anyway, you didn't mind it in elementary."

"Elementary was different." He grumbled.

"Okay, relax." Darcy sighed. "You can bitch to someone later, just go there before they call your dad and he gets pissed."

"He sees all, probably already knows." Phil sulked out the door.

Darcy rolled her eyes and called after him when she the rifle laying on the windowsill out of the corner of her eye. "And take the stupid gun, that's the last thing I want in here." Phillip backed into the room, snatched the rifle and walked back out. "Thank you."

"Whatever."

"Phillip," Clint gave a warning when he saw his son, not so sneakily walking through the kitchen, mutely grabbing his car keys and veering for the door. "Phillip." Clint called again, sternly.

Phil stopped, let his shoulders drop and sighed heavily before turning around. "Yeah?"

"Why are you here?"

"Ask Darcy I went over it with her."

"Is this about the extra help sessions the teacher assigned you to?" Clint asked simply.

Phil rolled his eyes. "No, it's not because of the dumbass classes."

"Dyslexia's not an excuse to call yourself a dumbass."

"I know, you guys make a point pounding that into my head."

"Phillip-"

"No, it's not about the fucking classes." Phil cut his father off and threw the keys on the table. "It's about my brother who has been in some fucking comatose state for a good three days after being tortured and starved and tested on like a rat for a week, and you think it'll be just fine if we carry on like nothing ever happened. I find that I can't really do that for you, dad." He swallowed thickly.

Clint scanned him over, debating for a good minute on what to say. He cleared his throat after a while a spoke stoically. "Language."

"You've got to be kidding me." Phil scoffed and shoved his keys back into his pocket. The redhead walked out the door without another word.

"Mom?" Mark let out a pathetic whine of call for attention.

Darcy turned to face her son fully and gave him a gentle smile. "Hey, babe." She sat down on the bed like before, next to his torso this time. "How're you feeling?"

"Better than before."

"I hope so, kid." Darcy started to run her fingers through his hair and moved to sit on the bed completely. She Mark testing the range of motion in his feet under the blankets that covered them. She sighed when he winced at moving his left foot. "Back to braces and casts for lefty, the right seemed better off than expected."

"Damage?" Mark asked the dreaded question while not looking up to his mother.

Darcy swallowed and shifted before answering. "Mostly left leg, muscles around the knee, and your hip was displayed and the left foot was bent to stick out like before. A-and," She cut herself off when she found herself stuttering. Darcy sighed and looked down at her son. "We're back to where we started for a while."

Mark stared for a few moments, when Darcy thought he wasn't going to say anything else, she started to lift herself off the bed, and he finally whispered. "Okay."

The brunette stroked his hair one more time. "You're gonna be fine Markus. I promise."

~Six Months Later~

"You're sure you want to go back already?" Bruce gave a look to his son, handing him his backpack.

Mark stuffed the rest of his bagel into his mouth and accepted the bag eagerly. Out came some butter he slew of reassurances. "Yes, It's fine. I'm ready, totally up to speed."

"I don't want you to rush anything. You're still limping and-"

"Dad," He interrupted, swallowed and stopped on the opposite side of the table. "The left leg has always been bad, but I'm fine. I think I can handle a high school hallway again. Plus school started like, two weeks ago." The scientist sighed and rubbed his eyes. Mark gave him a small smile and tapped the brace on his leg that was under his jeans. "I'll be okay, I'm even wearing my brace, like the therapist told me to."

Bruce huffed and looked back to him. "I know. I'm just, worried. About you." He told him awkwardly. "It was only last month when you had a panic attack and anything could happen-"

"But that was last month and this is now." Mark cut him off again and tapped his hand on the table rather loudly. "Phil's waiting for me in the parking garage, can we hurry this up?"

"It is six forty in the morning. Stop making noise." Darcy grumbled as she shuffled in the kitchen, a fluffy robe wrapped around her.

"Hi mom." The raven haired teen went over to her by the coffee machine and leaned down to plant a quick peck on the cheek before heading towards the elevator. "Bye mom."

"Take it easy today babe." She called out after him as the doors closed. The brunette got her coffee and sat down by her husband, who was giving her a look. "What?" She said sleepily.

"You're just going to let him go? You're not even worried about him?"

"Please, I could barely sleep last night, thanks to worrying about that kid." She took sips of the coffee and scratched the table with her fingernail.

Bruce lightly slapped his hand on the table before standing up. "I still think we should've waiting a few more weeks before he goes back."

Darcy sighed as he poured himself a cup of coffee. "Bruce, he's been stuck here for almost six months. We barely let him out of our sight, I think a little space is good for him."

Bruce huffed a laugh. "Yeah, space." He sat back down and wrapped his arm around Darcy's waist. "Too bad the other kids will only let that space be about five feet."

Mark was already tired by fourth period

His left leg had decided it had enough of walking up and down two flights of stairs that required to be used when going from home room to second period, then back up again for third, and back down for fourth. So it has now become almost useless. His knee kept giving out at every turn and he could only feel pins and needles in his foot. The only thing keeping him upright was the hard plastic/metal brace forcing his leg to stay straight.

Thankfully, Mark's scheduled fourth, fifth and sixth period were on the same floor. Advanced junior Chem., lunch, and audit PE (because PE is such an important class, and Mark is not in a wheelchair or qualified as physically unstable, they couldn't just let him not take it). Usually all the physically disabled students had a milder PE during their fourth period (cuz that's not discrimination at all), but Mark was in the only period available for Advanced Chem., so they had him audit sixth period. Five was lunch. With Phil, thankfully.

"Baby brother." The older boy greeted, slamming the lunch tray onto the table. Almost immediately the two other students, who were already sitting down by them, got up and moved to another table.

Mark glanced as they left but said nothing about it until they were out of earshot. "Not your baby brother." He shot at Phil, smirking. He cocked his head to the kids who just left. "What's with them?"

"Ah, something about me being a sinner and destined to burn in hell for all eternity or something." Phillip waved them off nonchalant-like and continued eating his food, ignoring the questioning and concerned look Mark was giving him. Abigail had told him about what was going at the school with Phil's sudden secret coming out, Mark knew it couldn't be that easy, with the people in this school, but that was just ridiculous.

"It's that bad?" He asked carefully.

"Not really." The red head shrugged, not looking at Mark. "Those are just the Jesus freaks."

Mark poked at the salad in front of him. "Would Abby be a Jesus freak then?"

Phillip rolled his eyes. " Abby goes to church and occasionally reads the bible." He grumbled.

"So is it left or right?" Phillip asked quietly when the bell released them to head to the next class.

Mark archer an eyebrow at him. "What?"

He started to dig around in his messy pack. "You're limping like a pirate without his peg, which leg's being the bitch?"

"Left." The taller boy grumbled, hating that his fatigue was that obvious. "But I can manage."

"Here," Phillip took out a small silver rod, holding it vertical. He pressed a small button on the side and the rod expanded in a cane. He gave Mark a little smug smile. "Cuz I know you're too proud to carry around the old crutches."

"You thought I couldn't make it through today? You're a jerk." He smiled anyway and took the cane, a sigh of relief escaping when the pressure on his leg lessened.

Phil gave a curt nod and smirked, knowing the appreciation behind the insult. "You're welcome."

"Where'd you even get this?" Mark questioned with a sideways look to his brother. When Phillip went silent and shove his free hand into his pocket, Mark scoffed. "Please tell me you paid for it."

"Hey," Phillip snapped. "I will let you know that I do pay for things, most of the time." He added the last words quietly. "Sometimes, life happens to people."

Markus rolled his eyes. "Like that guy at mall's wallet that you happened to 'find' that one time?"

"Hey, that guy was a dick." The redhead stated bluntly. "He shoved Amelia. Not nudged, shoved, into a kiosk." He waved a hand in the air like that justified pick-pocketing the same man later in the day.

"And why couldn't you just shove him back?"

"Got to hit those guys where it hurts, baby brother." Phil put simply, ignoring the eye roll from Mark. "What? It's not like I actually spent anything off his credit card, into the river they went."

"Of course they did."

"Whatever, who cares, you're back from the dead. Walking even! A miracle." Phil smiled whimsically at his brother.

"More like sweat, physical and emotional therapy and a developed panic disorder."

"That," Phil held up a finger. "Is understandable, man."

"It's embarrassing."

"Then why'd you bring it up, smartass?"

"I'm going crazy."

Phil laughed. "We all are, in our own special way." The smaller teen clapped Mark on the back before veering into a different hall. "And don't worry about today. This hellhole didn't change just cuz you were gone." He called.

"Thank you, for that supportive message." Markus mumbled to himself as Phil walked off.

The teen couldn't help but glance at the faintly covered bruise ringing his brother's neck.

But that was a problem for a different day.

So.. there. I actually warned you about Mark's panic attacks instead of throwing it at you like I did in one of Abby's chapters. yeeaahhh.

CONSISTENCY...SORT OF.

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