Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or its sequels, spin-off and related characters. All is the property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
Before the Egg Cracks
Chapter Two: Kevin & Gwen's Start Point
Folding fitted sheets was a pointless exercise -in Kevin's opinion. But Gwendolyn refused to let him just ball them up and throw them in the moving box.
"Not that I'm complaining or anything," he began as the two of them folded the sheet in half, then in half again, "but why are your parents giving us the house?"
"Because," she began in that tone she used whenever she was explaining something that shouldn't need an explanation, "now that my dad's finally retired, my parents are moving to Florida. But they don't wanna sell the house, they want to keep it in the family."
"No, I get that part." And Kevin was not complaining in the least. Frank and Natalie Tennyson had a really nice house. Three bedroom (four if you count the first floor office), three bathrooms, large kitchen with attached dining room, spacious backyard, and -Kevin's personal favorite feature- a generously sized attached garage. A two car garage with just enough surplus space for him to set up a small work area to tinker with his alien tech. So, Kevin was definitely not complaining that his in-laws were giving his wife their house. "I just don't get why they're giving it to us and not your brother. I mean, he is their first born."
Gwendolyn only shrugged as she took the fitted sheet from him and finished folding it on her own. She packed the item in a box with the rest of the set. "Ken's living in Boston with his husband. Why would they move back to Bellwood just for a free house when both their jobs and all their friends are there?"
Kevin had to admit, that did make sense. Not to mention, the insurance rates were a hell of a lot better in Boston compared to Bellwood. Insurance rates were a hell of a lot better everywhere but Bellwood, on account of the simple fact that Ben Tennyson lived in Bellwood and did not live anywhere else. No other city on earth recommended home owners buy 'Alien Insurance'. That was one detail of this move he was not looking forward to. The insurance premiums he and Gwendolyn would have to pay on the place.
"Besides," she added, "we might need the extra space more than Ken will."
"What for?" Kevin asked, not understanding. Gwendolyn could never let him tinker with dangerous alien technology in the house, and aside from keeping at least one spare room as a guest bedroom for when her parents or Ken and his husband came to visit, the Osmosian couldn't imagine what they might need the extra space for? "Its just the two of us -and Zed. What do we need the extra space for? Oh, Gawd! You're not gonna move your library from Friedkin into the house, are you? I am not carrying those heavy books!"
A pause. He jabbed a thumb behind his back at the already packed boxes of her personal library she kept at home. Fiction and non-fiction she'd had since she first learned to read, textbooks she never sold back to the student store, and a small collection of cookbooks neither one of them have ever even cracked open.
"I will carry those heavy book." Kevin promised. "But that's it!"
With a huff, Gwendolyn closed up the box they were packing together and taped it shut. "Its not always gonna be just the two of us, ya know."
The Osmosian paused to think.
"What? Are you imagining Tennyson's wife getting fed up with him and kicking him out." Kevin snorted. "Alright. Your cousin can crash with us for a little while, but-"
A gentle smile on her face, Gwendolyn crossed the space between them, placing a chase kiss on his lips. "That's not what I mean." She muttered into the hallow of his throat, pressing her body against his in a not-so-chase way, fluttering her lashes up at him. "What about when we have children?"
Placing both hands on her shoulders, Kevin took a step back. Holding her slightly away from himself so that he could stare her directly in the eyes. "That is a very bad idea!"
"What? Why?" She blinked at him.
The Osmosian just continued to stare at her, an inexplicable expression of his face. As if he couldn't understand, why she didn't understand, why having children with him might be a bad idea. "Have you met me!?"
Not the kind of question you want to be asking a woman you'd been married to for several years, dated for many years before that, and had known since you were eleven years old.
"Yes, and I think you'd be a great father!" The moment that statement was out of her mouth Gwendolyn paused, reconsidered what she'd just said -this was Kevin, after all- quickly amended. "You'd make a good father." Another pause. "Well, you'd be alright."
Wow, from 'great' to just 'alright' in less than a minute. Apparently she had met him.
But the quality of his parenting ability was not the thing the Osmosian was worried about. The fact that his Anodite wife didn't foresee any possible problems she might have raising an Osmosian child was the thing that worried him. Kevin opened his mouth to list all of the reasons why her having his child was a bad idea. Or more accurately, to begin listing them -because there were to many reasons to list them all in one conversation.
Except at that exact moment both their Plumbers badges pinged an alert. That halted any serious conversation before it could even begin.
It also halted the packing for the day.
Kevin sighed. "Which box did you put my proto-tech armor in again?"
…
Rook and Ben were fighting Dr. Animo when Kevin's invulnerable 'everything proof' car pulled up. The Osmosian stepped out of the driver's seat. He was already annoyed for unrelated reasons when they got the call. But to show up at the scene and find that it was just one of Ben's childhood -level one- bad guys, now he was really irritated.
"You called us out here for the nutty vet!" Kevin snapped.
"He's a geneticist." Gwendolyn corrected, climbing out of the passenger seat.
Both of them had to quickly jump out of the way as one of the good doctor's genetically altered creatures pounced on the car. It bounced on its tires, but was otherwise unharmed. The Osmosian rolled away, absorbing some of the asphalt of the street, covering himself in dark stoney armor. Gwendolyn was far more graceful, doing a sort of backflip-handstand out of the way. She shot a ball of raw mana at the creature, sending it stumbling off the car directly in the path of the armor-clad Osmosian who was very protective of his car.
Nobody noticed, since they were all occupied with Animo-creatures of their own, but Gwendolyn also cast a small but quick protection spell around her mid-section. Everything below her diaphragm and above her thighs was heavily shielded in magical barriers to protect it against concussive trauma.
"Badge alerts are pinged automatically." Rook informed Kevin as soon as the Revonnahgander had extricated himself from his own enemy creature. "We didn't actually call you."
Rook was being polite and diplomatic. Ben, on the other hand, was not so tactful with the Osmosian. He -in the form of Humongosour- punched Dr. Animo in the face, knocking the mad scientist unconscious instantly. Then he turned his attention to Kevin. "What bug crawled up your ass? I thought you were all excited getting a free house from Uncle Frank, and you and Gwen getting a perfect fetishized 50s lifestyle." A pause. "Oh. Did the fight interrupt you two having sex? Because I totally get that. Ya know, lately Kai and I haven't really had the chance to-"
"Tennyson, nobody cares about your crappy lack of a sex-life." Kevin cut him off.
Humungasour threw his hands up in a placating gesture. "Okay, jeez, sorry. I didn't realize you were on your man-period again."
Both Gwendolyn and Rook rolled their eyes at the pair. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the Hero of the Universe and the Osmosian were best friends. The way they fought -sometimes with words, sometimes literally fought- with each other, you'd think they were bitter enemies with a rivalry reaching all the way back to grievances deeply seeded in their childhoods. (Except they were that too.)
Ignoring the two of them for the moment, Rook took out of the new Null Grenades. A pocket sized device that could trap an enemy within it so that they could be more easily -and safely- captured and transported back to Plumbers' Headquarters to be released into the Null Void. It was a brand new invention -one of Bulkic and Driba's ideas that hadn't yet gone horribly, horribly wrong and nearly killed everyone (yet)- and was still in the testing phase. But -thus far- on weak enemies and small fry like Dr. Animo, the Null Grenades seemed to work fairly well.
Rook tossed the grenade at the unconscious Dr. Animo. It bounced off his chest for a second, then the villain was enveloped in golden light and vanished. All that was left in his place was the Null Grenade, and when the Revonnahgander picked up the grande again, he saw a slightly distorted figure of the still unconscious Animo inside it.
"I am very impressed by how well these things work." He turned to smile at the others, only to realize that nobody was paying attention.
Ben and Kevin were still bickering and Gwendolyn was trying her best to play mediator and broker a peace between them.
"You wanna talk man-period, Tennyson? Okay." Kevin was saying. "Lets talk about last year around Max's birthday when you were being such an insufferable asshole that my wife felt the need to travel back in time, kidnap your younger self, and show you just how much of an asshat you really are! No wonder your wife doesn't wanna sleep with you. Between you and your ego, there probably isn't enough room for her in the bed!"
Massaging her temples in an attempt to stave off an on-coming stress headache, Gwendolyn said, "Kevin, that was uncalled for. You know Kai is out of town right now, helping to clean up that oil spill in Blue Ridge that no one is talking about."
But her attempt to pacify her husband and diffuse the fight only gave Ben an opening to get in with a dig of his own. "Me? What about you!? Between you, your ego, your unresolved issues of self-loathing, your criminal past, and still inconsistent memories of what you did with your life before we crashed your deal at the rail yard, how does Gwen manage to fit in that bed with you? Her magic?"
"Whoa! Okay." Suddenly, Gwendolyn was rethinking her plans of making peace.
"Way to shoot yourself in the foot, Tennyson." The Osmosian scoffed. "By dragging her into this, you just pushed Gwendolyn over onto my side!"
She crossed her arms over her chest. Gwendolyn usually didn't like taking sides on Kevin and Ben's arguments. But that was when they didn't use her as fodder for their insults. Besides, bringing up Kevin's past which he still felt deep guilt over, and the incomplete memories from his time with the Rooters that he still struggles was completely inappropriate.
Rook came up to the trio. "What are you even fighting over?"
All three of them turned their eyes to the Revonnahgander. There was a pause.
Then Ben jabbed an accusatory finger at Kevin. "He started it!"
That was true. Kevin was already in a bad mood when they pulled up. Not so much angry but... tense. Anxious almost. Rook had lived on Earth for almost a decade now, but he was still getting used to the intricacies of human relationships. Had the Osmosian and the Anodite been having a quarrel before they came to help Ben with the fight? Unlike Ben, Rook knew better than to ask.
Kevin threw up his hands in defeat. "All I wanted to do today was shlep heavy boxes from my tiny apartment into my wife's nice big house and not have to worry about you, your monster battles, or anything else."
Ben, having finally matured past the age of ten, and therefore able to pick up on other people's subtle frustrations, latched onto that last one. "What else do you have to worry about?"
"What?" Kevin blinked.
"What?" Echoed Gwendolyn. She looked at her husband, placing one soothing hand on his arm. "Baby, if you're worried about something you should have told me sooner."
He looked at her with some sort of pleading look. No... pleading wasn't quite right. But something in that genre. The Osmosian pulled his arm out of her hand. This was not a conversation he wanted to have in the middle of a battle-torn street, right in front of Ben and his alien partner. "Not now, Babe."
"Oh?" Ben raised an eyebrow. "Trouble in paradise? Is the infamously mercurial Kevin Levin having trouble maintaining a stable, functioning relationship?"
Except that Kevin had successfully maintained his relationship with Gwendolyn for several years before they were married and had been married to her for over two years already. So, clearly, it was not his relationship with his wife that the Osmosian had trouble keep 'stable'. But that didn't mean that stability -in a general sense- wasn't something that he struggled with daily. That was sort of what he was worried about.
Not his daily struggles with stability and sanity, but whether or not his instability and insanity might be passed on to a possible offspring. Gwendolyn wanted to have children. Kevin did not want to have to save his wife from his hypothetical son or daughter because said hypothetical child had gone off the rails and tried to absorb its own mother. That was what Kevin was really worried about.
But that was not a conversation to have right in front of Ben.
"None of your business, Tennyson!" Kevin snapped.
Since Gwendolyn didn't seem to be doing an effective job of diffusing their argument, Rook decided to step in and try his hand at being the voice of reason. "Since Kevin and Gwendolyn are here, why don't we all put this to the side for now and take Dr. Animo in?" He suggested, tossing the Null Grenade up and catching it again. "And we can all relax over a cup for the terrible coffee we have at Headquarters."
Kevin threw his arms up in defeat. "Fine. Whatever."
"No coffee for me, thanks." Gwendolyn smiled at the Revonnahgander's ability to pacify her husband and cousin. "I'm trying not to do caffeine anymore."
…
As they pulled into the Plumber's Headquarters motor-pool, Ben leaned over to Rook -whispering in spite of the fact that they were the only ones in the proto-TRUK. "Lemme take the Null Grenade to the Void Chamber. Do you think you can get Kevin to open up about why he's manstruating today? Like, take apart a car or something and get him comfortable and distracted enough that he starts talking."
The Revonnahgander blinked at his companion in disbelief. "That is a remarkably subtly plan coming from you. Are you feeling ill?"
"I can come up with good subtle-type plans, ya know!" The Hero of the Universe was insulted.
Rook very tactfully chose not to contest his partner's claim. Ben was not bad a coming up with plans in a general sense of planning. But low-key arts, subtlety, and finesse were not his strong suits. He belonged to the 'hit a problem head on' school of thought -which, coincidentally, was also the same school of thought that Kevin subscribed to. It was one of the reasons they were friends.
"Alright." Agreed the Revonnahgander as he climbed out of the driver's seat. "I'll ask him to help me service the proto-TRUK. The engine is a little overdue on some basic maintenance."
"Overdue maintenance?" Kevin was already out of his own car and very gentlemanly holding the passenger door open for his wife. He gave both Ben and Rook a scandalized look. "You never wanna neglect your Ride! Especially if its just basic stuff!"
Ben jumped on his frienemy's comment, seeing it as an opportunity. "Maybe you should help Rook with that. Make sure it gets done right."
Except that last comment succeeded in insulting his partner. "Wait, are you implying that I don't know how to preform a simple oil change and tune-up on my own vehicle?"
"Well, I- uh. Crap!" It didn't take him long to realize he'd stepped in it.
Gwen sighed. Deciding she had waited patiently while the boys bantered at each other long enough. She cut between the three of them, taking her cousin by the arm and dragged him out of the motor-pool. "C'mon. Lets let Kevin and Rook wax their Rides together while you and I turn in that Null Grenade."
They watched the cousins' retreating backs. When the pair was out of the hanger, Kevin turned to the Revonnahgander with one incredulous eyebrow raised. "You seriously haven't given that thing a tune-up in how long?"
"I feel the need to remind you that being partnered with Ben Tennyson can be a full time job in and of itself." Rook snapped testily.
He liked Ben, really he did, and he like being partnered with him, really he liked that too. But Ben was an adult approaching thirty now and -sometimes- still needed to be handled like a child. Sometimes Rook still felt more like a babysitter than a partner. Sometimes he just didn't have the time to do simple things like take apart his alien truck and put it back together again better than it was before. Kevin was lucky his partner was also his mate and a mature and responsible Magister of the Plumbers as well as a sorceress that -if rumors were true- was being reviewed as a candidate for the coveted position of High Magus.
Meanwhile, in the Headquarters break room, Ben pored himself a cup of coffee while Gwen fished out a bottle of Gatorade.
"So, how are things with you and Kai?" She asked, twisting off the cap and taking a sip of her sports drink.
He glanced at her. The question sounded suspiciously like she was trying to preemptively change the subject from her and Kevin, to him and his own wife. Gwen was smart, and -unlike him- she actually was very good at the practiced art of subtlety. Sighing to himself, Ben replied. "Its weird. She says she wants to start trying to have a baby, but then runs off to another state for some bleeding-heart crusade."
"She's protecting sacred lands." Gwen reminded him.
"I know that!" Ben snapped. "But its hard for us to make a baby when we're not even in the same city! Kinda hard to have sex when you're not in the same room, Gwen!"
"You never thought about flying over there for a quicky?" She suggested. "Right before my doctoral review -for my first doctorate- Kevin showed up to wish me good luck." A pause in which she sucked on her bottom lip. "Very, very good luck. Kevin's very good at what he does. Then again, he does work with his hands all day. He's very skilled at-"
"Oh my gawd! I will pay you not to finish that sentence!" Ben cut her off, dropping his paper coffee cup and putting his hands over his ears. He did not have to hear details about how skilled Kevin Levin was at finger-banging his cousin whom he grew up with like a sister.
"And his dick's pretty great too." Gwen grinned an evil grin at just how uncomfortable her relationship with her husband still made her emotionally stinted and immature cousin.
Ben groaned, dragging his hands down his face and turning his eyes to the ceiling as he moaned. "Where is a hellbent planet-eater from a parallel dimension when I need one?"
Anything to get him out of this uncomfortable conversation with his cousin.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable?" She teased, knowing exactly how uncomfortable she was making her cousin. "By the way, when Rook does get Kevin to tell him why he's been so pissy today, would you mind telling me too. Everything was great earlier up until he suddenly just flipped and turned snarly for no reason."
Ben's eyebrows came down, suddenly no longer amused. Kevin was genuinely a good person, but he was capable of flipping as suddenly as a coin the instead becoming an unrepentant, sociopathic, occasionally sadistic, villain. So when Gwen described a change in her husband's behavior as 'sudden', it was cause for concern. "Was he absorbing anything when this happened? Or standing close to an energy source, like a power socket, of some alien tech he didn't quite understand yet?"
"No." Gwen just shook her head. "We were just packing up the apartment. And talking about why Mom and Dad gave us the house instead of Ken. Then he got all pissy."
"He got pissy because Uncle Frank and Aunt Natalie are giving you a house for free? That doesn't sound like Kevin at all!" The 'serious face' eyebrows were gone now and replaced with a one-up, one-down expression of confused disbelief.
"I know, right!" She nodded. "It doesn't make any sense!"
Ben paused again, that expression of confused disbelief shifting into accusation and suspicion. "You didn't ask him to move your library from Friedkin over to the knew house, did you? Because that's a bit much, even for him. I totally understand Kevin being pissy about having to carry all those heavy magical books."
Gwen huffed. "No. My magical library is staying at Friedkin. Honestly, the last thing I told him before we got the call for Animo was, I told him that we need the extra space more than Ken does."
Ben looked at her.
"Why?"
Now it was Gwen's turn to raise one eyebrow in confused disbelief. Seriously, how could Ben not get it. "Ya know how Kai wants to have a baby." She told him. "Well, I wanna have children too. We can't raise a little Anodite or Osmosian in our tiny one bedroom apartment. We need a house."
"Wait..." Ben said slowly. His brain not fully processing what he was hearing. "You wanna have children... with Kevin... With Kevin...!? Kevin Levin. You want that guy to both father your children and have a hand in raising them." He paused to suck on his teeth. "Really think about that for a second Gwen. Kevin. Children. Kevin. Responsibility. Kevin. Consistency. Kevin. Tantrums. Just think about that."
Now she was getting annoyed. Who else would Gwen want to have children with besides her husband! She crossed the space between them and shoved an angry finger in Ben's face. "Well, ya know what! You and Kevin can say whatever the hell you want, but the decision's made. Its happening! So you all better get used to the idea!"
"Damn." Ben blinked at her outburst. "Looks like Kevin isn't the only one who's menstruating today."
The sorceress threw her arms up in frustration. "Unbelievable!"
Ben opened his to argue that Gwendolyn was usually very level headed and rational, not given over very quickly to anger or aggression. But the Hero of the Universe changed his mind. If her moods really were swinging that suddenly, then the last thing he wanted to do was get into an argument with her. Ben liked breathing.
"Anyway..." He cast his brain around for something to change the subject. Anything to change the subject.
That was when an explosion shook the building.
Well, Ben wanted a distraction. Ask and you shall receive.
"What was that!?" Gwen spun around.
"Kevin?" Ben suggested, more of an exasperated sigh, really.
Except that the explosion didn't come from the motor-pool where they'd left Kevin with Rook. Gwendolyn turned her attention in the direction of the explosion. Not towards the motor-pool, but to the bull pin -the main chamber. Both Ben and Gwen ran out of the break-room to to discover a number of Plumbers already crowded around... something. Neither Tennyson could see for the bodies blocking their view. They sprinted across the room to the center of the commotion.
It wasn't an attack, or a fight.
"By golly! He looks just like Kevin!" Patelliday gasped.
"Smells like Kevin too." Scout sniffed the air over the center of the circle.
Gwen got to the crowd first, pushing her way between Molly Gunther and Manny Armstrong. She came up short when she saw what was laying unconscious on the chamber floor. Not a 'what', a who. A boy, no older than ten -or eleven- and Patelliday was right, he did look remarkably like Kevin. The same high cheekbones and raven dark hair. Gwendolyn reached down to check his pulse and got a sense of his mana along with it. His aura was similar to Kevin's too. Similar but not exactly the same.
Ben was not looking at the boy, his attention was held by his Omnitrix which was giving him some kind of alert. "There's time travel residue all over him."
"'Time travel residue'? Is that a thing?" Gunther asked.
"'Course it is." Ben assured everyone.
"So, wait... time travel residue... and a kid who looks and smells just like Kevin..." Scout was running through a train of thought out loud. "What if it is Kevin? Like, from the past. He somehow managed to transport himself to the future -uh, present?"
"He's not Kevin." Gwen was lifting the boy up into her arms. He was unconscious, eyes closed. But Upon closer inspection, even without getting a sense of her mana, Gwen could see that his features weren't one-hundred percent Kevin. The cheekbones, chin, and hair were all Kevin. But the shape of his brows looked suspiciously like Gwen's fathers, the set of his ears more like Grandpa Max's. He very clearly had mingled Levin and Tennyson features. And Ben said there was 'time travel residue' around him. "I'm taking him to the infirmary."
Hefting the unconscious boy in her arms, she left the main chamber.
That was about the time Rook appeared with Kevin in tow. "We heard an explosion. Is it an attack? The Incursion?"
"The Rooters again?" Kevin asked.
All eyes in the bull pin turned to him. Blinked. Then the Osmosian was the one who found himself surrounded by a small circle of Plumbers and Plumbers affiliated technicians.
"Levin, have you ever time traveled?"
"Do you remember coming to the present?"
"Gwendolyn said he wasn't you, but he looked just like you!"
It was all the Osmosian could do to stare back at everyone. "What the hell are you all talking about?"
Ben came up beside his confused and hapless frienemy and gave the other man a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "I think you better meet up with Gwen in the infirmary."
"Is she hurt!?" He demanded in his 'why didn't you lead with that you idiotic asshole!?' voice.
"She's fine. She's fine." The Hero of the Universe assured the Osmosian. "Someone just appeared in Headquarters and she took him to the infirmary. Maybe you can help us figure out who he is."
There was the silent question of 'Me?' of the other man's lips, but Kevin didn't ask it out loud. Instead, he turned and sprinted off after his wife and the mysterious intruder she had -apparently- felt the need to rush to the infirmary only moments after they forcibly invaded Plumbers Headquarters. Sometimes, Gwen could be just a little to kind and empathetic for her own good. But then, that was one of the reasons why Kevin loved her so much.
Imagining his kind, empathetic, and loving wife alone with a violent intruder, the Osmosian practically burst through the infirmary door. "Babe!"
"Shh!" Gwen hissed at him.
She was laying out the unconscious figure of -not a great and terrible, planet eating monster- but a small and skinny (a little too skinny) child. Kevin came up short. After that explosion, he imagined the 'intruder' to be one of their old and regular enemies. Vulkanus, Albedo, Vilgax, Darkstar, Charmcaster, or Servantis. He did not expect the intruder to be an undersized and undernourished child, whom was also currently unconscious.
The Osmosian came up short. "Wha-?"
"His vitals are all coming back normal. He's probably just unconscious from shock." She leaned back from the exam table, something that looked suspiciously like a used cotton swab in her hand. She placed the wet swab in a vile and sealed it tightly. "I'm gonna have Blukic and Driba run a quick DNA panel on this sample. Can you watch him? Call me if he wakes up."
"Wait, what?" It was all Kevin could do to blink in confusion at her quickly retreating back.
Not knowing what else to do, the Osmosian crossed the space to lean over the exam table and really get a good look at the intruder that was already seeming to cause him so much confusion.
A child, somewhere around ten or eleven. Way to skinny for his height. With long dark hair and a baby face that didn't quite manage to hide his dimpled chin. But the most striking thing, was the resemblance. Now Kevin understood a little of the others ravings in the bull pin. 'Gwendolyn said he wasn't you, but he looked just like you'. 'Have you ever time traveled?' Kevin had time traveled, but never during his really young youth. That didn't start until his teens. This boy was not himself. But even the Osmosian couldn't deny there was a striking resemblance.
"What the actual fuck!?" He found himself demanding of the empty room.
Gwen hadn't missed the resemblance either. She said she was going to run a DNA panel on him.
Curiously, Kevin leaned over the boy, trying to figure out if he might be a relative of some variety or another. Someone he might have glimpsed in one of his mother's photos (or the offspring of someone from one of his mother's photos). Or maybe someone from his still anonymous and obscure father's side of the family. Since Devin Levin never existed, that opened up a whole mess of familial possibilities and relations the Osmosian never really considered. Maybe this kid was a second cousin or something.
The kid gave a groan. He was waking up. Kevin could just ask him.
Eyes blinked open. Dark eyes. A brown so dark they might as well be black -Kevin's eyes. Those eyes so much like Kevin's went wide with shock at seeing the Osmosian leaning over him. Wide with -not shock- fear. Sudden fear.
Kevin could be pretty scary.
"No! I won't go back!" And he kicked -and kicked hard. The heel of his boot connecting with the side of the older man's face right on the side of Kevin's eye. If his aim had been just a little off (or maybe because his aim was a little off) he would have kicked the Osmosian directly in the eye.
"Arg!" Kevin snarled and staggered backwards, one hand going to his injured face. "What the hell?"
He staggered backwards, glaring at the kid. Seriously, who wakes up and their first, instant, and instinctual knee-jerk reaction is to kick the person closest to them in the face!? ...Okay, well, Kevin did have a similar instinct during his youth back when he was still confined to Incarsercon in the Null Void. But that was a completely different situation! He was in prison then, okay. It made perfect sense to kick a fucker in the face if you woke up with them over you. But in a Plumbers infirmary, come on. Who was gonna try anything with a kid right in the middle of a Plumber's Headquarters.
Drawn by his outburst, Ben and Rook came dashing into the room, Gwen not far behind them.
"What the heck is going on here?" She demanded, placing her fists on her hips with a huff of irritation. Oh, he was the one she was irritated with? Her husband just got kicked in the face!
Kevin jabbed an accusatory finger at him. "He kicked me in the face!"
Ben laughed. "Well, can you blame him? Waking up to a scary mug like yours."
"Don't start with me, Tennyson!" Growled the Osmosian.
"Oh alright. Truce." Ben laughed again. He turned to Gwen. "You wanna take care of your husband before he gets really fussy. Now that the kid's awake, Rook and I can figure out where he came from."
"Sure." The sorceress smiled in exasperation and crossed the space between her and her husband. She took the Osmosian by the hand. "C'mon, you big baby."
Through all of this, the kid just stared at them all with a strange expression on his face. Horror, shock, confusion, and disbelief all twisting and churning over his face, fighting for control of his expressive muscles. It must have been an enormous emotional strain on the boy, because the moment Kevin and Gwen were out of the room and some version of 'calm' was able to settle over them, he began to cry. His face falling into his hands and he sobbed unrepentantly.
"What's going on!?"
Ben and the one he called Rook exchanged a glance.
"We were actually hoping you could tell us that." Admitted the Revonahgander.
…