Looking at the Mystery Shack's profit margins for just the last week filled Stan with a deep sense of regret. Regret that he hadn't decided to jump into this Pride stuff earlier! He was making money hand over fist! He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a more profitable June and they were only a week into it. Apparently, gays had money! Who knew? According to Wendy, there was even a name for this kind of thing: rainbow capitalism. She said it was a way for soulless corporations to bilk people out of more money and make themselves look good without doing anything tangibly for the Lettuce community. No, not lettuce. Lumbago? It started with L? Stan had tried to memorize the letters, but they kept on multiplying when he wasn't looking. He was pretty sure he saw a Q and an "I" slip their way somewhere in there at one point.

Of course, Stan drew the line at actual rainbow capitalism. Rainbows were just too traumatizing for him, bringing back literally painful memories of when he nearly lost his eyes at the hands of that damned rainbow. He'd searched for that rainbow for ages. It had tasked him! He saw in it outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. He'd sworn he'd chase it round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares Maelstrom and round Perdition's flames before he'd give it up. Then he got hungry and gave it up.

The point was, Stan wasn't going to let any rainbow flags or rainbow merch into his Mystery Shack. Er, Soos'. Instead, Wendy introduced a whole bunch of different flags to use as merch instead. She tried her best to explain what all of them meant, but Stan could make very little sense of it all. He was 55% certain she might have just made up a few random words to mess with him. Stan didn't care if she did. That was standard operating procedure in the Shack, after all. All he cared about was making money and keeping Mabel happy. So he was very careful to pay attention to the part of her explanation involving the pansexual flag – three horizontal stripes of pink, yellow, and blue top to bottom – and ignored everything else.

"I, uh, got to ask, Stan, what brought all this up?" Wendy said more gingerly than usual as Stan jacked up the prices of some…bigender flag keychains. (Whatever that was. Stan didn't bother asking anymore. It just made his brain hurt.) It was almost as if Wendy was nervous. Which was odd, because while Wendy's emotions when interacting with him could be described in a variety of different ways – not all of them positive – nervousness had never been one of them. Wendy had no problems about flipping him off all the time, both metaphorically and sometimes literally.

"Just decided to dip my toe into the exciting world of rainbow capitalism, that's all," Stan said glibly. Wendy shot him an unimpressed look. Yeah. She definitely knew all his tells – there was a reason he'd stopped playing poker with her. "What, you think cause I'm old, I'm some sort of bigot? I like everyone! Everyone's money, that is!"

Now Wendy looked almost offended by his lying. "Stan. Seriously, man. This isn't something to joke about. What's got you like this?"

"Look, someone I know decided to get on this gay hating stuff," Stan said carefully. He trusted Wendy, but he also believed family matters should stay in the family. He probably wouldn't even have shared it was Gary who'd said those things with Soos if he hadn't been so angry at the time. Also, Wendy was far sharper than Soos and she might connect the dots too quickly. "I don't want people to think I'm like that, that's all."

Wendy, thankfully, seemed to buy that explanation. "Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I know we had to dump Lee out of the friend group really fast after he tweeted those…awful posts." She shuddered. "Really had to do a lot of damage control with that one."

The door slammed open and a little old lady even older than Stan, stormed into the room with surprising force for a woman her age. "Welcome to a world of mystery!" Stan began on autopilot.

The woman's eyes nearly bulged out of her sockets when she saw all the flags decorating the room. "YOU! Stan Pines!"

"Uh, I'm afraid you must have me mistaken for someone else," Stan said in a Russian accept. "My name is Picov Andropov!"

The woman seemed to materialize a stepstool out of thin air, climbed on it, and grabbed him by the lapels. "This is a good, honest, town, filled with good honest people!" That did not jive with what Stan had seen, but he'd heard people say stranger things. "It doesn't need this kind of filth." She gestured around her, her hands shaking with fury. Or maybe arthritis. At a certain age, they kind of blended together, Stan found.

"Think of the poor children who are being corrupted with these licentious displays!" the nut continued, pointing to a picture book of two mommies pushing a stroller. Stan had no idea what this lady was smoking. This was even less risqué than the stuff in Fully Clothed Women magazine.

Stan cracked his knuckles. "Now hang on a second here. This isn't a place of hate. This is a Lunchbox friendly destination!"

"Still not even close to being right," Wendy muttered.

"And you aren't welcome in this store." Wow. He'd never said those words before.

"Really?" the lady said with a glint in her eyes. "Even if I buy…all this merchandise off your hands so I can burn it?!"

Stan twitched repeatedly as greed and desire to be a righteous defender of the Lateral community warred within him. "N…n…n…"

"Yeah, sure, go ahead," Wendy said with a shrug. "I mean, you'll only be making us a ton of money, so why not."

The lady spun around to glare angrily at Wendy. "How dare you? Don't you know better than to surround yourself with such smut? Young ladies like yourself should be remaining pure and virginal –"

"Whoa, eww!" Wendy screamed. "Those words should not be coming out of old people's mouths! Disgusting!"

The lady grabbed Wendy's arm. Stan had enough. He reached underneath the counter and placed the revolver he kept taped to it on the counter. It wasn't loaded, but its mere presence had always been enough to ward off pushy customers. "Get out," he said curtly. "Don't come back."

"The devil will take all of your souls!" the lady screamed, shaking her fist in the air, and then she ran off.

Stan shrugged. "Well, he's already given it the old college try already." He definitely classified Bill as a devil. "Don't think he'd have much luck a second time." Stan gave a devil may care smile at Wendy and then it vanished from his face.

Wendy was crying.

Wendy hardly ever cried. The last time Stan recalled her crying was after she'd dumped that useless boyfriend of hers. (Rufus? Richard, maybe? Either way, he was a real dick.) He couldn't even remember her crying after Weirdmageddon. "Thanks, Mr. Pines."

"No problem, kid," Stan said gruffly. "Uh, you need to take the day off or something?" Wendy stared at him like he'd grown a second head, and, you know what, fair. "Cause, you know, I can't have you selling stuff when you're all crying like this. Cuts into the profit margins, right?"

Wendy wiped some tears away. "I…no, I'm fine. It's just…people like that are really dangerous. But I've faced worse! Like the shapeshifter! So I…"

Stan was pretty sure he knew what the problem was. It was a curious thing how after facing extraordinary dangers, you could freeze up pretty well when faced with an ordinary one. Like how he'd felt more fear when Rico showed up in town than he'd had through that whole zombie attack. A hostile bigot was such a mundane thing. "Hey, don't sweat it. Uh, look, take a few minutes to get yourself together, at least. I'll handle things out here."

Wendy gave a weak smile. "Thanks, Mr. Pines. You're not such a bad guy."

"Well, don't tell anyone. Don't want word to spread around."

While there were a few more bigots who crawled out of the woodwork in the next few days, none of them dared do anything more than make passive-aggressive comments. Maybe word had spread Stan wasn't kidding around or maybe the bigot population was just made of cowards. Probably the second one. What sort of loser did you have to be to give a damn about who people were dating?

And then the day finally came. The time to pick up Dipper and Mabel! When they first showed up last year, Stan was less than enthusiastic. When Gary and Laurel had "asked" (more like demanded) Stan take in the kids for the summer, Stan had refused. It wasn't until Shermie had begged him that Stan had relented. Shermie didn't ask for much and Stan had taken away their brother, so he had caved. Also, Shermie was threatening to come up and visit him in person to convince him, so Stan had to head that off at the pass, lest Shermie potentially figure out Stan's true identity.

Stan had not been a kid person before. And he was still not one now, really – just a non-kid person with a massive exception for his niblings. Most of them were annoying idiots. Like he had been. But Dipper and Mabel were the exceptions who proved the rule. Stan saw so much of himself in the kids. Dipper had his thirst to prove himself, his self-consciousness, and his truly terrible skill in dealing with girls. Mabel had his creativity, his determination to go ahead with ill-conceived ideas to their bitter end even when it was clear it was a bad idea, and his unlimited trust in family. Throughout the summer, they'd wormed his way into his heart, saving his life, his memories, and even his very soul.

So Stan was pretty excited about seeing the twins again. This summer, they'd start anew with no secrets between them. (Well, no relevant secrets. No one needed to know about his chair smuggling adventures or that time he'd shot a particularly annoying Angolan crime lord with a harpoon gun. Seriously, that guy would not shut up about Miami Vice trivia and also he was a slaver.) Stan didn't have to hide his identity or the huge portal in the basement or his knowledge of the supernatural. They could focus on having a fun summer with minimal danger. Well, they could try at least.

Stan met them at the bus stop. Ford was supposed to meet them as well, but one of his instruments started making a racket and he had to go into the woods to investigate. Typical Ford, leaving him in the lurch. Oh, well. Such were the perils of having a mad scientist for a brother.

Stan expected huge, megaton hugs. In fact, he'd expected it so much, he'd padded up his outfit to absorb the incredible power of a Mabel hug. Instead, what he got was a nod from Dipper and an almost sickly smile from Mabel. "Hi, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, sounding nervous.

"Grunkle Stan," Dipper said, sounding outright cold.

Stan scratched his head. What had gotten the kids giving him the cold shoulder? Maybe they had found out about his chair smuggling adventures. Maybe they'd just had a tough trip and they'd feel better after a nap. "Well, we've got one heck of a day ahead of us. Fun and games and stuff!" They didn't react. Wow. Tough crowd.

The kids were abnormally silent on the way to the Mystery Shack. Well, they weren't talking to Stan. They talked to each other a lot, whispers that Stan couldn't hear. The perils of getting old, he supposed. Occasionally, they cast nervous looks over at Stan. Stan figured they'd cheer up once they saw the newly bedazzled Mystery Shack.

"BEHOLD!" Stan shouted as he opened the door triumphantly. "THE GRAPES OF WRATH! No, wait, I mean the wages of sin." Mabel looked horrified. Damn it, how did he keep mixing these things up? "The tools of greed?" Now Dipper looked near furious.

"It's the glories of Pride, Mr. Pines," Soos said in a stage whisper.

Stan breathed a sigh of relief. "Right, yeah, the glories of Pride! The Mystery Shack is celebrating Pride month!" Mabel gave a smile for the first time. True, she gave it at Soos, but it was still a bit of progress.

"Thank you so much, Soos," Dipper said. He glared at Stan. "At least someone cares."

A lightbulb went off over Stan's head. "Where the heck is the light switch?" he muttered. While he was searching for the light switch, he had a sudden realization. The kids seemed to think he was hostile to gay rights and stuff. And there was only one reason they could think that: Gary must have told them about Stan's supposed hostility.

He led the kids into a corner of the shop, just in case Soos was listening. Not that it would make a difference if Soos found out about Mabel's skillet…no, pansexuality, but Stan wasn't going to make the mistake of outing Mabel twice. "Look, kids, whatever your dad told you about me and gay folks, it was all a lie. I had pretend I agreed with his crap to get the two of you here."

Mabel looked incredibly relieved. "Oh, Grunkle Stan! I should have known!" And now Mabel finally gave him the hug he'd been hoping for. And dreading. And, yep, it turned out padding out his suit had been a pretty darn good idea.

"I'm really sorry I assumed the worst, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said, looking at his shoes. "Dad said you hated the LGBT community."

"Don't worry, the Leaf community and me are real simpatico. Now enough tough conversations. We've got a big party planned tonight. Let me show you to your rooms. It's…drumroll please…the exact room you were in last year!"

Dipper groaned. "Typical."

The kids spent the afternoon sleeping off the long bus ride. They had the easy job. Stan had to set up all the decorations and make the dinner and prevent the Mystery Shack from being sucked into a black hole when Ford's instrument turned out to not be giving a false alarm. But he handled everything and then the time of the party finally came. It wasn't quite the bring down the house experience he'd had back when Dipper had cloned himself, just a simple shindig featuring Mabel's friends, some of Wendy's friends (though he drew the line at inviting that loser Ryan), and, for some reason no one had been able to adequately explain, Pacifica Northwest.

"So, uh, I'm not trying to pressure anyone," Stan said once dinner was finally finished, "but if anyone's comfortable maybe telling some secrets, this might be the time. Like, if there's something you were keeping to yourself because you were scared about how people would react. This is a judgment free zone. Unless you're, I don't know, a serial killer or something. But that one, I think we'd take by ear. If you were killing bad people, we could work something out, I think…"

He looked over at Mabel throughout his entire speech, which proved to a mistake as she looked indignant when he started rambling about serial killers. Mabel opened her mouth and was about to say something when Wendy let out a sniffle again. "I, I'm sorry, I'm not normally this emotional. It's just…how did you know, Stan?"

Stan looked at her blankly. "Know what?"

"And even now, you're pretending not to know, just to give me a chance to back out if I wanted. You're the best, Stan. I don't think enough people tell you that. I…I…"

Dipper gave her an encouraging smile. "I can say it for you if you want, Wendy."

Wendy took a deep breath. "No. No, I've got this. I'm bi." Everyone gave a round of applause. "I was so scared of coming out. I still haven't told my dad. But Stan figured it out somehow. That's why he decorated the shack with pride stuff. And he scared off this crazy bigot for me too! He's awesome!"

Oh, come on! After all this time he'd spent trying to encourage Mabel to come out, he'd managed to encourage entirely the wrong person. Stan was a bit surprised too – he couldn't remember her flirting with any girls – but maybe this was new to her. Or maybe he was unobservant. Or maybe she just didn't do it at the Mystery Shack. "Congrats, sweetie," he said nonetheless, because Wendy was almost a part of his family herself.

"Wow, Wendy, that's awesome!" Mabel said, jumping up and down. "Maybe we could double date with girls now!" Ah, there it was. Stan knew his plan would work eventually.

Mabel groaned. "Oh, great. Now I've stepped on your moment."

"No, no, Mabel, this is great news!" Wendy said with a smile. "The more the merrier."

"Good for you, pumpkin," Stan said with a strong nod. "Just try to have a better taste in girls than your taste in boys, okay? I don't want you going off with the first smooth talking succubus to come along."

Mabel pounced on Stan with another hug. "You're the best grunkle in the world."

"Wonderful," Ford muttered. Stan stuck out his tongue at him while he thought Mabel wasn't looking.

After that, people sort of drifted off into hanging with their friends. Ford retreated into his lab and Stan was, somehow, left with Pacifica. "Isn't she so brave?" Pacifica said. "You know, when I first met her, I was so jealous. Mabel was so unapologetically herself. Something I feared I would never be. But thanks to the twins, I've been able to come out of my shell."

"Yeah, Mabel always believes the best in people," Stan said with a fond grin. Without Mabel's trust in him, Stan never would have gotten his brother back.

"I know! She's just the best! I don't know where she gets so much energy or why it seems like every time she gets into a room, my heart speeds up." Pacifica shrugged. "I guess it's one of those weird Gravity Falls phenomena."

Funny. If Stan didn't know any better, it almost sounded as if…

…as if the kid had a crush on Mabel.

Well. He could certainly work with this.