Trooper Station | Saturday

[knife_bender]

You know who went to work two days after watching the world end? This guy. It was a nice distraction, and he had a load of paperwork to get through after not being here for a week. Whatever kept him from thinking about where his siblings could possibly be in the timeline.

[Open]

Comments

[grenadesandohana]

Was Steve maybe stalking Diego? Well, yes, but he did it with love!

"Hey," he said, coming into the office.

[knife_bender]

"Hey," Diego said, looking up from his (boring) paperwork. "How's it going?"

[grenadesandohana]

"Absolutely nothing worth mentioning," Steve said, flopping into Danny's chair (it was more comfortable) and scooting closer to Diego. "How are you?"

[knife_bender]

"Uh, well, my sister ended the world," Diego said. "Literally. Brought the moon down onto the planet."

[grenadesandohana]

Steve did not glance at the ceiling to make sure the moon was in the right place, but it was a near thing. "Holy shit, man. How are you here?"

Being squashed by the moon would be a kind of badass way to go out though, Steve wasn't gonna lie.

[knife_bender]

"Uh, well, my brother time traveled all seven of us to get us off that timeline before we could be crushed by the moon," he said. "Five and I ended up back here, and we have no idea where the other five ended up."

So, you know, normal stuff.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve's eyes went wide and he scooted his chair back to his desk, rummaged past the terrible protein bars and pulled out a bottle of Maalox and two plastic cups.

He poured whiskey from the bottle, giving Diego a little conspiratorial grin, and handed a plastic cup over. "Think you need this."

[knife_bender]

"Thanks," he said, taking the cup. "Five is trying to work out the math so we can try to find them."

"...time travel involves a lot of math, apparently."

[grenadesandohana]

"Huh," Steve said, thinking about that. "That makes sense. There's a lot of time and if you guys ended up here, that doesn't limit them to being in a different time but where you were."

Someone was a big ol' secret nerd.

[knife_bender]

"Yup," he said, taking a healthy swig from his cup. "Five promised me he'd find a way."

Well, he hadn't said promised, but the way it was worded made it sound like a promise.

"It just sucks, you know? To be estranged from them for over ten years and then be separated just when we were working together again."

[grenadesandohana]

"Sorry, man," Steve said, sipping his cup a little more slowly. "Why'd your sister drop a moon on you all?"

[knife_bender]

Diego shrugged a shoulder. "Think it might've been an accident. She was trying to kill us, then got distracted. She doesn't have a good grip on her powers and we weren't exactly supportive of her."

So, you know. Be nice to your siblings, kids.

[grenadesandohana]

"Did Five bring her along when he jumped you all where--when--ever?" Steve asked.

[knife_bender]

He nodded. "Yeah, he did. Said we needed to help her."

"We spent our lives thinking she didn't have powers. Turns out she can manipulate sound into energy," he said before draining his cup. "Threw Annie clean through the wall of a cabin."

[grenadesandohana]

"Ow," Steve said. "Is Annie okay?"

He'd seen her take a pretty good thumping against that Nazi chick, but it never hurt to check.

[knife_bender]

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "She's pretty tough. Handled way better than if we had been thrown through a wall for sure."

[grenadesandohana]

"I would definitely not be fine after being chucked through a wall," Steve admitted.

He resented that slightly. Stupid being closer to forty than he'd like.

[knife_bender]

To be fair, the super strength probably had more to do with her ability to take a hit than her age.

"I take it things were less exciting here?" he asked.

[grenadesandohana]

"Much less moon dropping," Steve said. "Classes started. The Bee Lady is still crazy. Life goes on."

[knife_bender]

"That's actually kind of reassuring," he said. "Nice to see some things don't change."

[grenadesandohana]

Steve held up his super subtle Maalox bottle. "Need more?"

[knife_bender]

"Nah, I'm good, thanks. Supposed to be ready to time travel at any moment," Diego said. "And every time Five teleports me somewhere I feel like I'm gonna barf, so."

[grenadesandohana]

"He thinks this'll be a quick fix?" Steve said.

[knife_bender]

"Who knows what that guy is really thinking," Diego said with a shrug. "I only just found out he used to be a temporal assassin."

[grenadesandohana]

Steve blinked. "But he's 12."

A scary 12, but 12. Right?

[knife_bender]

"Uh, actually he's, like, 60," Diego said. "Apparently a danger of time travel is de-aging into a schoolboy."

[grenadesandohana]

Steve might need some more whiskey.

"So he's just wearing the knee socks because he likes the aesthetic?"

That's what you bump on, Steve?

[knife_bender]

"It's what he's used to," Diego explained. "I wore the same thing until I was seventeen. Dad insisted."

[grenadesandohana]

"Wow," Steve said. "That was a choice he made. So I'm guessing the funeral was almost the high point of this whole shitshow?"

[knife_bender]

"Oh, you don't even know the best part," Diego said. "The whole thing was orchestrated by my dad to get us all together again. He killed himself."

Seriously, bad parent hall of fame.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve was just going to finish his whiskey now, yeah.

"What the fuck."

[knife_bender]

"Right? Totally fucked up," he said. "Could have just invited us to Christmas or something."

Nah, none of them would have came then.

[grenadesandohana]

"Or faked his death like my mom did."

TOTALLY NORMAL, DIEGO.

[knife_bender]

"If I see my dad again I am going to stab him." And he would encourage Steve to stab his mother if he ever had the urge.