Young At Heart
Title: Young At Heart
Rating: G
Warning: Kid!fic
Summary: After an explosion in Linksano's lab, Harvey and Linkara become baby-sitters to a couple of unlikely kids.
Notes: This does not take place in the Lifetimes AU, even though small details, like Harvey's nicknames, will be used in this story.
This is another present for my friend lizynob! It took a while to write this one because it ended up much longer than I originally thought it would be! I should really be prepared for that to happen by now. XD
Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this story as well, and be on the lookout, because you never know when more might pop up. XD
Harvey dropped his cigarette to the ground, crushing it with the heel of his shoe, before pressing the button to the elevator and stepping inside.
“Wait! Hold that for me, Harvey!”
Harvey turned in surprise before breaking out into a smile as Linkara sprinted up to him, several grocery bags in his arms. “Hey, Kid. I didn’t know you were going shopping. Can I take some of that off your hands?”
“Thanks,” Linkara said, handing over a few bags before leaning against the side of the elevator to catch his breath while they started to rise. “With Boffo and the Ninja-Style Dancer away for the week, there were extra chores to do, so the tasks of grocery shopping and cleaning the bathroom suddenly fell into my lap.”
“Hopefully you did the former before the latter,” Harvey replied, looking to Linkara’s hands with slight distaste. Linkara laughed and nodded.
“Don’t worry, I’m about to tackle the tub as soon as I get this stuff loaded into the fridge.” The elevator doors opened and the two walked down the hallway leading toward Linkara’s apartment.
“So, we’re not gonna be seeing Twinkle-Toes or Chuckles for seven whole days, huh? I would say I’m looking forward to a quieter week than normal, but those two were the quiet ones,” Harvey remarked, earning another laugh from Linkara.
“I’m sure the apartment will still be quiet, Harvey,” he said, sliding his key into the lock and turning the doorknob. “It’s not like Linksano and 90s Kid are going to be making more noise than usual to compensate or anything.”
A whooping, high-pitched cry startled the two the second they walked into the apartment (which now looked as if a tornado had swept through it) and the two almost dropped their groceries.
“What in the hell?!”
“What’s going on?”
Before Harvey or Linkara could reach for their guns, a small child popped up from behind the couch and pointed a gun of his own at them. Fortunately, this gun was made of plastic and filled with fruit punch, but unfortunately, it was filled with fruit punch, which the boy fired several times, sending bursts of sticky red liquid at the two before they even had time to blink.
“Gotcha!” he cried gleefully.
“Oh no you don’t!” With lighting quick reflexes, Harvey lifted the grocery bags up high in front of him, soaking them in the process, but keeping his body perfectly dry. Linkara was not so quick to react, however, and sputtered as a blast of punch hit him squarely in his face.
“What the Funk and Wagnell? Why would you do that? And who the hell are you?”
The child unleashed a stream of giggles before adjusting the large sunglasses he wore over his eyes and running off into the kitchen. Or what was left of the kitchen, since it was now covered with empty jars, sticky puddles, and a sea of crumbs that trailed from the cupboards all the way to the staircase. The living room wasn’t much better, since the walls and furniture were also stained with bits of what were once edible substances, pillows were split open and leaking foam, and all of Linkara’s comics, now wrinkled or covered with brown fingerprints, were scattered about the room.
“My babies!” Linkara cried, dropping his grocery bags so he could collect the battered paperbacks. “Who could have done this to them?”
“Must have been that kid,” Harvey replied. He also was perturbed by the state of the apartment, but the issue that pressed down more heavily on his mind was the boy who had just appeared so surprisingly before them. “Who do you think he is? Why do you think he’s here with us, Kid?”
“How the hell should I know?” Linkara snapped, furiously dabbing at an issue of ‘The Technis Imperative’ with a damp tissue. “He’s probably some alien child who was dropped off here with the express purpose of ruining my stuff!”
“Oh, would you stop whining about your pulpy trash books. Aren’t you supposed to be the grown-up here?”
Harvey and Linkara looked up in surprise to find another young boy sitting at the very top of the bookcase. He wore a pair of familiar spiraled goggles over his eyes, held a copy of ‘War and Peace’ in one hand, and a sandwich in the other, and seemed not to mind at all that he was dripping gobs of peanut butter onto the ground.
“You! Who are you and what are you doing here?” Linkara started to reach for his Magic Gun, but Harvey quickly put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“You can’t point a weapon at an ankle-biter, Kid!”
“We don’t know that he’s really a kid, Harvey-he could be a shape-shifting eldritch abomination!” Harvey’s expression instantly turned to disbelief. “Oh right, like that could never happen to us,” Linkara muttered as he reluctantly lowered his hand.
“Kid, look at those specs the boy has on,” Harvey said, stepping forward to get a closer look at him. “Don’t they look just like the ones the Doc wears?”
“Or the ones Insano wears,” Linkara darkly agreed, also stepping closer to the bookcase. “Hey you, kid! What’s your name and where did you come from?”
“Mother always told me not to give that information to strangers, so I think I won’t tell you,” the boy replied, sticking his tongue out at the two. Linkara growled.
“Come on, Harvey, let me just fire a warning shot over his head so he’ll cooperate?”
Harvey’s glare silenced Linkara again, before he looked back up at the boy. “Come on, squirt, we won’t hurt you. We won’t even yell at you for making a huge mess of the place if you just talk to us.”
“I didn’t make a mess of this place!” the boy cried indignantly. “It was him! He wanted to make lunch and then spilled everything all over the floor! And then when I didn’t want to read comics with him, he chased me around with pillows until I was forced to fight back!”
“Yeah, I’m sure you were a real pillar of placidity, you book-ruiner,” Linkara snarked.
“Linkara, is that you? Thank goodness you’re home.” Linkara and Harvey turned as Pollo quickly floated over to them. “I have been trying to reach you for an hour but your phone was dead. Again.”
“Sorry,” Linkara apologized.
“There’s no time for that,” Pollo continued. “You need to know that while you and Harvey were out, there was an explosion in Linksano’s lab.”
“I guess we should have figured that out ourselves,” Harvey muttered, noticing for the first time wisps of purple smoke seeping out from under the basement door.
“Was anybody hurt, Pollo?”
“I don’t know,” Pollo admitted. “Both Linksano and 90s Kid were down there when it happened, but I haven’t seen either of them since the incident. I’ve been too busy trying to escape.”
Linkara’s brow creased in confusion. “Escape from what?”
“There you are, you beautiful miracle of science!” The boy suddenly dropped his sandwich and reading material as he hastily scrambled down the bookshelf and turned to Pollo, his arms outstretched and his fingers twitching eagerly. Pollo deftly floated upwards out of his reach, but the boy started jumping as he attempted to reach him. “Let me examine how you work, little robot! I promise I will put you back together! I will even upgrade you! Wouldn’t you like to be equipped with laser canons?”
“I wouldn’t let you touch me even if you promised to give me working arms!” Pollo exclaimed, flying out of the room as quickly as possible. The boy was instantly on his tail, shouting out other exciting upgrades he could offer Pollo, before they both disappeared from sight.
“Kid, don’t you think we’d better go and check on those two in the lab?” Harvey asked, already turned toward the door leading into the basement. Linkara sighed and shook his head.
“Based on everything we’ve seen today, I think I already know what happened. Nimue, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Information,” the AI replied from a speaker slightly above Linkara’s head. “This unit has finished the scheduled system de-fragmentation and is working at optimal capacity.”
“Oh shoot, I forgot about that,” Linkara muttered. “You were doing that all morning, right Nimue? Does that mean you weren’t aware of what happened in Linksano’s lab?”
“Affirmative,” Nimue replied. “However, Dr. Linksano did inform this unit about an experiment he would be conducting this morning. Its purpose was to incapacitate enemies without harming them, as per your instructions. 90s Kid was assisting him.”
“So it is just like I thought,” Linkara said with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he tried to figure out what his next move would be.
“Uh, Kid? Want to fill me in?”
Linkara turned to Harvey and nodded. “One of the strategies I’ve been talking about with Linksano is a way to force enemies to enter a more vulnerable physical and mental state. If they become weaker or more fragile, it will be easier for us to capture them without having to resort to extreme violence or killing. Linksano apparently took this to mean we should transform our enemies into their early developmental stages, and it seems that whatever he was doing worked. In the simplest terms, he has effectively turned himself and 90s Kid back into children.”
Harvey’s eyes widened. “So you’re telling me that those two tykes were really the Doc and Junior? But if that’s the case, why did they act like they didn’t recognize us?”
“I guess Linksano’s experiment removed their adult memories as well. Since those two didn’t know us when they were kids, they don’t know us now either.”
“Geez Louise, that’s a lot to take in,” Harvey admitted, rubbing at his chin a little. “But wait, if they shrunk down to kid bodies, shouldn’t their clothes be too big for them now? How come they shrunk with ‘em?”
“I don’t know, Harvey. Maybe Linksano was operating under Disney movie rules when he made whatever potion or device that did this.” Linkara adjusted his hat and turned back to the singer. “So what are we going to do now? I’ll have to rescue Pollo, but how are we going to get those extremely hyper little brats under control?”
Harvey thought for a moment before breaking out into a smile. “I think I got a plan, Kid,” he said, bending down to retrieve one of the items that had fallen out of Linkara’s grocery bags. “Let’s let Blue entertain the little doc for a while longer-I’ll make it up to him later-because right now, I want to clean up this mess so that we can get things ready.”
----
Linksano looked around at the many rooms occupying the hallway he was currently walking down with wonder. “How on Earth does this tiny apartment have so much space inside it?” he murmured as he tried to make sense of it. “It must be some sort of optical illusion which makes the apartment seem smaller from the outside. I wonder if that angry man is a scientist. Maybe if I apologize for being rude earlier, he’ll let me see his robot.”
Linksano’s eyes glazed over as he imagined getting his tiny hands on that glorious piece of machinery, but they quickly came back into focus when something small and silvery grazed his left foot. “Huh?” He looked down and gasped at the sight of another robot, this one slender and insect-like in appearance, watching as it scuttled across the floor before tumbling over the top step of the staircase.
“I’ll save you!” Linksano cried, hurrying over to the stairs and ready to fling himself off in an attempt to rescue the creature, but the sight he saw below him stopped him in his tracks. “Oh my…”
Dozens of shiny silver robots were scurrying across the freshly mopped floor, moving in no direction in particular, but astounding the young scientist nonetheless. Linksano’s jaw dropped as he observed them dodging around chair legs and corners, twirling in concentric circles, and beeping a most melodious chorus of greetings to each other. “They are… so beautiful,” Linksano whispered, worried that if he spoke too loudly, he would scare them off. Feeling emboldened by the stimulation of his scientific curiosity, Linksano started to slowly descend the stairs towards the robots, but he let out a discouraged cry when the machines suddenly took off in three straight lines toward one room in particular.
“Wait! Come back!” he called out as he chased after them, caution thrown completely to the wind. Linksano ran as fast as his little legs would carry him until he entered a room with a green futon and a familiar man with glasses, who was sitting at the desk. Linksano skidded to a stop, worry flashing across his face as he wondered if the man would scold him for his earlier rudeness, before his concern was replaced with utter bewilderment. “Wh-where did they go?”
“Huh?” Linkara looked up from his desk, a Sonic Screwdriver in one hand and a few gears in the other. “Where did who go?”
“Those little robots,” Linksano explained, turning his head in every direction as he searched for them. “I watched them come into this room, but now they’re gone. Where did they go?”
“Oh, you mean my Cybermat army,” Linkara replied, smiling a little now as he turned his attention back to the broken Cybermat lying on his desk. “They’re actually cyborgs, not robots, but that’s a common mistake. Anyway, I sent them away with a magic spell since I didn’t need them right now.”
Linksano scoffed and crossed his arms, petulance quickly replacing wonder. “Everyone knows magic isn’t real.”
“Then you tell me where they went,” Linkara challenged as he pointed his Screwdriver at the Cybermat.
“Uh, well…” Linksano’s confidence started to falter as he struggled for a logical explanation. “Maybe if you had a secret trapdoor in here or a hidden compartment in the walls…” Linksano trailed off when he heard the hum of the device Linkara held. His eyes widened as he stared at it and without realizing what he was doing, he moved closer to the desk. “What’s that?”
“This is my Sonic Screwdriver,” Linkara proudly replied, moving it so Linksano could get a better view. “It’s a neat tool I use when I need to repair my Cybermats, or any of the other gadgets and weapons I’ve made.”
“So you are a scientist,” Linksano replied, voice filling with awe. “And you honestly made a working robot? Wow.”
“Heh, yeah, it is pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Linkara never was one to turn down an opportunity of ego stroking. “You want to hold it?”
“Can I?” Linkara bit his lip to hold back his laughter when Linksano cradled the tool in his arms as if it were a baby. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Linksano said, tracing his fingers along the cool metal. “If I had a tool like this one, I could make so many amazing inventions.”
Linkara let him admire it a moment longer before he cleared his throat. “Alright, I got to be getting back to work now, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay.” Linksano reluctantly handed the tool over to Linkara but he moved even closer to his workspace. “Um, sir, could I maybe stay and watch as you fix that Cybermat? Please? I promise I won’t touch anything and I’ll be very quiet, even if it takes hours to fix.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know,” Linkara said, scrunching up his face a little. “You did say you didn’t believe in my magic, and you weren’t very nice to me and Harvey earlier. If I let you help me, what’s in it for me?”
“I-I’m very sorry about earlier, sir,” Linksano quickly apologized, fidgeting a little as he tried to think of a way to make up for his earlier indiscretions. “What if I… oh!” He reached into one of the pockets of his tiny coat and pulled out a notebook. “What if I give you this? I found it earlier inside the weird laboratory downstairs. It has lots of equations and formulas in it! A scientist as great as you would surely be able to use this!”
Linkara’s expression brightened at the appearance of the notebook and he eagerly accepted it. “You’ve got yourself a deal, kid. Now, pull up a chair and I’ll let you get a good look at him.”
“Thank you so much, sir!” Linksano squealed as he hurriedly pushed a chair beside Linkara’s. While he hunched over the Cybermat, thoroughly examining the insides of the silvery cyborg, Linkara flipped through the notebook in an examination of his own.
Linksano’s notebook was filled with all of the experiments and projects he worked on for Linkara, and each one was detailed with numerous paragraphs, drawings, and charts. Unfortunately, Linksano’s handwriting was as so messy that it took Linkara a solid fifteen minutes to get though just the first page of the book.
“This is going to take a while,” he muttered as he continued his search for whatever had de-aged his two teammates. “I hope Harvey’s having an easier time than me.”
---
Harvey finished setting down everything he needed on the coffee table and stepped back to admire his work. Before him sat one plate piled high with chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven, two glasses of milk, and a small, portable fan.
“Beautiful.” Harvey made sure the fan was pointing directly at the cookies before turning it on. Then he sat down on the couch, rested his hands behind his head, and waited as the fan performed its two functions: cooling the cookies and spreading their scent all throughout the apartment.
Just as predicted, it took less than five minutes for soft footsteps to approach the living room, followed by a quick head peek in from the kitchen courtesy of a familiar looking boy. Harvey grinned when he spotted him.
“There you are. I thought you’d come running if I found the proper enticement. Judging by the state of that kitchen before, more food got on the floor than in your belly, so you must be starving. If you’d care to join me,” Harvey paused to grab a cookie and dunked it into his glass, “then by all means, come on over.” He took a bite, sighing happily at how good the cookie tasted, and chewed silently as he waited for the boy who would one day become 90s Kid to approach him.
To Harvey’s surprise, he didn’t. 90s Kid did take one step out of the kitchen before stopping again and fidgeting with his hands. He looked not at all like the happy, confident teenager Harvey knew well, but instead like a scared, lost child. Which Harvey quickly realized he now was. His grin dropped and he set his cookie down.
“I’m Harvey, by the way,” he introduced in a softer voice, “and this place is where I live. I know you probably don’t understand why you’re here, but I promise you nothing bad is gonna happen. Me and the Kid-er, Linkara, that other guy I came in with-we’re just looking after you for a while and I promise that in no time at all you’ll be back where you belong.” Harvey fell silent once more then and hoped that the boy would accept what he said. It had been a long time since he had used any parenting skills and he hoped they weren’t too rusty to rely on today.
“Um, Mister?” 90s Kid finally asked, taking another hesitant step toward him. “Aren’t you mad cuz I messed up your stuff?” He looked at Harvey in a fearful manner but the singer quickly smiled at him once again.
“Nah, I ain’t mad at you, Junior,” he said, unable to help from slipping back into the familiar nickname he always used for 90s Kid. “I know how wild kids can be, and we already cleaned it up, so it’s water under the bridge, alright? Come on, I know you’re hungry,” he said, picking his cookie back up to take another bite. In response, 90s Kid’s stomach started to grumble and the boy rubbed it in an embarrassed manner. Harvey laughed and gestured toward the couch. “There’s plenty of room up here if you feel like taking a load off, Junior.”
90s Kid approached the couch and climbed up onto it. Then he slowly reached out for a cookie, glancing nervously at Harvey every few seconds, before he brought it to his mouth and nibbled. His eyes lit up at once. “Mmm! This is really yummy, dude!”
“I see the ‘dude’ thing started early,” Harvey muttered, though in more of a fond than annoyed manner. “Whoa, slow down,” he said after realizing that 90s Kid was stuffing cookies in his face at a rate that would rival that of a certain blue monster from Sesame Street. “These aren’t gonna disappear on ya, Junior, so cool it before you choke or something.”
“Sorry,” 90s Kid tried to apologize with a mouth full of cookies, which sent a cascade of crumbs out of his mouth and all over Harvey’s suit. This caused the boy to start giggling while Harvey grunted in annoyance and quickly went into the bathroom to fix his attire. When he returned, he was glad to see that the plate still had half a stack of cookies left, though both glasses of milk were now empty. He frowned and turned to 90s Kid, who was trying to smile innocently, a bright white mustache covering his upper lip.
“You’re lucky that I’m not thirsty at the moment,” Harvey replied, plopping back down onto the couch. “At least now you’re all filled up… with sugar and chocolate… boy, I didn’t think that one through.” Harvey’s worry began growing stronger when he noticed 90s Kid’s legs were jiggling as he fidgeted again, and his mind raced as he tried to think of a way to entertain the boy. “Aha!” he cried out before he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his trusty DS. “Video games! You still like those, don’t you, Junior?”
“I love video games!” 90s Kid happily agreed before his expression turned to shock as he was handed the system. “Whoa, dude, what’s this? I never saw a GameBoy like this before.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s the newest model,” Harvey replied, always happy to show off his expensive belongings. “But it still plays games I’m sure you know all too well, like… Pokemon Red?”
“You have Pokemon?!” 90s Kid’s excitement was almost palpable and Harvey couldn’t help chuckling at him.
“Sure thing, squirt. Go ahead, knock yourself out. Start up a new game and get to catching those little monsters.”
“I’m gonna start with Squirtle!” 90s Kid happily informed the singer as his fingers quickly adjusted to the buttons on the DS and the game began. “And then I’m gonna catch a Growlithe and a Ponyta and Meowth and a Pikachu! But I’m not gonna keep it a Pikachu, cuz I really like Raichu, and nobody ever likes Raichu, but I do, so I’m gonna get one!”
“Yeah, Raichu’s a pretty cute little guy,” Harvey agreed, reaching into his jacket once again. This time he pulled out a fluffy Mareep plushie and situated it behind his head like a pillow before leaning back against the couch. “You know, I once beat the Elite 4 using just a Raichu and a Pidgeot.”
“What? No way, you are totally making that up!”
Harvey laughed and put his hand on his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die, I did.”
“Wow.” 90s Kid goggled at him in admiration. “You’re a really cool dude, mister.”
“Thanks. You’re a pretty cool kid yourself.”
---
Linkara sighed and rubbed at his eyes in frustration. It had been two hours and he was still only halfway through Linksano’s notebook, and only a quarter sure that he even understood anything he’d been reading. Why must the mind of a mad scientist be so incomprehensible?
“Great Fitzwilliam Notebook! I’ve done it!”
“Don’t you ever make sense?” Linkara snapped before realizing what he’d done. “Oh, uh, sorry, I didn’t mean… holy crap! You did that?”
Linksano was holding up the now completely fixed Cybermat and beaming brightly. “Yes I did, sir! I rewired the entire inner system and even modified a few of the weaker circuits. This Cybermat should function at an even greater capacity than it did before!” Linksano hopped off his chair then and set the Cybermat onto the ground. It beeped a few times in response before zooming across the floor, happily weaving its way around chair legs and bookcases. Linkara watched it for a moment, very impressed, before turning back to the boy.
“I can’t believe you figured out how it worked so quickly. It took me a couple of months to repair my first robot, but you picked it up within a couple of hours. You really are a genius.”
“Oh, um, y-yes, I am,” Linksano replied, flushing bright red with pleasure at the compliment. “But thank you for saying so, sir. It’s nice to be complimented.”
Linkara smiled, his earlier irritation evaporating. “Yeah, it really is. I should remember to do that more, and to show how grateful I am to be working with such smart people. So thank you for everything you’ve done, Linksano.”
Linksano’s brows creased together in confusion. “What did you just call me, sir?”
“Uh, nothing. Just forget I said anything.”
“Oh. Alright.” Linksano let out an enormous yawn then and slid his fingers up under his goggles so he could rub his eyes. “Hmm, I don’t usually feel so tired after working on a project. I must not have gotten enough sleep last night.”
“Do you want to lie down on the futon?” Linkara gestured toward it, but Linksano shook his head.
“No, I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute or so. I want to keep working and learning all I can about robots, sir.”
“You know, you can just call me Linkara.”
“Oh. Alright, Mr. Linkara.” Linkara shook his head and gave up. “I’m Oscar, by the way.”
“Oscar?” Linkara blinked in surprise. “I didn’t know that was your name.”
“Well of course not, I’ve only just told you it now,” Linksano replied with smirk. Linkara pursed his lips.
“Well, why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself, Oscar. You can work on this at the same time,” he said, pulling out a communicator that had been crushed under the wheels of 90s Kid’s skateboard last week. Linksano’s expression lit up and he eagerly grabbed for the device.
“Deal! Okay, so how should I start… I suppose I’ll tell you that I’m 11 and ¼ years old and that I live with my mother, father, and elder brother, Wayne.”
“You have a brother?” Linkara set the notebook down, more interested in listening to Linksano at the moment.
Linksano nodded. “He’s 3 years older than me and twice as clever, but I am catching up to him at a swift pace, so don’t count out Oscar Schlumper just yet.”
“I would never,” Linkara replied, smiling at the boy. “So, what do you and your brother like to do for fun.”
“We spend most of our time in our secret laboratory inventing things.”
“I guess some things never change,” Linkara murmured. He settled into a more comfortable position and listened attentively as Linksano chattered away, feeling as if he were meeting his scientific advisor for the very first time.
---
“He really had me on the ropes that day, Junior. I was down to one Pokemon while that Cyclist had three to go. But I didn’t give up, oh no, I’d never do that. I sent out my last, most trusted Pokemon and with just two moves, Super Fang and Hyper Fang, I blasted that Cyclist all the way back to Pallet Town. And that’s why, whenever I hear someone talking bunk about Raticate, I sit ‘em down and give ‘em a piece of my mind.”
“Wow.” 90s Kid stared up at him with awe while Harvey grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “You’re definitely for sure the most awesome old dude I ever met, mister.”
Harvey flinched at the term ‘old’ but kept the smile on his face. “Thanks, squirt. You know, you’re the first person who isn’t bored by me prattling on and on about my Pokemon adventures, so I gotta thank you for that.”
“I love hearing about Pokemon games!” 90s Kid happily decried. “It’s my most favoritest game ever, dude! And most grown-ups don’t even know how to play it. Like, my mommy and daddy totally hate Pokemon, so I have to play it when they aren’t home.”
Harvey frowned, looking down at the boy. “They hate Pokemon? That’s kinda extreme, ain’t it?”
90s Kid shrugged keeping his eyes glued onto the screen. “They say I should play baseball or football like all the other boys. But I don’t like baseball or football. I just like Pokemon. But they hate it.”
Without thinking, Harvey reached out and settled his arm atop 90s Kid’s small shoulder, squeezing it softly. “There’s nothing wrong with liking video games, Junior. Or not liking sports. You know that, right?” There was a moment of silence before 90s Kid slowly nodded his head. Harvey squeezed his shoulder again. “Why don’t I get you something else to drink? You’ve been going at that game for a while, you must be thirsty.”
“Don’t go.” Harvey took in a shuddering breath when 90s Kid scooted over closer to him on the couch, leaning his head softly against his arm.
“Please?” Harvey swallowed thickly, hesitating a minute, before he rested his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
“Okay, Junior. I’m not going anywhere.”
---
Linksano yawned for the fifth time in as many minutes and Linkara couldn’t take it anymore. “Look, you already fixed the Cybermat, my communicator, and upgraded my cell phone so I get limitless free minutes all over the world. I really think you should take a rest now, Links-I mean Oscar.”
“Mmm… I guess that would be best.” Linksano set down the Sonic Screwdriver before rubbing his eyes again and slowly climbing off the chair. He stumbled over to the futon and crawled over to the end, lying his head down as he yawned once more.
“Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you wake up. I still have a third of this friggin’ book to get through,” Linkara told him, looking to the notebook with disdain.
“Mmm.” Linksano stretched his arms out before him, under a pillow. “Sir? When was the… mmmm… experiment that you are looking for performed?”
“This morning.”
“Then perhaps it is… the last entry in the notebook.”
Linkara blinked dumbly for a moment before smacking his own forehead. “Why am I such an idiot?”
“Mmm… dunno, sir.” Linksano finally lost his battle to stay awake then and drifted off into a peaceful slumber while Linkara flipped to the back of notebook in search of the final entry.
“Aha! Here it is. Let’s see…” After a good ten minutes of deciphering Linksano’s chicken scratch, Linkara finally had the information he needed. He closed the book and hurried out into the living room. “Harvey, you still out here? I found out…”
Linkara trailed off and came to a halt when he discovered the scene before him. Harvey looked very comfortable leaning back against the couch, eyes half-lidded, a peaceful expression on his face, while 90s Kid slept beside him, his head nestled in Harvey’s lap, his small chest rising and falling in an almost hypnotic rhythm. One of Harvey’s hands was softly stroking the boy’s hair while the other was enclosed protectively around the child’s tiny hand.
Instinctively, Linkara took a few steps backwards. He felt like he was intruding on something he wasn’t meant to see and he wanted to leave before Harvey noticed him. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that walls were necessary for holding up an apartment and ended up banging into one with a soft thump.
“Kid?”
Linkara cringed but tried to be cool. “Hey, Harvey.”
Harvey nodded at him, also seeming completely cool, though his cheeks had grown small patches of red across them. “The, uh, little guy got tuckered out. He did eat all those cookies earlier, so it makes sense that he’d crash sooner or later, right? And I didn’t want t disturb him by moving him, so…”
“Right.” Linkara didn’t need to hear any more, so he looked down to the book in his hands. “Um, so I found what we were looking for if you wanna-”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” With all the expertise of one who’s done it multiple times before, Harvey gently lifted 90s Kid and settled him back onto the couch without waking him. He placed a blanket over the boy’s small frame and tousled his hair one last time before turning away. “Okay, Kid, what do ya got?” he asked, walking over to the hallway so they could speak without waking 90s Kid.
“According to Linksano’s notes, he created a machine called a ‘Youth-N-Age-Ya’ Ray.”
“A what?!” Harvey asked, looking highly disturbed.
“Yeah, I know, but Linksano has always had a dark sense of humor,” Linkara dismissed as he continued speaking. “Anyway, the ray was supposed to zap enemies into a childlike body and mental state for a period of 24 hours before they would fall asleep and revert to their previous form. However, he was worried that his device was unstable and would explode if he didn’t figure out what was wrong with it, and apparently that’s exactly what happened. The explosion must have doused Linksano and 90s Kid in the de-aging rays and that’s why they became kids.”
“Huh.” Harvey rubbed at his chin. “So, 24 hours, is it?”
“That’s what the machine does when it’s working. Since it malfunctioned and blew up, though, I don’t expect the effects to last as long,” Linkara explained. “Especially since both of them fell asleep within the past 10 minutes. This is probably it then, Harvey… I’m sorry.”
Harvey shrugged, dropping his gaze to the ground. “What’s there to be sorry about? This is what’s supposed to happen. Everything’s supposed to go back to normal, so that’s all there is to it.”
“Harvey,” Linkara said softly.
“I’m okay, Kid. Really. It’s just… it was nice. Nice to have someone to look out for. Who liked listening to my stories and who thought I hung the moon and the stars.”
Linkara reached out, putting a hand on Harvey’s arm. “Who says that’s going to change?” Harvey looked up, uncertainty coloring his face. “He already thinks the world of you, Harvey, and he’s very appreciative of how you’re looking out for him.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” Linkara smiled reassuringly and Harvey mirrored his expression moments later. “Now come on, let’s get some dinner. Those two are sure to be hungry when they wake up, so what would you say to a couple of pizzas?”
“I’d say what’s a nice dish like you doing in a face like this?”
“Charming,” Linkara replied, though he couldn’t help chuckling as he reached for the phone.
---
“What in Tesla’s name happened to me?” Linkara and Harvey looked up from their pizza as a fully grown and very dazed looking Linksano walked into the kitchen. “I feel as if my cranium was struck by a sledgehammer.”
“Good to see you back, Linksano,” Linkara greeted him as he held up the pizza box. “Care for a slice?”
“Perhaps later, after I’ve figure out what happened to me,” Linksano muttered, rubbing the top of his head a little. “For example, I just woke up on the futon. Do you have any idea why I was sleeping there?”
“Oh, right, about that. You see, earlier today there was an explosion in your lab and-”
“My lab!” Without waiting to hear anything more, Linksano flew to the basement door and down the stairs.
Linkara shrugged. “I’ll tell him the rest later.”
“Duuuuuude, is that pizza I smell? Pizaa is like the most radical, awesome food ever!” An also fully-grown 90s Kid bounded into the kitchen right then and started wolfing down slices of pepperoni.
“Hey, slow down there, Junior,” Harvey said, keeping his eyes focused on the glass of wine in his hand. “The pizza ain’t gonna disappear on you.”
“Chaa, you always say that, mister,” 90s Kid replied with a roll of his eyes. He paused then, expression growing confused. “Wait… did I just, like, call you mister? That’s weird.”
“It’s a long story. Why don’t you sit down and we’ll try to explain it.”
“Okay.” To Linkara’s surprise, 90s Kid pushed a chair very close to Harvey’s and plopped into it before turning to the singer. “Oh, dude, you wanna have a Pokemon battle after dinner? I know you’re totally an expert, but I am so ready to beat you this time!”
Harvey set down his glass and was silent a moment. Linkara, always a worrier, was about to ask if he was okay when the man looked up and flashed Linkara a look of pure happiness. A look which quickly morphed into cockiness as he turned to the teen.
“You think you can beat me, Junior? That’s a good one. I’ll even go easy on you, and fight you with Pokemon I haven’t evolved past the first stage. It won’t do you any good, but I want you to have a fighting chance.”
“You’re totally on, dude!”
As the three continued to chatter away and enjoy their pizza, and Linksano busied himself with cleaning his lab and trying to figure out why he kept mentally referring to Linkara as ‘Sir’, peace settled once more over the apartment.
That is, until Linksano asked Linkara for a raise so he could rebuild his de-aging machine. Harvey and 90s Kid wisely decided to pick up the groceries together on that afternoon.
Rating: G
Warning: Kid!fic
Summary: After an explosion in Linksano's lab, Harvey and Linkara become baby-sitters to a couple of unlikely kids.
Notes: This does not take place in the Lifetimes AU, even though small details, like Harvey's nicknames, will be used in this story.
This is another present for my friend lizynob! It took a while to write this one because it ended up much longer than I originally thought it would be! I should really be prepared for that to happen by now. XD
Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this story as well, and be on the lookout, because you never know when more might pop up. XD
Harvey dropped his cigarette to the ground, crushing it with the heel of his shoe, before pressing the button to the elevator and stepping inside.
“Wait! Hold that for me, Harvey!”
Harvey turned in surprise before breaking out into a smile as Linkara sprinted up to him, several grocery bags in his arms. “Hey, Kid. I didn’t know you were going shopping. Can I take some of that off your hands?”
“Thanks,” Linkara said, handing over a few bags before leaning against the side of the elevator to catch his breath while they started to rise. “With Boffo and the Ninja-Style Dancer away for the week, there were extra chores to do, so the tasks of grocery shopping and cleaning the bathroom suddenly fell into my lap.”
“Hopefully you did the former before the latter,” Harvey replied, looking to Linkara’s hands with slight distaste. Linkara laughed and nodded.
“Don’t worry, I’m about to tackle the tub as soon as I get this stuff loaded into the fridge.” The elevator doors opened and the two walked down the hallway leading toward Linkara’s apartment.
“So, we’re not gonna be seeing Twinkle-Toes or Chuckles for seven whole days, huh? I would say I’m looking forward to a quieter week than normal, but those two were the quiet ones,” Harvey remarked, earning another laugh from Linkara.
“I’m sure the apartment will still be quiet, Harvey,” he said, sliding his key into the lock and turning the doorknob. “It’s not like Linksano and 90s Kid are going to be making more noise than usual to compensate or anything.”
A whooping, high-pitched cry startled the two the second they walked into the apartment (which now looked as if a tornado had swept through it) and the two almost dropped their groceries.
“What in the hell?!”
“What’s going on?”
Before Harvey or Linkara could reach for their guns, a small child popped up from behind the couch and pointed a gun of his own at them. Fortunately, this gun was made of plastic and filled with fruit punch, but unfortunately, it was filled with fruit punch, which the boy fired several times, sending bursts of sticky red liquid at the two before they even had time to blink.
“Gotcha!” he cried gleefully.
“Oh no you don’t!” With lighting quick reflexes, Harvey lifted the grocery bags up high in front of him, soaking them in the process, but keeping his body perfectly dry. Linkara was not so quick to react, however, and sputtered as a blast of punch hit him squarely in his face.
“What the Funk and Wagnell? Why would you do that? And who the hell are you?”
The child unleashed a stream of giggles before adjusting the large sunglasses he wore over his eyes and running off into the kitchen. Or what was left of the kitchen, since it was now covered with empty jars, sticky puddles, and a sea of crumbs that trailed from the cupboards all the way to the staircase. The living room wasn’t much better, since the walls and furniture were also stained with bits of what were once edible substances, pillows were split open and leaking foam, and all of Linkara’s comics, now wrinkled or covered with brown fingerprints, were scattered about the room.
“My babies!” Linkara cried, dropping his grocery bags so he could collect the battered paperbacks. “Who could have done this to them?”
“Must have been that kid,” Harvey replied. He also was perturbed by the state of the apartment, but the issue that pressed down more heavily on his mind was the boy who had just appeared so surprisingly before them. “Who do you think he is? Why do you think he’s here with us, Kid?”
“How the hell should I know?” Linkara snapped, furiously dabbing at an issue of ‘The Technis Imperative’ with a damp tissue. “He’s probably some alien child who was dropped off here with the express purpose of ruining my stuff!”
“Oh, would you stop whining about your pulpy trash books. Aren’t you supposed to be the grown-up here?”
Harvey and Linkara looked up in surprise to find another young boy sitting at the very top of the bookcase. He wore a pair of familiar spiraled goggles over his eyes, held a copy of ‘War and Peace’ in one hand, and a sandwich in the other, and seemed not to mind at all that he was dripping gobs of peanut butter onto the ground.
“You! Who are you and what are you doing here?” Linkara started to reach for his Magic Gun, but Harvey quickly put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“You can’t point a weapon at an ankle-biter, Kid!”
“We don’t know that he’s really a kid, Harvey-he could be a shape-shifting eldritch abomination!” Harvey’s expression instantly turned to disbelief. “Oh right, like that could never happen to us,” Linkara muttered as he reluctantly lowered his hand.
“Kid, look at those specs the boy has on,” Harvey said, stepping forward to get a closer look at him. “Don’t they look just like the ones the Doc wears?”
“Or the ones Insano wears,” Linkara darkly agreed, also stepping closer to the bookcase. “Hey you, kid! What’s your name and where did you come from?”
“Mother always told me not to give that information to strangers, so I think I won’t tell you,” the boy replied, sticking his tongue out at the two. Linkara growled.
“Come on, Harvey, let me just fire a warning shot over his head so he’ll cooperate?”
Harvey’s glare silenced Linkara again, before he looked back up at the boy. “Come on, squirt, we won’t hurt you. We won’t even yell at you for making a huge mess of the place if you just talk to us.”
“I didn’t make a mess of this place!” the boy cried indignantly. “It was him! He wanted to make lunch and then spilled everything all over the floor! And then when I didn’t want to read comics with him, he chased me around with pillows until I was forced to fight back!”
“Yeah, I’m sure you were a real pillar of placidity, you book-ruiner,” Linkara snarked.
“Linkara, is that you? Thank goodness you’re home.” Linkara and Harvey turned as Pollo quickly floated over to them. “I have been trying to reach you for an hour but your phone was dead. Again.”
“Sorry,” Linkara apologized.
“There’s no time for that,” Pollo continued. “You need to know that while you and Harvey were out, there was an explosion in Linksano’s lab.”
“I guess we should have figured that out ourselves,” Harvey muttered, noticing for the first time wisps of purple smoke seeping out from under the basement door.
“Was anybody hurt, Pollo?”
“I don’t know,” Pollo admitted. “Both Linksano and 90s Kid were down there when it happened, but I haven’t seen either of them since the incident. I’ve been too busy trying to escape.”
Linkara’s brow creased in confusion. “Escape from what?”
“There you are, you beautiful miracle of science!” The boy suddenly dropped his sandwich and reading material as he hastily scrambled down the bookshelf and turned to Pollo, his arms outstretched and his fingers twitching eagerly. Pollo deftly floated upwards out of his reach, but the boy started jumping as he attempted to reach him. “Let me examine how you work, little robot! I promise I will put you back together! I will even upgrade you! Wouldn’t you like to be equipped with laser canons?”
“I wouldn’t let you touch me even if you promised to give me working arms!” Pollo exclaimed, flying out of the room as quickly as possible. The boy was instantly on his tail, shouting out other exciting upgrades he could offer Pollo, before they both disappeared from sight.
“Kid, don’t you think we’d better go and check on those two in the lab?” Harvey asked, already turned toward the door leading into the basement. Linkara sighed and shook his head.
“Based on everything we’ve seen today, I think I already know what happened. Nimue, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Information,” the AI replied from a speaker slightly above Linkara’s head. “This unit has finished the scheduled system de-fragmentation and is working at optimal capacity.”
“Oh shoot, I forgot about that,” Linkara muttered. “You were doing that all morning, right Nimue? Does that mean you weren’t aware of what happened in Linksano’s lab?”
“Affirmative,” Nimue replied. “However, Dr. Linksano did inform this unit about an experiment he would be conducting this morning. Its purpose was to incapacitate enemies without harming them, as per your instructions. 90s Kid was assisting him.”
“So it is just like I thought,” Linkara said with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he tried to figure out what his next move would be.
“Uh, Kid? Want to fill me in?”
Linkara turned to Harvey and nodded. “One of the strategies I’ve been talking about with Linksano is a way to force enemies to enter a more vulnerable physical and mental state. If they become weaker or more fragile, it will be easier for us to capture them without having to resort to extreme violence or killing. Linksano apparently took this to mean we should transform our enemies into their early developmental stages, and it seems that whatever he was doing worked. In the simplest terms, he has effectively turned himself and 90s Kid back into children.”
Harvey’s eyes widened. “So you’re telling me that those two tykes were really the Doc and Junior? But if that’s the case, why did they act like they didn’t recognize us?”
“I guess Linksano’s experiment removed their adult memories as well. Since those two didn’t know us when they were kids, they don’t know us now either.”
“Geez Louise, that’s a lot to take in,” Harvey admitted, rubbing at his chin a little. “But wait, if they shrunk down to kid bodies, shouldn’t their clothes be too big for them now? How come they shrunk with ‘em?”
“I don’t know, Harvey. Maybe Linksano was operating under Disney movie rules when he made whatever potion or device that did this.” Linkara adjusted his hat and turned back to the singer. “So what are we going to do now? I’ll have to rescue Pollo, but how are we going to get those extremely hyper little brats under control?”
Harvey thought for a moment before breaking out into a smile. “I think I got a plan, Kid,” he said, bending down to retrieve one of the items that had fallen out of Linkara’s grocery bags. “Let’s let Blue entertain the little doc for a while longer-I’ll make it up to him later-because right now, I want to clean up this mess so that we can get things ready.”
----
Linksano looked around at the many rooms occupying the hallway he was currently walking down with wonder. “How on Earth does this tiny apartment have so much space inside it?” he murmured as he tried to make sense of it. “It must be some sort of optical illusion which makes the apartment seem smaller from the outside. I wonder if that angry man is a scientist. Maybe if I apologize for being rude earlier, he’ll let me see his robot.”
Linksano’s eyes glazed over as he imagined getting his tiny hands on that glorious piece of machinery, but they quickly came back into focus when something small and silvery grazed his left foot. “Huh?” He looked down and gasped at the sight of another robot, this one slender and insect-like in appearance, watching as it scuttled across the floor before tumbling over the top step of the staircase.
“I’ll save you!” Linksano cried, hurrying over to the stairs and ready to fling himself off in an attempt to rescue the creature, but the sight he saw below him stopped him in his tracks. “Oh my…”
Dozens of shiny silver robots were scurrying across the freshly mopped floor, moving in no direction in particular, but astounding the young scientist nonetheless. Linksano’s jaw dropped as he observed them dodging around chair legs and corners, twirling in concentric circles, and beeping a most melodious chorus of greetings to each other. “They are… so beautiful,” Linksano whispered, worried that if he spoke too loudly, he would scare them off. Feeling emboldened by the stimulation of his scientific curiosity, Linksano started to slowly descend the stairs towards the robots, but he let out a discouraged cry when the machines suddenly took off in three straight lines toward one room in particular.
“Wait! Come back!” he called out as he chased after them, caution thrown completely to the wind. Linksano ran as fast as his little legs would carry him until he entered a room with a green futon and a familiar man with glasses, who was sitting at the desk. Linksano skidded to a stop, worry flashing across his face as he wondered if the man would scold him for his earlier rudeness, before his concern was replaced with utter bewilderment. “Wh-where did they go?”
“Huh?” Linkara looked up from his desk, a Sonic Screwdriver in one hand and a few gears in the other. “Where did who go?”
“Those little robots,” Linksano explained, turning his head in every direction as he searched for them. “I watched them come into this room, but now they’re gone. Where did they go?”
“Oh, you mean my Cybermat army,” Linkara replied, smiling a little now as he turned his attention back to the broken Cybermat lying on his desk. “They’re actually cyborgs, not robots, but that’s a common mistake. Anyway, I sent them away with a magic spell since I didn’t need them right now.”
Linksano scoffed and crossed his arms, petulance quickly replacing wonder. “Everyone knows magic isn’t real.”
“Then you tell me where they went,” Linkara challenged as he pointed his Screwdriver at the Cybermat.
“Uh, well…” Linksano’s confidence started to falter as he struggled for a logical explanation. “Maybe if you had a secret trapdoor in here or a hidden compartment in the walls…” Linksano trailed off when he heard the hum of the device Linkara held. His eyes widened as he stared at it and without realizing what he was doing, he moved closer to the desk. “What’s that?”
“This is my Sonic Screwdriver,” Linkara proudly replied, moving it so Linksano could get a better view. “It’s a neat tool I use when I need to repair my Cybermats, or any of the other gadgets and weapons I’ve made.”
“So you are a scientist,” Linksano replied, voice filling with awe. “And you honestly made a working robot? Wow.”
“Heh, yeah, it is pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Linkara never was one to turn down an opportunity of ego stroking. “You want to hold it?”
“Can I?” Linkara bit his lip to hold back his laughter when Linksano cradled the tool in his arms as if it were a baby. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Linksano said, tracing his fingers along the cool metal. “If I had a tool like this one, I could make so many amazing inventions.”
Linkara let him admire it a moment longer before he cleared his throat. “Alright, I got to be getting back to work now, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay.” Linksano reluctantly handed the tool over to Linkara but he moved even closer to his workspace. “Um, sir, could I maybe stay and watch as you fix that Cybermat? Please? I promise I won’t touch anything and I’ll be very quiet, even if it takes hours to fix.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know,” Linkara said, scrunching up his face a little. “You did say you didn’t believe in my magic, and you weren’t very nice to me and Harvey earlier. If I let you help me, what’s in it for me?”
“I-I’m very sorry about earlier, sir,” Linksano quickly apologized, fidgeting a little as he tried to think of a way to make up for his earlier indiscretions. “What if I… oh!” He reached into one of the pockets of his tiny coat and pulled out a notebook. “What if I give you this? I found it earlier inside the weird laboratory downstairs. It has lots of equations and formulas in it! A scientist as great as you would surely be able to use this!”
Linkara’s expression brightened at the appearance of the notebook and he eagerly accepted it. “You’ve got yourself a deal, kid. Now, pull up a chair and I’ll let you get a good look at him.”
“Thank you so much, sir!” Linksano squealed as he hurriedly pushed a chair beside Linkara’s. While he hunched over the Cybermat, thoroughly examining the insides of the silvery cyborg, Linkara flipped through the notebook in an examination of his own.
Linksano’s notebook was filled with all of the experiments and projects he worked on for Linkara, and each one was detailed with numerous paragraphs, drawings, and charts. Unfortunately, Linksano’s handwriting was as so messy that it took Linkara a solid fifteen minutes to get though just the first page of the book.
“This is going to take a while,” he muttered as he continued his search for whatever had de-aged his two teammates. “I hope Harvey’s having an easier time than me.”
---
Harvey finished setting down everything he needed on the coffee table and stepped back to admire his work. Before him sat one plate piled high with chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven, two glasses of milk, and a small, portable fan.
“Beautiful.” Harvey made sure the fan was pointing directly at the cookies before turning it on. Then he sat down on the couch, rested his hands behind his head, and waited as the fan performed its two functions: cooling the cookies and spreading their scent all throughout the apartment.
Just as predicted, it took less than five minutes for soft footsteps to approach the living room, followed by a quick head peek in from the kitchen courtesy of a familiar looking boy. Harvey grinned when he spotted him.
“There you are. I thought you’d come running if I found the proper enticement. Judging by the state of that kitchen before, more food got on the floor than in your belly, so you must be starving. If you’d care to join me,” Harvey paused to grab a cookie and dunked it into his glass, “then by all means, come on over.” He took a bite, sighing happily at how good the cookie tasted, and chewed silently as he waited for the boy who would one day become 90s Kid to approach him.
To Harvey’s surprise, he didn’t. 90s Kid did take one step out of the kitchen before stopping again and fidgeting with his hands. He looked not at all like the happy, confident teenager Harvey knew well, but instead like a scared, lost child. Which Harvey quickly realized he now was. His grin dropped and he set his cookie down.
“I’m Harvey, by the way,” he introduced in a softer voice, “and this place is where I live. I know you probably don’t understand why you’re here, but I promise you nothing bad is gonna happen. Me and the Kid-er, Linkara, that other guy I came in with-we’re just looking after you for a while and I promise that in no time at all you’ll be back where you belong.” Harvey fell silent once more then and hoped that the boy would accept what he said. It had been a long time since he had used any parenting skills and he hoped they weren’t too rusty to rely on today.
“Um, Mister?” 90s Kid finally asked, taking another hesitant step toward him. “Aren’t you mad cuz I messed up your stuff?” He looked at Harvey in a fearful manner but the singer quickly smiled at him once again.
“Nah, I ain’t mad at you, Junior,” he said, unable to help from slipping back into the familiar nickname he always used for 90s Kid. “I know how wild kids can be, and we already cleaned it up, so it’s water under the bridge, alright? Come on, I know you’re hungry,” he said, picking his cookie back up to take another bite. In response, 90s Kid’s stomach started to grumble and the boy rubbed it in an embarrassed manner. Harvey laughed and gestured toward the couch. “There’s plenty of room up here if you feel like taking a load off, Junior.”
90s Kid approached the couch and climbed up onto it. Then he slowly reached out for a cookie, glancing nervously at Harvey every few seconds, before he brought it to his mouth and nibbled. His eyes lit up at once. “Mmm! This is really yummy, dude!”
“I see the ‘dude’ thing started early,” Harvey muttered, though in more of a fond than annoyed manner. “Whoa, slow down,” he said after realizing that 90s Kid was stuffing cookies in his face at a rate that would rival that of a certain blue monster from Sesame Street. “These aren’t gonna disappear on ya, Junior, so cool it before you choke or something.”
“Sorry,” 90s Kid tried to apologize with a mouth full of cookies, which sent a cascade of crumbs out of his mouth and all over Harvey’s suit. This caused the boy to start giggling while Harvey grunted in annoyance and quickly went into the bathroom to fix his attire. When he returned, he was glad to see that the plate still had half a stack of cookies left, though both glasses of milk were now empty. He frowned and turned to 90s Kid, who was trying to smile innocently, a bright white mustache covering his upper lip.
“You’re lucky that I’m not thirsty at the moment,” Harvey replied, plopping back down onto the couch. “At least now you’re all filled up… with sugar and chocolate… boy, I didn’t think that one through.” Harvey’s worry began growing stronger when he noticed 90s Kid’s legs were jiggling as he fidgeted again, and his mind raced as he tried to think of a way to entertain the boy. “Aha!” he cried out before he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his trusty DS. “Video games! You still like those, don’t you, Junior?”
“I love video games!” 90s Kid happily agreed before his expression turned to shock as he was handed the system. “Whoa, dude, what’s this? I never saw a GameBoy like this before.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s the newest model,” Harvey replied, always happy to show off his expensive belongings. “But it still plays games I’m sure you know all too well, like… Pokemon Red?”
“You have Pokemon?!” 90s Kid’s excitement was almost palpable and Harvey couldn’t help chuckling at him.
“Sure thing, squirt. Go ahead, knock yourself out. Start up a new game and get to catching those little monsters.”
“I’m gonna start with Squirtle!” 90s Kid happily informed the singer as his fingers quickly adjusted to the buttons on the DS and the game began. “And then I’m gonna catch a Growlithe and a Ponyta and Meowth and a Pikachu! But I’m not gonna keep it a Pikachu, cuz I really like Raichu, and nobody ever likes Raichu, but I do, so I’m gonna get one!”
“Yeah, Raichu’s a pretty cute little guy,” Harvey agreed, reaching into his jacket once again. This time he pulled out a fluffy Mareep plushie and situated it behind his head like a pillow before leaning back against the couch. “You know, I once beat the Elite 4 using just a Raichu and a Pidgeot.”
“What? No way, you are totally making that up!”
Harvey laughed and put his hand on his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die, I did.”
“Wow.” 90s Kid goggled at him in admiration. “You’re a really cool dude, mister.”
“Thanks. You’re a pretty cool kid yourself.”
---
Linkara sighed and rubbed at his eyes in frustration. It had been two hours and he was still only halfway through Linksano’s notebook, and only a quarter sure that he even understood anything he’d been reading. Why must the mind of a mad scientist be so incomprehensible?
“Great Fitzwilliam Notebook! I’ve done it!”
“Don’t you ever make sense?” Linkara snapped before realizing what he’d done. “Oh, uh, sorry, I didn’t mean… holy crap! You did that?”
Linksano was holding up the now completely fixed Cybermat and beaming brightly. “Yes I did, sir! I rewired the entire inner system and even modified a few of the weaker circuits. This Cybermat should function at an even greater capacity than it did before!” Linksano hopped off his chair then and set the Cybermat onto the ground. It beeped a few times in response before zooming across the floor, happily weaving its way around chair legs and bookcases. Linkara watched it for a moment, very impressed, before turning back to the boy.
“I can’t believe you figured out how it worked so quickly. It took me a couple of months to repair my first robot, but you picked it up within a couple of hours. You really are a genius.”
“Oh, um, y-yes, I am,” Linksano replied, flushing bright red with pleasure at the compliment. “But thank you for saying so, sir. It’s nice to be complimented.”
Linkara smiled, his earlier irritation evaporating. “Yeah, it really is. I should remember to do that more, and to show how grateful I am to be working with such smart people. So thank you for everything you’ve done, Linksano.”
Linksano’s brows creased together in confusion. “What did you just call me, sir?”
“Uh, nothing. Just forget I said anything.”
“Oh. Alright.” Linksano let out an enormous yawn then and slid his fingers up under his goggles so he could rub his eyes. “Hmm, I don’t usually feel so tired after working on a project. I must not have gotten enough sleep last night.”
“Do you want to lie down on the futon?” Linkara gestured toward it, but Linksano shook his head.
“No, I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute or so. I want to keep working and learning all I can about robots, sir.”
“You know, you can just call me Linkara.”
“Oh. Alright, Mr. Linkara.” Linkara shook his head and gave up. “I’m Oscar, by the way.”
“Oscar?” Linkara blinked in surprise. “I didn’t know that was your name.”
“Well of course not, I’ve only just told you it now,” Linksano replied with smirk. Linkara pursed his lips.
“Well, why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself, Oscar. You can work on this at the same time,” he said, pulling out a communicator that had been crushed under the wheels of 90s Kid’s skateboard last week. Linksano’s expression lit up and he eagerly grabbed for the device.
“Deal! Okay, so how should I start… I suppose I’ll tell you that I’m 11 and ¼ years old and that I live with my mother, father, and elder brother, Wayne.”
“You have a brother?” Linkara set the notebook down, more interested in listening to Linksano at the moment.
Linksano nodded. “He’s 3 years older than me and twice as clever, but I am catching up to him at a swift pace, so don’t count out Oscar Schlumper just yet.”
“I would never,” Linkara replied, smiling at the boy. “So, what do you and your brother like to do for fun.”
“We spend most of our time in our secret laboratory inventing things.”
“I guess some things never change,” Linkara murmured. He settled into a more comfortable position and listened attentively as Linksano chattered away, feeling as if he were meeting his scientific advisor for the very first time.
---
“He really had me on the ropes that day, Junior. I was down to one Pokemon while that Cyclist had three to go. But I didn’t give up, oh no, I’d never do that. I sent out my last, most trusted Pokemon and with just two moves, Super Fang and Hyper Fang, I blasted that Cyclist all the way back to Pallet Town. And that’s why, whenever I hear someone talking bunk about Raticate, I sit ‘em down and give ‘em a piece of my mind.”
“Wow.” 90s Kid stared up at him with awe while Harvey grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “You’re definitely for sure the most awesome old dude I ever met, mister.”
Harvey flinched at the term ‘old’ but kept the smile on his face. “Thanks, squirt. You know, you’re the first person who isn’t bored by me prattling on and on about my Pokemon adventures, so I gotta thank you for that.”
“I love hearing about Pokemon games!” 90s Kid happily decried. “It’s my most favoritest game ever, dude! And most grown-ups don’t even know how to play it. Like, my mommy and daddy totally hate Pokemon, so I have to play it when they aren’t home.”
Harvey frowned, looking down at the boy. “They hate Pokemon? That’s kinda extreme, ain’t it?”
90s Kid shrugged keeping his eyes glued onto the screen. “They say I should play baseball or football like all the other boys. But I don’t like baseball or football. I just like Pokemon. But they hate it.”
Without thinking, Harvey reached out and settled his arm atop 90s Kid’s small shoulder, squeezing it softly. “There’s nothing wrong with liking video games, Junior. Or not liking sports. You know that, right?” There was a moment of silence before 90s Kid slowly nodded his head. Harvey squeezed his shoulder again. “Why don’t I get you something else to drink? You’ve been going at that game for a while, you must be thirsty.”
“Don’t go.” Harvey took in a shuddering breath when 90s Kid scooted over closer to him on the couch, leaning his head softly against his arm.
“Please?” Harvey swallowed thickly, hesitating a minute, before he rested his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
“Okay, Junior. I’m not going anywhere.”
---
Linksano yawned for the fifth time in as many minutes and Linkara couldn’t take it anymore. “Look, you already fixed the Cybermat, my communicator, and upgraded my cell phone so I get limitless free minutes all over the world. I really think you should take a rest now, Links-I mean Oscar.”
“Mmm… I guess that would be best.” Linksano set down the Sonic Screwdriver before rubbing his eyes again and slowly climbing off the chair. He stumbled over to the futon and crawled over to the end, lying his head down as he yawned once more.
“Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you wake up. I still have a third of this friggin’ book to get through,” Linkara told him, looking to the notebook with disdain.
“Mmm.” Linksano stretched his arms out before him, under a pillow. “Sir? When was the… mmmm… experiment that you are looking for performed?”
“This morning.”
“Then perhaps it is… the last entry in the notebook.”
Linkara blinked dumbly for a moment before smacking his own forehead. “Why am I such an idiot?”
“Mmm… dunno, sir.” Linksano finally lost his battle to stay awake then and drifted off into a peaceful slumber while Linkara flipped to the back of notebook in search of the final entry.
“Aha! Here it is. Let’s see…” After a good ten minutes of deciphering Linksano’s chicken scratch, Linkara finally had the information he needed. He closed the book and hurried out into the living room. “Harvey, you still out here? I found out…”
Linkara trailed off and came to a halt when he discovered the scene before him. Harvey looked very comfortable leaning back against the couch, eyes half-lidded, a peaceful expression on his face, while 90s Kid slept beside him, his head nestled in Harvey’s lap, his small chest rising and falling in an almost hypnotic rhythm. One of Harvey’s hands was softly stroking the boy’s hair while the other was enclosed protectively around the child’s tiny hand.
Instinctively, Linkara took a few steps backwards. He felt like he was intruding on something he wasn’t meant to see and he wanted to leave before Harvey noticed him. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that walls were necessary for holding up an apartment and ended up banging into one with a soft thump.
“Kid?”
Linkara cringed but tried to be cool. “Hey, Harvey.”
Harvey nodded at him, also seeming completely cool, though his cheeks had grown small patches of red across them. “The, uh, little guy got tuckered out. He did eat all those cookies earlier, so it makes sense that he’d crash sooner or later, right? And I didn’t want t disturb him by moving him, so…”
“Right.” Linkara didn’t need to hear any more, so he looked down to the book in his hands. “Um, so I found what we were looking for if you wanna-”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” With all the expertise of one who’s done it multiple times before, Harvey gently lifted 90s Kid and settled him back onto the couch without waking him. He placed a blanket over the boy’s small frame and tousled his hair one last time before turning away. “Okay, Kid, what do ya got?” he asked, walking over to the hallway so they could speak without waking 90s Kid.
“According to Linksano’s notes, he created a machine called a ‘Youth-N-Age-Ya’ Ray.”
“A what?!” Harvey asked, looking highly disturbed.
“Yeah, I know, but Linksano has always had a dark sense of humor,” Linkara dismissed as he continued speaking. “Anyway, the ray was supposed to zap enemies into a childlike body and mental state for a period of 24 hours before they would fall asleep and revert to their previous form. However, he was worried that his device was unstable and would explode if he didn’t figure out what was wrong with it, and apparently that’s exactly what happened. The explosion must have doused Linksano and 90s Kid in the de-aging rays and that’s why they became kids.”
“Huh.” Harvey rubbed at his chin. “So, 24 hours, is it?”
“That’s what the machine does when it’s working. Since it malfunctioned and blew up, though, I don’t expect the effects to last as long,” Linkara explained. “Especially since both of them fell asleep within the past 10 minutes. This is probably it then, Harvey… I’m sorry.”
Harvey shrugged, dropping his gaze to the ground. “What’s there to be sorry about? This is what’s supposed to happen. Everything’s supposed to go back to normal, so that’s all there is to it.”
“Harvey,” Linkara said softly.
“I’m okay, Kid. Really. It’s just… it was nice. Nice to have someone to look out for. Who liked listening to my stories and who thought I hung the moon and the stars.”
Linkara reached out, putting a hand on Harvey’s arm. “Who says that’s going to change?” Harvey looked up, uncertainty coloring his face. “He already thinks the world of you, Harvey, and he’s very appreciative of how you’re looking out for him.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” Linkara smiled reassuringly and Harvey mirrored his expression moments later. “Now come on, let’s get some dinner. Those two are sure to be hungry when they wake up, so what would you say to a couple of pizzas?”
“I’d say what’s a nice dish like you doing in a face like this?”
“Charming,” Linkara replied, though he couldn’t help chuckling as he reached for the phone.
---
“What in Tesla’s name happened to me?” Linkara and Harvey looked up from their pizza as a fully grown and very dazed looking Linksano walked into the kitchen. “I feel as if my cranium was struck by a sledgehammer.”
“Good to see you back, Linksano,” Linkara greeted him as he held up the pizza box. “Care for a slice?”
“Perhaps later, after I’ve figure out what happened to me,” Linksano muttered, rubbing the top of his head a little. “For example, I just woke up on the futon. Do you have any idea why I was sleeping there?”
“Oh, right, about that. You see, earlier today there was an explosion in your lab and-”
“My lab!” Without waiting to hear anything more, Linksano flew to the basement door and down the stairs.
Linkara shrugged. “I’ll tell him the rest later.”
“Duuuuuude, is that pizza I smell? Pizaa is like the most radical, awesome food ever!” An also fully-grown 90s Kid bounded into the kitchen right then and started wolfing down slices of pepperoni.
“Hey, slow down there, Junior,” Harvey said, keeping his eyes focused on the glass of wine in his hand. “The pizza ain’t gonna disappear on you.”
“Chaa, you always say that, mister,” 90s Kid replied with a roll of his eyes. He paused then, expression growing confused. “Wait… did I just, like, call you mister? That’s weird.”
“It’s a long story. Why don’t you sit down and we’ll try to explain it.”
“Okay.” To Linkara’s surprise, 90s Kid pushed a chair very close to Harvey’s and plopped into it before turning to the singer. “Oh, dude, you wanna have a Pokemon battle after dinner? I know you’re totally an expert, but I am so ready to beat you this time!”
Harvey set down his glass and was silent a moment. Linkara, always a worrier, was about to ask if he was okay when the man looked up and flashed Linkara a look of pure happiness. A look which quickly morphed into cockiness as he turned to the teen.
“You think you can beat me, Junior? That’s a good one. I’ll even go easy on you, and fight you with Pokemon I haven’t evolved past the first stage. It won’t do you any good, but I want you to have a fighting chance.”
“You’re totally on, dude!”
As the three continued to chatter away and enjoy their pizza, and Linksano busied himself with cleaning his lab and trying to figure out why he kept mentally referring to Linkara as ‘Sir’, peace settled once more over the apartment.
That is, until Linksano asked Linkara for a raise so he could rebuild his de-aging machine. Harvey and 90s Kid wisely decided to pick up the groceries together on that afternoon.