~Iron Family~

The Sticky Bandits

The man in the green shutter glasses ripped them off as soon as the ice cream truck window had slammed closed.

"Full speed ahead, Julius!" he cheered. "To our evil lair!"

It hadn't taken him long to locate the tracker. He'd had a feeling that the kid had put some kind of device on the truck--but a little easy scanning had found the annoying little mechanical bug and put it out of its misery.

"Julius..." the man sighed, fingering the little slats running across his shutter glasses. Or, as he liked to call them, 'party goggles.' 

"Are we doing the right thing?"

This question seemed to startle Julius, who was tall enough to where he could just peek above the hood and see the oncoming traffic. He adjusted his glasses and his steely grip on the wheel.

"I--I don't understand, sir."

"Well," the man, sighed and slipped the party goggles into his pocket. "This supposed 'evil business.' I mean, what's to stop the police from breaking into the evil lair and shutting everything down?"

"Everything," Julius sniffed. "We've got our security measures, they've got theirs. Don't worry, master."

They rode in awkward silence for a few moments before Julius decided to make conversation.

"Your sons, I'm sure, will gather the information needed as soon as school starts."

The man laughed as they pulled into the evil lair. "They'd better."

***
One week later

"What do you mean, you didn't get all the information on him?" The man yelled. His two sons cowered in the shadow of their father.

"W--we tried," the short one said.

"We just forgot to ask him anything," the taller one mumbled. The short one elbowed him, but it was too late.

"WHAT?"

Their father gave them spankings and sent them to the corner.

"High schoolers and I'm sending them to the corner," he seethed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "How have I failed parenting this bad? Harry and Marv just aren't the way I trained them to be. Let alone acting like my thief idols, whom I took their names for. Where did I go wrong?"

Julius nervously patted the man's arm. "Don't fret, master. I'm sure they'll come around. Besides, they might have picked up something."

The man sighed and walked over to where his sons were seated back-to-back in chairs, bound in colorful Christmas lights.

"Boys..." the man started. They grinned up at him, revealing the candy stuck between their teeth. "Did you get anything about Peter Parker?"

Harry shook his head sadly, but Marv nodded eagerly.

"Tell me, what did you bring Daddy home?"

"This!" Marv went to reach into his pocket, but forgot he was tied to a chair by illuminated, colored Christmas lights. He gave his father a sheepish grin. "Untie please?"

"Fine," his dad grumbled.

When he was free, Marv reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, almost-flat black shape. His dad scratched his head.

"And...what is this?"

"A little drone thingy!"

He tapped something on the spider's back and it whirred to life, waiting for a command patiently in Marv's hand.

"This was made from spare parts," the man said to himself in amazement, inspecting the little spider. "What a surprise."

"What are you gonna do, Dad?" Harry asked eagerly. The man's face curled into a Grinch smile.

"We cause a little trouble."