Hero [Ironstrange]

09 - Brothers

Tony

"UGGGHHHH." I put down my sketchbook and walk to the door. "Alexa, stop." I open the door to see a woman with black hair standing above Victor, who was pressing the doorbell over and over again.

"Are you Anthony?" I nod in response, as Victor finally notices I answered the door and races inside the house. The woman sighs. "I'm Melinda, Victor wasn't feeling good at school, Beverly told me that you could take care of him until she got home." 

"Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem." I look behind me at Victor who was devouring whipped cream he found in the fridge.

"Good luck with that one," Melinda turned around and walked to her car, leaving me with the child. Well, there goes my day. I walk into the kitchen to see the small kid stuffing his face with Oreos covered in whipped cream. Hello, Satan. 

"You're not sick, are you?"

"Of course not," Victor squirted more whipped cream in his mouth. "Did you really buy that?" I snatch the whipped cream and Oreos from him, causing him to groan.

"Why did you leave school?" I question, turning on the TV so we could watch Netflix.

"Cuz I don't like it." Victor pouted and crossed his arms, taking a seat next to me on the couch. 

"Well, duh, there has to be a different reason." I scoot closer to him and ruffle his curly brown hair. "Come on, you can tell me. I mean, we are going to be stuck together in this house for the next 3 hours so you're going to talk no matter what."

"Tora." He grabs the remote from me while I process. What the fuck is that.

"You're Jewish?" Victor looks at me with the 'Confused Nick Young' face.

"What? I don't know what you're talking about. Tora is a girl in my class."

"Oh." I pause, staring at the screen as Victor is having an existential crisis on what movie to watch. "Can you just choose a movie?"

"No, I want to make sure I use my time well. I'm not going to waste two hours of my life on something dumb." Wow, he's more like Stephen than I thought. I steal the remote back and click on The Bee Movie. "What is this?"

"You're welcome." I think for a second, forgetting everything that happened in the past five minutes. "Oh right! Tora! So is she like your crush or something?"

"Ew, no, that's disgusting!" Victor sticks out his tongue and gives me a look that says I just said the dumbest thing on the planet.

"Oh, well then is she mean?" Victor stays silents, but slightly nods, staring at the screen. Bitch, I'm going to beat that little girl up. How could you hurt such an innocent child?  "Mean enough to make you want to skip school..." Victor leans into me, giving me a side hug. I will protect you with my life. I hug him back, making him sob into my shirt.

"She's so mean to me, Anthony!" He sniffled through sobs, clinging on to me. 

"What did she do?" 

"She...she makes fun of me every day because I'm bad at reading aloud, and usually that's it, but today she made fun of me at recess when I was playing with Cleo-"

"Cleo?"

"She's my best friend." Victor sniffed and tried to breathe slower. "I was...I was playing tetherball with Cleo, and Tora came up to me and told me I couldn't play with girls cuz I was a boy. I thought it was fine to be friends with her, but Tora said that it meant we were dating. I said that we weren't soulmates so why would we be dating, and Tora said that I would never have a soulmate. That I'd be alone forever, like my Mom." 

"That's not true." This would be a lot more sentimental if The Bee Movie wasn't playing in the background.

"IT'S NOT TRUE! AND SHE KNEW THAT MOM AND DAD WERE SOULMATES, THEY WEREN'T ALONE!" Victor exclaims, before starting to softly cry again. "She started talking about how I don't have a Dad, and everyone else has a Dad, but I don't cuz I don't deserve to even know my Dad." I hug him tighter, not caring that he was drenching my shirt in tears and snot. 

"Did you tell your Mom about Tora?"

"No." He replies, before being silent for a few minutes. "Anthony?"

"Yes?" I reply softly, matching his tone.

"What if I don't have a soulmate?" Victor clings to me.

"Victor, that's really rare."

"Fine, what if I never find my soulmate?" I hug him tightly.

"Victor, you don't need a soulmate to be happy. I mean, your Mom lost her soulmate and she's still happy with you guys. Your siblings don't know their soulmates and they're still happy."

"Yeah, but that's cuz they have a lot of friends. I don't have that many friends." 

"We're friends now. See? You can make more friends. And you have your family, you have tons of things to make you happy." Victor lets go of me and looks at me with giant watery blue eyes. 

"We're not friends, we're brothers." Victor smiles at me, his face lighting up for the first time. Sorry, Stephen, I think I have to steal your brother. 

- - - 

"Hey...guys?" Stephen walks in, his expression changing from excited to confused in less than ten seconds.

"Oh, hey, Stephen." I squirt more whipped cream into Victor's mouth while The Bee Movie plays in the background. "I'm sorry only cool people are allowed in this room."

"Yeah, get out, Stephen!" Victor pushes him out of the living room.

"What the heck?" HAHAHA, just kidding, totally not sorry, Stephen. 

- - -

A/N: Chapter should be named 'Bonding between future brother-in-laws'