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“Hey Pop.” Dean said, sitting down next to Dr. Venture, who was fiddling with what looked to be the contents of an alarm clock and a TV dinner.
“What do you want Hank, can’t you see I’m busy?” He waved the boy off without looking up.
“Uh, it’s Dean,” he corrected.
“Right, Dean,” responded his father, not apologizing for the mistake. He did look up from his work for a moment which should in no way be read as an apology.
“…Um, how did you and Brock first get together?”
Dr. Venture had gone back to soldering clock parts to a plastic TV tray. “Well, the gods of the housing lottery first got us together.” He answered, motioning for Dean to pass him a tiny screw driver.
“Uh, that’s not what I meant.” Dean frowned, passing his dad the tool. He tried again. “When did you and Brock first start to…you know, like each other?”
Dr. Venture dropped the screw driver and started to burn the edges of the TV tray with a lighter he pulled out from his pocket. “Well…” he began, stopping for a moment to suck on a newly burnt fingertip. “Well, somewhere around twelfth time a guy saves your life he really starts to grow on you.”
“Oh,” said Dean, a little disappointed. “Is that it?”
Still paying more attention to the melted chunk of plastic in front of him than his son, Doc continued in an off handed way. “Well, there was this time with a nano-enginer from Brazil who had a thing for large reptiles and the Venture family legacy. She had me over this pit with maybe 20 of her robo-crocs. After that little incident, I can tell you-ACK!” The plastic tray went up in flames almost taking down part of the kitchen. The conversation was quickly forgotten.
--
“Hey, Brock!” said Hank, casually strolling into the middle of an active S.P.H.I.N.X. investigation.
“Get out, Hank,” responded Brock coolly, as he watched Short Leave attempt to pick the lock on a very important briefcase.
“Aw, sweet!” said Hank, completely ignoring the order and jumping up on the table next to a pair of bloody handcuffs, one end still attached to the case in question. “Did you have to chop a guy’s hand off to get that?”
“…’course not,” lied Brock while Shore Leave nodded affirmative behind him and flashed Hank a thumbs up.
“What’s in it?” Hank asked.
Brock sighed and turned to give Hank his full attention, figuring it would be the easiest way to get him out of here. “What do you want, Hank?”
“Oh! I had some questions about you and Pop? From back when you two first met each other?”
Shore Leave busied himself with the lock pick while keeping one ear tuned to the conversation.
Brock crossed his arms and shook his head. “I don’t know what I can tell you. Back then I spent all my time playing football and your father… well your father had his little dungeons and dragons geeks.”
“No, not that,” said Hank, swinging his legs from the table. “Tell me about when you first started body guarding him.”
Brock had to think back for a minute to come up with something that didn’t involve cloning from those early days. “…What do you want to know?” He asked reluctantly.
“Gosh well, I was just wondering how you and Pop got together?” Hank asked.
Shore Leave’s face went through any number of vivid and comic expressions at hearing this.
“I was assigned to him by the O.S.I. Hank, you know this already,” responded Brock who had been through enough nonsense with the boys not to find the question strange.
“That’s not what I meant,” responded Hank, exasperated. “Like, when you first got together, what did you guys do for fun? Like did you ever go out anywhere?”
Shore Leave stopped even the pretext of working to mouth the words ‘go out’ and stared at old Brock-lobster in confusion and maybe a little respect.
Brock meanwhile tried to dredge up even one memory from the early days that didn’t involve clones or murder or Doc’s serious substance abuse problems. “Ah! You know that Greek island your dad goes to each year? We used to do that together, that was pretty fun.”
“Gee, thanks Brock!” said Hank, jumping down from the table having gotten what he came for.
After Hank had left, Shore Leave punched Brock lightly in the shoulder and shouted, “Hey Count Brockula, way to clue me in to your membership to Rainbow Boys Brigade.”
Brock rolled his eyes and grabbed the forgotten lock pick. “What the hell are you on about?” He asked as the case clicked open.
“You and old Rusty Venture? I didn’t know you two were an item? Does Russia’s answer to Pussygalore know?”
Brock calmly deactivate the time bomb that switched on inside the case. “An item? Where’d you get that crazy idea?”
--
“Alright,” began Dean, later that night in the boy’s bedroom. “I call this meeting of Operation Parent Trap to order. What have you got?”
Hank beamed, full of pride, and shared what Brock had said about the Greek island.
H.E.L.P.eR. beeped unhelpfully.
“No, it’s fine,” said Dean. “All we have to do is find some old robo-crocs and Greek food and then Dad and Brock will remember why they fell in love and get back together.”
H.E.L.P.eR. made a few sassy beeps in reply.
Hank rolled his eyes. “Yes, we’re sure they were together before. They probably just didn’t say anything to protect me and Dean from their deviant lifestyle.”
H.E.L.P.eR. beeped again, unwilling to drop the subject.
“No, we’re sure this is the only way.” Dean responded. “Pop’s been really sad since Brock left.”
“Yeah,” chimed in Hank. “and Brock clearly missed him too since he set up his secret base in our backyard and all.”
“Right,” agreed Dean, on a roll now. “And it’s up to us to bring them back together!”
H.E.L.P.eR. threw up his robotic hands and beeped in defeat.
--
It was nice having Brock so close by again, thought Doc as he watched the covert S.P.H.I.N.X. helicopter take off from it’s not so secret base. It was good for the boys to have some consistency in male role models and having Sergeant Hatred around wasn’t doing them any favors. Also, he could admit, if only to himself, he slept better at night knowing for sure the other man was alright and only on the other side of the compound.
“Hey, Pop!” said one of the boys. Doc wasn’t sure which as they both entered the kitchen at the same time.
“What is it boys?” he asked, trying to stir his coffee and shake off this melancholy mood he was suddenly in.
“Hank and I have something we want to show you in the hanger in an hour.” Dean said.
Doc took one final sip of his coffee before putting the cup down. “Let’s go now, I’m free.” he said standing up and welcoming the distraction.
Hank and Dean both looked suddenly worried.
“No!” They shouted in unison.
“Not now! In an hour, we have to set it up,” explained Dean in a hurry. Hank was already halfway out the door.
“Fine,” grumbled Doc, trying to figure out how to kill an hour. Maybe he could fall asleep watching Judge Judy or something.
“One hour, don’t forget.” Dean reminded as he followed his brother out of the room.
--
Hank strolled casually in to S.P.H.I.N.X. headquarters an hour later to retrieve Brock. This time he found Brock sitting with his feet up while Shore Leave washed the S.P.H.I.N.X. jet.
“Hey, Brock!” he greeted standing right in front of the man. “Could you come with me for a minute?”
“What is it Hank?” Brock asked swinging his feet down but not yet getting up.
“Uh, me and Dean have something we what to ask you-, uh show you. In the hanger. Right now.”
Brock waved goodbye to Shore Leave and followed Hank out.
Remembering Hank’s earlier strange behavior Shore Leave dropped the sponge he was using to wash the jet. ‘Something weird is going on with that boy.’ He thought to himself. ‘And I just bet it’s going to be abso-fucking-lutely hi-larious.’
--
Brock followed Hank to find an old card table with half a dozen candles in the center of a dimly lit hanger. As Hank tried to push him towards one of the chairs at the table, he noticed Dean doing the same to Doc.
“Boys! What’s going on?” shouted Dr. Venture as he was reluctantly pushed into the waiting chair. “Are you boys on drugs? You know I won’t stand for having weed-heads living in my house!” he huffed.
Once they were both seated Hank turned around and stuck a terrible fake mustache to his face. Speaking with a painfully bad French accent he said, “Hello, yes. And welcomes to ze spa-nan, er.. ze spa-nini? No. oh ze spa-coptic-cornicopia!”
Dean elbowed Hank and corrected him. “Spanakopita.”
“Right, that thing,” agreed Hank sounding like himself for a moment before returning to the terrible accent.
“We haves for you this collection of ze specialties from ze Greek islands!” he announced.
Dean removed a dome from a plate on the table with a flourish to reveal a quart of unflavored Greek yogurt, a bag of pita bread with a half-eaten tub of hummus and one sad slice of spinach pie, still in its microwave safe container.
“Enjoy ze food!” Hank said, before trying to twirl his fake mustache. Both boys then quickly disappeared into the dimly lit hanger.
“What the hell is going on?” Doc asked eyeing the tub of Greek yogurt with confusion.
“I don’t know,” Brock responded, tearing into the pita and dipping it into the humus. “Have they been acting weird for you?”
Doc followed Brock’s lead and ate his own piece of pita bread. “Oh, I don’t know. No more so than usual I would say.”
As they ate the remainder of the humus and debated whether or not Hank’s band qualified as extra weird behavior, they failed to notice the mechanical clicking noise until the robotic crocodile was right underneath them. The robo-croc snapped his jaws at the table leg, spilling the entire quart of unflavored Greek yogurt on Doc’s pants.
“What the hell?” Doc shouted, jumping on to his chair. “Is that a robo-croc? I haven’t seen one of these things since that first year you came to bodyguard me!”
Brock went in to kill mode at the sight of the crocodile and immediately jumped on top of the mechanical beast to wrestle him. Brock struggled back and forth with the robo-croc for a few moments before ripping off its jaw off with his bare hands.
From the rafters came a clapping sound followed by Shore Leave shouting “Brava!” Shore Leave swung dramatically down from a conveniently placed rope and landed in front of the table. “Way to go Brockodile! That was even more hi-larious than I thought it would be!”
“What are you doing here?” Brock asked grinding out the last few blinking lights on the robo-croc under his heel.
"You know what this is right?" Shore Leave said gesturing at the crippled card table and dismembered robot. He took in the answering blank looks from his audience and proceeded to explain. "Those precocious young scamps of yours are trying to pull off a classic Disney era Parent Trap, featuring Hank and Dean as the lovely Hayley Mills. Dean can't quite pull it off but I could see Hank with that messy blond mop top."
Brock, who had less exposure to family friendly Disney moves from half a century back, got almost nothing of value from that explanation. For Dr. Venture, who's childhood was carefully crafted to be as 1970 kitsch as possible, the pieces started to fall into place.
"What on earth made them think that Greek yogurt and robotic crocodiles would remind us of our first date?"
Shore Leave's eyes bugged out at what he perceived as confirmation of Rusty and Brock's torrid love affair.
Brock pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. This was like dealing with children and he still didn't understand what was going on.
"Doc, we've never been on a first date."
"Well there was that time back in college, right after my dad died when we ordered all that fried rice and stayed up late watching that terrible car wash movie?"
Shore Leave's gaze moved back and forth, just loving this grade ‘A’ gossip he was getting. Could it be that Rusty and Brock had been dating this whole time and Brock just didn't realize?
Brock remembered the night in question, it was right before he'd had to pack up his shit and leave. It was the first and only time he'd ever spent with Doc as roommates. He hadn't thought about that night in years.
"What'd ya mean? That movie was an artistic masterpiece." Brock joked, remembering his defense of a truly undefendable film.
Brock and Rusty bickered jovially as they left the hanger together, leaving a stunned Shore Leave thinking he'd stumbled upon the juiciest piece of gossip since Hunter's American flag thong made its way into the O.S.I. wash.
--
“Alright boys! I officially call this meeting of the new and improved Operation Parent Trap to order!” declared Shore Leave wedged between a broken washer and dryer in the unused old laundry room on the far side of the Venture compound.
Dean, who normally called these meetings to order was a bit miffed at having his position usurped but after the disaster that was phases one of OPT he wasn’t about to voice his concerns.
“That last plan was a good effort and all but it lacked in execution. If you want to get your Dad and Brock doing the nasty, we're going to have to be the ones to set the mood, and a tub of Greek yogurt just won't cut it."
Hank nodded along sagely, though the Greek yogurt had been his idea in the first place.
“We’re going to need to set the stage to nostalgia, the lighting to mood and plenty of lube.”
Dean and Hank looked at each other in confusion.
“You mean like for an engine?” Hank asked, thinking of Brock’s beloved car.
“No dummy, he means like social lubricant. Like booze and stuff. Right Mr. Shore Leave?” Dean asked turning to look at the man in question.
Oh, these sweet innocent idiots, thought Shore Leave. “That’s not what I was going for but beer is a great idea too! Just leave it all to me boys and we’ll have your dad and Brock bumping uglies in no time.”
--
Dr. Venture and Brock returned to a suspiciously empty living area after a minor kerfuffle that turned out to have been caused by a computer glitch making it appear like the compound was being breached by a hoard of angry wild life when in fact it was a single befuddled raccoon. The living room was dark and quite but when they entered the room the TV sprang to life and the lamps turned on low. On the coffee table was a six pack of beer and a bag of divine smelling Chinese takeout. Doc looked around in confusion, half expecting The Monarch to pop out. Brock picked up the note lying next to the six pack.
“It says here that the boy’s are staying the night at Dr. O’s and we should enjoy a night off and watch a movie.” There was also a comment about condoms and lube being located in the side table with a suggestively drawn smiley face, but Brock wasn’t going to relay that part of the note.
Doc plopped himself down on the sofa and dug into one of the takeout containers.
“Hey, they got us crab fried rice from that place in town.” Doc said shoving a plastic fork full into his mouth.
Brock sat down next to him and popped the caps off two of the beers, handing one to Doc. Doc accepted the beer and wordless pushed the bag containing egg rolls closer to Brock. As they ate in silence the opening credits for the movie began to play. Doc groaned when he saw the title card.
“Oh god, they made a part two?” he moaned. “How many bikini car wash movies does the world really need, anyway?”
Brock shoved a whole egg roll into his mouth in two bites then washed it down with a sip of beer. He propped his feet up on the coffee table and settled in for what was sure to be a fun night of defending soft core porn as a work of art.
‘Well, the first one was such a cinematic masterpiece, Doc. How could they not?”
Doc stuck his feet next to Brock’s on the coffee table and grumbled through his fried rice as Brock pretended every instance of stiff dialog was an expression of creative genius. When midway through the movie Brock realized he’d spent more time watching Doc’s reactions than the continually uncovered breasts on screen, he was stuck by a sense of nostalgia.
After a few moments of silence, he nudged Doc’s foot with his own.
“Hey Doc,” he started carefully. “Remember that last night in the dorm?”
Doc, who had been smiling into his beer just a moment before scowled.
“That depends, is this night going to end the same way? With a quick fuck we never speak of again?”
Brock looked guilty at the accusation. He hadn’t meant to leave like he did with no good bye but Rusty had been fast asleep the morning after and Brock had had an early bus to catch. The next time he saw the man he’d been carrying twins and trying to escape that psycho Myra. It just didn’t seem like an appropriate time to reminisce about a one night stand. Figuring it was better late than never, Brock bit the bullet and apologized.
“I’m sorry I left you like that. I just didn’t know what to say.”
Doc sighed and his scowl shifted to a more neutral expression.
‘It wasn’t like I was looking to pick out matching china patterns with you but a good bye would have been nice.” Doc nudge Brock’s foot in return, willing to forgive.
They sat in silence as the flesh on the TV screen continued to jiggle, both too caught up in their own memories to pay any attention to the mammaries.
“That first year or so I couldn’t decide if I was dreading that idea of you bring it up or waiting for it. When you never said anything, I figured it was a mistake and we were never going to talk about it.” Doc continued, breaking the silence.
Brock moved his hand to rest gently on Doc’s knee. “It wasn’t a mistake.” He responded, hating the uncharacteristic vulnerability he could hear in Doc’s voice.
“Well you coulda fooled me,” snapped back Doc, sounding much more like himself.
‘I could make it up to you?” Brock suggested, leaning closer into Doc’s personal space.
As a gaggle of topless women giggled while modeling lingerie on the screen, Doc leaned in to close the distance between their lips. With the terrible movie playing in the background and the taste of beer and fried rice on both their lips they were for a moment transported back to a small college dorm room and a first kiss neither had ever quite forgotten.
--
“I hereby call the final meeting of Operation Parent Trap to order!” declared Dean, in his rightful place as committee chairman once more.
“Here, Here!” shouted Shore Leave, who had begun the celebration early when he’d found a bottle of whisky and a thank you card from Brock in his locker.
“Brock asked me if I could help move some stuff back into the house!” Hank spilled out in a rush, excited to share the good news.
Even H.E.L.P.eR beeped in good cheer, though he still didn’t believe they’d been together in the first place.