Melissa's insides were a jumble of nervous energy as she drove towards Wacky Winston's Family Fun Center and Putt-Putt Emporium. Her fingers drummed against the steering wheel and a sheen of cold sweat shone on her forearms. Oliver, too busy lapping happily at his ice cream to regale her with more cartoon and superhero stories, had left her alone with her thoughts - and those were dedicated solely to figuring out what she would have to do to get her boys and her brother back to normal. Over and over again she inwardly rehearsed what she would say to Connor and Jackson when she found them, looking for the perfect words she would need to convince them to abandon their newfound adulthoods and go back to being her sweet, bratty, adorable, maddening, loving, troublemaking five-year-olds.
Melissa pulled into the lot, found a parking spot, and simply sat there for a moment, eyes trained blankly on the entrance to the building as the engine idled. She remained in her trance until the crunch of a chomped cone snapped her out of it, the woman looking in her rear-view mirror to see a grinning little boy licking the remnants of his treat from his fingers.
"Oh," he piped, looking out the window. "We're here."
"...yup, we're here." Melissa did her best to keep her voice even as she unbuckled her seat belt, taking a deep breath and gathering her courage for whatever she would find inside. "You stay here while I - "
"No way."
Melissa raised her eyebrows and looked over her shoulder, willing herself not to smile at the how thoroughly the look of determination on Oliver's face was undermined by the lingering traces of ice cream on his lips and cheeks.
"This is my fault," he declared with all the confidence she currently lacked. "An' that means I gotta help. The Avengers wouldn't let other people save the world for them so I'm not gonna either."
For a moment she simply studied the boy, studied the poise and self-assurance belied by his smooth skinny legs and his boyish outfit and all the endearingly awkward features that could only belong to a small boy. Then she pulled out a napkin she had taken from the ice cream parlor, wetting it with her bottle of water and reaching towards her little brother.
"C'mere, Iron Man," she smiled as she cleaned his cheeks and fingertips. "Can't go into battle with sticky cheeks and fingers, am I right?"
Though Oliver squirmed beneath Melissa's touch he made no move to resist her, his expression still resolute as though the embarrassing exercise was merely something a hero had to go through to prove himself. When the task was complete Melissa disposed of the napkin and tousled her brother's hair, smile widening at the way Oliver grinned and blushed in response.
"C'mon, kiddo," she chuckled. "Let's go save the world."
Melissa could feel her own resolve strengthening as she led Oliver by the hand into the family fun center, feeling as though she could do anything so long as the determined little boy who skipped by her side was there to support her. The woman's emotional armor, however, took a few dings as she passed a number of disgruntled families heading towards the exit, several of them audibly grumbling about how their day had been ruined while the children they dragged along looked curiously over their shoulders at whatever it was they were being pulled away from. A tremble slithered its way over Melissa's skin - a tremble that vanished when she looked down at Oliver and saw that he appeared completely oblivious to the warning they had just received, his jaw still set and his chest still puffed out as he and his big sister strode headlong into danger. Melissa smiled and squeezed her brother's hand, resolving herself to not let herself be slowed down by fear any longer.
That resolution was tested not a second later when she heard the voice - the voices - of her adult brother ringing out from deep inside the arcade. She froze for but a moment before charging headlong into the blaring, gaudy maze of cabinets and redemption games, the trail not at all difficult to follow thanks to how loud her sons were being. It was at the very back of the building where Melissa finally found them, Connor and Jackson shouting and laughing as they poorly shot their way through a round of Time Crisis. An overflowing cup of tokens and a pile of tickets lay at their feet - clearly, her sons had been busy. Much as she had tried to ready herself, nothing could have prepared her for how strange it was to see her little boys in the body of her grown brother - it was just this morning that she had given them a bath and helped them get dressed, but at the moment that morning felt years away. Melissa faltered - but then she felt the grip of the little hand holding hers tighten, looking down to see that Oliver had balled his free hand into a fist and twisted his adorable features into a tenacious scowl. She looked back up at her sons, found her voice, and spoke.
"Hey guys. Are you having a good time?"
Connor and Jackson jumped at once and spun around to gape at their mother, who, for her part, was doing her best to treat this as any other instance in which she caught her sons at something naughty. The looks on their faces - mature and stubbled as they might be - were helping quite a bit in that regard, as their guilty, surprised expressions were not in the least bit different from the ones they wore as little boys. Silence, thick and smothering, laid over the four of them until, finally...