~Downtown Swellview~Police and fire rescue sirens were wailing in the air, as the emergency services scrambled to the scene where Captain Man and Kid Danger were working. Ray walked over to the manhole where Henry was currently struggling with a sewer full of babies.
"Hey! I got another one!" The boy yelled to his boss, lifting a newborn baby from the sewer and passing it into Ray's arms.
"Aw! What a cute baby. Aw, aren't you a cute little guy?" Ray cooed at the crying infant, his heart swelling at the sight of its starfish hands and chubby legs. He was at the age where he was starting to get broody for his own family and he couldn't help but melt when the baby kicked in his arms.
"Here." He quickly passed the child to a paramedic, worried that his actions were making him seem soft.
"Man, how many babies did she have down there?" Ray asked Henry, knowing that the kid had been there for a while.
"I'm not sure, I'll check for more. Hello, are there any more babies down here?" Kid Danger ducked into the sewer again, shouting to see if any would cry in response. Whilst he was searching, Ray glanced up and saw the mother of the babies sitting on a drum barrel and munching on a large block of cheese.
"Ma'am, can I talk with you?" The superhero asked the woman politely in his Captain Man voice.
"What?" The mother groaned in an agitated tone, clearly enjoying her cheese too much to like being interrupted.
"Could you stop eating the cheese for a minute?" Ray replied in an annoyed voice. This woman had endangered her newborn children and he wasn't going to let that slide.
"Did you really think it was a good idea to crawl down into a sewer to give birth?" He asked once she had stopped eating.
"That how we do it where I come from." The woman snapped, wiping her cheesy, greasy fingers on her grubby shirt.
"Well, where do you come from?" Ray asked confusedly, having not heard of that tradition anywhere.
"The sewer!" She shouted in his face, as Henry emerged from the manhole again.
"Okay, I think this is the last baby." He announced, lifting another bundle of joy in his arms. He passed the baby to another paramedic as Ray knelt down beside the hole.
"Hey, kid, why don't you knock off and go home?" Ray told him, thinking that his sidekick had down more than enough for one night.
"You sure?" Henry asked, not wanting to leave his boss to fight alone.
"Yeah, it's already past midnight and you got school in the morning." The large man acknowledged that Henry had responsibilities the next day as they both stood up and moved away from the sewer.
"Oh! I think I'm having me another baby!" The sewer woman groaned, bending over and panting. How many more kids could come out of her?
"Oh, no," Ray said, as the woman scrambled to the manhole.
"Another one?" Henry wasn't sure if he could handle another sewer birth.
"I got to get back in that sewer!" The mother cried, only for the superhero duo to hold her back. The other people on the scene looked on in confusion as Captain Man and Kid Danger wrestled with a pregnant lady trying to get in a sewer.
~Later~
Henry climbed up the tree in his backyard up to his bedroom window. It had been a very long night, full of birthing and crying and sewage, and he was just looking forward to collapsing into bed. Stepping through the window, he looked around the darkness in his room before tiptoeing to his closet. He shrugged off his jacket and opened the door, only for him to be scared half to death by Piper.
"AHHH!" She yelled at him as he opened the closet, making the kid fall on the floor in fright and shock.
"Why would you do that!?" He shouted at his little sister, getting up from the floor when he realised it wasn't a closet monster.
"Where have you been and why are you sneaking into your room at...one in the morning?" Piper interrogated him, checking the late hour on her phone.
"Because...I was out...moon-bathing." Henry lied, not knowing what else to say.
"Moon bathing?" Piper asked rhetorically, not buying the lie at all.
"Yeah...check out my moon tan." Henry rubbed his belly for extra effect, but his sister was too cunning to let something like this go.
"I'm telling mom and dad you snuck out." She smirked at him, knowing that if she did, her brother would be in serious trouble.
"Fine. Tell them." Henry looked away and pretended like Piper hadn't affected him.
"I will." The little girl nodded and headed for the door so she could go to her parent's room.
"No, please don't tell 'em! Come on, I'm a nice brother and you're so sweet and cute. You don't want to get me in trouble." The boy whined, hoping flattery would win her over. All he wanted to do was sleep, but the girl wouldn't give up that easily.
"Please? Promise me?" He begged her.
"All right, I promise." She said solemnly, inwardly smirking.
~The next morning at breakfast~
The Hart family were sat around the kitchen table, all tucking into and enjoying their breakfasts. It was all going well until...
"Henry snuck out of his room last night and didn't sneak back in until one in the morning." Piper snitched on her brother. Obviously, it was a massive mistake to trust that she'd keep her word. Mr and Mrs Hart gasped in disgust at their son's behaviour as Henry dropped his cutlery on his plate and stared at Piper. Oh boy, he was in trouble.
"Well, last Saturday night while you guys were out, Piper and her friend, Marla, watched French Basement," Henry revealed. Two could play at the grassing game. The little girl looked guiltily at her parents as they scowled at her.
"Piper. That movie is rated R." Mrs Hart said in a serious tone.
"You know you're not allowed to watch R-rated movies." Mr Hart scolded his daughter, who didn't see the big deal.
"Come on, I didn't hear anything I hadn't heard before." She sassed back, but her mom wasn't impressed with either of her children's actions.
"Well, guess what? You're both grounded for two weeks." Mrs Hart told them in a harsh tone, frowning at how they had let her and her husband down.
"Boom!" Mr Hart said as Henry and Piper groaned.
"Oh, come one." The children began to yell about how unfair the setup was, but Dad wasn't going to give up.
"I said, boom!" He reiterated, laying down the law. The siblings glared at each other, knowing that this was going to be a long two weeks.
~The Man Cave~
Ray and (y/n) were both reading on the couch, sprawled out comfortably as they lounged around. The woman was highly invested in one of her favourite cheesy romance novels, one where the guy and girl were so hopelessly in love that they were blind to how much they cared for one another. Go figure.
"God, I wish these two would just kiss." (y/n) mumbled, drawing Ray's attention away from 'The Art of making moving pictures, by Dickie Poop'.
"Why do you read them if they annoy you?" He chuckled, his heart fluttering at how cute she looked when she screwed up her nose.