Ray paced back and forth across the main room of the Mancave while Henry sat on the couch, completely unbothered himself.
"I don't know about his man, I don't know." Ray stated in the middle of his walking.
"Come on, it's gonna be great." Henry tried reassuring his boss.
"Oh, that's exactly what you said when you talked me eating one of those 'women's energy bars'." Ray stopped his pacing in order to scold Henry. "Then I couldn't stop reading books about princesses!"
"Dude, this is Dylan we're talking about, you're worrying over nothing."
"I just don't know if he's exactly qualified to have a job here! Have you seen his criminal record?"
As soon as Ray ended his sentence Charlotte came down from one of the tubes. "Hey! Happy Saturday morning!"
"Yo." Was all Henry could respond before Ray interrupted.
"Maybe you're happy." Ray told Charlotte when passing her.
"Char, will you tell Ray that he should stop worrying about Dylan working at Junk N' Stuff?" Henry asked his friend as he stood up from the couch.
"I can't tell lies before breakfast." Charlotte responded, going over to the auto-snacker and ordering some scrambled eggs.
Dylan emerged from the back coming down the steps. "Hey, hey." His eyes immediately fell on Charlotte who was by the snack machine. "What are you getting?"
"Scrambled eggs." Charlotte was met with a disgusted face from Dylan.
"Keep it away from me."
"Hey, look who's here!" Henry went over to Dylan, a large smile on his face. Ray only groaned in frustration.
"What's wrong with him?" Dylan asked the boy next to him.
"He's worried about you working here." Henry responded.
"I am not worried!" Ray half-shouted from where he stood.
"You were literally pacing the floors." Henry deadpanned.
"Why are you worried?" Dylan asked Ray, confused as to what he should be bothered about.
"I'm not!" Ray tried desperately for everyone to think he was calm, but he was failing miserably.
"He made me make a video with him." Henry whispered to Dylan.
"What kind of video?"
"You'll see." Henry took a step away from Dylan. "Show him the video, Ray."
"Hey I think something is wrong with the auto-snacker." Charlotte interrupted the boys' conversation.
"What's the problem?" Ray asked, still clearly on edge.
"Well I ordered scrambled eggs, and I'm still standing here, eggless."
"Serves you right." Dylan commented, walking over to where Henry was leading him to sit on the couch.
"Some people like scrambled eggs!" Charlotte defended.
"Just keep them over there."
"I would, if I had any!"
"Will you two stop arguing over eggs!" Ray practically shouted, causing the two teens to become quiet.
Charlotte turned back to the auto-snacker. "Scrambled eggs." She told the machine while banging on it.
"Mashed potatoes." The machine replied.
"What? When did I say anything that sounded like mashed potatoes?" Charlotte turned to the others. "Ray."
"Hold on I'm trying to figure out how to play this video." Ray was too preoccupied with rummaging through various drawers to care about what Charlotte needed.
Henry and Dylan were on the couch too engrossed with what everyone else in the room would call flirting, having tuned out everything in the room but each other. No one even noticed when Charlotte ended up getting stuck in the auto-snacker after getting sucked in when trying to look for her scrambled eggs.
"Ah ha!" Ray brought down the television in the room, playing the video Henry was talking about.
It was about how Captain Man and Kid Danger's identity should never be revealed, and if it ever was, the dangerous consequences that would follow. It felt like watching a cheesy informational video that had zero budget and no talent from the actors. After it ended, Henry turned to Dylan, who looked confused, and asked if he had any questions.
"Yeah, one." Dylan replied. "Why did you make me watch this?"
"So you don't reveal our identities, duh." Ray responded.
"Okay, one, I've know for a while now and haven't told anyone; two, I literally live here, and three, you don't think I know how to keep a secret?" Dylan felt more offended than anything else.
"It's just... you can't tell anyone you live and work at the Mancave." Dylan knew how important this was to Ray, the secret of the Mancave.
"I know, and I won't. All the people I know are in this room, well except Jasper, he's upstairs. But my point still stands."
"Good." Ray's anxiety soon fizzled from his body, leaving him no longer worried.
"Speaking of Jasper," Henry spoke up from his place next to Dylan, "we showed him the same video when he first started working here."
"Really?" Dylan questioned. "What did he think of it?"
"He asked how we got the watermelon to talk." Henry responded.
"He would ask something like that."
Screaming soon erupted from the other end of the room. Charlotte's hand could be seen sticking out of the door to the auto-snacker.
"Charlotte!" Henry called out as he ran over to her. Ray followed, leaving Dylan to witness the entire thing play out. "Help me get her out!"
"You're not supposed to crawl into the machine!" Ray told the girl as he and Henry tried to pull her out.
Soon the emergency signal went off and Henry and Ray abandoned their efforts in helping Charlotte get out. There was an emergency at the Swellview Airport that needed responding to. As Henry and Ray were suiting up to leave, Dylan headed over to the auto-snacker.
"How you doing in there?" Dylan asked his friend as he watched Ray and Henry leave the Mancave to respond to the emergency.
"Get me out of this thing!" Charlotte yelled from inside the machine.
"Find any scrambled eggs in there?" Dylan teased.
"You know I didn't!"
"Okay, I'm gonna try something, can you see if you can bring your hand out again?"
"I'll try." Charlotte could be heard struggling from the inside, but soon one of her hands came out.
"Alright I'm gonna give you something to grab onto." Dylan produced a chain from behind him, the same chain that he used for Michael during their scene at the café. He gave one end of the chain to Charlotte. "Hold on tight." Dylan started walking with the chain over his shoulder, hoping it was enough force to pull Charlotte out. He tried adjusting his grip on the metal as it was slipping from him, but the chain ended up falling from his hands and getting sucked into the machine.
"Ow!" Charlotte yelled once the metal hit her.
"Sorry about that!" Dylan called. "Look Schwoz should be back in a couple of hours."
"Hours?"
"Yeah, so."
"You cannot leave me here!"
"I'm gonna go see what Jasper is doing!" Dylan ran to the elevator, frantically pushing the buttons hoping it would bring him upstairs faster. He came out of the elevator and stepped into the store, greeting Jasper and joining him behind the counter.
—
Henry and Ray came back to the Mancave with what they described as a "fiñata" that was filled with Zom-bees, Someone had been trying to smuggle through the airport. Henry was instructed to bring the bees to Junk N' Stuff in order for it to be picked up by animal control. When he got out of the elevator he called out to Jasper only to see Dylan behind the counter.
"Where's Jasper?" Henry asked, setting down the fiñata on a nearby table.
"Helping a woman bring a water bed to her car." Dylan responded. "What's that?" He pointed to the fish on the table.
"It's a fiñata. Filled with Zom-bees."
"And you're just going to leave it here?"
"Nah, animal control is going to come pick it up." Immediately after his response, Henry's watch began to beep. He took a quick scan around the room before answering it. "What's up?"
"Schwoz and I are trying to pull Charlotte out of the auto-snacker and we need a couple more hands." The hologram version of Ray responded.
"Okay, Dylan and I will be down in a sec." Henry closed his watch and motioned for Dylan to follow him.
They should be worried about leaving a fiñata filled with deadly bees with Jasper, who knows nothing about the item, but they had more pressing issues to worry about, like their friend being stuck inside of a snack machine.
After minutes of watching Henry, Ray, and Schwoz try to pull Charlotte out by her legs, Dylan stepped in.
"Alright, alright, step back." Dylan ordered everyone, who let go of Charlotte only for her to be sucked in again.
"What are you gonna do?" Henry questioned his friend who now stood in front of the machine.
"This." Dylan put his hand on the screen. "Charlotte." He spoke.
"Charlotte." The auto-snacker replied, sending Charlotte out at full force. Everyone cheered and Dylan took a bow as Charlotte got up from the floor.
"Oh wait." Dylan put his hand back on the machine. "My chain."
"Dylan's chain." The auto-snacker spit out the chain Dylan had lost, it hitting Charlotte on the way out.
"Ow! Again?"
"Sorry." Dylan picked the chain off the floor and let it dematerialize.
"You okay?" Henry asked.
Charlotte looked at him like he was insane. "No, I am not okay." She glared at her friend before going back over to the machine. "I still never got my scrambled eggs."
"Scrambled eggs." The auto-snacker responded to the command and sent eggs out at the same force it sent Charlotte out. The eggs landed all over her, causing her to become even more angry than she already was.
"Maybe now you'll stop eating them." Dylan tried to not laugh at the sight in front of him, but it was hard, especially when Charlotte looked at him with scrambled egg on her face.
Beeping was heard from one of the wall monitors.
"That's Jasper upstairs." Henry made his way over to the monitor, accepting the call. "Hey Jasper, what's up?"
"There's two guys here from animal control, asking about some Zom-bees?" Jasper didn't know about the bees since no one informed him.
"Oh, yeah." Henry had forgotten about the bee fiasco.
"Yeah, Jasper the Zom-bees are inside the purple fiñata." Ray came up to the screen, informing Jasper of the situation.
"Oh. I sold the fiñata." The weight of his actions didn't seem to immediately hit Jasper, or Ray even, as he was about to tell Jasper to give the fiñata to animal control before realizing what was said.
"You sold the fiñata?" Ray yelled, not believing what was being said.
"Yeah, and a waterbed." Jasper was still not grasping the most important part.
"Who did you sell it to?" Henry was equally as taken aback as Ray was.
"Piper."
"My sister?" Henry had every right to freak out. Ray had enough of the conversation, ending it before any more things could be said.
"Do you realize what will happen if those Zom-bees get out of that fiñata?" Ray already had a rough morning, and it seemed as if his afternoon was going to be just as bad.
"Okay, okay, don't worry about it." Henry tried to see the bright side of the situation. "I'm sure Piper just, like, took it home and put it in her room or something."
Ray didn't want to take any chances so he called Jasper and demanded he come downstairs. Henry was immediately over by the elevator when the doors opened, not even letting Jasper fully inside the room.
"How could you give my sister a fiñata filled with death bugs?"
"I didn't know there were bugs in it!" Jasper tried defending himself.
"Well there are!" Ray was furious. "There are at least 50 Zom-bees inside that fiñata!"
"Okay, yelling at Jasper isn't gonna help anything." Charlotte interjected, still semi covered in eggs, as she managed to get most of it off with a towel.
"Thank you." Jasper was glad not every one was mad at him.
"Do you realize how dangerous those bees are?" Ray couldn't deal with how stupid a mistake Jasper made.
"Yeah, they fly into your head, through your ears, and then they feed upon your brain." Schwoz was in this conversation too, just as mad as Henry and Ray.
"Did my sister say she was going anywhere?" Henry approached Jasper, needing to know how much danger Piper was in.
"Yeah, some friend of hers' birthday party."
"Oh yeah," Henry knew exactly what party Jasper was talking about. "Gabby Birch."
"Who's Gabby Birch?" Ray asked.
"Her friend, now come on, let's blow and go!" Henry practically ran to the elevator but was stopped.
"No are you insane?"
"What?" Henry didn't see what the problem was.
"We can't just run in there as Captain Man and Kid Danger and be like 'Hey kids! We're here to party because we were worried that some killer bugs might fly into your heads and eat your brains! Happy birthday, Gabby!'" Ray had a point, just walking in would cause a lot of panic.
"All right, all right, then we just gotta sneak in, grab the fiñata, and get out of there fast."
"Oh, come on." Dylan couldn't help but find the entire thing hilarious.
"What?"
"How are you guys gonna sneak into a kids birthday party without being seen?"
"Birthday clowns." Ray commented.
"Yeah, birthday clowns." Henry nodded his head in agreement.
"Birthday clowns?" Charlotte questioned.
"Oh, yeah."
—
It was such a weird plan. Ray and Henry would dress up as clowns for Gabby's birthday party so they could sneak in and get the Zom-bees. Dylan laughed once he saw Henry's "disguise", commenting on how silly he looked. Ray didn't look any better, in fact he looked worse. They didn't get back until after 5:00 p.m., telling everyone what happened at the party.
"So you just let these bees kill those clowns?" Charlotte was appalled after hearing how they took care of the fiñata.
"Well we don't know if the bees killed them." Ray reasoned.
"If I see any clown obituaries in the paper, I will be very disappointed in you Ray Manchester." Charlotte crossed her arms and gave Ray one of her signature looks.
"Good thing you won't." Ray mumbled to himself.
In the corner of the room Henry was busy trying to wipe off all the paint on his face. Having getting out of his clown disguise, all that was left was the makeup.
"Here, let me help." Dylan offered to Henry, to which he accepted.
Being so close to Dylan was always something Henry enjoyed. He used to not know why, but that was before realizing his feelings towards the other. There was a moment where Henry tried to get over Dylan, when he learned he was moving away; however, Dylan stayed. The circumstances under which he was forced to stay wasn't exactly ideal, and Henry wished there was a better reason for him not leaving, but at the same time he felt bad for loving the fact that Dylan was still in Swellview. Right now, with their proximity to one another, the feelings Henry tried so hard to push down resurfaced and blossomed into something more intense.
"There, all done." Henry was pulled from his thoughts and was met with Dylan smiling at him. "There's that pretty face of yours." Comments like these always went to Henry's head, as he never knew if Dylan was telling him things because he meant it, or because he wanted to mess with him.
"You think I'm pretty?" Henry could care less if he was being called pretty. Any complement from Dylan was a win in his book.
"Extremely." They were so close they could practically reach out and kiss one another, but no. Neither would do such a thing regardless of how much each desperately wanted to.
"Yo, lovebirds." Ray called from his side of the room. "We're gonna order a pizza, what kind of toppings do you want?"
"I'd good with anything." Dylan responded, looking over at Ray.
"How about a standard pepperoni?" Henry offered.
"Pepperoni is good." While Ray made the phone call Dylan and Henry went back to just staring at one another. It had become a somewhat common occurrence that the others used to comment on, but now they just let it happen.
Charlotte would never tell, but she, Ray, Jasper, and Schwoz all had a bet on not only when they were going to tell each other how they feel, but also who would be the first person to do it.