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“I rarely splurge on anything worthwhile, and I think this very much is. Come on.”

Rowan led the way, charmed by Milo’s excitement. After they had gotten their tickets and stored their bags, he reminded Milo to not touch the art and to be extra careful of his surroundings, but there was a lot more open space here than at the grocery store.

There was a specific path the museum encouraged visitors to follow, going chronologically forward through the years of data decline, starting in the 2020s when the problems began. They had barely gotten to the first official exhibit piece—

When Rowan spotted his brother Ruben in the next section!

Shit.

“Rowan? Why are you attempting to hide behind me?” Milo asked with what would usually be an adorable head tilt, but right now, Rowan needed him to stay upright. “You are far too large to achieve this if that is your intention.”

“I’m aware,” Rowan hissed, “it’s just that—”

“Bro, seriously? Are you really trying to hide from me behind that blond toothpick?”

Double shit. The day’s bad luck just kept getting worse.

Notes:

Busted! LOL.

Speaking of being busted, superhero Rowan listening in on the very planted audio intel for Milo’s next heist gets walked in on by his people in the chair, Raina and Troy, who are like, dude, you’re still doing that fake thief Umbra stuff? Haven’t you thwarted enough plans to stick to normal superheroing for a while? Maybe they even tease Rowan about having a crush, which he denies (but he so totally does). Raina, being the practical one—well, sometimes, when acting the protective older sister type—tells him to be careful, because after all, the longer a lie goes on, the more chances there are for the truth to come out.

This is also what we call foreshadowing. ^_-

But Rowan dismisses her concerns. After all, his Umbra suit is different from his Damask suit—at least how I’m picturing them, with his normal suit only having a domino mask or something, but the Umbra one covers his whole head and hides his hair and eye color—so all he has to do to keep up the charade should he get caught is make sure his ginger hair and hazel eyes stay hidden.

Notes:

Okay! Geesh! I saw your comments from the previous chapter and, like… didn’t I mention Rowan’s hazel eyes earlier? Everyone just blew up the comment section with half of you “correcting” me that his eyes are blue, and the other half defending me. How can half of you be that forgetful? Rowan has HAZEL eyes. Hazel! Not blue! Doesn’t he?

I am going back to readCanonright now! (but I am 99.999% certain they’re hazel!)

MILO

“So,bro, who’s the new boytoy?”

Boytoy? Toothpick? Ruben seemed to want to call Milo several things he was not. Milo was certainly not a toothpick, nor a toy, and technically not even a boy but a bot—which Ruben wouldn’t know so long as Milo kept his sunglasses on. Given Rowan’s panicked expression, Milo assumed that keeping them on was exactly what Rowan wanted him to do.

Rowan also clearly wanted Ruben to go away.

“He is not a boytoy. He—” Rowan cut himself off, with an even wider panicked expression cast at Milo in silent plea.

“Hello!” Milo extended his hand toward Ruben, seeing as how he was an expert in doing so after experiencing it with Troy. Such a thing was typical of two unacquainted humans after all. “I’m Milo!”

Ruben stared at the offered hand for what Milo took to be an inordinate amount of seconds before deciding it was worthy of him grasping and giving a single firm shake. He also seemed to squeeze a little tighter than Milo thought normal or necessary. Although perhaps that was merely Rangecroft strength.

Ruben, Rowan’s closest in age sibling and only a little older, was very similar to him in size and breadth. He was more unkempt, however, with longer, messier hair and a ragged though not unattractive beard, and he wore smallround spectacles that, after a quick scan, were definitely not prescription.

They didn’t have lenses.

“Huh,” Ruben said, after releasing Milo and proceeding to crack his knuckles one pop at a time, which also seemed unnecessary. Cracking them for what? Had Milo also squeezed too hard? He had merely tried to match Ruben’s strength. “A little friendlier than your usual fare.Milo? Isn’t that the model of your sex bot?”

“He is not a—I mean…” Rowan had to quickly backtrack that near-slip. “My bot is not purely for sex, but a companion. An assistant. An everything bot!”

“Uh huh.” Ruben’s eyes slid slyly from Milo to Rowan and back again. He was frustratingly handsome. Frustrating because Milo did not want to find him handsome, but he did look so much like Rowan. He wasn’tashandsome as Rowan, though why Milo believed that was something he couldn’t quite compute nor explain in plain terms. “And boytoy here doesn’t mind the competition? Are you finally branching out beyond the monotonous, RoRo?”