#nobody besides jen and marty and their kids of course

[doctorbrown]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 30 / 31 * BLIND SPOT 」

April 16, 1991

“Mom’s gonna lose it when she sees that,” Verne says, scrunching up his face as he studies the nasty bruise swelling up around Jules’ left eye. It’s gnarly—so much so he reaches out to touch it, prompting Jules to swiftly smack his wrist away—purples and reds and blacks blossoming out from his eye, his upper eyelid swollen, encroaching on the eye itself, and Verne whistles, not envying his brother’s position.

That looks like it hurts.

Last time that happened to him, his face ached for days and Curie only made it worse, trying to help with the bruising by licking it clean. It was almost as bad as the scolding lecture Mom had given him.

“I know,” Jules says, heaving a sigh of resignation well older than his twelve years. “I don’t know what’s going to be worse, her worrying about this and sitting us—”

“—You! Don’t drag me into this, it wasn’t my fault this time!”

“—down for another one of her lectures about why we shouldn’t let ourselves get provoked into fights with the other kids or the look on Dad’s face.”

“Mom,” Verne answers without a moment’s hesitation, “no question. Dad only freaked last time ‘cause the school called him and made him come down there and made it sound like something bad happened to you.”

All the kids in the school had talked about it for a week, how crazy old Doctor Brown burst into the school like a madman and chewed out not only the principle, but the teacher who’d allowed such an incident to happen right under her nose.

Peter Weintraub spent the whole next day telling anyone who would listen that Doctor Brown got so angry he threatened them with one of his creepy death rays and Verne nearly marched all the way to the upperclassman’s lunchroom to even out Peter’s stupid, smug face with a second black eye.

God, he really hated that kid sometimes. And Jules had to sit in classrooms with him every day. The thought nearly makes Verne shudder.

Jules barks out a sound between a huff and a laugh. “Yeah, Dad doesn’t get angry often but he really wasn’t happy that day. But that just gave Peter another reason to start running his mouth like the jerk he is.”

Verne kicks a rock in their path, sending it flying down the street. “He musta messed up real bad this time if you hit him after you promised Mom you wouldn’t.”

Throwing his head back, Jules lets out the loudest, most exaggerated sound of exasperation and disgust a twelve-year-old could possibly manage. “He started going off about Dad again! And not with the usual stuff either. I still hate it that people think Dad’s just some crazy failure ‘cause we can’t tell them about the You-Know-Whats or all the other cool stuff he’s been inventin’ for them, but you know what he says.”

That it doesn’t bother him because it’s nothing he hasn’t heard all his life, and probably in far worse ways than anything these kids can come up with. Verne nods, understanding all-too-well.

“So fine, he can say whatever he wants and if the others laugh with him, they don’t know anything. But this time he went too far, talking about how Dad’s too old, sayin’ stuff about Mom, and I just lost it.” Jules goes to rake his hand down his face and thinks better of it at the last second, diverting his energy into following Verne’s lead and sending a rock hurtling down the street with all the pent-up anger he can summon. “Next thing I know I’m hitting him and we’re yelling and—ugh, Mom’s gonna kill me.”

“Mom’s not gonna kill you. But she is gonna give you That Look that makes you wish you could steal one of Dad’s Machines.” Suddenly, Verne snaps his fingers, taken by a brilliant idea. “I bet Uncle Marty’s got some makeup at his place we could use to cover that up. And he won’t rat on us to Mom and Dad.”