Subject: Henry shook his head. "It's not like that."
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Posted on: 2019-10-21 15:39:34 UTC

As he said it, though, his smile faded into a somewhat suspicious frown. He had lately felt that Mom was holding him back, insisting he wasn't ready to get out into the field even though he totally was.

Going home after school most days instead of living in the Nursery had just been a fact of life, and made a fun diversion of the times Mom had a big date night and he got to sleep over with his friends instead. He hadn't really questioned it. He was happy to clear out if it was Jacques, who was around way too much lately. That guy was so weird and annoying. He did resent it just a bit when it was Su, though.

And... what if it was all part of the plot to keep him a little kid forever? Just about everyone else he knew lived in the Nursery, after all. Why not him and his brother? Just because Mom worked in FicPsych and had a relatively stable schedule? Or something more sinister?

He wasn't quite prepared to admit to being overly coddled to his cool older friends who were allowed to carry real weapons, though, so he covered his momentary lapse with a shrug. "I'm just really busy! I've got Sprout stuff most weeks, and Su—Agent Suicide," he clarified importantly— "he's been teaching me. I'm sort of like his intern now."

And not too humble to boast about it just a bit, even if interning with Su in practice hadn't turned out to be quite as great as he'd imagined when he'd come up with the idea. Sure, he was learning a lot, but it turned out that it involved a lot more coffee runs, hard exercise, and exhaustion than high adventure out in the Word Worlds. For now, he was still stuck in Headquarters. Such were the evils of compromise between adults who liked each other.

(( I'm very amused at being given an opening to explore this question. ^_^ In an unfinished story set back in 2013, Jenni expresses some doubt as to the wisdom of trying to give Henry a more normal life by having him live at home when that's actually not the norm for most of HQ's kids. She is reassured, and she jokes that he'll resent her when he's older one way or the other, though. I guess we're seeing that seed sprout into reality now. Whee, serendipity! {= D ))

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