———

The three of them sat in the underground lab of their old kindergarten, watching Monty hastily move wires and microchips around in Penny's back. After drinking a few too many "fruit punches" unknowingly she managed to knock herself out, then have a nightmare about the bear incident and then cause herself to malfunction.

"God, it feels weird being back here." Carla was the first to break the silence out of the three, they were all fixated on the gate Nugget got himself trapped into, one too many times, 14 years ago. The place where they had experienced so much trauma at such a young age, and a lot of them still hadn't even begun to unpack it.

The school was now abandoned, after the disappearance of the principal the authorities did some deep diving and they did not like what they found, so instead of dealing with all the court trials and legal matters they simply shut the school down and planned for it to be demolished, although that never happened, so now the school sits only to be eaten away by time and weather.

The roof was pretty much caved in and the walls were covered in various plants and vines; the paint was hanging on by a thread and the windows had been broken severely due to little kids thinking it would be funny to throw rocks or tennis balls or whatever they could find to smash them. It had never looked worse, and that brought so much satisfaction for the young adults.

"Well, all of Penny's tech is too heavy to transport out the old lab so we've got to make do." Monty sighed and began removing the grate cover with one of his many screwdrivers before chucking it to the side and manoeuvring his way down with Buggs and Carla following after him, being careful not to break Penny any further as they gently finessed her through as carefully as they could, treating her like she could crack if they slipped up.

The lab gave off an untouchable aura: No matter the corrosion the weather tried to inflict, or how many failed experiments Monty conducted, or how much time had passed; nothing could change or affect the lab in anyway. It seemed to be immune to anything connected to this world.

They had covered up the goo pit, understandably, but there was still traces of the hole where Nugget had drilled through to save Lily, Billy, and Adam just as a little reminder of his heroic deed. The glass chambers had been fixed countless times, but they always seemed to end up broken again somehow, everyone just declared it was due to the fragile glass they were made out of, no one had the time to willingly investigate further.

Monty also added his own touches to the lab, a lot of which was the Principals old equipment he found when the Kindersquad did their own search of the school for anything useful way back to just before it shut down. He figured it would work better for Penny since it was made with her in mind and the Prinicpal couldn't really protest, so he just took what he thought was useful. Now he has a nice little 'Penny Tools' section in his toolkit.

Carla sat Penny down back-to-front on a chair so Monty had full access to the door in the middle of her back where majority of her tech was, she sighed and backed away.

Buggs was sat near the operating table just staring at Penny. It must've been quite a shock to himto find out one of his good friends is still struggling with her flashbacks. I mean, Carla and Monty were both used to it by now so it didn't really come as a surprise to them, but it obviously took him by surprise.

She felt bad for Buggs, this isn't the way anyone had expected him to find out she wasn't healed. He didn't seem to be taking it well, he hadn't spoken a word since they got into the lab, he wasn't even looking anywhere remotely near Penny anymore.

"..How's she doing?" Carla peered over the fingers shoulder, looking to see how far along Monty was getting.

No reply.

"Do you need some help?" She offered, anything to break the silence.

No answer yet again.

"You twisted that wire the wrong way, it should go here-" She said as Monty twisted his pliers in an anti-clockwise direction.

"Can you stop critiquing everything I do?! When was the last time you fixed Penny?! It's always me having to fix her around here and you think you know better than me!" Monty snapped. He threw his hands up in the air as his face begun to grow redder with rage and fury.

"Well, sorry for correcting a mistake that could've cost her chip to fry again! Next time you do something wrong, I'll ignore it because 'Monty's perfect, he does nothing wrong!'" She mocked and did the highest voice possible for maximum torment.

"Oh fuck off, like you could do any better!"

"At least I actually admit my mistakes, I don't just cover them up and pretend they never happened!"

Amongst all this arguing, Buggs was so done and out of it he just climbed out and left while the bickering pair didn't even notice. He just needed time to clear his head and he didn't have enough mental strength to block out their arguing anymore.

"Next time, you try fixing Penny instead!" Monty sneered.

"Maybe you should actually look after her instead of sending her off to my house because you're 'too busy with your inventions!'" Carla retorted.

"At least when I care for her, I do it properly." Monty said coldly.

"Maybe you should put that theory to the test then." Carla paused before saying that, slightly taken aback from his argument.

Seconds, minutes, moments passed in deafening silence as the two had concluded their argument for the time being. Eventually, Penny was as good as new and they walked back to Monty's house, for a change.

As all three of them pour into the living room of Monty's home Penny can tell something is obviously wrong, despite not being able to infer human emotions that well.

"Did you two have a fight?" She asked, glancing to both the girl and boy beside her.

"Nothing big." Monty said.

"Something else isn't big either." Carla muttered under her breath, which started round 2 of the endless battle.

"STOP!" Penny screamed, immediately shutting both of them down.

"Please.. please stop fighting." Green liquid welled up in her eyes and began to stream down her face with hysterical sobs accompanying it, "You're the only family I have, I.. I just want us all to be happy and get along."

Both of the teens rush over to comfort their friend and are forced to recognise the guilt they suddenly feel now they see what impact their bickering has on the girl.

"P-please, don't end up like my mommy." She cried before falling asleep in Carla's arms.

Those words broke the pair. How could they be so careless? They had just managed to take her mind off her latest flashback and now they just nearly gave her another! Guilt flooded the both of them, they looked at eachother with sadden expressions before laying Penny down in her bed, triple checking she was okay.

Monty and Carla are sat in Monty's living room in utter silence once again, besides from the TV playing a random horror film to attempt to release some tension.

"I'm... sorry for snapping earlier." Monty said as loud as a whisper, half hoping Carla didn't hear it.

"It's whatever," She said, keeping her gaze on the TV screen despite clearly not being interested in it, "I'm sorry too... though my point still stands."

"I know I should, my house just usually isn't the best for it when my parents are home." He sighed and looked towards the latina sat suddenly a lot closer to him then he last remembered.

"I get that, you could always come to mine though." Carla averted her gaze to meet eyes with the ginger.

"..You'd be fine with that?" Monty widened his eyes in excitement yet also a bit of apprehension.

"Yeah, my dad won't mind as long as you help out with my brothers." She smiled slightly.

"Sounds like a deal to me." He agreed and smiled, he was so glad he got an excuse to see Carla more often and he was happy the argument was over and done with.

Carla didn't show it through her face, but her thoughts said it loud and clear. She was ecstatic for Monty to meet her family and to see him more often. She was so lost in thought she didn't even feel their hands brush underneath the blanket until she felt Monty's jitter suddenly. They both pulled away and mumbled sorry as they turned their heads to hide their blushing expressions.

If this is how all their arguments would end, maybe they should argue more often?

———

these lovebirds 🤭🤭 rip buggs for being a third wheel for a minute though bless him but hi the book is back??? i say thst everytime then ghost it but SOMEONE not naming names has made my kg fixation come back 😔😔 so here we are!

also trash i wonder where i got the hand brushing idea from 🤔🤔🤔🤔