~Down in the Man Cave~

"Hey, hey Char?" Henry walked over to Charlotte from the back room. She was sat at the supercomputer, typing away on her PearBook.

"Yeah, what's up?" She asked him, not looking up from her screen, but giving him her attention.

"Have you..err--have you been noticing anything, like, weird about Ray and (y/n)?"

"Uhhh, every day. All the time. Why? Did you know he took her to Sotto Voce last week?" Charlotte told him.

"Wait? Really?" Henry couldn't believe what she told him.

"Yeah, but she insists it wasn't a date." The dark-haired girl gossiped, feeling the same frustration with the two adults that Henry did.

"It was totally a date, they're just too dumb to realise it." The boy said in exasperation.

"I know!" She agreed, but Henry realised he was getting off point.

"No, anyway! I mean, they've been talking... like, when nobody else is around." Henry told her what he'd been observing.

"You mean like, talking to themselves?" Charlotte asked.

"Yeah! Like, full-on conversations with people who aren't there." He said, but the girl wasn't convinced.

"Are you sure they're not just talking to each other?" She inquired, thinking that Henry had misheard them or interpreted the conversation wrong.

"No, they're talking and referring to someone else." Henry insisted.

"Okay, well, my uncle Rosco talks to his food before he eats it," Charlotte told him.

"What's he say?"

"Stuff like..."well, hello, hamburger, you're about to take a trip to belly town." Her voice deepened as she impersonated her uncle. As soon as she had finished speaking, the sprocket opened. Ray and (y/n) came out talking, but not to each other. Weird.

"Is that a serious question?" The woman asked, looking over to her left. Whoever she was speaking to, wasn't there.

"No, we can't go riding rollercoasters with you." Ray also said to thin air.

"'Cause we have jobs!" The woman swatted her hand, looking like she was insane.

"Stop poking me!" Ray looked behind him, also appearing like he was some kind of madman.

"Hey guys, you find out any more info on that motorcycle thief?" Ray approached the kids, (y/n) following behind him.

"Stop standing so close to me! I can feel you breathing on my neck!" A pale-faced (y/n) snapped, even though no one was close to her. She definitely wasn't referring to Ray, mainly because he wasn't that close to her, but also because she usually couldn't get close enough to him for her liking.

"Thank you." The superhero wasn't phased by her odd behaviour, but Henry and Charlotte were concerned.

"Why are you guys staring at us?" Ray asked when he noticed their expressions. (y/n) leaned into his side, moving away from whatever was bothering her.

"Uh...." Charlotte didn't want to appear rude.

"Because you're talking to nobody." Henry, on the other hand, didn't care.

"Shhhh!" The girl next to him tried to quiet him down.

"It's got to be said!" Henry said to her firmly.

"Right, you guys don't know Brad." (y/n) could see why they were so weirded-out. When Ray first brought Brad home, she thought he'd gone crazy.

"Brad, this is Henry and Charlotte. Guys... this is Invisible Brad." Ray clicked his fingers to the space next to (y/n), feeling fairly certain that's where the guy was stood.

"Hiii, Brad."

"Looking good, Brad." The teens said hello to the air, not believing that the two adults actually had an invisible friend.

"Brad, say hi," Ray said when the man didn't answer immediately.

"They think we're insane." (y/n) whispered in his ear, so they began to feel the air around them

"Brad? Ugh. Come on, Brad." Ray grumbled as the teens kept staring.

"He does this a lot." The woman said with a nervous laugh, as Ray felt around the room.

"Brad? Where are you? Come on, this isn't funny anymore, man. Brad!" He was wiggling his hands everywhere and even (y/n) thought he looked funny.

"This is so sad," Charlotte said to Henry, as the woman began searching too. They certainly made an entertaining sight.

"They're not okay." They watched the friends swatting around the room until Ray finally grabbed onto...something.

"Ah, gotcha!" He wrestled with the thing in the air and then threw it into a tool trolley, knocking it over. At least it proved that they weren't lying.

"Now, say hello to those kids." (y/n) pointed to Ray's fist.

"Hey, guys. I'm Brad." An unknown, masculine voice said. Henry and Charlotte's mouths fell open and then they looked at each other in surprise.

"There's no such thing as an invisible person," Charlotte exclaimed, her strong belief in science not wanting to acknowledge something not real outside of comic books.

"Tell that to him." (y/n) gestured at the 'man' Ray was holding.

"Okay, what would you believe that Brad's real?" Ray asked the teens, who still thought it was all some kind of trick.

"Let's see him slap Henry." Charlotte challenged them.

"Yeah. Come on, slap me, Brad." Henry scoffed, not fearing a smack from a man he didn't think was there.

"Right here on my--" The boy's cockiness was literally slapped out of him, as the sting across his cheek was so brutal, it made him fall to the floor. He stumbled and slipped around as he stood up.

"Okay, that was a bit hard." (y/n) cringed, but once the kid got back on his feet, he and Charlotte looked at each other and then at Brad.

"Heeeyyy, Braaaad." They said in small voices, believing that Ray and (y/n) were telling the truth.

~

(y/n) had set up lunch, consisting of chicken, fries, corn, chips, dips and many other tasty snack foods. Brad was sat next to Ray, who was squashed up next to (y/n), Charlotte and Henry.

"Hey, can you pass the ketchup?" Henry asked, holding his hand out for the bottle.

"Sure. Here you go." Brad made it look like the bottle flew across the table, and it still fascinated the teens. Ray and (y/n) however, were starting to feel like he was outstaying his welcome.

"So, Brad, I have a question. Did something make you become invisible or were you just born this way?" Charlotte asked the guy, making (y/n) suck in a breath of air sharply.

"Sore spot." She coughed out, as she felt Ray tense beside her.

"Nah, nobody's born invisible." His voice seemed to have moved to behind where the kids were sat, confusing everyone at the table.

"Wait, I thought you were sitting right there," Charlotte said, looking around the air.

"I was, but...my leg was cramping up so I'm walking around." He excused himself, his poor manners irritating Ray and freaking (y/n) out.

"How do we talk to a guy we can't see?" Henry looked at his bosses.

"Here, Brad. Put these on and sit down." (y/n) said and lifted a pair of sunglasses behind her head.

"Yeah, okay, sweet stuff," Brad said, the smirk in his voice evident. Ray bit his lip and curled his fingers into a fist as the woman next to him shuffled closer to him in discomfort. He took a sip of water to calm himself down, the dainty hand on his knee helping too. Brad put on the glasses to let the kids know where he was.

"So, you turned invisible, like, when?" Henry asked the glasses.

"Five years ago. It was all Captain Man's fault." Brad told them bitterly.

"Here we go again." Ray sighed and put his arm around (y/n) so she could lean into his chest.

"Well, what happened?" Charlotte asked.

"Okay, see, I was being chased by this insane criminal, who wanted to turn me invisible." Ray began his story.

"Why?" Henry butted in.

"Probably 'cause he hated him and knew how much he loved being visible." (y/n) answered, looking up at Ray with a grin. He smiled down at her, the pair of them making a perfect, romantic image.

"Yeah, like I used to be." Brad complained, killing the happy mood.

"It wasn't my fault." Ray protested at the invisible man.

"Yes, it was!" Brad snapped back at him.

"Just tell us what happened," Henry begged, like a child desperate to hear the end of a bedtime story.

"Okay, so this evil dude was firing at me with his invisiblaster, right?" Ray continued.

"I was just riding my bike, minding my own business," Brad growled, thinking back to the fateful day.

"When I dove out of the way, the invisiblaster's beam missed me and--" Ray explained, but Brad rudely cut him off.

"HIT ME! And that's how Captain Man ruined my life." The glasses looked at Ray, who took another chicken leg.

"How was I supposed to know you'd be riding your bike right behind me?" Ray asked him, bringing his right arm over (y/n)'s head so he could rest them both on the table.

"You owe me!" Brad barked at the superhero, who just dropped his chicken leg on the table in frustration.

"He lent you 4000 bucks so you could buy a damn hot tub!" (y/n) slammed her hand on the table, her voice harsh. She knew Brad had taken advantage of Ray's kind heart when she wasn't around, using his accident to guilt him into buying him stupid things like hot tubs.

"And, we let you stay here in the Man Cave for two months after your girlfriend dumped you." She reminded the man. That time had been horrible for her. Living with an invisible man had put her on edge because she didn't know when he was watching her, eat, change or sleep. She had locked her door every night and even slept in Ray's room a few times, her nervous nature falling to pieces with an unseeable man creeping around.

"And who paid for that nose job, huh? This guy." Ray piped up, appreciating how the woman next to him stood up to the man he knew frightened her.

"Great. Now I have a beautiful nose that no one can ever see." Brad didn't care about all the things the two had done for him, he just hated Captain Man.

"Their relationship is really complicated," Charlotte commented to Henry, seeing how Ray hated the man who unnerved (y/n), but also felt a sense of duty to him since it was he who facilitated the accident.

"What do you want from us, Brad?" (y/n) asked in a strained voice, refusing to look at the floating glasses. The invisible man took them off and threw them onto the table, freaking her out and confusing the others.

"I want to be your sidekick!" Brad said to Ray.

"What?" Charlotte exclaimed.

"Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, hey! Ray's already got a sidekick, me." Henry said, his hand on his chest. (y/n) was clutching Ray's arm like a terrified child. She couldn't have Brad living in the Man Cave again, she just couldn't.

"You're just a kid, who's visible." Brad mocked him.

"Oh! So you're better than me just 'cause I'm visible and you're not?" Henry started to argue with him.

"All right, guys, come on. Let's not play the visibility card." Charlotte stopped them before the woman next to her hyperventilated.

"Brad...I think it's time for you to go." Ray started shuffling along the couch and pushed the invisible guy off of the seat.

"Think about what great sidekick I'd be. I could sneak up on bad guys, and then..." Brad started to say, then punched Ray across the face, the woman and teens on the couch fliching at the sound the collision made.

" Ow! I'm okay." Ray quickly recovered.

"See, you never saw that punch coming," Brad told him.

"Look, he already has an excellent sidekick and that's Henry." (y/n) said, her hand gesturing to the boy.

"Thank you." The sidekick replied.

"Don't be like that, babe. What if Henry quits?" The masculine voice sent shivers down her spine, and Ray stood up a little straighter.

"I'm not quitting." Henry insisted.

"He's not quitting," Ray told the invisible man sternly.

"But what if he does? Then what?" Brad wouldn't drop the subject.

"All right, Brad. If Henry ever quits, you can be my sidekick, okay?" Ray had his back to (y/n) and couldn't see her head snap up in pure terror. Charlotte grabbed her hand and looked at her in concern.

"Are you all right?" She mumbled to her, feeling her rocketing pulse on her wrist.

"He can't be his sidekick. If he lives here, I'll never sleep again. He watches me shower, he watches me eat, he follows me around, I hate him!" She ranted, trying to slow down her racing heart.

"Does Ray know about this?" Charlotte asked her. The woman looked down in shame.

"He knows some of it, just not the full extent." She revealed. Ray didn't know how deep her fear ran since she knew how guilty he felt in regards to Brad's invisibility. She thought that he'd send her away instead of the creepy dude.

"You have to tell him." The girl told her, as they focused on what the two men were saying again.

"Anything else?" Ray said to Brad.

"Yeah, I want your shirt." The guy had a strange request, but (y/n) knew he just wanted Ray to be humiliated as he had been.

"You can't have my shirt," Ray told him, but Brad just tore it straight his body, revealing his toned chest and abs. (y/n)'s cheeks superheated to a deep red blush. She tended to avoid seeing Ray naked, feeling like it was an invasion of his privacy. She let out a small squeak as her heart rate picked up again and a fire burned in her lower belly.

"Hey! Brad! Give me my shirt back, Brad!" Ray tried to grab the material, Henry and Charlotte watching with confused faces.

"Guys, don't...don't look at this." Ray covered up his naked torso, feeling exposed in front of them. (y/n) kept looking down, but the image of skin over hardened muscles would never leave her mind.

"Okay, seriously, though, it's not funny anymore, so...okay." Ray kept reaching for the red shirt, but Brad kept pulling it back. The half-naked man was so close to his best friend that she couldn't help but look at him, committing every freckle, bump and perfect blemish on his skin to memory. He tugged on the material, his abs flexing in her face.

"Brad. Brad! You don't wear clothes anyway!" Ray and Brad ran off across the Man Cave, leaving the kids and a starstruck (y/n) on the couch. Charlotte passed the woman her water, which she gulped down rapidly. Her mind tried to process the rollercoaster of emotions that she had just been on as she fanned her warm cheeks.

~Henry's house, later that night~

Henry was tucked up in bed asleep. After a long days work, he had crawled under his sheets and snuggled down for a good night's rest. Sadly, he didn't hear the door open, or notice how Invisible Brad sneaked into his room. Ignorant in his bliss, the boy carried on snoozing, unaware of what was about to happen.

The door shut quietly, and Brad used all his strength to flip over the mattress Henry was on, tipping the poor boy out of bed.

"Oh, what the...what's going on?" Henry woke up with a start, his fight, flight or freeze instincts kicking in.

"Quit your job," Brad told him simply, before running away and exiting via the window.

Piper entered her brother's room, having been woken up by the noise. She gazed over the mattress and her brother on the floor with a puzzled face.

"Uh...did you feel that earthquake too?" Henry asked her, trying to find a believable reason as to why he was on the floor with half his bed destroyed. Telling her that an invisible man with a grudge against him had done it just wouldn't cut it.

~The next day, in the afternoon~

Ray and (y/n) were sat close together on the Man Cave's couch, playing a game as Henry ranted behind them about everything Brad had been doing to him. The woman was trying to find a good time to tell Ray about how much of a violating weirdo Brad was, but there was never a suitable moment.

"So, I'm sound asleep in my bed and Brad sneaks into my house and flips my bed over," Henry said angrily.

"Ah, this game's impossible. I can't get all these ants in this little pair of pants." Ray complained.

"I feel like you're not listening to me," Henry said to his boss. (y/n) had stopped playing a while ago, as she chewed her lip in thought, wondering how to tell the man.

"Look, I know Brad's kind of obnoxious," Ray said reluctantly, not wanting to admit to himself that Brad was way more than obnoxious.

"Kind of? He snuck into my school, put a bucket on my teacher's head, splashed water on my area, and then he spanked my teacher with a mop." Henry told him what had happened in school that day, and (y/n) could fully believe it.

"Yeah, that's Brad." She sighed.

"And every time, before he runs away, he goes, 'quit your job.'" Henry mimicked Brad's voice into Ray's ear, but he was too busy with the game.

"Hey! Another ant... in the pants." Ray looked at them both with a proud smile, but then they saw a metal pipe floating in the air near the elevator.

"Hey, what is that?" Henry asked.

"I don't know, looks like a steel pipe," Ray explained, and (y/n) knew exactly what was going on.

"Oh my god! He's here!" She yelled, wrapping her arms around herself in fear.

"Brad!" Henry realised that she was right.

"What are you---" Ray was cut off as Brad hit Henry sharply in the shin with the pipe, making (y/n) scream as he bent over in pain.

"Brad!" Ray knelt down next to Henry, who was clutching his throbbing leg.

"Quit your job. And (y/n), I love you," The voice said, before running off.

"This has to stop!" Ray called after him, not realising how obsessive the invisible guy was over the woman who ran to Henry's side with her first aid kit. In an emergency, she could swallow her fear and help her friends with an impervious attitude.

"Oh, why, why, why, why?!" The boy cried at Ray, his femur bone possibly cracked, fractured or broken. (y/n) took out her splints and began to immobilise the limb as Ray looked on in horror.

"I think it's just badly bruised." She sighed after a few minutes of assessing the damage.

"You're very lucky, but your leg's gonna hurt like hell for a few days." She told him and Ray helped him up onto the couch.

"What do I do now?" The teen looked at his boss, who looked both worried and guilty.

"I guess, we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens next." Ray breathed out, and (y/n) knew that it would take something serious to get him to act against Brad.

~The next morning~

Henry took a frozen leg out of the freezer and rested it against his swollen eye, another piece of Brad's handiwork.

"This better work," Henry said to Charlotte, as she worked on her PearBook at the kitchen table. He'd called (y/n) a few minutes before to ask them to come to his house and she'd recommended a cold compression to bring down the swelling. What she meant was like an ice-pack, but all the Hart's had was a turkey leg.

"What is that?" Charlotte looked at him.

"Turkey leg." He told her, before taking the leg off to show her his injury.

"How's my eye look?" She gazed up and winced at the deep, purple bruising.

""Put the leg back on." She gagged at the gruesome sight. The doorbell rang, announcing that his bosses were here.

"Finally," Henry sighed and limped over to the door. His legged was still in agony from the beating it had taken yesterday.

"Your parents here?" Ray asked as he and (y/n) walked into the living room.

"Nah, just come in," Henry said, and everyone gathered in the sitting area.

"What's he done now?" (y/n) looked at Henry from her place on the couch and knew that Brad had struck again, and judging by the turkey leg, she could guess where.

"This." The boy removed the leg and the two adults gasped at the state of his eye.

"Who gave you the black eye?" Ray asked, even though he