"Weird. This one says 'emergency lockdown'. Hmm." Now, Jasper wasn't the smartest kid in the world, so the term 'emergency' didn't carry much water with him. Piper, however, had a gut feeling that the switch was bad news and quickly stopped him before he could cause another problem.

"Don't flip that lever." She warned him, knowing that something bad would happen if he did.

"Hey, I'm the big boy here," Jasper smirked at her, thinking that he knew best. As soon as he switched the lever, a red, flashing alarm sounded throughout the store, and the door and windows were sealed.

~Down in the Man Cave~

The same alarm from upstairs rang in the hideout too, shocking everyone inside it, especially Ray and (y/n).

"What's going on?" Henry asked as he and Charlotte covered their ears from the deafening buzzing of the siren.

"I don't know, but I hope it's not what I think it is!" Ray replied as he and (y/n) ran over to the computer to figure out what was happening. She tapped a few buttons, opening some of the lockdown controls.

~Back upstairs~

"What did you do?!" Piper yelled at Jasper over the alarm, panicking at the situation she found herself in thanks to the idiotic boy.

"I flipped the lever!" He cried, knowing that he had majorly screwed up.

"Well, I told you not to flip the lever!" The little girl argued.

"I should've listened!" The boy agreed, as he too started to panic.

~Back in the Man Cave~

"Which one is it?" Ray asked his helper, as he tried to turn the red lights and noise off.

"Ahh, there." (y/n) tapped a button and finally gave their ears a break. The teens sighed at the quietness.

"What happened?" Henry asked, having never experienced that before.

"Go see if the elevator works," Ray instructed him, a sinking feeling settling in his abdomen, as (y/n) tried to override the lockdown.

"Come on, you damn thing." She muttered to herself, as Henry and Charlotte ran to the elevator. The girl reached for the button, but when it came into contact with it, she was met with a nasty electric jolt.

"Ow! The button shocked me!" She yelped, standing back from the button and blowing her fingers.

"Ha, no way." Henry didn't believe her, so he tried the button himself, only to receive the same sting on his fingertips.

"Ow! The button shocked me!" He whined the same words as Charlotte, so they looked back at Ray for answers.

"Henry, try the big sprocket. Charlotte, go see if the secret door opens." He told them, so they ran to do as he said. However, they all met in the middle, so there was a brief struggle as Ray sprinted to check if the tubes were working.

Charlotte thumped her hand against the door's buttons, but it wouldn't open, making (y/n) glance at it in worry. Similarly, Henry spammed his remote control at the sprocket to see if he could get it to open, but he had no luck.

"Ah, it won't go up!" He groaned as Charlotte struggled too.

"Why won't this door open?" She tried pushing it with her back, but it was locked tight. Ray repeatedly tried his remote on the tubes, but like everything else, they were on lockdown.

"What? The tube's not working either?" Henry asked, starting to feel worried that they couldn't get out. The woman at the computer kicked the machine she was using and flopped down into the chair with a frustrated groan.

"Nothing's gonna open. We're on emergency lockdown." She grumbled whilst Ray walked away from the tubes.

"What does that mean?" Charlotte questioned, although she had an inkling that it was something very, very bad.

"It's part of our security system," Ray explained, as (y/n) stood up from the computer area and walked over to where they were stood in the middle of the Man Cave.

"If some criminal finds out that Captain Man works down here and tries to force his way in, Gooch can flip a switch upstairs and lock the whole place down." He continued, as the young woman chewed over his words.

"But the only people upstairs right now are Henry's sister and..." (y/n) started, but then the penny dropped for Henry and Charlotte. There was only one kid dumb enough to pull a switch that said 'emergency lockdown'.

"Jasper!" They groaned together, knowing that he couldn't resist touching things that were dangerous or off-limits.

"Oh my god." (y/n) dropped her head against Ray's arm, as she cursed into the yellow fabric of his shirt. Ray rubbed his face with his hand, as Henry pulled out his phone.

"Who are you calling?" Charlotte asked him, as he swiped through his contacts.

"Jasper, to let him know to flip--" Henry tried to say, but an irritated Ray interrupted him.

"Nope." He said in a short, curt voice.

"What?" Henry asked, not understanding why he was so angry.

"Emergency lockdown mode blocks out all transmitters and receivers, including cell phones." He grumbled with a sigh.

"Which means we are totally screwed." (y/n) complained, as she and Ray walked to the headquarters' controls to see if they could get the doors to open. Henry and Charlotte wandered around too, although there wasn't much they could do to help. The blow boy could only imagine what Piper was going through with no signal.

"Can't you cancel the lockdown?" Henry asked them from his place on the stairs, watching as Ray jammed some buttons.

"Argh, no. (y/n/n), any luck?" He called out to the young woman, who was kicking the computer again.

"No, looks like we're stuck here for 48 hours." She said in a tired voice. She felt like she could cry, knowing that everything they had planned was going down the drain.

"That's two days," Charlotte said in disbelief.

"Wow, I didn't know you were good at math, Charlotte." The woman said sarcastically, even though she didn't mean to bring out her bitterness onto the girl. She stood up and went to one of the camping chairs to sulk.

"Well, I don't get why we can't just--" Henry tried to say, but Ray was too upset at the thought of losing his weekend to answer silly questions.

"Listen. The lockdown is on a timer. Once you flip that switch, this whole place is like a bank vault. Sealed tight." He said, going to the sad girl on camping chairs.

"Nobody gets in, nobody gets out. And no one can change that." She muttered as Ray flopped down into the blue chair next to her.

"Except for Schwoz, and he's with Gooch in Palm Springs." The large man said bitterly, recalling how his all of friends bailed on him. Well, all of them apart from one sweet girl who always wanted the best for him.

"So, upstairs, Junk-N-Stuff is on lockdown too?" Henry asked as he started to worry about the two kids up there.

"Yep." (y/n) lifted one of her legs over the arm of her chair and slumped back in an irked tantrum. She folded her arms and let a scowl settle on her face as she thought about everything that was going wrong for them.

"Which means Jasper and Piper and trapped up there together." Charlotte realised, knowing that the two did not get on, even on the best of days.

"Oh my god." Henry's face went pale at the thought of them having to spend two whole days together. Ray shot up from his camping chair and dragged (y/n) from hers to the computer so they could see the cameras were still working. The teens ran over, as the young woman managed to get the link open.

They watched as the little girl chased Jasper around the store with one of her crutches, furious at the mess he had put them in.

"This is your fault!" They heard her shout, as the teen boy ran for his life.

"I didn't know!" He yelled back, but his words didn't calm Piper down, in fact, they seemed to anger her more.

"You've ruined everything!" She seethed, as the people downstairs watched in horror.

"Yeah, the bucket kid's gonna die." (y/n) said, as Ray looked back at the teens behind them, wondering why they had to bring them into his store.

"There must be something we can do." Charlotte insisted, theorising that Schwoz and Gooch must have installed a fail-safe or something.

"(y/n), you have all the technical knowledge about this place." Ray placed a hand on her shoulder, making her think about what possible use she could be.

"You mean, I know how to clean this place and do your laundry." She sulked, still not happy about what had happened.

"Come on, you know loads about the machines in here, I bet you can do something." Henry encouraged her, which made a smile twinge on her lips. It was nice to know they had faith in her even when she didn't.

"Come on, clever girl," Ray murmured into her ear and maybe it was the need to impress him or the amount of blood rushing to her face, but an idea popped into her head.

"I guess I could try to jump-start a tube." She said in an unsure voice, but her suggestion was good enough for Ray, who pulled her to her feet.

"Great, then what's we'll do." He smiled at her, knowing that she was their only shot at getting out of there early.

"I don't even know if it'll work." She didn't want to get his hopes up, but she'd give it a go for him. She'd do anything for him.

"What do you need?" Charlotte asked, ready to help too.

"Um, jump cables, wire, a shit ton of batteries, and my toolkit." She said, listing all the things she knew were in the Man Cave's main room that she could use. The woman bit her lip as she went to examine the tube's controls, her heart jumping at how complicated they were, but she put on her brave face and got to work.

~

"And just one more battery to connect." (y/n) clipped a cable to one of the power packs they had found. It had been a long process, and she'd received numerous electric zaps from the batteries, but she had finally gotten to a stage where she thought it might work.

"Okay, the panel's all set," Henry reported to her, as Ray helped her assembled the last circuit. He didn't want her poor fingers to get fried anymore, and she was worth the pain he worked through to connect everything together.

"Good. Now hopefully these batteries will produce enough power to one tube working so we can get out of here." Ray explained the theory as Henry set the tube up. (y/n) crossed her fingers and toes in preparation for the test.

"Who's going up the tube?" The teen boy asked.

"It has to be Charlotte." The woman answered him, as she and Ray secured a large power cable.

"Why?" Henry questioned, the equations not making sense in his head.

"Because we have next to no power and she's the lightest." (y/n) could've gone into all the sciencey math and physics of the problem, but she didn't have the time.

"Yeah. Chubby." Charlotte joked as she jokingly patted Henry's stomach. The boy lifted his shirt to look at it, thinking that he wasn't chubby in the slightest.

"Okay, Charlotte, get up there." Ray pointed to one of the tube spots as he and his best friend dashed to the controls.

"You don't have to tell me twice." The girl hurried to her position and got ready to take off.

"You better come back for us," Henry told her.

"And bring a pizza," Ray added, feeling pretty hungry after all their work.

"A big pizza." (y/n) agreed with him, but she was still worried it wouldn't work.

"Let's just get me outta here first." Charlotte scolded them.

"Stand by," Ray said, as (y/n) fired up the power and a tube came down very slowly. She gulped at the dim lights that flickered in the Man Cave and she knew that they didn't have much time left.

"Good, now go for it!" She instructed Charlotte, who followed her direction and was gently sucked up by less than half the normal suction.

"Increase suckage!" Henry told the adults as they watched her feet dangle in the tube.

"Increasing suckage!" Ray turned the power up to full, and for a moment, they thought they had done it. Charlotte went up the tube and they all started clapping and laughing from their success.

"It worked, you clever girl!" Ray swept (y/n) into a tight embrace, as she basked in his praise. They let go of each other and Ray and Henry did their handshake.

"Boom!" They said, but at the same, the circuit began to overload and spark, scaring them half to death. (y/n) jumped in front of Henry, not wanting him to get hurt, so Ray stood in front of her too as they all kept screaming. Charlotte fell out of the tube and landed in a heap on the floor.

"You didn't get the big pizza?" Henry joked sadly, as (y/n) looked down in shame at her failure. Not such a clever girl after all.

"No, I didn't get the big pizza!" The girl snapped back, her legs aching from the fall. She walked over to the computer and opened the camera to see what Jasper and Piper were up to.

Meanwhile, (y/n) went to sit quietly on the steps near the sprocket, so she could be alone for a while. She sniffed at how she'd let everyone down, especially Ray. The woman glanced over at her best friend and saw him slouched over the tube's makeshift control panel. His face was so glum, it made her chest feel like it had been ripped open. This was meant to be his weekend where he could relive the childhood he never got, but now she was useless to him, and it made her feel even worse.

"We all better get out of here before those two kill each other," Charlotte said, having just watched Piper and Jasper argue about the lack of phone signal and food upstairs.

"They won't kill each other. She'll kill him." Henry corrected her, knowing that his sister was vicious when it came to having no access to the internet. Ray sighed and flicked the dead power lever, as he thought about how crummy this day always was.

"I knew I never should've got excited about my dumb super anniversary." He grumbled, his dejected expression making (y/n) feel even worse as she watched him from the stairs

"Hey. I'm really sorry Jasper got us trapped down here." Charlotte apologised, even though it wasn't her fault.

"And ruined the weekend of fun we had planned for you," Henry added in, as Ray stood up and walked over to them.

"It's not you guys' fault. My super anniversary is cursed." He complained, hating the day even more.

"Hey. Maybe the weekend's not ruined." Henry piped up, an idea formulating in his mind. (y/n) studied him, seeing how his eyes were bright from whatever he had just thought about.

"What do you mean?" She asked in a quiet voice, reminding everyone of her presence. She knew how to lay low when she wanted to be left alone.

"All the stuff we planned for your super anniversary can still happen right here in the Man Cave." The sidekick exclaimed, but no one was following.

"No, it can't." Ray protested.

"Hate to break it to you, Hen, but we ain't got no rollercoasters down here. Trust me, I've checked." (y/n) added, her normal optimism struggling to get over her disappointment.

"What are you saying?" Charlotte asked. Even she was confused about what Henry was getting at.

"Words! We got all this cool stuff we brought and there's other junk around here we can use." Henry started to explain, looking around at the bike and the tents with a determined excitement. They were going to have a good time, even if it killed him.

"Kid--" Ray tried to calm him down, not wanting to get all giddy over his 'cursed' anniversary.

"We can still go camping, just indoors. There's even enough room down here to teach Ray how to ride a bike." Henry grinned at them all, and Charlotte got on board with what he was saying.

"His enthusiasm's infectious." She pointed out to Ray.

"What do you say, Ray?" The boy smiled at his boss, who looked at his helper who was too bust fiddling with her sleeve to notice his gaze.

"I say...let's have some fum!" He said, grabbing the t-shirts and waving them in front of the kids. They squealed in excitement, but the woman on the stairs watched on without saying a word. Charlotte noticed her depressed demeanour and pulled Ray to the side as Henry went to change his clothes.

"Talk to (y/n) while we're gone." She hissed into his ear and he knew that she was disappointed in herself.

"Right, yeah. You go get changed, I'll get her smiling again." He nodded at her words, and she left to go to a back room.

Ray made his way over to the stairs and stood at the bottom of them, analysing all of (y/n)'s nervous habits. The way she played with her sleeve or her hair, how she bit her lip or blinked too fast. He picked them up through the years and even though she didn't know it, he could read her like an open book.

"Hey." He greeted her, but she didn't meet his gaze.

"Hi." Her voice was quiet but steady, so he knew she wasn't crying. 'Okay, a good sign.' He thought to himself, but he still needed to choose his words carefully.

"We're gonna have some fum, me and the kids." He told her, despite the fact she had heard everything they had just been saying.

"I know." Her fingers stilled on the fabric of her sweater.

"Don't you wanna have some fum with us?" He asked tentatively, walking up the steps slowly until he could sit next to her.

"I don't feel like fum." She muttered, glancing at his knee which was grazing hers.

"Why not?" Of course, he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from her lips.

"Because I failed, I couldn't get one small child up a stupid tube." (y/n) dug her fingernails into her palm and gritted her teeth.

"I shouldn't even work down here, I'm bringing nothing to the table." Her words set a small sliver of fear into Ray's heart, as the idea of her leaving gnawed away at his mind. It was one of his worst fears, losing her from his superhero life taking a toll on her, or her finding something better for herself out in the world. Sometimes, Ray felt slightly selfish, knowing that kept her cooped up in his base to do the chores that he struggled to keep on top of, but he really did need her.

"You stop me from going insane from living with Schwoz, you keep this place running and clean, you stop me from being a pig-headed doofus." He recited just a handful of some of the roles she fulfilled, and his use of her nickname for him made her chuckle.

"You are a doofus." She gently pushed his head away with a smile, starting to feel like her normal self.

"There's my happy girl. You ready to have some fum?" He asked her, getting up and offering his hand to her. She looked up and grinned, accepting the help up and they walked back down to wear her shirt was.

"Go get dressed and then the fum will begin!" She hurried off to get dressed, leaving Ray to thank whichever God sent his angel to be by his side.

~

"Put your helmet on." (y/n) smiled and handed Ray his bike helmet. They had decided to start. by teaching him how to ride a bike. The man fastened the clip under his chin and put his leg over the seat, feeling a little wobbly.

"Don't let go, don't let go." He stressed to Henry and (y/n), who were holding him stable before he set off. They chuckled at his nervousness; it really was like teaching a child for the first time.

"You're fine," Henry told him.

"We're not gonna let you fall." (y/n) reassured him too, even though she thought that falling off your bike was a fundamental part of learning.

"You're also indestructible." Charlotte pointed out, not understanding why the man was so nervous. It's not like he could scrape his knee or bump his head.

"Well, I don't want to fall." Ray retorted as his knuckles whitened on the handlebars.

"Just look ahead, keep your back straight, your butt rigid, and pump your legs until you get to