MCU Director's Office

"...Boarding school?" He sad, not pleased. "You're not going to make me." He'd disappear again first. Not like she could find him. The city was pretty big, and there was no way she'd get a bunch of cops looking for one measly street brat.

"And whose gonna take care of me, until then, huh? You can't, you just said!" He wasn't about to put up with this. She'd stick him with a temp family, he just knew it, and he'd run for it!

The kid had a point, and she knew it. Frowning she listened to his long, angry tirade about the situation. "Your stuck with me, and a boarding school won't kill you. I had private governesses as a child, and I'm perfectly fine. It's not that different in the end Brandon." Catherine said after he was done throwing a temper tantrum. "You are still a child, and you are not legally an adult. You are not in charge of what happens to you until you are eighteen, you are not even an emancipated minor either. Suck it up kiddo, I'm not going to let anything bad happen." She said returning Brandon's venom with her own. In many ways she couldn't believe she was letting herself get into a fight with a kid, much less a street urchin like Brandon.

He crossed his good arm with the broken one as best he could and huffed. "But you're gonna make me eat vegetables and be grounded and stuff." Grounded forever. Whatever. He'd run away from the boarding school. "I haven't been in school since I was six. I think good grades are too much to ask for." Way too much. And good behavior? She was nuts.

Oh yeah, he wasn't happy. At the same time, his heart felt a little funny. The boy ignored it, putting it off as heartburn or something.

"Damn it Brandon, I'm asking you to be a good kid, not a bloody little hoodlum. You have all summer to catch up, I guess I can help you if I need to..." Catherine said thinking it'd be handy to have an officer who owed her a favor or two, or who at least knew a good tutor. Brandon was going to be one massive headache all summer long, and it didn't help that she kept weird hours just by default. "Good grades we can work towards, and they'll probably put you with all the more... delayed kids I guess." Catherine added attempting to be polite and not call Brandon outright stupid. "Work with me here kid, I give you some stuff the least you can do is give me something."

He grumbled at this, and peeked at her, catching the expression on his face. "Why do you wanna help me anyway?" He uncrossed his arms, and rubbed his cast, broken arm hurting. He'd need another pill soon, he guessed. "You're an adult, and a cop. I'm...weird, and from the streets, and you said it yourself. I belong with the 'special' kids." Not the normal ones. It didn't add up in the boys head, though he wanted to believe in it.

He wanted to believe that someone wanted him.

"Your point?" She asked sarcastically. "Not all adults are evil Brandon, and would you believe that I started off pretty much right in your shoes?" Catherine questioned turning around and digging in a desk drawer for a moment. She could see that his arm was hurting him, but she wasn't about to allow him one of the heavy duty narcotics that the doctor at the emergency room had prescribed, instead she'd decided to hand him two aspirin and a bottle of water. "Here. The other things will make your head foggy." She said handing him the aspirin and opening the bottle of water for him before handing it over.

He took the pills and swallowed them with the water. "I don't mind the other pills." He said, still glad she cared enough to give him these. "Sometimes a foggy head is good." Sometimes. The boy thought it over. It sounded like, if he agreed to go to the boarding school, then she'd keep taking care of him, kind of. At least when he wasn't at the school, and that was better than nothing. Besides, she wasn't some one strange, like a foster family would be.

"Okay. I'll go to the boarding school." And he'd even try and catch up some over the summer. Maybe if he did good enough, she'd keep him all the time, and not just when he wasn't in school.

The rat has arrived, coming from MCU Headquarters.

The rat has left the area, heading north into MCU Headquarters.