fic: for now we are young
fic: for now we are young
fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
notes: for the kinkmeme prompt: Set post-movie. Eduardo is de-aged for whatever reason and Mark has to take care of him.
title's from neutral milk hotel and is obvious lol whatevs okay its a kinkmeme story
warnings: references to abuse, angsty crack mixed with kid fluff
It's six AM when he gets the call. He's still in the office, thirteen hours into a coding tear, and his eyes are practically bleeding. The shrill sound of his ringtone makes him jump. Dustin set it to "Baby One More Time" last week and he still hasn't had a second to change it.
"Yeah," he says shortly.
"Is this Mark Zuckerberg?" The voice is heavily accented, deep.
"Yes."
"This is Antonio Saverin. Eduardo's father-"
Mark jerks upright. "Yes? What?" And it goes through his mind, dizzying, Eduardo's been hit by a car or shot or got in a plane crash or died of cancer or any number of things, and he can't breathe.
"There is- a situation."
"What happened?"
There's a heavy sigh. "It's not really- proper for a phone conversation. Please come to Miami. My son is in a great deal of trouble."
"I don't know what Eduardo's told you, but we aren't exactly friends-"
"I am aware of that. You separated at the same time as he screwed himself out of your company," and usually Mark's somewhat gratified when someone takes his side, but he remembers, briefly, my father won't even look at me.
"Just - please come to Miami as soon as possible. It's extremely important."
----
It takes two days before Mark can get away from Facebook long enough to actually fly five hours across the country.
He takes a cab to Eduardo's house, which is huge and has grounds. Of course it does.
The door is opened by a kid, somewhere in the age range of five to ten years old. Mark doesn't really know how to judge children's ages. He's got brown hair and eyes, and he's skinny, collarbones poking out of his too-big button-down shirt.
"Hello," he intones solemnly. "How may I help you?"
"Um, I'm here for Antonio Saverin," Mark says awkwardly, and the kid yells "Father! Door!" and runs off.
That's weird, Mark thinks. I could have sworn Eduardo only had an older sister.
Mr. Saverin is pretty terrifying- tall, lean, with a tendency to curl his lip at everything Mark says. The house is equally scary- cold, the A/C blasting, with expensive art and uncomfortable couches.
They sit in an ornate room, and a woman Mark is assuming is Mrs. Saverin brings out a tray of crackers and olives. After a minute, Mr. Saverin speaks.
"Basically-" he pauses. "I feel extremely strange saying this, and I wouldn't be if it wasn't true. But, basically, my son has… become younger."
Mark stops chewing.
"What?"
Mr. Saverin sighs. "His mother found him. He was staying here for the weekend, for his cousin's wedding, and she found him one morning- or, whoever he is- in my son's bed, wearing his clothes, phone next to him- everything. It makes absolutely no sense, but there's really no other explanation, other than-"
Mark swallows a lump of undigested cracker.
"-some sort of- well, I don't know!" he finishes, voice rising. "The point is, he's nine years old. Again."
"Why did you call me?" he asks slowly.
"You're his best friend. And, we know you're not short on means-" it takes Mark a second to realize he means money.
"We can't raise him again. We won't. I have the business to think about, my wife is tired. We don't have the patience for him anymore."
"I don't really know anything about kids."
Mr. Saverin sighs. "Very well. It was worth a try. Perhaps we'll send him to his great-aunt in Sao Paulo."
"Wait-" Mark says. "Does he remember anything?"
"He doesn't seem to. I've tried to make him. He doesn't understand." He grits his teeth.
"I- I can take him for a while," Mark says suddenly, decisively, and Mr. Saverin grins, more a baring of teeth than anything joyful.
"Wonderful. We can compensate you, of course. I know it'll be difficult."
"I don't need money," Mark says, and he sees Mr. Saverin visibly relax.
"Eduardo!" his father calls, and the kid comes slowly into the room.
"This is Mark. You're going to live with him for a while."
"Why?" Eduardo says, wrinkling his nose. "I don't even know him."
"Don't ask questions. Mark will take you home this evening."
Eduardo looks up at Mark fearfully, and Mark tries to smile reassuringly, but he's pretty sure it comes out a creepy guy-who-sits-by-the-playground grimace. He's fully expecting Eduardo to protest, but he merely looks over at his father and nods.
----
The kid- Eduardo, Mark thinks, it's Eduardo- doesn't say anything on the plane. He clutches the armrest, tan knuckles going white, mouth set in a thin line, and Mark realizes suddenly - he's scared.
The plane bumps a couple times after takeoff, and Eduardo lets a gasp escape.
"It always does that," Mark says, trying to be comforting, but it just sounds sort of mean, like, only an idiot wouldn't know that. Eduardo doesn't say anything.
"Um, so, I live in California," Mark says an hour later, when Eduardo's relaxed enough to pull out the SkyMall magazine out of the pocket in front of him.
Eduardo nods.
"And, uh, your parents told me how to take care of you and stuff, so you don't need to worry," Mark lies unconvincingly.
Eduardo nods again. The silence is starting to get a little creepy.
"Are you okay?" Mark asks, and Eduardo nods yet again, and starts sobbing.
"Oh. Oh, shit. Um-" he hands Eduardo the airsickness bag, and through his tears he swears Eduardo shoots him a look.
"You want some water or something?" he asks, and Eduardo shakes his head, putting his face in his hands.
"Sorry," he gets out, muffled and snotty-sounding, and a flight attendant appears over Mark's shoulder. They must look a little incongruous- pale guy in his twenties with a nine year old. Mark is shocked they didn't get stopped at security.
"Is everything alright, sir?" the flight attendant asks, and Eduardo curls up in his seat, knees pointing away from her.
"Yeah, it's fine, we're fine."
"Sir, is that your son?" the woman whispers, leaning in.
"No! No. I'm his, uh, guardian. His parents just died. That's why he's crying."
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," she says, eyes filling up. "I'll leave you alone."
After a minute, Eduardo wipes his nose on his sleeve and sits up.
"My parents didn't really die, did they?" he asks.
"No. We saw them like three hours ago."
Eduardo shrugs, and Mark tries to ignore the fact that that's what made Eduardo stop crying.
It's pouring outside of LAX, and they sprint to Mark's car, parked in the ramp. Eduardo's wide-eyed, staring out the window.
"Are we near Hollywood?" he asks, putting his hands against the rain-streaked window.
"Not really," Mark says. "I live near Stanford. And um, I own a company. It's called Facebook."
"You own Facebook?" Eduardo says, gaping, and did that jog his memory or something? Is he going to start hating Mark any second now-
"I saw it on the news! You must be like a gazillionaire. Cool."
Mark exhales in relief. "It can be fun," he says, and realizes he's going to have to explain this to people. Shit.
He dumps Eduardo's suitcase in an upstairs room, and Eduardo sits on the king-sized bed, bounces up and down a couple times.
"How long do I stay here?" he asks.
"I'm not sure."
"But I have to go back to school in Miami. I go to St. John's Prep."
"Well, we're gonna find you a school here," Mark says, and adds that to his mental to-do list.
"Here?" Eduardo stops bouncing. "I thought I was just visiting."
"Nope, you live here now," Mark says, fed-up. God, it takes the patience of a fucking saint to make a point to a nine year old.
"But I don't have-"
"Eduardo!" his voice is sharp, and Eduardo shuts his mouth.
"Um, just chill for a while. Okay?" He can barely spare the mental energy for this. He's had a new code burning in his brain since he pulled out of LAX and if he doesn't type it out in the next three minutes he'll lose it.
----
Six hours later, he hears vaguely - "Mark. Mark?" and after a minute he turns around.
Eduardo's standing there, biting his lip.
"Hey," Mark says, emerging from the depths of code with a nearly physical shudder. It takes him a second to remember- where am I, who is this, what do I do-
"Sorry," Eduardo whispers. "Do you have anything to eat?"
Mark nods, a niggle of guilt hitting him in the stomach. He can practically hear normal Eduardo admonishing him- most humans need food, Mark.
"So, we have, um, ramen… chicken flavor, and-" he refrains from saying beer, but that's literally the only thing he has in the fridge. "-uh, ramen."
He swears Eduardo rolls his eyes for a second. "So, ramen?" he asks, and how is it that a child of under ten years of age can already inject that much disapproval and sarcasm into his voice? Only Eduardo.
From then on, he tries to think what would Eduardo do? It's a little creepy and a lot confusing that he's using old Eduardo to help young Eduardo or real Eduardo to help fake Eduardo but he puts it out of his mind and checks things off the list:
Food
Shower
School
Stuff to do
I have to go to work
It's only when Eduardo comes out of his room in an oversized black button-down and pants that pool around his feet that Mark remembers- Eduardo's way smaller than before. He shivers, and it's all very Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids-esque for a moment, until Eduardo trips over the hem of his pants and falls flat on his face.
"You okay?" Mark says, helping him up, and Eduardo rubs his already-too-big-for-his-face nose for a second.
"Yeah. All these clothes are really big. Did my parents send me some of my real clothes?"
"They- they sent me money to buy you some new clothes," he lies again, and adds it to the list. "We'll go tomorrow, okay?"
He dashes off an email to Chris:
Can't come in tomorrow. Really busy here.
MZ
He gets a reply within seconds:
We have that shareholders meeting- it's pretty important you come. How busy are we talking?
Mark looks over the computer at Eduardo, curled up against a pillow, flipping through channels.
Really fucking busy.
Chris calls him immediately.
"What's up, Mark? There's going to be at least five major news outlets at the meeting tomorrow. Your presence is important, so if you're seriously going on a fifteen hour coding tear or something, I am so dragging you out of the house."
"It's not that," Mark says, shooting another glance at Eduardo. "It's- one second."
He stands up and goes into the kitchen.
"Something weird happened," he hisses into the phone. "Basically, um, Eduardo's parents called me because Eduardo sort of de-aged and became nine years old and they asked me to take him so I did so now he lives with me and I have to, like, do stuff with him and get him food and stuff."
There's a pause.
"Wait, what?" Chris says, voice torn halfway between incredulous and angry.
"Exactly what I said. Eduardo's here."
"You're talking to Eduardo again? Since when?"
"Since he became nine years old and doesn't remember what happened!" Mark says furiously, hand curled around the receiver.
"Are you fucking with me?" Chris asks, and Mark says "No!" and hangs up because Eduardo's padding into the kitchen.
"Could I please have some water?" he asks, yawning, and oh, shit, it's past eleven. When do kids go to sleep? His parents used to make him go to sleep at like nine, but he'd wake up every night and go on his computer with a blanket over his head until 2 AM anyway.
"Yeah," Mark says, and fills a glass from the sink. "You should go to bed, I guess."
Eduardo nods. "I forget to bring toothpaste," he says, and thank God, finally something Mark actually owns.
Twenty minutes later, Eduardo's sleeping, a tiny lump in the huge bed. He snores, snuffly and high-pitched. Mark watches him for a second before closing the door; it's so surreal he nearly pinches himself.
----
The next day, he takes Eduardo shopping, and they're twenty minutes into the first store when Mark realizes he is so not cut out for this.
He calls Chris.
"I hope this is you calling to apologize for your outburst of madness last night and say you'll be right in," Chris says in way of greeting.
"No. Basically, we need you. I don't understand clothes. Or children. You have like eighteen siblings, don't you? Come to the Wal-Mart on Showers. As fast as possible."
There's a silence, and Mark adds, belatedly, "Please."
"Mark-" Chris sighs. "Are you really really serious about this? If you're serious I'll come. If you're fucking with me I will rip out your liver."
"I'm serious, shit, Chris, I am really fucking serious," Mark whispers, and a bubble of panic rises in him because where did Eduardo go? He looks around a corner into the school supplies aisle. Well, goddamnit.
"And now I just fucking lost him, so hurry!" Mark hisses, and hangs up.
He finds Eduardo after five minutes, sitting on the floor, flipping through a magazine.
"The Economist?" he says incredulously, and Eduardo looks up.
"I don't get all of it yet, but my father said it's the only magazine worth reading." He clambers to his feet and puts the magazine back.
"So, what do you like to wear?" Mark asks, and the clueless look Eduardo gives him then just firmly establishes the deepness of the shit they're both in.
They've made it to shorts, when Chris calls.
"I'm here, ugh, I'm in a Walmart for you, so tell me where you are."
"We're, uh, right next to the shorts?" Mark says, and Chris sighs.
"Look up and tell me what aisle you're in, dude."
"Oh. Um, boys. Wear. Yeah."
A minute later, Chris taps him on the shoulder, and freezes, mouth comically open, when he sees Eduardo.
"Oh my God, you were not joking," he whispers, and Eduardo looks up from the stack of cargo shorts he's perusing.
"Yeah," Mark says, and Chris bends down.
"Hey, Eduardo. I'm Chris. I work with Mark."
Eduardo puts out a hand for Chris to shake.
"What do you do at Facebook?" he says, and Chris shivers, making a face at Mark like oh my God even his little voice is all Eduardo-y and Mark nods.
"I'm a publicist. Basically I make sure Mark doesn't do anything stupid. It's a really hard job."
Eduardo giggles delightedly.
"Anything stupid like decide to take care of a nine-year-old when he can't even keep a plant alive," Chris whispers to Mark, standing up. To Eduardo, he claps his hands and says, "Okay, dude. I heard we need clothes?"
"Where else do we go?"
Chris has deigned Wal-Mart inappropriate for Eduardo's wardrobe, and after buying a couple of essentials ("juice-boxes, Chris? That's lame.") they've pulled out the big guns and gone to the Stanford Shopping Center.
They get underwear and shirts at Gap Kids (Mark's insistence), pants and jackets at Burberry Children's Store (Chris' suggestion), and a couple sweaters at some place called Janie and Jack. Mark pretty much checks out during, only re-surfacing to nod at something Eduardo shows him and hand over his credit card.
"Okay, last stop: Payless," Chris says, as Eduardo chews on a soft pretzel.
"Why?" Mark half-whines. Shopping is surprisingly exhausting.
"Have you noticed what he's wearing on his feet?" Chris asks, and they all look down to see massive leather flip-flops slip-sliding off Eduardo's feet with each step. Eduardo giggles and flips one in the air, running after it.
"You're hopeless," Chris murmurs to Mark, shaking his head, and Mark shrugs and follows them.
---
An hour later, even Chris has given up on the shopping mission.
"I have cousins and sisters, but they're all old, and what if we're forgetting something crucial? Something a nine year old immediately dies without?! We can't kill Eduardo!!!" he says, while Eduardo stares, practically salivating, at a telescope in a toy shop.
"Wait! Wait. I know. Rhonda! Rhonda. Dustin's secretary. She has a couple kids. We'll ask her. Because if we forget one crucial aspect of childhood and Eduardo dies, it is completely all your fault."
Mark shrugs again, and Chris speeds toward the Facebook offices. It's actually Mark who remembers to remind Eduardo to put on his seatbelt.
---
"Okay, I'm just going to ask all of these questions, and if you could just answer them, without judgment, that'd be great."
Rhonda gives him a dubious look, but nods.
"So, uh. Do nine year olds read, like, chapter books?"
"Yes."
"Do nine year olds watch R-rated movies?"
"No!" She's about to say more, but he shoots her a look that says you promised no judgment.
"How late do nine year olds stay up?"
"My daughter goes to sleep at 9:30, most nights."
"Do nine year olds use the computer?"
"Not most nine year olds," she says dryly, and the I'm sure you did is heavily implied.
"What do nine year olds eat?"
"They're not a different species. Mac and soy cheese, sandwiches, tofu- we're all vegan, of course, but I'm assuming-"
"Yeah, no."
"Well, then, any variety of dead helpless animal, I suppose."
"There was a lot of judgment in that sentence."
It only takes about eight more questions for her to throw up her hands and storm out of the room, yelling "Please don't fire me, but oh my God, I cannot do this anymore-"
Chris rolls his eyes. "That went fantastically."
"How was I supposed to know nine year olds couldn't ride shotgun?" Mark asks, finishing up his notes.
Chris sighs.
---
That night, they stay in and order pizza, and Mark swears they'll go grocery shopping tomorrow. Eduardo only likes mushrooms, and he picks the pepperoni off, piling it in a little mountain next to his paper plate.
"Wait, you're not a vegetarian, are you?" Mark asks, and Eduardo looks up at him, wrinkling his nose.
"A what?"
Mark sighs in relief.
He's refilling his glass when he hears a crash, and nearly sprints out of the kitchen.
Eduardo's using the edge of his shirt to mop up a puddle of soda, which is spreading nearly towards Mark's laptop- he snatches up the laptop just as its corner gets wet.
"Sorry, sorry," Eduardo is saying, voice rising, and Mark ignores him and sets his computer down safely on the couch, then comes back toward the table. Eduardo faces him and swallows hard.
"Wait," he says, voice shaking, as Mark comes toward him.
"Father uses a belt."
Mark stops. It honestly flashes through his mind- a belt to clean up? A belt to- and it hits him and his mouth almost drops open.
"What?"
Eduardo stares at him wide-eyed. There's a silence.
"You said they talked to you... about how to take care of me." He trips over the sentence, voice going higher than usual.
"Who?"
"My parents?" He backs away.
"Can you - uh, just remind me what they said?"
Eduardo narrows his eyes. "They said they told you, I don't think I should-"
Mark takes a step towards him and Eduardo flinches.
"My father does it with the belt," he whispers. "Not the hand. He said he told you."
Mark swallows hard. He knew Eduardo had things with his family, but- shit. Shit.
"We- we talked about it. They don't want me to do that."
Eduardo cocks his head, and it's fucking creepy how his eyes are the same.
"But that's how I learn."
Mark has to remind himself to breathe, because this is way fucked-up. He's really, really not equipped to handle this. There are a lot of feelings. How did Eduardo even function, at Harvard? Then he remembers awkward parents' weekends, the way Eduardo went white when his phone rang, how tired he looked after he came back from break.
"Um, just- I'm not going to do it, okay?"
Eduardo nods carefully, weighing his options, his lips pursed in thought.
"What will you do when I mess up?"
"Uh, I'll ground you. Or make you do something. Like wash the… dishes." He looks over at the pile of pizza boxes and empty packets of ramen.
Eduardo gives the mess a skeptical, appraising look, and then nods, smiling suddenly, his grin a shock of white teeth.
"So, uh, go to your room," Mark says weakly.
He grabs a roll of paper towels once Eduardo's left, mops up the puddle, and it won't stop repeating in his head- my father does it with the belt. My father does it with the belt.
"That fucking piece of shit," he mutters, and he sits down at the table and puts his head in his hands.
----
The next day, Mark stops in at the office to ask Rhonda a couple last minute questions, and sees Dustin and Chris in the Fishbowl. Dustin's mouth drops open, and he literally pushes an intern aside to get to them.
"Oh my God, is that him?" Dustin whispers like he's just seen an alien, when Eduardo is right in front of him.
"Of course it is, dumbass," Chris hisses, elbowing him.
"Hey, so, Wardo, this is Dustin, and you remember Chris, right?" Mark says, and Eduardo sticks out a hand.
"Wait, so he doesn't remember me at all?"
"Remember?" Eduardo says confusedly, and Mark rolls his eyes. Dustin reluctantly shakes his hand, looking sort of shocked Eduardo's not just made of ectoplasm or something, like some ghost sent from the past to remedy Mark's sins.
"Dustin also works at Facebook with me," Mark explains, and Eduardo nods, looking around at the messy, huge office.
"Is that a Wii?" he says delightedly.
"Hell-heck YES it is," Dustin says, way too excited. "And we just got the sports thing. I kick- um, butt, at tennis. I totally already beat the best guy in the office, who's been playing since it came out-"
"Yeah, right," Eduardo says doubtfully. "I wanna see it."
"Okay, but I'm warning you. I'm awesome."
"I think Dustin connects better with him now than he did before," Chris says, shaking his head, as they run off.
Mark laughs.
"So, how's it going? We haven't really talked about it."
"It's weird. I mean, it's so fucking weird. You can see how weird it is, right?" He debates telling Chris about the belt thing, and decides against it. He might not be best friends with Wardo anymore, but he thinks he knows Wardo wouldn't want him to. He did know Eduardo, once.
"Any idea when it'll end?"
Mark shrugs, and Chris looks at him like he knows what's Mark's thinking. If Eduardo goes back to normal, he'll never talk to Mark again.
"Call me. Whenever. If you need a break, okay? Mark Zuckerberg plus children cannot mean good things."
"Yeah. Thanks."
They watch Eduardo, tongue out, eyes narrowed, whacking an imaginary tennis ball.
"I can't work from home for this long," Mark says shortly. "I'm gonna hire a nanny."
----
The nanny turns out to be a manny. Yeah, nearly every female intern begs Mark for the job, but he knows they all sort of just want to fuck the boss. Or maybe he's being misogynistic. He's still not sure when he's doing that. And anyway, they should be focusing on Facebook, because they're all great assets to the company. There. Misogyny erased.
Greg, on the other hand, does not want to fuck Mark. Greg is a part-time Facebook online publicist and a child development studies major- in short, he's perfect.
He's also sort of terrifying.
"Wait, you've given him ramen and pizza and that's it?" he hisses when Mark takes him along to Whole Foods.
Mark shrugs defensively. "He didn't say anything."
"Yeah, because he's nine! He can't defend himself from the MSG."
"Please tell me you're not going to make him eat tofu, and like, soybeans."
Greg snorts, and grabs a packet of brown rice. "I appreciate how it's a foregone conclusion that I will be deciding what Eduardo eats."
Mark pulls Eduardo away from a teetering stack of organic canned tomatoes.
"Hey, Wardo," Greg calls, bending down, and Eduardo runs over to him.
"Wardo?" Mark asks tightly, and Greg looks up, grinning, as he hands Eduardo a couple cans of chicken noodle soup.
"Yeah. Might as well have a nickname, right? And Eddie is just annoying."
"So you didn't know-"
"What?" he says, and nearly topples over when Eduardo puts a huge container of applesauce in his arms.
"Nothing," Mark says, and from between them Eduardo pipes up-
"I like Wardo!"
Mark nods, and starts putting the cans into the cart. So maybe it makes it ten times weirder to call this kid Wardo. Maybe it makes him remember shit about Harvard he wishes he didn't have to, anymore. It's not his choice. It's done.
----
He's putting away some new clothes Greg has washed and folded when he sees it.
Eduardo's briefcase, so out of place in a child's room. The edge of a laptop sticks out. Mark checks the door to make sure Wardo's not coming upstairs and grabs the computer, takes it into his bedroom.
Eduardo has some security, but not much. Mark smirks when he cuts past the first level. Eduardo'd definitely let his guard down since Harvard, probably because he thought he'd never have to see Mark again, and normal people don't tend to hack into their friends' computers as practice.
Okay. He's in. Eduardo's desktop is one of the standard ones MacBooks come with, a black and white image of a canyon. His computer's organized, neat, and when Mark scrolls through his documents and pictures it feels a little like he's looking at the stuff of a dead person.
His email is automatically signed in, and there's nothing out of the ordinary. Business stuff, a lot from companies in Singapore. Not a single one from his parents. Not that Mark expected it.
He has twenty-seven drafts.
Mark purses his lips.
Twenty-seven. That's sort of abnormally high, isn't it?
Mark shrugs and clicks.
Twenty-seven drafts, all addressed to mzuckerberg@facebook.com.
Mark nearly closes the computer, but then he shakes his head at himself (privacy is a relic of a time gone by, he hears) and starts reading.
The first one is pretty innocuous.
Mark-
I won't be able to attend the shareholders' meeting as I have an important
Mark thinks back to the meeting, around Dec. 10 2006. He doesn't remember it. He doesn't remember Eduardo being there or not being there.
Mark-
I would like to discuss the addition of an application called NetworkedBlogs, by Ninua, Inc., a company I'm currently employed by
As Mark remembers it, that app was pitched by Dustin. Mark frowns.
Five more business ones, and then-
Did you know what you would do? When you decided to restructure? Did you think I'd get over it like i got over everything, you motherfucking asshole
- and
you're a fucking piece of shit. I got six hundred million dollars (and that's so Eduardo, to type out the number even when he's having email catharsis) and you walk around like you own the wfuckign world-
They're a little misspelled, like Eduardo typed them when he was drunk. At Harvard, Eduardo would sprawl on Mark's bed and philosophize about random shit when he was drunk. He was happy at Harvard. Mark can picture him drinking now; not for pleasure, but to get rid of whatever's on his mind.
i hate you s o much
and
you fucked up everything
and
i thought you understood what this meant to my father but you didnt or you wouldnt have fucked me over like this
and finally
he hates me. i didn't tell you that. i didn't tell anyone that. ive never told a sinlge person about it just like he made me
Mark swallows hard, and clicks on the last email just as Wardo pokes his head in the door.
"Mark?" he says, and Mark's heart thumps hard and starts pounding.
"Yeah?" he says croakily, swallowing, mouth suddenly dry.
"Greg and I wanna play Monopoly but we need a banker," Eduardo says, one hand curled around the door.
"I'll - uh - I'll be right down."
Once Eduardo's gone, Mark looks down at the last email.
i loved you.
i think i still love you sometimes
i hate myself because of that.
Mark exhales shakily and slams the computer shut.
Downstairs, later, laughing uneasily as Wardo kicks Greg's ass at Monopoly, he can't comprehend what happened. Not just the fact that Eduardo's nine years old. Not that. Just- what happened to them?
He knows what Eduardo would say. Mark fucked it all up.
But Eduardo didn't come out, that summer. And when they weren't at Harvard it didn't feel the same, it was harder, and Eduardo -
"Mark?" Greg's looking at him as Eduardo grabs another organic soda from the fridge. "If you have to work, or anything- don't feel obligated to be here. That's why you hired me."
"I'm fine," Mark says, as Eduardo flops back down onto the floor, nearly avoiding a spill. "I- I don't have anything to do. Don't worry about it."
Greg gives him a skeptical look, but acquiesces.
An hour, six hotels, and one "Eduardo Empire" later, Greg is gone, slipping out the door with a wave to Mark and a fist-bump with Wardo.
"You should go to bed soon," Mark says, still not sure when he's supposed to exert authority. Kid or not, it's Eduardo - and he can hear in his head, Eduardo telling him to go to sleep back at school.
Eduardo nods but then starts giggling, and Mark should have known the pop would make him all hyper. He was never really an excitable kid, but family reunions have taught him that children plus sugar usually equals eardrum damage.
Of course, because it's Eduardo, the extent of his sugared-up rebellion is quiet laughter, and slamming the Monopoly pieces down into the box in a weird rhythm. He's singing to himself.
Mark watches him for a second, and grins. Then Eduardo stands up, and practically skips toward the shelf to put the game away, and Mark sees the laptop cord before he does-
Eduardo and the laptop crash to the ground. Mark maybe yells, a little bit, and Eduardo picks himself up in a split second, and scrambles to the laptop, and Mark holds him away with one arm.
"Wardo! Just. Let me do it."
"I'm sorry," Eduardo says frantically, pressing himself back against the wall, palms flat.
"It's okay. It's okay." The laptop's fine. He cradles it under his arm, breathing hard.
"I didn't mean to-" Eduardo says, voice high and panicky. It's strange. He's such a happy kid, smart, funny, and then he has this core of fear, that keeps him terrified and quaking when he does the slightest thing wrong. It makes Mark crazy. It's so illogical.
"Mark?"
Mark turns to him.
"I am sorry. Really. Okay?"
Mark nods, already tired of it. "Of course. It's okay. I told you that."
Eduardo's eyes are still wide, this curious mix between pitiful and concerned and disbelieving. "You're not going to-"
"I told you, Wardo. I'm not going to do that. Ever."
"But-"
"Wardo! Stop it! I said I wouldn't! I'm not going to!"
Eduardo backs away, and Mark's guilty and angry in a way that makes him storm out of the kitchen and slam the door of his bedroom. It hurts, every time Eduardo asks him that- reminds him of what was, what could have been- the emails he found- Eduardo had never told him. He could have told him.
He falls asleep like that, curled on his side on the bed, not feeling much older than a kid himself.
He wakes up the next morning, and Eduardo's gone.
He's gone.
He's not in his room, or the kitchen, or on the couch- and when Mark searches his room for a second time, he realizes Eduardo's Spider Man backpack is gone. Fuck. Fuck.
He contemplates calling Chris, or- or Greg. They might know, but he'll have to say - yes, I screamed at a nine year old. Yes, I'm a pathetic excuse for a normal human being. Yes, I'm the reason Eduardo's probably a truck-stop child prostitute by now.
He goes out looking instead, hands clenching the steering wheel, and he emits an involuntary gasp when he sees it, after twenty minutes, at the bus stop on Rosewood- the huddled form, familiar backpack, brown hair sticking out of the hood of a GAP sweatshirt. It's Eduardo.
He pulls up beside him, rolls down the window. Eduardo looks up.
"Get in the car," Mark says wearily, scared Eduardo will just sprint away.
But he just gets in silently, face a perfect little mask of sadness.
"I'm sorry about last night."
Eduardo just nods.
"I'm not very good at this. Okay? I've never had a kid before. I don't know-" he sighs. Eduardo's looking down at his knobby knees, sniffling a little.
"Do you want pancakes?"
The corner of Eduardo's mouth curls up in a grin, and he shoots a sideways look at Mark.
"Okay," he says, and swipes a hand across his nose.
---
Eduardo saws his fork through three huge chocolate-chip pancakes, and takes a massive bite, his cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's.
Mark laughs and takes another sip of his coffee. He's supposed to be in by now, at the office, but fuck it. It's one day.
"You've never had a kid before?" Eduardo asks, swallowing.
"No. I'm only, uh, I'm only twenty-seven. I've never even really had a girlfriend."
"Why does that matter?" Eduardo asks, screwing up his nose.
"Uh, never mind. No, I've never had a kid."
"Why did my mom and dad make you take me then? I thought maybe it was because you were the best at raising kids. Like it was your job. Like Greg!"
"No, uh. They- they knew I would get Greg, and they knew Greg was the best. Greg is the best, isn't he?"
Eduardo nods.
"So they wanted to make sure you would get the, uh, very best care." He sounds like a pediatrician or an infomercial or something. Eduardo shoots him an unimpressed look, but changes the subject.
"Who's your best friend? Because I think mine's Greg."
Mark just stares at him.
"Either Greg, or that girl I met two days ago. She was nice." Eduardo had become acquainted with Rhonda's daughter Jenny, and they'd hit it off right away. Mark had found them after two hours in a makeshift meditation circle (of two people), om-ing with their legs in lotus position.
"Jenny's a terrible influence," Mark says absent-mindedly. "All that meditation."
Eduardo just rolls his eyes. "Mark! Who's your best friend? Is it Dustin? He's awesome. I think he could be my other best friend, if he wanted. But he gets really mad when I beat him at Wii bowling."
"Wardo, I don't really have one. I'm not a kid."
Eduardo narrows his eyes at Mark.
"You don't get to have best friends when you're grown-up?"
"You don't have to have them," Mark mutters.
"That's just sad," Eduardo says frankly, shaking his head.
Mark tips his cup up in an ironic toast, but of course Eduardo doesn't get it. He just keeps staring at Mark, chewing determinedly on his pancake.
"So, kids get to have best friends, but adults don't?"
"Yep. That is the way of the world."
Eduardo nods thoughtfully, and grins around a bite.
"You're gonna be my best friend."
"What?"
"You said I get to have a best friend. I pick you."
"I'm honored," Mark says, deadpan, and Eduardo flicks an ice cube at him.
----
He takes Eduardo in to the office, because something about that morning makes him want Wardo with him.
Dustin commissions him to test out a couple new game applications, and Mark sits at his desk.
Chris pops his head in.
"You're in late," he says, typing frantically on his Blackberry at the same time.
"Yeah, Wardo and I got breakfast."
Chris smiles, approving, but he looks down at his Blackberry and back up, face tight-
"Did you forget? Sean's coming in today," he says, and his eyes go wide. "Shit- Wardo-"
Mark just looks back, biting his lip nervously.
"Okay! It's okay!" Chris says, panicky. "We'll just- he'll just be Dustin's cousin."
"Good morning, Facebook!" they hear, and Chris wheels around. There's always a bit of uneasiness when Sean comes in- even the newest employees know about the scandal, know how he was essentially pushed out of the public eye.
"Mark," Sean says, stretching it out, grinning at him in the doorway. He pushes past Chris into the office.
"What's up, buddy?"
"Sean," Mark says tightly, and behind him he can see Chris stopping Eduardo in his tracks toward the office. Sean sees him looking.
"Aww, who's the kid?" he says, and Eduardo can't hear them through the glass but Mark's breath quickens anyway.
"Uh, it's Dustin's cousin," he says, and Sean laughs.
"What is it, bring your family to work day? Gotta keep 'em wired in, Mark, gotta keep 'em focused."
Mark laughs uneasily. "He- uh- couldn't find a babysitter. He was, supposed to babysit. Obviously. And couldn't. Find someone." He goes hot, and Dustin leads Eduardo into the room, and Sean bends down.
"What's up, little man?" He holds out a hand to high-five, and Eduardo goes in for it but then lifts his hand to run through his own hair.
"Ha! Burn!" Eduardo laughs, and gives Dustin a high-five. Sean chuckles too, tightly, eyes narrowing.
"Good one, dude," he says, lip curling, "So, Mark, can you get the kid out of here, or what?"
"Eh, he can stay," Mark says, looking at Eduardo, and Eduardo grins up at him conspiratorially.
Sean looks at him, and his eyes go cold for a second. "In a business meeting, Mark, really? Pretty unprofessional."
"Well, you're the expert," Mark says, and Dustin snorts to himself.
Sean laughs shortly, meanly. "Let's get this over with."
"My thoughts exactly."
Even Eduardo laughs at that one, a short high giggle, and Sean just stares at him, disbelieving, eye practically twitching with fury.
"What the fuck are you doing, Mark?"
Mark just looks back at him blankly.
"Fuck you, Mark. I don't need to take this bullshit." He storms out, nearly knocking Eduardo aside, and leaves.
Mark exhales and spins halfway in his desk chair, peeking at Eduardo, who's laughing to himself in the corner of the office.
Chris shoots him an exasperated look mixed with a smile, a look he's learned to perfect over the years. "That wasn't very nice, Mark."
"Yeah, and it was awesome," Dustin chimes in, peeking his head in the doorway.
Mark just turns back to his computer and waves them out of the office. Eduardo stops by his chair.
"Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't like him."
Mark laughs.
"Yeah, me neither."
Eduardo smiles widely at him and holds up a fist to bump against Mark's. He's pushing open the office door, when Mark remembers-
"Wardo. Don't- uh, don't say any of those words that Sean said. Those are really bad words."
Eduardo just rolls his eyes. "Mark, I'm not five."
-----
A couple nights later, Mark has a function. Some charity thing, which Chris assures him he actually needs to go to.
He drives home, after, and wonders when he started calling it home in his head, not just the house that's two blocks from the office.
Greg opens the door for him, TV remote in hand.
"He fell asleep on the couch," Greg says, business-like, tidying up the kitchen, and Mark looks past him to see Eduardo curled into himself, snuffling.
"How was it?"
"Huh?" Mark looks at him.
"The gala. Was it fun?"
"Not really. Boring. Champagne and old men with their creepily younger wives."
Greg laughs. "Such a hard life."
"I'd rather have been here," Mark says honestly, and Greg grins to himself.
After Greg leaves, he hovers over Eduardo on the couch, and pokes at him.
"Wardo. Hey, uh, Wardo-"
Eduardo springs awake, burrows into the cushions like a frightened animal, eyes wide.
"It's me. It's, uh, it's Mark," Mark says, recoiling a little bit himself, and Eduardo breathes out shakily and nods, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
"You should come up to bed," Mark says, and Eduardo yawns hugely.
"I'm not - tired," he says, and yawns again.
"You were just sleeping," Mark says.
Eduardo shrugs and reaches out for Mark's hand.
Mark walks him up the stairs, Eduardo clutching at his hand and babbling sleepily about how he'd beat Greg in Battleship and they'd watched a movie where there were aliens that attacked a city but in the end the hero killed the mother and the rest of them all died and then the guy kissed the girl, which was gross- Mark just nods along.
Eduardo slides into bed, a kid-shaped mound under the covers.
Mark's leaving, flicking the light off, when he hears-
"Mark. Wait! Mark!" His voice goes high. "Can you wait here until I fall asleep so that I don't get attacked by the aliens?"
"They're not real," Mark says, and remembers the week he spent building aluminum foil communication devices for extraterrestrial life when he was eight. They had seemed real, then.
"You don't know that!" Eduardo argues, sitting up in bed. "There is infinite possibility for life in space that we don't even know about yet!"
"Infinite?"
"Yeah. That's what they said in the movie."
"Technically, if an alien did attack, I wouldn't really be able to protect you. They'd probably just kill me first."
But he sits down on the bed, and listens to Eduardo explain how abnormal weather patterns can maybe explain alien life and he read it in Science Daily, once, and Mark should really be careful and probably get a gun just in case.
He stops in the middle of a sleepy, long, run-on sentence about extraterrestrial defense mechanisms (or space people guns, as he called them).
Mark looks down at him.
He's asleep.
He closes his eyes for a second, in the dark room, and misses Eduardo. Not- not Wardo, not this kid, but actual Eduardo, who would sprawl on Mark's bed, t-shirt riding up, gesturing wildly with a bottle of Beck's, and ramble tipsily about how meteorology was the science everyone wanted to ignore but couldn't, and how those who understood it would be the best businessmen, and how his father had said that it was bullshit, but Eduardo had shown him that summer, when he'd made three hundred thousand dollars-
Mark swallows hard (Eduardo's gone, that's over, don't think about it anymore you pathetic fucking idiot), and shuts the door quietly behind him.
He collapses on his back on his bed, mind racing. The- the thing he's really not letting himself think about is that they hooked up, at Harvard.
Maybe that's what he misses too. Because he's only fucked a handful of people in the four-some years since Eduardo, and none of them have been like that was, that night in December- laughing and fumbling until he slid into Eduardo and then desperate, hungry, Eduardo clawing at his back and clenching around him, and Mark nearly sobbing with it, the effort, arms trembling with each shaky thrust, feeling raw and exposed.
Mark closes his eyes and jerks off, fast and guilty. It's been two weeks, and he comes with a hand over his mouth to keep quiet so he doesn't scar Wardo for life. He has no idea how parents do it. He hopes they just don't have sex, ever, because it's fucking terrible.
Even after he comes, it takes him too long to fall asleep.
---
The next morning, there's a knock at his door.
"Yeah, come in, Wardo," he calls, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
The door opens and it's Eduardo. Not Wardo, but Eduardo, like, old Eduardo, tall Eduardo, twenty fucking six year old Eduardo, and he's staring at Mark, eyes wide.
"Jesus Christ," Mark says, scrambling away in his bed, towards the headboard, and Eduardo closes the door slowly behind him.
"You- what are you-"
"Mark," he says, and his voice is rusty and so familiar it hurts.
"Is he- you're-" and Eduardo's crawling onto the bed, staring at him, on his hands and knees in front of Mark's face.
"I'm sorry, okay," Mark chokes out, because he doesn't know when he'll be able to say it again. "I miss you. I'm sorry. Okay?"
Eduardo's nodding, silent, eyes still huge, and he leans forward and presses his lips to Mark's.
"Wait-" Mark says, pulling back, because eight hours ago it was Wardo, and it's way too fucking weird.
Eduardo just kisses him again, and straddles him in the bed, and Mark's hands come up to rest on Eduardo's hips involuntarily.
"Eduardo-" he tries again, foreign in his mouth, and Eduardo shakes his head.
"Mark, shh, shut up."
Mark shuts up.
Kissing him is better than he remembered. Eduardo licks at his mouth until he opens it, then slips his tongue in and cups Mark's jaw and Mark is absolutely fucking overcome.
No one's kissed him like this since Eduardo. No one kisses like Eduardo period, moist heat and pressure and Mark squeezes his eyes shut when Eduardo lays a delicate trail of wet bites down his neck.
Mark's panting, hard in his boxers, when Eduardo pulls away and looks down at him, face terrified and satisfied and wanting, somehow, all at once.
"You know I loved you, don't you. You hacked my computer."
"Loved?" is all Mark says, and Eduardo's eyes well up, a little bit.
"Yes," he says firmly, and then shakes his head at himself, helplessly- "No. Fuck. No. Mark-"
"I'm not gonna fuck you over again," Mark says, not knowing what he's saying exactly, but feeling it right in his stomach. "Eduardo- Wardo, I - I love you. Okay? I want you. To be here. Uh, with me."
Eduardo's still shaking his head, like he doesn't believe him, and Mark grabs Eduardo's hand.
"Wardo. I'm serious. I think- I think for the first time since I messed everything up, I'm serious."
"I know," Eduardo whispers.
"Will you stay?"
Eduardo is still, quiet, inscrutable above him.
"You know about my father, then," he says finally, and Mark swallows hard.
"Yeah."
Eduardo nods, face blank.
"And you still-" he stops, and Mark realizes with a jolt- Eduardo's ashamed. Mark doesn't know what to say, because he never knows what to say. He's said more in the last ten minutes, substantively, than he has in two years.
So he doesn't say anything, just runs a hand up Eduardo's bare back to his neck and pulls his head down to kiss him.
Eduardo pulls away after a minute, and nods to himself.
"I think I want to stay," he says, nodding again. "Yeah."
---
They drive to the office- because the look on Dustin's face is going to be too amazing, in Eduardo's words.
Eduardo curls a hand around Mark's in the car, and smiles at him, sunglasses on. The radio's on, and the windows are down, and it's the first time since Mark's gotten to California that he actually takes a split second to appreciate the weather, and the atmosphere, and the fact that he's in California with the person he loves and a large amount of money and a company which he loves, too, not more or less than Eduardo, just- just different.
"I don't think you should go back to Florida," Mark says suddenly, when he hooks around a corner too fast and Eduardo leans his head against the back of the seat, taking in the sun.
Eduardo nods, still holding Mark's hand. "Yeah."
"I mean, ever."
"I know what you meant," Eduardo says, quiet. "I know who you meant."
Mark just looks away, focuses too hard on the road.
---
Chris' mouth drops open when he sees them walk in, and Eduardo says, in a creepily high voice, "You're Chris, right? You helped me get my clothes?"
Chris shoots Mark a panicky look, and Eduardo cracks up.
"God, that is going to work so fucking well on Dustin."
"Oh my God! Oh my God! You asshole! Hi!" Chris says, and wraps him in a hug. "Dustin's gonna fucking flip."
Eduardo grins, and right on cue, Dustin screams and drops the stack of papers he's holding.
"Wardo!" he yells, hopping over it and sprinting towards them, and Eduardo shys away like he would when he was little. It's creepy how accurate it is, but technically, Mark supposes, it was him all along.
"Who are you?" he says, in that high thin voice again, and Dustin stops dead in his tracks, actually shudders.
Eduardo grins, and claps him on the shoulder- "Gotcha. Idiot."
Dustin punches him on the arm, still gaping. Mark smiles uneasily.
He recovers quickly.
"Okay, so, what happened? Was there, like, a flash of light? Did you learn a life lesson, and then a piano started playing, and you morphed?"
Mark shrugs, and Eduardo says, "I just woke up. And I was wearing extremely uncomfortable clothing."
Mark laughs a little, and then remembers Eduardo, shirtless and in an old pair of Mark's boxers he must have found in the laundry, crawling into his bed. Eduardo rubs his back for a second like he knows what Mark's thinking, and Chris laughs.
"There must have been some cause though," Dustin says thoughtfully, "Like some life lesson. Maybe Mark learned not to be a dick."
"Not possible," Eduardo says mock-seriously, and Mark smiles uneasily, because he's remembering extremely, terribly vividly- panting wetly into his hand to keep himself quiet, jerking himself off thinking about Eduardo. Flopping on his back, after, and thinking- I really fucking miss him.
And if it's that- shit, universe, that's just sick. Weirdly ironic and fitting in a way that Mark finds slightly amusing, but sick.
Eduardo laughs, slings an arm around his shoulder obliviously, and practically drags them into Mark's office.
"You should probably tell Greg," Chris says, sticking his head in. "I think he's at a meeting, but he'll be back in an hour or two."
"Oh yeah, we should definitely tell Greg that the child he was taking care of has suddenly disappeared," Mark says, and Eduardo snorts.
"He was awesome, by the way," Eduardo says, and this whole thing is just too fucking weird. "He deserves a raise."
"He's not Facebook's nanny."
"Oh, he was practically your nanny too," Eduardo teases, and Dustin cracks up.
"Mark's a baby," he sing-songs, and Eduardo points at him from where he's lying on the couch.
"You shouldn't be talking, Dustin. You totally cheated at Battleship that one time. I saw you, I was just letting you win to be nice. A nine year old had to let you win."
"Shut up!" Dustin says, going red. "You- just! Whatever!" He storms out, and Mark starts typing, grinning to himself.
"I missed that," Eduardo says, and laughs, like he can't even believe himself. "I missed you typing."
Mark doesn't stop, doesn't slow down, but he's barely even reading the code as it click-clacks onto the screen.
"Missed you," Eduardo says, quiet and a little dazed to himself, like he's just realizing it now.
Mark hits command and then "s". That's what his problem was, always. He thought Eduardo would be there, constant, no matter what he did. He thought he could ignore him and it wouldn't matter, treat him like shit and Eduardo'd lie down and take it.
He still thinks it's true, a little, but he doesn't want to anymore.
He spins around in his office chair, and Eduardo looks up at him, eyes soft.
"You too," Mark says, disjointedly, but Eduardo just grins wide, letting his head loll back on the pillow.
"C'mere," he says quietly, eyes still on him, and Mark swallows. He has to remind himself not to grab at Eduardo, clutch him like he'll leave if Mark doesn't hold on.
"I'm not going anywhere," Eduardo says, like he can read Mark's mind. Mark nods, more to himself than to anyone else, and stands up and goes to him.
He can faintly hear Dustin yelling through the glass, something about took you fucking long enough and i'm not cleaning that fucking couch but Eduardo pulls him down into a sweet fierce kiss and he really, really doesn't give a shit.
FIN!
fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
notes: for the kinkmeme prompt: Set post-movie. Eduardo is de-aged for whatever reason and Mark has to take care of him.
title's from neutral milk hotel and is obvious lol whatevs okay its a kinkmeme story
warnings: references to abuse, angsty crack mixed with kid fluff
It's six AM when he gets the call. He's still in the office, thirteen hours into a coding tear, and his eyes are practically bleeding. The shrill sound of his ringtone makes him jump. Dustin set it to "Baby One More Time" last week and he still hasn't had a second to change it.
"Yeah," he says shortly.
"Is this Mark Zuckerberg?" The voice is heavily accented, deep.
"Yes."
"This is Antonio Saverin. Eduardo's father-"
Mark jerks upright. "Yes? What?" And it goes through his mind, dizzying, Eduardo's been hit by a car or shot or got in a plane crash or died of cancer or any number of things, and he can't breathe.
"There is- a situation."
"What happened?"
There's a heavy sigh. "It's not really- proper for a phone conversation. Please come to Miami. My son is in a great deal of trouble."
"I don't know what Eduardo's told you, but we aren't exactly friends-"
"I am aware of that. You separated at the same time as he screwed himself out of your company," and usually Mark's somewhat gratified when someone takes his side, but he remembers, briefly, my father won't even look at me.
"Just - please come to Miami as soon as possible. It's extremely important."
----
It takes two days before Mark can get away from Facebook long enough to actually fly five hours across the country.
He takes a cab to Eduardo's house, which is huge and has grounds. Of course it does.
The door is opened by a kid, somewhere in the age range of five to ten years old. Mark doesn't really know how to judge children's ages. He's got brown hair and eyes, and he's skinny, collarbones poking out of his too-big button-down shirt.
"Hello," he intones solemnly. "How may I help you?"
"Um, I'm here for Antonio Saverin," Mark says awkwardly, and the kid yells "Father! Door!" and runs off.
That's weird, Mark thinks. I could have sworn Eduardo only had an older sister.
Mr. Saverin is pretty terrifying- tall, lean, with a tendency to curl his lip at everything Mark says. The house is equally scary- cold, the A/C blasting, with expensive art and uncomfortable couches.
They sit in an ornate room, and a woman Mark is assuming is Mrs. Saverin brings out a tray of crackers and olives. After a minute, Mr. Saverin speaks.
"Basically-" he pauses. "I feel extremely strange saying this, and I wouldn't be if it wasn't true. But, basically, my son has… become younger."
Mark stops chewing.
"What?"
Mr. Saverin sighs. "His mother found him. He was staying here for the weekend, for his cousin's wedding, and she found him one morning- or, whoever he is- in my son's bed, wearing his clothes, phone next to him- everything. It makes absolutely no sense, but there's really no other explanation, other than-"
Mark swallows a lump of undigested cracker.
"-some sort of- well, I don't know!" he finishes, voice rising. "The point is, he's nine years old. Again."
"Why did you call me?" he asks slowly.
"You're his best friend. And, we know you're not short on means-" it takes Mark a second to realize he means money.
"We can't raise him again. We won't. I have the business to think about, my wife is tired. We don't have the patience for him anymore."
"I don't really know anything about kids."
Mr. Saverin sighs. "Very well. It was worth a try. Perhaps we'll send him to his great-aunt in Sao Paulo."
"Wait-" Mark says. "Does he remember anything?"
"He doesn't seem to. I've tried to make him. He doesn't understand." He grits his teeth.
"I- I can take him for a while," Mark says suddenly, decisively, and Mr. Saverin grins, more a baring of teeth than anything joyful.
"Wonderful. We can compensate you, of course. I know it'll be difficult."
"I don't need money," Mark says, and he sees Mr. Saverin visibly relax.
"Eduardo!" his father calls, and the kid comes slowly into the room.
"This is Mark. You're going to live with him for a while."
"Why?" Eduardo says, wrinkling his nose. "I don't even know him."
"Don't ask questions. Mark will take you home this evening."
Eduardo looks up at Mark fearfully, and Mark tries to smile reassuringly, but he's pretty sure it comes out a creepy guy-who-sits-by-the-playground grimace. He's fully expecting Eduardo to protest, but he merely looks over at his father and nods.
----
The kid- Eduardo, Mark thinks, it's Eduardo- doesn't say anything on the plane. He clutches the armrest, tan knuckles going white, mouth set in a thin line, and Mark realizes suddenly - he's scared.
The plane bumps a couple times after takeoff, and Eduardo lets a gasp escape.
"It always does that," Mark says, trying to be comforting, but it just sounds sort of mean, like, only an idiot wouldn't know that. Eduardo doesn't say anything.
"Um, so, I live in California," Mark says an hour later, when Eduardo's relaxed enough to pull out the SkyMall magazine out of the pocket in front of him.
Eduardo nods.
"And, uh, your parents told me how to take care of you and stuff, so you don't need to worry," Mark lies unconvincingly.
Eduardo nods again. The silence is starting to get a little creepy.
"Are you okay?" Mark asks, and Eduardo nods yet again, and starts sobbing.
"Oh. Oh, shit. Um-" he hands Eduardo the airsickness bag, and through his tears he swears Eduardo shoots him a look.
"You want some water or something?" he asks, and Eduardo shakes his head, putting his face in his hands.
"Sorry," he gets out, muffled and snotty-sounding, and a flight attendant appears over Mark's shoulder. They must look a little incongruous- pale guy in his twenties with a nine year old. Mark is shocked they didn't get stopped at security.
"Is everything alright, sir?" the flight attendant asks, and Eduardo curls up in his seat, knees pointing away from her.
"Yeah, it's fine, we're fine."
"Sir, is that your son?" the woman whispers, leaning in.
"No! No. I'm his, uh, guardian. His parents just died. That's why he's crying."
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," she says, eyes filling up. "I'll leave you alone."
After a minute, Eduardo wipes his nose on his sleeve and sits up.
"My parents didn't really die, did they?" he asks.
"No. We saw them like three hours ago."
Eduardo shrugs, and Mark tries to ignore the fact that that's what made Eduardo stop crying.
It's pouring outside of LAX, and they sprint to Mark's car, parked in the ramp. Eduardo's wide-eyed, staring out the window.
"Are we near Hollywood?" he asks, putting his hands against the rain-streaked window.
"Not really," Mark says. "I live near Stanford. And um, I own a company. It's called Facebook."
"You own Facebook?" Eduardo says, gaping, and did that jog his memory or something? Is he going to start hating Mark any second now-
"I saw it on the news! You must be like a gazillionaire. Cool."
Mark exhales in relief. "It can be fun," he says, and realizes he's going to have to explain this to people. Shit.
He dumps Eduardo's suitcase in an upstairs room, and Eduardo sits on the king-sized bed, bounces up and down a couple times.
"How long do I stay here?" he asks.
"I'm not sure."
"But I have to go back to school in Miami. I go to St. John's Prep."
"Well, we're gonna find you a school here," Mark says, and adds that to his mental to-do list.
"Here?" Eduardo stops bouncing. "I thought I was just visiting."
"Nope, you live here now," Mark says, fed-up. God, it takes the patience of a fucking saint to make a point to a nine year old.
"But I don't have-"
"Eduardo!" his voice is sharp, and Eduardo shuts his mouth.
"Um, just chill for a while. Okay?" He can barely spare the mental energy for this. He's had a new code burning in his brain since he pulled out of LAX and if he doesn't type it out in the next three minutes he'll lose it.
----
Six hours later, he hears vaguely - "Mark. Mark?" and after a minute he turns around.
Eduardo's standing there, biting his lip.
"Hey," Mark says, emerging from the depths of code with a nearly physical shudder. It takes him a second to remember- where am I, who is this, what do I do-
"Sorry," Eduardo whispers. "Do you have anything to eat?"
Mark nods, a niggle of guilt hitting him in the stomach. He can practically hear normal Eduardo admonishing him- most humans need food, Mark.
"So, we have, um, ramen… chicken flavor, and-" he refrains from saying beer, but that's literally the only thing he has in the fridge. "-uh, ramen."
He swears Eduardo rolls his eyes for a second. "So, ramen?" he asks, and how is it that a child of under ten years of age can already inject that much disapproval and sarcasm into his voice? Only Eduardo.
From then on, he tries to think what would Eduardo do? It's a little creepy and a lot confusing that he's using old Eduardo to help young Eduardo or real Eduardo to help fake Eduardo but he puts it out of his mind and checks things off the list:
Food
Shower
School
Stuff to do
I have to go to work
It's only when Eduardo comes out of his room in an oversized black button-down and pants that pool around his feet that Mark remembers- Eduardo's way smaller than before. He shivers, and it's all very Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids-esque for a moment, until Eduardo trips over the hem of his pants and falls flat on his face.
"You okay?" Mark says, helping him up, and Eduardo rubs his already-too-big-for-his-face nose for a second.
"Yeah. All these clothes are really big. Did my parents send me some of my real clothes?"
"They- they sent me money to buy you some new clothes," he lies again, and adds it to the list. "We'll go tomorrow, okay?"
He dashes off an email to Chris:
Can't come in tomorrow. Really busy here.
MZ
He gets a reply within seconds:
We have that shareholders meeting- it's pretty important you come. How busy are we talking?
Mark looks over the computer at Eduardo, curled up against a pillow, flipping through channels.
Really fucking busy.
Chris calls him immediately.
"What's up, Mark? There's going to be at least five major news outlets at the meeting tomorrow. Your presence is important, so if you're seriously going on a fifteen hour coding tear or something, I am so dragging you out of the house."
"It's not that," Mark says, shooting another glance at Eduardo. "It's- one second."
He stands up and goes into the kitchen.
"Something weird happened," he hisses into the phone. "Basically, um, Eduardo's parents called me because Eduardo sort of de-aged and became nine years old and they asked me to take him so I did so now he lives with me and I have to, like, do stuff with him and get him food and stuff."
There's a pause.
"Wait, what?" Chris says, voice torn halfway between incredulous and angry.
"Exactly what I said. Eduardo's here."
"You're talking to Eduardo again? Since when?"
"Since he became nine years old and doesn't remember what happened!" Mark says furiously, hand curled around the receiver.
"Are you fucking with me?" Chris asks, and Mark says "No!" and hangs up because Eduardo's padding into the kitchen.
"Could I please have some water?" he asks, yawning, and oh, shit, it's past eleven. When do kids go to sleep? His parents used to make him go to sleep at like nine, but he'd wake up every night and go on his computer with a blanket over his head until 2 AM anyway.
"Yeah," Mark says, and fills a glass from the sink. "You should go to bed, I guess."
Eduardo nods. "I forget to bring toothpaste," he says, and thank God, finally something Mark actually owns.
Twenty minutes later, Eduardo's sleeping, a tiny lump in the huge bed. He snores, snuffly and high-pitched. Mark watches him for a second before closing the door; it's so surreal he nearly pinches himself.
----
The next day, he takes Eduardo shopping, and they're twenty minutes into the first store when Mark realizes he is so not cut out for this.
He calls Chris.
"I hope this is you calling to apologize for your outburst of madness last night and say you'll be right in," Chris says in way of greeting.
"No. Basically, we need you. I don't understand clothes. Or children. You have like eighteen siblings, don't you? Come to the Wal-Mart on Showers. As fast as possible."
There's a silence, and Mark adds, belatedly, "Please."
"Mark-" Chris sighs. "Are you really really serious about this? If you're serious I'll come. If you're fucking with me I will rip out your liver."
"I'm serious, shit, Chris, I am really fucking serious," Mark whispers, and a bubble of panic rises in him because where did Eduardo go? He looks around a corner into the school supplies aisle. Well, goddamnit.
"And now I just fucking lost him, so hurry!" Mark hisses, and hangs up.
He finds Eduardo after five minutes, sitting on the floor, flipping through a magazine.
"The Economist?" he says incredulously, and Eduardo looks up.
"I don't get all of it yet, but my father said it's the only magazine worth reading." He clambers to his feet and puts the magazine back.
"So, what do you like to wear?" Mark asks, and the clueless look Eduardo gives him then just firmly establishes the deepness of the shit they're both in.
They've made it to shorts, when Chris calls.
"I'm here, ugh, I'm in a Walmart for you, so tell me where you are."
"We're, uh, right next to the shorts?" Mark says, and Chris sighs.
"Look up and tell me what aisle you're in, dude."
"Oh. Um, boys. Wear. Yeah."
A minute later, Chris taps him on the shoulder, and freezes, mouth comically open, when he sees Eduardo.
"Oh my God, you were not joking," he whispers, and Eduardo looks up from the stack of cargo shorts he's perusing.
"Yeah," Mark says, and Chris bends down.
"Hey, Eduardo. I'm Chris. I work with Mark."
Eduardo puts out a hand for Chris to shake.
"What do you do at Facebook?" he says, and Chris shivers, making a face at Mark like oh my God even his little voice is all Eduardo-y and Mark nods.
"I'm a publicist. Basically I make sure Mark doesn't do anything stupid. It's a really hard job."
Eduardo giggles delightedly.
"Anything stupid like decide to take care of a nine-year-old when he can't even keep a plant alive," Chris whispers to Mark, standing up. To Eduardo, he claps his hands and says, "Okay, dude. I heard we need clothes?"
"Where else do we go?"
Chris has deigned Wal-Mart inappropriate for Eduardo's wardrobe, and after buying a couple of essentials ("juice-boxes, Chris? That's lame.") they've pulled out the big guns and gone to the Stanford Shopping Center.
They get underwear and shirts at Gap Kids (Mark's insistence), pants and jackets at Burberry Children's Store (Chris' suggestion), and a couple sweaters at some place called Janie and Jack. Mark pretty much checks out during, only re-surfacing to nod at something Eduardo shows him and hand over his credit card.
"Okay, last stop: Payless," Chris says, as Eduardo chews on a soft pretzel.
"Why?" Mark half-whines. Shopping is surprisingly exhausting.
"Have you noticed what he's wearing on his feet?" Chris asks, and they all look down to see massive leather flip-flops slip-sliding off Eduardo's feet with each step. Eduardo giggles and flips one in the air, running after it.
"You're hopeless," Chris murmurs to Mark, shaking his head, and Mark shrugs and follows them.
---
An hour later, even Chris has given up on the shopping mission.
"I have cousins and sisters, but they're all old, and what if we're forgetting something crucial? Something a nine year old immediately dies without?! We can't kill Eduardo!!!" he says, while Eduardo stares, practically salivating, at a telescope in a toy shop.
"Wait! Wait. I know. Rhonda! Rhonda. Dustin's secretary. She has a couple kids. We'll ask her. Because if we forget one crucial aspect of childhood and Eduardo dies, it is completely all your fault."
Mark shrugs again, and Chris speeds toward the Facebook offices. It's actually Mark who remembers to remind Eduardo to put on his seatbelt.
---
"Okay, I'm just going to ask all of these questions, and if you could just answer them, without judgment, that'd be great."
Rhonda gives him a dubious look, but nods.
"So, uh. Do nine year olds read, like, chapter books?"
"Yes."
"Do nine year olds watch R-rated movies?"
"No!" She's about to say more, but he shoots her a look that says you promised no judgment.
"How late do nine year olds stay up?"
"My daughter goes to sleep at 9:30, most nights."
"Do nine year olds use the computer?"
"Not most nine year olds," she says dryly, and the I'm sure you did is heavily implied.
"What do nine year olds eat?"
"They're not a different species. Mac and soy cheese, sandwiches, tofu- we're all vegan, of course, but I'm assuming-"
"Yeah, no."
"Well, then, any variety of dead helpless animal, I suppose."
"There was a lot of judgment in that sentence."
It only takes about eight more questions for her to throw up her hands and storm out of the room, yelling "Please don't fire me, but oh my God, I cannot do this anymore-"
Chris rolls his eyes. "That went fantastically."
"How was I supposed to know nine year olds couldn't ride shotgun?" Mark asks, finishing up his notes.
Chris sighs.
---
That night, they stay in and order pizza, and Mark swears they'll go grocery shopping tomorrow. Eduardo only likes mushrooms, and he picks the pepperoni off, piling it in a little mountain next to his paper plate.
"Wait, you're not a vegetarian, are you?" Mark asks, and Eduardo looks up at him, wrinkling his nose.
"A what?"
Mark sighs in relief.
He's refilling his glass when he hears a crash, and nearly sprints out of the kitchen.
Eduardo's using the edge of his shirt to mop up a puddle of soda, which is spreading nearly towards Mark's laptop- he snatches up the laptop just as its corner gets wet.
"Sorry, sorry," Eduardo is saying, voice rising, and Mark ignores him and sets his computer down safely on the couch, then comes back toward the table. Eduardo faces him and swallows hard.
"Wait," he says, voice shaking, as Mark comes toward him.
"Father uses a belt."
Mark stops. It honestly flashes through his mind- a belt to clean up? A belt to- and it hits him and his mouth almost drops open.
"What?"
Eduardo stares at him wide-eyed. There's a silence.
"You said they talked to you... about how to take care of me." He trips over the sentence, voice going higher than usual.
"Who?"
"My parents?" He backs away.
"Can you - uh, just remind me what they said?"
Eduardo narrows his eyes. "They said they told you, I don't think I should-"
Mark takes a step towards him and Eduardo flinches.
"My father does it with the belt," he whispers. "Not the hand. He said he told you."
Mark swallows hard. He knew Eduardo had things with his family, but- shit. Shit.
"We- we talked about it. They don't want me to do that."
Eduardo cocks his head, and it's fucking creepy how his eyes are the same.
"But that's how I learn."
Mark has to remind himself to breathe, because this is way fucked-up. He's really, really not equipped to handle this. There are a lot of feelings. How did Eduardo even function, at Harvard? Then he remembers awkward parents' weekends, the way Eduardo went white when his phone rang, how tired he looked after he came back from break.
"Um, just- I'm not going to do it, okay?"
Eduardo nods carefully, weighing his options, his lips pursed in thought.
"What will you do when I mess up?"
"Uh, I'll ground you. Or make you do something. Like wash the… dishes." He looks over at the pile of pizza boxes and empty packets of ramen.
Eduardo gives the mess a skeptical, appraising look, and then nods, smiling suddenly, his grin a shock of white teeth.
"So, uh, go to your room," Mark says weakly.
He grabs a roll of paper towels once Eduardo's left, mops up the puddle, and it won't stop repeating in his head- my father does it with the belt. My father does it with the belt.
"That fucking piece of shit," he mutters, and he sits down at the table and puts his head in his hands.
----
The next day, Mark stops in at the office to ask Rhonda a couple last minute questions, and sees Dustin and Chris in the Fishbowl. Dustin's mouth drops open, and he literally pushes an intern aside to get to them.
"Oh my God, is that him?" Dustin whispers like he's just seen an alien, when Eduardo is right in front of him.
"Of course it is, dumbass," Chris hisses, elbowing him.
"Hey, so, Wardo, this is Dustin, and you remember Chris, right?" Mark says, and Eduardo sticks out a hand.
"Wait, so he doesn't remember me at all?"
"Remember?" Eduardo says confusedly, and Mark rolls his eyes. Dustin reluctantly shakes his hand, looking sort of shocked Eduardo's not just made of ectoplasm or something, like some ghost sent from the past to remedy Mark's sins.
"Dustin also works at Facebook with me," Mark explains, and Eduardo nods, looking around at the messy, huge office.
"Is that a Wii?" he says delightedly.
"Hell-heck YES it is," Dustin says, way too excited. "And we just got the sports thing. I kick- um, butt, at tennis. I totally already beat the best guy in the office, who's been playing since it came out-"
"Yeah, right," Eduardo says doubtfully. "I wanna see it."
"Okay, but I'm warning you. I'm awesome."
"I think Dustin connects better with him now than he did before," Chris says, shaking his head, as they run off.
Mark laughs.
"So, how's it going? We haven't really talked about it."
"It's weird. I mean, it's so fucking weird. You can see how weird it is, right?" He debates telling Chris about the belt thing, and decides against it. He might not be best friends with Wardo anymore, but he thinks he knows Wardo wouldn't want him to. He did know Eduardo, once.
"Any idea when it'll end?"
Mark shrugs, and Chris looks at him like he knows what's Mark's thinking. If Eduardo goes back to normal, he'll never talk to Mark again.
"Call me. Whenever. If you need a break, okay? Mark Zuckerberg plus children cannot mean good things."
"Yeah. Thanks."
They watch Eduardo, tongue out, eyes narrowed, whacking an imaginary tennis ball.
"I can't work from home for this long," Mark says shortly. "I'm gonna hire a nanny."
----
The nanny turns out to be a manny. Yeah, nearly every female intern begs Mark for the job, but he knows they all sort of just want to fuck the boss. Or maybe he's being misogynistic. He's still not sure when he's doing that. And anyway, they should be focusing on Facebook, because they're all great assets to the company. There. Misogyny erased.
Greg, on the other hand, does not want to fuck Mark. Greg is a part-time Facebook online publicist and a child development studies major- in short, he's perfect.
He's also sort of terrifying.
"Wait, you've given him ramen and pizza and that's it?" he hisses when Mark takes him along to Whole Foods.
Mark shrugs defensively. "He didn't say anything."
"Yeah, because he's nine! He can't defend himself from the MSG."
"Please tell me you're not going to make him eat tofu, and like, soybeans."
Greg snorts, and grabs a packet of brown rice. "I appreciate how it's a foregone conclusion that I will be deciding what Eduardo eats."
Mark pulls Eduardo away from a teetering stack of organic canned tomatoes.
"Hey, Wardo," Greg calls, bending down, and Eduardo runs over to him.
"Wardo?" Mark asks tightly, and Greg looks up, grinning, as he hands Eduardo a couple cans of chicken noodle soup.
"Yeah. Might as well have a nickname, right? And Eddie is just annoying."
"So you didn't know-"
"What?" he says, and nearly topples over when Eduardo puts a huge container of applesauce in his arms.
"Nothing," Mark says, and from between them Eduardo pipes up-
"I like Wardo!"
Mark nods, and starts putting the cans into the cart. So maybe it makes it ten times weirder to call this kid Wardo. Maybe it makes him remember shit about Harvard he wishes he didn't have to, anymore. It's not his choice. It's done.
----
He's putting away some new clothes Greg has washed and folded when he sees it.
Eduardo's briefcase, so out of place in a child's room. The edge of a laptop sticks out. Mark checks the door to make sure Wardo's not coming upstairs and grabs the computer, takes it into his bedroom.
Eduardo has some security, but not much. Mark smirks when he cuts past the first level. Eduardo'd definitely let his guard down since Harvard, probably because he thought he'd never have to see Mark again, and normal people don't tend to hack into their friends' computers as practice.
Okay. He's in. Eduardo's desktop is one of the standard ones MacBooks come with, a black and white image of a canyon. His computer's organized, neat, and when Mark scrolls through his documents and pictures it feels a little like he's looking at the stuff of a dead person.
His email is automatically signed in, and there's nothing out of the ordinary. Business stuff, a lot from companies in Singapore. Not a single one from his parents. Not that Mark expected it.
He has twenty-seven drafts.
Mark purses his lips.
Twenty-seven. That's sort of abnormally high, isn't it?
Mark shrugs and clicks.
Twenty-seven drafts, all addressed to mzuckerberg@facebook.com.
Mark nearly closes the computer, but then he shakes his head at himself (privacy is a relic of a time gone by, he hears) and starts reading.
The first one is pretty innocuous.
Mark-
I won't be able to attend the shareholders' meeting as I have an important
Mark thinks back to the meeting, around Dec. 10 2006. He doesn't remember it. He doesn't remember Eduardo being there or not being there.
Mark-
I would like to discuss the addition of an application called NetworkedBlogs, by Ninua, Inc., a company I'm currently employed by
As Mark remembers it, that app was pitched by Dustin. Mark frowns.
Five more business ones, and then-
Did you know what you would do? When you decided to restructure? Did you think I'd get over it like i got over everything, you motherfucking asshole
- and
you're a fucking piece of shit. I got six hundred million dollars (and that's so Eduardo, to type out the number even when he's having email catharsis) and you walk around like you own the wfuckign world-
They're a little misspelled, like Eduardo typed them when he was drunk. At Harvard, Eduardo would sprawl on Mark's bed and philosophize about random shit when he was drunk. He was happy at Harvard. Mark can picture him drinking now; not for pleasure, but to get rid of whatever's on his mind.
i hate you s o much
and
you fucked up everything
and
i thought you understood what this meant to my father but you didnt or you wouldnt have fucked me over like this
and finally
he hates me. i didn't tell you that. i didn't tell anyone that. ive never told a sinlge person about it just like he made me
Mark swallows hard, and clicks on the last email just as Wardo pokes his head in the door.
"Mark?" he says, and Mark's heart thumps hard and starts pounding.
"Yeah?" he says croakily, swallowing, mouth suddenly dry.
"Greg and I wanna play Monopoly but we need a banker," Eduardo says, one hand curled around the door.
"I'll - uh - I'll be right down."
Once Eduardo's gone, Mark looks down at the last email.
i loved you.
i think i still love you sometimes
i hate myself because of that.
Mark exhales shakily and slams the computer shut.
Downstairs, later, laughing uneasily as Wardo kicks Greg's ass at Monopoly, he can't comprehend what happened. Not just the fact that Eduardo's nine years old. Not that. Just- what happened to them?
He knows what Eduardo would say. Mark fucked it all up.
But Eduardo didn't come out, that summer. And when they weren't at Harvard it didn't feel the same, it was harder, and Eduardo -
"Mark?" Greg's looking at him as Eduardo grabs another organic soda from the fridge. "If you have to work, or anything- don't feel obligated to be here. That's why you hired me."
"I'm fine," Mark says, as Eduardo flops back down onto the floor, nearly avoiding a spill. "I- I don't have anything to do. Don't worry about it."
Greg gives him a skeptical look, but acquiesces.
An hour, six hotels, and one "Eduardo Empire" later, Greg is gone, slipping out the door with a wave to Mark and a fist-bump with Wardo.
"You should go to bed soon," Mark says, still not sure when he's supposed to exert authority. Kid or not, it's Eduardo - and he can hear in his head, Eduardo telling him to go to sleep back at school.
Eduardo nods but then starts giggling, and Mark should have known the pop would make him all hyper. He was never really an excitable kid, but family reunions have taught him that children plus sugar usually equals eardrum damage.
Of course, because it's Eduardo, the extent of his sugared-up rebellion is quiet laughter, and slamming the Monopoly pieces down into the box in a weird rhythm. He's singing to himself.
Mark watches him for a second, and grins. Then Eduardo stands up, and practically skips toward the shelf to put the game away, and Mark sees the laptop cord before he does-
Eduardo and the laptop crash to the ground. Mark maybe yells, a little bit, and Eduardo picks himself up in a split second, and scrambles to the laptop, and Mark holds him away with one arm.
"Wardo! Just. Let me do it."
"I'm sorry," Eduardo says frantically, pressing himself back against the wall, palms flat.
"It's okay. It's okay." The laptop's fine. He cradles it under his arm, breathing hard.
"I didn't mean to-" Eduardo says, voice high and panicky. It's strange. He's such a happy kid, smart, funny, and then he has this core of fear, that keeps him terrified and quaking when he does the slightest thing wrong. It makes Mark crazy. It's so illogical.
"Mark?"
Mark turns to him.
"I am sorry. Really. Okay?"
Mark nods, already tired of it. "Of course. It's okay. I told you that."
Eduardo's eyes are still wide, this curious mix between pitiful and concerned and disbelieving. "You're not going to-"
"I told you, Wardo. I'm not going to do that. Ever."
"But-"
"Wardo! Stop it! I said I wouldn't! I'm not going to!"
Eduardo backs away, and Mark's guilty and angry in a way that makes him storm out of the kitchen and slam the door of his bedroom. It hurts, every time Eduardo asks him that- reminds him of what was, what could have been- the emails he found- Eduardo had never told him. He could have told him.
He falls asleep like that, curled on his side on the bed, not feeling much older than a kid himself.
He wakes up the next morning, and Eduardo's gone.
He's gone.
He's not in his room, or the kitchen, or on the couch- and when Mark searches his room for a second time, he realizes Eduardo's Spider Man backpack is gone. Fuck. Fuck.
He contemplates calling Chris, or- or Greg. They might know, but he'll have to say - yes, I screamed at a nine year old. Yes, I'm a pathetic excuse for a normal human being. Yes, I'm the reason Eduardo's probably a truck-stop child prostitute by now.
He goes out looking instead, hands clenching the steering wheel, and he emits an involuntary gasp when he sees it, after twenty minutes, at the bus stop on Rosewood- the huddled form, familiar backpack, brown hair sticking out of the hood of a GAP sweatshirt. It's Eduardo.
He pulls up beside him, rolls down the window. Eduardo looks up.
"Get in the car," Mark says wearily, scared Eduardo will just sprint away.
But he just gets in silently, face a perfect little mask of sadness.
"I'm sorry about last night."
Eduardo just nods.
"I'm not very good at this. Okay? I've never had a kid before. I don't know-" he sighs. Eduardo's looking down at his knobby knees, sniffling a little.
"Do you want pancakes?"
The corner of Eduardo's mouth curls up in a grin, and he shoots a sideways look at Mark.
"Okay," he says, and swipes a hand across his nose.
---
Eduardo saws his fork through three huge chocolate-chip pancakes, and takes a massive bite, his cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's.
Mark laughs and takes another sip of his coffee. He's supposed to be in by now, at the office, but fuck it. It's one day.
"You've never had a kid before?" Eduardo asks, swallowing.
"No. I'm only, uh, I'm only twenty-seven. I've never even really had a girlfriend."
"Why does that matter?" Eduardo asks, screwing up his nose.
"Uh, never mind. No, I've never had a kid."
"Why did my mom and dad make you take me then? I thought maybe it was because you were the best at raising kids. Like it was your job. Like Greg!"
"No, uh. They- they knew I would get Greg, and they knew Greg was the best. Greg is the best, isn't he?"
Eduardo nods.
"So they wanted to make sure you would get the, uh, very best care." He sounds like a pediatrician or an infomercial or something. Eduardo shoots him an unimpressed look, but changes the subject.
"Who's your best friend? Because I think mine's Greg."
Mark just stares at him.
"Either Greg, or that girl I met two days ago. She was nice." Eduardo had become acquainted with Rhonda's daughter Jenny, and they'd hit it off right away. Mark had found them after two hours in a makeshift meditation circle (of two people), om-ing with their legs in lotus position.
"Jenny's a terrible influence," Mark says absent-mindedly. "All that meditation."
Eduardo just rolls his eyes. "Mark! Who's your best friend? Is it Dustin? He's awesome. I think he could be my other best friend, if he wanted. But he gets really mad when I beat him at Wii bowling."
"Wardo, I don't really have one. I'm not a kid."
Eduardo narrows his eyes at Mark.
"You don't get to have best friends when you're grown-up?"
"You don't have to have them," Mark mutters.
"That's just sad," Eduardo says frankly, shaking his head.
Mark tips his cup up in an ironic toast, but of course Eduardo doesn't get it. He just keeps staring at Mark, chewing determinedly on his pancake.
"So, kids get to have best friends, but adults don't?"
"Yep. That is the way of the world."
Eduardo nods thoughtfully, and grins around a bite.
"You're gonna be my best friend."
"What?"
"You said I get to have a best friend. I pick you."
"I'm honored," Mark says, deadpan, and Eduardo flicks an ice cube at him.
----
He takes Eduardo in to the office, because something about that morning makes him want Wardo with him.
Dustin commissions him to test out a couple new game applications, and Mark sits at his desk.
Chris pops his head in.
"You're in late," he says, typing frantically on his Blackberry at the same time.
"Yeah, Wardo and I got breakfast."
Chris smiles, approving, but he looks down at his Blackberry and back up, face tight-
"Did you forget? Sean's coming in today," he says, and his eyes go wide. "Shit- Wardo-"
Mark just looks back, biting his lip nervously.
"Okay! It's okay!" Chris says, panicky. "We'll just- he'll just be Dustin's cousin."
"Good morning, Facebook!" they hear, and Chris wheels around. There's always a bit of uneasiness when Sean comes in- even the newest employees know about the scandal, know how he was essentially pushed out of the public eye.
"Mark," Sean says, stretching it out, grinning at him in the doorway. He pushes past Chris into the office.
"What's up, buddy?"
"Sean," Mark says tightly, and behind him he can see Chris stopping Eduardo in his tracks toward the office. Sean sees him looking.
"Aww, who's the kid?" he says, and Eduardo can't hear them through the glass but Mark's breath quickens anyway.
"Uh, it's Dustin's cousin," he says, and Sean laughs.
"What is it, bring your family to work day? Gotta keep 'em wired in, Mark, gotta keep 'em focused."
Mark laughs uneasily. "He- uh- couldn't find a babysitter. He was, supposed to babysit. Obviously. And couldn't. Find someone." He goes hot, and Dustin leads Eduardo into the room, and Sean bends down.
"What's up, little man?" He holds out a hand to high-five, and Eduardo goes in for it but then lifts his hand to run through his own hair.
"Ha! Burn!" Eduardo laughs, and gives Dustin a high-five. Sean chuckles too, tightly, eyes narrowing.
"Good one, dude," he says, lip curling, "So, Mark, can you get the kid out of here, or what?"
"Eh, he can stay," Mark says, looking at Eduardo, and Eduardo grins up at him conspiratorially.
Sean looks at him, and his eyes go cold for a second. "In a business meeting, Mark, really? Pretty unprofessional."
"Well, you're the expert," Mark says, and Dustin snorts to himself.
Sean laughs shortly, meanly. "Let's get this over with."
"My thoughts exactly."
Even Eduardo laughs at that one, a short high giggle, and Sean just stares at him, disbelieving, eye practically twitching with fury.
"What the fuck are you doing, Mark?"
Mark just looks back at him blankly.
"Fuck you, Mark. I don't need to take this bullshit." He storms out, nearly knocking Eduardo aside, and leaves.
Mark exhales and spins halfway in his desk chair, peeking at Eduardo, who's laughing to himself in the corner of the office.
Chris shoots him an exasperated look mixed with a smile, a look he's learned to perfect over the years. "That wasn't very nice, Mark."
"Yeah, and it was awesome," Dustin chimes in, peeking his head in the doorway.
Mark just turns back to his computer and waves them out of the office. Eduardo stops by his chair.
"Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't like him."
Mark laughs.
"Yeah, me neither."
Eduardo smiles widely at him and holds up a fist to bump against Mark's. He's pushing open the office door, when Mark remembers-
"Wardo. Don't- uh, don't say any of those words that Sean said. Those are really bad words."
Eduardo just rolls his eyes. "Mark, I'm not five."
-----
A couple nights later, Mark has a function. Some charity thing, which Chris assures him he actually needs to go to.
He drives home, after, and wonders when he started calling it home in his head, not just the house that's two blocks from the office.
Greg opens the door for him, TV remote in hand.
"He fell asleep on the couch," Greg says, business-like, tidying up the kitchen, and Mark looks past him to see Eduardo curled into himself, snuffling.
"How was it?"
"Huh?" Mark looks at him.
"The gala. Was it fun?"
"Not really. Boring. Champagne and old men with their creepily younger wives."
Greg laughs. "Such a hard life."
"I'd rather have been here," Mark says honestly, and Greg grins to himself.
After Greg leaves, he hovers over Eduardo on the couch, and pokes at him.
"Wardo. Hey, uh, Wardo-"
Eduardo springs awake, burrows into the cushions like a frightened animal, eyes wide.
"It's me. It's, uh, it's Mark," Mark says, recoiling a little bit himself, and Eduardo breathes out shakily and nods, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
"You should come up to bed," Mark says, and Eduardo yawns hugely.
"I'm not - tired," he says, and yawns again.
"You were just sleeping," Mark says.
Eduardo shrugs and reaches out for Mark's hand.
Mark walks him up the stairs, Eduardo clutching at his hand and babbling sleepily about how he'd beat Greg in Battleship and they'd watched a movie where there were aliens that attacked a city but in the end the hero killed the mother and the rest of them all died and then the guy kissed the girl, which was gross- Mark just nods along.
Eduardo slides into bed, a kid-shaped mound under the covers.
Mark's leaving, flicking the light off, when he hears-
"Mark. Wait! Mark!" His voice goes high. "Can you wait here until I fall asleep so that I don't get attacked by the aliens?"
"They're not real," Mark says, and remembers the week he spent building aluminum foil communication devices for extraterrestrial life when he was eight. They had seemed real, then.
"You don't know that!" Eduardo argues, sitting up in bed. "There is infinite possibility for life in space that we don't even know about yet!"
"Infinite?"
"Yeah. That's what they said in the movie."
"Technically, if an alien did attack, I wouldn't really be able to protect you. They'd probably just kill me first."
But he sits down on the bed, and listens to Eduardo explain how abnormal weather patterns can maybe explain alien life and he read it in Science Daily, once, and Mark should really be careful and probably get a gun just in case.
He stops in the middle of a sleepy, long, run-on sentence about extraterrestrial defense mechanisms (or space people guns, as he called them).
Mark looks down at him.
He's asleep.
He closes his eyes for a second, in the dark room, and misses Eduardo. Not- not Wardo, not this kid, but actual Eduardo, who would sprawl on Mark's bed, t-shirt riding up, gesturing wildly with a bottle of Beck's, and ramble tipsily about how meteorology was the science everyone wanted to ignore but couldn't, and how those who understood it would be the best businessmen, and how his father had said that it was bullshit, but Eduardo had shown him that summer, when he'd made three hundred thousand dollars-
Mark swallows hard (Eduardo's gone, that's over, don't think about it anymore you pathetic fucking idiot), and shuts the door quietly behind him.
He collapses on his back on his bed, mind racing. The- the thing he's really not letting himself think about is that they hooked up, at Harvard.
Maybe that's what he misses too. Because he's only fucked a handful of people in the four-some years since Eduardo, and none of them have been like that was, that night in December- laughing and fumbling until he slid into Eduardo and then desperate, hungry, Eduardo clawing at his back and clenching around him, and Mark nearly sobbing with it, the effort, arms trembling with each shaky thrust, feeling raw and exposed.
Mark closes his eyes and jerks off, fast and guilty. It's been two weeks, and he comes with a hand over his mouth to keep quiet so he doesn't scar Wardo for life. He has no idea how parents do it. He hopes they just don't have sex, ever, because it's fucking terrible.
Even after he comes, it takes him too long to fall asleep.
---
The next morning, there's a knock at his door.
"Yeah, come in, Wardo," he calls, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
The door opens and it's Eduardo. Not Wardo, but Eduardo, like, old Eduardo, tall Eduardo, twenty fucking six year old Eduardo, and he's staring at Mark, eyes wide.
"Jesus Christ," Mark says, scrambling away in his bed, towards the headboard, and Eduardo closes the door slowly behind him.
"You- what are you-"
"Mark," he says, and his voice is rusty and so familiar it hurts.
"Is he- you're-" and Eduardo's crawling onto the bed, staring at him, on his hands and knees in front of Mark's face.
"I'm sorry, okay," Mark chokes out, because he doesn't know when he'll be able to say it again. "I miss you. I'm sorry. Okay?"
Eduardo's nodding, silent, eyes still huge, and he leans forward and presses his lips to Mark's.
"Wait-" Mark says, pulling back, because eight hours ago it was Wardo, and it's way too fucking weird.
Eduardo just kisses him again, and straddles him in the bed, and Mark's hands come up to rest on Eduardo's hips involuntarily.
"Eduardo-" he tries again, foreign in his mouth, and Eduardo shakes his head.
"Mark, shh, shut up."
Mark shuts up.
Kissing him is better than he remembered. Eduardo licks at his mouth until he opens it, then slips his tongue in and cups Mark's jaw and Mark is absolutely fucking overcome.
No one's kissed him like this since Eduardo. No one kisses like Eduardo period, moist heat and pressure and Mark squeezes his eyes shut when Eduardo lays a delicate trail of wet bites down his neck.
Mark's panting, hard in his boxers, when Eduardo pulls away and looks down at him, face terrified and satisfied and wanting, somehow, all at once.
"You know I loved you, don't you. You hacked my computer."
"Loved?" is all Mark says, and Eduardo's eyes well up, a little bit.
"Yes," he says firmly, and then shakes his head at himself, helplessly- "No. Fuck. No. Mark-"
"I'm not gonna fuck you over again," Mark says, not knowing what he's saying exactly, but feeling it right in his stomach. "Eduardo- Wardo, I - I love you. Okay? I want you. To be here. Uh, with me."
Eduardo's still shaking his head, like he doesn't believe him, and Mark grabs Eduardo's hand.
"Wardo. I'm serious. I think- I think for the first time since I messed everything up, I'm serious."
"I know," Eduardo whispers.
"Will you stay?"
Eduardo is still, quiet, inscrutable above him.
"You know about my father, then," he says finally, and Mark swallows hard.
"Yeah."
Eduardo nods, face blank.
"And you still-" he stops, and Mark realizes with a jolt- Eduardo's ashamed. Mark doesn't know what to say, because he never knows what to say. He's said more in the last ten minutes, substantively, than he has in two years.
So he doesn't say anything, just runs a hand up Eduardo's bare back to his neck and pulls his head down to kiss him.
Eduardo pulls away after a minute, and nods to himself.
"I think I want to stay," he says, nodding again. "Yeah."
---
They drive to the office- because the look on Dustin's face is going to be too amazing, in Eduardo's words.
Eduardo curls a hand around Mark's in the car, and smiles at him, sunglasses on. The radio's on, and the windows are down, and it's the first time since Mark's gotten to California that he actually takes a split second to appreciate the weather, and the atmosphere, and the fact that he's in California with the person he loves and a large amount of money and a company which he loves, too, not more or less than Eduardo, just- just different.
"I don't think you should go back to Florida," Mark says suddenly, when he hooks around a corner too fast and Eduardo leans his head against the back of the seat, taking in the sun.
Eduardo nods, still holding Mark's hand. "Yeah."
"I mean, ever."
"I know what you meant," Eduardo says, quiet. "I know who you meant."
Mark just looks away, focuses too hard on the road.
---
Chris' mouth drops open when he sees them walk in, and Eduardo says, in a creepily high voice, "You're Chris, right? You helped me get my clothes?"
Chris shoots Mark a panicky look, and Eduardo cracks up.
"God, that is going to work so fucking well on Dustin."
"Oh my God! Oh my God! You asshole! Hi!" Chris says, and wraps him in a hug. "Dustin's gonna fucking flip."
Eduardo grins, and right on cue, Dustin screams and drops the stack of papers he's holding.
"Wardo!" he yells, hopping over it and sprinting towards them, and Eduardo shys away like he would when he was little. It's creepy how accurate it is, but technically, Mark supposes, it was him all along.
"Who are you?" he says, in that high thin voice again, and Dustin stops dead in his tracks, actually shudders.
Eduardo grins, and claps him on the shoulder- "Gotcha. Idiot."
Dustin punches him on the arm, still gaping. Mark smiles uneasily.
He recovers quickly.
"Okay, so, what happened? Was there, like, a flash of light? Did you learn a life lesson, and then a piano started playing, and you morphed?"
Mark shrugs, and Eduardo says, "I just woke up. And I was wearing extremely uncomfortable clothing."
Mark laughs a little, and then remembers Eduardo, shirtless and in an old pair of Mark's boxers he must have found in the laundry, crawling into his bed. Eduardo rubs his back for a second like he knows what Mark's thinking, and Chris laughs.
"There must have been some cause though," Dustin says thoughtfully, "Like some life lesson. Maybe Mark learned not to be a dick."
"Not possible," Eduardo says mock-seriously, and Mark smiles uneasily, because he's remembering extremely, terribly vividly- panting wetly into his hand to keep himself quiet, jerking himself off thinking about Eduardo. Flopping on his back, after, and thinking- I really fucking miss him.
And if it's that- shit, universe, that's just sick. Weirdly ironic and fitting in a way that Mark finds slightly amusing, but sick.
Eduardo laughs, slings an arm around his shoulder obliviously, and practically drags them into Mark's office.
"You should probably tell Greg," Chris says, sticking his head in. "I think he's at a meeting, but he'll be back in an hour or two."
"Oh yeah, we should definitely tell Greg that the child he was taking care of has suddenly disappeared," Mark says, and Eduardo snorts.
"He was awesome, by the way," Eduardo says, and this whole thing is just too fucking weird. "He deserves a raise."
"He's not Facebook's nanny."
"Oh, he was practically your nanny too," Eduardo teases, and Dustin cracks up.
"Mark's a baby," he sing-songs, and Eduardo points at him from where he's lying on the couch.
"You shouldn't be talking, Dustin. You totally cheated at Battleship that one time. I saw you, I was just letting you win to be nice. A nine year old had to let you win."
"Shut up!" Dustin says, going red. "You- just! Whatever!" He storms out, and Mark starts typing, grinning to himself.
"I missed that," Eduardo says, and laughs, like he can't even believe himself. "I missed you typing."
Mark doesn't stop, doesn't slow down, but he's barely even reading the code as it click-clacks onto the screen.
"Missed you," Eduardo says, quiet and a little dazed to himself, like he's just realizing it now.
Mark hits command and then "s". That's what his problem was, always. He thought Eduardo would be there, constant, no matter what he did. He thought he could ignore him and it wouldn't matter, treat him like shit and Eduardo'd lie down and take it.
He still thinks it's true, a little, but he doesn't want to anymore.
He spins around in his office chair, and Eduardo looks up at him, eyes soft.
"You too," Mark says, disjointedly, but Eduardo just grins wide, letting his head loll back on the pillow.
"C'mere," he says quietly, eyes still on him, and Mark swallows. He has to remind himself not to grab at Eduardo, clutch him like he'll leave if Mark doesn't hold on.
"I'm not going anywhere," Eduardo says, like he can read Mark's mind. Mark nods, more to himself than to anyone else, and stands up and goes to him.
He can faintly hear Dustin yelling through the glass, something about took you fucking long enough and i'm not cleaning that fucking couch but Eduardo pulls him down into a sweet fierce kiss and he really, really doesn't give a shit.
FIN!