I ran out of space in the summary. For those of you who haven't realized it, this is the sequel to The Worst Of You. It will be GruXOC (of course) and like the first story will also be about Gru's relationship with the girls and Ady's relationship with the girls and to a much smaller degree Vector and his relationship with his own father. Hopefully it works out all right. ^^

Chapter One:

Revenge Is A Six Letter Word...wait.

At one point there had been a very large junkyard outside of the city. It was fenced off with high wood planks and barbed wire. People still got in, mostly kids and, as is usually the case, they got in because they weren't allowed. If the city had taken down the fences then it was probable that most of the break ins would have stopped.

The young man would have still been a frequent visitor, however. Technically there were guards, but it was hard to be too vigilante while watching a pile of junk from thirteen year old boys who thought, at that age that coming back smelling of garbage with a stolen item that someone else had thrown out anyways was cool. The young man never had much trouble with the guards and in any case he wore dark colors and he wasn't there for trophies.

He would root through the piles of junk, pulling out items mostly of various metals or he would take a broken electronic devise or pull the back off of a busted television and pick a few wires out of it. Then, when he had grown tired of digging through the junk he would be back over the fence with his findings. At that point he visited one of the junkyards around the city at least twice a week. He didn't have much money so it was the best way to get a hold of materials.

This meant that he often smelled of the junkyard, and of course was berated for it, but by that point he was made fun of for just about everything else and therefore didn't much care about this.

Eventually that junkyard was moved because people living nearby complained about the smell. They flooded it and built a beach, granted on hot days it still smelled like a junkyard and occasionally children dug up large metal items in the sand, which for some reason would become infested with tiny spiders in the late summer months and then, of course people complained about beach.

By that point the young man didn't need to visit the junkyards anymore.

XXX

The building was pure white. To the inquiring eye it almost resembled a large mushroom sprouting out of the ground and was surrounded by a massive fence mostly impenetrable and also pure white. The only color visible were on two large Vs. One on the gate and the other at the peak of the dome of the mushroom shaped house. They were orange. From there the eye was drawn to the large pyramid painted like the sky.

It was perhaps an impressive sight to the casual onlooker, but Perkins looked over it wearily before he stepped up to the gate. The top of the building unscrewed and a second later he was gazing into the barrels of several large guns.

"Who is it?" A voice said from a speaker by the door.

"Put those away Victor and let me in." Perkins said wearily. The camera atop one of the massive walls spun around and took in the husky suited figure.

"What's the password?" the voice insisted.

"If you don't open the door in the next five seconds I'm going to block your bank account." Perkins said with some impatience. There was a brief sound of disappointment and perhaps frustration from the speakers and then the guns were pulled back and a moment later the doors opened.

Perkins stepped in and headed forward as another door opened into a hall. This opened up into a living room. Again, it was impressive, with the glass aquarium underfoot, the large television and the sleek furniture. Vector's shark was swimming around listlessly. He had also apparently added a barracuda, which saw Perkins and immediately ran itself against one of the glass walls.

"I see your admiring my new addition to the fortress of Vectortude." Vector said. He had one of his guns spread across his lap and had his feet up on the coffee table. "The Barracuda. It has a very strong jaw and jagged teeth for ripping into unexpected intruders. Now I have twice as much deadliness in my deadly fish tank…unfortunately it keeps running into the wall for some reason," he added as the barracuda ran against the wall again.

Perkins scowled as he put some papers down on his son's coffee table, brushing off a game controller as he did. He sat down on the couch causing it to creak slightly.

"Are you still trying to find new villains? I already told you I can take care of Gru myself." Vector said after eyeing one of the pages on the top of the stack. "When I'm done with him he'll know what hurting is. Revenge is a six-letter word and that word is Vector! Oh yeah!" He finished the statement standing up in a dramatic pose. Perkins eyed his son wearily.

"Sit down Victor," he said. "You had your chance. You lost the shrink ray, you failed to get the moon and I had to pay a fortune to bring you back from outer space." Vector sat down somewhat dejectedly. "I don't get my hands dirty with this field work so I have to bring someone else in to help you." He said the last with little enthusiasm. Villains, worthwhile villains anyways were hard to come by these days. It was either old men, set in there ways, ways which were about a century out of date or young men who wouldn't know a work of true evil if it were tattooed on their forehead. He wasn't sure which type he was more tired of.

He was having the Bank of Evil reupholstered and his desk replaced since the woman in all the fur had destroyed it and also somewhat because he no longer had a partner and therefore could redecorate a few of the things he personally found out of date. Currently he was seeing people in his son's house.

Because of the amount of money the bank had lost recently he was turning down a lot of loan applications because he was trying to find someone who he could benefit from…as it were in more ways then one. Gru had lost him way too much money. It was time for Gru to disappear, but he didn't have enough faith in his son to do it by himself.

An alarm went off. Vector grabbed the keyboard beside him and pressed a few buttons so that he could see his front door. There was a young man standing there, examining the camera when it flashed on.

XXX

"Daddy…" a small voice cut into the realms of Gru's sleep, followed by a shuffling sound accompanied with tiny sounds of frustration and then some weight on his chest. "Daddy…"

Gru opened one eye. Agnes' face filled up his vision.

"What ees eet…Agnes?"

"I can't find my big unicorn." Gru eyed the young girl wearily for a moment.

"What?"

"Have you seen it?"

"Agnes…eet ees really early…we will look for eet lator, go…back to bed."

"I can't sleep without it," she said while pushing at his arm. Gru sighed.

"Sleep weeth one ove your other toys," he said with a yawn as he tried to turn over.

"But I want my unicorn, it keeps monsters away." She said as she grabbed at the t-shirt he was wearing.

"Eet ees just a toy and dere are no monsters, go back to bed," he said his voice muffled by the pillow.

"But what about the bed bugs and the thing in the closet."

"What are you talkeeng about?"

"You said they were there," there was a brief pause.

"I was lying." There was silence and after a moment Gru risked a look at her. He sighed. "All right, I will help you find eet. Den will you go back to bed?" She brightened up and nodded before slipping off of Gru's bed. He sighed and threw the covers off.

"Where deed you 'ave eet last?" Gru asked with a yawn as he followed his daughter down the hall.

"In the magical forest. We were having a tea party with the queen of the fairies." There was a long silence.

"Eet ees five o' clock een de morning, Agnes…where een our house ees dat?"

"It was in the living room." Gru nodded and turned the lights on in the living room, checking all of his trophies, including the iron maiden, despite the fact that he now kept it locked so that Edith wouldn't play around with it.

"Do you remember 'aving eet anywhere else?" He asked when it became clear that they weren't finding it.

"Well…the evil witch captured him and threw him in prisom…that's our closet…then we ate dinner."

"Ees he still een de closet Agnes?" Agnes watched him for moment with her large brown eyes.

"Oh…" Gru sighed and then picked her up and headed back to the girl's room. He put her in her bed and got the stuffed unicorn from the closet.

"Dere, eet ees liberated. Good night," he said as Agnes grabbed it.

"Yay, you're a hero daddy."

"Buh, great…" he said as he tucked her in. He headed back down the stairs to turn the lights out in the living room when the television flashed on.

"Oh, Gru, wonderful. The censors went off but I was expecting Kyle again. Since your awake do you mind coming down to the lab, I have something to show you."

"Uh, actually I was just…" he sighed as the screen flashed off and went to the Rhino chair to activate the lift.

When Gru descended into the lab Nefario was sitting at a table with a large beaker beside him. He was messing with the dart gun, which he had disassembled and was making adjustments to.

"What are you doeeng?" Gru asked with some hesitation as he eyed the gun.

"Oh, well, the poison I was using before had some corroding elements in it…one of the darts broke and damaged the whole thing so I'm looking into other elements. I was thinking about that incendiary juice. We've never found a use for that."

"So eef dere ees a leak een one of de new darts rather den corroding de device eet may randomly explode…"

"Well…I'll work out the details as I go along." Gru sighed.

"Ees dat what you wanted to show me?"

"Oh, no." Dr. Nefario said brightly as he moved from the table over to a computer. "Earlier this morning I received a notice for the A.C.E."

"What?" Gru said as Nefario began searching through the drawers. A.C.E was short of the Annual Commemoration of Evil, usually held by one of the major corporations dedicated to serving villainy. Every year they had sort of get together that was a call back to the days when evil consisted of men who thought islands in the shapes of skulls were a good idea usually on the birthday or deathday of a famous criminal in history. If anything it was probably a way for villains to keep tabs on each other and make sure no one had any plans that would spoil things for everyone.

"Something was faxed over a couple hours ago saying we should expect a formal invite in the mail," he said as he pulled a sheet out and handed it to Gru, who eyed it wearily.

"We never geet invited to dis…"

"I know, might be nice though, could provide us with some opportunities."

"For what? I theenk I am done weeth de whole collaboration theeng. De last time we went eet was a bunch of old men tryeeng to outdo each other by telling ridiculous stories, half ove which could not possibly 'ave happened."

"Look Gru, it has to be better then just sitting around inventing stuff we're never going to use or, as has been the case lately, fixing stuff that has nothing to do with villainy whatsoever. Would you at least consider going?"

"All right, I will consider eet." Gru said.

"Good, it would probably do you well. Spending some time around other villains. Especially since you insist on surrounding yourself with insufferable stubborn young women. Where are you going?" He asked as Gru straightened and set the sheet aside before heading back to the lift.

"I just remembered dat eet was thorsday," Gru called back.

XXX

Ady was sitting at the edge of her bed picking vaguely at the loose threads unraveling in the already prominent holes in her jeans.

She had requested Thursdays off so that she could take the girls to ballet practice. She had to admit that part of her still wasn't entirely sure why, particularly considering how much she disliked ballet and the company of soccer moms and considering that before babysitting Margo Edith and Agnes her only other experience was with her cousin's son, and that had only been the once, and he'd been bratty enough so that her cousin had actually instructed her to lock him in the bathroom if he started to act out.

She'd never really believed that she had much of a maternal instinct, because there had never really been much evidence of one. It wasn't even like she was starting to like kids. She still found most of them completely irritating. There was just…something about these kids…she enjoyed their company.

And then there was Gru. If ever there was proof that she probably needed some serious counseling he was probably it. There was no logical reason that she should feel anything but wariness and perhaps slight resentment towards him.

She sighed as she slipped her sandals on and pulled her hoodie over her shoulders. After she surfaced from her room she nodded at Vanessa who had her uniform on and was eating cereal at the kitchen table. It was kind of nice living with another woman…although somewhat ironic that now that she wasn't living with a guy she no longer had to worry about her clothes going missing.

"Hey, I'm heading out." Ady said as she pulled her bag over her shoulder.

"You want a ride?"

"No." Ady said, perhaps an instant too quickly. "I already called a cab. Thanks though, once I get my first paycheck I'll look into transportation…maybe I'll rent a car or something." She added, closing the door behind her as she left the apartment. It had been difficult trying to explain to Vanessa why she would take a babysitting job for kids she'd only known for a little over a month for free. Vanessa had mentioned bringing them by the Hideaway since the studio was so close. This was probably out of sheer morbid curiosity and Ady had mumbled some agreement that maybe she would at some point. She was a little concerned about Gru coming up in any form of conversation. She headed to the cab when it pulled up, her stomach knotting up slightly.

XXX

Gru opened the dryer and after removing a few items, frowned a little. His clothes were pink again. He sighed vaguely as he pulled out one of his once gray turtlenecks. He tossed it in the laundry basket before rubbing at his eyes and digging in the back of the dryer to pull out a pair of slacks, which he slung over his shoulder before picking up the basket and heading towards the living room.

"Hey, how many times do I 'ave to say to not wash de pink theengs weeth my clothes," Gru said as he set the basket down and waved the shirt.

The girls were watching a gratingly cute show of the sort that was meant to be for kids anywhere from four to ten, but in fact probably only appealed to dim-witted two year olds, although Agnes seemed to be getting some pleasure out of it. Margo was sitting next to her on the floor with her arm rested on her knee and Edith was lying across the couch with a tortured expression on her face.

"That's a pretty color, daddy." Agnes said brightly.

"Dat ees great, Agnes but I do not weesh for eet to be pretty," he said wearily.

"We didn't do any laundry," Margo said with a shrug. Gru pulled one of Edith's shirts out of the basket and raised his eyebrow.

"It was dirty." Edith said after being subject to both Gru and Margo's gaze. Gru sighed and eyed his turtleneck again miserably.

"Don't you have a couple of those?" Margo said.

"Dey are not clean," he said as he lifted the basket.

"Well, if your worried about what Ady'll think…I don't think she's going to care what shirt you're wearing." Margo said with the hint of a smile. Her father had been acting somwhat nervous all morning.

Gru gave her a sideways look.

"Dat ees not…I am not worried about…go and get your tutus on," he said finally before heading towards the stairs, handing Edith her shirt in the process.

He set the laundry basket down on his bed and began searching through his dresser for another shirt he could wear so he didn't have to don the pink one. She would probably make fun of the pink one. He frowned, tried to ignore the butterflies in his stomach and pulled out a button up shirt from the depths of one of the drawers, examining it briefly before pulling it over the t-shirt he usually wore under his pj top.

When Gru was dressed he headed down the stairs, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he did. Margo Edith and Agnes had also dressed and were in the living room. Margo was loading their bags with their ballet slippers and other items they might need while at dance class, including a small stuffed unicorn that Agnes insisted she needed.

As he made his way down the hall there was a knock on the door. Gru headed towards it. He cast a brief look in the cracked mirror over a display of swords, scowled at his reflection and then opened the door and met Ady's gaze. He smiled nervously.

That nervousness might have been reflected in her green eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a sardonic expression as she stepped into his house.

"Nice shirt, you know it's on inside out." Gru made a vague sound of frustration and began to unbutton it. Agnes ran up giggling and attached herself to Ady's leg.

"Oh…hey Agnes." Ady said vaguely as Edith walked up and yanked at the bottom of her hoodie.

"Hey, look, I've got a loose tooth," she said while opening her mouth and jiggling it.

"That's great Edith." Ady said while shaking her leg slightly in hopes that Agnes would just drop off.

"Look what I can do with it," Edith continued and she grabbed the tooth and flipped it around.

"That's really gross." Edith smiled, satisfied.

"It freaks Margo out," she said proudly.

"Would you uh, like some coffee?" Gru asked while he turned the shirt the right way around.

"We should probably get going. I've got the cab waiting," she said.

"I can drive you," he said as he fiddled with the buttons. Ady looked depressed for a moment. This dissolved into amusement as she watched Gru get to the last couple of buttons before his expression fell briefly upon realizing that he'd missed a couple.

"Having some trouble there, Gru?" He cast her a dark look as he started to undo them again. This dissolved into slight awkwardness as he attempted to sort out where he'd gone wrong.

"In the future you may want to consider sticking to stuff with zippers, you know…if buttons continue to be a problem," he didn't say anything, mainly because she'd taken a step towards him, towing a giggling Agnes and had lightly batted his hands away to refasten his shirt.

"I will just, geet dat coffee den…" he said, sounding slightly winded. Ady nodded with some embarrassment.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets and headed into Gru's living room to sit down on the crocodile couch after he went to the kitchen, looking sideways as Agnes climbed up beside her in her tutu.

"Can I ask you a question?" Agnes asked after a moment.

"Hmm?"

"Is daddy your boyfriend?" Ady froze for a moment.

"Uh…he's not…it's complicated…Agnes,"

"But you kissed him right…that's what grownups do when they love each other." For a moment Ady's face seemed to quickly flicker between a variety of dismayed expressions before it settled into embarrassment.

"N- it…uh…your uh…we're not…no…he's not my boyfriend Agnes," she said, her face coloring slightly as she raked her hand through her hair nervously.

XXX

Gru opened the door for the girls and Ady, shutting it behind him afterwards, he pulled something out of his back pocket, which vaguely resembled a remote control of some sort and pressed a button. There was a heavy thudding sound as various locks fell into place before he tucked the device away again and headed down the stairs.

Ady looked sideways at Margo, who was carrying all of her and her sisters bags and motioned for the girl to hand them to her. Next door, Fred was watering the bushes up against his fence. He beamed at Gru. Ady wondered vaguely if there was something wrong with him.

"Morning Gru." Fred said brightly while raising his watering can in a wave.

"Drop dead." Gru responded dryly as he walked past Ady to open the tank.

"Um…okay…" Fred said, momentarily nonplussed. After a moment he seemed to shake himself from this and set the watering can down. "Um, I was wondering if I could…discuss a small matter with you Gru?" he added while moving around his fence onto the sidewalk in front of Gru's house.

"No," he said while motioning for Ady and the girls to precede him into the tank.

"Well, okay um, maybe later then. It's uh…" Fred was cut off because the door to the tank slammed shut.

Gru always backed up into his driveway but he made a point of stopping when he got into the road and putting the tank into reverse. Fred watched glumly as his mailbox fell off of the post and a couple of the planks in his fence cracked before the tank pulled away.

Ady watched Fred out of the back window as he picked his mailbox up before turning around in her seat and frowning at Gru. He didn't seem to notice. She sighed and sat back.

XXX

Most aspiring villains of a certain age tended to get sort of odd ideas about the occupation and took on a flashy slightly gothic look, sporting skull belt buckles and fingerless gloves and eye makeup as they assumed villainy might be the ideal career to attract a certain type of girl. Most of them didn't last past their first heist. Perkins was in a fowl mood because he'd been seeing quite a lot of them in the past week or so.

The young man in front of him did not seem to be one of these, but at the same time was nothing much to look at. He was wearing dull slacks, a bit too short and by contrast a smoking jacket that was far too big. He had long dark hair but it wasn't a bit flashy. It was, in fact a little messy and slightly greasy. Despite the clothes and hair he still might have been able to pull the look off if it hadn't been for his complexion. He had really bad acne. In short, he was unimpressive…and this was almost worse then the flash.

"Well, I have your papers here. You want to apply for a villain loan. Do you have a presentation ready Mr…" Perkins said after a moment, now slightly discouraged, in the face of what would most certainly be another poor interview.

"Just Hugo please." The young man said before unrolling the pages he had tucked under his arm. They were covered in complicated marks and notes.

"I have been studying physics, plasma in particular. It is a state of matter. So far it's use in modern weapon technology is limited because it requires a lot of power to maintain, but ideally if I could acquire the money, I think I could build a working plasma gun." Beside Perkins, Vector scoffed.

"Please, science fiction."

"Not necessarily." Hugo said, somewhat annoyed. "All you would need is a small fusion reactor. I think I can do it…with a loan." Perkins cleared his throat and sat up, pulling one of the sheets closer and examining it.

"Listen, Mr. Hugo, upon reviewing your papers I notice, no prior accomplishments, no history, you don't even have a criminal record…really there's nothing here that particularly gives me a good reason to want to offer you the prospect of a loan…did you attend any schools in villainy?" He asked while lowering the papers.

"There's a school for villainy?" The young man asked after a moment. He kept trying to tuck his hand in his coat in an almost napoleon like manner and then, perhaps in realizing that he was doing so, removing it and putting it in his pocket.

"Yes, I mean it isn't compulsory, a lot of villains start off without attending. Still, it does help to shape people who…otherwise may not have the…spark of a villain into something somewhat presentable." Perkins saw the young man's eyes dart to Vector for a moment, once again tweaking one of his guns. He cleared his throat. "Given your inexperience I have to decline. There's really nothing about you that says villain to me." He said while looking down at the young man's papers again. Something seemed to catch his eye for a moment.

"In your family history…there's a listing for James Bandit? Is that the James Bandit?" Perkins flipped through the pages slightly.

In front of him the young man was looking at the barracuda who had run into the wall, floated dazedly for a moment and then had circled around and done it again.

"He's my father." Hugo said without looking at Perkins. His eyes had drifted to Vector, who to the outsider's observation appeared to be trying to stuff a fish into the barrel of a gun.

"Really, you didn't mention your family had a history in villainy. He was good…in his day. If I recall he had a thing for poisons. Also had the decency to quit while he was still at the top of his game…these days it seems like villains try to hold on until their blithering pathetic idiots. Your surname is different. I suppose he taught you a few things then."

"After my parents divorced I moved in with my mother." He said, tearing his eyes off of Vector.

"Oh…I didn't realize he'd ever married. Was she in villainy too?"

"She was a pastry chef." Perkins scowled and then sighed a little and sat back.

"Do you know anything about villainy? Why should I waste money on you?"

"I've studied villainy at length actually. I've been going over the acts and heists and contributions of major villains in the last fifty years."

"Well that's great, but I'm not interested in what's been done. The bank is only backing fresh ideas." He sighed again. Unfortunately word had gotten around about both Vector's misfortune and the bank's brief stint under new management. Perkins was becoming a laughing stock. He was beginning to suspect that this as well as the class of villain was hurting his chances at finding genuinely talented applicants. This kid, with his bad acne was, at this point the last interview he had scheduled.

"This plasma gun…do you have any experience building weapons?"

"Some, I was reading up on a few of the weapons designed by older villains and I've been able to duplicate some of them. I've also managed to build a crude model of the plasma gun."

"And what could building a…plasma gun do for the bank?"

"Well…it can melt flesh and cut through metal." Perkins raised his eyebrow slightly.

"Out of curiosity, the guns you duplicated, what were they?"

"Uhh, Pernicia's needle gun, she did that in the 80's…not bad, although the needles seem to be a poor projectile…they go through the target and a lot of times actually don't cause any significant damage and then there's Mallus' sleep ray…some problems with that one…he called it a sleep ray but he built it with a Carbon Monoxide emitter…so…the victims did technically go to sleep…they just didn't wake up again. Lately I've been working on Gru's Freeze Ray."

The piranha popped out of Vector's hand again and bit him in the ankle, which offered an interruption in the silence that followed Hugo's explanation.

"You've duplicated the freeze ray?" Perkins asked, trying to ignore his son as he pulled at the fish.

"Not yet…it's trickier then gas and needles."

"Please, gas and needles are hardly impressive, I design my own weapons…using brand new ideas…stuff those old relics would never think of." Vector said, after he managed to yank the fish off of his ankle and stuff it back into the barrel.

"No doubt they wouldn't." Hugo said blankly. Perkins scowled briefly at his son before returning his gaze to the other young man.

"Some might say that…some of those weapons were…not exactly breakthroughs…why not pick something…more impressive?"

"Well, I don't just duplicate them…I try to make them better. I found that if you calibrate the needle gun to shoot several at a time they're more likely to cause significant damage. The sleep ray isn't ideal particularly since you could just use carbon monoxide bombs with a similar result, but plasma is similar to gas, so I thought it would help me along with my plasma gun. Same with the freeze ray, I'm trying to see what he used to power it. Plus it's ideal as a non lethal weapon."

"Have you…studied Gru beyond this…little invention?" Perkins said, studying the young man's papers again.

"Yes…I did say I've studied some of the older villains. He caught my interest. When he first started out he did a lot of…fairly impressive things with cheap materials. Useful knowledge."

"Well, in light of this new…information. I think it's possible I may consider you for a loan, after all. However, we have lost a lot of money lately, so you must understand that we can't just offer loans out like we used to. I would like to see one of these weapons you designed, to confirm that you know what you're doing. I would also require a…small assignment completed in order to prove you competency. You see my son is undertaking a mission of sorts, but…in the past his performance was…less then satisfactory," he said while looking sideways at Vector, who's otherwise confident demeanor faltered briefly in face of his father's disapproval. "If you help him succeed with it, I'll let you have your money so you can build your plasma ray."

"What's the assignment?" Hugo asked, with some hesitation.

"I want to destroy Felonius Gru."

XXX

Later that evening, when they returned, Ady had noticed that throughout the afternoon a pain had started in one of her eyes and had spread to the rest of her head. She sighed as she stepped onto Gru's dead lawn and rubbed at her forehead. Edith and Agnes rushed out of the tank behind her. Agnes tugged at one of the bags she was still carrying.

"Can I have my unicorn?" Ady lowered her hand and fished through the bag for a moment before finding the toy and handing it to the smaller girl. Agnes beamed and bounced away.

Gru had exited the tank last, closing the door behind him.

"Listen Gru…in the future…I think I'll stick to the bus or a cab…"

"Eet ees no trouble…" Gru said after a moment of hesitation.

"Well…maybe not for you…but I'm thinking pedestrians will be grateful. As bad as cab drivers are in this city at least they wont run five red lights, cause two wrecks and they don't treat parking spaces as empty so long as they have a smaller car in them," she said before shrugging off the girl's bags and handing them to Margo when the girl reached for them, eyeing her father nervously.

"Eet could 'ave been a lot worse, believe me."

"Gru, you ran into a minivan at the dance studio and ran over the bikes that were strapped to the top."

"De bikes were not intentional…clearly dey were not secure."

"Well I doubt people strap them in thinking they might be hit by a tank."

"Fine, you can do whatever you want, but I am not goeeng to pay for a cab every thorsday…"

"Well if I still had a car…" Ady started with some irritation.

"Ady, do you want to stay for dinner?" Margo interrupted quickly, getting both of their attention. She raised her eyebrows at her father who straightened a little. Ady crossed her arms. Agnes, who had been running around in circles giggling stopped and bounced in front of Ady and Gru.

"Yeah, stay for dinner. Then we can play afterwards," she said brightly.

"I was goeeng to make filet mignon." Gru said after a moment while looking at her sideways. She shrugged, still crossing her arms.

XXX

Ady sat at the counter in Gru's kitchen while he opened the pantry and grabbed his apron. The girls had gone up to get changed out of their tutus.

"So filet mignon is like steak right?"

"Eet ees steak. Eet ees taken from de tenderloin. And eet will 'ave bacon wrapped around it," he said as he began selecting the ingredients from the fridge. "Dere ees a bottle on dat rack, de 1980 Cabernet Sauvignon. Could you grab dat?"

Ady stood up and eyed the rack briefly before grabbing the bottle.

"De bottle opener ees een de top drawer." Ady opened the drawer and grabbed the bottle opener. A moment later there was a pop and the cork hit Gru on the back of the ear. After a moment he turned slowly to look at her.

"I swear that wasn't intentional." Ady said after a moment. Gru gave her a slightly skeptical look and motioned for her to hand him the bottle.

You're using this for the steak?" Ady said as she moved beside him.

"Not for de gurls. Dey will 'ave no sauce. Every time I make sometheeng een sauce dey will not eat eet." Gru eyed her briefly out of the corner of his eye. "I 'ave sometheeng for you,"

"It doesn't explode does it?" Ady asked while leaning on her arms and watching him place the pan over the burners.

"No," he said as he laid the steaks down on the pan and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. "I will geet eet. Do not touch dose." He added as he headed out of the kitchen.

When Gru returned he was holding a small box, he handed it to her. Ady eyed it for a moment before taking it awkwardly.

"So…it won't explode…" she said as he turned the steaks over.

"Eet will not."

"Or bite, or electrocute anything?" Gru cast her a dry look Ady hesitated for a moment longer before opening the box and staring at its contents. She looked up at him again, slightly bewildered before reaching back into the box and pulling out one of the objects.

"These are my shoes," she said after a moment.

"Sort ove…I am guessing dat dey were pretty much garbage even before Kyle got to dem…dere ees a lot of new materials dere." He said while his eyes flickered to her with a hint of apprehension.

She turned the shoe around in her hand and eyed the side amusedly. There was a G where the converse label was supposed to be she raised the shoe and gave him an inquiring look.

"Dr. Nefario does not break habit's easily…he was not…happy about doeeng dis."

"Shoes go beyond his expertise?" Ady said as she removed the other shoe with a smile and began to undo the strings.

"Uh…well…no…shoes are not really his theeng, plus he ees not…all dat…fond ove you. Are dey all right?" He added nervously.

"Yeah…thanks." She stood and after a moment that radiated of awkwardness she hugged him clumsily. She felt him tense before he retuned the hug.

"You are welcome."

XXX

Wow okay, so this took a lot longer then I expected for various reasons. I kind of lost my job unexpectedly because the owner decided to sell the place without giving us warning and I've been busy looking for another job and I also have a boyfriend now…so yeah…social life.

Also, I had to kind for drop one of the plot threads from the story because it was jamming up the whole thing and was giving me horrible writers block. It was kind of a fun idea but I just couldn't fit it in with the rest of the plot and things have been going better since I decided to omit it. Anyways, hopefully I'm on the right track now and this chapter worked out. The next one shouldn't take nearly as long.

This is also a working title. It may be the permanent one. It depends on whather or not I think of something I like better. Anyways, sorry for the wait. Thanks for all of your reviews on the last chapter of Worst of You. ^^