Disclaimer: I own these characters. Please don't take them or claim they're yours. I'll know.

A/N: This was written ... oh man ...back in October for my friend Tammy. It's just a scenelet about the Fleming family, and mostly a character sketch for Mitchell -- how I love that boy. This isn't meant to be deep or searching; it's just kids. Once again, those who follow the 'blog will have seen this.

One Fine Day at the Playground

Mitchell Fleming scowled and stomped to the park, dragging his nephew behind him. He was nine years old, Mitchell was, and too old to be babysitting a little kid who wasn’t even in school yet. Geez. It was okay when he was younger and it just meant making sure the baby didn’t swallow anything he wasn’t s’posed to. But now Robbie actually wanted to play.

Mitchell had friends. He had stuff he wanted to do, things to blow up with his chemistry set, Jolene’s diary to find and read, cookies to steal from wherever Mom hid them last. And it wasn’t like Robbie was even related to him — he was just like a stray kitten that Paul and Unca Mike picked up.

Robbie just smiled and followed Mitchell, holding his hand, and didn’t ask him to slow down even though Mitchell was going too fast on purpose. Mitchell liked to run, actually, but even if he was annoyed that it was his turn, he wasn’t going to leave the kid completely behind.

“Here,” Mitchell grunted, pointing at the sandbox, “Go nuts.”

He was, incidentally, rather proud that he’d figured out how to grunt in sign language — or at least, to give off the same impression. Short, quick gestures and smaller handshapes, where his hands only went half the distance they were supposed to. It annoyed Paul when he talked like that.

Unfortunately, Robbie never learned to be put off by Mitchell’s crankiness. It wasn’t that he was dumb; he was just oblivious, and selectively so. The kid could pick up on sadness or embarrassment or anything where he might need to provide comfort, but anything to do with grumpiness sailed right over him.

“Come play with me?” Robbie asked, beaming.

“No,” Mitchell shook his head. “Sandboxes are for babies.”

Robbie just made a floppy-wrist gesture, which they’d learned was his equivalent of a snort, and started building a castle. Mitchell watched him, unimpressed, and fought down the urge to show him what a real sand castle looked like. When no one was looking, Mitchell made a mean sand subdivision.

After a while that got boring, and Mitchell flopped onto his stomach and started thinking about the comic he was drawing with his brother (though he made sure to keep Robbie in his eye-line in case the kid wanted something). Anthony was insisting on bringing unicorns into the story again, but Mitchell absolutely refused. Awesome superheroes who could, like, bring down entire buildings by staring at them did not ride unicorns no matter how much ‘Tony whined.

He was starting to doze and Robbie’s lump of sand had something that vaguely resembled parapets if Mitchell squinted, when he heard voices.

“Hey kid, can we play with your baby castle?”

Mitchell’s eyes narrowed, and he sat up to see a few boys who were maybe eleven or so, standing at the edge of the sand pit and smirking at Robbie. Robbie, of course, didn’t hear them, and kept playing, humming to himself, which looked like he was conducting an orchestra one-handed while forming random letters of the alphabet.

“Hey, kid!” the biggest boy said, coming closer, “What are you, deaf?”

“Yes,” Mitchell spoke up, irritated, “He is.”

The boy blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“Why would I make that up?” Mitchell frowned. He tapped Robbie on the shoulder and said while signing, “The boys want to know if you’re really deaf.”

Robbie looked up, shading his eyes against the sun. “Hi,” he said, “I can’t hear you but Mitchie can tell me what you’re saying,” Mitchell hardened his voice at that one, adding a warning, “You wanna play? Just be careful where you step.”

The kid grinned and jumped into the sandbox, right in the middle of Robbie’s castle. Robbie’s eyes widened and he signed, “Why?”

Mitchell gritted his teeth and grabbed Robbie’s hand, pulling him back. “He’s just a baby,” he said, trying to hold back his anger. Paul said nothing made bullies madder than if you ignored him, but geez. Even Mitchell wouldn’t destroy some kid’s sandcastle.

“Aw, is baby gonna cry?” the boy snickered, “Why don’t you teach us some sign language, baby?”

Mitchell translated the last part, then added, silently, “We’re gonna show ‘em, Robbie. Try not to laugh.”

“All right,” Mitchell said, “What do you want me to show you?”

Confident in his playground superiority, the boy smirked. “Tell me how to say ‘You’re stupid’.”

“That’s easy,” Mitchell said aloud while signing ‘Watch this’, and he patiently repeated the hand movements until the other boy got it right.

Still grinning, the boy turned to Robbie and said, “I like to eat my own poo.”

Robbie’s eyes bugged, and he bit his lip. “That’s nice,” he signed back.

“He said you’re mean,” Mitchell said easily, ‘Good boy’. “Anything else?”

Half an hour later, Robbie had tears streaming down his face as he tried desperately not to let his facial expression give himself away. Satisfied, the boys swaggered off, signing back and forth to each other what they thought was “You look like a girl”.

Mitchell put his arm around Robbie and watched proudly as the boys argued, “I lick dogs’ bums” “No, I lick dogs’ bums” with impressive vehemence.

“Hah,” Mitchell said, nodding once, “That’ll teach ‘em.”

It didn’t matter that the boys thought they’d won. If Mitchell had opposed them outright, they might have done something to Robbie, and he couldn’t let them do that. He sat down in the sand and tugged Robbie down with him.

“Here,” he said, scooping some soft grains into his hand and letting them trickle between his fingers, “I’ll show you how to make a really good one.”

Robbie hiccoughed with laughter and he watched Mitchell intently. “You’re good, Mitchie. I love you.”

“Yeah, well,” Mitchell turned his head to hide the pleased grin, “Don’t go all squishy on me.”