"My father kept that as his biggest secret, the engineering of two boys to be used as weapons for the government" Dave said as Max flipped through the file page by page.
The name of his brother was mentioned several times along with the process of creation, from how they were grown from scratch to their creation. As Cipher Tech was charged with bringing them into being through the funds readily made available by the government. Their abilities were listed alongside how effective they would be in combat. His heartbeat increased and he began to breath faster and faster with the information in the file overwhelming him.
"Are you okay?" Dave asked concerned seeing the state he was in.
Max kept on flipping and flipping seeing pictures of himself doing his younger years, pictures of him in combat then on the last page it read,
'No weakness confirmed but subjects may be liable to gamma radiation (IN THEORY)'
Max dropped he file as a picture came out and landed in front of Dave, Max sat down on the floor and hung his head down. How could this be, he was never born, he was created, engineered to be a weapon for destruction from the start. No real parents or anything at all. Dave picked up the picture that came out of the file and it was a picture of Max, he stared at it intensely then looked at Max who had his head lowered.
"Could it be?" he muttered.
"You're the one" Dave added.
Max raised his head in confusion.
"You're the one my father rescued hoping you would do good in your life" Dave stated then his eyes widened as he then realized, "Wait, are you.....Maverick?!"
Max let out a huge breath and closed his eyes then nodded.
"Holy shit, my cousin is Maverick!" he exclaimed.
"I am not your cousin" Max said standing up. "I have no blood ties to either you or my adoptive parents, for crying out loud I don't know whose blood runs through my veins. I have no idea who I am or whose child I am, I'm just an escaped science project" Max said banging his fist on a bookshelf.
"I don't care" Dave said.
Max raised his head with his eyes lighting up at his words.
"Apart from my best friend Rodrigo, you're the only one I have left as family" Dave said.
"You...mean that?" Max asked.
"Yes, whether you have our blood or not, you were taken in and raised as one of us and that will never change no matter the blood within your veins"
"Not to mention Aunt Elizabeth was my father's only sibling and my cousins from my mother's side don't relate with me so you're the only family I have" Dave added.
Max didn't think and his body on its own hugged him, the two hugged as Max now had an extra shoulder to lean on when things got tough with him now knowing that he was a hero as well.
"Just one more thing" Dave said.
"What is that?" Max asked.
"I'm Gears"
..............................…
Max arrived San Francisco late and walked home knowing well it was way past his curfew and his parents would yell at him. But that didn't matter, he was satisfied with the answers he had gotten.
As he walked down his street, he heard sirens and saw cop lights flash and a crowd had gathered. He used his enhanced vision to see what they were looking at.
"Wait, that's my house" he said. "What's going on?" he said panicking a bit as he raced to his house.
As he got closer, he saw two ambulances and five cop cars with a fire engine parked outside his house with yellow tape around his residence. As he approached, his neighbors gathered turned to him seeing him approaching with some of them crying and now he was really confused.
"What's going on?" Max asked determined to know why he had officers and two ambulances parked in front of his house.
Some of his neighbors had a sad look on their face and some cried and now he was even more confused.
"Someone answer me, tell me what the hell is going on!" he screamed getting the attention of the officials.
"Why are you all looking sad, tell me what is going on!!" he raged.
Ramon and Jessica raced out of the house hearing his voice as he looked like a man enclosed by a circle of his neighbors.
"Max!" the two yelled as they broke through the circle and hugged him.
"Why are you guys hugging me. Please tell me what on Earth is going on here" he demanded seeing their red eyes.
"Are you Max Taker?!" a voice said catching his attention.
It was a detective standing at his door.
"Yes, who's asking?" he answered with the other two sulking on him.
"Can we talk inside?"
Max sat down in his living room with the detective and his partner with Jessica and Ramon by his side.
"Okay detectives tell me what is going on, why do I have people outside my house" Max demanded with a worried but confused tone.
"Calm down Mr. Taker" the detective said.
"I can't calm down when I don't know why you people are in my house" he answered sharply.
"I'm sorry Max but you have to brace yourself for what I'm about to tell you" his partner said.
"Just say it" he said wondering why Ramon and Jessica held his hands.
"Your parents are dead" his partner said.
His eyes shrank in disbelief, he couldn't phantom the words he had just said.
"You're lying" he answered with tears forming in his eyes.
"They are your two friends found them hanging from the roof of your basement when they came looking for you. I am very sorry for your loss"
As Max still tried to process that information, he saw the bodies parents carried out on stretchers by medics and he lost it. He let out a loud cry and the neighbors outside bowed their heads knowing that he had just found out. They walked back to their houses as Max began to weep and wail without control as the detectives walked out to give him time to process everything. Jessica and Ramon tried their best to calm him down, but nothing worked, he was to overcome with grief to think straight.
...................................
A week had gone by, and Max buried his parents that very Saturday right after his exams. He placed a call to Dave informing him at what had happened, and he was even more heart broken as he never even got the chance to see them one last time. He took care of the burial arrangements with his grandparents from his mother's side, which he had never met until that day, were in attendance. Even Dave's best friend Rodrigo Garcia came, Ramon and Jessica were by his side every step of the way. His relatives from his father's side were also in attendance, since finding out about their death Max had only spoke when paying tribute to them but nothing more.
"Is he going to be, okay?" Ramon asked Jessica as they watched Max and Dave hug.
"I don't know, he hasn't said a thing to us" she answered.
"I bet he is still as shocked as we are" Ramon added as Max had begun talking to his grandparents.
"Definitely" Jessica said. "I wonder why they would take their own lives" Jessica added.
"I have a feeling that they didn't and someone else just did that to cover everything up" Ramon reasoned.
"What makes you think that?" Jessica asked.
"I don't know but it's a strong feeling in my gut and that is hardly ever wrong"