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Steven woke up uncharacteristically late. It was a Saturday, so he wouldn't have to– bang! He was startled by some crashing outside of his room. Next thing he knew, there were five government agents in his bedroom. Huh.
Thankfully, he'd gotten into the habit of keeping his I.D in the front pocket of his pajamas after he was forced to spend far too much time talking with an officer about what should have been a simple loitering ticket. Otherwise the whole half-alien thing might freak them out. Especially if he started to turn pink.
He let the officers escort him outside and handcuff him. "What's going on?" he muttered. Talking to cops was a bad idea, but he hadn't been read his Miranda rights, so anything he said was inadmissible in court, and these guys didn't necessarily operate within the extent of the law anyway, so giving them three extra words probably wouldn't hurt.
"Your friend Mr. Pines here stole three hundred gallons of hazardous waste from a secure government facility," one of the agents said.
Steven closed his eyes for a moment. Talking to cops was an exceptionally bad idea for a regular citizen . Admitting to a crime you didn't commit was even worse. But, Steven's I.D. gave him complete diplomatic immunity. Or rather, having three giant ex-dictators for aunts, being an extremely influential figure back on homeworld, and technically being the ruler of Earth for intergalactic politics reasons gave him diplomatic immunity, and his I.D was simply proof.
"No he didn't," Steven said, hoping that this would work. "I did."
"What?" Mr. Pines said, "Kid, you really don't have to take the fall for me, I didn't even do it!"
"I know you didn't," said Steven. "Because I did."
"We'll just have to take both of you in for questioning," the other agent said.
Steven shook his head. "My I.D. is in my front pocket. Take a look."
The agent put on a glove before carefully pulling the card from his pocket. His eyes widened. "Our mistake, sir." He motioned for the rest of the team to back off, freeing Stan and Steven. "We'll look for the culprit elsewhere." He handed Steven's card back.
Steven smiled. "Thank you."
"Thank you for being so patient. My deepest apologies for the error."
Steven nodded, squinted at the sun, and started to walk back inside to brew himself a cup of tea. The special forces left as quickly as they had arrived.
The Pines stood in shock."Somehow, it feels weird to go back to the water balloon fight now," Mabel said.
"Normally, I'd say you were just saying that because you were winning," Dipper said. "But I'll agree. Did Steven really steal three hundred gallons of toxic waste? And get away with it?"
Stan scratched his head. "What kind of piece of plastic can get you outta that ?"
"It kinda seems he just said he did it because he knew he could get away with it," Mabel said. "I don't think he actually stole the waste."
"He probably could've just took it without being sneaky about it," Dipper said. "But, why did they suspect you, Grunkle Stan?"
Stan sighed. "Remember I was gonna tell you kids something?"
"... Yeah?" Dipper said slowly. "Were you going to tell us you stole three hundred gallons of toxic waste?"
"No," Stan said. "I was just going to say, everything I did, I did for this family. You're gonna start hearing a lot of bad things about me. Some of them are true, but you have to trust me, it's all gonna be worth it in the end."
"I believe you, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said.
"I, uh, honestly don't know what to do from here," Stan said. "I was expecting things to go horribly wrong."
"Hey guys," said Wendy. "What are you all doing standing out here?"
"This morning has been weird ," Mabel said.
Wendy laughed. "This is Gravity Falls."
"Like, really weird," Dipper clarified. "Steven may be a super-important government guy?"
Stan shook his head. "Nah, he would've ordered 'em to go away, not said he did it."
"Okay," Wendy said, feeling grateful that she had the option not to engage with this. "I'm going to be clocking in."
"Oh, yeah, the shack!" Stan said. "I guess I'm still… running tours today?" He scratched his neck. "Huh."
Everyone was still uneasy, of course, but it was too early to question Steven, who was sleepily eating his breakfast, and the shack still needed to run. Stan managed to saddle the kids with enough busywork that they wouldn't bother him about the waste for the moment either. Everything would be worth it in five hours.
It was only as the gravitational anomalies got worse that Steven pulled Stan aside. "Would these have anything to do with the toxic waste 'I' stole?" he asked.
"Trust me kid, it'll all be worth it in–" He checked his watch. "Three hours."
"Ok, Mr. Pines, I'm trusting you," Steven said. He laughed. "After all, you wouldn't be stupid enough to put something that could blow out a city block under your own house."
Stan awkwardly laughed.
"Besides, if it was more than just the area, I'm sure I would've gotten some texts. Hmm, then again, I'm not sure if my friends would notice."
This was something Stan could engage with without having to lie his ass off. Better to focus on Steven's weirdness rather than Stan's own secrets. "Why not?"
"Well, Connie and dad probably would, and Sadie, and– well anyway, some of my friends might not recognize it because they adjust to varying gravity automatically."
"Eh, good enough for me," Stan said. "They'll get worse for another three hours or so, but they'll stop after that."
"Okay. Did you need a more reliable source of power than waste? Using waste can be volatile, so if you need something that's less likely to combust… but also. Don't blow up my planet, please. I kinda live here."
Stan laughed. "Thanks for the offer, kid. I won't be needing anything, and I live here too."
Steven nodded. "Okay, just, be careful."
The three hours passed without much issue, despite the gravitational anomalies. The situation was handled, for the time being, so there was no reason to do anything urgent.
When the chaos settled down, Stan and Ford emerged from the vending machine, bickering. Ford stopped when he saw Steven. His eyes widened.
Steven turned around. "Hey Mr. Pines! Oh—did you… make a cloning machine? Hi, I'm Steven!" He waved. "Anyway—Mr. Pines, I put up the display like you asked, but it's a little crooked, if you wanna check if it's ok?"
"Who—Stan, who is that?" Ford asked.
"This is my employee, Steven Universe. He's not a local, but he's been a great help this summer. Steven, this is my brother, Stanford."
"It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Universe," Ford said, reaching out his hand.
Steven took it in his own and shook it. He grinned. "Are you this formal with everyone? Steven's fine. How would you like me to address you?"
"Does this have anything to do with the… situation this morning?" Stan asked, before Ford could respond.
"That depends," Steven said. "I doubt it? I mean they might both know me from… my other job?"
"You have another job, kid? You shouldn't have to—"
Steven cut him off, "No, no, it's not even a paying job, it's just got some notoriety."
" Some notoriety?" Ford asked. " Some? In every dimension I traveled to that was further down the relative timeline and had something in common with this dimension, you were a historical figure. You were more of a constant than Julius Caesar !"
Steven opened his mouth, shut it, then said, "You know, that unfortunately makes some sense. I either do something big or the world ends." He chuckled.
"So, uh, are you—do you have your title yet?"
"Currently, I am the first ruler of Earth, by no personal desire and less actual power than one might think. Basically, it's just a technicality until I can get humanity ruled as an intelligent species," he explained, almost apologetically, to Stan.
"Are—are you not human?" Stan asked.
"I'm human, I'm just also a gem, which is intergalactically recognized as an intelligent species."
"And humans aren't."
Steven nodded. "One of the requirements is travel outside of your home star system, but I'm going to file for an exception seeing as gem tech has interfered with human tech at this point, and there are humans who have traveled outside of the solar system, just not using human tech."
“There have been humans outside of the solar system?” Stan asked.
“Yep, I mean my best friend Connie and I, Lars, dad, the zoomans, I think Aberguine’s running tours of humans around Homeworld—”
“Maybe we won’t have to have an exception!” said Ford. “We can travel outside of this system with our own inventions!”
“... inventions influenced by intergalactic and interdimensional tech. It’s probably going to be harder to meet the requirement that way than to get an exemption.” Steven said.
Eventually, they got bombarded by questions from the kids, causing them to set the topic down for the moment. Steven was just a worker at the mystery shack. He just also happened to technically be the ruler of Earth. Eventually, things slowed back to normal, or, as normal as they could get in Gravity Falls.