København was a world of wonder from the very start. The parks, the buildings that flattened before the next tower spiraled into the sky, citadels reaching for a heaven no two people imagined the same. Every shop filled itself with wonder and young Bente — a name he'd liked so much his parents let him take it when he was six — found wonder in every way. The corners of book shops filled with comics and fantasy, the edges of playgrounds where the fences became grand moats and the trees were guards. Comic books and video games were vivid and bright, the strong growth of world understanding that he didn't get from the friends who clung to him for making up a dozen new games a week for them to play.
The only friend who shared both the absurd of the run around and the at home games was Malene; they were a bit of each other's halves, as their parents always said. They met at Dorrit's dentist office when Malene was showing up for a tooth ache she was having and Bente was spending after class hours playing with toys in the room. When they found out they lived so close to each other, it seemed set for life — they were meeting up on their walks to and from class almost daily, and eventually their parents even managed to organize them being in the same schools. Malene was creative too, like Bente, but she could sing and perform; they'd watch some old musical and she'd be able to sing the songs out as Bente tried to imagine the sheets became costumes. Together, they were an absurd force, putting on shows as Bente tried to dance to the melodies she'd oversing.
Through middle school and high school they harnessed their talents. While Bente enjoyed the drawing aspect of the creation, Malene encouraged more. He danced still, joined her in drama clubs and even landed into a few plays with her, though his part was always far less than hers. It worked, though, as he got to work on the sets for the plays and help build the scenery. Who cared for spotlight when he could build a whole world for her to sing inside of? That was the way it was, always; Bente wanting to make and Malene the one to test it for the reality, to make sure it was worth shining inside of. If not for Bente liking boys both families were always sure that Malene and him would have gotten married.
And eventually, they would have preferred it. High school came and Malene's cravings turned to more than just applause. Jakob was their chemistry professor. At first, even Bente didn't know what was going on with it — he was busy, of course, even found himself a boyfriend named Theo who lasted a whole five eternal months — so when Malene came to him with the news there was shock through all their systems. It was hard to keep secret, Malene having an affair with a professor, but Bente always hoped it would end with the summer. It didn't. In fact, they were the kind of triste that went on for too long, until their first year of secondary when Malene had to come clean about everything because of her pregnancy.
It was a scandal in every way. Malene had to leave the school and Jakob was put in jail, and Bente was questioned about it endlessly. He never said anything, not to anyone but his own parents. It just wasn't right. Finishing school without her wasn't, either; it felt like falling apart, in a way. So when Bente came up on graduation and Malene was kicked from her home for not wanting to abort her child, they made new plans. A world to shine in, still. A place to be fine. They ran off to Spain together and Bente got into Polytechnic University of Catalania in Barcelona and Malene got work in a theatre troupe working out of EGOS Teatre. They balanced their schedules off one another, took care of Scarlet together with some supplement from Bente's parents. It wasn't ideal, far from it, but they knew Bente wasn't going to let her suffer alone. So, they helped, even from afar.
The first two years were the hardest, of course, but they made it. Made it so that Bente even managed to win his first competition; the competition was won in August and in September he was already able to hire a coworker and an intern for their website launch, painting over a small office space with Malene's help just to get it done as cheaply as he could manage. It lasted for the rest of his college career in Barcelona, his architect firm winning competitions to rebuild a room in a museum, to redo an office in a building, to reimagine the benches of a public park. By the time Bente's firm was actually turning from small company into a firm, it felt time to go back home.
Malene had begun to grow a name for herself but she still had fear, as any abandoned child would. With Scarlet and Bente there she made her way back to a home in København they found together. Her fears were founded when her parents never once took her call — or Bente's. But they didn't need them, or Jakob, who was still finishing his sentence in prison. They had one another. And their names preceded their presence — Malene as an up and coming starlet of the stage and Bente, Bente as the strange wonderkid in architecture. In a field where everything was slow and static and neutral he became a visionary. The world of creation could move just as fast, just as efficiently, as anyone else. SPOT, the name he'd made just to win the first competition in Barcelona, became BIG, Bente Isakson Group, just so his name's weight became the focus.
It did. When he tried for a project, he got it; for cheaper, for faster, for an efficieny that many looked down on. And that felt fine because of Malene. If she could survive the scorn of her life this way, and Scarlet could be their beautiful child, then who cared that people thought he was out of place and too young to matter? Bente made to prove himself, time and time again, growing from park benches to museums within the first year back in København and eventually moving on to reshape the very skyline of his home. They were something, together, raising a little girl and enjoying their youth. Malene never found a real relationship to last and Bente's own dating stayed as flippant as it had in high school but that didn't matter. Because they had themselves a home, a happiness and careers that flourished.
Bente would play board games with her to keep her distracted while Malene was performing or out on dates and Malene would guide her daughter into understanding of their life as gently as she could when Bente was away. They managed, like awkward parents, to bring her into a softer light of the world than she might have had with little family behind her. Bente's parents acted as grandparents often enough once she met them and Scarlet made friends in school easier than anyone when she could offer to bring people home to play games with all their super cool games around.
By 2017 they were both well set. The world was changing and going strange but they were living in a world they could build themselves, properly, with Scarlet in school and growing into a beautiful young girl. They were out celebrating the end of another run on stage that Malene had finished, just having picked up ice cream together before getting back into the car, before the road moved into flux and tragedy struck. Bente thought it was just an animal, a deer, when the car collided with it. As he tried to check on Scarlet, Malene got out to see the damages and that was when it struck — the beast came back from the road and tore Malene in half as Bente and Scarlet watched. He hardly remembers anything but the scream that Scarlet let out and the way he watched it grow. First, the car blew apart, her gift coming out as she howled for her mother. The movement changed, turned to light and burst through the beast whole as Bente felt all her agony, her truth, flooding through his veins as he held her ankle and felt her collapse into sleep as the calls for emergency started from everyone who'd heard and seen the birth of something.
The Safe Haven helped where nothing else could. While Bente had to put in double time to train both Scarlet and himself in the way they had somehow tied together in the accident, it was still easier than anything else he could never understand. For three years he worked at it with her, tried to make her feel comfortable as his. Jakob tried only once to contact her after the funeral, his release from jail far too soon, and Bente made sure he signed over every basic right to the only guardian she had who wanted her now; Scarlet was his and he would raise her as Malene had wanted, no matter what. She took some time, as any child would, but in early 2020 she remembered something. "Mama was a great singer, right?" And Bente had to agree, of course, as she pulled out a recording of her mother and put it on to watch.
When Scarlet decided she wanted to act, Bente wasn't sure. But he couldn't stop her from her dreams, not when he knew Malene never would have. BIG had grown enough that he could expand easily, involve others in his work and projects, so he did what felt best for her. A move to New York for massive projects and her joining top schools for performing arts while trying out for random competitions herself. A few commercials and short features later, they're New York residents through and through, visiting København in the summer between sessions and planning to do so again now. Bente might have even less of a life now but with applications and websites for the casual man he's not exactly hard pressed for quick joy, either; it's the life of a father the best he can happen upon it, building a world where Scarlet can hopefully shine now, instead.
