Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans.
The strange man watched them from the shadows. These small children he saw playing here almost every day after school. They must have only been six or seven years of age. He watched as they swung on the swings and slid down the slides. They laughed happily as they started a game of tag.
The man watched with a blank expression. He observed them from his spot in behind the massive tree. These kids, these wonderful gifts of life, fascinated him to no end. They were human, imperfect, but at the same time they seemed so flawless. Their joy told him of their perfection, even with their faults.
As they ran past the massive tree he shrank back and dimmed his eye-lights. They didn't notice the peculiarly garbed figure only meters to their left as they charged by him.
He watched as the kids ran off into another part of the park and out of his view. He stared at the spot they had just left for moment before changing his topic of contemplation to something else.
Cyborg. It was thanks to him. This blessing of insight into a world he had once regarded as broken. He knew now that the world was fractured, strained, and corrupted, but not yet broken. That's what Cyborg believed. That's what the man strived to see every day. He saw the good, beautiful things in the world he had once forsaken.
A world he wished to rejoin.
The man looked down at himself. He was not even close to normal by any standard. His body, which he once thought fixed, was in truth broken.
He looked at his unnatural grey hands. The skin had a hint of blue to them that only emphasized the roboticness nature of his appearance.
He brought one hand to his forehead to touch the circular metal casing that surrounded the small control chip there. It looked like he had a button on his head. He pressed down on the casing causing the tubes on his head to fill up with red energy. This was his own personal communication system with his "fixed" droids.
"I will be coming back now. Put all new arrivals in the work chamber, I will sort them there." His robotic monotone was quiet, he rarely raised his voice. He took a look up at the bright sun above him. He mourned his inability to truly feel it.
He dismissed his musings and proceeded back to the junkyard, gliding across the ground silently and making sure not to be seen. He exited the park and drifted along back alleys and into the yards of shut down factories. He finally reached his scrap-filled destination. He navigated the junkyard with ease, it was the part of the surface he knew best, and climbed into a small hole.
The hole had previously been a sheer drop, but he had added a large tube and ladder once he had required access to the surface.
The man was greeted by the glowing red eyes of his droids. He walked past them, giving them not a second thought. He hovered through the main room; a relatively small area with a domed ceiling that help up the dirt, numerous shelves to hold drones, multiple panels all around to hold his projects and tools, and a large shaft that came down from the ceiling and dispensed salvageable scrap from above onto the floor. There was also lamps and lights hanging from the roof, providing the space with a rather eerie feel. He walked through this grey room, opened a nearly invisible door, and glided into the work chamber.
The work chamber was much larger than the main room. It was very long but only moderately wide. The walls were also grey, and in honesty it's function was little different than the main room. The only significant difference was the many tables that lined the room, filled with tools and scraps rather than the droids of the main room.
Sitting in the center of the room was the day's haul of salvage. The man quickly started sorting through it, levitating objects of interest and moving everything to their appropriate spots. He was about half way through the pile when he stopped. His most recent item of interest held his attention completely.
Clutched in the pale man's hand was a game system. A small handheld device, barely larger than a box of crayons. It was in remarkably good condition, but it must have been thrown away for a reason. He studied the machine and noted the cartridge in it. His fingers found the power switch and he flicked it, expecting it to be out of power, or maybe have a ruined circuit so that it would not function.
His surprise was absolute when the game system lit up and automatically started the game. The screen gave him a character creation menu with many options: hair styles, face shapes, body proportions, everything.
The man was unsure what the purpose of such a program could be, but he continued anyways. He considered the options for a moment before making rapid decisions. His character was slight taller than average, very skinny, had black hair, bright blue eyes, and a very simple, if gaunt, face. The last thing that was asked for was a name. The figure entered his own.
"Fixit"
He hit "continue" and the device's problem became apparent. It lacked functional speakers. They were broken, probably just a few wires. The man however, was unconcerned with this as he watched a small cinematic on the screen. It gave a bird's eye view of a small city before swooping in. Words were displayed on the bottom of the screen, judging by their size the man assumed there was supposed to be a narrator.
The camera eventually settled on his character. The avatar was standing in a bus. There were about a dozen seconds of nothing but the bus moving before it stopped. Everyone else got off except his character.
A few seconds passed.
The bus driver told him he better get off because this was the last stop of the day. Realizing that imputed was required, Fixit tapped on the arrow keys and his avatar responded. He left the bus and it pulled away. Fixit then waited. Nothing happened. No mission popped up, no narrator started dropping not-so-subtle hints. Just nothing.
Fixit considered what to do. Deciding that someone around him must be the source of information Fixit walked his avatar over to a random person and pressed the A button. Options popped up on the screen: converse, joke, impress, and so on.
This game was a life simulator.
Fixit didn't realize it, but he spent hours exploring the game. It was only when his systems alerted him that his charge was low did he find out he had been playing for five hours.
As he plugged himself in the pale man contemplated the game. In the game he did what everyone else did on the surface. In the game he could walk down the street like a normal person without having someone look at him strangely. He could fit in. He could be imperfectly human like everyone else.
The game made him feel whole, repaired, if only for the duration of his use of the game.
He liked the feeling. He wanted to make the game a reality, but his logical mind told him that was impossible. He could never be completely fixed. Could he? Cyborg had believed it was possible, and still did. He visited every month to encourage him to come out and see the city and interact with people.
Fixit was cautious about both of those things. He only viewed parts of the city with a minimal amount of people there, the park was the only exception. He never interacted with anyone but Cyborg out of fear of being told he was not welcome on the surface.
He needed to make a choice. He had to take a risk or just continue his current existence as a recluse. He was afraid. He didn't want to risk. It frightened the normally unshakable man, but he would do it anyway, because Cyborg believed in him.
The man needed sleep, and all this thinking was not helping, he abandoned his train of thought and fell into a deep slumber, listening to the clicks of his droids.
The next day Fixit returned to his place in the park. He waited for the gaggle of children to show up. It was 10:00 AM on Saturday; the day when the whole group would show up to play rather than just a few of them. The parents would sit off to the side while the kids would play. At 12:00 everyone would have a picnic lunch, and at 3:00 everyone would say goodbye and go their separate ways until the next week.
The pale man watched as the kids and their parents started to arrive. At 10:07 everyone was present and accounted for. The parents sat around the table and immediately started their chattering. The kids ran to the playground excitedly and started playing. Some swung on the swings, a few went down the slides, one braved the monkey bars, but most were playing in the metal tubes that stuck up from the ground all around the playground.
Metal tubes? The robotic man frowned. He didn't remember those being there before.
As if waiting for a cue, screaming was immediately heard as the kids playing inside the tubes disappeared into them. The other children looked down from their perches on the play structure nervously.
The ground to the left of Fixit's vision started to crack. From the Earth rose a metal monstrosity. A robotic looking, tentacled creation in the form of a heart. I don't mean the ones you see in cards and whatnot, the ones you would see in science textbooks. The red glass that comprised it's main body was see through, so Fixit couldn't help but notice the children trapped inside.
As the parents screamed, the pale man searched through his internal databases to identify the thing. He eventually found a file given to him by Cyborg that detailed a list of known villain's. It had been given to him so he knew to avoid them.
"Kardiak." Stated Fixit, studying the monster. He could not avoid the mechanized terror as Cyborg had suggested, the children were in trouble, he had to help.
It was the human thing to do.
The lines on Fixit's head glowed red for a moment along with his eyes as he summoned his drones. It would take the fastest ones a half-hour to get here. He needed to keep Kardiak occupied until then. He was not good at fighting, so he would just have to play keep away with this combat robot. Just perfect.
Moving forward at top speed he propelled himself up onto the play structure and grabbed two of the remaining kids. Kardiak hungrily gobbled up the others who were soon deposited into the main chamber with their sobbing friends.
Fixit rushed towards the trees, hoping that Kardiak would have difficulty following. Sadly, that was not the case. Kardiak smashed through the trees with his tentacles and lashed out at Fixit as it tried to abduct the last two children. The pale man ducked one attack and swerved left to avoid another. He leapt over a third strike and changed course. He sped right back at Kardiac and ducked under the machine. It had not anticipated this and it's momentum sent it careening into a particularly thick tree. The children inside screamed as they were jostled around, but didn't seem hurt.
Fixit's internal timer informed him that there was only fifteen more minutes until the lead drones arrived. Glancing behind himself Fixit noticed that Kardiak hand nearly extracted himself from the tree. As the two kids he held screeched their fear the pale man looked around for anything that could help him.
His eyes landed on a few vending machines at the edge of the park. Those would work. Hovering over as fast as his transportation systems would allow, he set the fearful children down and turned to the three machines. Fixit's eyes turned red once again and a small tube popped out from the button on his head. The tube attached to the vending machine as Fixit started reworking the metals inside the machine with his tools. He never went anywhere without his tools, just in case he needed self repairs.
The kids next to him screamed a minute later as Kardiak flew towards them. Luckily, Fixit had just finished with the last vending machine and he stood back.
Selection panels glowing red; the machines took aim at the flying villain and fired out a constant barrage of pop cans and water bottles. The water bottles bounced off Kardiak, but the pop cans chipped at his glass center. The villain regenerated the damage quickly, but these vending machines were now the priority targets rather than Fixit and the kids.
Kardiak swiftly smashed the machines, but Fixit and the kids were long gone. Kardiak scanned the area and located the heat signatures of the children. He rocketed towards their location at the edge of the park. Fixit and the kids backed against the brick wall as the terrifying monster bore down on them. The children cowered and covered their eyes. Fixit, on the other hand, had a smile on his face face for the first time in a long while.
Kardiak didn't stand a chance. It was a satisfying feeling.
From over the walls came hundreds of drones. They jumped from the top of the wall and swarmed over Kardiak, attacking him with tons of tiny saws and some plasma cutters. The villain was systematically disassembled by the drones as it tried to fight back. The coupe-de-grace occurred when the larger drones appeared and smashed the machine to bits.
The terrified kids poured out of the now broken holding chamber. They were warmly embraced by their relieved parents.
Fixit gave a few orders to his drones and they left the scene. The police showed up a moment later and took Kardiac away in a truck.
Fixit turned away from the truck and looked at the people assembled before him.
"Greetings." Said the pale man uncertainly. "I am Fixit."
"Is it cause you fix stuff?" A child asked.
"Yes. Things come to me broken, and I repair them."
An award silence stretched across the park. One of the parents stepped forward.
"Would you... Care to join us in our picnic?" She asked timidly. "It is the least we can do after you saved our children." The other adults murmur their agreement.
"I would... Enjoy that." Fixit said.
The adults and children led him back to the playground and set out the blanket. Conversation was awkward at first, and silence prevailed most of the time. Eventually everyone got used to Fixit's presence and went back to normal topics of conversation, but made attempts to pull Fixit into the talks. Fixit was content to just listen and watch as everyone ate their food for the most part, occasionally joining in when he could offer meaningful input.
He wasn't normal. He might never be. But maybe that wasn't so bad. He had seen that he could be accepted despite being broken. Even if he could never be normal, perhaps he could learn to be human again with the help of these new friends.
As he looked at the playing children Fixit could finally say he was happy. Happy to be imperfect.
One-Shot complete. A small story about Fixit starting to recover the part of him he thought he had lost.