A/N: First ARMS fanfic I actually managed to finish, I'm weak for the Spring Family theory, so this is obviously about that.
This.
This was it.
This has happened seven times in a row. Seven times, she crashed the tournament, and seven times she called him pathetic. Sure, those seven times, he taught her a lesson; ripping apart those words she had rightfully written down herself.
But those seven times, hearing the mad-woman's words fall out of someone else's mouth, hurt him. Gave him a little bit of doubt of his capabilities, but his friends were always there to say otherwise. And of course, it made him feel better, but that doubt clung to him. It was a burden on him wherever he went. At that point beating her down wouldn't get that weight on his shoulders to go away.
Spring Man despised the director. He despised her to the bitter core. And when Ribbon Girl told him that she was coming back for another round; hoo boy, did he mad.
"What!? Why again!?"
Those words slipped out of his mouth when he was confronted with such news. Folding his arms in discontent to subdue the urge to cause harm to anything within the room the two were in.
"She's already caused enough problems for everyone-"
He remembered watching the idol's shoulders slump, as she leant back into the chair. She already went up against that mad scientist, only to get pummeled almost immediately.
"I… I'm sorry Spring… I don't know what I can do..."
The crack in her voice made the spring fighter's harsh glare soften.
He spent most of that night trying to figure out exactly what happened to her, and how far that mad-woman has gotten through the tournament. It was rather unfortunate that she was already past the semifinals, the 'grand finale' only being a week away; but there was a sliver of hope.
After Ribbon Girl's match, the small announcer of the league confronted her- handing two small books along with a tiny note before turning from her, his cheeks slightly red, before darting off towards the flashing lights that focused on the green-haired super fighter.
She could barely make out the chicken-esque scrawlings of the iconic announcers penmanship. But after staring at that small note and a quick look-see herself, she rushed to Spring Man, leading her in the situation she was with him at that time.
The books that were handed to the blonde ribbon idol happened to be personal journals from the Director's office herself, dating back to a time that Ribbon Girl herself wasn't even born. And after looking through them, she realized why the little announcer wanted her to hand them to Spring Man. She tagged pages with dates that seemed to be noteworthy before even meeting up with him at his gym; and when she showed them to him, he felt rather shocked, for two reasons.
The one reason, being the slightly less shocking of the two, was that these journals told was a story. A story of a blossoming love that was rather forbidden in their workplace, knowing their position in the ARMS institution as a whole. It was rather innocent and sweet for the most part, but as soon as he peeked at an untagged page- he immediately knew why that and other sections of the two journals were left untagged.
And the second reason, the second journal ended with her explaining that she was expecting- almost a year prior to the spring fighter's birthdate.
He remembered the sudden surge going through his body and the look in Ribbon Girl's eyes. The sudden aching urge to know more about this damn woman- the same damn woman that is trying to tear him and the commish down. The sudden increase in his heart rate once he read the date on the final page. The sensation of hunger that grew on him. He remembered all of it.
He was dying to get answers.
And now, standing at the foot of Sky Arena tower, was the night when he gets some.
Over the past week, he planned. Gathering the circle of ARMS friends he had to the foot of the same building that he stood under, explaining every aspect of this rather frivolous plan to make it to the top of the arena in time while he leaned against the locked entrance of the large building.
"You want us to what!?"
Spring Man stood there, watching the two ARMS fighters as they reacted to his plan; one with a sort of wide eyed bewilderment and the other with the look of complete and utter disappointment. He pushed himself off the door and walked over to the two, wrapping an arm around both of them as he explained his plan once more.
"I said: Since Lola here is a rather bouncy individual when she uses her ability, and you, Ninjara-"
He paused to pat the shoulder of the fighter on his left.
"- Have a mean throwing arm, I figured that Lola could bounce you and I up as high possible, and you could use your Ninja skills to throw me up the rest of the way."
Spring Man looked over his shoulder to see the ninja fighter roll his eyes at his plan, scoffing at how ludicrous it was. He uttered what sounded like an insult under his breath. He knew he couldn't protest to this idiot's plan, his monolingual tongue and bilingual mentality worked at an extremely different pace, the poor dude can't try to speak english without sounding like a fool.
Spring Man shook his head before looking over his right shoulder, the light scent of artificial fruit flavoring wafted past his nose as he asked for the candy clown's opinion.
"Lola, you in?"
Lola Pop hummed for a moment, thinking about how the ridiculous plan would be executed, but before she could open her mouth to reply, a familiar voice called for the three of them.
"Guys! Guys! Sorry I'm late!"
Spring Man slightly flinched from the feminine voice, but released the two fighters once he saw the girl the three of them have been waiting on. "Ribbon! What took you so long?"
"Sorry, sorry!" Ribbon Girl bowed her head in apology as she pulled a small, dagger like object from her pocket. "Mechanica was putting the finishing touches on the device to stun the turbines that power the floating mechanism of the Director's ARMS!"
Spring Man stared at the small object before taking it into his hands. "Huh, that kid never ceases to impress, does she."
Ribbon girl nodded. "Yes! But there's no time to talk about that right now!" She turned to point at the top of the tower, her arm slightly shaking as an uproar sounded from the suspended arena. "The battle is going right now! It could be too late if we don't get up there now and stop it!"
Spring Man watched Ninjara as he cautiously made his descent back down to ground level, both extremely relieved that the spring fighters plan to scale the large building actually worked.
He clung to the cold fencing as the sound of the Ninja's teleporting slowly faded, leaving the sound of the roaring audience and the raging brawl above him being the only thing he could hear aside from his heavy breath.
This was it.
Those three words rushed through his head as the tip of his tongue ran across the cool metal surface of the small gadget that he clenched between the teeth. The taste was sharp, copper-like, rather unusual really. Unusual like dangling outside the Sky Arena. Unusual like the things leading up to this situation...
Unusual like vaulting over that said fence once he felt the crazed scientist smash into it.
He tore the gadget from his mouth as he bounded from the top of the fence, shrieking as he pounced on the Director; grabbing a tight hold of her body so she wouldn't shake him off with the ease she would of had.
He could hear her demands for him to soften his grip, and feel her struggles from trying to shake him off. And ignoring her vain efforts, he took the object he held and punctured one of the turbines that rested on her back.
She screeched as her back began to spark violently, gradually falling to her knes as the spring fighter hopped off of her. Walking between her and her opponent, Spring Man gave her a harsh glare. She returned such a look with an equal amount of intensity.
"You IDIOT!" She shouted, struggling to even move her own arms. "What did you DO!?"
Spring Man tisked, watching her struggle while the audience went wild over this sudden ambush. The announcer reflected his excitement from the audience, he anticipated his appearance despite him not entering this month's tournament. He quickly turned on his mic, trying his best to keep his composure as he commented on what the whole world just witnessed.
"Do my eyes deceive me!? Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bouncer has crashed the party!"
Spring Man watched as the woman struggled with the weight of her arms, which have grown quite heavy due to the hovering turbines being ruptured. A slightly sadistic smile crawled onto his face, mentally thanking Mechanica for whatever she's given him to use against this woman as he attempted to get closer to her.
"STAY. AWAY."
He stopped in his tracks with a huff. Honestly, he expected that reaction. "Uh-okay." He folded his arms. "Then answer this Doc, Why ya' up here again?"
"Shut up." She grunted, hoisting herself up on one knee. "You have absolutely no business interfering with my battle with the Commissioner."
"Well you interfered with my recent battles with him." He shrugged. "Thought I would do the same, just to get some answers."
"Like what."
Spring Man hummed."Well, for starters…" he unfolded his arms and placed one of his hands on his hip, the other one dangled freely by his side. "Why hold a grudge for twenty years?"
There was a pause between the two, the audience followed the sudden silence as the director hung her head in thought.
"You… you wouldn't get it."
"No-no, I think I can wrap my head around it."
The director sighed, hesitating on whether she should elaborate or not. Her feelings were rather personal and she would never share them with anyone these days. Her feelings for Max Brass was also fairly personal. There were things they said and did that both of them kept on the low-down. And some extremely miniscule portion of her heart still loved him like she did back before that happened.
"If you insist… I'll tell you… but only once."
Spring Man smirked. Score. "Go on."
Meanwhile, the announcer of the league covered the small microphone with his hand, despite it already shutting it off once more. His mitten-like fingers gently stroking his lips. 'How did he manage to do that?' He thought to himself, his eyes widening at the scene. Dr. Coyle hasn't complied to what anyone asked her to do in years. Why was she suddenly doing this now? Was it because Spring Man put her in a position of defenselessness? Most likely, Biff couldn't think of a more possible reasoning.
It was peculiar.
The director gulped. She was caught off guard and the only way out of it was through it. She couldn't run everywhere, the mechanism to do so was ruined. Ruined by that damn idiot interrogating her in the middle of a fight.
"Max- I mean... The commissioner and I…" Dr. Coyle sighed. "We were married."
Well.
That took a sudden turn.
Spring Man's glare softened. Although he sort of suspected it from the journal entries he read, it was still shocking to hear it from the woman herself. He bit his tongue as he listened to her belt out whatever frustrated her to him, with the entire world listening on to whatever they could hear.
"Things were fine between us, perfect even." The director choked on her words, trying her best not to lose her composure as she went on. "It was when we had a child that things tore us apart… neither of us could take care of the damn thing so I had no choice but to hand him over to a relative that had more time than either of us."
'Wait, relative?' A small sense of deja vu struck Spring Man. He could feel his heart rate increase more and more with each word that fell from her lips. He remembered growing up with his aunt- but that didn't mean much to what she was saying, did it?
"We made our best efforts to see him once in a while… but the burden was too great for the commissioner apparently, since he took all of his stress out on me. We…"
Dr. Coyle couldn't hold it in anymore. She could feel tears soaking her mask and trailing down her face before she stopped showing restraint of her emotions; but retelling all that has burdened her made her remember that the experience of her heartbreak was almost unbearable.
At that point she regretted complying to that idiot with belting out all of her problems in front of the entire world.
"We HAD to break it off! I-I couldn't take it anymore! I can't even look at him the same way ever again after the night he said- those things!" She wailed, the weaponized ARMS on her hands trembled with sheer anger.
There was absolutely nothing Spring Man could say at that point, he turned to look over his shoulder to see that The Commish was just as astonished as he was. Maybe a bit more so because he didn't know of the burdens he had caused her, it was hard to tell.
"All of this caused so much pain, I couldn't even make the time to see my baby boy!" Dr. Coyle winced, her voice trailing off as she gasped through her sobs. "I haven't seen him since he was a toddler… my sweet little Eugene… I-I'm so… so sorry..."
Spring Man froze, his legs trembling at the last statement she spoke. Did she just say Eugene? Eugene as in his name Eugene?
He gulped, attempting to move from his spot once more to get closer to the crippled scientist. He managed to take a few steps before he was stopped by the same words that halted him before.
"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT GETTING CLOSE TO ME!?"
Her shouts for the first time went ignored, and as the spring fighter approached her, she grew more hostile with her shouting. They were almost deafening once he stood in front of her.
Spring Man sighed, taking a knee in front of her before cupping her exposed cheek with his hand. He bit his lip, he was about to make the largest assumption he could make given the info that was just spilled out to him.
"Mom… please calm down… y-you're embarrassing yourself."
There were soft murmurs from the attentive audience, disbelief rife through most of the individuals there. Dr. Coyle immediately thought the same once she heard that one word fly from his lips; calming her shouts and yelps to a louder-than-normal whimper as she stared into the spring fighters eyes for the first time… in what seemed like forever.
"E… Eugene?"
Spring Man cracked a smile, tears beginning to ball up in the corners of his eyes. That warm smile, was all the confirmation she needed.
"Eugene!" She slumped forward, allowing the spring fighter to catch her in his arms. And for the first time, in a non-maniacal manner, she cracked a smile; sobbing into his shoulder as she took back every last insult she threw at him in a somewhat frantic manner.
There was soft cooing from the audience from the scene they witnessed. And while the audience gushed at the scene before them, Max Brass just laid there, looking on with wide eyes the entire time.
He didn't know he had hurt her that much, nor did he know that the rookie he toured with to compete in tournaments all around the world was his only son. The blow of all of this information was just as shocking as it was to Spring Man. And he couldn't help but to let the water works come as well.
It took him a moment before he brushed his tears away and pushed himself off the ground, approaching the surprise family reunion with caution. Standing there for a brief moment before clearing his throat in an attempt to gain the two's attention. And when the two looked up at him, he blushed and looked away, innocently whistling due to the fact that he was fairly embarrassed to ask and join in on the reunion.
Spring Man and Dr. Coyle looked back to one another before returning their gaze at the structured man before them.
Spring Man grabbed Max Brass' leathery arm and yanked him down to join them in a group hug. Which he gladly accepted as he wrapped his arms around the two, holding them as close to him as possible; letting his own tears fall as well, joining the "sob-fest" that was his family reunion.
This was a too surreal for anyone within the immediate area to believe, especially Spring Man. This moment meant the entire universe to him, and now that this moment was actually happening, he was borderline euphoric. If this was all some sort of twisted dream that toyed with his emotions, he didn't want to wake up from it.
The parents that he forgotten when growing up, the parents he can go as far as to say he never knew, were right there with him.
The announcer himself couldn't help but to cry at the scene before him, leaning over the partition that lined the bleachers as if he was about to leap over them. He wanted to say something. He wanted to say something so badly. This scene was nothing he would of predicted- and he was the one who sort of planned Spring Man crashing the finals in the first place.
And even when he wanted to speak, with a million of words on his tongue waiting to bound out from his lips- he just couldn't. He was speechless.
Due to the scene that unfolded so suddenly before everyone's eyes, the Grand Prix finals were not only halted, but postponed indefinitely.
Fortunately though, no fan seemed disappointed about the sudden cancellation, due to the reasoning being broadcasted live unlike other abrupt tournament cancellations.
And Spring Man's friends could of not been happier. Especially when they first saw the Spring fighter emerge from the towering building before them, with one of the director's arms wrapped around his shoulder.
His eyes widened as more fighters approached him than what was waiting for him initially. Sure, Ribbon Girl, Ninjara and Lola Pop were still there, but they were joined in by Twintelle, Mechanica, Helix, even… SpringTron?
Weird.
Ribbon Girl was the first one to approach him throwing her arms around his neck in a form of an awkward hug, thanking the heavens that he came out of that building in one piece.
Spring Man slightly blushed, still clinging on to his mother's artificial arm. "C-Calm down Ribbon…" He stammered as he heard his newly recognized father stifle his chuckles. "You're acting like I was going to die or something."
"I have my right to worry!" She pulled herself away from the taller fighter's torso with a pout. "You had to scale a building AND had to have a close encounter the director! She's tougher than you think y'know!"
Spring Man rolled his eyes. "I know Ribbon…" he looked over his shoulder to see his mother slightly slumped due to the extra weight she still had to carry due to the levitation device still being damaged. She had a slight tint to her cheeks due to that spurr of the moment compliment towards her, but she still kept this newly found calm composure she had and looked back over to Spring Man with a soft grin. He smiled back, making Ribbon Girl somewhat confused.
"Wait... What happened?"
Spring Man chuckled, shaking his head. But before he could answer. Twintelle walked up to the four of them, placing a hand on the idol's shoulder.
"Don't you see, Ribbon?" Twintelle chuckled, her thick french accent slurring her english as usual. "Spring Man found his home. His Family."
"Wait, really!? How did you-"
"It was all broadcasted live, mon amie. I was watching it while the rest of you were panicking."
Ribbon Girl looked up at Twintelle before looking back at the relatively odd family that stood before them. None of the three apparently noticing the young girl examining the turbines on Dr. Coyle's back.
Ribbon Girl looked over the director's shoulder and to the young girl examining the the damaged turbine and the object that protruded from it. "Mechanica, what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to find the button on the de- oh!" Mechanica reached to the device and pushed a small switch near its hilt. Allowing the turbine to function almost like it was never damaged in the first place and Dr. Coyle to stand on her own once more. "That should do it!"
Dr. Coyle felt the lightness return to her upper torso and the control flow back into her arms. She pulled her arms away from the two men holding her and turned to face to the young girl. "You were the one who designed that little thing that Eugene stabbed into my back earlier?"
"Eu… gene…?" Mechanica cocked her head to the side, but dismissed the use of the name and answered the super genius' question. "Uh, yeah."
"Interesting…" Dr. Coyle stroked her chin before grinning. "You're more intuitive than I thought, kid."
Mechanica blushed, scratching the back of her head bashfully. "T-thanks doc, that means a lot coming from you…"
Dr. Coyle chuckled, patting the child's head with a genuine smile. Advising her to keep pursuing her aspirations and research... Until she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She turned around once more, sounding a loud gasp at the sight she saw. Her eyes widened at the bright green blob who wanted to gain her attention, the artificially intelligent robot fighter looming behind him.
She smiled, and tightly hugged the green blob. Coddling him as he happily chirped. "Awh! Did my little baby come when I summoned him?~" She rubbed the back of his gooey head as he cooed in response. Making her giggle. "Of course he did!~ He wouldn't want to miss out on meeting his big-human-brother now would he?~"
The green blob suddenly looked over to Spring Man, his beady-lit goggle eyes staring at him as the spring fighter chuckled awkwardly. 'Yeah. He would technically be my brother knowing that my mom made him. Huh?' He thought to himself as he brought a hand to the back of his head. "H-Hey there Helix, buddy." He stammered out, earning a small chirp from the green blob. The spring fighter chuckled holding out his other hand. "A-arent you gonna hug your big bro…?"
There was a rather awkward pause between the two for a moment before Helix slipped out from his "mother's" arms and bounded towards Spring man. Catching the spring fighter off guard as the gooey sibling of his wrapped himself around his torso, rubbing his head against his as he loudly cooed, wrapping his DNA arms around Spring Man's shoulders as he did so.
After the initial shock of the sudden action subsided, Spring Man broke down in laughter, returning the loving hug he was given. Causing his on-looking friends to chuckle and coo at the sight.
Meanwhile, Dr. Coyle approached SpringTron, a forewarning for him in mind. "SpringTron." She calmly yet sternly spoke to the fighting unit, a monotone "yeah?" sounding from where his mouth would be.
The director cleared her throat. "Tonight you'll be going through a modification. I'll be resetting your directive to be less hostile towards the fighters. Especially Spring Man. Is that understood?"
SpringTron nodded. "Affirmative."
The next half an hour was filled with light hearted banter at the foot of the Sky Arena tower. Many congratulations were tossed Spring Man's way due to him finally finding the family that he secretly longed to find.
Finally Spring Man decided to change the location of this celebration, suggesting that they should all go to the nearest pizza shop he knew of, saying that all of it would be "on him".
The group proudly agreed, promptly heading in the direction that Spring Man bounded off in, while Spring man had his arms wrapped around his two true parents as he lead the group to a pizza shop that was just a block away.
This was truly a night that changed everything.
