I am completely blown away by the support for this story! This started as an idea that came from a rant to Vodonn over a month ago and now it is slowly becoming its own story. I wasn't planning on posting this chapter until later this week if not next weekend, but I thought that it was a little unfair ending the last chapter on a semi-cliff hanger. Also, Sunday nights suck in general and posting usually makes me happy.
That said, the next chapter probably won't be posted until next Sunday if not later, so apologies in advance. I've FINALLY gotten around to watching Merlin and am now obsessed. Don't judge me; I've been busy! The downside of me becoming obsessed with a new fandom is that it makes finishing fanfictions in other fandoms a bit more challenging. I have a general idea of the plot line of this story (which normally isn't the case and why I only have one other fanfiction posted that's currently on hiatus for personal reasons) so I'm hoping the story will be complete by the end of December just to give you a rough timeline.
Thanks as always to Vodonn!
I do not own Carmen Sandiego (Netflix). This story is a work of fiction that came from my own horrible brain because I have been searching for Player!whump and haven't found many fics like that.
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Player had whimpered, hissed, and yelped out pained cries since Coach Brunt had first punched him, but now he'd never felt more like sobbing.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, idiotic moron, Player thought to himself despairingly. Why didn't I shut down all of those tracking programs and then my laptop? Amateur mistake...
"...say what?" Coach Brunt asked, eyes wide with shock even as she leaned forward.
"May I present Carmen Sandiego's secret weapon, or should I say Player?" the Troll replied, glee filling his voice.
"Fuck you!" Player snapped, his frustration-fear-anger-helplessness-pain-agony decimating his remaining patience.
"Well that's not very nice," the Troll tutted before turning back to the faculty. "I wondered why a teenagers' laptop would have such heavy encryption and I must admit, it was rather impressive, but it was worth the effort to find all those little tracking programs Player here had running, trying to track down VILE. Then I thought to myself, "self, why would a teenager be trying to find VILE?", and that's when I realized something."
"You realized that you're an idiot?" Player mocked. "Took you long enough to figure that out!"
"Quiet!" Roundabout barked, kicking Player's injured ribs, forcing a gasp from his lips.
The Troll scowled, "No. The only idiot here is you. Those sneaky little codes reminded me of something, or should I say, someone. They had the same markings as the ones Carmen Sandiego used to hack into my system in October. We both know that one's hacking abilities are like a fingerprint, and yours were all over your tech. It wasn't hard to deduce from there who Jacob O'Connell really was."
Player hadn't wanted to punch someone so much in his entire life.
"It took me quite a bit of hacking to get into his phone, but it confirmed my suspicions. You send quite a number of texts to "Red" about your "capers", don't you?" The Troll grinned smugly, leaning back in his chair as his final "question" was directed at Player.
"If it took you "quite a bit of hacking," to get into my tech, then you're a worse hacker than I thought," Player sneered.
"What was that?" the Troll growled.
"That tech had the barest minimum of my security on them. If it took you so long to access them, no wonder VILE is so incompetent," Player snapped, enjoying the rather deranged look the Troll sported as his face grew increasingly red. He knew he should probably try to control his mouth, but if his connection to Carmen was no longer a secret, Player wasn't going to hide who he was anymore. He hadn't been Jacob O'Connell in years; now that name felt more like a mask for hiding Player instead of his true identity.
"HOW DARE-!" the Troll yelled but was cut off by Professor Maelstrom.
"Very well, your interruption was quite helpful," Professor Maelstrom hummed as the Troll muttered under his breath. "Especially since young Jacob's parents seem to have been unaware of their son's status as Carmen Sandiego's "secret weapon"."
"Not so secret now," Coach Brunt smirked.
Player cringed before he even turned to face his parents who he'd forgotten were even in the hall. Both were pale, eye wide, and filled with too many emotions to identify. His stomach felt like it was doing somersaults, fear, and anger swirling around to create a tornado. Player couldn't find it in himself to feel guilty considering his parents had kept a rather ginormous secret from him as well.
"It seems we have a way of locating Carmen Sandiego after all," Dr. Bellum grinned. "I'm sure Player here knows all about my truth extractors."
Fuck, Player thought to himself. He knew exactly what evil gadget was talking about; he didn't think he'd ever forget what happened to Devineaux. Player now knew what Carmen had felt when Coach Brunt had almost killed her after she'd found Devineaux, and he wasn't particularly interested in experiencing what Devineaux had gone through.
"Ah so you do know about my genius invention," Dr. Bellum observed, clapping her hands together gleefully.
"Hard to forget a device that was used to torture someone," Player hissed.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Dr. Bellum smiled.
"Cleaners, take these three back to the dungeon. I think they have plenty to talk about," Professor Maelstrom smirked. The Cleaners released Lisa and Martin, quickly slapping new pairs of shackles on their wrists, the cuffs connected by two feet of chain. They were herded over towards Player, who glared at the faculty in favor of looking at his parents.
"What about his back?" Lisa hissed while Martin knelt beside his son.
Player pursed his lips.
"They won't kill him," Dr. Bellum waved dismissively.
"That's not the point. He's bleeding!" Martin snapped, eyes trained on Player's back.
"Too bad!" Dr. Bellum giggled.
That confirmed Player's suspicions. The cuts on his back probably weren't deep enough to need stitches. He doubted that VILE would care if he did need stitches, but they still needed him to blackmail Carmen; if Player died from blood loss, then VILE lost their trump card.
"I'll live, but you forgot about something. How exactly am I supposed to walk?" Player scowled. "Broken ankle that is seriously swollen, remember?"
"I can carry you," Martin cut in, picking his son up bridal style before anyone, notably Player, could protest. Too shocked to actually argue, Player hissed from the pressure against the cuts crossing his back when his father picked him up. Ignoring Martin's faint gasp, Player zoned out as his parents were escorted by the Cleaners back into the dungeon.
Player could've sworn the distance between the hall and his old cell in the dungeon was longer when Tigress and Paper Star had taken him to the faculty. Now, time seemed to slip by like grains of sand in an hourglass. In what felt like mere seconds, Player felt his parents get shoved into a cell that looked almost identical to the one he'd awoken in. However, this one had a pair of shackles dangling from each of the three walls, not including the one with the door.
The Cleaners shoved Player out of his father's arms, sending him tumbling to the ground with a thud and a brief cry. When the pain had finally passed, his mother and father were shackled to the back and left wall respectively, leaving the Cleaners to cuff him to the right wall. Player hissed as his back came in contact with the wall behind him, the cold temperature slightly numbing the cuts even through his clothing. Without a single word, they left, the door slamming closed like the lid of a coffin.
Silence rang between the family of three.
Player was familiar with all kinds of silences; it could be peaceful, melancholy, volatile, tense, or something different altogether. There were the peaceful silences between him and Carmen when they were talking, basking in each other's company even though they weren't in the same physical place. The melancholy silences thrummed and Player found that guilt often nipped at the edges of it. Player had experienced volatile silences only a handful of times which were usually caused by pent up anger or frustration that wasn't always directed at Player, but the situation Team Red was in.
Tense silence was perhaps Player's least favorite. They were uncomfortable and unlike the other kinds of silences, Player found that he was often the angry one when they occurred. Player had compared them to the stifled stillness that came before a monstrous storm with winds that toppled trees and lightning that scorched the earth. Yet Player had always been fond of that silence because he loved when it rained. It was as if the earth itself was giving a sigh of relief even when the storms left a trail of havoc behind him. But unlike the silence before a storm, the tense silence offered no promise of easing up.
"So, how long have you been working for ACME?" Player broke the silence, practically spitting out the name of the organization.
"That doesn't concern you. How long have you been working with Carmen Sandiego?" Martin snapped at his son. The ACME agents' worry for their son vanished now that they were away from the VILE faculty. Player could tell from their tense bodies that they were all too aware of what he'd been subjected to before they'd been dragged into the room, but they were obviously ignoring that in favor of getting answers.
"So since you started ignoring me and became workaholics. Guess that fits," Player remarked, ignoring his parents' expressions.
"We didn't ignore you!" Lisa snapped.
"Are you kidding me?" Player gaped at his parents.
"We cared for you! We have a responsibility and you were mature enough to be left alone," Martin said through pursed lips.
"Bullshit!" Player barked, startling both parents though Player wasn't sure why. They'd heard him curse not even fifteen minutes ago at the Troll and VILE's faculty.
Player barreled forward before his parents could get a word in edgewise. "As soon as you joined ACME you were never around. You left me alone for weeks on end, if not months, not even checking in with a short call or even a text message! For the love of God, I was 8 years old when you started doing that! It shouldn't matter how mature I am; that's just irresponsible and neglectful parenting! Sure, I had a babysitter until I was 10, but who leaves a kid at home by themselves, no matter how mature they are!?"
"Our job is to protect the world from evildoers! We thought you'd be mature enough to understand how important our careers are," Martin retorted.
"Not like you ever told me about that!" Player snapped back. "And you just said that I was mature enough to be left alone. So which one is it, or do you even know considering you never spend time with me?"
"Your mother and I decided to not tell you about our careers for your own protection, and that secret is by now about on the same level of you aiding and abetting an international criminal!" Martin shouted.
"She's not a criminal!" Player blurted out.
"Then what is she?" Lisa cried out and Player suspected that had her hands not been suspended above her head, she would've thrown them up in exasperation. He felt like throwing his arms up in exasperation, but his injuries would've prevented that rather than his restraints.
"A hero," Player said bluntly, narrowing his eyes at his parents, "and a good person."
"What reality do you live in where she could possibly be seen as a hero? She breaks the law in every country she's ever been in and jumps around the world like see owns it," Martin growled.
"Amazingly, I'm still in this reality. The difference is that I'm not blinded to what reality actually is," Player glared. "Carmen isn't with VILE; she's fighting against them. She only steals from other thieves, which basically means that she's stealing from VILE, and always returns what she steals to the rightful owners!"
Martin and Lisa opened their mouths, but paused, rolling Player's words around in their minds. It was true that, one way or another, whatever Carmen Sandiego had stolen, it was always returned.
"Then why did she hack ACME?" Lisa said, staring intently at her son.
Player pursed his lips, eyes narrowing. All of what he'd told his parents so far was common knowledge to VILE, or at least it wasn't something that Carmen was actively trying to hide. But his mother's question wasn't something he wanted to answer, especially when their cell was undoubtedly under surveillance from the VILE faculty and the Troll. Dr. Bellum's not so subtle statement that they'd be torturing him with the truth extractor to learn all of his secrets still echoed in his mind. Helplessness sank into the pit of his stomach, guilt already flooding him at the dark reality that lay before him. Player clenched his jaw and fists.
VILE will try to get me to spill my secrets, but that doesn't mean I have to make it easy for them to do so, Player thought to himself grimly.
"Jacob!" Martin snapped, jerking Player out of his thoughts.
"Well? Why did Carmen Sandiego hack into classified ACME files?" Lisa scowled.
"Aren't all ACME files classified?" Player mused to himself, mostly to distract himself from his unpleasant future.
"Jacob O'Connell-!" his parents barked but were cut off by the slam of the door opening.
This is going to suck…