Just—real quick. Douglas thinks he would be a good dad to the Rats, but I honestly don't have the brain power to think that hard rn, so we'll just say it's up in the air for now lol.
Anyway there's several not-so-subtle mentions to Adam being, well, Adam, with both how he hurts Chase (let's be honest, he's not the nicest brother out there) and the way he struggles academically. This isn't me putting down people with learning disabilities or anything, as I myself struggle to learn the traditional way, but I personally headcanon that Adam, as Douglas' first experiment, doesn't have a fully developed brain, as well as ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, whatever you want to say, not to mention all the times he hits his head, so it makes him harder to process shit most people can.
And finally with Bree, this is more focused on Chase, but I might write a little something addressing Bree's shit better. Self-harm is a very serious thing, but she isn't suicidal in here, just needs something to relieve her stress, and doesn't know any better. I promise Donald and Douglas, outside the confines of this fic, get Bree all the help she needs and a healthier way for her to relieve her anger and stress.
~*~ "Totally Fine" by pup ~*~
He hadn't been living with them long, only a few weeks at most. He had his own room and bathroom thanks to Donnie's excessive need to have more rooms than he actually needed, and with Chase's tendency to skip meals (which should have been the first clue, if not the second), it wasn't too much trouble for Tasha to pick up a few extra groceries for him at the store.
In truth, it wasn't even when Bree destroyed her chip to live her own life, or how the kids didn't seem to get certain things like not giving all their money to spam callers, or, on occasion, even how to eat some kinds of foods.
("Adam, you're not supposed to eat an avocado with the peel on."
Adam stared at him absently.
"Frankly, it's weird to even eat an avocado straight-up like that."
"I thought it was a moldy pear."
"...you're not supposed to eat rotten fruit, either.")
All those things and more weren't Douglas' first red flags. No, the first flag was Chase's bruises.
It was the evening of the third week mark, when he was heading down to the Lab's elevator to grab his laptop, and he bumped into Chase getting off. He was looking moodier than usual, and pale, and wearing a striped long-sleeve shirt despite it being ninety degrees out.
"Something the matter?" Douglas asked, like the father he was supposed to be. Douglas would deny anyone that claimed he had a parental bone in his body, but everyone knew he was full of shit.
Chase didn't immediately apologize like he normally would, and instead just grunted out a reply. He didn't seem all there, with the way he just stood there awkwardly for a moment, favoring his left leg, like he was trying to decide whether to continue ignoring his father-slash-uncle or not, but ultimately gave in. It wasn't like Chase to brush people off, and even more so for him to hesitate.
"Just a rough training session, 's all."
Douglas frowned. The kids had training yesterday, and the day before that; it wasn't like Donald to push them so hard.
"What did you do?" This time Chase hesitated longer. He was shifting foot to foot, one of his tells that he was lying.
"Just…some sparring. Nothing too bad."
"Uh-huh." He eyed him, noting the way he was positioning his body at an angle so he couldn't get a look at his left shoulder. "Then why are you lying?"
"I–I'm not!" Chase tried to say, but Douglas was already reaching for him (he tried to ignore the way he flinched under his touch).
Rolling up his long sleeve gently but firmly, he tensed when he spotted bruises lining Chase's arm. They easily matched those a fist would make, and he knew they were fresh by the rapidly darkening purple and blue marks. He had had enough bruises in his lifetime to know what these were from, and who gave them to him.
"Adam hit you?"
Douglas watched in morbid fascination as Chase collapsed in on himself, both mortified and angry that someone knew.
"Why didn't Donnie stop him? He went too far, these shouldn't be here." He designed them both himself; he knew exactly how much force it took for the skin to bruise, to break it.
"I…" Chase said, for once at a loss for words, before the tension left him and his body went slack, sighing. "He does it all the time, you know," he said, and Douglas had to strain to hear him. "Ever since we were kids, he'd take every chance to show how much stronger he is than me physically. Mr. Davenport never really did anything about it, even when I tried asking him to make Adam stop."
Douglas stared, troubled. "He knows?"
Chase shrugged, hands stuffed in his pockets.
The two stood in a tense silence, neither knowing what to say.
Chase was mentally kicking himself, angry that someone was actually horrified that his brother always took the "roughhousing" too far, that Adam never knew when to back off and leave Chase alone. It's not like he was even subtle about it; Davenport had known for years exactly how far Adam was willing to take it, and expecting Chase to take it.
Douglas himself stood there, frozen, trying to piece through what he had been told. He had seen it himself, sure, how rough Adam liked to be with Chase, but it had never been like this (or maybe you just never wanted to admit it, some traitorous part of his mind raged).
Douglas remembered what it was like living on the streets; before Krane, before Davenport Industries, before the two Davenport brothers hated each other. Every day, struggling to survive off of scraps, because their parents couldn't be bothered with them. Their mother, who was never home, always working to afford a dream she would never achieve; their father, a man who had never worked a day in his life, or was even sober the last fifteen years of it. Their father who hit them and screamed and broke things, who told them how much space they took up and how much money their useless mother wasted on them.
Back then, they only had each other. Donald and Douglas against the world.
(Donald was the older one, it was supposed to be his responsibility to look after Douglas, but it was Douglas who struggled to make enough for them to get into a half-decent college, spending all day and night working as Donald tinkered with junk he found in the trash. In the end, it was Douglas who started the company that got Donnie so rich, and he was left with nothing.)
After everything their father had put them through as boys, how could he just stand by and watch Adam whale on his brother? How could Adam do that to someone he was supposed to watch over?
All these thoughts and more came to a stop as Chase finally looked up from where he was staring at the floor. "Please just—don't make a big deal of this? I can handle myself."
Then everything clicked, and something hot and angry pooled in his gut, and then Douglas stormed into the elevator without another word. Chase just watched him go.
—
Donald was tinkering with some shit or another in his private corner of the Lab, not even bothering to look up as Douglas approached, not until Douglas wiped the contents of the cyberdesk clean, sending the odd bits of metal and wires to the ground with a crash.
"Douglas, what the hell?" Donald yelled, jumping to his feet as Douglas rounded the desk. Neither brother had ever been very tall, but in that moment Douglas towered over his brother, clenched fingers digging into the palms of his hands, eyes stony.
"You son of a bitch," he hissed, icily enough to stop Donald in his tracks.
"What is this-"
"After everything that he put us through, after the way we grew up-"
"Douglas-"
"-and you knew, but you didn't do anything-"
"Can you shut up for a-"
"Adam has been hurting Chase for years, Donnie! And you just stood back and watched, didn't say a word, did you?" Douglas raged, shoving a hard finger into his older brother's chest. "Hell, I bet you even encouraged it."
Something in Donald's expression shuddered, like he was trying to beat his emotions in check. But Douglas didn't stop, and Donald didn't try to stop him.
"I thought you would've done better—than me, than Dad—but you're just as bad, you know that? I didn't notice at first; fuck, Donnie, I probably didn't want to, but I know now, and I won't stand for, I won't let Chase stand for it—my kids, Donald."
Donald's poorly-sculpted mask cracked, and then he was shoving Douglas back, fire fighting fire.
"Your kids, Douglas?" He laughed, a harsh sound that grated like glass. "Then where were you? Who raised those kids, huh, Douglas, because the last I checked, you were an absent parent, like Mom was, like I wished Dad was. I was the one who took them in, gave them food, let them go to school, put a roof over their heads—I was there."
Douglas couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled out of him, something dark and calm, combatting Donald's own. "Let them? You let them? They're fucking kids, Donnie, they are supposed to go to school, supposed to have friends and someone to look after them, to have food on the table and not from a fucking tube." He took a halting breath, trying to calm down, trying not to kill his brother right then. He met Donald's eye. "Leo told me, you know, about the way they lived before this, before Tasha and him came into the picture. The shitty food, the isolation, the training—damnit, Donald, I even know about their first mission. Your train. You say you raised them? That you loved and cared for them, that you were there? You're no better a parent to them than I am, at least I would have fed them real food, given them a life, gave them something they wanted more than your missions and training."
"You were going to sell them as weapons!" Donald yelled, stepping into Douglas' space, but that was a mistake.
In a second, his brother had him pinned to the wall faster than he could process, nostrils flaring, eyes blazing.
"THEY'RE CHILDREN!" Douglas screamed, the bands on his wrists digging into Donald's collarbone, but he hardly noticed. "My children! I wasn't going to sell them! Do you have any idea what people would have done to them if they ever found out about them? They're my kids, Donald, my own flesh and blood; I wouldn't have done that to them. They deserved a life, away from me, away from you, without ever knowing about their bionics, without having to know what a failure of a father I am…" The fight left him like the sail from a ship, and he let Donald go, stepping back. He ran a ringed hand through his spikes, feeling his throat tighten up with the telltale sign of angry tears. "I never wanted this for them…"
He thought of bruises on Chase's arms, the lines on Bree's wrists, the way Adam's face shuddered as he processed things he didn't understand; the way his children treated each other and the sheltered way they saw the world. They weren't any better off with Donald than they would've been with him—on the run, hiding from Krane, growing up in abandoned warehouses under fake names… At least then they would know how to take care of themselves, how to survive on their own.
"...where did we go wrong?" he murmured, collapsing bonelessly into Donald's abandoned chair. "How did we end up here?"
Donald sighed heavily, head cradled in his hands. "Think it started when I kicked you out of the company."
Douglas huffed out something that could've been a laugh or a scoff if given enough life. "The company I started, you mean?"
Donald smiled, but there was nothing happy about it. "The one you started."
They stayed like that, quiet, thinking, letting their calming energies feed off each other until they could breathe right again.
"This can't go on, you know," Douglas said, when the anger in his gut was simmering low, unthreatening. He looked up as Donald huffed out something similar.
"Yeah. I know. I'll…I'll fix it."
Douglas made sure Donald met his eye, to see the promise in them, the guilt.
"Good."
—
He looked around, taking in every nook and cranny of the Lab. The new Lab, the one that came about after he blew up the old one. The Lab had always been a place to his kids, a place to sleep and eat and live, but never a home (and sure, he still felt some guilt about what he had done, trying to hurt Donald and his step-kid, but he didn't regret it).
There had been no personalization of the kids' own design, it had been nothing more than an environment for Douglas'—experiments—to train in. To be monitored and analyzed. The new Lab wasn't much better, but it held an air of comfort and warmth it didn't before.
The air now was tense. It was to be expected; the Rats had rarely seen Douglas and Donald so serious since he had come to live with them. The brothers had gathered them after their confrontation, and now the five of them were gathered down in the Lab—Tasha and Leo out of the house—seated at various odds and ends, waiting for someone to break the shaky silence.
Donald broke first.
He cleared his throat awkwardly, clearly not knowing how to begin. "I'm…sure you're curious as to why we called you down here," he started, haltingly.
"So…" Adam started. They all looked to him, "we're not watching a movie?"
Donald sighed in a way that was practiced, used to Adam's…Adam-ness. "No, Adam, we're not watching a movie." He traded an uneasy look with Douglas, but he refused to throw him a bone. This was his mess to fix. "We're here to talk about you, actually."
Adam frowned, brows connecting as he thought. Douglas could almost hear the cogs turning, things struggling to click into place. His face cleared, struck by something. He gasped. "Is it my birthday?"
They collectively sighed this time, with Douglas ignoring Chase's half-mumbled, idiot.
"Your birthday just past, Adam," Donald explained patiently. It was one of Donnie's few shining parenting moments, when he actually tried to sit his—their—kids down and explain things to them, things parents should have explained to them when they were young. "No, this–this is about you, and Chase, and…" He hesitated.
"Spit it out, Donnie."
He sighed, rubbing calloused hands over a tired face. He sighed again. "I–I haven't been the best father, I'm sure you've noticed."
The Rats muttered confirmations, Bree scoffing out a Well, obviously, that Donald clumsily sidestepped.
"I tried my best, while you were growing up—I didn't have a great upbringing, myself, and–and I know it's no excuse, b- but, well…" He straightened, looking them each in the eye with courage Douglas knew he didn't feel, and finally got out, "I've been a bad father. I should've–should've taken you to the park, the zoo—hell, upstairs, but it just…never occurred to me in those years of training you kids, that I should've been giving you something to strive for, something you wanted: a goal, a dream, a job, whatever, and I–I didn't." He swallowed, thick. "And I'm sorry."
The Rats, in turn, were too surprised to say anything. Adam still looked generally confused, like he couldn't quite grasp what was happening; Bree was suspicious, eyeing the Davenport brothers like she expected them to say sike, that the whole thing was bullshit and they were just wasting her time; and Chase…Chase looked hopeful. Dubious. Cowed. He, out of his two siblings, was the one Donald let down the most, the one who could identify with his uncle-slash-father, but was overshadowed, ignored, upstaged. The discarded one, for all his brilliance and potential. He was the most special, out of all Douglas' kids, and they all knew it on some level. This apology, it meant more to Chase than to Adam and Bree.
"I'm sorry, and starting now, things are changing," Donnie said, when they had a moment to process. Clapping his hands, he stood, gesturing for them all to join in.
The Rats hesitantly got up, trading thoughtful looks as Donald brought them into a half-huddle.
First, he looked to Bree.
"I know what you've been doing," he said, in a way that Bree immediately froze at. She instinctively tugged the sleeves of her sweater, bringing them over her already hidden hands. "And–and I'm not mad, but it stops, okay, you hear me? It stops. I don't care what we have to do, Bree, I'm going to make things better."
Chase hugged his sister close as she seemed to crumble on herself, supporting her weight more than she was, while Adam stared, sensing the gravity of what Donald said even if he didn't know.
He looked to Adam.
"Adam, buddy, things have always been difficult for you, I know, and I wish to God I'd done something sooner, but we'll get you a tutor, something that help things connect—f- fuck, we'll even call in some favors if we have to, all right, because this can't go on. Something–something upstairs is missing, or damaged, o- or there's some—Douglas got some wires crossed, whatever, we're uncrossing them." Donald looked shaken at the thought of cracking open Adam's head to see what was going on in there, but they didn't have many opinions left. Then he forced the emotion back, put up a wall, and made sure Adam was listening very, very carefully. "And Adam?" He waited till their eldest met his eyes. "You are to stop hurting Chase, you understand? I don't care what it is; an accident, roughhousing, training—it stops. You might think it's all fun in games, but it's not, and I won't tolerate you hurting your brother the way you have been. You three may have bionics, but you're not invincible. You still bleed and break like everyone else, still think and feel. You're brothers, and you better start acting like it."
For the first time since they were called down, Adam's expression cleared, and he frowned, grim. He breathed slow, processing. "Okay," he whispered. Then, to Chase, "I'm—sorry. I didn't…realize it was hurting you."
Chase seemed just as stunned as the rest of them by the apology, but he accepted it nonetheless. Douglas knew it would take time for him to fully process, to get used to having a brother that didn't hit him, that respected his space and when he told him to stop, to really stop and listen. Forgive but don't forget had become something new in Douglas' live as late, something that was most associated with his past and Donnie, and he felt it likely would become something Chase applied to him own life from now on too.
Breathing deep, Donald released them from the half-huddle, but kept Chase close.
"I've let you down, the most, out of your siblings, even more than Bree, but I promise, it won't happen again. Things—they'll get better. We'll get you kids someone to talk to, someone you can trust more than me and Douglas, who can help us help you. It might take some time, what with your bionics and all, but we'll–we'll get there, okay?" When Chase said nothing, and the other two just looked on, Donald pulled Chase into a tentative but tight hug, letting him know he could pull away at any time. "You'll be more hands-on with missions, okay? And…I'll learn to let you kids forge your own way, but you can always rely on me, you hear me? I'm not a good dad, I'm not, but I want to be here for you, now, when I haven't been before." He stepped back from the hug, watching Chase closely, and then looked to the others. "You'll get more freedoms, still with me and Tasha and–and Douglas watching over, but training will be easier, and if you guys aren't feeling up to it, we can cancel and watch a movie or something. Don't get me wrong, it's not an excuse to slack off, but I want you guys to be, well, kids, you understand?"
Each Rat nodded in turn, and he smiled, something small and hopeful.
Douglas smiled, too, but it was less warm, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'll be overseeing training from now on, of course, to make sure Donnie doesn't fuck his promise up. For now, scram, and we'll talk more tomorrow, if you guys want."
He stopped Adam and Bree just before they left, letting Chase get a headstart to the elevator.
He made sure they met his eyes. "We mean it, all right? No more–no more hurting yourself, and no more hurting your brother. We'll get you kids everything you need to get better, and then—well, we'll see."
He let them go, watching as Chase left the doors open for them.
Donald came to stand beside them, watching as the Lab doors closed. "Think they'll be all right?"
Douglas thought for a moment, and grinned.
"Yeah, they'll be fine."
Not exactly happy with the ending but oh well
Fun fact: when writing this I looked up how tall Hal Sparks and Jeremy Jackson were for a height comparison and they're literally both five foot eight lmao (I was later informer by a friend they're of the average male height, but compared to Jared Padalecki and Bandersnatch Cucumber, they're small fries)
