Chapter 3
A/N: Welcome back guys! Surprised y'all're still here honestly. Anyways, as I'm sure you've guessed there are changes to the timeline, mostly in that it doesn't take place in the 80s. Remember, I just own the story, none of the characters are mine. And please review guys! I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts so far!
Gotham, August 3, 15:15EDT
Mike couldn't believe he agreed to this. Actually, he was more surprised his uncle agreed to let him do this. Save for his doctor appointments and work, Henry practically hovered all the time as if he was worried he'd hurt himself just walking to the couch. The fact that the man had agreed to even let him step in a gym—even a personal one—was shocking.
Though he was still reeling from the fact that the Dark Knight had apparently taken enough of an interest in his training to control his newfound abilities to actually ask another hero to teach him.
At moments, he felt like he was living some comatose dream: training with a literal superhero. It was awesome. Sure he'd been stupid sore, but it was worth it. It actually made him feel kind of normal again. She didn't make any comments about his appearance or problems outside of what they talked about during their normal sparring sessions.
Of course, he still felt bad she had to come all the way from Star City to train with him.
"Sorry I'm late," a familiar voice spoke he turned to see a familiar blonde step into the private gym. "There was," she cut grit her teeth, removing her jacket to reveal a bandage on her arm, "a problem."
"It's no problem," he shrugged. "I know you have more important things to do."
The heroine pursed her lips, "Michael, we talked about this. Helping you isn't a problem. I'm more than happy to teach you the way my mentors taught me. It's hard to figure out your abilities on your own."
"What abilities?" he scoffed, crossing his arms. "All I can do is lift heavier things, see better in the dark, and heal myself. There isn't much to control."
"You still need to learn how to control that strength," Black Canary countered, putting her hands on her hips. "Just because you're stronger doesn't mean you'll always win. I've beaten plenty of opponents much stronger than I am—you included. Or do I need to give you another reminder?"
Mike grimaced, shaking his head quickly. As much as he was learning about fighting from the woman, he was still nowhere close to beating her in a spar. His face had actually become very well acquainted with the mats over the past few weeks.
Granted, since she was here, he would bet she was going to kick his ass again anyways.
Stepping into the ring, Canary smirked, putting her hands on her hips. "Think you can beat me this time?"
"Have I ever?" he quipped back, raising his fists.
"Don't sell yourself short, you're much better than when you first started," she replied.
Her fist flew towards his face without warning, forcing the teen to sidestep as he grabbed her arm. Spinning around, he hefted the heroine up, tossing her over his shoulder onto the ground. Still holding her arm like he was taught, he was prepared to arm-bar her when she used her free hand to grab his wrist and yank him down where her boot landed on his gut, vaulting him over her onto the mat before she had her knee on his sternum, again.
"You lasted longer this time."
"Great," he muttered, taking her hand as she helped him up, "I made it all of ten seconds."
"That's better than the other protégés some days," Canary chuckled, getting back into a fighting stance. "What did you do wrong this time?"
"I took too long to arm-bar you, even when you were going easy on me."
"Yes, and your grip was too loose. That's why I was able to swing around to kick you over me. Next time, use a wrist-lock or be faster."
Nodding, Mike settled back into his fighting stance, this time making the first move. He feigned a punch to her right before using his left leg to kick her side. It almost worked too as she grabbed his leg, spinning around and knocking him flat on his back. Seeing as she still had his ankle, he swung sideways, using his free leg to kick her foot as he grabbed her other leg.
It wasn't his brightest choice given the sharp pain in his ankle, but it'd heal in a couple hours. He probably needed more practice fighting injured anyways. Besides, it'd didn't hurt that much.
Still, somehow his idiotic idea worked as she landed flat on her back, giving him time to get back to his feet at the same time she did. "So, how'd you get hurt?"
"Don't try to distract me," she replied, ducking down to kick his legs out from under him.
Jumping over the leg sweep, he blocked another punch. "What? Why would I do that?" he smirked, throwing his own punch. "It was a bad guy," he ducked under another swing, "right?"
Canary didn't answer, instead grabbing his arm and flipping him onto his back, nearly knocking the wind out of him. "That was good. But don't hurt yourself again."
Sighing, he leaned onto his elbows, "It doesn't hurt that bad."
"You still haven't been out of the hospital for too long. I don't want you to push through injuries."
"You push through injuries," he pointed out. "And every other hero does too. What's the difference?"
"The difference is that you're a civilian," she stated, putting her hands on her hips. "You don't need to push yourself."
Mike didn't say anything, but that comment kind of stung. He knew he wasn't a good person, not good enough to be a hero anyways, but at least he had been able to pretend he was preparing do some good in the world. Make up for his previous crimes and atone for his sins.
Besides, if he was going to start doing something good with himself, then it would mean that two superheroes wouldn't be wasting their valuable time on him.
"Michael?"
"It's nothing," he replied, rising to his feet, "I'm just gonna," he motioned to the bench, "go let my ankle heal."
Dull pain radiated up his leg as he strode over to the side of the room, ignoring the gaze trailing after him. The teen's body ached as he flopped down onto the couch, pulling out his phone to look through his notifications—not that he got many. He wasn't exactly popular, pariah actually being a more apt description. Not that Michael blamed anyone for ostracizing him. It wasn't like he didn't deserve it.
Besides, not having a social life gave him more time to find odd jobs between normal work and school. Bills didn't pay themselves.
Though, now that he was living with his uncle, Mike suddenly had much more free time on his hands. Maybe he could start looking into some of his old hobbies? Find something to keep himself busy.
Like he thought, there wasn't too much he'd missed since coming to the gym. Just a couple texts from Henry about dinner and work—probably telling him he needed to cook something himself tonight since he'd be working late. Wouldn't be hard though, Henry kept the pantry of their new house absurdly full.
The sound of approaching footsteps drew the teen out of his thoughts. Looking up from his phone, he watched as Black Canary sat down on the couch beside him. "So, how've things been lately?"
Mike shrugged. Things were better than they had been from when he initially got out of the hospital. Sure, he didn't need to worry about food, bills, or even chores, but that didn't mean there weren't other things to worry about. He still needed to find a way to earn his keep. Uncle Henry wouldn't just let him laze around forever. Frankly he's surprised the man hasn't demanded that Mike do some cooking, cleaning, something to show his usefulness and value. Anything to prove he wasn't just a black hole for the man's hard-earned time and money.
He hated feeling useless.
Beside him, Canary reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder. Her blue eyes swam with concern as he looked at him. He hated it. He hated feeling weak, useless. Being pitied. Being trapped inside all the time because he currently didn't have a way to hide his appearance. Being a burden to everyone around him.
"Mike, is everything ok?"
"I'm fine."
"I can tell you aren't," she gently replied. "Remember, I'm here to talk to if you need to."
The teen shrugged his shoulder out of her hand, rising to his feet and walking back over to a punching bag. "Look, it's not that I don't appreciate what you're doing," he spoke, throwing the first punch at the bag, "but don't you have more important things to do than babysit me? I've handled myself for years now, I don't want to be a distraction."
Grabbing the other side of the bag, Canary held it still as he continued to punch it. "You aren't a distraction, Mike. And you're a kid, you shouldn't be going through things like this alone."
"Please," he scoffed, hitting the bag a bit harder that time, "I make you travel all the way from Star City on an almost daily basis to deal with my problems. I take time away from your hero stuff and probably your personal life. It's not like you're going to be making a pathetic bastard like me a good guy, anyways. I'm man enough to grow the fuck up and get over my own weakness."
Mike's arm was stopped as the heroine grabbed his wrist making him distinctly aware of the red on his knuckles and stinging in his eyes. "Michael, listen to me," she said putting both her hands on his shoulders, "believe it or not, you are still a kid. A good kid who's been through too much. What you're going through right now, it's a perfectly normal reaction to trauma Mike. And none of us: me, your uncle, and even Batman, think of you as a distraction, or burden, or whatever else you are telling yourself. All of us want to help you."
Glowing violet eyes glanced away, "Would you say that even knowing I was a monster?" he whispered.
"You aren't a monster."
"I killed my brother. I'm the reason my sister's dead. I tore my family apart. How does that not make me a monster?"
The corners of his eyes stung again, but he didn't make any move to acknowledge another lapse in his control. Right now, he just kept his eyes averted as he awaited her inevitable reaction of hatred and disgust. At least by driving her away she'd have more time to spend on more important stuff.
However, instead of being shoved away or smacked, he was surprised as she led him over to the couch. Sitting him down, he sat quietly as she dabbed a towel on his bloody knuckles. "I won't lie to you Mike, Batman showed me the casefiles of what happened, and do you want to know what I saw?"
Mike didn't answer save for a small shrug. She was going to answer her own question anyways.
"I saw a kid who'd been forced to grow up too fast. A kid who was acting out in a cry for help. Yes, what you did to your brother was wrong, I won't deny that. But, even now it's obvious that you still blame yourself for what ultimately was a terrible accident."
"But—"
"Michael, answer this: "Did you forcefully shove the animatronic' s jaw shut?"
The teen choked on his words, quickly shaking his head.
"Did you tamper with it to make it more dangerous?"
He shook his head again.
"Did you intend to kill your brother?"
"N-No," he whispered. "I—I was just messing with…" Mike trailed off, his blood running cold as he thought back to his conversation with Circus Baby the night Fuckyou Foxy decided to knock his ass out on the end of his shift.
Circus Baby…she had described the death of his sister. Lizzie had been alone, no one had seen what happened with her and Circus Baby. And yet she had mentioned ice cream in her stomach. None of the other kids that had been playing that day had mentioned ice cream. Why would she do it when alone? Why would there be a claw in her stomach?
He had been alone too. Every night when he worked in the God-forsaken facility, he had been by himself. And every night, the animatronics had been hostile without fail. The two dead technicians had been in separate rooms too when he found their bodies. Safety was his uncle's number one priority, no way would he allow such a major design flaw to pass. Unless…
Unless he didn't know about it.
His father had done all the final schematics and construction.
Sure, the man was neglectful at times, but that's just cause he was busy keeping a roof over their heads and paying all the bills. And he only disciplined him when he didn't do what he was told. Granted, there were a couple times he'd tried to strangle him when he'd been drunk, there was also that time he woke up to the man standing at the end of his bed with a knife…but that had been a prank. He wouldn't kill kids…right?
Just because he built the animatronics didn't mean someone else hadn't tampered with them. It could've been the person who killed Charlie, last he heard they still hadn't been caught. And, if they did manage to tamper with the high-tech Circus Freaks, tampering with a springlock animatronic like Fredbear would've been child's play.
"Mike?"
The teen jerked in surprise, his head snapping up to meet the heroine's worried gaze. "Huh?"
"Is everything ok? You zoned out there for a moment."
"Uh…you said you saw the casefiles right?"
"Don't worry, I'll make sure nothing that isn't relevant to the case will be used."
"It's not that," he interjected, biting his lip. "Was—was there any evidence that there was tampering with the animatronics?"
The blonde's brows furrowed in confusion.
Not that Mike blamed her with her earlier questions. "It's just," he started, "when I was working at the location where I was…where my accident happened, the animatronics' AI were acting, uh, strange."
"Strange?"
He nodded, "You know how during a normal day when there's lots of people around, they do their entertainment thingy?"
She nodded.
"Well, geez," Mike sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, "this is hard to explain."
"Take your time."
"You see, when I was working there, I was by myself. And—ugh! How do I explain this without sounding nuts?"
"It's ok," Canary interrupted, putting a hand on his shoulder, "tell me what you can."
The teen nodded, "Well, on the second, or maybe third night, I went into one of the rooms to do a quick check. The system said everything was fine in there, but considering that the computer system was super glitchy; like it was so bad it autocorrected my name to Eggs Benedict," he shook his head, with a chuckle, "Eggs Benedict, how the fuck do you get that from Mike?"
Canary chuckled, "I would say that is a massive error."
"And that's not even the last error that stupid computer did," Mike huffed. "But, yeah, so you can imagine that I didn't exactly have the most trust in the system's capabilities." Slowly his smile faded from his face, "When I went into the room, everything seemed to be in order, but then the animatronic started talking to me again. She told me about how she was counting the number of people in the room, and eventually, she said that there was only one person in the room: a little girl. And, I guess she lured the girl over with ice cream and…attacked her."
Alarm flashed across the heroine's face, "It attacked her?"
Mike nodded. "Yeah, she said her stomach opened and revealed ice cream. The kid stepped closer, took the ice cream, and then…well," he shrugged. "But, the thing is, now that I think about it, that behavior lines up with what I saw. I worked the night shift, so I was always by myself. And during that time, the animatronics were always pretty aggressive. One of them knocked me out actually, I ended up waking up in a springlock suit."
"A springlock suit?"
"It was the first animatronic model the company used. They could function as normal animatronics and be worn by a person to walk around offstage too—though I thought we stopped using them cause they were dangerous if the locks failed."
"Wait," Canary interrupted, "one of the animatronics knocked you unconscious, and shoved you into one of these suits?"
"Yep, and that's not even the worst of it," he replied. "The next night, the end of my first week, I went in and two of the other guys apparently hadn't gone home yet. Anyways, I found them dead," the woman looked quite horrified at his statement, "they were in separate rooms. I think they each had been alone when attacked, cause last time when I saw them, they had been together with an animatronic and they'd been fine then. And, considering how the animatronics are around groups, I think something is going on with their programming, making them aggressive—at least when there's no one else around."
Of course, to know if that was true, he'd have to find a way to test that theory.
-.-
Metropolis, 21:18EDT
A bell chimed above Canary's head as she stepped into the small retro diner in her civilian clothes. Looking around, she spotted who she was looking for: two dark-haired men, one in a nice suit, the other wearing normal work-clothes sitting at one of the booths away from everyone else. Undoubtedly, they were here to discuss a certain hot-headed clone.
A likely tense discussion. Maybe it was a good thing she decided to not wait at the Cave. This was probably gonna take a while, she would need to order a shake or something.
"Something tells me this isn't about dessert," one sighed handing back their menus to the server.
"Since when does Bruce ever do anything just for fun, Clark?" she spoke up, sliding into the seat beside him. "Strawberry shake please."
"Dinah," Bruce greeted with a nod, before his dark blue eyes locked back on the man across from him as Bibbo walked away. "The boy needs you."
"No. He needs you. He needs Red. I'm just a constant reminder of what he's not."
"Sorry, Clark but you're dead wrong," Bruce deadpanned.
"Took the words right out of me," Dinah agreed turning to look at the Kryptonian. "Clark, believe it or not, that kid thinks the world of you. All he wants is to prove himself to you and be like you. How can he do that if you don't give him a chance?"
Clark glanced away, his nose crinkling with skepticism.
"Look, I know he troubles you, but he's here," Bruce stated. "You have to get over the how and why. Trust me on this. This boy needs his father."
"I'm not his father!" Clark snapped, rising from his seat as if he was going to slide out of the booth.
Grabbing his sleeve, Dinah pulled the man back down. "Hate to break it to you Clark, but like it or not you are related to this boy. I don't care what you want to label it as, but regardless it is your job to teach him. For years you've been feeling alone and have wanted to meet another Kryptonian, and now there's one standing right in front of you, you won't even give him the time of day. And, unlike you Clark, this kid, doesn't have the strong support system you have now and when you grew up," she said, crossing her arms and glaring at the stubborn man beside her. "Right now, all he has is me, Bruce, Red, and our attentions are divided between the rest of the kids. As his mentor, you should be his strongest ally, and yet, all I see is someone who is blaming a child for how he was born. Do you think you could look your parents in the eye and justify this behavior to them?"
Clark's eyes were wide as he stared at her in shock. She knew it was a low blow, but right now, Dinah didn't care. Someone had to slap some sense into this man before he did more damage. And Dinah had no qualms about tattling to Clark's mother if this stupidity continued. Because if her words didn't set him straight, Mrs. Kent certainly would.
Bruce, as stoic as ever, merely nodded to the server, taking his cake. "So, how's Mike doing?"
-.-
Gotham, 21:21EDT
Mike pulled his hood higher, hiding his face as he walked by a rough-looking man. He could feel the stranger eye him for a moment, trying to assess if he'd be worth mugging or not. Eventually, the gaze turned away as the footsteps faded away as the teen continued down the street.
Distantly, he could hear the sounds of sirens, hopefully whatever was going on wasn't too bad. But, he also hoped it was a big enough distraction for his activities to go unnoticed. Technically since his dad was awol Mike was the owner, so it's not like he was really breaking in.
He'd only be breaking the law if the place was still an active crime scene. And, considering that everything happened in June, he doubted it would still be guarded by police if it was considered an active site at all.
To his relief, the crime scene tape seemed tattered, suggesting that the cops hadn't been by in a while. Darting into an alley, Mike strode up the back steps and grabbed the handle, ignoring the growing pit in his gut. Slowly turning the knob, the door clicked open, swinging into the darkness beyond.
This was it. His last chance to back out. He didn't have to do this. Canary was probably telling Batman what they discussed anyways if it was relevant to the case. If he hadn't already figured it out on his own, it wouldn't be long before the Dark Knight investigated his theory. He could even mention it to Uncle Henry, see if he could find anything.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Mike turned and closed the door behind him, plunging the room into pitch black. Though it didn't last long before his eyes adjusted, the soft glow providing just enough light for his eyes to use. And, the darkness made it easier to see the flickering lights underneath the elevator.
His footsteps echoed around him as he strode towards the doors, half-expecting to spot one of the Funtime Fuckers twitching just beside him with outstretched claws.
The metal doors scraped open, the lights flickering again as he stepped inside the familiar elevator. Mike took a deep breath, shoving the pooling dread in his gut aside. He had to do this, he needed answers. He needed to know if his father had anything to do with what happened to him, his siblings, and probably others if the missing persons reports were to be believed. And the only places he was going to get those answers was here and his old house.
Stepping inside the metal tube, the teen pulled his hood down, and took out the headlamp he used last time, fastening it on his head. Pressing the button to close the doors, he chewed the inside of his cheek as the elevator jerked slightly.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
"Welcome," Hand Unit's familiar voice spoke, nearly making him jump out of his skin. "Welcome to the first day of your exciting new career. Whether you were approached at a job fair, read our ad in Screws, Bolts, & Hairpins, or if this the result of a dare, we welcome you. I will be your personal guide to help you get started: I am a model five of the Handyman's Robotic and Unit Repair System, but you can call me Hand Unit. Your new career promises challenge, intrigue, and endless janitorial opportunities. Please enter your name."
Mike sighed, picking up the tablet. They must've removed him from the system after he was hospitalized. Though they apparently hadn't taken the time to fix the damn thing as the keys were still glitching.
"This cannot be changed later, so please be careful."
How? How could he possibly be careful if the letters were barely on the screen long enough for him to read them?
Scowling, Mike raised his hand, quickly tapping the letters to his name as they flickered across the screen. This time, he was going to get his name right.
Or that was what he planned as the screen flashed in error. "It seems you had some trouble with the keypad. I see what you were trying to type and I will autocorrect it for you. One moment please."
Great, what was he gonna get this time?
"Welcome: Waffle Fries."
Mike facepalmed.
