The next few days were pretty quiet as most of the town, the Mystery Shack included, needed to repair all the damages caused by the various gravity anomalies. Mike didn't see much of their new house member during that time as Ford was mostly hiding out in the basement. Mike knew that Dipper was disappointed about that, but Mike was fine putting off all the emotional tension for the moment. When he wasn't enjoying being lazy with the Pines, Mike spent his time helping Soos repair the Shack. Sure, Mike couldn't do most of the more complicated stuff as he had more experience with repairing robots rather than walls, but there were plenty of things where an extra set of hands was helpful.

"Now we just need to hold this in place for five minutes while the glue dries then we should be good to go, dude!" Soos explained as they held the newly installed window in place.

"I can handle this alone if you want," Mike suggested.

"You sure dude?" Soos asked. "It's not that big of a deal if I stay and help."

"But you already did most of the work, so I don't mind," Mike assured with a smile. "You deserve to be finished first."

"If you're sure dude," Soos agreed before he realized something. "I nearly forgot that I have an FCLORP session today. I should leave soon if I want to make it on time."

Soos left to put his tools away, leaving Mike alone with the window. The five minutes passed by pretty quickly and once Mike sure the glue was dry, Mike left to join the others. He came across Dipper who was looking pretty down as he headed outside.

"Hey Dipper, you okay?" Mike asked in concern, drawing the boy's attention.

"I don't suppose you'd be interested in playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with me?" Dipper sighed, sounding like he had already accepted that Mike would say no.

"I've never played it before, so I hope you don't mind having to explain everything thing to me," Mike replied, both happy and heartbroken to see how hopeful Dipper looked at realizing Mike was agreeing to play.

"I don't mind!" Dipper assured, getting excited. "Come on! Let's go set up outside!"

They settled in the grass right by the house, Dipper pulling out all the materials as he began to explain the process of making a character. Mike listened as best he could, though he still needed a lot of guidance as he worked to build his character. Mike settled on making a teifling rogue and was in the midst of rolling the last of his stats when Gompers the goat came over and tried to eat the dice.

"Hey, give it back!" Dipper scolded, grabbing at the dice. "Come on, Gompers, let go!"

Dipper managed to pull the dice out, but the force of it caused him to fall backward, dropping the dice which rolled under the porch. Dipper immediately started crawling after it, much to Mike's dismay.

"Be careful Dipper," Mike said only to feel a spike of fear as Dipper yelped and disappeared into the ground. Mike immediately dived underneath the porch after Dipper, falling down after him. Mike barely managed to avoid landing directly on Dipper, but as a result, he landed hard on his wrist and he felt something give in it.

"Mike are you okay," Dipper asked in worry, panicking slightly as he noticed Mike's hand was bent at an unnatural angle.

"I'm fine, this doesn't really hurt at all," Mike assured, forcing his hand back into proper place and wiggling his fingers to show that everything was alright. "See? Good as new?"

"I guess there are some benefits to practically being a zombie," Dipper replied, looking both relieved and slightly disturbed at the revelation. "Does this mean you're completely immune to pain?"

"Not completely immune as there are still things that can hurt me," Mike explained easily, rotating his wrist a few times to help get it settled. "But I'm pretty much immune to what I guess you can call melee damage… that is the right term in D, D, & more D right?"

"That sounds about right," Dipper nodded, reminded of why they were here in the first place. Dipper immediately looked around and spotted his dice nearby, reaching to pick it up.

"Dipper! Stop!" Ford commanded as he stepped out of the shadows, startling both Dipper and Mike and making the cycloptopus that had been hiding near the dice to screech and scurry further into the shadows.

"Great-uncle Ford!" Dipper gulped, feeling embarrassed and ashamed at making the author angry at him. Mike didn't say anything, just stood near Dipper to offer support if needed.

"What did I say about coming down here? My work is far too dangerous for a single living soul to spend even one second I- " Ford ranted at Dipper only to stop when he spotted what the young boy was holding. "Wait! Is that a 38-sided die from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?!"

"Y-yeah?" Dipper replied in surprise. "You know the game?"

Ford began reciting the game's motto with Dipper joining in, leaving Mike just to stare dumbly at this sudden turn of events. Ford happily suggested they play and they all settled down on the floor. Ford acted as the Dungeon Master while Dipper quickly whipped up a player for himself. As they began to play, Mike was surprised to find he actually enjoyed it. Sure, he struggled with a lot of the rules and calculations, but Ford was surprisingly good at creating an adventure story for them to play.

There was some slight conflict at first as Ford seem to be passively aggressively targeting Mike's character, almost like Ford was trying to get a reaction out of Mike. But Mike refused to rise to the bait though he did feel a bit smug when his character would narrowly escape death between a combination of luck and creative solutions. Ford eventually seemed to accept Mike's continued presence as they played and even relaxed enough to show him and Dipper an infinity-sided die (though he did keep it out of reach of Mike).

Eventually, they called it a night and Ford suggested they play again tomorrow, much to Dipper's excitement. The game continued anew in the morning and Ford was, while not completely friendly, more welcoming of having Mike join them for the game. They got absorbed into the game that hours passed by quickly and they were interrupted by the others wanting to use the living room.

"I totally forgot that today was the Ducktective finale," Mike said, giving the group an apologetic grin.

"Dipper, could you maybe move this to another room?" Mabel pleaded as she took in the scene.

"No dice! We ran out of room in the basement and we're going for a world record! Now, dice!" Ford answered, rolling his dice. "32, yes! 7,000 points damage!"

"You got me!" Dipper said with a laugh.

"Guys, we really should move," Mike said, already gathering his own papers. "They have been looking forward to this for a while and…"

"They can wait… we won't be much longer," Ford waved away Mike's suggestion. "It'll only take another hour or two…"

"Oh, why, why with this?" Stan said in anger, stomping into the room. "You wanna break a record, Ford? You already got it for world's nerdiest old man."

"Hey, at least I'm not all keyed up to watch a kid's show!" Ford retorted, rising to meet Stan.

"Ford it's not really a big deal to move!" Mike tried again, only to be ignored. The arguing just kept escalating and then suddenly the infinity-sided dice got tossed onto the floor and the room filled with lightning. Out of the power of the dice, real life D, D, and more D characters appeared.

"Mortals of dimension 46'\M, kneel before me and (rolls dice) snivel!" The leader of the group exclaimed. "I am Probabilitor! The greatest wizard in all of mathology! Give or take an error of 0.4."

"Eh, is this normal?" Stan asked, trying to process what he was seeing.

"Have you come to send us on the quest of a lifetime because we're the smartest players you've ever met?" Dipper suggested, sounding hopeful and a little bit concerned.

"You are the smartest players I've ever met!" Probabilitor confirmed. "That's why I'm going to eat your brains to gain your intelligence. It's what I do. Not yours though, your brain's too rotted to be of any use to me."

"…Sorry..?" Mike replied, feeling a little grateful for being a walking corpse for once.

"What?!" Dipper shouted in terror.

"Seize them!" Probabilitor commanded his minions, who began to stalk forward.

"Your math is no match for my gun, you idiot!" Ford shouted, pulling out his gun and firing. Unfortunately it proved useless against Probabilitor's math magic, leaving Ford and Dipper to be carried off into the woods. The rest of the group prepared to go after them, arming themselves with whatever they could. Mike retrieved his crowbar and grabbed a knife from the kitchen for good measure.

They soon were on their way, quickly taking down the ogre that stood in their way. While the rest of the group charged forward, Mike snuck around the back and began using his knife to start cutting Dipper and Ford free. This did mean that he was caught in the magic spell that turned them into characters, leaving him blinking in surprise at his sudden change in size.

"Ah! My ears!" Ford exclaimed in shock, flicking the new tips of his ears. "They're so pointy!"

"There better be something protective under this tunic," Dipper said with worry as he turned around to check. "Oh, no, there isn't!"

"My balance feels off…" Mike admitted, looking behind him only to shout in shock. "Holy crap! There's an actual tail coming out of my butt!"

"Seriously, can't we just, like, arm wrestle or something?" Stan groaned as he and Mabel sat down on their side of the board.

"Come on, this game is a lot of fun. I had my mom pack me a lunch," Probabilitor smiled as he examined the contents of his sack lunch. "Ew, apple slices? I'll eat you last."

The next few minutes were a wild and chaotic blur as Mike, Ford, and Dipper did all they could to survive with the help of the crazy spells Mabel would come up with. It was terrifying and thrilling, but eventually, they came out victorious and the D, D, and more D characters were banished back to their own dimension. After such an exciting adventure, Mike was glad to relax with others and watch some mindless tv. Once the finale was over, Mike helped clean up the remaining snacks and graph paper while Dipper went down to talk to Ford.

"How'd it go Dipper?" Mike asked once Dipper returned from the basement.

"Fine! Fine… no big secrets at all…" Dipper said nervously, making Mike raise an eyebrow at his suspicious declaration. "It's all fine… and Grunkle Ford actually asked me to send you down… He wanted to talk to you about something…"

"Okay…" Mike replied, confused by Dipper's behavior and surprised that Ford actually requested his presence. Deciding it was better not to keep the man waiting, Mike headed down to the basement.

"Ford?" Mike called, hoping that he wasn't walking into an elaborate death trap. "Dipper said you wanted to see me?"

"Yes," Ford replied, hastily shoving things away before he turned to face Mike. "I wanted to let you know… that while I don't trust you entirely… I now believe that you don't mean any harm to the kids or the others."

"Geez… thanks for the vote of confidence…" Mike rolled his eyes. "But I don't think you had me come down here just to tell me you don't think I'm a threat anymore. So what is it you really want to talk about?"

"Well… you see… I… um…" Ford began, flushing a little as he stumbled before clearing his throat. "I've been thinking about what you've said… and playing with Dipper and you reminded me of how much I missed being a part of a family… I want things between me and Stan to at least be tolerable… and I was hoping you had some ideas on how to do that…"

"Well for starters, you should be having this conversation with Stan rather than me," Mike pointed out before blinking in confusion. "Wait… why are you talking to me about this? You just admitted you didn't trust me, so why ask me for advice rather than Dipper? Or anyone else really?"

"Dipper and the others are too emotionally invested in Stan to have a clear perspective," Ford explained. "You on the other hand have only been around him for a fraction of that time and are an outsider's perspective that I need."

"There's a lot of flaws I could point out in that logic, but I much rather just work on getting back to the more important things," Mike shook his head ruefully. "Alright… first thing you need to do is tell Stan you're not going to force him to shut down the Mystery Shack the moment the kids are gone…"

"But it's my house!" Ford protested. "He didn't have any right to turn it into a mockery of my work and..!"

"And it's the only reason it's still here at all after thirty years," Mike cut in. "Stan did what he had to pay the bills and it has long become his home. If you kick him out you'll be just like your father…"

"That was Stan's own fault!" Ford yelled, refusing to think how he was acting like his father. "If he just accepted that I had better things than sailing around the world for treasure and just supported me rather than sabotage me…"

"He made a stupid mistake!" Mike snapped back, his eyes glowing brightly as his temper rose. "One that he's paid for multiple times over already and has done his best to atone for! Will you just let go of your petty grudge and forgive him already?!"

"Why are you taking his side?! He's the one that hurt me and he still hasn't apologized! Why aren't you bothering him about making up to me?! Why do you care whether or not I ever forgive him?!"

"BECAUSE I WANT TO BE FORGIVEN TOO!"

The room was silent at that revelation, Ford staring at Mike in shock while Mike looked on the verge of panicking about what he just let slip.

"What do you mean you want to be forgiven?" Ford couldn't help but quietly ask.

"NOTHING!... It doesn't matter…." Mike attempted to deflect. "We're focusing on you and Stan right now, not me! So if we could just forget I said that that would be perfect…"

"Mike, clearly you and my brother have a lot in common," Ford reasoned, cautiously taking a step forward. "Perhaps if you tell me more, I'll be able to understand Stan's perspective better… "

Mike really didn't want to say anything more. He rather just forget what he just said and go back to burying his feelings behind his goal of taking his father down. But ever since he met the twins, the carefully constructed emotional walls he had built up over the decades had started to crumble. And now it cracked enough that he couldn't stop the words from spilling out.

"I made a mistake…" Mike began, unable to look Ford in eyes as black tears began to drip down his face. "One that cost my brother far more permanently than what Stan lost you… One that I could never fix no matter how much I wanted to…"

"You're brother… he died didn't he…" Ford asked carefully, connecting the dots to what Mike had said before.

"I didn't mean to…" Mike babbled, lost in his own memories. "It was just supposed to be a prank… I just wanted to scare him… not… not… but it didn't matter… He was gone and it was all my fault… I've spent pretty much my entire life and afterlife trying to make up for it… even though I know what I did was unforgivable and could never be atoned… I'm still trying anyway…"

"And then there's Stan and what he's gone through," Mike continued, looking at Ford briefly before averting his gaze again. "He also made mistakes that cost him everything and has also spent decades attempting to fix it… and he actually succeeded! He managed to bring you home and give you a second chance at life and being with your family that he had accidentally taken away… and apparently, it still isn't enough… He was actually able to fix his mistake, but you still won't forgive him… and if he can't be forgiven after all that… then what hope do I have?"

Mike fell silent as he continued to cry, lost in the emotions he has been suppressing for so long.

Ford felt awkward as he witnessed Mike's raw grief, wanting to provide comfort to him but unsure how to do so or if it would even be accepted. Any lingering doubts about Mike's intentions were swept away for Ford as he saw that Mike was truly just a broken man trying to do his best. (Ford didn't want to think of how broken Stan must be for Mike to relate to him so well and it was worse knowing that Ford was the cause of most of Stan's brokenness…)

Before Ford could even think of something comforting to say, Mike seemed to pull himself together.

"Sorry about that…" Mike said, wiping away his remaining tears. "You wanted my advice and instead I just had a breakdown… not exactly helpful…"

"Actually… I think you were more helpful than you realize…" Ford confessed quietly. "I've been holding onto my anger for so long because it was easier to deal with than hurt… but in doing so I blinded myself to the fact that Stan was hurting too if not more… I've been a terrible brother haven't I?"

"Better than me," Mike said with a broken laugh. "But at least you have a chance to actually repair things with your brother… now the question is are you actually going to take advantage of it? Or are you going to waste another decade letting the silence fall between you?"

"No… not this time…" Ford said, his resolve solidifying. "You're right… I've held onto my grudge long enough… I'll let Stan know that I forgive him…"

"Good that's good…" Mike smiled softly. "I'm just going to head to bed… This has been an emotional and draining conversation and I need some time alone…"

"Yes… and it has gotten quite late…" Ford agreed, glancing at the time. "I should sleep as well so I'm of clear mind when I talk to Stan in the morning… and Mike… thank you… I don't think I would have realized my mistake without you… and if it's any help… I think you deserve forgiveness too."

"You're wrong, but I appreciate the gesture," Mike said as he turned to leave, glancing one last time over his shoulder. "Just don't waste this second chance you have with Stan…"

"I won't," Ford promised.

Satisfied that Ford would keep his word, Mike left the basement and made his way to his room. He hadn't been lying when he said he was drained after that talk, so he flopped onto the couch and was out in a matter of moments, drifting off to dreamland…