a/n in which quinn projects violently onto michael because like any healthy person i'm ignoring my own issues
The change was so gradual that Michael hadn't noticed it until Devon commented on how nice it was to see Michael working well with KITT. That got Michael thinking, and yeah; Devon was right. Five and a half months wasn't that long, but Michael spent most of those months on the road where it was just him and KITT, occasionally risking one or both of their lives in the process. In the earlier weeks, he'd listened to the radio almost constantly, only letting KITT talk when he had something relevant to their assignment to say. Otherwise, Michael needed to believe that KITT was just a car. A fancy car with a fancy computer. Familiarity, warmth, kindness – all illusions carefully programmed by crafty coders. Devon said it was for his benefit, but Michael would have been more than content if they'd left well enough alone.
Telling Devon that he hated KITT was easier than explaining the blood-chilling fear Michael felt when KITT took control from him. Hating KITT and the computer's decision-making capabilities was easier than acknowledging the way his vision had gone dark around the edges and how he couldn't breathe right.
Let Devon think Michael hated KITT, hated having a partner even though KITT wasn't human. Michael had made it very clear that he didn't want another partner, but they'd given him one anyway. And it wasn't like he could take the car without the computer. The car had been built around KIT, designed to be the AI's body, for lack of a better word. It seemed awfully ungrateful and almost spiteful to Wilton's legacy, but Michael often wondered if he'd ever even be able to genuinely work with KITT or if this was all a waste of time.
Superficially, they worked wonderfully well together. KITT had been literally built for this, and Michael was nothing if not adaptable. Somewhere in the second month, they found a fragile sort of peace. Michael no longer cranked the radio to make it clear to KITT that he didn't want to hear anything from the AI, and KITT kept his commentary to a minimum. Often Michael found himself wanting to talk to KITT about pointless things, tell KITT about his day or what diners had the best hashbrowns, but the words died on his tongue. That was the sort of thing you did with people, not computers. It didn't matter that KITT seemed to have been programmed for small talk and the sort of pointlessly meaningful chitchat that took place between people trying to get to know each other. It didn't matter that, for all his programming, none of KITT's questions, answers, or comments came across as preprogrammed.
None of that mattered because Michael was determined to keep KITT as just a piece of equipment, no different from his old squad car. Michael couldn't let it matter. Sometimes he wondered if he was overreacting. He wondered if he was handling the whole thing wrong. When he looked at each of his problems individually, he could almost make some sort of sense out of them.
Of course he'd been traumatized by being shot in the face. He jumped at noises that weren't always loud, and sudden lights – headlights, lighters, someone turning a light on unexpectedly – set his heart racing. The night terrors and flashbacks plagued him a little less often when he slept in the car, something he attributed to the thing's special coting. He didn't like thinking much about the alternative reasons.
Michael held himself responsible for Muntzy's death. Those closest to him, the precious few who knew of the man he'd been before becoming Michael Knight, did their best to understand and offer what sympathy they could. The one time Michael had cracked and told Devon about how much he blamed himself, the older man didn't say much, and Michael knew Devon carried someone's death the same way.
Those two things were hell enough to deal with, and they were inseparable. Until he could fully absolve himself of his guilt, he'd never be able to let himself heal. Instead, he buried the trauma deep and wore his guilt like armor.
That worked for the most part. It was aided heavily by his transient lifestyle. He didn't want to be responsible for caring about anyone anymore; not the way he'd been able to care in his old life. He never stayed anywhere long enough to become attached, and that suited him just fine.
Michael tried not to think about how he was legally dead, wearing a face that wasn't his. Those blue eyes kept catching him off guard. Why blue? Why that face? Was it easier for the Foundation to have a ghost working for them?
His car was just the opposite: it looked just like his old Trans-Am but couldn't have been more different, from the familiar-foreign way the MBS felt under Michael's fingers to the over-advanced computer it had for a brain. Michael had always joked that his old car talked to him, and he certainly talked at it.
If he was coping wrong, what was he supposed to be doing? For the most part, he felt like he was doing okay. Good days outweighed the bad by a significant margin at this point, as long as Michael excluded the bad nights. This life didn't come with instructions, and Michael got the feeling that even Devon was clueless too.
Maybe Michael would have felt better about the whole thing if he thought KITT would judge him if he opened up. Ridicule him; put him in his place. By the close of the fourth month, Michael knew KITT would never do anything like that. Not because KITT wasn't judgmental or because he was incapable of ridicule; KITT was immensely judgmental and had no problem speaking his mind.
No, Michael knew the problem was the total opposite: KITT cared about Michael too much to just let him vent and then drop the subject. Both Michael and KITT had been in denial about KITT's capability to care and form emotional attachments, though Michael gave in much easier than KITT. To put it in KITT's words, Michael was programmed to be irrational and emotional and human, whereas KITT insisted that he'd been programmed without the capacity for emotional response; he'd been programmed to simulate and mimic human behaviors and emotions, not feel them.
And KITT was much too curious. Michael knew KITT would have a hundred thousand questions as he struggled with the inconsistencies and breaks in logic that came hand in hand with trauma.
One thing KITT had readily understood was how Michael hated feeling like he wasn't in control or that he had no say in things that involved him or happened to him. KITT was the same, though he'd put it in terms that made sense to his circuitboard brain: more data meant better, more accurate and reliable conclusions. But Michael saw himself a little too much in the way KITT protested being left out of Michael's thought processes, in all the questions KITT had and the way he asked for clarification.
That was where Michael started. Instead of just driving off and only telling KITT was what going on if directly asked, Michael starting laying out the day's plans as they left wherever they'd called home for the night. Sometimes the plans were concrete, and Michael knew exactly how things were going to go. Sometimes Michael laid out the way he hoped things would go, but explained that there were too many outside factors involved for certainty. Other times, it was all Michael could do to keep up, and there were no plans. Those were the more dangerous assignments, where everything that could go wrong did and allies turned into enemies. Regardless of the certainty of his plans, Michael swore to himself that he'd do better at making sure KITT knew what was going on.
KITT often challenged Michael's plans or pointed out flaws, and Michael realized he'd been sleeping on a strategic asset. Michael also realized how much he'd missed having someone to bounce ideas off of and the banter that came with familiarity.
Soon, telling KITT his plans became Michael talking about why he'd never go back to certain restaurants and bickering over musical preferences. KITT seemed to dislike every single genre and band that Michael liked, although KITT put up with it.
Which brought Michael back to today, and Devon's comment. He wanted to say that he couldn't believe how poorly he'd treated KITT and everyone else early on, but he couldn't. Not honestly. No amount of excuses would make any of it go away or make it all not matter. Devon and KITT were both too kind, too understanding, KITT citing psychological texts to back himself up and Devon graciously dealing with Michael's outbursts and terrible attitude.
Only Bonnie held anything against Michael and, although he barely even wanted to admit it to himself, he appreciated her for it. Her anger and the spiteful way she treated him were things he could understand. Bonnie held grudges and made sure Michael knew it. Sure it hurt when she tore into him for bringing KITT back damaged, and it hurt moreso when Michael himself was injured too, but he knew he deserved it. Action, consequence. Park KITT over a bomb, get a wrench thrown at his head. Knock some connections loose, get lectured for being careless. It made sense.
Sometimes, in those tense weeks after Tonya's death and when Michael was still pushing boundaries with less than benign intent, he'd wanted to shake Devon by the shoulders and ask Devon why he wouldn't hate him. Why he insisted on patience and tolerance and telling Michael to go for a drive to cool off.
Michael thought he understood now that a lot of that blind anger had finally burnt itself down to a manageable oceanside bonfire from its initial forest fire roar. He'd exhausted himself raging against the past and trying to get those around him to be mad at him like he was mad at himself – to hate him too.
The passing months hadn't healed anything. It was all still too fresh, too raw. Michael found he now had the space to start working toward healing. Or at least hurting a little less. The six month anniversary of his first drive with KITT was coming up, and Michael decided that would be as good a time as any to start talking.
a/n i kept losing track of where i was going with this while writing it whoops
