tear it down (around my head) (8)
warnings: mild body horror, violence and injury, misunderstandings, unhealthy mindsets, references to torture, abuse, gore, coping mechanisms, injury, and the movie mean girls, and cameo cliffhangers
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“He. Had. What?” Janus’s voice was very level, each word slowly and distinctly enunciated, which was how you knew he was about to tear something methodically into little pieces and possibly even eat the pieces afterwards, like a bored preteen with a napkin.
“You heard me,” Remus replied with his hands tucked behind his head, because he was immune to being shredded, and Janus was too squeamish for actually committing to that sort of thing, anyhow. Plus, he was one of the few people in the city that got the privilege of knowing just how much of The Conductor’s carefully constructed nonchalant persona was covering up his squishy, petty, all-too-ethical center. “Whoever you’re on the trail of, they fucked Glowbug up bad.”
It wasn’t just about the scar, either. The clear and damning evidence of torture, a calculated and possessive torture to boot, was only the most obvious sign. The fact that it had taken them this long to notice it was embarrassing, but to be fair to Remus, he’d been preoccupied noticing a whole lot of the other signs.
The littler, less obtrusive ones, like the way he retired to his room at the same time every night, even though the Prince of Paranoia had eased up on his guard dog duties to the point that none of them would have blinked twice at Patton taking a midnight walk or grabbing a glass of water. The way he had quietly and discreetly taken over all the household chores that Janus loathed the most, and seemed almost uncomfortable at the idea of sitting down and relaxing with them on the rare days that they weren’t out in the city. The way he lived in an undecorated guest room in borrowed clothing and with not a single pair of civilian shoes to his name, like a prisoner, without a qualm.
Remus knew what it looked like when someone tried to make themself smaller in the hopes of avoiding bad attention. It had never worked for him– he was the type to drag the attention in regardless, revel in the looks and shouts even if they were full of hatred– but he’d seen it enough that it was easy to recognize the picture Patton painted with all these quiet habits.
What was harder to puzzle out was why.
Lightshow had been a solid, towering bastion of a villain, reciting his monologues and launching his attacks without hesitation. What array of memories could have been taken away to uncover Patton, like the soft, chewy core to a particularly sanctimonious-flavored Tootsie Pop?
… Or maybe, the real question was: what exactly had been done to Patton to force him into the role of Lightshow? And most importantly, who had done it, and how quickly could Remus get his hands on them?
“The previous incidents have been subtle. Without Lightshow’s presence as an indicator, I haven’t been able to narrow down when or where our opponent has been striking, not amidst all the other criminal activity that occurs daily,” Janus admitted as his expression darkened into something thunderous. “It wasn’t my highest priority, before. It most certainly will be now.”
Remus grinned in satisfaction, the edges of his mouth splitting further than humanly possible. Having the full force of Janus’s attention lock onto one goal was a surefire way to get a proper lead on this guy, and he was looking forward to hunting the fucker down.
Normally, he’d be too antsy to sit around while Janus did all his fancy info-gathering and investigating, but luckily he had the perfect task to occupy himself for the duration: retail therapy!
“I’ll leave all the boring stuff to you, Janabanana,” he announced with a sloppy salute. “And in the meantime, the rest of us will go shopping!”
Sure enough, that was enough to drag Janus’s attention away from the meticulous plotting he was about to sink into and get forever lost in, bog-style. His head snapped up to glare narrowly at Remus. “Not with my wallet, you won’t.”
“Don’t be so cold-blooded, snakeboy,” Remus shot back brightly, “it’s for a good cause. Glowbug needs a real wardrobe, as much as I’m sure you like seeing him in our pajamas.”
“You—!” Janus smacked Remus’s arm, ignoring the meaty thwack of it detaching and tumbling onto the floor between them. Truly, Remus’s genius comedic gags were wasted in this household.
“I’ll sue you for libel,” Janus finally managed, which meant he was flustered enough to resort to legalese, and thus Remus automatically won the banter. “Put those eyebrows away before I tell Virgil who ate the last of his special edition Halloween poptarts and he shaves them off in your sleep again.”
Remus obediently stopped wiggling his eyebrows.
After a brief pause to sigh extensively and pretend to massage away a headache he absolutely didn’t have, Janus conceded. “Clothes only. Do not bring back any more exotic animals or repossessed organ coolers, I cannot emphasize enough how troublesome the paperwork gets.”
“I don’t choose to find the kidneys, the kidneys find me,” Remus intoned solemnly, before snatching one of Janus’s wallets off his desk and hightailing it out of his bedroom. “No promises!”
Janus flicked his fingers, telekinetically hurling Remus’s abandoned arm out the door after him. “Bring home a box of my usual tea or I’ll change the locks while you’re out!”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” Remus called back over his shoulder, and then proceeded to skid directly into Virgil’s door at the end of the hall. The thud of impact was loud enough to rattle windows, because he was a professional.
When this move garnered no immediate results, he dragged his phone out of his pocket and spammed the group chat with the same extremely low quality gif from Mean Girls, about 37 times.
After a truly apathetic amount of time had passed, their resident emo pulled the door open, looking as ghoulish as ever. He glanced down at Remus, who was crumpled in a heap upon his doorstep, and then stepped over him to walk down the hall. “No.”
“Gasp!” Remus pointed his detached arm at Virgil in not-so-silent accusation. “Party foul! Nobody can deny the power of Regina George’s summons to shop!”
Virgil didn’t even turn to look. “You won’t catch me in pink on Wednesday, either.”
Patton, bless his little heart, had already poked his head out of his own doorway shortly after the original wall-shaking thump of impact, and now visibly brightened at the approach. “Oh, are you guys going shopping?”
There it was. As always, he assumed that any outdoor ventures were off-limits, because they’d never clarified that he wasn’t actually a prisoner in so many words. They hadn’t really thought that they’d needed to, that investigating the circumstances of his past and providing him a home in the present was enough to show him that he was someone they wanted to protect, not trap.
Even if his teammates, suspicious creatures that they were, were still watching out for some larger plot, it didn’t change the fact that Patton had wormed his way into their hearts like an alien parasite nestling into an astronaut’s chest cavity.
Besides, even if they had rescued a less charming and pun-oriented individual, they wouldn’t have sentenced them to indeterminate confinement in one of their safehouses. Patton was effectively a civilian at the moment, their shared history of superpowered murder matches set aside, and didn’t pose a threat to anything but the potted plant he kept overwatering. For civilians, there were official channels one could reach out to for aiding those suffering from superpower aftereffects, multiple organizations that would provide resources and housing to a victim of mind manipulation. This much should have been part of the general knowledge that Glowbug still had, but instead, he walked around like one wrong step would get him locked into a medieval torture device and slowly disemboweled.
Despite his cheerful demeanor, it was obvious that Patton always expected the worst, and even more concerningly, he seemed to accept it as his due without complaint or protest. Remus couldn’t even be irritated about the misunderstanding, because it had become abundantly clear that someone had used torture to rewire Glowbug’s brain into a minefield, and brains did what they had to survive when it came to that kind of thing.
Patton didn’t have to make himself small to survive anymore. Not here. The three of them just had to make sure he understood that, too.
Thus decided, Remus made meaningful eye contact with Virgil, attempting to convey his very subtle and lowkey plan: namely, to convince Patton of their affection and his permanence in their household by drowning him in material possessions.
Blissfully unaware of his own role in Remus’s machinations, Patton tilted his head slightly, blinking curiously. Really, who could resist that face?
As expected, Virgil folded like a soggy piece of bread in the face of their combined psychological pressure. “Alright, fine. But I’m driving.”
—
Virgil drove exceedingly carefully for someone with that strong of a death grip on the steering wheel, which meant that Remus had plenty of time and attention to dedicate to reassuring Patton that everything was fine.
Which was good, because Patton took a lot of reassuring. He’d practically had to be coaxed out of the apartment in the first place, and the whole drive there was filled with increasingly antsy questions.
By the time they reached the mall’s parking lot, Remus was half-convinced that he should have brought Janus along after all, if only so that Patton would finally be sure that they weren’t sneaking out under his nose.
“Are you sure—,” Glowbug started, and Remus began to wonder if picking him up and shaking him would help the words sink in faster.
“Relax,” Virgil finally cut in, grimacing as though even just the word tasted hypocritical in his mouth. “We’re going shopping for clothes so you don’t have to wear dusty hand-me-downs all the time.”
“You really don’t have to go to all this trouble,” Patton tried weakly. “I don’t have any money—,”
“Money, schmoney!” Remus flapped a hand casually. “We do this all the time, Deedee’s got us covered.”
“It’s part of the contract between us and the city. We have a monthly stipend for victim care,” Virgil elaborated, adjusting his hood around his shoulders as Remus gallantly opened the passenger-side door for Patton to climb out. “It would just go to waste if we didn’t use it for stuff like this.”
Patton stared at the mostly-vacant parking lot as though the ground was covered in poisonous vipers. “What if it’s not safe?”
Virgil turned to scan the parking lot as though the mall was going to come to life and eat them, because he was twitchy about questions like that. Remus knew exactly what sort of ‘unsafe’ circumstances Glowbug was worried about, and leaned down to meet his gaze.
“We’ll be right beside you,” he promised, grinning wholeheartedly. “There’s probably not a more secure place in the whole city than wedged between the two of us, no matter what kind of power someone’s packing.”
Remus had run the gamut of having unstable powers himself, he was more than familiar with the terror of not being able to trust in oneself. So, this was his promise: if Patton somehow snapped right back to the supervillain they used to battle so often, the two of them would make sure he couldn’t hurt any civilians.
Patton swallowed thickly, and Remus didn’t miss the way his hand twitched up to graze a spot just under his collarbones, as though seeking reassurance.
(He’d noticed the locket the previous night, though he wasn’t sure Patton had noticed him notice it. It certainly hadn’t come up before in any of the conversations they’d had about Patton’s missing memories, but Remus had picked up on several little motions like this, ones that seemed habitual and well-worn. Like he was brushing a hand over a treasured gift.
Remus hadn’t asked, not yet. But he had a feeling that once Patton was ready to go seeking out more answers about his past, that locket would be the first place to look.)
“Okay,” Patton managed after a few more moments. “Do I still get to keep the hand-me-downs? I’m pretty loon-y about those duck pajamas.”
“You bet my bottom you can!” Remus answered, extending an elbow for Patton to hold onto as they made their way to the main entrance.
“I don’t think a loon is a kind of duck,” Virgil contributed, because he was a hater.
“You’re probably right,” Patton said. “I guess when it comes to identifying birds… I ran outta duck.”
Remus cheered obnoxiously, and then course-corrected when Virgil started veering a little too close to the Hot Topic. “Let’s put a quack in our finances!”
“Or we could not do that,” Patton laughed nervously, but the longer they went without earning a second glance from the other patrons around them, the more he began to relax.
Remus was killing this whole ‘re-socializing your supervillain’ thing. He should write a book.
He let Virgil take over once they actually reached a department store, because his idea of fashionable and/or comfortable was often deeply contradictory to the general public’s, and they were trying to find clothes that Patton could wear outside without getting gawked at. So, not really Remus’s area of expertise.
After an extensive period of offering Patton different fabric types and then different types of tops and bottoms (of the clothing kind), and scrutinizing his reactions with the sort of focused intensity one might perform open heart surgery with, Virgil successfully narrowed their options down to a pretty solid selection of outfits. There was also a surplus of graphic tees, because Patton kept smiling at the jokes on them and then they mysteriously ended up stuffed in the shopping cart the moment he looked away.
Through a brief series of glances and hand motions usually used in the field, the two of them mutually decided that Virgil would go buy the clothes on his lonesome, thus ensuring Patton wouldn’t have to witness whatever ridiculous number Macy’s was charging for pants in this day and age.
While Virgil departed for the checkout, Remus steered Patton towards the furniture section with plenty of promises that it was only to take a little look-see, they weren’t going to buy anything else today, really!
(He wasn’t lying, of course. Furnishing Patton’s room would just have to be a tomorrow project. Hooray for technical truths!)
The trip had been going swimmingly, to the point that Glowbug was finally chattering on with his usual level of confidence, so Remus probably should have expected that it wouldn’t last.
As it was, he only had a heartbeat to notice the sudden reddish tinge to all the lights before the skylight above exploded into a billion razor-sharp glass shards.
Remus shoved Patton under the sturdiest-looking desk in reach with a yelp, and paid for his moment of inattention by getting nearly bowled over by the charge of a mechanical knight, all of its deceivingly delicate-looking plating painted a bright, firetruck red.
His brother always had had the worst sense of timing.
Remus twisted his body in half just in time to avoid being decapitated by a swing of the contruct’s gleaming broadsword, and retaliated by kicking it in the groin, hard enough to knock it into the perfume display across the aisle. Someone screamed shrilly nearby.
If you don’t piss off right now I’m telling mom about our eighth birthday party, Remus thought very intently in the general direction of the automatons descending dramatically through the ceiling. Absolutely nothing about the scene changed, which meant that twin telepathy really was a scam, and Remus wanted a refund.
“Stay put, Glowbug, Umbra will be here in a snap,” he promised, certain that Virgil had heard the cacophony and was on his way. “I need to go re-enact that one scene from the Old Testament, you know, the one with the rock. It’ll only take me a minute!”
Flashing Patton a thumbs up, he spun around and punched the head right off of another automaton, stomping on the chest of it until it caved in, utterly ruining the intricate latticework. It began to self-repair immediately, one of the bitchier enchantments Roman had managed to work into his craft, but Remus was quick enough to yank the glowing crystal out of its torso and return the construct to inert metal. He tucked the energy source into a pocket so Roman couldn’t salvage it from the remains later, just to add a little insult to injury.
(Roman had tried making them self-destruct when removed at one point, but that charming quirk had quickly been redacted after a battle where Remus had destroyed twenty-three constructs in one go by lobbing a freshly-removed energy crystal directly at the biggest group and starting a chain reaction. These days, his brother knew better than to offer grenade-adjacent opportunities on a platter.)
He heard Patton trying to say something to him, concern evident in his tone, but the words were drowned out by another nearby scream, and a quick once-over of the store showed that the place was being swarmed by medieval warriors and mythical beasts, all of them made from that shining red metal.
“Just hang on!” There wasn’t any time for conversation, not with this many civilians in imminent danger and no Janus at hand to help with evac. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a duck’s tail, Glowbug, I swear!”
Patton nodded from under the desk, face still crinkled with worry, and Remus checked one last time that there weren’t any other constructs nearby before he sprinted off, snatching the black cylindrical handle from his belt and flicking its switch as he went. The energy weapon buzzed into its usual form, a morning star made of neon green light, and he immediately swung it full force at the chimera lunging at him.
Remus bared his teeth in a grin, relishing the earsplitting crunch of mangled machinery, and pressed on towards the next opponent.
As he knew well, the quickest way to goad his brother out of hiding was to break a few of his toys.