Chapter Text
Waking was an absolute travesty.
Doc’s body was sore, his cuts stung, and his head ached with an unrelenting force. He opened his eyes, and almost couldn’t be bothered to get up and find his phone to check the time. Eventually he did so reluctantly, to see there were dozens of missed calls and texts from Ren, all shortly after Doc had texted him early in the morning.
Doc: staying with a friend tonight, won’t be coming home
Ren: Doc?
Ren: Where are you dude?
Ren: Are you still up?
Ren: Please tell me when you get this
It was followed by several more similar texts and calls. Ren didn’t seem to have a reason for his persistence, so Doc strained his mind to try and remember if he had forgotten something. Ren’s place of work had been vandalized, but there was no reason for him to believe that Doc had been involved.
The light outside the curtained windows was faint, but still present, as it was late in the afternoon. Doc decided he would talk to Ren when he went home, in person. He spent a while laying in relative silence, too tired to get up, but in too much pain to fall back asleep.
Eventually, he relented, and moved to the center of the room where the electricity flowing through the wall couldn’t bother him. He dragged over a chair and sat, taking some time to stretch out his muscles, and check over his various injuries. There would be time to clean them again when he got home. He was looking forward to a solid meal and a shower.
Doc collected his things and rearranged the room to how it had been. Then, he headed to Scar’s office, making a brief stop at the bathroom to clean himself up. The door to Scar’s office was open, but he knocked anyway as he stepped into view.
Scar, on the phone, nodded at him. “We’ll talk soon, bye Cub.” He hung up and looked up at Doc. “How are you feeling?”
“Awful. I’m going home now.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“I’d like a shower, a hot meal, and my own bed.”
Scar looked him over skeptically. “And when you leave, are you going to take care of yourself? Cleaning all those wounds, getting lots of sleep for your concussion, and making sure you stay off your feet as much as possible?”
“I can handle it,” Doc said, which wasn’t exactly an answer. The cuts he knew how to deal with, but staying off his feet was debatable. He would try though, which was as good as it was going to get.
“Get some rest then. Be sure to call through the week though.”
“I’ll bother you everyday,” Doc said sarcastically, although he knew if he didn’t, Scar was just going to contact him until he replied.
“Good. Be seeing you shortly.” It wasn’t a question, so Doc decided not to argue, lest Scar turn it into more of a command.
===
Doc had too much quiet time to think about what was to come on the long journey back to his apartment. Ren was going to kill him for not answering his phone, and Doc didn’t really understand why. There were plenty of nights when he hadn’t come home and this one was no different.
He had almost died, though. Those criminals could have killed him in the middle of the street and Ren would have woken up without a roommate–only discovering what Doc had been up to when they pried his dead body up off the street. He couldn’t do that. Not to Ren.
Was it time to rip the bandage off? Surely Ren would understand what he was doing and that it needed to be kept a secret, because of the danger. He would be mad, rightfully so, but Doc was confident he could smooth things over. It was hard to build up the nerve, but if Doc kept getting himself hurt, Ren was going to discover his secrets one way or another. Best to do it on his own terms.
He dropped by the alleyway where he normally kept a spare change of clothes and hastily got changed, making sure that all his injuries were covered by fabric. Getting undressed outside was something he had never gotten used to, but not once had Doc seen another soul there aside from himself, and there was a dumpster to hide behind if he really needed to. He still looked a little worse for wear, but he could chalk that up to a late night at a friend's house.
Doc could tell Ren… maybe. He would start slow. They could have a nice long chat.
He hyped himself up in the hallway outside their apartment, digging around in his pockets for his keys. Ren’s voice drifted through the door, and Doc froze.
“I could positively kill him, Martyn. It’s all over the news you know? 77 breaks into Dogwarts. How did anyone even find out about it? Do you have any idea how freakin’ bad this is dude? Our reputation alone…”
Judging by the lack of response, Doc could only assume Ren was talking on the phone. He really shouldn’t listen in… He could just open the door to get Ren to stop talking.
“I hate him. How dare he involve himself in our business, smashing up a few windows… He could have taken that fight anywhere dude, and look what he’s doing… It’s going to put us all in danger.”
Ouch. Ren was right though, and he had every reason to be. Doc had smashed up his place of work after all, no way that wasn’t going to be a headache for Ren to deal with.
“He can’t just… do that,” Ren continued. “One cannot fight criminals on the side of the road, and use innocent shops as a fighting playground. He broke my windows.” A pause. Doc still didn’t open the door to announce his presence. “An accident? Yeah, maybe, but someone like him can’t afford to make mistakes. Not when it costs people or puts them in danger.”
Doc bit his tongue. It had been an accident. He hadn’t asked to get jumped by criminals. They were the ones that had thrown him through the window, after all.
“For a guy that goes after criminals, you’d think he would understand that trespassing and pummeling people was illegal, but no. He just gets to do whatever he wants. Just makes me worried, ya know? He’s a Beacon–so they say. I don’t want his actions to reflect poorly on others.”
Doc hadn’t thought about that. The fact that what he was doing was technically illegal–yes. Not the implications though. He knew some might theorize he was a Beacon–it was hard to ignore his lightning-marked chest–but he never considered that some people would take that in a negative light.
Ren was going to be very disappointed in Doc once he learned the truth. All the confidence he had built up went down the drain. He could simply tell Ren. But not right at this moment.
“No, no, I agree. You can start contacting people, telling them to be wary. Who knows what kind of people might come snooping around Dogwarts because of this.”
There was silence for a minute, interrupted when Ren mumbled something in agreement. It seemed the juicy part of the conversation was over, so he jammed his key into the lock and eased the door open.
“...Talk to you later,” Ren finished, looking up as Doc came in.
He opened his mouth in a greeting but Ren slammed into him, wrapping his arms around Doc’s back in a hug. Doc staggered backwards in surprise for a moment, before warily reciprocating. “What–”
“Sorry, sorry,” Ren said, pulling away. “I just… bad night, is all. I’m glad you’re home.”
Right. Doc knew why he had a bad night, but Ren didn’t know he knew that… Shit, this was all getting rather complicated. “What happened?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
Ren sighed. “77 got thrown through my restaurant’s window.” He studied Doc with a piercing gaze that burrowed deep into his soul. His eyes seemed to linger on the bandages wrapped around Doc’s legs and arm, despite how they were hidden beneath his clothes.
“What?” Doc asked, trying to sound surprised.
“It’s not important,” Ren said casually. “It’s just…” He looked at Doc as though he was going to say something else, a conflicted expression on his face. “Nothing,” Ren said quickly. “Glad your home.”
“Uh… right.” Ren wasn’t acting weird, per say, but there was definitely something he wasn’t saying. “Is the place gonna be alright?”
Ren nodded. “Martyn called a window replacement company earlier today. We should be back up and running in a few days.”
“Good.” Doc shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t know what to say, and needed to be doubly careful that whatever came out of his mouth wasn’t incriminating. “Hopefully it… doesn’t happen again?” He cringed internally.
“It better not. You–” Ren stopped short and shook his head. “I don’t like it one bit. Reflects badly on Beacons–puts out the message to other Beacons that they can get away with all sorts of things if they have powers to back it up,” Ren said. “Sorry… I-It’s been a long day.”
“I understand, I–” I know what it’s like, Doc wanted to say. Ren didn’t know he was a Beacon though, and after making his opinion quite clear, Doc understood this was neither the time nor the place to let Ren know who he was. Their argument would certainly get a lot more heated if Ren knew who he was talking to.
In fact… Ren seemed very opinionated for someone who Doc was near certain wasn’t a Beacon. He had never asked outright, and Ren had never asked him, but Doc had always assumed that Ren would have shared that information with him at some point. He was a rather chatty person, and didn’t seem hesitant to talk to Doc about most things. If Ren wasn’t a Beacon though, he was definitely close with one, other than Doc, because Ren didn’t know about him.
Doc filed that information away for later. It wasn’t particularly useful, and he didn’t know many of Ren’s friends other than by name, but it was interesting nonetheless.
“Do you?” Ren asked.
Doc shook his head quickly. “I… I don’t know. 77… I’m sure he means well.”
Ren studied him again with that infuriating gaze that Doc couldn’t unravel the meaning of. “Stubborn is what he is,” Ren said with a huff. “Stubborn idiot.” His gaze flickered over to Doc like he was waiting for him to say something.
If only Ren knew just how true it was.
Ren grumbled something angrily and shook his head. “Well, we’re both fine, and we’re both here now,” he said, occupying the silence. “We can… talk about it later. Listen, did you hear about the fair in a few months? The one the mayor’s hosting?” he asked, rapidly changing the subject. “We gotta go, dude, it’s gonna be fun.”
Doc had almost forgotten that Scar actually did his mayoral duties and whatnot. He didn’t know if Scar wanted him there, but it couldn’t hurt. Doc also needed to make sure Tango was told to steer clear, because something told him large crowds and flammable decorations wouldn’t mix well with him at all.
“Sure,” Doc said. “Sounds like fun.”
=Almost 3 Months Later=
The first time Scar called him, Doc didn’t bother picking up, since his hands were buried in an old server he was tearing to shreds. He begrudgingly answered the second time, if only to get Scar to stop. He had work to do, and had just seen Scar a few hours ago, where they had ultimately discussed literally nothing.
“Doc,” Scar said smoothly, although Doc could hear the strain in his voice. “Where are you?”
“Home,” Doc said, cursing under his breath as he pinched his fingers while trying to yank a stick of RAM out of the motherboard. “My top secret lair.”
“You remember Etho?”
Etho. Beef’s friend, who was in one of the courses he assisted with, who Scar had also decided to hire for something claiming that Etho was, in fact, a Beacon. Important documents, blah, blah… Doc hadn’t really been listening to Scar’s rambling about big plans, his mind focused elsewhere on drawing up a plot. He had promised Tango that when he returned from vacation they were going to do something to Alpha Tech, and Doc had been extremely busy trying to figure out what. Scar’s drama didn’t really have much of an impact on him.
“Yeah, I know him.”
“Have you seen him today? Beef said you saw him briefly.”
“When I came to visit you. Thanks for that, by the way, inviting over a guy who might recognize me.” He wanted to avoid people who knew him in real life when he was on business as 77, even if he wasn’t dressed like it. Every detail was another people could use to link his identities.
“It was important, and I had a lot of meetings today,” Scar said impatiently. “Did Etho say anything to you?”
“Punched me in the face and cursed my name,” Doc said dryly. He tossed a screwdriver aside.
“Doc.”
“No, no, he didn’t say anything, man,” Doc said hastily, not understanding why this was so important. “You saw him before me.”
“I did. I spoke to him only a few hours ago.”
There was a long drawn silence that filled Doc with sudden dread. “What’s this about?”
“Etho is missing.”
“What the hell do you mean missing?” Doc demanded, computer pieces before him forgotten. “Missing as in…?”
“We can’t call him, track him, he’s not home, and Beef and Bdubs have informed me that he’s late for dinner. We have reason to believe he may have been… taken.”
Taken.
His fists tightened. Doc didn’t need Scar to elaborate. There was only one party he knew of that would ever take someone. If Etho truly was a Beacon, then he was now wrapped up in all this nonsense too. Alpha Tech was back with a vengeance, it seemed. They had been quiet for too long.
“Aren’t you supposed to prevent things like this from happening? Where was he last seen?” Doc asked, mind already racing with the things he was going to do to Alpha Tech when he got ahold of them.
“My office, then Bdubs talked to him briefly before they left. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that I’m going to kick someone’s teeth in,” Doc growled. “I’m coming over.”
“We’re at ConCorp,” Scar said hastily. “It’s–”
“ConCorp? Why?”
“There are things you don’t know, Doc. Myself and… associates have been planning things for a while. We've been preparing to stop Alpha Tech for a long time, and the gears are going into motion.”
Doc snorted. “Have you? And you didn’t think to tell me?” He hadn’t looped Scar in on his relation with Tango and the others, but that was because he didn’t quite trust Scar. It seemed he wasn’t the only one being kept in the dark though. Doc didn’t like being on the receiving end of it. “I’m bringing friends,” Doc informed him, forgetting that Tango was away at the present. He hung up the phone, a storm brewing in his mind.
He had revenge to plan.
===
Doc hadn’t seen the sun for several days.
That was largely unintentional–but there was work to be done and he didn’t have time to waste. Not with Etho freshly rescued, Tango fuming about being left out of the action, and Alpha Tech still breathing down their necks. The time for action was now–or it should have been. Etho, Beef, and Bdubs had gone away for a few days, and Scar claimed he didn’t want to push Etho too far when his injuries were so fresh.
Doc… reluctantly agreed. He knew his own plans and opinions strayed towards the self-destructive side of things. If he had his way, they would all be gathered now trying to figure out how to solve the Alpha Tech problem.
Besides, the free time gave him a chance to do the near impossible. He still had finishing touches to add onto his latest–and possibly most challenging project–to date.
He had done difficult things in the past, but Doc tended to tackle problems that he had at least a degree of familiarity with. Problems arose when he tried to create something in an area where he lacked even basic information. Starting from scratch made things ten times more difficult.
It also made them ten times more satisfactory.
Doc had never built an eye before. His own eye, yes, but that was a mechanical and electrical project–something Doc was quite adept at. He had only needed to design it to connect to the internals which he had not surgically implanted himself. Mechanics were very different from optics though, and up until a few days ago, Doc had nothing more than elementary knowledge about the basic way the human eye functioned.
Doc had made a promise to Etho that he would try though. The thing about Doc was he didn’t just try–he messed up over and over until he eventually succeeded. Such a process was very different from trying–there was no room for failure. This project was no different, and Doc would be damned if Etho never got some semblance of his vision back.
Alpha Tech had tried to rip it away, and Doc was going to merrily give them the finger. They had messed with too many people, and the fact they had gotten to someone else made Doc’s rage difficult to control. Fuck that.
Etho would see again. Simple as that.
It wouldn’t be the same–Doc was an engineer, not a miracle maker–but he would have something. At the very least, he wouldn’t have to wear that eyepatch anymore. It didn’t suit him. Doc remembered back long ago, when he had tried to cover up his own eye injury, by keeping half his face wrapped up in bandages, deeming it too gruesome to look at. He hadn’t been thinking straight back then–people had scars, and Doc owed nothing to anyone.
Who did he think he was, trying to cover up a piece of himself?
His only regret was that he hadn’t worn his body proudly sooner.
He would not allow Etho to become a victim of the same pitfalls. He would have a new eye, and would learn to use it. As soon as Doc figured out what the hell he was doing…
To be fair though, he had done an immense amount of research, testing, and building in the past few days. He didn’t fully know what he was doing, but he knew a hell of a lot more than he previously did, and his knowledge only continued to grow.
The labs in the basement level of ConCorp were nicely stocked, and with Etho and the others away for a few days on vacation, and Tango, Impulse, and Zedaph out of action until they were back from their trip, Doc had been able to work uninterrupted. It was these sorts of times when he got his best work done–in the quiet moments to himself.
There wasn’t much that was calm or quiet about a time crunch though. Plus, the resurging rage Doc faced every time he thought about what happened to Etho, then to himself and Tango, only stole from the calm. Such thoughts had him grimacing to himself, muttering swear words and threats as he worked. Anger was just as welcome as calm and quiet though. It fueled his mind more efficiently.
Before him sat days of continuous work and research all poured into a device small enough that it could easily fit in the palm of his hand. The eye itself was oval in shape, made of a hard case of plastic acrylic with thin wires feeding out of the back. It was in the process of being tested and he still needed to bounce some ideas off Cub to work out the kinks.
Doc had made a valiant attempt to match Etho’s eye color, although he was going off of memory. It had started as a nice brown shade that could have been vaguely close to his real color, until Doc had started cramming a computer’s worth of electronics into something the size of a coin. The red lights and coloring had shown right through, creating a dull color that wasn’t even close.
The color wasn’t really important, but if Doc was going to do something, he was going to do it right. He didn’t have the luxury to be picky about much, but he wouldn’t allow the appearance to be anything less than perfect.
Masking the color bleed had been too difficult, so he decided to lean into it. Etho didn’t necessarily need an eye that matched.
The final product was an intense, electric red that reminded him a lot of Tango’s eyes. Doc found he liked that they shared that extra innocuous detail in common. It was far better than the fact they had all been wronged by the exact same person.
He laughed to himself as he looked over his creation.
The red iris stared back up at him, unblinking, yet decidedly human in every other manner. It was perfect, and Doc was confident that it would work–perhaps overly so. He had pulled off the near impossible before though. This was nothing new to him.
After he gave it to Etho… Doc didn’t know what came next. It was clear that Scar had been trying to put together a plan without informing him, but Doc knew he brought a lot of information to the table–things even Scar didn’t know.
The knowledge weighed heavily on his mind, but so did the questions. Alpha Tech’s interest in him, Beacons, Joe’s story about them, xB and Keralis, and False–who he hadn’t seen or heard a word from since they had met–occupied any free space he might have had. Now there were new factors at play like Etho, Bdub, and Beef, and the fact that Scar and Cub were close enough that the entirety of ConCorp was involved in this mess too.
A mess it was. Doc was good at fixing things, but a problem like this was beyond him. Especially, because he didn’t quite know what the problem was.
Alpha Tech obviously, but… What did they want? Beacons, of course, but it had to be more than that. Doc had guesses, and he knew pieces, but there was a full picture here that he was certain he didn’t have. Motives and moving parts that he wasn’t aware of which would change assumptions he had already made.
Doc supposed that it didn’t matter much. He didn’t really care about his place in the universe, aside from the one he carved himself. Satisfaction gripped him when he thought of his accomplishments over the course of his lifetime–the projects he had worked on, the things he had done.
Diagrams and loose paperwork covered the desk where he worked. He set Etho’s new eye down on top of them, making a note to himself to clean and disinfect it later on. It watched him uncannily.
He had made an eye. A real, functioning human eye.
Assuming it worked, of course. It would. He had built his own eye and arm. A suit of armor capable of mass destruction, painstakingly crafted and tested by his own hand, which he would have back one way or another. Doc had narrowly escaped death too–not once, but twice–and while he lost limbs because of it, it had made him stronger than ever before.
Of all of those achievements, the Alpha Tech problem was just another one waiting to be bested. They hadn’t been able to stop him from leaving the first time, and he was unprepared then. Now he was confident they couldn’t beat him at all.
Etho’s new eye would work. That was the only acceptable outcome.
And after it did… Doc grinned as his gaze fell upon his desk, over his diagrams, sprawling equations, maps, records, shipping supply routes, and everything in between. He had all the information he could ever need, and Doc was starting to realize he might finally have the people he needed to put plans into action.
77’s real work could begin.