Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Milo Murphy had always prided himself on remaining optimistic no matter the circumstances. Even living within a veritable cyclone of calamity as he did, he always tried to look on the bright side of life and hope for the best in any situation.

At present, though, Milo Murphy was absolutely positive he was going to die.

Five minutes earlier...

Milo dug through his backpack frantically, looking for anything that might be of use. He’d already burned through most of its contents just trying to stay alive the past hour, and he began to feel more and more worried as he ran through the remaining items.

A garden spade. A small piece of oak. A sewing kit. Seven dollars in change. A camera he knew no longer focused. His house key.

That was it.

Pressing his back harder to the crumbled wall he was hiding behind, he tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible. He could hear the heavy footfalls of the mechs patrolling the streets growing closer, the grating screech of their metal joints causing him to wince.

He looked over to where Melissa and Zack were lying, both out cold, having been dragged to safety by Milo before he had to stop and hide when the pain from his leg, which was definitely broken, finally caught up to him. They were both littered with cuts and bruises, dirt covering their faces and staining their torn clothing. A thin line of blood trickled down Melissa’s face from the gash on her scalp.

He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t try to run without risking damaging his leg even further, and there was no way that he’d be able to carry both of his unconscious friends in this state anyway. He wondered if maybe Cavendish and Dakota had made it away from the mechs, and if maybe they’d come to find them and save them in time...

The thundering footsteps grew ever nearer.

He scooted closer to Zack and Melissa and tried to make himself even smaller. All he could do was hope that they weren’t discovered. Looking around at the rubble-covered downtown area, he swallowed thickly. Buildings were half-collapsed and roads were covered in cracks and holes, the result of the blaster fire from the initial stage of the attack. The air was filled with dust and smoke, and he could hear sirens wailing faintly in the distance.

He figured he and his friends may have been in the more fortunate contingent of downtown Danville’s citizens that day. Not that that was saying much.

Suddenly, a squadron of mechs rounded the corner at the end of the street. Milo froze, praying that they would pass by without noticing him.

The squadron stopped, and then slowly turned towards him.

Bile rose in his throat. He fought the urge to throw up and promptly failed.

The mechs began to pound down the street towards him, and he felt panic building in his chest. A few more of the imposing machines appeared in the side streets nearby, crushing any remaining hope he might have had about fleeing.

He was surrounded.

The lead mech raised an arm, bringing the squadron to a halt in front of Milo. A two-story high humanoid robot made of cold, dark metal, it seemed to stare down at him before the visor on its head opened, revealing a sharp-featured man sitting inside its cockpit. 

He grinned wickedly. "And you thought you could run, how quaint. Alas, there was no way you could have outwitted our sensors, and so here we find ourselves." He pulled a lever on his control panel, and the mech's arm leveled at Milo, the front of it opening up with a loud clank to reveal a blaster cannon. "With you and your friends gone, Milo, we will be one step closer to subduing Danville at last, and when we do, there will be no one to stop us from taking over the world back in our time!"

"You— you'll never win!" Milo tried to muster up what he could only hope was a defiant look, though he knew he probably didn't look all too defiant just sitting on the ground, complete with a busted leg and unconscious friends.

The man tsked. "Brave words coming from a child currently on the wrong end of a cannon, hmm? No, once you're gone, we will only have a few more insurgents to capture for our victory to be assured. Not that that will be hard, with most of them being children and all. I will say, coming back to the past to purge the most problematic resistance members as children was an inspired idea." He smiled. "Anyway, I suppose this is goodbye, Milo Murphy."

The blaster began to hum, glowing blue.

Milo's whole body went cold. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, cutting lines through the layer of dirt and blood on them. He felt a tingling, pins-and-needles-like sensation in his fingertips, which quickly spread to his hands, and then his arms, but he couldn't care less at this point.

This was it, huh? He and his friends were going to die here. He was going to be obliterated at the tender age of thirteen.

Of all the ways he had expected to go... this was not one of them.

The humming grew louder, and the man in the mech moved to pull the trigger.

Instinctively, Milo threw his hands in front of his face, as though he expected them to shield him from the incoming blast.

What he didn't expect was for a searing bolt of red energy to arc off of them, hitting the mech square in the chest.

It pitched backwards, sending the blaster fire into the air over Milo's head. It managed to keep from falling over, but that was overshadowed by the horrible groan that came from it as its leg joints suddenly snapped, sending the cockpit and the chassis plummeting to the ground.

Milo was shaking. He could faintly hear the man screaming over the thumping of his heartbeat in his ears, but that was quickly cut off as a large chunk of a nearby building broke off, falling directly on the cockpit, crushing it instantly.

He lowered his hands and stared at them, realizing that they were surrounded by a faint red glow. Every so often, the tingling feeling would increase and some small sparks of energy would dance between his fingertips.

"What the...?" he whispered hoarsely.

Suddenly, a chorus of creaking noises came from around him, drawing his attention back to the mechs.

Every single one of them had a blaster trained on him and his friends.

He felt a surge of adrenaline rush through his blood, and he shakily raised his hands again.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was an explosion of red.

Chapter Text

"Alright, your father and I have to head out for a bit, but we'll be back soon, okay?"

"Sounds good," Milo replied. "See you later."

"See you later, sweetie." His mom ruffled his hair and stood up from her seat on the edge of his hospital bed. "Love you."

"Love you too," he said as she walked out of the room.

Once she was gone, he leaned back into his pillow before closing his eyes and letting out a quiet exhale. He felt completely drained and brutally sore, and despite the time spent unconscious in the day-long coma he had been in as a result of the... events prior, he wanted nothing more than to sleep for another week. He supposed it couldn't hurt to take a quick nap while his family was out—

"Ey, Milo!"

Milo opened his eyes and turned to see Dakota walk into the room with Cavendish right on his heels.

"Dakota? Cavendish? How did you guys get in here? I thought it was still family visits only," he asked, confused.

"We told them we were your uncles," explained Cavendish.

"I don't think they believed us but they let us in anyway, so I'm not complainin'," Dakota added. "How're you feelin'?"

Milo smiled tiredly. "I'm alive."

Dakota whistled, pulling up a chair, spinning it around and sitting in it. He rested his arms on the back of it and leaned forward. "That bad, huh?"

"How about Zack and Melissa? Are they doing alright?" Cavendish asked, opting to move to stand next to Dakota's chair.

"Mom said that they're both fine and should be out of the hospital in the next day or so."

"That's good, that's good..." Dakota trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. "Hey, uh, sorry that we lost you guys back there. One moment you were there, the next all I could see were a bunch of mechs..."

"It's alright," Milo assured him. "There was a lot going on, y'know, it being a battle with giant robots from the future and all. What happened to you guys after we got separated, though?"

"We just kept on shootin' at 'em with Brick and Savannah's guns, and tried to keep as far away as possible. At least, we did that until they disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"We believe that they retreated back to their own time," said Cavendish. "A little while after we lost you three, we were attempting to avoid their latest barrage of attacks when they all simultaneously ceased fire, before disappearing into the time stream."

"But why would they have done that?"

Dakota threw his arms out. "That's the thing! I think that they were, get this, scared! " He clapped his hands together. "Oh, you should have seen it! So, when we found you guys, you were all unconscious, obviously, but there was this whole squadron's worth of mechs there, and they had all been destroyed! It was nuts!"

"We were wondering if some of them had perhaps been affected by Murphy's Law somehow, as a lot of them seemed to have simply fallen apart. Screws and bolts having come loose, robotic limbs broken off, that sort of thing."

Milo's face blanched as he remembered what had happened before he had blacked out.

"And then there were the ones that had been shot straight through with blaster fire, or crushed by falling chunks of buildings, stuff like that."

"Yeah, those ones were straight-up destroyed," Dakota confirmed, nodding. "Dunno what that was about, maybe they turned on each other or something—"

Milo felt incredibly nauseous. He knew Dakota was still talking, but he found himself unable to focus on the words, his mind flashing back to his last conscious moments that day, to the arcs of red lightning that had shot from his fingertips...

Still, he couldn't have been the one to cause all of that, right?

Right?

"—so yeah, anyway, we think that when they realized that their comms had been cut off, they decided to retreat to prevent anyone else getting killed, so they just— woah, hey, Milo, you okay there?" he asked as Milo jerked forwards, covering his mouth in a desperate attempt to keep from vomiting.

Milo could feel tears springing to his eyes, but after a moment of struggle he swallowed thickly and forced a smile. "I'm fine," he lied. "Just a little tired still."

Dakota and Cavendish shared a worried glance, but neither commented.

After a second, Cavendish spoke. "Well then, I suppose we should leave you to your rest and recovery..."

"Yeah..." Dakota stood up. He placed a hand on Milo's shoulder. "I hope you feel better soon, kid."

"Thanks."

As soon as they left, Milo curled in on himself (as best he could with his leg in a cast and an IV still in his arm, at least), the tears welling up again as the reality of what Cavendish and Dakota told him sunk in.

Whatever he had done that day had completely destroyed those mechs. And if Dakota was telling the truth, it hadn't exactly been survivable for the people who had been piloting them.

Despite his best effort, he couldn't stop himself from crying as he drifted off into a restless sleep.

Chapter Text

Milo woke up from a restless sleep with a jolt, the sound of screaming still ringing faintly in his ears. His heart raced and he was breathing unevenly, each inhale and exhale shallow and shaky. He couldn't bring himself to be more than barely cognizant of the large boulder that had smashed through his bedroom wall at some point in the night, leaving a sizable hole that let the chilly morning air in.

He closed his eyes again, trying to steady his breaths, before he sat up and forced himself to get out of bed.

"C'mon, Murphy, you gotta get going," he murmured groggily, fighting back a yawn.

Once he had climbed down the ladder to the floor (thankfully without incident), he turned his attention to the boulder and let out a small, tired sigh.

It was a bit of a distraction, at least.

"Hey Mom?" he called as he walked to grab clothes from his closet, skirting the near-car-sized rock now sat in the middle of his room.

"Yes?" came her voice faintly from downstairs.

He pulled out a button-up, slightly beat-up body armour, and shorts and began to change into them. "Boulder came through the wall last night!"

"I'll call insurance!" she replied. "Also, breakfast is on the table whenever you're ready!"

"I'll be down in a sec!" He pulled on a sweater vest and grabbed his backpack, which he had packed the night before. "Alright, first day back to school," he said to himself. "Let's make it incredible!"

He tried to ignore how his voice shook a little on the last syllable.

"Milo!" came a chorus of voices as he walked up to the bus stop, hands tightly gripping the straps of his backpack.

He grinned as he saw who it was. "Hey Melissa, hey Za— oof!" He was cut off as Melissa rushed to embrace him, lifting him off the ground.

She put him back down. "Thank god you're back! It was getting so boring around here without you."

"Yeah, I think I woulda died if I had to sit through one more history class without anything catching on fire." Zack added. "You feelin' better? You had it pretty rough there for a while."

Milo rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I'm just a little tired. And my leg's still in a splint, of course, but at least I can walk without crutches now!"

"Oh yeah right, your leg! Didn't it break that when we got knocked out during the fight?" Melissa asked. She and Zack had been for a visit with Milo once while he was still in hospital care, but it had been cut short when a nurse had come in for a routine checkup and kicked them out. They hadn't exactly had time to discuss much beyond how Milo was out of his coma and how they all were glad that everyone was at least somewhat okay. Along with that, the fact that she was half-out when the whole leg-crushing event had transpired made Milo wonder if she had forgotten his leg had been broken entirely.

He assumed he was right, seeing her expression turn mildly embarrassed, as if she'd heard what she'd said and only then realized how it sounded.

He smiled softly at her. "Yeah. I was lucky that I only had my leg hit by that falling wall, unlike you two. That must've hurt."

"Yeah..." she replied, touching the back of her head and grimacing. "Good thing, too, because if you'd been out too we would have been screwed."

"Oh yeah, we heard about what you did, by the way, pulling us to safety after we got knocked out. Thanks for that, man. You... you definitely saved our lives there," Zack said. "And you did it with a broken leg."

"Eh, no biggie," replied Milo, laughing nervously, trying to push the resurfacing memories of the event as far out of his mind as possible. "All that matters is that you guys are fine."

"Dude, you saved us from some big-ass scary mechs while you had a broken leg! Don't sell yourself short," exclaimed Melissa. “If it weren’t for you, we would have been in some deep shit.”

Suddenly, a voice came from behind them. “If it weren’t for Milo, you wouldn’t have needed to be saved in the first place, you know.”

Melissa whirled around, glaring. “Shut your piehole, Bradley.”

Bradley leaned up against the bus stop signpost and shrugged. “I’m just saying, Milo's the whole reason stuff like that happens. Giant killer robots—"

"Mechs." Melissa corrected.

"—mechs, whatever, they don't just show up ready to go on a murderous rampage around normal people!" Bradley crossed his arms. "Half of downtown was destroyed, Melissa, and they're still cleaning up the robot—"

"Mech."

"Shut up. They're still cleaning up the robot carcasses and trying to find the bodies of people who died in the building collapses!"

Uncomfortably vivid flashes of memories from the battle were now rushing back to Milo, and he gulped. "Hey guys..." he said quietly, but he was cut off as Melissa took a step towards Bradley.

"So? None of that is Milo's fault!"

"Everything that could have gone wrong did, Melissa! Our city was invaded by robots from the future who, if I'm remembering their speech from the news correctly, were, oh right, looking for Milo!"

Melissa was beginning to look like she was going to scream. "Oh no, you do not get to blame Milo for this."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not responsible for anything that happened that day! In fact, he probably was the reason more people didn't get hurt! He's certainly the reason Zack and I aren't dead!"

"Guys?" said Milo again. "Could you stop?"

"Without him around there wouldn't have been people endangered in the first place! Him being there caused it!"

"Bradley, I will say this one last time: none of this is Milo's fault! He didn't hurt anyone!"

At that, Milo's face paled. He remembered Cavendish and Dakota's account of the post-battle destruction, remembered the mech he saw destroyed right in front of his own eyes, right after he'd hit it with a bolt of energy he still hadn't figured out how he'd created.

Oh, he definitely hurt some people. Maybe not the people Melissa was referring to, but still...

He wondered if he'd ever stop feeling nauseous whenever he re-remembered that fact. 

Probably not.

"Well—"

"Will you two stop!?" Zack exclaimed suddenly. "Some of us don't want to hear it."

The two of them quieted and turned to face him.

He sighed. "Thank you." He then turned to Milo and placed a gentle hand on his arm. "You alright?"

Milo realized he was shaking a little. "Oh, yeah, I— I'm fine."

"Cool. Just take some deep breaths, okay?"

Milo nodded and did as he was told, slowly breathing in and out until he began to feel a little less shaky.

They all stood there in silence for a moment, Melissa still fuming, Zack maintaining a comforting hold on Milo's arm, Bradley repeatedly curling and uncurling his plant hand and sulking, until Chad eventually walked up to join them at the bus stop.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" he asked, breaking the silence.

Melissa sighed as the bus pulled up in front of them. "Shut up, Chad."

"What'd I say?"

The morning had been relatively uneventful, which Milo was grateful for, with only one thing in science class exploding when it wasn't supposed to. Sure, the blast knocked the mouse cage off the shelf and let the rodents free, but that was nothing that couldn't be easily dealt with. He could tell Melissa and Bradley were still mad at each other, as they had been intensely refusing to so much as make eye contact all class. He was also pretty sure he'd seen Melissa try to slam the safety goggle box closed on Bradley's hand.

As much as he appreciated her standing up for him, he felt a little bad, seeing as he was partially the reason the two of them were angry at each other. Plus, she'd been fuming all morning. That was never fun for anybody. Her fuming sessions were sparse but legendary, and he knew it would be a while before she'd even begin to consider making up with Bradley.

Cliche or not, he really just wished they could all get along.

He also knew from experience that having that safety goggle box slam closed on your hand really hurt. Even Bradley didn't deserve that.

Eventually, lunchtime rolled around, and he, Zack, and Melissa sat down at their regular table to eat. Milo rummaged around in his backpack for a second before pulling out his lunch bag, which was looking a little squished.

"Maybe next time I should pack the anchor nearer to the bottom," he mused to himself as he took his sandwich out of the bag. "Oh well, squished PB&J is just as good as regular PB&J."

"I'd even argue it's better," Zack commented, pulling out his own lunch. "It gives the sandwich character." He emphasized the last word with a quick, vaguely Italian gesture of his hand and a chef's kiss.

Milo laughed, and Melissa cracked a small smile before returning to her fuming.

They sat there, eating in silence for a few minutes after that, before Milo sighed and spoke up.

"Melissa, you don't have to keep being mad at Bradley. Sure, he said some not-so-nice things, but you know I'm used to that by now. Some people just don't get it, and that's okay."

She put down her sandwich and leaned her face against her hand. "I know, it's just—" she made a spluttering noise and waved her free hand around. "He's such a dick! None of that stuff was your fault! It's like he thinks that you control it or something, and then choose to let stuff go wrong! Which is so not true!"

"I know, Melissa."

"It's just— arrrrrgggh!" She pressed her face into her hands and muttered something that Milo couldn't hear but made Zack's eyes widen.

"I'm gonna pretend like I didn't hear you say that," he said, blinking incredulously. "Because holy crap."

"What'd she say?" asked Milo.

Zack shook his head. "I refuse to repeat any of those words." He then leaned as farback in his chair as he could, eyes darting around the room, obviously grasping to find something else they could talk about. "Sooo, uh, hmm... oh!” He leaned forward again. “Imagine if Milo really was able to control Murphy's Law, though! Wouldn't that be wild? It would be like a weird superpower!"

Milo felt like he was going to die, right then and there, but he forced a pained smile. "Yeah, imagine that..." He giggled nervously. "It would be pretty wild."

Melissa perked up. "Yeah, what if you could, like, shoot it all like—" She punched the air in front of her a few times, like she was blasting something. "—pew pew pew! And whatever it hit would get Murphy's Law'd, like with the mech suit you guys used on the pistachions but, like, smaller. And you wouldn't need the Flynn-Fletcher brothers for it." She grinned conspiratorially. "Maybe you could use it to give Bradley a little taste of his own bullshit theory!"

He didn't respond, unable to focus on the words, because for the second time that day, images of the battle with the mechs had begun to flood Milo's head, as hard as he tried to ignore them, only this time he couldn't help but imagine the consequences of hitting Bradley with a bolt of that energy too. Would he be crushed by a collapsing building? Flattened by a falling telephone pole? Would he spontaneously burst into flames?

Would he be hurt, just like every other person he'd hit that day?

"Ex-excuse me," he said, standing up abruptly and beginning to walk away from the table.

"Where're you going?" Zack called after him.

"Washroom," he lied, voice weak, as he hurried away.

By the time he reached his favourite obscured alcove under the back staircase, he could no longer keep the memories of the battle at bay. He leaned back against the wall for support, breaths quickening as the events played out in wicked clarity in his mind. He could see every blast at him and his friends, feel the panic as they were knocked unconscious and the helplessness that followed when he had to stop running and hide. And the last few moments of the battle? He got to see those play out with the knowledge of exactly what he was causing to happen in that moment.

Eventually the memories began to recede, but his heart rate only quickened as he realized he could still feel his hands buzzing uncomfortably. He slowly brought them up, heart dropping as he confirmed what he had feared: they were surrounded by that red glow, small sparks jumping off of them.

He began to feel panicky again. He hated being panicky, too. It made being able to swiftly respond to danger a lot more difficult. Ironically, that made him begin to panic even more. His heart clenched. 

Then, without warning, he felt something akin to a static shock travel through him, and a burst of red sparks flew from his hands, a few of them striking things nearby while most of them hit the underside of the stairs above him. He watched one of them hit a light in the stairwell, and the cables attaching it to the ceiling broke with a loud snap, causing the fixture to immediately fall to the ground, knocking over a garbage can nearby and spilling its contents everywhere. Milo cringed, but his attention was quickly stolen by a loud cracking noise from above him. He looked up to see a large crack spreading through the underside of the staircase.

"Uh oh," he breathed, before diving out from under the stairs just as they began to give way. With a school-shaking rumble, the whole flight crumbled and fell to the ground below.

Milo pushed himself to his knees, staring at the rubble in front of him.

There was no denying it anymore. What he had done that day hadn't been a fluke, or a fear-induced hallucination.

That red energy stuff, that focused destruction? It came from him. And now, somehow, he'd unintentionally done it for a second time.

Watching the dust settle in front of him, with his still-tingling hands stuffed into his pockets and the memories of the battle still lingering in his mind, he became acutely aware of how much the idea that he might accidentally keep doing it again terrified him.