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He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
How pathetic. Years and years of training and preparation only for him to have not the slightest clue what Mommy wants out of him.
Well, that isn’t strictly true; he is very aware of the fact that she expects him to fight and take down the horrific nightmare only blocks away, but how she expects him to do so is completely lost on him.
And so, running quick and regulating his breathing to make sure he won’t be exhausted when he makes it to the target, he makes his way through the streets and screaming women, clutching their children close to their chest or pulling them behind them as they run away. What wonderful women, protecting their children like that. He tries not to think about that kind of mother as behind his eyes begins to sting a bit; he has a mission to complete. Plus, Mommy just wants him to help people. People like those very women. Mommy is a selfless, caring, generous person who will create the perfect hero, a hero to stand beside the beloved Superman as an equal. Mommy loves Superman, and if he can manage to become just as great as him, she will love him just as much, as she’s told him so many times while injecting him with unknown, swirly liquids full of all sorts of colors, or putting him to sleep before cutting into his head or torso.
So he runs and hopes to get to fight alongside Superman someday. Right now the hero is in the ICU; a kryptonite bullet had apparently been shot right through his shoulder, so that will just have to wait. A dark part of Abner’s mind hopes the Man of Steel dies. The thought is pushed firmly to the corner.
He picks up his speed and nearly forgets to check his breathing. Pushing forward, he’s still blocks away from where he needs to be.
He makes it to the scene just as the villain smashes a car against a concrete building, shrapnel flying through the air, making him duck behind various objects, still making his way forward. And when he gets close, at the sight of the slimy mess of too many limbs and sculpted muscle, Abner knows he won’t succeed; he might as well run away and just let the criminal do as they please, like he’s done every mission before this. But before his plan can be put into action, sharp green eyes are piercing his lanky frame, a small smirk tugging at the lips(?) of whatever the hell is in front of him. He knows they’re taunting him, amused by his too-long legs and ridiculous costume. This dismissal of any true threat he may pose fills Abner with a twinge of irritation that almost makes him snap at them, before deciding against it.
The villain stocks forward, spider-like, knobby appendages lifting them high above the ground and Abner. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Abner recites the phrase he knows all too well: “Surrender now, villain, or your punishment will be worsened ten-fold, for I am the Polka-Dot Man!” And said villain has the absolute gall to laugh, a cackling, wicked sound, shaking his bones and the very cement beneath his feet. The expression on the bastard’s face is one of no malice, no resentment, only pure, unadulterated amusement. And somehow, this is worse than any form of torture or experimentation he has ever experienced, and it fills him with a red hot fury he’s only felt a total of two other times in his life: the first time after the first death of any of his siblings, and a second time when Superman had, in a slight way, publically made fun of him him, calling him a wannabe-vigilante and further instilling in Mommy’s head that he’s no good. And now, this dickwad in front of him is mocking him too, but in a much more cruel, crude-ish way. How dare this asshole so blatantly make fun of him?
He feels a bubble pop up right about at his hairline and his fury is almost replaced by embarrassment when the villain only howls louder, then remembering just how much audacity this asshole has, he pushes away some of the shame.
“Awwww, is- is da wittle preschooler gonna- gonna kill me? D-do it, I bewieve in you, you can- you- y-'' and they’re cackling again. Abner’s eyes squeeze shut and his teeth grind together, fists balled up and he has a pure want to fulfill the villain’s idea, but knowing better overtakes him. He knows, subconsciously, that if one last thing gives enough of a shove, he will go off the edge and kill this motherfucker.
And that shove comes in the form of Mommy, staring straight at him and leaning over in harsh barks of laughter when he opens his eyes again. Suddenly, his body goes slack and he can’t even think; all he knows is that Mommy is here, huge and dripping with some unknown substance, but here nonetheless. That red hot rage builds up even more, the dam keeping the lava in place having a fissure so big it’s only a flick away from having the entire structure crumble to dust. The odd thing to Abner, though, is that he isn’t scared. The sight of his mother is only making him furious, rather than making him cower.
A whine escapes his quivering lips, and his mother stops cackling for just a moment, a look of confusion flashing across her features as her son begins to nearly scream, an unintelligible, heart-wrenching sound that would bring even the most heartless monster to their knees. But Mommy isn’t even worthy of the title “monster;” she would make Lex Luther, Joker, or any other shake their head in disdain.
Her eyebrows scrunch up in an emotion Abner would have recognized as an odd sort of fear or concern in any other situation and if he had even seen either of those emotions expressed by this woman before, but right now it only looks like more taunting, like a bully is making fun of the hot tears streaming down his face. Who the fuck does she think she is?
It happens before he can stop it, and who’s to say if he would even if he could have. A rain of multicolored discs shoot through the air and hit Mommy, her flesh melting at the slightest graze of the edge of one of the dots on her skin. She screams, a frightening, awful sound that does not at all sound like Mommy. Wait. No no no… Aw fuck! No,
Whatever is in front of him in chunks of a disgusting slime is most definitely not Mommy. For a moment, Abner’s convinced that’s just what’s inside of her, a greenish-black goo that smells like rotten eggs; it seems on brand. But no, that isn’t Mommy, and he’s horrified to realize that’s more upsetting than the fact that he had just killed someone. It had been so easy, it’s almost like he hadn’t even done anything, nothing at all.
He stumbles back a step and shakes his head, eyelids clamping shut as if it will make the entire ordeal disappear, never to have existed in the first place. What is Mommy gonna think? Her little boy, killing? Oh god…
At the realization that he will have to face Mommy and all her wrath and disappointment, he turns so fast he gets a bit light-headed and immediately begins sprinting away, like a dog skittering away from something it knew it shouldn’t have done, expecting nothing but rage from its master.
As he leaps away, swerving into alleys and between cars, he thinks about that. Really, Abner is just a sad puppy, getting in trouble for things that were either out of its control or accidents.
His feet come to an abrupt stop. That really is what he is. Even in situations where nothing was his fault, Mommy still yells and sends him to his kennel, newspaper whacking his tiny frame. No. No, no, no, no. Mommy is doing what’s right; he’s the one in the wrong for questioning her methods of keeping the public safe and making such awful mistakes. He’s fine, and even if he isn’t, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
What does one ruined life matter if millions of others get to live? Nothing.
Or maybe it is something.
No. No. No. He needs to stop thinking like this before he begins to become rebellious. But, when he thinks about it, being punished for something he actually did that is entirely his fault would feel much better than being punished for unintentionally killing one of his sisters or brothers in sparring, given basically no other choice. Or, even better, not getting punished at all.
Part of him whispers to destroy the street around him and never go back to Mommy. The part of him Abner wants dead, just like Mommy does. But, despite her best efforts, it still exists and torments her useless husk of a son. He squeezes his eyes shut and continues walking briskly forward, ignoring the whisper in his head and the cowering of people seeing him saunter by.
Opening his eyes so as to be able to duck and hide whenever people pass, now even more exhausted than he had been when he first began to retreat, he drags his feet toward the restaurant half a mile away.
*~*
Abner had expected it. He had known she’d be furious, so why is he still quaking in fear and sobbing quietly as she releases her rage?
They’re making a scene, even with as little people as there are here.
He’s wearing normal clothes now, slumping in his chair at the table in the corner Mommy had told him to meet her at after the mission. He remembers when he had thought this restaurant was the most miraculous, interesting place he had ever seen, as it had been. Its tables are stained and its booths have torn seats; it was such a far fetch from the usual pristine floors, walls, and tables he was used to at the lab, even if they're adorned with drawing of animals, rainbows, or whatever else that was supposed to comfort a child, though they had no such effect after the first few months.
Now, after so many attempts to take down monstrous villains and so many times of coming back to this very restaurant empty-handed, even with his new-found tragic mistake, the disheveled, worn appearance of the place has no effect on him; it doesn’t instill inspiration or hope anymore, it’s just the typical backdrop of the performance that is his life. He wishes Mommy’s words would become white noise, like the restaurant, but her words still cut deep. He’s still a disappointment, still a worthless, insufferable, selfish, evil monster, even more so now.
“If you hate justice and peace so much, Abner, you should have just died like all the others!” Mommy takes a step forward, hands balled into fists on her hips, mouth stretched open into a bared-teeth scowl.
Abner’s own hands grip onto his biceps even harder, giving himself a violent hug (just like the affection from Mommy, a comforting gesture accompanied by pain); his arms will surely bruise. He curls into himself more, the thought of all his poor, helpless siblings being killed and taped, just for their torture to be shown to their pathetic brother who could do little to turn away in his state of either being strapped down or temporarily paralyzed by Mommy and her lab friends; it claws at his tormented mind. Some of his siblings he hadn’t even known, born after Mommy had taken everyone to the lab, never having gotten the luxury of freedom for the beginning of their life like Abner had, if even for only six measly years. Some of his siblings he had killed himself, encouraged to defeat them by Mommy. She hadn’t meant for him to kill them, and he had been punished accordingly by being thrown in the naughty room, with only the concrete walls that are too close to each other and the windowless door for company, only kept in the light by a fluorescent, blinking light bulb. He had killed and deserved the naughty room. He had killed small children all his life on different occasions and, even now, as an adult, he still has to fight essentially babies on the regular. He can’t help the wail that leaves his hoarse throat at knowing he had killed such defenseless little kids, some just toddlers, and now, he has yet another body on his track record.
Bad move.
Mommy heard that.
She’s standing over him now, demanding that he shut up and stop being such an awful child. Heroes don’t cry at being lectured. Heroes don’t get lectured. Heroes don’t cry. Heroes listen to well meaning mothers who only want to help those that deserve it. Only want to help those who can’t defend themselves.
He flinches as she leans down a bit more, screeching shouts now right in his ear and spittle spraying onto his face. Mommy notices that too, and rips into him for it.
“Look at you, flinching at being yelled at, you unbearable mistake! Do you think anyone will ever respect you as a hero if you jerk away from anyone who comes near you!? If you kill!?” She pauses and waits for a response. “Do you!?”
“No…” is whispered by the cowering man under her, who muffles his cracked speech into his hand, which he hadn’t even realized he was biting into.
“Speak up! Heroes don’t mumble.”
“N-no.”
“And for God’s sake, get rid of your disgusting blemishes! Only villains have horrific things happen to their body,” she violently pokes one of his cysts and it takes everything in him not to jerk away at the flash of pain that erupts from the spot.
He wishes she was saying those things that she said before putting him under: that she loves him and he’s going to help so many people, that the cysts won’t matter in the long run and she’ll find a way to get rid of them, just for him. He wants her comfort, even if it’s a lie. He wants the lies if they mean he can believe she will do anything for her little Abby.
Abby. He misses when she called him that. The last time had been just before they left the normal life they had, before Mommy had gotten her fancy, new job and brought her children to STAR labs’ child unit. The nickname isn’t a thing anymore because that life isn’t a thing anymore. None of the genuine comfort and rooms with actual, non-painted windows are things anymore.
Because of her.
His hurtful, selfish mother who has poked and prodded at the little science experiments she calls children all their life, only ever torturing and traumatizing.
No. Mommy is loving.
Loving mommies don’t hurt their baby boys. Their Abbys.
“No. Please don’t say that. Please,” he mutters to himself, hot tears flowing over his sores and into his mouth. His speech is quiet and muffled by the bumps in his mouth and the fist, but somehow Mommy still hears.
“What did you just say to me?” she shrieks even louder, somehow, “Or were you talking to yourself again? You need to stop doing that. Heroes don’t do that, crazy people do.”
Normally, he would listen and suck in his stuttering breath to keep from talking, but he just can’t. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t. So, instead, he buries his teeth even further into his hand and says, just barely above a normal speaking voice:
“I don’t want to be a hero anymore.”
And he means it, he realizes.
How awful. How horrible. He sobs even harder at the revelation and swallows the blood gushing out of his even further punctured hand.
When he doesn’t immediately hear a reaction from his probably horrified mother, he takes the risk and cracks open his eyes just enough to see the infuriated face Mommy has on, seething in pure fury as she takes in the simple statement with far too much weight behind its small frame.
Only a few seconds of tense silence are gifted to her poor son before she grabs the fork resting beside her half-eaten meal and lunges at the creature before her.
*~*
This situation is far too familiar for comfort, yet far too foreign for him to be able to fully understand what it means.
Hole-ridden feet with melting ankles that drop off before they can complete a leg, laying in front of Abner's petrified frame. A dark, slime-like liquid bubbles near the incomplete person, sizzling and popping in something akin to anguish, if it could express emotion.
There weren’t any tears running down his face and stinging his sores anymore, dried tracks tighten the skin of his cheeks. His clothes are singed.
It’s moments like these that he thinks his cluttered thoughts that race through his mind aren’t that bad or irrational, with a melted, dead frame in front of him. These kinds of situations warrant racing thoughts and useless worry. But, when it would make the most sense to have a disorganized mind, his head is completely blank, almost like his brain is trying to protect him from the realization of what he’s done. He can faintly hear screams and running feet a ways away, but he doesn’t process it and continues to stare on.
He can’t breathe, or maybe just doesn’t. Why should he? There’s no reason to live if he doesn’t fulfill what he has trained for his entire life, that would be a waste.
A waste. That’s a good word to describe him, to describe everything he creates or affects. What would be a carcass in any other circumstance is a disgusting, boiling waste now. How appropriate that he turn Mommy into a waste, first in the form of someone else’s body in his mind and now actually.
That’s how it hits him. That’s Mommy. His caring, loving mother. No. Not loving, not caring; hateful, cruel. She hurt him. She hurt all her children. She is harmful. Was. She’s dead now.
What a foreign idea: Mommy dying before Abner. He always thought that eventually one of his siblings would take sparring too far or the virus would overtake and kill him. Never this. Never like this.
A sudden yell from off to the left shook him out of his confused haze, his head whipping around to see what it was that had the courage to alert a monster of its presence. There, quaking in either disgust, fear or anger, are a few police officers, pointing their guns straight at Abner. Maybe they’re feeling all three; it wouldn’t surprise him.
“Put your hands in the fucking air!”
Without thinking, Abner releases his dots, arm outstretched. The spots don’t go in any particular direction cause he doesn’t have his gauntlets, but that doesn’t matter, they erupt out of the arm and a little everywhere else on his body and hit the officers, their screams fill the air. Maybe the screams of paserby’s, who’s to say?
He takes a few steps forward and when he looks at the hole-ridden corpses of the police, they look exactly like his mother, and it fills him with wrath. His face twists with anger and when he looks across the street, there’s a group of people, all looking exactly like his mother. Two of her are on the phone, talking frantically. He knows the police are on the other side, and he can’t let them get done with the call. He runs to his table and grabs his gauntlets, shoving them on before running out into the street.
A car screeches to a halt next to him, and he turns to blast it with a shower of dots.
The group of Mommy screams again and he’s flooded with even more fury. He whips around to face them and immediately shoots the dots at them.
They don’t even have time to scream this time.
He hears a siren off in the distance and he takes that as his cue to get the hell out of here.
Running into the alley beside the restaurant, he jumps up onto a trash bin and then climbs up the brick wall and onto the roof of the building.
He dashes across the roof and leaps onto the roof of another, the sirens getting louder. He’s vaguely aware that he may be running toward the cops, but he could care less; if they want him, they’ll get him, whether or not he’s running.
And so, he relishes in this adrenaline, knowing in just a while he’ll probably be dead. He feels light, and he doesn’t even feel his feet hit the ground, like he’s floating. He’s not happy, per se, but the tormentor that has been hovering over him and destroying his mind and body almost his whole life is gone. She’s dead. He knows she’s gone, even if she is around him in the streets, staring up in fear. At that sight, he closes his eyes and just lets the fuzzy feeling take over, allows himself to be truly content for once in his terrible life. He will relish this feeling, even if it doesn’t last.
Which it doesn’t.
There’s a sudden pain in his chest that knocks him back, landing on the back of his shoulders and having the wind knocked out of him. He stares up at the blue sky and wants to puke, because floating right over him is the Man of Steel, looking as good as ever, hair shaped into the perfect swoop. He’s waving at the public in the streets below and looking like a model. The hero’s smile is a shining white and he doesn’t even seem aware of how much pain Abner is in; Abner’s fairly sure he’s got plenty of broken ribs and his lungs are spasming and probably slightly crushed. He hears the cheers of the crowds and is sure they don’t know much this hurts either. The image of the hovering hero flashes to be his mother, then back to normal, and back and forth and back and forth until Abner isn't sure which is the true image. He wants them all to die. He wants this perfect, awful, overpowered man to die. And for once, he doesn’t even care he’s having these thoughts.
Superman swoops down and grabs Abner by the front of his shirt, making a groan of pain escape the man’s mouth at having his limp, damaged body being pushed down by gravity but not being able to follow the force. Superman doesn’t seem to even notice. At that blatant dismissal of his hurt, Abner spits in the pristine face of this levitating cunt. The hero notices that.
Superman turns his head slowly, a disappointed look on his face, like he’s reprimanding a child. That only serves to make Abner shout in anger, a bark of a sound that doesn’t sound like any real words, but holds so much pain and raw emotion behind it that that doesn’t really matter. Superman looks almost concerned for a second, but it doesn’t last, as he quickly flicks Abner’s chest again and causes a cry of pain to wrench out of Abner’s lips.
Abner starts crying, which is hardly noticed by himself, but it’s obvious that the hero notices, by the way the edges of his lips turn down and his eyebrows knit together. The pathetic little man that’s typically taller than he feels, is so small compared to the Man of Steel, and he tries to curl in on himself, but he can’t with gravity weighing down his limbs and his chest feeling like it’s going to cave in. He’s begging for mercy under his breath, sobs interrupting him at every turn.
Superman seems to take that as his cue to get Abner out of here. Abner’s in so much pain that he barely even notices that they’re flying away, and is only aware of the arms holding him in a much more comfortable place than when they were just allowing him to dangle.
The last thing Abner hears before sliding into the darkness of unconsciousness is the light thumping of a muffled heart pressed right against his ear, like he’s leaning on someone’s chest. And for a moment, he's at peace.
*~*
His eyes blink open slowly to see a stained white ceiling with flickering lights and cracks. He can smell the faint scent of sweat and rubber and wants so desperately to know what’s going on.
When he tries to turn his head, there’s a metal strip keeping it in place. His wrists and ankles sting with a sharp, constant pain and there’s a dull throbbing in his chest, like he was numbed, but it was a hasty, careless thing. He knows the pain in his joints is from being held up by bars to make it easier to reach every part of him, as he has been put in this very position so many times he’s basically indifferent to it, but he knows he’s not in Momm- in his mother’s lab because the ceiling there is painted a faded blue with fluffy clouds to portray a sky. That, and his mother’s rose scented perfume is very much not present here. The pressure of something clunky weighing down his neck is new, at least.
A raspy chuckle grinds his floaty thoughts to a halt, and he feels sick to his stomach. A man leans over to smile at him, his yellowish-gray teeth flashing between his cracked lips. His beard is white, but yellowed around his mouth, which only serves to make him even more disgusting. His hot breath smells like fish or maybe beef, like he hasn’t brushed his teeth in fifteen years. He looks like he’s at least sixty, so it’s a wonder how he still has a job. Or maybe he doesn’t have a job and Superman had just turned Abner off into the hands of a psychopath who tortures people.
“Hey, princess, finally awake?” the slight southern twang of a voice interrupts Abner's scrutiny of this man's face. Abner glares in disgust and irritation, which is apparently the funniest thing to the old man. His spit sprays down onto Abner’s face and makes him gag. closing his eyes out of relfex.
He opens his eyes just in time to see the doctor, now with his mother's face, lean back and out of his view.
A sigh passes through Abner’s lips as the… doctor (?) starts reading off a list of his rights, what’s going on, what happened to put him into this position, etc. And then finally, he says “And you, Abner (wow that’s a weird name) Krill are convicted of first degree murder, fleeing of a crime scene, disturbing the peace, blah blah blah, yada yada yada, don’t care, and are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole…” Before rattling off more meaningless garbage.
Abner freezes.
He’s going to live the rest of his life in prison.
That’s… no… Killing his mother should have stopped the torment, should have ended the suffering, but now he’s going to be stuck in prison until he dies, and death, for the first time, is something Abner would like more than anything.
His hands feel cold and his mind fills with cotton, a few tears slip down his face.
“You’ll get shown to your cell soon, but we need’a run a few tests first, got it?”
Abner makes a broken sound that’s some hideous sort of mixture between a bark of laughter and a sob.
He’s taken one step forward and two steps back.