Archive of Our Own

“Mike? Mike, you’re leaving, too? Anyone but you! Anyone!”

-

The static snow was drifting whorls around Battat as he crouched behind the Christmas tree, one hand lightly hovering over the thin branches. Some of the baubles were glinting with the lights of the stars that the Lightners and Ralsei were able to deflect off from Tenna’s attacks, sending sparkles glittering over the ground. Battat could see that Tenna was getting desperate, the way he was talking, moving, changing the stages - he wasn’t used to changing the stages on his own, not like this. He was used to Darkners around him at all times, ready to bend to his every whim, adjusting and working the scenery to fit whatever idea he had come to mind.

Tenna was doing an alright - no, an amazing job, Battat had to give him that. His hand finally settled on the tree itself as his eyes drifted up to the prize ball at the top, settled and cushioned amongst the fir as though it were the star. Tenna idolized the Christmas season, when the Holiday family would come over, when the house would be full of people, when the specials would air and the entire studio would be live and everyone would be happy and bustling and cheery and merry. He knew how to decorate, and everyone knew that much.

Toriel was in a deep sleep, one that he wasn’t sure was going to last much longer. One he wasn’t even sure how she was still sleeping, even after all this time and after all that had happened - Tenna had done this whole deal with the Roaring Knight behind all of their backs.

He had left the studio one day in a tizzy, demanding for them to put on something, anything, and they had been left scrambling to put on reruns - not that anyone was actually watching them. The TV in the Light World was just on for background noise as Toriel made some cupcakes to bring to her class for a student’s birthday the next day. She did hum along to some of the showtunes, which Battat was sure Tenna would have been so damn happy about, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found. And he had looked, he had looked everywhere for him. Had searched all of his normal spots, had looked into every nook and cranny in case he had been feeling glooby and was smaller than normal, but no.

When he did come back, hours later? He was . . different, had a manic gleam to his screen. Seemed steadier, sure, but he also seemed jittery. Jittery in a way that neither he, nor Jongler, nor Pluey knew how to handle. They all tried, of course, in their own ways, to get him to talk to them. But he’d just laugh them off, tell them not to worry, that he had it all handled. That they’d be fine. That he was the Boss of this world and that they needed to let him work, that they were just Mike, that they were only Mike.

Battat slunk further into the plush tree and let the branches envelop him as Tenna agreed to give Toriel back to Susie and Kris in exchange for bringing him to a new home, for giving him to someone who actually wanted to watch him. Battat himself felt his chest tighten uncomfortably - he had quit, he had quit, he had quit, he needed to stop caring about where Tenna was going to go - but he swallowed and forced himself to brush it away.

Why was he even here? They’d quit. Everyone had quit. Everyone had left. They’d tried to drag him, too, of course. But he just - he’d wanted one more chance to talk to Tenna. To ask him - to really see if any of it had meant anything. To see if any of his theories were right, he supposed, though he knew that was just the sugar-coated lie at the top of it all. He knew that his work meant something, even if Tenna didn’t have the chance to recognize it. He called out for Mike, at the end. Mike was the last one he begged to stay, before the end. Even if Tenna didn’t know Mike was - well, them, Battat… couldn’t help himself but hold onto the delusion. It had to mean something.
His work meant something to Jongler, to Pluey, even if they’d . . left.

Battat shook himself out of his head as he turned to watch Tenna raise his arms up over his head, face absolutely alight with glee and the tip of his nose blooming the most radiant flower that the Pippins had seen in a long, long, time, his voice absolutely filling the area and almost making everything feel as though the snow couldn’t touch them at all, the cold fading, the cheer of the tree actually shining through -

“Now you can all finally -!”

Everything flickered around them.

Battat shoved himself out of the tree as he watched twin blades arc themselves down and through Tenna’s outstretched arms. Both arms collapsed to the ground with a sickening thud and Tenna himself stood there for a moment, staring down at the ground at his limbs, as though his processors were trying to catch up to the catastrophic damage to his systems. Electricity crackled from the now empty sockets in his torso, arcing out and zapping the air around him, desperately trying to find the limbs that were just attached.

“Oh.” His voice whispered once more from his voice box, “Oh.” Before he, too, fell alongside his severed arms.

The Lightners raced forward and Battat was left in the thickening blizzard as he stared over the only Darkner that had given his life purpose. That had given everything meaning for the last goddamn ten years. That had filled his timecard, that had kept him going, that had absolutely driven him crazy -

He fell to his knees beside the towering form of Tenna, his boss, his - he grit his teeth and shook his head, eyes burning slightly. His throat felt a bit tight as he reached out and touched at the frayed and exposed wires of one of Tenna’s arms, feeling the slight zap of remaining electricity that seemed to be trying its best to work its way back into the mainframe that Battat knew lived underneath silicone skin and metal casing.

Everything around him seemed to slow to a lull as he sat there on his knees for - he didn’t know how long. Hands splayed in the wires, staring blankly at them. It was like his mind couldn’t catch up to what his eyes were seeing. Tenna’s screen was off. Not off, like it was when he was asleep, and Battat knew what it was like when he was asleep. He’d found Tenna passed out at his desk plenty of times, hand clenched over a pen, papers stuck to his casing. It was silent, which was the worst part. Tenna always had this… quiet lull of static around him, at all times, this gentle sound of snow and old television that followed him around like a lullaby. Even when he slept, that static would curl around him like smoke, filling the air with a softness that let everyone around him know that he was still there.

All Battat could hear was the whistling of wind and the sound of teeth chattering.

Was that him?

He shuffled closer to the large Darkner and drew his legs up to his chest, tucking himself against his screen. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to pull his hands away from the wires of one of his arms, dragging it along with him as he moved closer to him.

“S-so,” his voice was fragile, almost lost to the wind, teeth chattering hard, “Seems l-like this is - fuck Tenna!” The tears that threatened to swell from his eyes earlier finally broke free and spilled down his face, creating hot, wet tracks that felt so out of place against the cold, dark storm, “You were supposed to keep going! Why would you just - if you had just - talked to us, talked to Mike, then you wouldn’t be in this god forsaken mess. If you’d learned to rely on us, you know you could have relied on us.” His voice started to die out against the wind as he pressed his cheek against his knee, looking out over the snow. His eye caught sight of something red and he paused, slowly pushing himself away from the screen.

The flower.

He let out a bitter laugh as he forced himself forward, fighting against the wind and the static snow around them, fingers shaking as he carefully picked up the flower, the one that had bloomed so brilliantly against Tenna’s nose just - Angel, how long had it been? He tried to stroke against the petals, but everything was so cold, so numb, he could barely feel the velvety softness of the flower. Instead, he turned and quietly tucked himself against the screen once more. After a moment, he pressed the flower back against Tenna’s shoulder, folding it into his lapel and leaning his head against his casing.

“Y-you really messed up this time,” He mumbled then, “We just wa-wanted to be the-there for you. We wa-watched you. I watch-watched you, Tenna. I watched yo-you everyday. As Mi-Mike, as me. Costu-me designer, sta-stage lead, wherever you put- put me. I watched you.” His lips felt far away, his voice harder to hear, everything was damn cold and there was no more heat coming off Tenna’s body, oh Angel, his corpse.

Battat wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, one hand cupping that flower, one hand fisted in the wires that made up the socket in Tenna’s left arm. His mind drifted, lulled into a sort of semi-peace that he was certain was fueled by delirium and hypothermia. He was smarter than this, to stay here, but everyone else was gone. He was an idiot, but at least he was there. Tenna would want someone there. Tenna would need someone there, and everyone else left him.

“-tatt-!”

His eyes blinked lazily open at the sound of something, someone there, but he wasn’t sure if he was just seeing a shadow, or if there actually… was a shadowguy in front of him. He closed his eyes again and shifted closer to Tenna, fingers tightening slightly in the lapel of his jacket, having long let go of the flower.

He thought he heard a string of high pitched sharp saxophone notes, followed by a lower voice. Warm hands were on his body then and he feebily fought against them, until he realized who it was.
“Boss, boss, it’s us, Battat!” Jongler’s voice was almost higher pitched in stress, “Pluey, holds onto him, we gots to get thems out of this weather till Ralsei can come backs for us.”

Another short tune of music played and Battat felt himself transferred into the warm, plush chest of the shadowguy he knew far too well. He mumbled out a quiet, “Plue?” and was greeted with a quiet tune, soft, cat-like purrs rumbling against his chest as he was carried off back toward the studio.

The warmth of being back inside almost stung more than the cold of the snow and Battat winced as soon as they were in, forcing his eyes open as he grit his teeth. He looked up at Pluey and raised a hand, eyebrows furrowed, “You guys - came back?”

Pluey rumbled a few more notes at him and Battat felt his chest squeeze. They’d never left - they’d just been getting everyone to safety, making sure they were fine, before they’d turned tail to look for Tenna and Battat. It was what Jongler and Pluey tended to best, Battat knew. Clean up his messes, make sure that everything would be fine by the end of the day. If he spent way too long pinning new strings to his board, insisted he could cover their Mike shifts, fell asleep at his sewing machine in the costume department - well. He knew that Pluey or Jongler would be the ones that would be bringing him another coffee, coaxing him to bed, or even convincing Tenna that Motormouth Mike wasn’t the best suited for whatever task that he originally had set out for him, to give him a break.
They were the best friends that a Pippins could ever ask for.

The door to the hallways opened and Jongler came back in, arms curled around one of Tenna’s arms. Battat’s throat seized and he pushed off Pluey, shaking his hands out as he looked up at the shadowguy, eyebrows furrowing, “Can you help Jongler bring Tenna back in here? While the Lightners are still fighting that thing - I’m going to go back into the studio and get my manual for his… maintenance, and my toolbox. I’ve helped him with some smaller things, but I wonder - I don’t know, Plue, but I might be able to at least get his arms reconnected, and we can go from there.”
Pluey sang a few notes of assurance and reached for him, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing a quick hug before padding over to Jongler and looping an arm into his. The two ducked back out into the snow as Battat stared at the arm on the floor, the hand still outstretched and reaching for the sky.

His lips pursed and he forced himself to turn, shoes echoing on the ground as he jogged through the hallways leading outside. The cold seemed to permeate here, the snow drifting through holes that had…appeared, in the walls and ceiling, cracks in the foundation of their very world. Without the boss Darkner to keep the world stable, everything was quickly falling to ruin, the fountain the only thing truly keeping it all from disappearing around him.

The hallway quickly gave into the Green Room, and he sighed in relief at the sight of something normal, something that felt-

Ramb.

The bartender was frozen in place, hands still curled around a glass and a rag, eyes permanently focused forward. The other Pippins that had been there earlier was long gone, likely having been led away by Jongler and Pluey to a safe place where they’d be all… well, Battat wasn’t exactly sure of the plan, but he was certain that the other two had it handled. Sort of. He had to believe in them.
He had other things to focus on.

Heading straight toward their room, his fingers shook as he rummaged in his pocket under his poncho for his key. Everything was still half-numb, cold and barely able to function as he finally got out his keyring. There were a few keys there, various storage closets, Tenna’s dressing room. Tenna’s office.

He blinked a few times and then picked up the key to their room, jamming it into the lock and unlocking their room. It used to be neatly divided, back when everything was new, unsure, fresh. Back when they were just roommates trying to keep their boss from going under, from firing the entire world and burning everything to a crisp. Over the years, Pluey’s instruments had started to fill up the space, Jongler’s laundry had started to get strewn over the entire floor. Battat’s own papers were also everywhere, his strings and thumbtacks had caused Pluey several pricks over the years and Battat had promised that he would clean them up.

He could see one now, just one. Halfway under his nightstand. It would stay there forever.

Battat grabbed hold of his toolbox and the manual that he always kept right underneath it. He’d read it back and forth, upside down and right side up, and had a million tabs sticking out of it, but he wanted to be damn sure that he was going to get this right. He’d helped Tenna with enough maintenance over the years, but it was little things. A frayed wire here, a little crook in his antenna there. Sometimes, his wires would get bunched up uncomfortably inside his chassis and he’d have Tenna sit with his screen off, his chest popped open, so he could take his gloves off and work to carefully unloop each tangle.

The Mike helmet sometimes made things hard to see, and the gloves made them ten times harder to feel, so he’d insist that Tenna would have to turn his screen off, that he needed him to do it in order to focus better, that Tenna was just so damn pretty and he was too starstruck by him, which would pull a giggle from the CRT and his screen would obediently turn right off.

As he headed back out to the hallway, he figured he wouldn’t have that problem this time. Grimly, he knew it was a long shot that the screen would ever turn back on again.

Jongler and Pluey were standing next to Tenna by the time that he made it back, Pluey brushing snow off Jongler’s shoulders and then cuddling close to the Zapper’s chest, his ears pressed flat against the top of his head as he pleated out a soft, sad tune, eyes fixed down at the fallen form of their boss. Jongler wrapped one big arm around the shadowguy, swaying side to side.
“If anyones can fix him, Pluey, it’s gonna be Battat.”

Battat felt that confidence burrow into his soul. If Jongler believed in him, if Pluey believed in him, then hell. He could do this. He had to do this. At the very least, he needed to start this. Someone had to, and - frankly.
He really didn’t want anyone else fingers deep in Tenna’s wires.

“I’m back, I’ve got it.” He slid down to his knees next to Tenna, chewing down on his lower lip as he gently touched some of the sliced wires. They were clean cuts, as fortunate as that might be. Easy enough to strip and replace with some of the extras that he had in the toolbox. He’d replaced a wire - this was just. A lot of wires. A lot of inputs and outputs. There were thick cables too, wires wrapped around each other, copper twined and fused together.

“This is going to take me a while,” He muttered, reaching for his toolbox and pulling out a small knife. He settled as comfortably as he could, cross legged next to the empty socket, “I need you guys to go to the storage room in his office. He’s got more boxes of wires in there, I don’t have enough. He’s got electrical tape and some rubber casing in there too, and I’m going to need that in order to help reinforce the new cables that I’m trying to establish here.” He held out his keyring, looking up at Pluey, “Just don’t lose these. Okay?”

Pluey let out a short few notes, reassuring, brushing his fingers along Battat’s head as he grabbed Jongler’s hand and pulled him deeper into the crumbling studio. Battat worked in silence while they were gone, stripping the wires, using zip ties in his box to keep the ones that needed to stay together, together. He knew Tenna might not have the same reach that he had before, he didn’t have the tools necessary to give him that, but he just wanted to turn him back on. Get him working. They could upgrade him later, he could find new manuals, or something, anything.

“You’re going to be upset when you realize you can’t dance as well as you do right now.” Battat mumbled, voice quiet as he worked, fingers quick and warming as he started on the next bunch of cables, “I mean, your legs will still work just as fine. You can probably invent a new tap dance that will get the audience rip-roaring. You’ll be the talk of the town. The TV who can tap dance everyone out of business. You’ll be incredibly difficult to try to convince to y’know. Cut your arms off again to try and upgrade your arms, to give you the reach again, but I’m sure with enough talking, you can be.” He fell silent for a long moment before he swallowed, “Though. If you’re leaving Castle Town, if Susie finds somewhere for you to go. Then none of us will be able to exactly give that to you. You’ll move on, find a new home. New workers. New. Studio. New everything. New Mike.”

Footsteps appeared in the hallway behind him and Battat quickly wiped his eyes on his poncho as he looked over his shoulder at his friends, Jongler holding a box in arms and Pluey carrying a few TVDinners. He smiled weakly, though it barely felt like a twitch on his face as he turned back to work.

It felt like hours before the first arm was ready to attach. He had Jongler hold it steady as he wrapped each new cable in casing and then heated them to shrink them to fit, loosening the zip ties and tossing them aside. Once all of the cables were attached, he continued the process of using the silicone casing they had found to wrap around Tenna’s socket, gently weaving it in a way that it would not be hindered by movement, until the arm was attached. It looked -

Fine, Battat supposed. Scarred, sure. Definitely scarred. Like he had an arm cut off.

“Youse should take a breaks, boss.” Jongler’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, but he pushed it off and shook his head. He climbed to Tenna’s other side, reaching for his knife.

“I have to finish this.” Firmly, looking up at his friend, “I can finish this. He can’t - he can’t think that I picked something else over him, Jon. I didn’t pick anything else over him. He needs to know that.”

Jongler swayed in a way that Battat knew was worry, and Pluey let out a flat note, but he shook his head and got back to work. The second arm was easier, now knowing what he was doing, and what worked best. Pluey helped that time, too, offering him the tools he needed as well as a warm hand on his back, a body pressed against his side and soft rumbling saxophone notes against his ear. It made working easier, like his heart wasn’t going to race out of his chest, like the world wasn’t about to end. He had everything he needed right here.

Once Tenna’s second arm was attached and secure, Battat leaned back and put his hands on his knees, leaning his head against Pluey’s shoulder and letting out a ragged breath, “We need to just - zap him. There’s the big TV in the next room over, if we can bring him in there, I can connect the jumper cables to that, and then to him. We power that up, we might be able to power him up. Or we fry him! Who knows.” He laughed, though it was a little on edge as he stood up, head spinning once.

A four. Decent odds.

Jongler and Pluey both slid Tenna’s now attached arms over their shoulders and helped haul him into the next room, Battat looping the jumper cables over his head as he followed after them. The world was quiet outside, and he couldn’t hear the Lightners anymore. He wondered where they had gone, but quickly banished that thought from his mind.
He really didn’t want to think about it.

Battat pried off a panel on the large TV on the wall, furrowing his brows as he rummaged through it before hooking up two of the cables to the inner power sources. He could still hear it working, whirring low and quiet. Not the same as Tenna’s static, but similar enough that it brought some sense of calm. He worked his way back outside and to Tenna, frowning as he fumbled with his jacket and shirt, scowling slightly. His inner chamber was a mess, once he finally got his panel popped off, but he was able to find his battery after a small amount of working around some of the cables that had twisted up.

“You guys ready? I don’t know if you want to be in the room for this. Might - I don’t know. This might not work and we might all explode.” He stood up and frowned up at his friends, hands on his hips.

“We’s with you till the ends, boss.” Jongler put a hand on the top of his head, Pluey agreeing with a soft and warm string of notes as he wormed his way into Battat’s arms for a hug.

Battat snorted weakly and wormed his way out, walking over to the massive TV on the wall. He glanced over his shoulder at Tenna and let out a shaky breath.

He pressed the power button, and everything lit up.

~

The world came back to him in slow pieces. There was something soft below him, first and foremost. A bed, not his, but a bed. Too soft to be his - he preferred his bed to be firm, his blankets to be wool - Pluey hated them, sang they were always too itchy, and would always throw them off and onto the floor.

The second thing he noticed was that the room smelled a little earthy, like stone. Maybe like moss, but he’d never smelled moss, so he wasn’t entirely sure if that was accurate.

Third, there was a quiet pulse of static filling the room.

Battat shoved himself up and out of the bed, scrambling from the sheets and tangling himself in them to the point where he completely fell off the bed, knees locked together and the blankets cocooned around him. He swore loudly, trying to wriggle himself free, when he felt a large pair of hands come to the corner.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we!”

He went still, slowly looking up and staring agape at Tenna, who stood above him, picking apart the blanket and then picking Battat himself up from the floor and carefully depositing him back on the bed. He was smiling, but his antennae were curled in a way that Battat knew was nerves.

“Oh, boss, you don’t - you don’t have to do that- haha, fuck,” Battat scrambled again, climbing off the bed and shaking his head frantically to try to clear it. His body felt fuzzy, he felt alight, Tenna was alive, his arms were attached, he had done it, somehow, he had done it. He had no idea where they were, and frankly, he barely cared. Tenna was here and he was in his room and he -

His hands slapped to his head and he let out a sharp noise, “Oh, no,” the sharp realization that he did not have his mask, he did not have his costume, he didn’t have anything of Mike’s, he was just Battat, just the floor manager, the costume designer, whatever Tenna needed him to be that day, “Oh no, I’m so sorry-”

“Battat.” Tenna reached down then, one hand cupping the back of the Pippins head, voice low and collected, a way that Battat rarely saw him, “Take a breath. I know.”

He blinked owlishly at him, hands falling away from his head as he stared, “You - what?”

Tenna shifted to kneel on one leg and his screen flickered, his smile and nose disappearing as a different scene came to life. A fuzzy image appeared, one of Battat himself, curling around Tenna in the snow, mumbling to him, the words lost to the storm. Of Battat being found by Jongler and Pluey, the three of them getting Tenna inside. Of Jongler and Pluey discussing, while Battat was gone, how worried they were for Tenna, how they weren’t sure it was going to work, how destroyed Battat would be, how he had put so much into being Mike for him, how he had been putting so many hours into work just because he wanted to be around Tenna. Of Battat slowly soldering each and every wire together. Of the TV and the electricity explosion and Tenna waking up to Ralsei over him, surprised and shocked and offering to bring them all to Castle Town.

“I have a sort of. Emergency camera system. When my systems shut down, they still keep watch over what happens to me for the first several hours, just in case I’m able to reboot - it’s mostly set in place for power outages, but it seemed to have worked for this, as well.” Tenna’s screen lit back up to his face, the top of his screen scrunched with a smile, his teeth showing as he kept himself in a kneel, “So, I know. I woke up and took Ralsei’s offer, and he pointed behind me and you all were just lying there! The toolbox had been scattered but I could see all the wires you had tossed aside. It wouldn’t have taken much other thought to realize who had put in the work to fix me.”

Battat’s face flushed then, a brilliant emerald appearing underneath the freckles on his cheeks, “I just.” He brought a fist to his mouth, mumbling into it as he spoke, “You are. You are the light of all of our lives, and - I just. You were- I watched it happen. I was in the tree, I never left. I never left, Tenna.”

The CRT froze for a moment before there was a rasped, “What?”

“When you called for Mike, you - you called for us. I mean, I can- I can explain more about that, but you called for us, and Jongler and Pluey wanted to leave. They wanted to quit, we turned on the spotlight because they were done, we were done. But then you cried out for us, for anyone but us, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave. I was there before you even fell, Tenna. I was going to come out as soon as you were done, I was going to insist that I was there, regardless of where you went. Even if you dismissed me as some stupid, some insignificant Pippins, I was there.”

Battat watched as the information processed. Tenna was expressionate when he thought, his screen flickering, his body shifting, antennae moving all over the place. His hands moved from his sides to his hips to his sides again before all of a sudden, those same hands grabbed hold of Battat and brought him up against his screen, holding him tightly.

“Ack-”

“When Susie brings me to a new home,” Tenna babbled, “I’ll tell her to bring you, and Jongler, and Pluey, too.” There was a flower, then, on the tip of his nose, and Battat stared at it in absolute wonder, before realizing what Tenna was saying, “Every TV needs a remote, and I’m sure she can come up with some explanation as to why a die and a figurine have to go with it, too!”

The Pippins turned his face against Tenna’s screen, pressing his cheek against the glass. He could feel the static closer there, the living pop against his plastic, hear the sound of the static, feel the hands around his waist, the sound of Tenna’s voice, the way his fans whirred as he breathed.

He was alive. He was alive.

“Never do that again.” He whispered, finally, after a moment, “Never, Tenna. If - some stupid guy with a big sword shows up and offers you a deal, come and talk to us first.”

“I will,” Tenna laughed, but the sound was warped, thick, as though he was holding back tears, “I just wanted someone to watch me, you know? He promised that someone-”

Battat reared back and gripped Tenna by the side of his casing, eyes firm as he glared at him. Still held in his palms, his voice was steady, “I will watch you, Ant Tenna. I will watch you every day of my life, if that’s what it takes.”

His face was promptly filled with another flower, a bright, blinding smile following suit. Battat shook his head, but his own face softened with a quiet smile as he reached up, fingers finally cupping the petals as they were attached.

They were soft, just like he knew they would be. Velvety. Warm. And right behind them, Tenna’s smile was even warmer.