Chapter Text
He’s been waiting for this day forever.
Finally, he’d gotten intel on where Mecha Man was holed up. A one way express ticket to the place the man who took his fucking fingers, and his dignity alongside, them lived.
It’d taken a few weeks of searching, of beating up shitheads in bars and alleys, blood oozing down his missing stumps and staining his costume as he scraped information together on that stupid wannabe vigilante.
Flambae knew one thing for certain; Mecha Man Blue was a fucking cancer. Not quite hero, not quite villain- some infuriating gray area that was painful to describe. Too much of a loser to pick a side. He’d collected a bounty that night he’d maimed him and he wants nothing more than to show him just how much the money wasn’t worth it.
He’d have all the time in the world tonight to give this guy hell. The LA cityscape races below him and his flames as he weaves between buildings, a blazing trail of vengeance ready to beat this dumbass up.
Flambae comes to a stop at the front of a very average apartment complex.
This has to be some kind of prank, then. There’s no way a man with a huge ass mech suit lives in such a dinky ass building.
Still. He wasn’t above breaking and entering to get confirmation- and his intel (see: the guy he’d beat to near unconsciousness 3 hours ago,) said that Mecha Man’s apartment was this third floor balcony to the right.
Flames quieting below his calves, he lands on the stone railing and hops down.
The inside of the apartment is dark through the spilling streetlight behind him. His silhouette casts a darkened block onto the bare floors.
There’s nothing but a single plastic chair inside. Facing the sliding doors and satisfyingly empty, as if this is where the man would be sitting to monologue if he had any indication that Flambae was going to be here.
He doesn’t even bother with opening the balcony door.
He puts his hand onto the cheap plexiglass and pushes a burning hand through it. It melts underneath his touch like butter as he walks through the thick plastic. He scoffs as he shakes the flame off of his body inside of the apartment, scorched foot marks right blackening the cracked concrete floor.
God he loves being superpowered.
Flambae takes a few steps inside and surveys the darkened living space.
If you could even call it that. This place is depressing as fuck, even for a villain lair- even for a studio apartment. There’s a barren kitchen, and a single offshoot door that either leads to a bathroom or a bedroom. The front door is marred with several thousand different types of locks, all clicked shut.
It certainly looks the part for a cautious bastard with an all important mech suit. It makes sense that he wouldn’t hide the thing here. What, does he sleep in the suit, too? What’s the point of an apartment, then?
Tax reasons, probably. It’s always for tax reasons.
There’s a cork-board pinned to what’s otherwise a cracked concrete wall. God, this place feels like a prison cell.
“You ever hear of knocking?” An unimpressed voice sighs from somewhere in front of him. “Do you know how much that’s going to cost to repair?”
It’s too dark, and his eyes haven’t properly adjusted yet. Cold air gusts against his spine from the opening he’d just stepped through.
He knows that voice.
Flambae stances his feet and clenches his fists, blazing with fire. The room illuminates clearly by his hands.
And there, behind the kitchen counter, is Mecha Man, all pretenses dropped.
He’s out of his stupid costume and is standing in an over-sized graphic tee, a plain looking normie with light brown hair that glows under the light of his flame.
He doesn’t look startled, nor particularly phased, but it doesn’t matter.
“Hello, Mecha Fuck,” Flambae snarls, taking a burning step forward. “I’m here for some payback.”
The blank stare and single, raised eyebrow serves to make him angrier- but it only takes a second before recognition crosses the man’s face. Is this really who Mecha Man is? Some short twunk alone in a bare apartment? This is who stole the functionality from his right hand?
“…You’re… Flambae, right?” He asks, his voice infuriatingly calm. “Oh, good. This is perfect, actually. I was wondering when that thread was going to pay out.”
“What?” He stops for a moment, bewildered at the neutral reception to his very hostile entering.
Why isn’t he blasting this guy, right now? It’s easy- he needs to raise his hands, and--
Mecha Man grabs something from the counter top in front of him. A pistol that revolves around his finger and comes to a stop aimed directly at Flambae’s chest.
He rolls his eyes and takes a step forward, unfazed by the threat of a gun.
“Maybe that works for self defense against other normies,” he scoffs. “But I’m not so fucking—”
The pistol fires. Flambae feels the sting of something embedding itself into his chest- but not exiting it. His eyes flicker down to see a dart stuck out of his pec, right next to his heart. His vision starts to cloud immediately.
“W...What?” He asks again, with a slowing tongue.
“It’s not for self defense, Flambae,” the other man hums, setting the pistol back down. “It’s for capture. Thank you for standing so unguarded. I would say ‘You should work on that’, but, well...”
Mecha Man snorts and moves to walk around the kitchen counter. Flambae takes a step to meet him, but his flame sputters.
It sputters and it dies, his heart starting to beat with an innate wrongness. His head feels light, each attempt to will himself into taking another step sending a profound wave of vertigo across his body.
He’s been tranquilized. Shit.
What kind of tranquilizer would it have to be, to work this quickly on his constitution? And who was Mecha Man to have access to it?
Flambae gets about five seconds to contemplate just how exactly fucked he is before his legs give out entirely and he collapses to the floor.
The last thing he registers seeing is the other’s feet walking in front of his vision, a fading chuckle on his ears.
He wakes some time later, his entire body feeling wrong. His head is lolled back, bent against something sturdy and uncomfortable. His thoughts pull together slow, like wading through muck and mulch by the waist- which, coincidentally, he can’t move all that well.
As Chad becomes conscious again, a terrible ache roars to life in his neck. He tries to look around the room, but it’s dark. There’s something covering his eyes, and worse yet, something stuffed into his ears.
Yet the first thing he’s fully aware of is something tight binding his chest, wrists, and ankles to something solid. A chair of some kind, if the way he’s sitting upright is any indication.
Rope. Ridiculous. Who did Mecha Dick think he was? He flexes his shoulders and starts a fire at his arms to burn through--
BZZT.
A grating, irritating sound screams through his ears, directly jolting his brain with what feels like auditory lightning. There are earbuds in his ears, apparently. The shock of it makes him yelp- or, it probably does- he can’t hear his voice over the all consuming stab of the buzzer noise. It startles him enough that his fire also stops in dead in its tracks. Still- it should have been enough for rope, right? He pulls his shoulders forward at the ropes and finds they don’t budge. Slightly warm metal almost seems to laugh at him as he flexes a bicep, yanks his wrists, shakes the chair violently, trying anything to shrug off the bindings, but with his limited perception, he doesn’t know what he’s working with.
Chad tries again to melt through his restraints. Flames expel from his body for all but one second before--
BZZT.
Again, the noise screams through each side of his head. It’s loud and horrifically disorienting, his brows furrowing in distress, his teeth clenching in frustrated anger. What the fuck was happening?
“Tch.” A tongue clicks through his ear, chastising. “I thought you’d get it with the first buzzer.”
It’s Mecha Man.
Anger seeps through his body the same time as adrenaline. He is going to get out of these restraints, and he is going to kill Mecha Man for drugging him and trying to put him through this sick, twisted audio torture.
As his body starts to run hot again, a blinding light flashes in front of his eyes.
BZZT.
A screen flickers to life in front of his eyes, bright, white, and blank. What the fuck? His eyes race against each pixel, trying to find the edge of the screen- but it feels like he’s wearing a tight fitting headset, the frame digging into the space around his eyes. A migraine starts to kick itself up at his temples, pain amplified by the anger in his racing heart.
“What-- What the fuck is this?” He spits venomously as the buzzing finally leaves his ears. “I came here to kill you, bitch- why are you still holding a grudge?!”
“It’s not a grudge on my end.” Mecha Man’s voice says calmly through his ears, a volume far lower than the horrible buzz. “I wanted you to come here.”
It’s fear that replaces the adrenaline, intertwining oh so sweetly with his burning, almost now righteous anger. Fire broils under his skin, suddenly feeling too timid to risk hearing that accursed noise again.
Wanted is a strong word. It implies a plan. But he got his intel from some random dickweed nobody- how could he have…?
The light of the screen warps, snapping his attention forward, suddenly having something to look at. It pulses and then curls inwards, a spiral pinching itself in the center of the screen in front of his vision.
What the fuck?
Chad winces and looks away, turns his eyes to the corner of the screen and cranes his neck to the left as if he could turn his head away entirely from the display.
He’s starting to sense that the things binding him to this chair isn’t rope, but cuffs. The anger in his chest can only burn to match the fear solely because he knows exactly who kidnapped him and exactly what he’s going to do to the fucker when he gets himself out of this.
When. When, and not if, because he is going to get himself out of this.
A chuckle crosses through his ears, the voice of his captor still a major irritant, but still better than the buzzer.
“Relax,” he says in that same eerily calm tone. “This will be easier when you do.”
“What… the fuck do you want with me?” he shouts into the air.
The room around him feels empty, barren and cold to his simmering shoulders.
“I can explain that later, when you’re properly… trained.” He says carefully, choosing his words.
“Training, you sick fuck?” Chad pulls again at his wrist restraints. “Wh-- What does that…?”
BZZT.
He hates this.
Every atom in his body is screaming in discomfort and abject terror, spurred only on by the ever growing bonfire of hatred for Mecha Man. Each time the noise goes off, it feels like it gets louder, more aggressive.
It’s no longer a matter of getting himself out of this just to kill Mecha Man, there’s now more than a couple of ounces of self preservation starting to slip into his reasoning.
He winces at the sound again, an electric prong shoved through his ears.
“Look into the screen.” If the buzzer is a rock, Mecha Man’s voice is the hard place it’s threatening to crush him into.
Chad snaps his eyes shut. He’s not fully sure what the screen is for, but it can’t be anything good. Whatever’s happening, he needs to do the opposite of what the man in his ears is suggesting.
But--
BZZT.
It’s even louder this time. He swears it hits a nerve in his brain that makes his vision flash white even though his eyes are closed.
“Look into the screen, Flambae.” His voice is firm this time. “Or we can do this until you go deaf, but that’ll take a while.”
Fuck. Chad bites into the inside flesh of his mouth and tries to resist the urge to open his eyes. He tries to set himself on fire quickly, to hold on to the flame regardless of how grating the noise is.
His skin begins to burn, flames licking out in a desperate attempt to melt the restraints.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
But the noise continues. He bites the inside of his cheek even harder and tries to stay alight.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
It’s painful. It’s a searing assault on all parts of his brain, a thousand needles targeting every neuron. He can’t do it.
ZZZZZZT.
The fire fades away, the only affect accomplished being that his restraints are now burning into his skin. It would never scar- but it was still painful against the thin skin of his wrists, his ankles- the costume offering little reprieve.
He gasps for air, a breath he’d been holding let warily out into the empty air of the area he’s trapped in.
“Do you understand, now? I can make this noise last longer than it’ll take you to heat up enough to break free.” Mecha Man says, in an almost pitying tone. “Look into the screen. I promise, it’ll be easier than fighting.”
His lungs still heaving, Chad carefully opens his eyes, lashes partying in blurry segments to reveal a spiral that’s overtaken the entirety of the screen. One twisting color is a static, mute red, and the other color is a dark, shifting spectrum.
It’s confusing to look at. It’s beautiful to look at. He has no idea what’s happening.
“...what..?” It leaves his mouth in a weak gasp as his eyes trace over the spinning shape, pinpointed in the center of his vision.
“See? Isn’t that better?” His voice is calm again. “All I want you to do is to look there for a while.”
The mix of emotions in his chest is a conflicting concoction of nausea, confusion, and dizzying relief. What the fuck was this whole thing for? Was this a weird sex thing? A different type of torture, compared to the noise?
There’s no answer in front of him- there’s only the spiral, spinning endlessly, its colors never the same.
“Fuck you,” he grumbles, feeling blood well at the side of his mouth from where he’d bitten into it. “You’re getting off to this, aren’t you?”
“Not yet.” Mecha Man says bemusedly. “Relax. I’m not trying to hurt you. Keep looking into the spiral.”
Chad inhales, feeling the anger fueling his soul kick and scream with desperation. It’s for sure a weird sex thing, now that he’s made that comment- and he doesn’t want to be a part of a weird sex thing with the guy he wants dead, damn it! Struggling gets him nowhere, and compliance is… whatever the fuck he’s looking at now.
It’s at least not unpleasant- but that’s the thing that unsettles him. It’s too calm, it’s too peaceful.
The spiral starts to feel like it pulls at his eyes, as his brain, drawing it closer to the screen, to its center. He tries to crane his neck forward but is reminded in short order that he’s been strapped to a chair by a thick metal band. His sternum constricts, and he catches his breath, suddenly aware of just how long he’s been staring into the center of the screen. His eyes ache when he blinks, the spiral etched into a dark pattern behind his eyelids.
Chad swallows a growing pool of saliva below his tongue.
It takes him a second to register that there’s now a subtle tone ringing through his ears.
Fundamentally different from the noise being used to punish him, it’s a soft, continuous ringing that pulses carefully through his brain, like cleansing water trying to wash away the harm any other noises my have caused.
His shoulders relax for the two seconds he enjoys it, his eyes fixating into the pulsing color of the spiral.
No- fuck, what?
Chad’s heart jump-starts, suddenly recognizing with sharpened clarity just how fucking weird this is. He’s still restrained to a chair, in the middle of some unknown place, trapped by the man he wants dead the most.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” He shouts with renewed anger. “What is—”
BZZT.
“You’re not allowed to speak right now,” Mecha Man’s voice says, as if it were as simple as a reminder to get eggs at the store. “Just keep looking into the spiral.”
His heart quickly sinks.
Fear is outpacing the hatred now, a cold wash against his heated limbs. And even through the flash of emotions he’s experiencing, Chad still can’t look away from the spiral, can’t shut his ears off to the quiet tone.
It feels better than nothing. He’d rather this than face pitch black and fear. At least looking into the spiral, he doesn’t feel the bindings around his body as tightly.
Still… Anger bites behind his teeth, a desperate howling dog to light himself on fire, rip the earbuds out of his ears, and give this fucking monster what for.
Maybe the spiral could stay. Even if it is fucking weird.
“See? It’s easier to do this than to fight me, right?” His voice starts to melt into the ringing tone.
No, it wasn’t, but if he says that out loud, he’ll get mind shocked again, so he glares into the center of the spiral, his lips pursing.
“Good.” The praise nearly makes him sick. “You’re learning quick.”
‘Fuck you,’ he wants to scream. He just stares forward instead. It… is actually easier, at least. Mecha Man wasn’t lying. Even if it didn’t feel like it.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay Flambae?” His voice travels the same path as the soothing balm, sloshing carefully against the back of his mind. “I want you to tell me the truth when I ask you these next few questions. Otherwise… well, you’re smart enough to understand, right?”
The buzzing. Chad frowns, nodding carefully. The wound inside of his mouth aches, but the spiral lessens the pain, each pulse of color minutely shifting him back down into something he could call ‘calmness’.
“Good. You can speak now. What’s your name?”
He can almost feel the smug grin, bared teeth snapped through the earpiece. Chad makes an irritated noise. He opens his mouth to tell Mecha Man to fuck off again, when he preemptively flinches at the idea of getting flash-banged by a fucking sound.
It’s not as if the man has a lie detector though, right? He can lie- he can make up a name.
He racks his brain for a lie to tell. A name. Any name.
The spirals swirl his brain into mush. He frowns. A name. His name, right?
“Chad Sadr,” he answers with a frown, unsure why he couldn’t recall the answer.
“Good. That’s what I have written down. Thank you for not giving an alias, that means it’s working.”
Anger is a weak swell in his chest. But why? There’s not much to be upset with with the spiral circling his eyes. He blinks again and the pattern behind his eyelids is a beautiful comfort.
Horror tears faintly at the back of his mind, further and further away. There’s no escape from the spiral.
“Do you know who I am? Besides Mecha Man?”
“No,” he answers quicker this time. “I just wanted to kill you because you fucking took my fingers. I don’t give a shit who you are otherwise.”
“Right. I figured, don’t worry. I don’t need it spelled out. In my defense, you were the one burning a mall down. Someone was going to stop you. Be glad it was me. It’s why you’re here, now.”
It’s hard to feel grateful for anything, in this circumstance, even with pacifism swirling in front of his eyes. The anger has faded into a dull, throbbing ache that threatens phantom pain in his missing digits.
“Do you still want to kill me?”
“Of course,” the remaining anger snarls in his throat for him. “Whatever this is you’re doing, I’m not—”
BZZZT.
Right. Of course. The noise is a reprimand to his very being. A searing brand of correction stamping itself with a burning iron on his brain.
Killing Mecha Man is supposed to be off the table, if the buzzer is discouraging him.
It is not enough to curb the blistering hatred in his heart. Chad grits his teeth and throws himself against the restraints again.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
It hurts so bad. It overpowers the soothing ring and the gentle pulse of the spiral’s colors and it stabs angrily against his brain stem. Wrong. Incorrect.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.
The noise finally ceases after what feels like forever, his mind spinning the same rate as the spiral now, disoriented and dazed. He wants to keep fighting, he really does, but--
“You don’t want to kill me.” Mecha Man says.
Chad bites at his tongue. He still does. The noise is not enough alone to discourage his stubborn revenge plot. It doesn’t matter how long he has to sit here and listen to ringing, or watch the spiral go around, and around, and around and around and--
“You don’t want to hurt me.”
The metal restraints around him almost seem to loosen the more he relaxes into them. Resisting still brought ugly noise and abject misery. He needed to stay calm if he wanted out of here.
If he wanted out of here.
“You just want to keep looking into the spiral, right, Chad?”
It was a very pretty spiral. He’s been staring at it for so long, his eyes are starting to waver. Maybe there’s still tranquilizer in his system. Maybe he’s just exhausted from fighting. But he still wants to fight, doesn’t he?
“You just want to listen to my voice.” Mecha Man says, his tone as soothing as the ring. “Soon, that’s all you’ll want to do.”
There’s still a part of him left that wants to cuss. Wants to kick, and bite, and scratch at the man he can’t even see. But his eyes are locked in an an endless loop, fixated on the beautiful pulsating center.
It felt easier to do this than fighting, at least.
“That’s it,” his voice applies the same careful comfort to his injured brain. “Good boy. Follow the spiral further down.”
Fear grates against the back of his mind, a small irritant when faced with the undulating, never ending coils. There’s only one way out now, it seems.
And the way out seems comfortable enough. He could be angry later, couldn’t he?