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Chase’s head lolled to the side as he started to regain his consciousness, his grogginess fading quickly as his bionics started up, assessing his body before he even thought about it, automatically computing his GPS location, scanning internally for any injuries- the back of his head throbbed, and he didn’t recognize the coordinates that were supplied to him. In the second that it took for him to get this information and snap his eyes open, he felt cuffs clamp around his wrists and ankles. He jolted up as the memory of what had happened flashed through his head, but he was held fast by his restraints to the padded table he was attached to, his bionic eye flashing as it scanned for any weak points in the metal in a millisecond, nothing, his head turned and he met the eyes of the woman who had brought him here, eyes setting in a glare at her amused expression.
Giselle’s lips upturned more as Chase met her eyes, poised and professional, white blouse spotless and hair perfectly pinned despite the fight she’d just escaped. “I’m glad you’re awake, it’s nearly time to start,” she said, the words cool and filling Chase with a jolt of uncertainty that was quickly overridden, his programming pushing it back automatically in favor of the situation at hand so quickly that he barely felt it, his jaw clenching.
“Start what? Where am I?” Chase demanded, pulling against the cuffs holding him down and feeling no give as the metal pressed harshly into his flesh, the small pain quickly pushed away as unimportant.
Giselle gave a small scoffing laugh, not filled with joy but rather cold amusement as she watched Chase futilely test the restraints. “You’re in my lab, and I’m extracting your bionic chip.” The flash of panic that Chase felt at the words was too strong to go completely under the radar, his programming pushing it away but not before his breathing stuttered, chest tightening before releasing as the fear was pushed away from him so it wouldn’t interfere. Giselle continued, Chase’s panic came and went in the pause between her words. “My androids are far superior to any of the technology that your creator could manage, but…” she stepped closer to Chase, her fingers reaching out, and he braced himself for pain, but all she did was skirt her fingertips across the back of his neck, right above his chip, “your intelligence, it’s easily the greatest thing that idiot has accomplished, and I’m going to use it for my android army.” She ended her words with an icy smile, her touch pressing into the metal buried under his flesh, housing his chip, his intelligence.
Chase’s glare hardened, jerking away from her touch as his programming made him stay calm, collected, thoughts only on getting out of the situation- not able to linger on creator, the twisting in his chest barely felt. He would be fine, he just had to stall until he figured a way out or his family got here to help. It couldn’t be long, they had been right there when he’d been knocked out and taken, they already knew he was gone, it was just a matter of time until they found where he was. “My family is going to come for me, you’re not getting my chip,” he retaliated, “they already know I’m gone, they’ll be here any second to take you down.”
He was not expecting the amusement to return to Giselle’s smile, along with something sadistic. “Oh, your family? Thank you for mentioning them, I almost forgot,” she said, pulling a remote from her pocket and pressing a button, a large screen on the wall flashing to life. Another jolt of definitely-felt-panic shot through Chase as he saw the towers of explosives lining Giselle’s fake set, the timer counting down- three seconds, two- and his family, Douglas, Bree, Adam, Leo, trying to find a way out, bracing themselves for the explosion, and Chase didn’t need any super intelligence to know that there was no surviving an explosion like that.
“No!” he screamed, his programming glitching, his panic climbing up his throat and hitching his breath as he watched the timer hit one, zero and the explosives went off, engulfing the set in flames and shaking the foundation. Chase couldn’t breathe, muscles tensed, eyes wide as he watched the set come down, crushing anything- anyone- inside.
As quickly and intensely as his panicked glitch had hit him, his programming fought back, his breath stuttering more as his heart rate spiked and was forcibly calmed a few times over before the technology won out, heightening his awareness, zeroing in on everything at once, not letting him focus on anything but what he needed to complete the objective. He was hyper-aware of the tears on one side of his face, having fallen from his non-bionic eye, as he looked back at Giselle, his face a neutral mask of nothing.
“Well, now that they’re taken care of,” she started, a bit of annoyance in her voice as if murdering his entire family had been nothing but killing a housefly, “it’s time to start on what I really wanted to do.” Her face returns to that cool smile as she surveys Chase, seeming mildly impressed. “Your programming is phenomenal, even with your human brain, it can push all of that unneeded feeling aside, apparently Douglas could do something right.” She gave another small laugh to herself as she turned to her cyber-desk, as if the idea of Chase’s father doing a good job was a joke. Chase wasn’t able to linger on anything she was saying, processing it only for information useful to getting himself out, his programming working to push everything down except what was deemed necessary. “Of course, with androids, there isn’t any feeling in the first place, which makes everything so much less messy.”
She pressed a button on the desk, and a panel slid open on the wall. Chase’s eye scanned the space for danger before he could process what it was, danger signs popping up across his vision as he was swarmed with everything in the machine that could kill him, the exoskeleton of the android that the wall unveiled standing still.
“My most recent model,” Giselle introduced, waving her hand to show off her technology proudly. “They’re upgraded completely from my older models, a larger weapon capacity, increased bionics… everything except for increased intelligence. I’ve tried everything, but somehow you were given what I’ve failed to accomplish.”
Chase was processing every word quickly, calculating his chances of getting out, waiting for any opportune moment to make a move. “You haven’t worked with human bionics before, you can’t remove mine,” he shot suddenly, the information not computing in his head. She had androids, not bionic humans, she wouldn’t just have a chip extractor laying around her lab that was compatible with the technology in his neck.
Chase saw Giselle’s lip curve back into her cold smile before she pressed one last button, the exoskeleton suddenly looking like a large man, a mean look on its face as it raised its hand, the artificial fingers morphing into sharp knives, and Chase was only able to scan again, processing, the knives had to be for-
“I don’t need a chip extractor if I can do it the old fashioned way,” Giselle said, her tone as if talking to a child about the obvious they had missed. The android started to walk closer, and Chase could only scan, process, scan, process, the danger was closer, closer, and it stopped right beside him. He looked up at the robot, still holding the knives up, the sharp edge gleaming in the fluorescent lighting.
She opened her mouth, about to say something else, when she was interrupted by a loud bang, voices coming from behind the closed entrance to the lab. With his enhanced hearing, Chase was able to quickly pick up the individual voices, Troy yelling, and- Adam? Bree? They were here? They were alive?
Giselle looked outraged for only a moment before her demeanor smoothed back over, but her jaw was still tight and body tense as she looked back to Chase from where she’d turned toward the sudden noise. “Enough talking, I need my chip,” she said, her voice a little disgruntled as a wrench was thrown into her plans. His siblings, they were alive, and they were here to get him out of here.
She pressed another few buttons quickly, and Chase heard the quiet hum of electricity from the cuffs holding him down before suddenly, he couldn't breathe. It felt as if his programming failed, everything it was holding back clogging his chest at once, his body jerking and eye flashing as his bionics were disabled. He didn’t have his scan, he couldn’t process anything, he could only look at Giselle in panic as she quickly strode to the door, sending one last glance at him. “You didn’t think I’d let you use your bionics to escape, did you? Bionic inhibitor cuffs, Douglas left his blueprints, helpful to have around.” She slid open the door. “Your intelligence will live on, Chase, in something greater than you were.” She stepped out with that, the door closing, and leaving Chase with only the android with orders to rip out his chip.
Chase’s eyes snapped back to the robot as it started to move, one hand grabbing Chase’s hair with a harsh grip and craning his neck forward uncomfortably, his chin to his chest and completely exposing the back of his neck. He struggled the best he could, jerking against his restraints as his breath came out quicker and quicker. Without his programming there was nothing to hold it back, he was going to die and feel everything. He could feel his skin scraping against the cuffs, cutting his flesh as the metal fingers from the android dug into his scalp. He couldn’t see what was happening, his eyes forced down, but he felt as the first contact was made.
The knife was sharp, so sharp that Chase felt the blade slice his skin before he felt the pain. He let out a gasping breath, jerking again, but the android didn’t let up at all, the blade sinking deeper, slicing through the muscle around the compartment that his chip was housed in. It was agonizing, his bionics not able to dampen his pain receptors as the knife began to move, carving along the small metal box in his neck. Chase screamed in pain, feeling blood gush down his neck and soak his shirt as the knife moved and opened the deep wound, slowly working around the box as Chase heaved for breath, gasping in pain with no empathy from the android.
The back of his neck was searing, every movement of the knife sending burning pain shooting up to his skull, and he screamed again as the knife sliced one of the wires connected to the home of his chip, even without his enhanced hearing he could hear the spark, and he definitely felt as it burned him from the inside. His bionic eye was glitching, half of his vision stuttering as the knife was yanked from his neck, Chase only able to muster a choked noise of pain as he felt more blood rush from the wound, pouring down the sides of his neck and pooling on his chest. He could smell it, feel it pressed against his chin, warm and nauseating. He barely got a second to put together that the android must have fully carved the metal box out before the knife was wedged beneath the flesh still covering the home, sliding in between his skin and the metal covering his chip and easily peeling away the layer of flesh, fully revealing the metal encasing his bionic chip.
Chase could feel his body trembling, sweat dripping down his face and sticking his hair to his forehead as he got a single moment of the android not doing anything, only feeling the searing pain and the still rushing blood, the cuts had to be deep, the box wasn’t large but it was installed into and around his spine, holding his chip and all of the power it needed to keep itself going, connecting up to his brain stem and out to his eye. His flickering vision was making it all worse now that the wire connection had been cut, nausea crawling up his throat as the pain and the flashing overwhelmed him, he squeezed his eyes shut, but somehow the darkness of his eyelids still flashed and he forced them back open, feeling sick.
He felt a sudden pressure on the metal home, an agonized whine ripping from his chest as the android shoved a knife roughly into the crack keeping the back of the box on. It wasn’t supposed to be opened, his chip was only supposed to be removed via the specific technology made to do it, and Chase felt as if his spine was being ripped out of his neck as the small door was pried open, and Chase’s panic could only grow as his pain-addled and non-enhanced mind realized that his chip was exposed.
He came to this realization in the split second before the knife was suddenly inside the box, on his chip, and if he felt like his spine was being pulled out with the box opening, this felt like his entire brain was being pulled down and out of his skull. He might have screamed, he couldn’t have known with the way the pain was taking up every sensory processor that his human body could produce. It kept building, worse and worse until he felt a release on his neck, and then he felt burning splintering under his flesh.
Chase threw his head back as he screamed, evidently the android had let him go, his body convulsing as it tried to get away from the pain that was under his own skin, the sparking burns and growing heat that some part of his mind recognized as the other receptors for his bionics frying inside of his body. That android fucked something up and Chase was in too much pain to even think about what, to even think about anything except for the searing on the back of neck and under his skin.
He was faintly aware of commotion, his flickering vision not much help and none of him much help when he couldn’t take his entire mind off of the pain he was in. Voices, flickering, banging, pain, pain, pain.
Chase was only aware that his cuffs were unlocked because his body was already trying to jerk out of them, a ragged, heaving gasp leaving him as his body curled in on itself, twitching almost violently as he fought impossibly to get away from the pain. Voices neared quickly, and he felt hands on him, he jerked away, but there were more, and he forced his eyes open, everything flickering rapidly as he tried to take in anything, eyes sweeping in a panic over whoever’s face was hovering over him. He felt arms slide under him and pick him up, cradling his head, and before he could jerk away, the motion forced the bile past his throat, his head turning to vomit, and nearly choking as he sobbed violently, the motion of his neck sending more shocks of pain through him.
There was rapid, hushed conversation over him, but Chase couldn’t make out a word, feeling his consciousness quickly slipping as the pain reached to be too much. He was pressed to the chest of the person holding him, his head supported as they quickly began to move. Before he slipped out of his agonizing consciousness, the person holding him spoke, and some part of his chest that wasn’t in pain twisted at the familiar voice of his brother.
“Hold on, Chase. We’re getting you home.” Chase wasn’t in the mind to pick up anything but the words and the voice that spoke them. Adam had him, and he was going home. Those were his last thoughts before his mind slipped from him, finally ending his agony.
—
Chase woke blearily, which was his first sign that something was wrong. His bionics were usually active before he even realized he was fully awake, but he’d been lying with his eyes closed for a few seconds now, feeling heavy. Something seemed to pull at him that he couldn’t recognize, and it made it harder than he realized to open his eyes, his vision blurry as only one opened successfully, the other trapped under something wrapped around his head.
He blinked a few times, his head turning to the side as he struggled to take in his surroundings. What was wrong? Why was everything so difficult? His head felt fuzzy, like cotton was stuffed behind his eyes and between his ears and packed in his entire skull.
“You’re awake.”
Chase jumped, and he felt like something was pulling at his skin, but his attention was more focused on the man standing at the foot of his bed. The figure of Douglas relaxed him slightly, but the fact that it took his... complicated family relationship to talk before Chase noticed he was there was unnerving. Something was wrong. Where were his enhanced senses?
“Douglas?” Chase spoke, and he felt his voice scratch up his throat. He coughed, the action jerking him just enough for a throb of pain to spike from the back of his neck, and that jogged his memory. He froze, staring at Douglas, feeling horror seize his chest.
Douglas put his hands up, obviously trying to placate but his body radiated nerves, which didn’t make Chase feel any better. “We had to take you into surgery,” he said, eyes glancing to the right, anxiety lacing every action even as his words stayed relatively even, “most of your body won’t have any lasting damage, just…” he looked back at Chase, gaze skittering over the bandage wrapped over Chase’s eye, “your eye, it was glitching too bad, Donny and I had to take it out, the wire connecting it was severed, we couldn’t save it.” Chase didn’t speak, only because he could tell that more was coming, worse was coming. He stared at Douglas, and the man paused for a moment, swallowing as he struggled with the weight of the information that Chase was starting to guess, the unrestrained panic rising in his chest an indicator of the news that he almost couldn’t bear to hear. But Douglas was speaking, “Your bionics… they were fried, the batteries and power storage were shredded, all of your receptors were shorting and burning your muscle. We had to remove them,” and Chase couldn’t take it anymore. This wasn’t real, this couldn’t be real. Douglas was still speaking, the details that Chase would love to hear if it wasn’t the details of the end of his life.
He didn’t understand what was happening, his body was shaking, his mind racing a mile a minute in the worst way possible, he felt unable to breathe. It felt like the panic he had earlier but it just kept going, growing larger as his mind whirred with too many thoughts. He didn’t know what was going on in his head, all of these thoughts were so fast and intense and it made him want to claw his brain out, his chest heaving as he struggled for air. He was glitching, this had to be a glitch, but it couldn’t be because it wasn’t possible-
Chase gasped for air, and he jerked as he felt a hand on his shoulder, his gaze snapping to Douglas who had moved beside the bed, eyebrows creased as he looked at Chase. “You gotta breathe, kid, c’mon, in and out,” he said, his voice a little strained as he gave Chase’s shoulder a squeeze.
Chase could not breathe, he felt like he couldn’t do anything but lay there and suffocate himself to death. Maybe that would be for the best, it would be better for him to be dead than alive and completely and utterly useless. He was already useless and he hadn’t been awake for five minutes, body and mind betraying him without his bionics to keep them in check for him.
The hand left his shoulder as he hyperventilated, Douglas moving away from him and around the room. He heard him talking, but with the blood rushing through his ears he couldn’t make out a word, he couldn’t hear anything except for his own gasping breaths and that only twisted the stake of panic in his heart.
He felt a faint rush of wind that he associated with his sister arriving, but the one that stepped into his view and sat on the side of his bed was Adam. His brother had a rare serious look on his face, frowning as he looked at Chase, and that only made the sinking feeling of uselessness in his chest grow. He was so weak now that Adam was doing something other than making fun of him, the older was staring with worry and Chase couldn’t stop the small, anguished noise from slipping past his lips, tears dripping from his intact eye as he turned his head away, not able to force himself to look at Adam any longer.
He curled up on his side with his back to Adam, his knees to his chest and his hands twitched to his hair, one of his arms dragging something and his eyes flickered to the IV attached at his inner elbow, then up to the stand where Douglas stood, a syringe in his hand as he fiddled with the bag attached to Chase. “I’m gonna give you a sedative, kid, you’re gonna pass out,” Douglas said as he inserted the syringe into the tube, quickly administering the drug before Chase could form any sort of protest.
He felt hollow, watching the sedative run down the tube and into his veins. He felt pathetic, his hands clawing into his hair, unable to calm himself down, unable to stop his gasping or his thoughts as they ran through his head, confirming his worst fear, he was nothing without his bionics.
He felt when the sedative started to hit, his grip on his hair loosening, his breath slowing down as his body relaxed against his will, his thoughts turning sluggish and a little confused as he let himself go limp, staring almost blankly in front of himself as his eyelid turned heavier than it already had been. He was calm, he could breathe, he took a slow breath and barely reacted when his hand was grabbed, eye barely flickering away from the space in front of him.
“Just go to sleep, Chase,” Adam said from behind him, the softest squeeze on his hand followed the words and Chase was almost convinced it wasn’t Adam. Chase must have looked how he felt, which he could identify as exhausted. He was exhausted, he didn’t know that it could feel so terrible, his programming didn’t let him feel this way before, he didn’t understand how his body could want to sink into nothing so badly. His eye slipped closed, a soft breath leaving him. He didn’t have the mind to think any further as the sedative fully clouded his mind, the wave of sleep that he’d never experienced crashing over him as he was pulled unconscious yet again.
—
The next time Chase woke, his head felt a little clearer, and he was alone. The room was dark, save for the glow of a small light plugged into the wall, illuminating the surroundings just enough for him to recognize that he was in one of the private rooms off of the infirmary. There was no capsule, only a bed, a few chairs, and some medical equipment. No one on the island had needed to stay in a room longer than a day, sent to their capsule to regenerate much more rapidly than they would resting in a bed once they were able to stand. He was probably the first to actually sleep in this bed, to need the IV still in his arm and to feel so tired, unable to regenerate, unable to do anything that he knew of to make himself feel better.
He pushed himself to sit up, hissing under his breath as his palms burned as he pressed on them. He brought them up once he was sitting back against the wall, staring down at the bandages wrapped around his palms. He flexed his hands, the skin feeling like it was being pulled, and he quickly stopped. Stitches. His gaze turned lower, to the gauze wrapped around his wrists, and he figured that was from the cuffs cutting into him. Instead of the panic he felt earlier, now he felt almost empty, maybe it was the sedative lingering in his system, or maybe he just didn’t want to think. He hadn’t thought he’d ever not want to think, but right now he would prefer an empty mind over the one he’d had earlier.
He carefully pushed the blanket he’d had on off of his body as he glanced down at the rest of himself, eye taking in the lines of stitches where his receptors had been removed, most of the wounds red and inflamed from what he could only guess was the technology boiling his muscle and the inside of his skin. His breath hitched slightly at the memory of how that had felt, and he closed his eye for a moment, taking a slow breath to keep himself from freaking out again. He’d done it once, he didn’t want to show off more how inept he was at controlling himself when his bionics weren’t doing it for him.
“Chase!” Chase’s eye snapped open to look to the doorway, where Leo stood, his posture more reminiscent of his awkward years than the one he usually held now. He had a glass of water in his hand, and his eyes were wide, looking surprised that Chase was awake.
A moment of quiet settled over them, and it felt quieter than Chase could ever remember any moment feeling. Without his enhanced senses, his lack of response seemed to cause a dip of silence that he didn’t know if he liked, no far off conversations, no creaking of the foundation, and the humming of electricity wasn’t deafening. “Hey,” he replied when he couldn’t take it anymore, using his voice sending his throat aflame, and Leo took that as Chase being okay enough for him to switch on the small lamp sitting on the counter and hurry over to sit in the chair that was just beside the bed, water still in his hand as the awkwardness lessened, and Chase was glad for it. He didn’t want anything to be different, but he knew that so, so much was going to be. His chest tightened, but thankfully Leo chose that moment to speak.
“Sorry I wasn't here when you woke up,” Leo started, a tinge of something in his voice and in his expression that Chase couldn’t identify. He automatically tried to check his database for vocal and facial expression scans, but was quickly reminded that it was gone. Leo continued, “I just went to get a glass of water, you can have it if you want, you sound... rough.” He gave a small wince of sympathy as he offered it, and Chase automatically raised his arm to accept, any rejection of the offer dying before it could reach his mouth due to how much he knew it was going to hurt coming out. Chase felt the pain, all of it, nothing to dampen his pain receptors. He knew that logically he was on some sort of pain medication, with the way all of his wounds were a sore throb instead of what he knew they could be, but it still sent something twisting in his stomach. He wasn’t used to feeling the small pains, anything that could be pushed away from his awareness and wasn’t critical to his health automatically was, and for that reason as he wrapped his palm around the glass and his fresh stitches pressed into it, he made a pained noise and pulled back quickly, the glass nearly dropping if not for Leo still having had a sort of grip on it.
Leo made his own noise of surprise, quickly steadying the glass before more than a small amount of water spilled, spattering to the ground with a noise that Chase barely noticed as he pulled his hand to his chest, the wound throbbing from the force he’d now put on it twice. He glanced back to Leo, inadequacy clogging his throat, who held the glass with that same expression that Chase was clueless of, and that lump in his throat only grew. He couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t even grab a glass of water or know how he was making his brother feel. He couldn’t imagine it was any good emotion, Chase couldn’t possibly be sparking anything positive with how disappointing he was being.
Something must have shown on his face, because Leo was quickly rushing to smooth over how pathetic Chase was. “It’s okay, I forgot that, uh…” his eyes glanced at Chase's hand, and he chose not to finish his sentence, “but barely any spilled, you can still have it, I’ll hold it for you.” Chase didn’t know if he wanted the water anymore if he couldn’t even hold it, couldn’t do the simple process of having a drink, but his throat burned and he knew that it wasn’t going to get any better if he refused to drink.
“Fine,” Chase said, the word coming out clipped but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize or say anything else. His fingers twitched to grab the glass himself, or maybe make Leo drop it so that he wouldn’t have to deal with this situation at all. He didn’t do anything, though, only tipping his head back just barely to accept the glass at his lips, doing his best to ignore the quick burst of pain from the back of his neck. Chase’s eye closed as the cool water poured down his throat, forgetting his reluctance momentarily as the soreness was soothed, giving him the barest of relief from the quickly mounting problems he could no longer solve with his bionics.
Leo pulled the glass away after Chase had drank half, setting it on the small table beside the bed. Chase looked over to the table, and saw a tablet sitting on it, likely holding all the details of what had happened to him. He felt a slight shake in his hands as he stared at it, knowing that he should take it and read over everything to brief himself on his condition. At the same time, every time he thought about his injuries, his mind reminded him of how he’d gotten them, and his chest tightened more, the back of his neck throbbing, and he had to force himself to look away, taking a breath. He’d know eventually, it would be fine to wait a little bit, that’s what he told himself to try and feel any better from the sinking feeling of uselessness crawling up his throat. He couldn’t even do the simple job of gathering information.
“How’re you holding up?” Leo spoke, and Chase was grateful for the interruption from his thoughts, looking at his brother as he took in the question.
“I’m not dead,” Chase offered, and he didn’t even know if he was saying that as a good or bad thing. He wasn’t dead, but his bionics were gone, he’d failed, and now his existence had no meaning without the ability to fulfill the purpose he was given. Chase being dead would be terrible for his siblings, but maybe it would be better for him. The thought didn’t even feel startling, it just settled in his mind as another outcome.
“You nearly were,” Leo muttered, tone lilting a little like he was trying to cushion the severity while already knowing he couldn’t. Chase felt his stomach drop a little, looking at Leo, finally taking in the bags under his eyes, the tired hunch of his shoulders. Nearly dying didn’t make him feel as bad as making Leo feel bad did, his failure affected everyone, not just him, and that might be the worst part. Leo took a breath, the action a little shaky. “You’ve been out of it for two days, when Adam and Bree brought you back you were nearly dead.” He repeated, this time more serious, and Chase’s chest tightened with one of the feelings he was very familiar with: guilt. “Douglas rushed you to surgery, Mr. Davenport got here as soon as he could and went in to help, it was hours. We didn’t know what was going on until Douglas told us you were going to be okay.”
Leo took another breath, looking at Chase, and it seemed like a lot was going on in his head. “Everyone but Big D has been taking turns sitting with you, I don’t know what he’s been doing but I haven’t seen him since he left after the surgery was done. You woke up about eight hours ago and freaked out, I don’t know if you remember, Douglas called and Bree ran here with Adam.” He brought his hand to his mouth, biting at his nails like he did only when he was anxious, and Chase couldn’t help the guilt continuing to grow for making Leo worry, for letting this happen to himself, and now splintering the team since he couldn’t be their leader anymore without his bionics. He should’ve tried harder to get out of there, he shouldn’t have let this happen. He was sure Mr. Davenport was disappointed, angry, even, that’s why he didn’t want to be around. Chase would know how Mr. Davenport felt when he decided that a useless Chase was worth his time, he was sure that Mr. Davenport would let him know very clearly.
Then, Chase remembered: Leo was supposed to be dead, so were Adam, Bree, and Douglas, but they were all here, alive and seemingly okay, or at least much better off than him. His eyebrows furrowed, and he was a little thankful for the distraction he gave himself. “How did you get out of the set? I watched it explode, there was no way of surviving that.” It was the most he’d spoken at once since he’d woken up, and the continuous speech, although laughably simple, made him feel better.
Leo also seemed thankful for the change of topic, if the way he leaned back in his chair and let his hand drop from his mouth was any indication. “Adam and I managed to bust a wall and Bree got us out of there as the timer hit zero, we were just out of range.” He huffed a laugh to himself, although it didn’t seem very humorous. “Wish we’d gotten out sooner.”
The reason why hung in the air, hung in the fact that Chase was in the infirmary, that he wasn’t bionic anymore. Chase wished that the thought would stop passing through his head, but it was impossible not to think about. Not when his entire existence centered around his bionics, centered around missions and being the team leader and training the next generation of bionic heroes. He took a few breaths and closed his eye, not wanting to panic again and show off how he couldn’t control himself. He needed his programming, he didn’t know how to handle these… glitches, that was all he knew to call them, he didn’t understand why his own brain and body would do this to him. He wished he could search his database for answers, but he couldn’t. He wished he could scan his body to see if something else was wrong with him, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything.
Chase jumped at a hand on his arm, looking quickly to Leo, who looked concerned. Concerned about Chase, because he wasn’t able to do anything but freak out over and over again. It was pathetic, pitiful, Chase wanted to access a thousand other words to describe how awful he was, but he couldn’t.
“Chase, dude, you don’t look good,” Leo said, his hand still on Chase’s arm, the only consistent thing that Chase didn’t want to go away. “Should I call Douglas?” He seemed unsure, but his other hand twitched to his pocket, presumably where his communicator was, so that he could contact Douglas and have him come to the room.
Chase didn’t want Leo to call Douglas, he didn’t want his… creator seeing how he’d fallen again, to put Chase back to sleep because he couldn’t handle being awake anymore without his programming to keep him in check. “No! No, don’t call Douglas,” he said as firmly as he could manage, taking a few more breaths to try and calm himself. He tried to put his attention on Leo’s hand on his arm instead of on the thoughts racing through his mind. “I’m fine.”
Leo still seemed unsure, more so about Chase’s decision than calling Douglas at all. “Okay, are you sure you’re alright?” He squeezed Chase’s arm briefly, the minute amount of super strength in the action making it a more firm pressure that Chase appreciated, closing his eye again briefly to try and wrangle himself to be calm enough for Leo not to call anyone else.
“Yeah, I’m alright,” Chase confirmed when he opened his eye again, letting out one last breath as he let his body un-tense. “Just glitching-“ he caught himself, his mistake seeming to take the breath out of him for a second as he accidentally referenced the now impossible, “-or, something,” he finished with a mutter, eye glancing away from Leo, not wanting to look at him as he wrestled with his thoughts again.
“Bree should be here soon to sit with you,” Leo said, and Chase could detect the obvious change in subject and was glad for it. “I’ll stay too if you want, and I can ask her to bring Adam, it might get your mind off things if you have some distractions. Adam is always good for that.” His tone held a bit of humor at the end, clearly trying to lighten the mood as much as was even possible.
Chase didn’t know how successfully he could be distracted right now, and the idea of all of his siblings in this room with him sounded conflicting. Leo by himself was at least a little helpful, but he didn’t know if he’d like having all of them around him while he lay injured and useless, now unable to perform the duties they shared. A part of him did pang for his brother and sister, he remembered Adam holding his hand and his chest tightened a little bit in a way that felt different than the panic, maybe he did want them all there with him. Even if he couldn’t be distracted, he could have his family there with him. His siblings didn't make him feel completely inadequate or disappointing like Mr. Davenport did, like Douglas sometimes did. Maybe having them there would help him feel a little better now that it felt so much worse than ever.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment, looking at Leo, “you can tell them to both come.” Chase barely got the words out before Leo was whipping out his communicator and punching the buttons to call Bree, beeping only once before the call was answered.
“Did something happen?” Bree’s voice came through the communicator, a little crackly but much less than Chase was used to, his hearing not able to pick up every grainy disruption to the voice that the microphone gave it. There was also another voice, much quieter and clearly further from the communicator. “Is Chase okay?” Adam. They both sounded on alert, as if Leo’s call was the mission alarm, as if they were expecting Chase to be in danger. That thought sent a confusing twist in his stomach, some part of him feeling comforted by their want to help him but a part that felt much larger felt insufficient that they assumed he needed to be saved again.
“No, no, Chase is fine, he’s awake,” Leo replied quickly, and Chase heard the faint breath of relief that Bree let out. “When it’s time for your shift, he wants both of you guys to come down, I’m gonna stay and-“
Leo was abruptly interrupted by a rush of wind and Bree and Adam in the doorway, cutting off the rest of what he had to say. Chase looked at them, and before he could even think of how to talk to them, they both hurried over. Bree stopped short, a look on her face that Chase didn’t see for long enough to identify before Adam was right by him, that same creased look of worry in his face that sent Chase’s chest tightening, but there was also obvious relief, as his eyes scanned over Chase, taking in all of the damage that he had ended up with.
“You scared me, bro,” Adam said, his hand reaching out toward Chase and halting for a moment before he laid the hand on his shoulder, not a touch of roughness or strength in the action. Chase stared at Adam, his throat tight, not knowing what to think of this. Adam never admitted he was scared, he was never gentle or hesitant, every action impulsive, rough and painful even when he didn’t mean it to be. Chase’s brain struggled between feeling even more pathetic -so much so that Adam felt scared to touch him- and wanting to shake under the weight of the fact that Adam wasn’t being playful or joking, he was looking at Chase with that worry that Chase still didn’t know if he liked. Even Adam understood how terrible this was, how useless Chase now was to the team and to the world.
He didn’t know how to respond to that, he didn’t know what to say to Adam when he was looking at him in a way Chase hadn’t seen in so long. “I didn’t mean to,” was what he managed, his throat feeling clogged and his voice coming out smaller than he’d ever wanted it to. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a kid, when he would glitch before Douglas upgraded his programming, when Adam would hold him while he cried about how loud it was or how his head hurt because he couldn’t stop processing every piece of information around him. It felt like when Mr. Davenport would yell after a failed training, and lock Chase in his capsule to think about being a better leader, and Adam would hug Chase once he was out and tell him that Mr. Davenport was a jerk. Something in Chase wanted his older brother, he wanted Adam to make this all feel better even if he knew that was impossible.
Adam was shaking his head, eyebrows creasing more, but Chase’s vision was blurring with the tears quickly building in his remaining eye and he had to look away so that Adam wouldn’t see. They clearly already didn’t think he could handle himself, he didn’t want to prove them right, but Adam’s careful hand slid down to his arm, he sat on the side of the bed, quietly saying “Chase…” and Chase felt something in him break.
The panic felt different than what he felt now, a sob shuddering out of him as his tears fell. This felt heavy, sad, he felt sad, he felt like he was feeling the weight of everything on his shoulders as they shook, breath hitching as he gave up on holding it back. He felt Adam move closer, his arms wrapping around Chase in a hug and Chase let his face drop into the crook of Adam’s neck, his hands trying to grab Adam’s shirt but spasming in pain that made Chase sob again and let them fall, letting Adam just hold him. Chase felt like he was six, being comforted by his older brother because he didn’t understand how things worked yet; he wished he didn’t understand anymore. He wished that all of this wasn’t going to destroy his life. It already felt like it did.
Chase didn’t know how long he cried for -any time was too long in his eyes- but eventually his sobs slowed, his body feeling heavy now from fatigue. Once he felt himself calm, he didn’t move from Adam’s hold, letting himself breathe for a few moments in the comfort of his brother that he didn’t know if he should have. He felt some shame, having acted like he was a child just because Adam was worried about him, he barely remembered how that had even felt, some of the last times he’d ever cried before now were before Douglas had updated his programming to keep his emotional glitches in check.
Chase felt Adam shift, and he felt, for a second, fear that Adam was getting up completely, but his brother just moved further onto the bed, sitting beside Chase and leaning back as he changed his hold to have an arm around Chase’s shoulders, and the weight felt nice, Chase letting himself continue to lean into Adam, resting his weight on his brother before he could think too much about how he shouldn’t. “I’ve got you,” Adam said, and the words were protective, giving a light squeeze to Chase’s shoulders.
“We all do,” Leo said from Chase’s other side, and Chase was reminded that his other siblings were also in the room, it having slipped his mind when he was caught up in crying to Adam. Chase looked at Leo, who looked a mixture of determined and concerned. “We’re all here for you, Chase.”
“You won’t go through this alone,” Bree spoke up from where she stood several feet away, and Chase’s gaze moved to her. Now that he was looking at her more clearly, the look on her face was heavy with guilt, looking at Chase with an almost desperation for something Chase couldn’t put a guess to.
Chase felt something strange in his chest at his family’s words, like everything was a little lighter. He knew that everything was still bad, so bad, worse than Chase could have ever fathomed, but at least his siblings were there for him. Maybe that would make this all a little bit easier.
He let himself breathe, feeling the closest to calm that he’d felt since he woke up. Despite the fact that he’d just slept, apparently for two days, he still felt tired, his body heavy against Adam. He felt guilt, for saying that he wanted his siblings with him and then doing nothing but crying and struggling not to fall asleep. Surely every human wasn’t this useless, he knew for a fact that they weren’t, so why was he?
His thinking was interrupted by Adam tousling his hair, making Chase lift his sluggish gaze to look at his brother. “We’re hanging out here,” he told Chase. “So you can sleep or do whatever.”
Before Chase could think too hard about how it would probably not be a good time for any of them to sit quietly while he slept for even longer, he felt a weight settle by his feet. He looked to Bree, who had moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’m sitting with you anyway, it’s my shift,” she said, as if she could see the struggle Chase was going through to try and justify how they could want to stay there, “Leo and Adam were going to just sit in our room, they might as well do it here.” She ended with a small shrug, and Chase found that the reasoning helped him feel a little better about it. It was easier for him to grasp that it was simply the better option for them rather than that they wanted to stay because a tragedy occurred to him and they were still scared for their brother.
Chase let his eye close, relaxing into the warmth of Adam. Chase didn’t know how he knew how to sleep, it had to be different than regenerating, but he couldn’t linger on it for too long, sleep taking him back before his mind could race any longer.
—
“-don’t think he even knows what’s going on.”
Chase woke, for the third time, to talking. He felt groggy, his eye twitching to open but being too heavy to right away. The conversation continued above him, and it was quickly clear that he was the subject.
“He said he was glitching? I don’t even know what that means.” Leo was the one talking, Chase struggling to pick up on his tone, but it seemed confused. “I thought glitching was when our bionics went all crazy, he was just like- I don’t know, freaking out.”
There was a pause, and then Adam’s chest rumbled underneath Chase as he spoke. “Douglas did something to him.” The words were accusatory and harsh, they came out like he’d been holding them in for a long time.
“Yeah,” Bree was speaking now, something sharp in her voice, “you did, right before Mr. Davenport took us, something changed. You messed with his bionics, didn’t you?”
“Whoa,” Douglas jumped in quickly, apparently he was there, and Chase was fully awake now, but he couldn’t make himself open his eyes and interrupt what was going on. He was barely breathing, scared to alert anyone that he wasn’t asleep anymore. He didn’t know where this was going, or maybe he did, and he just wanted to hear it for himself. “I don’t mess with anything, I made his bionics, I was giving him a necessary update,” Douglas continued, his words egotistical but also a little agitated, Chase could almost envision the small, jerky movements he made when he got put on the spot.
A tense silence settled for a moment before Douglas spoke again with a sigh. “Look,” his voice was less confident, obviously reluctant to explain himself, “his bionics were too much for his little brain, he was crying about it all the time! You remember, Adam, Bree, right?” The attempt to connect fell flat, neither of Chase's siblings eager to humor Douglas’ anxious attempts at pulling blame off of himself. “So… I fixed it for him, his bionics were already affecting large parts of his brain, I just tweaked it so that his emotional and sensory processing was scanned and anything that didn't threaten his survival was dampened.” The words were rushed, that tremor Douglas got in his voice when he didn’t want to admit to something giving a shake to his words. “It was getting in the way of him learning to use his abilities, I was doing him a favor! I thought so, anyway.” He was rambling now, and Chase was struggling to take this in. He knew, logically, that this had happened, he’d experienced it, he’d noticed the change, but it felt different hearing it straight from the man who had done it, hearing the reasoning behind it.
“I only gave him the update a few months before Donny took you guys, he was only eight, I didn’t know the long term effects. I just saw that he wasn’t getting overwhelmed by everything anymore, I- I figured it was a good thing.” Rhythmic footsteps started up, Douglas was pacing. Chase could feel Adam’s arm around him tightening just a little, Adam was angry, or some other strong emotion that would make his control on his super strength waver. “But then you were gone, and I didn’t see him for so long… I noticed it wasn’t doing what I intended once Donny let me stay with you guys. Or maybe it was, I don’t know, but every time something would happen he had no reaction. I- I’m not surprised he called it glitches, that’s what it looked like, it would be a flash of feeling and then-“ he snapped, “he was neutral, it was freaky, even if he is bionic, his brain shouldn’t do that.”
“So you know you fucked him up and you still didn’t fix it?” Bree spoke so quickly after Douglas that she nearly cut his last word off, her words bristling and angry. Adam’s arm around Chase was trembling, a clear sign he was struggling not to crush his already injured brother.
There were more fiery words, Chase heard Leo jump in, felt the rumble of Adam’s chest as he started attacking Douglas as well. Chase couldn’t take in any of the words being thrown around, could barely process the thoughts racing through his head. He thought that his programming was helping him, that’s what Mr. Davenport always told him, it helped keep his feelings out of training and missions, it made him a stronger leader. So why was Douglas saying that it wasn’t right? It didn’t make any sense.
He couldn’t pretend to not be hearing this any longer, sitting up from Adam and opening his eyes, his gaze immediately landing on Douglas. Someone said “Chase-“ and Chase couldn’t even pick out who, but he cut them off.
“I want to be alone.” He didn’t want this conversation to keep happening, he didn’t want them arguing while he was trying to take in what he’d heard, and he didn’t want the tense silence that would happen if they stayed and stopped talking. None of them moved, Adam sat up after a second, and his hand barely rested on Chase’s arm before Chase jerked away, anger flashing through him. Everything was just so much, he didn’t want to be comforted, he didn’t want them all staring at him. “Get out,” he snapped, the words harsh, his chest heaving once, twice, as his anger rose the longer no one moved. “Get the fuck out!”
The third time seemed to spark reactions, Adam and Bree getting up from the bed, and Chase heard the scrape of the chair as Leo stood up suddenly. Douglas was the only one Chase kept his gaze on, and he watched as Douglas’ eyes widened, his hands fidgeting sporadically as he backed toward the door.
Chase only looked away when Bree stepped in front of him, placing a communicator on the table beside him. “Call us if you need anything,” was all she said, then grabbing Adam’s arm to pull him out the door after Douglas all but scampered out, Leo trailing behind and sending a glance back to Chase before he left as well, closing the door behind him to give Chase privacy, not that the infirmary was ever very busy.
Chase was shaking, his body tense as he breathed harshly. He couldn’t ever remember being this angry, he barely understood why he was so angry, but it felt overwhelming. He had been angry before, anger was good in proportion, it induced adrenaline, which was helpful in a crisis. But this felt different than the controlled, wrongly controlled, anger he’d felt when a mission went sideways, he felt it in his entire body, he felt it cloud his head, and he felt unwanted tears jump to his eye. The fact that he was starting to cry just made it worse, he made a frustrated noise and hit his hands against his head, pulling at his hair and welcoming the spiking pain from his stitched hands and the harsh yank against his scalp. It helped him feel anything but the almost painful anger inside of him, he felt like he wanted to yank his own skin off to get it out.
He felt the tears slip from his eye, and he wanted to scream, but instead he squeezed it shut and pulled his knees to his chest, not caring about the uncomfortable pull of his skin against the stitches or the flashes of pain. He yanked his hair harder, almost growling as he struggled with himself. He shouldn’t feel this, he wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to have his programming pushing this away until it was nothing, he was supposed to be calm and controlled, ready for a mission at any moment. Instead, now, he was unable to control himself, unable to function under the weight of his emotions. Was this what Douglas had wanted for him? Would he even feel like this if he’d experienced his emotions all these years, would losing his bionics be less incapacitating?
He’d been called a robot, much more than his siblings, and he was beginning to wonder if he really had been one. If this was how he was supposed to be feeling, what he’d experienced before was nothing. He was incapable of this, of anger, panic, sadness, he’d never felt human, if this was what humanity was.
His throat felt tight, and then suddenly, he wasn’t angry anymore, he felt sorrow crash down on him, a sob building his throat as he let go of his hair, his hands shaking as he wrapped his arms around himself. He sobbed into his knees, his body shuddering as he mourned his bionics, mourned the fact that he didn’t even know how to be human.
It was so much, he didn’t know how to take all of this in. His bionics processed his information for him, gave him the most important things first and filtered out anything unnecessary, now all he had was his human brain that went too fast for him to linger on one thought before a worse one replaced it.
He distantly registered the sound of the door opening, but Chase couldn’t bring himself to tell whoever it was to leave, only sobbing again into his knees. They couldn’t have left more than twenty minutes ago, did they really not trust him to be by himself anymore? Inadequacy reared in his stomach again, and came out in the form of more tears.
“Chase.”
The voice that Chase heard made him freeze, it felt like everything stopped, his shaking, his sobbing, his thoughts -the only thing that persisted was the steady drip of tears down his face- because that voice wasn’t anyone that had been in the room with him. It was the one person that had actively not come and seen him.
He raised his head almost automatically, eye opening to look at the man who raised him, more tears dripping at the action and the first thing that Chase felt was embarrassed. “Mr. Davenport,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, neutral, but it wavered and came out quieter than he wanted, and more tears sprung to Chase’s eyes at the fact that Mr. Davenport was seeing him like this. Shame and embarrassment burned hot, inadequacy gnawing at him as he let his legs fall and straighten, sitting up straight and ignoring the uncomfortable pulling of his stitches as he tried to look as close to what Mr. Davenport had taught him to be as possible. He could feel his hands starting to shake again and quickly pressed his palms to the mattress, savoring the pain that shot from the wounds as he forced the shaking to stop.
“I’m glad you’re awake.” Mr. Davenport's words were uncharacteristically neutral and his facial expression matched, but his jaw was clenched, and there was an indiscernible look on his eyes that Chase could only jump to conclusions about. Mr. Davenport was disappointed, frustrated, angry, and Chase was the reason for it.
“Y-Yeah,” was all Chase could manage, and he wanted to punch himself for the stutter, his teeth gritting in frustration at himself for being so unable to act like he had before all of this happened to him. He should be briefing Mr. Davenport on his status, his injuries, how long he’d been awake, instead all of his words felt stuck in his throat. He didn’t even know any of that information, he had no way of knowing.
Mr. Davenport looked at Chase for a second before he broke their gaze, looking instead to the side of Chase. Chase glanced over and his eyes landed on the tablet sitting on the table next to him as Mr. Davenport spoke. “Have you read through all of the reports on your condition?” He asked in the same way that he asked Chase if he’d reread the mission report and noted what he’d done wrong, he was expecting a yes, and Chase couldn’t give that to him. Chase hadn’t read through the reports, he had needed Leo to stop him from freaking out at just the thought of doing so. He pressed his palms harder into the mattress, his face hot with shame.
“No, I haven’t,” he admitted, not daring to look away from the tablet and look at Mr. Davenport. He knew he should grab it right now, start reading so that he could do something right, but he couldn’t make himself reach for it. His palms pressed harder, he could feel the stitches pulling tight at his flesh as the pain splintered over and under his skin.
He heard a sharp exhale that sent anxiety seizing his chest, and then Mr. Davenport was back in his vision, picking up the tablet and tapping at it before he held it out to Chase. Chase couldn’t move to grab it, his hands felt stuck to the mattress, the pain the only thing that was keeping him from… being even more of a disappointment to his father, he was sure. He couldn’t make himself say that he couldn’t out loud, the thoughts so foreign that they couldn’t get out of his head, let alone for him to even try and say them out loud.
There was a pause that felt like hours to Chase before Mr. Davenport pulled the tablet back. Chase forced himself to at least give Mr. Davenport the respect of looking at him, his eyes darting up, and he saw the hard expression that Mr. Davenport wore, looking down at the tablet. Chase forced himself to breathe out, the air stuck in his lungs with the weight of his failure, the weight of being so useless that he couldn’t even read a report that Mr. Davenport was handing to him.
“We had to completely remove your bionics.” The suddenness of the words sent a jolt though Chase, his breath stuttering as Mr. Davenport said it so matter-of-fact. Douglas had at least tried to be placating, but Mr. Davenport clearly wasn’t in the mood to cater to Chase’s new weakness, and Chase didn’t blame him, even if it made his heart beat hard in his chest. “Giselle’s android destroyed your power supply and it sent a surge, shorting out all of your receptors. They were heating up and blistering your muscle, Douglas and I removed them all, including the one in your neck.”
Chase felt a twinge of pain at the back of his neck at the mention of it, and had a flash of blood pouring down his back, pain unbearable and unable to be stopped. He forced himself to take a breath and keep his eye on Mr. Davenport, he couldn’t freak out now, out of everyone, Mr. Davenport was the one person that Chase wanted to show he could still function the most. “Your bionic eye was also removed,” Mr. Davenport continued, barreling through all of the information that Chase struggled not to let himself have emotional attachment to, “the wire connecting it to the power was severed, and even if it wasn’t, it couldn’t have functioned without your chip.” He stopped after that, looking at Chase, expecting him to confirm that he had processed the information.
“Okay,” Chase forced himself to say. His throat felt tight, and his voice still wasn’t coming out how he wanted it to. He still couldn’t guess how Mr. Davenport was feeling, he was used to the man being obvious about it and now it looked like he was purposefully not wanting Chase to know. Chase counted his inhales and exhales, forcing them to be even as Mr. Davenport looked at him and sent anxiety spiking in his gut.
“I’ve been trying to find a way to restore your bionics, or at least some of them.” Those words had Chase at rapt attention, his breathing stopping this time out of pure hope that he wouldn’t have to stay like this. But Mr. Davenport was shaking his head, his knuckles white as his grip on the tablet tightened, and Chase felt his hope build and crash in the matter of a second, a hollow feeling settling in his chest. “It wasn’t possible, your muscle is too damaged for me to replace your receptors without extreme discomfort. I can replace your eye, but it won’t have all of its prior capabilities, it would mostly be for your sight, and I can add some scanning processors, but that won’t be able to happen until your socket and nerve endings in the area have fully healed.”
Chase was barely listening as Mr. Davenport told him how impossible it was for him to have his bionics back, he felt as if he wasn’t even in the room anymore, his mind pulling away from what his father was telling him because he knew he would just prove further how useless he truly was, how useless he would always be now. “I’ll never have my bionics again?” he mumbled, almost to himself, his words a far cry from the confidence Mr. Davenport instilled in him.
“Weren’t you listening?” Mr. Davenport’s words had a sharp edge, snapping Chase back into himself and making him feel the crushing weight of all of this settling on his shoulders. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been pressing so hard on the bed, his palms almost numb from the pain burning through them.
Chase had to look away, chest almost heaving as he tried to force his breathing to slow. He couldn’t do this, not in front of Mr. Davenport, not when he was clearly already frustrated with Chase for already not being what he wanted anymore. “Yes,” he managed to say, the word almost ripped out of his chest as it felt harder and harder to speak.
“Okay, clearly you can’t handle a simple brief right now.” Mr. Davenport’s words made Chase want to curl up and disappear. “I know you’re getting used to not having your bionics, but this is ridiculous. Let me know when I can update you and you can handle it.” Chase could hear the annoyance clearly now, and he couldn’t look away from his locked stare at the mattress as he heard Mr. Davenport walk out, his heavy footsteps each sending a spike of self hatred through Chase’s heart as his father left him.
As soon as Chase couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore, he felt the control he’d forced on himself slip, hunching in from his straight posture as his breath turned ragged, palms pressing harder, harder, until he felt something give, and warmth pooled under one of his hands. He’d broken a stitch, but he barely registered that as his mind spun with thoughts of how Mr. Davenport now thought he was worthless. He couldn’t do the simple task of objectively taking information, he couldn’t control his emotions when Mr. Davenport was telling him something important, he felt like he couldn’t do anything anymore.
His palms finally moved from the mattress, one throbbing with pain and the other slick with his own blood. His eyes caught on the red, he felt it trickle down his wrist, and he swore he could feel the knife in his neck, carving out his bionics while blood soaked his skin, the pain hot and sharp. He was breathing so fast it felt like he wasn’t, his lungs burning for air as his eye stayed fixed on the blood in his palm. He felt like he couldn’t move, his mind replaying the same moment over and over, his neck throbbing with the memory of the pain.
He could have been stuck there for minutes or hours, repeating the pain, the blood, the pain, before he felt someone grabbing his bleeding hand. He seemed to snap out of it as soon as the contact was made, jerking back forcefully, pulling his hand to his chest, and pulling his knees back up to curl in on himself. He couldn’t move, couldn’t tell them to leave, to not hurt him. He started rocking back and forth, breath coming in and out quicker than he could catch, he couldn’t even protect himself, without his bionics…
His bionics, they were already gone, they couldn’t be taken again, they wouldn’t hurt him more if they already had what they wanted. That thought was what stopped his spiral for long enough for him to process that someone was speaking. He managed to look up, his gaze hooking on his sister, her words finally getting through to him.
“Chase,” Bree seemed relieved that Chase had looked at her, “you’re hyperventilating, you need to breathe,” she told him, her worried eyes darting down to where Chase had his bleeding hand clutched to his chest and then back up to his face. Chase felt like his brain was working in slow motion, barely taking in what Bree was saying. He had to breathe, he forced himself to suck a full breath in and it caught in his throat, choking him as his breathing sprung back to going way too fast.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and he flinched, pulling his shoulder away, the contact feeling like knives digging into his skin. He squeezed his injured hand, the pain shooting from his bleeding palm, and that was what got him to finally take a breath, his nails digging in around the wound as he used the pain to ground himself enough to breathe in and out.
He counted his inhales and exhales, keeping them even as he let his body uncurl from the hunched position he’d ended up in. He pulled his hands from his chest, looking down, and his heart skipped a beat at the blood coating his palm, caked under his nails and trailing thick down his wrist and arm, a slow trickle still continuing from being unable to close itself without the stitch. He felt nausea rise in his throat and he had to look away so that his mind didn’t wander again, his eye landing on Bree, who looked a little pale, but clearly concerned more than anything.
“I- I don’t know if you want me to touch you, but do you think you could wrap your hand?” Bree asked once she realized Chase was looking at her and coherent. The stutter was uncharacteristic, Chase accidentally stumbled over his words more than Bree ever had. She was holding a roll of gauze, her arm half extended as if hesitant to let Chase do it himself.
Chase, truthfully, didn’t want to do it himself. He didn’t want to look at or touch it any more than he already had. He didn’t understand the panic in his chest at the sight of the blood, he’d never been queasy, countless uncensored training exercises and violent missions and Adam related injuries had made sure he was desensitized to a little blood. But now, just the sight of it sent him spiraling back to when he was in that chair.
He extended the bleeding palm out to Bree, keeping his gaze away from it. “You do it,” he managed, his voice strained and barely more than a whisper. Bree’s eyes widened a little for a moment, clearly not having expected Chase to let her, but then she quickly looked to his hand to get to work. He felt her carefully grab his hand and pull it a little closer, and then the feeling of gauze wrapping over the wound, tight but careful.
“I’ll have to fix the stitches when you’re ready, but this will stop the bleeding for now,” Bree said as she secured the gauze. “I’m going to grab a couple things, I’ll be right back.”
Before Chase could even think of missing the presence of his sister, she was gone and back, now holding some things in her arms. She sat in the chair beside the bed and set her items down on the small table, first selecting a package of wipes. “I’m just going to clean your arm off,” she told him as she opened the package and pulled out a few of the wipes.
Chase felt a lot calmer as he let Bree wipe the blood off of his arm, then offering his other hand so that she could wipe the blood that had gotten on his nails and his skin. He was careful with his un-stitched palm as he let his hands fall back to the bed, carefully avoiding the dark stain of his blood on the sheets that made something spike in his chest when his eye caught on it.
“I brought you a new shirt,” Bree said, diverting Chase’s attention from the bed. She was holding one of his t-shirts, and Chase had to assume that the reason was because there was blood on the one he was wearing. He didn’t want to even look down to confirm, just reaching to tug it off, struggling slightly with his injured hands but managing to get it off, realizing at some point that the IV he’d had the first couple times he’d woke up had been removed. Bree took the blood-stained shirt when Chase reached for the clean one, struggling into it and feeling marginally better once it was on.
Chase looked back to Bree, and saw that she was picking through a drawer connected to the table beside his bed, it was full of miscellaneous medical supplies, and Chase presumed that was where she got the gauze for his palm. “I’m going to have to fix your stitches,” she said, her eyes looking at Chase apologetically as his face twitched in the anticipated pain. “I’ll be fast, you’ll barely feel it.” Chase knew that of all people, Bree was being truthful. He knew from experience that she could manage to fix the stitches in a second flat, but that didn’t negate the extra soreness afterward, which he was sure he would feel doubly without his bionics, as he had every other pain so far.