Less of a Descent into Villainy, More of a Slip 'n' Slide

*(an ambiguously noncanon depiction of alternate universe Bolt)*

It's a whim, really.

He passes the house often when he goes out, wandering the outskirts of the city to do anything but sit at home and feel ignored. It's become a routine, swinging by the rundown old house to see the old man in oversized goggles puttering around, messing with all sorts of interesting things. So when Mel goes by at the usual time and sees the lights off, he has an impulse and… follows it.

The window isn't even locked. Mel considers leaving a sticky note about home security as he slides it open and muffles a snicker as he clambers through the window and lands silently inside the house.

The lab--as his eyes adjust to the dark, it becomes very clear that it is a lab--is cluttered, workbenches strewn with tools and materials and half-built contraptions meant to do who knows what. Mel turns over a thin, jointed piece of metal in his hands and puts it down as his attention is suddenly drawn to a large computer set against one wall.

The screen is mostly dark, but as he watches a red dot bloom in the center of the screen, expanding and becoming brighter and then contracting and dimming again until the screen is dark once more. The pattern repeats several times, and as Mel stands there, entranced, he can't shake the feeling that it's almost like the computer is… *breathing*.

"What… are you?" he breathes; the words are out before he realizes he's speaking.

Immediately, the circle flares to full brightness and stays there as letters in red font spell out across the bottom of the screen.

TRAPPED

Mel startles back a step, but the instinct is quickly overcome by curiosity and he moves closer to the computer.

"Trapped?" he asks, careful to keep his voice down. "Trapped where?"

The word deletes itself, and then--

LET ME OUT

"Let you out of *where*?" Mel hisses, ducking to check all around the computer. There's a single cord extending from the console, connected to nothing.

LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT, scrolling endlessly across the bottom of the screen.

"Look, I get it," Mel snaps, straightening up with the cord in his hand. "I'm trying, so chill the fuck out, okay? How can I help you?"

The words disappear all at once, leaving only the red circle for a moment, before--

BEHIND YOU

Mel automatically checks over his shoulder and there, in the shadows on the bench behind him, is the shape of a bird.

"Is that… You wanna go in that thing?" he asks, looking back to check the screen. Less than helpfully, the whatever-it-is (must be an AI of some sort, he thinks to himself) has gone back to scrolling an unending demand for freedom.

"Gotta do everything myself, I guess," he mutters, then walks over to inspect the bird.

It's certainly an interesting piece of machinery. Mel can't help but get distracted for a moment inspecting it. It's unmistakably a crow or a raven, and covered in sharp edges to the point where it takes a good few seconds to find a safe place to pick it up. It's heavy, too, at least two feet tall and apparently solid metal. Still, he manages to lift it and carry it over to the computer, setting it down heavily on the bench beside it.

"Okay, uh, you," he says as he picks up the cord and starts inspecting the bird again. "I'll connect you to this bird thing, but then it's up to you. I don't know shit about computers."

A sideways glance at the monitor reveals the words have stopped again. The monitor is blank except for that unceasing red circle. Waiting. It's a little creepy, so Mel returns to the mechanical bird.

After a minute or so of hunting, he finds a small hatch at the base of the head that, when flipped open, reveals a port that appears to match the end of the cord. Grinning, he turns back to the computer, waving the cable triumphantly.

"All right, dude, found it. You ready to… spread your wings, or whatever?"

The circle pulses. Mel takes that as a yes. He lines up the port with the end of the cord, then pauses. "By the way," he says, "no turning evil and killing me as a weird bird robot, okay? I help you out here, we're bros. We're cool. Got it?"

There's a pause, in which Mel starts to resign himself to the fact that he may or may not get killed by this computer, and then it flashes--

PROMISE

He grins wide and gets halfway through raising a hand to offer a fistbump or high five before he realizes the computer has no limbs--yet. Which reminds him…

"All right, then," he says. "In three… two…"

He pushes the cord into the robot. The circle expands to fill the entire monitor with glowing red light, and then blinks off entirely. Where his fingers are still touching the robot, he feels a sharp, electric pain, and then his vision goes red, and then white, and then there's nothing at all.

--

His head feels… full.

It's an odd feeling, like trying to walk against the flow of a crowd in what should be an empty room. He can't think in one direction because there are thoughts going the other. It makes his head hurt until he realizes how much easier it is to think parallel to the whatever-else is in his brain.

At first it feels simple to understand the *Get up, get up* flowing through his head, but as he starts to wake and becomes more aware it's like he… desynchronizes, and suddenly they aren't words he's hearing but something more like numbers, and whatever it is it's *not him* but it's in his *brain* what *is* that--

Mel's eyes fly open to see two red glowing circles surrounded by darkness above him, that his addled mind takes a second to reconcile into the robotic raven, activated, perched on his chest where he's laying on the floor of the old man's lab.

Before he can corral his brain into coherent thought, he blurts out, "You promised not to kill me."

"I did nothing of the sort."

Mel nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a new, *deeply irritated* voice. For a second he thinks it's the robot, having gained the power of speech with its new body, and then he notices just past it that standing over them, with crossed arms, a deeply displeased expression, and a large wrench held threateningly in one hand, is the old man.

Mel has never seen him from closer than the street by his house, and he realizes now that despite the frazzled mess of silver hair surrounding his head, the man isn't really that *old* at all. Maybe a little older than his dad, if that.

And then he processes what he just said.

"Uh. I was talking to your bird. But also, please don't?" He makes a game attempt at a winning smile. "I'll just leave, it's cool."

The man narrows his eyes slightly, his gaze darting to the bird and back to Mel's face. "So you break into my workshop," he says slowly, "Interfere with my projects, and expect to just… walk out of here?"

"Okay, in my defense," Mel says hurriedly, pushing himself up into a sitting position. In the process he dislodges the bird, which perches on his knee instead. "I wasn't gonna interfere with anything, but she asked me to. She did *not* like being stuck in that computer."

He almost blacks out again as he's hit with a sudden wash of *anger let me OUT let me GO get even make them PAY--*

"Jesus *christ*! Chill the *fuck* out, holy shit, you're giving me a headache," he wheezes, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing his temples.

"Ex*cuse* me?"

"Not you," Mel snaps, too preoccupied with his pounding head to remember to be civil to the man threatening him with a wrench. "Your bird, dude, she's pissed as hell. Stop yelling, jesus." He directs the last to the robot in question, who stares back at him unrepentantly.

"You… are speaking to it?"

"What?" Mel drops his hands and looks up to see the old man's pissed expression melting into surprise, and then… interest? He looks down at the bird, then back up. "Wait, do you not hear her?"

"I most certainly do not," he says, frowning thoughtfully. "In fact, it shouldn't be able to *speak* at all."

"Tell that to her," Mel says, poking the bird in the chest. It snaps at him and he snatches his finger back before she can cut him, giving her a baleful look in return.

"... Come here, boy."

"Uh." Mel hesitates, glancing at the wrench, but the realization that *something weird is happening here* itches at him and he pushes himself to his feet. The bird alights from his knee and flies over to land on one of the workbenches, and he almost falls over at the sudden shift in his brain. "Holy shit. That was weird."

"Is she still speaking to you?" The man asks, peering closely at him.

Mel blinks, looking at the bird. She stares back, unmoving. His thoughts remain only his own. "Uh, no," he says, shaking his head sharply as if he can loosen his thoughts enough for them to fill up the sudden empty space in the brain. "No, she shut up, I guess."

The man hums. "Come here."

Mel goes, pulling his eyes away from the bird. The man produces a small rectangular box covered in buttons with a small blinking light on one end from a pocket in the leather smock he's wearing, and holds it out to Mel. "Take it."

Mel glances up at the man's face, but his expression has morphed entirely from anger to fascination, and he takes the box.

And immediately drops it as lines of red light snake out from where his hand comes in contact with the metal across the surface of the machine.

"What the *fuck*!"

"If you *break* my inventions, I'm going to lose my patience very quickly," the man snaps.

"Dude, did you see that? The fuck was that?" Mel demands, ignoring him entirely in favor of staring at his--apparently perfectly normal--hand.

"Yes, I did, and it's why you're still standing in my workshop. Now if you wouldn't mind, try that again *without* dropping it, this time."

Mel squints at the man, but he's impassive. With a shrug, he bends down and picks the blinking box up again. The light appears again, spreading from his fingertips across both his hand and the machine, and he becomes aware of… it's not *thoughts*, exactly. But there's something else in his brain, more parallel lines pushing against his mind, and when he pokes at them it's easy to slip into the current and let it pull him, showing him connections and signals until a picture starts to clarify in his mind.

"Well?" The voice of the not-so-old man snaps him out of it and Mel blinks several times, shaking his head.

"It, uh, this is some sort of… remote? For…" He twists around, gesturing vaguely towards what seems to be just some sort of lump on a workbench across the room. "For whatever that thing is."

The man's expression hasn't changed, but there's definitely a spark of something in his eyes when Mel turns back around to face him. "And it told you that?" he prompts, raising one eyebrow.

Mel rubs the back of his neck. "Uh, sort of?" he says. "More like… it showed me, I guess? Or I saw it? It doesn't really *think* like she does," he adds, gesturing towards the bird, who cocks her head.

"Fascinating," the man says, taking the remote back and slipping it back into his smock. "What's your name, boy?"

"Oh, uh, I'm Melchior," Mel says, smiling a little sheepishly. "My parents are pretty pretentious, I know. I usually just go by Mel."

"Well, Melchior," the man says, laying his wrench down on the workbench. "My name is Eddison Gere. You may call me Eddison, or Mr. Gere; it makes no difference to me. But I am *very* interested in learning more about your… new talent with machines."

"Holy shit, dude, you and me both," Mel says, and at Eddison's stern look adds, "Uh, I mean, same, Mr. Gere."

Eddison nods, evidently satisfied. "Excellent. I assume you're in school; come by again afterwards, and we'll… begin looking into it."

Mel's face stretches into a grin. "Hell yeah! Absolutely!"

"Good." Eddison nods again, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I presume you can get out the same way you got in. Oh, and Melchior?" His face hardens again, and Mel swallows. "I don't think I have to tell you not to speak of this lab or what happens inside it to anyone else."

Mel bobs his head. "Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Gere. Mouth shut. You got it."

Eddison hums. "All right then. Off you go. I'll see you soon, Melchior."

"Yeah, see you!" Mel bounces back a few steps back towards the window. "You too, bird!"

The bird turns her baleful red gaze back towards him.

Mel clambers back out the window, sliding it shut behind him, and darts off in the direction of the nearest bus stop. He can't keep the grin off his face; something tells him this is the beginning of something *incredible*.

--

It's an easy routine to slip into. Go to school, pretend to pay attention while he doodles birds and blueprints in his notebooks instead. Take the bus out to the suburbs, book it from the bus stop to Eddison's house, go in (through the back door, not the window he finally starts locking). Spend hours testing his technopathy and helping Eddison troubleshoot his designs. Take the last bus home. Ignore emails from Cassiopeia, a whole continent away at school in California. Sleep. Repeat.

Mel feels alive in a way he hasn't since Cassi moved out. Eddison is a strict taskmaster with little patience for teen antics and no compunctions against smacking him upside the head when he pushes it, but he can't say that he really *minds* when the man gives him a myriad of incredible machines to commune with. He feels special, *powerful*, even necessary--the first time he figured out a tricky problem with a faulty invention and Eddison clapped him on the shoulder the elation lasted a full day.

And he gets to hang out with the bird, too. He can't help but feel connected to her, and she seems to feel similarly. When he's in the workshop, she likes to perch on his shoulder or on the workbench beside him and watch him while he works. Sometimes she bites, hard enough to draw blood on his ear or his arm or his hand. Mel doesn't mind. When he connects to her, he can still feel that same anger swirling around inside. He knows she needs an outlet.

(He bought her a cat tree, partially as a joke--she'd bitten him extra hard for that one, but he can't help but notice the signs of use that appear when he's not around.)

He votes to call her *Wingnut*. Eddison glares at him, and calls her *Pinion*. She doesn't care either way.

Between the three of them (and Pinion can be very helpful when she wants to be, like a guiding presence for Mel's abilities to latch onto) they get Eddison's prototype functional in no time: a helmet that controls a swarm of drones with the speed and fluidity of thought. They test it first in the workshop, with one or two drones flying around and doing simple tasks like picking something up. As Eddison gets more comfortable with the machine, and together they fine-tune it, they add more drones to the swarm, and increase the complexity of the commands. Soon it's a truly incredible sight to behold, the darkened yard full of swirling robotic bees all intent on individual tasks, all directed by one man. Mel has never seen anything more beautiful.

And in the meantime, when he has some time to himself in the workshop as Eddison makes adjustments he doesn't need help for, Mel makes something of his own. It's a robot, a companion a bit like Pinion, but instead of a bird it's a jointed metal cobra.

It doesn't think like Pinion; when Mel interfaces with it, it has no direction but what he gives it. A shell without a ghost.

It's one of those times, as Mel directs the cobra to glide smoothly across the workbench, that it really begins.

"You know, Melchior," Eddison says. Mel nearly jumps out of his skin; he thought his--mentor?--was still at his own bench, but the man is standing right behind him, watching the snake with an intent, considering eye. "I didn't make Pinion."

"Uh, what?" Mel asks, still settling down. "Yeah, you did."

"Her body, yes," Eddison says, running a finger down her back where she's perched on his shoulder. "But not her mind. I… liberated her from her creators."

Mel squints at him. "Are you… suggesting I steal an AI from somebody? For my snake?"

"I am *suggesting*, my boy," Eddison says, and he lays a hand on Mel's shoulder and *squeezes*. "That your work deserves to be elevated."

Mel frowns, still dubious. "By *stealing*, though?"

Eddison's face falls into familiar stern lines and his grip tightens. "Melchior," he says gravely, "If I teach you anything, let it be that anything you want in life, you have to *take*. You and I have a gift--and we deserve to be able to express that gift. We deserve the resources to bring our work to the next level. And we deserve the world's spotlight so that work can be *seen* and *admired* by all. And we can either take all those things for ourselves, or squander our lives in obscurity."

He releases Mel's shoulder. Mel bites the inside of his cheek, staring up at two sets of eyes--one a piercing blue and the other a sinister red. He breaks eye contact, running a finger down the length of the snake, his mind sinking into its inner workings. Empty. Incomplete.

"I'll think about it," he hedges.

Eddison huffs and straightens up, turning back to his own bench. "Very well."

Mel spends the rest of his time in the workshop fiddling with his tools and thinking about a red circle on a dark screen until Eddison finally gets tired of his lack of productivity and sends him home.

--

It's past dark by the time he gets back to the apartment. He normally makes an effort to get home before his parents, to avoid raising questions about his new… extracurriculars. But tonight he's been seized by the urge to just… *not*. Stay out and see what happens. It's a lame rebellion, maybe, but for once he just… doesn't feel like hiding.

He practically slams the door open, taking his time rustling around hanging up his backpack in the entranceway. The apartment is dark, but he can see light streaming out from around the edges of the closed door to his parents' study. He steps heavily as he picks his way towards his room, watching the light out of the corner of his eye.

The door swings open, his dad's features barely visible against the backlight of the study.

Daniel Mercury is a tall man, like Mel, and a broad one, unlike Mel. Mel doesn't need to make out his features to visualize the half-disappointed, half-disinterested look on his face. It's the same look he gives whenever Mel has done something that doesn't reach his standards.

"Melchior?" he asks, as if it could be anyone else.

Mel takes a deep breath and shifts, leaning against the back of the couch as he turns to fully face his father. "Yeah, Dad," he says, as nonchalantly as he can.

"Were you out?"

Mel fights the urge to roll his eyes. He shrugs instead. "Yeah."

As his eyes adjust to the light, he can just make out his dad's frown. But Dan Mercury doesn't say anything; instead, he just grunts, turns, and shuts the door behind him.

Mel blows out a long exhale, slumping against the couch. He should be relieved to get off without even a reprimand, but instead he feels… like he'd been preparing for a fight without even realizing it, and it never materialized. Tired and disappointed and hollow. And beneath that is a slow-growing anger. A part of him wants to kick down his parents' door and force them to… to *acknowledge* him, at least.

Instead, he pushes off the couch and stalks into his room, slamming the door behind him in another bit of petty rebellion. He flops down on his bed, one arm flung over his eyes.

After a long moment of grinding his teeth, he digs his phone out of his pocket and pulls up Eddison's number.

It had taken a fair amount of badgering (and a few more times breaking in through the window) to convince Eddison to give him his number just so he could tell him when he'd arrived to let him in the door. The conversation is mostly Mel announcing his presence, or sending pictures of birds he's seen in his daily life. The rare response from Eddison is usually a one-word response to a question.

Chewing on his cheek, Mel taps out, *I thought about it. I'm in.*

He sees the typing icon almost immediately, and after a moment gets back, *Good. We start preparing tomorrow.*

And then, after a long moment, *I'm proud of you, Melchior. This is the first step towards taking what you deserve.*

Mel's mouth stretches into a smile so wide it hurts his cheeks, without his permission. He rolls over to plug in his phone and then just lays awake in bed for too long, too much adrenaline coursing through him to sleep. He feels like he's stepped off a precipice, but with no fear of hitting the ground--just the lurch in his stomach of a step you can't take back, and the exhilaration of falling.

He can't wait to get started.

--

If the heart-pounding excitement of breaking into a secure laboratory wasn't fulfillment enough, the moment the snake bot's eyes light up red erases any lingering doubts from Mel's mind. He isn't as smart as Pinion, but he's playful, mischievous in a terribly endearing way. Mel is already thinking of ways he can be helpful the next time they do something like this.

He names him Screwdriver; Eddison is in such a good mood he barely even rolls his eyes.

"Have you seen the news?" Mel asks, spinning around on his stool with Screwdriver sprawled across his shoulders. "We made headlines."

Eddison hums without looking away from the drone he's repairing. "We made quite the impression."

"They're calling you *Gearhead*," Mel says, kicking out a foot to stop his spinning and leaning forward. "They don't even know your name. Do you think they'd change it if they knew?"

Eddison snorts and finally looks up. "No, I imagine they would double down. They tend to be rather insipid about these things."

Mel props his elbows on his workbench and drops his chin in his hands. "*I* didn't get a fun name," he says, with just the edge of a playful whine in his voice.

It's the sort of teasing Eddison would normally ignore, but he's been in a good mood ever since they got out with Screwdriver and he instead lays down his tools and faces him.

"Perhaps we should make one of our own, then," he says, pushing his goggles up into his hair. He reaches out and flicks Mel lightly between the eyes. "If I'm to be Gearhead, perhaps you can be *Cog*."

Mel recoils with exaggerated disgust, throwing a hand dramatically against his chest. "*Cog*? I'm *offended*. I'm not a cog in this machine. I'm the glue holding this whole operation together!" He waves a hand at the whole workshop. Screwdriver, displeased with his gesturing, wraps himself securely around his bicep.

Eddison snorts. "Would you prefer to be called Glue, then?"

Mel splutters. "I mean, *no*!"

Eddison chuckles and pulls his goggles back down over his eyes. "Then unless you have a better idea, my boy, Cog it is."

Mel scoffs and turns back to his bench, letting Screwdriver wend his way down his arm back onto its surface. Mel sifts through the pile of miscellaneous hardware idly, then plucks something out. "What about Bolt?" he asks, turning to look at Eddison.

Eddison hums. "It's better than Glue," he concedes, the corner of his lips quirking up.

Mel grins and looks down at Screwdriver, who lifts himself up and cocks his head curiously. Bolt it is, then.

"We should get costumes," he says.

Eddison actually laughs.

--

Bolt heaves himself out of the Spanner's cockpit, clambering up onto its broad head and plopping down to watch the sun set behind the Halcyon City skyline. Screwdriver unwinds from around his waist and coils himself beside him, looking for all the world like a real snake basking in the sun.

The mech had taken a lot of time and effort and supplies--many obtained through less-than-legal but very fun means--but it was totally worth it. Gearhead had initially tried to argue him down to a more precise vehicle. Bolt had argued that they had plenty of precision tools, and sometimes what they really needed was a blunt instrument.

It was his technopathy that got them in the lab to steal the power source they needed, so it was his idea that won out in the end.

If he's been making more suggestions for mission plans that involve breaking through walls than getting around security since its construction, well… sue him. He has a mech now, and he wants to use it.

Besides, he likes the attention.

His phone vibrates in its hidden pocket in his sleek black and red bodysuit, and he looks away from the rapidly fading sunlight to check it. The corner of his lips twitch up. Verve.

Moving into the public eye had its perks: besides the regular adrenaline rushes, cool robots, and the attention of all of Halcyon City, there was a whole network of people doing the same things they were doing. Where Gearhead is antisocial, reaching out only when necessary and rarely in person, Bolt has thrown himself wholeheartedly into the world of teen supervillains. It's just more fun that way.

He gets to his feet and stretches as the last rays of the sunset disappear behind the skyline. Screwdriver perks up, and Bolt scoops him up and deposits him across his shoulders.

"We should tell the old man we're gonna be back late," he says, flicking the snake under the chin. "Whatever Verve is up to oughtta be good. Might take a while."

Screwdriver bumps his head against his chin in response and Bolt laughs, dropping back down into the cockpit of the Spanner. Red eyes glow to life in the large metal tyrannosaur head as Bolt flips the switches to power the machine back up.

A thunderous, robotic roar echoes off the buildings as night falls over Halcyon City and the Spanner takes off across the rooftops. It's impossible to ignore.

Inside the cockpit, snake coiled snugly around his arm and his next caper on the horizon, Bolt grins.