#ollie: …..fine. someone will have to be uninvited then

[blackbatcass]

listen I know it’s kind of corny and inaccurate to act like every single person in the dc universe knows each other and is besties but it IS endlessly funny to me to follow the web of connections and see how many degrees removed from each other everyone is.

like look at the arrowfam okay. ollie and dinah are together, ollie is homoerotic best friends with hal, dinah is homoerotic best friends with babs. roy is dating dick, has a kid with jade, and is basically an adoptive father to both grant emerson and rose wilson. connor is dating kyle and is constantly followed around by eddie fyers. mia is friends with a lot of the second gen teen titans kids, had an on-again-off-again thing going on with steph for a while, and is currently dating sienna. emiko is besties with courtney and some of the other recent teen titans. sin has a small army of protective aunts from the birds of prey. the real question is how far does it go before ollie puts a cap on the number of people who are invited to family brunch on sundays

[juju-on-that-yeet]

When Evil Rears its Head: Chapter 5: Massacre

In which the shit hits the fan. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Read below or on AO3!

While Peevils naps, Bim is thinking.

He’s now in his bedroom on the fourth floor, and he still isn’t sure what’s up with Wilford. The man is pretty much always in his studio; Bim knocks out of politeness more than anything. That, and so he doesn’t get a bullet or a knife to the chest. But Wilford must have been in there, the gunshot Bim had heard as he was leaving attested to that. Unless someone else was in Wilford’s studio firing a gun, but who? And why? And if it was Wilford, why hadn’t he answered Bim’s knock? Bim feels like he might be overthinking it, something he tends to do quite a bit. But then again, something might actually be happening this time. He spends what feels like an eternity trying to read a book (he borrowed it from the Host a few days ago and is already three-fourths of the way done with it), but he can’t concentrate. When he hears a knocking at his door, he decides that reading is not in the cards for him today and gets up to answer. Part of him hopes it’s Wilford, but the same part of him is unsurprised to find that it isn’t.

But he is surprised that it’s Yandere.

“Yandere?” Bim asks. “Um, hello. Did you need something?”

Bim and Yandere are not friends. Bim doesn’t dislike Yandere, and Yandere seems pretty indifferent to Bim, but Bim generally avoids the younger, more violent and volatile ego. If he’s being honest with himself, Yandere freaks him out. Even when he’s pleasant there’s the sense that something burns beneath the surface.

“Konnichiwa, Bim-san,” Yandere greets, “I just wanted to ask you about something.”

“Alright, what?” Bim asks.

“Earlier, there was, well…” Yandere scratches the back of his neck nervously, “…an incident with Yami-san. I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”

“Incident?” Bim furrows his brow. That doesn’t sound good. “What do you mean?”

“Someone did something to him,” Yandere explains, “It was like he’d been put under a spell. He couldn’t move until…” Yandere’s cheeks redden slightly, “…I snapped him out of it. But after I did, he said something bad was happening and that he had to stop it. He teleported somewhere, but he didn’t say where he was going.” Yandere’s face draws up with concern as he remembers. “He seemed…unnerved. Scared, even. What could possibly have made Yami-san afraid?”

Bim remembers the events from earlier again. He feels a spike of worry in his chest. Could this be connected?

“I have no idea,” Bim answers, mostly truthfully. He could be wrong; whatever’s going on with Wilford could be completely unrelated to Dark. He doesn’t want to send Yandere on a wild goose chase, especially when said chase would involve Yandere barging into Wilford’s studio uninvited. That would most likely only make things worse. Bim can get to the bottom of this without Yandere. He’s Bim Trimmer, after all! And he knows exactly who can help him out.

“Well, arigtou anyway, Bim-san,” Yandere sighs, “I already talked to Tayori-kun and Tenki-kun, but they didn’t know anything either.” Annoyance crosses his face. “They were so panicky and jittery it took me forever to even get a good answer from them. It was like they thought I was going to hurt them. Why would I ever do something like that?” Yandre tilts his head and smiles. Bim shivers.

“Yeah, the Jims are pretty nervous guys,” Bim says smoothly, trying not to let Yandere’s grin scare him. “Wish I could be more help.”

“Arigatou again, Bim-san,” Yandere says with a little wave, “Sayonara~!”

Bim manages a half-hearted wave of his own as Yandere leaves. He closes the door and spends a few minutes thinking over what Yandere told him.

Dark? Afraid? What on earth could possibly make Dark, of all people, afraid? Bim hates to think. And what could ever control him, make him unable to move? Bim wonders if Yandere might have mistaken the situation, but he knows that the younger ego knows Dark much better than Bim does.

Once he’s sure he won’t have to worry about running into Yandere in the hallway, he leaves his room and heads for the third floor. He takes the stairs, not wanting to bother with the elevator, which often takes longer to get down one floor than walking, anyhow. Once there, he heads not for Wilford’s studio, but for the control room.

That’s the general nickname for the room, anyway. It’s where the security of the entire building is managed, camera feeds and firewalls and the microphone for the building’s intercom. It was the Googles who built the room and continue to refine its gadgets by the day, and their shared bedroom is located behind a steel door on one side of the room. Bim generally likes going to the control room, if only because Oliver is usually there. He’s optimistic and kind and cute and Bim gets so wrapped up in thoughts of Oliver that he almost walks right past the control room. No one’s around to see it, but pink rises in cheeks anyway. He knocks on the door, and it clangs loudly. Bim grimaces. He always knocks louder than he means to on that door. It’s Oliver who opens it, grinning when he sees Bim.

“Hey, Bim!” he greets, “What’s up?”

“Hi, Ollie!” Bim replies, smiling big despite his worries about Dark and Wilford, “I actually wanted to know if you and the others could, uh, check on something for me?”

Oliver tilts his head slightly in confusion (it’s almost too cute for Bim to handle), and a voice speaks up from inside the control room:

“We’re not errand boys, and we’re not babysitters. Check on it yourself.”

Bim recognizes the voice and caustic sass as being Google’s. He’s in front of some small machine, poking at its wires, not even looking at Bim. Chrome and Plus are on the machine’s other sides, doing the same. Bim frowns.

“At least let me explain,” he mutters. Oliver looks like he’s trying not to grin, but he comes to Bim’s defense.

“Yeah, Google,” he says, turning to the other android, “Bim hardly ever asks you for anything, it’s probably important.” He turns back to Bim. “It is important, right? Google’ll be pretty peeved if it isn’t.”

“It is,” Bim insists, “Have a little faith in Bim Trimmer!”

“Of course, of course,” Oliver laughs. Bim loves Oliver’s laugh. Despite all technically having the same voice, each ego sounds a little different, and each ego has a different laugh. Oliver’s laugh is bright and giggly, sunflowers and strawberries, gentle and, wait, Bim came here for a reason.

“Can I come in, at least?” Bim asks past Oliver to Google.

“No.” Google tugs out two wires and plugs them into each other’s places. “Run the next trial,” he says to Chrome and Plus. Bim sighs.

“Alright, well,” he begins, “I went to Wilford’s studio to work on scripts with him, but he didn’t answer my knock. As I was leaving, I heard a gunshot go off.”

“I knew I heard something a while ago!” Chrome says suddenly, triumphant. He looks at Google. “And you thought I was just being dramatic.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Google replies without missing a beat. Chrome mutters something under his breath that Bim can’t hear. “That’s not that weird, Bim,” Google continues.

“I know, that’s why I didn’t come to you guys right after it happened,” Bim explains, “But then a few minutes ago Yandere came to my room, saying that something happened to Dark and he was trying to figure out what was going on.”

Surprise colors the faces of all four androids, and Google finally lifts his head from the machine to look at Bim.

“What happened to Dark?” he asks.

“Yandere said someone had done something to him, made it so he couldn’t move,” Bim says, repeating Yandere’s words, “After he snapped out of it, he left, and he didn’t tell Yandere where he was going. He just said that something bad was happening, and that he had to stop it. Yandere said he looked scared.” Bim looks down. “I can’t help but feel like what happened to Dark and what happened in Wilford’s studio are connected. Can you guys maybe check the cameras, see if anything happened in the studio?” Oliver turns from Bim to look at Google, as do Chrome and Plus. Google considers for a moment.

“Fine,” he says, “But you still can’t come in.”

“I’ll let you know if we find anything,” Oliver tells Bim as he turns back to him, “You should probably go, Google can tell if someone’s standing outside the door.”

“Alright,” Bim replies, smiling a little at Oliver. “Thank you.” He looks at Google. “Thanks!”

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Google says as he types something into the camera feed. Chrome and Plus look on, clearly curious.

“Talk to you later?” Bim says to Oliver, trying not to smile too hard.

“Yeah!” Oliver replies, giving his own sunny grin. “See ya!”

Bim decides to walk back up to his room and try again to finish his book. He wonders if he’ll be able to focus with all the butterflies floating in his chest. Being with Oliver always gives him a curious feeling afterwards, something warm and bright and uplifting. He wonders if Oliver is even half as happy to talk to him. He hopes so.

As he approaches the staircase, he’s surprised to run into Ed Edgar. The other ego has a gash in his arm, dripping blood. After all Bim has heard today, he’s immediately nervous.

“Ed, what happened?” Bim asks as he approaches the other ego.

“I had a run-in with a real nasty varmint,” Ed explains, “Was just headin’ to Doc to get patched up. Lemme tell ya what happened. I was just mindin’ my own business, doin’ some target practice, when all of a sudden…”

Well, at least it wasn’t Peevils. Bim realizes too late that he’s opened a can of worms, but it’s too late to back out of the conversation now. Once Ed starts telling one of his (long, usually not as interesting as he thinks they are) stories, no force on earth can stop him. Hopefully the Googles figure out what’s up with Wilford and Dark soon, if anything so he has an excuse to at least pause the story for a moment.

                                                           ~~~

Google pulls up the information to connect to the studio cameras, putting in passcodes and getting each screen online. Instead of looking at the current screens, he brings up the file to access past recordings.

“Chrome, how long ago exactly did you hear the gunshot?” Google asks.

“Twenty-five minutes and forty-six seconds ago,” Chrome answers.

“You ought to go back twenty-seven,” Plus chimes in, “So we can see what led up to it.”

“I wasn’t made yesterday, Plus,” Google replies as he does what Plus suggested. Plus starts to protest, but Oliver claps a hand on his shoulder and shoots him a reassuring grin. With a few more clicks, Google gets the footage up from twenty-seven minutes ago exactly. He brings up the file to access past recordings. None of them are prepared for what they see.

Wilford, on the floor, clearly injured and unable to get up. Mark, too, looking just as beat up, walking across the room, looking for something. The feed is in black and white, and the audio is hard to distinguish.

“What is this?” Google mutters, eyes narrowing. “And why is the quality so terrible?”

“I attempted to tell you that the studio cameras need replacing the other day,” Plus tells him, “But you said it was no big deal.”

“Yeah.” Chrome smirks. “I think your exact words were, ‘Wilford always breaks them anyway, so why bother?’” The younger androids hardly ever get a chance to fire back at Google like this, so they can’t help but take the chance. Oliver stifles a giggle, but the strangeness presented on the feed means he isn’t laughing for long.

“Really though, what’s going on?” Oliver asks, “What’s Mark doing here? And what—”

He was about to ask what Mark was looking for, but the feed shows him picking something up. It’s a gun. All four Googles stare with rapt attention. Mark walks to Wilford, holds it up, is about to shoot when a sound comes through. Not a gunshot, but a knocking.

“Bim,” Oliver murmurs.

They can only barely hear Bim’s voice through the poor audio feed, but their finely-tuned systems recognize his voice clearly. Bim leaves before long, and Mark and Wilford start to talk. The words are hard to make out. Wilford is angry. Mark is pleased, gloating, almost. There’s something deeply wrong about the situation. The Googles are aware of that even before they finally find out the source of the gunshot: Mark lifting the gun again and shooting Wilford in the head. All four of them are stunned.

“Shit,” Google mutters, wracking his brain for answers.

“What the fuck!?” Chrome shouts, voice filled with anger. “How could Mark do this?”

“He couldn’t,” Oliver gasps, tears in his eyes, “There’s no way Mark would ever do something like this.”

“Oliver’s right,” Plus says, “Objectively speaking. It’s completely out of Mark’s character to ever cause such harm to another person, especially one he’s friends with.”

“Well, what the fuck do call that, then??” Chrome yells, pointing at the still-running feed. The camera that shows Wilford no longer has Mark in frame, but he can be clearly seen in Wilford’s room on a different screen, eyeing the ego’s guns without a hint of remorse in his posture.

“That’s not Mark,” Google interjects, “Look at the way he’s walking, his body language. It’s too different.”

“Dark, then?” asks Oliver.

“No…” Google peers at Mark again. “Too relaxed. Besides, Dark’s tried a hundred times to get Mark to let him in, why would he suddenly succeed now?”

“Also besides,” Plus adds, “Dark’s right there.”

Everyone turns to where Plus is pointing. The first camera, showing Wilford’s body, now shows Dark as well. He looks angrier than any of the Googles have seen him look in a long time. Even through a camera feed in the past, the Googles can feel his hatred.

“Alright, it’s not Dark,” Chrome mutters, “But who, then? No one else has that kind of ability.”

For several moments, everyone is silent.

“Well…” Oliver finally speaks up. The others look at him. “…Do…any of us really know what Peevils can do? Everyone else is pretty open with their abilities, or else they’re really obvious, but it hasn’t been like that with her. She’s pretty new, but it usually doesn’t take that long for our powers to show up…” His face screws up with anxious sadness. “Weren’t she and Wilford friends?”

“I…think Oliver is right,” Plus says quietly, as the camera shows Dark confronting Mark (Peevils?) in Wilford’s room. “The way he’s moving, and acting…it’s not exactly like Peevils, but it’s close.”

“She’s been playing us this whole fucking time,” Chrome growls, seething with rage as he and the others watch Peevils, in Mark’s body, shoot up at the ceiling as Dark reaches for her, radiating fury. There’s a boom, a burst of smoke and fire that conceals the camera’s view for a long moment. When the dust settles, there’s a burn mark on the ceiling and Dark is dead.

“Dark can come back from being killed by Mark, but Will…” Oliver holds back a sob.

“We have to find her.” Google’s voice is cold. “We have to find her and send out an alert over the intercom.” He turns to Plus. “Get the feed for the studio back to real time. We’ll all check different rooms.”

The four each take a keyboard, going through different cameras and feeds. Plus fast-forwards the studio feed until it’s live.

“Peevils isn’t in the studio anymore,” Plus says.

“Go back, figure out when she left, and which direction she went,” Google answers, checking second-floor hallways. Nothing. Plus rewinds, until he sees Peevils appear behind the stage. He stops, plays, and gasps.

“What?” Google asks.

“She went in the vents,” Plus breathes.

All four of them freeze. The room is deadly silent.

“How long ago?” Google asks, voice quiet.

“Three minutes and twen—”

A crack cuts through the air. Plus’s head jolts forward, as if he’s been pushed. The top of his head dampens. The heady scent of motor oil fills the space of the control room. Plus’s eyes roll back and he collapses into a heap. Oliver and Chrome both scream; Oliver in anguish, Chrome in anger.

“Plus, no, no,” Oliver cries, tangling his hands in his hair as tears roll down his cheeks.

“Peevils, you fucking coward, where are you??” Chrome yells, head whipping around the room, trying to locate her but too angry to think clearly.

Google, though, is still frozen in place. After a long moment (too long), he manages to collect his wits enough to think. There’s two vents in the room, he knows that much. One is small and near the floor. He peers at it, and even his enhanced vision sees nothing. He looks to the one on the ceiling, a few feet back from where he and the others are standing. He catches a glint of metal that he knows isn’t part of the vent just before another gunshot sounds. He whips his head around to catch Chrome, caught in the middle of an angry tirade, shudder and collapse. Oliver cries out again.

“Chrome, not you, too!” he wails, falling to his knees beside his brothers. Google tears his eyes away to look back at the vent.

He can see the gun, he sees a familiar broad chest, a familiar set of brown eyes. He wants to use his laser vision and destroy the gun, but if it explodes, it could kill Mark. Google instead follows the guns trajectory with his eyes, landing on Oliver’s forehead.

“Oliver!” He grabs him by the arm and pulls him up, but he isn’t fast enough to pull him away. The bullet hits his chest. Then another appears there. Another. All so fast, even Google can’t react right away (He should be faster than any human. Why isn’t he now??)

“Dammit,” Google mutters, before running out of the control room, yanking Oliver behind him. He practically knocks the door off its hinges in its haste. He has to get to the clinic. Oliver may be an android, but he’s still humanoid, and there’s no way Google can go back to the control room for supplies to repair Oliver himself. He doesn’t get far when he runs into Bim and Ed Edgar, who are running in their direction.

“We heard gunfire, what’s—” Ed’s words die in his throat when he sees Oliver. “What in tarnation happened here??”

“Ollie,” Bim chokes out, hardly able to form the word. He can feel his gut twisting up at the sight of Oliver sporting three holes in his chest, leaking motor oil onto the floor.

“Bim, you were right,” Google says somberly, “Something is wrong.”

“Lemme handle this,” says Ed, full of bravado, producing a lean rifle from somewhere unseen.

“Ed, no—” Oliver tries to stop him, but he starts to cough black oil, and wobbles on his feet as Ed dashes away. Google hisses with frustration but doesn’t stop him, instead putting Oliver’s arm around his shoulders to hold him up.

“Are you gonna make yourself useful or just stand there?” Google says to Bim. Bim, eyes still wide with shock, shakes himself off and takes Oliver’s other arm. He and Google speed off towards Dr. Iplier’s clinic with Oliver between them.

Dr. Iplier is still dealing with those strange pangs of pain, having felt two in quick succession moments ago, and now feeling a third seize his chest and squeeze at his heart. All the tests he’s done have revealed no abnormalities, and Dr. Iplier is at a loss. He’s shaken from his thoughts when the clinic door bursts open, and Google and Bim come in, toting a badly injured Oliver. He jumps up and runs to them, ushering them to lay Oliver on the nearest surface, which happens to be a stretcher.

“How did this happen??” Dr. Iplier asks as he yanks gauze out of a cabinet. There’s two egos he knows of who use guns, but he can’t see why either of them would want to hurt Oliver like this.

“It was Peevils,” Google answers. Bim and Dr. Iplier both turn to him, shocked. “She’s possessed Mark, we don’t know why but…” Google looks at Bim. “…We checked the cameras like you asked. She killed Wilford first and came through the vent to the control room.”

A strangled sob leaves Bim’s throat, and Dr. Iplier goes cold all over, even as he presses pads of gauze onto Oliver’s wounds. They know as well as Google does what it means for Wilford, and for Oliver, that Peevils has used Mark to shoot them. Dr. Iplier doesn’t want to, but he forces himself to look at Oliver, not his chest but just over his head. He’s learned not to look at times of death when talking to the egos; figments are such transient yet eternal creatures that their times of death fluctuate wildly from day to day, at times from minute to minute. But he has a bad feeling about Oliver’s time. Sure enough, he sees the numbers written in red, not the normal cool blue. He knows what this means. He moves his hands away from Oliver’s chest, taking the gauze with it.

“What are you doing?” asks Google, noticing Dr. Iplier’s behavior immediately. Dr. Iplier takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, “He’s—”

In the next moment, Google is holding Dr. Iplier in the air by his shirt collar, eyes flashing angry blue.

“If you finish that sentence, I’m going to rip your heart out of your chest and shove it down your throat,” Google growls. Dr. Iplier only sighs.

“I’m really, truly sorry, Google,” he says, voice subdued, “But his time is set now, and it’s coming soon. There’s nothing I can do.” Google searches the doctor’s face, trying to catch him in a lie. But he sees the sadness and resignation in the doctor’s eyes, and knows he’s telling the awful truth.

Bim, having rushed to Oliver’s side after he was first laid down, is weeping now, body curling in on itself, like the grief is eating him whole. Google releases Dr. Iplier and moves to Oliver’s other side, finds himself gripping Oliver’s hand in his own. Oliver, while still awake and aware, is breathing weakly, sometimes coughing, with motor oil staining his shirt and dripping from his mouth.

“Oliver, listen to me,” Google says, voice hard yet a note too high, “You cannot die. You can’t. Not after Plus and Chrome…” He screws his eyes shut, sees them falling dead again, and opens his eyes back up. “…I cannot function without my upgrade. I need you.”

Oliver coughs, then looks up at Google, smiling sadly. He squeezes the older ego’s hand.

“Blue, are you scared?” he murmurs, affectionate and gentle (Google can’t recall the last time anyone called him by his color). “It’s okay, so am I. But if anyone can fix this, it’s you.” He seems to want to say more, but is seized by a coughing fit before he can.

Google is an android. Even with the ability to experience and understand emotion, he shouldn’t feel like this. His internal systems should have something in place, a failsafe, something that stops him from getting choked up or freezing in a crisis or feeling like the thing he threatened Dr. Iplier with is happening to him, feeling like his heart is being torn out through his ribs.

“Ollie,” Bim gasps, unable to say anything more. He grabs Oliver’s other hand, and squeezes it tight between his own.

Dr. Iplier stands apart from the others, hand on his mouth, brows furrowed, somber and sad but as cool under pressure as a doctor has to be. Still, there are tears in the back of his eyes that he has to force himself not to cry.

Oliver shudders, draws a last-ditch breath, and relaxes into the stretcher. Google and Bim each feel the hand in their grasp go limp.

Bim cries ever harder, practically suffocating from the sobs. He holds Oliver’s hand to his cheek like he can warm life back into it, not wanting to let go. Google, meanwhile, is frozen again, like he was when the first shot rang out into Plus. How long ago was that? Google can’t focus enough to come up with an exact time. He, too, keeps Oliver’s hand in his own. He feels something on his cheeks, something liquid and warm. Tears? What else could it be? But Google has never cried before, not once. He hadn’t thought he was capable of it. But he also hadn’t thought he was capable of feeling so distraught, of feeling like time has stopped and the world is breaking down around him.

But the most dramatic reaction comes from Dr. Iplier. As Oliver dies, the doctor’s eyes go wide. He covers his face with his hands, moans, and sinks into a chair. Bim notices first, and for all his anguish over Oliver, Dr. Iplier’s behavior alarms him.

“I felt it,” Dr. Iplier gasps.

“What do you mean?” Bim asks, voice shaky and wet. Google now notices the doctor as well, and looks at him, his expression echoing Bim’s question. Dr. Iplier, meanwhile, takes a hand away from his face to clutch at his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. With part of his face revealed, the other two egos can see how his features are drawn with pain and ruin, and how tears are snaking their way down his cheeks.

“All day, all fucking day I’ve been getting these…” The doctor breathes in, trying to steady himself. “…these pains, these aches in my chest. They always passed quickly but they kept happening and I couldn’t figure out what they were, but…” He looks up at Google and Bim, eyes clouded with grief. “…I felt it again just now, when Oliver died, and I know, I know what it is now.” He takes his other hand off his face, letting it join his other on his chest, over his heart. “I know what it means, and I’ve felt it five other times today.”

Google and Bim feel their hearts sink into their feet. But Google, upset though he is, tries to think clearly.

“Earlier,” he says, voice colder than he intends it to be, “Before I brought Oliver in, Peevils killed Plus and Chrome.” Dr. Iplier nods, tears still dripping down his cheeks.

“I did feel two pains not long before you came in, one after the other,” he says, “But there was a third one after, right as you came in.”

“Ed,” Bim gasps, face going white, “He was with me, we were talking, and we heard gunshots from the control room. When he saw what happened to Oliver he took out his rifle and said he’d take care of it…” Bim covers his face and moans. “We should’ve stopped him.”

“And about half an hour ago now,” Google adds, “Wilford.” Dr. Iplier nods again, but his face is screwed up in thought.

“That’s consistent with what I felt, but there’s one more,” he says, voice serious and low, “Before Wilford. Are you sure there’s no one else?”

“Not that I know of,” Google answers. Aside from Dark, but he was killed after Wilford, Google remembers. Not to mention that Dark’s died before, but it was never permanent, and it isn’t permanent now.

“You can’t tell who it is?” Bim asks.

“No,” Dr. Iplier sighs sadly, “The pain feels the same every time, and it’s all I get.”

The three are silent for several moments, processing what’s occurred.

Then they hear the intercom crackle to life.