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Whumptober Prompt #28- Beaten

This is my last story that’s not back on track with the Michael!whump in my Villainous verse (better title still in progress).  This should be the last bit that focuses on Michael and Fayelin’s backstory, and after this, we’ll continue with our regularly scheduled whump story.  I’ve got some good stuff planned for Michael and Endeavor returns and... I don’t want to spoil it :)

@winedark-whump This is the one I’ve been dying to show you!  I’m so excited.  Okay, here we go.

.......

A crash in another woke Michael from his light sleep.  He sat up slowly, trying not to put any stress on the nothingness that was his left arm.  Arrow had patched him up, crying the entire time. She had sobbed apologies, both fully coherent and utterly nonsensical.  He could barely acknowledge her, whether it was from the drugs she had snuck for him or the grief that overwhelmed him, he wasn’t entirely sure. He did remember her saying since it was her fault that everything had happened the way it did, the least she could do was make sure he had a place to stay, saying he could crash at his place until he was strong enough to move.  He hadn’t really responded to her, unable to form words of reassurance or defiance.  Mostly, he had just wanted to go back to sleep, where he could pretend that his fiance wasn’t dead, where he still had both of his arms, and where he wasn’t crashing in a Heroes apartment.  That had been a week ago.

A hard thump followed the crash.  That concerned him, Arrow had said that no other Heroes knew where she lived as it was against their policy to reveal information that could potentially be tortured out of someone.  Once he was upright, he put his feet on the cold floor.  Her apartment wasn’t much really, it was just a bedroom with no furniture except a mattress, a kitchenette, and a bathroom, with no carpeting, or even drapes on the window (she had told him, embarrassed, while working, that she used foil in order to trap the heat in winter) so he knew it wouldn’t be robbers.  Who would rob somewhere on the bad side of town, with no drapes, and foil on the windows?  Absolutely no one, and he was sure of it.

So he made his way into the kitchen, grabbing first the baseball bat underneath her bed.  He knew she had one, all girls who lived on this side of town did.  He didn’t have the strength to charge it up but, in a pinch, he could do some damage with it.  He toed open the door, and dropped the bat.  Arrow was spread out across the floor, fallen pots and pans from the stove around her.

“I told you we could just share the bed.”  Michael joked listlessly.  “You don’t have to sleep on the kitchen floor.”

A watery chuckle was his reply.

“Don’t think I could move even if you wanted me to.”

Michael frowned.  Arrow then shifted, lifting her head up with great effort, and horror flashed through his veins.  Arrow’s face was badly beaten, eyes almost swollen shut, blood everywhere, lips split and cracked, and her nose looked broken.  It had taken him a moment to see that Arrow was even under what was left of that face.

With a burst of adrenaline, he grabbed her shirt with his good arm and dragged her over to the bed he’d just been sleeping on.  She didn’t protest the entire time.

“You weren’t this beat up the last time I saw you.”  Michael said.  “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.”  Arrow replied.

“It matters.”  Michael insisted, latching onto the first emotion he’d felt in days.  “Did they give you another mission?  Did someone hurt you because of the Explosion?”

Arrow flinched.  “Just drop it, okay, it doesn’t matter!”

“It matters!”  Michael shouted.  Arrow flinched again, tears welling up in her eyes, and he forced himself to calm down.  “Please, who did this to you?”

The dam burst and Arrow dissolved into tears.  Michael sat on the bed beside her.

“I thought they were my friends.”

“What?”  Michael asked in horror but Arrow misunderstood.

“I thought they were my friends!”  She shouted.  “I trusted them!  They said I was no different from the very criminals I hunted!”

Michael just stared at her.  Arrow choked back her tears as best as she could.

“I killed your Mirror.”  She whispered, as if admitting it aloud were physically painful to her.  Knowing her ethics, it probably did. “It was an accident but it still happened.  And I blew off your arm, and I brought you to my own fucking apartment, and they screamed at me for not capturing you!”

A pit of dread crept into Michael’s veins.

“I didn’t tell them you were here.”  Arrow sighed, noticing Michael’s discomfort.  “They called me a traitor.  Said Killian’s death changed me too much.  Wait- fuck!  You know what?  I don’t care.  Yes, Soldier’s name was Killian.  I’m a traitor anyway, may as well stop fighting it.”

In a move he never could’ve predicted, Arrow took off her blood-stained mask, revealing the very young face underneath it.

“You’re just a kid.”  Michael breathed.

Arrow shrugged.  She slowly sat up to match his posture, wincing.

“Look, Arrow-”

“Fayelin.”

“Excuse me?”  Michael asked.

“You’ve seen me without my mask, you’re staying in my shitty ass apartment, and you know Killian’s name, so you may as well know mine. My name is Fayelin.  Fayelin Skye.”

“Michael Winters.”  Michael stuck his hand out on instinct.

Arr-Fayelin shook it easily.

“I’m sorry.”  She whispered.

“I know.”

“No, I mean, fuck, I am so, so sorry for what happened.”  Fayelin tentatively wiped away her fresh tears.  “You lost someone more important to you than your own life and it’s all my fault and I’m so, so sorry for that in a way I can’t put into words.  But that’s not what this one was about.”

She turned to face him, grunting as she shifted, clearly trying to work through the pain.

“I’m sorry I believed them.”

Michael frowned, confused.

“I’m sorry I believed their lies.  I’m sorry I let them brainwash me into thinking you were basically subhuman.  I’m sorry I thought that all of your kind was the same and couldn’t be trusted, and because of that mistrust you lost someone you loved.  I thought none of your kind was capable of real love.  Seeing what you’re going through, I know now how truly wrong I was.  I let them twist me up to be as bad as they were and I was proud of it.  To have my own kind turn against me for the wrong reasons, I’m… I just can’t.  I was wrong in what I did but what they’ve done to me just confirms everything you Villains have been saying for years.  I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I was apart of that system.  I have done horrible things to you, I will never stop apologizing for that.  I’m going to try for the rest of my life to wipe out the red in my ledger.  I wish I could’ve seen sooner, what they were doing to me, what I was turning myself into.  I’m sorry I let my grief after Killian turn me into a weapon of propaganda and destruction for them.  I’m not asking for your forgiveness, I’ll never ask that of you, what I did was unforgivable.  I just… I just need you to know that I’m sorry.  For everything.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“Look, Fayelin, you fucked up.  You fucked up in a way that can’t be undone.  And it hurts,  it’ll always hurt… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you… I don’t even know if I’ll ever want to forgive you… but maybe, just maybe… we can fight against their lies together.  We can fight against their fucked up system… so it never happens again.  Not to me, or anyone else.”

… 

“I’m in.”