Chapter Text
It’s his first day off in a while. Phil sort of forced him to take some because he was “injured” by making “reckless decisions” and not “relying on his team.” Sure he had a broken wrist, but Phil was being overdramatic when he banned him from missions until it heals, and from coming into work at all for four days. What is he supposed to do with all this time?
Apparently, talk to himself in the bathroom mirror.
He’s sitting on the counter sullenly, glaring at the cast that is currently where his gauntlet should be. “It’s not my fault, it’s all because of that.. blueberry.” Calling Five a blueberry seems pointless when he’s not around to hear it, but he’s just such a… “Noob.”
Mitch slides off the counter, heading into the small kitchen area of his apartment. He likes to say he moved there because it’s closer to the Hinobi store and quieter so he can focus, but there are certainly other perks. The low rent price and the fact that the upstairs neighbour seems to like to leave hot meals on his porch after a long day at work are definitely part of that.
There are also negatives to the living situation, however. As demonstrated by the obnoxious knocking on the door for the fifth time since his neighbour/landlord got home. “Mitch, come on. I know you’re upset, but please, we need to talk.”
“I’m off the clock, Phil! You can’t do a performance review without paying me for it!” Mitch sighs, leaning against the front door. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? I need to think.”
“That sounds dangerous.” Phil huffs at him through the door, “Look, I brought cookies.”
Mitch opens the door a crack, the chain lock keeping Phil from pushing his way in. “Oh, why didn’t you say so? I’m still not in the mood to CHAT!”
Another sigh, this time from his boss. “Mitch, you need to work on your teamwork skills or corporate will never promote you. I know you want to be ‘the best’ or whatever-”
“If I’m listening to the shpiel I get the cookies.”
“Let me in and you can have the cookies, the ‘shpiel,’ and I’ll throw in some criticism of your teammates’ performances yesterday as well.” Phil raises an eyebrow, holding up the plate of cookies.
Mitch debates with himself for a moment, before muttering something about bribery and abuse of power as he shuts the door to undo the chain lock, letting Phil in semi reluctantly, and grabbing a cookie as the man walks into the apartment past him. They settle into the only two seats in the place, Phil on the armchair by the tv Mitch rarely uses, and Mitch in his gaming chair that he pulled out of his bedroom.
“Okay, continue shpiel.” The teen goes to flip his visor down out of habit, remembering halfway through the motion that Phil confiscated it so he can’t “sneak around looking for glitches” during his time off.
To his credit, the man looks guilty when Mitch shoots him a glare. “Like I was saying, I know you are the best Glitch Tech in the district, and I know you want to lead bigger teams on important missions. However, I cannot authorize you as a leader on large scale operations while you continuously steal XP and undermine your teammates’ concerns. You need to listen to your team and rely on them to take on tasks you cannot, or should not, be doing.”
Grumbling, Mitch pulls his feet up onto the gaming chair, grabbing another cookie. “I’ve heard this one before, Phil.”
“And yet you continue to berate your teammates and leave them out of things, to the detriment of the entire branch.” Phil sighs, “When your wrist heals, I’m assigning you a partner.”
“WHAT?” The yell echoes through the town, birds fly into the air, somewhere a cat yowls back at the sound reverberating through a trash can.
Phil removes his fingers from his ears as Mitch begins to rant at him, shifting his features into a well-practiced unamused expression to wait until the Tech is done yelling. Which takes a bit. Almost three minutes in, he glances at his watch and sighs. “Mitch.”
“...and on top of that, I haven’t had an ‘assigned’ partner for two years! Once you pass level 20 you aren’t required to HAVE a partner for missions. That’s in the handbook! I’m a lone wolf, a solo fighter, I am my own team-” He’s interrupted by Phil’s hand waving in front of his face. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“You almost got Nix killed, for one.”
“What?” Mitch’s angry expression flickers as he turns to fully face Phil again, having been pacing for most of his rant. “Wh.. Is he okay?”
“Yeah, since Five noticed he was unconscious right away and called for the medical team, while you were off yelling at Miko for ‘getting in your way’ and blaming Zahra for the hit that broke your wrist.”
Mitch flops back down into the gaming chair, staring at his cast, anger dissipating. “Boosh.”
“That mission went bad in almost every way, and it’s a bad mark on your leadership skills, Mitch.” Phil sighs, leaning back in the armchair. “Corporate wanted me to demote you down to a level 10 gauntlet.”
No reaction from Mitch other than a small flinch.
“Don’t worry, they decided my choice of having an assigned partner would do. I’m not taking your levels, you earned those in one way or another.” Phil grabs one of the last cookies before continuing, “Look, either way, I’m assigning you a partner. Even if corporate hadn’t wanted you demoted, even if Nix hadn’t been badly injured. Your teamwork skills have been slipping since you and Zahra stopped working together. Besides, I think this will be mutually beneficial. You’ll relearn how to be a team player, and Five will be able to learn more about how Glitch Techs works from you.”
“Five? Seriously?” Mitch glares up at him, “Phil, you can’t be serious.”
“Hey, count your blessings. I’m sticking Zahra with Miko.”
“Consider my blessings counted, and then compared to my new mountain of misfortunes.”
“Mitch, stop being so dramatic.” Phil stands up, ready to leave. “You should check in on Nix, he’s conscious, but still in the medical wing. He doesn’t blame you, which makes him maybe the only one based on the testimonials.”
Mitch sighs, “When will he be home?”
“Gordon says probably in four days, minimum. He had a pretty serious blow to the head from that explosion, and they’re reluctant to let him go before the weekend.” Phil heads to the door, “If you don’t want to cook tonight-”
“I have leftover lasagna from last time, I’ll be fine.” Mitch gets up slowly, hesitating before saying, “I’ll go in tomorrow to see him.”
“Glad to hear it. And at least microwave the lasagna, okay? It’s practically a crime how much cold food you eat.” With that, Phil ducks out, closing the door behind him.
Mitch locks it thoroughly, ignoring the fact that Phil hadn't made good on his promise to criticize the other members of the team. He pushes his chair back into the bedroom before flopping dramatically onto his bed and running his non-broken hand through his somewhat bedraggled hair. He hadn’t bothered to shower this morning, being too frustrated to deal with putting the cast into a bag.
Nix was one of his first friends back when he was a new recruit. Sure he was partnered with Zahra, but they didn’t really get along at first. How had he not noticed Nix get hit during the explosion? Has he truly slipped that much? Mitch rolls over, wincing as he puts weight on his bad arm, and hiding his face in his pillow. But Five? He’d ignored Mitch’s orders and ran past him towards the explosion. He must have known Nix was on the other side and been trying to get him out of danger.
Mitch hates to admit it, but Five is actually a fairly good leader, for a newbie. He puts the team before himself and gets results. Mitch has no doubts that Five will be a good teammate if not being annoying about rules and also hating Mitch for not being who he expected.
Five’s… idolization of Mitch had been flattering, at first. Until he’d watched it crumble into nothing, replaced by disgust when the new Tech made eye contact with him as opposed to the admiration he’d seen originally.
But Mitch isn’t a gameplay tips tweeker anymore. He’s the top Glitch Tech. He can’t be “helpful” he can’t be “friendly.” He has to win if he wants to get ahead.
Or… wants to get his friends hurt, apparently.
He’s not sure when he’d stopped thinking of the other Techs as his friends, but he knows this is the first time he’s considered Nix a friend in a while. Stooges, lower lifeforms… he cringes internally, reflecting on how he’s treated them. No wonder they all groan when he walks into a room. He’s become a monster.
And now he can’t even play games because his cast gets in the way. Well, moping isn’t helping anything. He may as well try to play at least some PC games to take his mind off the lecture Phil gave him.
He glares at the cast on his hand. Stupid Miko and her stupid trigger happy face. Granted… he hadn’t told anyone that the Glitch would explode violently when attacked if it wasn’t disarmed first, and he had no reason to expect they would know that. Miko had mentioned that morning that her and Five were stuck on the level before the boss in The Bomb-uda Triangle, so neither of them would have encountered it before, and the others showed up as backup when Mitch had finally reluctantly called for them, they wouldn’t have known he hadn’t mentioned it.
So blaming him for it is probably… actually fair.
He hates it when he’s wrong. Always has. Being wrong means showing weakness. And he’s Mitch Williams, he can’t be weak.
The only people who have seen him cry are his siblings, and that was years ago. Phil is the only one outside his family he’s let down his guard around, and even then, that’s more of a partial thing. Phil’s seen him when he wasn’t at his best. Nobody, not even Audrey, has seen Mitch Williams at his worst.
Well, except maybe that copycat Glitch that had looked into his memories. He doesn’t know what his clone told the others, he doesn’t know what it said about him, and he doesn’t want to. Like, really does not want to know.
His hair is an absolute mess. He glares at the mirror next to his bed as if daring his reflection to say something. He runs his hand through it again, sighing and moving over to his computer. He hasn’t played anything but silly phone games all day, and it’s practically 7 pm. Boredom doesn’t even begin to describe his mood. There are a couple of online games he plays on PC, both of them with a different username to keep anyone from recognizing him. It’s not that he’s ashamed, but MMORPGs are not something MitchFTW would play openly, much less enjoy openly.
So, FearsomeToWatch it is. Considering he came up with it when he was 14 and decided he wanted an anonymous Gamertag, it’s held up pretty well. Nobody’s recognized him yet.
He’ll play for a few hours and then go to bed so that he doesn’t end up looking like a mess when he goes to check on Nix tomorrow. He’s dreading going into the medical wing enough as it is, he doesn’t need to look like complete garbage when he does. Of course, he gets sucked into the game, completely missing the alarm he set for midnight and playing well into the early hour of 4 am. When he finally notices the clock he groans, flopping his head onto his desk. “Aw, boosh.” Today should be fun.