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giantroboticplatypusbutt218 · 1 year

Text

Static

This is Part 4 of the Magnetic Attraction series.

Rating: General Audiences

Content Warnings: Fantastic Racism, Internalized Homophobia.

Summary: Tech finally seems to be on the right path to discovering his hidden powers and Rev decides to start setting up that party he promised for when he succeeds. Unbeknownst to each other, their progress is hindered by troubling memories and uncomfortable conversations.

Word Count: 8168

Here's the link to this work on Ao3, otherwise:

The sound of Ace’s footsteps contrasted sharply with the otherwise complete silence as he stepped into the lounge. Were it not for the bright red crest sticking up from the center cushion of the lounge sofa, Ace might have assumed nobody was there. But, somebody was there, and he happened to be the person he was looking for.

“Morning Rev,” he said, walking around the center couch and peering down at him.

“Hey,” Rev replied absently.

He was just… sitting there… staring at a plain ceramic mug on the coffee table. The TV wasn’t on, and he wasn’t talking or reading or… doing anything. Anything other than… staring.

“Are you… doing some weird sciency thing I’ve never heard of?”

Rev made a noncommittal noise.

“Uh… okay. Well,” Ace huffed and crossed his arms, “Tech wanted me to let you know that you shouldn’t bring anything electronic or filled with flammable gas out back today. He’s testing his new powers or something.”

“Tech?” Finally, Rev blinked, looking up at him. “Oh, he is?”

“Yeah.” Ace rolled his eyes. “Hey, any idea why Mr. Million Powers couldn’t use the power of talking to you himself instead of sending me to do his errands?” After a brief pause, he pursed his lips. “You guys didn’t get in a fight or something, did ya?”

“No. Um.” Rev stood up, looking around. “Look, I promised to throw him a party if he figured out how to create an EMP himself, so, I’ve gotta get started on that.”

“Ugh. Like that guy needs more of an ego boost.”

But Rev didn’t hear any of that, because he was already gone.

Sighing, Ace turned and walked away.

“Something’s funky with him. What does Rev even need coffee for anyway? Unlike Duck, Rev’s always seemed like more of an early bird.” His chuckle echoed awkwardly across the lounge. “Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing important. Everyone has their off days.”

“That should do it.”

Tech released his magnetic grasp from a rod that was now firmly planted into the ground. It was sticking straight up and topped with a smooth metallic ball.

Cool morning dew dampened the fur below his ankles, and soft grass cushioned the ground below his paws. When Tech first began to set up his equipment, the fields were thick with mist, and though a deep breath confirmed the damp air, the mist was no longer present.

“Alright. I’m thoroughly grounded and the air is conductive enough to pull away any stray charge. If there’s any time to train my ability to create and control electricity, especially something as strong as an EMP, this is it.”

He stared down the metallic rod as he stepped a few meters away, making sure to side-step the folding table he set up nearby.

“Creating an arc from this distance would definitively prove my understanding and mastery over electromagnetism. I just have to do it.”

Closing his eyes, he took another deep breath.

“Rev knows I can do it.”

The field blinked into view again, but Tech lost focus of the rod and looked at the folding table, specifically a plain ceramic mug sitting on top of it.

Huffing, he yanked his focus back to the target.

“I know I can do it. I just have to try.”

He raised his hands. They came to life with green energy.

“Here I go,” he said assuredly.

But his eyes flicked again to the coffee mug.

“Alright. Party supplies. Party supplies.”

Rev turned a corner.

“I’ll need tables. Supply closet. There should be some there.”

He turned another corner. Down the hall, gymnastic supplies as well as a bunch of other things were flooding out of the open closet door.

Rev sighed, running over and beginning to pick things up and properly put them away. Ironically, he was often in charge of cleaning up anyway.

Now that everything wasn’t teetering like how Slam and Lexi left it and Duck later released it, Rev dug a little deeper to find some fold-out tables.

“Alright. Tables. Where to put them? Sparring room. Nobody should mind.”

He briefly set down the tables to stack them in a big pile, then picked them up from the bottom to move them.

Given the weight and precariousness of the tables, he decided to take the short trip to the sparring room slowly. Though, as he stepped forward, his eyes landed on a few colorful sticky notes littering the ground.

Not paying attention, the tables started to slide.

“Wh-!”

And apparently, he really wasn’t paying attention, because Slam was there to easily catch the tables with one arm.

“Oh. Thanks for the save, Slam.”

When the tables evened out in Rev’s grasp, Slam looked the stack up and down, then tilted his head.

“Want some help?” he offered.

“No thanks,” Rev replied, a little coldly. “I can handle this alone.”

Before he could see Slam’s pout, Rev was already making his way to the sparring hall, being sure to not lose his balance this time.

Finally, after what felt like forever, he came to a stop at the sparring hall door.

“Ugh. Great.”

Rev set the stack of tables down and then opened the door, pulling it as wide as it could go before kicking down the door holder.

Now. The smart thing to do, Rev thought, would be to bring in a few tables at a time so they could fit through the door more easily. It would take more time, but would also be safer.

He grabbed the entire stack again and started to grapple the tables through the doorway.

Surprising no one, including himself, the tables slipped out of his grasp and crashed down around him.

Looking up from the wreck with a pained hiss, Rev saw Slam standing just outside the doorway, looking concerned.

“I’m fine,” Rev huffed, awkwardly pulling himself out of the pile of tables. “Just go do whatever you were going to do before you saw me. I don’t need any help.”

Slam rubbed his arm, muttering a barely audible “okay” before sulking over to the weight room.

Sighing, Rev wiped a hand across his face. “Great. Are there any more friends I can make feel bad today? Maybe I can pull off a new record…”

With nobody there to comment, Rev simply got back to the annoying process of moving tables.

“Here I go.”

Tech could feel the energy as he pointed his hands at the metallic rod, but it didn’t feel that much different from his usual magnetic manipulation.

“Here. I go.”

He knew how to do it. He knew he did. He did it last night while barely thinking about it.

Barely thinking.

He glanced at the ceramic mug again.

Yanking his head back toward his target, he groaned.

“Here. I. Go.”

The method was simple. The power was within reach. Rev believed in him, so-

He shook his head. Focus. He needed to focus.

The tables were now set up but there was nothing on them so now it was time to fix that.

Rev shot out of the sparring hall… and stopped immediately.

There were still sticky notes on the floor from yesterday evening.

Sighing, he decided he had to clean those up before any kind of party could be held. The last thing he or Tech needed was a bunch of mistakes littering the ground.

One by one Rev went to every sticky note he saw and snatched them off the ground. By the time he was done, he had made his way through the hall and into the lounge and was holding onto a stack of notes that was a centimeter thick.

Against his better judgment, he inspected the pile of notes, learning nothing new and leaving him with shame clawing his throat.

He was supposed to relax. That’s the thing Tech wanted most from him. To relax. Even a week ago, Tech told him he’d make mistakes and that it shouldn’t upset him so much. But he didn’t listen. Instead, he covered his room and himself with historical trivia and ignored the myriad of tips he read to just listen to what actual coyotes had to say. Why would he need to listen, right? If he just knew every possible way he could screw up, then he wouldn’t, right? Except, it didn’t work like that. And somewhere in his head, he knew it didn’t work like that. But doing obsessive research was easier than acknowledging that he was going to make mistakes eventually.

And in the end, he chose the easier option. To run. And he hurt his friend anyway.

Rev growled and tried to tear up the notes, but the stack was too thick. Frustrated, he ran toward the nearest recycling bin to hurl them inside… and stopped when he reached the back exit.

Through the glass window of the door, he could see Tech out in the field, dressed in shorts and a tank top, standing next to a table with some supplies on it. His hands were stretched out toward a pole in the ground, making motions that implied something was happening when nothing apparent was.

Maybe he was doing warm-ups. There was probably no reason to be worried about him.

After lingering at the door for what was probably too long, Rev decided he’d run to the recycling bin in the kitchen rather than use the one just outside. Plus, he’d changed into his hero suit complete with all the attached electronics this morning, so it wasn’t safe to go out back anyway.

He reached the kitchen in an instant, tossing the notes less aggressively than he had planned a minute ago. Seeing Tech just sapped the anger out of him. For a moment, he lingered on why, but simply decided he needed to put his focus back on setting up the party. With a sigh, he turned around.

And yelped.

“Good morning Rev,” Lexi said, smirking. “Sleep well?”

“Uh…” That… was an interesting question; Interesting in that she should already know the answer, given she also knows how he usually sleeps as well as… some recent circumstances… Still, he had to reply with something. Hopefully something that results in less teasing.

“Yeah,” he said simply, trying to ignore how that answer made him feel.

“That’s great,” she replied, seemingly dropping the subject to Rev’s relief. “But, before you run off, follow me. We need to talk about something.”

And the relief was gone. Rev could only think of two things they could possibly need to talk about, and he didn’t like either one. But what was he going to do? Refuse?

Run?

He sighed.

“Alright. Where’re we going?”

Tech groaned.

Something wasn’t working. He was trying his best and nothing was happening.

Sighing, he took a few steps toward the fold-out table. Maybe he needed to stop and think this through.

Despite his mind drifting to how he should ignore the mug he had set down earlier, he managed to notice a strange feeling as he placed a hand on the hard plastic surface of the table he was about to lean on. A familiar tugging of his fur and soft crinkling below his fingers.

“Huh.”

He wiped his hand across the table’s surface, continuing to feel and hear that soft crinkle.

Well, it turned out something was happening. There was nothing in the environment that would have caused that sort of static buildup, so it must have been him. Though unintentional, that was progress, right?

Still, it wasn’t great that he was altering the charge of objects in his vicinity unintentionally. At least he warned everyone to keep their electronics and combustible fuels away from him, because the exact scenario that warranted caution appeared to be happening.

It wasn’t enough that he could manipulate the charge of the objects around him; He had to be able to control the charges as well. He had to be aware of where the charge imbalances were occurring… otherwise he wouldn’t be able to manipulate a discharge from that imbalance.

This was getting dangerous… but also more promising. Maybe. Hopefully it meant that he’d have some progress worthy of telling Rev about later.

Rev…

Before his eyes could wander, he caught himself and sighed.

Focus. The later it gets, the less conductive the air will become, the more likely he is to cause an unintentional discharge.

Back to work.

As it turned out, Lexi was taking Rev to the quiet room; One of the safe havens in headquarters where you could escape all the noise, or make some noise without bothering anyone else. More specifically, it was one of the select rooms in the base completely soundproofed to protect Lexi’s sanity, and everyone’s privacy. Since she was going into the room with him, that obviously wasn’t its purpose at the moment.

When not being used to escape the laughter of sitcom marathons or the beeping of arcade machines, it made an excellent space to just sit down and think without distractions. Inside were a couple of sofas, bookshelves, a writing desk, and Ace’s meditation pad. Rev found the room absolutely unbearable, and figured it was only going to feel even worse considering he was about to have some sort of tough conversation there.

Lexi opened the door and he could immediately see Ace leaning against the arm of the sofa directly ahead, looking somewhat displeased to be there. Ah. So this was about his comments yesterday. It was still not something he wanted to talk about, but at least the conversation probably wouldn’t involve Tech in any way.

Though, as he and Lexi stepped inside, Rev noticed Duck sitting on top of one of the bookshelves, looking down at them from his higher vantage point.

Rev tilted his head.

“Uh, what’s Duck doing here?”

Atop his perch, Duck huffed.

“You make it sound like you don’t want me around.”

He kind of didn’t, but he also didn’t want an argument at the moment.

“It’s not that, I just thought only Lexi and Ace were going to talk to me.”

“Well, when I heard about how they were gonna teach you how gender stuff works, I just knew I had to stick around for that trainwreck!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence…”

“You’re welcome!”

Lexi whispered, “sorry, we couldn’t get him to leave,” and patted him on the shoulder, before gesturing to take a seat on the same sofa as Ace.

As he took those few agonizing steps to sit down, the thought flashed in his mind that he should have done some research at some point so he didn’t have to do this. Just as fast he mentally slapped himself on the back of the head with a metaphorical rolled-up newspaper. He was inevitably going to have blind spots in his research, and he had more knowledgeable friends who wanted to help him.

This was going to suck… but he just had to deal with it. There was no reason to feel so averse to having his biases called out. And maybe… getting through this conversation would make it easier to have any similar ones with Tech in the future.

Sitting down, anxiety curled in his gut as usual, but he wasn’t going to let it get past his resolve to be better. To stop running.

Tech was beginning to feel like an idiot, which was not a feeling that he often had.

“Alright, new plan,” he said, walking over to the conductive rod. “Despite having proven that I have some capability to manipulate electricity as demonstrated last night-”

He paused, swallowing thickly before continuing his train of thought.

“Despite having concrete proof of my abilities, I may find more success in mimicking the distance at which I first performed the feat and increasing said distance until I can replicate the effect at the desired magnitude.”

It was a good thing that nobody was around to hear him ramble, as he really wouldn’t appreciate someone like Ace chiming in to say, “English please,” while he was already struggling. Obviously Rev would understand what he was saying perfectly, but he-

“I didn’t- I’m not going to screw this up,” Tech huffed, reaching toward the conductive surface. “I just need to- OUCH!”

His finger barely grazed metal before he received a hearty shock, making him hiss and flail the pain away.

“Focus…” he muttered, finishing his interrupted sentence once again. “If I had my wits about me, I would’ve noticed the charge that had accumulated across my fur…”

He raised his hand again, knowing this time he didn’t have a charge to worry about this time.

“Start small, work my way up. Surely I’ll get somewhere if I just come at it from a different angle.”

His hands lit up with energy.

“‘A different angle…’ Why does that sound familiar…”

The energy around his hands wavered. Tech growled.

“It’s fine! I can do this! I just need to focus!”

A small spark crossed the gap, stinging a finger. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. He needed to control the energy so he wouldn’t hurt himself.

“Focus!”

Rev’s skull was aching with what felt like a combination of the brain jumble he gets after a research binge and the sharp sting of being shown that he’s wrong about something. This, he thought, made sense, since he was both learning a lot and being shown that a lot of things he thought were wrong.

“Okay so,” he said, vision almost swimming as he tried to wrap his head around everything, “biological sex is separate from gender, which is also separate from gender presentation, which is also also separate from preferred pronouns, and people can have seemingly random combinations of the aforementioned things, and all of them are separate from sexual orientation?”

“Yeah,” Lexi said. “See, you’re getting it!”

“But like, why would a guy choose to dress like a woman but keep a guy’s pronouns while being into women? That sounds really confusing…”

Duck scoffed. “Because you can appreciate the beauty of feminine attire while also finding women hot, duh.”

“Duck…” Lexi sighed. “If you’re going to be here could you please be a little more understanding? Rev’s new to all this.”

“Are you telling me he’s never seen a dude in a pretty dress before?”

Ace chimed in, “he’s only gone to private schools with uniforms for most of his life.”

Duck rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Rich people…”

Rev crossed his arms. “That’s a funny insult coming from the guy who’s had enough ‘get rich quick’ schemes to compete with an MLM convention.”

“There’s a convention for men loving men?”

“What the heck are you talking about?!”

“Guys!” Lexi called out. “Could we please stay on topic?”

After a brief pause, Rev uttered a soft apology while Duck gave a silent shrug.

The noon sun shone fiercely as Tech was met with failure after failure.

His eyes drifted to the mirages over the asphalt track, then shot back to his target.

His eyes drifted to the back entrance to HQ, then shot back to his target.

His eyes drifted to the plastic table he had brought out. To the coffee mug sitting on top of it.

…

“Focus!”

His eyes shot back to his target.

He could feel the sweat building under his fur. And the silence. The horrible, horrible, silence.

Out in the field, it was just him and his reflection on the metallic sphere atop the conductive pole. No voice to keep him company. To remind him he should probably eat something. To offer suggestions that might not be what he needs, but would help him figure out what he does.

“Focus!”

Each breath stung his nose and mouth with hot, dry air. The grass poked and prodded his paws as he shifted in place. Every strand of fur on his body stuck straight out and repelled each other.

Tech didn’t notice any of this.

His thoughts swarmed. He wasn’t thinking. He was the smart one. The careful one. Yet, he didn’t think. He should have thought harder.

“It’s fine! We’re fine! We’ll- We can-”

With a stomp of his foot, he looked again at his target.

“FOCUS!”

And now, he was alone. It was going so well, and then he screwed up, and now he’s alone.

Tech screamed, throwing a punch at his own reflection.

The regret was instant and painful.

With a thundering shock, he was blown back several meters, landing in a smoldering pile beside his supply table.

Once his regeneration kicked in, he sat up.

The grass was singed, but thankfully, not on fire. Still, that was a massive failure of reasoning on his part. All the signs pointing to that outcome were there, but he didn’t pay attention to any of them. Instead, he let his mind keep wandering to…

To…

Eyes squeezing closed, Tech yanked his ears and let out a wail that echoed across the empty field.

Rev wiped a hand across his face, feeling like he’s been in the quiet room for years… when in reality it probably hadn’t been even a few hours.

“Okay, so I still don’t get how a guy who dresses as a woman wouldn’t just be trans. I know that ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and ‘presentation’ and whatever aren’t the same, but if someone can just choose to be another gender, why wouldn’t they just choose to be the gender that they dress up as?”

“People don’t really ‘choose’ to be a specific gender,” Lexi explained. “They just sort of feel like a certain gender, and then choose to express their gender in different ways.”

“You can also feel like a bunch of different genders, or none at all!” Ace piped up excitedly. “Sometimes it’s a ‘woman’ day so you dress feminine. Sometimes it’s a ‘man’ day so you dress masculine. Sometimes it's an ‘agender’ day so you wear whatever. Or sometimes it’s even a ‘man’ day but you just wanna dress femininely.” Then, he pouted and looked off at the opposite wall. “Or… you just dress in the same super suit as everyone else all the time because it’s got a bunch of dohickeys in it that help you do hero stuff…”

Rev tilted his head. “But if you sometimes don’t feel like a guy, wouldn’t that mean you’re trans?”

“Me? Kinda. There’s not really any one gender I feel attached to for long, so I’d sort of consider myself nonbinary, even if I don’t care if most people see me as a guy most of the time.”

“But wouldn’t you want to be seen as whatever gender you’re feeling?”

“I mean, we’d probably need a calendar in the lounge to let everyone know what I’m feeling each day, which is just a lot of work for something that doesn’t matter much to me, personally.”

Rev let out an anxious sigh, burying his head in his hands. “This is really confusing…”

“Well…” Lexi said, “it can be kind of confusing, but even if you’re confused, you can still respect people’s identities regardless. It’s pretty rude to decide how people should express themselves just because of how you think they should be.”

“I, for example,” Duck firmly spoke up, “would prefer to be seen as a man no matter what I’m wearing. So don’t go thinking I’m a lady just because I sometimes prefer to be gorgeous.”

“Ugh. You may prefer to be gorgeous, but your outfits say otherwise.”

“Hey!”

“Come on, Lex,” Ace said. “Duck’s got plenty of style!”

“Of course you’d say that,” she retorted with a roll of her eyes. “Only the queen of gaudy outfits would think the stuff Duck wears is stylish.”

Rev frowned. “Wait…” All eyes went to him, making his throat feel tighter. But… he had to ask… “Lexi, didn’t you just say it’s wrong to decide how people express themselves?”

Her eyes went wide. “Wh-! That’s not the same thing!” she yelped. “It’s not like I’m saying they can’t dress in feminine clothes, they just have terrible taste! The outfit you picked out yesterday was perfectly fine!”

“But why does it matter if their outfits look nice to you? It’s how they choose to express themselves. I don’t get how it’s okay to tell Ace and Duck they’re not dressing the right way, but it’s not okay to do the same to someone you don’t understand. Why would it even matter?”

“I…” Her gaze drifted, seeing Duck crossed-armed and refusing to look at her, and Ace rubbing his arm and looking hurt. “I’m… sorry…” She sighed, looking away. “It really shouldn’t matter to me how you guys choose to look. Even if I don’t like it, I shouldn’t judge…”

“Oh.” Ace smiled lightly, brushing his ears back. “Well, thanks for… actually apologizing. I… honestly thought you were gonna be grilling me for my wardrobe for the rest of my life.”

Duck glanced at her briefly, before looking away again. “Well, it’s not like I ever cared about what you thought… but it would be nice to have you stop being so judgy all the time.”

“I won’t say anything about it again,” Lexi said. “I promise.”

The room went quiet. On the one hand, Ace and Duck seemed to be radiating relief. On the other, Lexi seemed a bit ashamed.

Though, if he were the one who just got called out like that, Rev thinks he’d be on the verge of tears. Maybe he was being a little harsh on her? He really was just trying to understand everything better.

Before he could ponder it further, Ace clapped him on the shoulder.

“Well, I believe the student has become the master. Well done; lesson time is over.”

“I don’t feel like a master…” Rev muttered.

“We brought you here to teach you, and you ended up teaching Lexi. I think that qualifies.”

“I really don’t think it does.”

“Sure it does,” Ace said standing up. “Especially since I’m sick of sitting here, and I have a feeling you are too.”

“I guess you’ve got me there.” Rev pushed himself off the sofa.

Ace turned his attention to the top of the bookshelf. “Hey Duck, how do you feel about a fashion show without worrying someone’s gonna come in sneering from the sidelines?”

“Sounds great!” Duck warped down to the floor beside Ace. “See ya later!”

And with that, Duck and Ace warped away.

As silence filled the room once again, Rev looked down at Lexi, who still had a look of shame across her face.

“Um, sorry about calling you out in front of everybody. I didn’t think about the kind of position it’d put you in.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, getting up from her seat. “This whole meeting was about educating biases and stuff, and I… needed to be given the perspective…” Looking at him, she gave him a playful nudge. “Besides, I did a fraction of the learning you just did. You managed to stick around despite how awkward it all was, so I can get over being called out for being judgy.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Of course. You did the right thing, Rev. Real friends call out their friends when they’re doing something wrong, and real friends listen to what they have to say.”

“I… guess so.” She… was doing pretty well about the whole thing. Is this how normal people react to making mistakes? If so, he was definitely making things a lot more awkward for Tech then, huh?

Lexi walked past him, opening the door. “I’m gonna go play something to take my mind off of the embarrassment. You joining?”

Rev followed her out the door, but stopped just outside. “Actually, I was in the middle of something when you found me. So I think I’m gonna get back to that.”

She shrugged. “Well, you know where to find me. And, even if you didn’t, it wouldn’t take you long to find me anyway.”

Rev snickered. “That’s true.”

“Later, Rev.”

“Bye, Lexi.”

As Lexi turned the corner into the living room, Rev looked the other way toward the patio door, remembering that Tech was out there earlier. In an instant, he was at the door.

Rev almost thought Tech had gone inside, but, just beside the table out in the field, Tech was laying in the fetal position on the ground, back turned toward the building.

“Tech…”

Earlier, Rev ignored his concerns to assume Tech was just ‘warming up.’ But… after what happened this morning… it was understandable why he was having problems.

The party would have to wait. First, he had to apologize, but how? He… really screwed up. The last thing he wanted to do was get stuck on what to say. Not again…

Heavy footsteps caught Rev’s attention, pulling his gaze toward Slam, who was trudging his way through the lounge after a presumably long workout.

Speaking of apologies… he kinda owed one to Slam as well.

Before he could second guess himself, Rev dashed over.

“Uh, hey Slam!” he greeted.

Slam tilted his head. “Hey?”

“Uh…” Rev scratched his neck. “Sorry for… being kinda cold earlier. I was going through my own thing and didn’t really think about how rude it was to push you away like that. I probably could’ve declined a little more nicely.”

Smiling bashfully, Slam waved away Rev’s concerns. “It’s okay.”

“You sure?”

Nodding, Slam started walking down the hall, giving a farewell wave a little distance away.

“Yeah uh, later Slam!”

That… wasn’t too bad. But now, he had to go apologize to Tech.

Letting out a sigh, Rev ran his fingers through his crest and looked around. That’s when his gaze landed on the ceramic mug on the coffee table.

Slowly, he walked toward it, coming to a stop right where he had been sitting that morning.

And where he had been sleeping a little earlier.

Rev sat down again, eyes transfixed on the simple object.

Closing his eyes, he sighed.

“I’m sorry, Tech. I let my fear get the best of me again… and you suffered for it… again…”

His eyes opened… then drifted a bit further.

The back of the remote… it was still sitting on the table. It wasn’t clicked back into its proper place.

Sure enough, with a quick flick of his head Rev saw the remote sitting on the arm of the same sofa, right where Tech had been sitting last night.

And the TV… it was off. It was off when he woke up. So, unless he managed to sleep through multiple hours of TV noise without waking… Tech managed to turn the TV off… without disturbing him in his sleep.

But… Tech was still struggling to control his new power…

Rev definitely faulted himself for that… but he was going to make it right.

And he had an idea how.

First came off his bracers and cowl, which both were set on the coffee table. Then, off came his boots, which he slid underneath.

Tech was going to succeed one way or the other, and the electronics on those parts of Rev’s suit could get damaged in the process.

Lastly, he took the mug gently into his hands, and began the long walk to his struggling friend.

Earlier that morning…

Before he opened his eyes, Rev took a slow, deep breath, and the scent of comfort washed through him. For some reason, Rev felt absolutely refreshed for the first time in years. Ironically, it made him love being in bed more. He nuzzled his beak into the warmth of his pillow, which…

…was furrier than he remembered.

Now that he thought about it, his mattress was also firmer. His blanket too.

Eyes shooting open, his heart pounded as he tried to get a grip of his situation.

He choked on a gasp, seeing Tech peacefully sleeping below him.

This was… bad? Good? A lot. Rev decided on a lot. That was the only thing he could be sure of as his heart was pounding and his thoughts were racing and…

And he couldn’t pull himself away because Tech had his arms wrapped firmly around him.

Multiple things shot through his mind. Trapped! Snug. Danger! Safe. Wrong! Home. Floating around was the realization that he was only so refreshed because Tech prevented him from rolling onto the floor, but he couldn’t process that alongside all the other things he couldn’t process.

Then, Tech’s eyes blinked open.

Somewhere, Rev knew he should calm down. Wherever that was, it wasn’t here.

“Mmf… Rev?” Tech blinked again, and then his eyes widened. “Oh! I didn’t-!” Instantly he released him.

Before thinking, Rev threw himself back. Almost instantly, something strong urged him to throw himself right back. He didn’t.

“Hey! I- I’m really sorry!”

Inside Rev’s head was a barrage of conflicting screams and commands. Outside, he was frozen, staring and panting as his heart continued to pound.

Inside Tech, multiple things were shattering. But it didn’t matter right now. Rev had fear in his eyes and he had to do something.

“I didn’t mean for us to fall asleep like that, I promise! You were asleep and I didn’t want to move and- Oh god that doesn’t help…”

Tech looked away, only for his eyes to land on two somethings on the coffee table.

Two coffee mugs.

Lexi had seen them and set aside some coffee.

Panic shot through him as he looked back to Rev, whose gaze was returning from the same direction. He had seen the same thing and likely came to the same conclusion.

“Rev, she’s not gonna say anything,” he pleaded, trying desperately to level out his voice. “She already keeps so many secrets, this is just another one.”

But Rev was still breathing hard, eyes unfocused and anxious.

To make it worse, the sound of Ace and Duck’s voices began filtering in from down the hall.

Rev shot up from the couch.

Against his better judgment, Tech stood up as well.

“There’s nothing for them to be suspicious of, Rev. You don’t need to freak out.”

Rev’s head swished away to Tech to away to Tech again.

“Please. I promise I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

More panting. More looking away.

The voices down the hall continued getting louder.

“Just calm down. We can talk about this.”

The voices got louder.

And Rev ran.

“Rev-!”

But he was gone…

And the rest of the team didn’t even notice Tech was there as they walked past. They just made their way into the kitchen without even a glance in his direction.

Sighing, Tech looked down at the coffee mugs.

It was clear which was his, as Lexi knew he preferred quite a bit more sugar and cream than he was willing to admit to anyone else.

And it looked like Rev took his coffee black.

Tech wanted to think about how interesting that was, but as he picked up his coffee, he decided that thinking about Rev was just going to hurt his soul too much at the moment.

The edge of the mug touched his lips for a brief moment, before he pulled it away.

All things considered, Tech felt pretty refreshed. And… it was because having Rev sleeping against him made him reconsider getting up, which would have possibly led to him working later than he should.

Well, he’d keep the coffee anyway. Maybe he’ll want some later. Besides, he had work to do. For the past week, he had been trying to produce an EMP, and he had just figured out one key component in achieving just that. Rev was going to be ecstatic when he-

Tech sighed, walking toward his room.

He didn’t need to think about Rev right now. He’ll get dressed in proper attire, warn the rest of the team not to bring sensitive materials out back, and ask one of them to inform Rev on his behalf. After that, he needed to keep Rev out of his head. He had work to do.

He had to focus.

…

Before Tech opened his bedroom door… his eyes drifted to the mug in his hands.

The current afternoon…

If he thought the dry grass was uncomfortable against his paws, it was definitely uncomfortable against his head and ears. But, that didn’t matter. The only thing he had energy for was laying next to the foldout table and failing to stop thinking about that morning. It was especially hard not to think about, because the lack of energy was coming from his will to keep working, and not from a lack of physical energy. As was true that morning, he was actually well rested, and that only made his thoughts more clear and painful.

Interrupting Tech’s thoughts, footsteps slowly crunched in the grass toward him. They were too light to be Slam’s, and Duck wouldn’t have bothered with walking outside in this heat. That just left Lexi or Ace, neither of whom he was in the mood to talk to.

“If you’re here to question if I’m fine, I am. I just decided to lie down to get some more blood flowing to the brain. It’s a thing only geniuses like myself understand. So, you can leave me alone now.”

The footsteps stopped briefly, then continued closer.

Tech sighed.

But then, they stopped, and…

“Tech.”

It was like he was slapped into reality as Tech shot up onto his feet.

“Rev-! Uh, I thought someone else was… uh… there.”

Finally, he looked him over, seeing a somber expression on his face and his hand cupping the top and bottom of a coffee mug.

Presumably, the coffee mug Lexi had given him that morning.

Clearing his throat, Tech looked away. “Sorry… about this morning. And last night too. Just… all of it. I… should have considered my actions more thoroughly.”

It went quiet. Tech felt the urge to look back at Rev, but worried he might not be there.

Then, the words coming out much slower than usual…

“Can I… tell you a secret? Something… I’ve only told Lexi?”

Unease crawled up Tech’s spine as his words reached him. He looked at him for an explanation, but Rev’s gaze was settled on the mug in his hands.

“Of course. Say whatever you want.”

Rev took a deep breath in, closed his eyes, and slowly let it out.

“Ever since I got my powers… I started tossing and turning in bed worse than I ever had before. Instead of just waking up from a rough night of sleep… I’d roll out of bed in my sleep and wake up after hitting the floor. It happens… at least a few times every night.”

Eyes slowly opening, a sad smile crept across Rev’s beak.

“The rest of the team thinks I’m an early bird, but really… you can only handle being abruptly smacked awake so many times before you get sick of crawling back into bed. And, despite my powers giving me way too much energy… I’m pretty much a zombie every morning until I’ve had a cup of coffee…”

With that, Rev brought his mug over to the table, setting it down with a deep thunk.

Tech blinked, tilting his head and seeing that it was just as full as it was when they woke up.

His eyes flicked back to Rev, and his sad smile was replaced with a more hopeful one. And sure enough, his tone was more lively as well.

“But this morning… I didn’t wake up on the floor. I was… comfortable. Refreshed. For a moment, I just wanted to stay right where I was and savor it.” Slowly a frown overtook his face as he looked away. “Of course… I eventually realized what had happened, and I felt… scared. But… I also felt safe, at the same time. I felt… a lot of things, honestly. Good and bad. But I couldn’t really make sense of any of them at the time. And when you woke up… and let go of me… and I backed away… I was feeling… even more.”

Rev ran his fingers through his crest, sighing. “And then we saw the coffee Lexi left us, and I was embarrassed, and then the rest of the team was walking closer, and…” With a groan, he wiped his face. “And I ran away…”

Tech rubbed his arm awkwardly, standing around for agonizing seconds not knowing where he and Rev stood at the moment. All he knew, was that Rev was still scared that morning. “I understand,” he said. “Really, I’m… very sorry for putting you in that position.”

Rev returned his gaze to Tech.

“I came back to the lounge… after you left…”

The coffee mugs stood at the corner of Tech’s vision.

“I assume not for a drink,” he said cautiously.

“No,” Rev said. “I… needed to think about what happened. Everything that happened.”

Tech listened, throat tight and jaw clenched almost painfully.

“When I first woke up… I felt better than I had waking up in years. It was only when I started overthinking that all the bad stuff crept in. Then I just spiraled and spiraled until I…” Rev paused, then took another deep breath. “Tech, I’m sorry for running away again. Not just literally but, also avoiding having a conversation about what was going on. I left you alone and… clearly feeling terrible about everything…”

Well, he couldn’t deny that…

“What happened was too much…” Rev continued, “and I wasn’t ready to wake up like that… but I don’t want you to feel too bad about it. It means a lot that you want to apologize, but honestly, your mistake feels like nothing in comparison to my problem with ditching you when I get scared.”

Tech crossed his arms, pursing his lips. “Even so, I still think it deserves an apology. Despite knowing I needed to be careful with our relationship, I didn’t take the steps necessary to prevent myself from hurting you.”

“I… guess that’s true…” Rev admitted. “You can know you’re forgiven, then. And… I also want you to know I really want to be better. I promise that I’m trying. It’s still really hard to talk about my feelings… and about why I’m bad with making mistakes… But even if it’s hard… I’m working at it.” He sighed, looking away. “I’m not ready to fall asleep with you again… or finish our talk from yesterday, but I really want to.” A shy chuckle escaped his beak. “Especially the first one.” His earnest gaze fell back on Tech. “So, if you’re still willing to deal with… me… I promise that I will do everything I can to not run away again.”

Tech let out the faintest laugh of relief. “Don’t worry. It’ll take a lot more than that to stop me from wanting you around.” His face softened. “And, I promise to be a little more careful from now on and… and not push you to talk like I did yesterday.”

Rev chuckled lightly. “You can push a little. Sometimes it’s nice to have a nudge to do something more difficult.”

“Well, I guess I’ll push a little then.”

They both smiled, the tension from that morning melting away.

Then, Rev cleared his throat. “So… I couldn’t help but notice the TV was off when I woke up. If I’m not being presumptuous… that means you finally figured out how to create electricity?”

“I did, though… As you could probably guess, I’ve been having trouble replicating the circumstances to do it again. I… was missing something important during all my attempts today.”

“Missing something? I could go grab it for you.”

Tech chuckled, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. “It’s not something that you can pick up and bring here.”

“Well, what is it?”

This was too cheesy, but…

“A reason to succeed.”

Rev tilted his head, giving a confused smile. “What?”

“Stand back a bit. I’ll show you.”

“Uh, okay!” Rev ran back a good 20 meters. “Is this far enough?!” He called out.

“Perfect!” Tech called back, a nervous smile creeping across his face as he turned his attention to the same metallic rod that had been giving him trouble all morning.

Rev knew he could do this. He believed in him. And Tech knew he could too.

Tech looked behind him, seeing a pair of nearly full coffee mugs, and a bit further, the cheerful expression of the most important person in his life.

His gaze returned to his target, and so did his mind. It was so similar to his magnetic manipulation. He had the ability to control it.

His hands lit up with green energy.

And then.

BOOM!

A thrill ran up Tech’s spine as the air flashed with energy. Even better, he didn’t incinerate himself or any of the surrounding grass.

“That was awesome!” came Rev’s voice rushing closer.

Tech barely turned his head to see him before he was wrapped in a hug.

There was barely a second for his heart to do somersaults in his chest before Rev let go.

“Ah um-! Haha, sorry.”

There was nothing that could help the grin on Tech’s face. Without his cowl, the blush on Rev’s beak showed up so nicely and made him look even more adorable.

“Don’t be. Wherever you’re willing to go, I’m ready to meet you there.”

Rev chuckled shyly.

“So… what was that reason you mentioned earlier?”

Rolling his eyes playfully, Tech pointed right at Rev’s beak and gave it a small nudge for good measure. “You.”

“Me?”

“Of course. Nothing gets me more fired up to try something difficult than knowing it’ll make the person I care about most happy. Why else would my powers have only worked while you were promising to spend time with me?”

Rev’s expression was unreadable for a long moment, and Tech was starting to wonder if he went too far already.

But then Rev’s arms were around him, and everything was perfect in the universe.

“Well then,” Rev said softly, nudging his beak into Tech’s fur, “you shouldn’t have any problems to worry about from now on, because you make me happy all the time.”

Okay, and now his face was definitely red. “I’ll… keep that in mind…” he managed to wheeze out.

At this point, Tech expected Rev to let go. What he was not expecting, was for him to hold on tighter.

And now, it felt kind of awkward that his arms were just hanging like limp noodles at his sides. Carefully, and slowly, Tech inched them around Rev’s back.

“Are you, okay? With this?”

“Yeah.” Rev let out a quiet laugh. “Honestly, a part of me’s been screaming to do this since I ran off this morning. Maybe it was a bit much to wake up on top of you… but this is… nice.”

“Well… Good. That’s good. I… feel the same.” With just a little more confidence, he held Rev just a bit closer.

And then… Rev let out a long sigh, melting fully into his embrace.

Tech felt lighter than air, practically floating in bliss. He was helpless to stop himself from melting as well.

How long they stayed locked in their embrace, Tech didn’t know. But it couldn’t last forever. Eventually, something was going to interrupt them.

But he was not expecting it to be an absolutely ravenous stomach growl.

An embarrassed laugh from Rev further interrupted the moment. “Uh, sorry,” he said, pulling away slightly. Just enough to look him in the eye. “I just realized… I sort of didn’t drink coffee or eat anything this morning.”

Tech laughed as well. “I didn’t either. I was so busy trying to focus on controlling my powers I guess I lost focus on… literally everything else.” He smiled hopefully. “You wanna grab lunch with me?”

“Uh, yeah! Of course!”

Despite the plan, Rev didn’t move.

“Rev?”

“Sorry. Just.” He gave him another hug, complete with a firm squeeze, then finally let go. “Alright. And, we should probably bring the mugs in.”

Tech was still so busy processing the flurry of warm feelings from Rev’s embrace, that he didn’t even notice Rev had grabbed the mugs and started walking until he was a few steps behind.

“Wait! Hold up.”

Rev stopped. “Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. My mind just lagged behind a bit.”

“Your mind? Lag?” Rev said, smirking as the two of them continued walking together. “What could possibly make the mind of super genius Tech E. Coyote lag behind?”

“The arms of a charming roadrunner, apparently.”

Tech continued walking, smirk on his face as Rev froze for quite a few steps.

“Charming?” Rev breathed, a flush overtaking his beak. Then. “Hey! Wait a minute! That’s not fair!”

He couldn’t help but laugh as Rev was forced to catch up as he had.

Tech knew there was going to be a bit of struggle in their relationship, but this was what he was talking about when he said it would be worth it.

(Coming eventually) Link to Magnetic Attraction Part 5 ->