Bungler (MLB AU)
[A/N] -__CinnamonRoll__-, this is for you. I promised I'd get this done, and though it took several months, I finally made a Gentlebug and Meowware oneshot. Molly and Yumi belong to her, Amaya belongs to ItzelBarajas160, and all other characters are mine. This is REALLY long, so I apologize in advance.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god, check in, c'mon!" Haruto rambles to himself quietly as he catches up to the other members of his relay. They give him a bit of slack for nearly forgetting, but it's all playful and he understands this. It's his fault a bit for getting distracted-- fortunately, he'd still managed a warm-up, but he'd started to zone out, only snapping to attention once he saw the rest of his team standing in line and staring obviously at him. They state their school and names, receiving the spot Heat 1 Lane 3. Not bad, not bad at all.
Before their event starts, they watch the last half of the 1600 meter relay. Having one of the longer races immediately beforehand is something that always gives Haruto a bit of anxiety; with his sticker already on and the baton already in his hand, he feels unsettled at the wait. As nervous as him is Daichi, the teammate he'll be passing the baton to. Granted, he ALWAYS seems at least slightly on-edge, but somehow, when race time is on, he is one of the most dependable runners imaginable. Totally, Haruto thinks to himself with pride, that's a boy who will make varsity soon. He gives Haruto a sheepish smile and rubs his arm. They cheer for the two team members who do the 1600, and that at least distracts them. After an agonising pause, the race concludes, and Haruto frantically shuffles to his lane.
He hops a couple of times, smiling at his competitors. The boy to his right, a kid he'd vaguely gotten to know from the past few meets, nods and smiles agreeably. To the left, however... ugh, this guy.
"Oh, look! It's the klutz again! How many times did you trip during your warmup today, Gima?"
"Enough to know I got them all out of my system! I can do this just fine, don't you worry!" He widens his grin forcefully, trying to express that this won't get under his skin.
"And how many times did you drop the baton?"
"U-Um, well, that's why I'm up first! Better for me to only have to pass it, and not grab it, too. Besides! I'm the best at blocks, and I'll be sure to give my team a really big lead! Just you wait!"
"It's just such a shame that you're so clumsy! You could probably make your school's varsity if they could count on you more."
"Minoru! Jesus, leave him be!" the guy in lane 4 pipes up.
"C'mon, it's just a little trash talk."
"I-If you're so steady, what's your excuse for not making varsity?" Haruto snipes back, but it comes out with less bite than he wishes it would.
"Gima, I'm new to track. Some of the racers on my team have been seeing you at meets since late primary school. Just watch! I'll surpass you by our third year of high school!" he flashes a cocky smirk.
"On your mark!" The competitors take their places in the blocks. Haruto can feel the familiar synthetic rubber on his fingertips and knees. He makes double, no, triple sure that the baton is lodged firmly in his hands.
"Get set!" Haruto raises his backside and leans forward. The butterflies are flooding his stomach now. It's okay. It's okay. It's just a 4 by 1. Just a hundred meters. You can make it a hundred meters without fucking it up. You've done it dozens and dozens of times before.
The gun fires and Haruto launches out of the block, flying into a full sprint. He just has to get it to his teammate. Daichi locks eyes with him and narrows his eyes with focus. As they draw nearer, Daichi starts to move. "STICK!" Haruto yells, signaling that he's ready to pass it. Daichi shoots out his hand, and as Haruto leans in to give him the baton... shit, shit, shit! He feels himself fall forward, and the baton reaches Daichi a mere inch outside of the exchange zone. Daichi keeps running regardless, hoping beyond belief that the officials didn't catch it and wouldn't disqualify the team. It's fruitless. The team is disqualified, with Haruto shrinking his posture over in the sidelines.
Before anyone can get to him and comfort him, he flashes them a weak, faltering smile and yells, "I'll be back! Just gonna go clean these and bandage my knees up!" He takes off, scolding himself for letting the trash talk psych him out so much. Minoru isn't even a bad person, he can tell from the way the guy's expression is genuinely remorseful and concerned, but he's so mad at himself for proving him right.
He makes his way to the bathroom and begins to wash his bleeding knees, grimacing from the soft sting. Don't cry. What if someone comes in here? But the tears come anyway. C'mon, Bisque, you still have the 200. You can make up for this. Yeah, but the 200 is an individual race. You failed your team. Again.
A black and purple butterfly flits into the room. "Oh, no, no, no, no!" he panics, scooting as far from it as he possibly can. But it doesn't matter that it can't get to his person. It goes for the spikes sitting in his sports bag.
"Bungler. I am Morphomire. You hate yourself for being uncoordinated and costing your team the race. But I can give you the power to make everyone understand you."
"I don't want to hurt anyone!" he yells in response, tears flooding down his face.
"You're merely... levelling the playing field. For once, you can be the one everyone can count on."
"Just... one day..."
"Exactly. And all you need to do to end the teasing for good is to get Gentlebug and Meowware's Miraculouses. But I believe in your capability."
"I... thank you, Morphomire. I'll fetch those for you in a jiffy."
...
Daichi is wary and cautious, not exactly knowing what to do here. Bisque is his friend, someone who cares a LOT, so he knows he has to do something, but—
Ohhhhhhhh. He's too late. From the bathroom emerges an Akumatized villain, seemingly made of carbon-fiber and with pin spikes all over his body. Interesting to note is that he literally does have two left feet, as well as a giant baton, glinting in the sunlight. The sticker, a big "3" indicating his lane in the prior race, retains its place on his thigh. "Hiiiiii!" he beams. The raw sincerity of it is offputting.
"B-Bisque, I'm s-sorry," Daichi squeaks.
"First of all... I'm not Bisque! I'm Bungler! Second, there's totally nothing you should be sorry for! I'm the one who messed up your race and got us disqualified! But... while we're here, it wouldn't hurt for everyone to know what it's like to run in my shoes. Or should I say, spikes? STICK!"
A blast comes forth from the baton, and Daichi nimbly twists out of the way before sprinting to who knows where. He's used to being chased by predators— obviously predators with long-range projectiles are significantly less common, but with akuma attacks being on the rise, he's starting to adjust to that. Even with his survival instincts, however, he still needs to find a way to transform.
As he runs, he gets yanked into a hiding spot under the bleachers by his teammates. Agh! I don't have time for this! "G-Guys, I think I'm gonna be s-sick," he lies timidly, clutching at his stomach to make it extra convincing.
"Was it the akuma's power?!" one of his teammates whispers.
"N-No, that's why I was g-going to the bathroom in the f-first place. I didn't get hit. It's probably from eating f-food I'm not u-used to."
"Ah, shit. If you leave, you'll be putting yourself in danger, but if you stay, getting sick might alert him to our hiding spot."
"I-I'll be okay. I've been in worse situations. You guys s-stay safe here."
As he emerges from the hiding spot, he can already see the damage of Bungler. Everyone who'd been hit is blustering about, stumbling and tripping every few steps, dropping and sometimes breaking things. Glass is scattered along the pavement from some sort of bottle. He even passes a less fortunate woman who presumably twisted an ankle. He winces sympathetically but doesn't stop until he makes it back to the bathroom.
He quickly checks that nobody is in there, and then sighs in relief. "Tikki, spots on!" The red glowing swirl that was his kwami slips into his earring and he transforms. First comes the body suit and polka-dotted shawl made to look like wings. Then the antennae-like headband keeping his hair out of his eyes (and consequently, his least favorite part of the outfit). Most importantly, the fringed mask to hide his tribal tattoo and protect his identity (and consequently, his favorite part of the outfit). Add on the protective yo-yo at his hip, and you've got yourself a Gentlebug. Before doing anything, he calls his partner.
"Meowware, I'm sure you already know this, b-but we've got ourselves an akuma attack. It's at the track, but it's probably gonna start s-spilling into the streets soon. He's called Bungler, and his p-power is that he can make people incredibly clumsy. The guy's a r-really good person, so can we try to hurt him as little as we can? Uh, thanks, see you soon."
...
Amaya and Molly chat idly about video games, programming, and the like. Molly had stayed late in her computer science club, working on some of her web design commissions, and Amaya had joined in the hopes of learning how to code simple games, so she's keeping Molly company. On the walk home, they start to hear screaming. "Oh, God. Something bad is happening," Molly mutters, fidgeting with her ring.
Sure enough, with all the grace of a dying goose, Azumi falls helplessly in front of them. "A-Azumi?!" Amaya yells, crouching to pick her up from the ground.
"This feels absolutely awful. I cannot bear being so disconnected from my own body's actions," she sighs. Seemingly getting her priorities in order, she gasps. "You two must flee! My— There is an akumatized villain on the loose, and it is poor, sweet Bisque, and he is making everyone extraordinarily ungainly! It is calamitous out there; you would not suspect that a power such as that could cause such havoc, but it is far worse than I could've imagined!"
"Okay!" Amaya accepts immediately, attempting to leg it. Someone nearby accidentally trips, flinging a water bottle directly onto Amaya's head.
"So we've got a temporarily impaired acrobat and one of the most unlucky people I've ever seen. Great..." Molly sighs. "C'mon, Amaya, if we leave Azumi here, she'll never make it to safety." The two girls carry Azumi to a nearby office building and hide away in a
storage closet.
"Oh no! I need to go find Yumi! She stayed behind to keep doing graphic design work!" Molly squeals. She is genuinely concerned for Yumi, but that's, of course, not why she's leaving. "You two, find something to brace the door with! If I come back, you'll know, but it's safer for you if you're walled in!"
"If you insist. But please, exercise caution," Azumi warns. With that, Molly rushes from the closet all the way to another floor's. That one doesn't budge, presumably taken, so she goes to the NEXT one. Fortunately, that one is vacant.
"Plagg, claws out!" Her silver ring goes black and green. Black cat ears meant to look pixelated and 8-bit appear on her head, and her purple hair bursts into a lime hue. Her catsuit, fitted and with a pixelated cat bell dangling from her neck, has a bold green stripe on the side of each leg. A black belt, prehensile like a tail, wraps around her. Her black mask reveals her mismatched brown eyes, altered to include colored sclera. She always feels fortunate that heterochromia isn't quite so uncommon in cats, keeping her identity safe despite the distinctive quality.
The first thing she checks is her staff's video messages. In the beginning, it was unwieldy learning how to do things with her clawed fingers, but it comes with a certain ease now. Sure enough, she has a message from Gentlebug, informing her on Bungler's whereabouts and politely requesting that they keep the violence to a minimum.
Curiosity floods her as to how Gentlebug knows Bisque, but she shoves the thoughts aside— they're not supposed to be trying to figure out each other's identities— and descends down the building, launching herself all the way to where the havoc's spread. People are collapsed in heaps, there are puddles and glass shards everywhere— thus leading to a car wreck and several popped tires, and— Oh God. She zips over to where a window washer dangles in the air, having slipped from his cage and holding onto it for dear life. She brings him safely to the ground, and then rushes off to hunt for Bungler and Gentlebug through a flurry of astonished thank you's.
Soon enough, she finds them. Gentlebug is expertly weaving all throughout the streets, somehow taking care not to step on glass or slip in puddles or fall over anyone whilst managing to keep a fair amount of distance between himself and Bungler. What a strange-looking Akuma, she thinks to herself. It looks like some sort of plastic, and it has those spikes all over itself. She usually likes to sneak attack and then grapple enemies, but those spikes could puncture easily and then they'd have problems. She takes a closer look and notices that he's using this big, hollow, shiny cylinder thing to blast people. Ah! Getting rid of that means rendering the enemy powerless!
She takes a grand leap, and in midair, shouts "Cataclysm!" The cylinder turns into a bunch of pixels, which vanish over time.
"Hey! That's cheating! It's not your leg yet!" he yells in agitation, clearly not transforming back to a human.
"L-Leg?" she asks nervously.
"It's not your leg of the race! You don't get to have the baton yet!" he clarifies, instantly producing another one.
Shit! she panics, now in close-range. "STICK!" he yells, and the instant before she's about to get hit, she gets yanked away by Gentlebug's yo-yo.
"Sorry! I thought that would be where the Akuma was!" she apologizes.
"It's fine. I assumed that, t-too, and if you'd been right, you'd have won the battle before he even knew you were here. Now we've gotta b-buy you time to detransform and feed your kwami," he murmurs gently. "I'd normally say that it's better to split up, but he knows you're going to detransform soon. He'll ignore me to go after you with n-no hesitation."
"Hey! Whatcha talking about?! I can keep secrets super-duper well," Bungler giggles. "STICK!" Meowware shoves Gentlebug away and the blast goes right in between them.
"Go on the offensive!" she commands.
"Wh-What?! I ca—!" Before he can protest, she's zooming off, and as Bungler makes a move to pursue, Gentlebug instinctively slings his yo-yo around his ankle. He yanks him back to the ground and, despite how much he hates close-combat, tries to encroach. Bungler gets up quickly.
Where could the Akuma be? Maybe the sticker?
He rushes in low to try and reach the sticker, and receives a hard whack to the head with the baton as reward. He topples to the ground. "That's really mean! I know I failed the team, but ripping that feels like saying I don't deserve to be on it," Bungler pouts sadly. "I-I mean, STICK!" With only a fraction of a second to roll out of the way, the blast gets within a hair's breadth of hitting him, and he pants in alarm. Bungler's hand reaches closer and closer to his ear. Time seems to slow. He can't get that Miraculous. I have to find a way.
His first instinct is to scratch or even bite, anything to stop the hand. But it's made of carbon fiber and has pin spikes that could pierce the roof of his mouth. So what am I supposed to do? Beg?
When the hand is about half an inch from the earring, he shouts at the top of his lungs, "LUCKY CHARM!" This scream is enough to make Bungler cover his ears, and Gentlebug scrambles to grab the red and black checkered... thing. Before he can think about how to properly use it to end the attack, he wraps it right around Bungler's wrists, binding him temporarily. As he dives for the baton, Bungler makes it disappear.
"Agh! Uh! What to do, what to do?! Ohhhhhhh, I know," he trills, seeming far less frightened than Gentlebug would've wanted. "You're gonna transform back soon. The second that happens, the Lucky Charm will poof away. So all I need to do is tail you until then!" The usual earnest, kind-hearted smile is replaced by a strangely sinister smirk.
"Not on my watch!" Meowware interrupts, and Gentlebug involuntarily sighs from relief. Bungler starts trying to bite at and untie the bonds, but one of those things that Daichi was good at even before receiving the Miraculous is effective knot-tying.
Meowware surveys the situation, impressed. "Any idea where the Akuma is?!"
"M-Might be the sticker on his hip, but I have no g-guarantee. I just know he doesn't want it to get damaged."
"On it!"
"This is so sucky! Why do these things always happen to me?!" Bungler shouts. "Screw it!" He summons another baton, a thinner one, and clamps down on it with his teeth. He tilts his head toward Meowware and, though muffled, cries out, "SHTICK!" She, having been barreling toward him, has no time to change her course, and gets the brunt of a giant blast.
Shit, shit, shit. Now I won't be able to keep him off Gentlebug while he detransforms! But she bucks up her courage. Now's not the time to hesitate. "Gentlebug, you've gotta go! I'll protect you no matter what!" she vows.
"Be careful!" he pleads once before zipping away. Bungler tries to make a pursuit, and Meowware follows. She topples over nearly instantaneously, but lands on top of Bungler. The spikes hurt her, but she stays put dutifully. Nothing will get in her way, nothing will make her let him touch her partner. He screeches in frustration and starts trying to kick her off. She makes a swipe at the sticker on his hip with her clawed fingers, and he suddenly kicks her off with more force than she could've anticipated.
"At first, I just wanted everyone to get what it feels like to be me, but you're all just a bunch of bullies, huh?!" he wails.
"I-I'm sorry! I wouldn't have scratched it if I knew the Akuma wasn't in there!" she apologizes. Knowing that it's Bisque in there, that something bothered him so much to make him like this, it hurts.
"Whatever," he sniffs, "I'm the competent one now. I'm the dependable one, I'm the reliable one, and I'm getting Morphomire those Miraculouses!" He charges, and she tries to dodge but once again falls to the ground, as though her legs are gelatin.
She's never really been the planner out of the two of them. Her boundless confidence makes her perfect for confronting problems one-on-one while her partner strategizes. But what she knows right now is that she needs to spend as little time on her feet as possible. As dumb as it may sound or look, she decides to roll. That's the only way she can think to move without messing anything up, and it prevents him from having easy access to her ring. She rolls all the way to one of the only functional cars left and knocks frantically at the window. The driver, seeing that it's Meowware, lets her in. "Please, I know that the roads are super dangerous right now, but if you could take me to the ice rink, you may very well save the city!" she pleads. "You can go as slow as you need, just get me there! Any damage to your car will be undone once we win this!"
The driver, though reluctant, agrees, and there's a painstakingly slow drive to the ice rink. She leaves a somewhat panicked message to Gentlebug telling her where she's going on the way. Bungler can't do his job when neither Miraculous holder is confronting him, so he begrudgingly follows the car, feeling more than a little bewildered. On the way, the constraints disappear; Gentlebug's detransformed. Having his hands free fills Bungler with confidence. Once discovering the destination, however, he freaks out internally.
"I can't skate, I'm too clumsy! My powers will be useless if I'm fumbling around, too!" he frets under his breath.
"Bungler, you have all the time in the world. So long as they don't know where the Akuma is hidden, you can flail around on the ice and waste their time for as long as it takes to get their Miraculouses," Morphomire reminds him.
"U-Um, okay..." he agrees hesitantly. Both he and Meowware hop onto the ice, and both almost immediately fall over.
A beat of silence passes before Meowware cackles gleefully. "See, dude, you've gotta admit that this is a hilarious situation."
"I'm tired," he sighs. "But it kind of is, in a twisted way." He kicks the side of the rink and goes gliding on his stomach toward her. She frantically wiggles away and laughs even more. "I'm kind of really mad at you though."
"Sorry."
"I just wanted to be someone people can look up to for once."
"Bi— I mean, I'm sure there are absolutely people who look up to you."
"Pfft. No way. I have friends, but they all kinda treat me like a kid. And they have every reason to; I always let them down." He tries to stand and his knees buckle, sending him back to the ground. Finally, even he can't suppress his laughter.
Gentlebug arrives on the scene. "I have a question!" he asks with an odd amount of intensity. He manages to last a little longer on the ice, but nearly slips and grips the side of the rink to steady himself.
"Yeah?"
"You said it wasn't Meowware's l-leg of the race, so she can't have the baton yet. If we were to do a relay, would you let us have it?"
Bungler is taken-aback by the question. "I— Um— That doesn't matter! We don't have a fourth leg, so we can't do it!"
"Meowware! Gentlebug!" a stranger approaches them. Though, now that Gentlebug gets a better look, it seems to be that guy that was in the lane next to Haruto. He clutches a bag— Bisque's track bag! "I saw on the news that you were here, and I found this in the track's bathroom, so I thought maybe—!"
"STICK!" Bungler immediately interrupts, casting the spell furiously. The stranger isn't cowed; he enters the rink with ease. "Minoru, go away!"
"Look, I'm here to say I'm sorry, Gima! I didn't realize how badly I was hurting your feelings! I know what I said was harsh and rude, but I honestly really like being a competitor with you! And if we went to the same school, you would be such an awesome teammate!"
"I— You're lying to me!"
"I'm not! I swear."
"Teammate, you say? Why don't we try it?!" Meowware offers ecstatically.
"She's right! If we add Minoru, that makes f-four of us," Gentlebug urges.
"C'mon, Gima. Let's race together! No officials to DQ us, no timer to worry about, just a fun, stupid time on the ice." He gets close enough to place his own sticker over the top of Bungler's torn one.
"Lucky Charm!" Gentlebug calls out once more. "While I was gone, I figured out what th-this thing is! It's the finish line!"
"Bungler! You know what your job is! I can take your powers in an instant if you refuse to grab Meowware and Gentlebug's Miraculouses!"
"Trust me. I can snag her ring while I pass her the baton," he reassures Morphomire in a whisper. "Okay! So Meowware second leg, Minoru third, and Gentlebug fourth!" he declares.
"O-Okay. We have p-plenty of time, but if it gets too close to f-five minutes, I might have to fly," Gentlebug reminds him.
"Can we finish a lap in five minutes?" Meowware asks.
"Totally," Minoru assures. "On a track, we can get this done in roughly one minute. Even on the ice, we've got this."
It takes them a small bit of time to get into position, but eventually, they start their "race." Bungler's spirits raise as he wobbles on the ice toward Meowware bit by bit. Her smile is genuinely encouraging and amused, and as he prepares for the handoff, he fixates on her ring. But nevertheless... "STICK," he declares. She sticks out her hand and he slaps the baton into her palm, letting her go.
"BUNGLER!" Morphomire shouts into his ear.
"Quiet down. Jeebers. What's the point of being Akumatized if I can't actually enjoy it?" He sits back and watches as Meowware passes to Minoru, and Minoru to Gentlebug, and then he beams as Gentlebug makes his way across the finish line. "Yay!! We win!" he announces, utterly delighted. "My Akuma is in my spikes— um, and by that, I mean, my racing shoes. With the little spikes on the bottom. They're in my bag. Morphomire's gonna get rid of my powers anyway for like, not going after your Miraculouses, sooooo... I'd rather you do it."
"Thank you, Bungler. It was very fun to race with you!" Meowware admits. She digs through his bag until she finds what she's looking for. "Cataclysm!" She places her hand on both shoes, and the Akuma flitters out.
"Time to de-evilize." Gentlebug swings his yo-yo and catches the creature. "Th-There we go. F-Farewell, little guy. Go join your friends," he encourages as a normal butterfly emerges. "Miraculous Ladybug!" he throws the finish line in the air, and a healing wave radiates outward. Everything from the small pricks on Meowware to the car wrecks are undone, and Haruto lays confused on the ice.
"I— Huh??? How did I get here? Was I...? Oh God! I was akumatized, huh?"
"Don't worry, Gima. It's all okay now," Minoru comforts him.
"You?! I'm so confused!"
"Oh, uh, right. Let me apologize a second time."
In the meanwhile, Meowware sets a soft hand on Gentlebug's. It makes him fluster ever so slightly. "Wh-What's this for?"
"I know you've told me in the past that you wouldn't have chosen to be Gentlebug. That you didn't think you'd be a good hero and that it was really scary. But today was fun, right?"
He lets out a nervous giggle and scratches at the back of his head. "Yeah. It's gonna take a little longer for me to adjust to this whole s-superhero thing, but I'm g-glad this one could be resolved as happily as it did." His earring beeps. "I g-gotta go. See you next time!"
...
"GO, BISQUE!!!" Molly cheers enthusiastically. She'd decided to make one last stop before going home, informing Amaya that she'd gotten zapped and couldn't find Yumi, but that she'd called her later and all is well.
It's Haruto's 200 meter race. Daichi stares intently on the field, and she sees him cross his fingers. When he notices her staring, he goes bright red and looks away, but he continues watching Bisque. This reaction fills Molly's heart with mischievous joy. Haruto runs the curve easily, effortlessly, and she notices that he grits his teeth before somehow managing to speed up a little. "GO! GOOOOOO!" she screams in excitement. Daichi's breath is locked in his chest in anticipation.
At the last second, he overtakes the frontrunner and leans in, winning the race. "Yes!" Daichi expresses quietly, pleased.
Everyone clambers over to congratulate Bisque, and Molly grabs Daichi's hand to drag him over to celebrate. It's all... it's a bit of a lot for him. All these people screaming and standing so close and jumping and Molly's hand on his... but it's nice, somehow, despite how overwhelming it is.
And Bisque is beaming. So... yeah. Even if their relay got disqualified, it certainly isn't a bad meet.
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