Archive of Our Own ^beta

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As Techno sat in his study, he thought back to the event that led to his current circumstances. He and his parents had just finished watching a play and were chatting and laughing happily about it. They turned into a dark and cold alley near an old orphanage. This turned out to be a horrible mistake as about half a dozen orphans pounced at them from the shadows and behind dumpsters. They quickly immobilized Techno before focusing on his parents. His parents tried to resist the onslaught of orphans, but the orphans had a secret weapon. They pulled out old discarded knives and shivs and started stabbing and slashing at Techno’s parents. After a few seconds, the orphans had gotten his parents on the ground in a puddle of their own blood. They quickly looted their bodies of any valuables and left, leaving Techno disoriented on the ground next to his dying parents.

The rest of the evening was a blur. He remembers a passerby noticing the aftermath and calling the police. He remembers answering questions asked by an officer who clearly thought he wasn’t getting paid enough. He remembers Phil picking him up and bringing him home before putting him to bed. Once Techno woke up in the morning, he went to the dining room expecting his parents to be there before the memories of the evening rushed to him. He broke down in tears right as Phil brought in his breakfast. Phil put the breakfast on the table before rushing over to Techno to comfort him. Phil pulled him into a hug, rubbing his back soothingly as Techno cried into his shoulder.

Techno shakes himself out of thought and stands from his chair. He walks over to his lounge room. He steps in front of his piano and plays the first 6 keys of Mozart’s “Requiem”. This opens a secret door in a nearby bookshelf, revealing a stone staircase leading down, below the manor. Techno quickly descends the stairs, entering the large cavern beneath his manor. He walks over to a display off to his right. Inside is a basic black suit with a flowing black cape made for protection and mobility. The suit has a vaguely bat-like symbol in the center of its chest, small spikes on the top of the cowl and spikes on the gauntlets. Phil walks up to him and puts his hand on his shoulder as he looks at the suit.

“You sure you wanna do this mate?” Phil asked him, eyes full of concern.

“Yes Phil, I’m sure. Gotham needs someone to keep the people safe. Safe from people like those orphans,” Techno replies, determination filling his words.

Phil sighed before patting his shoulder. “Alright mate. As long as you’re sure.”

He smiles at Techno before walking off to finish preparing the rest of Techno’s gear for the night. Techno opens the display and begins carefully taking out the suit. He places the pieces in front of him and looks over it thoroughly, making sure it's perfect with no tears. After double checking the suit, he begins putting it on starting with the boots. After finishing with most of the rest of his suit, he holds his cowl in his hands, staring at it. He stares at it for a few more seconds before donning the cowl. He walks over to Phil and his gear.

Phil turns to look at Techno and exclaims, “Woah mate! That suit looks so fucking pog!”

Techno chuckles, responding, “You did help with most of the designing. Of course you’d think that it looks ‘pog’”

Phil chuckles heartily before stepping away, revealing the rest of Techno’s gear. Techno carefully looks over the gear, making sure that everything was there and in perfect condition. He picks up the utility belt and wraps it around his waist, securing it by the belt buckle in the front. He then picks up his throwing stars - Batarangs, as Phil calls them - and puts them into one of several pouches on his utility belt. He repeats this for tear gas, tasers, explosives, and multiple other items he deemed useful for his night of vigilante escapades. After double checking everything, Techno steps towards his car - the Batmobile, as Phil oh so lovingly christened - and takes a breath, before hopping in, waving goodbye to Phil, and starting his night of vengeance.

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Techno lurches forward slightly in the Batmobile, the effect of breaking hard from going a bit too fast. He looks around the alley he’s parked in before connecting to the police scanner he had installed into the radio system. After sitting there for a few minutes in relative silence outside of the sounds of the Gotham night, he finally picks up something interesting: a mugging about 5 blocks away from him. Techno smirked slightly before revving the Batmobile and speeding towards the mugging.

After about 20 seconds of driving, he slows down, so as to not alert the muggers. He pulls out his grappling hook and cable from his utility belt and begins swinging to gain momentum. After a few seconds, he lets the hook fly, nearly catching the building edge, missing by a few centimeters. After grumbling a little on how he should have practiced a bit more, he starts building up momentum again. Once he lets it fly this time, it does catch on the edge, the line pulling taut, allowing him to climb up the building at his leisure.

He begins climbing to the top of the building, careful to try to step as quietly as possible to not wake up any residents of the building he’s climbing. After a few seconds of climbing, he reaches the top of the building. He climbs onto the top and takes back his grapple hook and cable. He then walks to the edge of the roof overlooking the mugging. He begins thinking of a plan of attack, looking around the alley and other buildings for things that could help him in his plan. After a few more seconds of planning and evaluation, Techno takes two steps back from the ledge before running and leaping off the edge of the building.

After about half a second of weightlessness, Techno begins falling towards the alley and the adrenaline starts to kick in. He uses his momentum from falling to drop down onto the mugger, taking him down to the alley floor and giving the lady getting mugged an opportunity to escape. Taking advantage of the initial confusion, Techno gives the mugger a quick sucker punch to the stomach and a jab in the side before the mugger realizes what’s going on and scrambles away from Techno. The mugger scrambles back into a dumpster in fear.

“W-what are you?!” the mugger screams at him, trembling in fear and covering his bruised and injured stomach and side.

Techno stands up completely straight with the alley light behind him, casting a sinister shadow over the mugger, causing him to flinch slightly.

Smirking slightly, Techno replies “I’m Batman.” He then cuffs the mugger to the leg of the dumpster, leaving him for the police to find.

After a successful first mission, Techno gets back into the Batmobile and cruises around the city, listening for any other crimes on his police scanner. After a few minutes of cruising around in relative silence, the police scanner picks up a report of a narcotics deal about 8 blocks away. Still riding off the high from the mugging, Techno smiles and speeds off to check out the situation. After about 10 minutes of driving, he pulls up near the deal area. He gets out and looks for a good building to climb. He finds a nice recently abandoned 4 story apartment building that looks perfect to survey the deal. He walks over to it and gets out his grappling hook for the second time that night. Using what he learned from the first time, he almost gets the hook to latch onto the ledge, just missing due to him misjudging the strength needed to send a grappling hook up 4 stories.

After his initial failure, he goes to do a second attempt, when he notices that the voices from the narcotics deal have gone quiet. He starts to feel anxious and looks around the area for a good place to hide or climb. In his anxious searching, he fails to notice a small group of crooks sneaking up on him from a somewhat hidden entrance to the alleyway. One of them attempts a running start into a haymaker, but Techno hears their heavy footsteps and turns to block. After their failed initial attack, the group tries a new strategy: overwhelming manpower. The one who tried the haymaker - who Techno is now going to call Beanie since he’s wearing a beanie - tries to rush him and tries a hammer fist on him, but Techno uses his momentum to flip him over his shoulder. Another crook attempts a jab to his ribs from near his blindspot, but Techno barely dodges, shoving the crook into the brick wall of the alley.

The crooks keep attempting to hit him, a few hits landing but not causing any real damage. They continue like this for about 12-15 minutes before Techno hears a blade being unsheathed behind him. He turns with wide eyes to see a man unsheathing a knife, clearly angry at him for interrupting his deal.

“Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?! You’re trying to take on the LFAD!” the knife wielder yells.

“LFAD? You guys are an L fad? Seems like a bad business strategy to me,” Techno replies, in his usual monotone fashion. This succeeds in pissing off the knife wielder even more. He rushes at Techno who tries to go for a disarming move by delivering a jab to the man’s throat. He succeeds in this, but the man is able to get a good slash in, cutting Techno’s chest, causing Techno to stumble a little as he bleeds from his chest. The original group of crooks rushes him, seeing him as weakened from the slash to his chest. He is able to successfully defend against Beanie’s sucker punch, giving him a quick jab to the kidney in return. He defends against 2 more attacks from the crooks before he can feel himself tiring severely.

He pulls out a smoke grenade from his utility belt, pulls the pin and throws it down a bit in front of him. After the smoke obscures him from vision, Techno runs out of the alley and into the Batmobile. He drives back to his manor injured, tired, and demoralized. As he pulls into his base, Phil waits for him patiently with medical supplies. Techno steps out of the Batmobile and takes off his cowl, allowing his long pink flow down. Phil looks at him disappointedly and pats a medical table. Techno sighs and removes his now damaged and bloodied suit then gets on the table and lays down. Phil examines the slash and pulls out a towel and bottle of disinfected water and begins cleaning the wound. He then pulls out a roll of gauze. Techno sits up and lets Phil wrap the gauze around his chest. After he’s finished with the gauze, Phil then walks behind Techno and begins braiding his hair. After finishing with the braid, Phil leaves the room for a few seconds, before coming back with a fresh set of pajamas. He leaves them on the medical table for Techno to get changed into. After changing, Techno goes upstairs to his bedroom, where he gets in bed and under his covers. He lays there, staring at the ceiling, replaying the night's events in his head. After a few minutes of laying there like this, he turns over and finally falls asleep.

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Hey, Prussian here. Sorry for not updating in a while, but I'm going on a kinda short hiatus because I'm moving in a few days. Thanks for getting me to 100 hits!

See you guys in a week or more.

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Techno jolts awake as his alarm goes off, telling him that it’s 5:45 in the morning. He groans as he sits up, chest sore from his late-night escapades. Phil walks in carrying a tray laden with a breakfast of eggs and bacon with a protein shake. He sets down the tray on Techno’s bedside table.

“Well mate, seems those thugs did a bit more of a number on you than you thought, huh?” Phil remarks, smirking at Techno who does some stretches, wincing from the gash on his chest.

Techno sighs, replying in an exasperated voice, “I wasn’t exactly expecting him to be so good with a knife, Phil.”

“You should have figured that one out when he said he was part of a gang, mate,” Phil replies cheekily.

Techno groans, “Phil, just let me agonize in pain from this wound in solitude. I don’t need my life-long friend, mentor and butler to tease me too.”

Phil chuckles, “Well, teasing aside, you only have a certain time for suffering in solitude, mate. Techno Blade is expected to be at the annual Gotham Circus tonight.”

Groaning, Techno replies, “Social interaction? Do I have to, Phil?”

Phil laughs in his signature cackling fashion, slapping a ticket onto Techno’s knee. Techno gingerly picked it up, looking at it for a second before leaving it on his bedside table as he began to eat his breakfast.

Hours later, Techno is getting ready for the circus, tying a bow tie around his neck. He grabs a black and gold watch, an old gift from Phil, from his drawer and wraps it around his wrist. He walks in front of his mirror, making sure he’s presentable for his night out. After a quick look-over, he sighs exasperatedly. He walks out of his room into the foyer where Phil awaits him.

Techno looked at Phil pleadingly, “Please Phil, do I really have to go to this?”

Phil smirks, replying, “Yes you do, or else Gotham might wonder what multi-billionaire playboy Techno Blade does instead of going to lavish parties and other high-society get-togethers.”

“But I’m going to have to interact with people, Phil!” Techno replies dramatically.

“Look, if not for your image, go for me. Please, Techno,” Phil replies pleadingly.

Techno sighs, “Fiiiiine. Only for you, Phil.”

Phil smiles widely, putting a hand on Techno’s shoulder, “You won’t regret this, Techno!”

“I’m holding you to that,” Techno replies, holding Phil’s eyes with a dead serious look.

Phil chuckles, waving towards the door, “You should get going, mate. Don’t want to be late.”

Techno sighs and walks over to the door and opens it, “See you when I get back”

Phil smiles and waves as Techno walks out, “Bye mate”

Techno walks down the steps in the front of his house towards his black Königsegg One, hoping to flex on some of the poor nerds who also decided to show up at the circus. He unlocks it, pops open the door and gets into his ridiculously expensive car. He then drives to the circus, hoping that he's not late for the special meeting he got for being the "Prince of Gotham".

After a few minutes of driving, Techno finally arrives at the circus. He sits in the driver's seat for a moment, preparing himself for the amount of people he’s going to have to meet. After prepping himself, he opens the driver’s side door and steps out of his car with the best cocky playboy smirk he can muster. He waves to a few onlookers and shakes a few hands as he walks towards the cluster of circus tents.

He turns right towards a somewhat obscured red and green trailer a bit before entering the main circus tent. As he approaches, he hears laughter and gleeful shouts from inside, presumably from the acrobatic family inside.

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Techno walks up to the trailer and knocks on the door before waiting for the family to open the door. After a few seconds, a tall man with blond hair and brown eyes opens the door. The man smiles, “Hey there, I’m Edward Innit, you must be Techno Blade. Come on in.” Techno forces a smile and follows Edward inside the trailer. Inside is a somewhat cramped space with a kitchen, a small living room and two small bedrooms. In the living room, there’s a woman with curly red hair and blue eyes playing with a tall blonde boy with blue eyes. The woman walks over to Techno with a wide smile on her face, “Hi, you must be Mr. Blade, I’m Clara Innit and that over there is our son, Tommy. He’s really excited to meet you.”

Techno smiles, “Is that so? I’m glad I came then.”

Tommy runs up to Techno with an excited smile on his face and awe in his eyes, bouncing up and down in excitement “You’re Techno Blade! The biggest man in Gotham!”

Techno looks at Clara with a deadpan expression, “Did your child just call me fat?”

Clara covers her mouth with her hand to hold back a laugh while Edward and Tommy let out a loud, wheezing laugh, bending over and clutching their sides. Techno smirks at the reaction from the Innit’s, ignoring the feeling of jealousy slowly rising in his gut.

After talking for about 30 minutes, a knock is heard on the trailer’s door and a voice calls out, “Get ready Innit’s, the show’s about to start!”

Techno stands up and looks at the Innit’s, “Guess that’s my cue to leave. Don’t want to miss the beginning of the show.”

Edward stands up and shakes Techno’s hand, “Thanks for talking with us, this was fun.”

Techno smiles at Edward, “Yeah, this was fun. Maybe we can talk again after the show.”

Tommy gave his parents the most convincing puppy dog eyes he could give and said, "Does he really have to go already?"

Edward chuckled and glanced between Techno and Tommy. He settled his gaze on Tommy and replied, “Well, he could stay here for a few more minutes, so long as he’s okay with it, of course.”

Techno hummed noncommitmentally while weighing the options in his head. Tommy, being the manipulative little gremlin child he is, rushed over to Techno’s side and latched on with a vice grip. As Techno looked down at Tommy, he knew his fate was sealed as he gazed at the Tommy Innit Puppy Eyes™. The next thing he knew, the Innit couple had disappeared and Tommy was looking at Techno with adoration in his eyes. Techno blinked to clear his mind before looking at Tommy and asking, “Uhhhh, where are your parents?”

Tommy smiled before replying, “Probably off finishing getting ready for the beginning of the show.”

Techno looked down at the child and raised an eyebrow, “And shouldn’t you be with them?”

Tommy chuckled, “Nah, I don’t come on until a little later. After they do their opening.”

Techno sighed and resigned himself to his fate of being stuck with this child for a few more minutes. Tommy began rambling off questions about being rich and other questions Techno had been asked millions of times by the press and various independent news sources. After a few minutes of this, Tommy realized he had to get on soon. So he gave Techno a quick goodbye before running out of the trailer, towards the main tent. After watching the energetic child run off, Techno stood up and left the trailer, making his way inside of the tent where he found his seat next to a strange boy with sunglasses and a mask on. Neither paid attention to each other too much, just absently watching the show that the Innit trio were giving them. At one point, Tommy and Edward performed a Straddle Whip, which aroused applause from the crowds, especially Techno. This caused the boy to look at him and finally recognize the billionaire next to him. Hearing the gasp beside him, Techno looked down at the incognito boy beside him, “Uhhhh, hi?”

The boy scrambled to collect himself, before sticking his hand out shakily, introducing himself, “H-Hello, M-mister Blade sir!”

Techno chuckled, “Keep it down kid, I don’t wanna be swarmed just yet.”

The kid nodded and began ruffling around in a bag under the bench they were sitting on. He pulled out a worn notebook and quickly flipped to an open page and held it out to Techno. “Can I have an autograph?”

Techno sighed somewhat fondly and gave the kid an autograph. The kid shook with excitement, thanking Techno profusely. Both quickly turn their attention back to the trapezist family as the ringmaster enters the main area.

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Once the cheering died down, the Innit’s all grabbed their bars and then jumped from their podiums. They plummeted straight down for about a second, before the wires connected to the bars swung them through the air in an elegant dance through the sky that partially reminded Techno of the opera show he had seen with his parents the night they died. The Innit’s reached the peak of their swings and launched themselves into the air from their respective trapezes. They soared through the sky twisting and flipping and turning in ways the audience couldn’t believe was human. Then the Innit’s somehow perfectly latched onto new bars and began to swing again. This time, the two adult Innit’s launched from their respective trapezes and landed in tandem on a single trapeze, forming a link. From there, the two would continue to amaze the crowd by flipping and turning through the air while their son would accentuate their acts by going around or through his parent’s paths.

The Innit’s continued to elicit cheers and gasps of wonder from the audience, all leading up to their grand finale.

After a few more daring stunts, the Innit’s all returned to their respective starting positions as the ringmaster came out one more time.

“As you have seen, the Innit’s are in a world of their own when it comes to the nets and wires of trapeze. And to accentuate this, they have one final act to show you; their no net grand finale!”

The crowd gasped from the announcement, with circus workers appearing to remove the safety net below the trapezists. The Innit’s bowed, before starting their grand finale.

Once again, they plummeted towards the ground, before they swung upwards, flying through the sky like birds. They soared above the audience in gravity defying flips and twirls, keeping the crowd on the edge of their seats. They flew through the air, turning and twisting, flipping and leaping. This was all a precursor, however, to their final stunt.

After they had the audience cheering for a good half a minute, the Innit’s prepared for their final stunt. They launched themselves high into the air, nearly touching the fairy lights near the top of the tent. At the peak of their jump, they swung off each other's momentum, before continuing their trajectory. Tommy landed on the bar his parents had launched from, swinging back to a platform. His parents had landed on the bar Tommy had launched from, linked together. For only a fraction of a second.

As soon as Clara had grabbed onto Edward’s hands, the wires holding the bar had snapped, sending the eldest Innit’s plummeting down, down, down onto the circus floor below, sounding nothing but a loud thump as they hit the hard ground beneath them.

All was quiet.

No one said a word.

You could hear the bustling from the city a mile away.

Until.

Sobs.

Broken, heart-wrenching sobs that broke the pertinent silence.

Sobs from a boy, who just lost his childhood. A boy who just lost his happiness.

A boy named Tommy Innit.

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Some of you guys expected fluff for Valentine’s? HA! As if! You get angst!

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So as you all probably know, Technoblade passed away less than a month ago. I've taken my time to mourn it and I'm going to continue to update this story, even though I won't do it more often than normal...