Chapter Text
Michael Afton was a good kid.
He could count all the way to 100, he was the second tallest boy in his kindergarten class, and he was going to be a pirate when he got older (but a really nice pirate who wouldn’t hurt anyone). And he was only 5 and a half!
He was a good kid.
One problem, though.
He was home alone and bored out of his mind. Mum was getting groceries with Evan, and Dad was working at the new restaurant. Michael had wanted to go with him, but Dad said that he couldn’t afford him “mucking about” so close to opening. While Mike knew a lot of grown-up words (his favorites were stethoscope, galvanize, and shit; don’t tell anyone!) he didn’t understand what his father meant.
The new restaurant had made everything so weird. Dad had to be there all the time, making sure Fredbear and the other one didn’t malfunction (another grown-up word he knew). He didn’t play with Mike anymore, and Mom was too busy with Evan to play with him, either. They’d both just left him here.
The TV was playing Robin Hood again. It was at the part where Maid Marian and the chicken lady played badminton. Don’t get Michael wrong, that was his favorite movie, but he’d already watched that movie twice today. He didn’t necessarily want to make it a third time.
He wasn’t tall enough to reach the cabinet with the Hostess Ding-Dongs. The day before, he’d scraped his knees while riding his tricycle, so he didn’t want to go play outside. And while he’d love to draw, he had left his crayons in the Utah sun too long, making them melt together. What was there to do?
There he sat in the living room, television muted, playing with some of his toys. It was a tale of epic proportions.
“We have to get to the treasure chest with the magic rock before Joe does!” Mike said in the deepest, manliest voice he could muster. “Come on! We have- we need the magic rock!”
In one of his hands, he had a Spider-man action figure. In the other, he had a Barbie doll that he found at the park. He would never get a Barbie doll on his own, since they were for girls, but she was admittedly quite fun and he liked her outfit.
He raised his voice as high as he could. “He already has it! Look! What do we do?”
Dropping the two other dolls, Michael held up his G.I. Joe action figure up. “You’re too late, Spider-man! I’ve got the magic rock, and now I’m super strong! Watch! Grrr!”
Mike then took a tennis ball and threw it at Spider-man. “Ow!”
He moved the Barbie doll over to where Spider-man lay crumpled on the floor. “No, Spider-man! I never got to tell you… that I love you!”
Then he grabbed Spider-man, throwing him away from the Barbie doll.
“Bleghh! Ew! Gross! I’m fine, so let’s go get the-“ Suddenly, Mike’s voice returned to normal. “Oh, no!”
Amidst the calamity, Spider-man’s arm had fallen off. He sighed.
This wasn’t the first time this had happened. His cheaply-made Spider-man action figure had been through the ringer, even once getting set on fire when he dropped it in the fireplace. But usually Dad was around to save the day. Dad would wash it off, or repaint it, or superglue the arm back on. It was his little way of saying “I love you.”
Dad wasn’t home to do that. Mike wanted to keep playing with his toys, though. The story was just getting good.
If he wanted to fix Spider-man, the superglue was in Dad’s study. Michael wasn’t allowed in there.
That’s when a very, very bad idea came to mind. A bad idea with a capital B. One that Mike wanted to brush off. He was a good kid. He wouldn’t go into his dad’s study without his permission.
But if Mike was super fast and didn’t touch anything, he could get the superglue. And Dad wasn’t home, after all, and would never know. How would he find out?
Before he realized it, he was down the hallway, approaching the study. Rounding the corner now, he swallowed, gathering his courage. When he twisted the doorknob, his hand shook.
It was actually really boring in there. A lot of pencils and pens were scattered about. The workbench was cluttered with blueprints and a compass.
Something sat in the midst of it all that caught his eye, though. There was also a really big piece of metal, as big as Mike’s head, that sat on the desk. It reminded him of Fredbear a little bit, but not the main one. The Fredbear bones in the back of the restaurant. The one without the skin.
Right next to the big piece of metal was the superglue. He tiptoed towards it and reached his small, grubby hand out. As Mike picked it up, he brushed the big metal piece, making it slide a little bit forward.
Mike gasped, but luckily it stayed on the bench.
Mission success.
He skipped out of the room, and slammed the door behind him.
Crash! A loud cacophony of noise, of something breaking into a bunch of a little pieces, came from the room behind him. Uh oh.
He reopened the door, and immediately closed it again. The piece was broken. He was dead.
This was really bad. Mike had gotten in trouble once before because he barfed on the Christmas tree. This was far worse, though. He’d broken his father’s toy!
Maybe if he really quickly cleaned it up and put it in the laundry machine, Dad wouldn’t even notice it was gone.
To make matters worse, the front door opened, revealing his Mum and his little baby brother.
“Michael, come help me with the groceries!”
Mike stared at her, and nodded wordlessly. He ran out of the house, ignoring the slight stinging pain in his kneecaps.
“Well, aren’t you a speed demon?” Mum chided from the doorway, before frowning. “Is something wrong?”
The words rushed out of his mouth. “I did something really bad!”
She walked over to Michael, Evan still in her arms. Her long, purple dress billowed in the breeze.
“I went into Dad’s study…” He began.
“Mike, you know you’re not supposed to go in there-“
“I broke the thingy on the desk! It was ax-id-dental. I closed the door and it just went…” He mimicked the metal head falling on the floor with his hands.
His mum considered that for a second.
“Okay. Okay. Uh, Mike, why don’t we go out grocery shopping again? I think I forgot something.”
“Really? What about-“
“Come on.”
When they got back home, Dad was already there. He was fuming.
Michael knew he was going to be in a lot of trouble. But he was a good kid, so he was going to confess.
“Clara, thank God you’re home. The Freddy head prototype- it broke! It’s broken! I don’t know what happened!” His father lamented. “Some of the pieces are completely unusable. I’ll have to start from scratch again. How could this have even happened?”
Mike opened his mouth to speak, but Mum beat him to it.
“I don’t know, sweetie. None of us were home.”
Huh?
That was not what happened.
“I thought Michael was staying home?”
“You think I’d leave a 5-year-old home alone? Never. He came to the grocery store with me. Didn’t you, Michael?”
His eyes glanced from his mother to his father a few times, before he said, “Yeah, but not the first time-“
“I’m so sorry, Will. I know how hard you worked on that.” Cutting him off, she led him away from the study and onto the couch.
Father sighed, “I’ll have to talk to Henry. He’ll understand, but still.”
He stood up and walked out of the room, most likely heading to the landline.
As soon as he was gone, Michael asked. “Why did you say that? I made the metal thing fall.”
She smiled at him. “It’s okay. Just a white lie. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?”
A lie. Mike remembered them saying in church and school to never, ever lie. But his mother wasn’t a bad person, and she lied. Was lying okay, then?
Mike shifted where he stood. “My Spider-man toy broke again.”
“Wouldn’t you like a new toy? One that doesn’t break apart so easily?”
“I like Spider-man.”
She sighed. “We’ll fix him soon enough.”
Father came back into the room, conveniently seeming to have missed the whole conversation. “Ugh. Luckily Henry’s got some of the pieces I need at Fredbear’s, but it’ll be a hassle.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Mike said.
“It’s okay. Not a big deal.”
Was it really, though? Now that Michael thought about it, Dad and Mum said things like that a lot.
Evan started wailing. Mike loved having a younger brother, don’t get him wrong, but golly, he was a crybaby. Hopefully he’d grow out of it.
“I’m gonna chance this one’s diaper,” Mum said, before adding, “And then I’ll get started on dinner. Your favorite: meatloaf.”
“Thank you, sweetie. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
That’s when it hit Michael: good kids should lie!
Because lies kept people happy.
Michael Afton was gonna be a great kid.