That was a stupid thing to do, Zer0 thinks a moment after he steps in front of a barreling badass skag that had been headed for Gaige. He can hear the joint in his right elbow grind just a little bit more as he picks himself back up off the ground. Even so, it should be fine. His tech is too good to break from just a little force. He gathers himself, breathes out as he lines up his next shot and... misses. A complete and total miss. One more try then.
He picks a target, taking just a little extra time to sight it and... misses again. Damn. Looks like I'll need to sneak off and perform some maintenance tonight. The last skag falls and the Vault Hunters slip into a natural lull. Perfect.
"I'm going to go/ Wildlife is not a challenge/ See you all later."
"Hey, Wait up!" Gaige shouts, quickly catching up to his leisurely pace.
"Go back," Zer0 huffs.
"What? No way! I need to thank you for that stunt you just pulled. You really saved my bacon!" She keeps them walking as she says this, looping her arm through his. He looks at the arm, but doesn't shake her off. "Also," she leans close and whispers, "It looks to me like you're going to need that arm recalibrated."
"!" Zer0's faceplate lights up as his eyes widen in shock.
Still talking quietly, "Dude, it is really obvious if you know what you're looking for. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?" She hammers on her own metal arm for effect. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."
"Just simple repairs/ Please return to the others/ I'm fine on my own."
"But I'm sure it has to be hard tuning such a precision instrument when its attached to you. And I'm the best robotics expert you'll probably ever meet. And I totally owe you for that block. Why not give me a chance to really spruce the old girl up?"
Zer0 hates it but she's right. The repairs might take all night if he has to do them alone. And she really is a good engineer. Any idiot can see Deathtrap and realize she's a prodigy.
He sighs, "Fine," and plugs the coordinates to Sanctuary into the fast travel station.
The second they arrive, Gaige flails in excitement, "OMG, let me go grab my tools. I am so excited, you would not believe."
Zer0 looks at her blankly.
Oblivious, Gaige smiles and leans in conspiratorially. "So, where do you want to do this?"
Zer0 considers, then says, "Backdoor. Moxxi's."
"Great, be right back," she says and then nearly skips away.
Already, this seems to be turning out to be an even worse decision than he had feared. He sighs and goes to wait for her.
Ten minutes later, Gaige arrives dragging what appears to be a rather large toolbox. "Eh, sorry to make you wait. I totally forgot to ask what components your arm is made of so I had to bring all my toys just to make sure I had the right stuff."
Zer0 stops mid practice swing with his sword and sighs. "Fine. Let's go," he says, leading her down a nearby alley. He goes to a door, mostly hidden behind a dumpster, his hands deftly picking the lock (far too slow for anywhere else, he thinks) until the old tumbler yields.
Gaige follows him in, peering into the darkness. "What is this place? Is it your super secret ninja hideaway?"
"No." He turns on the lights with a flick.
Gaige blinks and tries to glance around. "What is it then?"
Sliding the door closed, Zer0 says, "Places left empty/ A city stale and unused/ We're just borrowing."
"Ah, just a little of your standard breaking and entering then. That's cool. I'm down." Gaige leans against the nearest wall, aiming for casual but failing.
Zer0 rolls his eyes but says nothing. She really is from Eden-5.
"So where do you want to do this? I have no idea what exactly I'm dealing with so..."
"Bed." Zer0 quickly decides. That will give her plenty of space to spread out her tools if need be. He sits down and promptly starts removing his gloves and then his chest plating.
"Oh okay. And you're going to just-" Gaige's eyes bulge a little at the first sign of skin. "I'll just-" She turns around to face the wall, "give you some privacy then."
Again Zer0 questions the intelligence of this plan. If she is squirming now, what is she going to do when she actually sees what his mods looks like? He knows that he hasn't looked particularly human for awhile now and while he doesn't regret it in the slightest, sharing this one tiny fact with another soul is... uncomfortable. Folding his armor and setting it aside, he decides it is time to bite the bullet and deal with the fallout, whatever it is. "Ready."
Gaige turns around, eyes wide as they skims his metal arms and scarred chest, "You're..." Zer0 cringes as she pauses, "amazing." She rushes to seat herself next to him on the bed, dragging her hilariously large toolbox along and he lets out a breath he'd never admit he was holding in. "This has to be some of the most fantastic work I've ever seen."
":)" he emotes and even actually smiles for once. Good.
Skilled fingers run themselves from just brushing the remaining flesh on his shoulder, to his elbow to his intricate, lithe hands. She moves the arm out and up, bending the elbow with a look of amazement on her face.
After a few moments spent in intense concentration on his right arm, she says, ear to his elbow joint as she flexes it, "I don't think your little run in with the skag is totally to blame for you needing this tune-up."
"No?"
"You have everything wound way too tight. The pieces are all cleanly molded titanium so they don't wear down easy but-"
"Parts unimportant/ Doomed to fail due to my work/ Results all that count."
Her pigtails just brush his arm as she continues to flex it. "So you're willing to burn through hundreds of thousands of dollars of quality parts a year just to be just a tiny bit better?"
He doesn't even think for a second. "Yes."
"You know," she looks up at him, eyes big, "with more routine maintenance from someone like me-"
"No."
"Oh come on! It's not like it would be a hassle. I basically follow you around everywhere already. I mean-" she pauses, looking anywhere but him, "it's not just you. To be honest, I follow all of the Vault Hunters around like a little lost puppy."
"No."
Shoulders falling, she sighs, "Am I really that lame to be around? I know I talk way too much but-"
"You misunderstand/ You are not a helpless girl/ You too hunt the vault."
"Oh," she smiles, "Thank you." A pause. "So does that mean you'll let me check up on these bad boys every once in awhile?"
"Perhaps."
"And in the land of decisive people who need to know how to recalibrate your arm right now that means?"
Zer0 regrets the words before they even leave his mouth but he can't keep from saying, "Do as you wish." Looks like he just scheduled himself another appointment with Gaige.
"Right on!"
A companionable near-silence falls as Gaige hums to herself and applies tool after tool to Zer0's arm. After she finishes with the first one, she glances over to the other. "So are these arms the only mods you have or?"
"No."
"Where are the others?" She asks, reaching right across to place hands on both his hips as if to feels for the metal joints beneath his armor. Clearly his body had been running on High Alert due to her close proximity and constant touching since he feels his cock shift at the touch.
She's started to say, "Both legs would make sense but-" when she freezes, clearly having just realized where her hands are and how close her face is to his bare chest. "I'm way sorry about this. I was definitely not hitting on you just now. Not that I wouldn't hit on you. I would, I mean, you are super hot and I haven't ever even seen your face, now that's impressive. Not that you want me to hit on you. I'm sure you've has much prettier women flirt with you. Or dudes, much prettier dudes maybe? I have no idea how you swing and either way it's fine and none of my business. Oh my god, please let me out of this conversation already."
Zer0 chuckles, half nerves and half at Gaige's word vomit. His cock is still very excited about this new development in spite of all his requests for it to calm the fuck down. Stupid, unreliable organic parts. Steadying himself in hopes of not sounding too turned on, he says, "If you aren't flirting/ You might want to move your hands/ They're a bit too low."
"Oh god, hahaha... right," she giggles as she flails, backing off to her original, still close but not all in his lap, location. She shifts, eyes trying to look everywhere but him and failing. There's a moment when all he can hear is their breathing and the springs of the mattress as Gaige fails at sitting still. "Oh hey, I've got an idea," Gaige says a bit too loudly. "While we're at it, do you want me to just tune up your other arm as well?"
"Please." A part of him wants her to leave so he can take a shower or maybe jerk off but the rest of him knows better. If she only adjusts one of his arms, it will take much longer for him to compensate to its variance from his norm and that will lead to an unacceptable rate of failure.
"Yeah okay," she grabs her tools by the handfuls and then moves to sit on the other side of him. The process of touching, listening and gasping in awe over his limbs begins again.
Zer0 tries really hard to not think about how nice this is. He thinks about the empty, raw grip of death, the ultimate kind of failure; and of Handsome Jack's smug, smarmy voice ringing in his ears. It only kinda works.
Gaige works steadily but is clearly dying in the presence of this much silence since she clears her throat and says, "I know this is literally none of my business but do you?"
"What?"
"Do you... flirt or get hit on? I mean, you're a super secret assassin. A lot of people probably find that whole shebang really sexy."
"No."
"No, they don't find it attractive or no, you just aren't into that stuff?"
"I do not flirt/ Seduction is no challenge/ I choose solitude."
She stops glancing up at him, her eyes now focusing purely on her work. "Yeah. That does make sense." Her jaw seems to tighten and she leans just a slight bit farther away from him.
And that should be it. He's not blind. He's noticed her little crush on him, noticed the way she smiles a bit extra when he's around, noticed her generally manic personality becoming even more flustered. Seeing her shoulders slump and her eyes look away should be a good thing. He knows that relationships are a waste of time, that caring is messy and only leads to problems. And yet... he can't shake how nice it was when she was closer. There's a part of him, a less wise part, that doesn't want it to stop. Because despite his best efforts, she still makes him laugh, even if it is usually just to himself. And she likes him, even though he's cold and pushes her away every chance he gets. And she thinks his mods are things to drool over instead of shy away from.
Damn, he sighs and finds himself reaching out for her own metal shoulder with his newly adjusted hand.
At the contact, she looks up at him confused. "If you're trying to be nice suddenly or, you know," she makes mocking air quotes, "let me down gently, there is no need. I'm a fucking Vault Hunter, scourge of Hyperion and bandits alike. I don't care about that kind of shit."
Zer0 sighs and even though she can't see his face, he tries to hold it impassive all the same. "A rare girl like you/ Can even make me notice/ I'm so bad at this."
Gaige turns to him slowly and then grins, a slight chuckle to her voice. "You really are." Now laughing, "You're pretty much the worst to be honest. Even my lab partner from ninth period Advanced Physics was more smooth than you and he talked directly to my boobs. It's a good thing you have that rocking ass to make up for it or else-"
Zer0 can feel his cheeks heat up as Gaige's eye grow wide.
"Oh god, did I really just say that out loud? Me and Lilith joke about it all the time but I never thought I'd actually say it out loud to, ya know, you. And I'd just cracked that joke about the dude staring at me but all this time, I've been doing the same thing to you. You are like way more than a hot ass to me, I promise. Not that I don't like it or anything and its not that I'm really expecting anything serious, gah!" She buries her face in her hands, a muffled, "Why do I keep talking?" filtering out through her fingers.
At this, Zer0 gives up and laughs, a real full bodied laugh that shakes his chest and shoulders. Between chuckles, he gasps out, "It's titanium/ Should I scout ahead more then?/ So you'll like the view?"
Gaige squeaks, turning back to his arm while her face becomes a bright red. "I'm done. Totally done. I'm just going to finish up this arm and then slink away to die in a corner somewhere. Sound okay?"
"No," he says, daring to run his hand across her cheek, "Not okay."
Gaige turns her head into the caress, eyes staring into his mask. Suddenly, she plants a kiss right on his helmet, dropping her tools and wrapping her arms around his neck in the process.
"!" Zer0's mask flashes. Without thinking about it, he responds by wrapping both his arms around her waist.
Gaige pulls back slightly and glances down. "That was a really silly thing to do, wasn't it? Like way over the line silly, right?"
Zer0 gazes at the top of her head. He's like to say she is wrong but she's not. Even though he's already stupidly decided he wants this, whatever it is, he's not sure he's ready to start dealing with the consequences. Like her maybe wanting to see his face someday, possibly. That is his baggage though so he bumps the forehead of his helmet gently against hers and says, "I'm okay with it/ Awkward and silly perhaps/ Because it was you." He's just pulling her closer when she lets out a wail like she's been burned by acid.
Zer0 freezes, confused. He notices she's lifted up her shirt a little and is staring at her waist.
"Oh geeze," She hisses through her teeth as she pokes at something he can't quite see. "That stings almost as much as getting shot."
"What?" He says.
She looks from the him to her waist and bursts out laughing. "Oh God, we are the actual worst at this. I kiss boys on their helmets which are most likely still covered in blood and skag spit and you push girls away and then when you try to pull them close, you pinch them. Together we are like the biggest romantic natural disaster ever recorded. We almost need to stay together so as to keep the rest of the universe safe from our possible fallout."
Zer0 filters through everything she just said and finds the important word. "Pinched?" he asks, cocking his head to the side.
"Yeah but really it's my own damn fault. I didn't finish up your calibrations and then I distracted you, so as a result, I got pinched. See?" She turns to show him the offending hip. Upon it, a deep red spot had begun to blossom. "So now, I'm going to actually finish what I came here to do and then get out of your hair, or well yeah. Whether or not you have hair is a mystery for another day."
Zer0 snickers at that as Gaige again sits herself down next to him and tries to focus on his arm. He watches an intense look of concentration flit across her face off and on as she finishes up on his arm and smiles to himself.
He's nearly certain she's just about done when she says out of nowhere, "Seriously stop, I know I'm not the model for productivity here but you're way not helping."
"?" He emotes and she looks up from her work and sighs.
"You're just clearly staring at me and smiling and when you do that, I want to look at you and then you stare at me some more and really it is an unproductive cycle." Zer0 considers asking how she knew when she says, "Shhhh, I'm just abooouuuuut," stalling by stretching the word out so it takes nearly a minute, "done!" She smiles. "So yeah, you can go now. I'm sure you want to test out your newly improved robot limbs."
She's mostly right but he also wants run his now safe hands across her face and through her hair. Instead of saying anything, he just says, "Thank you."
"No prob," she smiles again. "I should probably bail too, get back to Maya before she thinks you killed me or something."
Zer0 pulls back on his armor and then his gloves slowly as Gaige packs up her tools which have become strewn about in the past hour. Once fully dressed, he sets a hand on her shoulder, dragging it across her back as he goes to leave.
"Make sure to tell me how well they're working for you later, okay?" She shouts at him when he reaches the door. "I can adjust them anytime so... yeah."
"Thanks again," he says and he smiles in spite of himself.
Hours later, after he's tested her adjustments to his satisfaction (his arms haven't worked quite this well since they were brand new), he heads back to the Crimson Raider's Headquarters. Since it is the middle of the night, almost everyone seems to be asleep. Axton, Salvador, Maya and Gaige have each taken a bunk while Mordecai is crashed on the couch. He has no idea where Krieg is or if he even sleeps but he's pretty sure he could guess where Roland and Lilith are. He glances down at Gaige, limbs askew as she sleeps and sighs. Momentarily, he wishes he could just crawl into bed with her and sleep there but he's pretty sure that would be way too forward. Slow down, Romeo, he frowns. Who knows, tomorrow either of us may come to our senses and realize that this is a horrible idea. That in mind, he still can't keep himself from brushing her bangs to the side with his fingers before propping himself against a nearby wall and drifting off to sleep.