CONTENT WARNING: This chapter features frequent, non-graphic flashbacks to the repeated sexual assault and sexual exploitation of an underage child, though nothing explicit occurs on-screen. Don't read if you believe you could be triggered.


APRIL 7 2044

6:41 PM

The shower drags on and on and on, stretching indefinitely out in front of Astro like a winding dark road in the middle of the night, twisting and turning until it seems almost endless, a constant loop of the warm water pouring down over him and the yellow-white linoleum all around him and the long, low groans of the old and rusted pipes above him. It feels kind of like a miracle that he can hear all of this, that he can see all of this—if he had to make a guess (—and he does, because his internal clock gave out on him two days before the thermal valves did—) he'd say it's been about two weeks since his optical and audio systems went down, and he's been stumbling around in the dark and the quiet ever since, deaf and blind and defenseless.

And it feels kind of like a miracle that he's even awake, let alone halfway-functional, when he's still so tired—he's been running on empty for the last month or so, about a hundred thousand miles past his limits, and he knows he won't make it too much longer like this.

Sooner or later, his body is going to give out on him, shut down on him, pull him into a full twelve hours' rest and a complete system reset without his say-so (—because his own body doesn't even listen to him anymore, his own body has been turned against him, and he hates it for that—) and he can't fight it forever, he can't hold out indefinitely. Sooner or later, he's going to fall asleep whether he wants to or not—whether he lets himself or not—and then he'll be—

—and then he'll be—

—so overloaded and exhausted that he literally can't wake up for anything, lying limp and lifeless and powerless under the blinding, bright white glow and the steady red shine and all the hundred thousand human hands on his backside, all the hundred thousand human hands on the insides of his thighs, fingers in his mouth and fingers halfway down his throat, palms on his knees to pull his legs apart like a posable doll, and he didn't wake up because he couldn't wake up, because his body wouldn't let him wake up from such a deep and full and heavy sleep like that, not when his system needed the rest so badly, but he could feel it all at the back of his brain anyway—like the faintest flicker of low light in a pitch-black room. He could feel every single second of it.

And he stayed still and silent on the bed, paralyzed with the ice-cold terror crawling up the back of his throat, helpless and alone under the bright white glow and steady red shine and hundred thousand human hands and he knew what they wanted and he knew what they were doing, but he couldn't stop it and he couldn't say no and he couldn't fight back, and the hands wouldn't stop and the hands wouldn't go away and the hands wouldn't leave him alone—and he couldn't wake up all the way, he couldn't crawl out from under the heavy exhaustion pressing down on him, but he could feel it, he could see the bright white glow and the steady red shine, lighting up the black world behind his eyes, and he could hear them saying do it this way and leave it like that and let's take it from here and he knew.

And he just squeezed his eyes shut, as tight as he could, and he thought please let it be over soon. And he thought please let them get bored of me, please let them get bored and go away and leave, please let them go away and leave me alone. And he thought please let it be over soon, please let it stop soon, please please please just let it stop soon. And he thought please let me run out of power, let the Core run out of power, please, let the Core give out on me, let it give up on me, let it burn up and burn away and burn all the life out of me like it did when it hit the Red, and don't let me come back this time, please, just let me die here, please just let me die please, I can't do it anymore, I can't take it anymore, please just let me not be here anymore, please just let me die so I don't have to do this anymore, please just let me die so I don't have to live like this anymore, please just let me die so I don't have to live in this awful and ugly and rotten and disgusting body anymore.

But he didn't die.

Because they wouldn't let him. They would never let him get away that easy. They would never let him get off that easy. They'd never just let him die.

(—god, please, please, why won't they just let me die—)

When he could finally shake off the sleep, he opened his eyes and he saw it all over his skin, and he—heknew. And he just stared down at it, numb and blank, and he tried to look away, but he couldn't, and he wanted to cry, but it was too big for that, too big to come out of him in his tears.

It turns out that everything is too big to come out in his tears now.

So he swallowed it down instead.

And it burned and burned and burned inside him, like steady red lights and shining black lenses and dark hungry eyes and frosted-glass shower stalls and sparkling cities that don't want him, and it finally hit him that he is not safe when he sleeps, that it's not safe for him to go to sleep, that they will touch him and they will take from him even when he's completely limp, that they will be touching him and taking from him right up until he dies, that they will just go on touching his dead body and taking from his cold corpse, and they probably won't even know the difference.

It is not safe for Astro to sleep.

So Astro doesn't sleep anymore.

So he stays awake, even as the shower drags on and on and on, but that doesn't mean he stays on his feet—sooner or later, the exhaustion pulls him down to the soaking-wet, soap-slick linoleum under his boots, and he curls up under the scorching-hot spray with his knees tucked tight to his chest and his head pressed flat to the wall, his eyes squeezed shut while the water runs down over him like rain, pooling and puddling in the hollows of his collarbones like tiny tidepools out on the beach. The dirt washes out of his hair and peels off his back like the layers on an onion, and he stares down at it, mixing and merging with the clear water until it's almost mud in the bottom of the tub.

He can finally see his own skin again, pale white imitation-flesh peeking out from beneath the thick black grime.

But he knows so much better than to think he's actually clean.

He knows so much better than to think he'll ever be clean again.

He needs to get up—he needs to shut off the water and step out of the tub, because he's taking too long. Hamegg is waiting for him to come out. Hamegg is waiting for him, and he'll probably be really mad if he doesn't come out soon, probably yell at him if he doesn't come out soon, maybe even zap him with a burning-hot electric shock if he doesn't come out soon. Hamegg is waiting for him to get cleaned up and come out, so he can—so he—

But he—he said he wouldn't do that, didn't he?

He said he wasn't going to do that—he said I'm not going to do that to you, I'm not ever going to do that to you and he said so long as you're under my roof, no one is ever going to do that to you, and he said it all like he really meant it, so firm and unwavering, so set in stone like a solid brick wall, even though the option was wide-open to him, even though it was a thing he could do, even though no one would care and no one would stop him and no one would tell him no, even though he could have gotten away with it, and Skunk wouldn't have even cared about it.

He could have had it. And he knew he could have had it.

But he didn't take it.

Not even when Astro threw it at him—even when Astro told him he won't care he won't care no one ever does, he still said he didn't want it and he still said he wasn't going to do it and he still said I'm not going to do that to you, I'm not ever going to do that to you, so long as you're under my roof no one is ever going to do that to you

But that—that doesn't actually mean anything.

It's obviously just a trick—a way to get Astro to let down his defenses, to convince him he's safe so he doesn't see it coming—but he's not going to fall for it, he's not going to fall for it, he is not going to fall for it again.

At the end of the day, Hamegg is just another human man in a million.

And a promise from a human is worth less than nothing.

And Astro knows so much better than to ever put his trust in a human.

He shuts off the water and steps out of the tub.

The bathroom is freezing, even with the thick silver steam curling and coiling around him in thin featherlight strands of wispy vapor, pressing little kisses to his skin wherever it touches, but he knows it's not really the bathroom that's the problem—he's been so cold since the thermal valves shut down on him, and he can't ever get away from it. He thinks he could set himself on fire right now, and it still wouldn't be warm enough for him.

He thought the hot water would help with that—a burning shower usually does the trick, wakes the pipes back up again, prying them open and forcing them to pump—and it did, but only so long as he stayed under the spray. Guess his body is too tired to kickstart the extraneous programs this time around, his system still overworked and exhausted and running half a step behind.

Looks like he'll just have to wait it out.

The mirror is so fogged up that he can't see himself in the cracked and dirty glass, but he doesn't need to—he can feel the way the stiff black spikes in his hair bend in on themselves like dog-eared pages in an old book, and the water droplets cling to his face like glue, sticky and damp like tears on his cheeks, and it's funny how he still knows the feeling better than the back of his own hand when he hasn't cried in what must be months.

It turns out everything is too big to come out of him in his tears now, so he doesn't waste them anymore.

There's a folded stack of thick white towels piled up under the sink—and Hamegg didn't expressly say that Astro could use a towel, but he also didn't expressly say that he couldn't, and if he does take one, he'll have to put it in the laundry hamper when he's done with it, and Hamegg will know, but if he doesn't take one, he'll be dripping water all over the workshop and the lab table, and he'll get everything wet and all the scrap metal in the shop will rust, and Hamegg will be so mad at him, yell at him, maybe even zap him with a burning-hot electric shock—

Astro takes a towel.

(He's going to make Hamegg mad no matter what he does—he always makes everyone mad—so he'd prefer to not be soaked to the skin while he does it.)

He has to sit down on the edge of the bathtub just to catch his breath, pulling the soft cotton over his shoulders like a jacket—it's warm on his back, but it doesn't really help with the cold eating away at him, and he didn't think it would.

It takes him almost ten minutes to realize that his right ear's gone out again, and he can't hear anything out of it—the feeling is so normal to him now that he doesn't always pick up on it right away. He's pretty sure his audio system must be some kind of permanently damaged at this point, as unfixable and irreparable as the rest of him, because it always gives out on him sooner or later, on one side or the other, and the repairs on it never last very long, even when he's lucky enough to land a really good mechanic like Hamegg.

It just hasn't really worked right ever since Skunk slammed his head into that wall over and over and over.

But it's fine—he has adapted and he has adjusted, he's acclimated to the situation and he's gotten used to the sensation, the jagged prickle of asymmetry at the back of his brain, that vague and persistent sense that he's lopsided, off-kilter, unsteady and unbalanced and uneven, until it just fades away into pure background noise, and he doesn't even notice it at all.

It can't be fixed. So he's learned to live with it.

It's just that simple.

Astro reluctantly peels the damp towel off his skin, and drops it down in the hamper under the chipped, fake-marble counter before he heads over to the door, where it slides open with a soft whirr the second he gets close enough.

The air outside feels even colder now that he's got the humid heat of the steamed-up bathroom to compare it to, and it hits him harder than a blow from Skunk's whip, so sharp and so sudden that he's knocked over with another wave of those wracking, full-body shivers—he can actually feel his teeth clack together when the first shudder breaks over him, and he wraps his arms around his own body to try and hold it in or hide it because Skunk will kill him if he sees him like this, he'll kill him if he catches him like this, he'll get right in his face and scream at him to stop trying to look pathetic for pity and no one is ever going to give a fuck about you so stop trying to get them to (—and he's not doing it on purpose, he's not trying to get pity and he's not trying to get attention and he's not trying to get anyone to care about him and it's not like they ever would, anyway—he's just a robot, just a machine, just a useless waste of scrap metal, just junk waiting to happen, just a body built to please, just a loaded gun looking for a direction—)

The workshop is just on the other side of the hall, right across from the bathroom, a straight shot down a short walkway, and Hamegg has propped the dull silver door open with his heavy red toolbox, so Astro can see him where he stands at the battered worktable with a wrench in one hand and the ripped-off, metallic-blue arm of a robot clutched in the other, and he's—he's staring straight at Astro.

It's pure instinct that makes Astro freeze in the doorway, a deer in front of a hunter, his shoulders still jerking and jolting with the shivers (—involuntary motion has always been his system's go-to way of trying to get the valves back online, so he knows this is technically a good sign—) and he knows he's not technically doing anything wrong, that he did exactly what Hamegg told him to do, take a shower and nothing else, no specifications or elaborations or anything, but he digs frantically around in his mind anyway, desperate for some kind of defense or excuse, some kind of way to explain—I'm sorry I took so long or I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you wait or I'm sorry, I hope you haven't been waiting too long or I'm sorry if I'm interrupting you, I thought it was okay to come out when I got done or I'm sorry, you didn't tell me to stay in the bathroom or I'm sorry I used a towel or—

Hamegg puts his tools down on the worktable with a loud clatter, wiping his hands on the thighs of his pants as he heads over to Astro, his dark brow wrinkled and his round face pinched up—but he's not scowling or sighing or glaring, like he's not mad, and that obviously can't be right because Astro always makes everyone mad, even when he's trying so hard not to—

"What's going on?" Hamegg doesn't even waste so much as a second before he gets straight to the point. "Why are you doing that?" His mouth twists down in a frown. "Don't tell me you blew a circuit in there, or something."

"What?" Astro says, slow and blank and dazed—he's just so tired, that dizzy and blurry and heavy kind of tired where nothing really makes sense and the whole world spins too fast for him, and he couldn't keep up with it all even if he tried—but it's barely a second before another shudder tears through him like a knife, and of course that's what he meant, of course that's what he's talking about, and you should have known that, you should have known, you should have known what he meant, how are you so stupid— "No, no, I didn't—I didn't break anything, I just—I'm just—the thermal valves, they're kind of—they're not really working—they're not—"

"Not working?" Hamegg cuts him off. "No, that's—that's not possible, kid. No way. It would have shown up on the scans if the valves were busted, trust me."

"No, but it's—but it's not—" and he tries to shake his head, but the world only spins even faster when he does that, and he has to slam his eyes shut against the sudden, sharp swell of nausea rolling through him—and the sting of white-hot fear at the back of his throat, screaming you're not supposed to contradict a human, you're not supposed to contradict a human, you're not supposed to contradict a human, oh, god, he's going to be so mad at me (—and Hamegg might not be as bad as all the others, at least not so far, but he's still a human, and no human is safe, no human is ever ever ever safe and they all just want to use him and they all want to hurt him and they all hate him—) "—it's not busted, or—or anything like that, it just—it just stopped working, it—it couldn't—it just—there was too much—I was too—I couldn't—"

And—just like that—all the doubt and disbelief spelled out loud and clear on Hamegg's face melts away, like a heavy grey cloud under the bright golden sun, and he tips his head back to let out a low whistle, his brown eyes blown wide. "Oh—you've got the CE-97 software, don't you?"

Astro isn't sure he can say exactly why he thought that the term CE-97 wouldn't ring some kind of a bell for a mechanic of all people, except that it's still so new, and so rare, and nine out of ten scientists just don't want to waste the time it would take to install such complex self-defense and survival protocols in their robots when the machinery will probably be outdated and obsolete in less than five years—but he's so incredibly and indescribably grateful that Hamegg does know, that he doesn't have to try and explain it. "Yes, I—yeah, yes, that's—I do, yeah. That's the one."

Out of all the various protective mechanisms his father Dr. Tenma installed in his systems, the CE-97 software has proven itself useful about a hundred thousand times over since he ended up in here—whenever he sustains severe or serious damage, the program kicks on, and his body instinctively redirects all available power to maintain the purely critical functions, forcibly suppressing the rest in its effort to conserve as much energy as possible until the urgent repairs can be carried out.

And the thermal valves, the thin metal piping running through his torso that controls his temperature regulation—cooling him off when he's too hot and warming him up when he's too cold—is always one of the first things to go. Right up there with his internal clock.

It doesn't usually take this long for the non-essentials to come back online—but Skunk doesn't usually tear into him that bad, either.

When he actually slows down long enough to really think about it, he's not completely sure he can pin down the exact second, or even the exact day, that the thermal valves finally gave out on him (—which shouldn't be possible, because his brain logs everything, and he can't forget—even when he wants to, even when he tries—but his brain also hasn't really been working right since Skunk slammed his head into the wall over and over—) and when he tries to drag it up to the forefront of his mind, it crumbles and dissolves into fuzzy, flickering grey-white static, like an old television that's just lost signal, and the same old error message flashes in front of his eyes.

[[DATA CORRUPTED]] [[FILE NOT FOUND]] [[INPUT MP4 031944 INACCESSIBLE]] [[REDIRECTING]] [[REDIRECTING]] [[REDIRECTING]]

And when he tries to push, it just ends in a blinding headache and a hundred more error messages all stacked on top of each other, one right after another, so glitchy and staticky that it hurts his eyes to look at them too long.

All he can really say for sure is that he was outside, sprawled flat on his front on cold hard concrete, and everything was white and silent and frozen. And the pain in his head had just hit fever pitch, screeching and blaring at the back of his brain like an alarm bell. And all the colors looked too bright, running together like fresh black ink on a page, smearing into and smudging over themselves like wet paint on a white canvas. And the gravel was gouging into the palms of his hands and the soft skin of his cheeks, and he was so cold he couldn't breathe around it, the frigid air stabbing into his lungs like needles, his tiny frame shaking and shuddering with the wracking, full-body shivers, and he thought he's really going to kill me this time and—

[[DATA CORRUPTED]] [[FILE NOT FOUND]] [[INPUT MP4 031944 INACCESSIBLE]] [[REDIRECTING]] [[REDIRECTING]] [[REDIRECTING]]

And then it cuts out.

Just like that.

Hamegg stares silently at Astro for a long and unbroken second that stretches into two three four five six seven, rubbing a hand over his chin so roughly it's like he's trying to tear his own skin off (or maybe coax out some kind of spontaneous beard to go with the halfhearted mustache?) while a frown pulls at the edges of his mouth and the crease in his brow cuts deeper and deeper and deeper—

—before he finally heaves out a huge, put-upon sigh, and literally throws his hands up in the air over his head, like a stressed-out cartoon character who's just reached the end of his rope. "All right! All right! Fine! For Christ's sake, just come on in here!"

And he waves a hand at the wide stairway stretching down in front of Astro, leading off into the rest of the house, but he—he can't actually mean that, right? No, he can't—he can't seriously be okay with Astro in his house when he hates robots so much, and Astro wants to dig in his heels and say no, say wait a second, what's going on, where are you taking me, why are we going in here, but he—

—he knows where this is headed, doesn't he? He can see it all coming from a hundred thousand million miles away, and he knows what's next, he knows what's waiting for him when he steps inside, and he knew it was a lie from the second Hamegg said it, he knew Hamegg didn't really mean it (—I'm not going to do that to you, I'm not ever going to do that to you, so long as you're under my roof, no one is ever going to do that to you—) and he knew this would happen sooner or later, he knew it, he knew it, he knew it

But he can't say no, and he can't stop himself.

And it's not like it would do him any good even if he could—it's not like he could fight Hamegg off with the KURI around his neck and his robotic reflexes slowed from fatigue, his hyper-durable superpowered body weak and shaky and useless.

It's not like he could get away without his rockets to carry him up into the clouds, and maybe he could try and run, make a break for it on foot, but where would he go? Sure, he could hide out in the scrap heaps, and he'd blend right in, another unwanted robot in a big, rusted pile, but Hamegg could just call him back, command him to come out and come back into the house, and he'd have to listen, he'd have to obey, and then he'd be right back where he started, except Hamegg would be really mad at him.

And even if he could slip away from Hamegg and make it all the way out of the junkyard, where would he go from there? It's not like he's got a home to go back to. It's not like he's got anyone out there who wants him.

What's the point of fighting it, anyway? It's going to happen. It always does.

And he's too tired to fight anymore.

So Astro just trails silently behind Hamegg, stumbling and clumsy with the exhaustion still clawing at him, through the open door and into the house—down the iron stairway where the rusted metal groans loudly with every step he takes, past the kitchen where he can hear the faint sizzle of a pot on the stovetop, through the living room where the television has been left on, playing a commercial for green tea and throwing its harsh blue-white light over the torn-up sofa with that familiar mustard-yellow wool blanket still thrown over the back of it, and straight into the bedroom, where it's—

—where it's all exactly the same.

Everything is exactly the same—the rickety old bunk beds still crammed against the walls, with the ragged blankets still peeled back to show off the sheets beneath, the ripped posters still tacked and taped up all around the room, the muddy shoes and dog-eared books and broken toys still scattered over the hardwood floor, the beat-up cardboard boxes still stacked in the corner next to the window—and it's like he's just stepped back into the past, like he's just stepped back into last year all over again.

Like he's still down on the Surface with his friends, and no one knows he's a robot and no one knows what he really is, and Hamegg hasn't thrown him in the Games and President Stone hasn't found him and he hasn't gone head-to-head with the Peacekeeper—like he's fallen backwards through time, and he's tumbled straight into that one shining and golden and amazing week where he got to be just like everyone else.

It was the only week in his entire life where he got to be just another normal and ordinary and human kid, no sudden-onset superpowers he could barely control or brand-new state-of-the-art software he didn't even know he had—he was just a boy from the junkyard with nothing to his name except that itself, and the torn-up, smoke-stained clothes on his back—and he really thought he had finally found where he belonged. He really thought he had finally found the one place on earth where he would be accepted for who he was.

He really thought he had found a family.

But it's all so far away from him now—so deep in the past it's practically ancient history, over his shoulder and in his rearview mirror, a million miles behind him and a million miles away from him—that it doesn't even feel real, it doesn't even feel like a thing that actually happened, or at least, it doesn't feel like a thing that actually happened to him.

It feels like it was all just a dream—amazing and unbelievable and bright as the sun in the sky over his head, and so beautiful it makes him ache, his whole body crying out with the bone-deep want, but in the end it's still just a dream, absurd and impossible as a fairy tale in a storybook, and it even sounds sort of like that, doesn't it?

Once upon a time, I lived in a big house with nice people who really loved me.

No, that's—that's not the kind of dream that could ever come true.

Not for him.

It all splinters and shatters into a billion pieces of broken glass before he can get to the happily-ever-after.

Hamegg heads straight for the corner of the room, where he pulls out one of the dozen cardboard boxes from the towering stack and sets it down on the floor to pry it open, dropping into an awkward sort of squat to pick through the insides—and it's full of all the same clothes as last time, child-sized denim jeans and fleece sweaters and graphic T-shirts, with little white socks left unfolded and tossed haphazardly on top, all the things the kids had already grown out of, or worn down to rags, and—

Astro takes another look around the room.

And it's all exactly the same.

Hamegg hasn't changed a thing.

And it's—it's not even dusty in here, and it doesn't smell all dank and musty and old like it should, and the stained, moth-eaten curtains are pulled back to let the light in.

Like Hamegg has just recently been back in here.

"You haven't changed anything," Astro blurts out before he can think about it, before he can stop himself, before he can swallow it back, before he can think it's not my business what he does in his own home and what he doesn't. "You really haven't changed anything."

Hamegg glances up with a sharp and sudden jerk of the head, his eyes so wide and startled that Astro wonders if maybe he forgot he wasn't alone in here—and he just sits there on the floor for a long minute, still and silent and staring blankly, before he finally lets out a loud and awkward and very-obviously-fake cough.

"Uh, yeah, I just—I'm just—" he clears his throat and scratches the back of his neck, "—I just haven't really found the time to clean out all this crap yet."

It's been a year, Astro thinks, but he doesn't say it, because he can read that look in Hamegg's eyes loud and clear, he can hear what Hamegg doesn't say, he can see it in the corners where the dust should be and the moth-eaten curtains that shouldn't be open, and he can feel it in the fresh, new smell to the air that shouldn't be there—and a bright burst of empathy cuts through him like a shard of sunlight, reaching into his chest and tying his heart up in knots.

Hamegg misses the other kids.

(And Astro doesn't know why he ever thought Hamegg didn't, but he does know what it's like to miss someone—to lose someone, to be ripped away from all the people you love in the blink of an eye and the beat of a heart, to be ripped away from all the people you love and realize they don't love you back, and his chest aches with how much he wants to make it better, to help, to edge as close as he dares and reach out a hand, grab Hamegg's arm, or pat him on the shoulder, and tell him I'm sorry—)

"All right, then," Hamegg says, way too loudly, as he turns quickly back to the cardboard box, peering down inside it like it holds all the secrets of the universe in its depths—Astro can't say for sure, but he thinks maybe he's trying to hide his face. "Let's see what we've got in here…"

A blast of ice-cold and iron-heavy dread hits hard in the pit of his stomach, like a stone, like a sledgehammer—it pulls him back into the real world, back into the hollow cavity of his own shaking and tired (and awful and rotten and ugly and bad and filthy and disgusting disgusting disgusting) body, and the warm bloom of sympathy withers away as quickly as it sprouted. He doesn't know what's going on here, he doesn't know why Hamegg won't just take what he wants and call it a night, but he knows it's going to happen, he knows it's coming, and he just wants to get it over with.

Why can't Hamegg just do it?

Why can't Hamegg just get it over with?

He just wants it all to be over with. He wants to be back in the workshop, to be powered off, with the Core yanked clean out of his chest and the splintered wood of Hamegg's beat-up lab table cold and smooth under his back, to be floating aimlessly in the deep black numb of complete nonexistence. He'd stay there forever if he could.

"—okay, wait, here we go—yeah, this should work—" Hamegg finally extracts himself from the box with a wad of dark cloth bunched up in one fist, and he stretches his hand out to Astro, like he's waiting for him to step up and take it. "Here. Put these on, and see if they fit."

Oh.

So that's—that's what this is, that's where this is going, and he doesn't know why he didn't see it coming a good hundred miles away, but it's—it's fine, whatever, he doesn't even care, and he'll wear whatever disgusting outfit Hamegg has apparently picked out for him, and he'll play along, he'll play the game, he'll flash a smile and get down on his knees and open his mouth and swallow, and he'll pretend he wants it, and when it's over, he'll lock it away in a box and he'll throw away the key.

And he'll never think about it ever again.

Everything is so much easier when he just doesn't care.

So Astro takes the clothes.

But it's—it's just a pair of plain blue jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt with a bright red lightning bolt, in the crude shape of the initials NH, splashed on the front—the classic logo for Nuclear Hysteria, that godawful heavy-metal band that Zane and Cora listen to, and the corners of his mouth curve up in a small, bittersweet almost-smile when he thinks about it (—the way they'd blare the too-loud, too-angry music from the stereo, all booming drums and screaming electric guitars, the way he winced at the first chord he ever heard, and almost covered his ears with his hands, and Zane laughed at him, and Cora rolled her eyes and scoffed Metro City kids like it was the absolute worst thing anyone could possibly be, like she wasn't one of those, but she still reached over and turned the music down anyway—)

He would give up everything he's ever had just to see his friends again.

Just one more time.

Just to say goodbye.

Astro pulls on the jeans—dark blue denim with legs that open wide as a mouth so he can haul the cloth over his big clunky boots without tearing it or stretching it out too bad—and Hamegg—

—Hamegg—looks away from him, back down to the cardboard box still open on the floor, and digs absently through the clothes, plucking out a hat here or a sweatshirt there, and in the back of his mind, Astro knows this just can't be right because no one ever looks away when he gets dressed.

No, they always stare at him with their own hands already halfway down their pants, faces flushed and expectant and fixed on him as he pulls on whatever ugly and obscene clothes they want to see him in—they pin him down, like a butterfly on a wall, with their hungry shining eyes and greedy grasping hands always reaching out to grab, always so ready to take, to rip him open and tear out whatever they find inside, they just take and take and take until he's got nothing left, and at the end of the night, they can just wash their hands and walk away from it, walk away from him, leave him hollow and heavy and aching with the emptiness, and why won't Hamegg just look at him? Why is he being so weird? Why did he have to go and make a hundred different empty and unbelievable promises that he's obviously about to break in the next five minutes, anyway? Why can't he just be normal about all this? Why can't he be just like all the other million men?

The shirt, Astro realizes when he tries to tug it over his head, has gotten tangled up with another, much smaller shirt stuck inside it—a thick bundle of soft, powder-blue fabric, peppered with tiny grey-brown stains all over, like smoke and dirt and dust, and a stiff red collar that always stands up straight even when he smooths it down, and stiff red cuffs at the ends of the sleeves, and a thin black streak at the hem from where he spilled that cup of polish while he was scrubbing ZOG down with all the other kids—

"You—" Astro swallows, running his shaking fingers lightly over all the little rips and tears and holes. "You kept my jacket?"

"What?" Okay, now Hamegg looks at him—and he doesn't even look at him, really, because it's barely half a second before his eyes flick down to the heap of cloth in Astro's hands. "Oh—yeah. Forgot that was in there. Might as well take it back, anyway, since it fits you."

"I—" I can't take it back because he wouldn't let me have it, and I don't want it back, I just want to know what's going on and why are you doing this, why are you being like this, why are you being so nice to me, when are you going to be mean to me again, when are you going to be mean to me, I want you to be mean to me, I don't want you to be nice, I don't need you to be nice, I don't deserve— "—I didn't—realize you kept it."

Not that he's ever really thought about it all that much—it's just a jacket, and he had lost so much more in his single week on the Surface that he hardly even remembered it long enough to miss it—but he always assumed that Hamegg probably got rid of it, dumped it out with the trash or tossed it in the furnace to burn down to ashes, that he'd never see it again. But he was just so relieved that the city hadn't fallen to the Peacekeeper's rampage, that Stone had been taken into custody where he couldn't hurt anyone again, that Cora had found her parents, that his dad loved him, that he was alive, and little things like lost jackets got washed away in the rushing tide of shining golden happiness, a river running so deep he felt almost giddy with it.

Now that feels like a fairy tale, too.

Once upon a time, I had to fight a massive robot, and I won, and I should have died but I got to live, I got to come back and live an amazing, incredible life full of so much love that it spilled out the sides of me, that I overflowed with it, that I don't think I could have possibly held any more joy inside me than I already did.

But that's not the kind of dream that could ever come true, not for him, and it all splinters and shatters into a billion pieces of broken glass before he can get to the happily-ever-after.

"Believe me, that wasn't the plan," Hamegg snorts—he turns back around to close up the cardboard box and put it back on the pile under the window with all the rest. "I wanted to hawk it, actually, but I figured it'd probably raise some real awkward questions and stir up another round of crummy publicity—which was the last thing I needed back then."

"I—I don't think you'd have made a ton of money off this, anyway," Astro pokes a finger pointedly in a wide hole on the left shoulder. "It's not exactly new."

"Jesus Christ, kid," Hamegg huffs out a noise that's somewhere in between a laugh and a scoff and leans back against the nearest bedpost—the old, flimsy wood creaks loudly under the weight. "You've got no idea how freakin' famous you are, do you? Everyone up there in Metro City would cough up a damn fortune just to get their hands on a jacket worn by their darling superhero."

"No, I—I really don't think so," Astro tells him, because he doesn't—of course that big fight with the Peacekeeper made a pretty massive splash in Metro City, and it did kind of take over the news for a little while (—apparently, a lot of people had whipped out their PCDs and recorded him, pictures and videos exploding on every corner of the internet and the glowing TV screens and the front pages of all the newspapers and the sleek, glossy covers of all the tabloids and magazines until it felt like he couldn't even step outside the door without seeing his own face staring back at him—) but it's not exactly every day that the president goes crazy and tries to kill everyone, so that one doesn't count, because it wasn't really about Astro.

And he's—he's kind of an anomaly when it comes down to it, something that's obviously nowhere near human, all ticking metallic clockwork under the skin, but he's not exactly like all the other robots out there, either, and of course everyone had questions about that, of course everyone had questions about him, of course everyone had questions for him.

Of course everyone wanted to know what he was.

Of course there were candid pictures snapped the second he stepped outside his house, and reporters with microphones and cameras, live interviews in real, actual studios that premiered on real, actual televisions, and articles about him printed in the newspapers and magazines. Because no one knew what he was. Because no one knew what to do with him.

Because he's not like everyone else.

Astro yanks the shirt over his head, pushing his arms roughly up into the loose sleeves—it's too big for him, the neckline slipping off his shoulders and the hem falling past his thighs, but the sharp jolting shivers are coming slower now, gentler and calmer with some real room to catch his breath in between each one, as his body finally registers the thick cloth on his cold skin.

It doesn't really matter.

It's not like he'll get to wear this for very long.

But he puts the jacket on, anyway, and the extra layer is practically heaven, a warm and tangible weight on his back, on his shoulders, against his skin.

For the first time in months, he doesn't feel naked.

"That should help a little," Hamegg pushes off the bedpost on the palm of one hand. "Just give it a few minutes."

"I—" Astro blinks blankly back at him for a solid sixty seconds as he picks and plucks at what he's just heard, turning it over and over in his mind to stare it at from all sides—where's the get down on your knees or get up on the bed, the suck me off or use your hands or—?"What are you talking about?"

"The thermals?" It comes out kind of like a question. "It's not a good idea to leave 'em like that, kid—your system has already been working overtime for Christ knows how long, and the last thing we want it to do is burn itself out trying to get those valves back up and running."

Oh.

"Oh," Astro says out loud.

So that's—that's why Hamegg found an outfit for him that doesn't make him look like he just stepped out of a pornography commercial. That's why he looked away while Astro got dressed. That's why he doesn't seem even kind of turned on. That's why he doesn't look like he's about to rush over and tear the clothes off his body all over again in the next ten seconds or so.

(—I'm not going to do that to you, I'm not ever going to do that to you, so long as you're under my roof, no one is ever going to do that to you—and he said it like he meant it, so firm and unwavering, so set in stone like a solid brick wall— and Astro knows so much better than to hope, he knows so much better than to trust a human, but the fact that he said it, that he looked away while he got dressed, that he gave him real, actual clothes that cover his body and don't make him look like a mindless sex doll—)

"He'll be mad," and he doesn't know why he says it, doesn't know why he's doing this, doesn't know why he's taking a nice thing like this and throwing it away like junk, like garbage, like a robot no one wants—he just knows that this is wrong, that this shouldn't be happening, that he doesn't want, that he shouldn't have— "He'll be really mad if—if he finds out that you gave me clothes."

Which isn't exactly true in the absolute strictest sense of the term, because Skunk doesn't really care what Astro does so long as his latest client likes it, but this obviously isn't meant for that, or it would show off a whole lot more skin than just his hands and his face, and anyway, Hamegg already said the clothes are just so his system doesn't need to work so hard, and that's what Skunk will hate about it, that's what will make him so mad about it—that Hamegg is trying to help.

(That he's talking to Astro like he's a real person. That he's calling Astro by his name. That he's being so nice.)

"Yeah, well, you just leave that to me," Hamegg snorts, his arms folded firmly over his chest and his brown eyes narrowed, his face screwed up in a scowl (that—doesn't actually look like it's meant for Astro, it doesn't actually look like he's mad at Astro, but that can't be right, because Astro always makes everyone mad, even when he's trying so hard not to—) "If he wants to start some crap over a pair of freakin' jeans, I'll handle it myself. Don't you worry about that."

Which is—not even in the same stratosphere as things Astro expected to hear tonight, or ever, at all, on any night, from anyone, because everyone who's ever met Skunk has the common sense to stay away from him when he's in a temper, to step back and stand down and let him take it out on someone else, anyone else, just so long as it's not them. Everyone who's ever met Skunk has the common sense to keep their heads down and count themselves lucky that at least it's not me, at least he's not mad at me, at least he's not taking it out on me.

Of course, the kinds of things Skunk does to his robots when they don't listen to him aren't the kinds of things that he'd ever do to Hamegg (—the kinds of things he does to his robots aren't the kinds of things that anyone would ever do to real, actual people—these kinds of things just don't happen to real, actual people—) but Hamegg should still know better, he should still know he needs to stay away from Skunk when he's in a temper, to step back and stand down and let him take it out on Astro, because Astro can take it, and he'll be okay, he'll be fine, he'll bounce back, he'll live through it, so it doesn't really matter if Skunk hurts him or not.

Because he can take it.

Because he's just him.

Except he can't say that—he can't say any of that, and when he tries, it sticks in his throat and he can't spit it out and he can't swallow it down and Hamegg said you just leave that to me and I'll handle it myself and don't you worry about that, and he thinks this might just be the first time in his life that somebody has said that to him instead of the other way around.

So he stays quiet and still in the center of the room, staring silently around as he tries to come up with something to say, some way to tell Hamegg don't do that, you don't have to do that, don't think you have to do that, I can take it

He stares silently at the moth-eaten curtains pulled back to let the light in. He stares at the cardboard boxes stacked in the corner, full of old clothes because Hamegg hasn't emptied them out. He stares at the rickety bunk beds still crammed against the walls, because Hamegg hasn't gotten rid of them. He stares at the ripped posters still tacked and taped up all over the room because Hamegg hasn't taken them down. He stares at the muddy shoes and the dog-eared books and the broken toys because Hamegg hasn't bagged it all up and dumped it in the nearest scrap heap.

He stares at all the hundred thousand things Hamegg hasn't thrown out, and his heart aches and aches and aches, because he knows what it's like to lose people.

He knows what it's like to miss people.

And he knows what it's like to know they don't miss you back, and that's—that's not true. Not here. Not for Hamegg.

Astro swallows.

"They miss you, too." It comes out so quiet he's not even sure Hamegg can hear it, but if he tries to backtrack and say it again, he just knows he'll lose his nerve—and if he loses his nerve, he'll take it all back and he'll go silent and he'll never say it, so Hamegg will never know. "Cora and—and Zane, and all the others, I mean." He twists his numb and shaking fingers up in the stiff red hem of his jacket. "They really miss you."

And he could prove it if he had to—he could talk about the day he held Cora while she cried over the life she'd lost, the home she thought she'd had and the man she thought she knew, the man she still loved like he was her own father (—and he held her close and rubbed her back and whispered in her ear I'm sorry he did that to you and I'm sorry you're hurting and it doesn't say anything about you, Cora, I promise, what he did to you doesn't say anything about you, it's not on you, it's not your fault, I promise, there's nothing wrong with you, there is nothing wrong with you, and he knew it wouldn't really make anything better but he said it all anyway because it was the kind of thing he had wanted to hear back when he was lost and alone in the junkyard, with his father's rejection still ringing loud in his ears—but it's not true for him the way it is for her, and he's accepted that, he's made his peace with that, and he is not going to be bitter or jealous or resentful just because she is someone that people can love without limits, and he is not—)

And he could talk about the night he stayed up with Widget because she had another bad dream where he didn't get back on his feet in time, and ZOG really did kill Hamegg, and I know he was mean to you and I shouldn't miss him, I know he was really mean to robots, I know it's stupid, but Astro, what if he needs us down there, what if he needs us and we're not there, what if he's in trouble and no one is there to save him this time? And he could talk about the way Sludge would go quiet and wistful whenever anyone said anything about the Surface. He could talk about the way that Zane could crack a joke about anything except Hamegg.

But he is not going to do that.

They aren't his secrets to tell.

Hamegg grinds to a dead halt, halfway out of the room, one hand already stretched out to sweep the ragged rust-red curtain aside, and he turns to stare at Astro for a long, silent minute—and there is something so open and honest and vulnerable in his face, like he's just been stripped bare, like someone has just sliced his chest open and reached in to pull out the beating, bleeding heart hidden inside, holding it up to the light and showing it off for the whole world to see. He looks so naked—so raw and exposed, his dark eyes bright with something in between hurt and hope—that Astro wants to hug him.

But then he clears his throat and rubs at the back of his neck again, his motions stiff and jerky like he's just realized he has limbs, and isn't completely sure how to use them. He glances rapidly, almost feverishly, around and around the room, like he's trying his best to look at anything else but Astro.

"Well," he says, finally, halting and awkward, "let's just—let's just get you back to the shop, and—and get some more oil in you. Okay?"

More oil?

A knife-sharp shard of white-hot panic spikes up in Astro's chest, like the jagged, glowing green lines of a human heartbeat on a cardiogram, because he already had two entire cans of oil only last night, and Skunk will be so mad at him if he drinks any more, Skunk will kill him if he drinks any more (—and it won't matter even if he doesn't tell Skunk, because Skunk will know, the way he always knows everything, and Astro can't hide from him and Astro can't lie to him because he always knows, and hiding only makes it worse and lying only makes it worse because Skunk always always always knows everything—) and Skunk will probably kill him just for drinking all the oil that he already has, two ounces per week from now on, and it's your own fucking fault so don't give me that look, if you want more then you shouldn't be such an ungrateful little brat, always wasting everything, and he didn't mean to be ungrateful, and he didn't want to waste it, but he couldn't help it, and he couldn't stop, it was just that he was so sick and dizzy all the time, his head spinning around and around like a carousel at a carnival, and every sip he tried to take just spilled back out of him like water, like vomit, trickling out of the corners of his mouth before he could catch it, and he'd try to swallow it back but it wouldn't go down, his system wouldn't take it, his body wouldn't absorb it, he was too sick, he was too damaged, and if you want it so bad, you can come over here and lap it up with your tongue like the fucking dog you are, come on, you little bitch

"He'll be mad," Astro says, again, low and hoarse, his throat suddenly tight, and he doesn't actually want Hamegg to hear him, he doesn't actually want to say it (—he doesn't want Hamegg to find out what an ungrateful brat he is—) but it—it's just not right to let Hamegg walk blindly into this. "He'll be—really mad. When he finds out you let me drink so much oil."

Hamegg arches his brows, higher and higher the longer Astro talks, in what looks an awful lot like complete and total disbelief. "Then he'd be a freakin' moron, because you need it. And if he wants his robots to function, then he needs to treat 'em right. For Christ's sake, it's a miracle you're even alive, kid."

And Astro—

—kind of wants to cry, but he already knows that won't help because all these feelings crashing around inside him are too big for that, too big to come out in his tears, and it'd be stupid and selfish to cry when Hamegg is right there and has to see it (—if anyone actually wanted to deal with you, then you wouldn't be here—)and he wants to tell Hamegg the truth, he wants to tell him no, it's my fault, it's my fault my oil got so low, it's my fault that I wasn't allowed to drink any, it's all my fault, I deserved it, I deserved what he did to me, I was being really ungrateful, I was acting like such a selfish immature brat, I was just wasting the oil when I knew other robots needed it even more than me, so it's good that he took it away from me, it's good that he wouldn't let me have very much, I would have just wasted it, I would have just wasted whatever he gave me, and it was my fault, it's my fault, he wouldn't have had to do that if I wasn't being such an ungrateful brat, he wouldn't have had to do that if I wasn't wasting the oil like it doesn't even cost any money, he wouldn't have had to do that if I wasn't being so bad—

But he's—he's not brave enough to say all of that out loud. He's not brave enough to do that—to rip himself open like that, to rip off his own skin and let Hamegg see all the rot and garbage and trash and filth hiding inside of him, he's not brave enough to let Hamegg see what a disgusting waste he is.

Because Hamegg said it's a miracle you're even alive.

Like it really is a miracle.

Like his entire existence isn't just one enormous, awful mistake his father made in a frenzied whirlwind of denial and grief.

And Astro—just isn't brave enough to tell Hamegg that he's wrong.

So he stays quiet and still in the center of the room, his head ducked down to stare at the floor (—because he can't look at anything else, he can't look at Hamegg—) and he pulls at a loose thread on the sleeve of his jacket, and he doesn't say anything and he doesn't look up, not even when Hamegg says come on, let's go in such a soft and gentle voice that it hurts, and a warm hand claps down on his shoulder and steers him through the rust-red curtain and back into the living room.

The exhaustion is still settled heavy in his (metaphorical, nonexistent, metallic) bones, deep under the skin, like a thick quilt he just can't shake off, but he stumbles along in Hamegg's wake anyway, behind the torn-up sofa with the mustard-yellow wool blanket thrown over the back of it, while the television blares on and on and on—

"—vigil being held here tonight in honor of Astro Boy—"

Astro jerks to a stop.

He doesn't mean to look at the screen.

He doesn't even want to look at the screen.

But the second his own name hits his ears, his body acts all on its own, sticking his feet to the floor like he's standing in glue, and pulling his eyes up to the picture of himself on the TV—slouched back in a diner booth with one hand up in a wave, smiling shyly out at the camera, and big yellow block letters appear, right beneath the photo, to spell out MISSING

"—the robot superhero who stole our hearts last year with his courage and compassion," the reporter comes back on the screen, microphone clutched in her manicured hand, her honey-blonde hair teased up into a beehive—Nancy Delaney, he remembers her, and he's always liked her. She's always been nice to him. She's never hounded him with nosy questions like so many of the others. "Astro has been missing for five months now. If he were here with us, he would be celebrating his very first birthday tonight."

So it's—it's April, then.

It's April 7.

It's his birthday.

Astro didn't know that.

And—some people are still looking for him here and there. Some people still haven't forgotten about him. Some people still remember him.

He didn't know that, either.

"—here tonight with the man who created Astro—the father of modern robotics—Dr. Tenma—"

The camera shifts two inches to the left, and—

—and there he is, a yellow-white candle clutched in his cupped hands, his face all lit up with the soft golden glow.

Dr. Tenma.

Dad.