I'm posting this here as an experiment. This story has already been posted on Archive of Our Own in its entirety over the course of a week. I am still boycotting posting new stories on Fanfiction, however it's really tiring seeing the same five fics get updated anymore. And apparently no one's ever written about Middy and Techno. (Not that AO3 is much better, including this story, there were only three.) So, as I said, for an experiment and to amuse myself, I want to see how much attention this fic gets here. I expect it to be about the same short term, but some wayward hits in the long term after AO3 stagnates. We'll see.

Thank you for reading.

A human like her should have been a school teacher. She was far too bubbly, too young, too… human to be in Maverick Hunter HQ. Techno watched with a clenched jaw as his brother shook hands with the human teenager.

"It's going to be a pleasure working with you, Aero!" Middy happily said to her. "Dr Cain has spoken a lot about you around here."

"Mostly exaggerations." she replied with a wry smile.

"Maybe a few." Middy agreed with a grin of his own. "But don't discredit yourself. I was able to look over some of your school records, and you're pretty smart! You were in the top fifty percentile last quarter! That must have taken a lot of hard work."

Techno rolled his eyes. It wasn't as much as a feat as Middy was making it out to be. That just meant Aero was average at best. At worst, it meant she knew how to study- or cram.

"This is my brother, Techno," Middy then said, gesturing to him. "He's usually assigned to the cyber security sector, but most of the time we're able to work together in programming research."

"Pleasure to meet you, Techno." Aero nodded as she extended her hand. Techno looked at it with a sneer. Didn't female humans paint their nails? Hers were absolutely bare with a few instances of a hangnail or two. At least it didn't look like she was a nail biter. That must have accounted for something.

"Likewise." Techno finally said, taking her hand. It was a small shake, but it made its point. When they had pulled away, Aero immediately put her hands behind her back. She offered a small smile as a measure of goodwill. Techno remained neutral.

"I can't wait to get started!" Middy said with a clap of his hands. "By the time we're done Aero, every up and coming scientist is going to want you as their assistant! I bet Dr Cain's already started the matchmaking, haha."

Aero gave a soft snort. "Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it either." she agreed.

Techno made the decision to remain silent. It was no surprise around Maverick Hunter HQ that Dr Cain was doing all he could to put his name back in good graces after Sigma's rebellion. Aero wasn't the only hail mary Cain was trying to pull off, but it was certainly one of the more obvious ones.

Middy took Aero by the hand to lead her to the main programming room. The teen had to bend forward a bit, considering both Middy and Techno were a good head smaller than her. It was rather demeaning in its own way- Aero was rather short for a human her age. The fact that they didn't stand much higher than a ten year old allowed Techno to keep a displeasured grimace. They were going to outlive her one day, and what did they have to show for it? A smaller stature, apparently. Definitely insulting.

The programming room only had one terminal for inputting information. The rest of the room was outfitted with rows and rows of servers. As sophisticated as Reploids were, you'd think that it would have led to greater developments for government scale tech. Unfortunately, while the AI might have been grander, it was the other software that lagged just a bit behind. No one said getting the right funding was ever easy anyway.

"We'll work at the main terminal for today." Middy told Aero. "I'll get you a chair. I'm sure I had one around here that was tall enough… Ah! There it is!"

Techno hung back by the door. There wasn't really a reason for him to stay around- he had more than enough work to go through on his own time. But some part of him refused to leave Middy alone with a human. Was it mistrust? Prejudice? Either way, there was no convincing him to go away.

Not that Middy or Aero did so. If anything, they had forgotten he was still there.

"The computer needs a passcode?"

"Oh!" Middy declared. "Wait a minute and I'll-" The Reploid quickly moved to place his hand on a small crevice in the terminal. It took a moment or two for a small beep to confirm the signature. Middy looked to Aero to explain, "It uses our R-DNA as a security measure- just a small scan with a timestamp. It's a little inconvenient for our purposes, but I hope you understand that it has to be like that."

Aero nodded to show she understood. After that, Middy went on to explain how the terminal worked and some basic controls for it. It seemed that Aero was a relatively quick learner. She was able to make her first command after about 30 minutes of instruction. Techno couldn't help but flinch each time Middy congratulated her. He might as well had been talking to a toddler.

"Now that we're all settled in," Middy said, "Here comes the more boring part; getting to work. Do you mind talking a bit while we look over the code? Sometimes it helps to figure things out, you know?"

"I don't mind." Aero agreed. "I assume you want to know how I'm related to Cain, or how I know X?"

"Was it that obvious?" Middy nervously asked.

Aero gave a small shake of her head. "No, it's just that it's always what people ask when they find out."

"Then let's start with Dr Cain first, if you don't mind. You two are cousins, right?"

"Once removed. His father was my maternal grandmother's sister. Beside my paternal grandmother, he's the only family I have left."

"Oh, that's so sad." Middy empathized. The sadness in his voice almost made Techno gag. "At least he's been supportive?"

"Yeah," she snorted. "That was never in doubt."

"But that meant you got to know X when he was first activated, right? Before the rest of us Reploids came along. He must have been a different person back then."

"Something like that."

Middy looked at Aero with a twinkle in his eye. "I bet you two got along pretty well. You would have been about the same age when he was activated. Dr Cain must have really supported your relationship back then too."

Aero immediately flinched. Techno raised an eyebrow at it.

"Wanna know a secret?" Middy then prodded as he scooted a bit closer to Aero, "When the X-Hunters were still at large, you were the first person X made sure was safe from their plotting. Dr Cain too, of course, but you were the one closest on his mind. You could see it in his eyes when we did the daily check in."

"Can- can we talk about something else?" Aero requested. Her voice was low, just shy of being nothing more of a squeak.

"Of course!" Middy happily agreed. "I just wanted to let you know, just in case. X has a lot of respect for you and I'm starting to see why. What else could we talk about then…? Oh! How about that new TV show everyone's talking about? I've seen the first few episodes, but Techno won't watch them with me. He says that it's frustrating watching humans fail to communicate with each other, but I think it makes it more interesting…"

. . .

The only noise in the programming room was the low hum of the servers. Middy and Aero had finished their first day together hours ago. Arrangements to meet up around the same time the next day was agreed to, and they departed on rather good terms. Now at this late hour, the only people still working at Maverick Hunter HQ were the first responders and very few essential staff. This meant that Techno was able to enter the programming room without so much a second glance.

He walked over to the main terminal and smirked a bit at the passcode entry screen. Cracking his knuckles, his fingers flew over the inputs to place the terminal into developer override. His job got harder from there, though. The Maverick Hunters were really starting to up their digital security. If it got any more sophisticated, he'd have to connect his CPU just to make any kind of dent the code. All the world help him if someone destroyed the terminal if he connected to it that way. He'd be a goner in minutes.

But that wasn't going to happen today. He got through the barriers and was able to read through what work Middy and Aero had gotten through. They had already sent their rough copy to a higher up, but that didn't mean it couldn't stand a few tweaks. That particular superior always left work early. Any work sent over late wouldn't be reviewed until the next morning. Techno had the perfect opportunity to adjust things.

First he read over the file in order to distinguish just what Aero wrote from what Middy had. He cursed when he found that some of it was nearly identical. Apparently Aero really was a fast imitative learner. It took a second pass through for him to see the beginner mistakes; the niche changes of language in each line. With all luck, he'd have that human out of here by the end of the week. The Maverick Hunters didn't take too kindly to irrelevant data in their files. Depending on the context, it was even a serious offense.

Now the hardest part of this job; what did stupid human teenagers usually rant about?