Chapter 2

J and V were asleep; V lay in her chair while J was powered off against a console. N was still awake, lines around his normal eyelights mimicking bags as he elected to stay up for when Uzi finally booted back up. That's when he heard Uzi grumble, a loading bar appearing on her visor. As the bar finished loading, her left hand came up to her visor, vision hazy from the forced shutdown she put herself through, muttering, "Ughhhh, what's happen...huh!?"

Uzi didn't even get a moment to comprehend that she really was alive when N wrapped her in a tight hug while shouting, "Uzi, your awake!" Her eyelights darkened and widened while her hands lightly grasped back as the full realization hit her, stuttering weakly, "N...N what...b...but how?"

"Is this some sort of sick joke? Maybe I'm hallucinating, bleeding out in the hallway. This can't be..." Uzi's logical programming was stuck thinking of the worst possible scenarios until N continued talking, "I managed to work it out with the others, erm well sorta, you see I..." Before he could finish speaking, V snapped from her chair, "N shut up! I'm trying to get my beauty sleep here!"

N looked at V, rubbing his head nervously, chuckling, 'Ehehe, sorry Uzi woke up, and I got excited." his head slowly trailed back to looking at Uzi, whose eyelights were still completely wide in shock. Then, letting out a small sigh with a shake of her head, Uzi asked more clearly, "N wh...what's going on?"

"Simple, the idiot decided to adopt you," J said, stretching from the console she was leaning against, following up with, "Which means you're now with us, understand? Uzi? That's your name, right?"

Uzi didn't respond at first; it was as if she was going to overheat from processing this information, thinking, "N Adopted me?..., hehehehe," It took every ounce of resistance in her body not to vocally laugh like a maniac, " I became apparent friends with one of the drones meant to kill me, I get abandoned and left to die by my own fricken father, and now apparently that friend has adopted me meaning I'm going to be stuck living with the same drones that might have killed my mom lovely, just absolutely lovely!"

While Uzi had her mental breakdown, the disassembly drones were left seeing her visor filled with another bar. This one was titled Repressing Emotions, and it honestly made N a little nervous. Once it was done loading and Uzi's eyelights returned, N gently grabbed her shoulder, "You okay, Uzi? I know this is like a lot and..."

"I'm fine, N..." she turned her head, a slight digital blush appearing under her eyelights as she continued, "but thanks for uh caring, I guess..." He smiled in return, replying, "No problem Uzi." He wanted to try and bring up that repression thing but decided now was definitely not the time for that.

Uzi brushed her bangs looking at V, who was lounging in her chair now, and J, who had come to stand over her and N. "Right, now that you can listen properly, I wanted to say..." J gave a small breath before continuing, "By the good graces of the ever-loving and thoughtful company JC Jenson, I welcome you into the team and as N's newly conv...err adopted daughter."

"She could have tried to remember it herself or, you know, not use the most emotionless tone she could think of." Uzi's eyelights narrowed as she thought that, but before she could respond, J continued, "And seeing as you now live under my roof, as team leader, I have some ground rules I'd like you to follow, such as your curfews, chores, an..."

Uzi's right eyelight twitched and lunging up with a skilled hop, she barked out, "Bite me!" this sudden boldness made V smirk and seemingly caught J a bit off guard as Uzi continued with, "What do you think you are my mom or something?! If anything, the only person I need to worry about listening to right now is N!" Some would ask if Uzi cared more about her pride as an angsty rebel than her life, and at this point, the answer was more up in the air than ever before.

"Well," J said, recovering from the worker's sudden outburst and replying with a very amused and patronizing tone, "If you think about it, I could be for two good reasons." she crossed her arms with a smirk, "One I'm N's boss and, by definition yours as well, no matter what you want to consider me as my word is law unless a CO says otherwise." Then with a half-glance at V who wasn't really paying attention she continued, "And two V would make a horrible mother unit and influence on you in general, after all, you need to learn what the company expects of you and, the policies, rules, and regulations that come with those expectations."

V then casually looked at J's back, snickering, "Oh please," the lounging drone snorted out, "J, no offense, but your about as motherly as the rock N befriended once was talkative," she met the turning glare aimed at her with a shrug continuing, "I'm just being honest with you J, no matter the drone, death would be better than hearing your lectures on company policy."

"Oh really?!" J growled, met with a small satisfied smile and a sick nod continuing to fray J's temper for the joy of it, "Mhm, I mean, let's face facts, J, you would be an absolutely horrible mother drone." The two then fully faced one another, beginning to argue.

Watching this all happen with a twitching right eyelight, Uzi was caught off-guard, making a slight noise when N tapped her shoulder, saying, "Hey uh, how about we go chat outside, their gonna be at this for a while." Uzi nodded and slowly moved to follow him to the ladder.

{Outside the pod}

After getting out of the pod, N quickly gathered enough corpses to make a pile for both of them to sit on, to Uzi's mild discomfort. But once she was as comfortable as she could sitting on a pile of dead drones, there was an awkward silence between her and N. Finally, N broke the silence by saying, "Uzi, I'm sorry..."

"I ruined your card game, nearly killed you, and made you have that moment with your dad." he continued while looking at the ground with a sad look, only for Uzi with widened eyelights to reply, "It's not your fault!" she then flushed a bit before softly followed up with," I'm the one who made the dumb decision to leave the bunker at night, and you were just doing your job..."

With a slight growl at the thought of her "father," if she could even consider Khan one, Uzi told him, " And don't blame yourself for my da...err Khan's actions, him shutting me out is just the tip of the iceberg." That didn't comfort N; it worried him more for her.

"Right...well, uh." N rubbed the back of his head shyly, unsure how to respond. Uzi then looked up to the roof of the spire, asking, "Soo, you decided to adopt me, N?"

N nodded before telling her, "Yeaaaah, sorry, I didn't really get your permission, but I just wanted to protect you, so I..." Uzi then gave him a quick hug, with a flush, before pulling away and saying, "Thanks again..."

"Uzi..." N said with a small smile; Uzi then breathed, brushing her bangs and muttering, "Yeah, yeah, that's enough emotional crap for today, okay?" N nodded in agreement; baby steps were still in the right direction.

"Still though this could be useful for me too, I can work on repairing the ship without..." Uzi stopped her train of thought, scowling out, "Crap." which caught N's attention, and he asked, "Is something wrong, Uzi?"

She gave him a slightly annoyed look, replying, "Yeah, just realized all of my tools and railgun are still in the colony." N blinked before a line signifying sweat ran down his visor while Uzi's eyelights narrowed, thinking, "Well, I think I saw something like an emergency toolkit in the pod, so maybe I still have a few basic things besides the therapy wrench."

"I know! Uzi, I can take you to the nearby hardware store tonight." N said with a glow of happiness, while Uzi asked, "And why can't I go there now? I can walk, ya know?" N rubbed the back of his head, looking in the opposite direction, "One of J's rules for you. She doesn't want you leaving the spire during the day since we can't keep an eye on you."

Uzi rolled her eyelights, thinking bitterly, "Ugh, you've got to be kidding me." with an irritated tone, she asked N, while hopping from the pile of drone corpses, "And remind me why she even cares if I'm around in the first place?"

"It's because of J's loyalty to the company; what they say goes without a second thought to her. After telling V and me that things worked out in your favor, she immediately started planning these rules for you, a list of chores, and other things until she hit the hay." N replied while coming to a stand, doing an unnecessary light stretch of his arms.

Uzi grumbled at that before peaking at the pod; J and V's heads were poking out of the hatch watching them; Uzi thought, "Looks like they finished up arguing..." She looked back to N, then the pair, mainly V, and then back to N, thinking, " I guess I should pay him back for helping me.."

"You know N," Uzi started turning to him while mentally swallowing her own disgust at what she was about to say, " Say I did decide to let one of your teammates be my new "mom" Who do you think I should pick?" It was simple he says V and earns some points with his crush.

And that's what he would do...at first, anyway. Then, as V's name hit his tongue, he paused, looking at Uzi, and thought, "As much as I want to say V...that'd be selfish, wouldn't it? I need to think of Uzi first...as her father..." His answer caught all three listening off-guard, "Honestly, probably J" he then waved his hand, continuing, "I mean, sure, she never really treats me well," afterward he interrupted himself to mutter under his breath, "Not that V's really any better." then continued at an average volume, " but if anything I know J's gonna do everything in her power and authority to keep you safe, if only because the company told her too." he paused before scratching the back of his head adding, " and I really can't trust V in that sort of way, I guess."

Uzi's eyelights twitched while the pair hanging out of the hatch popped back into the pod, equally shocked for differing reasons. V slumped into her chair and spun to face the console, thinking, "How could N ever pick J for anything, and what does he mean he can't trust me!?" she was wearing a vicious scowl doing her best not to rush out and scold the moron.

J, on the other hand, crossed her arms while leaning against one of the walls thinking, "Wow, it looks like the idi...N's taking this adoption seriously," she gave a small smile while continuing her thoughts, "And to think, I was expecting him to just say V because of his dumb crush on her or whatever, I may have underestimated you slightly N."

{A bit later}

After getting back inside, N crashed into a corner while waiting for night to come, leaving V and J awake with Uzi, who had pulled a panel off the bottom of the control console. V looked at the worker whose upper half was hidden in the console, asking her, "So Uzi, what are you doing in there again?"

"Just gauging how screwed things are with the condition of the console and, well..." Uzi paused, several beads of purple lines running down her visor, as J asked, repeating Uzi's words, " And well?"

Uzi replied with a strained tone, "Yeah when N told me this was a one-use missile, he wasn't lying." She couldn't hold back the rant while looking at the console's internals, scowling out, "More than half the wires in this thing are complete duds; the few controls connected are built around an automatic system, essentially a budget form of autopilot." popping her head out of the console to continue," Definitely makes me wonder if opening the maintenance hatch to get into the engine even worth it."

While V had completely tuned Uzi's nerd rant out, J inquired, "I don't see why you are so worried about it; I'm sure the emergency repair kit the company provided us can help with your work there. " Uzi replied with a roll of her eyelights, " Okay, no offense, J, but that emergency repair kit only had a drill with a few different drill bits and a plasma torch with a full charge with no charger in sight. So it's more of an if the cheap excuse of an autopilot fails and you smack into the planet upside down and don't die, here's how you cut yourself out without the risk of blowing up kit."

Uzi and J would continue talking to each other throughout the several hours of work on the console. It was mainly about Uzi complaining about how screwed the thing was and her existential dread at cracking the rest of the ship open for an examination. While J made minor comments, dared to try to correct the worker's language, and even showed, she was mildly impressed with Uzi's capability and knowledge.

"Honestly, this entire console and the comms relay attached is a complete dud," Uzi whined, smacking her head into the wall; V was going to tell her there was nothing she could do about it, only to be caught silent as Uzi groaned out, "That means I'm seriously gonna have to homebrew a console for this damn thing!" The worker's irritation had reached a boiling point that loosened her usual censoring protocols.

J looked at her, saying, "Language Uzi, " before commenting, "And why does any of this matter to begin with?" Uzi replied with narrowed eyelights, "Maybe if I can get the ship in working order, we can ditch this pile of rocks once your mission is done."

V snickered at Uzi's words. If nothing else, she was entertaining when she wasn't knee-deep in nerdy engineering crap. J rolled her eyelights; she had heard from N that Uzi had a rebellious spirit which at some point needed to be dealt with, for now, though J replied with, " Well, you don't need to rush anything, especially since you don't even know if the ship can lift off again."

Uzi narrowed her eyelights in response but didn't say anything, not wanting to argue.

Chapter 2

Author's note: I feel this chapter was pretty weak, but the next chapter will be better and might have a little action. Also, I will respond to reviews to the best of my ability on both sites this is posted!

reviews

Samtastic 3.0 - Thanks for the review. Thought it would be interesting to look at Uzi and N's friendship through a more parental lens since it could work well.

Sasha774 - Thank you, I'll try my best to!

a54321 - I hope this chapter continues to keep your attention, and thank you for the review

Wattpad reviews-

Therandomlady - Thank you, and here's the next part!