Setting his coffee on an end table he kept tucked near his work table, Barry yawned a good morning at the robots, gathering the materials he would need for the day. First and foremost, he would have to remove any broken components from within the bots that weren't necessary for function, then try to replace them. He had most of the components in his workshop already, besides the audio processors, but those could wait.
The sound of squealing motors and gears filtered through the workshop as the two droids followed his movements, beeping at random. At some point in the night, they had grabbed a blanket he'd left on the table and draped it over themselves— probably the one without legs; the other looked like it couldn't move its fingers properly. He was too tired to think too hard about why they would do that.
Setting his tools and a box of components next to the table, Barry picked up the legless bot and tossed it over his shoulder as gently as possible. Both the bots began beeping loudly, the bot in his arms trying to kick at him, and he sighed. "I'm just moving you to another spot; I can't fix you guys without the space."
Somehow, that seemed to calm them down, at least a little bit. He sat the legless bot in a chair a few feet away, then returned to its sibling, laying it flat on the table. Its eyes flew around in panic, or so it seemed to him— he had a bad habit of anthropomorphizing these things, but he couldn't help it; companion droids could feel emotions, pleasure, and pain, unlike less sophisticated bots. He'd never understand why they were built like this— it just made them harder to work on.
For his own sake, Barry grabbed a cloth and laid it over the bot's eyes, who simply opened its mouth and let out a high pitched squeal. He quickly snatched it off, and the squealing stopped. "Alright, you don't like that, noted." He sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Just… don't start crying when your chest is open, okay?"
It was simple enough to open the chest, revealing the primary life components inside— whoever had cut the bot open had done so with surgical precision and hadn't bothered closing up after themselves. It was definitely the work of a black market seller; he had no doubt he'd probably end up with one of her originals on his table someday. It was missing most of its unnecessary parts, but, other than that and the broken limbs, it was in far better shape than the other bot.
It would take an hour or two to replace each component, and take all day for its systems to reboot and adapt to the new parts, then he'd have to mend the skin and see if he had to replace the motors in its wrists and ankles. He was no transmutation specialist, but he'd performed the cantrip enough times to get the skin back together without any noticeable tears.
As he worked in relative silence, the droids' ears swiveled towards the other and they beeped, as though they were having a conversation. They probably were— Barry had never bothered to learn binary, nor did he care to learn.
After mending the skin back together, he moved onto the wrists and ankles, feeling for pierced skin. Nothing was torn, it seemed— that meant the gears were still in place, if dislocated. That made his life a lot easier; he wouldn't need to remove the parts and replace them. Grabbing the bot's hand and wrist, he yanked upward and—
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Barry clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as the bot let a piercing shriek, hearing the sounds of several barking dogs on the levels above. Oh boy, he'd be getting shit for that from his neighbors later. The shriek tapered off and he opened his eyes to a very pissed off looking elf glaring at him. He sighed and rubbed his temples— he could feel a migraine forming already. "I've still got three to go, can you please not scream like that?"
The bot crossed its arms over its chest and huffed.
"Can I… give you something to bite down on?"
It glanced at its sibling then slowly opened its mouth.
Barry thanked whatever god was listening and placed a clean towel in its mouth, then set back to work. The bot still screamed, but it was a lot quieter than the first scream. He made sure to make the process quick, taking a moment to massage the skin to make the gears were in their proper place before moving onto the next one. When he finished, he placed the droid back into the sitting position and returned its sibling next to it, taking a moment to cover them both with the blanket from earlier.
"Don't try walking yet; your motor processor was stolen, so if you try standing up you're just gonna hurt yourself," he told the bot as he cleaned up his station. "Tomorrow, when I get back from work, I'll start on your, uh, brother, I guess, and then we can work on teaching you to walk again."
The bot beeped again, taking its sibling's hand beneath the sheet and flashing it a smile, as if to say, See? I'm alright.
Content with his work for the day, Barry shut off the lights to the workshop and made his way up the stairs, sparing one last glance the robots. Their eyes shined back at him through the darkness, and a shiver ran down his spine.
He needed to stop watching horror movies before bed.