"Maybe there is no cure for this: the way the brain bends after trauma, and bends the world with it." - Eugenia Leigh, Bianca
APRIL 7 2044
6:41 PM
As soon as the bathroom door has shut itself behind him, and he's turned on the spray with a twist of the silver tap, Astro crumples to the soaking-wet, soap-slick linoleum at the bottom of the bathtub with his knees pulled to his chest and his head pressed flat to the wall. All those repairs to his body and updates to his brain have left him so tired he can't even think straight, never mind stand up, so he just squeezes his eyes shut and lets the water run 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 in a slow, lazy slide down his bare back, peeling up off him like the thousand layers on an onion until he can finally see his own skin again, smooth and white and synthetic as ever.
But he knows better than to think he's actually clean.
He knows better than to think he can ever be clean again.
It feels kind of like a miracle that he's actually awake and functional after such a long while stumbling around in a pitch-dark dead-quiet world, deaf and blind and defenseless, his brain crowded with a hundred thousand different error messages telling him imminent system failure and urgent repairs needed and emergency shutdown recommended, his arms and legs too stiff to bend, and all those cords and cables tearing their way through his split-open skin, sparking and buzzing and burning hot to the touch, so painfully oversensitive that even the air itself would sting whenever it gusted lightly past the loose, exposed wires.
It feels kind of like a miracle that he's even alive.
Actually, it feels more like some sort of cruel, cosmic joke that he's alive.
God, why won't they just let him die already? He just wants to die. He just wants to be dead. He just wants to be gone. He wants to run out of power for the last time. He wants the Core to give out on him and give up on him the way everyone else has. He wants the Core to burn up, and burn away, and burn all the life out of him, like it did when it hit the Red all those months ago in his last battle with the Peacekeeper, and he doesn't want to come back this time. Or maybe he just wants to rewind his whole life back to that last battle with the Peacekeeper, and he wants to make sure he stays dead, so he never has to live through any of this.
He just wants to be dead. He just wants to not be here anymore. He can't live like this anymore. He can't live in this awful and ugly and filthy and disgusting body anymore.
But he's not going to die.
Because Mr. Kusai won't let him.
Just a few months ago, he probably would have been crying like a little kid over all of this, sobbing and shaking and scared to death because now he's going to have to do it again even though he's not in the Hotel this time and it's not fair that he has to do it even when he's not in the Hotel, but it doesn't matter in the end, does it? It doesn't matter where he is, because he's a sex robot now, public property like a park or a playground (or a landfill, the ugly little voice in the back of his brain hisses) and anyone can have him so long as they can pay for him. So it's going to be another night on his knees, sucking and swallowing and swearing he loves it even as he chokes over the cock in his throat and the cum filling his mouth.
But he doesn't do that anymore.
He doesn't cry anymore.
There just isn't any point.
The millions on millions of tears he doesn't shed just live inside him now, a knot as hard as iron in the center of his chest where all the bad things go — like steady red lights and shining black lenses and dark hungry eyes and frosted-glass walls and sparkling cities that don't want him.
Somewhere in the very back of his mind, Astro finally realizes that it's been almost a whole hour since he got in the shower, and he should probably get up right about now. He should probably shut off the water and climb out of the bathtub, step out of the bathroom and go back to the workshop, because he's taking way too long in here, longer than he ever has before, and Hamegg is waiting for him to come out. Hamegg is waiting for him to come out, all cleaned up and ready for—
But.
But he said he wasn't going to do that, didn't he?
No, he really did say he wasn't going to do that — he literally looked Astro in the eyes and said I'm not going to do that to you, I'm not going to do that to you, ever, I don't want that, I don't want to do that to you, I'm not going to do that to you, as long as you're here under my roof, no one is going to do that to you, and he said it like maybe he really meant it, too.
It was a great show he put on.
But Astro knows better than to believe it.
Because, at the end of the day, Hamegg is just another human man like the ones in the Hotel, and a promise from a human is worth less than nothing.
And he is never going to make the mistake of putting his trust in a human ever again.
Because humans don't care about anybody except themselves. They make promises, and then they break them ten seconds later. And they lie to you, and they hurt you, and they take and take and take from you until you're worse than worthless, and less than nothing, until you're just a hollowed-out shell of a boy on a hardwood floor, crying so hard you can't breathe, and they'll still just go right on taking from you right up until you die.
And then they'll keep taking from you after that — taking from your dead body, and taking from your cold corpse — and they probably won't even know the difference.
So there's no way Hamegg isn't going to do it now that he knows he can do it. Now that he knows no one will care, and no one will stop him, and no one will tell him no, and he's got unspoken permission to do whatever the hell he wants, he's going to do whatever the hell he wants, because that's what the humans do whenever they have a robot under their thumb — they take, and they take, and they take.
Astro 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 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. His body must be too tired to kickstart the extraneous programs this time around, his system still overworked and exhausted, running half a step behind while it tries to process all the new updates.
Looks like he'll just have to wait it out.
It's not like he's not used to that.
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 are bending in on themselves like dog-eared pages in an old book, the water droplets clinging to his face like tears, damp and sticky, and it's funny, isn't it, how he still knows that feeling better than the back of his own hand when he hasn't cried in what must be months.
Everything is just 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. If he does take one, he'll have to put it in the laundry hamper when he's done with it, and then Hamegg will know. But if he doesn't take one, he'll be dripping water all over the workshop and on the lab table, and he'll get everything wet, and if there's any scrap metal in the shop, it'll rust, and Hamegg will be so mad at him, and he'd really like to just get through the week ahead with as little drama as possible.
Astro takes a towel.
He's going to make Hamegg mad no matter what he does, anyway, 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 pathetic kind of makeshift jacket. It's wonderfully warm on his back, but it doesn't really help very much 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 has gone out again since he got in the shower, 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 permanently damaged at this point, as unfixable and irreparable as the rest of him, because it usually 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 Mr. Kusai slammed his head into that wall over and over and over.
But it's fine. He's adapted to it. He's adjusted to it. He's acclimated to the jagged prickle of asymmetry at the back of his brain, and he's gotten used to that vague, persistent sense that he's lopsided, off-kilter somehow, and he pushes it into a small, dark corner of his mind until it just fades away into pure background noise, and he barely even notices 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 the 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 humans hate it when he expresses any kind of pain or discomfort while he's on the clock. The men in the Hotel usually hold it together pretty well until it's over, but then they complain to Jazz that he didn't look like he was having fun, and Frasier isn't afraid to get right up in his face and scream at him that no one is going to feel sorry for you just because you look pathetic, so you should just give up, because it won't work.
(No one ever seems to realize that he's really not doing it on purpose, and he's really not doing it for attention, but he knows better than to try and explain himself, or he'll just end up with Mr. Kusai's electric whip on his back again.)
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 back at Astro.
It's pure instinct that makes Astro freeze in the doorway like a deer trapped in the headlights of a hovercar, his shoulders still jerking and jolting with the shivers — which is technically a good sign, since involuntary motion is usually his system's way of trying to get the thermal valves back online whenever they give out — and he knows he's not doing anything wrong. He did exactly what Hamegg told him to do, didn't he? Take a shower — no specifications or special orders or anything like that.
But he's digging frantically around in his mind, anyway, desperately searching for some kind of defense or excuse or explanation — 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 your work, I thought it was okay to just come out when I was done or I'm sorry I used one of your towels 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 his best 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. "I-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, huh?"
Astro isn't sure he can say exactly why he thought 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 engineers 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, and 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 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 Mr. Kusai 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 Mr. Kusai 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 12.16.44 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 then—
[[DATA CORRUPTED]] [[FILE NOT FOUND]] [[INPUT MP4 12.16.44 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 seconds, and three seconds, and four and five and six and seven seconds, 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 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, I'm not going to do that to you, ever, I don't want that, I don't want to do that to you, I'm not going to do that to you, as long as you're here under my roof, no one is going to do that to you) and he knew this was going to 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 pushed against the walls, with the ragged blankets still peeled back to show off the sheets beneath, the ripped posters still tacked up with pushpins or stuck directly to the plaster with clear tape, the muddy shoes and dog-eared books and broken toys still scattered over the tile 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. No, 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. 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 outgrown, 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.
It's not even dusty 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. He just sits there on the floor for a long and silent minute 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 isn't saying, and he can see it in the corners where the dust should be, and in the moth-eaten curtains that shouldn't be open, in the cardboard boxes full of discarded children's clothes and in the rickety bunk beds pushed against the walls, in the muddy shoes and dog-eared books and broken toys and ripped posters, and a bright burst of empathy cuts through him like a sharp shard of pure 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 or a sledgehammer, pulling him back into the real world and back into the hollow cavity of his own shaking, tired (awful ugly bad filthy disgusting disgusting DISGUSTING) body, and the warm bloom of sympathy withers away as it quickly as it had sprouted. He doesn't know what's going on here, and 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 sooner or later, 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 just wants to be back in the workshop. He just wants to be deactivated, limp and lifeless on the lab table, the splintered edges digging into his skin. He just wants to be floating aimlessly in that deep black numb of complete and total nonexistence. He'd stay there forever if he could. It's as close to death as he'll ever get to be.
"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. Let's see if they fit."
Oh.
So that's what this is, then, isn't it? That's where this is going. He doesn't know why he didn't see it coming a good hundred miles away, but it's fine. He doesn't care. He'll wear whatever disgusting outfit Hamegg has apparently picked out for him. He'll play along. He'll play the game. He'll flash a smile, and he'll get down on his knees, and he'll open his mouth and he'll 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 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. 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 and covered his ears with his hands on blind reflex at the first chord he ever heard, 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 has ever had just to see his friends again.
Just one more time.
Just to say goodbye.
But they wouldn't want to see him, would they? Not if they knew where he's been and what he's done in the last five months.
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 inside, 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 him, to rip him open and tear out whatever they find within. 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 right now? 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. "Y-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… uh, y-yeah, I—I forgot that was in there. Well, I mean… hey, you might as well take it back, anyway. Since, you know, 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 cinders, 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, turning around again to close up the cardboard box and put it back in 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, and that 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 flimsy wood creaking 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 cell phones 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, isn't he? Obviously, he's nowhere near human, with all the machinery 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. Of course there were live interviews in real, actual studios that premiered on the news. Of course there were articles about him printed in the local papers 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 in its warm and tangible weight on his back and shoulders.
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 bend over 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's 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 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. I'm not going to do that to you ever. I don't want that. I don't want to do that to you. As long as you're here under my roof, no one is going to do that to you.)
Astro knows so much better than to hope. Astro knows so much better than to trust a human.
But Hamegg looked away while he got dressed. Hamegg gave him real, actual clothes that cover his body. Hamegg gave him real, actual clothes that don't make him look like a mindless sex doll. Hamegg is trying to help him. Hamegg is even calling him by his name.
"H-He'll be mad," Astro blurts out, and he doesn't know why he says it. He doesn't know why he's doing this: taking a nice thing like this and throwing it away like junk, like garbage, like a robot no one wants, like his dad Dr. Tenma threw him away. He just knows that this is wrong, and it shouldn't be happening. "He'll be really mad if he finds out that you gave me clothes."
(That's not true. Mr. Kusai won't care. Mr. Kusai never cares. Mr. Kusai never cares about anything when it comes to Astro. Hamegg can do whatever he likes to Astro for the rest of the week, and Mr. Kusai won't care at all. But Astro says he will, anyway, because this is wrong, and it shouldn't be happening, and he needs Hamegg to realize that. He needs Hamegg to stop being so nice.)
But Hamegg just snorts, folding his arms firmly over his chest and narrowing his eyes. "Yeah, well, you just leave that to me. If the idiot wants to start some crap over a pair of freaking jeans, I'll handle it myself. Don't you worry about that."
"Oh," Astro says, weak even in his own ears, because that isn't in the same stratosphere as the kind of thing he expected to hear from Hamegg, or anyone, ever, in any situation, and he knows he should say no, don't worry about it, you don't have to do that, I didn't mean it like that, I don't want you to get in trouble with Mr. Kusai just because of me, but it sticks in his throat and he can't spit it out and he can't swallow it down, because he's pretty sure that's the first time anyone in his entire life has ever told him that they'll take care of the problem. That's usually his job. "O-Okay."
So he just stands in the center of the room and picks at a loose thread on the cuff of his jacket sleeve, his head so crammed full of thoughts that he doesn't even know where to start — he's thinking about how Hamegg said I'll handle it myself, don't you worry about that, and he's thinking about how Hamegg has to drop the act and go back to being just like all the other million men eventually, right, and he's thinking about how Hamegg is letting him wear real, actual clothes that don't make him look like a mindless sex doll, and he's thinking about how Hamegg still had his jacket in those cardboard boxes full of old clothes, and he's thinking about how Hamegg still had Zane's jeans and Cora's T-shirt in those cardboard boxes full of old clothes, and he's thinking about how those cardboard boxes are still full of old clothes because Hamegg hasn't emptied them out even though it's been a year. And he's thinking about the rickety bunk beds still pushed against the walls because Hamegg hasn't gotten rid of them. And he's thinking about the ripped posters still tacked up with pushpins or stuck directly to the plaster with clear tape because Hamegg hasn't taken them down. And he's thinking about the muddy shoes and dog-eared books and broken toys still scattered all over the floor because Hamegg hasn't bagged them all up and dumped them in the nearest scrap heap.
He's thinking about 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 he knows that's not true for Hamegg the way it is for him.
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 how he held her close and rubbed her back and whispered I'm so sorry he did that to you, I'm so sorry you're hurting, but it's not your fault, Cora, you didn't do anything wrong, he made his own choices, he did what he did because of who he is, not you, it didn't have anything to do with you, I promise, there's nothing wrong with you, there is nothing wrong with you (it was exactly the kind of thing he'd wanted to hear back when he was lost and alone in the junkyard, with his father's rejection still hanging heavy over his head and 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 of her just because she's the kind of person that other people can love without limits, and he's 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 she sobbed into his chest, saying I know he was really mean to you, and I know he was really mean to robots like you, and I know I shouldn't miss him, I know it's stupid to miss him, but Astro, what if he needs us, and we're not there? what if he's in trouble, and he's got no one 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 but Hamegg.
But he is not going to do that.
They aren't his secrets to tell.
So he swallows hard, and says the only thing he can.
"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."
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 almost 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 high 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 yesterday, and Mr. Kusai will be so mad at him if he drinks any more, Mr. Kusai will kill him if he drinks any more (and it won't matter even if he doesn't tell Mr. Kusai, because Mr. Kusai will know, and Astro can't hide from him and Astro can't lie to him, because he always knows everything, and hiding only makes it worse, and lying only makes it worse, because Mr. Kusai always knows everything) and he'll probably kill him just for drinking all the oil he already has.
Mr. Kusai hasn't let him have any oil at all ever since he found out he was giving it away to the other robots who needed it more.
Except for that day just a couple of weeks ago — just before he finally gave in and loaded him up in the hovercar to take him down here, Mr. Kusai gave him a whole twenty-ounce can of oil in a last-ditch effort to get him back on his feet. But it didn't work, because he couldn't drink it by then, anyway — every sip spilled back out of him like water, or vomit, trickling out of the corners of his mouth before he could catch it, and he tried his best to swallow it back, but he couldn't. His system wouldn't take it. His body wouldn't absorb it. He was just too damaged for that.
"He'll be mad," Astro says, again, low and hoarse, because he doesn't actually want Hamegg to hear him, he doesn't actually want to say it, because he doesn't want Hamegg to think he's ungrateful, but this is wrong, and it shouldn't be happening. "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. "Well, then he'd be a 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, for some reason he can't quite figure out, but that's a pointless and ineffectual way to respond to a situation, as Dr. Tenma always used to tell him, and anyway, all these feelings inside him are too big for that, too big to come out of him in his tears. He should just tell Hamegg the truth — he should tell Hamegg it's his own fault that his oil got so low in the first place, and it's his own fault he wasn't allowed to drink any, and the one time Mr. Kusai did let him have a few sips, he just wasted it — spitting it back out, and coughing it back up, because it wouldn't go down — and that was really selfish and ungrateful of him, wasn't it? There were other robots who needed it so much more than he did, and he wasn't even swallowing it.
So it's good that Mr. Kusai wouldn't let him have any. It's good that Mr. Kusai let him run out. He deserved it. And besides, there were other robots who needed it more.
But he's not brave enough to say all of that out loud. He's not brave enough to say any of that out loud. He's not brave enough to rip himself open like that, to tear 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 really 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 just stands in the center of the room and picks at a loose thread on the cuff of his jacket sleeve, his head so crammed full of thoughts that he doesn't even know where to start.
"Come on," Hamegg says, finally, into the stifling silence. "Let's go. Let's get back to the shop." He claps a hand on Astro's shoulder and steers him through the ragged, rust-red curtain back into the living room.
The exhaustion is still settled heavy in Astro's metaphorical, entirely nonexistent bones, deep under his skin like a thick quilt he can't shake off, but he stumbles obediently along in Hamegg's wake all the same, behind the torn-up diamond-patterned sofa with that thick, mustard-yellow wool blanket still 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 TV — where there's a picture of his own face, smiling shyly out at the camera like the photographer caught him by surprise, and big black block letters appear at the bottom of the screen to spell out the word MISSING.
"—the robot superhero who stole our hearts last year with his courage and compassion," the reporter comes back into view, her mic clutched in her manicured hand and her honey-blonde hair teased up into a beehive. Nancy Delaney. He remembers her. He's always liked her. She's always been nice to him. She's never bugged him with weird, nosy questions like so many of the other journalists. "Astro has been missing for five months now. If he were here with us tonight, he would be celebrating his very first birthday."
Oh.
So, it's April, then.
It's April 7.
It's his birthday.
Astro didn't know that.
And there are some people who are still looking for him every now and again. There are some people who haven't forgotten about him just yet. There are some people who still remember him.
He didn't know that, either.
"We're here tonight with the brilliant mind responsible for Astro's creation and construction, the father of modern robotics himself: 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.