Tickets
Lieutenant Hiro woke a little before his alarm, and for a while stared muzzily at the ceiling of his cabin on Spacehawk.
He hadn't slept very well, a mix of anxious anticipation and excitement twisting his sleep up into dreams. Not nightmares, thank heavens – but just sufficiently weird to keep bumping him awake enough to know he hadn't had the uninterrupted sleep he'd wanted.
Residual dream fragments left him muddled and it took him a few minutes to get his bearings again. What was it that had got its nervous claws into his subconscious?
His mind wandered to the small highly-decorated pieces of stiff paper tucked carefully away in the pocket of his jacket.
Of course; those tickets.
A gift, for Space Sergeant 101 – his best friend, the dependable little zeroid that he shared Spacehawk life with, who rarely ever left the ship let alone got to do anything more interesting than work all the time, and whose dedication Hiro felt he wanted to pay back with something nice and not-work-related, for a change.
At least, that was what he was telling himself. Perhaps not quite as convincingly as he'd wanted.
No wonder he'd had weird dreams.
Hiro hadn't yet told his friend about them, wanting to surprise him, and was finding it strangely difficult to broach the subject. He'd discussed his plans with Captain Mary Falconer; she'd agreed it sounded like a good idea, and kind, and his small friend was all but guaranteed to love it.
And yet.
And yet he couldn't help noticing all the long fine threads of anxiety he'd inadvertently woven through it. For all Mary's reassurances, he had no idea if he was doing the right thing, or just… making everything even more confused. Because none of this was anything he had the smallest experience in, and he felt awkward and conflicted and perhaps a little silly.
Theatre tickets, for a robot. It did sound a little absurd.
He knew 101 suspected something was up, because the zeroid had been in quite the funny mood the previous evening, equal measures politely suspicious, prickly and sarcastic, and apologetic. It probably hadn't helped, Hiro had belatedly acknowledged while drifting off to sleep, that he hadn't offered the small bot any reassurances, and if there was one thing 101 had got good at, it was assigning himself exclusive personal responsibility for anything that went wrong.
Perhaps it was a bad idea after all. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and grimaced.
Part of why Hiro enjoyed working up here on their orbital station was that it suited his personality. He enjoyed his own company; enjoyed the quiet, so he could get on with his projects – both work and pleasure – without too many interruptions. His human friends and colleagues were all only a video call away if he needed them, after all.
And that wasn't to say he was totally without company – the small helpful fleet of mostly-autonomous zeroids populating the spacecraft were always ready to assist if he needed them to, keeping themselves busy with maintenance and monitoring work the rest of the time.
Only one was consistently there, whether he needed him to be or not.
Initially, it had very much been not, because Hiro was there to work, not deal with needy little robots trying to monopolise every second of his attention.
You know you can just reprogram him, Ninestein had reminded. If he's being a bother.
Outwardly, Hiro had agreed.
Inwardly, he'd told himself he'd give it another week. Learning models took time to acquire data, particularly when it came to things that couldn't easily be programmed, like human behaviour, and the command zeroid was still learning. Still figuring things out for himself. Hiro didn't want to end the experiment prematurely, especially not after seeing how idiosyncratic but incredible the earliest model zeroids had turned out. Anything good was worth spending time on. At the end of the week, Hiro said, he'd review it.
Of course, there was never a truer saying than 'tomorrow never comes', and the end of the week always got nudged onwards by a few days and a few more days, until a couple of months had passed. At that point, yes 101 could still be frustrating little annoyance sometimes, but he was undeniably improving the longer Hiro gave him, and often invaluable. And Hiro finally decided that no, he didn't need to do any reprogramming.
And he was glad he hadn't, because now he couldn't imagine trying to operate Spacehawk on his own, without his faithful little shadow looking after him and keeping everything running smoothly in the background.
The absolute last thing he wanted was to go and misread a signal, stick his foot squarely in his mouth, and ruin what an excellent partnership they'd developed.
The fact zeroids had spontaneously developed emotional responses – he was putting it down to some sort of interplay between their regulator crystals and quantum memory architecture that no-one had predicted – tended to make people forget that they weren't just little spherical humans. They didn't always react in precisely human ways about things. Hiro accepted this may be because there was a very-small-but-above-zero possibility that zeroids were genuinely nothing more than good mimics. They'd all been built with basic operating systems in place, and learning software that encouraged them to collect data and figure out their own solutions to more complex situations. Most of their behaviours (and particularly the bad ones) were what they'd picked up over the years from observing humans.
And that might – might – have included their emotions. They might just be mimicking what humans did, in the same way they mimicked everything else. Not understanding it, necessarily. Not knowing why they did it. Just copying it, because humans generally reacted positively to it, which reinforced the idea that it was a thing they should do.
Hiro didn't believe it himself. You didn't constantly interact with someone and make a mistake like that. That zeroid emotions were real, he was (almost (almost)) totally convinced. If he was wrong about that? Well. He'd contributed a single bad entry into a dataset and the only one who'd be hurt – and not even hurt, really; just disappointed and embarrassed for a while – was himself. The opposite – assuming they weren't real, and harming the little life-forms they'd created? Inexcusable.
It felt like it was far too early to be thinking such deep thoughts. Hiro wondered if he shouldn't just… roll over and try and go back to sleep, and start over. Preferably several years ago.
He'd not spotted any of the signs from 101 until recently – and then only because his friends and colleagues had clued him in with gentle nudges and euphemisms. He didn't believe them at first. They'd all reassured him that no, no, what it looked like was absolutely unquestionably correct, not one single shadow of a doubt. But they also didn't live with the little bot, and only saw him infrequently.
Perhaps this was just observational bias on their part?
Could be just Spacehawk's little administrator enjoying doing his normal administratorly duties, because he'd learned they were things he was meant to do, and humans reacted positively to him doing them, so now he liked doing them, too. Precisely as simple and ordinary as Hiro had put it all down to in the first place. A zeroid enjoying being told he'd done a good job because it reinforced his learning. Enjoying interacting with humans because it helped his own emotional development. Particularly enjoying interacting with Hiro because the lieutenant was his superior and they both spent a lot of time up here, working together, efficiently getting things done.
And absolutely not the behaviour of a besotted little robot completely blind in love with his commander.
Hiro blew out a sigh, and covered his face with both hands.
The alarm clock finally jangled its way into his awareness and reminded him that he couldn't stay in bed deferring a decision all day. He swung his feet over the side of the mattress and stumbled off into the small shower room, hoping it might wake him up a little better.
When Hiro finally felt alert and presentable enough to go and say good morning, he could hear Space Sergeant 101 already grumbling quietly to himself on the flight deck, although he couldn't quite make out the words, just yet. He made it closer to the door without being noticed.
"…you're looking lovely today, why thank you, oh no wait you're talking to the plants again." A little electronic sighing noise. "Just once would be nice."
Well. Was that fate, reassuring him he was making the right decision?
"Good morning, 101," Hiro said, striding through into the command centre, and noticed that tiny almost imperceptible startle that said he'd caught the zeroid doing something he didn't want to be caught doing. "How are you, today."
"Just peachy, as always." 101 swivelled on his perch to look back at him. To his credit, the little robot looked his usual (mostly-)professional self. "And how are you, sir?"
"Quite well, thank you, although I could have slept better."
"I'm sorry." The zeroid rocked forwards, contritely, looking down at his friend's feet. "I didn't mean to take my bad mood out on you last night."
"Oh! No, it was not you. Forgive me, I should have been clear." Hiro smiled tiredly. "I had a lot on my mind. It gave me some very strange dreams."
101 tilted to the side, like a dog cocking its head. "I feel like I ought to ask if you wanna talk about them but I don't think dream analysis is in my skillset."
"You and me both, 101!" Hiro patted him in passing. "Is Treehawk ready? I shall be returning to Earth shortly."
Another little sigh. "She's always ready, sir."
"Good. And you?"
That did actually catch 101 off-balance. "And me… what?"
"Are you ready to leave? I am taking you with me."
For several seconds, 101 just stared through him. "…lieutenant?"
"It is a straightforward question, 101. We are returning to Earth, are you ready to depart?"
"But… I don't ever… sir? I-I didn't know I needed to be ready-!" A little flutter of something like low-level panic entered the zeroid's voice. "We're not due a crew rotation and I haven't prepared any handover and who'll take over anyway?"
"I have already asked One-Seven to provide cover. It will only be for a day. You have taught him well so I think he will cope."
"But I don't remember you saying anything about- I mean when did you say I needed to come with you-?"
"I will explain when we get down to Earth. There is nothing to worry about, but it is meant to be a surprise." Hiro just gestured towards the airlock with an open palm and (he hoped) a reassuring smile. "Please?"
After several more seconds of staring, 101 said a deeply uneasy "…hm!" before closing his shutters and rolling gracelessly from his pedestal.
That could have gone better, Hiro thought, following him, but kept his thoughts to himself.
oOoOoOo
Sergeant Major Zero was on his perch in the main hallway of the White House at Hawknest, where he could in theory observe a large portion of the ground floor easily, keeping an eye on security… but really, technically, it was just a good place to have a little snooze where he could still keep one or two processors alert for any interesting gossip.
101 would have preferred to slip past him to wherever Hiro was taking him without being noticed, but for once his superior officer came back to alertness very quickly, upon hearing their voices.
"Hold up. What are you doing down here, lad?" Zero peered down at him, puzzled. "I didn't think you liked it that much, here on Earth, seeing how you don't hardly ever leave the ship."
"I know." 101 cast a pleading look back at Hiro, but he was discussing something with Captain Falconer and wasn't paying attention. "Lieutenant Hiro didn't say anything about me coming along until we were on the point of actually leaving. I don't know why he didn't tell me before, he just asked if I was ready and I didn't know I even needed to be and I didn't do a very good handover to One-Seven. It was almost like he didn't want me to know about it before we left?"
"Huh." Zero swivelled to look at the two humans, still talking in hushed voices. "Very strange. And, um. You hasn't done anything that needs our good doctor Kiljoy to go poking around with a soldering iron, perhaps?"
"I think I'd know about that, Zero."
"Has you been misbehaving, then?" Zero's expression sharpened. "Causing drama, like usual?"
"Of course not! Well. Only a few teeny tiny things." A new thought hit 101 and he actually recoiled a little. "Oh, god. You don't think-… Oh no, oh no no, you don't think they're finally having me scrapped? I've been trying so hard and I thought I'd been doing better but I was in a funny mood last night and got kinda snappish and that'd explain why he didn't say something if he didn't want me running away and- Zero, help hide me!"
Zero gave him a tired glare. "Whatever 'teeny tiny things' was it that you has gone and done that makes you think Hiro is ever going to do that? To you, of all zeroids?"
"Don't change the subject-! Are you going to help me or n-"
"101?"
Hearing Hiro's voice, Spacehawk's command zeroid froze, midsentence.
"You are looking a little scruffy. Would you go and take a bath, please? And a little polish would be good." It was couched as a suggestion but was obviously a command.
"Uh, I uh, what?"
"Now please?" Hiro tapped an imaginary watch on his wrist. "We have a tight schedule."
Normally 101 would have challenged the assertion that he was scruffy, but he still hadn't quite got his internal balance back. "I-… ten-ten sir. Right away?"
Zero gave him a long contemplative look. "Well, that's a good sign. They wouldn't want you wasting resources if they was just going to pop you through a car crusher."
101 shot him a glare but hastily scuttled off.
oOoOoOo
Hiro hated it when people paced, so it was particularly frustrating to find himself repeatedly doing it, made uneasy by how long 101 was taking over such a simple procedure.
He checked the clock, again. "Where is 101? He is taking his time."
"Want me to check up on him, sir?"
"Would you mind, sergeant major? I'm concerned we will be late."
"Well he did… express some anxiety about what's going on," Zero confirmed, tumbling off his perch. "Probably thinks he's putting off the inevitable."
"Putting off what inevitable?" Hiro wondered, but Zero had already disappeared around a corner. He sighed and folded his arms, then gave Mary an anxious glance. "This was meant to be a surprise but I think I may have just scared him instead."
"He's a resilient little thing," Mary reassured, patting his shoulder. "If not a huge fan of surprises, it would seem. Given how he likes to run Spacehawk, perhaps we should have expected it."
Hiro made a glum noise. "You are right, of course. No more surprises, in future."
Both looked around at the sound of heavy objects rolling on hard floors.
101 finally trundled warily into the hallway, with Zero close behind like a spherical sheepdog. "I-…sir? Here."
"Ah! Good! At last. Are you ready to go?"
"Go… where?" For several seconds, the zeroid just… stared. "Lieutenant Hiro, I don't-… why… why are you wearing a tuxedo?"
Hiro smiled, and crouched down nearby. "Mary and I were talking, on my last shore leave. We recognised that you don't often leave Spacehawk, and-"
"That, that's- It's my home and I like it there," 101 interrupted, in a rush.
"You find it intolerably boring at times and frequently tell me so."
"I- well- yes- but-… it's still my home, and I like having things to do. It's just when I don't have a job to do and it's quiet that I get scratchy and bor-… sir. Where are you going with this. I promise I'll do better. Please don't scrap me."
Hiro laughed, fondly, and set both hands against the zeroid's casing. "101… Of course you would be the one to take this the worst possible way. I'm sorry I did not tell you sooner – I was struggling a little to work out how best to. But you are not in trouble. Quite the opposite."
"…-what?"
"In gratitude for all the years of loyal duty, and recognition of all the times you've been left alone up there in charge while everyone else is enjoying a special occasion… I am taking you to the theatre. Now hurry up or we will be late. Hudson is already getting agitated."
"I- what- I- but- I don't- what- I- what- what- the theatre?"
"By the way. You are looking lovely. You polish up very well."
Stunned into silence, 101 mutely followed his friend out of the front door, to where the self-aware vehicle sat patiently waiting with his engine purring.
oOoOoOo
The little theatre party returned long after most normal people had retired to bed. Hiro looked tired, but had a smile a mile wide as he came through the front door – followed by a giddy little bubble who apparently had lost the ability to steer, trailing glitter and still singing.
Kate Kestrel had stayed up to wait for them to get in; she too wore a grin that went right from ear to ear. "Looks like someone had a good time!"
"Ohh I had an ah-maaay-zing time, thank you for asking," 101 supplied, colliding happily with her boots. "Oh. My. Gosh. There aren't even the words for it!" He twirled on his axis and pirouetted away, breaking into an intentionally-off-key rendition of another musical number he'd picked up.
"Hey! I know timezones don't mean much to you, up in space, but down here most of us like to sleep at two in the morning!" she laughed. "Keep your volume down a little, eh?"
"He did sing most of the way home," Hiro confirmed, slightly ruefully. "I think Hudson expressed a desire for earplugs."
"I hope 101 told him where he could stick it."
"Oh, he did. In song. Loudly. Badly. Until Hudson threatened to leave him at the side of the road to roll home on his own." He lifted a foot out of the way and let his friend twirl on past. "I don't think he is particularly repentant."
"Ha ha!" 101 squeaked, gleefully.
"I knew it would come in handy eventually, when those students taught him how to dance," Kate agreed, droll. "Now come on, you." She addressed the zeroid still orbiting their feet. "Better get you somewhere secure to plug in and recharge, so you can get all those memories saved and secure before you overwrite them with garbage."
"Oh, don't even joke about it!" He sounded horrified. "That would be the absolute worst."
"Wouldn't it just?" She led him down the corridor to an empty study. "I'm glad you had fun. Hiro and I spent ages poring over which one we thought would be perfect, so it sounds like he made a good choice."
"Oh my stars Kate it was incredible!" 101 was still bubbling quietly to himself as she helped him find his balance on a quiet perch in a spare room. "Etched into my permanent memories like a pure solar brand of exquisite brilliance."
"Very poetic! You've definitely been taking notes." She stroked his casing, and brushed off a few more of the sparkling flakes that still clung around him. "You're going to need another bath, Glitterball."
"I might keep it forever." He leaned into her fingers. "Oh Kate. I've watched recordings and I never even dreamed what being there would be like for real. Being right there, in the middle of it. Like I wasn't just watching, I was part of it. And there were so many people there! They were all so colourful, and beautiful! And nice to me! And they didn't all treat me like a thing to trip over!" His gaze hunted briefly from side to side, as though checking no-one else was listening. "I have never had so much attention! And-and-" His voice suddenly hitched, and they could both see the dambust coming from a mile away, powerless to do a single thing about it. "Kate, it was amazing and beautiful and I was with the most important person in my life and I loved every single second of it so why am I crying."
Kate found a fond laugh for him and swooped her arms around him. "Aw, hon. You're just overwhelmed." She pressed her cheek to his brow and listened while he stuttered meaninglessly around his tears. "That was a lot to deal with, for someone who's barely left his home his entire life."
"Please don't tell Hiro? He'll be so upset if he thinks I didn't enjoy it."
"After seeing you come rolling in, singing your little heart out like that? I don't think there'd be a single person on the whole planet who'd think you hadn't enjoyed it. But don't you worry; my lips are sealed. You cry all you like, honey. I won't tell a soul."
It took 101 several long minutes to finally get his emotions back under control, but eventually he was calm and happy again. After making sure he was plugged in, and content to be left on his own while he recharged, Kate quietly left him to himself.
"Is he okay?" Hiro peered around her as Kate pulled the door closed. "I thought I heard-"
She smiled. "He's fine; just overwrought. First time on shore leave and you took him somewhere so star-studded I'm sure he blew a few fuses."
Hiro rubbed the back of his neck, shrugged guiltily, and glanced away. "Well… thank you for your help choosing. And your connections that made it possible."
She wagged a finger, amused. "You're giving yourself a hell of a lot to live up to!" She closed the gap between them and gave him a little snug. "Isn't it lucky you just happen to be good friends with an international popstar."
"Very!" He leaned his chin on her shoulder, and sighed deeply in tired satisfaction. "You didn't have to stay up for us."
"Ah, it's no big deal and anyway, I'm on-call. Even when I'm not worrying what our Martian buddies are up to, I never seem to sleep that well. I was just watching TV and napping on the couch." She took his hand and walked with him back towards the lounge. "So come on. Since I didn't get anything coherent out of 101, you need to tell me how it went. I need the gossip, Hiro."
He grinned, shyly, and studied the carpet. "I know he tends to be dramatic, but it was amazing. I don't think I have ever seen him like that before?"
"Like what, precisely?"
"Just… happy? Not fussing over whether things were getting done properly. Relaxed. Enjoying having company that was not just me. I think his one solitary low point was when they asked him to give the tiara back at the end."
Kate couldn't help cackling, gleefully, and squeezed his shoulders. "Oh man, you better have a photograph of that, and you better let me see it."
"Of course I have a photograph. I would never have been forgiven if I had failed to take any." Hiro sat on the edge of the couch and scrolled through his images. And scrolled. And scrolled. "Oh. Hm! I have quite a few, actually?"
"Hand. It over," she threatened, playfully.
"…are you sure? I do have rather a lot," he admitted, guiltily, but happily relinquished his phone into Kate's hands.
"Flaming Thunderbolts, Hiro. I see what you mean! Does your poor phone have any memory left?"
By the time Kate had finally finished scrolling through the endless stream of photos (and laughing at everyone's antics, and cooing and aww'ing in between), and looked up to give Hiro back his phone, her friend had already dozed off, head propped on one arm, fully dressed but for the loosened bow-tie, and his glasses, which dangled precariously from his fingertips. After rescuing his eyewear and putting them on the table with his phone, she unfolded the blanket she'd been planning on using personally, and draped it over him.
Then folded her arms, and gave him an affectionate glare. "I swear to god you two better get your acts together and finally talk to each other after this, or I am locking you in a room until you do."
oOoOoOo
Mary hadn't been expecting anything more complex than a quick catchup and a goodbye to her two colleagues, the following morning – until 101 pursued her down the corridor with an note of urgency in his voice.
"Captain Falconer? Captain Falconer!"
Mary turned to look down at him. "Yes, sergeant?"
101 seemed weirdly on edge. "…caaan I talk to you? Before we leave?"
"Of course! You don't need to ask permission to-"
"…in private? About… not about work."
She offered up a concerned smile, but gestured towards the same study he'd 'slept' in the night before. "Of course. This way…" Once he'd settled, she pulled up a chair, and sat in front of his perch. "Now, what did you want to talk to me about."
101 broke immediately; choked out a funny little noise and transitioned straight into bawling. "Oh Captain Falconer I'm such a screwup. I thought I could cope but I can't and now we're going back to space and we'll be alone up there and I might say something unbelievably stupid and I don't know what will happen and I don't know what to do and I can't bear it."
It looked like she hadn't been expecting quite such a convoluted run-one sentence, but he didn't seem like he was in any fit state to listen to her response even if she had been. She waited while he got the very worst of his tears out of the way before speaking. "Well, I don't see a screwup. I just see my colleague, who is conscientious and trustworthy and good at his job…"
"Conscientious!" 101 echoed, and laughed, despairingly.
"…and who is also my friend, who has got himself worked up and maybe needs a bit of guidance over something?" She lifted a hand to his casing, and felt him lean into her palm, trembling subtly. "I think you need to explain a little better what has you so upset. Then we can see how we can help you. Unless you'd rather we just commiserate about how big a screwup you think you really are?"
"The latter would be easier. And I deserve it more!"
"Oh for goodness sake." She chuckled, gently exasperated. "When did you become such a martyr." She sat quietly while he got hold of himself again. "All right. Now perhaps try again. You know I won't judge you."
His voice was hitchy and kept cutting out on him. "I think-… Mary I think-… I don't know how to…" He gave himself a tiny shake – more of a shiver, really – and finally found the courage he needed to look her in the eye. "I think I might be in love and I don't know what to do with it."
"…is that all?" Her smile turned fond and she allowed her other hand to come up to join the first. "Oh, Owun. I thought you were going to tell me you were dying, not try to shock me with the blindingly obvious."
"The-the-… buh…? …I don't understand."
"Well I don't think there's any 'think' about it, is there? It's been fairly obvious for months."
He remained silent for several seconds. "It-… it has? Who to? I didn't-… Has it?"
"Mm-hmm." She let him lean into her hands while he tried to process this new bit of data. "The only person shocked by this revelation seems to be you."
"But I don't understand. How-how did you know? Who else does? How could-… when even I didn't think-… I don't understand!"
"Because you're my friend? And I've interacted with you for long enough to have seen all the signs in your behaviour. And all right, yes: you do talk about a certain person rather a lot. Even your fellow zeroids had noticed that much."
101's voice was uncharacteristically faint. "Does… does he know?"
"I suspect it might explain why he took you to the theatre last night."
His gaze fluttered across her face, looking for some small trace that she was teasing, of not being truthful. "But-… H-Hiro said… was for-… was for doing a good job…?"
"Oh I don't doubt there was an element of that as well. But we don't always need a reason to do something nice for someone we care about. Sometimes we just do it because we want to."
"But-… but he's… not meant to know." His expression had begun to shade into one that unsubtly said I think I might have said bordering on just a teeny tiny bit too much. "I need to go."
"'Need' to go?" she echoed. She could feel him leaning harder into one hand, trying to get her to move out of the way and let him down from his perch. "I thought you wanted to talk to me? Don't leave just yet."
"No, Mary. I need to go. I need to-… I have to fix it! Before-… before Hiro- I need to figure out how to fix this. You can't let him know. Please. I didn't mean it to end up as such a mess. I have to fix it, before-… before-"
"You don't think perhaps you should ask me to have a little input on this?" Hiro wondered, from the doorway.
"Oh, no." 101 gave a groan of despair and snapped his shutters closed, and would have tumbled from his perch and fled had Mary not been that fragment of a second faster at recognising what he was about to do and caught him in a hug.
The words continued, faint and muffled against her clothing; please let me go please let me go please let me go
"No," she said, firmly. "You two need to talk. Now is the perfect time, I think."
Mary kept her arms around him but let Hiro take her chair, and only slipped quietly away from the room when she was sure her friend had got a secure enough grasp of the shiny casing to stop anyone escaping.
"Are you trying to run away from me?" Hiro wondered, when the door had finally clicked closed.
101 was still strangely muffled. "Yes. Please let me go."
"Why?"
"Because I want to go find somewhere to hide and be embarrassed and horrible and stupid. You're not meant to know! I'm so sorry I messed up. Please let me go."
If he absolutely wanted to go, 101 could have escaped easily – altered his mass and made himself far too heavy to keep hold of. So Hiro trusted that in spite of his protestations, the little bot didn't want to go that badly. Perhaps there was also the tiniest touch of relief that it was out in the open now, so to speak.
"Please Hiro. I need to fix this."
"I thought that was what we were doing right now? Fixing things. Not that I can quite see how they are broken." Hiro adjusted his hands so he didn't have them pressing down quite so hard on the top of his friend's casing. "Why do you think this is a mess?"
"Because it's stupid. I'm stupid. Now you'll think I'm boring and you won't want to interact with me any more and oh god why did I have to go and say something and ruin it all." The zeroid's words fractured briefly into static. "Why couldn't I have just kept quiet for a change."
"Why would I suddenly think you're boring?"
"Because I am! I'm an anxious, pedantic little fusspot who's scared of everything and never lets anyone have any fun, who never has anything to talk about except paperwork. And you're meant to be able to trust us, trust me, and not be worrying if I'm doing my job properly or just getting distracted, and, and and-…" Another choke. "I'm making such a bad job of all this-!"
"I hope you are not rating your competence as a commander against your lack of experience in matters of the heart."
"No? No! I don't understand. I don't understand! Why won't you let me go! I need to think. I need-"
"You need to calm down and recognise what I am saying to you, friend." Hiro laughed in spite of himself. "There is truly nothing that needs fixing."
"Please don't laugh at me," 101 mewed, swivelling against his friend's hands as though about to attempt once more to leave.
Hiro's amusement became softer; kinder. "Oh, my friend, my sweet absurd little friend. I'm not laughing at you. I am laughing at how ridiculous we have both been being." He rested his arms against the wide top of the pedestal, instead, one each side to gently hem 101 in. "There is one person in the entire universe who knows you inside out already, and still you try to tell that one person of your perceived flaws, as if he does not already know them, to try and convince him why you are not worthy of being loved in return?"
101 finally slid one shutter partway open and peeked out at him. "…?"
"Do you think there is a single word you could say to me that would possibly explain you better than everything I already know about you? We have lived and worked together for many years. I know all your faults already and I have chosen not to care about them. I wish to focus instead on the many, many parts of you that I do like."
101 had opened up all the way, now, his gaze trembling across Hiro's face. "…but-… you're not-… meant-… what?"
"You deserve me to be honest with you," Hiro said, and there was a flinch and another of those weird stuttery fan noises that bordered far too closely onto a sob for his liking. He spoke hastily, to fill the gap with reassurance: "I did not simply take you to the theatre as a reward for obedient service. I took you because I wanted to do something nice for my friend. And because I knew you would enjoy it. And I wanted to see you enjoy it."
It took him a while to speak, and when he did, 101's voice was still faint and crackly, like it might cut out at any second, like a badly-tuned radio heard from a great distance. "That-that-it sounds almost like-… like you mean-… like-…"
"…like?"
"…like a date, sir."
"Would you prefer to think of it in those terms?"
101's mouth lit with irregular little flickers, like he was hunting for adequate words that he couldn't quite get to come to the surface. Eventually he managed just: "…please."
Hiro smiled. "Then it was a date."
Another of those soft little hitchy noises but – amazingly – it sounded like it was beginning to close in on relief. No longer the sound of broken emotions circling the drain. As though 101 had been too caught up in shocked alarm to process it properly, when Mary had said Hiro knows, but now he was hearing the same things from Hiro as well… he was finally leaning into believing it. "Oh Hiro, I-… sir, I-… oh."
"…I know, my friend." Hiro laced his fingers lightly at the back of the zeroid's casing. "I know."
101 spoke faintly; "I-I used to think about things like this, when I was on my own."
"Bored and lonely, and missing out again," Hiro added, his own voice soft.
"I never once imagined it might actually be anything more than a silly daydream to bore the balls off everyone else with, so I never thought about… what I'd do if… if it… happened. And now I think maybe I'm still stress-dreaming, because it feels like it's happening and it can't be but it is and-" The sensitive optics flickered faintly from side to side. "Sir, I-… I-… don't know what to do with this."
"Me neither. But you are my friend, and we work well together, and we will figure it out. Because that is what we're good at."
Then he leaned up and dropped the very smallest gentle little peck of a kiss onto the scarlet brow, and 101 jumped so hard, the casual onlooker could have been forgiven for thinking Hiro had just run a thousand volts through him.
"I promised myself I wouldn't start crying again!" the little bot said, in a high-pitched squeak that could only have sounded more like a sob if he'd actively been bawling again. "But I don't think I have any control over it at the moment so you might have to just deal with it."
"And I shall deal with it, the same way I do every other time your emotions get the better of you," Hiro promised, smiling, and let his forehead bump down against the numbered brow-band. "With a little patience and support, and a lot of letting you work your way through it."
101 leaned in against him, fizzing quietly with static.
"And I solemnly promise that I never, ever will have even so much as a passing consideration of scrapping you, you ridiculous bubble."
101 finally found a faint sniffly sob-laugh, sounding completely emotionally exhausted.
"I would not scrap any zeroid. One does not scrap people. But particularly not you, my little shadow. I am not sure what I would do without you there at my side."
There was the tiniest, faintest little click from the direction of the door and 101's gaze shot straight over to it.
…but it was only Kate, with Mary close at her heels.
"At flaming last, you two." Kate threw her arms around both of them. "You pair of idiots had us really worried for a while there."
"Worried?" Hiro questioned.
"We thought the two of you were going to dance around the subject for the next twenty years, and never actually get to the point of talking about what you very obviously both wanted."
"'Obviously'?"
Kate tightened her arms. "More obvious for some than others, granted."
101 chuckled sheepishly and said nothing. He felt stressed and hot, and Kate could feel his fans whirring so hard to cool him down that they made him vibrate softly. But he had at least begun to look calmer, and was occasionally flickering a faint smile. It was easy to imagine the stress blowing away from him, like dust in the little breeze his fans had kicked up.
"I mean, the only person who apparently hadn't noticed how obsessed 101 was with Hiro? Was you, Hiro," Kate went on, and watched the man smile as a subtle embarrassed flush rose in his cheeks.
"And as for you…" She turned her gaze onto the zeroid, who was simultaneously watching her and trying not to watch her, peering up from beneath a canted brow. "Hiro was literally the only person in the entire universe that you wouldn't endlessly talk to about how absolutely smitten you were with him. We've been willing you to go and actually talk to him for weeks."
"I get nagged for boring everyone by talking about Hiro," 101 protested, quietly. "It's a terrible portent if your fellow robots are tired of you talking about something. I thought if Hiro found out and he ended up being bored of me, I'd have just… died of shame. Then asked to be redeployed to the remotest, most distant satellite monitoring station I could find."
Kate offered a soft, exasperated little laugh, and pulled them both tighter to her.
Mary had already taken a seat opposite Kate, and now added her own arms to the group hug. "101, I'm sorry that none of us acted like we'd noticed, or came forwards to offer any guidance. You were never shy about expressing your emotions so I think we all assumed you understood what was going on, and thought we knew what was going on in your head. It probably wasn't a great leap to remember you didn't actually have a lot of experience to draw on and might have needed a bit of help processing things."
"I didn't think it would be so complicated," 101 admitted. "You'd think I'd have got a clue from all the garbage television I watch, but apparently that was too easy."
"Well, perhaps we need to put together a rotational duty package for you, like we do for Hiro. So you don't spend your entire life in orbit, rarely getting to interact with other people. And real people, I mean. Not the caricatures you watch in those soaps."
"That's very kind, Captain Falconer. But you really don't need to. I like it up there, where it's quiet." 101 glanced away and added, guiltily; "and I'd rather not have to deal with Zero more than I already do."
"You do miss out a lot," Hiro reminded. "When the rest of us are enjoying a break down here."
"Seriously, it's fine. I was never-…" 101 caught himself and revised it. "I was rarely resentful that you didn't bring me along, when there was something happening down here on Earth," he said. "Zero's right – no offence but I don't normally like Earth, all that much. Too much wet dirt. But it's never specifically missing out on doing things I've been jealous of-"
He caught himself again, before finishing the sentence. The words hung unspoken, but no-one needed to hear them. I was jealous that you were with them, not me.
"…I'm sorry. That sounds terrible. I just meant-… I just…" The zeroid's gaze hunted off for somewhere that meant he didn't have to look anyone in the eye, and finally found a comfortable spot on the carpet. "No, I guess I meant exactly what it sounded like. I'm sorry." A sigh. "It was so much easier when I could pretend no-one knew."
"No-one said love was going to be easy, 101," Mary reminded, with a twinkle in her eye. "Good things sometimes take time. Surely he-who-watches-too-much-television knows that."
101 offered a faintly embarrassed little giggle. "…I guess."
Hiro watched his friend's optic display scroll, for a few seconds – the movements slowing, calming. "I think perhaps it would be nice to go home. How about you?"
101 leaned harder against him. "I thought you would never say it. Please."
The sergeant major was back in the corridor, when they emerged. "Everything all right?" he asked, suspiciously, watching them pass.
"Just fine!" 101 actually looked like he had the tiniest bit of a bounce about him. "Better than fine, actually! Ha ha! See you later, sir!"
"'Sir'?" Zero echoed, watching them disappear round the corner towards Treehawk's launch platform. "Since when does that spaceified little twit ever use the smallest bit of respect when he's talking to me."
Mary patted him on the head, affectionately. "I would say it's rather mutual, don't you think, sergeant major?"
"Huh!"
oOoOoOo
"I think I want to plug in and sleep for a whole month," 101 admitted, rolling along as close to Hiro's ankles as he could get without tripping him. "I have never felt so tired."
"I would be tempted to join you, if it didn't mean there was no-one senior in charge of Spacehawk again. Poor One-Seven will think he did something wrong."
"Oh. Yeah. He's been in charge this whole time, too, huh. I'll make sure I thank him."
Hiro smiled. 101 rarely liked relinquishing command to anyone in the first place, apparently not trusting them to do a proper job of it, so for him to be proposing thanking someone for it was something of a paradigm shift.
Surprising Hiro, 101 had gone straight over to 17 the instant they got back, and thanked him for covering – and effusively, too. The other zeroid had looked slightly alarmed, wondering what was wrong with his commander, and hastily took his leave.
Totally unperturbed, 101 settled back at his perch, plugged in, and got stuck in reviewing what had been going on in his absence. He was the absolute quietest Hiro had seen him in weeks. And it looked like his smile had broken, because it just wouldn't turn off. The planet's happiest, most absolutely content and (for once) emotionally-secure little robot.
Hiro stroked his head, and left him to it. He took advantage of the lull in activity to spend a little time over his lunch (and his feelings), for once. He finally settled cross-legged on the floor of the observation lounge, empty lunch bowl to one side, his hands wrapped around a cooling mug of green tea, watching the earth peacefully rotating above and just thinking.
Even though he regularly sat there, enjoying the serenity of the view, it was not often with company.
101 trundled across the floor and tucked into his side. Hiro let am arm drift around him. He still felt a little awkward, but… comfortable, too. "Isn't it beautiful, 101?"
"…I guess?" 101 agreed, hesitantly. "It's… not really something I'm much of an expert at. I kinda haven't really been looking at it that much lately. Always makes me a bit preoccupied with whether I might fall off the edge again."
Hiro glanced down and found 101 mostly studying the floor. "We can sit elsewhere, if you would prefer."
"No. Here's fine. You like it, and I know you won't let me fall." 101 lowered his voice a tiny fraction. "Especially like this. I don't think I could ever be scared of falling, like this."
They sat together in silence, for a while. It really wasn't that many orders of magnitude distant from how things had been previously, Hiro mused. It mostly just had a new name, now.
The volume was a little different, though. For someone so loud and sarcastic, normally, this uncertain little zeroid was coming across strangely vulnerable. "You are very quiet," Hiro said. "Are you sure everything is all right?"
101 shifted subtly under his arm, nudging a fraction closer. "Yeah." Reassuringly, he did sound happy enough. Very subdued, granted, and uncertain, but… perhaps… content?
"I hope you are not merely saying that so I do not feel I need to worry about you." Hiro chased, anyway.
"No."
"Hmm."
"No!" 101 found a little genuine giggle. "I mean it. This is all… it's…" He gave a tinny approximation of a wistful sigh. "Perfect." A heartbeat of silence passed, then another sigh. "And now I don't know what to do any more. I used to spend so long trying to get your attention that I'm not really sure what to do now I have it?"
Hiro took his turn to laugh.
101 hmm'ed softly. "And now I feel terrible for the way I was always baiting for a reaction when you're just so nice all the time."
"Well. Perhaps that was my first clue that there was something a little deeper behind your behaviour, when you made such a fuss about my plants getting more attention than you, and yet you still looked after them so beautifully."
"Well you asked me to." 101 shifted guiltily. "I wanted to do a good job. I wanted you to be happy and pleased with me. I mean ok sure, I didn't get the point of plants, and they don't even have ears, but it was no big deal to talk to them, and anyway some people would have said that about me. Why do you bother talking to that thing. You'll be talking to supermarket checkouts soon if you're not careful."
Hiro let his arm tighten very slightly. "I hope nobody that we know."
"Oh, gosh; no! I just meant, I read enough garbage magazines to know how people behave. If people don't understand what zeroids are, they're gonna misunderstand and might be rude. But that's fine. I don't mind being top secret. Uh, well." 101 approximated a cough. "Apart from the whole… theatre thing. That wasn't so secret. I hope you won't get in trouble for it." His voice became a murmur. "It was super nice though. Thank you. I'd like to do it again sometime."
"It would mean going back to Earth," Hiro reminded, amused. "Do you think you can cope with that?"
"If I get to see you wearing a tux again?" 101 purred his fans. "I think I can handle it, handsome."
Hiro felt a subtle heat rise in his face. "Oh! Er. Thank you?"
The zeroid giggled, lightly. "So, um." He leaned against him. "How long have you known? That I, uh… you know?"
"I have… suspected… for a little while. But not very long. Kate was definitely correct when she called me mostly oblivious. I'm sorry I didn't spot all the clues you were leaving behind you."
"I guess I coulda been more obvious, huh."
"While 'subtle' is never an accusation that will ever be levelled against you, I do wish you had said something to me, a little more directly. Rather than talk to everyone else, and leave us both embarrassed by how clueless we were being."
"Yeah." 101sighed. "Me too. But I wasn't sure if it was something I was allowed to do? So I thought it was better to just. Not."
"Why ever would you think that?"
"…because I'm a zeroid?"
Hiro felt another small shift under his hand and glanced down to find 101 looking up at him.
"Robots aren't meant to have emotions. We're definitely not meant to do love. If I'd said something, people might have started asking awkward questions," 101 said, quietly. "I mean no-one questions if human emotions are real, and you still get asked to justify yourselves, sometimes."
Hiro felt the tiniest pulse of guilt, for that earlier flutter of doubt about how genuine zeroid emotions were.
"Plus you're technically my boss which probably means there's gonna be a bunch of conflicts of interest or something," 101 went on, in the silence; his words had grown louder and brasher which suggested he was trying to avoid the subject. "Plus, the whole part about me being… embarrassing and stupid. Ha ha."
"How long would you have left it? Before you did finally say something to me?"
"I don't know. Forever, probably. But you know now!" 101 finished, artificially brightly, and gave a little contented wriggle as if getting comfortable. "So I guess it's all worked out."
Hiro exhaled a long slow breath of hot air. "Well, I'm glad we are on the same page, at last, even if it took considerably longer than I would have liked to get here."
There was a long pause. "…sounds a bit like you're cross with me."
"I'm not cross. Well. A little, perhaps. Frustrated, maybe, is a better definition."
"…sorry."
"I would have liked to help you figure it out. Not find out later how stressed and confused and lonely you have been, dealing with things all on your own. I feel I have failed as your friend."
"But it wasn't your fault!" 101 squeaked, alarmed. "Please don't, you didn't fail anything, especially not being my friend." He tried to squeeze tighter under Hiro's arm. "I know I should have said something. And and maybe I would have! I just, I didn't know what it was? Not really, not to start with. I just knew it felt different, to how I felt about other people I liked." His words softened, awkwardly. "I didn't think it was anything big, or something I should bother you with. I thought, maybe it'd go away on its own? Other things did, as I got more data and worked out what they were and filed them. But this just hung around. More data didn't fix it. More data just made me more confused."
When he was uneasy, 101 tended to either get defensive, or else babble, with words hitching in and out as he kept changing his mind over what he wanted to say, so the soft, measured speech had an odd poignancy. Hiro stayed quiet, hoping he'd carry on.
"When I first came online, I don't think I ever really considered the future, in any capacity. The only important things were the immediate present, and being useful for work. A thing, a tool. I mean, not being someone's friend, and certainly nothing bigger than that. If someone said, Good job, 101? That was all I needed to feel complete. The biggest things I ever thought about were ways to improve how well I could do things. Making sure the zeroids under my command knew what they were doing, ensuring I knew everything important going on, keeping watch on earth territory, flagging things that might be dangerous, keeping Earth safe. Keeping you safe.
"But the longer I remained online and the longer it went between debugs, because you decided that my 'bugs' weren't bugs at all but the normal consequences of my learning model, what I defined as 'my job' grew outside of what it started out as, and my feeling broadened along with it. First it was talking to your plants, which… okay it was weird but I could do it, so I did, and since you looked pleased, I kept doing it. Then you said I could liaise with the crews of freighters when they looked lost, without having to ask your permission each time. Make judgement calls on things we spotted and whether I needed to pester you with them. Make sure the admin was done on time, ordering supplies, signing off reports. You stood up for all of us being different, for having emotional reactions to things. You let me make little decisions even though Doctor Ninestein said we shouldn't. Encouraged me to, even! You trusted me. You said we are a team, even when I screwed up. You were always so nice about everything. And I just. I guess I just. I just-"
They both heard the next part, even if he didn't say it out loud: Fell completely circuits over sensors in love with you.
"Figured it was better to keep quiet, just in case." 101 revised the end of the sentence. "You all had a bunch of far more important stuff to be dealing with than me and my silly issues. I ended up causing quite enough drama fighting with Zero all the time, without anything else on top of it, right?"
"You may be lucky that people did not think you had a 'thing' for the sergeant major," Hiro joked, affectionately, not entirely sure what else to say.
"Oh, ew. Way to ruin the moment, sir."
"Forgive me." Hiro gave a small laugh and stroked his palm down over 101's side, guilty for ruining his flow. "Please. Go on. I was enjoying listening to you giving your heart a voice, for once. You have held a lot inside for a very long time. I'm glad you finally chose to share it with me. When did you start to decide what it was that you were feeling?"
Mostly mollified, 101 muttered quietly to himself before speaking again. "I don't know, really. I had a lot of time to myself, when it was quiet up here? Like when I was on duty on my own? When you were planetside? I read up on it a lot. I tried hard to figure it out. I didn't even know if I really wanted it, back then? Mary's right that I shoulda asked for help, but I think I assumed I could just delete it and it'd all go away, eventually."
"I am glad you didn't."
"Well. Uh. I did try," 101 admitted. "Couple times. But it didn't. Go away, I mean. And I didn't feel brave enough to do anything bigger than that. You always told me not to edit my own code, after that one time I really screwed it up, so I try not to."
"So some of what I say does sink in, occasionally?" Hiro teased, trying not to think too hard about the way his friend had been sufficiently stressed by it all that he'd tried to delete his feelings to get rid of the bothersome emotions.
"Oh, ha ha. I always listen to what you say," 101 half-scolded. "I occasionally don't like it but I'll always do it. Or… argue about it, then do it." His words lightened. "But I'm glad I didn't try harder. I could have really messed things up. Being with you was one of the best things I could imagine doing! Every time you went back to Earth, I'd be counting the seconds until you came back. Daydreaming about when you'd arrive, so I could find out what you'd been doing, and you could update me on the news and give me jobs to do and discuss your plants and and… just… talk to me."
"You didn't want to talk to the other zeroids?"
"Oh I do. I do!" Beat. "OK well, it's more I try. The zeroids on Earth all think I'm boring and normally don't want to talk. They're probably right. I don't really have a lot of things to talk about, huh? And my boys don't interact with humans so much so they're more… I guess more computer-y. They're not often interested in talking just for the sake of it. Especially not the emotional stuff – they're really not good at that." 101 hesitated, and admitted, in a near-whisper: "I do feel a bit lost, sometimes."
"I dearly hope you don't feel lost any more, friend. Please. You can talk to me any time, about anything. I may not be good at counselling, but I would hope I can at least reassure you sometimes," Hiro said. A new thought occurred to him. "Is that why you worried that I will find you boring, now? Because Sergeant Major Zero has convinced everyone else that you are?"
Quietly; "…I guess. He's not exactly wrong-"
"Please don't use his evaluation of you as the yardstick by which you measure everyone else's opinion." Hiro briefly added his other hand to his gentle touches, fingers flattening over 101's top curve. "You both consistently quarrel over who should be in charge up here, and you fail to jump when he orders you to, so of course he calls you names. And I have never seen you be slow to reciprocate!" He sighed. "But I have also seen you two interact when you think no-one is watching. You can be remarkably civil to each other. I would like to see you eventually become friends – not rivals forced into the same operating space."
"I just wish he respected me, just a little bit," 101 griped, with another of those little side-to-side wriggles, like he was hunkering down; had he been human, his shoulders would have been up around his ears. "Instead of always telling me how to do my own job."
But Hiro's continued touch soothed the savage beast of 101's pique and he couldn't stay moody and silent for long. "It was when Zero would joke about it that I first began to think there was… maybe… more… to my feelings? Is you in love with him, or something. I think he was just teasing, but. I looked into it, and… it felt like… maybe I was? But the more I read about it, the scarier it sounded. It all seemed very big. And some humans do funny things when you say 'the L-word'. Especially when-… when you're… I mean. My gender isn't even real, but I still thought maybe it-… would be better to not say anything." 101 approximated a cough. "I didn't know what I was meant to do so I thought it would be better to stay as your friend. Trusted to keep everything working properly. Trusted with your plants. Enjoying our conversations. Enjoying your company. Compared to-… what might have happened."
Hiro sat and digested the words for a second or two. "What did you imagine might have happened?" He almost didn't want to know.
101 fidgeted and stayed quiet, for several more seconds, trying to work out how to phrase it. "You might have been upset with me. Might have sent me away. I didn't think I could have imagined anything worse, if you-…" His words hiccupped, awkwardly, briefly cutting out. "If you decided I was a bad zeroid, for thinking about you, when I should have been focused on doing my job. You might have said you wanted me to leave. To be redeployed somewhere else, where we'd never-… And-and you might have spoken to other people. If word got out, I thought-… I worried… someone… might have said I needed… reprogramming. That it had been a bad experiment, letting us develop our own personalities. That I was learning bad useless unhelpful things and needed to stop. And I might end up hurting everyone else in the process."
101 was trying so hard to not have to say it, even though they could both hear it, ringing out like a broken bell over all the words he was fumbling through instead; I was scared that if people knew it was more than just a quirky way of speaking, they would disapprove and make me change. Make all zeroids change, even if they were 'normal'. That being gay would be seen as a fault needing correcting. And it is possible to reprogram a zeroid. Or worse.
Hiro considered how to word it for a very long time. "Some people, in some organisations, might have demanded you be reprogrammed," he agreed, at last, quietly. "But not me. Never me. I would never allow it. I promise. I would never even consider allowing it. And I know none of our friends would, either. And I would hope not anyone else from any of our affiliated organisations would be so intolerant." He realised he'd been stroking his palm gently across the little machine's cool exterior, as if to comfort, like he might a scared puppy. He wasn't even sure if zeroids perceived touch in the way biological organisms did, but 101 seemed soothed by the gesture. "It's not like you have ever gone to any great length to conceal the fact you are queer."
101 remained quiet, for a few moments, leaning into the warm hand on his casing. "It felt like there was a whole universe of difference between 'funny harmless little robot who sounds camp as fuck and loves nothing bigger than being fussy over all the boring paperwork', and having him say he genuinely loves you, too." He hastily glossed over the words before the love part could feel too loud. "I wasn't sure I dared risk it. And I'd never seen you show any interest in anyone, so I guess I. I guess-… I wasn't sure if…"
I didn't want to be rejected, either.
"I didn't want to put you in a position you were uncomfortable with," 101 finished. "I thought I could deal with you never knowing, because it only affected me. I guess I got used to daydreaming. Aim low, always hit your targets, right?" He laughed, a little self-deprecating chuckle. "I figured that since no-one was shy about telling me how boring I was, for having a bit of a one-track mind, you just… knew? And weren't interested, which made sense because why would you be. No-one falls in love with their automatic vacuum cleaner, huh?"
Hiro gave him a little shove and sent him rolling. "After all that soul-searching, are you seriously ending this conversation by comparing yourself to a Roomba."
101 caught himself halfway across the floor and squeaked, amused. "No, because they're actually useful. Ha ha?"
"Oh, stop that."
"Sorry." 101 nudged back into position against him. "I know what they all say, like it's some huge joke. We're the comic relief, stuck up here in orbit. You and your silly infatuated little secretary." He sighed. "Maybe they're right. Maybe I am."
"Even if you were, maybe it doesn't matter," Hiro offered. "Maybe you're precisely how I like you, and don't want you to change."
101's weight increased fractionally as he leaned in sideways, pressing tighter against his human, and for a very long time he didn't speak. Hiro could feel him vibrating very softly, still slightly stressed and not sure what to do about it.
"I told you," Hiro filled the gap, "We can figure this out. We are a team, and we have got rather good at solving things together. I do not see our ability to do that changing just because you might have become more than just my friend, now. Whatever happens, we will figure out how this can work."
101's words were a little crackly, when he finally managed to work his vocaliser again. "…thanks, Hiro."
Hiro smiled. It was a rare occasion that 101 called him by his name, and not sir or lieutenant. It felt like a good sign.
"So." He exhaled, softly. "I should take my turn to be honest with you, too. I don't really know what I am doing, either. You were not incorrect when you said I had never looked like I was interested in getting romantically close to anyone."
He felt 101's weight shift as he turned to look up at him. "I didn't mean to be insulting-!"
Hiro cut in before he could get himself too worked up again. "I was not insulted. It was a fair appraisal. All my life, love has not been something I have really focused any attention on. I didn't imagine for one minute that it was something that would ever come to my doorstep, when I did not seek it out. And then… it did! In the most surprising way."
"Expect the unexpected," 101 said, hmm-ing appreciatively. "I think there's a name for that, when your sexual preference is 'no thanks'." He gave his friend a little nudge. "Sounds like you might be a tiny bit queer yourself."
There was a long hesitation, and 101 felt a clutch of alarm that perhaps he'd caused unintended insult again-
"That sounds fair," Hiro mused, nodding. (Under his arm, 101 practically melted in relief.) "It never occurred to me to name it. It was always just something that wasn't there?" He drummed his fingertips against 101's cowling, thoughtfully. "You may be right. When people tried to engage with me romantically, I found it awkward and uncomfortable. I thought perhaps it was just because I was so much younger than most of those I interacted with, but as time passed, nothing changed. Things never turned on in my head like I expected them to. And I found that did not particularly concern me either? I have always been happy in my own company and not being romantically involved with anyone never felt like a particular concern to me."
101 made a quiet little glum sound.
"Oh, um." Hiro tightened his arm, just a fraction. "Forgive me, it was not intended to sound like I am unhappy with this. I would not be so cruel as to lead you on like that. I just wanted you to know that I do not have a lot of experience, myself? I want to be sure I am doing this right."
"I think you're doing perfect."
"I think you are biased."
"…yeah, I guess probably. This all feels pretty special, though. I never thought you might reciprocate any of what I felt."
"Well, when we lost you in London? When you almost died? When we got you back and almost immediately, Zelda replaced you? It rather focused my attention. I realised how much I missed you – quirks and all. My faithful companion, always there when I needed him. No job too big. Always wanting to help. Sometimes a little needy, granted…"
"…sorry…"
Hiro chuckled. "…but who I am usually happy to indulge. Generous with his emotions and really quite fearless in the face of those telling him he shouldn't. Shouldn't cry, shouldn't be 'soft', shouldn't ever be scared. Should be a good little soldier at all times, don't question, don't argue. Instead, you found your own place in the universe, where you could still do what we asked of you, but be your own person as well. I know you fret over whether people like you, but I have long valued you as a very close friend, and I know I'm not the only one. You proved that you too have the heart of a lion, and are every bit as worthy of being loved as anyone else."
"'Generous with his emotions'? That's a funny way of saying you have to deal with my temper tantrums and how I cry a lot."
Hiro snorted and gave him another playful push. "You are hopeless sometimes. You fish endlessly for compliments, then when one is genuinely offered, you turn mystifyingly self-effacing."
That prompted a snicker and an affectionate headbutt. "I'm sorry. Thank you. I do like to hear you say nice things about me, like I'm one of your flowers."
Hiro laughed out loud at that. "I feel I should say, 'you are so much prettier', but that feels a little disingenuous."
101 cackled gleefully. "Aw, you almost made me feel beautiful for a second," he teased. "I did kinda mess up, huh. Can you still trust me?"
"I think… perhaps…" Hiro considered it carefully. "I trust you more."
101 swivelled to look quizzically up at him. "But-… I didn't tell you? I went and blubbed all over poor Captain Falconer instead?"
"I know. Bravery is not only shown on a battlefield. You were not programmed for this – or any emotional responses. And you were scared by it, by how we might react. A human would be too, I think? Strong emotions are not something you can prepare someone for. So it took courage to come forwards and ask for help, especially when you feared an unfavourable outcome."
"…I think I just wanted sympathy, really-"
"Shush." Hiro flattened a symbolic palm over the zeroid's mouth display; playing along, 101 dropped his volume and snickered in a sort of muffled way. "If you trust us with something like that, I know I can trust you, too. And now…" He gave him a subtly scolding smile. "I do not have to also wonder if your focus is on your job, or whether you are busy worrying about whether you can be honest with me about your feelings."
101 chuckled guiltily and looked away. "…sorry."
Hiro made a little exasperated noise. "Please stop saying sorry, Owun."
"Ssss-okay. I'll try." 101 hummed appreciatively and leaned in sideways.
For a little while, a comfortable, companionable silence fell.
It was nice to just… sit. Not have to do anything. Just be together, watching lacy white swirls of cloud creep across the planet rotating slowly above. Below? Whatever.
If he concentrated, 101 could feel Hiro's heartbeat, echoing through the palm that rested against his casing. The subtle tingle of his bioelectric field. Hear his slow, relaxed breathing. The way he'd allowed 101 to snuggle so tight into his side and hadn't shooed him away. Was even holding him. Gentle, affectionate. Skin warm. Called him Owun, like it was a proper name.
101 had to focus particularly hard on sitting calmly because a very large part of him thought he might just short out from happiness. And I am absolutely not gonna start crying again.
"I guess it is pretty," he finally accepted, softly.
"And I won't let you fall."
"I know. I love you-" The words seemed to surprise him because his voice cut out with a strange hiccup at the end, like he hadn't really planned on being quite so overt about saying it yet.
Hiro's hand didn't move, though. And his heartbeat didn't change. A subtle flush of warmth in his skin, and a little prickle of extra static charge, but that was it.
Increasingly confident, 101 spoke again, softly, measuredly, rather like he was trying the words on for size – seeing how they fitted. Slightly scared, in spite of everything. But still absolutely brave enough to say it: "I mean it. I love you, Hiro. Doesn't feel adequate for all the words I haven't said over the years. But maybe I can make up for it now."
Interestingly enough, his trembling had finally stopped.
Hiro smiled down at him. "I think I love you too, my little lion. And I very much look forwards to us seeing how we can make this work."
AN – this was in fact a silly dream that I had – complete with red carpet and tiara – that I woke up from going 'haha that was cute I wish I could use it.'
Then I went, actually, why can't I? 'Fussy little ridiculously-human robots realising they're in love and now have to come to terms with and deal with it' is 100% my thing. So, I ran with it, and this was the end result.
Still kinda wish we'd used the tiara more though. And given it, you know. A plot.