Fixing up the kitchen took the better part of an hour, half of which was spent on just making precise measurements and picking the right tools for the job. Honey had heard about these folks before, but this was the first time she saw them in action. Mobians born with innate powers weren't that uncommon, but with most of the world's heavy-hitters all living in one place, it just made sense to try and make a living cleaning up their messes.
Initially, even with skilled workers, any work often took them hours, if not days. That all changed once G.U.N. gave them a bunch of salvaged Eggman tech and told them to knock themselves out.
Helping the city rebuild faster than Eggman could destroy it was just a bonus.
Honey wanted to pay them, but Amy insisted - she was the reason they were here and thus, it was her responsibility. In the end, the cat did leave them a tip - not just for a job well done, but also for not asking any questions; just getting Amy in on her little secret was enough of a headache for one day.
With them gone, Honey could get on with what she was doing before her old friend's untimely visit.
"Metal?" She'd ask upon entering the workshop. The robot was still where she last saw him - seated by the lathe - but had his back turned on her.
"They've left," she continued as she made her way to him, hoping he was still listening and didn't shut himself down or experience yet another hardware failure. "Amy said she'll try and make time to check up on us."
The cat picked up the pace, anxious to find out just why he was being unresponsive.
No starry sky replaced his eyes this time, but his visor was dimmed considerably, like he'd switched to some kind of power-saving mode.
She'd wave a hand in front of him and even snap her fingers a couple of times right next to his ears, but got no response.
After pondering what to do next for a moment, she'd turn around to grab a screwdriver.
It would end up on the floor once she turned to face Metal again, only to find him out of his chair and close enough for his nose to be poking her, his visor back to full power.
"By Chaos!"
Without even realizing it, she had instinctively jumped backwards and onto the table.
Metal would tilt his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." Without missing a beat, he'd pick up the screwdriver and hand it back to her.
The cat would hop on down, laughing. "You did by accident what no one's been able to do in years," she proclaimed. "What were you doing, anyway?"
"Hibernating. Knowing the process to undo Amy's destruction of the kitchen would take a while, I decided to try and parse all the new information gathered today," he explained, then added. "A lot has happened."
Honey smiled. A lot had happened indeed, but she never once considered that just like her, even an advanced machine such as Metal still needed some 'me time' to process things. It was a very Mobian trait.
"Can we talk or do you still need some time?"
The robot shook his head, then elaborated to clear up any potential misunderstanding. "I haven't been able to parse all the data, but I'll have plenty of time during the night when we're both asleep. What is it that you wished to discuss?"
"Why'd you ask me to cut the file instead of copying it?"
"There are inexplicable gaps in my memory," he paused, trying to think of how to say what he wanted to say in the simplest of terms. "I do not 'forget' information, neither consciously or unconsciously. A third party having direct access to my memory banks and cutting a file was one hypothesis on how such a gap might have been created."
"A hardware fault, perhaps?," she theorized. "When I removed that failsafe chip, I had to also remove all the calls and references to it on the software side. I was so focused on avoiding the worst case scenario - you blowing up - I didn't even consider something else would break somewhere down the line."
Just saying that made her shudder, as she felt responsible for the robot's current predicament. There was only one way to be certain.
"Would you mind if I checked something real quick?"
The robot nodded. He didn't ask for specifics, but when she started manhandling his head in a futile attempt to get it to the sweet spot for the face plates to come off, he'd help her.
Though the room was well-lit, the cat would still grab a flashlight and a magnifying glass from her toolbox to help her find what she was looking for. Judging by the contacts that led to it, the likeliest candidate for the physical location of his memory banks was inside an innocuous-looking matte black cube on the back of his head.
That was all that could be said about it, really; whatever the cube was, there seemed to be no obvious way to open it as it lacked any openings, gaps or even screws.
"Well, there goes the idea of a visual check," she sighed, putting the tools away and re-installing the face plates. "What about you? Is there any way you can verify integrity?"
"I already have; according to the hardware manifest, all storage drives and devices are present and accounted for. None have been tampered with or damaged."
Honey chuckled. "And you didn't think to tell me before I'd go and waste ten minutes?"
"Your method of disassembly is far more delicate than the assembly and reassembly stations at various Eggman bases."
It took her a moment, but when she got it, she blushed. Even if it was just a statement of fact, he had just given her a compliment.
That alone made her day, but the two of them had more pressing matters at hand; finding out whether he was genuine would just have to be left for another time.
She'd clear her throat and quickly wipe that booming smile off her face, leaning her back against the table and thinking aloud. This was more for her sake than it was for Metal's; she hoped that by hearing those ideas out loud, she could find what she overlooked.
"This doesn't make any sense - if nothing's wrong on the hardware side and the software side blanketly refuses to perform any operation that would cause them..."
Honey would briefly stroke her chin and even play with her whiskers.
"Nope, nothing," she proclaimed, sighing. "I'll try hitting the books, see if maybe those have any answers. Can't guarantee I'll get any answers, but I can promise you this - I'll get to the bottom of this."
Metal nodded. "Thank you. In the meantime, I would like to make myself useful."
Honey raised an eyebrow and her ears perked up, her curiosity piqued by the idea of Metal 'making himself useful'.
However, instead of telling her, the robot opted to show her instead. He turned on the lathe and the machine quickly whirred to life.
To her shock and dismay, the moment it reached top speed, Metal attempted to shove his hand in there, claws first.
She had never pressed the emergency stop button faster in her life.
"What in Chaos' name did you do that for, huh?"
"Lathe, a belt sander, the freakin' grind wheel," she continued, even pointing in the general directions in which the equipment was situated within her workshop. "None of them would have worked. You'd just break them by trying."
"Would it hurt to ask?" she grumbled. "I don't even know why you'd want to trim or dull your fangs; the whole 'playing maid' thing was just for show. You can take that silly costume off now."
Finally, Metal would speak up, proclaiming. "I know." The cat would lean in, expecting to hear a 'but' right after.
"However, for the disguise to hold, I have to act the part," he elaborated. "That includes doing the household chores."
The cat furrowed her brow and tried hard not to laugh. He sounded sincere, but he did know that the house's windows had blinds, right? And with a little bit of effort and elbow grease, he could close them and even her nosy neighbor would be none the wiser as to what was going on inside.
If he was instead cautious purely due to who he was, it was a bit far fetched to think everyone was out to get him. Maybe he was on some list somewhere, but she never saw him on any wanted posters. Not any in the last three years anyway.
Furthermore, playing maid was also a lot more effort than just pretending to be a bum and sitting on his ass all day. Though boring, it would align with the cover story she forced little Richie next door to accept.
"Okay, let's pretend for just a moment that you'll always have a disguise on when you're staying at my place, out of necessity," the cat theorized. "Surely, there's a more fitting costume you can wear, right?" The one he had on was a very spur of the moment thing; if he wanted to keep the servant theme, he could at least dress like a butler instead.
To her surprise, however, the robot shook his head. "Custodians aboard Eggman vessels and inside bases wore similar attire. Now that I am mimicking their role, it is only fitting."
She'd raise her finger to try and make a counterpoint, but his reasoning was sound.
That settled it then, though she would need to add to the costume later to make it a bit more believable in case he ever needed to answer the door.
But first things first - if he wanted to get his claws adjusted so that they wouldn't interfere with his housework and do it right, there was but one piece of the machinery that stood a chance at accomplishing that - the fabricator.
Like the last time with his visor, he'd put his hand in the receptacle and waited. Honey wasn't quite sure this would work, given how previously, it was just one big part but still pressed the button to scan, hoping for the best.
She was left speechless when it not only recognised the parts comprising his hand, it did so even for the ones that weren't visible, down to the tiniest of nuts and screws.
That alone saved her at least three hours of flicking through a parts catalog and punching in their IDs manually.
With that out of the way, she'd select each fingertip and pick the trim procedure from a predefined list and wait.
They both stared at the lasers trying to make the necessary cuts for a good two minutes, neither knowing how long it was supposed to take, but seeing that it made no progress.
Honey would cancel the operation, proclaiming. "Should have known this would happen. Time for Plan B."
She'd usher him to the short side of an empty large rectangular table and ask him to place his arms on it. As they were right now, they weren't taking up all that much space, but once they were taken apart, Honey would need all the space she could get.
However, before she got started with the misery business that was the complete disassembly of his arms, she'd double and triple-check to see if Eggman didn't throw her a bone and added some sort of shortcut so one could reach his finger segments more easily. A bunch of tiny screws or something else of that sort somewhere on the back of his palm.
Unfortunately, he didn't.
There were screws there, sure, but those simply held the armor plating in place. Beneath it, there was just another solid chunk of metal.
With that hope dashed and gone, the cat would sigh and get to work.
Like when she was fixing his communications array earlier today, she'd start at the forearm plating and work her way down, layer by layer, putting each part she removed into its own separate little pile so she could put it back together later.
She expected this to be busywork, but not three hours worth of busywork.
By the time she was done and finally reached the finger segments, the table was covered in robot parts and she was more than a little agitated.
After all this work, now that nothing was holding them securely in place, removing the fangs was as simple as unscrewing them.
Honey didn't know whether she should laugh or cry and fought the urge to just throw the fangs at a wall to vent some of the frustration and grief they've caused her.
Instead, Metal would see her close her eyes and take multiple deep breaths.
She kept telling herself 'you're almost done, you're almost done' over and over. It took some time, but it did calm her down eventually.
"Is everything all right?"
"Yeah; I just needed a short break."
Now that she had the fangs, the next course of action was to scan them, convert the scan into a three-dimensional model, make the changes and then print it out.
Simple!
Except, not at all.
The fab would recognise the claws, but since the conversion wasn't one of the predefined options, she had to do a whole hacky song and dance to get it to do what she wanted. First, she'd hook it up to a laptop and select the 'Duplicate' option on the fab. Then, after it was done with the initial scan, she quickly pressed the emergency stop. The timing was crucial - if she was off by less than a tenth of a second, the scan would be sent to the other, inaccessible memory instead of the accessible one she needed.
So long as the power didn't go out, the data for the last scan would stay in the fab's primary memory buffer and not be removed or overwritten.
Converting said data to a three dimensional model was where the laptop came in.
All in all, it didn't take awfully long, but the cat was fighting off exhaustion by this point and trying to power through it was just giving her a nasty headache.
Once she sent the altered model back to the fab, she was faced with a difficult decision - what material would the new fingertips be made out of?
If it was just up to her, she'd just use the same alloy Eggman used, but that was out of the question - it hadn't been reverse-engineered yet and was incredibly rare to boot.
Carbon-titanium would have to do for now. It wasn't as strong, but it was the best she could make with what she had on hand. Besides, it wasn't like she expected Metal to get into any fights while he was doing the dishes or vacuuming the floors.
After all ten of them were done printing, she'd meticulously check them for any imperfections and when she couldn't find any, bring them back to Metal asap and begin the arduous process of putting his arms back together.
"Sorry for the wait," she gave him a pained smile. "This took way more out of me than I thought it would."
Metal simply nodded and continued to wait and observe the cat as she worked. If his inability to perform even the smallest of repairs on himself when he broke into her shop was anything to go by, he needed to do a whole lot more of observing if he ever hoped to be truly independent..
When she was finally done after an indeterminate amount of time, the robot wasted no time in hopping out of his chair and giving his arms a test drive. Judging by how nothing came off or flew across the workshop, Honey must have done a great job.
Though now that he didn't have claws, all those slashing and swiping motions looked really silly.
"They are performing better than they have before. Thank you," he proclaimed and walked up to her. "However, there is one more test I need to run."
Metal stopped at arms' length as the cat leaned her back against the table. She wished she was seated if the test turned out to be anything more involved. "Y-yeah?"
"I wanted to ask this time around, given how my previous demonstrations and tests have made you uncomfortable," the robot mumbled as he moved even closer, now face to face with the cat. "I've scanned the room, but I've been unable to find anything softer. Can I?"
The vagueness of his request made Honey blush. "S-sure, go- go ahead." She thought he was going to do something crazy like stretch her cheek or poke it, but he did nothing of the sort.
He cupped her face with one hand and just stared into her eyes for what felt like an eternity. Honey would close hers and try and hold his hand there, taking in his ouch and imagining more. What exactly, she wasn't sure.
But then the table made a noise as it moved and the robot let go.
"Test successful. No cuts or bruises."
Those words were all it took to snap the cat out of her heart-eyed trance and face the truth - he didn't feel the same way and everything he did or said to make her feel otherwise was just accidental.
If she'd ever forget, she'd only be hurting herself.
Yet as the robot left the room, eager to get started with his chores, she'd notice something sitting on a nearby table.
It was just an ordinary sponge, but it being demonstrably softer than her face only reignited that foolish feeling she wasn't yet ready to put into words. He definitely lied in order to have an excuse to get all touchy-feely with her when all he had to do was ask.
She'll pry an answer as to why out of him eventually, but for now, she just had to stop him from doing something dumb.
When she caught up with him in the living room, he had already gotten a broom from somewhere and was trying his best to sweep the carpets.
With crossed arms and with a smug smile, Honey would just watch him for a few moments to see if he had any idea what he was doing.
He didn't.
Not only was he using the wrong kind of broom, ensuring he wouldn't even pick up most of the dust and dirt out of the carpet, his technique was awful, too - he'd just sweep stuff from one side to the next and then back into its old spot again.
Seemed like the only thing he picked up from the custodian bots were the looks and none of the skills.
"Just leave it," she proclaimed, snatching the broom out of his hands. "I'm gonna take tomorrow off to show you the ropes, then you can do all the housework you want. Okay?"
Metal nodded and Honey finally felt at least some modicum of relief. Since she started work at eight, it's been a non-stop thrill ride, but now, she could finally get some shut-eye and let today's problems become tomorrow's problems.
She'd stumble into her bed, leaving the couch in the living room to Metal and Wendy, whenever the latter decided to come out and stop hiding.
Before she could even count the sixth sheep, she was already out cold.
