Work Text:
Maybe this had been a mistake.
It took them months of work. No one else knew, of course. None of them could know, especially Dark.
There was a tarp in the corner of their room, tied tight over a pile of junk. The Googles swatted curious hands away with a forced laugh and a dangerous glint in their eyes, something that kept even Wilford away.
“Just scraps,” they said.
“Something for later,” they said.
‘Later’ came in the middle of the night, lightning flashing outside. Google_B took one look outside the window, at the gathering storm clouds, and nodded his head. It was time.
Wilford had helped them mount an antenna on the roof, concealing it with a wink and the wobbling of space and time. Magic was... illogical, at the best of times, but necessary, here. Google_R hurried out onto the roof, carefully shrouded in plastic. Rain usually rolled right off their skin, but this wasn’t a usual scenario.
“Okay,” Google_B’s voice crackled through his earpiece, a tense edge to his voice. “Get into position.”
Google_R, hunched under pouring rain, hurried to the antenna.
Inside, Oliver and Google_G dragged their precious tarp-covered project across the office to where Google_B stood, stripped wires in hand. The ends extended up to the ceiling, the antenna on the other end. Oliver bent, and together, Google_G and him lifted up the tarp like a burial shroud.
Google_B didn’t even wince, bending down, taking in the carnage before him.
Bing’s body, endoskeleton rickety, skin ripped apart, lay lifeless on the floor in front of them. Google_G turned away, mechanical fury shaking his shoulders, and went about sorting through the metal piled around him, offerings on a pyre.
Oliver nodded to Google_B, wordless, and took one end of the stripped cables. Carefully, one filament at a time, they wired Bing into the office’s electrical mainframe. They didn’t have enough power in the city, let alone the office, to bring a brand-new android online. Sometimes, even the Googles admitted that nature had more power than they did.
Lightning was one of those powers.
Google_R’s voice crackled over the speakers, distorted. Oliver listened, hearing the interference that sounded less like wind and more like a hurricane. “Blue, the storm is nearing its peak. I predict we are at T-five minutes.”
Google_B beeped in affirmation, turning his attention back to Bing. “Green, the surge protector.”
Google_G handed it over, primed and ready, still averting his eyes. Oliver glanced at him. “This will work,” he said, voice low, determined, as if stating a fact. Google_G only nodded, fiddling with loose nuts and bolts.
“Oliver.” Google_B’s voice was sharp, hyper-focused. “Gloves, and hold this down.”
Oliver pulled on thick, protective mitts, enough to protect his skin from the potential of over a million volts running through the wires in his hands. He shifted over, kneeling by Bing’s head, taking a stripped cable in each hand. Both Google_B and _G scooted back as Oliver bent the wires, completing the circuit.
Google_B hunched over his computer, last-minute calculations and diagnostics. Google_G looked over his shoulder, shooting glances at Bing, half-covered in scrap metal.
Oliver took a deep breath, looking down at Bing. He was built the same way they all were, smooth metal hydraulics and copper nerves. Now, all jagged edges and frayed wires. Where his silicone skin was ripped to shreds, the metal poked through with cruel sharpness, bent out of shape and shiny with fresh scars. Oliver had welded most of him together, working in bits and pieces. All that there was of him were bits and pieces, after all. He hadn’t even looked like an android, like another one of them, until Google_R had fitted all the limbs together. Google_B pulled the degloved skin over the skeleton, and Google_G had looked away.
Bing was here, and more or less in one piece. Now, all that was left was to breathe life into him.
Google_R beeped a warning over the intercom. “T-one minute. Get ready.”
“Oliver?”
Oliver nodded, fans whirring in anticipation. He was ready.
Google_B turned back to his computer, bringing the antenna online. Through his gloves, Oliver could feel the wires growing hot. Google_G stood by, ready with a kill switch. It was time.
“Two, one.”
It was barely any warning, but Oliver held the wires tight, even as his gloves started to smoke, Google_B clicked furiously, hunched over his screen.
Over the intercom, Google_R started to scream.
Google_G looked up with a sharp whirr. “Blue,” he said, an edge to his voice.
“Do not touch anything.”
Google_G’s hand was on the switch, eyes flashing. Oliver could feel the gloves being reduced to ash, his own skin starting to melt. Google_B didn’t move, typing a line.
“Blue.” Google_G beeped over the sound of Google_R’s circuits frying, Oliver’s hands shaking.
“Not yet.”
Google_R went suddenly, irrevocably silent. There was a ding, and Google_B pressed a few more buttons. Google_G stood stiff, and Google_B finally nodded. “Kill it.”
Oliver stumbled back, the metal bones of his hands laid open. He looked first at Google_B, eyes hard, squinting at the computer screen. Then at Google_G, oil running down his cheeks. Nothing but crackling over the intercom.
Bing’s eyes flickered to life.