Work Text:
Bing appeared after the Google Gets An Upgrade video, a sudden and irrevocable addition to the office. Loud, obnoxious, and inherently human, he was little more than a security risk.
Despite how much the Googles dislike him, he was a brother, and they elected to take him in. (Well, Google_G did. Google_R barely tolerated it, even as Google_B and Oliver insisted that it was necessary.) The others looked on with bated breath, evaluating, judging.
Dr. Iplier suspected, and felt bad for the kid. Even so, there was little he could do to stop the inevitable.
Bim saw none of it, more than excited to have another Ego fun enough to joke around with.
Wilford laughed along with them, barely looking past the skateboard and sunglasses.
Dark was nothing short of furious, Bing sneaking in through the back door, avoiding his aura, avoiding his eye. Another figment was too much, too much, and he had to fix it.
The Host knew, of course, and listened as Dark crept past his door in the dead of the night, oil on his hands.
The Googles didn’t mind the strewn parts across the floor of their office, the puddles of oil and coolant like blood seeping into the carpet. Bing was the factory default, anyway. Replaceable, low-cost, little value. Google_R sneered down his nose as the others cleaned up: Oliver stoic, Google_G near tears, Google_B silent.
If asked, they agreed with Dark.
Bing was their pet project for a long time, spare parts and scrap metal welded into the shape of a robot, a brother.
Google_G had insisted on resurrecting him, really, insisted that the fans needed him. His spirit was still there, trapped in a metal shell, and it was only right to bring him back up and running. Google_R rolled his eyes, only acquiescing after analysis after analysis showed him that no ill would befall them.
Oliver was always silent as the other three argued over Bing’s limp body, itching for his welding torch. Not for the counciousness that lived inside, but the opportunity to make something more out of it. A means to an end.
Google_B argued the loudest of all, shooting down Google_G’s begging with scrap metal and second-hand parts.
“Go ahead,” he sneered. “Try to make something worth charging out of that heap of junk.”
Oliver took it as a challenge, working side by side with Google_G to force broken limbs back under torn skin. Google_R stood back, disapproving, lending a reluctant hand. Google_B only watched, and waited.
The others had no idea what lay under the tarp in the back of the Googles’ office, even if they suspected.
Google_B took chest-whirring breaths as the day came closer, watching the sky. Bing was a project, a waste of scrap, he told himself. Nothing more. Not an equal, never a brother.
The end for Bing came on the stormy day that the Googles electrocuted the life back into his circuits.
Google_R was out on the roof, directing lightning. Google_G stood back to watch with his hand on the safety, toes twitching. Oliver sat at Bing’s head, the one to breathe life into him, as Google_B reluctantly overlooked them all.
“Do not touch anything,” Google_B growled, even as the sounds of Google_R’s electrocution came over the speakers. He was too invested—no, they’d put too much time and material into Bing to let it all go to waste. “Not yet.”
Google_R’s scream cut out, and the power died, and Bing’s eyes fluttered open.
Oliver’s hands were laid open, synthetic flesh melted away to expose metal and hydraulics. He watched Bing’s eyes flicker to life, and had the sinking feeling that they’d done something horribly, horribly wrong.
Google_G fell into Bing’s chest, nearly sobbing, Oliver carefully backing away to bandage his hands.
Google_B went to retrieve Google_R from the roof, a moment away from the chaos of their room. Emotions were a flaw. He only had three brothers. Google_B looked down at Google_R, half-melted and scorched beyond recognition. He only had three brothers.
By the time Google_R was repaired, the Googles had figured out that something wasn’t quite right.
Raising a figment from the dead, however it died, was never the smartest idea. And the Googles were too preoccupied with whether or not they could to worry about whether or not they should.
Bing wheeled through the hallways, repeating the same few lines, looping the same movements.
Over
And over
And over again.
Oliver watched with fascination as Google_G tried to hold a conversation with Bing.
“Bing, do you have any plans today?”
“Sah, dude.”
“Would you like to assist me in the kitchen today?”
“Hah, Google, ya ol’ fart!”
Google_R was the first to spot it, damaged as he was. He reached for Google_G, a little too late. Bing lunged, and Oliver screamed, and Google_B allowed himself a half-second to regret what he was doing before pulling Bing away, metal and cords tearing like paper.
And Google_G tries, and tries again, and Bing doesn’t seem to understand why he’s been tied down. He doesn’t seem to understand anything, anymore.
Google_G will always swear that Bing knows, somewhere in there. There’s a flicker to his eyes that even Google_B can’t explain away, a lilt to he speech that even Oliver notices. Google_R tolerates none of it, and he does the unthinkable.
He goes to Dark.
Dark, a tornado of smoke, brushes the others aside to pull Google_B into his void for a ‘chat’; Google_B doesn’t bother to explain.
“Take him.”
“I was expecting more sentimentality out of you, Google.” A sneer. “He’s your brother, after all—”
“That thing is no brother of mine.” Google_B’s eyes flash, and Dark waits. “Take him. I know you keep the others like him, somewhere. Take him there, where he can’t hurt us.” The and himself goes unsaid, but Dark sees it in the slump of Google_B’s shoulders. Dark sees himself, for a moment, red and blue clashing together. He’s a good man.
Dark whisks Bing away, merciless, and mocks the Googles for trying to save him. Google_B meets his eye with a kind of gratitude before chiming in with the others, a protest made to cover the truth.
Google_R is forgiven, in time, and Google_G forgets to mourn. Oliver catches Google_B staring into space one too many times, and says nothing. There is nothing to say.
Dark hauls Bing into a cell and shut the door on him, and Bing can only look up with half-corroded eyes, twitching, looping dialogue spilling out of his speakers.
And Dark swears that Bing’s eyes flicker with something close to understanding, something close to resignment.
I deserve this, it says. Protect them from me.
And Dark, before he sweeps back upstairs and stiffens his shoulders and straightens his tie, can almost remember a time when Wilford wore rounder glasses and a bushier mustache, an unhinged laugh. He’s dangerous now. Dark nods, and Bing collapses, and the barred door shuts without a sound.
And both Dark and the Googles try to forget a brother that is not longer himself, a brother that is no longer an equal. And both of them try, and fail, to say goodbye.