Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Her formative years were groomed in a laboratory away from the eyes of anyone who wasn’t a part of her father’s team of scientific sociopaths. Ripped from her mother’s womb to be floated in tubes and incubated in chambers, she had developed as her father dictated; one batch of tests at a time, until his thirst for progress had left her a little more machine than human. 

She is intelligent. Vastly so. 

Her father is proud of her. 

Her mother, horrified. 

She is a child with four mechanical eyes and an artificial heart. 

She feels no sense of pain; it has been stripped from her.

She feels no sense of emotion; they have been trained out of her.

There isn’t much for her to do, once the preliminaries are out of the way, and the only thing left on her father’s itinerary looms ahead of her like an event horizon from which she will not return; she is the final piece, the ultimate weapon, in her father’s plan to lay siege to the county.

She’ll fight legions of armies. She’ll kill. She’ll die. 

In the scant few quiet moments, when her mother is delegated time to interact with her in any manner, they sit quietly together in the shadows on her bed. 

Her mother looks at her scalp mournfully.

“They sheered off your hair.”

She doesn’t respond; the statement was an assessment and not an inquiry. 

Her mother sighs and runs her eyes over the rest of her; she’s used to being inspected. It usually doesn’t make her stomach feel so strange. 

“I… have something for you,” she says quietly; she murmurs it, her tone indicating that whatever it is, is to be between them. 

She is fine with the idea; she would not go out of her way to speak to her father, or his cultlings, if she did not have to.

Her mother pulls something out from under her robe.

It looks like a book; she’d seen some of the scientists have such pieces of archaic technology, but she had never been permitted to look through them herself. 

This book, however, looked different from the ones she had seen; it was a dark worn out color and seemed far older than she had ever encountered before. 

“You do not have this, do you understand? Don’t let anyone find you with it. Keep it safe,” her mother instructed; her voice inflections made her wonder if her mother was waning into one of her rarer sentimental moods.

“Go.”

The order was direct; she obeyed. 

She spent the night in her mother’s sitting room learning to read the book; she could understand several languages audibly and could read most of them too, but the book’s strange scripts were tricky looping fonts that were composed of what she guessed were predecessors to the languages she knew, and most of them were blotted and faded. 

As she studied the book, she found out about a new area of knowledge to which she had been oblivious. Magic, a series of outputs and reactions that which science could not explain nor comprehend, was real. 

Her mother wasn’t able to help her practice, most nights, but the few that she could stand to speak to her, she tried. 

If her mother didn’t mention any plan or directive, likely to keep her father from catching wind of them. 

It was late, one day; the shifts just swinging into the after hours slots, when something unexpected happened. 

Her father was privy to having important people venture to his lair of operations, to work out deals and trades, and similarly, she was used to being paraded out in front of them, instructed to demonstrate her abilities and to impress and reinforce her father’s standing. 

For her successful demonstration, she was left to her own devices; the guest left little impression on her, before he was led away to her father’s war room. 

Their departure left her with a moment to herself. 

Her flight or fight response picked up, as she headed to her room; the book on her mind.

When she entered it, however, she found she was not the only one inside it.

It was a girl, and she was… pink. 

She was dressed in one of the red robes that the low-rank workers wore, which was a likely indicator of how she had broken in. 

“I can call security on you, or if you’d prefer the merciful route, I can terminate you now,” she offered as her arm began to transform.

“Hey now, don’t get so hasty friend,” the girl pleaded, her hands in the air; “I’m not here to topple your tower or anything. I just want that book.”

Surprise caused a brief short circuit through her systems. 

“The book?”

 “Yeah, the ya’ know,” she murmured playfully, wiggling her fingers, “The magic one. I know you have it and it was mine first ya know, so, technically you owe me.”

She blinked. Her arm wavered in place slightly; her attention was unfocused. 

Her body wasn’t sure what to do; her mouth couldn’t form any words to speak. 

The girl watched her a moment longer and then shrugged her off; she went back to rifling through her bed until she slipped her hands under the mattress and laughed.

“Ah ha! Gotcha,” she shouted as she pulled the book out.

She looked at her once more.

“Welp… I’m going then, toodles,” she stated as she started to glow in a strange pink light. 

“WAIT!”

The glow vanished, and the girl looked surprised. 

“Take me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She tried to compile a list of words and ways to order them and stumbled as she gestured to her herself. 

“Take me with you. You’re magic. You can help me.”

The girl visibly stepped back, balking, but her face softened, and something caused her to hesitate. 

The girl looked her over. 

She felt, for the first time in years, horribly exposed. 

She closed her eyes, unwilling to watch the rejection and disgust light up in the girl’s face. 

“Hmmm.”

“What’s your name?” the girl asked. 

“Name?” she repeated, thinking over the log-ins too infinite to count; her mind raced through all manners of ‘suject’ and class data that she supposed she could reply with, until, her attention ensured itself on the book in the girl’s arm.

“…Raven,” she murmured quietly; anxiously hoping that it was a correct response. 

The girl smiled; Raven’s body instinctually braced itself, muscle memory recalling all manners of unpleasant stimuli. 

“I’ll tell you what,” the girl offered, her tone darkening, “I’ll take you. ‘Help you,’ whatever you want, but, in return, you gotta do something for me.”

Raven’s eyes narrowed; “Name your price.”

The girl smiled and adjusted her hat brim.

“Kiss me.”

Raven looked at her and started to panic. 

seeing the look on her face, the girl drifted closer. 

“Aww come on, its just one kiss, no need to get all flustered about it,” she offered, her tone… not mocking, but similar to the way some of the scientists tried to force her into negative outcomes. 

Her arms morphed into canons as her mind raced and the came closer; seeing the weaponry, she stopped in her tracks, confused.

“I…” she murmured, the sentence dying. 

“Is kissing… like killing?” she managed, her voice weak with fear of reprimand.

The girl looked at her; not speaking. 

Raven bit her lip; she had answered wrongly. Her memorybanks were flooding her optics with arrays of failed attempts and subsequent reactions. 

“Okay, new deal; you come with me, and I’ll help you,” the girl stated firmly; her hands squared on her hips, she looked intimidating. 

“But first, I kiss you” she continued, her tone softening; “And then you kiss me.” 

Raven thought for a moment, her arms catching the room’s light in her peripherals; there wasn’t anything that could be done to her, that hadn’t been already, she thought. 

“Affirmative.”

The girl walked slowly to her, in between her canons. 

“Put those guns away, please,” she ordered. 

Raven morphed them back and let her newly reformed arms fall to her sides.

As her attention shifted back from her canons to the girl, she had moved again, this time directly in front of her face. 

Raven had no concept of personal space; she had been trained to remain passively poised. 

She ‘stould pretty’, as her father liked to call it. 

“Ease these shoulders,” the girl instructed, placing her hands upon them; “Relax your body.”

Raven let her body go limp enough to ‘loose’, but remained firm enough to stand. 

“Good, now…”

The girl moved one of her hands to her Raven’s cheek and directed her face closer to her own. 

The girl pressed her lips against hers; the feeling was…

Strange. 

Soft. 

Her body was a jolt away from springing back and taking flight; it was the low ceilings, that kept Raven firmly on the ground. 

The girl made movements, with her mouth; they weren’t painful, but they seemed as if the were plying her, for something. 

She wondered what result the girl was aiming for. 

She closed her eyes again, and relaxed her face completely.

The girl’s mouth worked hers open almost instantly; then her tongue was in her mouth, moving and wet. 

Raven’s eyes shot open and she pushed the girl off of her just as the girl yelped in alarm as the static coursed through their mouths. 

The girl rubbed her chin, looking at her in some mixture of emotion that Raven couldn’t identify. 

“You’re certainly a dynamite gal, aren't you?”

Raven stayed silent, unsure as to the nature of the question and refrained from attempting to explain that she was filled with mostly missile based weapons rather than bundles of old western wicked sticks.  

“Are you alright?” She asked, “I apologize for the unfortunate sideffects of my person,” Raven answered, “I’m not used to organics infiltrating my orifices. I’ll modify the interior composure of the area,” she stated as her nanobots and internal structures started to change their settings. 

“I’m good, I was just surprised,” the girl stated as she straightened up her posture; “Trust me, I'm used to stuff like that. Comes with the magical territories.” 

“Anyway, that was a kiss. I kissed you,” the girl rambled on around her sore tongue. 

Raven nodded. 

“Kisses are like, just mouths getting acquainted,” the girl continued. 

“Affirmative,” Raven replied; following the explanation.

Raven walked towards the girl and took her face into her hands and pressed their mouths together, cutting off the girl’s tangent. 

This time, there was no worry for the safety of the girl’s organic matter impeding her directive. 

Raven kissed the girl.

Thoroughly. 

The girl, while initially caught offgaurd, quickly merged into the factors of inputs, and responded to the kissing. 

Raven judged her performance by the way the girl moved against her; the fluctuating readings of the girl’s parameters, the little sounds she made that sounded like affirmations of her progress. 

Raven didn’t know how long kisses were supposed to be accomplished in, so she continued at it without questioning it.

The girl sort of, folded, in her arms, and then she was leaned over her, still kissing. The girl would take small breaths through her nose and made all manners of humming sounds. 

Raven wondered if she was missing something. 

Assuming that it was a test directed at the physical vein of possible sensations, Raven let her hands wander around the girl, clutching at her back to pull her back up against her. 

Raven didn’t have many parts of her organics lefts, but of what little she had, that the girl was flushed against, felt warm. 

The girl’s hands fell around her shoulder and drifted down her chestplating. 

Raven’s newly initiated self-preservation programme switched on, out delegating her kissing task.

Raven drew back.

“Regardless of whether that kiss was sufficient, I beg you to take us away. We likely haven’t time left to waste.”  

The girl grew back her composure and smiled at her again. 

“My magic takes a lot of positive vibes to charge up,” the girl explained, “When we land we’re going to need a lot more practice if you want to wear a fleshdress like the rest of us.”

The girl took hold of the brim of her hat and spun it.

“You’re off to an excellent start, my dear;” she stated warmly; Raven smiled at the commendment. 

“Now, into the hat with you,” she instructed cheerfully, gesturing into a strange, swirling vortex in the hat hole. 

Having partaken in numerous strange experiments before, Raven shrugged and walked in, the pink magician girl happily whistling behind her.   

Chapter Text

~~

“I think there’s still some hot water left if you wanna’ use it,” Jinx offered melodically, stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel while wringing her hair. 

The magician lifted her head from her toweling maneuver and looked at the mechanical marvel, who was sitting on her bed, watching her. 

The girl, while normally of stoic face and a placid, and steadfast demeanor, looked to Jinx as if she were concentrating fairly intently on something.  

“Something on your mind, sweetheart?” she asked innocently, as she walked over to her vanity with the intent to grab her blowdryer. 

Before she could untangle the cord of the device however, her charge was beside her; her proximity, startling but not unwelcomed. 

Jinx turned slightly to see the girl fill her talons with heat. Curious, and figuring the girl’s intent, Jinx remained still and the operative slowly began to run the superheated digits through her hair. 

Jinx allowed her self an airy exhale of contentment.

She closed her eyes, enjoying the attention. 

Raven, a very well versed multitasker, continued to gather her thoughts. 

“It is statistically misfortunate, for you to allow your underlings access to you in vulnerable states,” Raven stated; there was no emotion in her voice, but past conversations had assured her that her handler was unfazed by her cryptic sense of humor and flatline observational skills and limited socialization pattern functions.

“I can still turn people into rabbits without my wand, you know,” Jinx’s reflection murmured with open eyes; playfully, Raven diagnosed, with a subsection of affronted hurt. 

“Besides,” the girl continued, closing her eyes once more; “That’s what I have you for.” -Teasing, Raven diagnosed; perhaps genuine sentiment. 

Raven’s processing units started to list hundreds of ways that she could effectively terminate the magician in the next approximate ten minutes, but refrained from stating any of them. 

She did not want to terminate the girl, though part of her felt that she ought to inform the girl of how she very well could.     

It was a problem she had listed frequently on the forefronts of her itinerary conversational paths, but it was a subject that Jinx failed to sequester into any particular direction despite Raven’s multiple attempts to bring it up.

As she continued to comb the girl’s hair, Raven’s gears shifted back into her current puzzle of ramifications. 

As a testament to the oath she had made to herself, Raven admitted to herself silently, that she was a little apprehensive about her lack of plans and contingencies for the stage she wanted to set.  

She was unsettled, doing something so wholly organic. 

But that was rather the point of it, she argued, her mind and jaw steeling themselves further. 

She kept her talons from singing any of the long, pink strands or scalp, and kept her touch regulated to keep from cutting scalpel precise incisions through Jinx’s skin.

She was getting quite used to touching the girl’s skin, she observed, as she thought over their past interactions; Jinx, according to her recorded data, seemed to like it a lot. 

Raven took this reaffirmation of her findings to her core, and relaxed. 

She would do this, and she would face no problems or falter, and all would be the better for it. Her position would be more secure, and her future more stable. 

And Jinx’s expected happiness, Raven added, was also a considered agreeable factor. 

Raven allowed her fingers to halt and removed them, once Jinx’s hair was dried. 

The girl preened for a moment, regarding the now fluffy mane of candy colored strands and smiled warmly; Raven logged the satisfactory assessment of her action into her working file and moved on. 

Jinx, noting Raven’s ‘completed task’ face, took a moment to watch her, as the girl refrained from moving away from her side as Jinx was accustomed to her doing. 

She nearly turned, but stopped as Raven tugged the towel wrapped around her waist. She squeaked, more in surprise than anything else; she had been nude in front of the girl before, but always by her own whimsy. 

“Are you going to towel me off, too?” she asked, as the quiet operative took hold of the fabric. 

“Affirmative,” the girl stated quietly; Jinx’s heart fluttered.

“Kinky,” she teased, as her pulse began to quicken and her heart tried to climb up her throat. 

Raven’s scanners observed the changes in Jinx’s body; the pulse, the heat, the quivering fingers and the hesitation around Jinx’s lips before she spoke.   

She logged it away, with the other information and continued her new task; gently sliding the material, heat still radiating from her talons, pressing into Jinx’s skin from underneath the towel. 

Jinx was for the most part, amused, as she dried her back, Raven judged from her readings; it was when she circled around the girl’s front, that the readings began fluctuating with greater amplitude. 

Pleased with her progress, Raven continued, factoring in Jinx’s arms and legs, and other features besides. 

The reaction Jinx had, of biting her lip suddenly as Raven toweled off the juncture between her thighs was a particularly noticable one. 

“Careful there, Suger,” Jinx warned; “Might not behave myself if you get playful.”

By Raven’s readings, the girl seemed more flustered than usual as a direct correlation to her tactile insinuation. Distancing herself, from the moment, likely in an attempt to keep her composure measured. 

Raven counted that as interesting. 

“I am always playful,” Raven stated. 

Jinx snorted; figuring her charges words to be a witty joke. 

Which, they were, Raven allowed, setting the towel down; but in the moment, they were an outlier of truth. 

“Are you going to dress me too, or can I do that myself?” Jinx asked, amusement and curiosity thick in her posture. 

Raven thought about it. 

She did not want Jinx to go through the effort of putting on attire, as she planned to remove such modifiers for the objective regardless, but organically considering, Raven wondered if would be a considerable asset to her tactics. 

“Affirmative,” she stated, without clarifying. 

Jinx allowed herself to be nudged back, so that her charge could procure her garments from the drawers; she wondered warmly what the mechanical girl would pick out. 

Raven, after assessing all the visible garments in the drawer, pulled out the option of the sleekest material, pale and shiny, and terrible for armor benifition. 

Jinx’s eyes widened slightly at it, but she remained compliant and allowed herself to be dressed in the thin, short, gownlike attire that Raven slipped onto her. She smoothed the fabric over, having long ago noted full organics’ preferences for wrinkle free attire. 

She smoothed the gown slowly, over Jinx’s chest; the databank compliations she’d downloaded attested to the importance of such ministrations. 

“You’ll givea’ girl ideas, going on like this,” Jinx murmured, leaning into the touch; she pressed against the talons, pinning them against Raven’s chest, and loosely wrapped her arms around her shoulders; “Not that I’m mindin’,” Jinx lilted. 

She made the odd little face she usually did, after saying such things as that; Raven observed, and exhaled airly as Jinx pulled away to wander to her bed, where she fell against it. A mixture of relief and her usual cheer, as much as Raven could make out from the readings; the sight of the sheer fabric playing with the patterns of light shimmering along Jinx’s skin was preoccupying her attention.

She was fairly certain she was supposed to compliment it, during such procedures. 

“You look enticing,” she stated directly, catching Jinx’s attention again, “You could easily lure men to your bed and slit the throats of all three before darting away again.”

Jinx smiled broadly; her heat signature momentarily strengthened, prompting Raven to walk towards her.  

As she reached the edge of the bed, Jinx looked up at her, her curiosity visibly riddled across her posture. 

Raven said nothing, but waited. 

Jinx passed her curious expression off, and shifted over to allow her a place to sit. 

Careful not to snag any of the fabric on her fabricated body, Raven settled herself next to Jinx a little awkwardly, but visibly more organically inclined than not. 

“Someone’s friendly tonight,” Jinx mused, watching her. 

Raven thought about how to proceed. 

Jinx exhaled a morphing yawn, and stretched; the short gown lifted along with her, and Raven felt a faint, momentary impulse to smooth it back down. She refrained.

Jinx offered her a smile and leaned in; the lip contact was expected, as the magician had been consistent throughout their interactions in forming them. Jinx pulled back as quickly as she had leaned in, and started to crawl towards the head of the bed; an obvious intent to nest herself down for the evening. 

Jinx yelped in an undignified manner as a surprise weight cinched around her arm and forced her momentum to a sudden halt. she looked over to see Raven focusing on her with all manners of whirrling mechanics behind her eyes. She quirked an eyebrow and waited for her charge to do something in explanation.

Slowly, the girl brought her talons to her chest, and skimmed an impossibly straight line down the center of her chest plating. 

The armor began to crack open with a hydraulic hiss.

Her pulse raced searing through her veins as Jinx’s hands shot out to press against Raven’s plating. 

“Raven, no!” 

Before she could do anything however, the armor finished separating and revealed not a body of flesh, but a slim, streamlined figure that had apparently been fashion underneath with no seams or hard edges.  

It was beautiful. 

“…Did you, want to change out of your uniform too?” Jinx ventured, unsure of as to Raven’s implications and intentions. The girl was quite the enigma, Jinx reflected, despite the many weeks of their arrangement. 

She tried to keep her mind out the realm of ordinary human explanations, to stay prepared to hear whatever answer or question her charge would put into place.

“This is my body,” the girl answered, flatly; Jinx couldn’t tell if Raven was annoyed or amused. She watched as Raven shrugged off the bulkier, heavier armor to the floor.  

“Yes, it’s very beautiful,” Jinx observed, scanning the exposed modeling as her charge moved back to her sitting position. 

Raven was relieved at the certification of assessment; she felt pleased that the proceedings were progressing as intended. 

She stayed still, as Jinx let her fingertips lightly brush against her exposed endobody; Raven’s sensors flooded her eyescreens as the pressure calibrations registered the magician’s inquisitive touches.  

Raven thought briefly, to list off the functionality of her dual exchange modes of functioning, of her endoframe’s ability to seal and realign itself after detaching the plating to keep wires and junctures tidy and effectively clean, but refrained.

Instead, lifted herself to her knees and pressed against Jinx’s shoulders, pinning the girl underneath her against the bed. 

Making sure to keep her weight resting around Jinx, rather than on top of her to keep from crushing her, Raven leaned down and pressed a kiss to Jinx’s lips. 

Jinx, startled slightly, kissed back until her mind raced up to her; prompting to push against her charge’s chest. 

While not physically strong enough to push her away, Raven followed the order regardlessly and desisted her actions, pulling back. 

“Is this not sufficient?” she inquired. 

“Your kissings’ great sweetie,” Jinx placated, “I just think you’re biting off more than you can chew.”

“I don’t eat,” Raven corrected.

“I know,” Jinx replied, fighting off a sigh of forlorn longing. 

“I don’t understand,” Raven pressed, her head tilting as her eyescreens spammed her vision with data; “Eighty percent of your interactions with me have been advances of intimate natures and suggestion. You want this body in exchange for the creation of my new one. I am offering it, to you;” Raven equated aloud as her vision swam with possible positions of action, “Did you intend for a different mode of performing this function?”   

“Honey,” Jinx placated, her voice weak with lament, “Of course I want to play with you.”

“Affirmed then,” Raven stated, adjusting to reclaim her position. 

Jinx’s hand stalled her. 

“But I’m a miscreant with a soft heart.”

“You are wholly organic, all of your body is ‘soft’,” Raven insisted. 

“I can’t let you do this Sweetie,” Jinx continued, “You don’t understand what it is. What it means.”

“Invalid.” 

Jinx shot her a look. 

“I am aware of the societal attachments placed on coupling acts. I am aware of the dangers of the differences between my current body and your organic body. I understand that when I act, you react,” Raven stated as she touched the tips of her talons to Jinx’s face, and watched her data fluctuate as she dragged them along her skin; “I understand that this,” she emphasized, kissing the girl again; “Means something to you. Resultingly, it means something to me. I have decided this.” 

Jinx looked at her intently, for a moment; likely weighing her words. 

Raven ignored an impulse to push the girl down again. 

“I just don’t want you to regret me, when you change,” Jinx murmured. 

“Noted.” 

Raven kept her talons on Jinx’s face, stroking the pale cheeks and flushed lips. 

Slowly, she let one of hand’s fall to Jinx’s, and led the magician’s hand to her chest. 

She thought briefly, of attempting to say something romantic, but could not compose anything that did not simply consist of a plea for the girl to teach her how to feel human. Instead, she trailed Jinx’s hand down her body to the heavy armor around her hips, and pushed it along the seam, so Jinx could feel the armor as it split.

“You are infinitely more fragile than I,” Raven murmured, as she let go of Jinx’s hand; “Even now, like this, I could end you, if I wanted to.”

Jinx, lost in thought and the tactical curiosity of fingering her mechanics as they disconnected from each other, stayed silent. 

“I could break your fingers, if I did not want them on me.”

Jinx looked up at her, her hand now holding half of the split chassis for her hips. 

“I want to practice feeling human.”

She offered the girl, what she hoped looked like a smile. 

The muscles felt strange as she used them in the manner.

Jinx’s face shifted; Raven noted the visible change in the girl’s posture and line of reasoning. 

“Alright love, come here and kiss me then,” she ordered, firm delight blazing in her eyes; “If you’re a good girl, maybe I’ll show you a new way to use a wand or two.”