Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mr. Valentine?” a familiarly robotic voice called from outside the doorframe of his room in a house at Sanctuary.

Nick looked up from the ages-old newspaper he had been leafing through and saw Ada standing there, her stance somehow tentative despite not having all the hallmarks of human hesitance. “Hey, good t’see ya, Ada. Come on in. You need something?”

Given permission, Ada toddled in in her usual fashion, from one metal foot onto another. “Well,” she started as she eased herself into a chair with mechanical precision, “you and I have gotten quite close since the events that the Mechanist brought about, correct?”

“Affirmative.” Despite the fact that Ada would not be able to breathe in or smell his cigarette fumes, Nick put out his current smoke in a nearby ashtray out of force of habit.

“Would you be willing to hear me out on something?” Ada crossed her pincer hand over her laser pistol hand in her lap.

“Sure, anything for a fellow robot. Shoot.” Nick smiled warmly in hopes that he might ease any anxieties Ada had.

At that, Ada nodded appreciatively. “Thank you.

“For the longest time, I have had other things on my mind while starting my new life here in the Commonwealth with Sole, you, and all of our other friends and associates. Helping construct buildings, gathering resources, making sure defenses are in place, going on adventures with others… It has been a busy time. And that’s what worries me: the thought of my friends’ death, and all the emotions associated with it, have been fading from the forefront of my mind in favor of all the other busy things. Only now and again do I think about it, when things are calm, and almost familiar to the times I had with them; and each time, I feel a bit less sad.

“This worries me, Nick,” Ada confessed. “I fear that I am forgetting my friends, or that something has gone awry with my emotional processing unit. Yet I still remember their faces, clear as day, as well as their voices and personalities...and the worry I feel at present is as strong as ever. Can you give me any insight as to what is happening?”

Nick huffed slightly, and pushed his hat back so it would be farther out of his eyes. “Ada, what you’re experiencing is entirely normal. It’s part of what’s called ‘the grieving process’,” he explained. “There are a bunch’a steps to it, and they can occur in any order, save for the last step, which is usually ‘acceptance’. And that happens gradually, and may not stop for a long while, or ever. Death is a lot to handle for anyone-- whether we’re human, machine, or whatever we might be. The bottom line is that we all endure it in different ways.

“And it would seem that you, Ada, have found your own,” the synth detective remarked, and leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms. “Doesn’t mean that you ain’t allowed to be sad, though. That’s normal, too.”

The robot on the other side of his desk was quiet for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “That makes perfect sense to me. I will try to go through this ‘grieving process’ in a healthy manner, and use my support network along the way. It just feels like I’ve had to suppress all of this for so long…”

“That may very well be the case,” Nick sympathized, “but don’t think that we’re trying to keep you from talking about it. Real friends will give you a listening ear, or a helping hand, or whatever you need-- even for problems you think far too complex to share. Just be honest. It’s better for ya that way.”

“What you’re saying makes sense, Mr. Valentine, and I thank you for it,” Ada chimed, and rose from her chair. She pushed it neatly back up against the desk, then turned to leave; but she paused and looked over her shoulder as she reached the doorway. “And for the ‘listening ear’.”

Nick chuckled and waved her out. “Anytime, doll. You take care.”

The blue automatron paused at that, then turned back into the office and waddled over to Nick. She rocked forward on her feet so that she might be able to reach up just far enough to press her face gently against Nick’s cheek. “You, too.”

Nick’s smile only grew at that, and his gaze was fond as he watched Ada leave. He would have to have Sole get her some better legs so that she might be able to employ that tactic more easily, and with more people.

Chapter Text

This was not how Nick imagined he would spend his evening.

No one could have imagined that the bar that Sole built was destined for disaster, but one cannot predict the actions of an individual with free thought. And perhaps some of the individuals at the bar at Starlight Drive-In had a bit too much free thought.

Take Cait, for example.

Preston Garvey spoke to Nick as he made his way through the door. “I wouldn’t come within 50 feet of Cait if I were you,” he almost shouted over the noise. “She’s had one too many, and is likely to come undone at the slightest touch.”

“Why do you say that?” Nick asked, and checked his coat at the door.

“Because I’ve seen it happen before.” Preston took a swig of his beer, indifferent.

And happen it did, for as MacCready staggered out of the bathroom looking quite green, he bumped heavily into Cait, who was sitting at the bar with her back to him. Those within a 10 foot radius suddenly calmed and took notice of this seemingly insignificant event, for they knew what the action might predict.

For a few achingly long moments, there was silence. (If Nick had hair on his body, it would be standing on end.)

Then, the sound of a quite durable plastic mug being slammed furiously onto the countertop. After a beat, Cait turned slowly on her barstool to face MacCready, who had already lurched back about half a foot. She rose slowly, and all too steadily for her current state of intoxication. “You think this is a fuckin’ game?” she slurred, and pressed forward to enter MacCready’s personal space. “You think you can just interrupt me precious drinkin’ time?”

“I-I wasn’t tryin’ to, honest!” MacCready whined, not unlike a child might, and put up his hands placatingly. “I just… I just puked up the remains of my last drink, I just wanna go… go to b-bed…”

“No, no, I see what yer aim is,” Cait jabbed her finger into MacCready’s chest. “You’re trying to start shite, ain’t’cha?”

“No, really, I just need to leave! I have to go to sleep now, or else I’m gonna miss my visit with Duncan. I have to--”

But MacCready was given no further room to speak, as a wild haymaker was driven into the side of his face. It was then that Cait actually got into a proper fighting stance. “C’mon, ratboy! Show me what ya got!”

Understandably, MacCready staggered back, clutching the side of his face that had been stricken. In the process of being punched, his hat came off his head and flew across the room; so, any onlookers that were bearing witness to the fight could see that his brows were knitted together and his eyes were squeezed shut in pain. He leaned back against a nearby table for support, but being inebriated, misjudged the angle, slid down off of it, and landed on the floor with a heavy ‘thunk’. “Hhgh. That… that hurt… Fuck, I’m not trying to start a fight, Cait, please!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Nick almost yelled over the growing drunken cries of ‘fight, fight, fight!’ amongst Starlight Drive-In settlers and Sole’s companions alike. He stepped into the ‘ring’ between Cait and MacCready-- closer to the latter of the two, of course. “I saw him as he was coming out of the bathroom, Cait. He really didn’t mean any offense.”

MacCready nodded his assent sorely.

“Aw, who’re you to talk, metal man?” Cait defied, and now entered Nick’s personal space, as if MacCready had become a distant object to her. As she was so close, Nick could now see that her pupils were widely different in terms of dilation, and her breath smelled of several different types of alcohol.

“He’s one of our allies, dammit,” Nick kneeled by MacCready’s side. “He travels with Sole just like you do, and it ain’t fair for you to treat him like this just because of an accidental brush.”

“An ‘accidental brush’?” One of Cait’s leather-clad fists pounded into the other. “It was damn clear that his offense was deliberate! He doesn’t want me to drink. None of you do!” Cait took a few heavy steps towards MacCready and Nick.

“Cait,” Nick attempted to soothe the woman before him, and rose slowly and distanced himself from MacCready, “I want you to think carefully about your next actions…”

But there was no thinking in Cait’s next actions, as she abruptly lunged for Nick and tackled him into the bar tables and chairs that surrounded all of them. Chunks of wood and glass went flying in the process. Half the crowd around them-- likely the drunk half-- cheered wildly, while the more sober half gasped in surprise.

Nick gasped, despite his lack of lungs, on impact with the ground and several shards of wood and glass. But Cait knew no mercy in that moment, and immediately began thrashing him against the ground by his shoulders. And, sadly, he could not yet do anything to stop her, as her knees were planted firmly in the prone crooks of his elbows.

“You. Know. Nothing. About. My. Actions! I. Do. What. I. Want!” With each word that Cait next said, the poor synth detective was slammed against the wood floor beneath them. In the process, Nick’s hat also came off of his head, joining MacCready’s in being somewhere else in the bar.

“I’m giving you to the count of three to stop, and then I’m not going to hold back.” Nick replied to her as if chastising a toddler, static breaking into his voice as a result of the pain he was currently experiencing.

“Do whatever ya want, old robot, and I’ll do me!”

“One.”

Cait stuck two fingers up Nick’s nose, then used both her index fingers to poke his eyes.

“Augh-- two .”

Cait wrapped her hands around Nick’s throat and, thinking twice, then reached into his throat and pulled at the wires within until some of them snapped.

And in the even greater haze of static that resulted, “ Three .” With that, Nick abruptly and forcefully brought his head against Cait’s, knocking her back onto her rear between his starfished legs. He immediately got to his feet, and also assumed a fighting position.

“You crotchety old bucket’a bolts!” Cait said, and similarly jumped to her feet. She swung for Nick’s face, but he managed to dodge the almost-haymaker, and brought his own arm up around her elbow and bent it so that her arm was immobilized. There was a slight pop that resulted from this, and Cait grunted in pain.

With the distance forcibly closed between them, Cait attempted to swing again with her other hand, but Nick stopped her fist with an open hand of his own. He closed his hand around her fist and held tight. For a good few moments, the fight de-escalated into a wrestling match of sorts.

The two combatants locked eyes as they pushed back and forth against one another for that relatively brief amount of time; then, there was a mischievous gleam in Cait’s own eyes. To Nick, it seemed as though time slowed down as he was once again headed for the floor, because Cait had sent him there once more by sweeping his legs out from under him with one of her own.

The question of how he had not prevented giving her that opening would have to be pondered later.

For the time being, he was once again flat on the floor; however, Cait decided that it would be suitable simply to just pin him by landing a firm punch square in the chest-- where his solar plexus would be if he were human. However, he experienced a quite human-like reaction, and saw white lines in his vision on contact with this spot.

Cait planted her other hand on the floor to steady herself, and put her full weight onto Nick, so much so that her face was able to be mere centimeters from Nick’s own. Her new grin was impossibly wide, and her breathing all too heavy. “Pinned ya,” she gloated, and tapped her fist once against the sleuth’s chest.

Nick had no response, as the whiteness partially enveloping his vision was more than a little disorienting. All he could do was look up at Cait, winded and in copious amounts of pain.

The Irish woman snickered and, to the surprise of all onlookers (none of whom had attempted to intervene for Nick or MacCready), leaned down and kissed Nick on the lips passionately. In doing so, she also let up on the pressure on Nick’s chest in favor of shifting her weight to the other hand, and so he was able to more clearly feel the sensation of being kissed.

He was fairly certain that some tongue was being involved when Preston re-emerged from the crowd that previously had pushed him further from the ‘ring’ and pulled Cait off of him. “That’s enough, miss Cait!” he shouted over the din of the bar. “You need to drink some water and get some rest. You’re absolutely out of control.”

But, unexpectedly, Cait was suddenly compliant and not eager to immediately fight the man that had pried her off of Nick. “Yeah, yeah, I do what I want. And right now, I’m sweatin’ bollocks. Water sounds nice, as does a hot shower and a warm bed,” Her gaze, dissociated from having been abruptly moved (and tossed around like that), flicked from God knows where back to Nick. “S’been fun, Nicky-boy. We oughta do that more often.”

She waved disorientedly, but with the biggest, warmest grin that anyone had seen on her face as she was dragged out of the bar by Preston Garvey. As those two left, Sole darted in and rushed to Nick’s side. “Hey, Nicky,” they coaxed the supine synth, “are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Nick saw four where he knew that Sole was only holding up two, and as such, sat up very cautiously and slowly. The snapped wires flopped a bit into view as he did, and he fiddled with them, more confused (and in pain) than anything else. “Yeah, uh, two, but I’m seein’ more. I… might need to go see Sturges for repairs.

“And then have a drink of my own.”