Work Text:
As destructive as Crash man was, built for leveling buildings, shaping craters, and causing horrific damage, it was for places, not people; certainly not this particular human and to such an extent.
He knew it was some sort of overload, happened to every robot in the area they said, but he didn’t expect to have gone out of his way to maim this poor guy. Though, looking at the other now, although heavy with pain, he was more impressed than he’d initially wanted to admit as he passed out next to him in the pouring rain.
He’d slurred some words, spat some blood, been dragged through these halls, but so had Crash; he’d been half carried here too, arm in arm with his new… friend? companion? Who was now planning the first of hopefully many updates Crash had let slip he wanted, blabbering at the chance to: less violent recoil, more spinal support, a pair of hands.
“I’m not sure I want you working on me when you’re like this though,” Crash admitted, legs hung loosely off the desk, one knee inching its way up in defense. They’d relocated, medbay to central hall to workspace three- the one not for sleeping space or legitimate construction. It was Zan’s all the same, marked by small trinkets and file folders...
But Crash didn’t know that.
They’d barely known each other a few hours now and half of that was mangled with blood, either of throwing punches or recovering from them.
“Hey you’re the one who dented my head in,” Zan chuckled, gesturing to the thick stitches starting at his temple and looping around the back of his head. “I won’t do any work now, I just want to take a look at what I might be working with, if you’re cool with that.”
Crash paused, rain crackling on the roof like lightning within the silence. The electricity here was poor and needed significant rewiring for it to function even to that of a side table lamp. The desk was bare and cold but it was no lab table. Zan was a roboticist, a machinist, an artist; he was no Wily.
He lowered his knee to match his other leg, hoping the rain was enough to mix that blood soundly with dirt.
-
He’d gotten a “stomach” out of the impromptu check-up, a makeshift chest cavity container that would release heat, hooked to the empty gun barrels in his shoulders. Zan’d put it together in a pinch seeing as he was cooking tonight and didn’t want to saddle Crash with sticking with him if he couldn’t eat. The other option was reclining in a bed somewhere instead, unsure of where he could go and where he would if he could.
Crash watched him in the kitchen like a dog waiting for scraps and they both got those face value wishes, Zan feeding him spoonfuls of ground lamb, end pieces of grilled cabbage, whichever eggs were too hard or soft boiled.
He’d seen Crash man lift things and regardless of the strength and girth of his arms, they ended midway to the wrist; whereas he’d be able to lift a soup bowl, a plate with his halved forearms, anything smaller sized or oddly shaped wasn’t worth it to try.
Still, he flipped the tab of a beer can and gestured to both the empty space on the counter Crash was sitting on and at his chest if he wanted it passed to him. He wanted neither. “Just tip it some and I’ll drink it that way,” he said nonchalantly before ducking his shoulders and straightening his neck, the mouth of the can tight to his lips.
-
It was moonlit when he finished, finally passing all dishes near namelessly through the flap doors. There was a solid group of people wandering through here at all hours: working, living, sleeping. They certainly weren’t waiting for food like it was expected.
They certainly would’ve helped had they known he took it only upon himself, especially half-concussed and stomach-sick, passing up everything he’d made in favor of mashed potatoes and lukewarm water.
They’d made it to the steps outside, midway between both buildings, between work and rest, before Zan needed to break again, this close to a smoke.
He’d cross-armed a stubborn, pure-hearted man. Not that he’d know well enough to spell it out over himself too. Still, the feeling alone hurt, like he’d punched a mirror- breaking his knuckles twice, made that spark scar shape on his own skin when he detonated an explosive inches from the other’s head.
“I’m gonna sneak off- wanna join me?”
“To where? Your lab?”
“Huh? No- my room,” Zan replied, brushing his palm over Crash’s buzzed hair, mild orange and softer than anything. “It’ll be pretty loud here and I’m already dizzy from moving around so much- I might as well eat where I can rest afterwards. There’s space there for you too if you want.”
He’d been offered somewhere to stay earlier, anywhere he wanted, anywhere there was room, but saw Splash Woman in an open, pooled space with company, kneeling on jagged concrete and broken up stones.
He saw Elec Man in someone else’s hospital cot, the two pushed to the edges to make room that neither would take.
He realized, staring at the thick curls of hair on the uninjured side of Zan’s face, curls that obscured both his eyes and a surgery-shaved undercut that split his head in two, that this was the same, half-sorry, half-hello. If he could make a third piece without shortening the two by overextending the third, it would be an “I want to get to know you better.” An “I’ve known this much about you and want more.”
He mulls it over in no time at all,
fried shrimp with the tails, potato croquettes, leftover pickle brine, cold beer,
accepting quickly that fast-working hand.