Archive of Our Own

"Valentine."

It leaned against the projection screen beside him and drew a pack of cigarettes from its breast pocket. It offered the pack to him.

"I don't smoke."

The synth shrugged and tapped a cigarette from the pack. "Me either. Gives me something to hold on to, though." It shifted the cigarette to the hand that still had flesh plating and used the damaged one to return the cigarette pack. "Not really sure what the appeal is. Tastes nice, maybe."

He glanced at the ring of mutfruit trees that huddled in the only patch of dirt in the entire drive-in. "The nicotine in them is calming, I'm told."

"Yeah? Maybe I should take it up. Could use something relaxing, and it ain't like I'm a real high risk for lung cancer."

Nora had told him once that the story this synth gave her featured the Institute attempting to move beyond the plastic and metal of second generation synth a and into something more human. Danse wondered what parts were changed--this model certainly looked like a standard if damaged gen II. It would be quite an achievement to get this one back to the Prydwyn and find out. He would do it, too, except that Nora had made him promise to leave this specific synth alone.

Her faith in this thing would get her hurt someday, but his word was his bond.

"You do much fiddling with the power armor?"

He blinked, eyes focusing beyond the trees. There was nothing of immediate danger out there. "What?"

Valentine chuckled. "Ears need cleaning? I asked if you do much tinkering on your power armor."

"Ah. No."

They stood for a while without speaking. It felt almost rude. The synth really could fool you into thinking it was more than a machine.

"Mostly field repairs."

That was a mistake. He hadn't meant to make small talk.

"Modifications are done by one of our proctors. Back on the Prydwyn."

What the hell was he doing?

"Why do you ask?"

Valentine tipped his head back against the wall, pushing the hat down lower. "Just wondering if you're mechanically inclined."

"No more than the average soldier. I can field-strip a gun. Dismantle machines for transport. That sort of thing."

"That include synths?"

"Of course. Where are you going with this?"

His answer came in the form of a sigh. There was another moment of silence.

"I want to ask a favor," Valentine said at last.

Synths had a sense of humor? This was a first. "Right. Sure."

"Look, you don't like me and I don't particularly like you. I get it. If there was anybody else I could ask you'd bet I'd ask them instead."

"I'll pass."

"I haven't even asked you yet."

What is the purpose of humoring a synth? Danse thought, but he heard himself say, "What did you want to ask?"

As much as a synth's face could Valentine's grew tense. Danse didn't miss the way he raised the damaged hand to his abdomen, fingers curling protectively, before jerking it back down again. "I need someone to help me get rid of some Institute tech." He glanced over at Danse. "Let's call it a bug."

"Mmhm."

"It's... You're Brotherhood. How do you know someone is a synth?"

He thought back to the autopsies he'd observed. "Synthetic component lodged in the brain tissue. Can only be removed post-mortem, difficult to detect."

"Right." The moving parts in his jaw ground quietly. "I need you to take that out of me."

"Out of you?" He shook his head. "I know you think you're human, Valentine, but even you have to know that there's no living tissue in your head."

Valentine fiddled irritably with his cigarette. "No kidding, Sherlock. I was a prototype, far as I can tell, so I guess they did the next best thing." He wrapped the damaged arm around his midsection. "Found a spot with lots of important parts and stuffed the thing in that."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Draws a lot of power. I can't get any data on what it does." His arm tightened almost imperceptibly against his body. "I have no access to it at all, as far as I can tell, at least not without physically jailbreaking it. And, cherry on the cake, it... it goes berserk when I'm around synths."

Interesting, Danse thought. That could be a tactical advantage if he had the ability to identify Gen 3 synths. And if he could be convinced to use that for the Brotherhood...

But that idea was quickly dismissed.

"Just the Gen 2 synths. Earlier models, Gen 3s, they must not have whatever this thing is picking up on. Like I said, I don't know what it's trying to do..."

"If it's Institute tech it's nothing good." Valentine gave him a vaguely amused look. "And your thought is that I'll take you apart, get rid of it, and put you back together."

"That's about it, yeah."

Danse watched the synth as if he were going to find some indication of body language. Unsurprisingly he found very little. "Is the tech affecting your processing? You trust a Brotherhood soldier to put you in what I can only assume is an extremely vulnerable position?"

"I don't trust you. But Nora does--god only knows why--and I do trust her. And let's be honest, there's only two groups that have the slightest idea how a synth works. I don't know how to find the Institute, and I... I want that thing out of me."

The emotion in his synthetic voice made Danse's skin crawl. How did the Institute mimic actual humans so well in an obviously manufactured body? He legitimately sounded like a person experiencing some kind of dysphoria.

"I'm not going to beg. If you won't do it you won't do it, but I had to ask."

"I'll do it." He was nearly as surprised as Valentine looked, but it made sense. If Valentine really was the bridge between second and third generation synths then even a brief observation of his inner workings could be important. That, and this was technically Nora's synth. "I have some tools for field repairs. Find a place to work and I will do what I can."

"I... I appreciate that. There's some kind of living room back behind the screen that looked like a good place to hole up."

Danse nodded and allowed the synth to lead him behind the screen.

The room did resemble a pre-war living room somewhat. A child's crib stood against the farthest wall, directly across from a dusty, mildewed couch. There was a propane grill beside the door. Valentine felt around on the wall for the light switch, amber eyes the only light to see by, but when tested the overhead lamp still worked.

"Lay down on the couch," Danse told him. "I'll find a chair."

There was a lawn chair on top of the screen that would work, but there was no way it would support his power armor. He ducked into a back corner to exit the armor.

As always he felt naked outside of the power armor. The Brotherhood jumpsuit stood out with its bright orange dye and offered pitifully little protection. Voluntarily exposing himself like this in front of a synth only made the feeling worse. He'd never let Nora see him without the power armor, and he actually trusted her.

But when he came around the armor and saw Valentine, coat and hat abandoned, slowly undoing the buttons of his shirt, he felt a bit better. Neither of them were entirely comfortable. It would keep him on his toes.

"I think this is the best access point," Valentine told him, gingerly touching the panel that covered his abdomen. "If it doesn't work we can try from the back, but..."

Danse made a small grunt of acknowledgement and pulled his lawn chair close. "I need to see what I'm working with. Lie back."

A look of almost human apprehension crossed Valentine's face and was gone. He pulled his legs onto the couch and eased himself back against the cushions.

There was a trick to the front access point, a specific way to press it that loosened it enough to lift out. Danse ran his fingers along the seams of the flesh-plating. There was no give to the synthetic flesh, none of the elasticity a human would have, and the lack of body heat made the synth's manufactured nature all the more obvious. A gentle pressure on the panel, just until he heard... yes, there was the distinctive click of the panel detaching. He set the panel aside.

Valentine lay stiff as a rod. He said nothing, but his discomfort was obvious. Inside he was the same plastic parts and wires as every other Gen 2 synth Danse had ever seen, although his were patchy with a lifetime of jury-rigged repairs. The largest part, a box of sorts where a man's stomach would have been, was warm to the touch. "Here, I take it."

"Mmhm." Valentine's voice was strained.

There was a clasp on other synths that allowed the box to be removed, but these seemed to be missing from Valentine. He ran his hands over it, looking for a release or a seam or something, but beyond a thick tube jutting from the lefthand side nothing stood out. No, wait, there was something, a line of plastic low on one side, melted into something like a seam. Apparently the Institute didn't feel easy acess to whatever was inside was necessary. "You're sure this is it?"

"Yeah."

"It appears to be sealed all the way around. I'll need to cut an access point."

"Whatever you have to do. I just want it out."

Considering the apparent thickness of the plastic and the meld of the seam he decided the simplest option was to remove the entire anterior side and lift the whole thing away. He located a utility knife in his kit and lay the blade against the plastic. Valentine stiffened under his touch, but it wasn't until he began scoring a preliminary outline into the plastic and Valentine drew in a sharp breath that he realized the synth was physically holding back from something. "Are you... feeling this?"

"Does it matter? Just do what you need to do."

"It matters if you forget what you're doing and try to break my neck. Is there something I can disconnect that will numb it?"

"No."

"Chems, then."

"Chems don't work on me. Just... get it over with."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Valentine's damaged hand dig into the couch cushion, metal fingers tearing through the worn fabric. It could do a hell of a lot of damage to human flesh. But Valentine fixed his eyes on a spot on the ceiling, gritted his teeth, and didn't make a move toward Danse, not even as he retraced the scoring and finally pulled the side away.

Underneath was a complete mess, a cluster of wires, tubes, nerves, and processing units so tangled he couldn't believe it was Institute work. But despite the age of the parts they were obviously high quality, no indication of radiation damage at all, and it was as Valentine had said--a mass of important-looking parts to prevent easy extraction of the tech inside. Carefully tracing the smaller tubes, trying to see what lay behind them, choked a tiny yelp from Valentine's throat. What sense did it make to have a synth this sensitive to internal repairs? The same reason these parts were so carefully hidden, he thought. "I'll try to be quick."

"I'd appreciate it," Valentine grunted softly.

Danse found the top of a single wire and tried to visually trace it to the other end without much success. If he disconnected one end he could untangle the wires all at once, which seemed like the best way forward. It would be a nightmare to try and put everything back afterward.

He took the wire carefully between his thumb and forefinger and pulled it free. Valentine didn't make a sound but his body jolted beneath Danse's hands. He did the same to a second wire and a third, and though he suppressed them a little better Valentine still jerked with tiny convulsions.

"God," he mumbled softly. "Didn't... ah!... Didn't think it'd be this bad."

He thought of Nora and how much she legitimately seemed to like having the synth around. Though he was sure her loyalty to the Brotherhood was sound, her friendship to him as an individual could be so irreparably broken if he damaged the synth. And, surprisingly, her friendship felt crucial. "I'll stop if that's what you want."

"No. Get it out of me." There was the emotion again, coming so easily into the synth's voice. "Please. Just get it out of me."

He took a few more wires, moved a coolant tube to one side. Valentine's breath hitched as if he would cry. A manipulation tactic, he would have thought, designed to make him feel guilt, but as he watched Valentine's eyes grow wide and his body tremble he needed little help with that.

Unsure what else to do, he lay a hand on Valentine's hip and gently squeezed. Those wide amber eyes flickered down toward him even as the undamaged hand clawed at the back of the couch and Valentine braced his feet against the far arm of it.

Unsure what to say he defaulted to the words he used with Nora. "Hang in there. You're going be okay."

"Yeah." Valentine gave him a weak smile. "Sure."

The deeper he dug into the tangle of components the more sensitive the nerves seemed to become. He lay the wires outside of the box to give himself more room to work but between Valentine's increasingly panicked panting and the stray sparks when unisulated wire ends accidentally touched he seemed to be doing more harm than good. He must have missed the component somehow, he thought, but then his fingers brushed something smooth and solid and Valentine shuddered violently. He made a noise as Danse uncovered whatever was in him, almost a whimper.

"Don't know if I can..." he mumbled. "Give me a minute. Please."

So Danse sat back in his chair and watched as Valentine struggled to pull himself together. Waiting was easy enough to do. But as the seconds ticked by it became obvious that time was not  making this easier on Valentine. His fingers tightened so much on the couch that the fabric gave way, leaving a single large hole in the cushion. His breathing and the visible rush of coolant through the tubes hadn't slowed. He appeared to be shaking. "You've come this far, Valentine. What's left to do will probably feel even worse but if you can push through the component will be out and you won't have to worry about it."

"I can't. I'm... I'm not gonna be able to keep it together."

"Then don't. This isn't my first time at the rodeo."

"N-no?"

"I've dug bullets out of soldiers more times than I can count, sometimes in the field without painkillers. Everyone has a breaking point. I've just learned to work around it."

Valentine squeezed his eyes closed.

"You want it out, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Let's get this over with as quickly as possible, then."

For a moment he received no response. Valentine ground his teeth and then gave a single, shallow nod. Then, as Danse plunged his hands into the wires inside him, he screamed.

Under the wires the smooth, solid, plastic thing was thrumming with electricity, exactly as Valentine had described it. There was no trick to it, no switch or button; it was just jammed into some sort of holder that was welded directly to his spinal column as if it were a pre-war battery. It fit too perfectly for Danse to get hold of, and there wasn't time to ease it out with a fingernail.  He grabbed a screwdriver from his kit and levered it into the holder.

"Stop!" Valentine's voice was hardly recognizable, distorted with pain and fear. "Stop, please, I can't..."

Then Danse put all his weight into prying at the component and there were no more words, only an out-of-control sobbing wail. He pressed as hard as he could and Valentine writhed beneath him, back arching into the couch, trying to pull away but he moved with him and he felt the metal in the screwdriver start to give. He dug at it with the fingernails of his non-dominant hand and Valentine cried out, his own damaged hand closing around Danse's forearm so tightly he was sure it would break and then finally, finally the component gave and he pulled it from its holder.

"It's out," he told Valentine, quickly pulling back to reattach wires. "It's out. It's done."

Valentine's fingers tightened on him for an instant before he sank back against the couch, still sobbing, still writhing as pieces of his innards were replaced.

"That's it." He put the plastic covering back into place and dug out a soldering iron. "No more. It's out."

Melting the plastic back together was the last truly difficult step. He finished as quickly as he could and wrenched his arm from Valentine's grip to press the abdomen panel back into place.The synth tried to turn onto his side, curling around that panel, and cried in a way that was alarmingly human. Danse laid a hand on his shoulder and waited until the sobbing eased.

"Do you want to see it?" he asked, holding up the component.

Valentine blinked at it, eyes clearly struggling to focus. He looked for a long moment and Danse was terrified for a second that he would say it was the wrong piece, that he would need to be opened up so it could be repaired and replaced, but then he collapsed back against the couch.

"It's over?" he croaked.

"It's over. You did beautifully. Didn't even snap my neck or anything."

Valentine gave a weak, sad laugh. "'m sorry. Thank you. God, thank you."

"I didn't do it for you. I did it for Nora."

"I know that." Valentine closed his eyes. "Don't know what else to say. Just... thank you."

He continued breathing hard as Danse gathered up his tools but said nothing more. Danse could only shake his head and marvel at exactly how close to life something so inhuman could be.

His eyes fell on the component, discarded on the arm of the chair near Valentine's head. He picked it up and turned it over and over. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it at all. If not for the plain white coloring it could have been a pre-war battery.

He dropped the component in with his tools. He knew a few scientists who would be interested in examining it.