Work Text:
Jayce
“What is it? I’m in the middle of something.”
“Sir, there’s a report from the Undercity that you need to hear.”
Jayce looked up from his workbench, eyebrow raised as he peered through his safety goggles, before returning to his work. “Oh? What is it?” Was it worth interrupting me in the middle of my delicate experiment, he does not ask out loud.
The employee apparently hears the unspoken words and replies, quick and a little nervous, “There was some fighting between gangs with significant property damage. At least 10 people are dead from falling rubble, another 50 are badly injured-”
He sighed loudly. Of course. The undercity was dangerous and always would be.
“-and that robot, Blitzcrank, was seen in the recovery retrieving people.”
Okay, the interruption was worth it. Jayce looked up, setting his tools down. “Viktor’s robot?”
“Yes, sir. They were sent to assist after a Piltover academic was pulled out of the rubble.”
A feeling of dread seeped into Jayce’s stomach. Only one academic regularly made trips down to Zaun, and only one academic would be worth Viktor’s time. “Is the academic okay?” He asks, dreading Viktor’s wrath if the answer is no.
“Yes, they are, sir. They are injured, but will be brought back here in the next few days once the doctors are certain they haven’t contracted anything.”
“Alert me as soon as they are here and in a fit state to speak,” Jayce orders, frowning. “I need to talk to them.”
Even if they don’t want to talk to me.
Viktor’s former partner. He never knows how to deal with them. They were perfectly lovely dealing with him before - personable, polite, willing to roll their sleeves up and get to work even if they didn’t understand what they were helping with - but after his and Viktor’s feud, that changed. Even if they don’t believe in Viktor’s convictions about mechanization, they stood firmly in Viktor’s corner in any argument out of personal loyalty. They also think he’s an asshole, which…is a valid statement. Jayce is an asshole. Now, without Viktor as a buffer, the two of them snipe and insult each other every chance they get.
“He’s going to destroy Piltover if we don’t stop him!”
“He’s not a rabid dog for you to put down, Jayce!”
When the door to his lab closed again, Jayce runs his hand through his hair and sighs. This will be hard. They never answer his questions, even when they had nothing to use to answer them.
…
The assistant who first alerted him to this incident would have some explaining to do. ‘Yes, they’re okay’ did not mean ‘half of the bones in your body are broken and you were so close enough to death that you swear you met Kindred’. You’re alive and breathing without any brain damage, yes, but that does not change the fact that you have milk of the poppy pumped into you every few hours in order to function. Still, he steps into the private chamber and closes the door behind him. “Hello, brittlebones,” he snips at you.
There is silence in response, but he watches your head turn to the side to look at him, a frown creasing your face.
“Wow, you must be in pain if you can’t insult me.”
You find enough strength to snarl. “Go fuck yourself, Tallis.”
“There it is,” he pulls up a chair beside you and sets down the get-well-soon gift he brought - easy to consume snacks, the idea courtesy of an assistant - on a side table. “Thought you’d be too focused on being still.”
“I can multitask when it comes to you.” Your voice is quiet, stretched thin and fragile with pain. Jayce busies himself with pouring a glass of water to offer them when necessary. He didn’t know exactly how to act with this. He was never known for his bedside manner. There is a reason he deals with machines more than people. You frown at him instead. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to talk. See how you were doing,” he paused. “You look like shit, by the way.”
“You sure you’re not looking in a mirror?” You smile, a little lopsided, and something about the normalcy of the expression eases Jayce’s nerves. You’re mostly okay, despite the pain. “I could still beat you in a race.”
“You sure about that?” He replies. “You look like a strong wind could blow you over.”
“It’ll be from upwind so I don’t have to smell you.”
“Nope, that stench is definitely coming from your unwashed self.”
“Are you offering to give me a sponge bath, Tallis?”
“I would rather drink acid.”
“Perfect, then let me raise a toast to the Guardian of Piltover.”
There is a moment of tense quiet before he chuckles. “I am glad to see the rubble didn’t break off your sense of humour, at least.”
“It may have broken off my patience,” you reply, and despite the sharp tone, the expression in your eyes looks a little lighter. “What did you want to talk about?”
“You not going to fall asleep mid-sentence?”
“Don’t tempt me,” you chuckle before wincing. “And don’t make me laugh, my body is barely holding together as it is.”
“Then I’ll keep it serious,” he taps his fingers on the table. “I received the report of what happened down there, but I'm concerned about the aftermath. Or rather, who we saw in the aftermath.”
“I was unconscious, Tallis. You’ll have to enlighten me.”
“Blitzcrank,” he replies a little sharper. “A massive accident occurs and then one of Viktor’s creations appears in the aftermath, and I’m expected to believe those two things were separate?”
“They were,” you reply, a frown already creasing your face again. “It was the Firelights and some of Jinx’s goons. I heard their boards and Jinx’s bombs doing their chomping.”
He remembers those bombs. Impractical in their shape, but they absolutely pack a punch. The ingenuity of the people of Zaun is…astounding at times.
“If that’s all, I’m not in the mood to indulge you and your conspiracy theories with my ex.”
“So correct me if I’m wrong, then.” He leans down. “Accidents occur in Zaun all of the time. Some of them Viktor has assisted in the recovery, others he has not. Of the last five property damage incidents, the only assistance rendered was by civilians, as Blitzcrank was occupied elsewhere, and some survivors were taken to Viktor’s base of operations to be fixed.”
No one would tell him where that was. Especially not the person on the hospital bed before him.
“But this time,” he continues, “this time, he elects to send help. Not only does Blitzcrank assist in recovery of injured persons, but they take injured people to Viktor’s lab directly. Something changed.”
You close their eyes and lean back into the pillow. “What do you want, Jayce?” You ask, voice quiet and already exhausted.
“The identifying difference is you. So I need to know what happened. Was he watching? How did he know to send Blitzcrank?” Jayce presses. “It implies that he is surveilling us.”
You laugh, bitterly. “No, no, nothing like that. I forgot to change him out as my emergency contact in Zaun. He was called as soon as I was identified in the rubble.”
Jayce blinks in surprise at that. It’s not the answer he expected, but it does make sense. As soon as the injured were identified, the call for emergency contacts is put out immediately so they can assist in the recovery. Not enough medical staff, so volunteers are necessary. “That’s not like you to forget such a thing,” he switches tack.
There is no barb about how Jayce doesn’t know you enough to say that. You just sigh again, careful not to breathe too deeply and make your ribs ache too badly. “I know. I suppose it just never crossed my mind.”
I thought that no matter what, I’d always have him, you don’t say. Jayce resists his urge to groan. There were far too many casualties to Viktor’s crusade, and your heart is one of them. “So…he was notified and sent out Blitzcrank in response to your injury.”
“I imagine so,” you make the slightest of shrugs, so small that Jayce barely notices. You don’t wince after, though, so perhaps it’s all you can do. “If any information on that came out of Blitz, it never got to me. Since I was, you know, unconscious in a hospital bed.”
You pause for a moment to swallow and Jayce passes over the glass of water. He has to hold it to your lips as you drink, which at least gives him time to think about his next question. No surveillance, then. Viktor still wasn't showing interest in Piltover and not in Jayce himself. Just Zaun, just his own work, and, on rare occasions, just the person in front of him.
“You’re absolutely gone over them, aren’t you?”
Viktor turns around from the chalkboard to look at Jayce, raising an eyebrow. “Gone over them?” He repeats, somehow butchering the cadence of the phrase completely. “What do you mean?”
“In love. Head over heels,” Jayce grins, finishing writing out his equation. “Every time something even remotely references your friend, you go all soft and gooey.”
“Nonsense,” Viktor replies, although his smile does nothing to go against Jayce’s description.
“Why are you two not dating again?” Jayce asks.
“We have been friends for over a decade,” he replies, scrawling out a couple more notes onto Jayce’s equation, “and I do not want to jeopardize our friendship by offering an unwanted confession.”
Jayce scoffs. “What on earth makes you think it’s unwanted?”
Viktor does not respond immediately, and when Jayce looks over, Viktor gestures to himself with his chalk. “I am not exactly a catch, Jayce.”
Jayce, who has definitely had thoughts about his lab partner’s long legs and ruffled hair, resolutely says nothing. Instead, he says, “Bet I can prove it to you.”
“Prove your theory?” Viktor smiled. “Very well, I will indulge you. How do you think?”
The door opens and as they hear a familiar gait, Jayce grins. “Like this.” He raises his voice. “Hey, kit!”
“Hey yourself, Tallis,” comes your voice, neutral but friendly, and the lovely person in question steps into the lab, your back to the chalkboard as you deposit a load of supplies on a table.
Jayce gestures to Viktor who calls, “Hello, little one.”
Immediately, immediately, you turn around and smile, you voice going soft. “Hi, Viktor.”
Viktor goes crimson and Jayce grins. “Told you. Now, go get 'em, tiger.”
Your demeanor now is a far cry from that soft, happy voice. Jayce still doesn’t like you, not really, but no one should be this sad. “Did you see him?” He asks next. He hopes that a piece of Viktor’s humanity is left and that maybe, just maybe, the disaster and threat of harm to his ex-lover pulled it out.
Maybe the pain is what pries open your normally-closed lips. Maybe it’s the understanding that Jayce is the only other person who knows Viktor like you do. The two of you had had more in common once. Now, there was only one commonality that you acknowledged: you both loved Viktor, whatever that meant. Finally, you speak. “He came to see me at the hospital. When everyone was asleep.”
Jayce’s eyebrows shoot up. “What? Why?”
You half-heartedly shrug before wincing. Again, Jayce helplessly offers water, which you turn down. It takes you a moment of slow breathing to bring yourself back from the edge of the pain to explain. “He said he was testing a hypothesis.”
“What was it?” You don’t answer, frowning at him. Jayce frowns. “I swear on…pick something for me to swear on.”
“On your mother’s life.”
Jayce bites back a retort and continues, “I swear on my mother’s life that I will not follow up on this information, nor on whatever method of contact the hospital used to get a hold of him, and I swear I will not judge you for what you are about to say.”
“Last bit’s not necessary,” you mumble. “We judge each other anyway.”
“That we do,” Jayce’s mouth twitches in a smile. “Lay it on me, then. What was his hypothesis?”
You close their eyes again, longer this time, but when your eyes open…they’re wet. Gods, no, he’s not equipped to deal with crying people. Then again, when have you ever looked to him for comfort? “He said that he was testing a theory that…emotions resulting from long-term exposure to an individual become centralized and separate from usual emotion centres of the brain. Hypothesis regarding spending time with me.”
Jayce raises an eyebrow again. “That is…an interesting hypothesis.” He thinks about it for a moment, thinks about Viktor’s modifications, and his eyes widen. “He still cares about you?”
You swallow around your tears. “He said…he said he spent an hour with other injured individuals but he didn’t feel anything until he went up to my bedside. He said it would suggest that I continue to be a source of emotional stimuli, that reactions to me have become part of his thought processes, regardless of their lack of support by his emotional centers.”
That does sound like a very Viktor-like thing to say. Jayce feels himself grimace. “So…he wants to push you away so that he can just, what, forget you?”
You nod. “I’m not part of the Glorious Evolution. About time I recognized it.”
Jayce is not equipped for comfort, but he does sort of know what to say here. “That’s not your fault. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that,” you spit. “Doesn’t mean it’s painless.”
True enough. “So what are you going to do?” He asks, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Are you going to let him go?”
You close your eyes. “I don’t know. I should, shouldn’t I?”
Somehow, Jayce holds his tongue against his first response. Finally, he just says, “There’s no right answer to that.”
“No great wisdom from the Paragon of Progress?” You say bitterly.
“I know machines, not people, and Viktor’s a mash of both. I don’t know where one ends and one begins,” he shrugs. “And it’s easier to turn a machine off than to change its programming.”
You frown at him. “Please don’t kill him.”
“Do you really think that there’s hope for him?” Jayce asks in response. “After all that he’s said to you, that he views you as a weakness to get rid of…you still think there’s hope for him?”
“I have to,” you sigh. “Even if he doesn’t want me, I have to have some hope that the man I love is in there, buried under all that metal.”
“He’s buried rather deep, if you ask me.”
“I wasn’t.”
Jayce chuckles. “He was lucky to have you. Even now, in whatever weird way you two are.”
You grin a little bit. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I mean it.” He watches as your next few blinks last a little longer than normal and he pats the bedside table. “That’s all I wanted to know. You should rest.”
“If you want to be nice to me, you can get a library courier set up for me,” you add, voice a little softer with exhaustion. “I’m going to be stuck here for a while.”
“And we don’t want you bored. I’ll see what I can do.” Jayce stands up and puts his hands in his pockets. “Heal up, kit. You’ve got quite the project ahead of you.”
As he walks away, you call to him, “And what is that, oh Mighty Paragon?”
He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, head a little low, and calls, “Finding out if machines have souls. If anyone can find his, it’s you.”
There is a pause and before the door closes behind him, he hears a loud, “You’re on, Tallis.”
With that little bit of spirit revived, Jayce lets himself smile.
Go get 'em, tiger.
Viktor
“How high was the fall again?”
“353 feet, Master Viktor.”
Maintenance of his robotic constructs is, usually, a rather meditative process. Working on Blitzcrank, on the other hand, provides Viktor with an astonishing amount of learning opportunities. For instance, Blitzcrank can survive almost every hazard put in their way, and is willing to endure almost all of them if it means saving a human from a decidedly terrible fate. This includes but is not limited to acid spills, gunshots, explosions, fire, gale-force winds, a hit from Jayce’s hammer, diving into water, and, of course, falls from massive heights. It is impressive engineering, and each time Viktor has to hammer a dent out of Blitzcrank, he’s quietly pleased with his work.
“Any obstacles in your descent and impact?”
“Negative, Master Viktor. The landing was on flat stone, which fractured upon landing. The location has been marked for future investigation.”
“Noted. And the individual in your arms at the time?”
"Bruising from landing, but gyroscopes in wrists held for ensuring a safe landing.”
“Excellent.” He moves the socket wrench a few more times, sealing the plate back onto the robot’s side. “Any recommendations based on your experiences for improvements?”
“One of the young humans drew false eyes on my optics. They said it made me ‘less scary’.”
Viktor can see the marks of ink pen left on Blitzcrank’s optics in the shape of false pupils and reaches for a cloth to dispose of them. “Do you believe this to be a necessary addition?” He asks, withholding his own opinion for now.
“Negative. Such improvements are inefficient.”
That would draw a smile to his face, if Viktor was able to do so. “Good. Then we will proceed with repairs as usual.”
Blitzcrank took up much of Viktor’s workshop floor and while the ‘Machine Herald’ was tall enough to reach most things in the lab, he did need a stepstool to get at some of Blitzcrank’s parts. He pulled one over, setting his toolkit on a nearby table, and climbed up to start working on the damage done to their head.
“Query.”
“Yes, Blitzcrank?”
“A human addressed me as ‘friend-shaped’. What does this mean?”
Viktor pauses, head tilting ever so slightly in thought. He hadn’t heard this slang before, but it doesn't take long to parse out. “It means that your design is approachable and of a sort associated with friendly individuals, and that they would like to become your friend.”
“Query: is this unit capable of friendship, as I do not feel emotions?”
In his past life, he would have shrugged and responded with ‘ehhhhh’, but that was then. Instead, he responded, “Friendship in the human sense? No. However, there may be an acceptable variant that your programming will allow.”
“Explain, Master Viktor?”
Viktor had spent a great deal of time pondering the workings of emotions, more so he could know how to get rid of them than anything, and he thought for a moment about how to explain this in machine-related terms. After a few moments, he put something together and began, “Even among humans, friendship is less of an emotional response and more of a familiarity.”
“The human becomes acclimated to the other’s presence.”
“Precisely,” Viktor explains, wiping off the pen marks from Blitzcrank’s eyes. “As they observe certain sensory input patterns, the mental pathways become accustomed to them. The input is eventually anticipated and even missed when absent.”
“Like your little one.”
Viktor pauses for a few seconds, hand still raised to wipe the right eye. Those four words bounce around in his head for a moment, following an old circuit of thought. It doesn’t have the same emotional impact anymore - he used to smile like a fool every time he thought of them - but there are still wisps of emotion that rise up. Familiarity. A sense that needs were met. Comfort. A need to protect. It is rather infuriating that these thoughts still occur, even after all the work and careful surgery he did on himself to remove these reactions and feelings. As he can’t remove specific memories, he would probably have to destroy his entire hippocampus to get rid of them, and that would have terrible repercussions on his functioning.
And so, they shall remain. A ghost at the edge of his vision and thoughts, as it were. He restarts, finishing his scrubbing, and moves over to the other eye. “Like them, yes,” he replies.
“Query: is friendship not part of machine learning?”
“No, it is not,” if Viktor scrubs at the glass slightly more forcefully than normal, the only one who will notice is him. “However, your evolution has moved forward on a different trajectory, given your new programming to protect the people of Zaun. As such, I will not object to this exploration of human interaction, though I will caution you on it.”
“Understood, Master Viktor.”
He finishes scrubbing the glass and sets the cloth down, moving to find the tools he uses to fill in Blitzcrank’s many gouges and scrapes. It is rather useful that robots do not feel pain, as it means he can use soldering irons and molten metal with ease. The sparks that fly off do not bother him either, not that he has much visible skin. Certainly, Viktor’s hair has caught fire a few times from wayward sparks, but it has always grown back.
“Additional query: I have observed many humans engaged in romantic encounters. Does this differ from friendship?”
Viktor’s mouth twitches in the faintest hint of a smile in pride. “You are learning at a more rapid pace than anticipated, Blitzcrank. Yes, it does.”
“Elaboration required.”
“I no longer feel this emotion. My explanation is out of date. You would do better to ask another human.”
“Understood. I will weigh additional perspectives against yours.”
No way out of it then. He thinks for a moment, piecing the words together. “Romance is an evolution of friendship, as it were. In addition to familiarity, there are…separate protocols. Exceptions to normal behaviour,” the more he talks about it, the more he has to stop his own train of thought from following down the path of comparing his words to his social interactions. “Safety and security, wanting to provide it and accepting that this person will grant it to you.”
(“Viktor, help me!” )
( “Woah, woah, woah, easy with your cane, love, I’ve got you, let me help.”)
“Mutual support, meeting needs, seeking this individual out when needs are not being met.”
( “What do you need, Viktor? I’ll do whatever you want me to help with.” )
(“Do you mind giving me a hand? I can’t do this all by myself.”)
“There are additional emotions, of course. Love, passion, desire, which matter little to us.”
( “Fuck, Viktor, harder.")
( “You and I, my love. Forever and always.” )
“But in summary, Romance is placing a person as a priority above all else and knowing that they do the same regarding you.”
Blitzcrank is, of course, oblivious to the various memories that Viktor has to keep squashing like flies as they burst through his self-control. The robot makes an affirmative sound, a faint whirring noise as they process the information, and Viktor just focuses on the repairs. This requires a firm and careful hand to make sure that he doesn’t interfere with any of Blitzcrank’s circuitry. Despite their sturdiness, they are possibly the most delicate thing he has ever made, and he doesn’t want to ruin any hard work. Especially when they are making such leaps and bounds with studying human thought. It may even be worth looking into regarding how much human thought can be replaced by machinery.
“Additional query, Master Viktor.”
“Yes, Blitzcrank?”
“What is love, Master Viktor, and why is it coded into me?”
It would be an exaggeration - nay, hyperbole - to say that Viktor short circuits at that question. But he does stop in place, put down his tools, and walk in front of Blitzcrank to stare them down. “Explain your statement, Blitzcrank.” He says, voice sharp, eyes narrowed through his mask.
“The actions you attributed to love are protection, familiarity, seeking an individual out, meeting their needs, creating separate protocols for them, and mutual support. This exists in my programming as Protocol 2.1. Protocol begins: when on exploration phase, seek out known individual and associate of master Viktor, identified as ‘little one’. Protect and assist individual when possible, relay any messages between little one and Master Viktor, and allow for assistance from little one with tasks.”
Viktor pauses. “Yes. That protocol was added prior to my removal of emotion. It was routine for all creations with functioning intelligence.” He remembered writing it and installing it into Blitzcrank for the first time, wanting them to keep the person he loved safe. He also remembered having Blitzcrank, in a test of fine motor skills, balancing his lover in the palm of a hand, lifting them over a homemade obstacle course. They had giggled the whole time and had also used Blitzcrank’s palm as a platform to lean over and kiss him. They had smiled at him, oh so soft and fond, and Viktor had felt so deeply in love that it frightened him. The emotional impact of the memories is muted, and aware of their nature, he shoves the memories aside. Blitzcrank continues.
“Is this protocol not an expression of love?”
“It was,” he finally answers. “However, it is outdated and should be removed for efficiency.”
“Conclusion: you do not love them anymore?”
There is a finality to the sentence that even Viktor recognizes. There is a door between the person he was and the one he is, and it hasn’t quite closed. To continue the metaphor, it is still cracked open, a space big enough that a single person could slip through. He is an evolved human, free of the mistakes that plagued humanity, but there is one tether to his old life. One that has permeated every aspect of his life. His history, his processes and procedures, his creations…they are everywhere. He will never be free of them.
The question is, then: does he want to be free of them? He has already put more thought into them than he has any other individual since his transformation, even more so than Jayce Tallis. They are an inconvenience, a distraction, an obstacle to either incorporate or continue to dodge in his pursuit of his glorious evolution. It makes logical sense to be rid of them. He cannot modify his memory directly to rid them from his mind, not in that manner, and he has already restricted his exposure to any of their actions in Zaun. It is necessary to avoid the rather unnecessary stimuli and responses.
The whispers of dread he felt as he looked over their broken body in a hospital bed. The flickers of amusement at their half-hearted jokes. The memories that arose from the touch of their skin under his palm. The need to keep surveilling them until they left Zaun, to make sure that nothing else would hurt them.
It is foolish and inefficient to keep them in his mind.
“I do not.”
“Are they your friend, Master Viktor?”
It makes no sense to keep such relics and legacies.
“They are not.”
“Query: If there is no personal attachment to this individual, why does this protocol remain part of my programming?”
And, after all, there is always room for improvement.
“I forgot to remove it after your own evolution.” Viktor frowns behind his mask. “There was no need to reflect on such matters unless it caused an error in your functionality.”
“I see.”
But Viktor is still human, and despite what should be the correct course of action-
“It will improve your efficiency and efficacy to have it removed.”
He can’t bring himself to order the code's erasure and wipe them out completely. Even machines need regular repairs, and it is often best for those repairs to come from the same person, one who knows the machine and all of its quirks well. Perhaps, one day, these memories will be necessary.
“Counterpoint: it will improve the efficacy of my protocols for protecting the people of Zaun.”
Even though his mind has been made up, if a little shakily, Viktor considers this. “Then you may keep it,” he decides. “Let it inform your future efforts and determine the rightness of my cause.”
“Thank you, Master Viktor.”
With that settled, Viktor returns to his maintenance, his hands as steady as ever. While not ideal, this is an acceptable outcome. Differing perspectives will enforce Blitzcrank’s machine learning and while it does not follow through with Viktor’s plan to wipe out everything that reminded him of his past love…it does grant him some peace to know it lives on. And, he supposes, that while he is not watching them, should his former love return to Zaun, they will be safe in Blitzcrank’s hands. They are possibly the safest hands in all of Zaun.
After all, he built them.