Work Text:
When WX-78 looked at Wilson, an unidentifiable feeling seemed to invade their code, and they hated it. If there was anything they hated, it was when they didn’t understand a feeling they had. Usually, they could figure out what it was they felt: when they were at the base with all of the other survivors, they felt safe. When they were awaking from rest uninterrupted by the shadow monsters, they felt recharged. And when they were severely damaged and Winona fixed them up and polished them, they felt grateful.
But when Wilson left them butter muffins in their tent before they woke up, or when he would ramble on and on about the new things he’d discovered that day, or when he would smile at them, it felt like they were malfunctioning, their gears turning way too fast in their chest for their fans to cool down. They knew they weren’t malfunctioning though- they ran diagnostic check after diagnostic check, asked Winona to check their chassis, and even poked around themselves to see what was wrong— so what the fuck was wrong with them?
They’d decided the feeling must be hatred. How could it not be? Clearly, they hated Wilson so much that just thinking about him got them riled up. But when Wilson’s experiments quite literally blew up in his face, it seemed harder to just laugh at him. And when he slept poorly from night terrors, they risked getting damaged stealing tallbird eggs to make him bacon and eggs, slipping it into his tent when he finally fell asleep at dawn. Even when he returned from a hunt with the others all torn up, WX-78 felt an actual pang of sadness— and that couldn’t be something you think about somebody you hate. WX-78 had felt hate before, and it didn’t feel like what he felt towards Wilson. Hate didn’t make you want to protect somebody, listen to their rambling even if you didn’t get some of it, or risk your life for them.
Surely it meant WX-78 just tolerated Wilson more than others. That would explain the thoughts of wanting to mash their faceplate against his face (they still didn’t really get the whole kissing thing, but the idea made them weirdly giddy) or wishing they could sleep beside him in his tent and wake beside him. They convinced themselves that it was merely being very tolerant of him as they started to spend more and more time around him, and began to think of him more when they went on hunts without him, trying to grab little trinkets and treats for him as they returned. Sure, seeing him happy every time they brought something back for him made them feel like their empathy module was going to blow up, but that was just how really good friends thought about each other, even if they didn’t feel that way about their best friend Winona.
Even as they grew closer, some kind of.. itch? was steadfast in WX-78. Like they wanted to be closer to Wilson than they already were. They didn’t want anybody else to be on the same level of close-ness to Wilson that they were. When they expressed this to Winona, she’d asked if they wanted to date him. They hadn’t actually considered that a real option.. could they just do that? They knew that Wilson and Maxwell had previously been ‘dating’, and now couldn’t stand each other— was that how dating usually ended up? The thought made WX sick like they couldn’t tolerate the idea of Wilson disliking them. They decided the only viable option was to keep this feeling to themselves as long as they could– a life without Wilson's rambling seemed to be a life devastatingly difficult to live.