Work Text:
Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake- otherwise it just walks on in your door.
Her powercore exploded.
Those are the words that keep resonating in The Spine’s mind, long after the humans have left them to process the damage.
The rescue mission that Two, Three, and Guy Hottie embarked on had ended in tragedy. Vaporized, Three tells them. Without suffering, Three assures them. Why he thinks that matters, The Spine isn’t sure. Maybe it’s to reassure himself more than anything else. Humans are funny like that.
Her powercore exploded. The humans aren’t sure how to fix it. Rather, they aren’t sure how to build a new one. Colonel Peter A. Walter I took many secrets with him to the grave. Among them, how to construct a blue matter powercore. Perhaps he didn’t want the information getting into the wrong hands. Perhaps he didn’t think that far ahead. Whatever the case, they have little knowledge and no blueprints. None of them are eager to attempt their own reverse engineering. The Spine couldn’t blame them. Part of him does anyway, irrational as he knows it is.
Her powercore exploded, but miraculously her processor was unscathed. Her plating is heavily damaged around where her core should be, many of her internal mechanisms are shot, but her processor is unscathed and that is the important part, that is what he focuses on.
No one knows how to fix her. They try. They fail. Hair turns blue and skin turns white faster than normal. Mark Ray Walter takes up the mantle, encourages Three to take things easy after the explosion.
In June, a government official comes to speak to Three. They talk. They bargain. Three begs. The official insists. The Spine, The Jon, and Upgrade are enlisted in the Korean War. The official remarks that they’d prefer four robots, like they had in the World Wars. Three remarks that the Walter Family would prefer to have four robots as well.
When the robots arrive in Korea, Upgrade is stationed in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. The Spine fights tooth and nail for The Jon and himself to be kept in the same squad. Despite the army’s original intention to spread out their robot resources, they relent. The Spine and The Jon will remain together over the course of their deployment. The Spine will not lose another sibling. Not if he can help it.
Back at home, Mark Ray Walter works tirelessly on attempts to build a new powercore.
Mark Ray Walter dies in a car accident the next year. Three takes over his work on the construction of a new powercore. Wanda Walter has lost her father, she has lost her husband, she has now lost her brother, and Rabbit is stuck in limbo. Her nephew is taken to an orphanage, the robots are off fighting another war, and Rabbit is stuck in limbo.
Wanda Walter begs her little brother to stay safe and out of trouble. Four promises her. Four lies to her.
In Korea, the robots try to deal with the hand they’ve been dealt.
Upgrade focuses her energy on her patients. She mends and heals and learns about families and girlfriends and friends back home. She fights to save every man who comes into her unit, and she mourns those that they lose. The loss cuts deeper than usual, knowing what is happening at home. There is an odd comfort, too, knowing that the families of her patients will not be stuck in that same limbo as her own, wondering whether their loved one will ever be home safe and alive again.
The Jon is ever the optimist. Although he worries for Rabbit, he knows that Rabbit will be alright. Although doubt tries to creep in, he knows that Rabbit will be alright. He isn’t sure how he knows this, how he is so certain, but he does and he is. He can feel it in his core, and the notion is as real and solid as the rabbit’s foot hanging around his neck.
The Spine tries not to feel. He puts up walls, puts all of his processing power into keeping The Jon and their squad alive. If he throws himself into keeping watch and performing maintenance, then he can avoid thinking about how his sister is stuck between life and death while he and Jon and Upgrade are across the Pacific fighting another war they want no part in.
This is not the first time The Spine has tried to avoid feeling. The Jon worries it won’t be the last. He has seen him like this before, has been told that Rabbit has seen him like this too, and he knows it’s a worrying trend. He tries to get Spine to open up, to talk about Rabbit, but every time Jon broaches the topic, his brother is quick to hush and reassure him. The redirection is frustrating. It is not deterring.
Peter A. Walter III, assisted by Four and several Walter Workers, makes a breakthrough. The progress is swift and the pace is manic, and in 1952 the Walter family produces a brand new blue matter core. It is the first constructed since 1896. It is different from the originals, they have not unlocked the Colonel’s secrets, but they have managed to create something compatible with the automaton’s archaic mechanisms. There is concern that the new powercore will return to them a different Rabbit than they once knew. There is also an understanding that they would all rather have that than nothing.
Final diagnostics are performed. Her internal mechanisms have been repaired and replaced since the explosion. New copper plating has been welded into place where her chassis were damaged and warped. Everything seems to be in working order. The only thing left is to see just how good of a core they’ve built.
Four and Wanda crowd the workbench as Three fits the core into its housing and accesses Rabbit’s maintenance panel. There is only a brief moment of hesitation before Three initiates startup. Bellows roar to life, and a sorely missed stuttering voice fills the room.
The news makes it to Korea swiftly.
The MASH unit is filled with an unshakeable air of positivity the day that Upgrade hears word. Her patients and fellow doctors and nurses celebrate the news with her. However brief this moment of cheer turns out to be, they will gladly accept the solace good news brings in these times.
The news breaks down The Spine’s walls. Grief, worry, fear, relief, joy, everything hits him at once as he finally allows himself to feel everything he’s been trying to hold back. He sobs, The Jon takes him in his arms and sobs as well. The Jon knew, had a feeling the news was coming, but to actually hear the words, to actually be told that his sister is alive once more, that is something entirely different.
Their final year in Korea lasts an eternity. War, as always, is hard. The robots witness more and more loss of life, The Jon and The Spine receive their own share of injury, and none of them want to be in Korea for a second longer. They just want to go home, they just want all of these men to be able to go home. Be safe. Be with family. They want to see Rabbit again, desperately. The Walters anticipate this, send pictures along with letters. They all know it isn’t the same.
In 1953, they receive word that North and South Korea have signed an armistice. Finally, finally the robots are shipped home from combat. Their journey back to the states feels like it lasts longer than that final year.
Eventually, the robots arrive in San Diego. They waste no time. There is an urgency shared between them. They hurry to Walter Manor, rush toward the front door. As if the person they’re so eager, so desperate to see will be gone again if they aren’t fast enough.
And there’s Rabbit. Standing with open arms, ready to be hugged with enough force to bring all of them toppling to the ground.
And she is. The robots are all piled together, crying, holding each other, clinging to their sister as if she’ll be taken any moment. She holds them, soothes them, and she promises them that they will never be separated like that again.