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Sometimes Nick wished he wasn’t so good at putting the pieces together.
He didn’t have to be the world’s greatest detective to see that it bothered her, the state he was in. Hell, he couldn’t even blame her-- the dame was crazy for looking twice at him to begin with. She said she loved him, though, and he believed her. It wasn’t his pretty face keeping her in his office, in his bed, in his life, so it had to be something.
Hell if he was going to believe she loved his wreck of a body, though. Not when she looked so sad sometimes, turning his stripped hand over to trace its skeletal fingers with her own. Not when he could feel her hesitate when she reached for his skin and brushed a loose cable instead, when she couldn’t help but remember that what she was touching was nothing human. She was bright and open and accepting like nothing ought to be out here, but even she couldn’t be expected to love a broken machine.
She couldn’t pretend the comments didn’t bother her, either; that it wasn’t shame in her eyes when MacCready had looked him up and down and snidely remarked that, for Nora’s sake, he hoped Nick was packing more than the synths they’d taken out at University Point were (“worry about what’s in your own holster, kid. Maybe you’ll even get a chance to use it someday,” he’d shot back, and it wasn’t worthy of him, but Nora had coughed and covered her mouth to hide her laughter). He’d seen how her cheeks had gone pink and the corners of her mouth had turned down when Deacon and Cait had gotten drunk and started debating, with far more creative euphemisms and references to “Rocket 69” than were entirely necessary, the logistics of his and Nora’s relationship (he’d had to threaten to cuff them both to shut them up).
The nights were easier. With his lips against the back of her neck and her hips lifting eagerly into his touch, he’d never felt more human. When she came apart, muscles spasming around his fingers and his name on her lips-- it was the sort of thing that gave a man purpose in life, and nearly made him feel like enough of a man to have it. But sometimes when she looked into his eyes and bit her lip and whispered fuck me, Nick, the tiny part of him that wasn’t hopelessly distracted by arousal couldn’t help but think of what he couldn’t give her, and keep thinking of it long after she fell asleep.
She deserved everything, more than he could give. He was a hopeless old sap, but it was true. And Nick wasn’t a jealous man, not really, but sometimes when Deacon did something ridiculous to make Nora laugh, or when Preston leaned close and put a hand on her shoulder as they discussed problems at a settlement, he saw not friends and not colleagues but men, men who had so much more to offer than he did.
It was a lot of little things that added up to one big damn problem, and the problem was him. Everything he wasn’t, everything he lacked. Even when she smiled at him, damn near beaming in the afterglow, something caught in his chest and he couldn’t stop looking for the slightest wrinkle in her forehead, the barely perceptible narrowing of her eyes, any sign of the disappointment she had to feel. And the worst of it was, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Unless there was.
--
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.” Amari regarded him over her steepled fingers, leaning back in her chair.
Well, it never is, is it. Nick bit back a sigh and forced himself to listen patiently.
“Curie was a… special case. Even with her advanced AI, as a Mr. Handy her cognition was limited. Her personality, so to speak, has room to grow into the complexity of a generation 3 synthetic mind.” The doctor tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at Nick. “You, Mr. Valentine, are a very different animal. A near-perfect copy of a human personality in a generation 2 system, with years of your own experiences and development on top of that. There’s no way we could promise a transfer with complete data integrity.”
“Say that again in English?” Nick grumbled. He understood what she’d said perfectly, actually, but damn it, he was too stubborn for this, coming here hat in hand and head bowed to ask a scientist to make a man out of him, so to speak. He wasn’t going to make it easy.
Amari sighed, irritated. “If I put you in a new body, there’s no guarantee you’d be you at the end of the process. Nick Valentine could be erased. You’d be a blank slate, like fresh off the Institute assembly line.”
Nick was quiet for a long time. “What are the odds, doctor?” he said softly, at last.
She stared at him like he had entirely lost his mind. “Pardon me?”
He pulled in a deep breath-- unnecessary, but it calmed him. “If I did it. What are the odds Valentine’s-- my personality would make it through?”
Amari threw up her hands. “Mr. Valentine, I am not running a casino here, so if you’re looking to play the numbers--”
“Doctor. Humor me. Please.”
She must have seen something in his face, in the flickering of his optics, because she sighed and folded her hands in her lap, considering. “It’s unprecedented. I can’t tell you this with any certainty, but based on the success rates of our memory-wiping procedures and our experiments with backups…” She shrugged. “My roughest guess would be a 33% chance of total memory loss. But even if you come through, there’s no guarantee that there wouldn’t be complications. Anything from partial memory loss to permanent brain damage. And I don’t like being made to guess, Mr. Valentine.” She eyed him, frowning. “I would urge extreme caution in proceeding with this line of inquiry.”
“Thank you, Dr. Amari.” He got up to leave.
“And I do hope you’ve discussed this with your partner,” she said to his back.
“Goodbye, Dr. Amari.” The door to the Memory Den swung shut behind him with a very final thunk.
33 percent, he thought. Nick had never been a gambling man.
Then again, he’d never been a man to shy away from what needed to be done, either.
--
Nora wasn’t happy. As clues went, a file folder smacking him in the side of the head wasn’t the most subtle he’d seen in his career.
He picked up one of the sheets that had come flying out of the folder. Notes in neat handwriting. Gen 2 → Gen 3 upgrade-- feasible? Dangerous. Client seems unaware of extent of risk.
Nick sighed deeply and set the paper down, looking into her seething face. “Nora, I--”
“No,” she bit off, sharply. “You’re not smooth-talking your way out of this one, Valentine. What were you thinking.” It wasn’t a question.
He looked down at his lap, stared at his mismatched hands, and said nothing. There was nothing he needed to tell her. She knew. She must know.
“Maybe you thought it was none of my business. Maybe you thought you could just make this decision without me. Maybe none of this meant anything to you--” She balled her hands into fists, one of the papers crumpling in her hand. “But damn it, Nick, at the very least, think of yourself! Think of all the people in Diamond City who need you--”
He looked up, slowly, into the storm of emotion in her eyes. “Nora,” he said, very softly. “Doll. It was for you.”
She went very quiet, like the silence before a bomb goes off. Her hands were clenched in front of her, knuckles white. “For me,” she said, dangerously calm.
Nick’s shoulders sagged helplessly. “You gonna spend your life waking up next to a broken-down, obsolete machine? You really want this mug to be the last thing you see? You deserve so much that this body can’t give you and--”
She grabbed his shoulders and kissed him then, a hard, angry, bruising kiss that sent confusing messages of pain and pleasure to his processor. When she released him, he half-expected her to follow it up with a slap. “What I deserve,” she hissed, “is a man who doesn’t go behind my back and try to get himself killed--”
“To be better,” he blurted. “To be enough for you. It might be worth it, for that.”
Rage and worry were at war on Nora’s face. She breathed in short, sharp huffs, her lips pressed together tightly. “You think--” she said finally, not finishing the sentence, not needing to.
“How could I not?” he said, holding up his hands, holding the skeletal one right in front of her face.
Nora didn’t look away. She carefully took that hand between hers, pulled it to her lips, and whispered against it. “What have I done to make you think you’re not enough?” The pain in her voice made his motors shudder to a stop for an instant.
It was at that moment that Nick Valentine began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t as good at putting the pieces together as he thought.
He let his fingers flex slightly to brush her lips. “You look so sad sometimes. About this, about my… battle scars.”
“Because I’m worried.” She closed her eyes. “What happened to you. What could happen. I don’t like to think of it.”
“You don’t like it when the others give you lip about us.” It sounded weak, even as he said it.
Nora lifted an eyebrow. “Does any woman? But MacCready can take his overcompensation and stuff it somewhere cold and irradiated if he thinks it’s gonna stop me, Nick.”
Moving closer, he slipped an arm around her waist. “Nora,” he said, and his voice thickened like there was a lump in his throat, though he knew it was only psychosomatic. “Even if all that’s true, I can’t give you what you need.”
“What are you talking about--”
He couldn’t meet her eyes. “Oh, hell. Don’t make me say it.”
“You’re damn right I’m going to make you say it--” She stiffened in his arms, anger rising to the surface again.
“I can’t fuck you, all right?” His cheeks would be hot, if they could be. “As much as I want to, I can’t and I won’t ever be able to and why are you laughing?”
She let out a bark of near-hysterical laughter. “For God’s sake, Nick, is that what this is about?”
“Well, the hilarity really helps a guy’s ego, let me tell you,” he snapped.
“It’s a turn of phrase, Nick.” She shook her head, exasperated. “For someone so smart, you sure can be an idiot.”
“Thanks a bunch, doll.” Angry, embarrassed, he tried to push her away but she pulled him in, kissed him again, slower and sweeter this time. When she was sure he wouldn’t pull away, she moved her hands to his, guided them to her hips and pressed them into her skin, hard. Even the metal one.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered again, and hell if she didn’t make it sound like a come-on.
He rested his forehead against hers. “Guess I am,” he said wryly.
“No more talks with Dr. Amari,” she said firmly.
“Don’t have to twist my arm.” He made a face. “That woman has no bedside manner.”
“I’m serious, Nick. I think about you… being gone, not being you anymore, and…” She shuddered in his arms, and he rubbed her back in slow, gentle circles.
“Shhh, baby. I’m not going anywhere.” He meant it. She leaned back and smiled at him, eyes wet, and for the first time he didn’t look for any signs of strain on her face-- he just kissed her again.
The pieces fell together at last.