Work Text:
Oh, God, I need a vacation. Even just a week , and I would be—
A loud crash, a symphony of shattered Erlenmeyers and beakers clinking sharply onto the laboratory’s expensive sealed concrete floor.
Make that two weeks.
“Nononowait—” a voice squeaks as a round bottom flask rolls its way off the edge of a workbench, falling to pieces amongst its many brethren, followed by a dull, bubbling hiss. BUDD-3 winces internally. Oh, that’s just great , now he’ll have to repair the sealant and the hole in the concrete.
Make that two weeks, paid.
“Please, allow me to clean that up for you, sir,” his voice modulators simulate the kind of tight smile that often, in humans, accompanies the barely contained annoyance he feels at the moment. He floats down, screen emoting in pixels of concealed resentment.
Sure, he would certainly hate to see his young master cut by a stray piece of glass, or to burn himself with one of the many volatile corrosives he seems so set on concocting. But that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy sweeping up every little shard, or flipping the master control switch to safely ground a hastily-launched homebrew missile (made against his insistence otherwise, for the record) just in time, or installing the update file on every helper bot because— no matter how many times BUDD-3 sets reminders in the young master’s devices— their software goes outdated.
As he tidies up, the lab is unusually silent, the delicate tinkling of broken glass sounding out louder than they should in the cluttered space. Without turning around, he knows his young master is pouting, and at the edge of his vision he sees gloved hands twisting together and heavy non-slip boots scuffing each other in worry. He sighs, not in worry or out of any malice, but with the exasperation a parent might. Swiftly, dutifully, the mess is dealt with, and BUDD-3 turns to face his creator, hovering low at eye level.
Benjamin looks sheepish, biting his lip and avoiding his assistant’s screen as if being scolded. Up close, BUDD-3 can see dark bags under the child’s eyes, the haggard look of a PhD candidate days deep in thesis research. He tilts his screen, about to inquire, when something in his systems flags as being amiss.
A dull hiss registers in BUDD-3’s auditory sensors once again, quieter than before, and he realizes with a start he never neutralized the acid. Expecting to find a crater in the concrete, he jumps back when he instead is met with a gaping hole in the floor, dripping reconstituted cement mix and oozing with a sickeningly yellow-green liquid onto the sub-basement below. Thoughts of damaged equipment in storage are pushed immediately to the backlog— Benjie’s never made a corrosive this strong before!
“Young master, look what you did!” He makes every effort to impart excitement and approval into his synthesizers, forming an ecstatic expression with each LED. “Why, with this breakthrough, you can do so much more!”
BUDD-3 turns back to face Benjamin, just in time to catch the young boy nodding off on his feet, lanky body swaying in place. He sighs once more, purely out of fondness, and effortlessly scoops up the lad and carries him to his quarters.
Even BUDD-3 hadn’t noticed the time; a bright green alarm clock blares through the darkness of the manor, brightly projecting 2:04 AM as he sneaks past the master bedroom where Benjie’s parents sleep. Gently, he lays Benjamin on his bed, pulling the dark blue star-studded comforter over him. It must take a lot out of a young boy to be a genius, because he’s out like a light, pulling the comforter tight around his shoulders. Perhaps they could both use a vacation.
But with so much science to do, who needs time off?