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There were a few seconds between dematerialising on the battlefield and reaching the first place that the TV titan had in mind, and he was going to use all of them to calculate how not to make this awkward.
Obviously the only place to deliver the wounded titan speakerman was to a speakerman base with a titan hangar… but getting them both in there would be a challenge. They’d need to be fully functional and prepared to play equipment tetris to get out of the rift and into a hangar designed for the smallest titan, but just booting the poor thing out felt wrong. It was bloody awkward, but awkward was good. Life was awkward.
Titan TV knew where the base was, where the hangar was, and the layout. Beyond that, he was guessing. There could be vehicles, striders, mobile platforms, personnel. He hoped the matter displacement effect of teleportation would work as well for solid objects as it did for loose ones like soil, dust, and smaller particles. Without much chance of a dignified entry, the only option was to pull in the speaker titan’s limbs and hold them tightly. It was almost tolerated, he struggled weakly but only for a moment.
Titan TV felt solid ground under his knees, and his proximity scan notified him that there were objects immediately to the left and right behind him - not touching his subscreens or back blades, and not clipped into by matter displacement. So far, so good. He carefully lowered Titan Speaker to the floor.
The smaller titan immediately grabbed for something to hold, struggling again and more vigorously as if he’d been momentarily stunned in to stillness back there. Finding the seam between Titan TV’s chest plating and shoulder joint, he was just able hang on to it with his fingertips. Even through the protective materials of the TVman’s coat and bodysuit, it was an unexpectedly tight grip that dug into the mesh between the plates. His other hand clawed without finding purchase, and his broken leg ended up wedged against Titan TV’s hip.
For a horrible moment, Titan TV could feel the remains of moving parts twitching. He pressed Titan Speaker into the ground until the struggling stopped. The speakerman’s sightless sensors aimed up, looking for all the world like eyes staring into nothing and perceiving what was going on unseen, the frantic activity, hisses and groans of overheated metal inside Titan TV’s body. They were both mentally still back there, on the battlefield they’d physically left.
“You’ll be okay,” Titan TV told him. There were various measures of okay, and alive and home was the one they’d both have to be satisfied with.
Digging his fingers in again, Titan Speaker quickly shook his head.
Titan TV carefully turned a subscreen to see if there was anything weird behind him to explain the reaction, maybe he had disintegrated some surroundings. No, just an intact gantry on that side, occupied by a small speakerman in a skirt, who’d frozen in shock clutching a tablet computer. He redirected his voice to his subscreen, keeping the audio soft to avoid scaring them further. “Get everyone. Medics, engineers… and anyone who’s special to him.” The small speakerman nodded, and dashed off.
Turning back to Titan Speaker, he kept talking, narrating his plans to make sure nothing was unpredictable. “I need to duck under the gantry to turn sideways and get out without taking you with me.” Equipment tetris after all. “The camera titan isn’t enough of an idiot to switch off location tracking.”
They both knew that the camera titan was exactly that much of an idiot. Where he was going, neither of them could follow, and Titan Speaker’s terror looked like how Titan TV felt. He grabbed the TVman’s hands, holding them in place on either side of his torso and patting them.
“What? I don’t…” Titan TV began, lifting his hands off the smaller titan’s body in case any touch hurt.
The speakerman made a short staticky bark and pulled the hands back to either side of his thorax, moulding the fingers around his rib plating and waist. Even through his overdress, his smooth and softly rounded sides were hot from exertion, and vibrating with the speed of his fans. Despite the fierce spinning, the sound was quiet and even - how his body sounded had been as important a design consideration as how he looked.
“I still don’t… oh.” Titan TV got it. He’d had seen the others do this before, Titan Cameraman had lifted and squeezed his smaller friend before in a playful way of sharing sensations and trust. Titan TV would have wanted to try it, but in a situation like this, the fun of rough play with an eager companion was missing - this was practical, the speakerman wanted to override painful damage signals with a predictable sensory input. Titan TV didn’t ask further, just very gently squeezed.
Titan Speaker made a trembling hum and pushed into the pressure. He released Titan TV’s hands, and signed ‘more’ and ‘harder’.
“Sure?” He felt guilty for doing more or less exactly the same thing earlier, but with far less care. It had been necessary but… maybe he could have tried talking as well.
Titan Speaker stroked the back of one of the bigger titan’s hands, then grasped the thumb to make a tiny position adjustment, to demonstrate that he knew exactly where and how he needed to be touched. His fingers were shaking, and the effort of coordinating his wounded body was causing tremors and grinds that vibrated through his light armour. The sounds of a crew gathering in the hangar didn’t seem to be a reassurance.
“Keep communicating,” Titan TV asked, and applied a little more pressure. Titan Speaker arched his back to press into the TVman’s palms, signing ‘more, more’ again. With the lightest of creaks, the edges of Titan Speaker’s flexible armour slid over each other where they overlapped at his sides.
They were supposed to do that, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t unnerving to feel. Titan TV didn’t have many points where his plating overlapped. Where he needed more flexibility, the solution had been a slim strip of expandable mesh in the seams between rigid panels, stretching when he moved to reveal the glow of fluid flows and blinking components underneath.
Titan Speaker felt so fragile in comparison, but the flexibility of his armour was a different kind of strength. He made frustrated little grumbles at Titan TV’s hesitancy, squirming until the level of pressure was finally just right. Then, going quiet, he raised his arms over his head and stretched comfortably. The whisper vibration of his fans was fading.
“You sound better,” Titan TV remarked. He’d have said look, but it felt important to demonstrate understanding. The speakerman responded with a purry trill, and something in his body seemed to loosen more, letting his side panels slide over each other even further. Titan TV stroked the speaker titan’s flanks, along the deeper-set panel that ran from his waist to under his arm, and said, “Now you’ll be okay. I should go.”
Titan Speaker’s central light brightened - Titan TV hadn’t noticed how much it had dimmed. This time, he kept the TVman in place by reaching up to grab the lapels of his coat and give him a gentle, if irritated, shake. Attention gained, Titan Speaker quickly signed ‘not okay’, and played a strange hissing, grinding noise.
It felt painful in its inexplicable familiarity and, with some embarrassment, Titan TV realised what it was. An amplification of what he sounded like, all the tension and heat seeping out of the gaps in his exoskeleton. “I’m fine,” he insisted. He knew it was pointless to try to hunt Titan Camera, but it felt more pointless not to be out there doing something.
The sound of himself got worse.
Titan Speaker crept his hand up to pet Titan TV’s shoulder. He was softly glowing, generating a low hum under the noises he was reflecting back at the TVman. Cheeky as all hell, but he’d get away with it and get a few more minutes of badly needed distraction. Titan TV had never lost a member of his own faction, never known true fear, damage only acted as a catalyst for an upgrade that was already going to happen. In comparison, Titan Speaker had lost friends, family, even identity.
Even someone from the notoriously emotionally constipated TV faction could understand that and get over the discomfort of vulnerability. Titan TV leaving to search and becoming increasingly frustrated by the inevitable lack of success wouldn’t help anyone, far from it, it would mean he would expend energy and mental wellbeing that would surely be needed soon for other tasks.
The most sensible thing was to conserve resources, and make sure that the titan speakerman was calm and ready for extensive repairs that would need to be completed in short order. It would be the most work he’d have to have done since returning to the Alliance, and the trauma of his forced upgrade under toilet control would make it more difficult.
So, Titan TV turned attention inward and redirected power from his limbs and weapons to systems regulation and heat distribution.
Titan Speaker nodded. He’d heard that. And Titan TV could hear it too, through him, the amplified sounds were quieting by increments, blending into the speakerman’s purr. Titan Speaker had been pressing his fingertips against the edge of the pauldron that cupped the bigger titan’s shoulder joint to feel the warmth rising between the plates, and turned his hand palm-up to touch the underside of Titan TV’s screen, just once to seek permission. Titan TV lowered his head within range.
Cooing approval, Titan Speaker reached up to stroke the back of the TVman’s head. Feeling for delicate moving parts, he found the point where the expansion panels of the screen emerged from the casing they slid from, and pressed along the overlap, rewarding compliance by offering something like the touch he’d enjoyed. That was a new sensation, and a relaxing one, helping Titan TV’s sounds fade almost into normality. The speakerman rubbed a little more firmly, pulling them closer together, at the same time, patted his own chest above his core, making a pleading whine.
Titan TV knew what he was asking for, after squeezes and presses. The speakerman had known exactly what he’d needed and how to ask for it, and how quickly he’d asked as well made terrible sense. He must have done this with the camera titan, not just as play but for reassurance and relief too. Titan TV couldn’t imagine how exposing it must feel to ask for such intimate closeness without having the time and headspace to explain why, and because of that, he didn’t care that he was being used as a substitute.
Fully armoured and in the confines of the hangar, they couldn’t hug, so Titan TV couldn’t provide the full-body pressure that Titan Speaker must be needing. But their size difference was enough that he could approximate it by leaning on one side and resting his arm and leg over his friend’s body, careful to avoid direct contact with areas where charred clothing indicated possible injury underneath.
Titan Speaker made the softest murmur from deep in his chest, suggesting what tectonic plates must sound like when they crept over each other. It wasn’t entirely possible to distinguish the murmurs of his audio output from the muffled creaks of his armour. Finally, he was still except for the slow movement of his fingers over the back of the TVman’s head. Titan TV could feel the mesh between his own panels loosening as if it was spreading lava in a volcanic landscape. He was realising why it was so pleasant to have the back of his head rubbed, it was attention paid to the vulnerable spot of one of his most powerful weapons, one of the things that defined who he was. It was a touch that would never happen in any other circumstance besides resting with someone…
“Special,” he said, thinking aloud. “You’re special to me too.” Titan Speaker replied with a short cascade of twittery tones.
As they laid together in companionable calm, the crew from the gantry took the opportunity to get to work. There was some discussion happening over by a console of some kind, just within the range of what Titan TV could see with a peripheral sensor. Titan Speaker ignored it, so Titan TV did as well, until his friend held him a little tighter. The engineering crew had made a decision, and were unrolling a pair of cables from the back wall of the hangar and preparing a mobile platform. It wasn’t quite possible to see what was happening when the platform was driven behind Titan Speaker’s head, but the speakerman in the skirt had stayed by the console and waved to attract Titan TV’s attention. ‘Keep holding on,’ they signed. Once the connection had been made, the crew would be able to monitor their titan and ease his pain, even limit his consciousness for a sedative effect.
Titan Speaker knew what was going on, and had reacted before the crew had started work. His stroking wasn’t smooth and even any more, but an urgent holding in place as he prepared for something uncomfortable. For an awful split second, he tensed as if he was about to struggle, but he resisted the urge and curled his hands tightly against his chest instead. Titan TV felt a sense of loss, anticipatory grief even, that the brief moment of peace might be as close to safety as they’d get. They’d be back to their own private internal battlefields, back to managing the stress on their respective systems again rather than seeking comfort for the sake of how nice it felt.
Nothing could change that they had made each other feel safe though. In finger taps that, through repetition, became readable as Morse Code, the speaker titan asked to wait longer together. Titan TVman rumbled a ‘mhm’ of affirmation and didn’t think about excuses.