Work Text:
You were working on a bot that needed extensive work, but it was not hard. Sun had his computer linked to this guy’s head and was working on delicate things as you replaced limbs. The need to fill the silence had steadily grown for the last hour.
“You once said…”
But the toes in front of you were tricky, so you bit your tongue.
“...What did I say once? I’m at the edge of my seat,” Sun answered with a dispassionate tone, engrossed as he was in fixing what was left of this poor guy.
You looked up from the pinkie.
“You said that The Duck sent you to the ring, and you survived, and stayed despite winning”.
“I don’t remember saying any of that. What a pity, faulty meat brains…”
“You implied it.”
“I did, huh? Faulty silicon brains…”
“Oh, come on! Don’t tell me- I don’t care about the fight itself, just tell me what you did to end up in the ring?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Come on! Just so I don’t repeat the offense, whatever it was. How will I avoid it if I don’t know what it is?”
“Sullivan is the one who overshares.”
“He said this one was not his story to tell.”
“So you have already been snooping around.”
“Hi, pot, my name is kettle. Don’t change the subject.”
“You can’t offend Duck the way I did by mistake.”
“So you do remember.”
“You are screwing in the left toe in the right foot.”
You looked down. “No, I’m not!”
“You doubted, so you are not paying attention.”
You grumbled and concentrated on the toe.
“I still want to know.”
Sun went back to the screen.
Early in their acquaintance, The Duck and Sun used to get in many spats, less friendly ones. Sun’s goodwill for being freed from FazCo didn’t stretch as much as The Duck would have wanted, but that was fine, because Sun’s range of motion didn’t stretch as much as Sun would have wanted either.
Sun could free-roam the building. Only the building, and not when there were hostile visits. Sun understood perfectly that it was for his own safety, since The Duck's power of influence was much smaller, but Sun was for all intents and purposes a prisoner. Sun had been very clear on that point when Sun tried to leave anyway and The Duck didn't let him.
They also argued about Sun’s need to change his appearance, about Sun being allowed to fix clients who were awake, about Sun accessing The Duck’s net to get information he was not allowed to have, about The Duck restricting his access to an outlet if he didn’t behave, about how to handle the ring fights, about how to handle the identities The Duck procured for them, about what information Sun was accessing again, about The Duck negotiating at all with FazCo, even about the damned music at the bar…
And still Sun acted the part of The Duck’s favorite toy, the wonder boy, the party trick, the magic fixer, or the trophy stolen from the enemy. It was easy, acting cowed when needed, sitting by his side when it was required of him, letting The Duck yank his chain a bit for show. He didn’t still have the rest of the thespian programming for nothing. Putting a good show in front of the convenient people was beneficial for The Duck and for him.
Despite their fights, Sun was better off than he was with FazCo and didn’t want to leave. It was more the principle of the thing. Being able to argue was precisely one of the freedoms he didn’t have under FazCo and he enjoyed using it no matter the trouble it kept getting him into.
They didn’t have a relationship, or an alliance, back then. What they had was a comfortable pantomime for the public and a long argument backstage.
It was around that time that Sullivan had joined The Rooms. The Duck had peddled and Sun had had to fix and update Sullivan’s implants. Sun never pried, because it was the safest way to do things, but Sullivan had to be awake for the proceedings, and he was chatty without the need to ask. The human had a talkative nervous tic, that wasn’t staunched despite Sun’s warnings, but Sullivan was going to work at the bar as part of the repayment plan, and he wouldn’t be able to spill any secrets with his most delicate organ linked to The Duck directly.
Consequently, Sun and him got on well; one-sidedly well. On Sullivan's side, of course.
Sullivan’s position and damage meant they spent a lot of time together, and Sun had built up a lot of bitterness over the years, but under the learned scripts he was still supposed to be a friendly daycare agreeable bot. He was not strong enough and one evening, while he was tweaking his color-neural input translator, he cracked. Telling Sullivan about his life in The Rooms had been… like a RAM expansion. He could let go of a bit of his memories because they were now stored somewhere else.
That didn’t mean Sun was any less bitter, tho. It only helped to make up his mind. He was playing along too much and he was getting his way too little. The Duck was getting too comfortable with the lies of the favorite toy, wonder boy, party trick, trophy blah blah blah. Any day now he would start believing them. Whenever Sun looked up to the office The Duck seemed to be enjoying his caged lion a fair bit more than he should.
The best way to get back at him would be to go and leave him struggling. But Sun didn’t like a disappearing act, nor did he like the idea of being out there resource-less as an illegal thing, so Sun was plotting.
First Sun asked to fight in a particular upcoming fight. It was not the first time Sun tested his freedom this way and once again The Duck didn't allow it.
And with that, the war was afoot.
Sun had been in The Rooms long enough to know how they worked and how The Duck managed them. It was easy for him to become an annoyance using precisely the flaws that The Duck had dismissed and ignored; he seeded dissent among The Duck's workers faster than The Duck could calm them down.
The most annoying part for The Duck was seeing how Sun's warranted criticism was shoved to his face and put to the worst possible use. It turned out that the kiddie’s bot who had never lived outside of a workshop could spew group-control advice that had some merit. For weeks The Duck had to carefully balance following Sun's ill-given advice trying to assuage him, and dissuading his followers of some dangerous notions.
But it was too much. Sun had flown too close to his namesake and The Duck’s people started to spread the rumor that he had killed others for much less. They were right; Sun knew it, he knew it; not only that but this seemed to be Sun’s intention. Ultimately, The Duck had to concede and invite Sun to the ring to fight a traitor who had been selling information. It had been Sun, after one of the traitor’s fixes, who had whispered into The Duck’s mics about the information leaks.
The Duck didn’t know why Sun wanted to fight this fight so much, but personal revenge was not out of the cards. Whatever it was, he was finally going to get it.
Sun spent the days before the fight flaunting how smug he was about his success.
The Duck hated it as much as he loved it. He wasn’t used to having his hand forced; he was usually the one forcing other people’s hands. Maybe he had let this Sun character get too close and he was worried about the fight, because despite all the problems he had caused, Sun was an asset. And to be frank, the problems had made him change several things about The Rooms that weren’t working.
So yes, The Duck was worried about losing someone who could finally match his wit, both if Sun won and if he lost. There would probably be a way to rig the fight and cancel it. But it was also true that if Sun had done all of this, maybe his best choice was to let him try to win his freedom and if he survived, try to tempt him back. If worse came to worst there was a small EMP under the ring and he could salvage Sun from the wreckage.
He would have to decide during the fight, because he couldn’t make up his mind.
Sun didn’t give him the time, though, because much time was spent introducing the fighters, reminding them of the rules, and letting spectators place their bets, but when the bell rang the fight was short. Sun simply grabbed the other guy close, unnervingly close, almost cradling his faceplate. In his adversary’s eyes, Sun saw with satisfaction that this scum had realized that he was absolutely fine with using the verbal admin code he had found when he was fixing this guy.
So Sun held his victim close and while he looked up at The Duck in his office he whispered a self-destruct command and that was that. The guy became a limp puppet in his arms and Sun’s stare never wavered from The Duck.
Around the ring, there was an uproar, but it was not important for The Duck and Sun's quiet standoff.
It was only broken when the forklift came for Sun’s victim and he turned to carefully transfer the dead weight to the prongs. Then Sun climbed down from the ring and asked for his reward at the counter.
He grabbed the paper in one hand and the chip in the other, then he turned away from the counter, backing off to the middle of the room. With one of his fingers he pretend-lifted some fake glasses that he was projecting on his screen LED eyes.
He started to pace the ring room, reading the contract out loud and commenting on the different sections to an audience of people who had, for the most part, lost their bets against The Duck’s little caged bird, so their faces ranged from “I don’t care” to “I want you dead”. Sun, still reading, paced out of the ring room and into the bar, where Sullivan was shaking with nerves.
“Sun! Oh, my, you are not dead.” Sullivan leaned his head on an arm on the counter while he breathed.
Sun didn’t get why the human was so attached, honestly, but he was clearly incredibly happy to see his friend was not the one limp in the trash container. Sullivan started to talk, some congratulatory nonsense, but Sun stopped him while he finished reading.
"You see...” Sun tapped the paper twice. “I'm reading this thing and no matter how many times I do, I can't find anywhere where it says I must keep this new identity for myself."
Sun put the chip and the paper face down on the counter and slid it in Sullivan’s direction.
“I did what I wanted on the ring,” he continued. “I don't need this for anything. Why don't you keep it? Didn't you, like, sell yours recently in exchange for my services?”
Sullivan lifted the paper. And he saw his name on the top of the document.
Sun turned to look at the office. He expected to see The Duck fuming but instead what he could read from that shell was akin to curiosity and... interest.
Suffice to say The Rooms changed a lot from that day on.
You left the tiny screwdriver clatter loudly with the rest of the tools and spread your arms.
“Done, I can’t get distracted from the toes now. All eight of them are in the right place. Will you tell me now? What did you do for him to send you to fight in the ring?”
Sun looked up from his screen and straight at you.
“He said my rays were crooked and I slapped him.”
“No, you didn’t.” You laughed and went looking for the wrench you needed for the knee.
Sun was back to looking at the screen.
“...Did you?” You took a step closer to him. “No, you didn’t.” You squinted. “Did you?!?”