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"Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds." - Portal 2
“He isn't eating.”
Dr Ochanomizu blearily lifts his head from his desk, the sentence taking a while to fully drape over his overtaxed mind.
A rush of activity continues to roar past the large window in his office, even though it’s been several weeks after Dr Tenma’s attack on the Ministry of Science. Repair bots work on fixing the exterior of the building, buzzing about, sending sparks flying as they weld I-beams back together. The chaos of it is like a pneumatic drill on Ochanomizu’s eardrums.
He's been up to his nose in paperwork and invoices for repairs, as well as paid leave for employees injured (no deaths to speak of, thank goodness). On top of that, he had to organise efforts to block up the ruins of Lab Seven entirely. A job the robots on staff seemed to take a personal stake in getting done.
When Yuko’s statement finally sinks in, it sits on his mind like a dead jellyfish, smelly and limp but still stinging. “Dr Tenma?”
Even saying the name out loud drives his anxiety levels up. Yuko nods, glancing nervously at the computer screen mounted on Momo’s back. Most of the city has been too busy celebrating the new milestone for robot rights to really pay any mind to the mad scientist sitting in jail. Just one mention and it’s like a half-closed wound opening up again. An uncomfortable reminder that a sore subject doesn't just go away if you try to ignore it.
“The prison guards are at a loss,” Yuko says, “they've tried to send in a counsellor and several doctors, but he won't listen to them. They thought that you might…”
Ochanomizu rubs a hand down his face, causing his large nose to spring up in a buoyant way. He can feel dark eye shadows forming without needing to look in a mirror and the corners of them sting through lack of sleep. “I'm not sure why he would listen to me. Umatarou has never been one to listen to anyone,” he mutters.
“You used to work together, didn't you? You're practically the grandparents of all the robots we know today.”
Ochanomizu chuckles, thinking about it bringing back memories of packages of instant udon and all-nighters spent working on the newest development with Tenma. “That doesn't mean he respects me at all.”
He stares down at his paperwork, a frown making a dent between his brows.
Hmm, is he trying to end it all? Or is this another trick to get what he wants out of me? Just like when Atom…
Ochanomizu scowls, digging new wrinkles further into his forehead. He still can't quite believe the gall Tenma had - dragging Atom into his own downward spiral of grief, forcing the boy to almost watch him be consumed by the flames of Lab Seven.
Atom has seemed fine on the surface, assuring Ochanomizu once or twice that he was merely glad that Dr Tenma wasn't hurt, but even so it gave him a new resolve that he wouldn't put Atom in his hands ever again. Sometimes Ochanomizu isn't sure if Atom is really that resilient, or he knows how to put on a brave face so no-one worries about him.
I'll go, but if it's Atom he wants, it'll be over my dead body!
The guards at the prison seem relieved when Ochanomizu walks in and receives his visitor's badge… All except one, anyway.
“He’s just being stubborn, that’s all.” Inspector Tawashi says, feet up on his desk and arms folded solidly over his chest. “He knows what he did is going to get him thrown in max security for a long time and he doesn’t wanna face trial. I’ve told him if he keeps it up, we can always install a feeding tube.”
Ochanomizu purses his lips in an attempt to hold his tongue, he really isn’t in the mood to start a fight, “I don’t think threats are going to help, Inspector.”
“Well, if you have any blinding insights-” Tawashi snorts through his bottle-brush moustache and jabs his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the holding cells, “-go right ahead.”
As a guard takes him towards the holding cells, the words Ochanomizu wanted to say ferment inside his head - about how he doesn’t think locking Tenma away in prison forever is in any way humane, wise or useful. Prison generally is a good place for a society to throw unwanted people so they don’t have to think about the problems that led them to commit crimes in the first place.
The guard opens the cell door and stands there wringing his hands as Ochanomizu steps up and faces the darkness inside.
“No chance of any lights I suppose?” he asks quietly.
“He asked for the window shutter to be closed at all times.” The guard says with a shrug, “maybe he got used to sitting in a dark room all alone like that.”
Ochanomizu enters, feeling his way with his feet as he waits for his eyes to adjust. The whirr of a ventilation unit makes it hard to sense the presence of another person, and for a moment he feels dreadfully alone.
Glancing over at a small desk, he can faintly see two photographs, one of Tobio and one of Atom. Next to those are scribbles of formulas and circuit diagrams, almost like the makings of a blueprint. Some of them go on for so long that they leave the paper entirely and continue onto the walls surrounding the desk.
He receives a jolt to the system when he finally registers the presence lurking in the back of the room, hunched over and watching him intently. A dark lump with two points of white roughly where the eyes should be. It takes another moment of adjustment before Ochanomizu adjusts some more to the gloom and sees the darkness of the pupils glaring at him from within.
“Come to chastise me, Ochanomizu?” Tenma’s grandiose voice practically rattles the small cell, being way too large for it. “You should know better by now.”
Ochanomizu allows a small sigh to leave via his nose, he waves off the security guard hovering by his shoulder and steps fully into the cell, instructing the guard to close the door behind him.
“May we have some light in here?” Ochanomizu asks, pointing at the shutters. He doesn't wait for a response before striding over and pressing the button to open them a crack. Halfway through the process, something goes fizz and crack and the shutters stop opening, leaving only a trickle of light to leak in. Looking at the control panel, it looks like Tenma broke it open and did some hasty wiring to make them stay closed.
Still, it allows Ochanomizu to fully make out the man sitting hunched on the floor. For better or for worse.
Tenma… Tenma looks dreadful. Predictably so, but it is still jarring to see the usually well put-together professor wearing a stained, rumpled white shirt with stubble encroaching around his goatee.
His back is curved against the frame, like he had been sitting on the bed and slowly slumped off it. The way he stares at Ochanomizu from the floor is like a wounded animal, a hawk with a broken wing.
“Or maybe…” Tenma starts, that scythe of a smile creeping up, “you wanted to see me suffer, are you enjoying yourself?”
“No,” Ochanomizu says, “in fact it's more like the opposite.”
Tenma shuffles before moving as if to stand up, raising himself halfway before sliding back down the bedframe even further than before. He was always on the slender side, so seeing him so borderline skeletal is something of a shock.
Tenma’s unshaven throat leads Ochanomizu’s eyes down the open neck of his shirt, where his collarbones are sticking out prominently amongst the curls of dark chest hair. His eyes flick around the dark cell before a pile of lunch trays, confirming what he had been told. None of them have been touched.
“You haven't been eating then? Are you trying to die?”
Tenma picks up a tray from the teetering pile and throws it at him so lazily yet so fiercely that Ochanomizu almost doesn't have time to dodge. Luckily his aim is off, Ochanomizu ducks slightly and it splats into the wall behind him.
“Get out.” Dr Tenma rumbles.
“Umatarou… I was asked to come here because you seem to be intent on starving rather than accepting help.” Ochanomizu quickly steps away from the mess, wanting to check his suit for stray mashed potato, but not wanting to take his eyes off of Tenma either. “Pardon me for the insinuation, but it seems like you want something from me.”
“You think this is some sort of trick? No. Every day I wake up and I get force fed this industrial slop masquerading as food, I get psychoanalysts and doctors and therapy-bots trying to poke around inside my brain and I've had enough.”
Ochanomizu glances at the two photos on the desk, still unsure if Tenma is telling the truth. It would be very easy for him to put his health in jeopardy to force a meeting with Atom.
Tenma notices the glance. “How is little Tobio, anyway?” he smiles savagely.
Ochanomizu doesn't take the bait, pointing his nose towards the ceiling in a haughty way. “You know full well that isn't his name. If you're trying to make me angry, you need to do better than that.”
He folds his arms behind his back and strolls around in the small amount of space, while Dr Tenma sulks. He closes his eyes for a while, looking distinctly sick.
“I wasn't lying, you know. What reason could I possibly have for going after Atom now? It's done. Unless…” Those sharp eyes flash back open. “You think I might be angry about being stuck in here living a life I don't want, resenting the robot who saved me, when I told him not to bother?”
Ochanomizu feels a hot flush and starts to sweat a little, he hadn't thought of that.
“You would think if that happened to someone like me,” Tenma continues, “He would theoretically want to indulge in a little revenge?”
“Leave Atom out of it,” Ochanomizu snaps, “there's no way he would have left you to die back in Lab Seven. He did it out of kindness… A kindness that you built into him.”
Dr Tenma struggles upright again, this time succeeding in getting his long legs underneath him, with some help from the bed behind him. He lurches towards Ochanomizu, fuming, “You want to stand here and lecture me about what a good, kind soul Atom is, when he saved me? I didn't want to be saved, least of all by him!”
He sways forward and Ochanomizu retreats until his back is almost pressed against the door.
Up close, Tenma looks very ill, his eyes sunken deep in shadows and his cheekbones prominent, but there's still an unsettling sharpness to his gaze that tells Ochanomizu not to put his guard down too much - the tray seeping its contents onto the floor is a reminder of that.
“It was only going to end one way.” he breathes out, almost snarling if he were to put a bit more energy into it.
“That's not true.” Ochanomizu shakes his head, “Atom sees the good in you, he only did what he thought was best.”
“Then why didn't he put me out of my misery instead of prolonging it?!” Tenma’s palm crashes into the wall by Ochanomizu’s head, “That's not what kindness is.”
“You really expected him to…” Ochanomizu clenches his jaw, looks away. “ Damn it Umatarou. You still don't understand Atom at all.”
Ochanomizu has been expecting it, so he's ready to catch Tenma when his legs suddenly go out from underneath him. His head crashes into Ochanomizu around the vicinity of his solar plexus, causing him to react with a huge OOF of suddenly exhaled breath.
He hooks his arms under Tenma’s armpits and gently lowers him to the floor. Frantically, he pulls out a small flashlight and checks Tenma’s eyes to see if he's still conscious, but he stirs a few moments later and thrusts Ochanomizu’s hand away. “Leave me alone, damn you!”
“Listen to me, Umatarou. Tawashi is looking to throw the book at you, life in maximum security.”
“Of course I know that.” Tenma sticks his nose up into the air. I have no intention of rotting there like he wants.”
“I can have you brought out of here, but you need to agree to let me help you.”
“You want me to plead insanity? I don't think so, old friend.”
This is what he was afraid of; Tenma. refusing to listen to him out of principle. He never did want to listen to anyone he considered not as smart as him, which ruled out most of the human population, and it definitely excluded most of the robot one too.
Tenma rolls over, trying to shuffle away from Ochanomizu with his elbows, “I don't want your pity.” he mutters.
Ochanomizu tries to think quickly, Tenma is too smart a man to be tricked by any false comforts. He's aware that no-one likes him, so telling him - come back , stop doing this to yourself, someone out there cares about you would be flat out wrong.
…Apart from himself, anyway. Why else would Ochanomizu be here if not for some lingering sense of fondness that refuses to go away.
Maybe it's wrong, but Ochanomizu opens his mouth and what comes out surprises even himself, “I need your help, Umatarou.”
“What?” he snorts, stopping his pathetic shuffle across the floor to glare at Ochanomizu from over his shoulder.
“I knew that entrusting you with Atom was a bad idea, but I was desperate then. And I still am. You're the only person who knows how to repair him if he gets broken - the only person in the world.”
“Oh, that's rich. You want to keep me around to maintain him?” Tenma returns to his original position, slumped against the side of the bed with his hair rumpled and his half-bare chest heaving from the effort.
“I'm saying I want you to teach me how to repair him.”
Tenna stares at him, wide eyed with shock for a moment before throwing his head back and laughing, “You have some nerve. I scanned his memory files while I was repairing him. All those good memories… He formed them with you, not me. And I know, Ochanomizu.”
“What?”
Tenma’s eyes narrow, before pointing an accusatory (and shaking) finger at him, “You lied to him, you told him that you were his creator, not me.”
Ochanomizu shrinks slightly, “Can you blame me? Who wants to be told that they’re not their own person, that they’re a walking ghost? I thought- I really thought that was best for him.”
Tenma barks out a laugh. “I deleted those memory files, but I didn't realise that memory files are hard to delete fully. I thought I could overwrite them by making new ones in their place, and I couldn't.”
“Umatarou-”
“No! You want to claim my creation as your own, be some kind of-” Tenma visibly rankles at even considering saying the word ‘father’ “-guardian to him, while at the same time lying about what he is.”
“It was wrong, I know that!” Ochanomizu cries, “But I couldn't help myself. You frustrate me, Tenma, because you created something so wonderful and you didn't even know what you had before rejecting it. I can't understand why you wouldn't do everything you can to keep someone like that in the world.”
“I know what I had.” Tenma snaps. There are a choice few people Ochanomizu has known him to be even slightly vulnerable around and he never particularly considered himself one of them, but Tenma’s shoulders hunch, “I had a monster in the making. I… I panicked, Ochanomizu. That's why I kept him locked away. And yet you took him and-”
Tenma makes a frustrated noise. “And you made loving him look so easy.”
The admission of his own panic causes Ochanomizu’s brow to unknot itself and his shoulders to slump. For once he can relate to Tenma’s position. He remembers how he struggled at first, for a while Atom was the single most unruly robot he had known, like a toddler with jetpacks strapped to his feet.
But over time Atom’s heart had matured, Ochanomizu had learned to trust his judgement, even though letting him out of his sight had been more than terrifying at first.
It reminds Ochanomizu of that distant time he had worked together with Tenma, similar feelings but wildly different ideas for solutions. For a moment he sees the Tenma before he became a complete egomaniac.
Or rather when he was a regular egomaniac, one that didn't resort to terrorism to get what he wants.
“I wouldn't have called it easy at the time.” Ochanomizu says, a wry smile pulling at his lips. His smile fades slightly when he spots Tenma looking down his nose at him, wearing a rumpled scowl.
“You want to know how to repair him then?”
“Of course.”
Tenma’s voice has gotten so quiet that Ochanomizu has to get closer to even hear him.
With a start, Ochanomizu notices the untouched water cups placed together along with the untouched food. Tenma must be severely dehydrated and on the verge of delirium.
Before he can react, Tenma’s fists are balled up in the collar of his shirt and his face is so close that their noses are pressing together, “Then, get me the hell out of here!”
Sudden panic turns into unease as Tenma uses up the last of his energy reserves. His eyes roll back into his head and he falls forward into Ochanomizu’s lap.
Ochanomizu sighs and pats Tenma’s shoulder once, twice. Sighs again.
“I'll ask the guards to fix you an IV.”
“Professor!” comes the bright greeting that lifts Ochanomizu’s heart after every long day of work. “welcome back!”
“Atom!” Ochanomizu grunts with a laugh as Atom’s heavy, compact body wraps him in a hug.
A pair of sparkling brown eyes look up at him, “You're home late! Where were you?”
Ochanomizu is too tired to think of an excuse, and he stares into Atom’s eyes for so long the boy senses that something is off. his eyebrow quirks.
“O-oh, it's nothing. just hectic at the Ministry.” he tries to laugh it off, but it weakens and peters off into a weak whine.
“That’s a lie, isn't it professor?” Atom follows him as he tugs his shoes off and shuffles into the kitchen in his house slippers. Maybe a cup of tea will help him recalibrate.
“Haven't I taught you the concept of a ‘white lie’ before?”
“You mean a lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings - a lie over a small, unimportant matter?”
“Yes. And haven’t I asked you to learn organically rather than looking things up online in that head of yours?”
“Sorry.” Atom blushes, looking sheepishly up at him. “Isn’t a white lie still a lie, professor?”
“Yes- er. Uhm. Well, we can argue about ethics later, Atom.” he scrubs his forehead with one hand as he pushes the button for hot water on the coffee maker, completely forgetting to put a cup underneath it. Atom whips forward, grabbing a mug and putting it in place before the hot water spills all over the counter. “I was at the Metro City Police Department.”
Atom glances at him while retrieving the tea box from the shelf, which Ochanomizu also forgot to grab. He collects the mug once it’s filled and sits down, confused as to why his water is clear and not a cloudy green.
“Here you are, Professor.” Atom sighs, placing a diffuser of loose leaf jasmine tea into his cup of hot water.
“Oh Atom, you read my mind.”
Atom merely smiles before replacing the lid back on the tea box and joining him at the kitchen table. Ochanomizu takes a sip of his tea and cups his hands around the mug to warm himself for a moment, “I don’t want to lie to you, Atom, but I wouldn’t call this a small, unimportant matter either.” He stares at his reflection in the tea’s surface, his nose taking up most of it, before stirring it pointlessly with a spoon. “I was asked to visit Dr Tenma in prison, he’s very unwell.”
“Oh.”
“But that doesn’t mean, Atom, that I want you to have the burden of worrying about this!” Ochanomizu waves a finger at him. “You’ve done that enough already.”
“But… he needs help, right?”
“Yes, I’ve asked the guards to transfer him to a mental health facility, but it all depends on whether he wants help. At the moment, I’m not so sure.”
Atom lowers his head.
“Oh, there I go- I’ve said too much already! You’re to concentrate on your studies and play with your friends like usual.” Ochanomizu puts his fists on his hips, hoping that he can have the final word on this matter. He desperately wants Dr Tenma out of his head.
“He's sad because of me.” Atom pauses for a long time. Ochanomizu’s heart sinks as he anticipates what Atom is going to say next. The robot looks up at him with big eyes, glistening and shiny with synthetic tears. “Professor… should I have been born?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I weren’t here right now, Dr Tenma would still have his son, and he wouldn't be so sad.”
Ochanomizu is a scientist at heart, not one to think too hard about what-ifs if they don’t have any bearing on material reality. If mistakes were made in the past, they were to be filed away in a logical way to make sure that the same mistake was never made again.
But Atom was not a mistake.
Ochanomizu puts his mug down and takes Atom’s hands. Under his synthetic skin there's a faint hum of his circuitry working, a pulse - like the heartbeat of a small animal. “I never want you to believe - not even for a moment - that you don’t deserve to be here. The world is better for you being in it.” Ochanomizu squeezes Atom’s fingers tightly, “I knew that from the moment I saw you in that lab and decided to activate you.”
He sighs deeply before releasing Atom’s small hands from his big, wrinkled ones. “It’s not your job to fix what Tenma is going through. Parents should love their children unconditionally, it’s the same for robots and their creators.”
Atom nods, still looking despondent as he hangs his head.
“Look, Atom.” Ochanomizu sighs, “I might have gotten us both into a mire and asked Dr Tenma to teach me how to repair you. But nothing will happen until I have your express consent. Your safety comes first.”
Atom opens his mouth and Ochanomizu holds up a finger to stop him.
“Ah! Don’t answer right away, have a think about it. I’m a little exhausted myself, there’s no rush to make a decision. Run along now, I’m sure you and Uran have homework to do.”
“...Okay, professor.” Atom says quietly. The robot walks off to go upstairs, leaving Ochanomizu to stare morbidly into the depths of his tea, alone.
Letting Dr Tenma within ten yards of Atom isn’t a good idea. Why did he have to bait the man with this harebrained idea? Until he can learn to respect Atom as his own person, and not just a conglomerate of his dead son’s memory and his own ego-fuelled mistakes, there can be no future.
I should have asked Atom first, before running my mouth. What if I’ve given Dr Tenma false hope?
This could all go horribly wrong.