Chapter Text
Two weeks. It had been two weeks since the battle, since the robots reclaimed the mall, since the initial cleanup began, and two weeks since Michelle had to say goodbye to her brother.
Two weeks. Fourteen days.
That’s how long it’d been since the fight at Scentre headquarters, since they fought for robot freedom, and for Chris. It’s been two weeks since Chris died. For real this time, no fakeouts, no secret escapes. He’s dead. Done and deal. Michelle didn’t know whether it would have been crueller of him to have never come back at all, or to give her hope only to rip it away again. Not that that’s his fault, she knows above all else it’s not.
To wake up in a new body, unlike anything he was used to — shorter, heavier, proportionally different, unable to speak… Not that he didn’t quote Kid Cosmo on a daily basis before the war anyway. To spend that long in a coma only to get a couple weeks worth of living before dying, Michelle couldn’t imagine. It didn’t stop the age-old weariness of being left behind curling like a slumbering serpent, coiled in her gut. Nothing could halt the feeling of being abandoned.
So she ignored it.
Mr Peanut approached her shortly after they released Michelle’s message to the world, requesting her help with the architectural side of rebuilding. That is to say, she didn’t know much about the structures themselves, but she knew art. In just a week, she drew up various colourized designs for more than half the mall, to make them accessible to the bots that need it, and to make both the store fronts and interiors look aesthetically pleasing. The others — Matthew, a mathematician bot and Mr Peanut himself — did the rest, but they couldn’t begin to work on the appropriate renovations until Michelle finished her work.
She poured over design after design until her brain fizzled and popped like an overheated battery, until ruler-straight lines swam across her vision like a funhouse mirror. She drew until her wrist ached and her pencils shortened to nubs.
Don’t think she was so naive to not notice she was using work as a form of escapism, but she didn’t care anymore. She just lost her family, again.
It came to a head when her paper ripped.
It wasn’t even that bad, the tear length barely reached an inch long, off to the side, far from where her work was.
And yet.
“Ugh!” Michelle let loose a low, guttural sound of pure frustration. “Fucking– stupid– weak piece of paper,” she cursed under her breath and crumpled the page in both hands, scrunching it as tight as it would go. Winding her arm back, she threw the makeshift ball as hard as she could. It bounced off the wall and right back onto her desk.
She glared at it. Then she flipped it off. Then she called it several names that would have even Keats clutching his pearls.
“That’s quite the vocabulary you’ve got, Miss Greene.”
She jumped, whipping around to see none other than Mr Peanut, watching her with an indecipherable look on his face.
“Sorry,” she said, slumping against the chair — a cushioned wheelie chair borrowed (stolen) from the manager’s office.
He hummed. “It’s not me you called those names.”
She chuckled wearily, pressing the base of her palms into her eyes.
“Could you answer me something?” He requested abruptly.
Nodding, she peeled her hands away from her burning eyeballs. “‘Course, what’s up?”
“How long have you been sitting there for?”
She blinked. “Uh, a couple of hours? Maybe like, six? With breaks!”
He hummed again, disappointment stretching across his rubber features like a cat in a particularly warm sunspot. “Not quite.” He walked closer, cane tapping with every other footstep. “Miss Greene, it is currently quarter to seven in the morning.”
She jolted. “What?”
“It is to my knowledge humans, especially adolescents, need an adequate amount of rest each night.”
“Ah, well,” she hid a grimace. “Pulling all nighters isn't exactly new to me.”
His gaze sharpened. “You misunderstand me. It is imperative you get some sleep.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he interrupted, shooting her down immediately. “And,” he added, “you will take tomorrow off.”
She pushed herself to her feet, keeping her hands splayed flat on the desk to prevent from falling over. “What about—”
“Blue Sky Acres will be fine for a couple of days. With how quickly you’ve built up designs, there’s a backlog anyhow. It might be nice to have a day or two to play catch up implementing them.”
She bit her lip. It made sense. Michelle knew it, Mr Peanut knew it, everyone knew it. He didn’t look smug, but he was, she could feel it. Or maybe that was her brain running on overtime… She was pretty sure he was just smug.
He looked at her for a moment and gestured with his cane, “Walk with me.”
She stumbled after him, pushing through the knife-like pins needling her calves and squinted as the early morning light seeped into the hall from the skylight, casting everything under a greyish filter.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Miss Greene,” he said, strolling out of the small store they’d set up shop in. “Your tenacity is admirable, but while I appreciate everything you’ve done for us, even long after you didn’t have to, your health is far more important to me.”
She fidgeted with the ends of her sleeves, feeling his piercing eyes turn on her.
His shoulders sloped, an odd candid thing, considering his every move seemed to be made with deliberate precision. But even that was doused with purpose. He sighed and came to a stop, tapping his cane against the cracked tiles.
“A lot of people worry about you, Miss Greene.”
Her jaw clenched and she shrugged, fixing the collar of her (clean!) purple flannel. “They shouldn’t be. I can take care of myself.”
Mr Peanut stared at her for a moment, analyzing her expression, but whatever he was searching for, he didn’t seem to like what he found. “You shouldn’t have to.”
She shrugged again and ignored the bots smiling and waving in greeting as they passed.
He let out what could only be classified as a sigh. “Come,” he ordered and began walking again, much less relaxed this time, a man on a mission.
Michelle jogged to catch up to him. “Where are we going?”
“Clem’s diner.”
She frowned, a tilt to her head. “Why?”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his hyper-realistic eye. “When’s the last time you ate something?” She opened her mouth to give a probably bullshit answer. “And not granola bars.”
She shut her mouth with a click.
He hummed and led her into the diner, holding the door open so she could enter first. She grumbled a thank you. The diner was empty, no Clem to be found. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he guided her to the kitchen.
He gestured vaguely to the shiny island and opened the cupboards, “take a seat.”
There were no seats, she noticed immediately, except a barstool collecting dust in the corner. So she dragged it over as obnoxiously as she could, encouraging the metal caps to catch along the kitchen floor, screeching all the while. Mr Peanut’s shoulders hunched more and more, but he didn’t say anything. Once it was adequately situated, she perched on it and clasped her hands together politely.
He half-turned to raise his eyebrows at her, duly unimpressed. “Was that really necessary?”
She blinked, wide and innocent. “What are you talking about?”
Shaking his head, he set a mug in the microwave and started it. “Here,” he said, placing a ceramic plate in front of her with a gentle tink.
On it, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich glared up at her. She wrinkled her nose, “you want me to eat your brethren?”
“They’re not my—” He shot her a look that sent her hiding a laugh. “Just eat, Miss Greene.”
“Thanks, Mr Peanut,” she tore a chunk off and tossed it in her mouth. “This isn’t half bad.”
It was subtle, but the proud straightening of his posture had Michelle smiling. She shoved another chunk between her teeth.
“I asked Clem to teach me,” he said, adjusting his monocle. “I figured it would be a necessary skill to know for our human residents.”
She nodded along. “You spend a lot of time with him, don’t you?”
The microwave beeped behind him. He removed the cup, unfazed by the heat. “He’s an old friend. He was one of the first to join the cause,” he said, setting the drink in front of her. “Him and Perplexo.”
Her brow furrowed at the vaguely familiar name as she reached to bring the mug closer to herself. “Perplexo.. the magician guy?”
“The very same.”
“I’m sorry.”
He regarded her with an odd look on his face. “Whatever for?”
She shrugged uncomfortably, picking at her sandwich. “I was the one that convinced you to help. If I hadn’t, maybe the mall wouldn’t have been…”
“Or,” he countered, lacing his fingers together, “the mall would have been targeted regardless, and with it, me, Penny, and Popfly.”
She scoffed, “you don’t know that.”
“I do not,” he confirmed. “However, I do know that you are not responsible for others’ actions. It wasn’t your plan to blow up the mall, was it?” She chewed the inside of her cheek and shook her head. “You didn’t even know it was an option, did you?”
“Of course not—!”
He spread his hands as if to say: there you go. “Then logically, you have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I’m sorry you lost your friend.”
His eyebrows lowered, and despite the general stiffness of his artificial face, his eyes seemed to soften. “Thank you, Miss Greene. I’m sorry you lost your brother.”
She nodded and shoved another piece of peanut butter jelly into her mouth to avoid having to say thank you. She’s heard all of the apologies, all the condolences, for her parents, for her brother, for losing her childhood. At least Mr Peanut knew what it was like to lose someone.
“If you want to talk about it—”
“I don’t,” she snapped, glaring at the sandwich.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
She winced. “Sorry,” she muttered.
She peeled the last corner apart, watching the peanut butter and jelly separate but not wholly. Peanut butter streaked the jelly side, juxtaposed by chunky jelly clumped to the peanut butter side. She reckoned she could properly separate them, make the spreads distinctly them again, but they would never be the same. The two spreads, good by themselves, would forever be marked by the other. She could try to fix it, to respread the jelly, to respread the peanut butter, to cover up their meeting, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It’d take time, and a whole lot of frustration, but why would she when they were better together, anyways?
“He hated peanut butter,” she mumbled.
He hummed questioningly.
Michelle stole a glance at him. He watched her with eyes that were too human, too real. She wrapped her hands around the mug, warmth seeping into her palms. “He hated peanut butter because it was too dry, but he ate it anyway because he liked the taste. Nevermind that he’d chug a glass of milk like he’d eaten twenty ghost peppers,” she frowned into the cup, watching her reflection. She took a sip, letting the hot drink warm her insides. It did nothing to help the cold pit ever present in her chest.
She sporadically drained the yellow and blue mug.
Neither spoke for a long time, even long after it was empty and cold, a true mirror of herself. Mr Peanut stared at the polished countertop, rubbing his thumb over the head of his cane idly, lost in his own thoughts.
Michelle’s mind drifted back to her desk and the abundance of half-sketches and notes in her composition notebook. Two days. Today and tomorrow. Then she could go back to pretending her jelly spread was whole, and never made contact with the peanut butter.
She left the peanut butter corner on the plate.
The longer they sat there — or stood, in Mr Peanut’s case, the longer her blinks became and the further her body sagged.
“Thanks,” she said abruptly. “For letting me stay. For.. for helping him.”
Mr Peanut inclined his head. “I only wish I could have done more.”
Michelle opened her mouth to respond, but cut herself off with the type of yawn so powerful she saw stars, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.
He chuckled quietly, rounding the counter. “I believe it may be time for some rest.” He held out an elbow.
Nodding sleepily, she levered herself to her feet and slipped her arm through his, letting him guide her to the door. Bots milled about their morning, an aura of grief permeating the air, but the sound of bots laughing and finding joy and support in each other was stronger.
It wasn’t until they reached her bed in the back corner of the mattress store — a little area they sectioned off as a makeshift ‘bedroom’ for her and her alone — that she realized she’d missed the whole walk back. Mr Peanut was speaking in hushed tones, relaying comforts.
She unlinked their arms, the only thing keeping her upright, and sat heavily on the bed. Toeing off her shoes, she kicked them into the corner, and flopped into the egregious amount of pillows. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to block the morning light filtering through the makeshift sheet walls. She couldn’t wait to get her own room with actual walls.
Something soft brushed her skin, encouraging her to peek. Mr Peanut had draped a throw blanket on top of her. The bedframe squeaked when he sat on the edge of the mattress. He patted her shin. “Have a restful sleep, Miss Greene.”
She hummed, unable to verbalize much else. As it turned out, the bots weren’t solely supporting each other. For a brief moment, the chasm in her chest didn’t seem as far a gap to jump.