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It was only a simple comment that led Heat Man to where he was now. When Crash Man had offhandedly mentioned his weakness to the ice slasher, and how he should’ve easily been able to melt Ice Man’s attacks, Heat took it a little too personally. Now, he was in Antarctica, waiting in some glacial cave for a scientist to notice an “unknown presence” on the radar, and send Ice Man out to deal with it. He made sure to pick a place wide enough to fight, and far away from any outside interference, but enclosed enough to stop the other robot from running away. He felt his skin prickle, leaning against the bright blue walls of the cave. He hated the cold, hopefully he could just get this over with quickly, and defeat Ice Man so he could prove Crash wrong.
Heat Man waited in the shadows near the cave’s entrance, practically falling asleep, until the sound of approaching footsteps jolted him back into the present. Ice Man had finally arrived. Heat watched for a moment as Ice stepped into the cave, calling out to see if anyone was there. He waited until the other robot went further inside, before stepping out, blocking the entrance to the cave.
“Funny seeing you here.” Heat Man crossed his arms, the setting sun casting a long shadow in front of him. Ice Man spun around, backing further into the cave.
“Wh- what are you doing here?” Ice hissed.
“To fight. Why else would I want anything to do with a Lightbot?” Heat began charging up his atomic fire, walking closer to the other robot, forcing the two of them further back into the cave. Ice scoffed, letting out a huff of cold air.
“I’m not fighting you here, Heat Man. This cave is unstable, it’s not safe to-”
“Oh, come on. I’m about to beat the shit out of you, and you’re worried about safety?” Heat barked out a laugh, “You don’t get to choose where we fight, Icey.” Without warning, he launched himself at the other robot, barreling into him and knocking the both of them to the ground. Despite the sudden attack, Ice Man was quick to counter, blowing out an ice slasher that Heat Man was just barely able to dodge. He wasn’t so lucky with the next attack, taking a solid blow to the arm and coating the limb in ice. He leapt backwards, trying to melt it off before Ice Man attacked again.
As atomic fireballs and ice slashers flew across the cave, the ground grew slick with water, dripping from the icicles hanging above them. Heat Man’s feet slid across the floor as he launched himself at Ice Man, his attacks getting clumsier as it got harder to gain footing on the ground. He had to do a lot of work, making sure he was always keeping Ice’s attention on himself so that he stopped trying to get out of their battle arena. Heat wasn’t going to let him run away that easily.
“Is this really the best you can do?” Heat Man mocked, “I was half hoping this would actually be an interesting battle.” He would never let the other robot know it, but Ice Man was actually a more formidable opponent than he was expecting. He was still confident he would win, though. Despite the fact that Ice was able to nimbly dodge a lot of his attacks, enough of them were still connecting that it was starting to wear him down, his jumpsuit covered in singe marks.
“Stop it! We can’t fight here! You’re going to get us both killed, you idiot!” Ice yelled, bolting for the cave entrance again. Heat Man grit his teeth, rocketing himself towards the other robot.
“Quit tryna escape!” He narrowly missed Ice Man, slamming into the wall hard, making the cave shake. The other robot paused briefly, glancing back at him, before sprinting towards the mouth of the cave.
Freedom was so close. Ice Man almost made it out, almost.
A chunk of glacial ice slammed into the ground in front of him as the cave roof collapsed. Ice yelped, scrambling backwards as the entrance to the cave was covered by the falling debris. He leapt out of the way, getting pushed further back into the darkness as the sun was swallowed up. His feet skittered across the floor as the ice fell faster and he scrambled back as quickly as he could. Then, he felt his foot slip on the wet floor, and his body went crashing down, his head slamming against the ground. It was over.
Ice Man squeezed his eyes shut as the ice fell towards him. He was going to die. Instead of the crushing pain he was expecting, however, something yanked him back, and he felt warmth all around him. Slowly, he opened his eyes. Everything around him was dark, aside from the faint glow coming from behind him.
“W…whuh?” Ice’s head pounded, he tried activating his night vision mode, but was met with a loud ‘error’ noise blaring in his head. “What happened?”
“Uh… I…” It took him a moment to realize that Heat Man had his arms wrapped around him. Ice Man scrambled out of his grip, pushing himself away until he felt his back hit the wall. Heat was letting out a soft glow, being the only thing that Ice could make out in the dark. The silence between them grew thick as they stared at each other.
“...Listen. I know you’re probably confused, but… uh…” Heat Man broke both the eye contact and the silence, scooting back to lean against the opposite wall to Ice Man, “I… didn’t want ya to get taken out by some falling ice. If anyone’s gonna defeat you it’ll be me.” Ice didn’t respond at first, eyeing him down suspiciously and curling himself into a tight ball.
“Maybe I’d actually believe you if it didn’t take you so long to respond.” He mumbled. The other robot scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Fine, whatever. You got me, I’m just as confused as you are as to why I saved you. I guess I’ll just be on my way-” He rose to his feet and tried to teleport out, but was instead met with a strange static feeling in his body. Ice Man sighed.
“I know what you’re trying to do. There’s no signal. Yet another reason I didn’t want to fight here.” He hissed.
“Ugh…” Heat Man hated the fact that Ice Man was right the whole time. He sank back to the floor, producing a small lighter and a pack of cigarettes from inside his box. “So what now?” He made eye contact with the other robot again, who was still glaring at him. It felt… strange. Even though he could very easily kill Ice Man right now, that didn’t actually seem that appealing anymore. The other robot didn’t seem eager to fight either, so it wasn’t like it mattered. They were probably both going to die here, anyways.
Neither of them knew how much time had passed, sitting in complete silence. Ice Man watched Heat Man warily from across the cave, there wasn’t really much else for him to look at in the dark. He felt water drip onto his head, another reminder that the rest of the cave could collapse at any moment, since he was trapped in here with what was essentially a big ball of fire.
“Hey, since ya seem to know all about the caves and glaciers around here, is there a way out further into the cave?” Heat Man asked him. Part of him didn’t even want to respond, it was Heat’s fault they got into this mess, why should he give him any information at all? “I asked you a question, Icey. Ya gonna say anything?”
“Don’t call me that.” Ice Man snapped, his head aching. He watched the other robot roll his eyes.
“I’ll stop calling you that if you answer the question, Icey.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Ice sighed. “No, there isn’t anything further into the cave. Between that and the goddamn instability, the researchers were pretty clear that none of us should come here unless it was absolutely necessary.” He shivered, trying to ignore the cold seeping through his jumpsuit. Why was he so cold in the first place? He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He was probably fine, just worn out from the fight.
“Well… I guess we really are just stuck here forever, huh?” Heat snuffed out his cigarette on the ice beneath him, “Might as well get to know each-”
“Do you really think I’m telling you anything about myself?”
“Oh, come on. All I know about’cha is that you’re stubborn and kind of a jerk. You don’t seem like a very fun person to be around, ya know.”
“You-!” Ice Man grit his teeth, glaring hard at the other robot. Unfortunately, though, he was a bit curious to learn more about Heat Man. “...Fine. I don’t care. Ask away.” He felt his skin prickle with anger when the other robot gave him a smug grin. Maybe this was a mistake.
“Didn’t know you wanted me to ask questions, thought you were just gonna talk about yourself. Quick said once that you were kind of a show-off, y’know?”
“Ugh, you’re insufferable.”
“And you’re stuck with me.” Heat lit another cigarette, before holding the box out to Ice. “You ever smoked before?”
“...No, why would I even want to? We don’t have lungs, idiot. Unless Dr. Wily programmed you to be affected by tobacco?” Ice Man said flatly. Heat just shrugged and put the box away. A sweet smell was permeating the air, now, mixing with the smell of the smoke. It made Ice’s headache that much worse.
“Of course he didn’t. But smoking doesn’t hurt us, either.”
“So why do it?”
“Cause it looks cool.” Heat chuckled. “Anyways, tell me about yourself.” Ice took a deep breath, huddling himself into a tight ball as another wave of shivers made its way through his body. Something was wrong.
“Um…” He trailed off, where did he even start with this?
“Why did Dr. Light create you?” Heat Man asked bluntly.
“To work in subzero temperatures, obviously. I mean… there was also… that…” Ice Man cringed, should he even bring this up? He made eye contact with Heat Man again, who looked at him expectantly. Well, he had nothing left to lose, spending his final moments with someone he hated. “Dr. Light was actually commissioned to make me into a combat robot when I was first made. I guess so that I could fight in cold places instead of humans?”
“Huh, really?” Heat hummed. “I’m assuming the reason he didn’t was because Light didn’t want one of his precious robots to become violent?”
“Shut up. I mean… not exactly. He did try and program me to be a soldier, but it kind of… broke me?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I don’t remember it, since he removed that part of my programming before it became a problem, but apparently I was trying to be two people at once.” Heat stared at him in confusion. “What I mean is that I was trying to be both a soldier and a general, at the same time.” Ice almost broke into a smile, as embarrassing as it was to think about, it was kind of funny in a way, too. He was probably just delirious from the cold. The other robot laughed out loud, and for once Ice was almost tempted to laugh with him.
“I cannot imagine you being in the army. What was Light even thinking?”
“Yeah, he didn’t even want me to know about it since I had forgotten, but Bomb Man told me all about it afterwards. That was just a weird time period for us, in general. Did you know Light almost programmed Cut Man to be a child? I’m glad that didn’t stick.”
“Oh you’ve gotta be joking, is Light a fan of child labor or something? There’s no way he actually thought it was a good idea for a lumberjack to act like a kid, right? That guy is crazy.”
“Hey, don’t talk about him like th-that. It’s not like Wily is any better, I mean, his specialty is making robots that k-kill people.” Ice Man laughed, before abruptly stopping himself. This guy was his enemy, he shouldn’t be getting this comfortable with him. The pain in the back of his head had gotten worse, now. “Um… anyways, what about you?”
“I mean, there’s nothing much to say, to be honest. I was made to be destroyed by Mega Man and give him a virus. And then I was brought back by Ra Moon. And then I just kinda… stuck around? I mean, being offline kind of sucked.”
“Mmm…” Ice Man mumbled. Maybe there was a way he could get some kind of information out of him. “You know… if- if we’re gonna die here… you should t-tell me who let you guys out of the Museum o-of Robotics.”
“Nah.”
“What? Wh-why not?”
“You’re right, we probably will die here, but on the off chance that we don’t? I’m not ratting him out. Plus, can’t Light recover your guys’ memories or something?”
“He can only d-do that if he actually has access t-to our memory chips. I- I don’t think anyone is g-going to risk trying to recover our b-bodies, right?” He was so cold.
“Are you… okay?” Heat Man rose to his feet.
“I’m f-fine!” It’s just c-cold in… in here…” Why did he have to notice? The other robot walked closer to him.
“Shouldn’t you be immune to the cold if you’re-”
“Sh… SHUT UP!” Ice Man yelled, trying to scramble away from Heat Man, but his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. Tears threatened to well up in his eyes as Heat cautiously approached him, like he was some kind of scared animal. He was going to kill him, now that he knew he was this badly damaged. “GET AWAY FROM ME!” He felt scared and powerless as Heat Man approached him.
“Relax! I’m done trying to attack you, I feel like we established that a while ago.” Heat crouched in front of him and slowly reached out. “I just wanna take a look, geez…” Ice stiffened, but still let Heat place a hot hand on his shoulder, looking him up and down. The other robot was so warm, it was hard not to lean into him.
“I’m gonna turn you around now.” Before Ice had a chance to protest, Heat had already pulled him forward, spinning him ever so slightly to the side with a gentleness that he didn’t even know Wilybots were capable of.
“Woah…” Heat Man put a hand to the back of Ice Man’s head before pulling it away abruptly.
“Wh-what is it?”
“There’s a huge gash on the back of your head,” He exclaimed. “It’s leaking something, too. Like… I don’t think it's fuel. It’s not dark enough to be fuel.” Ice Man’s eyes widened.
“Um… th-this might be a weird q-question but… does it smell like anyth-thing?” Heat Man pulled away enough to give him a weird stare, but still sniffed his hand.
“It’s a bit sweet… Do you know what it is?”
“I-I think it’s antifreeze.” Ice Man wanted to scream. Of course something like this would happen. Part of him wanted to get as far away from Heat Man as possible, but the other part of him craved the warmth radiating off the other robot.
“Oh.” Heat sat in front of him, still half-holding Ice Man, “I guess you’ve been freezing to death, then?” Ice didn’t say anything, he had never experienced this kind of cold before. He didn’t want to die like this. The part of him that wanted to stay warm won him over, and he slowly leaned against Heat.
“Wow, uh,” Heat chuckled nervously, “You must be really out of it, if you’re actually trying to cuddle up to me now.”
“...Quiet.” Ice Man mumbled. He felt so out of it, he just wanted this entire situation to be over.
“Alright.” Heat Man shifted the two of them around so he could lean against the wall, wrapping his arms fully around the other robot. It felt nice when Ice curled against him, he really shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he was. Maybe he was just touch starved.
The space fell silent again. Heat Man stared blankly across the cave, now that he had nothing to think about, he was starting to feel the effects of their previous fight. He was tired. He just wanted to be back home now, defeating Ice Man be damned. Heat had left the fortress without even saying goodbye to his brothers. The last time he spoke to any of them, it was him getting mad at Crash Man for poking fun at him. Had any of them noticed he was gone, yet? Would they try looking for him? Heat Man tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach as he realized how much he just wanted to see them again. He didn’t want to die here, alone, with his only other company being someone he was trying to kill only a few hours ago. He didn’t want to accept his fate, he wanted to just blast through the frozen rubble, but there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t further put them in danger. It’s not like he had enough energy to do that, anyways. He glanced down at Ice Man, whose face was glistening with silent tears.
I wonder if you’re thinking the same thing as me…
The cave began rumbling again, and Heat Man closed his eyes, holding the other robot just a little bit tighter. This was it. All they could do now was wait to be crushed. With any luck, he would run out of battery before that happened.
But the falling ice never came.
Instead, sunlight flooded into the cave, as someone carefully broke through the rubble. Heat Man opened his eyes, staring up in confusion. Standing at the mouth of the cave was a girl he had never seen, as well as several other robots he did recognize; Mega Man, Cut Man, and Elec Man. The four of them ran towards him and Ice Man, who raised his head in surprise.
“Ice Man!” Mega Man shouted, skittering to a halt and staring at Heat Man. “What happened? Are you okay?” The other robot staggered to his feet, pushing himself away from Heat Man, who immediately missed the contact.
“Mmh… h-had to stay warm… I’ll explain later.” He stumbled over to them, practically collapsing into Elec Man’s arms, who gently lifted the smaller robot up, shooting a glare towards Heat Man.
“What is he doing here?” Elec asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“You better not be messing with our brother, buddy. I’ll slice you to pieces if you try anything!” Cut Man hissed at Heat Man.
“I’ll have you know I saved his life.” Heat mumbled, rising to his feet and putting his arms up. God, he hated feeling like a hostage.
“It’s probably time to get out here, the ice isn’t gonna hold like this forever.” The robot girl said in a monotone voice.
“Tempo is right, guys!” Mega Man called, pointing his buster at Heat Man, escorting him out of the cave, followed by the other robots.
The sun was starting to set, casting red and orange hues across the blue sky. It felt great to finally see the sunlight again, and Heat took in a deep breath of fresh air. He could hear the Lightbots behind him discussing what they should do with him. As he stared at the open sky around him, though, he remembered something.
“Y’know, this is great and all, but I should probably get going” Heat turned around to stare at the others, making eye contact with Ice Man, “See you around, Icey.” Before Mega Man or any of the others could react, Heat used the last of his energy to teleport back to Wily’s Fortress.