Chapter Text
“Starling, what’s the weather like today?”
"Today's weather will have a high of 73 degrees, and a low of 55 degrees. The sky will be clear, with good air quality."
"Thank you, Starling."
"Of course, Madam."
Your HelperBot leaves the room with the tray he brought your breakfast on. You sit in bed, thinking about what to do for the day. Your mind begins to drift.
It’s been a few years since you bought Starling. Yes, you remember ordering a HelperBot when you first moved to London. You were very bad at household chores. Growing up with servants and chef and maids meant you really didn’t have to learn any basic living skills. At first, you tried. With the help of the internet and YouTube videos, you did the best with what you were given. It turns out your best isn’t actually very good. So, you turned to the help of someone else. Well, something, rather than someone.
London is big. London is scary. Everyone already has their own lives, busy doing their own things. The city moves fast, and when you first came, you weren’t able to keep up. Much of the first year in London was spent hiding in your flat. If you weren’t at university and in class, you were home, playing video games or making small crafts. In general, just not talking to people. Your social circle was, and still is, practically non-existent.
With no one to turn to, you looked into alternative means of help. You could always hire a servant, but that’s… uncomfortable. A real, living, breathing human being living with you? Just the two of you? No thanks. You saw an article, on the release of the HelperBot 5. Your family was more traditional, preferring old fashioned human labor over this new technology. The idea intrigued you, and on impulse, you preordered a HelperBot 5.
Refresh. Check cameras. Check delivery time. Refresh.
It’s been this for the past 2 hours. You’re… excited? Nervous? Hopeful that something will finally get done? Maybe it’s the fact that there’s going to be someone in your flat. You haven’t had any people over since moving to London.
Movement in the camera feed. A delivery truck. Someone walks out, puts a large box on a dolly, and wheels it to your front door. That’s definitely yours. You watch as they come up to the door, and ring the doorbell. They’re hold a clipboard in their hands. Oh yeah, you need to sign for it. Nervously, you put down your phone and head to the front door.
Opening the door, you try to get through the interaction as smoothly and as normally as possible. They offer to wheel in your flat, you accept, completely forgetting the disastrous state it’s in. Okay, fine. They don’t seem to notice anything, so you plaster a smile on your face and keep going. You say farewell as they leave, and once they’re a decent distance away, quickly shut the door. It’s weird, that you’re this nervous. You shouldn’t be. This is normal. Normal people do this.
You open the box, the part with the logo opens like a door. In the box is an unnervingly human-like figure. If you passed this person on the street, you’d think they were a normal human being. It appears to be male, or modelled after a human male at least. His hair is black, and his face is sharp. Wow, did they really need to go that hard on the cheekbones? Thank god, they come already dressed. Right now, he’s wearing a plain white button up shirt, black trousers, and black shoes.
Following the manual, you activate the HelperBot. You mount the main charging unit to the wall, attach the charger wire under his shirt (and try really, really hard to not satisfy your curiosity about his anatomy), and wait a bit. While he charges, you do the other parts of set-up, the parts that don’t require the HelperBot to be powered on. You think of a password for his hard drive, and quickly jot it down on a spare piece of paper. Should HelperBots have access to their own password? It feels kind of cruel to not allow them that autonomy. But then again, they aren’t people. You hide that piece of paper somewhere in your desk. No, wait, he’ll have to clean that. You put it in the notes app on your phone. Then put a password protect on that file. Hopefully he doesn’t have access to that.
You hear a voice calling from downstairs, “Hello? Is the person who activated me within the premises?”
You fly down the stairs, shouting back, “Yes! Yes, I’m here. I’m just upstairs, I’ll be there shortly!”
Turning the corner, you see him standing in the middle of your living room. He’s glancing around, with a look of displeasure across his face. Ah, the HelperBot 5 has better emotional displays and processors, doesn’t it? Maybe you shouldn’t have bought an older model. His eyes finally land on you. You stare back. They’re a cool grey, the color of the sky as a rainstorm clears. You thought a HelperBot would have more inhuman eyes. He doesn’t say anything, so you suppose you’ll have to initiate. How fun.
Introducing yourself, you give your name, and show him around your flat. You give the rules of the house, which as it turns out, is none. Never needed to establish rules when you live by yourself.
Throughout your little tour, he consistently calls you ‘Madam’. Never your real name, which you did give him at the very start of your conversation. Interesting, is that one of the factory settings? You know that 3s have a special feature where they always say ‘You’re welcome’ when they’re told ‘Thank you’. You make a mental note to look it up later.
Often, you look back at him, to see how he’s feeling. Sure, HelperBots aren’t programmed to really care about anything beyond their owner’s satisfaction, but still. He looks so human, you can’t help but want to make sure he’s okay. For the entire time you’re showing him around, he looks mildly disapproving. It could be you’re bad at reading people. That’s probably the case, actually. The problem is pushed out of your mind.
The final part of the tour is to show him his room. You left it empty for the most part, since you weren’t sure if he would want to decorate it himself, or if he cared to have it decorated in the first place.
A bed, the charging port, a desk, a wardrobe. It’s all very bare bones. You put a few sets of standard servant’s clothing in the wardrobe, but beyond that, it’s all up for him to decide. The only sign of your personality in this room is a small bouquet of flowers in a vase. Lilacs, yellow roses, daisies. Bright, cheerful things.
You wrap up, explain to him that this is where he’ll be staying, and that you’ll be avoiding this room so that he can do… whatever it is that HelperBots do in peace.
As you begin to leave, for the first time since you’ve started talking, he speaks up.
“Madam?”
“Oh, yes, did I forget something? Sorry, I forgot to ask-”
“Do you wish to call me by a name?”
You freeze. Shit, you completely forgot about a name for the guy. You’re a terrible owner. It hasn’t even been half a day and you already messed up.
You turn to him, gazing at those grey eyes. Your nerves calm down a little. You look behind him, past the desk and bouquet, out the window. A little bird sits on a tree, a starling, you think.
“Your name can be Starling.”
“Very well, madam.”
Snapping out of your reverie, you look outside. It really is a nice summer day. You hear birds sing their happy little songs. The summer flowers are vivid, more colorful than you remember them being. Perhaps you should go outside for once? It has been quite some time since you last visited the botanical gardens. They’ve probably changed the flowers since last season. Or year, now that you think about it.
You leave your room to look for Starling. Going downstairs, you peer around the corner and spot him standing the living room, ironing your clothes. Compared to what he’s wearing, black and white livery, your clothes have more variety in them. You wonder what he would look in more casual clothing. Handsome, probably.
You feel your face warm up at the thought. What? No, stop thinking about that. You call out to him, “Starling, do I have anything in my schedule today?”
Without looking up from the ironing board, he replies, “Today? You do not, though on Saturday you have an outing with Ms. Vyvian Addington and Mr. Gilberto Ordoñez.”
“Great!” Entering the living room, you walk closer to him, watching him iron the clothes. It’s hypnotic, in a way. “Once you’re done with that, could you help me get ready? I’m going to head to the garden to view the flowers.”
He looks at you, tilting his head. It’s uncharacteristic of you, to plan an outing by yourself. Spontaneously, too. He’s probably trying to figure out the cause of the sudden change. You smile back. Do you normally smile this much? You feel pretty happy today.
After a few second of computing, he seems to have come up with a satisfying conclusion, and he goes back to ironing. “Of course. Do you wish to go anywhere else?”
You sit on your sofa, and give it some thought. Food, perhaps? You don’t eat out if you’re alone, preferring to eat Starling’s cooking. He doesn’t let you order takeaway, saying that food he can cook at home would be much more nutritious and delicious than anything from a takeaway place. He isn’t wrong either, which is the most upsetting part of his statement.
“Could you look up nearby restaurants? Or cafes? Preferably ones with good desserts,” you say while staring up at him. For a moment, disapproval flashes across his face. “Oh, don’t forget to check the nutrition information! Wouldn’t want me to eat something very bad for me, right?” you quickly tack on. His face returns to neutral, and he goes quiet for a few seconds.
“There’s a cafe that is well-known for their strawberry shortcake nearby. Is that amenable to you?”
“Does it come with ice cream?”
“With an extra fee, yes.”
“That sounds good. About what time shall we head out?”
His eyebrows knit together, “We, madam?”
Huh? Does he not want to come with you? Are there more chores that he needs to do? Are you intruding on his time? Oh no. You start to panic a little as you come up with a possible solution to a problem you aren’t aware of.
“Very well. I shall finish with my task and prepare you for your outing.”
Oh, you guess he figured it out on his own. Shrugging whatever that was off, you head upstairs to wash your hair and face.
You exit the bathroom and nearly jump when you see Starling already in your bedroom, setting out your day clothes on your bed, ensuring that each garment is free of wrinkles and stains.
Once he’s done with that, without saying a word, he bows and exits, allowing you to put on your clothes. It’s your favorite outfit. Starling has his own opinions of the things you should and shouldn’t wear, and occasionally your tastes clash with his. There have been at least a couple of arguments between the two of you in regards to your fashion choices. He doesn’t like this particular one, saying the colors aren’t in season and the style itself is outdated. Still, he set it out for you, which is strange.
You put it on, and it’s as comfortable as ever. You spin in front of your three-panel mirror, happy with your outfit for the day. You don’t know why Starling doesn’t like it, you look great!
Stepping out of your room, Starling waits for you in the living room. As pristine as ever. The two of you do your regular go outside ritual, consisting of him making sure your clothes are proper, ensuring you have all the stuff you need when you go out, checking your vitals to make sure you are healthy enough to be outside (you’re not sure that last step is needed, but he does it anyway).
Once he’s satisfied with the state of your corpus, he opens the door for you. You walk out, and he follows.
On your walk, Starling stays a minimum 2 feet behind you. Another one of his little quirks, that apparently other HelperBots don’t come with. He has quite a lot of them, now that you think about it. Did you get a defective model? That question makes you feel bad for even asking it. He’s not defective. You try to imagine a world where he didn’t do all of these things, and it makes you sick. Erase those thoughts.
Continuing on, London begins to get more crowded as lunch rush approaches. It’s another 15-20 minutes of walking, and you’re beginning to regret your choice to go outside. Crowds scare you. They’re loud and there’s so much happening that your brain sometimes struggles to keep up with everything.
You stop in the middle of the pavement. You know Starling stops as well, though you can’t hear his footsteps over the crowd. Wait, he’s still with you, right? He didn’t go back home? Your heart pounds in your ears and your hands go clammy. You quickly turn around.
He’s there. Thank God. You’re not sure if your face betrays your feelings – it usually doesn’t but you’re also very stressed right now. He can tell you’re upset by something, though.
Before he can even open his mouth, you start, “We should- We should head back home. I don’t feel like going to the garden anymore.”
You try to walk past him, but he stops you by grabbing your hand. You glance up at him. There’s an emotion on his face, one you’ve never seen before on him, but it quickly goes back to his normal blank expression.
Meeting your eyes, he says in a very calming voice, “Madam, I will be here, with you. I will not leave. You do not have to worry.”
You eye the growing crowd. Once, when you were a kid, you got lost in a shopping mall, separated from your parents, and unable to spot them in the large crowd. You were terrified, and stayed that way for what felt like an eternity. You cried until you couldn’t cry anymore, and fell asleep at the table you refused to move from. When you woke up, you were in your mom’s arms safe and sound. You’ve hated shopping in person ever since.
As the memory comes back to you, you feel your eyes start welling with tears. You’re a grown adult now, acting like this is pathetic.
Starling’s grasp on your hand grows tighter. “I will be here,” he says again. The look in his eyes is soothing, even if the rest of his face isn’t.
You nod. “Can you lead the way?” It feels like your mouth is filled with cotton, and it feels like a battle to get that small sentence out. Your breathing is rather fast at the moment.
“If that is your wish,” he replies. He walks forward, with confidence you could never have in this situation. He guides you through the crowds, finding the perfect places for both him and you to thread through. If you had been by yourself, you wouldn’t have made it out. You would have panicked 3 minutes in, and walked into a dark alleyway, and get kidnapped, and die. Probably. You might be overreacting a tiny bit.
You’re not alone, though. Starling’s here. Just him being around makes you feel infinitely safer. It’s okay. You’ve got this. No, you don’t, but Starling does, so everything will be alright. Have you ever felt this way with anyone else before? Maybe just once, when you were a teenager, with all those teenager feelings and puberty and hormones playing a large role in that. What an ill-advised relationship that was.
At the thought of relationships, your face feels warm again. The grip on your hand suddenly feels a lot tighter, and the realization pierces you like a bullet through the heart. Lord, not here, and not now! Deal with this at home, and not in public where everyone can see you freak out.
You think about pulling your hand away, but it feels too nice and you don’t really want to do that. Besides, if you do stop holding Starling’s hand, you’ll probably get swept away in the sea of human beings that currently surrounds you. Better to hold onto your raft, you think.
The crowd never gets thinner as you approach your destination, but you do relax more. Maybe the gardens won’t be as crowded, since you have to pay to get in. A nice barrier to entry.
The two of you approach the ticket booth. Starling takes care of the transaction. A good thing, too. You don’t think you’re quite in the right mindset to interact with other people just yet. He hands you a ticket, and wraps up the interaction.
With your tickets in hand, you scan at the door and enter the gardens.