Work Text:
The sign on the door of the shop was crooked, hung on a nail rusted to the point that Grian was shocked it hadn’t snapped off and clattered to the ground. Based on the series of tiny holes in the grain of the door, he assumed that had in fact happened before.
Big Ron’s Electronic Assistance
Boxes of unusable wires spilled out next to the door, likely left for scavengers or otherwise desperate people (or droids) who didn’t have enough credits to buy a second, third, or even fourth hand system for whatever they needed fixed.
It didn’t look like the shop of the most skilled mechanic this side of the milky way, but he supposed looks could be deceiving. The faint sound of ABBA drifted out.
Looks could be deceiving, right?
When he went to pull the door open, he could hear someone inside join the song; a horridly off pitch version of ‘take a chance’ made Grian wonder if looks could be that deceiving. But if this was the man he thought it was, it was Grian’s last chance. So he pulled the door open with one hand, holding tightly to a little chip box with his left.
“I’m still free- Take a chance on me!”
“Hello?”
The singing cut itself off with a yelp, followed by the man clearing his throat. That would be Big Ron then, wouldn’t it?
He was tall, that much was true for the name. He towered above Grian, which frankly made Grian want to kick him in the shin, but he had more important things to do at the moment. Maybe later?
“Uh, oh! Yes, hello!” The man awkwardly set the wire he’d been stripping down, taking a work cloth to wipe his hands off as if he just needed something to do with his hands. “Sorry, well,” He looked Grian over vaugley until his gaze fell on the chip box. His face set in a distinct frown. “How can I help you, then?” His voice was tight, unlike his stuttered greeting, as if the box in his hands made any bit of difference.
It did. Grian knew it did. It was the most important thing he could hold.
He raised the box a bit higher, indulging the man’s stare.
“This is a T-I34a. System model D27/i20. His form was destroyed, and I was only able to recover his main chip.” He reached up to the back of his neck, indicating where he’d pulled the chip from. “The rest was unsalvagable. I tried.” He was certain the man didn’t notice the obvious waver in his voice, but it was only because the man was reaching to take the chip from him.
He pulled his arm back before he could.
“I need to know if you can build him a new frame.”
The man scoweled, arm still stretched out as if he could take the chip by desire alone. When his hand returned to his side, he propped it on his hip. Eyes still glued to the box even as he shot Grian down.
“Do you have any idea how strong those are? Why would I waste my time building something back that you clearly didn’t take care of in the first place?” He scoffed. “Droid owners.” He spat, finally looking at Grian again in a way that made it clear how he felt about it. “You don’t give a wit about the things you make to do your work.”
Grian bit down on the inside of his cheek. He’s accident prone. He gave as good as he got, to be clear, and he had no problem leveling his own glare. “There was an accident.” He bit out. “He got caught in it.”
He paused, even seemed to consider it before he shook his head. “No.” He decided. “No one just repairs droids, too much work when it’s cheaper to get and code a new one.” He paused. “So what’s on this one that’s so important? Weapons codes for the Envoy?”
Grian rolled his eyes, but he’d expected the question, even practiced how he would respond. Droids came a dime a dozen, but fixing them? More expensive than it was worth for a chunk of metal.
He’d made a list of excuses. T-I34a might contain the only file of Grian’s identification papers. It wasn’t unheard of to use a droid to store personal information. Granted, people usually had a back-up, but it was believable. T-I34a might be his head droid, the one who coded all his others. Maybe Grian hadn’t coded T-I34a, and he couldn’t reach the original coder. Hell, Grian could probably claim T-I34a was his first droid, that Grian was just overly sentimental, or that a friend had given him the droid.
Any of them would have been more believable than what he actually said.
“He’s my best friend.”
The man scoffed a second time, glancing up at the ceiling like he was wondering how dense Grain thought he was. “I’m not doing anything if that thing’s got weapons codes on it, mate. I don’t care how much you ‘believe in the cause’ or how many credits you’ve got.”
He’s my best friend.” He insisted, using his free hand to unclip his comm from his belt. He searched through it quickly and managed to pull up the last picture of the two of them. It wasn’t anything special, just one of many that Taurtis had taken when Grian hadn’t been paying attention. He turned the screen to face the man. “His name is Taurtis, and he’s my best friend.”
“You’re best friend is a droid?” Grian was sure the words were meant to be biting, sarcastic, mocking— but the man was staring intently at the photo. He shook his head just the once, and Grian groaned. “Whatever’s on his chip must be big if you’re willing to claim he’s sentient enough to be your friend.” He waved a hand dismissively.
Alright, well Grian hadn’t wanted to go the blackmail route. He had tried, tried multiple times, even. It wasn’t his fault that the taller people were, the more of a prick they were. And this man was very tall.
“Your name is Mumbo, yeah?”
Mumbo froze completely. “What? No. I’m Ron. Says so on the door, mate. Y’might need glasses.”
Grian shook his head condescendingly, taking a step closer. “Had my eyes modded a few years back.” Against his own will. “Perfect vision. Better than perfect, really. So, Mumbo. Interesting you should say droids can’t be sentient, no? I mean, being a jail broken droid of the Envoy yourself. Seems a bit odd, thought that’s just my own opinion.” He paused, glancing around the shop. “Hence the Big Ron, right? I’d change my name, too, if I was in hiding.”
He should know. Grian certainly wasn’t his birth name.
Mumbo’s hand shook as he set it down on his workbench, white-knuckling the rag.
“Tell whoever you want. I’m not helping you with whatever you’ve got stored on that chip.” He jutted his chin out. “Besides, no one will believe you.”
Grian’s jaw dropped. “Is it really so hard to believe someone else knows droids are sentient?” He ran free hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead in a way he knew would make it spike up until he combed it back down again. “I mean, he’s not even my droid! And even if he was, he’d still be him!” The hand in his hair pointed accusingly at Mumbo. “And you! You think I came because you’re the best mechanic? Wrong!”
Mumbo half jumped, shoulders curling in just a tad as Grian spoke, like he half expect Grian to throw a punch at him.
“The best mechanic is a teenager called Tubbo six planets North who is convinced I’m related to his friend!” Okay, now he was getting a bit off track. “But you’re a droid too.” His finger fell limply to his side. “I thought if anyone could help bring him back without the strict LP guidelines, it would be you.”
He resisted the urge to kick the man’s shins in as Mumbo took him in. Properly.
Finally, he nodded.
Grian and Mumbo had talked nonstop since the taller had agreed. Mumbo had even called for a friend of his (a lovely woman named Gen who didn’t ask any questions) to cover the main shop while he took Grian down to his real workshop.
Mumbo and a friend of his (not Gem, he’d asked) had dug it out themselves. It was impressive enough to make Grian consider mentioning it to Tubbo the next time he saw the teen.
“There are a few stools over there if you’d like to sit.” Mumbo mentioned offhandedly, far more focused on the chip box in his hand. “You mentioned you jail broke him?”
“Me? Ah, no.” Though he had mentioned Taurtis had been jail broken, but— “That was just before I met him.”
“Do you know who did? How safely it was done? Were there any side effects? It can be disorientating at the best of times, can invite viruses at the worst. I’ve seen it corrode entire chips.”
“He did it himself.”
Mumbo was aghast. “He did it himself? How did he manage that? The LP’s are there to stop him from doing that!”
Grian shrugged. “The guy who bought him wanted him to be able to be his son’s compainion and helper. He was rich.” It didn’t click for Mumbo. “Rich enough Tar was fully customized. We always thought maybe there were so many mods there was no room left for the LP’s. Maybe the engineer just didn’t bother, or maybe he was just bad at his job.” He glanced around the workshop in thought. “He was definitely disorientated, though. Sam thought his chip had been corrupted, his memory was seemingly gone.” He quirked a half smile, nostalgia bubbling in him.
“Seemingly?”
He paused. “Sam was his intended… owner.” He hoped the way he said it made it clear what he thought of the concept. “Taurtis and him had a fight, hence the jail breaking, he was still annoyed by him by the time he felt better, so he pretended not to remember him for a solid month until Sam made it up to him.” He sighed. “Good times.”
Mumbo didn’t respond, turning the box over in his hands to look from all angles. “How did his frame break, then? I figured it must’ve been a virus from the jail break, but it seems like it’s been a while.”
Grian nodded his agreement. “...A building collapsed on him.”
“A whole building?” Mumbo didn’t ask any more details. “That’s a horrid way to go, mate.” He wasn’t talking to Grian, instead down at the chip. “We’ll get you up and running, though. Not a worry.” He opened the box and froze. “His chip—?”
Grian wrung his hands in front of himself. “Tubbo could’ve done it if it was just his frame. He did some updates for Taurtis, replaced joints here and there, but that was when Taurtis could tell him how to do it.” He began, stepping up beside Mumbo to look at the dented chip. He reached to pick it up, holding it in his palm as gently as he could. “I managed to stabilize it, but it was almost in half when I found him. I scrubbed and saved all his previous updates on this,” He pulled out a thumb drive and gave it to the other. “to keep it from overloading with the damages. I can’t really do anything else without risking a necessary factory reset.” He frowned. “I know it’s a lot, and I’m honestly not even sure how possible it all is, but—”
“Your best friend?” Mumbo muttered, taking the chip and holding it to a lamp, setting the thumb drive down beside the base of it. He squinted at the chip, not waiting for a response from Grian before he set the chip back in it’s box and back into Grian’s hand. He curled Grian’s fingers around it. “Come back in a week with Taurtis’ chip. I’ll have a new one primed and ready to transfer the old data to.”
The process took longer than a week. Between the damages and how careful Taurtis had been about keeping his system safe from hackers, it was a lot to juggle and slowed everything down tremendously.
To be fair, Grian was causing about half the delays. He questioned this and that, needed to be walked through everything that happened to the chip that held Taurtis’ entire memory and personality.
Though Mumbo was just as particular. As a droid himself, he had only known how poorly he was built after he began repairing himself. Suddenly aches he’s always had were gone, and he wanted to make sure Taurtis wouldn’t deal with the same.
(Mumbo, a month before, had gone on a five hour rant regarding factory built joints as he had Grian help him hand sculpt ones for Taurtis. Grian had listened, agreed with every point, and made a few of his own. Mumbo had looked near tears at the addition, smile wobbly as he agreed)
In the end, it had taken 73 days and more breakdowns than either of them could count.
The room was near silent as they both stared at Taurtis.
Neither of them wanted to be the one to power him on.
What if one of them had made a mistake somewhere? What if some wire gave out, or the new chip fried itself with the onslaught of information?
What if Grian couldn’t recover anything this time?
While Mumbo wrung his hands and stared, Grian stepped to where his form lied on a small hospital cot. It was as comfortable as they could manage with how tricky it was to get anything down to this level.
(Grian had tried bringing an armchair down for them to pass out on, it hadn’t ended well, and Mumbo still avoided armchairs whenever they came across one on supply runs.)
Taurtis was hooked to a generator.
While he rebooted, updated, and remembered, he would need to have something to draw charge from. Once he stabilized, he could be taken off it, but neither of them wanted to risk him not being able to generate enough power on his own.
He stood beside Taurtis, brushing his fingers across his face, taking in every detail he could remember (which was a lot, if not all of it) to add, and then behind his ear, where a small beep could be heard as his finger print was accepted.
Mumbo stared pacing behind him, likely still wringing his hands.
Grian had seen Taurtis reboot before (now he’d even seen Mumbo reboot once, since the man liked for a friend to be there to make sure nothing went wrong during it), dozens of times, actually. It was always jarring, but not for the reasons other people found it unsettling. He knew Taurtis was a droid, had known since he first met him. So his rebooting, restarting, updating— none of it bothered him. It was just something that Taurtis did, something they planned for and scheduled around, just like anything else.
His eyes were jarring, though. When he was updating, that was. Usually they were so bright, full of ideas and mischief. Now they were blank.
His favourite part would come soon though, when his eyes would blink open, alight with the thing that made Taurtis himself, separate from every other droid, every other person.
Taurtis’ eyes opened, blank for the moment.
Grian’s hand slid back to cup his cheek as he took in his new eye chips.
Mumbo only had one brown (which by itself was lucky. Blue was the far more popular and standard colour). He’d offered to paint one of the blue ones to match, but Grian had brushed it off. Now Taurtis had one deep blue eye that Grian was sure he would adore.
He adored anything that could draw attention to him and away from anything that might out him as a droid. Not that anyone could really tell he was a droid at first glance. Between the two of them, Grian suspected he acted more like a stereotypical droid. Where Taurtis’ opinions were easily and widely known, Grian held his to his chest. When Taurtis laughed loud enough to turn heads, Grian muffled himself with his palm. He’d been following Taurtis’ heels since they’d met. It always lead to some adventure or another, something new, exciting.
More tellingly, Taurtis didn’t follow orders. He was horrible at it, even when it was about safety and worrying Grian. Taurtis had always thought that the things most worth doing were destined to make people worry about him.
As a result Grian worried about Taurtis. A lot.
With his eyes open, his fingers began to twitch one by one. Calibrating. Then his legs, his neck- finally something clicked on.
There he was.
Taurtis blinked, face scrunching up as all the date put itself in its rightful place.
The pressure of Grian’s hand sent Taurtis’ own hand jerking up to investigate, but it quickly settled to cover his hand gently, holding it in place.
Mumbo’s footsteps drew closer as he leaned over Grian’s shoulder to look, in his space the way he never allowed other people. He wouldn’t have allowed for Mumbo except for the fact that he had held Grian as he cried just an hour before while they talked about what to do if something went wrong.
“Hello, mate!” Mumbo greeted, voice wobbly. “Goodness me, you had quite a bit going on. Very lucky your friend-”
“Friend?”
A weight lifted as he heard Taurtis’ actual voice for the first time in months.
Mumbo wrapped an arm around Grian’s shoulders with a tired smile. “Grian. Your friend.” He explained. “There must be quite a bit to sort through. Take all the time you need, mate.”
Taurtis’ gaze sharpened as he scowled at Mumbo and the arm around Grian’s shoulders.
“You have about five seconds to explain before I scream, babe.”
Grian laughed louder than he could ever remember as he broke from Mumbo’s hold and threw himself at Taurtis, who caught him in his arms even as he glared at Mumbo, who, for his part, was stuttering something in his confusion.
“Friend.” Taurtis scoffed, his hand running through the hair at the base of Grian’s head. “Together for five years. Friend.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Grian pulled away just enough to kiss him, short and chaste. “He barely agreed to help when I said we were friends, I didn’t want him to think I was trying to get some sex droid back or something.”
Mumbo made a high pitched sound.
“That’s not what happened?” Taurtis teased. Mumbo’s voice went up an octave, but neither paid much mind to him.
Taurtis chased Grian’s mouth, the hand in his hair holding him in place to keep him from ducking out as he pulled Grian into a much longer kiss.
“What?” Mumbo finally managed.
Grian held a single finger up behind him, telling his friend to wait for a moment as he pried the hand from his hair with a grin, laughing even as Taurtis’ mouth muffled it. Though the other wasn’t quite ready to let Grian go. With his hand free of Grian’s hair, it came to grip the collar of his sweater firmly, keeping him in place.
“Tar.” Grian laughed. “One second- I have to-” he threw his head back and laughed, eyes closed in his joy.
He finally opened his eyes and focused on Mumbo.
“You thought I was using him to store weapons codes.” He explained.
“Why would I do that?” Taurtis mumbled, hands falling to rest at Grain’s waist, letting Grian move until he was settled between Taurtis’ legs, leaning back into his chest. Taurtis glanced at Mumbo. “More importantly, why were you throwing yourself at my boyfriend?”
“I-” Mumbo never finished his sentence, shaking his head and starting over. “Five years? And he’s been, well- him since before you met?”
“Mhm.” Taurtis agreed. “Coming on twelve years.”
Mumbo walked over to a stool and sat down, face devoid of the smile that he usually wore. “I was only jail broken seven years ago.”
Taurtis grinned. “Oh, he’s just an infant! Where’d you find him, Gri?”
“Be nice, Tar. He’s the one who put you back together, humpty-dumpty.”
“You didn’t go to Tubbo?”
“I tried. It’s a bit out of his depth, but-”
“He’s a droid, so he could get around some of the coding stuff.” Taurtis finished. “Thanks for that.” His voice was only a bit cooler as he spoke to Mumbo. “We’ll be out of your hair-”
“We will not.” Grian argued. “One: We have to wait while your system sorts through everything. Two: Mumbo wasn’t throwing himself at me.” He rolled his eyes. “I hope you know I’m only letting the possessiveness slide because you’ve been gone for months. Otherwise I’d kick you.”
Taurtis nodded, eyes light. “I know.” He looked back at Mumbo holding his hand out to shake. “Alright, thanks for real, good to meet you, your secrets safe with me.” He rose a brow at Grian. “Did I cover everything, babe?”
“You forgot to ask what the weather’s like up there.”
“Oh! Good point, what’s-”
Mumbo cut him off, having heard the same line from Grian multiple times too many. “Better than down there.”
Taurtis laughed, and Grian let his head fall back as he listened to it, closing his eyes and reveling that Taurtis was okay.
(At least until the next time Taurtis threw himself into danger.)
Mumbo and Taurtis bickered back and forth, more friendly than anything.
(They’d be fine then, too. It just might take another 73 days.)