Work Text:
Early August 2013
Sooooooooooo.
Archives. Relics. Mysteries and hidden passages. Items of great and grand importance…..all lost and locked in a cabinet somewhere for all of a century and some months change. Files and the keys to solving all their problems shoved long and forgotten between the metaphorical couch cushions of Walter Manor.
It is not entirely often that Peter Walter VI ends up poking through boxes covered in probably-toxic-but-who-honestly-cares-at-this-point dust.
Who cares at this point, really. He has enough blue matter swimming about his bloodstream that if it doesn't kill him before 50 he'll have long beaten the odds.
The statistically average Walter or Walter partner dies at 46, living outliers such as his aunt and uncle excluded. Of course, excluding further outliers, such as great great grandparents, Colonel Walter and his wife Iris, that drops to 36! So, well, 9 more years till he’s past the real average.
Beebop is technically supposed to be archiving and going through all the stuff and things and papers in storage. And technically Bebop has, in fact, sorted through most items in storage. But what Peter might call “Heyyyy Beebop, do we have any of my great great uncles letters? I am trying to cross reference some dates, please and thank you and leave them at my desk, okay?” Beebop would call “CORRESPONDENCE P.A.WALTERIII I.M.BECILE JUNE 23 1923 MEDIUM:PAPER LENGTH:2346 WORDS LOCATION:WALLS” and, well, if he doesn't ask for that specifically Beebop will confidently claim he has nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Peter's been trying to bribe him into running modifications to add RDA data to his catalog, but Beebop does not like MARC 21. Not one bit. Not even a little.
So Beebop's database is terribly organized. And Beebop got offended and fired the librarian they hired to try and fix it.
So well, unless he wants to play keyword search riddles with Beebop or attempt to bribe QWERTY into trying to run through Beebop's file system himself, he's gonna be in the basement on his own two feet. Looking. Searching. Discovering.
There are a lot of boxes in the basement. They're full of fascinating treasures. And while looking for old notes on the progression of Colonel Walter’s blue matter poisoning Peter has found… a box.
If they have anything, it would be in Gramma Iris's old old OLD diaries. Or his great grandfathers post-war journals. And those are, welllll….
A little difficult to find?
And Peter has found, instead, a crate.
A crate. A very large, very metal, crate.
And on the crate is a note, written in what he knows by now to be Colonel Peter The First’s swirling cursive:
WALTERGIRAFFE TEST MODEL 02 “GWENDOLINDIA GERTRUDOFFERSON”
MARCH 1897
DO NOT OPEN.
NOTE: MAY CONTAIN VOLATILE PARTICULATE & LEAKING BLUE CORE
Such things are commonplace in Walter Manor.
This is a rather… large crate, though. And from about a year and a half before his target date of when The Colonel had his OWN blue matter accident. It isn't what he was looking for. But that is a name, and a bot title, and—
And color him curious. If he learned anything from the Holy Gosh Zer0 Was In The Basement incident from when he was 10.
Beebop plucks it up, when Six directs him to it, says:
PETER
MY SCANS
INDICATE
THAT THIS BOX HAS BEEN LABELED HAZARDOUS DUE TO ELEVATED BLUE MATTER CONTENT
PLEASE REMEMBER TO
EXICE CAUTION
and….sure, sure. Caution. Sure.
How much worse can he get? At this point, with his face burnt to nothing, truly, how much worse can he be? He's got a tube down his nose to eat now, and enough pain medication in him on the day-to-day to probably hinder his decision making, but hey.
He’s going to open the scary box.
It's 2013, and how much worse can things get?
He cracks it open with minimal safety gear. His mask, perhaps, counts as safety gear on a technicality. He also has gloves to grip the crowbar, so well, he’d give himself a C+ safety gear rating.
Regardless.
It opens with the popping of fasteners and a shadow of the scent of motheaten paper. And—
Huh.
That's…that's a robot, huh?
Small. Maybe the size of a large dog? Giraffe shaped, wrapped around jointed giraffe legs, with a still-glowing blue matter matrix crystal in its chest.
Gwendolindia Gertrudofferson.
He recognizes the chassis mechanics to be a…..practically miniature scale of Delilah. The method of locomotion, the way the neck links together.
The box said 02.
She's not a mechanics test, then. For Delilah. He reaches down for her, and—
Lights blinking on, gears spinning, as the core reacts to light against his grate, but she doesn't have water,
“Beebop?” Six asks, “Is this—”
MY SCANS SHOW BLUE MATTER LEVELS
CONSISTENT
WITH EARLY WALTERBOT MODELS
And-
Huh.
Hm.
As he pulls the Robot out of the box, her voicebox whirrs through something like a whhat? - before the gears still, and-
And huh.
Today just got a little itty bit more complicated, hasn’t it?
…
He is upstairs. Not… Up-upstairs, but up-ish stairs, not down-down downstairs, but still below the ground floor. In his workshop, with…..a WalterBot that he does not in fact know!
First things first: turning her on. Turning her on seems sensical. He thinks, as he stands there, looking for where her water intake is, that perhaps he should run this by The Spine and Rabbit, see what they know, maybe, about this robot, or maybe shoot his dad a text, a short
Hey dadddd. Found a robot in the basement. Not like Zer0 it was in a box. Much better shape and also I'm not 10 now. Ever heard of a Gwendolindia???
But also then his dad would insist on being here and he'd have to wait, and the only thing worse than the weird-stressed-anticipation is waiting with weird-stressed-anticipation.
She has two water intake valves, one between her ‘shoulders’ - the other in her mouth, sort of like The Jon and Upgrade. But giraffe? And smaller.
Her legs don't seem to be too seized up, at least. Especially not after he tests the major joints and oils them where they need it. The only real corrosion issues seem to be around her core, but she’s certainly not leaking blue matter. He’s got a lot of experience with detecting blue matter leaks, and, she certainly doesn't have one. It’s just– well, old old metal kept very very warm in a very small crate for um.
…115 years?
Only when he’s sure it won't be a whole ‘oh my god, I can't move, it's been a hundred years’ situation does he turn her on. He fits the Walter Robotics Brand Robot Water Hose to her intake valve, and lets water fill her boiler.
Her core runs just as hot as the other bots, but her boiler is about a third the size.
She’s tiny though, so maybe it evens out? He’s not sure it would, but well!
Well, she’s got water in her boiler, and it’ll take a while to start boiling, so….
So he sits there, and waits, and thinks he really should have texted his dad about this?.
He’s just drafted out:
Hey dad, i probably should have texted you an hour and a half ago about this, but I found a robot in the basement, she’s a giraffe so im not sure how sentient she’ll be but im turning her on, maybe you should come down here and–
When:
“Uuughhgugh– how long was I off?” A mechanical neck slowly swinging up, blue eyes staring around, “Blehh, The Spine? Raaaaaabbit? Where–”
She– because this is definitely a person –cuts off. Looking at him, then up, then back at him.
“Um.” She says, “Oh. Where am I?”
Oh he should definitely have gotten his dad for this. Oh. Oh what was he thinking?
“Walter Manor,” he says, automatically, as he reaches to steady her, as ok, nope, her joints are not as in working order as he thought. She nearly falls off his work table trying to stand, “In my workshop.”
“Oh.” She says, hardly reacting to nearly falling over, “Well umm, I was just in Walter Manor and um. Not to say you’re lying but it was not like this? Who are you and where is Peter?”
“...My name is Peter Walter, the um. The sixth?”
“Um. No?” She says. “Nuh uh?”
Oh his dad would be so much better at this.
“Because um, Peter didn’t–” And then as she’s looking back and forth she catches sight of the crate on the floor, that she came out of, and she screams, head tossing back as her voicebox rattles, and he has to steady her, because her front legs are not working higher than the foot joints, and her back kick sideways,
And–
“Oh– um, no, no, um, I took you out of there,” he tries, and she’s burning through so much of her water, her steam, he–
“I don't want to go back in the box,” she pleads, and that makes something twist in his stomach, and this is no good, "Don't turn me off please please,”
“You’re not!” He says, too loud, maybe, “Gwen, you’re okay, alright? It’s– You’re okay?”
She’s not, and he has no idea how to do this.
She shakes her head, back and forth and frantic. And he doesn’t know what to do other than lean forward and put himself between her and that crate.
She’s staring at him.
Then she lets her head fall flat to the work table, stops trying to stand. Loose joints and glowing-blue eyes.
“How do you know my name?”
“It…said it on the crate, I found you in,”
“Ok. Well. I go by Gwendolindia Gertrudofferson. But Peter would call me GG.”
“Alright.” Ok. great. This is– this is a lot, isn’t it? “Hello, GG. Are you– how do you feel?”
“I don't know.”
And she’s a bit very broken, but so is he, at this point, and–
He reaches forward, and sets a hand on her head. She stares at him. Eyes full of oil. “That’s okay. I’ll make sure you’re alright, and working, and we can go from there?”
She closes her eyes, and presses her head into his hand,
“Ok, Peter.”
And he
He hopes he can figure out how to do this.
…
Late August, 2013
And it's weeks later, then, after he’s gotten her both running and sprinting down the halls. Not singing yet, but he’s thinking about booking her lessons.
He is sitting on the couch. Gwendolindia Gertrudofferson is also sitting on the couch. Next to him. Having spun out from around the corner before jumping and crashing herself against the cushions.
One of those days where he sort of feels like he’s thinking through molasses that's currently gumming up a blender. He’s all pins and needles from his wrists down and really trying to pretend the constant terror of losing dexterity permanently doesn't terrify him.
He feels like overmixed batter.
Or maybe a loaf of bread that didn’t quite remember to rise.
Or jello full of eggshells for some reason.
GG, of course, as she extracts herself from where her leg got caught in the back of the couch, drapes herself over his lap, as has become her habit and he–
So she’s heavy? She’s a little bit very metal and a boiler full of water, which are both notoriously heavy substances. And he’s probably going to turn in for the night before six past noon because his face sort of feels like it's dripping wax, and every time he moves he gets a little bit of spin to his vision, which is, well,
Not Normal.
But regardless, anyways, despite it all–
His bones hurt. Or maybe it's his muscles or tendons? Blue matter poisoning. Generalized weakness. Generalized pain. And he– well, he doesn’t want a 50 pound baby robot giraffe on him, right now.
“GG,” He says, pressing a hand under her, “Could you sit next to me instead?”
She flops her head backwards to stare up at him, horns clanking it backwards against her back. “Why?”
“I don’t really think this will work today.”
“Peter you always let me lay on you though. You told me I could.”
His head feels a bit like it's splitting.
And part of him is annoyed but– she’s said she doesn’t know how old she is, then started counting days when he fixed her, so it numbered in the weeks, and she–
She’s maybe two months old. She’s not very good at understanding anything yet.
He pushes her to his side, and she goes, mopily.
“GG, I hurt myself a while ago, and I don’t feel great today.”
She stares. “Oh okay. How?”
And it's a little rude, but she doesn’t mean it like that.
“Well I hurt my face, GG.”
“Yeah I know that.” She flops sideways. Droops her head off the edge of the couch, horns brushing the carpet. “That's why everyone is weird around you and treat you weird. The Spine told me that's why they do that.”
Ouch.
“...And the blue matter is poisoning me, a little.”
She goes a little still. Folds herself up and presses her nose to his.
“What.”
“..I’m sick, GG.”
“You’re poisoned. Like in a movie. Are you gonna die?”
“No, GG,”
“I don't want you to die.” She inches closer.
“I’m not going to die, it won’t kill me anytime soon. Sort of like heavy metal poisoning?”
“What’s that?” Right. Well.
“Lead or mercury make you sick.”
“Hmnmnmn.” She pulls back a centimeter. “I don't like that.”
“I don’t either.” He sets a hand on her back. “I’m getting surgery, soon, so I can eat better, at least. You won’t be able to lay on me for a few weeks after that either.”
“What’s surgery?”
What’s surgery.
Right.
She’s a few months old.
“It's when doctors– cut open your body to fix something, you know how I had to take off your plating to fix all your joints?”
She nods.
“Just like that. But it's going to be making a hole to my stomach so I don't have to chew or swallow as much.”
“Cuz your face is all messed up?”
“Because I hurt my face, right.”
“Sooooooo it’s like my water valve on my back. That's normal. Humans should just have that already. Humans suck.”
He laughs a bit, maybe, pats her back as he lets his head fall back against his pillows.
He doesn’t want to scare her. But he’s a lot more scared of surgery than she should ever be to be worked on.
“Soo….” He makes himself sit up a bit, ignores how prickly his hands feel as he plucks up the remote, “Do you want to watch more Disney movies? There’s still a bunch you haven't seen.”
“Duh. Why else would I be here?”
“To spend time with me?” He asks, clicking through to the Walter MP4 shared library, on the television, starts navigating through the file menu for kids movies,
“Well yeah. While watching a movie Peter. What else would we do?”
“I don't know, GG, a board game?”
“Why would I want to play a game that makes you bored?” she flicks her tail back and forth, as she kicks her legs out across the cushions. Its prongs whap against the backing fabric of the couch.
“Board refers to the board it’s played on, GG, not—”
“Movie. You’re being boring Peter. I don't need more of that.”
“Right, yes, of course, GG, you dont . So! So, we can watch….”
…
Early October, 2013
Peter’s sitting in his office, working on rocket schematics. He likes rockets, space probes, rovers, space missions. Space space and more space.
He can just….turn off his brain, when working on space designs. Turn off his brain and focus on rocket science, not rift science, for once.
Of course, just as he jots down what could be an interesting new design for a thruster modification to save weight, metal hooves click into his office, and a tiny giraffe head plops itself against the far end of his desk.
“Peterrrr.”
He looks up. “Hi, GG.”
“Ok, So, Peter, I wanna go play a game, okay?” GG stares up at him. Blue eyes unblinking.
He’s doing pretty okay, today. Less of a haze of blue over every thought. Enough to think and work.
But……he has been working, if his clock is correct, about 5 hours straight now, on this design. And he should maybe drink some water. Or try to.
He’s…maybe getting better at the whole drinking concept, again, but honestly, surgery to take the burden of eating off his mouth has been really nice.
“....Let me wrap up what I’m doing? We could play any game you want,” He finishes the last few lines on his preliminary sketches, “Do you want me to get us UNO? Or your—”
“No. I’m a princess. And you’re my servant.”
Oh. Oh Okay.
“I’m what?”
“Peter, soooo you’re my loyal servant who makes sure I have everything I ever need. And calls me Princess Gwendolindia.”
Princess Gwendolindia.
Sure.
Okay. Sure.
Yeah he can do that.
“Well, Princess Gwen, do—”
“Ahem. Gwendolindia. Not Gwen.”
“Right. Alright, Princess Gwendolindia.” He snags his cane from its holder, pushes himself up, “Does her highness have a goal in mind?”
“Yes. We’re gonna go play my piano and you’re going to tell me how talented and beautiful and likable I am.”
“Well you are all these things, Princess,”
“I know, you just need to tell me them. Anyway follow me, servant.”
“Does your humble servant have a name?” He follows her as she gallops out of his office.
“No. Servants don't get names.”
“...Servants don’t get names, okay,”
“Servants can have numbers maybe. You can be Servant Six.”
“....You have five other servants?”
“They’re all stupid.” She twists her head back to stare at him.
“They’re stupid?”
“Well Servant Five is nice but he’s always too busy doing important things.”
Riiiight. Okay.
“Too important for Princess Gwendolinia?”
“I dunno I guess he’s doing knight stuff because he’s a knight.”
“Servant Five is a knight, okay.”
“Yeah I dunno Peter anyway I haven’t thought about other servants. Go into the elevator Servant. We’re going to The Princess’s Chambers.”
He has no idea where that is. But well.
Why not, y’know?
The Princess’s chambers turn out to just be the living room, and Her Highness Gwendolindia makes him listen to her play the piano (And her new song she’s working on, singing lessons are helping, some) as she sings.
When she finishes the song, he claps, and her eyes glow brighter.
“I didn't mess up a note!” chirps GG, as she prances up to him,
“You didn’t,” She clambers over his legs, flopping against his chest,
“And you should tell me how perfect I am.”
“You are perfect, GG.”
“Ok. And how not annoying I am and how much you love me? Because I’m a princess.”
Oh. Oh.
“Did someone call you annoying?” He wraps an arm around her.
“No.” She says, quick enough it's a lie, she’s not great at lying.
“You’re not annoying, GG. And I do love you.”
“Obviously.” She lets her joints loose as she sprawls against him. “Because princesses are never ever annoying and everyone loves them forever and ever.”
She was in a box for a long, long time.
“Ok so Peter, wait– servant, um. So what if a dragon was stealing me? Like in the movies? Because dragons eat princesses. You wouldn't leave me right? Cuz you’re my loyal servant.”
“Well, if there were in fact a dragon trying to steal you, I would in fact make sure the dragon leaves, and I would simply not leave the princess.”
She pulls back enough to stare at him.
“Kay. And what if I fell super far down a really deep hole and it was dark??”
“...Well,” He leans back against the base of the couch, brings her with him, “If you were stuck, I would first call my dad to bring me a ladder and a flashlight, and then I’d drop down the flashlight so it’s not dark for you anymore, before I’d use the ladder to come get you.”
“You would get me?”
“I would get you.”
“Mmk. You’re the best servant. You passed my test.”
“Your test?”
“My test. Anyway do you wanna hear my other new song?”
“...You have another new song?”
“Yeah? Obvs.”
She pulls back, trots back over to her piano,
“Ok so you gotta like my new song, okay Peter?”
He will. Even if it's not exactly up to what his other robots make.
He’s beginning, slowly, to understand why his dad papered over half the walls in his office with macaroni art and drawings he made.
..
November 2013
Peter's made approximately no progress on conning, bribing, or even just old-fashioned-convincing Beebop to provide a bit more information in his item records.
Which, when it was just about him, was annoying but fine. But right now it's about Rabbit.
They need Rabbit’s blueprints. Or any very old blueprints of the robot cores, but the exact matrices of his core are important. He was the first robot Col. Walter made. With any of the others it could reasonably be assumed to be at derivative of Rabbit. But he was the first. The details are important when he's—
Breaking. When he's breaking in a way none of them know how to fix. Something is wrong. There's something wrong in his core, and—
And anyone who would know how to fix that died a long, long time ago.
And so it's him, and his dad, sorting through hundreds and hundreds of papers. Currently, they're going through the files in the crate he found GG in, because, well.
It's guaranteed the right time frame, at least. Even if so far it's only proven to contain bills, expense reports, and, frankly, rather poorly written college English essays.
It's odd. Going through this box. Because GG gets cagey and nervous whenever she even sees transport crates. It’s weird to think she was in here for 100 years.
He says as much, as he thumbs through documents about the acquisition of the land their manor sits on, sets them aside in the Possibly Potentially Important file.
His dad’s fond of GG, he thinks, at least.
He's just finished talking about how much planning is going into GG's next Disney musical themed recital, when his dad hums.
“You know, Peter,” says his dad, sitting surrounded by his own stack of a hundred and a half handwritten 1890s documents, “With how GG follows you around the IRS might let you claim her as a dependent on your taxes.”
Peter looks up from a line-by-line expense report from 1894, squinting through his mask at his dad, “A what on my what?”
“Dependent on your taxes.”
“No I heard. What?”
“Well, son, there’s this concept called an inference–”
“She’s a robot, they don’t count as dependents, business expenses maybe but–”
His dad looks at him.
“You’re good with her, Peter, she looks up to you.”
He pauses, as he files aside another expense report into the Col. Walter’s Dubious Financial Decisions folder. “She– I don’t know, I just..”
“You take care of her.”
He tries??
“Mom does too,”
“Your mother is excited to have a granddaughter, Peter. Who else is she going to manage music lessons for?”
He throws a paperclip at his dad, who just shakes his head, looking at him.
Maybe. MAYBE. But he–
He doesn't know. He sighs, and grabs a new stack of papers, “She’s just excited to be involved.”
“And you’re good with her.”
Peter….
Peter doesn’t refute it.
…
Mid December, 2013
“Hey, Spine, Rabbit, Hatchy, I’ve got a proposal,” Peter announces himself with it, as he strolls himself into their band rehearsal / sound check / mechanics test / music sequencing / band rehearsal.
Rabbit and Spine are, for some reason, mid rock-em-sock-em-robots, while Hatchworth cheers from the side.
Rabbit’s fist knocks The Spine’s head sideways, and Hatchworth makes a damage-taken sound.
“...Is this a bad time?” He asks.
Everyone turns to face him.
“N-n-n-nope.” Says Rabbit. She's in her new faceplate, he just finished it a few days ago, and a black longer wig that she stole from Upgrade’s old storage ones. “But I’m beating Spine up here, sooo,”
“You are not beating me Rabbit–”
“You’re just afraid to hit a lady–”
The Spine wacks her, and her voicebox glitches to static a second, before Hatchworth clears his throat and says: “Guys it could be important, we should hear Peter out–”
“I want GG to go to shows with you all.”
They all stare at him.
“...Are you outta your m-mind?” asks Rabbit.
“Peter, she will eat my hat.” argues The Spine.
“Hm. That doesn't seem wise.” ends Hatchworth.
“Think about it!” Peter claps, “She’s a steam powered giraffe, anddddd you’re Steam Powered Giraffe!”
They stare at him.
“She’s been learning piano–”
“Peter,” says The Spine, setting a hand on his shoulder. “She does not play piano well enough to be on stage with us.”
“...Guys, c'mon. For Brass Goggles even?” They all look at each other. “She’d really love it, if you took her on stage, even just to say hi to the crowd. She never really gets out of the manor at all. It would be good for her. And she loves music.”
The silence creeps forward a few seconds. Before:
“...Alright,” says The Spine, “We’ll fit her into our show schedule. As long as you ensure she’s behaved.”
“Of course.” Peter snags The Spine’s hand, shakes it, sealing the deal, “Very much a deal, she’ll be very excited, and think of the promotions we could do! A real Steam Powered Giraffe! On Stage! Surely it’ll draw a crowd for the expositions!”
…
And Peter’s backstage, the next time there’s a Steam Powered Giraffe show, GG gets to talk to the crowd, prances around the stage as they start Diamonds, before taking her bow and retreating back to talk his ear off about how much they all loved her.
She presses into him, laughing as he hugs her.
(“Did you see them clap? They all clapped Peter! For me!”)
She goes back frontstage with her piano for Brass Goggles, plays and sings along, and Peter’s not entirely sure he’s seen her this excited before.
Eyes bright over her piano as she stares out at the crowd, and well.
As they all come backstage, after curtains, he pulls her up onto his chair, tells her she shined out there.
He might have been cheering the loudest from back here.
Steam Powered Giraffe really does have a steam powered giraffe, now.
