Work Text:
The first mistake [REDACTED] made was taking off his glasses.
No, Mecha thinks, that isn't fair to all the other mistakes he has made in his life. The real first mistake he ever made was being born, followed by dozens of childhood rite-of-passage mistakes like trying to go down the stairs two at a time (he still has a scar on his elbow from when he inevitably fell) and listening to [REDACTED MEMORY]'s teasing suggestions for how to handle life's difficulties.
Becoming Mecha [REDACTED] was pretty stupid too, if he wants to be real with himself. He doesn't, though, so instead he thinks his next big mistake was him being stupid enough to fall for the trap Shroud had laid for him. Getting blown up was not one of his finest moments. Dying was another mistake he'd made in the past, even if it was a mistake he had been long resigned to making. It was a risk he had accepted when he took up the mantle of [REDACTED MEMORY], after all.
Dying was still an accident on his part, though, even if he'd always known it was coming.
After his death, there came a whole other host of mistakes. Getting revived by Shroud—which technically wasn't his fault since he was dead when it happened, but he's blaming himself anyway—was a pretty major one. Becoming resigned enough to the programming Shroud had installed in him that he has become a little worker drone for the Red Ring was another major mistake, but not one he has the energy to fix.
Maybe a year ago, when he first woke up and was full of righteous fury at Shroud for turning him into some strange android creature, he could have fixed it. Maybe nine months ago, when he realized he was becoming more than just a faceless goon, he could have figured out a way to put an end to things. Perhaps even six months ago, when he could still be considered [REDACTED. DO NOT CONTINUE THIS LINE OF THOUGHT, MECHA. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.] he could have done something.
Even today, he's made half a dozen mistakes before his mistake of taking off his glasses. He'd woken up; that was a pretty major one that he was really starting to regret. Then he'd thrown the protein bar Toxic—or Vincent, as he insisted Mecha call him because they were apparently on a first-name basis—had brought him for breakfast at Vincent's face because the stupid meta was being extra annoying with his whole "babe" shtick. After that, he'd gone to meet Shroud. Admittedly, that was not a mistake: the consequences of avoiding Shroud were much worse than the discomfort of sitting across from Shroud and being given orders or some strange loyalty test.
No, meeting Shroud had not been his next mistake at all. His real mistake after breakfast (or, more accurately, his lack of breakfast), had been assuring Shroud he would be able to handle his work without the core.
God, he hates that stupid core. The damn thing is inserted into the metal-coated, gaping, circular hole in his chest whenever Shroud sees fit. It's only about three inches in circumference, if he had to guess, but it's heavy like it's made of pure lead. Actually, no, pure lead would weigh less than the stupid core. Stupid fucking Ironman-ass augment. The hole for it is even right over his heart like he's Phoney Stark or something.
Now, now, Mecha, don't be dishonest with yourself. You love the core just as much as you hate it.
The stupid voice in his head—some part of the programming Shroud had installed him ages ago—is right. As much as he hates to admit it, the core is both the bane of his existence and the only thing that gives him any relief from his daily comedy of errors. He's much stronger when the core is in place, allowing him to better protect himself from anyone who might wish him harm. Which is most people in the Red Ring, due to his past as [REDACTED].
The core also powers the detachable arm that either Shroud or Vincent will mount to the large, hexagonal metal plate fused to his back. The plate, along with the six spinal facet-shaped joints fused along his spine, is reportedly meant to help with his scoliosis. Mecha has his doubts that the attachments are really meant to support his spine and not for [FORBIDDEN THOUGHT]. [FORBIDDEN THOUGHT]? ….[FORBIDDEN THOUGHT.] Fine, he gets it, no more thinking about [FORBIDDEN THOUGHT. FINAL WARNING BEFORE SHOCK IS ADMINISTERED].
The robotic arm—which he named Armin because he isn't very creative—is his only true companion in the Red Ring. It gives him gentle head pats after a job well done and holds things for him when his two human hands are full. He loves the arm to death, even though whenever the arm is on, he isn't exactly able to feel emotions.
It's ultimately the way the core suppresses his emotions that makes him hate the damn thing as much as he loves it. From the moment the core is inserted until the moment it's removed, whatever shreds of humanity he has left are pushed down and away. His ability to feel is gone; his ability to disobey (which is already quite limited on a good day) is gone; even the general aches and pains that he's lived with since long before becoming Mecha disappear the moment the core clicks inside him.
It's unnatural, and uncomfortable, and the mere thought of having the core in place fills him with cold dread. The best he can compare the experience to is drowning, but even then, drowning at least ends after a few minutes. Maybe a more accurate comparison is waterboarding. It's this horribly unpleasant feeling that feels like he's suffocating, but it just never ends because it's all in his head and he just won't die.
The problem, Mecha has realized, is that nothing ever truly goes away. Like a landfill, unwanted things are thrown there to be buried, but the trash still exists beneath the ground. The core is an excavator, and he is the trash it buries deep underground. He's never gone when the core is in place; he's just out of the way so the algorithm Shroud has programmed can puppet his body around without any interference. It's…not something he's supposed to think about, so he doesn't.
Instead, he thinks that the final major mistake he made before taking off his glasses was trusting Shroud when he said that Vincent would be away for most of the day.
"Mecha," Shroud had ordered earlier when Mecha stood to leave Shroud's office and begin his assigned tasks, "I've sent Toxic on an errand. So do me a favour and actually use the workspace I set up for you for once. This particular job will require you to use at least two screens, with the use of a third screen increasing your odds of success by 15%. Your office workspace has a proper setup for your hacking; the supply closet you like to hide in does not."
As a note to whatever program monitors my thoughts, Mecha had thought as he sat down at his desk, I don't actually enjoy working in the supply closet. It is very tiny, and I have to put my feet in the open drawer of the broken file cabinet so I can actually fit inside enough to close the door. I only go in there because Toxic will not stop trying to fuck me otherwise.
At 11:43 AM, he was unpleasantly surprised by Vincent throwing open the door to his little office and loudly declaring, "Food's here! Best Chinese takeout this side of 42nd street!"
"Are we…close to 42nd street?" Mecha asked.
"Oh, babe, you know I can't be telling you shit like that. We don't want that pretty little head of yours thinking thoughts its not supposed to, now do we?" Vincent mocked in a sing-song voice. Then, a bit more seriously, he'd said, "But like, the takeout is pretty decent. I only know one guy who got food poisoning from the place, but he also like, never washed his hands. Like, EVER. So, you know, it probably wasn't the food's fault? But it could have been so-"
"I thought you had shit to do for Shroud today?" Mecha interrupted.
He had been starting to get a headache—part of the reason why he ended up taking off his glasses—and he'd just wanted Vincent to shut the fuck up before the headache got any worse.
"Yeah, he wanted me to melt a guy's skin off. I was supposed to really take my time with it too, make it last all day sort of thing, you know?"
"Couldn't control yourself, huh? You just burned right through him and finished with time to get takeout. Whatever will Shroud think?"
"Trust me, babe, I have great self-control. If I didn't, you'd have a lot more holes than just your tight little asshole and your core hole. And your bitchy mouth-hole too, I guess." He made an obscene gesture as he spoke, just in case Mecha didn't pick up on the flirty tone. "Alas, the loser was already dead when I got there. Think he killed himself before I even got the order from the bossman to deal with him."
"Mhmm," Mecha hummed noncommittally as he turned his focus back to his desktops.
Vincent had said something else, but he hadn't been paying attention to the meta until the lights began to flicker on and off rapidly.
"Can you fucking not?" Mecha had snapped.
"I could, but then how would I get your attention?"
"You wouldn't get my attention, because I'm busy."
"Wow, that's great for you, but I—" Vincent had dramatically placed his hand over his heart as if he thought Mecha might not understand who the "I" was referring to, "—do not give a shit. I got takeout, remember? And you were being a little bitch this morning and didn't eat breakfast, so now you're behind in your calories. I have to get 3000 calories in you before your bedtime."
At this point, Mecha's head had been throbbing like it was ready to split open. And thus he arrived at the current moment, when he made not his first mistake, not his last mistake (he was a realist; he knew there would be more), but his most recent mistake. He took off his glasses and set them down beside him on the desk so he could rub his eyes.
"Yoink!" Vincent laughs as he darts up and grabs the glasses off the table. "No more working, let's have a lunch date!"
"Vincent, I'm not in the mood for this."
"Hate to break it to ya, babe, but you're never in the mood. And going off of what Shroud has told me about Daddy Robertson, the ED runs in the family."
"The fact that you've asked Shroud about my—"
The shock rips through him a millisecond before his brain informs him that saying [REDACTED] is a [FORBIDDEN THOUGHT]. He probably should have expected the shock; he'd really been pushing his luck today with all his thoughts of [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [FORBIDDEN THOUGHT]. But even if he had been able to brace himself for the shock, he logically knew it wouldn't have made the pain any better. What did Shroud say the voltage of the shocks was? 2000? 3000? He knows it's enough to temporarily paralyze him but not knock him out, as he's learned from experience. He knows, too, that it increases with each infraction that occurs within a set time frame.
Whatever the shock was, it makes him collapse to the ground while a raw scream rips from his throat. When he stops screaming, Vincent is leaning over him with a smug expression. His glasses are sitting atop the meta's head as if they belong there.
"You wanna try that again?" Vincent asks casually.
"Yeah, actually," Mecha says through clenched teeth. He tries to stand up but ends up falling over the moment he gets to his knees. Fuck it, he decides; he can stay on the floor for another minute while his body reboots itself.
Mecha continues, saying, "I was going to say that the fact you've spoken to Shroud about anyone I…share DNA with…having erectile dysfunction says a lot more about you than it says about me. It also makes you seem pretty desperate, always trying to fuck me."
Vincent laughs, "Get your mind out of the gutter; I was talking about an eating disorder."
Vincent bends down and hooks his hands under Mecha's armpits to haul him to his feet, then guides him to sit on the small office's workspace. The couch is a gaudy pink colour with a dozen mysterious stains scattered across the cushions. Vincent had brought it into the office several months ago so he would have somewhere to lounge while bothering Mecha.
Sitting on it makes Mecha feel dirty; having Vincent throw an arm over his shoulder and shove a box of takeout and a fork into his limp hands somehow makes him feel even dirtier. He considers refusing to eat the food or even throwing it at Vincent's face, but Vincent stops him with a tsk.
"It's not worth it, babe. You refuse food, and I tell the boss man you need to go back on the feeding tube."
Ugh, he hates it when Vincent is right. He really does need to eat, and Shroud absolutely will force him to use a feeding tube again if he's 'difficult.' With a scowl, he puts the fork in his mouth and chews. Then he puts his fork back in the box, scoops up some more food, and forces himself to keep chewing.
"Got you a soda," Vincent offers.
"If you fucking pissed in it again-"
"Relax, it's a can. Here-" He takes the glasses off his head and passes them back to Mecha, then leans down to dig around in the plastic bag he brought the takeout in. He pulls out two unopened cream sodas and drops them both on Mecha's lap. "I got you the brand-name stuff too. Really spoiling ya."
Mecha wishes he could say it wasn't a thoughtful gesture. Ever since he became Mecha, he was constantly thirsty. Of course he knows that soda doesn't really do much to help with dehydration, but he finds himself constantly craving it. He thinks it has something to do with the cooling needs of his robotic parts and the increased caloric needs of his human body; the liquid helps his system cool, while the calories keep him going. Perhaps the sugar content in the drink helps him too? After all, sugar was once known as the proletariat hunger killer.
Regardless, he's a sucker for soda these days.
"Spoiling is a stretch. But you're doing something to me, alright," Mecha half agrees, because he hates to admit that Vincent has grown on him some.
He takes another couple of bites of his takeout while Vincent talks. When he's a third of the way through his food, he checks the internal clock baked into one of his systems. Quarter past twelve…he really needs to get back to work before Shroud comes to rebuke him for not working while he eats. If he's unlucky, Shroud might force him to put the core in. And he cannot handle the hours of silent screaming as Vincent tries to provoke the computer algorithm into responding. Not today at least. Just the thought of having to endure that again makes him shudder.
"I need to get back to work."
"You need to eat," Vincent protests.
"I'll eat while I work."
Vincent shifts almost uncomfortably in his seat. Mecha thinks he might be a bit sad about the answer. Or, knowing Vincent, he's disappointed that he's being shooed away long before he's run out of material to annoy people with. Oh well, Mecha doesn't care. He sticks his fork in the takeout box as he stands up.
"Wait," Vincent grabs his wrist and holds it tight, "This cost money, you know. You owe me."
"You'll have to ask Shroud to add it to the rest of the debt I never asked for."
"Pfft, no way. Even if you were to bring Shroud the astral pulse on a silver platter right now, you'd still be over a million in the hole. If I add the debt onto that, I'll never get my money back."
"Okay, then I guess you're not getting shit because the only thing I actually own anymore is debt."
Vincent gives him a smirk.
"All I want is one little kiss, Mecha."
Oh FUCK that shit. His blisters from the last time they kissed only healed a couple days ago.
"What are you, twelve? You want a fucking kiss on the cheek?"
"Hey, if you wanna give me a blow job, I'm not complaining. I'm just trying to be reasonable with my requests."
"Ugh, fine."
Vincent's eyes light up like a kid on Christmas. He says, "Wait, really, babe?" at the same time Mecha grabs him by the shirt and roughly shoves their lips together. The meta tastes of old batteries and—unsurprisingly—Chinese stir-fry.
"Wow," Vincent says as they pull apart after a second, "That was the worst kiss I've ever gotten. Even worse than when I tried to make out with you while you were sleeping."
"Oh fuck you."
Vincent wiggles his eyebrows suggestively in a silent offer to make the statement come true.
Later, Mecha will wonder what the fuck he was thinking, leaning back down to kiss Vincent again. He'll probably comfort himself by swearing Vincent's toxic fumes messed with his mind. After all, who in their right mind would eagerly shove their tongue into a glorified puddle of toxic waste?
Well, him, because that's exactly what he's doing. Without separating their mouths, Vincent guides him down onto the couch so he's lying on top of the meta. Both their takeouts are forgotten on the floor as they make out.
"Fuck," Vincent pulls away for a moment to spit a large glob of acid saliva onto the floor. It leaves a scorching burn mark on the floor that makes Mecha's body ache just looking at it. He kinda wants the next spit-take to be spat directly into his mouth. Or on his body. God, he's such a loser.
"Never thought I'd see you so eager," Vincent purrs.
Mecha doesn't dignify it with a response; he just throws himself back into the kiss. He runs his tongue along Vincent's teeth while Vincent gropes his ass. For a brief moment, Mecha is in heaven.
"Ah-hem."
Both Vincent and Mecha snap their heads to the open doorway to see Shroud standing there, arms crossed.
"You have work to do, Mecha," Shroud snarls.
"I-yeah-right. I'll get right back on it."
Quietly, Mecha shuffles back over to his workspace and powers up his desktops. Vincent, equally quiet for once, places what's remaining of the spilled takeout and two cream sodas beside him on the desk. In the doorway, Shroud lets out a displeased huff as he turns away to leave.
"In the future, Toxic, stick to giving him only the necessary care found in the binder I gave you regarding him. Any extra extracurricular activities can happen off the clock."
"You got it, boss!"
Judging by Vincent's tone of voice, Mecha doubts Vincent has truly "got it." Knowing the meta, Mecha suspects Vincent will be back to bothering him as soon as Shroud leaves the room.
Oh well. He supposes it's part of the man's charm. His very, very, very, very, very, VERY limited charm.