Work Text:
“IT LIVES! ”
Hair frizzy and tied above her head, oil on her hands, and foggy glasses obscuring the heavy bags under eyes, she looks very Dr. Frankenstein. Hunk’s always thought of her as a little bit of a mad scientist, especially in the late hours of the night (when she insists she works best as long as there’s coffee and sugar involved). It’s a strange look to pull off at all; he’s dressed similarly, covered in oil and goggles strapped on tight, but he still doesn’t look as scary. Pidge gets manic at the end of a successful project, and it’s just a bit intimidating for everyone.
“Man, look at it go! I knew it’d work!” She dotes over the little robot on the table like a proud parent with a grin on her face Hunk has never seen her give to anything natural. She’s found robotics to be her favorite pastime when not helping with ship repairs or searching through databases and dragged the resident mechanic along for the ride; he’s been woken up in the middle of the night countless times to reach something on a shelf or fix a problem that seems mysteriously purposeful and always ends up staying up til morning with her anyway. The little things she creates are simple tasks----cleaning her dorm, making her bed, transporting tools from the engine room to the lab, but each success has her like she’s just created artificial sentience. Pidge’s interest in building the little guys is slowly bordering on obsession, and it’s hurting Hunk’s sleep schedule, but he keeps waking up to join in on it anyway.
“You still won’t tell me what this one does,” he reminds, looking away from her only to check the clock---three in the morning. Yikes. Morning training’s gonna be hell. Hunk’s a little in awe of her ability to function so enthusiastically so late, watching as she taps it on its head with a pointer finger and oohs and aahs at their handiwork. He really doesn’t have a clue what it’s supposed to do---walk? Why would it just walk? But Pidge is absolutely enthralled with the little pile of nuts and bolts, humming to herself and bouncing around the table; it takes her a few beats to register someone even speaking to her, and she answers without pulling her eyes from it. “Uh, that’s obvious , it---”
And then it creaks and stops in place, and Pidge pulls an expression like someone just stabbed her firstborn son.
“ What? ” She sounds unbelievably heartbroken about it; Hunk would’ve snorted if she didn’t look so distraught. Creator cradles creation in her hands, flipping it over and examining every part for flaws in a panic. “But… I don’t get! I---I checked everything ten times over, did it all from scratch, that programming’s all mine, it should be flawless… what happened? ”
“Let me see.” She’s reluctant to hand it over, but he takes the robot as gently as possible, like holding a baby for the first time. Pidge leans over his arm and stares, offering a chorus of ‘what is it’ s and ‘did you get it’ s and ‘ give it back already, I can fix it’ s until he finally shoos her out of his personal space and into a chair to rest.
“Why’re you so into these all of a sudden?” He asks after a few ticks of silence, still busy with the bot. “I mean---I totally get it, I was on the robotics team back home, it’s fun. But, like… I’m a little worried. You’ve got a lot of these things…”
She doesn’t answer for a while, choosing instead to chew on her collar and clean her glasses on the bottom of her shirt. He feels her eyes on the robot in his hands, then up on his face, then snap back to the robot.
“I… it’s distracting,” her voice is quieter than usual, and she twiddles her thumbs and looks down instead of facing him. “Keeps me from thinkin’ of things I don’t wanna think about.”
She pauses, a long pause, and then looks up with a devious grin. “Also… I like playing God.”
Hunk laughs at that one, a hearty belly-laugh tinted with sleep deprivation and six cups of coffee that makes her want to crack a million billion jokes about playing God, and he hands the robot back to her.
“There’s nothing wrong, of course . We’re geniuses .” And he pulls something out of his overall pockets, closing it in her hands. “Just needs some new batteries, that’s all. Now please go to bed, Shiro’s gonna kill us for being up so late on a training day.”
Some new batteries and it works just like new.
(“Someone pass the space butter!” He yells across the breakfast table. A little robot rolls down to him with a stick of butter in its arms, and he catches Pidge beaming like sunshine.)