Chapter Text
Tim’s brain was aching.
One would think that a corporate-owned killing machine would be immune to pain, but no. Instead, Tim had to deal with the consequences of his irregular recharge cycles. So here he was, head throbbing as he stood motionless behind the human he was supposed to be watching. He was only half-paying attention, engrossed in the text he’d pulled up in his feed about the origins of coffee. His mechanical heart yearned for the ancient coffee forests of the Ethiopian plateau, but he was stuck here, light-years from Earth, on some godforsaken planet that nobody had any business inhabiting.
He kept his expression carefully impassive, though his clients couldn’t see through the opaque helmet that he wore. He’d just reached his favorite chapter in the book, a guide on how Earth humans used to make their own coffee using an antiquated machine called a Keurig, when a yell of surprise interrupted his skimming.
Fine, then. Tim would admit that he’d been distracted. But this job was boring, despite the people he was working with. All of his jobs were boring. First, he’d been stunted, somehow, looking more like a scrawny sixteen-year-old human than a fully-grown SecUnit. Then, after hacking his governor module, which was essentially a taser in his brain set to fry him if he didn’t obey orders from the HubSystem, he’d murdered an entire mining colony that he was supposed to be guarding. At least, that’s what he’d managed to put together from news sources and some simple detective work. The Company had wiped his memory after the incident, of course. Tim was surprised they hadn’t scrapped him, given his physical defects and his tendency to murder without explicit orders, but hey. Continuing to exist, unpaid worker though he was, meant that he could continue daydreaming about the sweet taste of coffee. He’d expected something more engaging, given the fact that he was working with the Bruce Wayne and his crew (epic anti-corporation freedom fighters, not that Tim would ever tell anyone that he knew their secret), but his expectations had been subverted. Initially, he’d enjoyed stalking them via the habitat’s cameras, but activity was too limited on this planet. Tim had gotten bored almost instantly.
So. The yelling. This planet was barren and offensively orange, riddled with sinkholes. Nobody in his survey team had mentioned the cause of the sinkholes, so Tim had assumed that it wasn’t important. He was just along for the ride, after all, pretending that nothing had changed since he’d hacked his governor module. However, it appeared as if the humans were either stupid or inept because the sinkholes had been created by worms. Giant worms. Giant worms with razor-sharp teeth. And nobody had bothered to tell Tim, their security unit.
Bruce was barely veiling his panic over comms, strained voice ordering them to get the raft in the air immediately. Tim could hear the ship dissolving into chaos as the rest of the crew realized that they couldn’t make it to the worm-adjacent crew members in time. Tim was bombarded with a series of commands, getting conflicting routes of action from HubSystem and the emergency system. Instead of paying attention to what they were telling him to do, Tim jumped into the crater.
He grabbed the energy weapon from his back. Tim had ones built into both of his arms, but those weren’t going to pack enough of a punch. It was a really, really big worm, and it looked less than excited about them invading its territory. He dragged Steph out of range, shoving her behind him as he shoved himself into the worm’s mouth. The unpleasant smell of charred meat filled his nose (which shouldn’t be happening, he’d have to check his helmet’s filtration system later) as he shot down the worm’s throat and fired another shot into where its brain would theoretically be.
Tim barely managed to escape from the worm’s gaping maw as it retreated back into the depths from whence it came. He ducked and rolled, trying to mitigate the momentum of his fall. When he tried to stand, a flash of pain emanated from his knee, and he immediately turned down his pain sensors. He couldn’t shut them off entirely, so this would have to work for now.
He turned to Steph. Her eyes were glazed, and a rivulet of blood ran down her arm. It looked like she’d been snagged on a tooth before Tim moved her out of the way. Another burst of commands came through the governor module, and he sidelined them. He waved a hand in front of her face, trying to get her glassy eyes to focus. It didn’t work. Shock, then. He’d seen that plenty of times. There was a protocol for this.
Tim’s vision blurred as he stood to his full height. He could feel wetness covering the front of his suit, a combination of fluids and blood. Maybe he’d been more injured than he thought. He turned his pain sensors down a little bit more. Steph was much more difficult to repair than Tim was. “It’s going to be okay,” Tim reassured. The lack of inflection in his voice probably wasn’t the most comforting, but function over form. If he let emotions into his voice, he’d probably just sound tense, which wouldn’t help the situation. “Grab my arm, okay? Hold on. I’m going to lead you back to the ship.”
Something in his words must have worked because Steph grabbed on. She was already looking less pale, though she hadn’t verbally responded to Tim’s words yet. He led her up the steep incline of the crater, trying to keep her grounded. The comms were finally quiet–Bruce must have told everyone to shut up. Good. The last thing Tim needed right now was a horde of panicking humans. Tim knew that Bruce and his crew were accustomed to tense situations due to their extracurricular anti-corporate activities, but they acted like any terrified human the moment that they couldn’t do anything about a situation. The footing on the side of the crater was unsteady, and sand streamed down the slope each time he took a step. Luckily, Tim’s legs weren’t as damaged as his arm and torso, so he was able to keep his balance and support as much of Steph’s weight as he could. Half of Tim was wishing that he had picked up Steph–he could feel something poking out of his torso and pressing into his suit. An organ, maybe? Having something pressed against him, even a person, would probably make him bleed more slowly.
Now that they were at the top of the crater, Tim finally reran his field footage. Well, the weird bit in his torso wasn’t an organ, at least. It appeared as if he’d stolen one of the worm’s teeth. It had impaled his side, bits of pink attached to where it had dislodged from the worm’s mouth. Gross. Tim took the disgust and shoved it into a little box, making an active decision not to think about it.
The ship lowered, not far from them, and Tim led Steph up the ramp. Dick and Jason met him at the entrance, and Tim could hear Jason cursing over Dick’s worried voice. “Representative Wayne,” Tim said over the comms. Neither Dick nor Jason looked at him, eyes glued to Steph. The entire crew were Waynes, but only one of them held the title Representative. “What should I do?” It was protocol to ask. Tim was hoping that Bruce would tell him to leave Steph with the others, but instead, he received a less-than-optimal response.
“Bring her up to the crew cabin.” It sounded like Bruce had regained at least a semblance of calm now that it was obvious Steph was alright.
SecUnits weren’t allowed to ride in the crew cabin with the humans, so Tim needed explicit permission to enter. When Bruce’s eyes widened at seeing the tooth protruding from Tim’s back, though, Tim wished to be back in the storage compartment with the cargo. Sure, Bruce was stoic and usually calm, unlike the other humans, but he was still human. And right now, he was looking at Tim with an expression that almost bordered on concern. Dick and Jason entered the crew cabin behind them, and the bot pilot took off. The movement made Tim’s legs wobble, and he forced himself to stay standing. He didn’t like how the humans were looking at him.
Babs was clearing off the seat next to her, and Tim led Steph to it. He steeled himself. Report time, then he could go off and recover from his wounds in peace. “Minimal injuries,” he stated, trying to sound as robotic as possible. It looked like Dick was ten seconds from crying. Tim hated it when Dick cried. It made him uncomfortable. “Dr. Stephanie is in shock, but it appears to be lessening. Minor cut to the upper left forearm, unlikely to need stitches.”
As Tim finished reporting, a notification flashed in his vision. Reliability at 60% and dropping. This was far from ideal. Unless Tim wanted to have an involuntary shutdown in front of his clients, he needed to get out of here.
The ship continued its flight, headed back to the habitat. Bruce nodded. “Hn.” The mission leader had learned not to thank Tim back at the beginning of their forced proximity. Bot/Human constructs weren’t used to being thanked, and Tim was no exception to that rule. Alfred pressed a cup of something steaming into Steph’s hands. Tim knew at a glance that it wasn’t coffee. A shame.
Bruce’s eyes kept darting to Tim’s injuries, shifting away periodically as if he thought Tim hadn’t noticed the attention. Dick broke the silence. “Er…SecUnit?” The word sounded foreign in his mouth. “You have. Um. A tooth.” He gestured to the object. “There’s blood.”
Tim’s first thought was that it technically wasn’t blood. His second thought, once Dick’s words had registered, was to wish that the worm had swallowed him whole. He hated human attention–it never meant anything good. He’d been around these humans for nearly a month now, and they were weirdly nice, but that didn’t mean he’d lower his guard around them. “Apologies,” Tim said. “I will leave and clean up the mess later. If that’s fine.” He turned to Alfred as he spoke. Sure, Bruce was technically the person in charge, but everyone knew (even Tim) that Alfred was the real power on board. Plus, Alfred was more likely to let Tim leave.
Reliability at 50% and dropping.
Alfred nodded, and Bruce sighed. “Do you need help?”
The question made Tim’s organic parts do something uncomfortable. He blamed it on his rapidly plunging reliability. “Um,” he said like an idiot. “No?”
And then he left.
Reliability at 45% and dropping.
~~~
Tim managed to make it back to the habitat in mostly one piece, no thanks to his clients. He managed to hide in the cargo hold, out of sight of the humans. Through the ship’s cameras, he could see Dick searching the ship (probably for Tim, which made Tim’s stomach twist). Thankfully, he’d managed to keep out of sight until they’d docked.
Reliability at 30% and dropping.
Being in the cargo hold gave Tim the advantage of taking a separate, faster exit than the ramp, which he took perhaps overhasty advantage of. Crimson droplets of fluids splattered on the ground as Tim limped to the cubicle he was staying in. Oof. Alfred wasn’t going to be happy about the mess–Tim would send a cleaner bot to take care of it later.
The cubicle lit up red. Tim’s breath caught at how chilled the room was. It looked like his temperature regulators finally gave out. After hauling off his armor to reveal the black crew suit beneath, he plugged himself into the resupply and repair leads. Tim leaned against the wall and shivered. The medical system gave Tim an unhelpful update on his status, informing him that it would take eight hours to restore him to 80% functionality.
Tim had been sitting there for an hour, staring at the wall since he wasn’t in the headspace to do much else, when someone knocked on the door. The echoing sound made Tim wince. “Uh, yes?” Tim once again blamed his idiocy on his still-low functionality.
The door slid open and Bruce walked in. The man was frowning, as usual, but Tim got the sense that something was wrong. Maybe it was the fact that Bruce had come into his cubicle in the first place. “It’s cold in here,” Bruce said, avoiding looking directly at Tim. “Do you want me to have Alfred turn the heat on?”
Tim didn’t say anything. Bruce had to know that Tim’s cubicle didn’t have a heating function, right? Bruce was Batman. The Dark Knight. Anti-corporate extraordinaire. The only thing that he (hopefully) didn’t know was that Tim had hacked his governor module.
Bruce cleared his throat, taking another step into the cramped room. “Are you all right? I saw your status report.”
Tim swallowed back a scoff. The status report in which Tim said he would be offline, and therefore alone, for eight hours? Yet here Bruce was, barging into Tim’s space like any other human would. Like any corporate would. The question made Tim want to crawl out of his skin and run as far away as possible. He scanned his files to see what a reasonable response to Bruce’s question would be. “I’m fine.” That seemed like a safe answer. Maybe it would get Bruce to leave him alone.
“Fine?” Bruce, unfortunately, did not sound convinced. “You lost twenty percent of your body mass.” Tim was beginning to wish that he’d manually shut himself down during the medical system’s restoration of his slightly broken body. Then he would have been able to avoid his two least-favorite things: boredom, and humans asking him if he was alright. Not that the second one happened very often.
“It’ll grow back.” It was currently growing back, and it would grow back even faster if Tim’s clients would leave him alone for once. This entire assignment had consisted of Dick staring at him, Alfred asking him if he needed anything, and Bruce visibly holding himself back from ordering Tim to…well, Tim wasn’t exactly sure, but he knew it wouldn’t be anything good. He’d never been stuck with a group of humans like this before. He’d known that they weren’t from a Corporation Planet before he’d been assigned to them, but he hadn’t expected them to be so different from the other humans he’d worked with. Sure, they were kind of heroes (kind of Tim’s heroes), but he’d known from the second he’d first seen them that their activities didn’t make them any less human. And Tim wasn’t fond of humans.
Bruce’s face pinched in a way that meant he was deciding to drop the topic even though he didn’t want to. He made that face around Jason a lot. At this point, Tim had switched to watching Bruce through the cameras. “Sure,” Bruce said, voice flatter than Tim’s had been. Impressive. Bruce’s inability to externalize his emotions meant that he was one of the more tolerable crew members to be around. “You did a great job with Steph,” he ventured, immediately making Tim take back any positive thoughts he’d had about the man. “I don’t think the others realized. They were very impressed.”
There were a few blanks in Bruce’s words that Tim was unable to fill in. His reliability stats dropped by five percent. Realized what? Impressed by what?
Tim grasped at straws, trying to think of a vague enough answer that could give him plausible deniability for whatever he’d unintentionally done. “It’s in the emergency medical instructions.” Tim hugged his legs closer to himself, trying to hide the gore that was still seeping out of his torso. It appeared as if Tim’s stress levels were impeding the repair process. It was all Bruce’s fault, Batman or not.
Bruce hummed. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He waved as he left, looking almost as awkward as Tim felt.
The moment that the cubicle door slid closed, leaving Tim in sweet solitude, he accessed the feed to see if anyone had commented something that could solve the mystery Bruce had left him with. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be able to access the crew’s private feed. But it was a badly kept secret that the Company data mined all of their client’s communications, “private” or otherwise. It only took him a moment to discover what he’d done. Apparently, while on autopilot leading Steph out of the crater, he’d comforted her. It was downright sappy. Embarrassing, even. He’d asked her about her family, and when she’d responded, still definitely in shock, he’d asked follow-up questions.
Tim was so horrified that he triggered a shutdown.