Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zane wasn’t used to malfunctions. Not anymore, at least.

Ever since he’d regained his memories and stabilized his processors, his systems ran with the kind of precision that made Borg Tower computers look like clunky children’s toys. So when he began experiencing… hiccups in his internal systems, it naturally caused alarm.

“Jay,” Zane said firmly, stepping into the workshop where Jay was half upside down under one of Nya’s broken hoverbikes, grease streaked on his cheek. “I need your assistance.”

“Sure, buddy. Just give me—uh—” Jay struggled as the wrench slipped from his fingers and clanged noisily against the floor, “—one second.”

Zane waited exactly one second.

“I believe something is wrong with me.”

That got Jay’s attention. He scrambled out from under the hoverbike, face pale beneath the smudge of oil. “Wrong how? Like… evil-nindroid-again wrong or—I-accidentally-unplugged-your-wifi wrong?”

“I am uncertain,” Zane admitted, his synthetic voice unusually hesitant. “I have been… overheating.”

Jay stared at him. “Dude, you’re an ice ninja.”

“Precisely,” Zane said with growing concern. “My internal temperature regulation systems have been activating at odd intervals, seemingly without external cause. In addition—”

He hesitated. Could he even say this?

“—there are other anomalies. Strange spikes in processor activity. Unnecessary focus on irrelevant data inputs. Increased heart rate simulation… I do not have an answer.”

Jay scratched the back of his head. “When did this start?”

Zane opened his mouth—and at that very moment, a familiar voice echoed from outside the window.

“WOO-HOO! You see that spin? Bet you guys wish you were as cool as me!”

Kai.

Zane’s systems glitched again. A small burst of static echoed in his auditory processors. His simulated heart did that fluttering jump it had started doing far too frequently. His visual input zoomed slightly on Kai, who stood shirtless in the courtyard, balancing two swords with practiced flair, grinning like he was made of molten sunlight.

“There,” Zane said tightly. “It happens every time he is nearby.”

Jay’s mouth slowly opened in realization. “Oooooh.”

Zane tilted his head. “Have you discovered the source of my error?”

Jay tried not to laugh. Tried. “Zane… buddy… pal… I don’t think this is a malfunction.”

“I do not understand.”

Jay folded his arms and leaned against the workbench, looking like he’d been handed the greatest gift in the world. “Bro. You’ve got a crush on Kai.”

Silence.

Absolute, radio static, snowstorm-level silence from Zane.

Zane blinked exactly three times. “No. That is illogical.”

“Is it? Really? I mean, look at you! Flustered systems, overheating, can’t stop thinking about him—” Jay mimicked dramatic swooning, “—classic crush symptoms, my guy.”

Zane’s processors whirred like a thousand fans trying to cool molten circuits. “Romantic subroutines were not installed by my creator.”

Jay snorted. “Then I guess you’re improvising.”

Zane’s gaze dropped to the floor. “This is… unsettling.”

Before Jay could launch into one of his usual dramatic speeches about ‘love being an adventure’ or something equally sappy, the main alarm blared throughout the monastery. Red lights flashed along the hallways.

“Emergency alert! All available ninja to the eastern ridge—immediate threat detected!”

“Mission time,” Jay muttered, his expression sharpening with the shift to battle mode. “We’ll…uh…come back to this later.”

Zane followed him, but part of his core felt stuck. Corrupted. He didn’t want to come back to this later. He wanted it gone.

Because crushes…? Crushes were messy, unpredictable, warm things. Zane was ice. Cool. Controlled.

…So why did one smile from Kai make him want to defy every programmed protocol he had?

—

By the time they reached the edge of the eastern ridge, Zane’s systems were still running diagnostics in the background, desperately seeking a rational explanation for his strange behavior. Preferably one that didn’t involve romantic feelings.

Unfortunately, his thoughts were interrupted by explosions.

“I told you this was a trap!” Cole shouted as several mechanical snake-like drones burst from the ground in a shower of dirt and sparks. They hissed, metal jaws clanking, red lights blinking furiously.

“Yeah, yeah, congratulations, Mr. Paranoia—help me out here!” Kai barked back, already charging headfirst into the fray, fire blazing from his hands.

Zane didn’t hesitate. He pulled his shurikens, hurling them with deadly precision. Ice erupted across the soil, encasing several drones mid-launch.

And then he saw it—one of the larger drones, jaws gaping wide, slithering behind Kai, poised to strike.

“Kai!”

He was moving before the word fully left his mouth, body slipping into perfect synchronization with the ice beneath his feet, propelling himself forward in a blur of frost. He slammed into Kai just as the drone lunged, twisting his body to shield him as the jaws snapped shut around—

Clang.

They hit the ground together, sliding across frozen earth. Zane’s arms were wrapped around Kai’s waist, holding him close. He could feel the warmth radiating through Kai’s body like standing too close to a bonfire.

And Kai was staring at him.

For once—blessedly—silent.

“You good?” Zane managed to say, hoping his voice didn’t sound as staticky as it felt in his auditory feedback.

Kai blinked, dazed but clearly unharmed. His cheeks were slightly pink—probably from exertion. Probably.

“Yeah,” Kai finally said, voice hoarse, “Thanks, ice-boy. Nice save.”

Zane’s simulated heart skipped three beats.

Jay landed beside them, kicking another drone to pieces with a wild yell. “You guys okay?!”

“Fine,” Kai answered, sitting up—but not before Zane’s hands reluctantly slid off his waist, leaving phantom warmth behind. “Zane got to me in time.”

Jay saw the way Zane looked at Kai in that moment.

He grinned.

—

The fight ended quickly after that. With the drones neutralized, and Cole giving his usual post-battle rant about no one ever listening to him, they regrouped back at the monastery.

Zane wanted—needed—to get back to the diagnostics. He needed to prove this wasn’t what Jay claimed it was. He could not afford illogical distractions. Not now.

But life had other plans.

Specifically, a very shirtless, very sweaty, very grateful Kai appearing at his door later that evening.

“Yo,” Kai said with that signature grin, leaning against the doorframe. “You saved my butt again.”

“I merely did what was necessary,” Zane said, internally screaming at his own processors to stop heating up.

Kai scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “You’re always doing that.”

Zane tilted his head. “Doing what?”

“Saving me,” Kai said with a soft chuckle. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but… you don’t have to keep throwing yourself in front of explosions for me.”

“It is logical,” Zane replied stiffly. “You are important to the team.”

Kai’s brow furrowed slightly, like he didn’t quite buy that answer. “Yeah, but… sometimes I wonder if it’s something else.”

Zane’s diagnostics beeped. ERROR. UNIDENTIFIED INPUT.

Kai took a step closer. “You okay? You’ve been acting weird around me lately.”

Zane’s systems panicked. “I… am undergoing maintenance.”

Kai blinked. “Maintenance?”

Jay’s voice drifted loudly from the hall, clearly eavesdropping. “Yeah! He’s just dealing with some emotional malware! Nothing serious!”

Zane glared daggers at the door.

Kai’s confused expression slowly turned to amused suspicion. “Emotional… malware?”

Before Zane could shut this entire scene down, Kai—because of course Kai was Kai—grinned even bigger and stepped closer, until Zane could practically map every individual freckle on his face.

“You’re weird, you know that?” Kai murmured, tilting his head in that way that always made Zane’s processors blue-screen.

But what truly broke him wasn’t the proximity or the teasing tone—

It was the hand Kai lifted to ruffle Zane’s carefully combed hair.

“Don’t break trying to impress me, Frosty.”

With that, Kai sauntered away, still laughing.

Zane stood perfectly still, overheating so badly he could practically hear his cooling fans whirring like desperate applause.

Jay poked his head around the corner. “So… still think it’s a processor issue?”

Zane didn’t answer.

He was too busy rerunning emotional subroutine diagnostics.

For the fourth time that day.

Chapter Text

It started with good intentions.

Zane had prepared a plan. Multiple plans, in fact. Algorithmic models. Emotional outcome charts. Statistical success matrices.

All of them were worthless the moment he walked into the courtyard and saw Kai sitting cross-legged on the grass, sunlight dancing across his hair like living fire.

His processors shorted again. Typical.

But today was going to be different. Today, Zane was going to confess whatever-this-was in the clearest, most logically organized explanation possible. Precision. Efficiency. He was going to solve this malfunction the way he solved everything else.

“Hey, Ice Prince,” Kai called lazily, looking over his shoulder. “What’s up?”

Zane’s mouth opened.

And that was the last normal thing that happened.

—

“I have recently identified an irregularity in my core emotional subroutines,” Zane began, standing perfectly straight like he was giving a formal briefing. “It appears I have developed a highly disruptive affection algorithm centered around your presence.”

Kai blinked.

“Uh…”

Zane continued, entirely too fast, entirely too robotic.

“This anomaly has resulted in significant processor overclocking, unregulated emotional feedback loops, and unanticipated bio-simulated cardiovascular acceleration. Furthermore, all internal diagnostic scans indicate that proximity to you triggers repeated instance errors and—”

“Wait, wait—what?” Kai cut in, raising his hand like Zane was a particularly confusing math teacher. “What the heck are you talking about?”

Zane’s eyes flashed faintly blue, cycling through data too fast even for him to process.

“I am attempting to articulate my recent experiential phenomena in regard to your immediate vicinity producing non-optimal algorithmic outputs. Specifically, my normally efficient data parsing has become erratic due to—”

Jay, Cole, and Nya were watching from behind the nearest wall, peeking like kids at a circus act gone horribly wrong.

“Oh my gosh, he’s doing it,” Jay whispered, equal parts horror and glee. “He’s actually using technical terms to confess.”

“I told you,” Cole said, sighing. “I told you he was gonna overcomplicate it.”

“Someone stop him,” Nya groaned, burying her face in her hands. “He’s buffering live.”

Meanwhile, Kai just stared, slowly scrunching his nose like someone trying to decode ancient runes.

“Zane, buddy,” he finally said, standing up. “Are you… okay? Do you need water or something?”

Zane blinked. “Hydration is not required for synthetic—”

“Sit down.”

Zane sat.

Kai walked off and returned moments later with a cup of water, kneeling in front of him like he was helping a wounded bird.

“Take it. Deep… robot… breaths, or whatever.”

Zane obediently took the water and stared at it like it was written in an alien language.

“I am… experiencing romantic anomalies,” he said after a beat, trying so hard to simplify, his voice sounding like a server overheating. “You are the variable causing recursive emotional loops. I attempted to correct the issue but—”

Jay couldn’t take it anymore.

“HE HAS A CRUSH ON YOU!” he yelled from behind the wall, voice echoing dramatically across the monastery.

Silence.

The kind of silence that usually comes before catastrophic explosions.

Kai froze.

Slowly… too slowly… he turned his head toward Zane. His expression was somewhere between confusion and alarm.

“A what?”

“A crush!” Jay shouted again, far too pleased with himself. “You know, like—romantic interest—he likes you!”

Kai’s expression twisted. “Wait. Crush? Like, wants to crush me?!”

He sprang to his feet, immediately rolling his shoulders like a boxer stepping into the ring. “Is this a challenge?! Oh, you wanna go, snowflake?!”

Zane’s internal system crashed harder than any blue screen he’d ever known.

“That is not—! I have no violent intentions toward you!”

“Oh, sure,” Kai growled, cracking his knuckles. “First you throw me around during fights, now you’re talking about crushing me? What, you sick of my face already?!”

“THAT IS NOT WHAT—”

“Fight me, Zane!”

“Oh my—this is going worse than I thought possible,” Nya muttered, grabbing Cole’s sleeve like she might physically shake some sense into him.

Cole just shook his head. “No, let them work it out. I wanna see how deep this particular hole goes.”

Zane stood abruptly, water still in hand, processors screaming warnings in twelve languages. “Kai, I am attempting to explain that you have become a significant emotional variable that disrupts my operating stability because I have—”

“—oh, NOW I’m a disruption—”

“—feelings,” Zane said suddenly, the word landing like a thunderclap.

Kai paused mid-step. “Wait. Wait. What?”

“Feelings,” Zane repeated, voice lower, as if the admission itself might cause a total system collapse. “Romantic in nature. I am not attempting to fight you. I am attempting to court you.”

The courtyard dropped into stunned silence.

Jay’s mouth was hanging open like a faulty hinge.

Cole looked like he wanted to both laugh and cry simultaneously.

Nya was mouthing “Finally.”

And Kai… Kai just blinked, heat blooming across his cheeks like a flame suddenly catching on dry kindling.

“Oh,” he said dumbly. “That kind of crush.”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

Kai sat down hard on the grass again, dragging his hands down his face like he was trying to reboot his brain manually.

“Okay. Right. Romantic… thing. Got it.” He squinted at Zane. “But why the techno-babble, man?”

“I… did not know what to say,” Zane admitted softly. His shoulders slumped slightly, tension bleeding out of him in small increments. “I do not… experience these phenomena often. Or at all. This is uncharted code.”

Kai gave a short laugh, breathless, like he couldn’t believe this was happening. “Man. You’re the only person I know who can turn liking someone into a full software meltdown.”

“I am… aware,” Zane said, utterly humiliated.

And then—

Kai laughed again. Louder this time. Real.

“Dude. Relax.” He leaned forward, reaching out—not ruffling his hair this time, but lightly gripping Zane’s wrist, grounding him. “You could’ve just said ‘hey, I like you’ like a normal person.”

Zane stared at the hand on his wrist like it was a command override issued from the heavens.

“I do not know how to be ‘normal,’” he admitted softly. “Not with this.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Kai said with a grin, but softer now. “But… I’m flattered.”

Zane’s eyes flickered brighter. “You are?”

“Of course I am. You’re, like… really cool. And you’re always saving my butt.”

“Statistical necessity.”

“Shut up,” Kai laughed, shaking his head. “Point is—I like you, too. Just… maybe don’t challenge me to fights when you’re asking me out, yeah?”

“That was a misunderstanding—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, genius.” Kai’s grin was back, cocky and fond all at once. “You’re lucky I find you weirdly charming.”

“Clarify: does this mean you reciprocate my—”

“Zane,” Kai interrupted, leaning forward slightly until they were barely a foot apart. “You’re adorable. I’m saying yes.”

ERROR. SYSTEMS UNRESPONSIVE. FULL REBOOT REQUIRED.

Zane sat there, stunned, with Jay whispering from the sidelines, “Oh my gosh, it actually worked. I can’t believe that mess actually WORKED.”

“I can,” Cole muttered. “Honestly, after everything we’ve seen? This tracks.”

“Can someone PLEASE teach him how to flirt properly before I die of secondhand embarrassment?” Nya groaned.

Kai gave Zane’s wrist a reassuring squeeze. “Breathe, ice cube. You’re fine.”

And for the first time since this whole ridiculous ordeal started… Zane thought maybe he actually was.

Even with his systems overheating and his diagnostics screaming, he felt—dare he say it—happy.

…Until Kai glanced up at the others watching and shouted: “And next time, SAY ‘CRUSH’ CLEARLY. I almost punched him in the face!”

Zane smiled faintly. “Next time… I will use fewer technical terms.”

“Good. Otherwise I will challenge you.”

It wasn’t the cleanest confession in Ninjago history.

But for once?

It was theirs.

And that was enough.