Chapter Text
He's escaped his tube: managed to get out on good behavior. Now he traverses the dark, stuffy halls of the Biological Experiments department, alone, lab coat resting on his shoulders, hands shoved in his pockets with thumbs sticking from the creases, just casually walking amongst his peers, like he's normal. One of them.
No one pays him much attention, thankfully, as he slides into the breakroom.
There'd been reports of someone, setting fires throughout the Biological Department. One of his handlers glared at him, as they issued the warning that he be careful: can't have another prototype ending up dead like all the others - bad for business - and all that crap. Bubby just nods, expression fauxly innocent, because how dare they assume he had anything to do with that (and they can't argue, because it's not as if they've caught him doing anything).
They'll never catch him, at this rate.
There's another scientist in the cramped little room with him, mid forties, looking scruffy and hagrid, coffee cup clutched so tight his knuckles are turning white from the pressure. Bubby ignores him.
He's got a fucking mission, so there's really no time for small talk. He steps up to the coffee machine, and grabs a paper cup from the cabinets above him. The smell of fresh coffee brewing is tantalizing. He finishes making his coffee and throws a lid on the top of the cup.
He's already halfway to the door when he presses his fingers to his temple, and the coffee maker in the corner of the room immediately bursts into flames, red hot, already licking up toward the ceiling. The stench of burnt plastic is certain to follow.
Yeah! Take that Black Mesa.
Then he promptly flees the scene, cackling.
"Oh god. Sweet mother of jesus!"
And he just laughs harder, doubling over ten feet past the door, coffee cup still in hand.
"I heard someone lit up the breakroom" Dr. Coomer, Bubby's newest, and perhaps most annoying lab partner, states later that same day, before looking up from the velocity equations he'd been working on with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
"Do you happen to know anything about that, Bubby?" And yeah, he sounds smug, or amused. Or both.
That's part of Dr. Coomer's problem, of course. The little bastard doesn't know how to mind his own business.
Bubby continues to sip his coffee, staring at his own whiteboard diligently, "Can't say that I do. Some dumb ass probably just split some cyclohexane or something"
Dr. Coomer laughs. "Yes, well, there are a lot of dumbasses working here, aren't there? Why, near everyone is a dumbass compared to you, Bubby!"
He laughs again.
Bubby grumbles, annoyed by all the distractions, and turns toward the other whiteboard stood up in front of him, wooden pencil held between his teeth, enamel splintering from the sharp toothed pressure. He places the gnawed up pencil back behind his ear and snatches up a marker, and that's when Dr. Coomer spots the coffee cup in his left hand, almost as incriminating as a spot of soot on his cheek would have been.
Bubby freezes. When he finally turns to face Dr. Coomer, he has half a mind to threaten him.
But he's just sitting there.
And then he winks at Bubby.
A week passes. Bubby doesn't hear anything about the incident from his handlers. He receives no punishment.
Dr. Coomer winks at him again, when they bump into each other on the way to the cafeteria.
"It isn't getting too hot up there, is it?" He jokes, gazing up at Bubby, and he laughs uproariously, but that's it. It goes no further.
And Bubby considers for the first time that maybe, just maybe, Dr. Coomer isn't such a bad guy, after all.
He might even be likable. Maybe.