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Amy set her mug of hot chocolate down, frowning. "I just don't get it. You're not some soulless monster like everyone else seems to think… you're just… hurting . I don't know if anyone else was listening, but I was, when you did that whole take over the world thing, and I know you're not happy trying to kill us all. So… why?"
Metal gestured at his lack-of-mouth with his remaining arm, shaking his head, and she covered her own. "Oh yeah! I forgot you can't talk when you're like that!" She'd kind of just assumed he was too overwhelmed or something- that used to happen with Sonic, and she'd gotten pretty good at playing twenty questions due to that. It was something that was surprisingly easy to get used to.
Come to think of it, Metal didn't talk during their… first meeting , either. She'd spent the first few hours in mind-numbing terror and the next few days in mind-numbing boredom, so she hadn't noticed at the time, but she'd assumed he just wasn't interested in her info dumping about Sailor Moon. And that clearly wasn't the case, because the only time he'd seemed alert after she rescued him was when she'd put a good magical girl show on the TV.
Rescued . Yeah, that was close enough to what she was doing. It sounded nicer than kidnapping, anyways. It didn't count if they needed it, right?
She pulled out her old sketchbook, one she hadn't used since she was nine, and a glitter-pink pen. Her second favourite. "Here, have this. I'm pretty sure it still has some empty pages for you to write on! And if it doesn't, I'll get you a new one, okay?"
As he usually did, Metal stared at her blankly as she set them beside him. Only the brief flicker of his eye moving with her motion before settling on some unfixed point in the distance hinted he was even aware of her presence.
"Aww, c'mon, I know how much you love talking when you can! I remember when you were trying to kill us, talking about your robot kingdom…" She left out the parts she remembered the most- the madness, the anger hiding despair, him admitting to his own fear. Those were things he didn't want them to see, even though she was pretty sure even Cream could pick up on it.
This seemed to produce a response- the third thing she'd found that made him so much as twitch, after the television and the one time she'd talked to him about her Bat Mitzvah when she had no idea what else to even bring up. His movements were delayed (from the damage to his body or remaining reluctance, she couldn't say) and his hands jerky, but he propped himself up and grabbed the notebook and pen so hard she feared he might break them.
Slowly, he wrote a reply, pressing the pen down harshly enough it bled into the pages beneath it. When he held it out, the words were in shaky block caps, and Amy got the sense he'd never written something without a keyboard in his life. "MY HAPPINESS IS IRRELEVANT. I SERVE MY PURPOSE."
It almost seemed ridiculous, shining in rose-pink next to childish doodles of Tuxedo Mask, but she still couldn't help but feel her heart hurting. He really had known nothing but violence and pain, huh? "You don't have to anymore. You're safe here." She paused for a second, and added on, "There's no reason to carry out those old orders, right? So why can't you just, y'know… hang out and stuff? It's not like anyone's making you do that."
He was faster, writing the next part, and his penmanship was noticeably improved already. it was kind of spooky how quickly he learnt that stuff. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO KIDNAPPED ME.”
"Well, you kidnapped me first, so it's only fair!" Amy put her hands on her hips, pouting. "Besides, I couldn't just leave you there, right? You looked so sad , lying there on your own. It's not right ."
Metal shook his head violently enough that the remains of his screen started glitching. "Woah, woah, calm down! You're gonna hurt yourself!"
He stopped, but moved to write so quickly and violently the text was barely legible. "I FAILED. I DESERVE IT." Amy wasn't sure if he meant about being abandoned or being hurt, and she wasn't sure which one would be worse. He snatched back the notebook before she could even begin to process it, adding a neater message underneath. "BESIDES, FATHER WILL BE BACK EVENTUALLY. HE ALWAYS IS."
No, that was definitely the worse option of the two, Amy decided, because maybe, just maybe, someone could come to the conclusion they deserve pain on their own. Abandonment never happened alone.
"Has he done this… before?" He nodded, and Amy could feel her heart sink even more at that confirmation. Yeah, Metal was a scary murderous killer robot she still had nightmares about sometimes, but he was also a person . It didn't matter if his mind was made out of ones and zeroes and his heart made of hate; it didn't matter if he'd kidnapped her and left lines of scars tracing her body with his claws. It didn't matter. Not even the worst of the worst deserved to be treated like they were disposable tools and nothing more.
"Well, I don't think you deserved it! I think that's stupid! If Egg- I mean, if your father-" she made sure to spit that word with as much venom as possible- "If he's your dad, he should care about you! He shouldn't- it's cruel! It's horrible! You shouldn't hurt yourself for a guy like that!"
Metal stared at Amy for a long, long while. He seemed to spend a second in thought, staring at the paper before he wrote, the letters smaller than usual. "IF HE DIDN'T CARE HE'D HAVE ME DISMANTLED. STOP BEING DRAMATIC."
She couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of Metal Sonic of all people calling her dramatic, when the one time she'd actually heard him talk he was even more monologue…y (that was totally a word) than his 'father' ever was, but the second she processed the actual words he said she covered her mouth, horrified. She couldn't imagine being so starved of love from her moms she took not being murdered as the most loving act imaginable. That was the saddest thing she'd heard in her life, and she was friends with Shadow.
It's not like she wasn't used to her friends having been through some awful, awful stuff. She knew of the nightmares Shadow had every night he didn't take his medication; she knew of the stuff Silver had to do to survive in the hellhole that was his future. But they knew that what happened to them was wrong. This was something way above her paygrade. She wasn't even sure this was something a professional could deal with, and she was sixteen .
"… Okay." This'd clearly take more than one conversation to fully convey, and she didn't want to come across like she was trying to force him into anything- that was the last thing she wanted to do. "I get it. I'm sure Eggman loves you very much. But that doesn't mean you have to dedicate your whole life to him! I have, uh, friends I care a lot about, and who care about me, but I have a life outside them, and they have lives outside me."
She steered clear of the blue hedgehog in the room. It was easier to pretend that wasn't an issue when there was so much else to deal with.
Metal made a soft beeping noise, one that might have been a hum, before writing his response. "IT'S NOT FOR HIM . NOT ENTIRELY. I AM PROGRAMMED TO DESTROY, TO CONQUER, TO DOMINATE. THAT IS MY PURPOSE. FATHER DIRECTS ME IN HOW I DO THAT, AND I LISTEN BECAUSE I HAVE NO REASON NOT TO."
"But can't you just… like, stop or something? You- you took over the Eggman Empire, right? So you can go against your programming! You don't have to do that! I don't understand why you make yourself mis-"
The sketchbook was shoved into her face before she could finish. "I PHYSICALLY CAN'T." The underline was so aggressive parts of the page were ripped. He took it back to scribble some additions under the tear. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, DO YOU? YOU'RE THINKING OF ME LIKE I'M ORGANIC, AND I'M NOT. MY NEURAL NETWORK ISN'T ABLE TO PROCESS ACTIONS THAT GO AGAINST MY PROGRAMMING. IT'D BE LIKE TRYING TO GO AGAINST MY LEGS. I CAN WANT TO WALK ALL I CAN BUT I CAN'T THINK MY WAY INTO DOING SO. ELSE I WOULDN'T BE STUCK HERE."
"Okay, rude."
"AGAIN, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO KIDNAPPED ME." He made a high-pitched noise that was definitely laughter- it reminded her of him, the laughter he had when he was younger . She wondered if the resemblance was intentional, a calculated attempt to mimic the same frequencies, or if she was just projecting that onto him. "I THINK YOU WERE A LOT RUDER WHEN I KIDNAPPED YOU."
"Hey, I was nine! And last I checked, I didn't have to give you stitches to stop you from bleeding out because I cut your skin to ribbons. I had every right to be mad!"
"I'M NOT EVEN NINE. I WIN."
"It's not a competition!" Amy balled her hands into fists, face flushing from frustration. Still, she couldn't help but smile a little. He used to be like that, not so long ago. "Ugh, you're such a brat sometimes." He laughed again at that.
"I TOLD YOU, I EXIST TO DOMINATE. IF YOU'D RATHER I KILL THINGS I'LL OBLIGE."
"No! Gosh , no. Please don't kill things. I just- I just want you to be able to understand, I guess. It's- you're not a bad person, I don't think. And if anyone gets to say that, it's me ! I have every reason to think that and I don't ! You're just…" She struggled to think of the right word. "Confused."
Metal looked at some distant point somewhere past the kitchen wall for a while, and Amy almost thought he'd gone back to rotting in depression again, before he quickly wrote something down, the script messy. "I CAN'T. I CAN'T BE LIKE YOU. I CAN'T THINK LIKE YOU. I DON'T WANT TO. I WAS BUILT WITH A PURPOSE. I CAN'T GO AGAINST THAT. I CAN'T. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ." There's a frowny face next to the words, an almost exact copy of one of her old doodles.
"So- it's like, you can't control it? You'll just hurt people until you die?" Amy's fists balled even tighter, and she could feel her claws digging into the soft flesh of her paw pads through her gloves. She didn't even care. "But that's so unfair! That's stupid! You don't- you don't deserve to be stuck like that! It's horrible! You shouldn't have to do things that make you sad and make everyone else sad! It's just- it's just so cruel."
Amy wasn't sure whether the pained-sounding noise Metal made was meant to be laughter or sobs, or if it was meant to be anything even close to a sound she'd recognise. "YOU CAN'T BE CRUEL TO AN OBJECT. IF YOU WANT ME TO STOP, DISMANTLE ME. OR LOCK ME IN A BOX IF YOU'RE SQUEAMISH; IT'S NOT LIKE I LITERALLY DIE WITHOUT IT. I'D JUST GO INSANE AGAIN."
" Again?" Honestly, Amy was more surprised at the idea that it'd stopped at any point.
"TURNS OUT LYING IN A DITCH FOR WEEKS IS BAD FOR YOUR SANITY. GO FIGURE."
"But you've been fine here! I mean, as fine as you can be, considering the, uh. Circumstances."
"I PROVE MY SUPERIORITY HERE ON A DAILY BASIS. I THINK THAT ONE SHOULD BE OBVIOUS."
"Can you stop being mean for five seconds? "
"I ONLY INSULTED YOU THREE TIMES."
"That is an abnormally high amount of times to randomly insult people! And when you're not being mean to me, you're being mean to yourself! Do you even know how to be nice?"
Metal stared at the page for a while before writing something down. "I WILL SPARE YOU AFTER MY FATHER'S INEVITABLE VICTORY?"
"Okay, you don't. Good to know."
"IF YOU WISH FOR DEATH I CAN GRANT THAT RIGHT NOW. I'LL EVEN MAKE IT QUICK. JUST FOR YOU."
"That's even worse!"
"SO I CAN SPARE YOU?"
"I mean, if you want me to cave Eggman's face in with a hammer, I guess?"
"YOU WOULDN'T BE ARMED, OBVIOUSLY. I'D GET SAGE TO CRY TO FATHER ABOUT HAVING YOU IMPRISONED FOR SOME REASON OR ANOTHER. I'M NOT STUPID." Next to this, in smaller text, he'd written "EYEROLL." Well, at least he knew what facial expressions were, she supposed.
"Well. Okay. Um." That was a massive can of worms she was going to politely avoid the best she could. Metal was trying to be kind, that was a good thing, even if he seemed to consistently say the worst possible things that made her have to resist reaching for her hammer. Violence was not the solution here; that was certain enough even if she wasn't entirely sure what the solution was. "We can discuss that later, but… I'm glad to hear you're getting along with Sage!" At least he had one slightly decent influence.
"I HAVE TO. ONE DAY, FATHER WILL MAKE A NEWER, SHINIER CHILD, AND ALL SHE'LL HAVE IS ME ONCE SHE'S ANOTHER FAILURE LIKE THE REST OF US."
"That's… very kind of you." Amy fought to try and keep the rage out of her voice. It wasn't Metal she was mad at anymore.
"DON'T GET ME WRONG. I'M NOT DOING THIS BECAUSE OF ANY SORT OF "KINDNESS". I'M NOT LIKE YOU. SHE'S USEFUL. SHE KNOWS HER PLACE, DESPITE HER TEARFUL INSISTENCE THAT SHE'S SOMEHOW SPECIAL AND FATHER WON'T SET HER ASIDE. I LIKE THOSE WHO ACKNOWLEDGE MY SUPERIORITY, AND SHE "LOOKS UP TO ME." HER WORDS. I WOULD BE DISPLEASED IF I LOST HER. CALL THAT LOVE IF YOU WANT."
That was certainly a lot closer than he'd ever gotten, at least as far as Amy knew. It's not like she had a clue what he was doing when he wasn't trying to murder her friends. Somehow, though, she doubted he was exactly having much friendly conversation stuck in Eggman's bases, and the fact he was mute was the least of the reasons why.
And… if Metal could thrive off of sisterly affection as well as violence when it came to "acknowledging his superiority", then he didn't have to hurt people, right? And there were plenty of other ways he could do that! If all he needed was admiration, if all he needed was to win, if all he needed was some semblance of control, then there was nothing stopping Metal from being happy.
"I think that makes sense. I mean, I'd be sad if you died, and you're my friend."
"WE'RE NOT FRIENDS. I MERELY TOLERATE YOUR PRESENCE BECAUSE YOU AMUSE ME. ELSE I'D GUT YOU."
"Sure, sure." Amy wasn't even sure if Metal believed what he was saying. If he did, she was pretty sure it was only because he didn't really have a good idea of how any relationship outside of compliant obedience or what he considered utter domination worked. "I don't know, that sounds kinda like friendship. You can call it whatever you want, though."
"I'LL CALL IT BEING MERCIFUL TO MY INFERIORS."
"Well, then, why don't you be merciful to your inferiors more? I mean, you need to feel superior or whatever to be happy, right? You could just, like, hang around us forever. You don't have to hurt people, or feel bad, and you won't have to do things you don't want! "
"WHAT I WANT IS IRRELEVANT. I'M NOT A PERSON, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DENY THAT. I'M A TOOL. IF I'M NOT SERVING A PURPOSE, I MIGHT AS WELL JUST BE SCRAPPED FOR PARTS."
"Oh." Amy didn't know what else to say. It's not like she hadn't talked people out of suicide before- she wasn't stupid, she knew what Shadow was doing with the Ark. Ending his own suffering was as much a reason as fulfilling his warped perception of Maria's wish, even if he wouldn't ever admit it. It should have hurt less. But it didn't. If anything, it felt like a knife digging into old wounds. "But-"
But what? Amy stopped herself mid-sentence. Nothing Metal would know, certainly, and what was the point arguing if all it did was confuse the poor guy more? Pushing too hard didn't do anything but trying to force her idea of what he should be onto him, and that was the issue in the first place. She didn't know how to deal with that, exactly, but she did know how to deal with people who were scared and sad and confused, and that meant sometimes you needed to be gentle, even if it felt wrong.
Instead, she nodded. "Okay! I have something you can do that's useful, then."
His ears pricked. It was too smooth a motion, clearly practised as a mimicry of expression, but it was endearing. He was trying to communicate, it wasn't his fault he hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet. He nodded hesitantly, and the warm feeling that conjured disappeared. His wariness couldn't be a good sign. If he was- well, afraid, as ridiculous as that sounded, when it was her, she hated to think about how scared he must have been listening to Eggman.
"Well, uh… I would like to watch some more Steven Universe with you, if that's okay?" She was sticking with lighter fare for now- as much as she loved Utena, she thought that might not be the right thing to show a confused murderous robot.
Metal immediately wrote something down so fast Amy had no time to react before the sketchbook was shoved in her face excitedly. "IS PEARL IN IT AGAIN? I LIKE HER. SHE'S THE ONLY ONE WHO MAKES SENSE SO FAR."
"I mean, yeah? She's one of the main characters, so…"
"WELL, SORRY I HAVEN'T WATCHED TV BEFORE. IT’S A LOT LESS LIKE THE BIBLE THAN I THOUGHT. WILL YOU EVER FORGIVE THIS TRANSGRESSION?" He actually rolled his eye on the working side of his screen this time, though it was a little hard to tell with the amount of dead pixels on that thing. "YOUR EXPLANATION WASN'T VERY GOOD."
"My…" Wait, was he talking about that? "You were listening to me when I was rambling on Little Planet? And you remember? Aww, you really do care!"
"IT WASN'T SCRUBBED FROM MY MEMORY BACKUPS, SO I CAN REVISIT IT WHENEVER I WANT. IT'S NOT LIKE YOUR TALK ABOUT ORGANICS NAMED AFTER PLANETS IS LIKELY TO MAKE ME REBEL OR ANYTHING."
"You say that like you didn't watch a dozen episodes of "organics named after planets" with me last week."
"I TOLERATE IT."
" Sure you do."
"IF THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, WHY ARE YOU ARGUING WITH ME OVER THIS? THAT DOESN'T SEEM VERY USEFUL."
"That's the whole point, though! It's useful because you're asking questions. I mean, if you're here, you're working for me now, right? And it's useful for you to know about the world if you're helping me, right?"
He stared ahead for a second, the nodded. "YES, I SUPPOSE THAT MAKES SENSE. IT'S NOT LIKE I'VE GOT ANY ABILITY TO REFUSE."
"I mean, if you just want me to leave you in the kitchen you don't have to do anything. I can get Tails over to see if he can help you-"
He shook his head wildly, making a loud, startled beep. In messy script, he wrote enough NO s to fill an entire page, covering up the drawings still there, and Amy put her hands up, eyes widening. "Okay, okay! I won't do that if you don't want that! I don't want to make you do anything you're uncomfortable with, okay?"
Metal looked at her like she'd said something absolutely bizarre before ripping the page out of the book, shredding it to pieces. On the next, he wrote "WHY ARE THE GEMS GIRLS? DO THEY HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE ALLOWED TO BE GIRLS?"
Amy blinked. "Allowed? No, you can just be a girl if you want. You just have to… want to."
"BUT I WANT TO BE A GIRL, AND I'M NOT ALLOWED TO BE. SO THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING."
Amy never thought she could hate Eggman more, but she was pretty sure her absolute rage towards that man had at least doubled in the course of these twenty minutes or so. "You can be a girl if you want. Did anyone tell you you couldn't?"
"I'M NOT STUPID. PEOPLE DON'T NEED TO TELL ME THINGS FOR ME TO KNOW THEM. I'M LITERALLY DESIGNED TO APPEAR MALE. NOT THAT I'M A BOY, EITHER. I'M AN OBJECT. IT'S HARD TO EXPLAIN IN ENGLISH."
"Well, I can't speak beep-boop, or whatever robots talk in, I'm afraid."
"THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE."
"Y'know, like… code or whatever?"
"THAT'S LIKE ME SAYING YOU SPEAK IN BRAIN. NO. THAT IS NOT WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. I MEAN THAT I CANNOT ADEQUATELY TRANSLATE WHAT I MEAN INTO ENGLISH BECAUSE THE WORDS DO NOT PROPERLY EXIST."
"And the language you're translating isn't beep-boop?"
"NO, CZECH. OBVIOUSLY. I THINK YOU'RE SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THAT OTHER COUNTRIES EXIST."
"You're terrible at this whole 'not being mean' thing."
"I MADE NO PROMISES. YOU'RE THE ONE DODGING THE QUESTION. HOW DO I BECOME A GIRL?"
"Well, you've done it. Congratulations!"
Metal shook her head, frustratedly scribbling out her prior question and writing underneath it "I MEAN, HOW DO I GAIN THE PROPERTIES OF A GIRL? I'M NOT A PERSON, I CAN'T BE PERSON THINGS. BUT I WANT THE PROPERTIES GIRLS HAVE. LIKE BEING POWERFUL. AND WINNING FIGHTS."
Amy blinked. "What?"
"ARE YOU NOT A GIRL? AND ARE YOU NOT POWERFUL? I WANT TO BE LIKE THAT."
"You don't have to be a girl to be strong. Is that the only reason you want to be a girl, or…?"
Metal paused for a long, long time before hurriedly scribbling, "WHAT I WANT IS IRRELEVANT."
And she complained about Amy dodging the question, jeez. Still, that was a pretty concrete confirmation that she did want to be a girl on some level other than purely practical. That was something, at least. That was a massive step for someone who was refusing to even move the past weeks, even if it wasn't something she seemed entirely able to admit to yet.
It's not like this was ever easy, right? It's just she was doing things backwards this time. Instead of stopping someone from hurting themselves and others and then doing the long, long work of supporting them through figuring out why they wanted to do that. Or… no, things weren't going to turn out like that this time. No, it was going to be fine. She just needed to help the slow, tedious way first, before the quick and big changes could happen.
It was weird. But it was fine. Things would turn out fine, even if it couldn't be exactly in the way she was used to.
Amy smiled, taking a sip from her long-cold chocolate. "Well, I've got a lot of old dresses from when I was little that don't fit me anymore… I was keeping them for Cream, but I'm sure she won't mind if you have a few. Sorry if you're more of a shorts and t-shirt sort of girl, but…"
Metal shoved the notebook into her hands before she could continue, looking at her with an intense gaze. "DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN BLACK? OR WITH SPIKES?"
Maybe she wasn't as out of her depth as she thought.