Work Text:
The new joint alignment he installed was supposed to fix the lag in his left shoulder. Clockwork rotated the arm through its full range for the twelfth time, watching the seamless plates shift under the workshop lights. The way it moved was perfect.
Clean.
Flawless.
Efficient.
Yet, it still felt like someone else’s arm.
Clockwork grumbled, cursing to himself underneath static—ever so slightly readjusting and feeling his new arm. With his other hand, he gently glided the touch of his steel fingers along the plates.
It was smooth, as it was always meant to be.
They had put him back together again. Better, they said. Stronger.
Despite their efforts, he knew it would happen again. Sure, empty promises would lull the pain of the mind—if there were one—but did not completely eliminate the possibility of being terminated, again. Clockwork could only seek comfort in the finitude he had, with the hope of one day—he could just stay the way he was.
But fate is a cruel, cruel, mistress, and she would keep that reassurance away from him.
He was replaceable, and my god, did every part of him know it. You could almost hear the quiet humming coming from the inside of Clockwork’s chassis. The sound was oddly comforting.
He’s heard this a million times before, the weird sense of familiarity that would fill his mind every time he heard it.
The new plating sat flush against the old frame, seamless under his fingertips. Clockwork ran a full systems check twice, then a third time, searching for an error message that refused to appear.
Nothing was wrong.
That was the problem.
The diagnostic panel showed a complete chassis. Every system green. Every plate accounted for. Clockwork blankly stared at the feed the way someone else might stare into a mirror.
Something inside of him itched, yet Clockwork continued to stare, idly tapping his finger against his hip.
The feeling sat just beneath his plating, yet it was unreachable. He ran the systems check a fourth time, looking for something—anything—that was slightly off.
Even a dead pixel on the screen would’ve sufficed, Clockwork thought to himself, his eyes darting frantically between the space of each word displayed on the screen.
Nothing was wrong.
He stayed where he was, hand resting on the new joint, waiting for the feeling to pass.
It didn’t.