Work Text:
Once again, 6O checked everything in her bedroom to ensure nothing was out of place. Photos from earth? Check. Flower pictureframe? Check. Bed? Made. Drawers? Straightened. Admittedly, she was essentially fussing over nothing with how spartan most residential rooms were in the Bunker, but she couldn’t help but feel nervous! After all, she was getting to--
The door opened without fanfare. 2B stood in the doorway, motionless while 6O reacted by jumping in her chair, straightening herself out and waving to greet her visitor.
“Ah, hi! I didn’t realize you’d already made it back.”
“This was the time you requested for me to arrive.”
“It, it is? Yes, right!”
“Is that unusual?”
“No, I--Nevermind! Ugh. Stupid.” The last part was largely under her breath, to herself. Feeling like her words were failing her, she motioned towards the chair next to her at the table. It was a long, rectangular table, and as she was sitting at the head of the table, there was no room for 2B to sit directly next to her. 2B nodded curtly before stepping into the room and sitting at the only other chair in the room, 90 degrees to 6O’s left.
“What did you need?”
“I didn’t--Well, I do, uh… You remember how you had to help me with a jam in my shoulder? I was feeling it again, and I was hoping…”
“You could report the matter to Mechanics and have it repaired, I see no reason why I’m needed.”
“That’s not true! You know how stuck up they are. I’m not a field model and it doesn’t impact my performance, so I’m too low of a priority to repair. Plus, I really, ah… Well, you did a great job.”
“...Alright. Don’t make a habit of this, though.”
Giddy with excitement, 6O turned to point her dominant arm towards 2B, who reciprocated by slipping the sleeves off of 6O’s uniform, already undone in advance, before hooking her fingers into a groove aligned with the joint of 6O’s shoulder to the rest of her torso. Running her fingertip through the groove, 2B drew a full line around 6O’s shoulder, prompting the outer layer of 6O’s ceramic to retract, allowing 2B to reach the couplings within. Pulling 6O’s arm straight outwards from her, she twisted it slightly, pushing it in, then pulling back on it, widening the gap ever so slightly over the couplings, allowing her to better slide in, gripping the side of each grip, squeezing them between her index and thumb, twisting, and disengaging the clamp. One, done, two, done, three, and the couplings retracted fully, allowing 2B to detach it from 6O’s body and leave it on the table.
Now with her work in front of her, 2B reached back and opened one of 6O’s drawers without looking. Not due to familiarity, but--
“...6O. You know there’s an enforced mandate on all shelf arran-”
“Aaah! I know, I know, I’m sorry! Here, I can grab it, one moment.” Freed of the problematic arm, 6O got up and walked over to the drawer diagonally furthest from the one 2B opened, shuffling with her one hand for a few moments before pulling out the toolkit that 2B had expected to find, setting it on the desk before sheepishly closing the drawer 2B had opened, stuffed to the brim of every knickknack that 2B had brought up from the planet for her.
“Ahaha, don’t worry about that!”
“Hoarding personal items is also firmly regulated, 6O.”
“Well, you keep bringing me them!”
2B opted not to respond, having slid the toolkit over and opened it, pulling each tool that she’d need to inspect 6O’s arm out in order. Screwdrivers, plastic levers, thin plastic chips to widen gaps, several small bottles, all more finesse oriented than one would expect from a battle unit. Now with her tools, 2B opted to separate the upper arm from the forearm by repeating the same few steps she did to separate the arm from the shoulder, pressing in, twisting, extending the joint to better access the couplings, and from there the mechanics deviated.
Using one of the thin plastic chips, 2B pried up a flat, rounded cover that had a hairline seam between it and the rest of the elbow joint, widening it from a hairline to that of a quarter, then using the plastic lever to slip in and pop the entire thing off. Repeating the same motion on the other side, she clamped down on a hex nut on the outer side of the elbow joint, using her bare hand to twist at the bolt head on the opposite side, pulling out the bolt that seemed far too long for the joint it was inserted to, placing it on a rag she prepared from the toolbox before separating the forearm and the upper arm at the joint.
Moving to the wrist joint, 2B started once again with the small plastic pick, widening hairline cracks as she leaned backwards, looking over at her host.
“Go ahead.”
“E-eh?”
“It’s obvious you have something to say.”
“Ahaha?” 6O giggled to cover her embarrassment, moving to brush her bangs out of her eyes - The whirr of her exposed shoulder answered her attempt, giggling again to cover herself as she used her right hand to fix her hair.
“I just wanted to thank you. Not only will they not help me, but I don’t really feel… comfortable leaving my body to the randos in mechanics to repair.”
“Are you sure you should be trusting me with them?”
“You’ve yet to mess up, and I know you better than anyone else around here. Plus, you seem to have so much fun doing this!”
Rolling her fingers in a counter clockwise motion to spin the screwdriver, lifting five separate small screws out of 6O’s wrist and dropping them with the adhesive tip of the screwdriver into a pocket meant for organizing screws on the overturned top of the toolkit. Giving 6O’s detached hand a full rotation, she repeated the previous steps of press in, press out, stretch, and detached the hand an inch before the actual wrist, as disassembling the actual wrist joint tended to lead to more complicated problems than it would solve.
With the major joints detached, 2B began working her way down the hairline seams of the forearm and upper arm, wedging them to the same quarter length the whole way down, taking care not to rush, nor do a half assed job as she started separating the parts.
“...You may have a point.”
“E-Eh?”
“This is rather, pleasing. I can’t identify it, but something about the rhythm and focus of the work puts me at ease.”
“Oh! Well, can I invite you over more often, then?”
“Are you planning on breaking parts of your arm regularly…?”
“Ahaha… Okay. I guess not.”
Moving back to the lever, 2B separated the outer shell on the two arm sections, reaching over to grab a disposable wipe from her toolkit of supplies, giving both the inside and outside a once over, picking some blackened spots off of the inside of 6O’s arm, leaving the areas streaked, then squeaky clean with a second runover. Setting them to the side to dry, 2B started working with the simpler mechanics of 6O’s arm - Pistons, rods, synthetic ligaments, the works. 6O shivered as she watched 2B start to gingerly use rubber tipped tweezers to gently move her synthetic muscles to the side, revealing the metal underneath, peering inwards, then moving to the next stretch of muscle.
Soon, 2B finally found something that gave her pause, peering closely in the folds of 6O’s flesh before reaching out and grabbing a smooth plastic wedge, placing it in between the folds of muscle to hold them open, and started pulling out the cleaning supplies. Specialized cotton swabs, the purifying chemical from earlier, specialized microfiber wipes, the works. Fiddling with her blindfold for a moment to switch to a specialized setting, 2B focused on what she was staring at, dipping a swab into the purifying agent before slipping it inbetween the folds and working away at the buildup she’d identified, delicately working her way down to ensure she didn’t shift the layers of muscle above.
The whole experience was enough to make 6O shiver from top to bottom, the sensation of exposing herself like this being something she couldn’t even fully process. Turning her head away from 2B to hide any embarrassment she was feeling, 2B… ignored her, still focusing on her work.
Letting out a sigh of satisfaction, 2B withdrew her now blackened tools and discarded them in the trash, applying another layer of disposable wipedown to 6O’s upper arm before popping its’ cover back on, ensuring the contents were preserved. Moving onto the forearm, 2B hooked her fingers underneath a structured curve in 6O’s muscle and peeled it back, lifting the underside of her muscles off wholesale as a singular undisturbed peace. This gave way to the rods underneath, used to provide strength to finger manipulations and arm movement.
With the rods exposed, 2B clicked her tongue as she viewed their general state.
“Idiots. Of course they wouldn’t fix this for you.”
“Ehh? Is it bad?”
“It’s… not for an operations unit, but if it were me, they would have flagged me down whether it bothered me or not, as buildup could lead to critical errors in the middle of combat. I can fix it.”
6O watched as 2B reached over, to the far side of the toolkit… and grabbed a flat, metal scraper. Watching 2B slide it up to the inside of her arm, angle it, and prime it for the next step, 6O only had a moment before she looked away in horror, realizing what she was about to hear.
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk! Shshshshk! Shhshshsk! Shshshk! 2B had started to scrape the scaly buildup off of 6O’s rods, methodically lining up to where the buildup was worst, then inching the scraper around the rest of the rod to grab what was accessible, before prying the far side off as a singular piece. Biting her finger with an awkward queasy sensation she couldn’t get away from, 6O tried to shut the noise out of her head until realized she heard several Clicks in succession. Looking back, she realized she lost track of time, and 2B had already finished cleaning up and reassembling her arm.
After another ten minutes of 2B stopping to meticulously detail each joint with cleaner and fresh grease, 6O’s arm was reassembled, reattaching without a hitch. Swinging it around to test her range of motion, 6O had a massive smile on her face as she realized how wonderful she was feeling!
“Back to optimal performance?”
“This might even be better!”
“Good. I don’t want this sort of thing weighing on your mind when I’m on the field.”
“Well… hey, even if I don’t have this happen again, could we…?”
“...I wouldn’t mind.”
“Really!?”
“I’ve spent my time on worse things.”