Chapter Text
PART ONE
Choose.
As long as N could remember—literally, as long as he could remember—his memories were never clear. Fuzzy, like static, buzzing with pictures and pieces that told a story but never made heads or tails of how it started or ended. Memories—clashing dangerously between fact or fiction, unable to tell if it was made to desperately cling on to better times or the last good thing that happened before the dark set in.
Because in a world of pain, the last threads holding you together were the memories of what was once, and what could have been.
Choose. He could choose to see between the lines now. He could choose to remember everything, the good and the bad, the happy and the tragedies, no longer clinging to the stories they told him that just consisted of words but no actual meaning. He could choose to relive everything.
Or he could choose to stay in the dark. Sometimes the dark was comforting. Sometimes it was scary.
But he was done forgetting. If he wanted to heal, if he needed to find peace and move on—he needed to face this.
Uzi could bring back all his memories—all of them.
“I think I’m ready.”
———————————————
Nothing would have made him ready for it.
Fuzzy thoughts were now fractures. Full pictures flashing their brightest colors and gruesome views and he couldn’t unsee any of it.
He didn’t know how he had ended up outside. How on Copper-9 he had walked all the way from Lizzy and V’s residence to the ends of the bunker door. The guards didn’t even question him before letting him outside. It was all a blur, everything was blur, except the memories.
It was like sharp shards of regret and guilt kept piercing him and tormenting him as he walked, talked and slept. Some pieces were in his audial receptors—screams from all he had killed haunting him, yelling and writhing and shrieking for revenge like he so deserved. Some pieces were in his stomach–the churning, agonizing realization of thinking about the horrors he had done as a Disassembly Drone finally catching up to him.
He knew it was bad. He knew it was something irredeemable.
He just… couldn't comprehend something like this.
What are you things? Uzi had asked him in the first few days they had met.
Now he had an answer that fit.
He was a monster.
Did it matter then, if he tried to be kind and gentle, if he had left trails of blood and oil in torrents? How many people and drones had he killed? Couldn’t he even serve them the pleasure of remembering their faces, not it being an inconsistent blur? How many families? How many children?
How deep in hell was his programming, then, if he had thought it justified to take the lives of hundreds— thousands?
When he was deployed, he always had a chance to do things differently. To question why things were the way they were.
He only ever asked that question when Uzi showed up in his life. Quite literally—gave it meaning.
Uzi. Would she still love him, if she knew the things he’s done? The people he killed. The lives he’s ruined. Would she still take his hand, blush adorably in the moonlight, hug him with all the strength they could muster, tightly wound up in the night, if she knew he was a monster, a murderer, and the reason for everything bad that had happened in her life before they met?
The Disassembly Drones had killed her mother. And Nori had even suggested that N was the one who had taken her life.
Cyn had made them do all of it. But he still had a choice.
Choose. Between hundreds of innocent drones or his own?
And in the end, the former would lose.
He chose to remember. He chose to kill. And he couldn’t undo any of it.
Fly, N.
His metal wings deployed. Golden tears streamed down his visor as he took flight, high up in the clouds, flying and flying and flying without a moment of breath, thoughts racing and shards piercing, there was so much he had done
———————————————
Where did N go?
Uzi walked through the halls of the bunker, frantically looking for the platinum haired drone she was intensely worried for. As desperately as she tried to wipe off the growing concern and worries in her expression, she couldn’t help but mumble in frustration at her own incompetence for not checking on him sooner and asking drones around if they’ve seen him or not. And all she got back were negative answers.
He just got back his memories yesterday.
He had looked so hurt, so dazed, so shocked, eyes hollowing and widening when his whole frame shuddered, momentum rapidly increasing with heavy simulated breaths and shaking, hands covering his face entirely. The sight was so heartbreaking to Uzi that she tried her hardest to make him feel better, hugging him and doing everything she could.
But the strangest, and most irritatingly annoying thing that Uzi felt guilty for was that she wasn’t as good at comforting N as he was with her. That he was completely willing to help her with everyone but neglected himself in the process.
Idiot, why do you have to be so sweet… and self-sacrificial?
Uzi had tried, she really did, but N kept insisting he was fine. Even despite hugging each other for long, he had left quickly, hesitantly asking for a minute alone. Almost like he was guilty staying with her.
A minute has turned into hours had turned into a full night. And then a day. Uzi had pinged him–kept track of his location–and for the following day requested that V would take care of him, unsure if Uzi could see him–he had asked for space, robo-god.
And V had kept an eye, for the day before he just disappeared.
He wasn’t responding to any of her texts, showing up on any of her pings—either his receptors were not working properly or…
He could be in serious trouble.
She arrived in front of Lizzy’s place—where V crashed in nowadays—and barely resisted the urge to destroy the door with her solver immediately. She knocked frantically, Lizzy opening after a few beats.
“Ugh, what the heck? Don’t you have a patience when it comes to—”
“V. I need to talk to V.” Uzi croaked out, the sentence morphing and tangling, sounding nothing like her cool, confident and angsty self.
Lizzy looked rather shocked, and surprisingly didn’t push or tease her for it, like Uzi was anticipating. “This better be important…” She mumbled, going back in the house.
After a beat, V came out of the door, glasses on her visor—which she promptly removed the second she saw Uzi. She was trying to hide it too but—V looked worried .
Uzi decided to not beat against the bush and get straight to the point. “Have you seen N?”
Her expression fell immediately. “I was hoping he was with you…”
No, no, no– “What do you mean, hope ?” She half-yelled. “I thought you said you’d—”
“Keep an eye on him, I know!” V yelled back, in the same ferocity. “But he was begging to be left alone for a minute, and he just bolted! I didn’t know whether I should have followed, I thought he could handle himself, he was begging to…”
A flash of guilt emerged in V’s visor before she deployed her wings and sighed. “I’m… sorry.”
The apology hit the room like a bombshell. Uzi was tempted to yell at her again to vent her worry and frustration—but they were both going through the exact same thing. And honestly, Uzi was just as valid to blame.
Why can’t I just help N? Why won’t he let me help him?
She zoned out as her thoughts raced. She knew he loved her dearly, and in situations like these—when the trauma and the aftermath of the Absolute Solver was just too much to bear, they’d hold each other close, some days talking about it and some days just clinging on for comfort. And as hard as it was for the two–they didn’t keep much from each other.
What was funny when you weren’t having N’s safety on the line was that Uzi, despite being the angsty, emotionally closed off of the two, was the one who was way more vocal about anything she was feeling. She’d go to N for comfort, and he’d always offer it to her. But N tended to… close off. Repress everything. Go days without telling her he had flashbacks or nightmares and it would bubble and boil over when he refused to address them. And he was making serious progress in putting himself over others but he was still getting the point drilled into his head that his feelings mattered too.
“Let’s go find N.”
Before it was too late…
———————————————
If J had killed me all those months ago, would I have deserved it?
…