Work Text:
"Does it hurt?" Awsten asks, dumping a pile of scrap metal onto the table in front of him.
"Not really." Otto shrugs. "I don't have many sensors in this arm."
"So you can feel pain in your robot limbs?" Awsten queries. It isn't something he has thought about before. "Like, in general?"
"Yes." Otto nods. "Probably not in the way you do."
"Probably not." Awsten agrees. He rummages through his pile of stuff. "How bad did you break it?"
Otto picks the tips of his metal fingers up with his other, flesh hand, and drops it back into the table with a metallic thud. "It shouldn't do that. I think the motors in my elbow are broken."
"I don't have a new motor here, but we can probably find one down in the yard." Awsten mumbles.
There's a lot of junk in his scrapyard. He has tried to organise or categorise it all, but it's near impossible. This place has been in his family for four generations; there's probably stuff twice Awsten's age buried under the piles of dead robotics and old cars. Some of it must be valuable, but Awsten was never very good at all this stuff. His dad was the businessman, he just wanted to be a robotics engineer.
Then his dad went and died, and Awsten got lumped with trying to sort out this place. That's how he met Otto, a poor cyborg that is always looking for ways to put himself back together. They agreed to help each other out - Otto gets fixed and Awsten gets to work on something he enjoys.
"What did you even do?" Awsten asks, picking a few long, thin pieces of metal out of the pile. They're not the same colour as Otto's arm, but that isn't something he seems to care about. It's similar enough that no one would notice from far enough away. All of his metal parts - his left leg, his right arm, the skin around his right eye - are all a mismatch of parts fished out of junkyards across the city.
Otto always comes here because Awsten will let him have whatever he wants for free. Losing a few scraps of metal won't change the overall sell value of this place, and it's nice to have company around here sometimes. Awsten doesn't really see anyone since his dad died, unless Travis drops by to bug him about things like 'eating food' and 'sunlight'.
Sue him, it's not easy to get sunlight when you're always surrounded by towering piles of scrap.
"I punched a wall." Otto says, like it's nothing interesting.
"Why did you punch a wall?" Awsten asks, opening various drawers around the room. Where the hell did he leave his soldering iron?
"I was aiming for someone's head and they moved." Otto shrugs. "Why do you care?"
"I don't like you getting hurt." Awsten says, then, so it isn't weird, adds, "I don't like seeing anyone get hurt."
"It's just the metal parts. They aren't really me." Otto picks up his arm again and lets it drop onto the table with a clunk. "I only use them because I have to."
"What do you mean?"
Otto doesn't answer, so Awsten opens another drawer that finally contains his soldering iron. He picks it up and puts it on the table beside his pile of scraps.
"I'm just going to stitch up the casing so you don't have any exposed wires." Awsten explains. "Then we can go and find you a motor."
"I don't like that colour." Otto says, nodding to the scraps Awsten picked out. "Can't we do something fun?"
"It's fucking metalwork, not a tattoo." Awsten says. Otto raises his eyebrows at him. Awsten sighs - unfortunately, he will do almost anything for Otto if it means he keeps coming around. "The best I can do for you is copper, but that's not going to be very strong."
"I don't care. It'll break again no matter what you fix it with." Otto says. "Let's just have fun with it."
"You're weird." Awsten says, but he opens a different drawer and pulls out some copper that his dad kept in there for no apparent reason. God, this place is horribly organised. "Copper it is."
Otto lays his metal arm out on the table in front of Awsten and lets him get to work. The fracture in the arm casing is like spiderweb, emanating from a central point in the centre of his inner forearm and splitting the casing in half. It looks like someone hit it, not like Otto hit someone. Maybe this fracture and the elbow motor breaking were separate parts of the same fight. Or multiple fights. Awsten doesn't know what Otto does in his spare time except get himself torn to pieces.
It's a relatively easy fix - Otto holds the two halves together with his flesh hand to make it easier for Awsten to solder it. Despite Awsten being trained purely as a practical solderer rather than in anything aesthetic, the whole effect is rather striking. The lines of shining copper against the dull silver-coloured metal, extending from a central point out to the edges of his arm. It looks like a flower; Awsten doesn't see much greenery in this stupid scrapyard in the middle of the city, so it's nice.
"Thanks." Otto inspects his arm and nods. "You said you might have a motor out in the yard?"
"Yeah. You up for a walk?" Awsten asks. Sometimes Otto can't walk because his robot leg is too busted, but it seems okay today. "You probably know what you're looking for better than me."
"Sure." Otto stands up, a little shakily. "I think it's a pretty common one."
"You think?"
"I didn't install this thing." Otto says. "I don't really know how it works."
"You probably should."
"That's what I have you for." Otto smiles at him, and Awsten can't help but smile back.