#the only difference is now the corpse is smaller and his grief is altered. he spent so long musing about what if he was the one that was

[martyrbat]

batman #428 / batman: legends of the dark knight #100

It's over. It's begun. The end of the training and the worry that he wouldn't pass the tests and make the grade, the beginning of a life with meaning. Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind of smile Robin, The Boy Wonder should have. And he is Robin after all. For now and ever more.

‘Part of me recalls him putting on his costume that first time... the look on his face... his smile... as if it were yesterday. That first time, I must keep it alive... the memory of it. Alive in my heart so that the memory of this... here now... doesn't destroy me. We're together at least. One last time together... as it should be.’

[icy-warden]

Worse than death             

Content warnings: Blood and Injury; Non-Consensual Body Modification; Panic Attacks; Mind Manipulation; Memory Alteration; Alternate Universe - Dystopia; Cyberpunk

On AO3 - prompt Death for Zevraholics Anonymous October Challenge 2019   

"You shouldn't do that," Vergil rasps, pushing the blade a millimeter further, watching the black fabric at Zevran's throat work under it, as he tries not to squirm. Golden eyes are alert and sharp, staring straight into Vergil’s. Still, it doesn't stop Zevran from throwing Vergil a cheeky smile.

"Wouldn't be fun otherwise."

Vergil looks at him for a moment longer, amber gaze darkening, and he's stepping away with a huff.

"Your part is done, yes?" Vergil asks curtly, sheathing his blade back at his hip in one smooth move, scanning their surroundings briefly, before he looks back at Zevran. A freelancer, he calls himself, often hired for shady missions like this one. Grey Wardens aren't picky with allies, as long as the money do the talking.

Zevran sighs dramatically with mumbled "work, work, work" as he procures few cores, relatively clean from fluids. Androids don't bleed after all, but the mess around them would beg to differ. Broken parts are scattered across the room, some cut clean by Vergil's blade, some scorched by the blaster he used. He scrunches up his nose at the crunch from under his boot, the smaller pieces of the artificial arm. Damaged synthetic skin smells like the rubber of burnt cables. There are some sparks here and there, lightning up the shadows and reflecting in spilled fluids. There's only one human among the carnage, now lying in unmoving heap among her charges. Vergil was quick with this one, giving her a clean death. He doesn't like pointless violence, going after his targets in orderly fashion. But the droids here didn't make it easy on him, slowing him down when he went after the woman, fighting him as they were protecting her, fighting to harm and stop him.

Abnormal behaviour.

They shouldn't attack him. Shouldn't, if they weren't programmed this way on purpose, so the woman's blame was evident in her creations. Learning AI's are forbidden for a reason.

Nevermind. They were targets and GW wanted them gone along with any data they could obtain.

"The other room?"

"It's clean. Now what about a drink or two?"

Zevran's careful with voicing what he'd like to do with him beside the drinks, as they're on monitored comms, and his words don't sound as suggestive as the impish grin on his full lips.

"Don't push your luck," Vergil drawls, though he lets his eyes to roam Zevran's form in far less innocent way. Zevran's grin widens.

"Oh, but I wouldn't mind a little push from you, Commander," he purrs, preposterously batting his eyelashes and Vergil blinks, fighting a bizzare urge to smile.

And after they wrap the things there, and Vergi's sure to drop the data and brief report, they spend the rest of the night drinking and fucking, like they usually do after a mission together. Using the restless energy in the competition full of mutual pleasure, sharing moments of breathless bliss and leaving temporary marks.

It's a pattern, but it's fleeting and Vergil indulges himself in the now. Immensely and without regret.

/////

Months, and few more shared missions later, they find the time for a meeting without being on a job earlier. Both are out of uniforms, wearing something casual and suitable for the place. Vergil finds himself enjoying the banter over shared meal, unhurried and oddly intimate, like they have all time in the world. He gets to know Zevran from different side and is pleasantly surprised to find that they seem to be compatibile outside their usual settings, joined targets and quick trysts to celebrate the success.

It's dangerous and foolish to seek this out. To chase more of what they have.

But.

Zevran's company helps him unwind a little, and he doesn't mind to let his guard down a bit more. Sharing few drinks, talking about everything, sometimes related to their jobs, but not overly detailed, as it's not so wise to do so in public – it's intriguing. Something in him stirrs, when he looks at clever and warm golden eyes, listening to some high tale full of lies and hidden truths, and picks them apart with well pointed questions, and Vergil sees how amused smirk stretches Zevran's lips and how much he seems to enjoy their little battle of wits. He's content.

And he'd like to do it again.

/////

Blood.

On his hands.

He looks at them, breath short, painful. Choked.

Knees buckle under him, he goes down hard, arms barely protecting the fall.

His chest explodes in agony, his head cracks on the concrete and he sees white and black for a moment and his eyes water, everything blurs when he tries to take a breath, but his own lungs suffocate him, blood filling his thorat in mouthfuls of thick liquid. And he thinks he hears someone shouting and there's flurry of movement, flashes of light and he tries to see, blinking out the fog.

It doesn't stop the pain, he's drowning and can't breathe and wants to bring his hands to his wound to stop it, do something, grasp the life leaking out of the hole in his chest-

But, his hands, he doesn't feel them. He fights for air, struggles for it as panic ultimately overwhelms him and urges him to breathe when he can't and it sends the spikes of heavy, burn-like cramps and more blood, but no air. There is someone talking golden eyes peering into his and an urgent voice and he wants to say something-

help me

But what comes out is a gurgle and another choke, and the black is seeping into his vision. A roar in his head and all he sees is-

Nothing at all.

/////

First time they boot him up, there's a moment of confused recognition, then Vergil proceeds to demolish half of the lab and severly injures two people from the staff. It takes way too long before they are able to shut him down, and it only takes one four-people squad and using the emergency turn off switch. The failure is written off as a "most likely a shock of organic mind adapting to new body parameters."

Second time they are much more careful, as Vergil's cautiously strapped to the lab table and left alone, avidly monitored by cameras and lab staff, standing behind thick, bulletproof windows. But this time, he lies there without life, distant eyes gazing into nothing.

Unmoving and still like a corpse.

And after two days of him not reacting to any stimuli, they decide to cut the power off – they learnt from the first time not to equip the body with independent battery and kept him on external power supply. The summary of the report says "catatonia caused by possible damage to consciousness during data transfer, further work is recommended to solve the process of unlocking awareness successfully."

Third time is similar to the second one, with Vergil being silent and unresponsive, until he starts to wail, the inhuman sound of his cries resonating with such deep grief and so disturbing in it's intensity, that most of the staff is horrified by it. The mumbled, broken words of "I can't feel it" repeated in between the heavy, dry sobs. This, and the failure to communicate were the final arguments to scrap down the experiment and shut it down.

The transfer visibly failed and the subject spiralled into madness. Some thought it a disappointment, some a mercy. After all, they tried to prevent a great mind from vanishing along with it's organic body, and now they had to block it completely.

GW has no use of insane Commander.

But there's always a use for an operational android.

/////

The operation parameters are clear. Find and collect the data about the source of black market's cybernetics parts.

V3R61L is an infiltrator, GW's elite android and the mission goes smoothly until it doesn't.

He pulls out the mission status, storing the obtained information for later, to send it to his handler. He's detected and has to act fast. As he was sent alone, he can only send a part of his mission report. Someone would find the distress signal. He's monitored constantly. GW will send an operative to secure his unit, if he'd have to hide for longer and wouldn't be able to be back on his own.

System malfunctions

Left arm unresponsive

Multiple error messages

V3R61L runs.

Runs away from the warehouse, from the trap he fell into. His parameters urge him to protect the data he collected at all cost. Destroy any, who stands in his way if needed, but keep the data protected. Retreat, if it is the best strategy.

He's heavily damaged and is slowing down, his vision giving him much more information, than unmodded human sight would. His pursuers are mostly organic, human, with few lesser cyber-enchantments. V3R61L plans on using that, but still they could outrun him, as they are better acquaintanced with the terrain. It has V3R61L in deep disatvantage.

The scattered lights from neons on buildings reflect in the rain puddles. Some of the night dwellers are standing near bar entrances, talking loudly, busy in their own affairs, puffing away the smoke along with the clouds of breaths visible in the chill, damp air. V3R61L avoids staying in the light, quickly calculating the best route allowing him to disappear, preferring to use the darkness of dirty alleys. He stumbles when one of the servos in his left knee malfunctions and he loses his balance, crashing into the wall. Still, after he goes down he uses his right arm to push himself up, and when the alarms of errors almost make his system shut down, his vision swimming in pulsing red lines of the code, broken in places-

Abnormal behaviour detected

Immediately contact the nearest GW station

Temporary shut down recommended

V3R61L blinks and closes down some of the overlapping messages, switching into sole mode, testing left leg, as he starts crawling forward through the dirt and puddles. It's too close to people, and to allow himself to be detected if he shuts down is out of the question. He has to hide and wait for the distress signal to reach the headquarters. There's a distant noise in his head, one he can't find the source of and a faint taste of copper in the back of his throat.

And that makes him pause, as he can't exactly feel a taste he is now, as V3R61L's body isn't adjusted to such parameters. V3R61L doesn't need to mimic all human factors to function properly.

The broken line of code appears again. He's disoriented by it and falters mid-crawl, stops moving for a moment. There's a shout near the entrance of the alley and he opens his eyes,

(when did he close them?)

turns on his side to glue himself into the wall beside him, freezes to make himself an insignificant object. One more yell and there are hurried steps, going from the alleymouth and fading into other noises, muffled. V3R61L analyzes the situation and almost resumes the crawling, when the broken line vanishes and appears again, immobilizing him and he opens his mouth with a human like gasp, when the taste of copper intensifies. The system goes erratic and there are some flashes of what he was running from, warehouse full of humans and androids, all of them working together carrying crates from one place to the other, as he was waiting in the shadows, for an opportune moment to strike at the so-called leader, when all went wrong.

How it went so horribly wrong?

Someone, something saw him,

(and they simply shouldn't, his cloaking is the best of the best GW equipped V3R61L with)

he had to move and undetect himself, and there was so much chaos, his cameras probably didn't catch everything, his body caught in fight with both humans and androids, some heavy machines working in warehouse, he slashed and fired and injured some humans,

(not kill, he wasn't ordered to kill)

at some point he was tossed and got his arm crushed by falling crates, then he decided to run with what he had. Only to be stopped by a man with golden hair and golden eyes who freezed when he looked at him with ashen face and faint whisper of "Vergil?" falling from his lips, and something in V3R61L's system went override as the line in his code just broke, the urge to follow "flight" protocols overwhelming any other orders.

It, the broken code made him-

V3R61L's arm falters and he lurches into the puddle, side of his mouth and nose full of dirt water and he has a mouthful of it before the copper taste intensifies, the broken red line imprinting into his artificial retinas and his system finally shuts down.

/////

Green eyes appear in its,

(his)

vision. There's a wrinkle in between blond brows, eyes squinted deep in concentration, strands of fair hair falling into them and the man huffs an irritated breath and they flutter away only to be back stubbornly. The man holds the piece of thin wire, connecting it somewhere lower, where V3R61L can't see without moving his head for a better angle.

He stays quiet, assesing the situation, taking in the surroundings. The place's cluttered with all kind of equipment and parts, lowly lit but with enough workspace. There's a soft curse and a silent shot of burnt circuit and V3R61L's body twitches few times, but not hard enough to topple him forward, because he's propped standing on some kind of custom low workbench. But his eyes flutter to open fully and as soon as the spasms are over there's a hand on V3R61L's chest.

V3R61L can feel the pressure of it, and the warmth of a regular human being, his system seeming to work as it should.

"I'm sorry about this," is whispered with a sigh and the blond head's back in his sight and green eyes widen a bit when they see V3R61L's own eyes staring back.

"Can you hear me?"

He doesn't answer, gaze unwavering and after few moments the hopeful glint in the green eyes starts to dim. "It's okay, I'll fix this." There's a small, sad smile on a face full of freckles, a hint of determination in his soft voice and V3R61L closes his eyes. The lines of code are full of red, but V3R61L's focus stays on the man's work.

V3R61L will let himself be repaired before he acts.