Dog Day Afternoon

It was a little while before Mel got Lugnut to the base.

They had the camp out, first of all, and then the two of them fetched and carried for Maggie's one-woman construction crew most of the day and then everybody had gone over to Big Base to help Ryan move out, and by the time that circus has wrapped up it was dinner time, and any time he tried to pass off food Boon would start in on the motor oil jokes again, so it was just less hassle to wait.

So it was getting dark by the time he opened the old loading bay door to let Lugnut into the warehouse-turned-secret-base Smoke had opened to him when they started working together. Dark enough that he had to grope around the wall for a moment to find the lights.

Like reverse cockroaches, as the overhead lights flickered on, the Hexnuts scrabbled out of various nooks and crannies in the base and came rushing to greet him. To an outsider, it probably would've looked terrifying: the little dog-shaped robots were clearly designed with an eye to intimidation, and they moved *fast*. Mel was certain Ernest would hate them. But he dropped to one knee with a grin and spread out his arms to meet them, taking a moment to pat each one and check each one with his powers. They had an abundance of enthusiasm and a dearth of supervision and more than once he'd come back to find one of them had knocked something important loose while playing.

"Hey, guys," he cooed when he'd determined they were all in working order. "I brought someone really special for you to meet. This is your big brother, Lugnut."

He turned to look at Lugnut and nearly brained himself on his muzzle as the ever-curious dino had already leaned down to peer at the much smaller bots. Mel hooked an arm around his neck and jostled him lightly. "Buddy, these are the Hexnuts," he said. "Brazil, Hazel, Wal, Pea, Pine, and Coco."

Lugnut stretched his neck out to prod the closest Hexnut with his nose. The little bot reared up and planted its front feet on his muzzle, peering at him in turn. Lugnut froze, going completely still but for the twitching end of his tail.

Mel laughed and stood back up. "Okay, you guys get acquainted while I get my stuff set up. Be careful with them, buddy, they're a lot smaller than you." He brushed a hand over Wingnut's head where she was perched on his shoulder. "Supervise, would you?"

Wingnut ran her beak through his hair then fluttered over to perch on Lugnut's back. Mel gave her a two-fingered salute then turned and headed over to the makeshift engineering bay.

When Smoke had first shown him the base, it had been clear that it had been used rarely for anything other than storage. But there *was* a workbench shoved against one wall, and tools, and Mel had cheerfully set to work sectioning off an area for tinkering and dragging everything over. That had been step one. Step two had been dragging in more furniture to make the place more hospitable, especially since he'd never quite shaken the habit of staying up too late to go home to his bed when he was deep into dissecting some new piece of machinery. There was a makeshift living area in one corner, now, with a raggedy couch, a table, a TV, and a pair of cots.

Step three was sorting through all the *stuff* that Smoke and… Mirror... had stashed here. It was an ongoing process, not least because it was just kind of *awkward* to go through the remainders of his vigilante days. Mel was determined to see it through eventually, though, because there was some useful stuff in there. Besides the Hexnuts (who were useful primarily for fetching the occasional item and alerting them to the presence of passing birds), they'd already set aside the teleportal (which was *very cool* and Mel wished he could've been present for *that* heist, and then remembered that he wasn't supposed to wish for that sort of thing anymore). There was bound to be more.

It was a project that would have to wait at least another day, though; right this moment, Mel had more pressing matters to attend to.

His workbench was, as usual, cluttered. He rarely bothered to clear it off, so it was covered in the remnants of… he was pretty sure it was originally some kind of laser gun. He picked through it to grab the tools he thought he was most likely to need, then took a minute to clear away debris from the area around the bench. The Hexnuts tended to fetch random items when he was working on something instead of paying attention to them. It was adorable, but also a definite tripping hazard.

Satisfied that Lugnut wouldn't step on a bag of ball bearings and topple over, Mel turned around to call to him and his heart seized in his chest.

Lugnut wasn't by the entrance anymore. Brazil and Coco were playing tug-of-war with a wrench, right where he'd left them, but Lugnut, Wingnut, and the other four Hexnuts had seemingly vanished.

His breath started coming quickly. "Lugnut?" he croaked out around his throat tightening. He swallowed and then tried again, louder and more urgently, "Lugnut? Where'd you go, boy?"

Something crashed over to his right and Mel spun around to find Lugnut lifting his head out of a pile of stolen tech with some sort of metal orb in his mouth. Mel let out all his breath in a *whoosh* and slumped back against his workbench. "Jesus, don't scare me like that, buddy," he said, running a hand over his hair.

Lugnut cocked his head curiously, and then the purple lights edging his horns lit up and he was shocked out of his panic by the familiar sensation of his powers connecting him to Lugnut.

Except Lugnut was across the room, and Mel wasn't wearing his suit, and he *definitely* shouldn't have been able to do that.

Lugnut didn't think in words. He was smarter than the average elevator, sure, but he didn't have the clear intelligence and nuance of thought of Wingnut or Metatron. Besides the usual awareness of his mechanical systems, what Mel was getting from him was just a general sense of *concern*.

"I'm okay, buddy," Mel reassured him both in words and thoughts. "C'mere, I'm ready for you. Yes, you can bring the ball."

Lugnut wagged his tail, mollified. The purple lights faded and Mel had the unnerving sensation of his powers being cut off without his doing, something usually reserved for being physically pulled away from whatever he was interfacing with. It was disorienting, and he shook his head like he could shake off the feeling as Lugnut cheerfully trotted over and shoved his nose into his hand.

"How the hell did you learn to do that, huh, boy?" Mel mused as he ran a hand over his horn. Instead of replying, Lugnut reared his head back to proudly show off the metal sphere.

Mel snorted and made a show of inspecting it (*without* touching it, which would surely be taken as an invitation to play tug-of-war, a game he was destined to lose). Without using his powers, the device was utterly inscrutable. But Lugnut was deceptively delicate with his chosen toys, and as long as nobody tried to take it from him it was in no danger of being damaged, so Mel didn't see any harm in letting him cuddle with it while he checked him over.

"Yup, good find, buddy," he said, patting the hinge of Lugnut's jaw. He whirred happily. "Okay, c'mere, lie down and let me check you over."

Lugnut obligingly shuffled around to where Mel directed him and eased himself down onto the ground. When Mel knelt down beside him, he curled his neck around to drop his head in his lap.

"Hey, buddy," Mel murmured, a smile creeping over his face. "I love you too, but I need a little space to work, here."

Lugnut looked up at him and whined plaintively. Mel snorted and shook his head, then ran a hand along his cheek, stopping underneath the missing eye. "Okay, okay," he said. "We can start here."

The eye was more damaged than he'd hoped; the internal sensor itself needed repairs, besides the smashed casing. Fixable, for sure, but it'd take a day or two to get the right parts together. For now, he fixed a plain black covering over the port to prevent debris from getting in.

"There, now you and Aman are twins," he teased, lifting Lugnut's head and jostling it affectionately. Lugnut whirred happily, then whined as Mel kissed his nose and moved his head out of his lap, shifting over to get a closer look at the patchwork repairs on his sides.

In Tempus Fugit's museum, he'd only done a cursory check to see if the damage from the Zodiac beast was still there, but now he took the time to properly examine the repairs Violet Saito had made.

It was almost meditative, using his powers this way. He laid his hands on Lugnut's side, closed his eyes, and let his mind sink into the mechanisms. Mel usually explained his powers as talking to machines; and in some rare cases that was true, if a machine was smart enough to talk back. But in a lot of ways it felt more like he *became* a machine. He could feel all the individual parts that made up the whole of Lugnut, and he understood, intuitively, how they fit together, and what they were supposed to do. Sure, some machines were harder to understand than others, but Mel knew Lugnut better than he knew himself.

It made the repairs feel… weird. They were *functional*, certainly, Violet had done an admirable job, especially given the circumstances. But they were alien, and running through them felt like… trying to sing along to a favorite song where somebody had changed all the words. A deep down, selfish part of him wanted to take them all out and replace them with his own until all of Lugnut felt familiar again.

But that was stupid. The repairs worked. In fact, he was pretty sure *something* she'd done had fixed that conductivity problem he couldn't figure out. It was stupid and unfair to subject Lugnut to more extensive maintenance just because he was upset somebody else had fixed his robot. When really he was just upset that somebody else had to.

Mel felt concern creeping in at the edges of his mind again. Whoops. He must've been upset loudly enough to catch Lugnut's attention. He pulled his hands back into his lap and retreated back into the confines of his own mind.

Lugnut had abandoned the sphere and picked his head up, curving around to look at him. Mel's mouth twitched in an attempt at a smile, and he held out a hand. Lugnut shifted his bulk and stretched his neck to press his head into it.

"I'm sorry, buddy," Mel murmured, petting his muzzle with his other hand. "I'm so sorry. I should've been there." His breath hitched and he curled his fingers along the edge of Lugnut's jaw. "I'm so glad you had someone but it should've been *me*."

Tears started to drip down his face, but he refused to take a hand off Lugnut to wipe them away. He slumped forward until his forehead was pressed against Lugnut's head and wrapped his arms around his muzzle in a tight hug. Lugnut whined and nosed at his stomach.

With his head right between them, Mel could see Lugnut's horns light up even with his eyes closed, and felt the connection form once again without any input on his part. Lugnut didn't understand what was going on, really, but he knew Mel was upset and wanted to help.

Mel laughed wetly and pulled away, jostling Lugnut's head affectionately. "Good boy," he whispered. "You're the best, you know that, bud?" Lugnut whined again.

Mel wiped his eyes with one arm, then took Lugnut's head in both hands and looked down at him very seriously. Lugnut gazed back with rapt attention. "I'm gonna say something, bud, and maybe you trust me enough you don't have to hear it, but I gotta say it, okay?" He took a deep breath. "I am never gonna leave you like that again, okay? Whatever happens to you or me, I'm gonna make sure I'm with you. This won't happen again. I promise."

Lugnut whirred. Mel was pretty sure he didn't really get what was going on, but the words weren't really for him, anyways. It was a promise to himself as much as - more than, even - it was a promise to Lugnut.

Lugnut pulled his head out of Mel's hands, twisted around to his other side, and returned with the metal sphere. He dropped it in Mel's lap and suddenly the tension was broken. Mel laughed, wiping his eyes with his sleeve more thoroughly, then picked up the sphere and slowly moved it side to side with one eyebrow raised. Lugnut's one working eye fixed on the ball and his head swayed from side to side, following it. Mel set the sphere on the ground and sent it rolling away further into the warehouse, and Lugnut nearly sent the workbench and all its contents flying in his frantic scramble to get to his feet and chase after it.

Mel rose more slowly, his knees popping. They were sore from an extended period of kneeling on the concrete ground, especially with a heavy metal dino head in his lap. He should really invest in, like, a rug. He leaned back against the workbench and looked back at where the Hexnuts had been playing.

He couldn't hold in a loud snort of laughter at the sight of all six Hexnuts sitting at attention, all nearly vibrating with the effort of keeping still, under the watchful glare of Wingnut perched on a pile of stolen tech. At the sound, she turned her head to look at him, and seeing him no longer tending to Lugnut, alighted from the pile and flew over to take up her usual place on his shoulder.

With most machines, using his powers made Mel lose touch with the outside world as his mind merged with the mechanisms. Wingnut was the exception; as her talons made contact with the skin at the edge of his collar and he activated his powers out of habit, it felt more like a piece of himself slid back into place.

"Thanks for wrangling them," he murmured. "I know they're a handful."

Wingnut tucked a bit of his hair behind his ear with her beak. She rarely communicated precisely in words, either, but he understood the *you're welcome* as clearly as if she'd spoken.

"That goes for you, too, y'know," he said. He knew she understood exactly what he meant, but he clarified anyways out of habit. Or maybe just because he wanted to hear it out loud himself. "You and me, pal. I'm not gonna let anything get between us."

Wingnut had a number of thoughts on that. Thoughts like, *You're an idiot*. And, *Of course I won't let that happen. You would die without me*. And, *I love you, too*.

She pecked his temple. He grimaced and swatted her.

"Okay," he said, wincing at the sound of a crash deeper into the warehouse. "Let's go make sure he doesn't break anything." He winced again as the Hexnuts tore off after the sound. "They. They don't break anything."

Wingnut settled in against his shoulder and laughed at him in the privacy of their mind.