Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam knew it was only a matter of time before something snapped. He just never expected it to happen like this.

He had lost track of how many cycles had passed. Quorra was still turning the portal on once a week, but that didn’t mean Sam was taking breaks. He didn’t feel he needed to. Sam and Tron were working to rebuilding the Grid. One sector at a time and it was going well.

There had been a few instances of Grid bug attacks, but they weren’t so bad that the two of them couldn’t contain the damage. Sam didn’t miss the occasional light show Tron displayed as his circuits lit from the blue, white to the deep orange almost red and back again. He knew there would always be the undercurrent of Rinzler in Tron’s circuits.

Clu had done his job well when it came to officially screwing up the security program’s coding. Sam had tried multiple times with no luck in changing anything. He felt he wasn’t mastery enough to change things without the risk of changing Tron. Small things here and there could be fixed or changed but anything else was too much of a risk in Sam’s mind, for the time being at least.

Looking back Sam had nearly wept when he went back through the lasers to the remains of the Grid. Right at the shore of the sea was the pixelating body of Tron. Blue circuits let him know the security program had gotten his mind back. Running to the other male seemed to take forever. When he made it, he had grabbed the unconscious program’s disk and mimicked what he saw his father do with Quorra’s not even a week prior.

Finding the damages in the code that was already there was the easy part, putting them back together was a bit more trouble. It felt like hours, days even before Tron’s dark eyes opened with a grunt after the disk had been synced up.

“Hey, hey!” Sam hovered over the program, teary blue eyes glowing in the reflection of the bright circuits. Tron’s hands slowly came up and traced the line of falling tears down the User’s face.

“S-Sam....Flynn....” the program rasped out. Clearing his throat as best he could, he made to sit up. Gentle hands pushed him back down, the young one above him shook their head.

“I’ve got you, it’s okay,” Sam smiled softy... sadly. “I need you to stay down. Still got a few things to work out with your coding before you go walking around.” Sam reached back around Tron, bringing his face closer to the programs. Gently dislodging the disk, Tron could feel the warmth of the User’s breath against his face. Tron thought he could feel warmth radiate through his chest, but that must have been a glitch in his coding.

A few more hours passed before the two of them were up and walking towards the decimated remains of Tron City. Tron looked around with a dark look in his eyes, Sam looked around with hope in his.

Out from some rubble there were programs flitting around. Lost, unsure of anything. Upon seeing the User and the newly refound security program, they shied away. Sam didn’t blame them. It was a User who had caused the damage. It was a security program, though recoded, who had caused pain before said damage.

Sam flitted around his ideas to rebuild to Tron as they made their way sector to sector.

Within the next few cycles, new buildings were being reprogrammed and built. Programs were slowly becoming more accustomed to the two men making their way around. Some were opposed, some were supportive.

The first Grid bug attack was when Sam noticed the flicker of orange and red light come from Tron. The flash backs of Rinzler throwing his ass around the Grid games, still semi fresh in his mind. A good shake of his head and Tron had been able to get himself under control.

Sam hadn’t been the only one to notice. The programs who were supportive in the User helping once again had joined up with the two beings. Helping to keep other non-supportive programs at bay or help with the multitude of Grid bug attacks. However, with the light show Tron had displayed, it set the tone for those programs to stay well away. Close enough to help, not close enough to get derezzed.

Tron grunted and shook his head again; dark thoughts threatening to spill over and take over. He glanced up and noticed the User had his head cocked to the side, watching him. Turning away was the only option Tron felt he had. Sam didn’t push the subject which he was thankful for.

It continued to happen, but every time Tron was able to snap back. Until he didn’t.

Chapter Text

The city was mostly back to the way it had been before the blast from his father and Clu. Sam and Tron wandered around a finished sector, one of the first ones. It happened to be the central hub of the programs.

Finally back in the semi-good graces of the multitude of programs who continued to exist had been a godsend for Sam and Tron. Things were mostly back to normal program life.

Sam had reprogrammed a few of the Sirens from before to help with the stabilization of the Grid. The central quarters, as he liked to call it, was the building that consisted of three of these programs and about twenty security programs. Should there be any glitches in a sector, or an attack on the outer city wall from Grid Bugs, they would be able to detect it and notify Sam and or Tron.

It was late in the cycle and Sam had just gone into Gamma Sector. It was on the outer skirts of the city but still heavily populated. Sam and Tron knew there were sketchy things going on here but if no one was doing anything like derezzing other programs, they didn’t mind too much. Sam had his fair share of doing sketchy shit.

Central quarters had alerted him to a possible glitch in one of the outlying buildings. B side, right side from the street. That’s how Sam remembered which sides. A, B, C and D were all sides, counterclockwise from the street. It had been the easiest to remember.

Walking around the building, Sam didn’t notice any outright issues. No pixelation, no flat-out holes in the building. It had him scratching his head.

He was about to place his hand on the building to open the coding when he felt the tremor. Snatching his hand back, he stepped back. Two, three, four steps until he was back on the street.

He felt another tremor.

He looked around, noticed surrounding programs had wide eyes, confused looks. Much like his now.

Another tremor but this one even stronger than the last.

Yet again he looked around, he couldn’t see any issues in the buildings around.

That’s when it hit him, as yet another tremor hit, much stronger.

It’s coming from below.

Just as the thought crossed his mind did the ground and street of the sector erupt.

Hundreds of Grid bugs erupted with the street and were sent flying in every which direction.

“Go! Run!” Sam screamed at the dumbfounded programs standing around. “Get out of here!” He screamed again as he ran towards the swam. Grabbing his disk from behind and activating it was second nature now adays. He didn’t look back to see if the programs had heeded his cry before he was jumping into battle.

He derezzed quite a few before backup finally arrived. Tron alongside a few other lesser security programs moved into the fray.

“Are you alright, Sir?” A dark-haired program asked as he fought to get closer to Sam.

“Yeah, just not entirely sure how these assholes got in,” Sam growled as he flung his disk through a swam of five coming towards them. Three got derezzed by his disk, the other two by Tron and another program.

Tron leaped behind Sam just as a bug reared up to impale Sam. The pixels rained down on them as Sam’s disk flew back into his hand.

“Not gonna lie, really wishing I had two disks right now!” Sam yelled over the squeals and garbled grunting of the fight.

Tron either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him, Sam was betting for the later.

It took what felt like hours but could have well been only one to deal with the Grid bugs.

Panting, Sam kneeled and started his work on recoding the street, sealing up the large hole. He stayed kneeling and reached farther down below the city, recoding the whole way. He didn’t know how long it took the bugs to chew their way up, but he hoped it was enough time to give them a chance to prepare.

Finally moving to stand back up, Sam rolled his shoulders. Everything from his neck to his shoulders and his lower back popped and cracked. Letting out a loud sigh of relief, he turned to where the other programs were.

But they weren’t looking at him. They were looking to his left, to a kneeling figure. A figure whose circuits were changing from blue to deep red, sporadically. It was quite the light show, and one Sam would have continued to watch if not for the pained grunt that came along with it.

Sam haphazardly moved to Tron, but stopped when an arm flew out, fingers taunt.

Stop.

“Tron, c’mon man you can fight this,” Sam said in a gentle voice. He didn’t want to spook the security program. Sam heard another set of footstep's approach; he twisted his neck quick enough for it to snap. Glaring at the dark-haired program from earlier, he waved his hands.

Back off. Now

Hands up in a quick surrender, the program quickly retreated. Sam would have to update the guy’s coding, obviously threats and common sense weren’t included.

Turning his head back to Tron, he noticed the taunt muscles of the security’s programs back arch and bend. The light shows continued, but it seemed to be remaining on red for longer.

“S-Sam... coding... the coding!” Tron pleaded as he arched again. Sam moved forward then.

“I can’t do it here, we need to head back to the central quarters,” he hovered his hands above the arched back. “Can you make it?” He asked, he didn’t have the right coding sequence on him.

He had been working on it in a training program he had created back at Central. He had it mostly down, all he had to do was copy what he had done into Tron’s coding. But he couldn’t remember all the steps. He needed that sequence in front of him to remember.

Tron’s body shook, he careened forward onto all fours. His color spazzing out and returning to the dreaded red. A broken whirl sounded from the figure before Sam. He recognized it immediately. It was the sound Rinzler made.

Red changed to blue, changed to red and back to blue.

“Fuck it,” Sam grabbed a hold of Tron’s shoulders, beckoning him up to stand. It was a struggle but together they somehow managed it. Circuits were still changing rapidly.

“Com ahead and tell everyone in Central Quarters to evacuate the building,” Sam yelled to a lesser security program. “I want everyone out by the time we arrive, and no one is the enter the building until I say so!” The program nodded his head vigorously and moved to do just that.

Sam moved the two of them towards a light cycle that was already activated.

“You have to hold on, Tron,” Sam pleaded as he moved the man onto the bike. He meant it as a hold onto him as well as his last shred of sanity. He couldn’t let Rinzler take control. Sam had no idea what the red program would do if he was released.

“Sam... hurry...” was all the response from Tron he got. He slid in front of the man, wrapping his arms around his waist. They were off.

The hands at his waist clenched and unclenched the entire way. Tron was still fighting to keep the red program from fronting.

The ride seemed to take forever though in reality it was millicycles.

The next thing Sam knew, he was hanging onto Tron as they made their way up in the elevator of Central Quarters.

They were so close. The red seemed more prominent more often. The hand around his waist seemed to flex and clench, sometimes to the point of pain but Sam ignored it.

The final ding of the elevator was all the warning Sam had before Tron completely sagged to the floor. Sam could do nothing but go down with him. Sam wasn’t weak but Tron was not a light guy.

Cursing his luck, Sam moved out from under Tron and grabbed under his shoulders. He heaved him into the large Suite like room of the top floor. Just outside the elevator before carefully letting him lay on the floor.

Sam ran through the floor and rooms to the large desk he had by the window of his office. He activated the screen and went through multiple files to find the sequence he needed to fix Tron.

Copying it to a handheld device, Sam rushed his way back to the elevator.

He stopped dead.

Tron wasn’t where he left him.

A sense of dread washed over him, as well as a sense of being watched.

And then the purr started.

It was right behind him.

Sam spun around. His vision was overtaken by red.