Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

“Rabbit, what are you doing?”

The unfinished copper automaton looked up from her seat in front of the old grandfather clock. “Why does it do that?”

Peter got an odd look on his face. Rabbit was starting to recognize this look as the “I don’t want to answer questions” look, but Iris had banished him from the lab for a few days since he’d fallen asleep over the silver bot he’d been working on again.

“Does what, Rabbit?”

“Make that noise. Make the… thing swing. The little…” She didn’t know the word for it. “The little sticks spin. Why?”

“You’re asking why the clock works?”

“Maybe. What’s a clock?”

A small sigh and he sat down next to her. He didn’t want to deal with the bot’s incessant questions today, but really - it was his fault for not programming the knowledge so Rabbit would wake up with it, and the bot was basically a toddler - what else could he expect? At least Rabbit didn’t make too many messes…. Alone. Who knew what would happen when there was another.

“A clock helps us keep time, so we know how much time has passed and what time it is.”

“What’s time?”

… Oh dear. He didn’t expect to get into answering questions like this today.

“Time is…. It’s a way of measuring the distance between an event that happened in the past, an event happening now, or an event that will happen in the future.” He glanced at the robot, who was quietly watching him with a somewhat blank expression. Whether that meant the bot didn’t understand, or just that there was rarely a thought running through that gleaming metal head, Peter wasn’t sure. 

“There are different ways of measuring time. Humans generally use  seconds, minutes, and hours for shorter time periods, then days, weeks, months, and years for longer time periods. For example, lunch was about 40 minutes. Ago.”

A slow, ticking whirr came from the clockwork bot. Peter had come to realize that this meant that Rabbit was mulling something over, trying to think about it. 

“So what does that have to do with the clock?”

With a soft groan, Peter stood up. He was only 32, but his knees were feeling the hours spent in his lab and moving around large, heavy pieces of metal. 

“This clock tells us time in seconds, minutes, and hours. The pendulum swings for every second. After sixty seconds have passed, that makes the minute hand - this one -” He pointed to said hand - “Turn forward one space. As the minute hand turns, so does the hour hand, this one. Once sixty minutes have passed, the hour hand should have moved forward by one hour space. The big numbers here tell you which hour it is - see, it’s 1:47, because the hour hand is still in the one’s hour space, and the minute hand is in the forty-seventh minute space.” He turned to see if Rabbit looked like this made sense. The ticking whirr was louder, and there was steam slowly venting from the bot’s ears and cheek vents. 

“How does it do that?” Was the next question. Peter held back a sigh of relief at not having more complex questions to answer. This part was just mechanics, much easier.

“A lot of gears - it’s actually a bit similar to how your finer motor skills work. I’ll find a clock that I can open up and show you soon, okay?”

Eager nods and Peter smiled. Maybe this ban from the lab wouldn’t be too difficult. At least Rabbit was willing to learn, even if the questions were grating.

….

Peter was about ready to force Rabbit to shut down. 

When he’d opened up a smaller clock, Rabbit had been enamored, marveling at all the moving parts. Then wanted to get some hands-on time, taking the clock apart and trying to put it back together again. This would be fine, except, as stated before, Rabbit was little more than a toddler. This meant that gears ended up getting eaten, dropped, and deformed. Already, Peter had had to open the bot up ten different times to fish gears out of the boiler or oil tank before either could get damaged. Rabbit was awful at helping to find lost gears, far too prone to distraction, and the broken gears were a lost cause - the bot had no sense of the strength held in those metal arms. 

Once he’d finally manage to drag Rabbit away from the clock, he thought things would be okay. He’d distract the bot with some toy, and it would be fine, right?

Wrong. Now Rabbit wanted to know how everything worked. Including the ducks at the pond. Great. 

At least the damned robot could read a clock now, so Peter could just say when to come back down to the lab to shut down for the night, instead of going to chase the bot down to be shooed away. Unfortunately, this led to negotiations of “Five more minutes?” and other typical attempts to get out of bedtime. 

He was definitely programming the next bot to be more grown up and mature. He could not handle two metal adult-sized toddlers. 

Eventually, when fetching Rabbit to go down to the lab, he found the bot back in front of the big grandfather clock. With the other clock that had finally been put back together. 

“Why aren’t they the same?” The question came before Peter could say anything. “Shouldn’t they say the same time? How do you know which one’s right?”

“Well, I know the big clock is right because I check it every day to make sure. The smaller clock is probably at a different time because, when we took it apart, it stopped keeping track. Similar to how you shut down at night, and power back up during the day.”

Rabbit didn’t say that she often powered back up while it was still nighttime and dark, and only shut back down when she heard Pappy coming back down so he could watch the power up sequence. 

“So when it started again, it thought it was a different time to when it actually was?”

“Exactly.” 

Pappy seemed pleased that she’d come to the conclusion on her own. That was nice. 

She poked carefully at the hands of the smaller clock. She was really trying not to break them. “Can it go the other way? Keep track backwards?”

“That’s not how the gears work, Rabbit. They’re one direction.”

“What if they were two direction gears, though? Would that work then?”

Pappy sighed. Maybe she should stop asking questions for today…

“I don’t know, Rabbit. I haven’t tried that before.”

She was tempted to ask if that could be the next thing they tried. What came out instead was,

“What about stopping? Do clocks ever just… stop?”

“Sometimes they do, if they’re not maintained properly.”

A small hesitation. That ticking whirr was back. Clearly, there was something on Rabbit’s mind. 

“Will I stop? You said that I’m built like a clock. If clocks can stop, could I?”

Well. That wasn’t what he’d expected.

“I’ll do my best to keep that from happening. It means that we need to make sure all your pieces are in tip-top shape, all the time. That means more maintenance, and less eating things that aren’t oil or water, got it?”

A begrudging nod. Peter knew that agreement wouldn’t last.

“Well, speaking of making sure you’re in good shape, it’s time for you to shut down. So come on, let’s get that clock put away and then it’s down to the lab with you, got it?”

Surprisingly, there was no protests from the copper bot, just more attempts to make the minute hand on the small clock go backwards.

Chapter Text

The robots were slowly becoming a familiar sight in Balboa Park. Children were enraptured by the automatons, and parents were slowly growing less cautious of their not-quite human movements. 

The slowly relaxing atmosphere helped in a few ways. Not only did it mean that the bots were safer from unwanted harassment - they were coming home with less dents and stains and broken parts at the end of the day - but it also meant that coins and bills were starting to show up in the decorated box that Pappy insisted they carry along with them. Less nervousness around also meant that the bots got a chance to watch humans, and they had more to learn from and mimic than their socially awkward creator and the less than comfortable visitors.

Their movements and behavior grew more natural and loose, and adults grew more at ease with them, despite the inhuman traits they couldn't shake, like the Spine’s swaying on poorly calibrated gyroscopes that never got fixed after the Weekend War, or Rabbit getting glitchy when she got too excited. The Jon just seemed goofy and kiddish to the humans - of course, they wouldn't know why he acted like this. He was only ever serious behind closed doors. 

Eventually, they hoped their three-bot Steam Man Band would expand. Upgrade was still a little too shy to be willing to spend an entire day away from the Manor, and the little stove was nowhere near ready - the little guy was still puttering around and running into walls. He needed a lot of work. Peter, of course, was splitting his time between helping Upgrade acclimatize with walks in the park in the morning while the band set up, tinkering on the stove bot, and playing with scraps. Something was odd about those scraps, Rabbit thought. She felt like she should recognize them, like there was a memory file she was missing. The Spine had gone through an involuntary shutdown when she'd brought it up, so she didn't say anything about it again, not even to Pappy, and especially not to the  Jon. She knew what happened when she asked too many of the wrong questions, and she needed her jaw in order to sing and perform and not scare the humans.

Rabbit was musing about these things, and others, as she fiddled with her accordion. It was still new to her, and felt clumsy, so she liked to at least have it in her hands in between sets. That’s why they played The Suspender Man so often - she needed the experience, and it really wasn’t too different from her accordina - to be called melodica in the future - in function, but the use was different enough that it was something she had to work to get used to using.

A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she lifted her head to see a little girl tugging on her mother’s hand and pointing at the group of robots. The Spine was busy tuning his guitar for the millionth time, and The Jon was playing what looked like charades with a group of small children - though he was being careful to stay out of reach. Little fingers were small enough to slip into the gaps between metal plates, and the poor bot felt bad enough about the first accident that he was determined for there to never be a second. Rabbit had thought he’d forget within a month, as nothing seemed to stay in his head anymore, but four months later and he was just as careful as the first week. 

Clearly, though, her brothers were not paying enough attention to notice another child, so when the girl looked back over, Rabbit quirked her mechanical mouth into a smile and raised her hand to wave. The little girl looked delighted , and her squeal practically echoed over the green.

Later that day, Rabbit saw her again in the small crowd as they performed. As she ran through her script, thanking everybody for coming out and watching them, she gave a little wave to the girl again. She wriggled excitedly, looking up at her mother. Rabbit felt her vocals hiccup as nerves struck her - this mother looked like one who was only here because her child would carry on for days if they didn’t attend. Those mothers never liked any of the bots interacting with their children. Surprisingly, though, this mother’s face relaxed into a soft smile, patted her daughter’s head, and did not glare at Rabbit.

When Rabbit’s vocals hiccupped, The Spine had sent a small buzz through the radio waves they used to communicate silently. Now that she’d confirmed that they wouldn’t have anybody storm out in the middle of a set, she sent a buzz back. 

By the time the set was over, the child and her mother had slipped away. No matter, that happened all the time.

Over time, the little girl became a familiar face in the crowd. Sometimes she was with her mother, sometimes father, and sometimes others who were presumably older siblings. She wasn’t quite old enough to be on her own yet. At least, that’s what Rabbit assumed. She didn’t quite understand how ‘age’ mattered much. She’d never gotten around to asking.

What was notable was, while most children were drawn to The Jon’s playful attitude, or the Spine’s guitar and shiny faceplates, and away from Rabbit’s face that didn’t manage expressions quite right, this child seemed to have eyes for Rabbit alone. This theory was proved when, one day, the girl managed to sneak away from her supervisor and ran up to Rabbit after a set.

She was excitedly babbling about how Rabbit was her favorite, how she was so excited to meet her, how she wanted to be a robot too some day! The last comment made Rabbit hold back a small laugh and kneel down, so she wasn’t as tall. The girl was a lot smaller than she’d seemed, in the crowd. Most children were, and it always astonished Rabbit with just how itty bitty they were.

A somewhat failed attempt at explaining how humans can’t become robots didn’t dim her gap-toothed grin, shining as bright as her blonde hair in the sun. What did dim her smile, though, was her guardian of the day finally finding her and insisting that it was time to go. He didn't seem to appreciate Rabbit playing with the girl, even if she was just letting her press the keys on her accordion. 

This became a regular occurrence. Any time the girl could slip away to Rabbit after a set, she did. Once she was familiar enough with the accordion, the girl said she wanted to try to play something on it. She was trying to play a tune from a music box that her Mommy gave her, she told Rabbit one day. She hummed it for her, and as the pitches clicked into notes in her system, the bot copied it on the accordion. Once the tune was complete, the beaming smile the girl gave her made Rabbit feel warm inside, and not because her systems were overheating. 

Over time, though, the girl changed. She got taller, her hair got longer then shorter then longer again, then changed color. She talked about different things, and didn't run up to Rabbit in the same way. But her smile never changed, always so bright and happy. 

She asked Pappy about it one night, while Upgrade and the Jon were off playing with the little stove that had finally gotten a name - Hatchworth, and the Spine was in another room, writing music to expand their sets more. He hadn't been having much luck in the past few days. 

“There's a girl, she's been coming to our shows for a long time. She's different now, she used to be small and now she's bigger, and her hair keeps changing, and she looks different.” Rabbit fiddled with a screw in her wrist, tightening and loosening it, as she eyed the gray that had crept into Pappy's hair, the lines that had grown deeper in his face. “You've changed too. Why?” The only changes the bots had gone under were repairs and maintenance, and every so often, Rabbit’s face plate needing cleaning from oxidization. 

Pappy laughed and patted Rabbit's metal shoulder. She didn't really see a reason to laugh - she was asking an honest question, not making a joke or being silly. 

“Everything changes with time, Rabbit. You remember when we talked about time?” She nodded. “Humans age with time, we get older, and that means changing.”

“But robots don't change. It's been 24 years and we're not all that different.”

“That's because you're not organic, like humans. The little girl's just grown up, like the twins have, like the baby ducks at the pond do.”

Rabbit sat and thought about this for a little while. She supposed it made sense - the baby ducks became adults, and the twins became adults. But somehow it was different. She wasn't there with every moment with the girl. She was gone for a few years, because of the war, and she missed so much. It didn't make sense that she grew up when Rabbit wasn't there. 

“But what about you? You're already an adult, why are you changing too? You don't have to grow up anymore.”

Another laugh and Rabbit frowned. That wasn't funny!

“I'm getting older, Rabbit. Everything gets older. Eventually, I'll be too old and my body won't want to keep going anymore.”

“So you'll be stuck in bed?”

This question didn't get a laugh. For some reason, that upset Rabbit more than when her questions did. 

“Do you remember when the ducks stop moving?”

“Yes. They go in the ground, and then they get replaced.” They come back, she wanted to say, but she thought that might not really be true. 

“One day, that'll be me too. I'll stop moving and I'll go in the ground.” His voice was soft and gentle. That unsettled Rabbit even more. Pappy wasn't soft and gentle. 

“No. You're not a duck.” Or the soldiers in the wars that stopped moving. But they were just too hurt, and breathed in too much of the gas. They were too damaged to keep going, like some of the bots that came out of the Weekend War in pieces. But Pappy wasn't going to be in any wars. He wasn’t damaged.

The conversation came to a frustrating end. Pappy kept insisting that he would stop moving some day, and Rabbit kept insisting that no, he was different, and that he would be fine. Eventually, Pappy sent her away with a frustrated huff. 

Maybe some of those children's books that described death would get the idea through to her. But she wasn't much for reading, that was more the Spine. But maybe, the old man mused, it would be better to ensure that he understood. And perhaps he already did. He'd come back from the Great War quieter and more contemplative than the others. 

Time passed. The Spine got some new books that had him hiding in dark rooms and fussing over Pappy and Iris, and the twins when they came over. Rabbit came home with a music box that played a gentle, tinkling tune. She wouldn't let anybody else touch it. The girl grew up and changed and eventually disappeared. 

One day, during another show in the park, Rabbit's vocals hiccuped, and she froze for a moment. The Jon didn't seem to notice (he did) as he continued his pantomiming during Rex Marksley. The Spine did notice, and glanced over at her. After just a few seconds, hopefully not long enough that any of the audience noticed, she continued like nothing happened. It was a new song, maybe they'd just think it was part of it. He sent her a buzz over the radio waves, and got a buzz back. Rabbit had gotten some wires shorted out when they got caught in rain a few days ago - maybe one or two had been missed when Pappy and the twins were repairing her. He'd make sure to have her checked out when they got back. 

What actually caused the little freeze had nothing to do with shorted out wires, though Rabbit could feel a few still sparking unhappily. There was a little girl in the audience. She had a bright, gap-toothed smile, and golden curls done up in bows. 

But she wasn't the same. She wasn't the same girl. 

That night found Rabbit in front of the old grandfather clock in the entryway of the mansion. She was carefully pushing the thin hands backwards, frowning when they'd spring forward again, back to their correct places as they tick-tick-ticked on. 

She couldn’t turn back the clock.

Chapter Text

They were setting up camp when the news came. 

“Dead?” The Jon was the first to talk. “As in, like the soldiers?”

Rabbit stood there, stunned, confused. Dead? No, he couldn't be dead. That didn't seem right. That felt too permanent for their dear Pappy. 

“When's he coming back?” Her voice was soft. Of course he was coming back. He was Pappy. Pappy didn't just die. “It's not going to last, when is he going to come back? Will he be back soon?”

“He's not.” The Spine was still holding the letter, metal hand crumpling the paper just a bit. His voice was stiff and mechanical. Rabbit knew that meant he was forcing himself to be cold, pretend he was just a boiler with nothing inside. “Dead means gone. Forever.”

“No, no, we have to say goodbye. He wouldn't just leave without saying goodbye.” Rabbit frowned and fiddled with a loose screw in her wrist, tightening and loosening it again. “He never lets us leave the house without saying goodbye. He can't be gone.” A dark film washed over her vision. “He can't be gone. That's not right.”

The Spine hesitated and glanced at The Jon, who was watching his older siblings with some alarm. Rabbit was shaking, The Spine had gone cold, and he wasn't sure what to do. 

“Jon, go outside and make sure nobody needs help. If anybody needs anything, help them out, understand? Maybe go let Upgrade know, if she's not busy.” A gold head nodded and out he scurried. 

The Spine turned back to the eldest bot. Rabbit was frowning, muttering to herself. 

“Rabbit-”

“No. No, he's not just gone , that isn't right.” She lifted her head, spun around to look at The Spine. Her expression was growing desperate, an oily film casting over her eyes. “Spine, he can't have just left us, he barely lets us leave the house without him and when he does, it's for this! He wouldn't leave us.”

“Rabbit… I don't think he had a choice.” The Spine replied softly, shifting his weight from foot to foot uneasily as Rabbit began to shake her head. 

“No! No, he's just…. He's just sick or something, humans get sick, he'll get better and he'll come back, and -”

“Rabbit. Rab.” The Spine out his hands on her shoulders, shook her just a tiny bit to get her attention. “Rabbit, they've already had the funeral. He's already been buried, near the lake that you and him loved so much. The letter says so. He's…. He's really gone.”

To his own horror, The Spine felt oil rising to his own eyes at the same moment some escaped Rabbit's. No! He had to keep it together. 

“He's not…. He's not coming back.”

“No, he has to!” Rabbit yelled, pulling out of The Spine's hold, rubbing a hand against her copper cheek. The Spine idly noticed she was getting oxidized again. He'd have to work on that. Pappy hated it so when she let herself turn green. 

“He has to,” Rabbit continued. “They just, something went wrong in his programming or something. They just have to plug him in and fix him up, it's not hard, I could probably do it, or you! You're good at understanding things, you could probably learn human code pretty quick!”

The Spine hesitated then slowly shook his head. “Humans don't work like we do, Rabbit. There…. There isn't code to be fixed.”

“Then it's a software problem, an outdated program or something!”

“They don't have that either.” 

The Spine hated recounting what he knew Rabbit was already aware of. They knew that humans were different, were soft and squishy. But not Pappy. Not Peter A. Walter the First. He wasn't soft and squishy. It just didn't match. 

How could their creator just be gone? Just like that? They weren't even there to say goodbye. How could he leave them without saying goodbye? Leave them forever?

“Well there has to be something! There has to be something we can do! He can't just be gone!”  

A sob broke out of Rabbit. 

“He can't just be gone when the last thing I said to him was yelling at him for sending you all to war again.”

The Spine froze as oily tears began to roll down Rabbit's smooth metal face. “What?”

Rabbit drew in a deep breath to her bellows, which quickly came back out in a whimper. “The morning we left… We were by the lake. We were talking, mostly about how he'd see us soon and how he didn't want this to happen, he didn't want to send us away. He hugged me. I think it was the third time he'd ever hugged me.”

“What were the first two?” The Spine asked softly.  

“Before and after the first Great War. He didn't want to send us then either.” Rabbit let out a soft, mechanical whine. “He hugged me, and… and I asked him, if he wanted to keep us close so badly, why did he have to send you guys?” She gave The Spine an almost desperate look. “I'm the oldest. It's a human thing, the oldest is in charge. The oldest protects the youngers. And, in some cultures, the oldest - son - “ She held back a grimace. The term never seemed to feel quite right. She knew why, but nobody else would find out for seventy two years. “ - The oldest son was the one drafted for war. So, by all means, I should be the one here. The only one.”

She sighed. “Pappy didn't…. Appreciate it. He thought I was questioning his decision, you know how he gets when he thinks someone's telling him he's wrong about something. So… we fought.” Another soft whine escaped her. “And - and then we left. And we were still mad. I didn't stop being mad until we were here.”

More oil cascaded down her face. 

“And the last thing he remembers of me… is that I was mad at him, for making you guys come over here too. And - and if he's really gone, then that means I can't apologize for yelling at him and I can't tell him I don't hate him, and - and -”

The Spine scooped Rabbit into a hug, squeezing her tighter than he could ever risk holding a human. Her joints didn't even groan in protest. 

“What if he's still mad at me?” Rabbit whispered, then broke into sobs. 

The Spine stood there for some time, slowly swaying back and forth with Rabbit in his arms, until her sobs began to die down. Then he grabbed a rag and started cleaning her face plates of oily tears. 

“I'm sure he wasn't still mad at you.” His voice was soft, gentle as could be, just like his touch. “You know him, he couldn't ever really hold a grudge, especially not against you.” He cracked a small grin, trying to cheer her up. “You get away with so much, he can't stay mad at you.”

“But I said some horrible things,” Rabbit whimpered. “Really, r-r-really horrible.” She began to hiccup and The Spine pulled her close again. 

“He forgave you.” He whispered, rocking her again. “You're his favorite, his first. Of course he forgave you. You were probably right anyway.”

Rabbit clung to him, but nodded faintly. “C-course I was.” She spoke softly. “I'm always r-r-right and you alw-w-ways forget.”

The Spine let out a faint laugh, pushing aside his nerves at the glitchy stutter emerging in Rabbit's voice. That only came out when she was really excited or worked up over something. Pappy never fixed it, said it gave her “character”.

“Maybe now I'll stop forgetting.” He forced a small smile, even though Rabbit couldn't see it. 

Rabbit shoved her head against The Spine's metal chest and he gently rubbed her back, beginning to hum. Before he realized it, his hum turned into the tune of that old music box, the one with the tiny dancer that still lived in Rabbit's room. Before he could think to stop, for fear of upsetting her, she let out another whine. The hum stopped immediately and the whine got louder. 

“Don't stop.” She murmured, clinging to her taller brother. “Please.”

With a quiet nod, The Spine restarted his hum. 

They stood there for approaching an hour, The Spine continuing the music box song on a loop, barely able to hear when Rabbit whispered,

“Can we turn back the clock?”