Zeta Project FIC: Measure of a Man (1/2)
Title: Measure of a Man (1/2)
Author: guardian_chaos
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama/Angst/Friendship
Fandom: The Zeta Project and Batman Beyond (canonically the same universe, though two separate shows)
Characters: Zeta, Ro, Batman (Terry of the Batman Beyond universe, as well as Bruce Wayne)
Spoilers: Zeta’s a robot. Surprise! Takes place after The Zeta Project series.
Author’s Note: I wrote this for love’s sake, knowing very few people have heard of this beautiful series. I can only hope I’ve done it-and its characters-justice. I promise a satisfying ending, though this chapter will have a bit of darkness in it.
Summary: Rosalie Rowen loses something important, and someone else realizes that the true definition of being human has little to do with having a heartbeat.
* * *
* * *
Ro struggles through the poorly-lit streets of Gotham, her shoulders sore from the weight of her backpack. Moldy purple clouds float above her, half-hidden behind towering, dark buildings that do nothing but let despair into the sky. Every alleyway she passes seems to reveal men gazing at her hungrily, but she hardly cares. She has been homeless long enough to know how to take care of herself. People can look at her if they want, and she’ll do something about them if they come any closer. They sure as hell aren’t going to stop her. She is hungry and exhausted, both traits she intends to ignore until she gets what she came here for.
The shadow of great wings swoop overhead, dimming an already dark world as a figure most know as Batman falls from the sky to land on the sidewalk in front of Ro.
“Ro,” he says, rising smoothly from a crouch to greet the short-haired blonde. Terry's body is trim and clothed in deep blacks, a bright red bat symbol on his chest the only splash of color on him. His masked eyes glow white in the musty evening light, and his gravelly voice contains only the barest traces of sympathy. “This is a surprise. What’s brought you here?”
Ro’s throat tightens up, and it’s not because she’s worried about the person in front of her (because she’s not), but because of why she’s here. She tugs on the straps of her backpack, hearing her wallet inside rattle up against something metallic. “Batman,” she says, “I…I need your help. And you owe me a favor anyway, so it’s the least you can do for me, right?”
He frowns, no other part of him moving. His body holds all of the quiet, lethal grace of a predator, but when he places his hand on Ro’s shoulder, the gesture is kind. “Come with me.”
Sliding into a near alley, they become one with the shadows and disappear from sight.
* * *
Terry is silent as he works with his machinery, sparks flying around his hands as he fuses metal and alters microchip configurations. The hood of his Batman suit rests rumpled around his neck, revealing a shock of blue eyes and tousled dark hair that give him a youthful appearance. He reminds Ro too much of someone else, and so she turns away from him as he tries to bring life back to the mangled robot head that had been in her backpack.
“So,” Bruce Wayne tries, his wrinkled eyes flickering knowingly between Terry and Ro as Ro takes a seat at the table Bruce is sitting at. Terry remains oblivious, too caught up in his work as Bruce, the original Batman himself, finishes, “Did Zeta ever find his father, Dr. Selig?”
Ro steadfastly avoids looking in Terry’s direction, her gaze instead fixed on the steaming mug of cocoa Bruce hands over to her. Behind her in Batman’s vast underground laboratory, she knows Zeta’s lifeless head is being tinkered with, his eyes powered down and lacking any inner light to speak of the sentience the android had once had.
“His father is the one who did this to him," she answers, with no small trace of bitterness. "We thought he'd be on our side since we saved his life before, but someone must've gotten to him and changed his mind.” Ro holds her mug tightly, feeling its warmth soak into her fingers as she slumps in her chair. “Selig said…he said: ‘A robot is incapable of being good!’ And then-” She gestures with her hands, “-I’m sure you can fill in the rest. Words were said; Selig brought in his new droids. Zeta managed to get me out-y’know, just like he always does-but he wasn’t fast enough to save himself. They caught him, and.” She presses her spine into her chair, as if hoping to be absorbed there. “And…” The chocolate on her tongue tastes like ash, and it chokes her. She can’t speak for a moment, until she swallows.
“So,” she says, after a moment of silence. “That’s that. My friend gets killed by the dad he’s always wanted to meet. Because apparently only humans are capable of goodness.”
Silence floats in again, and then Bruce Wayne lifts a spoon to stir his drink. “Ah,” he says, only. It is the last word any of them will speak for over an hour.
In the background, the sound of tools sparking and metal creaking is the only thing still left of Ro’s best friend.
* * *“I’m sorry,” Terry says to Ro, days later. They are standing in Bruce Wayne’s kitchen, and Terry has his Batman suit on, as if he can’t face talking to Ro without the protection of being allowed to not feel anything at all. “I even had a friend with years of technological experience look at him. There’s nothing more I can do.”
Ro stares up into Batman’s white-eyed mask, feeling a small pit in her stomach open up and start to spool away every emotion she has ever felt. The feelings land somewhere down by her feet, where she can step out of them and walk away.
“Okay.” Her eyes are dry when she turns to leave, but her skin crawls like a thousand small ants are walking across it, and she thinks, quietly, that she might be about to die.
* * *
Everything becomes a whirl of panic and fury. People get hurt. Ro bruises her hands on any jerk who tries to touch her and gets bruises in turn herself. She destroys her hotel room and breaks its TV with her bare foot. The hairdryer gets ripped out of the wall and shatters twenty feet below her balcony. Wrapped in her blanket, she staggers blindly through the room, knocking things over and tearing holes in the walls with her fingernails. Finally, she collapses, shaking hard, between a bed and the wall. She holds a pillow to her stomach and pretends it's Zeta, knowing he will never talk to her again.
When she screams, she can feel it quaking through her entire body, burning her up like a god hurling final commands at a population who will no longer listen.
* * *
“You really cared about him.” Terry sounds surprised, his eyes narrowed. Without the growl of his Batman-voice, he sounds just like any other young adult, but he still holds himself with the strength of a fighter.
“Of course I cared!” Ro feels an uncontrollable anger in her body, racing through her like a car crash. Her hotel room lies in ruins around her, and her fists are bruised and batted, her throat raw from screaming. “He was my friend! We protected each other! We were all each other had!”
“How can you tell if he felt the same for you? He was a mechanical being. Possibly, it was only his programming that led to-”
Ro hurls a chair at Terry, which he blocks with an arm. The chair crashes through the nearest wall, raining plaster across the room. When Terry looks down at his arm, there is the barest streak of crimson leaking through the sleeve of his white dress shirt. He looks dumbfounded, as if he can’t quite believe that just happened.
Ro stares at him for just a second, her mouth wide. “I-I didn’t mean to.” She reaches for Terry’s arm, finding it strange that he’d come to calm her down as himself, and not Batman. The red on his arm spreads as she lightly touches his wrist, only to pull back when he snatches his arm away. “I’m-Terry, I’m so sorry.”
Terry frowns, every line in his body save for his clothes aligning with the persona he puts on when he patrols the city at night. “I know,” he says, and then pauses. Continues, “Ro, I know what it’s like to lose people. I know what it does to the mind. I have sympathy for you, of course. In the past, you and Zeta have both helped me, even when you shouldn’t have, and that is-”
“Just stop. He was my best friend!” Ro feels her body shaking as it comes down from its adrenaline high, leaving her starkly aware of what she has let her grief turn her into. Her vision blurs and she feels her foot bleeding into the carpet. “He was good, and you know that! No matter what anyone says, I know he was. But you can’t bring him back, and I have to…” She takes a deep breath and lets it go, to sail over the ruined room, “…I just have to learn to live with that.”
Terry looks to the side, through flapping curtains covering broken windows. The scent of smog and cities drifts in on a harsh wind. Terrible thoughts seem to linger in the depths of his eyes, weighing down his face and making him appear a great deal older.
“Ro,” he says, and then pauses for a very long time. He looks like he is about to say something drastic, shown by the tension lines that appear all over his body, but then he just takes a few deep breaths and lowers his shoulders, as if he has thought better of what he wanted to say. In the silence that follows, he says to her instead, “I am sorry for your loss.”
Terry then abandons the room, and for weeks, the whole of Gotham hears nothing from him at all.
---> Part 2