Fic: Cops and Robbers -- Buffybot/Kennedy -- R
Chapter title: Cops and Robbers
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and his associates own the characters…I just like playing with them.
Rating: R
Pairings: Buffybot/Kennedy
Summary: Life after Sunnydale had become routinely boring for Kennedy until she was partnered with a peppy robot for patrol. Now, thanks to the robot’s colourful and plentiful malfunctions and perpetual enthusiasm, one thing she can always be sure of - slaying never gets the chance to be boring.
A/n: Thanks Electra126! for beta’ing this
Cops and Robbers
“Freeze, Sucker!” The Buffybot took off across the graveyard in her most purposeful, peppy march.
“Oh, shit, not again!” Kennedy ran to catch up with her.
Although dubious at first about being paired with the ever-cheerful and often wickedly inappropriate ‘Bot, it had turned out to be pretty cool. Her robotic partner was skilled in combat, unselfish with her slays and easy on the eye as a bonus. The last few months she had turned the tedium of nightly patrols into something Kennedy could call fun again. Right up until they’d had the run in with the Glaxcoor demon the week before anyway.
Not that they could really blame the Glaxcoor.
The Buffybot - despite a nasty knock to the head causing her usually hazel eyes to glow yellow with a literal inner fire - had saved Kennedy’s life that night, despatched the vicious demon back to whatever hell it had come from and had half-carried an injured Kennedy back to the Command Centre.
No, that night - fried brain notwithstanding - the Buffybot had been in tip-top form. The real damage had occurred the following afternoon while Kennedy had lounged against the doorframe, idly watching a kneeling Willow service her slayage partner and Andrew, only the top of his head visible, was curled up in the big leather chair to watch an illegal download of some futuristic cop movie on the mainframe computer.
Andrew swore blind he didn’t know the Buffybot had been plugged into it at the time, but the point was moot, because ever since… well, ever since, this had been happening.
“You’re nicked, sunshine!”
The vampire stopped in the act of brushing dirt from its burial suit to stare at them in surprise.
“You’re arresting me?”
“Yes. In the name of the law,” the Buffybot clarified helpfully.
The vamp looked her up and down. Kennedy knew what he was thinking: long, pleated, peach skirt, fuzzy pink sweater that Willow had bought the robot for Hanukkah, loose blonde hair shining in the moonlight and a super-bright beaming smile.
“You don’t look like a cop.”
The Buffybot looked down at herself. “I don’t?”
“I’m noticing a distinct lack of polyester and donuts.”
The Buffybot blinked a few times as she thought that one through, twisting it in her mind until it made sense - to her at least.
“I don’t eat, but the other Buffy says polyester is the devil’s invention so you should probably stay away from those donuts. Kennedy likes the ones with the red jelly in the middle,” she added as a friendly afterthought.
The vamp looked at Kennedy. “I’ve always favoured the cream-filled ones.”
“To each their own, I guess.” Kennedy nodded agreeably. “Mind if I stake you now?”
She drew the sawn off broom handle from inside her jacket. The cream-favourer backed up a step, vamped out for the first time and growled. Kennedy grinned; this was always the good part. She went to lunge but the Buffybot reacted faster and Kennedy ended up jumping against her outstretched, girder-strong arm.
Kennedy didn’t often get irritated with the ‘Bot, it was usually counter-productive anyway, but as she rebounded off the arm, she was.
“What’s your problem?”
“It’s wrong to hit a suspect. He may still be innocent.”
“Innocent?” Fuming, Kennedy’s stake hand clenched around the wood. “He’s a Vampire.”
“How do you know I’m not innocent? I haven’t done anything since…” he looked behind him, a little confused as to how he’d come to be there in the first place. He turned back to Kennedy. “Wait, did you say Vampire?”
Kennedy nodded.
“Cool.” He grinned around his fangs and instantly became more confident. “I haven’t even, uh…” he clicked his fingers, trying to remember something, “sucked any blood or anything!” he finished triumphantly. “So what have I done to deserve this kind of brutality, huh?”
“Oh, we haven’t been brutal yet,” The Buffybot said, the unintentional threat hanging subtly in the air. “I’ve been very careful about that. Police brutality is wrong. Unless you try to run away, that is, and then it’s okay. Would you like to try and run away?”
“Please, I’m begging you to run,” Kennedy gestured out across the rolling green expanse of the graveyard.
The vampire spent a second looking like he was thinking about it. Instead he straightened his stance arrogantly. “I’m innocent. I don’t need to run.”
“Thank you, citizen of Sunnydale. Your willing cooperation will go down in your defence in a court of law. Would you like to hear your rights now?”
“I know my rights and one of them is you can’t arrest me without telling me why. So either give me a valid reason for this lousy cop bullshit act or get the crap outta my face and let me get on with enjoying my new fucking life!”
“Cop and…Bullshit Act?” The Buffybot must have tripped a switch trying to compute and interpret his fast paced rant. Her eyes stuck open wide as her internal senses worked to gain as much visual stimuli as was available to solve this equation. Her head jerked to the side a couple of times as circuit breakers failed to do their jobs properly. “You’ll get the fuckin’ of your life on the inside…Butt-munch!”
Kennedy groaned silently. This had already happened once this week, when one of the Minions of Jeshava had fallen on its own tail spike rather than be arrested alive. The hi-tech, Buffy-shaped machine was just too sensitive to cope with anomalies like an outright dismissal of her polite instruction. When she was in Slayer Mode it didn’t matter, whatever the vampire or demon did, the end goal was generally to stake them - nothing confusing about that. When it came to Cop Mode, however, if the suspect didn’t hold his hands up and surrender when she asked, well…she got like this.
Kennedy quickly checked the ‘Bot’s wide eyes for signs of internal fire. The orbs were their normal hazel colour but flicking rapidly from side to side as memory and hard drive were scanned over and over. Yep, she was gone to the place where robots went when they were stumped; if she’d had a monitor it would be displaying a ‘search error’ message.
This would be a good time to stake the vampire but Kennedy had learned from that mistake the other night and didn’t feel like standing around in the cemetery for hours again until the ‘Bot unfroze. Getting her back online with a verbal nudge and dealing with the consequences would ultimately prove quicker.
“She’s arresting you for grave-robbing.”
“What?” The vampire’s fangy expression went from cocky to shocked. “I wouldn’t do shit like that!”
“We saw you climbing out of that grave. What else would you have been doing down there?”
“But…but…” He looked back at the displaced earth behind him. “It’s my grave! You can’t rob from yourself.”
“And why would an innocent man be crawling out of his grave in the middle of the night?”
The vampire gaped; it reminded her of a show she’d seen on the Discovery Channel about piranha fish.
“That’s as good as a confession. Book him, Buffybot!”
Something whirred inside the robot, sounding like a compact disc about to play. The vamp cocked his head to one side and watched her curiously. Kennedy gave her a poke with her elbow. Nothing! Frustrated, and sensing the vampire was about to start laughing at them, Kennedy recalled a trick that Willow had taught her. Though it was only ever to be used as a last resort, it was supposed to be a cure all.
She smacked the back of the Buffybot’s head like it was a stuck jukebox.
The ‘Bot lurched into life, both hands pointing to the vampire with a gun made of fingers. “Reach for the sky, Bingo!”
The vamp and slayer shared a look. The vamp mouthed ‘Bingo?’ Kennedy shrugged.
“Turn around and place your hands against the… against the…” The Buffybot faltered for a second as she looked around. “The ground, you bloody punk!”
The vampire shook his head. “I’m not getting on the muddy ground!”
“You just crawled out of a grave, dude,” Kennedy reminded him.
“Yes, but still, this looks like a new suit.”
“Just put your hands down like this.” Kennedy demonstrated by half leaning over and pointing her fingers towards the grass. He gave her a look. “You want to get out of here tonight, don’t you?”
Growling indignantly, the vamp turned around, pulled up his sleeves a little and bent at the waist. “This better not take much longer. I have people to eat, I mean mee…”
Kennedy’s stake pierced the back of his suit jacket. He was dust before he knew what had happened.
“That was interesting, but in the future can we just stick to punching them a few times and…” Kennedy was putting her stake back inside her jacket as she turned to the ‘Bot. “What’s wrong?”
The Buffybot was staring at her reproachfully, pouting. She couldn’t cry, electronics and water not being known for their mixing capabilities, but she could work that quivering bottom lip as much as the next Buffy. The real thing didn’t touch her but for some reason the ‘Bot version of it turned Kennedy’s tough girl veneer into cream cheese.
“What’s wrong?” she repeated, her tone already softer.
“You dusted my perp before I could get to the fun part.”
“I thought the slaying was the fun part.”
“I never even got to use these!”
The Buffybot held something up that jangled and shone bright silver in the moonlight. She knew instinctively what they were, but Kennedy leaned forward for a closer, incredulous look anyway.
“Where did you get handcuffs from?”
“From your room. They were in a cardboard box in your closet with ‘Do not touch!’ written on the side.”
Kennedy groaned. “And that didn’t mean anything to you?”
“Like what?”
“Like do not touch.”
“Oh, I was very careful not to touch the box,” the Buffybot promised her. “I just reached inside it like this.” She mimed gingerly putting her arm into an imaginary box without touching the sides. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
Kennedy just stared at her. She wanted to yell but it would be like yelling at a Labrador puppy about the concept of privacy.
“You’re not upset are you?” That bottom lip was quivering again.
Kennedy sighed. “No.”
“Can we find another fiend to collar now?” Her eyes were pleading and in the limited light of the cemetery they shone almost as if they were welling up.
Kennedy checked her watch. It was already late and they hadn’t seen any signs of anything else rising tonight; waiting for another vamp to appear could take hours. Another look at the Buffybot’s pout made up her mind for her.
“If you just want to arrest someone why don’t you just arrest me?”
“But you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“That’s okay. It’ll be like practise, like a game… a really quick game.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kennedy was about to give up and resolve herself to hours of walking around the lifeless graveyard, but then something about the ‘Bot’s history came back to her. She generally tried not to think too much about what she knew the robot had been created for but right now it might have its uses.
“You have role-play programs, don’t you? Nurse, dominatrix, inappropriate teacher, that kind of thing.”
“Yes! I have thirty-seven set role play scenarios.”
“Thirty-seven?” Kennedy was suitably impressed. “So, you must have a cop in there somewhere.”
The Buffybot nodded. “Would you like me to run the program?”
“If it’ll cheer you up and get us home quicker, yes...” Kennedy chuckled as she gave the command. “Run the program.”
The Buffybot’s eyes went blank, then she blinked a couple of times. The next thing Kennedy knew she was eating grass.
“What the hell!”
“Are you going give me any trouble, sweetheart?”
The Buffybot was leaning low over her back, holding Kennedy facedown easily. Had she activated bad cop instead of sexy cop by accident?
“No.”
“That’s good, because I wouldn’t want to have to hurt you…too much…while I restrain you.”
Kennedy’s eyebrows went up as the Buffybot purred into her ear. Her hands were pulled from the grass beside her head to behind her and she felt the handcuffs snapped on slowly. It was that split-second too late that she wondered if this had been the smartest move after all.
“I’m going to frisk you now,” the ‘Bot announced with too much enthusiasm.
That answered her question. “Or you could just pretend you did.”
Hands ran over her shoulders, down her arms. Kennedy tried not to squirm. They moved leisurely over her back, to her hips and down her thighs.
“Are you done yet?”
“Stop trying to resist arrest or I’ll have to punish you!”
Kennedy’s eyebrows went up even further as she wondered what that might entail. “I’m not resisting. Please, feel free to bust my ass. Just hurry up about it.”
“Okay.” Her ass was smacked.
“Hey!” Kennedy said on a sharp intake of breath. “I didn’t mean literally!”
After that, she decided it was just easier to keep quiet. Her butt was liberally checked for anything that might pose a danger to the public - it involved a lot of squeezing. Kennedy bit her lip and tried not to react in anyway. She’d been single way too long, she decided. Then she was flipped over. Her wrists dug into her back but the major discomfort stemmed from the Buffybot grabbing her chest with both hands.
“Are these concealed weapons?”
“No!”
“How do I know I can believe you? Maybe I should check.”
“End program! Terminate program!”
That wasn’t how it worked and if there was a way to stop the ‘Bot mid-program - maybe by punching in a code or using a safe word - Kennedy didn’t know it. The only tried and tested trick she did know was the smack to the back of the head and she couldn’t exactly try that with her hands cuffed behind her.
The only thing she could do now, Kennedy realised, clenching her eyes shut as the Buffybot checked cheerfully up her top, was let the program play out and just…try not to enjoy it too much.
“Hmm. No weapons up there. Obviously you’re sneaky and they must be someplace else,” The Buffybot mused and then said with devilish glee. “Okay…Spread ‘em!”
Kennedy gave a helpless sob of laughter, “Oh shit.”
*****
An hour later Kennedy let herself and the Buffybot quietly into the house. She just wanted to get the ‘Bot shut down and plugged in for the night before she took it upon herself to helpfully report on their evening to the first person she came across. This was one patrol that wasn’t going down in the annals of slayer history.
The Buffybot stood still; smiling as Kennedy raised her pink sweater enough to pull open her control panel. Eventually she couldn’t contain her zeal anymore.
“Kennedy, wasn’t tonight just awesome?”
Her voice sounded louder than it was in the small utility room that served as the robot slayer’s bedroom. “Sure. Shhh though. It’s late.”
“Arresting you is much more fun than arresting vampires.” The Buffybot had obediently dropped her voice to a loud whisper. Kennedy smirked but she didn’t say anything as she plugged the thick black cable into the Bot’s waiting tummy socket. “I want to arrest you again tomor…”
Kennedy flipped her switch and the Buffybot went quiet. She stared at the angelic smile on her ‘sleeping’ face for a moment, shook her head and softly shut the door behind her as she left the room.
It was a wasted effort. As soon as she turned around Willow and Buffy appeared in the hallway, blocking her escape route.
“Everything okay?” Buffy asked. “You were out for hours.”
“Everything’s fine!” she insisted quickly. “There was some slayage and it took a little longer than usual but I’m completely--" a quick smile flashed across her face before she could force herself to look serious again. “--completely okay.”
Willow seemed to read between the lines. “Oh, frak, is she still glitching-out every time she sees a vampire or demon?
“Kind of.”
“I thought I’d fixed that.”
“Glitching. There’s glitching again?” Buffy asked tiredly. “It doesn’t still think it’s Superman, does it? I say next time it tries to fly off of the top of a tall building, we just leave it in pieces. It’s more humane when you think about it.”
“No, she accidentally had a bad cop movie flooded through her system last week and now she…”
“Tries to arrest evil instead of slaying it,” Kennedy finished for Willow.
Buffy sighed. “Can’t it do anything right?”
“She does seem to have more kinks than an Adult Video store these days,” Willow sighed.
“Actually, you know, she’s my partner, I can handle her quirks.” Kennedy offered her most reassuring and innocent smile. “And, who knows, maybe two slayers fighting crime together won’t turn out to be such a bad thing after all.”
She walked away then, needing to hide the smirk on her lips and the mischief in her eyes, not to mention, after being thoroughly arrested - twice! - she really had to shower.