Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The warriors came on so fast. One moment Kai, Zane, Lloyd, Cole, Jay, and Nya were walking through what they thought was an empty hallway, the next there were half a dozen masked bandits springing from the shadows. The ninja retreated through the nearest unlocked door, fighting all the way. Suddenly Cole cried out, a fresh dagger wound bleeding through his right sleeve. He lashed out with his left hand, punching the black-cloaked attacker across the face. The warrior stumbled back through the door, followed by their comrade, who was still crackling with electricity. Jay, Lloyd, and Nya fought off two more raiders as Kai chased another until they jumped out the window, into the open air above the busy street. Kai watched as they shot a grappling hook to the building across the street and swung away.

With the attackers gone, Cole collapsed in one corner of the room. Jay hurried to his side, ripping off the edge of his own gi to wrap the bleeding cut. Lloyd joined him with scrunched eyebrows, working in silence. Kai turned to his sister. “Nya, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Kai. Jay, do you need help?” Nya conjured a ball of water and leaned over to inspect Cole’s stab wound.

Still wary, the fire ninja glanced around the room. Something was wrong… “Wait!”

The others turned to stare at him.

“Where- where’s Zane?”

Nya’s eyes widened as everyone realized the Nindroid was missing.

“We must have left him in the hallway,” Cole said through clenched teeth. He inhaled sharply as Jay tightened the makeshift tourniquet. “Ow!”

“Sorry,” whispered Jay.

Kai, confident that Cole was in good hands, whirled around, unsheathing his own dagger as he rushed out the door.

“Oh no…” he muttered, taking in his surroundings. The hallway was littered with shards of ice, little balls of hail, and flurries of snow leading farther down the dark hall.

Igniting a small sphere of fire for light, Kai sprinted toward the end of the corridor, heart pounding. “Oh no.” He stumbled to a halt.

In the shadows was a larger snowbank, and lying on top was a figure.

“Zane!” The ice ninja was lying motionless on top of the pile, surrounded by a foot-high wall of icicles. One of the spikes was dripping with a bandit’s blood. Kai’s heart lurched as he stepped toward the scene. Vaulting over the icicles, he knelt beside his teammate.

“Zane? Zane, please, wake up… Zane…”

The droid didn’t respond, even when Kai propped up his cold head with one arm and placed his other hand on the metal-plated chest. “Zane, please…” He couldn’t feel a heartbeat. Did Nindroids have hearts? He couldn’t remember. Zane would have known. But Zane was lying cold and still in his arms and Kai didn’t know what to do. Zane looked… he looked dead. Kai wasn’t sure how a robot could die, exactly, but… Oh.

In his haste to get to his friend, he hadn’t noticed: there were two throwing stars buried in the wiring of the droid’s chest, piercing the metal plating with razor-sharp teeth. “Oh no,” Kai whispered again. “No. No, no, no, no, no, no-“ He grabbed one star, yanking it out of Zane’s chest and throwing it away.

That was when the tears started falling. He wiped them away harshly and pulled on the other star, tugging violently until it dislodged itself. Kai threw that one away too, and it clattered off the wall discordantly in the silent hallway.

The fire ninja gasped through a now-running nose as a tangle of wires pulled out through the gap in Zane’s plating. He didn’t know what to do with wires, and they were everywhere now, Zane was full of wires, Zane could have fixed this, Zane always knew what to do, but Kai didn’t, Kai wasn’t good enough, Kai couldn’t help Zane. Zane was reliable but also unpredictable, and he was interesting and kind and funny and real, Zane was real when Kai’s world seemed fake, Zane was always there. Now Kai realized how much he needed Zane. Not just on missions or for emergency tech repairs, but all the time. More than anything he wanted the droid who was so human to power back on and wrap his arms around him and tell him everything would be fine, the world wasn’t crashing down, they were going to be okay, but Kai held him, crying, rocking back and forth, and Zane didn’t wake up. Kai could feel the fire inside him growing and raging out of control, and this time the ice ninja wasn’t there to calm him down, so he just let it burn. It hadn’t felt like this since skeletons had kidnapped his sister. And like before, all he could think about was finding the people who had hurt the person he loved… and taking revenge.

The familiar sensation filled him up, boiling his blood as he shouted out, shooting a burst of flame out into the hallway with his hand.

Then there were footsteps from the direction he’d come- were the bandits returning? He wouldn’t let them hurt Zane anymore, he couldn’t, he’d kill them- he let go of the droid again, twisting his hands jerkily in the air to form a two-foot sphere of spinning, blazing fire that illuminated all their surroundings.

“Kai?”

It wasn’t the attackers after all, it was Jay, and he was coming closer, Jay who used electricity, Jay who might be able to fix Zane-

“Kai, are you- oh my gosh!” Jay had frozen at the sight of Zane, lying motionless, and Kai, kneeling above him with a wild gleam in his eye.

“Jay. Jay, can you fix him? You can fix him, you have to do it, get him to wake up, Jay, please-“ Kai’s voice was beyond frantic in a way Jay had never heard before. With a worried glance at the fire ninja, he knelt in front of the droid to inspect his wounds. “Zane… oh gosh…  there’s a lot of damage here, Kai, i don’t know how much i can do here-“

“Come on, you’re the electricity one, do something, you’re supposed to know what to DO!”

 Jay shrank back at Kai’s rising tone and volume. “L- listen, I’m just as worried as you are…”

“Are you? You seem pretty nonchalant about all this, Zane is d- NOT HERE- and you aren’t-“

“I’m trying! We can bring him back to the Bounty, we’ll figure something out! I care about Zane-“

“Not like I do!” broke in Kai, who was now pacing the floor. His hands were shaking and sparking as he spoke.  He turned to look at Jay, the fire in his hands dying down, his voice becoming slightly more measured, quieter. A steaming tear fell down his cheek. “I care about Zane in a way none of the rest of you do. He was always the one who was there for me when no one else was.”

“Kai-“

“Zane is as important to me as Nya. He’s the only one who knows how to deal with me-“

“Kai-“

“Because the rest of you might put up with me for a while, but then I get annoying, or out of control, I know, and you don’t know what to do-“

“Kai.”

“Zane always knew what to do!” Tears were streaming down his face now, and he sank to the floor, sobbing.

“Kai! Listen,” Jay finally interrupted.

“What?” Kai scowled at the lightning ninja, who took a shaky breath before continuing. “I understand. I really do!” he emphasized before the other could argue. “Zane is important to you. He’s important to me, too, just apparently in a different way. That’s okay. He’s special to you, and you’re special to him- Maybe you’re in love, I don’t know. Whatever.” Kai looked up sharply, and Jay noted how small and scared he appeared. Jay brushed away a stray tear. “What matters right now is getting Zane back to the Bounty so he has a chance.”

He smiled carefully at Kai. “Okay?”

“…Okay.”

Chapter Text

One week later, Kai sat on his bunk in the Destiny’s Bounty cabin. Jay, Cole, Nya, and Lloyd were sparring with Master Wu on the deck, but Kai was still shaken from the events of the past week.

Nya, Jay, and a few digital assistants had managed to put Zane back together, but as Jay said, “his personality chip got pretty busted up.” The backup systems were still working on reuploading Zane’s memories and mannerisms. Kai wished he could help, but technology had never been his strong suit. He didn’t care for the fancy, annual-upgrade Borg tech much… Except Zane, of course, he thought.

Kai had thought quite a bit about what Jay had said back in the corridor. “He’s special to you, and you’re special to him- Maybe you’re in love, I don’t know.” Yes, it was easy to admit that Zane was special to him. He wasn’t sure the feelings were especially reciprocated, however… But Zane seemed to be more patient with him than anyone else, and sometimes seemed to seek out time with him alone. But as far as Kai knew, Zane could have cared about everyone on the team in the same way. He couldn’t be sure, of course…

Even so, Jay’s words echoed in his mind. In love? I don’t think- I’m not gay, he thought, at least- I don’t think I am. Am I? Maybe… After all, he’d just said he cared about Zane in a different way from the others. Was that… love? It was so simple, and yet so complicated. But it was easy enough to say. Ninjago had never been especially homophobic, though some of the more traditional rural areas didn’t look upon people who were “different” with as much acceptance. But in the capitol, people were generally fine with such things. Kai had simply never considered his own sexuality before; it had never seemed important.

Yes, Kai thought. All I want right now is to be with Zane. Always. And I want him to care about me the same way I do for him. Huh. Maybe I’m not straight. And Jay thought Zane might feel the same way about him.

Huh.

Kai was suddenly pulled from his thoughts as someone knocked from outside. He grumbled as he slid off the bunk to the floor, slinking to open the door. “What do y-“ the words died in his throat and were quickly replaced with his heart.

Zane was beaming at him from the doorway. “Kai! Just who I was seeking. May I come in? Or are you busy-“

The fire ninja shook himself out of his shocked trance. “NO! Uh, no, come in- Zane…” he trailed off with a whisper. He couldn’t stop staring at the droid. His plating had apparently been repaired, as it was now covered with a white hoodie instead of in pieces on Nya’s workbench. No one who hadn’t been there would’ve been able to tell it had ever happened. Kai wanted to run his hands over the scars and reassure himself that everything he’d gone through a week ago was real, and the cold, motionless Zane in the snow was the same one in front of him now. Instead he sat back down on the bed and patted the seat beside him. Zane carefully followed him. “I have missed you very much, Kai,” he said, with as much emotion as he could manage.

“I- I missed you too, Zane.” I wasn’t sure you would ever come back. I thought I lost you. I thought I would never get to tell you- “Are you… feeling better?” Are you okay? Are you still the Zane I know? Are you still the Zane I-

The Nindroid nodded, smiling. He reached out and hesitantly placed one hand on Kai’s knee. “You know… I saw what happened that night.”

Kai’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced at the ice ninja. “But you were- you-“

“Yes, but I had started recording video and audio with a built-in camera, when we were first attacked, so that we might be able to identify the warriors later, and somehow the camera’s circuitry was unharmed.”

Kai chuckled weakly. Zane knew what to do. He always knew what to do. “Did you hear… everything?”

The ice ninja suddenly became very interested in the floor. “…I did. I heard all of it. I am touched that you consider me to be the best-equipped to assist you in your time of need”

“Zane, I-“

“Is it true?”

“What?” Good yes stall for time, he thought frantically.

“Is it true you have those… feelings… for me, as Jay implied?”

Kai was silent for long enough that even Zane could decipher his answer. “If so, and I assume, your answer is ‘yes’, I only wish to ask: Why did you never tell me?”

The other sighed, slowly. “I don’t know, Zane. I guess… I never thought about it until I’d lost you. That’s when I knew… but not before. I’m sorry…”

“There is no need to apologize, Kai. I understand. For you see, I feel the same way.”

The fire ninja had nearly stood up to run out of the room in utter embarrassment, his face already flaming, when he realized what Zane had said. “Y- You do??”

The Nindroid smiled brightly at him. I could look at his smile all day. “Yes,” he whispered. Kai’s face lit up.

They stayed there for a full minute, staring into each other’s eyes. Kai thought he saw something like longing in Zane’s ice-blue irises. Who knew robot eyes could be so expressive? And then he seemed infinitely close, and Kai just whispered, “Wow…”

Then he pulled Zane in by the collar, just a few short inches, and smashed their lips together, ice on fire, as gently as he could. And when Zane kissed back, it was the most real Kai had ever felt.

Finally they broke apart, breathless, and Zane pressed his forehead to Kai’s as he asked one more question.

“Are we… ‘in love’?”

Kai just laughed quietly, nodding as he pulled Zane toward him again.

Jay just smirked silently from the doorway.