Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2023-05-12
Words:
1,090
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
14
Kudos:
254
Bookmarks:
32
Hits:
1,751

She Keeps On Growing

Summary:

All he had to do was protect Clara and that was that. Having emotions or not didn't matter in the end.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

"Wait! ... Wait!"

That weak, fearful voice was enough to catch the doctor off-guard. Natasha aimed her weapon right at the near-obliterated mecha. Sparks of electricity ran through hunks of smoking metal, and presumably gears and wire. She almost shot at the robot, eager to finish off their opponent.

As the bullet prepared to launch, a young girl had run towards the robot, standing between Wildfire's leader and the so-called Protector Of Humanity.

Clara's face was bright red, tears pricking her eyes. It wouldn't take a genius to see that she was afraid. Afraid of what? For her safety? Doubt it. It was much more likely that she was afraid for another's safety, that of Svarog's.

"Please don't hurt Mr. Svarog!"

She looked up with big, desperate eyes. She glared at them, (or at least, tried to. It looked more like a tiny dog's sad attempt at protecting its owner.) practically crying out to the group not to overstep any further than they already have. Her teary eyes spoke thousands, but one thought was clearest. 'Please don't destroy my best friend..'

Natasha let her guard down immediately, losing the gun to focus on the shaky little girl in front of her. Clara continued to beg for them not to hurt her friend, and when she heard her name call from Svarog's malfunctioning voice box, she whipped herself right around, now begging Svarog to tell the trailblazers what he knew.

She wanted him to hear them all out. They were good people, she trusted them, and she trusted that they knew what they were doing. She realized that calculations can't make everybody happy, and now she wants Svarog to realize too. Clara put her palm on Svarog's much bigger frame, and once again pleaded for his cooperation with this.

He was already badly beaten, the thought of him still trying his hardest to fight a battle he's already lost makes her feel ill. He wouldn't survive that. His parts might be salvageable, but if his memory module were to ever be destroyed, he would have no recollection of how to function. How to fight, how to protect, how to.. be family. And so she kept on coercing him to spill everything he knew out as soon as possible.

It took Clara's request for Svarog to finally consider the new 'variables' in his set of calculations, but credit where credit is due; If it weren't for Wildfire and the trailblazers, Clara wouldn't have been able to directly speak to Svarog about her wish, her wish to work together like family.

***

Clara repaired Svarog's language module first. After that, she just had to check up on his memory database and such. Then it was on to repairing his physical form. He wasn't hurt all too badly, despite the smoke coming from him after the battle, all that was affected were a few torn wires, loose gears, and some dents.

Still, Clara wanted to fix Svarog as soon as possible.

"Mr. Svarog, it doesn't hurt, does it?" She already knew the answer to that. Of course it didn't, robots like him did not feel pain like natural organisms did, but she had to ask that question. It was like an itch that needed to be scratched, like she needed the reassurance that Svarog was okay.

"Assessing... No. Nothing "hurts", Clara." Clara sighed in relief, she continued fixing up his injuries, and by the time she was finished, she was all worn out. As she was raised around robots her entire life, she was no stranger to having to repair them, that includes Svarog. Many times she needed to repair his language module, needed to re-screw bolts in his build, and needed to update his memory system whenever it would for some reason not update by itself. To say she was experienced was an understatement.

Due to her experience, she gained quite the stamina— She's gone entire nights too focused on researching about robots to sleep, multiple times. Luckily Svarog was there to remind her of her needs— but today was much more tiring than your usual every day. After a long day of communicating, and stressing, and fixing, she was pretty beat herself.

Clara yawned into her palm, eyes watering. She had to get to bed, 'oh but.. I suppose just.. a few minutes.. couldn't hurt. Just... a little rest for my eyes..' and there she was. Drifting off softly right beside Svarog. "Ms. Clara-" before he could speak any further, Clara's head sank into the metal of his forearm.

"..."
"Goodnight, Clara.."

Svarog promptly picked the little girl up, making sure to be gentle with her tiny frame, ensuring that she stayed fast asleep. Her white locks brushed over her sleeping face, soft snores could be heard coming from her. That usually meant she was sleeping greatly. He noticed she snored like that frequently whenever he was around to see her sleep. Just an observation.

He held his family as you would hold a newborn, cradling her softly. Perhaps she was too old for this treatment. But really, he didn't mind. After all, his duty is to protect Clara.

Svarog reached her bed. He felt her chest move up and down every breath she took. Whenever he could, he let himself feel her breaths, and the beating of her heart. It reminded him of his main objective: To protect her. Because she was truly alive, and he planned to keep it that way for as long as history tells her to stay. He had to protect her. She is family.

When she was settled down, she tossed and turned for a little, adjusting to the sudden loss of physical accompaniment. "Nnn.. Svarog.." Clara muttered in her sleep. "Dad.. stay.." When Svarog heard what name she'd called, he calculated the results for who 'Dad' could be referring to, but he could only find one entity that was highly likely to be deemed fatherly to her. Himself.

Robots are an unfeeling kind. They had no emotions, meaning no sense of selfishness or selflessness, only what they were designed to think of. What is "selfish" to them, is only what the creators think is selfish, and vice versa. All of Svarog's desires were made according to orders.

And so despite her unconscious state, he listened to her wishes. Because that's what he is designed to do. "Calculating... Clara would highly enjoy it if I stayed beside her." And he heard one final noise come from Clara's sleepy mouth. "Thank you, dad..."

...

Perhaps robots had selfish wants after all.

Notes:

Ahh I haven't written in since my ragbros fic! I wrote this from 12 to 3 am, this isn't beta read ;-( I do hope you still enjoyed some fatherly Svarog :-) Need more content of these two immediately..!!!