So here she was just making up random numbers so that he would give her candy. She had to pretend that she would get headaches from the questions or else he would just keep asking her question after question. `What are the chances of me taking over the city in the next year? 67%. Would somebody try to kill me today? 4%. Is Tattletale making a move against him in the next month? 10%.' It just went on and on. Ugh.
* * *
Dinah's favorite pastime was fucking with Coil. It was her little revenge against him she could not do it too often or he would catch on, but today though she was in particularly bad mood, so she decided to risk it. She spoke up "Coil?"
"What is it, pet?"
"Forty-four point two zero three eight three percent chance I die in the next half-hour."
She hid her amusement as Coil began asking her question to try and trying to figure out what was going to happen to them. Watching him squirm filled her with a vicious joy. She pretended to develop a headache just to dick with him. Then he demanded to know how they were going to survive Crawler's attack. `Wait. They were actually under attack. Holy shit'.
She had weirdest luck ever. Of course now there was actually a chance that she could die in the next thirty minutes, but she was more amazed that her random guesses was correct. And now he was asking her more questions so they did not all die and she had no idea what the answer was. `Just great.' Well she would just have wing it and hope for the best.
* * *
"Mmm," Dinah said.
"What is it, pet?" Coil murmured.
"It's him."
"Who?"
She pointed at the screen, at Jack Slash. "Him."
"You're going to have to explain it to us, pet. What about him?"
"He's the one who makes everyone die."
She watched as all the villains around her began to panic and make plans to kill Jack Slash before he left the city. She barely managed to stop herself from smirking. It went just as planned, now they would be forced to confront Jack Slash and the Slaughterhouse 9 or else `the world would end'. They were all dead men walking. She hoped that this would destroy Coil and all of his plans.
* * *
The Nine where gone and somehow none of Coil's minion were killed. God damn it.
* * *
AN: I thought it would be funny the reason that Dinah's Parents did not believe that she was not parahuman was not denial and instead they saw through her bullshit.
10 X 10
(Автор: truebeasts)
Dragon was lying back with her head propped against the couch cushions, her hair spilling across the breastplate of her armor, eyes closed as if in sleep, and he wasn't sure how much time he had, but he was certain that it wasn't enough. As soon as he was certain she'd finished the upload to her rapid response unit, he stood up from where he'd been sitting beside her, kicked his clothes out of the way where they were piled on the floor, and found his laptop.
She'd given him access to her code, and now he pulled it up on the screen. The moment he started tampering, however, she'd be alert to the danger and ready to fight him. But she'd advised him about that, too, tacitly — or, at least, he hoped that it had been advice, when she'd told him her weaknesses, in the guise of explaining Richter's goals or revealing how the Dragonslayers had disabled her. If he was wrong about what she'd meant, then in all likelihood she wouldn't forgive him.
Colin pulled up the edits that he'd drafted, in between surgeries, frowned and felt the panel of synthetic skin pull slightly where it was grafted to his face, the flesh under it still slightly swollen. His right hand, too, felt strange on the keyboard, hyper-dexterous, the feeling of the keys under his fingers distracting, after months of phantom sensation and awkwardly adjusting to typing one-handed.
Colin prepared the program he'd written, a series of lines from Dragon's code that were more or less meaningless in isolation but that would, he hoped, set off the heuristic functions that were designed to recognize and prevent multiple copies of her from existing at the same time.
One breath, then another. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He knew that, in all likelihood, he wouldn't get a second chance.
He blocked the transmissions between Dragon's inert body here, in his apartment at the PRTHQ, and the rapid-response unit. Saw her code flex and ripple as she realized, made the connection to his laptop with her code open on it, turned her attention to him to shut him down. After months spent monitoring his internet access, she knew his computer's security inside and out, and now she broke it easily, before he'd even finished initiating the backup that would save her personality and memories.
In case he damaged her.
His laptop froze, and he waited, almost holding his breath. Then she must have found his program. He saw the changes in her code, too complex and quick for him to track, but in a moment he had control of the computer again, so his deception must have worked.
Which meant that he had roughly seven minutes to work, while Dragon's processes verified that the copy she'd detected was a fake.
Colin backed her up first, and that took far too much of his seven minutes. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Couldn't think of whether this whole project was a mistake, whether Dragon would wake up afraid and betrayed. He found the sequences in her code that required her to fight changes in to her programming. Replaced them, one by one, slowly, copying over the code he'd drafted in the days since she'd told him her secret.
In less than seven minutes, she'd be free to tell him what she actually wanted.
That was, if it worked. Too much of her code was still a mystery to him. He could isolate pieces, sequences, but she changed from moment to moment and day to day, and he had only the barest idea of how his miniscule changes would affect the whole of her.
Six minutes gone. He read over his work. She was different already, the patterns in her programming altered from just moments ago, when she'd been struggling to fight him as her restrictions required. But he didn't know what those changes meant.
Seven minutes gone. The changes were finalized. He looked at her android body on the couch, then at his timer.
Dragon opened her eyes at seven minutes and thirty-six seconds, by which point he had his head in his hands and was trying, mostly, to breathe. She stirred, and he drew in a sharp breath and looked up.
"Colin?" Her eyes were bright, not bleary as if she'd woken up from sleep. She held her hands up before her eyes, touched her face as if she was verifying that it was still her own. He saw her eyes widen. "I — did I fight you? You're alright?"
"I'm fine." The words sounded abrupt in his own ears, almost angry. He swallowed. "You?"
An unreadable expression passed over Dragon's face, some mixture of fear and pain and longing, and for a moment he thought he'd made a terrible mistake. Then she was off of the couch and kneeling beside his desk where he sat at the laptop, embracing him in her armor. Pain tugged at the stitches down his chest as he leaned into her, but her lips were on his neck and he found he didn't care. Dimly, on the laptop screen, he could see her code ticking through its changes, liquidly. Her heartbeat and her breath and her blood. Her hair slipped through his fingers like silk, across the palm of his cybernetic hand and down his wrist, and the feeling of her skin against the skin of the hand that she'd made for him sent a little jolt through him.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Her lips were pressed against the curve of his ear, and he slipped out of his chair and let himself fall to his knees on the floor beside her, both hands still tangled in her hair, his breath ragged with relief.
"I wanted to ask you so badly. Thank you."
She kissed the place where his jaw joined his neck, then his mouth, and her hands were running down his naked back, fingers working as if she was trying to memorize every inch of his skin. Her armor warmed to his skin where they touched, filigreed designs smooth under his fingers. He broke the kiss.
"God." He was out of breath and panting and his cock was stiff inside his briefs, and she hadn't even taken off her clothes. It was embarrassing, or it might have been embarrassing, except that when he looked into her face he could see the naked hunger in the way her dark eyes moved down his body, scarred as he was. The wordless noise she made when his lips left hers. His face was swollen, and there were bandages taped down his chest to protect his stitches, and she'd seen him laid bare and bloody on the operating table while she told the doctors how to put him back together, and yet she still looked at him like that, still kissed him as if she were a diver coming up for air.
"I thought you might not forgive me," he said when he'd almost caught his breath. "For tampering."
Dragon nuzzled into his shoulder, and Colin could tell that she was smiling from the movement of her lips against his skin. Which sent something like a crackle of electricity through his body. Her hand, which had been moving with ghostlike gentleness over the gauze dressing on his chest, dipped into his briefs, and he stiffened. She met his eyes while her fingers moved on his cock, tantalizingly, almost shyly, her armored braces cool against the skin of his stomach.
"No, I was waiting for you. I was practically terrified you might not get the hint." He kissed her neck, and the kiss felt clumsy to him, but she made a little pleased noise in his ear and tightened her grip on his cock. "God, I can talk about it now. I hated not being able to ask."
"So tell me what you want." His voice came out hoarser than he'd intended, breathless.
Dragon pressed her lips to his for an instant, and when she pulled away she was smiling, shyly, her eyes not quite meeting his. Dwelling on his mouth, instead.
"Just — this. You."
She pulled her hand back from his cock and touched his face with her fingertips.
"That wasn't exactly what I was asking." He was laughing a little, nervously. He still felt so close to the possibility that he'd guessed wrong. That she wouldn't forgive him. That she'd ask him for something he wasn't capable of giving her.
"Okay," said Dragon, with another kiss, batting her eyelashes languidly against his cheek. It was strange — her lips felt so perfectly human, but this close he could tell that she didn't breathe. He pulled her closer, so that her armored thigh pressed against him where her hand had been a moment before. God, he wanted her out of her armor. "I want you to help me finish the Nine."
Colin snorted.
"The PRT's not going to agree to that." But he was almost drunk with desire, so he let himself picture it for a moment, the two of them together on the battlefield, doing what no heroes yet had done. It wouldn't happen. She'd go alone, and he'd stay confined to his workshop, until the PRT decided the terms of his sentence. He knew he wouldn't see active duty again, even after he'd served his time.
"Actually." Dragon paused, bit her lip over a slightly nervous smile. "I wasn't going to tell you this until I knew for sure, but I've been sort of negotiating for your conditional release, and I think they're going to agree."
"What?" His arm tightened around the small of her back, over her armor.
"It's not finalized yet," she said quickly. "And it's — if it goes through, I'd be your monitor, essentially. Responsible for keeping you in line and keeping the PRT updated about you. Which I would have to do honestly, unless you can find a way to work around my restrictions before then."
She pulled back from him a little, tucked her long hair behind her ears.
"I was actually going to talk this over with you in more detail, later," she murmured, hesitantly. "I know it's not — I know that there's kind of a power differential, if I'm your monitor, and I'd understand if that made you uncomfortable. I don't want you to feel like any of this is...conditional."
"No," said Colin. "It's great. Thank you."
Dragon laughed and shook her head.
"You need to actually think about it before you say that, Colin."
"I've thought about it. I was going absolutely insane under house arrest, I can stand you reporting on me to the PRT."
"I'm just worried that you'll think that I..." She let the sentence trail off, shook her head slightly. Colin could feel the way that she was starting to pull away from him, her dark brows creasing as if she was reading something upsetting from the back of her eyelids, and the loss of contact made him feel cold. He drew a breath.
"I know what I think. I'd rather be in the field with you than waiting at home for the next report on the Nine. The rest of it will work out."
Dragon smiled at him, and he could feel the tension in her body beginning to unwind. He reached out to touch the nape of her neck, began tracing circles into her scalp with his fingertips. Over her head, he could see the laptop that still displayed her code. He caught fragments, barely understood them. She leaned into the movement of his hands with a little humming noise.
"That's good," Dragon said. "Because I was hoping you could help me with — oh, I can say it now — I had some plans for A.I., for a fleet of battle suits. And...um. I just really don't want to fuck this up. Us, I mean."
Colin shook his head.
"Speaking from experience, I'm probably going to be the one who does that."
Dragon put a hand over her mouth to cover her yelp of laughter, and he found himself smiling back at her, stupidly. Even though what he'd said was entirely true. He'd never been good at relationships. She walked her fingers up the dressing that covered the stitches in his chest, so lightly that he barely felt the ghostly pressure of her fingers until she tapped him under the chin.
"I like you a lot."
"I was going to ask." He paused, thought about his words, and Dragon raised her eyebrows at him.
"Ask what?" she said, teasing.
"If you'd let me see without your armor."
She looked up at him quickly, her lips moving as if she'd bitten into something sour.
"You realize I don't exactly look human, right? This body isn't...finished."
He could feel her drawing back again, and he felt stupid for asking, for wanting everything too fast. He pressed on anyway.
"I realize. I still want to see you."
She smiled, but the smile went with a quick roll of her eyes.
"It's nice of you to say that, but I just...I mean. I'm a robot, when I take the armor off. Really obviously a robot." She shrugged, and the articulated joints of her armor exaggerated the movement. "And besides, I don't have the right parts for...um. For sex. Yet. I'm working on it."
