Private It's not a Play Date, Son!

[Scaramouche]

Scaramouche regarded his life's greatest mistake almost boredly.

"What's it like havin' hairy nubs, junior?"

For good measure, and because he had the power invested in him by the Supreme Law of Dad, the android mashed Sad-One's insolent face into what he assumed had once been Reed's weeks-old leftovers. A plate of canned dollar store raviolis? A fuzzy loaf of semi-sentient mold? He'll let the kid be the judge.

"I’m gonna have to give Tasha a bath, too. If you’d rather wash with a dog than dishes, I’m gonna use the big sink in the bathroom.”

The android honked with laughter. Unintentional or not, this man was the gift that kept on giving! ...Reluctantly. "No offense, Reedster," Scaramouche addressed the roach-man with a half-cocked smirk, "but, at this point, I don't think it's reeeeeally gonna matter."

It was either he bathed his mouthy brat in an ocean of rank dish water, bits of waterlogged food scraps included; or, he risked letting the kid smell like wet dog for a week. No matter what, a certain dame back home was going to ask why her son reeked of soggy cigarettes. There was just no winning, was there!? "Puh! I wish you rolled into Mt. Poosuvius, peanut. At least then," the taller machine mused, rubbing his boxy chinny-chin-chin, "it wouldn't be me, for once~!" Can't help with the stench of failure, though. That was probably permanent and would carry well into Sad-One's adult life.

Scaramouche was, uh, speaking from personal experience.

"Crappy remarks aside," it was folly expecting a modicum of shame by this point, "I think we're gonna take our friend's kind offer and dunk your stinky butt-butt with Tasha! I'm sure Eau de Pooch is still in vogue~." Camille, babe, you'll just have to plug your nose and c o p e. "Also, julienne fries...?" Whoever said don't throw the baby out with the bathwater had obviously never experienced the joys of parenthood.

Daddy Dearest simply rolled his optics, too self-respecting to dignify Sad-One's comedic halfwit with a snarky response, and instead followed after the whimsical melody of scuffling sneakers and pitter-pattering paws. The bathroom at last beckoned.

Surprisingly, there was a bathroom.

Unsurprisingly, the tiny death chamber was not unlike the rest of Reed's humble digs; sordid, glum, and about as homely as a coffin.

"I, uh... like what you've done with the joint, babe." Scaramouche, bless his PSU, made an honest effort to keep his tongue from doing a mischief, but there was no preventing the little white lie from slipping past his teeth. The android squeezed himself through the doorway with moderate difficulty, reenacting his best 'kidney stone through a painfully narrow tube' routine, and figured that standing in a corner, no matter how dingy or cramped, beat standing aimlessly in the middle of the room like some 8' tall freak of inconvenience.

For his troubles, he looked the epitome of uncomfortable, resorting to having to hunch to keep from scraping the top of his paddy hat against the bathroom ceiling, and blinked pitifully at his much shorter, less spatially challenged companion. It was enough to make one's heart break -- much like being subjected to those sentimental animal abuse commercials as seen on TV.

"Though," he squeaked meekly, trying his hardest not to bump into anything and everything, "I think a splash of color would really open it up." They said light blues and greens were good for that sort of thing.

Was this a bad time to say he was claustrophobic?

CLUNK!

Ah, a sound!! Scaramouche practically leapt at the discovery of more stimuli and his optics instantly brightened. "Oh, you dropped the soap, babe! Here, lemme get that for ya." Ever the helpful sort, he carefully wormed his way across the tiled matchbox, an innocent expression written all over his metal face, and stooped at the knees to better reach into the tub without thinking anything of it. "You gotta be more careful with those butterfingers, agent~!" Scaramouche joked. "If this had been a heater, I dread to think what could've -- HAAAAUUUUUGHHHH...!!"

Green! Green filled his HD vision, bulbous eyes mocking and flippity flippers flipping!

Reed was right to fear. For, no sooner had the robot locked gazes with his friend's quirky taste in personal hygiene products, the reality of the situation hopping its way into the deepest recesses of his fractured mind...

"F! F-F! FFFFFFFFFFFF -- !!" It had already been too late. The obnoxious but loveable buffoon ceased to be and a raving mad weapon of mass destruction soon took his place.

His teeth gnashed!
His body seized!

His optics burned red with the hellish fury of a thousand suns as sparks flew brilliantly from his jaw bolts!

"You... You did this!" he wheezed, the android frothing wildly at the mouth. With a menacing hand, the very selfsame fingers and thumb that had once brought countless sorrow to the meek and defenseless now loomed precarious inches from Reed's horrid caterpillar for a mustache, its murderous digits desiring nothing more than to just rip it off like the grotesque, furry Band-Aid that it was.

Seriously, babe, the 90's were soooooo last millennia.

"Death to organics!" Scaramouche thundered. "Death to the Man!" The insane machine then lashed out in the blink of an eye to commit the foul deed, his aluminum fish sticks of death whistling through the air!

...
...
...

Whomp!

...Well, reckon it was a bit broken after the last hundred or so uses.

"Hon hon hon~!! C'mere, ya goofy lug!"

Tinny laughter, not the bloodcurdling shrieks of the dying, filled the bathroom, and Reed found himself not in the sweet embrace of death but that of one very jovial Pied Piper of About-to-be-Shown-the-Front-Door-in-the-Next-Five-Seconds.

"Awww, did I scare ya, daddy-o~?" A grinning Scaramouche chortled and released his meaty friend from their one-armed (and undoubtedly one-sided) hug after a fond pat on the man's probably very stiff shoulder. What a scandalous twit! "I'm just foolin', honest!" he assured, waving the same metal mitt once poised to deface Reed's upper lip. "Why, I'd never hurt you, babu. We're buddy ol' pals! Chums for life! I should totally make you a membership card."

Something pressed into Reed's palm not longer after his near encounter with the reaper; something green, bug-eyed, and deserving of a good punt if it meant never having to relive certain days ever again.

"This is super cute, by the way~!" the android playfully winked. "I didn't take you for someone to be in touch with his inner kid, babe, but it suits you!"​

 

[One-One]

"What's it like havin' hairy nubs, junior?"

"...W-what?" Inadvertently falling into his own trap, Sad-One gawked at his father before staring down at his own nubs as if they were crusted with the blood of the innocent. Hm, not a single hair follicle to be found. Nani the heck was Daddy talking about? The distraction provided a prime opportunity for his father to strike. The little 'bot could only let out a soft gasp before he found himself face first in a load of something that had once been edible! Having been left to sit and fester, he could almost swear he saw the strange mush breathing. "Auuuugh...." Leave it to Sad-One to find a way to yell in a monotone!

Glad-One, on the other hand...

"Eek! Eek, augh, pffft!" Blowing razzes and wriggling his nubs at his own face desperately, the optimistic half of the robot sounded pitiful. "Oh no...! Now I'm gonna need two baths!" Thank goodness neither of them could smell! If he had to pretend to sniff the terrible junk he'd been smushed into, he'd imagine it smelled like crusty socks, dirty water, and the color brown. Besmirched and crestfallen, the little ball peered up at his father. "Why did you do that, daddy?"

"Because he's a stinky sore loser." He huffed, he puffed, and he turned his not-nose up to the ceiling. A squinty glance was spared for Tasha, the happy fluffer none the wiser that she'd gotten messy too! That was definitely not a tootsie roll on Max's hand. Red? Sticky? Oh, that was totally--

"Jelly!"

...Yeah sure let's go with that.

A tasty fruit concoction was far more agreeable than being the patron saint of Mt. Poosuvius! "Am I going to bathe with Tasha? How fun!" They could play, and laugh, and perhaps after-bath snuggles! He kicked his nubs idly and giggled as they followed their friend into the bathroom.

"Yeah yeah, good to know you can still hear, pops." Don't think he didn't notice that roll of the optics! Giving a roll of his own, the little peanut kept quiet as they tiptoed into Reed's bathroom. Just as... tidy as the kitchen sink, it seems! Size wasn't an issue for ol' One-One, but Daddy looked rather amusing all boxed in like a corpse! "Ehehehe..."

Max's lovely loo brought to mind memories of Carter's bathroom! Both were obviously missing the feminine touch, leaving their bathrooms bland and lacking in personality. At least Burke's bathroom looked a fair bit cleaner... Don't suppose a toilet paper parade might spruce the place up a bit? "Oh yes, a spat of paint and perhaps a patterned curtain too!" Rubber duckies maybe? Oh, or perhaps doggy bones for Tasha!

"You gotta be more careful with those butterfingers, agent~! If this had been a heater, I dread to think what could've -- HAAAAUUUUUGHHHH...!!"

Oh no...

What do you get when you add Scaramouche and an amphibious piece of soap? Chaos, pure and absolute chaos! Stunned by his father's vitriolic reaction, Glad-One grabbed hold of his father's jacket with a fearful grip. "D-d-daddy? Daddy, s-speak to me!" In all the time that he had known the other robot, never had this happened before! Such a frightening hue of red, his teeth gnashing like a rabid beast and his body seizing as if tangled up inside! Long fingers reached for their friend, hissing and screaming wildly! Oh, the horror!

"Yeah, yeah!" Abruptly shifting from a worried stare to an amused squint, Sad-One raised his nub in a show of solidarity with his frothing father. "Death to the man, Pops!" Please excuse him, Reed, he got rather caught up in the moment! Something which became clear as he blinked as if remembering where he was. And who with. "Uuuh, wait. Not... not this man. He's not the Man. He's a member of the working class, not the bourgeoisie upper crust elite pigs." Just look at this bachelor pad! If Reed was the Man he'd be living it up, not slumming it here in reality!

Both halves of One-One breathed a collective sigh of relief when their father ensnared the man into a one-armed hug rather than a death grip! "Oh! I get it!" Cheery as ever, Glad-One brightened instantly. "You made a funny! Haha, you got me good, daddy!" Phew! Now they didn't have to worry about hiding a body from mommy!

"I don't mean to interrupt bro bonding time, but I think Tasha and I would like to start our baths now. I'm dirty all over, now. Just like a Government official." Sad-One's bitter cynicism was like a warm knife slicing into that tasty block of friendship butter. The depressed tyke sent a particularly hard stare at his father before wordlessly pointing to his own soiled face, the remnants of Max's dirty dish debris still clinging to his shell. "Tick, tock."

 

[Max Reed]

Scaramouche bent to retrieve the fallen soap, and electric bolts of panic shot through Reed. Crap. This was not what he wanted at all.

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Whoa! Hold on, Scaramouche!” he protested, his voice going shrill and nasally. “Don’t go popping any nuts and bolts!”

But it was too late. Scaramouche had seen the familiar green details in the soap.

Was Reed seeing things on account of his mind freezing fear or did what pass as the robot’s eyes glow red? Were those sparks spitting and flaring from his strong square jaw? And was he really foaming at the mouth like a rabid metal dog? Reed thought he caught a frail, acrid whiff of melted wires and something headily similar to gas fumes simmering in the air on a clammy day.

Terror paralyzed him. He could only stare bug-eyed, stiff-backed, sphincter muscles tight as the nuclear bomb with legs pointed at his face (his mustache, specifically) and boomed murder. Reed hoped One-One would rush to his aid, but his hopes were mushroomed when the sadder half squealed his support of the execution. Dammit.

His only option was to run from the apartment and never stop until his legs and lungs gave up on him, except there was no time left. Scaramouche struck out at him.

Reed scrunched his eyes shut. He expected a blunt, brutal blow to split open his skull at any moment, or perhaps a sleek blade would slit open his throat and he would gurgle to death. Still, wasn’t that better than the grotesque, drawn out and agonizing death that had nearly befallen him back at that laboratory in California? This time he was going to die as a man instead of some hideous cockroach-grasshopper-crab monstrosity.

One second stretched out into a million, a billion, then a million billion. People who’d had near death experiences often spoke about seeing their life flash before their eyes, but that wasn’t what Reed saw behind his closed eyelids, presumably ‘cos his life was so dull… Instead, he relived the trauma of Gremlin Binks attempting to rap over and over and over a-freaking-gain.

Obnoxious laughter cut through what seemed like the fifth or sixth hundredth rendition of the gremlin zoanoid’s “rap”. Eyes still squeezed shut, Reed felt a metal limb tighten around him. So, the robot was just gonna rip him to pieces with his bare hands. That was still a better death than the one he’d nearly suffered back in that lab.

It was only when Scaramouche patted him on the shoulder and pressed a smooth, familiar object into the palm of his hand that Reed realized he wasn’t gonna die. Well, at least not yet.

He blinked his eyes open, but could barely take in his surroundings or its metal inhabitants. His brain was reeling with leftover shock and terror. Geez, he didn’t think he’d ever been scared in his life - and he’d confronted terrorists a couple times in his previous line of work with sticks of dynamite strapped to their torsos!

“Heh, heh, heh!” he forced a shaky, stilted laugh at the three robots. “Uh, huh, huh!”

Near the end, his laughter sounded suspiciously like whiny sobbing.

Sad-One’s bitter voice and the promise of a return to mundane, safe activity helped snap Reed out of his trauma. Crap, the tub. The faster he filled it with water, the faster he could get rid of these robots and lie down in a dark little room, where he could cry all the salt from his face.

Discreetly, Reed dropped the frog soap into the waste bin, before stumbling over to the tub on weak, wobbly legs. He wrenched on the hot tap, and while the steaming water was thudding into the tub, he turned to Tasha only to discover that she was no longer in the bathroom with them.

“Damn!” he groaned.

Scaramouche must have scared the hell outta her, too. Or Reed guessed she might have slunk off at the prospect of a bath. She never had liked those.

“I gotta find Tasha the Hide ‘n’ Seek Champion,” he announced to the robots. “Can you guys make sure the bathroom doesn’t flood?”

That wasn’t too much to ask of ‘em… Right?

Reed hurried out of the bathroom, where his game of hide-and-seek ended before it had even fully begun. The bad, awful, catastrophic sight that lay in front of him caused waves of horror to quiver down his body. It was almost as crippling as the terror that he had experienced at the height of Scaramouche’s red-eyed, spark sputtering reaction to the frog soap.

The front door of his apartment… It was... It was open!

“No!” he cried, grabbing at his head. “No! Dammit! Tasha!”