#grim needs to use eir ao3 more often challenge

[evecolourshock]

Fic time, following on from this! This one got long, oops. Story under the cut!

Beck's not going to lie, he's a little disappointed. Not that Flynn doesn't remember him - it was a stupid question, Beck doesn't remember the names of everyone in Argon, how would even a User remember each and every one of the thousands of Programs on the Grid?

But this... defeated, hopeless, shell of a man? Not even willing to try to help? Sure, maybe he tried in the past and it didn't end well, but... damn it all, Beck did not get his back end kicked clear across the Grid with an uncooperative ISO telling him to give up and go home every step of the way just to be told "sorry kid, you're outta luck" with a consolatory clap on the shoulder that mostly just feels condescending and dismissive.

He stubborned his way into Tron taking him on as a Renegade, he's going to make sure this trip isn't wasted or so help him he's going to find out what the best way to blow up the Admin Tower is.

He started his illicit career with a bomb, and if he has to go back to that then so be it.

"Never mind, silly question." Beck waves a hand, laughs even though it doesn't make his brown eyes look any less black. "Not here to talk about me, anyway." He smiles, though it feels wrong. Unfriendly. Sharp. "But you remember Tron, right?"

Flynn's eyes clear. Of course he does. Tron's Tron.

"I'm his-" friend. Beta. Moral compass. Voice of reason even if he doesn't pay attention all the time. "-student."

"Were." Quorra corrects him.

"Is. Am." Beck retorts. Because Tron lives. Still lives. Isn't gone yet. "No matter how much you want that to be past tense because according to you Tron's dangerous. Need I remind you-" his teeth bare, and he snarls. "-so am I." And recently, he's had to prove it, throwing his own morals aside for survival.

"He's alive?" Flynn breathes, and Beck wrenches himself back on track.

"Yes. Injured, but... yes. But he won't be for long if something's not done. Clu has him." Beck closes his eyes for a moment, takes a shaky breath. He will not cry. Not right now. "He wants a... public spectacle. Of his triumph."

Flynn's eyes dim again. "I can't-"

"I'm not asking you to." Beck tells him, trying not to roll his eyes at the twin looks of shock he gets. He didn't come here to drag someone to war. "I need your help, not for you to fight."

"Not sure what help I can give."

"A decoy beacon of you that I can remote-activate, and advanced Security permissions. Nothing else, I can do the rest myself. Or with some... friends of mine." Beck has a plan, he swears. He's just too limited right now to do it, so he needs those limits gone. The decoy is a spur-of-the-moment addition to said plan - Clu will want Flynn to watch him break Tron, will hunt Flynn down if he thinks he can do so. Beck intends to send him chasing Bits instead, buy himself some time.

"You'll be killed." Quorra huffs. "Or rectified." She folds her arms, not wanting any more involvement in Beck's kind of crazy ideas.

Beck just grins at her. "For a Renegade? Occupational hazard."

Flynn looks at him long and hard for that. Beck shrugs off the scrutiny - Tron's gaze is far more searching, and he only has one working eye even with the last-resort restoration via interrupted Rectifier.

"You in? Just for those?" Beck asks. "I have other options, but... less likely to succeed."

"Sure, man, what the hell." Flynn runs a hand down his face. He sounds defeated still, like he thinks Beck's for sure going to fail, but at least he's willing to give this one last shot. For Tron.

"Thanks." Beck chirps. He knows from bitter experience he is, at least, extremely difficult to catch and derez.

**********

Cyrus is very put out about being Plan B, whining at Beck about it in that grating false-nice tone he excels at, until Beck shoves him into a wall with an aggrieved hiss.

"I am counting on you to do whatever it takes to get me and Tron out, with as few civilian casualties as you can, if this all goes wrong." Beck growls in Cyrus' face. "You're plan B because against my better judgement I'm trusting you to succeed if I don't."

Cyrus' jaw snaps shut, eyes bulging in shock and the lack of breath as Beck's arm pushes into his neck.

"Plan B is for blow it all to pieces. Plan B is for big bombs get results." Beck lets up after a moment, dropping Cyrus. "Plan B is for better than me. Understand?"

Cyrus nods, rubbing his throat, awe and respect in his eyes. "You got yourself a spine." He croaks out, amused.

Beck grins wryly. "Between my enemies' lives and my friends, I chose to keep my friends." He doesn't tell Cyrus about the upgrades, about the way Security programming takes the steel around his core and makes blades and shields of it.

Cyrus probably already knows. Misses nothing, that one.

"Do I count?" Cyrus asks, bouncing back now Beck's proven they're a lot more alike than they used to be.

"Depends if you stab me in the back again." Beck calls over his shoulder, the white of the Renegade suit wrapping around him and generating the armour he now moves in with ease. "Figure it out, Ram."

He can hear Cyrus' gasp and grin at the pseudonym, both of them knowing it was the name of Tron's first friend - optimistic and bubbly and gregarious, but scarily analytical and dangerous if he needed to be. "Don't make me have to rescue you, Tron." Cyrus shoots back, and Beck laughs brightly. He could get used to having a friend like Cyrus, as unlikely as it is given how they met.

Beck leaves Cyrus to his bomb-making, and ducks into a different room in this makeshift base he's carved out for himself, deep in Argon's underbelly. As he'd hoped, there's over a dozen wary Programs in grinning sharptooth helmets.

Jolly Tricksters. His last attempt with them didn't go so well, but... he's changed since then, and so have the stakes. "Hello everyone." He rumbles out in an imitation of Tron's voice that's off just enough to give away he's someone else in a mask - just like them.

"Renegade." One greets - Mara, he knows, though he can't give that away. Too many questions he doesn't want to answer. "Who are you?" She snaps out. "You're not Tron, he's-"

"Captured, I know." Beck runs a hand down his mask, lets them see the slump of his shoulders. "I'm... someone he knows well. Better than my own friends do. He taught me." He fixes his gaze where he knows her eyes are, wills himself into channeling at least some of the authority Tron comes by naturally. "Which is why I need your help."

"Help how?" Someone else pipes up, still cautious but less hostile and a lot more interested.

"There's a lot of information the Occupation would like to keep hidden." Beck muses, measured in the way only a handful of people know means he's trying not to sound too gleeful. "It'd be... such a shame if it got displayed all over the Grid for anyone to see, wouldn't it?"

"A right shame, indeed." The speaker chuckles. "It wouldn't happen to be of the, ah. Distressing kind, would it?"

"Perhaps." Beck nods at them. "I got my hands on a sizeable chunk of it already. All you need to do is display it." He addresses the group at large. "Then sit back and enjoy the chaos."

The room thaws, relief spreading through the group as they realise the only danger is what they put themselves in anyway. Beck - well, the Renegade - has already done the hard work for them.

Not long now.

**********

Cutler's resistance network has only grown, the loss of its leader making a martyr for others to rally behind.

Beck's visited the group already, telling an only slightly edited tale of a Program who fought what had been done to him right until the bitter end, and knows the Renegade is welcome here.

He hopes that's still true when he asks them to fight for the Program Cutler died trying to heal.

Zuse meets him at his bar, tucked under a hooded cloak and yet not too much out of place. Zuse is a cunning sort, and Beck doesn't trust him not to sell them out if it benefits the nightclub owner, but right now Zuse is an ally and gets treated with all the politeness that entails.

"They're a bit... out of sorts. The news, and all." Zuse informs him with the usual flippancy that hides whatever he's actually feeling. "You know the one." He sweeps open a door for Beck, the showmanship so commonplace it makes people stop paying attention. Just Zuse being Zuse.

"We can change that." Beck flicks his hood down once he's safe - does not miss the faint disappointment when Zuse realises he still can't see his face - and addresses the room. "It's not over yet. Shall we finish what Cutler started?" There's a few new faces - he recognizes Bartik and Hopper from Argon's more radicalized subdistricts, yellow armbands ripped off and contrite yet fierce - but blunt and forthright works best with this group.

Quorra is there, to his surprise. In the back, trying not to be seen by him. He ignores her - as long as she doesn't try to undermine him, she can do as she pleases. She clearly doesn't know what to make of his indifference.

It takes longer than Beck thought it would for her to corner him, and she's considerate enough not to do so publicly. "What are you doing here?" She hisses.

"I knew Cutler." Beck growls at her, sees her flinch at just how close to Tron's voice his becomes. "And I'm saving my friend. With, or without your help." He looks her up and down, considering. "Not that you'll have to offend your delicate sensibilities even if you deign to help us Basics."

She reels back, stung. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm aware you hate me because of who I am, what I am, the company I keep, or a combination. Good for you, join the group." Beck can barely believe how vicious the words coming out of his own mouth are, but he's channeling Tron right now and Tron's always been... cutting. Pares right down to core in a matter of sentences, if he puts his mind to it. A skill Beck's picked up via exposure. "But I'm putting that aside because we don't have time to waste squabbling. You're one of the best when it comes to handling a Lightrunner, so if you decide you want to help you'll be on evacuation duty. Getting your injured out of the fight before it kills them. It won't be easy. You may be the last line of defence between an injured Program and the soldiers intent on slaughtering them. But it is a vital part of keeping as many of ours alive as we can. Of making sure the Grid has hope, so long as there are Programs willing to fight for it, of there being a millicycle where all of us are free."

**********

Beck creeps through a vent, still slender and tall enough to fit without much difficulty. His new Security overrides make him invisible in the system checking for anyone daring to enter this way, and it's a fun kind of irony about beating Security with Security.

Tron is this way.

And he's still Tron.

Beck can feel him now, a warm weight in the back of his mind. His Squad Leader, information from his new coding tells him. Injured again, though he can't tell how badly.

Beck hopes his new field medic abilities will help at least lessen the injuries. It's going to suck if he has to carry Tron out.

He finds Tron, chained to a vertical slab in the middle of the room. His friend's head is bowed with exhaustion, heavy in the way that means his energy levels are critically low.

Dyson steps into Beck's field of vision through the grating. He whispers something in Tron's ear, and a horrible whining sound starts up. Tron grunts in pain, teeth gritted to hold in a scream, and Beck-

Beck.

Sees.

Red.

The grate doesn't come off fast enough, so Beck draws himself up a little and rams it clean off. He dimly remembers to press the button that alerts the beginning of the distraction - Resistance members dragging guards away, breaking into the Arena to free anyone they can, generally causing chaos.

In thirty ticks, the Jolly Tricksters will set off their parcels detailing every sordid thing the Occupation has done in the shadows they've created away from the public. All the lies, the torture, the carefully targeted massacres and rectifications and experiments. Every single little and not-so-little thing, blasted out there for the Grid to see.

Beck lunges for Dyson with a furious roar. He's done being kind.

Being hit with a circular saw to the face really hurts, Beck finds, but he just uses that pain to fuel the punch that snaps Dyson's head back and rattles voxels loose from that fragile chasm a disc once opened. He doesn't let up until he puts that annoying saw through Dyson's chest, wrecking the General's disc in the process, and scrambles to get Tron down.

"I'm here." He murmurs, feeling Tron's head loll onto his shoulder and clumsily pushing energy in Tron's direction. "I'm here. You'll be okay."

The decoy flares on - doubling as a warning from Cyrus, too much longer and there will be explosions as he comes to fetch them - but Beck does his best to ignore it as he patches Tron up. Dyson- Dyson nearly tore him apart. And there's the reinstated energy-sapping virus to contend with.

Rectification takes too long, and Beck doesn't trust himself to be able to intercept in time again. So he braces himself for pain, and syncs his disc to Tron's.

The antiviral defences in his code burn, scorching through him and making him curl around his mentor with a choked-off cry. But they do their job, and by the time Beck can think clearly enough to move the virus is nullified again and disappearing.

Tron will never recover from everything he's been through. There are too many wounds that run too deep. But Beck just wants Tron to live, so he does what he can.

The first explosion shakes the ground - a little early, but Cyrus isn't exactly known for patience - and Beck scoops Tron up to limp towards their ticket home. Tron mumbles pleas for Beck to leave him and run, and Beck pretends he can't hear them.

Their route would be suspiciously clear of guards, but Beck cheats by using his Security clearance to divert them and close doors on them and generally inconvenience them as much as he can. He's in no state to fight right now - not when it'll put Tron in even more danger. So, time to win the beta way, with pranks and misdirection.

More explosions sound, coming closer. Beck lets the rumble wash through him, purring with it to soothe Tron. Cyrus waits in the shadow of a blown-out wall, resting against the body of a commandeered tank, and Beck traipses his way through the rubble to his friend.

"You found him." Cyrus whispers in relief, arms outstretched to help get Tron somewhere with dense armour plating between him and Clu.

"I did." Beck collapses into the gunner seat, aching all over but determined to finish what he started. He swings the barrel round until he spots a flash of distinctive gold, aiming carefully. "Now let's make sure we can go home."

Blue streaks across the battlefield, blinding in its intensity. It connects with its target, scattering gold voxels and dust, and scorching a crater where a throne once stood. Beck grins through gritted teeth, feeling the tank rattle to life and the smaller cannon bolted to the side of it spew fire and grenades with little regard for accuracy to clear a path.

The Uprising had well and truly begun.

Love the idea that Flynn doesn’t even remember half of the programs he’s created.

After all this time, Beck finally gets to meet Kevin Flynn, his creator, through means of Quorra saving him.

And he’s nervous. He’s meeting someone almighty, all-knowing, the one program responsible for the life he’s got, the friends he’s found, and the city he lives in.

He’s in his creator’s hideout, ascending to meet him with the last ISO at his side, who promptly leaves it to alert this god of his arrival.

And as Flynn meets him, and they lock eyes, he can’t help but ask: does his god recognize him? Remember his creation, his function?

He waits for a spark to fire in his creator’s eyes, snapping him into a memory of his creation point. He anticipates a warm greeting, an exclamation of surprise as memories flood through this almighty guardian, swelling him with pride at seeing the program he made making such a difference in the world.

None of it forms. Instead, he looks at him with a pained glance and an awkward frown.

God doesn’t remember you.

Did he ever know you at all?