astroboyfanweek - Tumblr blog

[astroboyfanweek]

i had the best day with you today

"You guys—?" Astro stares around the penthouse kitchen in total disbelief, turning slowly on the spot to try and take in everything at once — colorful streamers draped haphazardly over every available surface, and a paper banner clumsily tacked up over the arched entryway, one side noticeably lower than the other, and a cake on the table, topped with white icing and blue sprinkles and flickering candles, a handful of presents wrapped in bright yellow gift paper beside it. "You guys threw me a birthday party?"

Read on AO3.

Astro knows it's been a year since his fight with the Peacekeeper, because everybody is talking about it again, and the reminders are everywhere he goes — President Logan wants him to make a speech about the whole thing, for crying out loud, and he knows the guy means well, but he really wants to say no, except he's not sure if he can do that politely, and he's not sure if he can do it at all, actually, because this is the president he's talking about, and the last time he said no to the president, he died twice in as many hours, and he'd prefer not to repeat that experience, please and thank you.

On top of that, every reporter in the entire city is trying to corner him for an impromptu interview about the year-old battle, armed with cameras and microphones and notepads, and he doesn't want to be rude to them when he knows they're just doing their job, but he doesn't want to relive that day again, either, so lately he's been taking every backroad and byway he knows to avoid them.

Things aren't much better at school, either, where it's an even fifty-fifty split between the classmates who pepper him with way more invasive, uncomfortable questions about the Peacekeeper than the reporters ever have, and the classmates who never wanted a robot around in the first place, and now they're seething about all the renewed interest in the fight, which means they're being twice as nasty as usual — TJ Porter, the unofficial ringleader of that second group, had a "conversation" with his friends in the school cafeteria yesterday about Astro's "future career" as a worthless pile of rusted, used-up metal in the junkyard.

(Astro tried his hardest to pretend he didn't hear TJ at all, and tried even harder than that to not think about this time last year, when he actually was facing a future as a worthless pile of rusted, used-up scrap metal in the junkyard.)

The HRA just recently published a brand-new and characteristically scathing article about the upcoming anniversary, too, and Astro knows he probably shouldn't have read it, but morbid curiosity can be very persuasive when it wants to be, so he knows exactly what they said about him, and he knows it went like this: A year has gone by since the combat robot known as Astro Boy caused all manner of property damage, supposedly in the name of "helping" the city, and still, the wider community continues to passively accept its presence in our skies and streets, even allowing it to attend public junior high school with our children. When will the proud people of this great nation come to their senses, and realize how deceiving appearances can truly be? This "Astro Boy" is no more a child than your local bank-teller, and it experiences no more emotion than the average vacuum cleaner.

(Astro turned off his phone for the next forty-eight hours after that, and tried not to think about this time last year, when the HRA was publishing articles about him in the immediate aftermath of the Peacekeeper fiasco, saying perhaps the former President Stone was correct in his opinions, if not his execution, of what to do about this blatant misuse of Ministry technology and we must hope that Dr. Tenma intends to eliminate this danger to the public before it can do any further damage to our city.)

Astro knows it's been a year since his fight with the Peacekeeper.

That doesn't mean he wants to think about it.

But the reminders are everywhere he goes, and everyone is talking about it, and everyone wants to hear him talk about it, too, and President Logan wants him to stand up in front of the city and make a whole speech about it, talk about the week when the whole world wanted him dead, and he was all alone and nobody wanted him and he didn't know who he was, and he barely even knew what he was, really, except that he wasn't human and he wasn't Tobi so he wasn't good enough and nobody wanted him and he was all alone and Dr. Elefun had lied when he said there's a place for you, you just have to find it, and he can't stop waking up in the middle of the night with panicked apologies spilling from his lips, saying I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Dad I'm so sorry I'm so sorry Dad please I'm sorry I'm sorry I swear I swear I'll do better I swear I'll do everything right I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry please Dad please don't kill me—

Yeah, Astro knows it's been a year since the Peacekeeper.

How could he forget?

But he's so busy thinking about it, and trying not to, that he actually does forget something else that also happened in the same week — something that isn't the Peacekeeper, something that isn't the ice-cold grief and crushing loneliness of waking up on his own in the junkyard, in a pile of robots that were just as unwanted as him, or the burning fury of the Robot Games, the bone-deep humiliation as Hamegg treated him like a monkey in a circus, the iron-heavy guilt of murdering all those other robots, the choking sorrow of knowing he'd just lost the best and only friends he'd ever had, and the devastation and despair of realizing he was going to die when he'd barely begun to live, the devastation and despair of realizing he had nothing left to live for.

Something else also happened in the same week.

But he's so busy trying not to think about anything from that week he completely forgets all about it.

Everyone else remembers, though.

"You guys—?" Astro stares around the penthouse kitchen in total disbelief, turning slowly on the spot to try and take in everything at once — colorful streamers draped haphazardly over every available surface, and a paper banner clumsily tacked up over the arched entryway, one side noticeably lower than the other, and a cake on the table, topped with white icing and blue sprinkles and flickering candles, a handful of presents wrapped in bright yellow gift paper beside it. "You guys threw me a birthday party?"

He's been so wrapped up in everything, trying to come up with a polite way to decline President Logan's request without accidentally alienating another elected official so soon after the last one, and trying to avoid the overzealous journalists around every corner, and trying not to think about this time last year, trying not to get lost in the memories, crystal-clear like it all happened just yesterday, that he didn't remember or even really know it was his birthday today, but it is, isn't it?

On this day last year, he wasn't waking up on his own in the junkyard — he was waking up in his father's lab at the Ministry of Science in the dead of night, his systems coming online and the cameras behind his eyes pulling the world into sharper and sharper and sharper focus until all the pixels suddenly coalesced together, and he saw his dad and Dr. Elefun for the first time. On this day last year, his artificial lungs were expanding with his first breath, and the synthetic vocal cords in his throat were vibrating with his first words, and the joints in his knees were whirring with his first steps.

On this day last year, he wasn't dying on a cold metal table with his father's grief-stricken apologies still ringing in his ears — he was coming alive.

He can't believe he forgot.

But everyone else remembered, and they're throwing him a whole party for it, even though it's technically an activation day, and not a birthday, and robots don't actually celebrate their activation days, anyway.

He wants to thank them. He wants to tell them they didn't have to do all this just for him, and he wants to tell them he can't believe they did do all this just for him, and he wants to tell them it's totally amazing, and he loves it, and he's sorry he's being so weird about it but as soon as he can wrap his mind around it, he's going to be really, really happy.

But his brain is frozen, and he's not sure he could push everything he wants to say past the lump in his throat, anyway.

"You really don't have to pretend you didn't see this coming, Astro," Cora shakes her head, but she's laughing as she does. "Widget and Sludge gave it away, like, a thousand times all week. It's okay. We know you already knew."

"Everyone expects a surprise party on their birthday, Cora!" Widget counters immediately, with the air of somebody who's already had this argument on several previous occasions. "And if they expect it, then it's not really a surprise! So you've got to make it super-duper clear to them that you are throwing them a party, because then they think it's going to be something totally different, and then it's not! Which means it really is a surprise! And! Look at him! He is very obviously surprised! Check and mate!"

Sludge nods proudly, standing up as tall as he can and puffing out his chest. "It was a double submersion!"

Dr. Elefun chuckles. "That's called a double subversion, Sludge."

"Same difference," Sludge rolls his eyes.

"It's really not," Orrin says.

"I-I didn't even know you guys knew my birthday," Astro stammers, awkward and uncertain, because it's honestly the only thing he can think to say. "Did I tell you, and then just… forget?" Come to think of it, he's not actually sure if that's even possible — with such an advanced artificial intelligence installed in his system, he can easily remember everything that's ever happened to him in precise, pin-sharp detail — but it also sounds exactly like the kind of thing he'd do.

"Oh, no, your dad gave us a heads-up, actually," Widget tells him. "He… what did you call it, Zane? 'Came through in the clutch'?"

Zane gives her a thumbs-up. "You got it."

I didn't know my dad knew my birthday, either, Astro thinks, but he catches himself a second before he actually says it out loud, biting his tongue against the instinctive response. "Oh."

"Yeah, four days ago," Cora huffs, rolling her eyes and folding her arms over her chest. "We had four days to get everything together for this. And your dad totally sucks at parties, by the way, so he was zero help. He was just like—" she pushes her voice down to a much deeper octave, in an obvious imitation of his dad's low, gruff tone, "—oh, yeah, it's Astro's birthday on Sunday, haha, isn't it crazy how time flies! And then he was gone!"

"Guilty as charged," Dad says mildly, without so much as a trace of said guilt in his voice, and a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he's trying his best not to laugh. "I've been persona non grata with everyone since then."

"Anyway," Cora jumps in again, pulling the conversation back on-track, "that's why this isn't as awesome as the birthday party you guys put together for me in February. We just didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted — we'll do something way cooler next year, though, trust me. It'll blow this one right out of the water, you'll see."

Astro can't believe she honestly thinks there could ever be anything better than this — the people he loves more than anything in the world all gathered together in the same room, safe and smiling and happy, and here just for him. He can't believe they did all of this just for him. He can't even begin to imagine what Cora thinks could top this.

"No, no, this is—this is perfect," he chokes out, his vision getting suspiciously blurry all of a sudden, but he's also smiling so wide it's hurting his face. "Seriously, guys, I love this. It's perfect. Thank you so much for doing this for me."

"Of course!" Orrin chirps cheerfully, like it's totally unthinkable that they wouldn't do all this just for him, and he rolls forward a little to wrap Astro in a hug. "We love you! You're such a wonderful person, and a great friend, and we're so excited to celebrate your birthday with oh my god the cake is on fire!"

"What?!"

Everybody immediately abandons their positions to scramble over to the table and stare down at the confection — which is, in fact, very much on fire, a bright orange-gold flame about the size of a grown man's hand dancing wildly atop the buttercream frosting.

"Holy crap!" Zane screeches. "What the heck kinda birthday candles do that?! Birthday candles should not do that!"

"You lit them too early!" Dad turns on him a little too quickly for this to be a brand-new argument. "I told you that we should have waited for him to get here before we lit the candles! Why didn't you just listen to me?!"

"Who cares why it happened?! The cake is on fire!" Cora yells at the pair of them as she dashes over to the sink, fills a glass with water straight from the faucet, and races back to the table with the cup clutched in her hand, clear fluid spilling out the sides and splashing over her fingers. Of course she's already three steps ahead of the rest of them — she always is, even in situations as unexpected as this.

But before she can douse the flame, Orrin throws himself in front of the cake with his arms spread wide in the universal pose of Fearless Action Hero Taking A Bullet For Another Character. "No, no, wait! Don't do that! The cake will get soggy! And then it'll be ruined!"

Cora grinds to a dead halt, the water still swirling violently around inside the glass, and gapes at Orrin like she's never properly seen him before. "Are you being for real?! Are you actually being for real right now?! The cake is on fire!"

"I know, but I worked so hard on it!" Orrin wails miserably. "And it's perfect! Astro is going to love it!"

"I-It's fine, Orrin," Astro rushes to reassure him, but he's way more focused on the miniature bonfire in the center of the table than the cake beneath it. "Seriously, it's totally okay. Let's just—"

"Salt!" Sludge hollers, waving his arms around in the air like a traffic controller. "Salt won't make the cake soggy, and it'll put out the fire, too, right? We can use some salt!"

Poor Orrin looks like he's about to cry. "But that'll ruin it, too!"

"We don't have a whole lot of other options here, Orrin!" Dad barks at him. "We have to take care of that fire now! It's going to get out of control!"

"This is not my fault!" Zane declares, despite the fact that no one is directly accusing him anymore. "You know what? It's your fault!" He jabs an accusatory finger at Tenma. "Yeah! It's your fault for having such crappy birthday candles that they can't even burn for—!"

"The birthday candles were perfectly fine!"

"Then why the heck are they burning so quickly?! Answer me that, Science Man!"

"Because they're birthday candles! They're not supposed to burn for long periods of time! That's why I told you not to light them until Astro actually got here, but—"

"Orrin," Cora seethes, in that dangerous voice she always uses when she's about to explode with sheer rage. "If you don't get out of my way in the next ten seconds, I swear I'm going to—"

"Oh, for the love of God!" Apparently, even Dr. Elefun has lost all patience. "Somebody just blow it out!"

Everyone goes dead silent and statue-still for a long, loaded second, gawking at Dr. Elefun like they've never even considered the concept of blowing out birthday candles before. Honestly, Astro is kind of embarrassed no one else came up with it first.

"…Huh," Zane says finally. "Probably should have thought of that one sooner, yeah."

"No, no, wait! Astro has to do it!" Widget pipes up, as Cora skirts around Orrin and bends down over the cake to follow Dr. Elefun's orders. "It's his birthday! He has to blow out the candles, doesn't he?"

"Guys, I think the fire might be kind of a bigger problem than who blows out the—okay, okay," Astro gives up the fight barely a second later, because Cora has backed off again to clear a path for him, and Sludge is trying to physically haul him over to the table with a hand on his leg, tugging on the excess denim at the knee of his jeans. He quickly steps around Cora and Orrin, leaning in close (somewhere in the background, he hears his dad mutter a quick be careful, son, like he doesn't face off against mad scientists and evil robots and convicted murderers and god only knows what else on a daily basis) to extinguish the fire in a single breath.

The whole group instantly clusters around him to inspect the huge black scorch mark on top of the cake. Poor Orrin looks absolutely devastated.

"I'm sure it still tastes okay," Astro pats him on the shoulder. "We can just cut that piece off, or something. It's really no big deal." He reaches to pull out a couple of the burnt candles — the lingering heat will sting, of course, but not as badly as it would if he had human skin — but he freezes halfway there, because the burnt candles… are not candles, actually. "Uh… Zane… w-why did you use… matchsticks?"

"You did what?" Dad wheels around to fix Zane with the Minister of Science Death Glare that has left lesser men (including Astro) fleeing the room in terror.

"Oh, man, that's what those things were?" Zane pushes past Cora and the twins to get a closer look. "I thought they were just really crappy candles! Sorry, Science Man, that's my bad." He even has the guts to reach up and pat Dad on the back, despite the fact that Tenma looks two seconds away from picking him up and bodily throwing him out of the penthouse.

"How did you even light these?" Astro asks, to defuse the impending argument (and also because, now that he's thinking about it, he actually really wants to know) as he hastily plucks the smoldering sticks out of the cake. "I mean, since you thought the matches were birthday candles…"

Zane puts a hand in the pocket of his shabby brown jacket and pulls it back out again a minute later to show off a silver cigarette lighter. "Duh. How do you think?"

"Oh, my god!" Tenma snatches it straight out of Zane's open palm before anyone else can react. "Why on earth do you have a lighter?! Who gave you a lighter?!"

"Hey!" Zane makes a wild grab for it, but Dad has at least six inches on him, and easily holds it out of his reach. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you guys don't carry them around, too! I mean, you never know when you need to set something on fire, am I right?"

"Um," Dr. Elefun says. "How many times have you needed to set something on fire, exactly?"

There's a suspiciously long second of silence after that, wherein Dad looks like he's having a few dozen heart attacks right there in the middle of the kitchen, and Zane wrinkles his brow in an expression of deep concentration. Astro has a terrible feeling that he's counting the various occasions in his head.

"You know what!" Orrin says, all of a sudden, and very loudly, in an excruciatingly obvious effort to break the tension, and redirect the conversation. "Why don't we have some cake! Who wants cake? Everyone wants cake, right? Everyone loves cake! Can't go wrong with cake!"

"Uh, yeah, let me help you with that," Astro gratefully latches onto the excuse to escape whatever kind of chaos is inevitably going to happen next, hurrying after Orrin into the kitchen proper. He grabs a handful of forks from the cutlery drawer, and pulls down a stack of plates from the cupboard, piling it all together to make it easier to carry before he heads back over to the dining table.

Orrin is already there, patiently removing a few of the matchsticks he missed in his shock over Zane's cigarette lighter, and carefully cutting the blackened section away from the rest with a large knife, while Cora and Zane are arguing vehemently over whether arson can really be considered a hobby or not. Widget and Sludge are arguing even more vehemently about which one of them did a better job of keeping the surprise party under wraps all week, while Tenma and Elefun are talking with their heads together, probably trying to decide how to tell Zane's foster parents that their twelve-year-old charge has a lighter.

(Astro really can't believe Cora thinks there's anything that could be better than this — the people he loves more than anything in the world all gathered together in the same room, even if they're all a little frazzled from the fire, and the cuff of Widget's sleeve looks a bit singed.)

Right at that moment, Dad glances up and locks eyes with Astro, still lingering on the edge of the group with the plates in his hands, and waves him over. Astro quickly deposits the dishes on the table and makes his way over to his dad — who, to his intense surprise, puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close in a kind of side-hug.

Astro thinks about this time last year — waking up on his own in the junkyard, standing in the arena under the blinding sun as the Robot Games raged on and on, realizing he had nothing left to live for, realizing the whole world would be better and happier if he wasn't in it anymore, dying on a cold metal table with his father's grief-stricken apologies still ringing in his ears — and he realizes, with a funny kind of jolt in the pit of his stomach, that his life really could not be any more different now: he's alive, making a tangible positive difference in the city, surrounded by people who love him just as much as he loves them, and he's so happy he feels like he must be overflowing with it.

(He's not alone anymore.)

"I'm sorry about all this," his dad murmurs, pulling him suddenly out of his thoughts. "I know this has gotten off to a… rough start."

Astro thinks about this time last year, and shrugs it off, his mind finally calm for the first time in a week. "That's okay. The best things usually do."

[astroboyfanweek]

Astro boy fanweek day 7 - Birthday | Surprise | Special

You're no human, yet you're so much more human than me.

I crafted your heart, yet you made it so much better than mine...

-

And here's my final piece for the week. Thank you so much @boyrobott for organizing this event!! I had so much fun doing my pieces and it was awesome to see everyone else's! <3

[astroboyfanweek]

April 6: Opportunity

The siblings give Oppy a good scrub and a fix up!

[astroboyfanweek]

until the sirens sound

Astro decides to warn the townspeople about the earthquake in True's place. Unfortunately, they're not willing to listen to him, either.

Read on AO3.

Astro knows something is wrong from the moment that True bursts out of the seismology lab, panic written plain on his face and the big glass doors swinging wildly behind him — and it must be something really awful, to make him look so frantic — but as soon as the word earthquake leaves his lips, everyone else rolls their eyes, scoffing at him and folding their arms over their chests, muttering mutinously under their breath about that lying robot, and who does he think he's fooling, anyway? And Astro can't exactly blame them for being angry after what happened last time, and he certainly can't blame them for being a more than a little skeptical about the whole thing now, but the complete nonreaction settles like a block of solid ice in the pit of his stomach all the same, cold and hard and heavy, his skin prickling all over with a sickening swell of sudden dread.

Because True can't tell lies anymore.

Dr. Domoto made absolutely sure of that.

So that means there really is an earthquake headed straight for the town right now, at this exact second, and no one knows about it yet. No one knows how much danger they're in. No one knows they need to get out of here. No one knows they need to leave. No one knows they could die if they stay here. Somebody has to tell them about the earthquake. Somebody has to tell them to evacuate. Somebody has to get to the town, and tell them to get out before it's too late.

"I need to speak to the townspeople about this," True says, like he's reading Astro's mind. "Please take care of Miss Kozue until I get back, Astro. Make sure she gets somewhere safe, okay? Can you do that for me?"

But no one, Astro realizes, with a sharp shock of absolute, ice-cold certainty, washing over him like freezing water and chilling him to the bone, is going to believe it when True tells them.

No one is going to believe anything True tells them ever again.

And all because of one single mistake.

Like that storybook they just read in school last week, where the boy told everyone a wolf had gotten into the sheep pen even though it hadn't, really, and then, when the wolf actually did show up in the sheep pen at the end of the book, nobody believed the boy when he told them, because he had lied about it earlier, so nobody came to help him, and the wolf ate him up in one big gulp.

Nobody is going to believe True about the earthquake now, because he lied about it earlier. Nobody is going to listen when True tells them to evacuate, so the earthquake is going to catch them all by complete surprise. The earthquake — a horrible shudder runs down Astro's spine just to think it — is going to kill them all.

Astro thinks about the little boy in that storybook, all alone in that sheep pen with the hungry wolf, and his heart twists inward on itself with a sharp and sudden pang of pity, because it really isn't True's fault, is it? As horrible as this is, he can't pin the blame on the poor robot in front of him and be done with it, because True didn't know he was doing anything wrong — from the moment he was made, he was programmed to tell lies, his whole entire being built around the singular command of dishonesty, and how on earth can a robot go against such a central component of themselves like that?

Astro thinks about the little boy in that storybook, all alone in the sheep pen with the hungry wolf, and he wants to cry for True, and all the misplaced fury he'll face when this is over.

Astro thinks about the little boy in that storybook, all alone in the sheep pen with the hungry wolf — and he decides, in a sudden burst of iron-hard resolution, that this story is not going to end like that.

"No," he says, loud and clear, and firmer than he's ever been in his life — somewhere in the very corner of his vision, he can see his classmates, and Mr. Ban, too, as they stare at him with wide eyes and gaping mouths, but he doesn't look at anyone but True. "No, you're going to make sure Kozue and the others get somewhere safe. And I'm going to warn the town."

"What?" True grinds to a halt mere moments before liftoff, his pointy ears already pulling down around his head like a helmet, and his silver propellor peeking out the top of his scalp. "No, Astro, I can handle the town! I just need you to—"

"They're not going to listen to you," Astro cuts him off, blunt and rude, but he'll have to apologize for it later. "They're angry enough already about what happened earlier, and if you show up talking about another earthquake right now, they're going to think you're lying to them again."

"I didn't do it on purpose!" True blurts out, guilt bleeding through his voice like black ink on a white page. "I-I didn't mean to cause so much trouble for everyone, honest! I'm sorry!"

Astro swallows hard around another stab of sympathy. "I know. I know you didn't. And Dr. Domoto knows you didn't, too. And we'll have plenty of time explain it to everyone else as soon as the town has evacuated, all right? But right now, they aren't going to listen if you try to warn them about the earthquake — and they could die if they don't take this seriously."

True bites his lip, casting an anxious glance at the clear blue sky overhead like he can see the impending disaster swirling in the nonexistent clouds, but he finally nods, and takes a step back. "Go, then. I'll look after your friends for you."

Astro lingers just long enough to give True a quick, grateful smile before he turns away and takes off at a dead run, boots thumping heavily against the ink-black asphalt below with every step. He powers up his rockets and throws himself into the air as soon as he has the momentum for it — they're just barely outside the town proper right now, and it wouldn't take him too long to walk, but in a situation like this, every last second counts, and he isn't going to waste a single one.

"Earthquake!" he hollers, as soon as he touches down in the middle of the empty road, his vocal cords straining under the sheer volume of the shout. "Earthquake! Earthquake! There's a severe earthquake coming this way! Everyone needs to evacuate immediately! Everyone needs to evacuate! Earthquake!"

There's a long moment of ringing silence, no noise except the faint echoes of his own frantic warnings coming back to him… and then, all around him, people begin pouring out of their houses in waves and floods, crowding into the street and staring around with wide eyes, their faces pale and pinched.

"There's a severe earthquake coming this way!" Astro says, again, mostly to make sure they understand the situation, and pull them out of their shock, because no one has moved an inch since they stumbled out here. "You have to leave! Everyone needs to leave! Everyone needs to evacuate immediately!"

"Hey!" One man finally breaks off from the others, stomping toward Astro with a look of burning fury on his face. "You're that robot! The one who lied to us!"

"What?" Astro instinctively backs away from him, nearly tripping over his own boots, but he's getting that block of solid ice in the pit of his stomach feeling again — just yesterday, he had been laughing with True about how alike they looked: the same round shape to their faces, the same shade of dark brown in their eyes, the same spiked-up style to their hair, but it had never even crossed his mind that anybody could possibly mistake them for each other. "No! No, that wasn't me! That was a different robot — and he didn't mean to lie, either! It wasn't his fault! He was just—!"

Something hard and heavy suddenly slams into the side of his head, with a deafening clang of metal on metal, and a faint glint of silver, and so much sheer force that all the breath leaves his lungs in a big rush of air. A sharp pain explodes in his skull, almost startling in its intensity — he hasn't taken such a bad blow in a long time, maybe not since his last fight with Atlas — and his legs instantly give out on him. He collapses down onto the bumpy, uneven ground beneath his boots, blinking away the little white stars clouding up his vision, and trying to figure out what on earth could have happened.

Did somebody seriously just hit him?

"You're not going to fool us again, robot!" Another man barks, his mouth twisted up in an ugly sneer — and an actual lead pipe in his hands. He just struck Astro on the head with a lead pipe. Where did he even get a lead pipe? "We're not falling for it this time!"

Astro drags in a ragged gasp, shaking his head even though it hurts. "I-I'm not trying to fool anyone! I'm not even the same robot! There really is an earthquake coming, and you need to leave!"

"I say we teach this lying little robot a lesson!" The man hollers to the rest of the crowd, and jabs the pipe into his chest this time, so hard that an agonized cry tumbles from his mouth, and he curls up to protect his torso on blind reflex. "Teach it to stop running that damn mouth all the time!"

"Yeah! Let's shut this thing up!"

"We'll give it something to really scream about!"

This situation is spiraling completely out of control so quickly and so thoroughly that Astro can barely keep up with it, but he can tell he needs to leave — he needs to get back on his feet and get out of here before that man hits him again, because another strike like that could seriously mess up his circuitry, leave him too damaged to help in the upcoming evacuation. But he can't just go off and leave these people to the mercy of the earthquake, either. He can't leave them until they understand the depth of the danger they're in.

If he can just get high enough that they can't reach him, then he can explain everything from a safe distance, and maybe they'll listen to him, and no one will have to get hurt. But when he tries to activate his rockets, pushing a quick blast of energy toward the propulsion system, nothing happens except a faint sputter, and a pitiful little flicker of flame, before the power just bounces right back again, redirecting itself to his pounding head and aching chest.

The bottom of his stomach drops out.

He doesn't have enough energy to fire up his rockets.

He doesn't have enough energy to get out of here.

Somebody lands a blow on his back, then, with something just as hard and heavy as the lead pipe, and the sudden eruption of pain drags a scream from his mouth. He crumples back down onto the unyielding concrete, his throat raw. Somebody else hits him in the stomach so hard he reflexively gags, though he knows very well he isn't physically capable of being sick.

"J-Just listen to me!" he chokes out, trying to push himself up on his palms and push everyone away with a touch of superstrength, but he doesn't have enough energy for that, either. "Please listen to me! The earthquake will begin any minute now! You have to leave! It's not safe for you here!"

"Shut up!" The lead pipe crashes against his head again. "Shut up! Stop lying!"

"The earthquake!" Astro cries out, even as a tire iron cracks against his ball-jointed shoulder, because he knows he can make them all understand if he just tries hard enough. "The earthquake! You have to leave before the earthquake hits!"

The blows begin to rain down on him like a hurricane now, one right after the other, and so quickly he can't catch his breath in between them — his stomach, his head, his leg, his shoulder, his ribcage, his back, his head, his arm — until he tries, instinctively, to curl up in a ball again just to avoid further strikes. They don't let him do that, though — the man with the tire iron stomps on his ankle, and another man brings down a hammer on his kneecap, and there's a horrible bang and a burst of agony and he's screaming so loudly he's hurting his own ears but he just can't stop and he can't move his leg anymore and it hurts so bad he can't breathe.

His vision is beginning to flicker, blue sky and grey pavement and moving people fading in and out and in and out and in and out, like a radio that hasn't been tuned right, and cold fear claws painfully up the back of his throat, his breath barely more than a rough panicky rasp in his chest. He can't see anything except the hazy outlines of the humans above him, and a few faint smudges of color here and there. And then he can't see anything except the hazy outlines of the humans above him. And then he can't see anything at all.

He can't see anything at all.

He can't see anything.

He can't see.

"The earthquake…" he says, but his voice is giving out on him, too — glitching out into crackly, buzzing static every few seconds, and he's choking too bad over the pain and the panic to be coherent, anyway. "You have to leave… the earthquake…" his insides are scorching hot, a volcano full of molten lava — his engine must be overheating — and the background whirr of his inner machinery is steadily getting quieter and quieter as his system slowly gives up under the unrelenting onslaught. "You have to get out of here… an earthquake is coming this way…"

[astroboyfanweek]

Astro boy fanweek day 6 - Innocence | Responsibility | Lie

No, you're wrong! Mr. Skunk is my friend!

[astroboyfanweek]

April 5: Peaceful

Don't worry guys, he's just sleeping!.... probably...?

Redraw of this panel bc the last redraw I did was really fun and the other thing I had for this prompt just wasn't working.

[astroboyfanweek]

everybody's got a little glory

"I don't know how to play poker," Astro says.

Read on AO3.

"I don't know how to play poker," Astro says.

Everyone else turns their heads to look at him and he realizes, with the sudden burn of a flush in his cheeks, that he probably should have spoken up about this before they settled in their usual seats around the rickety kitchen table, and Hamegg dealt out the cards. Actually, now that he thinks about it, he probably should just go ahead and excuse himself from the game right off the bat, since he honestly doesn't know how to play, but he's not totally sure he can do that and not come off as rude to everyone else — and he doesn't want to miss out on an opportunity to spend more time with his new friends, anyway.

"I'll just sit out and watch for the first round!" he adds, quickly, before they feel like they have to pause everything just to explain the rules to him, or something. They've been so wonderful to him over the past few days, welcoming him right into their family and their home like he belongs here just as much as they do, and he doesn't want to be even more of an inconvenience than he knows he must be already. "If I watch what you guys do, I can figure out how to play from there. And then I'll join in the next game."

There's a second of silence, and then Hamegg chuckles. "Aw, jeez, kid, there's no need for all that. Why don't you and I just play as a team for the first couple of rounds 'til you find your legs? I'll explain everything as we go, don't worry."

"R-Really?" Astro reflexively sits up a little straighter in his chair at the offer, a tentative smile taking over his face even as he tries to suppress it. He really wouldn't mind if he has to sit out a game or two, honestly, and he's sure he can pick up on the basics through observation, but the way Hamegg says why don't you and I just play as a team and I'll explain everything as we go—

It reminds him of something a father would do with his son.

Astro pushes the thought away before it can settle too deep in his brain, and leaves his chair in favor of the one right next to Hamegg at the head of the table — Sam happily swaps seats with him for the low cost of another one of his pizza slices at dinner tomorrow night. As soon as everyone else has turned their attention back to their cards, shuffling them around in their hands and fanning them out to get a good look at them, Astro leans in close, dropping his voice to a low murmur, and says, "Thank you, Hamegg. This is really nice of you."

"Nah, don't sweat it," Hamegg waves him off with a flick of his hand. "You're part of the family, son. And family helps each other out."

Astro can't swallow around the sudden lump in his throat.

"All right, let's get started," Hamegg breezes on, throwing an arm casually around Astro's shoulders and holding his cards out in front of them, so they can both easily see the hand. He lets out a low whistle of apparent approval. "Now, how about that, kiddo? See, you're giving me good luck already."

Astro blinks blankly at the jumble of clubs, hearts, and diamonds staring back at him — and he knows there's really no such thing as luck, good or bad, and Hamegg is just making it up to be nice, but a warm, golden spark of shining happiness flickers to life in his chest, anyway. "I-I am?"

"Heck, yeah, you are. Look at this, we've got—" Hamegg pauses, right there in the middle, to throw a playfully suspicious glance at the others, and then pointedly drops his voice down to a dramatic whisper, so silly and exaggerated that Astro laughs, "—three kings right here, and an ace high! And we haven't even gotten to the trade-off yet."

"…I have no idea what any of that means," Astro whispers back, after a long, silent minute of trying to figure it out, with absolutely no success. He slowly lets himself sink into the warmth of Hamegg's side, smiling wide as he looks around the table at all of his new friends — his family. They're his family. Hamegg said he was part of the family. Hamegg called him son. "But it sounds good to me."

[astroboyfanweek]

Astro boy fanweek day 5 - Peaceful | Novice | Golden

You were why we kept going, Reno... a golden little sun shining over us.

[astroboyfanweek]

April 4: Old-fashioned

A certified classic fella!

[astroboyfanweek]

i saw the future unfold in silver and gold

Professor Ochanomizu has some things to discuss with Dr. Tenma.

Read on AO3.

Dr. Tenma,

I'm so sorry you have to hear this news through a letter, but I can't seem to get in contact with you over the phone, and you weren't home when I dropped in last week. The press is expecting a public announcement from me any day now regarding this situation, and I don't believe it's right or fair for you to have to find out about this in such an impersonal way, so I suppose this will have to do.

Your robot son, Tobio, recently reemerged after nearly a year of absence, and I'm pleased to say that he is healthy, safe, and well-adjusted — remarkably so, in fact, considering his circumstances. He was in the United States, working as a performer for a popular American circus, but he wished to quit his role there, so I have taken him back to Japan with me instead, and I intend to ensure he has a proper childhood from now on. His upbringing so far has been… unorthodox, to say the absolute least.

However, we are still debating the subject of the boy's permanent placement. Until more suitable arrangements can be made, I have been acting as temporary guardian for him, and while I'm more than willing to continue fostering him indefinitely, I understand that you, as his father, have the strongest potential claim to him if you wish to exercise your parental rights, and I will not contest it if you choose to do this. My only wish is to see the boy receive the stable, loving home he deserves.

You should also know, to avoid any possible confusion in the future, that your son has decided to change his name to "Astro", and is no longer comfortable with any references to his previous name. Please keep this in mind should you choose to pay him a visit.

All the best,

Ochanomizu Hiroshi

Dr. Tenma,

I'm sorry to disturb you again so soon. I understand all of this must be quite surprising for you, and I certainly do not wish to overwhelm you, but as you haven't come forward to seize custody of your son just yet, he remains in my care for the foreseeable future. Of course, I'm perfectly happy to bear the bulk of parental responsibilities for as long as I must, but it has come to my attention that Astro needs further education than the few years he has received so far, and I do not believe it would be just to exclude you from the decision when you have such an important role in his life.

With the recent declarations of fundamental rights and liberties for robots all over the country, I've been considering the possibility of enrolling Astro in the local primary school, but he tells me that you tutored him privately within your own home for the majority of his life until the circus picked him up. It is my personal impression that he would flourish in a more social environment (he is an extremely extroverted child, as I'm sure you already know) but if you wish for him to receive a more independent form of education, I'm certain we can reach a healthy compromise that suits his temperament.

Please do try and respond to me as soon as you can. The window for enrollment is closing soon, and I will not allow the boy to miss yet another year of schooling.

All the best,

Ochanomizu Hiroshi

Dr. Tenma,

I suppose I'm beginning to sound a bit like a broken record at this point, and I do apologize for that, but as you have still not returned any of my calls or responded to my previous letters, I would simply like to remind you that your son is still residing in my home at the current moment, and you have given me no indication whether you would like to reclaim custody over him or not.

I understand this must be quite difficult for you to process, and it is absolutely not my intention to force you into a decision you aren't ready to make. However, now that Astro is attending primary school, and interacting with his peers on a more regular basis, he has been having some trouble understanding why the other children have a mother and a father to care for them and love them while he has no parents at all. It breaks my heart to see him like this. The boy is hurting, and I cannot help him. I cannot give him what he needs. I suppose it was only the foolish fancy of an old man to ever believe that I could.

The child needs his parents, Umataro. The child needs you. Please don't let him down.

Hiroshi

Dr. Tenma,

Well, your silence is certainly speaking for itself, and I suppose that was your intention all along. Perhaps I was an old fool, believing I could convince you to reconnect with your son when the two of you have been separated far longer than you haven't. I can see you have no interest in any further contact with him, and you clearly won't be changing your mind on this anytime soon. I assure you, I won't trouble you on this matter again.

But I don't think you fully understand what you're giving up. Astro is a truly wonderful, wonderful boy — he's kind and gentle, and always so eager to lend a hand. No matter the situation, he always drops everything to rush to the rescue when the city calls on him, and he is so genuinely happy to help. He has the most selfless soul I've ever seen. He's strong, and brave, and so bright. I couldn't be any prouder of him than if he was my own son. He is the greatest gift that life has ever given me, and every day, I thank heaven for the privilege to know him as I do. I never could have imagined such a blessing as his presence in my home.

He will be going away from me very soon. He will have a proper family from now on, with two parents, just like the other children, and he will have no further need of me. Nonetheless, I cherish every moment I have spent with him, and I wouldn't change a thing. I am saddened for you, that you will never know this incredible boy you created.

I see so much of you in him.

All the best,

Ochanomizu Hiroshi

[astroboyfanweek]

Astro boy fanweek day 4, alt prompts - Nervous | Old-fashioned

He's the most advanced robot our steam technology has ever crafted... we present you Astro Boy!

[astroboyfanweek]

AB Fanweek Day 3!

Lonely / Different / Starlight

Hopefully not too dark to see, although it is dark on purpose… Pluto has always been a very lonely robot to me. His whole purpose in every version is to destroy others like him. (Also, it’s a bit cruel to make him so large, right? He literally doesn’t fit in anywhere 💀)

didn’t have the time to go crazy today (real life kept me busy, boooo) but I still wanted to make something and not miss a day! Been loving everyone’s creations this week, so keep ‘em coming >:3

[astroboyfanweek]

April 3: Starlight

When your cool sparkly friend pops round for a visit.

Who's late again? I'm late again...

[astroboyfanweek]

everybody says they love me (but i'm still brokenhearted)

It's been six days now since Astro fell to the Surface, and there is something wrong with him.

Read on AO3.

It's been six days now since Astro fell to the Surface, and there is something wrong with him.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, there are a whole lot of things wrong with him, and it's probably more than enough to fill up an entire book at this point — or, at the absolute least, make for a pretty long list. And it begins with the fact that he's a robot — a real actual robot, like those guys calling themselves the RRF, or the millions on millions of old, outdated machines in the junkyard, or the new zeronium automations rolling off the factory line in the Ministry of Science this month — and he knows it's true, he knows it's real, he saw the wires and circuits under his skin with his own eyes, he saw the Core spinning slow and steady in his chest, crackling with electricity and burning blue, but he just can't get his head around it.

Every night, he lays awake long after everyone else has already gone to sleep, his eyes wide open in the dark, staring up at the splintered wooden bottom of Zane's bunk, right above his own, and he tries to figure out exactly where Tobi ends, and where Astro begins. Every night, he lays awake long after everyone else has already gone to sleep, and he tries to figure out if all these feelings swirling around inside him — the grief heavy and cold in the pit of his stomach, and the hope a tiny, tentative flicker of light in the center of his chest — are really his feelings at all, or just lines on lines on lines of code written into his brain by the man who made him, and then threw him away like he was garbage.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he was just a robot.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he was just your ordinary, average, run-of-the-mill factory-made machine. Maybe that would be okay. Maybe he could get his head around that. Maybe he could figure out what to do with that.

But that's not what he is.

He's the mechanical replica of a dead boy. He's a copy of a corpse. He's a clone, a faint echo of somebody long gone, a pale and empty and imperfect imitation that isn't even supposed to exist, and no one wants him, and he looks in the mirror, and a face that isn't his looks back at him — Tobi's brown eyes, and Tobi's round cheeks, and Tobi's spiked-up black hair, and Tobi's nose, and Tobi's ears, and Tobi's mouth, and Tobi's voice coming out of that mouth, and Tobi's favorite blue jacket on his shoulders and Tobi's favorite red boots on his feet, and this face isn't his and this body isn't his and these clothes aren't his and this brain isn't his and these memories of a whole entire life before last week aren't his and these feelings aren't his and everything he's ever had and everything he's ever said and everything he's ever thought and everything he's ever felt isn't his,because he's not even a real person!

The one and only thing he can truly call his own is his new name.

And he's spent the last six days down on the Surface below Metro City, trying to pass himself off as a Totally Normal Human Boy With Absolutely No Inexplicably Robotic Attributes Whatsoever. No, siree, just your average, ordinary, unremarkable preteen kid over here!

But here's the really crazy thing: It's working.

Astro can barely believe it, but no one has asked him any probing or uncomfortable questions, or even spared him a second look, since the night he showed up here, trailing behind Cora and Zane with his heart in his throat and his stomach tied up in knots, and nervously stammering out flimsy half-truths about his parents and his past, praying no one would dig any deeper, and so sure that he was doing it all wrong, that his posture was too stiff and too tense, that his facial expressions were shifting too fast and too smoothly until they all blended into each other in the most glaringly and unnaturally inhuman way possible, and what if he forgot to blink as much as everyone else? what if he forgot to breathe as much as everyone else? what if the truth was written all over him somewhere that he couldn't see — on his forehead, or on his back, maybe, spelled out in big bold letters saying this isn't a real person, this isn't a real person, this isn't a real person, don't let him fool you, he's a fake, he's faking, he's not a real person, he looks like he's a real person, but he's not, he's a fake, he's a fake, he's a fake!

But it's been six days now, and nobody has said anything about it.

Not even yesterday, when they were cleaning up ZOG for the Robot Games (which Astro still isn't totally sure he understands, but when he tried to ask them about it again, Zane shrugged it off and said it's a Surface thing, dude, so that probably means he'll just have to see it for himself before he really gets it) and Cora slipped off the robot's gleaming bronze shoulder, the bottoms of her shoes slick with soapy water, and he had to fire up his rocket boots to catch her before she hit the ground (because what on earth was he supposed to do in that situation, anyway? just let her fall?) she didn't call him out on it, and nobody else did, either.

And that must mean nobody saw it.

Look, he knows he can't keep this up forever, okay? He knows he has to tell them the truth sooner or later, and he knows it's better to just face the music, just get it over with, and more than anything, he knows they deserve it — after everything they've done for him, the way they welcomed him into their home and their family and their lives with open arms and no reservations, treating him just the same as every other kid around here even though they only met him last week.

They deserve to know what he really is.

And they deserve to hear it directly from him.

Seriously, what does he even have to be afraid of? Hamegg said himself that he loves robots, after all, and it's not like the other kids have any problems with them, either — they were so excited to meet ZOG just a few days ago when Astro got him back online, rushing right over to the giant without so much as a minute of hesitation, and they definitely dote on Trash Can every chance they get, petting him and praising him and spoiling him with treats of all kinds — so it's not like they're going to do a complete one-eighty and decide they hate him specifically for being one, right? Sure, he's not exactly as cool and awesome and crazy-strong as ZOG, and he's obviously not cute and charming and lovable like Trash Can, but there must be something in him they like, right? There must be some reason they let him come home with them that day in the junkyard, right? There must be some reason they didn't just walk away and leave him to fend for himself in the scrap heaps, right? There must be some reason they like him, right? There has to be something they like about him. There has to be something, and if it was enough to convince them to let him into their weird, wonderful family, it must be enough for them to like him even though he's a robot.

Right?

He really shouldn't be so nervous about this.

He really shouldn't be so afraid.

But it's been six days now since he fell to the Surface, and there is something wrong with him.

His whole body has been aching like one big bruise all day long, a dull but constant pulse of pain spreading out and out and out like ripples on a pond until every last inch of him hurts. His arms and legs feel oddly stiff, and sore, almost swollen at the joints in his knees and elbows, and when he tries to bend his limbs, or stand up, or turn his head, he—

—he creaks.

Like the rusted metal hinge on Tobi's locker door at school as it swings open. Like an old wooden floorboard when it takes on too much weight. Like a couple of steel gears grinding roughly together. Like a failing engine in a broken-down hovercar. Like a window that hasn't been opened in a while. Like the millions on millions of old, outdated machines in the junkyard. Like a robot.

And it's so excruciatingly, piercingly loud that the other kids can actually hear it, too, looking around the room with baffled frowns on their faces for a second or two before they shake their heads, shrug it off, say it must be ZOG, or Trash Can, or some new project that Hamegg is working on down in his shop, and Astro knows he really shouldn't be so nervous about this, he knows he really shouldn't be so afraid, but every time he moves, and that godawful screeching, scraping noise rings out, he holds his breath and he waits for them to work out the truth, his hands trembling in his lap and all the air in his lungs turning rapidly to ice.

He really shouldn't be so nervous about this.

He really shouldn't be so afraid.

But his secret is closer to the surface than it's ever been before, and he is so, so terrified.

That night, he lays awake long after everyone else has already gone to sleep, his eyes wide open in the dark, staring up at the splintered bottom of Zane's bunk, right above his own, and he tries not to move around too much, because it hurts, and he tries to figure out what on earth could be wrong with him.

"I-I don't know what's going on," he whispers, finally, to Trash Can — who has apparently decided he doesn't actually mind Astro all that much, because the minute they started shutting off the lights and crawling under the covers, he trotted over to Astro's bunk and curled up at the foot of the bed with a contented little whirr. "I don't know what's going on with me, Trash Can. If I can't fix it…"

Trash Can yawns so wide that his mechanical jaw pops, and gives a single, drowsy beep in response. Boy needs oil.

Astro goes dead still beneath his patched blanket, breath catching somewhere in the back of his throat. He didn't hear that right. There is no way he heard that right. There is no way he actually heard that right. "W-What did you just say?"

Boy needs oil, Trash Can repeats, slower and sleepier this time. Robots creak when oil is low. Boy creaks because oil is low.

"What?" Astro says, reflexively, even as all the air rushes from his chest in a heavy, shuddering gasp, and his whole body goes cold as ice — of course he knows that robots need oil, because Orrin's body used to groan like this whenever he was due for a refill, and ZOG drank almost two entire gallons of the stuff earlier today, and Trash Can will lap it straight from his dog bowl in the corner of the kitchen with his tiny, metallic tongue, but he's never actually connected any of that to himself, because he's not like that.

…Is he?

Boy is robot, Trash Can chirps unhelpfully, like he really thinks Astro needs the reminder right now. Robots need oil. Boy needs oil.

Astro shakes his head, and he doesn't even care about the horrible noise it makes anymore. "But I'm not—I'm not like—" he swallows, a little too hard, the word burning a hole right through the inside of his mouth until he has to shift gears in the middle of his sentence, "—that."

Trash Can whines in confusion, lifting his head an inch or two off the lumpy, torn-up mattress. Hasn't boy ever needed oil before?

"…I don't think so?"

There's a long stretch of silence then, and Astro is just beginning to think the dog must have fallen asleep, or gotten bored of him, or something, when another shrill beep rings out from the foot of the bed. How old is boy?

"Uh…" He frowns, and plucks at a loose, fraying thread on the edge of his blanket as he thinks it through, careful not to put too much strength into the motion so he doesn't accidentally unravel the whole thing. "I-I don't know. No one told me. It's been about a week since I woke up in the lab, though, and I think that was my first day."

Oh, Trash Can says, like everything makes perfect sense now, and he sits up a little, ears perked. Why didn't boy say so before? Boy is baby!

"What?!" Astro isn't actually sure if it's physically possible for him to blush, but a rush of heat definitely floods his face. "No! I'm eleven years old! Th-That's, like, practically a teenager!"

Babies are small, Trash Can chirps at him, with an air of absolute authority. Babies don't know anything. Everything is new to babies. And boy is small. And boy doesn't know anything. And everything is new to boy. Boy is baby.

And then the dog curls up at the foot of the bed again, paws tucked under his chin and eyes squeezed shut, like the matter is settled.

Astro scowls at him for a second or two — just because he's only been alive for seven days total doesn't make him a baby! — but he's got way bigger problems on his plate right now than his age, and everything it apparently means in Robot Years, or whatever. (Or… maybe it's just Robot Dog Years? Are Robot Dog Years different from Regular Dog Years? Maybe he should ask Hamegg.) He doesn't want a refill of oil to be the solution to his creaking body and aching joints — which is really kind of stupid, actually, because a refill of oil is just about the simplest, easiest fix in the world, and he could go ahead and take care of it now, while everyone else is fast asleep and no one will ever know and no one will ever find out — but it's not like he's got any better ideas.

"Do you…" he nudges the dog lightly in the side to get his attention again. "Do you really think it will help me? Oil, I mean?"

Trash Can lets out a sleepy, affirmative beep. Robots need oil. All robots need oil. Even baby robots.

Astro pointedly ignores the jab. "Right… yeah… um… Hamegg has some in his shop, doesn't he?"

Man has oil, Trash Can nods. Man has lots and lots of oil. Man will give oil. Ask man to give oil.

Astro doesn't know why he didn't expect that, but he really didn't expect that, and it sends a sharp, awful jolt straight to the pit of his queasy stomach just to hear it. "No! I-I can't do that!"

Trash Can sits up again, cocking his head to the side in confusion. Man gives oil. Trash Can asks, and man gives. Man gives oil to all robots. Boy is robot. Man will give if boy asks.

And Astro is sure he's right, sure that Hamegg wouldn't withhold a basic necessity like that from any robot who asks (even if they have spent the past six days lying to him) but his insides still feel like a writhing, hissing nest of angry vipers when he thinks about it. "No, Trash Can, I… I can't. I just can't." He tries to swallow, but there's a hard block at the back of his throat, and it won't let him. "I-I don't want him to find out like that." I don't want him to find out ever, but he pushes the thought away, shoves it to the back of his mind and locks it up tight, because that's bad, and wrong, and not fair to the man who has treated him as nothing less than his own flesh-and-blood son ever since he stepped through the door.

Trash Can considers this for a long, silent minute, his bright blue eyes glowing faintly in the dark and his tiny ears flicking back and forth, before he finally lets out another, more authoritative chirp. Trash Can knows where oil is. Trash Can take you to oil.

Before he can say anything to that, the dog jumps off the bed, and scampers out of the room — through the raggedy, rust-red curtain that divides the bedroom from the rest of the house, through the empty, darkened living room, up the stairs, around the corner, and right through the automatic door that slides open with a big whoosh as soon as it senses the weight and motion of living people in front of it.

And then, just like that, they're in Hamegg's workshop.

Even as Astro follows Trash Can over the threshold and toward the big plastic crate in the corner chock-full of tin cans, his stomach is tight with guilt, and he feels filthy all over. He shouldn't be doing this. He really should not be doing this. He should just wait until tomorrow, when he can tell Hamegg the truth, and ask him for some oil face-to-face. He should just go back to bed and come clean to everyone in the morning. He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't be using them like this. He shouldn't be using Hamegg like this. Hamegg trusts him, and here he is, sneaking around in the middle of the night and stealing from him.

This is no way to repay the people who took him in when no one else wanted him.

But he takes a seat on the rusted windowsill anyway, the metal cold as ice through the thin cotton of the flannel-patterned pajama pants Zane loaned him when he found out Astro didn't have any clothes except his jeans and jacket, and he pulls a can of oil out of the crate below, automatically popping up the spout just like he saw ZOG do earlier.

And then he realizes, abruptly, that he actually has no idea what on earth he's supposed to do next. Robots usually ingest it through the mouth, he knows that, because that's what ZOG did, and Trash Can, too… but… that can't be what he has to do, is it? But he really can't think of anything else to do but drink it — maybe he could open up the energy chamber in his chest and pour it in through there, but that doesn't sound exactly right, and he really doesn't want to find out the hard way that it doesn't work. What if it gums up his gears? What if it hurts the Core? What if it makes him malfunction? What if it kills him?

"Uh…" he glances uncertainly between the thick, sludgy, thoroughly unappetizing black liquid swirling around in the canister and the dog curled up comfortably beneath the window. "So… I just… drink it, then? I guess?"

Trash Can gives a high-pitched little warble of amusement — if boy is not baby, shouldn't boy know what to do with oil? — and then a quick trill of confirmation: Silly boy. All robots drink oil.

"Oh," Astro says, with absolutely no enthusiasm. "Great. That's… so great. This is great." He allows himself one last apprehensive look at the dark fluid before he finally lifts the can up to his lips, cold tin clinking lightly against his teeth, and takes the tiniest possible sip.

It tastes exactly like what it is: motor oil.

And it tastes… good.

Before he even knows what he's doing, he's already taken another swallow, bigger than the first, and then he goes in for another one, drinking it down so quickly he actually kind of forgets to breathe in between sips, and the can is more than half-empty by the time he finally pauses to drag in a gulp of air instead, though he knows rationally that his artificial lungs don't really need the oxygen at all. He takes a second to wipe his mouth before he finishes off the rest of it, and when he pulls his hand away, the pale skin is stained a sleek, glossy black, glistening faintly in the starlight pouring in on him through the open window.

He doesn't know why it hits him right then. He doesn't know why it hits him so powerfully, and so painfully, but the longer he looks at that dark, gleaming streak on the back of his hand, the deeper and deeper it begins to sink in: he just drank almost an entire can of oil in one go, and he liked it.

Because he's a robot.

Like those guys calling themselves the RRF, like the millions on millions of old, outdated machines in the junkyard, like the new zeronium automations rolling off the factory line in the Ministry of Science this month, like Orrin, like ZOG, like Trash Can. His stomach twists, clenching up like a closed fist — tighter and tighter the longer he thinks about it — until there's a horrible second where he really thinks the oil is going to come right back up again, and he's going to vomit all over the floor of poor Hamegg's workshop in the middle of the night. And then he remembers that he won't, he can't, and he already knew that, of course he knew that, but the reminder still slams into him like a speeding train, smacking him off-kilter and knocking all the breath clean out of him in a single blow.

I don't want to be a robot, Astro realizes, with a clarity so sharp it stings. I don't want to be a robot. I don't want to be a robot. And he definitely doesn't want to be a robot like this — a clockwork clone of another kid who died months ago, a messed-up mimicry of a human with wires instead of veins, iron instead of bones, coolant instead of blood, and a star where his heart should be. He doesn't want to live like this — sneaking out in the dead and dark of night to drink oil where no one can see, and hoping with every gear and cog and circuit in his body that Trash Can won't give him away, that ZOG won't give him away, that he won't give himself away, that he can keep this up for just one more day, just one more hour, just one more minute, just until he's ready to tell them, just until he figures out how to tell them. He doesn't want the rest of his life to be like this — trying to make sure his posture isn't too stiff or too tense, trying to make sure his facial expressions aren't shifting too fast, or too smoothly, and trying to remember to blink as much as everyone else, trying to remember to breathe as much as everyone else, his heart in his throat and his stomach tied up in knots as he carefully carefully carefully arranges himself into a shape so close to human that no one can ever tell the difference.

He doesn't want to live like this. He doesn't want the rest of his life to be like this. He doesn't want to pretend to be normal. He doesn't want to have to pretend to be normal. He just wants to be normal.

(He doesn't want to be different.)

[astroboyfanweek]

Astro boy fanweek day 3 - Lonely | different | starlight

You placed me at the end of your sword, but I am not your enemy. Let us fight for this world together.

[astroboyfanweek]

AB Fanweek Day 2!!

Memory / Trembling / Electricity

This one is mostly the first word and a little bit of the second (cause who doesn’t like a dose of existential dread 😂)

Struggled with the perspective going so far back in space… paying dearly for my preference to only draw characters. I did have the help of a Astro figure and a mirror for the pose and reflection though! Might need to take it easy tomorrow (well— later today oof) and do a redraw or study of some kind, but we’ll see.

This is your reminder to join in on the fanweek btw!! Calling all Astro Boy fans!

[astroboyfanweek]

April 2: Memory/Accident (couldn't pick)

Rip Tobio, you would've loved fnaf

@astroboyfanweek