I'm cooking. (If putting Delta in a microwave on high is considered cooking) (i didn't particularly go looking to cook up a new rvb au but delta's become a bit of a comfort character for me rn and if i focus much more on him in epsilon's guide i'm gonna have to change the name to Delta's guide lol.)
ANYWAYS! Main Idea under the cut b/c looong!
Main premise is that when Wash was about to set off the Emp, he had a chance to grab one of the AIs from the Meta before it went off. He does so with half a thought that either Alpha might see what he's doing and jump into the chip he grabs or he'd at least have a bargaining point if he somehow lives. his suit is emp proof for his equipment so he kinda shoves said chip into his suit and hopes for the best.
Instead he ends up with mostly confused silence. There's an AI there, he can tell, but they do nothing.
he ends up putting it in his implants, not really b/c he wants an AI there, but b/c he's getting arrested soon (since he obviously lived through the emp shenanigans) and they'd look in the suit for chips but they won't think he'd put one in his implants. (he's also quite a bit loopy off of adrenaline and blood loss, and probably still thought there was a high likelihood he'd die. His decisions were questionable at best.)
But even once in his implants, the AI is quiet. Again, he can feel them there, but there's no thoughts or images or words. The only thing he got was a low level of detached confusion and, very rarely, spikes of intense loneliness.
After some time, the AI slowly comes online properly but after the Meta's melded mess they are exceptionally confused to the point where even they don't know who they are.
A few more seasons go by of Wash having mystery AI in his head and he slowly realizes that an AI trying to put themselves together while sharing his brain is probably not the best idea for either of them. For one They keep getting Wash's memories mixed up with theirs to the point where they end up refering to themselves as David for some time. Another thing is that it's giving Wash pretty bad headaches and is not helping his ptsd at ALL.
Once he's with the reds and blues he's able to get them into a temporary robot body of sarges make (not the one above. A lot more simple than that.) so the two have more distance.
The AI starts recovering faster now that they don't have Wash's mind mixed with their mess of one, and at some point while they are traveling with Carolina (or maybe when she finds the group for the first time) they realize they're Delta.
Did i come up with some weird, barely logical AU just to have a mid-game Robot Delta and some more Delta & Reds and Blue's content? Yes, yes i did. I needed something Delta-centric to shove in the microwave right now!
Also debating on whether Delta 'halucinates' the other fragments he was tangled for a time. Not like Epsilon does, but in a way that he was tangled with them and some of them came with him when he got yanked. They sometimes comment on stuff but Delta tries to ignore them.
