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The Way to a Zeroid’s Little Electronic Heart...

…is with a hat, apparently!

(According to canon, 101 was built in November 2018. He is therefore 7! Happy Birthday to my best good boy.)

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Even though Spacehawk had perfectly good furniture in her obs lounge, Lieutenant Hiro tended to sit on the floor, most of the time, these days. Partly because it was just comfortable, and gave him more room to spread his materials out when he wanted to work on something, and partly so his zeroid best friend could get up close more easily, and see the same things as the human was using, if necessary.

(And partly because the heavy zeroid was absolutely destroying the couch cushions. Owun being Owun, he found this aspect highly stressful. So, sitting on the floor was good for his emotional wellbeing, too.)

They spent quite a bit of their downtime like it, these days; just… comfortable, sitting quietly together. Hiro would usually be reading up on some interesting new technological discoveries that he wanted to try and find a way to use to advance their own hardware, and Owun, with access to every televisual format in every language on the whole planet available to him, would be glued to some absolute brainrot he’d discovered (and occasionally, multiple channels of it at once).

Owun had calmed down quite a lot, lately; being allowed to ‘snuggle’ (quite tricky, for a spherical robot, but he managed) and say I love you without being told off for it had given him a degree of stability that he’d lacked for a long while. Now, he was less likely to work himself into an anxious temper about the smallest things not quite going perfectly, particularly when those things were outside his control anyway; less likely to take the sergeant major’s teasing to heart and get snappish with anyone in the vicinity.

There was probably an element of being more ‘grown up’ about the little robot as well, Hiro mused. He hadn’t anticipated any of the zeroids becoming sentient, let alone the whole fleet, so hadn’t taken any steps to ensure it was managed as perfectly as he would have liked. (It would probably be polite to say it had all been a little… haphazard.) Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise the zeroids were all growing into their emotions, as they got older and more experienced?

Speaking of which…

Hiro had just finished eating and set his bowl aside when his zeroid came looking for him.

“You are being very cuddly, today,” he noted, letting Owun wriggle up under his arm.

“Well, obviously. It’s November. Duh.”

“…is there… something special about November…?”

“Oh, Hiro.” A little scold. “I can’t believe you forgot.”

Hiro finally looked down at him, with a subtle frown. “Forgot... what?”

A slightly reproachful crimson gaze looked back. “Well obviously today is the seventh anniversary of the time I first came online.” After a beat, he added; “It’s my birthday, silly.” And then, mostly playfully, but a little bit serious too; “...can’t believe you forgot.”

“Oh!” Hiro bit down on a smile and tried to act like it was a huge revelation. “Oh, that. Well. It seems like a fortunate coincidence that I brought this with me on my last return from Earth, then.” He picked something up from within the cupboard beside him, and put it down in front of them.

Wrapped in sparkly rainbow-coloured paper, it looked very much like a plant pot. Owun made a noise like a snort-laugh and bonked against him. “A plant. Thanks.”

Hiro chuckled and petted his crown. “As if I could ever forget your birthday, Kyusu. Especially as you have reminded me about it every two weeks for the last four months.”

Owun giggled sheepishly and looked away. “Iiiii thought you might not have noticed.”

“I always notice what you tell me. That is why we work well together.”

Owun’s weight increased very slightly as he leaned into Hiro’s side. “I think I might have sounded ungrateful?” he said, his words softening. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t think I was expecting an actual present. Just maybe like, a Happy Birthday. Thank you. This is so nice of you.”

“Well, I have been thinking about it since last year.” Hiro smiled, fondly. “I mean, seven whole years old, hmm.” He kept his fingers moving. “Positively prehistoric, in computer terms.”

“Ugh.” Owun wriggled as though trying to shake the human’s hand off. “Thanks. Just what I needed to hear.”

Hiro laughed. “You know you will always be my best friend, however old and cranky you get. And seven is an auspicious number, in many cultures. Perhaps this will be a lucky year for you.”

“Zelda will go away forever!” Owun responded, promptly. “But then I’d need a new job. Hm. Perhaps I haven’t thought that out so well?”

“Are you going to open your gift?”

Owun gave him a suspicious glance. “…is it a pumpkin?”

Hiro clucked his tongue in a scolding little tch and exaggerated a sigh.

“Sorry, sorry.” Owun laughed, and examined the sparkly paper carefully for a minute or two. It looked like it was mostly just cunningly folded, holding itself together, with one or two easily-accessible little snips of tape to finally secure the wrapping in place. He focused his laser and carefully cut through them, then nuzzled into the paper so it fell neatly open.

He rolled back a little to get a good look.

“Oh. Oh!”

It was not a plant, or indeed anything remotely botanical. Hiro smiled, and arched a brow, cheekily.

Instead, carefully stacked to give the illusion of a plantpot, were a little selection of tools and polishes, and in pride of place at the centre, folded like a piece of fabric origami, was a hat, obviously specially-made to fit him.

Hiro lowered his voice and said, conspiratorially; “I hope you are glad it is not a pumpkin.”

“Oh my stars! Help me put it on!” Owun wiggled excitedly.

Hiro picked up the fabric and let it come unfolded; a soft, rounded job, with a little peak at the front, in a textured dark red that set off his own scarlet. Optics huge, Owun just watched and ooh-ed quietly, for once unable to find any words at all.

“I did take some advice from Kate,” Hiro confessed, setting it down on the zeroid’s top hemisphere and ensuring it was square. “Although we were not sure how well you will be able to roll while wearing it?”

“I don’t care.” Owun replied, almost breathily, trying hard to look up at it. “It’s the best present ever.”

“I am glad! Happy birthday, Owun.” He pressed a small kiss to the top of his friend’s head, and smiled fondly at hearing him burst into tears. “And may we share many more. Daisuki da yo.”

(YES OK FINE I will write about these two "little space twits" forever given the chance. And I am working on other things! Just... s l o w l y.)

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