Beck stepped forward, carefully wrapping his arms around Tron’s back, fingers curling at his shoulders and the nape of his neck.
He shut his eyes, listening to Tron hum softly – not the nasty, angry Rinzler growl anymore, but the gentle sing-song hum of an old Encom system program.
“‘M glad you’re back,” he mumbled. “It’s…I’ve been so lost. Being you…being the protector of Argon, of the whole Grid…it’s so much harder than I ever thought it would be.”
Tron made no response. Beck squeezed tighter. In his time alone, awaiting his mentor’s return, he’d dived into the world of the Users, learning each and every thing he could about them just in case he ever worked up the courage to contact Alan-One. He never had, of course, telling himself he could be strong and get through it alone.
Just like Tron, right? He always managed well enough alone.
The best thing he’d stumbled upon was the idea that most Users had families. He didn’t really understand it at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Paige and her medical team had been a family. Tesler had taken that from her, making her angry. Beck and Mara and Zed had been a family, even if they bickered a lot.
He and Tron were a family. Tiny and a little bit messy, but a family nonetheless. He still couldn’t decide where Tron fell in the dynamic – was he the older brother? Perhaps an uncle? A cousin?
He continued to muse over this as tears pooled in his eyes, but Tron remained still.
Still, fighting to keep the sobs buried within his system at bay.
He’d known what a family was. He’d had one, on the old server – himself and Yori, and occasionally Flynn. He’d been ripped away from it when Flynn had moved him to the new server, and at first he’d found it easy.
It was freeing. Not that he didn’t still think of Yori – in fact, there was rarely a moment he didn’t. But he had a job, he had a directive, and he did everything he could to keep himself busy.
At least, until Clu tried to kill him.
Cyrus had come and picked him up, and Tron had trained him in return, but had found himself longing so many nights for Yori’s gentle touch turning his circuits pink, for Flynn’s wild tales of the outside world, told while Yori napped against his shoulder. He’d longed for family, even moreso after Cyrus, too, left him alone and beaten and broken.
And then he’d found the mechanic, the young program who was now clinging to him as if his own life depended on it. For the first time since he’d been flung to this server, he had a family, and yet…
Flashes of memories still haunted him. Lightlines tainted orange, hands that were not his own, grabbing and pulling and clinging.
He knew Beck meant the embrace for good, as if to tell him, Welcome home, I’m glad you’re here, but all he could feel was Clu, trying again and again to break him of the last pieces of sanity, of freedom, of identity. His body was stiff. He wanted out, but he didn’t want to hurt Beck.
So he stood and took it, gritting his teeth, clencing his fists, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears, forcing himself to remember Flynn’s laughter and Yori’s gentle touch and the way Beck seemed to be the best of all of them.
The way Beck felt like his son.
