Chapter 82: Want Isn’t Permission

Bekka set her gauntlets beside the basin and pulled the towel clear of the circuits along their wrists.

"Don’t put them in your pouch while I’m washing my hands."

"I wasn’t going to."

"You weren’t going to change them under the road either."

She turned the tap with her elbow and held her fingers beneath it, letting the water carry grease into the basin.

He stayed on the crate where the doctor had left him, keeping his shoulder still beneath its dressing.

Four hours of treatment had brought the countdown to twenty-six, leaving him bandaged and her still refusing the gauntlets.

’Twenty-six hours left, and I’m afraid of something sitting on a towel.’

The menu waited behind his vision while she washed her hands, its tab still closed where he’d left it.

"I’m opening the description, and I’ll tell you what it says."

"Tell me before you press anything that asks for materials."

He focused on the tab until the interface unfolded, keeping his hands on his knees while she turned from the basin.

[ All-Spark Weapon Synthesis ]

[ New Branch: Bond Synthesis ]

[ Create: Partner Armament ]

[ Binding: Partner Want ]

[ Restriction: Host Cannot Self-Print ]

[ Materials: Cores or Scrap in Pouch ]

’It can build for someone linked to me, but I can’t use it to replace my own blade.’

"Partner weapons, made from cores or scrap in the pouch, and I can’t print equipment for myself."

"Does it mention asking the person who has to wear it?"

He read the fields again before answering, waiting for another line that didn’t appear beneath the material requirement.

"No, and I don’t see anything here that explains how to stop what happened."

"Then don’t pretend closing the menu proves it can’t happen again."

He closed it anyway and opened the pouch by hand, setting the crowbar across his knees before examining what remained.

"The lieutenant core’s gone, but the corvette scrap is still here."

"Leave it there, unless you’re checking how much somebody charged for my wrists."

He stopped with his hand inside the pouch and withdrew it, returning the crowbar without taking out the scrap.

"I was looking for a way to understand the cost."

"Start with me, then work your way through the inventory."

She sat across from him with her hands on the table. He waited while she spread her fingers and closed them again.

"When the housings opened, I thought the coolant had burned through the straps and reached my skin."

"I saw you trying to pull them off."

"Then the edge fired before I’d worked out which part of the gauntlet was moving."

He looked at the weapon nearest the basin, following the circuit that now crossed the place where its stamp had been.

"You aimed the next strike at the lamp."

"I aimed it with every hour I’ve spent learning to fly, and I still didn’t know what would come out."

She pushed the towel beneath the gauntlet until its edge faced the wall, leaving the straps turned toward her chair.

"I used it to get us out, and I’ll use it again if the clinic needs defending."

"That doesn’t make what happened acceptable."

"Good, keep that sentence where you can find it when the menu offers something else."

A knock interrupted them before he could answer, and his sister entered with two mugs balanced against her forearm.

"Which of you moved the stairwell lamp?"

"I needed to see the dressing."

She set the mugs down and reached past him for the lamp, checking its cord before lifting it from the crate.

"Then borrow one from an empty room, and leave the stairs where people can see them."

"How’s the ward?"

"The boy’s readings haven’t changed, the dockmaster’s arguing about bed rest, and nobody downstairs needs another weapon at the moment."

Her brother reached for a mug while she looked toward the towel, stopping at the distance between their chairs.

"I’ll leave you to it, but drink those instead of letting them sit here until I collect them."

Tessa carried the lamp out and shut the door with her heel, leaving the room lit from beside the basin.

Leo held his mug against his knee, watching the steam while his partner waited for him to speak.

"I paid three hundred thousand credits for those gauntlets, and I remember counting what that would buy back home."

"I remember having to learn the lift settings before I could trust them near anybody’s roof."

"You put that work in, and the core changed the whole thing before either of us could say a word."

She took a drink before setting her mug beside his, keeping the gauntlets beyond the space between their hands.

"You’re talking about the price again."

"I’m trying to explain why it feels like cheating, and why I hate that part of me wants to see what else it makes."

The admission stopped him from reaching for the mug a second time. She waited without answering until he looked up from his hands.

"I spent years earning enough to keep food in the room, then fought for every upgrade I could hold onto."

"And now?"

"Now the system can turn something I looted into a weapon for you while I’m still trying to keep my ribs together."

"Would you like this better if it had rewritten your sword?"

He opened his mouth and stopped, looking down at the hand he’d kept away from the menu since closing it.

’I would’ve wanted to test it before asking what it had done.’

"Part of me would, and that’s not an answer I’m proud of."

"It gives us somewhere to start, provided you don’t make this about whether you’ve worked hard enough to deserve it."

She took the gauntlet by its strap and brought it closer, keeping the opening pointed away from both of them.

"Can you tell whether it changed anything inside my arm?"

"The panel listed the weapon, but I can’t promise anything about your body from that."

"Then we get it checked when we can, and you don’t fill the gaps with reassurance."

He nodded and moved his mug aside as she laid the gauntlet down, leaving room for her hands on the table.

"I didn’t ask to be rewritten, Leo."

"I know."

"I asked you not to die in that trench, and wanting you alive isn’t permission to change what I wear or what I am."

He kept his eyes on her while footsteps crossed the landing outside. Neither reached for the mugs as they waited for them to pass.

"I won’t start another synthesis without asking you, and I won’t call what happened your choice."

"That’s a promise about you, and I need you to keep it even while we don’t understand the machine."

She slid the gauntlet back beside its partner and stood, testing her wrists before gathering the bandages from the basin.

"I’ll take the next watch with the gear I have, but don’t ask me to thank you for it."

"I won’t."

From below the window came an argument about rope, followed by somebody asking who’d painted over the knots they needed to untie.

He moved to the sill and looked down at workers hauling a banner between the posts beside the clinic.

One end dipped until a runner caught the rope, earning a complaint from the painter still holding his brush beneath it.

"What are they hanging?"

She joined him at the window as the workers pulled again, lifting the lettering clear of the people underneath.

The words OUR HOME rose above the barricade while neighbors carried braces toward the gaps along the canal approach.

’They’re spending the hours we have left putting themselves where the fighting will come.’

He looked toward his partner, but she’d turned from the window and was wrapping her wrists before returning to the watch.

The closed menu remained at the edge of his vision while another family came out to help beneath the banner.