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pagingdoctorbedlam · 3 years

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And now, that cyberpunk AU I’ve been talking about the past few days...here’s the result from one of my potions for @quirkyseastone ‘s “Brew a Love Potion” event!

Characters: Kaku x Reader; cameos by Chopper, Franky, Kalifa (unnamed) and Rob Lucci (also unnamed).

Genre: Cyberpunk, Enemies to Lovers

TW/CW: Violence, guns and swords, cyborgs, partial memory loss

Word Count: ~4.2k words

...

You'd say it was fate, but really, it was no surprise that the Greatest Thief in Water 7 (that being you, of course) would attract the attention of assassins sooner or later.

The first time you met, you were running along rooftops in the world's first and only floating city, and you nearly ran into his sword. Not one of those laser-sabers or poseur chainsaw-blades, but an actual steel sword that tore your sleeve, would've torn your throat if you hadn't pivoted at the last minute.

"You'd best watch where you're going pal," the assassin said, his smile barely creeping past the high collar of his black uniform. His face was almost entirely hidden, save for large eyes and a long, square nose that jutted from his face like the barrel of a gun. "These rooftops get dangerous at night."

"I could say the same to you," was your response. And you shot him. Not the most romantic introduction ever, you admit, but he walked out of it fine. The bullet seemed to bounce off his torso. Bulletproof vest, you thought at first. You didn't get to consider beyond that because he swung a second blade and did a pretty good job of keeping you on your toes.

From this rooftop, you could see the whole city. Water 7, a marvel of engineering, floated over an ocean that seemed to glitter with starlight instead of all the neon signs. You could look across every district, including all the Docks that produced everything from marvelous flights of fancy to dangerous war machines. Down on the streets, market stalls offered every delight imaginable. Paradise for a thief. But sometimes, you needed a challenge, and a target to stick your ire to. You figured which one might've sent an assassin after you.

"Let me guess," you said between breaths and shots. "You're a government goon, aren't ya'? Mad I stole those weapon blueprints from your headquarters last week?"

The assassin had the gall to laugh. "You sure hit the nail on the head! We put a lot of work into acquiring those, and then you go on and walk right out with them. Got the whole place buzzing worse than a hornet's nest." Then he moved faster than any natural human you've ever met, and next thing you knew, the tip of his sword pressed up into your chin. "If you tell me who you sold those blueprints to, I can make a case for sparing your life. For being so darn cooperative and all."

You couldn't help but look into his wide, dark eyes. There was an earnestness in them you'd never seen in anyone else who'd tried to kill you. You also noticed the inner workings, that those weren't human eyes but cybernetic lenses. Ah. That made more sense.

"I didn't sell them. I was hired to snag and burn, and you know what? If I'd known what they were for before I got hired, I would've done the job for free. Did you know what those blueprints were for, or are you the kind of lackey they keep in the dark?"

The cyborg didn't answer right away. His blade lowered ever so slightly.

"I did. That's why we had to secure the blueprints, to make sure no one else makes use of them."

"That's what the previous owners tried to do. Now those blueprints have changed hands twice this month. You really think that if I hadn't destroyed them, some power-hungry idiot wouldn't have eventually grabbed hold of them and actually built the damn thing?" A war machine that could sink all of Water 7 toppling into the sea with a single shot. Nations would bow before it. Not something you'd want in anyone's hands, much less the government.

"Shame to hear you had such good reasons," The assassin said, an honest goodbye. "But orders are orders."

"Indeed they are." And it was time for you to make your escape. You angled your gun up and fired. The assassin was human enough to flinch when a bullet fired at his head, even though you only hit his baseball cap. You ran and flung yourself off the rooftop, using a grappling hook to swing over to the next skyscraper before you could see his reaction.

A small part of you wondered what the assassin's name was. The rest of you, more practical, decided to put that train of thought to rest at the station. No matter how charming an assassin might be, there was no point in wondering about someone who'd tried to kill you.

Next time you two ran into each other, you shot at him again from the opposite end of a mansion hallway.

"You must really hate my hat, huh?" He put his hands up and tried that bright smile on you once more. "Easy there, pal. I'm not here for you."

"Though I'm sure if you offed me as collateral, you'd get a pretty bonus on your paycheck, huh?"

"Depends. What're you after here?"

You debated telling him. Didn't want your goals used against you, but you really didn't have time to chase off an assassin while finishing your job. "Wapol killed my client's adopted father years ago, and hung onto some of the man's personal items as a trophy. I'm stealing them back."

"What a coincidence! I'm here for Mr. Wapol's head. Or at the very least, to threaten him to fall back in line. Someone's been selling supplies to foreign armies, and we'd rather he stop." The assassin slowly walked toward you, hands still up, until the two of you were only a few feet apart. He lowered one hand, offering it to shake. "Tell you what. I'd rather not fight you tonight and risk another hat. So say I deal with Wapol, you get in and grab what you need, and we both pretend we never saw each other. Deal?"

You glared at the offered hand. For all you knew, he could have all manner of weapons built into it. "I don't even know your name. Though I'm sure you know mine, what with being hired to kill me earlier."

"I do." Your name rolled off his tongue in a way that made your traitorous little heart flip in your chest. "And my name's Kaku. That better?"

You wondered if his skin was plastic, or flesh and blood. "You could have a gun built into your palm, or something."

Those camera-lens eyes widen. "You could tell...?"

"I deal with a lot of cyborgs. Some of them don't even try to kill me."

"Aha. Well, you may not believe me, but I try to stay honest, so I mean it when I say I have only one firearm built into me."

You smirked and shook his hand. "If that's a pickup line, you really need practice."

You learned two things that night before parting ways. One, that his hands were warm and calloused, and you felt a steady heartbeat under his skin that no robot could replicate. Two, he was human enough to blush and sputter at your innuendo, giving you enough time to run off into the depths of the mansion.

Wapol's death hit the news the next day. You'd half-expected the crime would be pinned on a break-in, and eventually on you. But no, the death was clean. Made to resemble a suicide. Nothing reported as missing, even the handful of extras you'd taken while Wapol had been distracted. You found yourself pleasantly surprised. Really, the night would've been perfect, if you could get that bastard's blushing face out of your head.

Over the next few months, you two kept ending up at the same places with different goals. The first times were coincidences. The rest were casually coordinated, notes left tucked into the windowsill of your cruddy apartment or texts from what you assumed were burner phones. Coordinates or articles about unique treasures. You once responded back "sounds like a date" and he responded with a flustered emoticon like a teenager from the early 2000's.

Either way, you two made a pretty good team, and no one had to know if he cleared out the security in your way or if you showed him a sneaky shortcut through a building. You finally saw his built-in firearm too; turns out, there was a reason his nose was so long.

And whenever these "accidental" meetings involved staking out the locale first, you'd make small talk. He'd ask about your plans for whatever treasure laid in wait. You decided not to ask him about his murder plans, instead opting for hobbies and whatever an assassin might do outside of work. Found out he liked vehicles of all sorts, especially ships, and that's part of how he'd ended up assigned to Water 7. You once admitted that you were born in Water 7, lived in the slums your whole life.

"I've never even seen a live animal, other than the birds that sometimes fly overhead. Sad, isn't it?"

Kaku perked up at that. "You know there's a zoo here, right? Most of the animals are electronic, but a few are the real deal. You can even feed some!"

"Yeah, but zoos are so expensive. Gotta' pay big bucks for authenticity, you know."

The conversation had drifted off after that. But the next time you got a text, the coordinates and timestamps also included a photo of two tickets.

The practical part of your brain warned you that this could be a trap. Surely, a trained assassin could find plenty of ways to murder someone in the emptier corners of the zoo, and then toss the body into a carnivore's mouth to be disposed of. Yet as was more common of late, you ignored your practical side and snuck off to the zoo like you were off for another big score.

You're sure the two of you stuck out. Sure, he was in more casual clothing (that still concealed most of his body), but the reflexes of a trained killer didn't reflect well in real life. Neither did a thief's. You both jumped at the wrong sounds and gave security a wide berth. There were nerves to you two that didn't settle on the shoulders of the easygoing crowd.

"We should hold hands," you whispered. He gave you a questioning look. "To blend in, right? No one thinks twice if a happy couple acts odd. Love makes people do weird things."

"So...pretend we're weird and in love, hmm?" He interlaced his warm, human fingers with yours. "Should I call you darling, then?"

"If you're that old fashioned, sure." The two of you laughed as if you hadn't tried to kill each other only a few months before.

It was strange, seeing animals and being unsure which ones were full of blood and muscles instead of gears and electricity. For someone partially artificial himself, Kaku had a good eye for such things, and pointed each one out. There was a spark in the eyes of living, breathing animals and, an unpredictability to their actions that made them stand out no matter how lifelike their companions seemed.

"What about you?" you asked on a park bench. He'd treated the two of you to popsicles on that warm day, and you watched the giraffes as you talked. "Like, I know you've got a couple cybernetic enhancements, but this..." You shook his hand, still in your own. "This is real."

Kaku glanced around to make sure no one else was watching the two of you instead of the animals. He tore his fingers from yours and for the briefest moment tugged down the collar of his jacket. The letters CP-9 were emblazoned on the side of his neck with laser precision.

"Typical tragic orphan story. Family got into a terrible accident when I was a kid, parents passed, and I was broken up literally and figuratively. Government swooped in and rebuilt me, raised me with a bunch of other orphans to be secret agents. And here we are."

"So...your job is repayment because they saved you?"

"Pretty much. Rebuilding my face alone cost a pretty penny, to say nothing about the rest of me or the years of training. I'm saddled for life." He winked and added, "But I still squirrel away a little bit for myself. Like for this. Being around animals calms my nerves when things get too much. Especially the giraffes. Beauties, aren't they?"

You turned your attention back to the exhibit. They were strange and gangly things, that sort of weird that humans couldn't make up on their own. But they were kinda' cute, galloping around like that. (And if their dark eyes and long lashes reminded you of a certain someone sitting next to you, no one had to know.)

You pointed at one. "That one on the left's been licking the fence for like, fifteen minutes now. Robot?"

"Real. Stranger than fiction, I guess."

He ended up telling you about the giraffes, as if animal facts could bury the bits of backstory the two of you had revealed to each other. He accidentally got popsicle juice on his nose, and flushed the brightest red when you brushed it off. Sometime after that, you took his hand in yours again. You didn't want to part ways when you returned to the gate.

You didn't see him for another month after that.

Funny, how quickly another person could become a staple of your life, and how you came to miss those infrequent texts and adrenaline-fueled meetups. Every job you went on left you peering into shadows as if he'd emerge in his assassin blacks with a smile sharp as his swords. But Kaku was never there.

Despite yourself, you started seeking him out. Texted back every number he'd messaged you from, hoping one burner phone might still be active. Snuck into the zoo and lurked around the giraffe exhibit, hoping he'd show. You even broke into a couple government facilities without any goals beyond finding him. And you knew it was stupid, knew it was dangerous, you barely knew this man and every vulnerability he'd shown you could be part of an elaborate ruse to trap you...but you wanted to believe in him. That whatever had sprouted between you two was as real as your heartbeats syncing when you held hands.

You realized you'd hit paydirt when a new assassin came after you. Even if she hadn't tried to kick your head clean off your neck, you would've recognized her as one of Kaku's coworkers with her black uniform and the tattoo creeping out from under her jacket.

"Things must've gone sour if I've been reassigned," you said. Tried to keep it light as you had with Kaku, even as your mind spun with implications.

"This is entirely your fault, you know." Oh goody, this assassin had a spiked whip, and she got one end wrapped around your foot. "If you hadn't compromised my coworker, if you'd rolled over and died like you should've, we wouldn't be here."

Ah. You'd half-expected that. "Your bosses found out about the date." Your ruse had worked too well. But what else could it have been construed as? You'd even thought of it as a date yourself once he'd disappeared and you'd realized that more than any treasure, you wanted to go back there with him, wanted to go everywhere with him.

"They knew well before that. Did you really think they'd give him camera eyes without reviewing the footage?" The whip tightened around your ankle. "They let it slide for a time because you were useful, and they thought he could still capture you. And he did, but not in the way anyone wanted."

"Where is he?" You tried, and failed, to not sound desperate.

"It's already too late. They decided he was too human, and now he's being rebuilt. There isn't..." and here, she faltered. Out of fear for her coworker or of such a fate befalling herself, you're not sure. "There isn't anything left of the Kaku you knew. So please, don't go after him. And die while you're at it."

The fight with her was more brutal by far than any of the brawls you'd had with Kaku. She actually scored a few hits on you, and once you finally gave her the slip and made it to one of your hideaways, your ribs and legs ached something fierce. You patched yourself up, and you began to plan.

You'd never stolen a human before. You hoped there was still one left to steal.

Breaking into a secret government laboratory was easier than expected. You built a crew, called in every favor you could, reviewed blueprints until you swore the building's layout had been tattooed on the back of your eyelids. The night of the heist, another crew of saboteurs known for their bombastic fights distracted the security guards, making it seem like they were the true culprits out for revenge.

You alone went underground. In stolen laboratory gear, you entered the cybernetics facility. Your breath fled from your lungs, and it wasn't from the shock of sharp antiseptic clinging to the air.

In a glass pillar full of fluids and wires, Kaku floated. Even from a distance, he looked more plastic and metal, like someone had crafted a lifesize doll replica of him. The monitors showcased diagnostics on a metal skeleton and the integration of circuitry in organs. You touched the cold glass, but he didn't respond.

You got to work. Following instructions you'd reviewed every waking hour, you hacked into the system and initiated the extraction procedure. You already had a gurney for transport, and a prepped lie that you'd be transporting the body of a failed cybernetics integration to be disposed of. The fluids behind the glass slowly drained, wires disconnecting. You held your breath.

Then you crumpled as a bullet hit your side.

You hissed, feeling your side for blood even though you had armor under your disguise. And looked up to see a black uniform, an assassin pointing at you, bullet shaped like a sharp fingernail loading into place.

You gasped, "Don't do this. I'm trying to save him."

"Far as we're concerned, you're stealing classified government property. He's one of our most expensive assets. Second to me, of course." The assassin wore a predator's smile, and the heels of his shoes clicked ominously on the floor as he strode toward you. "It'd be so easy to end this here. It wouldn't be the first time I've made a mess of the lab."

"Yet here you are, chatterbox. I get the feeling you don't want to kill me."

"How bold. As it happens, I like to play with my prey. But so did Kaku, and he got so wrapped up in the chase that he forgot what to do when he caught you."

"Stop talking about him in past tense like he's dead."

The assassin shrugged. "Isn't he? Not in body, but in spirit. They tore out most of his brain and replaced it with machinery. The process wipes most of one's personality and emotion. There isn't a person in there anymore."

"Then I'll find him again and bring him back. That's what a good thief does." The glass opened up, and Kaku nearly fell out. You stepped forward to grab him. First contact jolted your body; you didn't feel a heartbeat anymore. And when you angled him onto the gurney, his body felt cold and smooth. You glared up at your unwelcome guest, who'd watched the event in silence. "Now, are you going to finish the job, or get out of the way?"

"Unlike a certain someone, I'm not in the business of keeping fools alive."

The assassin's fingers sharpened into claws as he closed the distance between you. He swiped at you with those claws, and you barely dodged the first one while pulling the gurney back with you. Whatever happened, you couldn't let Kaku get hurt in this state. But to your surprise, when the next claw swung, you heard a gunshot that you didn't fire. And whoever fired it knew where this cyborg assassin was still flesh; he fell to his knees, surprised at his own blood.

Smoke rose from the gun built into Kaku's nose as he sat up. Camera eyes opened and refocused with faint clicking noises. For a long, quiet moment, he scanned the room. But then they settled on you.

"Darling."

Your heart flipped in your chest again. "You remember me?"

"Of course. They did their best to wipe everything else, but I couldn't let them take you." He paused, unused to his new body, and the resulting smile looked more like a grimace. But he still said, "I love you."

"I love you too. And I'm going to get you out of here." You grabbed Kaku around the shoulders with one arm and grabbed your gun with another, now that you knew where to shoot your foe. You said to the other assassin, "Well? You were wrong about him."

"Was I?" The assassin lurched back to his feet, one hand over the bullet wound just above his clavicle. "Kaku, how much did you give up in order to keep the memory of one thief you failed to kill?" No answer. "Do you even remember who I am?"

"I made my choice," was all Kaku said. "Now let us go."

The assassin turned away before you could see if there was any hurt had broken across his cold face. "Killing you like this won't be any fun. Once you can be a challenge to me again, I'll come back for you. But for now? See if you can run." His heels clicked against the floor as he walked away. "I'll clear your path out of the facility. You're on your own after that."

Time stretched long as the other assassin left the room. You held tight to Kaku. When you held his hand, it was so smooth that he didn't even have fingerprints anymore. But he still intertwined his fingers in yours and squeezed.

"I'm still me," he whispered. "Even if I don't have a real heart or anything else left."

You forced yourself to shrug and smile. "Just means you're a little closer to some of the giraffes at the zoo." That earned you a quizzical look. "Uhmm...you know, because some of them were robots too?" Still blank. "...Did you even forget about giraffes so you could remember me?"

"Suppose I must have."

You resolved to take him back to the zoo once he'd recovered, bring him back a little of that wonder he'd showed you. But first, time for your masterful escape.

The following weeks were long and painful.

Soon as you broke out and got to one of your safehouses, you called in two last favors. One from Franky, cyborg engineer who'd hired you to retrieve and destroy the blueprints for that war machine that started this whole debacle. The other from Doctor Chopper, who'd been so grateful to have his mentor's things returned. The two of them came in and worked on your assassin-turned-lover tirelessly, fixing up what little flesh remained and making sure all the cybernetics were in-check. There was plenty of work to do, as you'd stolen Kaku before his procedures had been complete, and rewiring muscles and nerves turned out to be a long, painful process.

And while you'd rescued Kaku before they could completely erase his humanity, there were still gaping holes in his knowledge, and his smile didn't reach his eyes nearly as often. There was much you had to fill him in on. You spent many nights just talking to distract him from his painful recovery. You held his hand and tried to pretend he still had a heartbeat.

But now? Now you're back at your dingy old apartment, limbs entangled on the couch, staring out the window at the skyscrapers above.

"I think that one will be my next target," you say, pointing up at a gilded skyscraper that seems to pierce the clouds. "Heard the owner there hoards gold. Actual gold! Can you believe it? We'd be rich."

"Sounds like a challenge, though." Kaku's free hand twirls a dull blade between fingers, trying to familiarize himself with his new body. He's admitted a couple times to phantom limb syndrome, like his flesh and blood is just beyond reach. "Sure you'll be able to handle it, darling?"

"It'll be no problem for the Greatest Thief in Water 7. Stealing a bunch of gold will be a cakewalk, seeing as I already grabbed the greatest treasure this city had." You get a quizzical stare in response. "That'd be you, partner."

"Partner," Kaku echoes. This smile lights up his whole face. "I like the sound of that. So, what's the first step in your plan?"

You hum in thought and look deep into his eyes.

"I do believe our first step should be a visit to the zoo. We've got a lot to catch up on, after all."

#seas brew a love potion challenge #opfanfic #kaku x reader #one piece kaku #cyberpunk au #enemies to lovers #bedlam writes #cp9

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