He doesn't start out as a killing machine. No, far from it.

He starts out the same way Forte did-a confused child, angry without knowing why, scared of his own power. Forte knows he'll man up soon enough; with Wily as his father, he'll have to.

The difference between the two is stark. Forte's hair is short, dark, slicked back. This new robot's hair is as long as he is tall, shining gold, and wild as the jungle. Forte is short. His new brother towers over him. Everything Forte does is a disappointment to Wily, but Zero can do no wrong.

God, he's only been alive for a few days and Forte already hates him. Those wide blue eyes remind him too much of Rock, and his bright red armour of Blues; it pisses him right the fuck off. It's like Albert built his brother specifically to make Forte want to blow that stupid blond head off his shoulders.

Not that that would surprise him at all.

Forte is the only one present when Zero utters his first words. Up until now, he's been silent as the grave, for whatever reason-Forte can't help but wonder if the blond is as scared of Wily as he had been when he was first activated. The raven-haired robot is sneaking back into the lab, armour scuffed and scorched, when he hears Zero's voice break the midnight silence.

"Where were you?"

Forte jumps, instinctively aiming his buster square at Zero's head. "What the fu-why do you want to know?" he demands, glowering.

Zero is unfazed. "You leave at night," is his simple response. "You leave clean, you come back damaged. Where do you go?"

"What's it to you?" Forte snaps.

Zero doesn't seem to have an answer to that. He blinks once, twice, then turns away and walks back to his chambers. Forte huffs, calling off his buster.

"Nosy prick," he mutters.

The next night, Forte makes sure to polish up before he comes back to Wily's fortress. If Zero asks again, he'll lie. He was getting supplies for the next war, he'll say. Anything but the truth-that he went to talk to Rock, that he was too much of a coward and started a fight instead of a simple fucking conversation.

But no, he can't even do this right. Zero intercepts him before he even gets to the fortress. He's quiet as a shadow, and Forte had no idea he was even being trailed.

"I could help you," Zero says quietly, as Forte sullenly scrubs at his helmet. "Whoever's doing this, I could help you fight them."

"I'm fine," growls Forte, barely holding back the urge to just toss the helmet right at Zero's head. "Did Wily put you up to this?" he asks, scowling.

Zero shakes his head. After a moment's pause, he snorts. "He doesn't even know you leave."

Of course not. Of fucking course not. "Why?" he asks, keeping his tone calm.

Zero tilts his head to one side, the way Gos does when he wants a treat. "We're brothers," he says simply.

Confusion swirls through Forte's brain like a swarm of lost krill. He wants to ask how Zero came to that conclusion, how a Wilybot ever learned what family means because he himself only knows how Real Families work from watching Rock and his father, and why prissy, perfect Zero would extend the hand of friendship-of brotherhood-to his roughshod prototype, when he could be brown-nosing Albert all the way to glory. "Like hell we are!" is what comes out of his mouth instead. He's startled by the anger in his own voice.

Zero blinks. Forte's seen that look on Rock's face before, that faint frown, the wince in his eyes. He looks... hurt.

Forte stares resolutely at the ground. "Just... go back inside, Zero," he mutters. "I'll catch up in a little bit."

Zero nods once. He stands up, towering over Forte's kneeling form, and stiffly pats the top of Forte's head. "See you around," he says.

"Fuck off," replies Forte.

Forte's there when Zero utters his first swear, and what a swear it is.

"Shitfucking son of a cockmongrel!" Zero shouts, pain in his voice.

Forte can't help himself; he pokes his head into Zero's room to see what the fuss is about. He sees Zero, sitting on the floor, a hairbrush hopelessly stuck in the tangles of his wild blond hair. Despite himself, Forte laughs-a real, genuine laugh that starts in his gut and has him doubled over in seconds.

"Oh, shut up," Zero mutters, wincing as he tries in vain to tug the brush out.

"Hold still," Forte says, wiping a a tear from the corner of his eye. He kneels next to Zero, carefully undoing the knots in his brother's hair while gently tugging the brush out.

Zero bristles in embarrassment, staring at his hands as if he could burn a hole in his own fingers if he sulks hard enough. It's weird, Forte thinks, how much different Zero is now. During the first few weeks of his life, he was so soft. Now...

Now he's a lot more like Forte, and Forte himself doesn't know if that's a good thing.

"There," says Forte, waving the newly freed brush in Zero's face.

"Thanks," Zero mumbles, taking it out of his hand and returning to the herculean task of tidying his hair. "You didn't have to do that," he adds.

"What, and let you wander around with a hairbrush stuck in that mop for the rest of your life?" Forte says, snorting. "I'd die from secondhand embarrassment."

"I thought you didn't like me," says Zero, his tone frank but vulnerable.

Forte blinks. Glances down at the floor. Back up at Zero. His mouth opens, closes, opens, closes again. Fuck this asshole, he thinks, and his stupid childlike demeanour. Fuck Wily for making him and not immediately shutting him in a can for the next millennium or so.

"I don't," Forte replies, standing and storming out without another word.

Fuck everything. Fuck his life, fuck the world, fuck Rock, fuck Light, fuck Wily, fuck the whole fucking universe it can all go to hell for all Forte cares.

He scales a tree, wishing his eyes could produce more than just the bare minimum to keep them from drying up. He's not a crier. He doesn't cry. He just doesn't. But this is the fourth damn time he's tried to talk to Rock about Important Shit and this time he actually managed to say more than a few fucking words but he fucked it up just like he fucks up everything else fucking fuck fuck.

Rock can cry, he learned. Rock can cry a lot. Broken, hiccuping sobs, tears streaming down his soft cheeks, his shoulders shaking. Rock can cry, so why can't Forte?

He curls up between two thick branches, shaking, feeling like he's been stabbed in the chest with a rusty cleaver.

After a while-he's not sure how long, it could be minutes, it could be hours, it could be days-a steady rain starts to trickle down through the leaves of Forte's tree. Thick drops stream down the fins of his helmet, over the purple streaks on his cheeks, a pathetic facsimile of the tears he wishes he could shed.

And as if to add shit icing to the shit cake, Zero climbs up after him. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Go away," Forte groans, his voice cracking.

Zero says nothing. He climbs up beside Forte, solemnly resting a hand on the older robot's knee. Forte can't bring himself to shake the fucker off, so he sits very still and hopes Zero will just go away on his own.

But he doesn't. He stays. He stays, and he keeps that broad hand on Forte's knee, and Forte realises, after a long silence, that he actually finds it a little comforting.

"I'm a piece of shit," Forte mumbles, curling up into himself. "Why do you keep coming to me?"

"We're brothers," Zero says simply, and Forte doesn't press the matter.

Their family is fucked all to hell, but Zero is more family to Forte than Wily ever will be, and Forte is more family to Zero in kind. And family, as Forte's learned from the Lights, watches out for its own.