#traumatized bean

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After finishing the cleaning of his database, Zane looked around, blank eyes scanning his surrounding. Perhaps one of his brothers would be in need of assistance, he considered, standing up from his seat on his bed.

Walking along the hallways, a blur of blue and brunette ran into him, tackling him to the floor.

"AgH- Sorry, sorry-" Zane blinked in surprise, untangling himself from the surprise attacker. Smiling, he starts to greet the lighting ninja-

"Hello,-" The name does not automatically insert itself, his mind more empty that it has ever been. Already, his systems are racing to scan the foreign unnamed face, but his memory finally returns as he looks into the light blue eyes sparkling with excitement, reminding him of lighting crackling across the dark skies.

Jay. Jay. How could he forget his brother's name? Nindroids did not forget. They were not built to forget such important information-

"Zane? You okay?" A voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he realized with a start he was still sitting on the frigid ground, staring at the ground.

"I-I cannot." He stuttered a reply, not knowing what he was saying no to.

"You- what's wrong?" Jay asked, worry filling his voice.

"I forgot your name." Zane gasped out, and Jay's expression turned downcast for a moment, then even more anxious.

"Pfft, don't worry about it. Everyone forgets something once in a while." Jay reassured him, bending down to his level. He patted his shoulder, starting again. "Really, it's oka-"

"I don't." Zane was taken by surprise at how cold his own voice sounded to him, metallic tones grating on his ears. Jay winced slightly, and he could guess it did not sound very friendly. "I don't forget."

Jay shrugged, blue hoodie shifting slightly. "Everybody messes up once in a while, it's nothing-"

"I am a nindroid. I was not built to...fail."

The lighting ninja's expression turned sterner, and he plopped down cross legged on the floor properly. "You didn't fail at anything. And nindroids are still part of 'everybody', aren't they? Now tell me exactly how you forgot. Maybe it was a glitch from the last time I updated you."

"I-It was-" Zane paused for a moment, running through his memories. "I cannot remember how we met."

"Oh, that's easy. We were meeting after Sensei Wu introduced us to each other. You tried to shake hands with me, and I thought it was a fist bump, but, like, you went along with it anyways." Jay recaps, brow furrowing in concentration.

Zane notes this down like he always does, but this time there's no flash of recognition at the memory. His breath catches in his throat as a thought suddenly occurs. "I was cleaning out my database earlier, could that have- I wouldn't- Not- I would never clear something so important."

Words fell over each other in the hurry to get out, extremely unlike the normally put together Master Of Ice.

"I know, I know. It wasn't your mistake, stop blaming yourself." Jay reassures him, and hesitates.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, brother." Zane says, facade only holding for a few seconds before crashing down around him, expression shattering away. He hadn't known he could cry.

He did not know he could feel, like this.

Sobs wrack his body, and he suddenly wishes he wouldn't need to go through this. Like he has been hanging precariously over a ledge, needing only the slightest bit more pressure and he would drop into the dark crevice below.

And it's like a hundred tons of stress has collapsed into him from nowhere visible, weaving into his every thought, every part of him, and he doesn't know why he is breaking down like this.

"Breathe, Zane." He hears ,and looks up, tears blurring the vision of the lighting ninja looking at him, light sky shaded eyes filled with worry. His heart races at the thought of someone seeing this vulnerable, this fragmented version of himself. "I am sorry."

"No! Stop being sorry." Jay cuts in quickly, shuffling closer on his knees. "Don't apologise, it's fine, everyone has their bad days."

"I am a nindroid—"

"You're not just a nindroid, Zane, you're a person, a real one with feelings just as real as ours!" Jay exclaims, throwing his hands up in frustration. He nods slowly, not wanting to argue.

"It's okay to be stressed, it's okay to be worried, but it's not okay to push it all away. Which is obviously what you've been doing." He continues, indignation fueling him.

"But—"

"No buts!"

"Fine." Zane digests the information he's just received, still doubtful. He doesn't quite believe it, and he knows Jay can see that.

"You know what you should do?" Jay says, eyes lighting up with an idea. Zane waits in silence, knowing his answer isn't probably right. Which was to finish doing the laundry.

"Do something fun, something you like doing!" Jay says, smiling. "Reading, drawing, scrolling on tiktok—You know, whatever you want, let off some stress."

Zane raises his eyebrows in surprise, shrugging. "I do not know what to do today. Does laundry count—"

"Fine, do you know what we could do?" The lighting ninja intercepts, and Zane decides the answer would've probably been a solid 'no'.

"What?" He asks cautiously. Jay is infamously known for having pretty bad ideas, sometimes. Not that they'd ever say anything to him about it, though.

"Watch a movie!"

And that is how Zane finds himself caught into the ungiving hook that is the Marvel Universe franchise, something Jay has been begging for him to watch forever.

He should've seen it coming, really.

An hour later, they're almost done with the movie, and he has already figured out a list of the possible ways they can defeat the villain through Jay's rambled theories, but Cole plops in halfway from wherever he has been, flinging himself across a entire couch.

Zane figures another show can't hurt.

Then it's been two hours and forty six minutes, they're well into the third movie, and the whole team has made their way onto respective places in the living room, absorbed into the fantasy world of superpowers and magic portals.

Like they can't control literal whole elements for themselves.

Through a rather boring scene, Jay leans over to him, cocooned in blankets. "You know, I'll watch a movie with you whenever you want, Zane. Really, watching a movie is a great way to get rid of stress and stuff."

He smiles, promising to call the lighting ninja for these events more often. Even though he can think of a hundred other ways to spend his time more productively, something about the normalized feeling of just sitting and watching a movie, doing something normal and common, gives him a warm feeling that he cannot explain.

He looks at the clock absentmindedly, knowing he can pull up the time in his scanners in half a second, but wishing to do something normal for once. It reads 7:48, and they have completely missed dinner.

So Zane pauses the movie and announces the news of ordering in, which results in half an hour of everlasting debate over Chinese or Western, and Cole ends up calling seven different places to find something for all of them.

But settled in less than a hour later with a steaming bowl of noodles, Zane decides the movie marathon idea wasn't that bad at all.

Until he has to console a sobbing Green Ninja over a certain character death.

"H-he died! How does that make anything better?"