#wattfinder

Soulmates are found, not made.

 That’s what she’s always been told. That she would find her soulmate, or they would find her, somehow, isolated in her work for the Syndicate, seemingly barricaded behind the ring she was trying to create. Natalie grew up with stories in her head, about how her papa met her mother, his soulmate, or stories of true love and happiness that was just… found. It was nice enough, but it never seemed logical, to her. Who was willing to take that chance? Couldn’t it go wrong? Even as a child that dreamed in fairytales, the idea of a soulmate always worried her. The mark on the inside of her wrist always haunted her, and she thought that she could not escape the inevitable.

 But she wasn’t a child hiding in that shadow anymore - she was a grown woman, a professional electrical engineers, and an Apex Legend. She had lost her father so suddenly, but gained her new family just as quickly, making her home beside her own creation. And she loved her new family dearly - Dr Caustic was a reserved man, but he valued her intelligence, and did not object to her rambling and flapping of her hands. Elliott was funny, always telling stories of his family and life on Solace, and Anita was a hell of a shot, giving her pointers whenever she could, but not with her usual abrasiveness - she was kinder, self-aware of her own tendency to be quite scary at times. Makoa was caring to her needs, Octavio appealed to her curiosity and the tendency to be rash once in a blue moon. The Apex Games was her house, but the Apex Legends were her home.

 And then there was Pathfinder, the happy little MRVN unit that brought that home to her in a totally different way. Ever trusting, much like herself, expressive in himself but never losing that happy tone in his voice. He cared for his friends - his family - and talked of travel and dreams, but never really knowing who he was, or why he was here. But despite that, he carried on with that in stride, forever blind to the future. It was a blissful ignorance that she could admit she was almost jealous of - he was not bound by such an innate concept as a soulmate. But he was still soul searching, and still so loving and kind to everyone he met, even if they didn’t return the sentiment, like the world was his soulmate and he was ready to give out as many parts of him until it loved him back, as he loved it.

 She’d held this sentiment as the two worked with and against each other through the seasons, the two of them forming a bond quite quickly due to his need for the occasional repair and her curiosity with his components. He treated her with kindness and love, and it came to the point that sometimes she missed his company and high fives, though this was… a different kind of loneliness than that she had once experienced as a child, alienated from any other children that would pass through due to her intelligence and special position. She couldn’t quite place her finger on what it was, but there was just… something about Pathfinder that she didn’t want to lose, not for a moment.

 There was a quiet night, after a game that day, when there was a familiar voice at the door to her room, littered with parts and unusually messy (she liked to work that way).

“Miss Natalie?” The robot had caught her as she was working on her gear, a malfunction with her fences had caused a firefight with an unfair advantage, which was something she didn’t enjoy. 

She jumped a little, pulling up her safety goggles with a small smile. “Pathfinder, hello! You… didn’t knock.”

“Oh, I did knock, you were just busy working, and I didn’t want to just stand there and scare you when you looked up, so…” He trailed off and sheepishly tapped his fingers together, and it seemed whatever annoyance she once had eased a little.

“A-ah, well… sorry about that, my friend. Did you need something? Is your grapple acting up again?”

“Oh, no, you fixed it really well! Thank you, friend.” The screen on his chest flashed like sunshine, as he tapped a hand against where his grapple was hidden in his metal shell. “Well, I just… I had some questions, and Elliott is out doing a press release, so I can’t ask him…”

Of course, Elliott was always his first choice - that worried her, for as much as she loved the trickster, she knew that he didn’t treat Pathfinder the best, or at least, as a friend should. That was something someone should speak to him about. Natalie took her safety goggles off and placed them on her desk, giving the robot her full attention. “Well, what’s up?”

He paused for a moment, assessing whether that was a pun or not before he nodded, taking a seat on the stool beside her. “Well, I wanted to ask… what’s a soulmate?”

The mention of the concept made her freeze, before she looked away for a moment and fiddled with a few loose wires in the base of her pylon. “Well, that’s… why do you ask?”

“I don’t know… I have heard a lot of people say it and celebrate it, but I never knew what it meant. Is it like… a super best friend?”

“In… a way. It’s a lover tied to you by destiny. The one you’re supposed to be with all your life… identified with a mark, l-like this one.” Slowly, she pulled off one of her thick work gloves and showed Pathfinder the inside of her wrist, where she bore a small, glowing mark.

“Oh… that’s pretty.”

“Mhm.”

“...You don’t think so?”

“Huh?” Natalie looked up, at the optic eye now staring up at her. “Well, it is pretty, but…”

“...Do you think it’s silly?”

She didn’t reply, only looked away. Silly, possibly - suffocating, almost definitely.

The robot didn’t respond back for a moment, simply looking at her with a small tilt of his head, before he continued with a thought out loud. “I think you should be able to find your own soulmate.”

“What?”

“Well, if they’re destiny, there’s no point in waiting around - that’s why I’m looking for my creator the way I am. You have to make noise to be heard.”

“That’s… oddly profound, my friend.”

He smiled, or at least, his screen did, a bright beaming yellow reflecting on the LEDs embedded in his chest, beating as any real heart would do - full of love, and hope. “Bloodhound taught me that one, they’re very smart.”

The engineer paused, before she couldn’t help but chuckle. “I suppose they are.”

 Silence fell between them for another moment, but they did not move. She watched the robot shift in place on the stool, and for once, his screen was blank, nothing shown. It was oddly unnerving.

“Miss Natalie?”

“Oui, Pathfinder?”

“Do you want to be my soulmate?”

She was almost taken aback by the question, looking up to him with a slight eyebrow raise. “Pardon?”

“Well, I… it’s silly, but… everyone has been so nice, and that makes me happy, but whenever you’re nice to me I get even happier, and I’ve been searching for so much for so long that I-”

“-want to embrace what you have found?” She finished his thought with her own, watching him look to her and nod slowly. Of course, this made sense - the emotional wanderlust he held was soul searching, but he never knew what it was like to have something - someone - that was his. They were kindred souls, in that way, at least. Natalie smiled to herself. Of course - the loneliness she felt was longing for that comfort of love that she found. She just didn’t realize because it wasn’t something that she had just found… it was a bond she had nurtured, and cherished. A bond she had found. “...I will, Pathfinder.”

He paused, sitting up a little straighter in surprise before clapping his hands together, his heart on the screen glowing a warm, loving pink, almost welcoming her in before he held out a hand to her, pinkie finger extended in a promise. “We’ll be best soulmates forever!”

The engineer giggled, taking her own pinkie finger in his own and curling it around the cold metal appendage, a light dusting of pink brushing across her cheeks. “Pour toujours et à jamais. Always and forever.”

Pathfinder reached out and pressed his head against hers with a gentle bonk, which made her laugh again, bringing up a hand to hold what would have been his cheek, pausing for a moment at the red light reflected onto her skin before kissing his optic with a gentleness and tenderness she didn’t know she possessed. And for the first time since she could remember, Natalie wasn’t afraid of the future.