#we know at least one ai company did a crawl through ao3

[monsterhugger]

is there a glaze-esque thing I can do to written work to keep it from being fed into ai generators? something that will keep it readable but not usable as part of a dataset?

#like logically ik my work has probably already been scraped #or at least most of it #we know at least one ai company did a crawl through ao3 #my instinct is uploading images of text instead of text but ao3 doesnt display images well and like. screenreaders are a thing #or like. a text disclaimer at the beginning or end of the work body but idk how much that would actually mess up a dataset #idk. people (rightfully) are complaining abt artists being stolen from but ive seen like one post abt writers #ive already seen fics tagged 'written with the help of AI' like... cool. admit to other fic writers you're using our stolen work. great #and btw just adding a disclaimer in the notes would do nothing #the people scraping fic are doing it with automated software. a human isnt seeing most of the text that's being mined let alone the notes

[xxx-cat-xxx]

Keeping Company

Authors: @whumphoarder and @xxx-cat-xxx

Summary: While attempting to look after his migraine-riddled mentor, Peter manages to injure himself badly enough to need Tony’s help. 

Word Count: 3k

Authors’ note: Basically, Bethany and Cat are incredibly predictable people, so we each wrote our favorite whump tropes (Tony + migraine, Peter + stitches) and combined them to make our first collab story in response! Hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed creating it together :D

Link to read on Ao3

Tony spits saliva into the toilet bowl for the umpteenth time, wishing that his stomach would get it over with and empty itself already just so that he can get back to bed. Not that it would make much of a difference; his head hurts no matter where he is, but he knows the rest of his body is not going to like the hour he just spent kneeling on the tiled bathroom floor come tomorrow.

“Tony? Are you in there?” someone calls quietly from outside the door. It takes Tony’s migraine-riddled brain a moment to place the voice. Peter, right. Peter, who is staying over at the lake house this weekend to help him upgrade FRIDAY’s interface while Pepper takes Morgan downtown for a day trip.

“Tony? Can I come in?” Peter calls. He sounds a bit more anxious now, making Tony realize that he never actually answered.

“Yeah,” he rasps, and his head thanks him with another vicious throb of pain that he can feel reverberating in the pit of his stomach. He reaches back for the doorknob with an arm that isn’t there before recalling that he took the prosthesis off in the garage because it was hurting him earlier. Then he remembers that he didn’t even lock the door to the bathroom. God, he’s a mess today. “‘S open.”

Peter steps in and immediately winces at the sight of Tony slumped on the floor. “Hey. Uh, did you throw up?” he asks.

Tony shakes his head. “Just nauseous.”

“Ah, okay.” The worry in Peter’s voice is clear. Tony has been getting migraines more frequently since the snap, but the kid has never witnessed one quite like this before. It was bad enough that Tony didn’t even make much of a fuss when Peter sent him to bed after his hands were shaking so badly that he’d slopped coffee over some exposed circuits in the mainframe and shorted them out.

He squints up at Peter. “Don’ worry, kid. It’ll pass.”

Peter nods. He crosses his arms awkwardly, looking like he’s not quite sure what to do with them, and leans against the doorframe. “Uh, how long have you been in here?”

Tony shrugs a bit. “An hour? Two?”

Peter’s face falls. “Why didn’t you tell me it’d gotten this bad? You said I should just do my homework because you were gonna fall asleep anyway.”

“Well what would you have done about it?” Tony retorts. It comes out ruder than intended and Peter’s gaze immediately drops to his feet. A pang of guilt hits Tony and he sighs, sluggishly rubbing his forehead. “Sorry. ‘S just frustrating.”

“No, it’s okay,” Peter reassures, sighing as well. “Just wish I could do something.”

“Build me a new brain,” Tony jokes weakly. “Sell this piece of crap on eBay. Someone’ll buy it—they always do.”

Just then another wave of nausea washes over him. His stomach clenches and for a moment he’s sure he is going to throw up. He bends back over the bowl and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing out carefully. Saliva is pooling in his mouth and the urge to gag is overwhelming, but still, he fights it. Despite how close he and the kid have gotten in the months following Thanos’ defeat, Tony isn’t quite ready to let Peter witness him losing his lunch.

“Actually,” he gasps out after swallowing thickly, “I think there’s some ginger ale in the kitchen. Can you, uh...?” he flaps his hand around.

Peter nods eagerly. “Yeah, for sure,” he says, and disappears through the open door.

The moment he’s out of the room, Tony gags. Nothing comes up, but the pain accompanying the movement is so bad that it sends white lights crisscrossing through his vision.

After another few dry heaves, he lets his head sink down against the rim of the bowl with a low moan that luckily nobody else can hear. He’s shaking and drenched in cold sweat. Pretty pathetic, Iron Man, he thinks.

Then he hears the sound of glass shattering downstairs.

Tony lifts his head weakly. “FRI?” he rasps. “Wha’ was that?”

“Peter appears to have broken a drinking glass,” FRIDAY reports, her volume a bit lower than usual.

“Hm.” As long as it’s not that hideous French sculpture in the dining room that Pepper’s grandmother gave to her, they should be fine. Not that Tony wouldn’t  love  an excuse to finally be rid of that thing—it gives him the creeps. “Is he alright?” he croaks.

“He assures me he is perfectly fine and will be clearing the mess up momentarily,”—Tony gives a small, satisfied hum and lets his eyelids drift back closed—“just as soon as he manages to stop the bleeding,” she finishes.

“Hm… wait, what?” It takes about two seconds longer than usual for Tony’s impaired brain to latch on to the meaning of that sentence. “What bleeding?”

“I’m totally fine, Mr. Stark!” Peter’s voice hollers up the stairs. Tony winces at the sound; he always forgets about the kid’s enhanced hearing. “Got it handled!”  

“In attempting to catch the falling glass, he sustained several lacerations to his right hand,” FRIDAY informs. “Most are superficial, though one of the cuts is bleeding quite heavily and may require medical attention.”

“God, kid, what did you do this time?” Tony groans quietly as he reaches for the sink to pull himself upright. The change in altitude dials up the pain another few notches and makes his vision swim. He maneuvers his way through the dimly lit master bedroom, swaying almost drunkenly.

The sunlight streaming in through the hallway windows when he opens the bedroom doors feels like a personal assault. Tony groans in pain, unable to stop himself, and brings his elbow up to cover his eyes. “FRI, blinds,” he manages to say through clenched teeth. The AI immediately draws the integrated blinds and the hallway blissfully darkens.

“Mr. Stark? Are you okay?” the kid calls from downstairs. “Don’t come down―I got this!” The slight waver of Peter’s voice at the end of the sentence however makes it clear to Tony that the kid has not, in fact, got this.  

“Too late,” he calls back, and then flinches at the volume of his own voice.

The stairs are a challenge with the added aura and wooziness on top of the usual balance issues he still has whenever he doesn’t wear his prosthesis. Holding tightly to the railing with his left arm, Tony concentrates on putting one foot in front of another. He has to stop twice—once to wait for a dizzy spell to pass, and the second time to breathe through another wave of nausea—but he makes it down in one piece.

“Pete?” he asks when he reaches the landing.

There’s a clattering sound and a muffled swear from the kitchen.

“Whatever you’re doing, just stop,” Tony says tiredly as he moves toward the kitchen, keeping his hand on the wall for balance. “Just sit down, and wait for….” he trails off, standing at the room’s threshold now and getting his first glimpse of the scene. “Yikes.”

It looks like something straight out of a B-grade horror flick. Peter is crawling around on the crimson droplet-stained floor, frantically trying to pick up glass shards with his left hand while holding his right—wrapped in a thick, bloodsoaked wad of paper towels—pressed against his chest. He glances up when his mentor stops in the doorway, eyes wide. “I’m fine—I promise,” he blurts.

“Yeah, you and me both, kid,” Tony mutters. He stands there for a moment, his gaze traveling blankly from the blood and glass pieces littering the floor, to the kid’s Pokémon-socked feet, and waits for his sluggish brain to formulate a plan of action.

“Broom,” Tony decides finally, and side steps carefully in his leather-soled slippers over to the pantry to retrieve it.

“Uh, did you still want the ginger ale?” Peter asks nervously. “Because it’s right over there,” he rambles, nodding to the bottle on the counter as he continues picking up glass. “It’s not cold or anything, which is why I was gonna put it in a cup with some ice, but—”

“Pete,” Tony interrupts.

Peter glances up at him. “Yeah?”

“I’m not all useless, alright?” Tony says. Peter opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, but Tony just holds up a finger, shushing him. “Just let me help you. Please.”

Closing his mouth again, Peter gives a single nod. “Alright.”

Tony grabs the broom and uses it to clear a path across the floor to Peter. The closer he gets, the easier he can see the kid’s pallor, which does nothing to decrease his worry.

“Alright, let’s see it,” he says, nodding to Peter’s towel-wrapped hand.

Looking reluctant, Peter peels back his makeshift bandages. Fresh blood immediately starts flowing from a deep, lateral gash spanning across the top of Peter’s palm. Smaller, superficial cuts cover his fingers, and Tony can see at least one piece of glass still sticking into his hand just below the thumb.

“Jesus…” Tony breathes. He isn’t a squeamish person, but this would be sickening even if his stomach wasn’t already on the verge of crawling up his throat. “How did you even do that?”

Peter gives a pained smile. “Super strength? Tried to catch the glass on the way down, but I guess I grabbed it too hard. Kind of embarrassing, actually...”

Tony swallows thickly. “Please don’t ever try to catch me if I’m falling.” He briefly closes his eyes, breathing out, and then forces himself to open them again. The blood flow from Peter’s palm hasn’t stopped; on the contrary, it is now steadily dripping onto the floor. “Alright, stitches,” he decides, covering the wound again. “Bathroom. Let’s go.”

Peter doesn’t protest, but he does pale somewhat upon hearing the word ‘stitches.’ Whether it’s from nerves or the blood loss starting to take its toll, the kid is visibly unsteady on his feet once he gets up. Tony would have offered a supporting hand, but he isn’t faring much better himself. The two of them start shuffling down the hall like a pair of tipsy penguins—Tony holding onto the wall for balance, and Peter clutching his injured hand to his chest, swaying ever so slightly.

“Sit down,” Tony orders once they reach the bathroom, motioning at the toilet. Peter obeys, letting himself sink down onto the lid with a heavy exhale. Tony flips on the overhead light and can barely suppress a moan when the brightness hits his retinas, but if he has any hope of fixing this, he needs to see.

He leans into the doorframe a little and briefly wonders just who he pissed off in a past life to deserve this delightful day before turning his attention back to the teenager currently bleeding all over his luxury white bath mat.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter mumbles. “You should just lie down, actually―I can take care of this on my own.”

“Sure kid,” Tony huffs. “If ‘taking care’ means passing out on the bathroom floor.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “You’d rather us both pass out on the bathroom floor?”

“Gets lonely down there. Can keep each other company,” Tony mutters. He pushes himself off the wall and moves over to the medicine cabinet to start gathering the supplies they’re going to need. The suture kit he locates quickly enough, but it takes him a full minute to remember where Pepper keeps the tweezers and his hands are shaking so much that he almost drops the box of gauze pads. Then he pulls Morgan’s little step stool out from below the sink and sits down on it next to Peter. “Give me your hand.”

Upon closer inspection, there are two small pieces of glass still embedded in Peter’s palm. It takes Tony a couple of tries to remove them with the tweezers, but eventually he succeeds. Then he picks up the bottle of disinfectant from the counter and holds it out to Peter. “Can you open this?”

Peter gives him a puzzled look. “Aftershave?”

“Hm?” Tony frowns, then squints at the label of the bottle. “Oh.” He sets it back down. “Just testing you.” Peter rolls his eyes and Tony reaches behind himself for the correct bottle this time. Between their two working hands, they manage to remove the childproof cap and Tony gets the bottle in position over Peter’s hand.

“Okay, deep breath,” he advises.

Peter sucks in a sharp inhale, then bites his lip as Tony pours bubbling disinfectant over the cuts. Once the wounds are clean, Tony uses his teeth to tear open the packet containing the (thankfully pre-threaded) surgical needle. Peter gulps at the sight.

Tony carefully picks up the needle with forceps. “You alright?” he checks.

“Yeah, fine,” Peter grits back, looking anything but fine. “Let’s just get it over with.”

That turns out to be easier said than done. Try as he might, Tony can’t get his eyes to focus properly on the wound and his trembling fingers keep causing the needle to jump—not to mention the kid’s anxious flinching. After five full minutes of fiddling with the needle, Tony’s barely managed two stitches. Then the pungent stench of disinfectant mixing with the scent of Peter’s blood suddenly becomes too much for his stomach to take.

“Hang on,” he mutters before standing up and spinning around just in time to heave violently into the sink.

(So much about not throwing up in front of the kid.)

“Tony?” Peter asks in a weak voice when Tony’s retching tapers off.

“Just gimme… a minute,” Tony gasps, trying to breathe through the blinding pain searing through his skull. He shakily wipes his mouth, praying that he isn’t in for another round. “Sorry. I’ll fix it.”

“I know, I just—” Peter looks down at the needle, which is still stuck in his hand mid-stitch, and breathes out a careful exhale. Sweat is glistening on his face. “Maybe it’d be better if you just talked me through it?”

Somehow, the kid manages to look at him with both pleading and pity, and it causes a flare of anger in Tony’s chest at his own patheticness. He has to swallow hard to clear the tightness from his throat before croaking out, “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

Peter picks up the needle and forceps with his left hand and follows Tony’s muttered instructions. The knots are the hardest part to explain. Tony has to talk Peter through which direction to pull the threads and how many times to wrap them around before tying them off, and it’s taking all of his patience to do so.

“It’s like the time May tried to teach me how to tie my tie for homecoming,” Peter murmurs, pulling the needle through his skin with the forceps. “Same frustration, just more blood.”

Tony huffs a bit and massages his own aching temples. “Still can’t believe you made it to sixteen without ever wearing a tie…”

“No, I’d  worn ties before,” Peter retorts, keeping his voice low, “but Ben always tied them for me.” He lets out a little hiss as he tugs the thread to pull the skin closed.

“Not so tight, kid,” Tony corrects. Peter nods and gives it more slack. It seems to be helping the kid to have something else to focus on besides the sutures, so Tony continues. “Jarvis had me doing double windsors the same week I learned to tie my shoes. Think I was three.”

“Child prodigy...” Peter huffs, though there’s no heat behind his words. After a moment he says, “Did Jarvis teach you to do stitches too?”

“Nah, that was Rhodey.” Tony feels his stomach twisting again at the recollection of that night and shudders a bit. “Don’t mouth-off to drunken frat boys, kid. Never ends well.”

Peter smirks a bit as he starts the next suture. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Eventually, they manage to finish stitching the wound closed. Tony douses him with antiseptic again, then wraps Peter’s hand in gauze bandages until it vaguely resembles an oven mitt.

“Okay.” Tony lets his head fall back against the counter and sighs exhaustedly. “Congratulations, kid—you just cleared another level on the way to becoming a full Avenger.”

Peter grins weakly. “It was kinda badass, wasn’t it?” He gazes down at his hand as if he can’t quite believe what he just did. Then he looks over at Tony and his face sobers. “You should go lie down. And I need to clean up the kitchen.” He starts to get to his feet, but the second he’s up, the color seems to drain from his face. Tony shoots out his hand and grips the kid’s bicep. “Or maybe I’ll just sit for a minute,” Peter murmurs, sinking heavily back down onto the toilet lid. “Or two.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Tony says in concern. “Please don’t faint and break your leg or something. I’ve hit my capacity for field surgeries today.”

While Peter rolls his eyes, Tony mutters for FRIDAY to dim the lights. The brightness in the room immediately decreases to a minimum and Tony could honestly cry in relief. Giving up all pretenses, he slides down off the step stool and stretches out on the floor mat, crossing his arms behind his pounding head to make a sort of cushion.

“Gross,” Peter mutters.

“I threw up Pep’s carrot soup today,” Tony murmurs in response, letting his eyes slip closed. “Don’t talk to me about gross.”

He lies there for a minute before he feels Peter getting up and stepping over him toward the sink. The water turns on briefly, then goes off again and the next thing he knows, a cool washcloth is being draped over his forehead and eyes.

“Thanks, kid,” he breathes. “Now let’s never do this day again.”

Peter groans and lies down beside his mentor on the absurdly plush bath mat.  “Agreed.” 

Bethany’s fics | Cat’s fics

#Irondad #Spiderson #whump #hurt tony stark #hurt peter parker #humor #banter #the lake house #collab fic #vomiting #blood

[salty--alien]

Deeply Wired - cp. 4

Prologue | cp. 1 | cp. 2 | cp. 3 | Ao3

Summary: It’s 2904. A mechanician known as the Doctor finds a broken android, Rose, and decides to take it with him and fix it. The two become closer quickly but soon a mysterious virus inside Rose starts acting up and revealing its true capabilities, changing everything. When Rose’s previous owner comes around and tries to get a hold of the Bad Wolf virus, the two are left with no choice. What lengths will they go to keep Rose away from the evil hands of the Master?

Pairing: Tenth Doctor x android!Rose Tyler (au)

Chapter: 5/?

Rating: T

Wordcount: 2439

Notes: Huge thanks to both @wordsintimeandspace and @starlightkissedsmiles for beta’ing this chapter <3

----------------------------

After that night things between the Doctor and Rose started healing. Rose began discovering herself all over again with the help of the Doctor, following his tinkering with a newfound interest. He could see that she didn’t fully trust him yet. He could see it from the way she would hesitate before asking him a question or from the way she didn’t rely on him as much. It hurt, of course, but the Doctor also understood it. Her asking questions was a way to rebuild the lost trust back. And he was glad Rose was beginning to construct an independent self image.

“So, how much of it was true?” Rose asked one day as the Doctor was working on a broken computer.

“From what?” he asked, not quite sure what Rose was referring to.

“Y’know, from the story of how you found me. I was unconscious… well, shut down, more like. Was I really just lying on the street?”

The Doctor’s expression darkened as he remembered the way he had first found her. Bruised and ripped apart brutally with no remorse. “...It’s not a pretty story,” he said. “I don’t think you’d like hearing that.” “I don’t care. I asked you a question,” Rose responded stubbornly. The Doctor sighed. “Well, alright. I didn’t find you on the streets. I found you in a… in a scrapyard.”

Rose’s eyes widened in horror. Androids didn’t like scrapyards. They held a dark history of android brutality. Junkyards were meant for garbage and machinery, not androids. It was highly offensive to abandon broken AI there. Unfortunately, it happened regularly.

Rose might not be aware of every social and cultural taboo there was, but she had been watching the TV awfully lot for the past few days. Even if she hadn’t, the Doctor was almost sure that some sort of android instinct in Rose knew the implication of what being abandoned in a scrapyard meant.

“I… “ Rose began, voice wavering. She brought her hand to her lips. “I was abandoned in a s… scrapyard?” She said it like a dirty word. The Doctor could only look down and nod. “Yeah. And it’s not all. I don’t have to tell you if you don’t want to hear it, though.”

At the Doctor’s words Rose visibly steeled herself, shaking her head. “No. I can take it. Tell me.” It’s not like it could’ve been any worse than that, right?

Well, the Doctor knew it was.

“I didn’t find you whole, Rose. You had been chopped to pieces, uh… limbs off.” The Doctor glanced over at Rose who was gripping the edge of the workbench, looking a bit nauseous.

“You are whole now, though,” he said, reaching out for Rose’s hand. Her knuckles were marble white against the table. She did, however, look back at the Doctor and take his hand. There was a nod.

“You fixed me. I’m okay now,” she agreed, falling silent again. “...’s just. Why would someone do that?” she asked, a deep frown crumbling her face.

“I can only hope it wasn’t a person who did it,” the Doctor answered. “It’s possible it was a wild animal.” Thinking about it still made the Doctor’s skin crawl, but at least it was easier to accept than some person actually being heartless enough to do something like that to another living being.

It was when the Doctor felt a firm squeeze in his hand that he realised they were still holding hands. He looked up, smiling at the android beside him. Even in her distraught state she managed to smile back at him with reassurance and love.

He never wanted to let go of her hand ever again.

--------------------------

Sunlight shed light on the workshop through the colourful leaves of the old elm tree standing in front of his window. The shadows of the leaves draped across the Doctor and Rose’s faces, gently filtering the light. It was a calm afternoon, just the way the Doctor liked it. It was even better with Rose at his side.

“Are there androids who don’t have owners?”

“Of course. There are plenty.”

“D’ya suppose I had an owner, though?” Rose asked. She was in a mood for questions today, it seemed. The Doctor took a moment to ponder her question before answering.

“It’s likely, yeah. Your model was produced for…” he felt iffy even saying it, “service purposes.”

“Was produced?” Rose asked in surprise.

“Yep. Your model unit isn’t produced anymore. Most of the RO-53 units have been replaced with RO-54 units,” he explained.

“What’s so good about them that I can’t do?” Rose frowned, suddenly very defensive. The Doctor sighed.

“Nothing. And I mean it. RO-54 units are different because humans aim to build them without emotions. Purely for service and work. Your model was too… rebellious, so to speak. So it had to be replaced with a model better suited for its intended purpose.”

“...Wow,” Rose let out. “That’s just messed up.”

“I know,” the Doctor sighed. ”It’s just downright cruel. Humans want to control everything, but what we don’t seem to realise is that you cannot control life. We can try to rule an individual’s independent mind but that has never ended well.”

“I feel bad for them,” Rose said. Of course she would. She didn’t want anyone to suffer. “They must be so scared. People are messing up with their circuits and trying to turn them into machines. We’re not machines.”

“No, you’re not,” the Doctor agreed. Androids were higher than highest high tech. That’s what he’d always thought. Treating them merely as machinery was positively insulting.

He continued fixing the computer’s motherboard after their conversation dried out. Rose sat beside the Doctor quietly, following every movement of his clever fingers. It was comforting, having someone just sitting there and keeping him silent company. He knew that many people didn’t like it when someone was watching you work and it made them uncomfortable, but luckily the Doctor wasn’t one of those people. Maybe he’d been alone for too long to ever mind having somebody close, who knew.

“Give me the small screwdriver?” the Doctor asked, blindly reaching his arm out towards Rose who was sitting next to the toolbox.

“The one with the blue handle?” Rose asked, moving the tools around with one hand.

“No, the thin yellow one that has a cross shaped end.”

After hearing the tools clattering around, the Doctor felt Rose’s hand brush against his reached out one, giving the small utensil to him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he continued working with the tiny teensy bits of the damaged motherboard. “Whose computer are you fixing?” Rose inquired.

“It belongs to Mrs. Tyler,” the Doctor answered, absorbed into his work. “A nice lady. Widowed, no children. She’s a bit scary, though. Lives across the street. I repair her stuff from time to time.” “For free?” He could practically see the frown on her face, solely based on her tone.

“Uh… Maybe? As I said, she’s a bit scary,” the Doctor chuckled. “Slapped me once. But she has a heart of gold. She sometimes comes by to give me home-cooked food because I forget to eat.” “Aww, that’s nice of her,” Rose approved. For a while, nobody spoke.

“Come to think of it, there’s this funny thing I just remembered.”

“What’s that?” Rose asked.

“Weeelll… She has this dog. A tiny, tiny thing. Always barking and challenging dogs three times her size.”

“Okay…? Did the dog slap you too or what?” Rose quipped, grinning. The Doctor paused his work, looking at the chuckling android, feigning offence: “Oi!”

“Obviously not. Is just… I just remembered the dog’s name,” the Doctor admitted, embarrassed. Rose was still confused.

“So?” she questioned.

“Well… The dog’s name might or might not be Rose.” Rose’s face sobered instantly.

“What? You named me after a dog?!”

Furious. She was absolutely furious. The Doctor was quick to defend himself: “No Rose, I swear! I didn’t even remember it until now! I promise! I just… since your model is RO-53 I thought it’d be clever to… you know, the number five is kinda like the letter ‘s’ and the three is like a backwards ‘e’, right? So I‒”

“...Okay, okay Doctor, I believe you! You don’t need to explain it. Just… what the heck? That’s not funny!” Rose laughed, clearly unamused. “Not funny,” she repeated as she tried to tamp down her own laughter.

The Doctor relaxed at the sight of her, giggling and trying to be cross with him (and failing) at the same time. It was impossible not to smile at that.

Rose noticed him smiling and pointed an accusing finger at him in a half-hearted attempt to be intimidating.

“Stop smiling! I’m still very cross with you!” she tried.

The Doctor didn’t stop smiling.

--------------------------

The Doctor wasn’t a big fan of clothes shopping. He had said it before and he would remind everyone of that again if necessary. However, he noticed as he had once again tagged along with Rose to buy her new clothing, he did have a small soft spot for a certain android. Well. Small was a relative word. In reality, he was absolutely smitten, even to the point where he voluntarily accompanied Rose in clothing stores. Just seeing the android’s face light up at the concept of possessions of her own made it all worth it in the Doctor’s opinion.

Now the two were back at his workshop and Rose was walking around with her brand new pink sweater on.

Had he just said that just seeing her happy face was enough of a reward? Well, while that was correct, it was nothing compared to the hugs she gave him. Her new sweater was soft and warm, but the person wearing it was even softer. The Doctor did nothing more gladly than swoop the android up in a big hug and hear her laugh as he swirled them around.

When had he become so attached to her?

As the sun was starting to set the Doctor found himself staring at Rose instead of his work. The android was gazing out of the big window, light hitting her face in an aesthetic way that you’d see in the movies. Her brown eyes were like pools of gold against the sunlight, almost glowing.

Rose noticed the Doctor staring at her, mildly startled but quickly recovering with a gentle smile.

“What?” she asked, reaching her hand out to clasp their fingers together.

“Nothing,” he answered in kind, snapping out of his trance. “Just lost in thought.” Rose grinned. “It happens when you have such a big brain,” she teased. The Doctor smiled, biting his lip.

“Yeah, it does.”

Rose smiled wide, pressing her chin against her other shoulder. The android’s hair slumped across her face at the movement. Rose tried to nudge the mass of hair away with the help of her face and shoulder, turning to gaze at the Doctor with a wistful expression on her face.

“What?” he asked in turn, blushing from the attention he was given. Rose shrugged, squeezing his hand.

“I saw the mail at the door the other day. It was designated to someone called ‘John Smith’. So I was thinking, ‘who’s that?’ I’ve never heard you mention any John, but it’s clearly not coming to the wrong place since you open it and...” Rose’s voice faded out at the Doctor’s awkward silence and her eyes widened in realisation. “Oh. Oh! Shit, I’ve been so stupid,” she laughed. “You are John Smith,” Rose realised, an embarrassed look passing across her face.

“...Yeah, that’s… that’s me,” the Doctor said, ruffling his hair with his free hand nervously. “Never really adapted to that one,” he admitted. Rose was having a full moment of her mind being blown, though.

“I never even questioned it, for some reason. I always just thought you were called the Doctor, but… wow.” The Doctor smiled.

“It’s a rather boring name, isn’t it?” he asked, waiting for Rose to say what every other person who knew his whole name usually said first.

“No! Well… yes, but… okay, it is rather boring,” Rose admitted, “fits you perfectly, though,” she added with a tongue touched grin.

“Oi!”

“Just kidding, Doctor! You’re not boring,” Rose giggled and squeezed their hands together briefly before letting go and getting up.

“Boring, yeah right,” the Doctor mumbled before continuing his work.

--------------------------

The rest of the evening went by in a blur. The Doctor was working on Mrs. Tyler’s computer and Rose was listening to a very old fashioned and retro radio the Doctor had in his workshop. She had a lot of fun checking out the different radio stations.

“Do people even have radios anymore?” she had asked, amused. Technology had left radios behind centuries ago. The Doctor, however, had all sorts of weird gadgets in his workshop. Besides, he liked how simple the old things were. No hundreds of different buttons for a single function. Just a volume button and the one that you could use to change stations. Besides, he liked to remind Rose, those radios were amazing because you could hear all sorts of classical music from them. Since radios weren’t a thing anymore, most radio stations were gone. Some of them were still up and running. Mostly playing classics like Britney Spears’ ballad, Toxic, or the speech podcasts of the ever famous storyteller, Snoop Dogg. The Doctor never quite understood the messages of his stories. So fast-paced and… well, explicit. Rose told him it was “called art”.

The doorbell rang as the Doctor was just finishing up with the computer. Rose was in the kitchen doing her own thing.

“Someone’s at the door,” Rose announced after the bell’s ringing.

“Yeah, it’s Mrs. Tyler. She’s here to get her computer back, just in time!” the Doctor quipped, speeding up with the last touches.

“Should I go open or will you go?” Rose questioned. “Yeah, go open the door for her. I’ll be there in a minute, I’m just going to finish the computer up,” he requested, trying to be as quick as possible. He heard Rose’s steps as she walked out of the room, doing what was asked of her. He heard the door open but no further sounds of any kind.

“...Doctor?” That was Rose’s voice.

Finishing up, the Doctor got up from his seat, wiped his dirty hands on his shirt and hurried to the door.

As soon as he reached the door and Rose he froze beside her, looking at the visitor who most certainly was not Mrs. Tyler.

“Hello, Doctor Smith. I’m here to reclaim my RO-53 unit.”

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