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fandomweekly2025-12-15 08:32 pm
ecto_one_spengler) wrote in fandomweekly2025-12-15 08:32 pm
Entry tags:
[#283] little bird, fly through my window (Futurama)
Theme Prompt: #283 - First Impressions
Title: little bird, fly through my window
Fandom: Futurama (Specifically referencing the pilot and mostly "Lethal Inspection" [Season 7, EP6])
Rating/Warnings: Very cautious Teen rating/PG-13 due to Bender's canonical suicide attempt in the pilot being mentioned.
Word Count: 679 words
Author's Note: I promise I did not intend for this to be late as it was!! My internet acted up really badly partway through the editing process (aka it cut out at least three times!!). Please forgive me here, mods. Please enjoy my humble attempt at Futurama fic :)
Summary: Hermes' first moment working with a bending unit moves him to pursue a new employer. Three years later, a depressed bending unit named Bender has the strangest job interview he's ever had by choice, with an oddly familiar Bureaucrat as an interviewer.
--
Glass optics stare at him curiously on a particular day in Tijuana. The year is 2996. He’s the sole Bureaucrat in the space - owing to the robot company cutting costs by his own recommendations as a slimmer, newer father. The scanner comes up with the determination that the little robot, maybe approximately twenty seconds old and counting, has a defect. No backup unit. He considers tossing the little bending unit into the recycle bin.. But that stare, that very soft stare, is all too much like Dwight’s curious little eyes earlier in his marriage.
Gently, he deposits the bending unit back onto the production line after twenty more seconds, and sends the little one on back to the main part of the production plant - hopefully, to the two robots he knows produced him. Hermes just can’t help but smile at the sight, but frowns shortly after as he hears Mom’s usual crew quite loudly take the robot kid. That frown turns to a fierce protectiveness, and that’s about when the Bureaucrat angrily gives up his resignation letter, mere hours afterward.
Privately, he admits to himself the donkey kick to his lower back is worth it, though he is sore when leaving his house behind for what he hopes is the last time.
–
The post-hiring interview is strangely nerve-wracking for the otherwise numb and calm Bender Rodriguez, just about three years after his manufacturing and maybe two days after New Year’s Eve, 2999. His recent life has been a whirlwind of emotions he detests and yet weirdly is grateful toward – first, he’d quit his job, then intended to kill himself, and yet.. That weird orange-haired meatbag stopped him, even actively saved him!
That’s why he’s sat in an office, that of the Bureaucrat pencil-pusher Hermes Conrad, who he annoyingly has to interact with to get his paperwork sorted to officially work with Planet Express. Bender isn’t expecting much, but he is surprised when a portly, green-wearing Jamaican dude appears.
– A very grainy video memory appears then, of a soft fatherly smile and the man it was attached to sending him spinning along to Madre, to Ardor, the two main robots who built him with care unusual for most robots. Forty seconds is all he gets, and there’s no audio, but.. Those warm brown, old-ass eyes, they’re –
Bender blinks, not quite able to bring back up his nonchalant mask fast enough to avoid Hermes’ odd little stare. He could have sworn that weird pencil-pusher was just about to smile in this moment, as if in recognition, or maybe hope. The moment passes, and he leans back in his hoverchair as casually as he can.
“So, introduce yourself, mon,” Hermes begins, peering over the few papers comprising Bender’s work history.
“I’m Bender, and I used to bend girders,” the robot says, meaning to sound smug as he sets his foot cups on the desk. “Not that much to say, ‘cept that Fry said there might be a job opening here.”
There it is again, that weird fond expression that flickers in the Bureaucrat’s eyes when he notes what’s been said. For some reason that combined with the video memory makes him hesitate to be his fake snarky self enough that he misses the next question asked of him – and in embarrassment he just mutters answers throughout the rest, trying very hard not to think too hard on things.
Odd. Really fucking odd.
Some part of Bender feels programmed to hate the pencil-pusher for that, after the interview is concluded and he finally goes back home for the first time since resolving to kill himself the day before now.
But another part of him.. Is just outright surprised that he even has any video memories of his production time at all. That expression sticks in his mind and frustrates him because he almost wishes Hermes had just said something.
(It’s too bad Hermes never does say so, ten years later when Bender discovers his defect and all throughout their adventure back in his birthplace. Bender has to admit, Hermes sucks ass at lying.)
Title: little bird, fly through my window
Fandom: Futurama (Specifically referencing the pilot and mostly "Lethal Inspection" [Season 7, EP6])
Rating/Warnings: Very cautious Teen rating/PG-13 due to Bender's canonical suicide attempt in the pilot being mentioned.
Word Count: 679 words
Author's Note: I promise I did not intend for this to be late as it was!! My internet acted up really badly partway through the editing process (aka it cut out at least three times!!). Please forgive me here, mods. Please enjoy my humble attempt at Futurama fic :)
Summary: Hermes' first moment working with a bending unit moves him to pursue a new employer. Three years later, a depressed bending unit named Bender has the strangest job interview he's ever had by choice, with an oddly familiar Bureaucrat as an interviewer.
--
Glass optics stare at him curiously on a particular day in Tijuana. The year is 2996. He’s the sole Bureaucrat in the space - owing to the robot company cutting costs by his own recommendations as a slimmer, newer father. The scanner comes up with the determination that the little robot, maybe approximately twenty seconds old and counting, has a defect. No backup unit. He considers tossing the little bending unit into the recycle bin.. But that stare, that very soft stare, is all too much like Dwight’s curious little eyes earlier in his marriage.
Gently, he deposits the bending unit back onto the production line after twenty more seconds, and sends the little one on back to the main part of the production plant - hopefully, to the two robots he knows produced him. Hermes just can’t help but smile at the sight, but frowns shortly after as he hears Mom’s usual crew quite loudly take the robot kid. That frown turns to a fierce protectiveness, and that’s about when the Bureaucrat angrily gives up his resignation letter, mere hours afterward.
Privately, he admits to himself the donkey kick to his lower back is worth it, though he is sore when leaving his house behind for what he hopes is the last time.
–
The post-hiring interview is strangely nerve-wracking for the otherwise numb and calm Bender Rodriguez, just about three years after his manufacturing and maybe two days after New Year’s Eve, 2999. His recent life has been a whirlwind of emotions he detests and yet weirdly is grateful toward – first, he’d quit his job, then intended to kill himself, and yet.. That weird orange-haired meatbag stopped him, even actively saved him!
That’s why he’s sat in an office, that of the Bureaucrat pencil-pusher Hermes Conrad, who he annoyingly has to interact with to get his paperwork sorted to officially work with Planet Express. Bender isn’t expecting much, but he is surprised when a portly, green-wearing Jamaican dude appears.
– A very grainy video memory appears then, of a soft fatherly smile and the man it was attached to sending him spinning along to Madre, to Ardor, the two main robots who built him with care unusual for most robots. Forty seconds is all he gets, and there’s no audio, but.. Those warm brown, old-ass eyes, they’re –
Bender blinks, not quite able to bring back up his nonchalant mask fast enough to avoid Hermes’ odd little stare. He could have sworn that weird pencil-pusher was just about to smile in this moment, as if in recognition, or maybe hope. The moment passes, and he leans back in his hoverchair as casually as he can.
“So, introduce yourself, mon,” Hermes begins, peering over the few papers comprising Bender’s work history.
“I’m Bender, and I used to bend girders,” the robot says, meaning to sound smug as he sets his foot cups on the desk. “Not that much to say, ‘cept that Fry said there might be a job opening here.”
There it is again, that weird fond expression that flickers in the Bureaucrat’s eyes when he notes what’s been said. For some reason that combined with the video memory makes him hesitate to be his fake snarky self enough that he misses the next question asked of him – and in embarrassment he just mutters answers throughout the rest, trying very hard not to think too hard on things.
Odd. Really fucking odd.
Some part of Bender feels programmed to hate the pencil-pusher for that, after the interview is concluded and he finally goes back home for the first time since resolving to kill himself the day before now.
But another part of him.. Is just outright surprised that he even has any video memories of his production time at all. That expression sticks in his mind and frustrates him because he almost wishes Hermes had just said something.
(It’s too bad Hermes never does say so, ten years later when Bender discovers his defect and all throughout their adventure back in his birthplace. Bender has to admit, Hermes sucks ass at lying.)
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