Aria and Otto found some time alone. Their friendship is singular, and sometimes there’s things that only they can talk about. At the moment, they’ve found an empty parking lot in which to talk.
“We couldn’t have rescued him,” Aria says abruptly, resting on Otto’s hood, staring at the night sky.
Otto thinks he understands who ‘him’ is from context. “SNOWMAN,” he says, just in case.
“Yeah. Like when you folks came for me at the airport. This was different. You knew I was missing. And… you weren’t going up against a group like AEGIS.”
“With ya so far,” rumbles Otto.
“So, like, we didn’t even know SNOWMAN was active.”
“Right.”
“So really, we didn’t have any reason to even try going in there. Or asking about it.”
“Yeah…?”
Aria rolls over on the hood and rolls herself up into a tightly hunched ball. “Otto, what if we’d known? We’d have gone in, right?”
“You betcha. Lil’ bro is lil’ bro, no matter what.”
Aria is still agitated. She uncurls herself, sits upright on the hood, clenches her fists, unclenches with conscious effort, takes a breath of night air, exhales.
“You’re overthinkin’ something here, Aria,” Otto rumbles.
“No! I mean, I think I’m thinking about this rationally.” She knows she’s not, but she’s been having a hard time keeping it together ever since meeting SNOWMAN for the first time. “Look. Okay? I was a beneficiary of this. And now, and now, I… I’m feeling like… like it was some kind of deal with the devil. As long as SNOWMAN was just, you know, ‘the android AEGIS has tucked away just in case’, just as long as it wasn’t really, y’know, real, it didn’t bother me.”
“And now it does, 'cause they reactivated him. They did. Not you. Not us.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Aria hops off the hood, paces around Otto at a fast clip. “Leo perfected all the gen 2 modules by working on that robot shell. I wouldn’t look like this if he hadn’t done that. I’m wearing this feeling, literally!”
“Looks great to me.” Otto isn’t sure how to help here, so he tries to lighten the mood.
“Not funny,” growls Aria. But she leans up against Otto, and he knows that it helped at least a little bit. “I just… I just… Otto, I need to know that we did the right thing, what we thought was right, at the time, okay?”
“Hindsight’s 20/20,” the car rumbles. “This was all emotionally uncharted territory for all of us. It’s easy to look with newer eyes at older decisions. And you know what going back in time and trying to fix things looks like.”
He doesn’t have to say Doctor Infinity’s name. They both know what’s at stake there.
“Well what am I supposed to do?” Aria asks softly.
“Do what you do best for a Leo. Be his friend. SNOWMAN, John Black, whoever this new guy is, he’s still feeling out his own life. But he’s a Newman, like us. When he needs somethin’, be there for him.”
“I think he wants me to be his girlfriend again,” Aria comments wryly. “That’s not going to happen. I love the Leo I have, but he had to do an awful lot of growing for me to feel comfortable with that. SNOWMAN has… not.”
“I ain’t sayin’ you need a harem.” Otto snorts. “Just… be his friend. The way you’re mine. The way you’ve always been Leo’s. Okay?”
“I guess that’ll have to do.” Aria looks up, finding familiar stars in the night sky. “Am I always gonna be an emotional wreck, Otto?”
“You’re an emotional world record, Aria.” Otto revs a bit. “You feel strongly and deeply and broadly. Sometimes that means bad feelings too. Comes with bein’ human. Just gotta learn to live with it, like the rest of us.”
Aria smiles, and pats the hood of her friend in gratitude.