Disclaimer: I do not own Futurama. But it'd be really cool if I did. Just saying.

Tin Man

~ by RC Mason ~

Contrary to popular belief, Bender actually has a heart.

Granted, one must take liberal notions around the word 'heart' – very liberal notions, not too dissimilar from the type achieved through consuming one's own body weight in beer (the cheap nasty kind), trying out the funny ear-shaped mushrooms with the purple spots that smell pleasantly of baby powder and happy gas, and imbibing enough sugar so that one's blood makes an excellent pancake topping in lieu of maple syrup … preferably all at once and all in that order.

So when one is rendered a twitching heap on the floor, giggling softly to oneself, licking the sugar icing from one's lips and rather convinced that there is a hot fox standing at the corner of the dance floor (which, on that note, has started pulsating for some reason) and making all-too-clear flirtatious glances at one's fallen self – when, in sobering reality, the old hag is one's Aunt Mildred, the very aunt who recommended one's mother deposit the 'monkey' with a quarter coin in a suicide booth on the day of one's birth and is now very regretful, looking at the drooling chimpanzee currently on the floor, that she had not been more persuasive on the issue – then it begins to make perfect sense that that a million circuit connectors, with their accompanying circuit breakers, a few miles of copper wiring, and a bit of good ol' duct-tape here and there (not to mention to timeless backup: chewing gum) would make a perfect simulation of a living, beating human – err, robot – heart.

Or, in an arguably more logical conclusion, the type achieved when one has not consumed a debilitating amount of alcohol and sugar, or, paradoxically, consumed the exact amount of alcohol and sugar so the depressing effect of the former cancels out the stimulant of the latter:

One may have stumbled on the reason why Bender is having such a hard time expressing his emotions.

Exhibit A: current time, location Earth 63.38'N 19.36'W (Professor Farnsworth's living room).

Bender is sitting on the couch. He is staring blankly at the television screen. Not even a blink of an eye. (Notwithstanding that robots, in general, do not blink – only bags of meat with squishy wet eyeballs need to engage in such basely, energy-wasting functions).

And this continues for a few more minutes.

Perhaps he is at peace.

Which would be factually correct – except for the fact that Bender is missing the comforting cold weight of a nicely refrigerated bottle of beer in his hand, which is a dead give-away that Bender is most definitely, conclusively, not at peace.

There is not even a beer bottle within an extendable arm's reach away, and his handy chest compartment is, horrifically, devoid of alcohol. If he-

There has been a movement.

His eyes shift the most minuscule and most precise degree to the right and he is not staring at the television any more (even though Hot Hooker Bot Show is on and one of the more delectable fembots has exposed a fan).

His gaze rests instead on a photo on the wall, clumsily tacked with the good ol' duct-tape (its versatility and durability of uses are so great that even 31st century scientists are at a loss to improve its 1000-year-old design). The shot is a bit off-centre and is confused about whether it should be portrait or landscape in its orientation (diagonal is a good compromise), and there is a certain red-head in the middle, who is laughing and looking dorky doing it, but there is a brightness in his eyes, that makes the dorky laughing and the dorky smile, hell even his dorky clothes, feel right.

To the red-head's left, there is something that looks like a purple tail but this is where the clumsy part of the tacking comes in and a large strip of duct-tape is plastered over the rest of the purple tail so nothing else is made out.

A metal antennae sticks out from the corner of the photo. This may have been where Bender was supposed to have entered the frame if not for the photographer's woeful photography skills, but an identically grey-coloured metal arm manages to slip in and rest itself across the red-head's shoulders, very casually, very cheerily, just so the obscene gesture it makes with its fingers manages to land itself the prime focal point of the photograph.

But that is not the point.

The point is that it is Bender's arm, not Leela's, that is wrapped around Fry's shoulders, and the point is that Bender would be smiling right now if his manufacturer had used a bit more finesse in constructing his heart.

'Hey Meatbag! Get over here! God, god, god! Help! Help! Help – yeah, whatever you get the picture. C'mon doofus!'

Fry is not the fastest runner. In fact, in Professor Farnsworth's entire house, there are only three things slower than him: the dead fly decomposing in the corner of the kitchen, just behind one of the three-legged chairs (a prized Farnsworth invention), Nippler's dark faecal matter, and, strangely, Fry's own brain.

This current moment is particularly bad timing for Fry because he is in the shower, his own private shrine for the miraculous 31st century invention that has dramatically improved his love-life with Leela (from non-existent to … hopeful– the puppy-dog-type) and has just begun basking in glory of the wonderful, godly soap when he hears Bender's shouts.

Not one to abandon his friends' calls of distress, Fry slips on the wet floor, knocks his head against a wall, manages to grab a fluffy white towel with an intention of apologising to its owner afterwards, wraps it around his skinny waist, and stumbles his way out of the bathroom, slightly disorientated from the head trauma. Or perhaps walls really do spin around like that in the 31st century – who knows?

By the time Fry enters the living room, water dripping onto the carpet and his wet hair in his eyes, he is aghast to find Bender flailing on the couch. Or, more precisely – and this is a perfect example of the slowness of Fry's brain – Bender's body is flailing on the couch, his undulating arms waving everywhere and his legs kicking in the air.

'Just stand and watch my headless corpse, will ya? Hurry and find my head!'

Fry never asks why. For one thing, it leads to disturbing answers (why is he his own grandfather? why are Zapp's shorts so short?); for another, it is not healthy for his brain. So Fry sets out on his hands and knees, rummaging underneath the television stand in search of Bender's missing head, not asking why Bender lost his head in the first place, and completely unaware that robots have sensors on all detachable parts of their bodies so they know exactly where each part is, and that, Bender's head is, at the moment, lodged underneath the couch and being treated to a spectacularly fine view of Fry's wet towel-clothed backside.

Bender continues screaming for a bit more to prolong the moment – until Fry's brain cottons on and locates the source of the noise.

Fry is surprised to see a somewhat disappointed expression on his best friend's face when he retrieves his head, but he shrugs because surly is practically Bender's default expression. (Little did Fry know that Bender was programmed to look 'mode: happy and/or jovial' – a countenance that was effectively deprogrammed when Bender realised that he had been happily, jovially bending away the walls of suicide booths).

'Thanks … NOT!' Bender chuckles, his head screwed back on and a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his features.

'No worries,' Fry's brain is really slow, and he starts to turn towards the corridor.

'No wait! That wasn't what I was screaming about. It's that!' Bender points a shaking finger at the television screen, his voice filled with horror.

Fry blinks and sees a little girl in a pink polka-dot dress, staring up at the screen with her big cornflower blue eyes and holding a yellow sunflower in her hand.

'Err …'

'She's the long lost love child of Skewter-Scooter and Galaxtriall!' Bender continues dramatically, placing a hand against his eyes. 'Oh how would Skewter-Scooter's new lover, 2456, take this? How can robots even have human love-children in the first place? Oh the humanity!'

'Bender, since when did you like soaps?' Fry scratches his head and tries to find something interesting about the storyline but his Y-chromosome revolts and immediately shuts down that whole line of thinking. Fry decides that the only soap he likes is the one that leaves him smelling faintly of citrus fresh with a touch of jasmine essence.

'Yeah, and you call yourself my best friend?' Bender retorts. He then mutters, 'Since we had that meteor shower and the television could only start picking up this one lousy channel from Cygnus 5!' He perks up. 'But that's the only thing on right now and it's time for our male bonding sessions. Just you and me, and the Eons of Our Lives playing in the background. Very macho stuff.' He pops a cap off a beer bottle (there was a stash after all: underneath the couch). 'And beer. Beer makes anything good. Trust me.'

'Sounds cool, Bender, but I've got a date with Leela now,' Fry says, glancing at his wristwatch, 'and I've got to get ready.'

'Date – the one that involves numbers and calendars, or the one that involves …' Bender breaks off, shuddering.

Fry smiles. 'Maybe. I don't know. I'm hoping that Leela would …' Bender gets a sense that Fry is no longer here, and has an overwhelming urge to give Leela a taste of his hard metal bootcaps.

'But, but,' Bender knows that he is stammering now but he doesn't care. He glances around. 'But ... I got a whole stash of broccoli here for you to eat. Humans love broccoli don't they?' He produces a broccoli head from behind the couch and all but shoves it under Fry's nose.

'Thanks, Bender,' Fry is saying. 'It sounds, uh, great, but I can't be late to my date with Leela again. And I did wait a whole thousand years for her and all.' He turns.

'I'll even let you sit on the couch!' Bender shouts at Fry's retreating back. 'And not just on the corner of the armrest either!'

He loses sight of Fry as Fry turns down a corridor.

'Damn,' Bender says, suddenly aware that his sadness sensors are working overtime. He wonders whether Fry's choosing of Leela over him has anything to do with it.

He slumps into the couch and looks forlornly at the mountain of broccoli next to him.

A little while later, Bender is outside with an armful of broccoli and chucking them at random hovercrafts overhead, but mostly at the toxic sludge in the sewers below.

Nup, Bender thinks as he throws the broccoli with a greater force than necessary, imagining it to be a certain purple-haired cyclop's face as the toxic sludge burbles and dissolves the broccoli head with a satisfying slurp.

Nup. Has nothing to do with it.

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So ... how did you find it :) ?

Just something I thought after watching - suspense - Futurama, and particularly Bender's interactions with Fry, and thinking we need to know more about this Bender Bending Rodriguez and, on that note, wondering what Bender would look on paper. Hopefully, I managed to write Bender in character (otherwise, feel free to leave a review and complain).

I'm thinking of turning this into a collection of funny one-shots, revolving around Bender's whacked personality and Fry, of course.

So leave me a review if you are interested in reading more and I will oblige.

Thanks!

PS. Is it romance or is it bromance? I don't know - the interpretation's up to you.

EDIT 06/18/12: For further lolz, please read a review submitted in response to this story, dated 06/17/12. I'm willing to bet that s/he has consumed some funny ear-shaped mushrooms with the purple spots that smell pleasantly of baby powder and happy gas. (note: I did nothing to provoke this sort of response. Well ... apart from my horrible prose, obviously ;) ).