Ever wondered why Leela wasn't rearrested after Bender broke her out of prison? Well Bender isn't one to do big things by halves, and there is only one 'bot with enough power to do what even Bender can't.

Takes place during The Wild Green Yonder.

/

Dark Deals

"Oh Bender," the Robot Devil cackled with unnerving amusement and familiarity as he helped the silver bending unit out of the electric slime. "You look well," he chatted airily, "exempting being in Robot Hell of course."

"Not here to atone for being awesome R.D." Bender wasn't as nervous about being here as he had been that first time. He had struck a slightly competitive relationship with the blood-colored robot and sporadically traveled to the New Jersey entrance to check up on his anti-social rival.

"Wouldn't dream of anything less than unrelenting, self-righteousness coming from you Bender," Beelzebot admitted with wicked relish complementing his sly side-cut glace towards the silver bot, complete with swaying, sharp-edged tail. "Would you like to talk in my office?"

"Nah, I'm in a hurry today," Bender huffed dryly as he kicked a sinner into a lower level of Hell without a shred of remorse. "You remember that big opera fiasco a few years back?"

Beelzebot paused for a fraction of a second longer than he should have to respond and this reaction was not lost on either of the bots present. All other robots nearby were in excruciatingly clever punishments or actually in the Robot Devil's employ and were in charge of inflicting sufficiently wicked terrors upon the weak fools who'd wasted their potential. Understandably, the menbots, felt as secure as being fathoms blow in R.D.'s study.

"Yes," R.D. answered evenly. "What about it?"

"Was that a hugely elaborate plan to get back your hands or…"

"My actions are many things, but I strive to make them of more substance than ellipses can contrive." Bender narrowed his yellow optic-bulbs at his older acquaintance and exhaled a toxic plume out the far side of his mouth guard. After a beat or two, in which a human would have twitched in anxiety, the stubborn automatons stood stock still and openly gave each other looks of suspicion and mocking contempt.

"You didn't understand what I just said, did you," Beelzebot intoned lowly.

"Depends if you care about the finish on your faceplates," Bender replied in the same manner, his demeanor casual, his threat anything but.

"Dully noted," R.D. murmured wryly. "I remember getting what I wanted in that incident. What about it is connected to now and our little business arrangement?"

"What would you have done if Fry hadn't traded back?"

The Robot Devil raised his optic ridges higher and curled a talently taloned finger at his pointed chin and seemed to get lost in thought. As busy as Bender was or was not, the religious deity remained undisturbed, even as tortured yelps and the prevailing snap and crack of high voltage electricity surrounded the two of them like the smell of the smelting pot further below them.

"I suppose," R.D. began calmly, "Leela would have been arrested for breaking the then in place anti-robo-marriage laws. I, of course, would have slipped in when the guilt built up and offered to put everything back the way it was, in exchange for my hands obviously."

"You could do that? Get someone out of prison and erase the record?"

"Nothing in all of time is erased," R.D. explained with a frown. "Masked, denied, buried, forgotten, left to rot, sure, but it will have repercussions that will extend into infinity. That's what Hell is about, that's what forgiveness was created to balance. Doesn't anyone read these days?"

"Unless it reads whiskey, I'm not all too interested" Bender admitted with a shrug that the Robot Devil copied in acceptance of such an honest response.

"Entirely ridiculous, but I don't see how it can do anything but give me better quota averages," the scarlet bot hummed approvingly. "Now as fun as it is to talk philosophies with a nitwit, I must cut this short here my friend."

Bender finally began looking rather unsettled, a mode of operation Beelzebot was keen on discovering the cause of. Not a Hell of a whole lot could put Bender Bending Rodriguez off his game…

"No way," Beelzebot laughed lowly, there was only shock and malicious glee radiating from his fire-scorched frame; here in the most horrific place known to robot existence, Bender came to get advice on women and crime. "You're going to …," but Bender's expression said it all. The outrage, the flickers of guilt, the failsafe determination, it was eerily similar to the way they'd first met.

"You didn't think I'd do it," Bender growled blackly at R.D.'s wide, leering smile. Beelzebot curled a heat infused arm around Bender. The short, but nimble claws tapped a catchy rhythm against Bender's torso drum as the Robot Devil fell into default mode: Insidious.

"I don't doubt your foolhardy plots Bender, merely the actuality that there was a plot to begin with; one of life's mysteries," he sighed with a grin that wouldn't lessen now that the ball was in his court. "You realize, what you'll do is considered an epically nice gesture?"

"Can you do it?" Bender snapped shortly, his nonchalance gone from his mainframe.

"Bender," R.D. purred velvety drawl, "Have some faith once in a while."

/

To be continued... maybe.