Chapter Text
In the end, Ingrid Wily outlived all of her children.
It was a few weeks after the news came, and unlike all of the previous false alarms, this time there was a body. Dr. Albert Wily was dead.
When the caretaker wheeled Ingrid into her room, Bass was there waiting, as dressed-down as he could get and perusing the digital picture displays scattered across her dresser.
"Oh," the aid said. "That's your grand-bot, right?" She seemed pleased with the quip, and not at all alarmed by his presence. Bass was getting a touch annoyed by the lack of fear, or at least surprise, at his presence. There used to be a time when people saw him and fled. Didn't these morons know he was dangerous?
"That's 'mind your own business', stupid cow," Ingrid muttered, then turned her attention to Bass. "Too bad, you just missed supper."
"I don't eat," Bass replied. "Also, what? It's only five o'clock."
"This is an old folks' home. What do you expect?" She waved for the aide to leave. "Beat it."
Bass looked at the displays and then back at her. "It's weird you put my picture up."
"It's not that weird."
"…Do you want a better one?"
"No, I like this one. You look devilish in it. I think it suits you."
Sure enough, with Treble Boost equipped he was especially menacing, and the look did suit him.
"Dr. Wily is dead," he said abruptly.
"So I heard."
Ingrid was the first person he'd seen since Break Man had convinced him to turn over the body. Somehow, she knew.
"I realize you two didn't get on very well, but he was your son, and I thought…"
He drifted off, and for a minute there was an uneasy silence.
"I've buried my parents, my husband, and two children— the two good ones— already. I can't say I'm relieved, but I can't say that I'm grieved, either."
"Oh."
"Come over here." She gestured for him to sit next to her, and Bass got down on the floor, drawing his knees up against his chest. Ingrid stroked his hair, and even though he couldn't actually feel it, the act itself was still strangely comforting. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you've lost someone you love."
For a while neither of them said anything.
"How come you never changed your last name?"
She chuckled softly. "It was Frederick's name long before Bertie tainted it, and I wasn't going to give that up."
"…I miss him."
"I know."
"And. I never told him. You know, how I felt. I didn't say it. He never said anything to me either, so I guess we're even."
"Bertie always had trouble expressing himself. Frederick and I can take the blame for that. We weren't very good parents to him— to any of them," she admitted. "I wasn't much of a mother. I wonder if I had done right by him, if… if things might've turned out differently."
Bass rested his forehead against his knees. "I think I'm the only person in the world who's mourning for that old coot."
"Perhaps." Ingrid paused. "It's okay, you know. He was a bad man, but he was still your papa."
"Wily wasn't… he built me, he wasn't my…"
He faltered, then made a small, pained sound.
"It hurts so much but I can't even cry."
His voice was barely a whisper. Although Ingrid couldn't hear what he said, she still understood.
They sat there for a good long while, her tiny hand, soft and warm and wrinkled, pressed against his nape, hard and cool and smooth. She was so frail and he was so strong, but at the same time, he was so frail and she was so strong.
"He knew how you felt," Ingrid said finally.
"Yeah."
Several more minutes passed, and eventually Bass shifted and looked up at Ingrid.
"I have to go."
This wasn't entirely true, he had nowhere to be and nothing to do. He just needed to get out of that depressing room.
"If you need me, you know where to find me," she said. "I'll pray for you, sweetie."
There were a lot of things he wanted to respond with, the main one being 'don't waste your breath'. Like Wily, he wasn't the least bit religious— and more importantly he lacked a soul, or life spark, or whatever it was… which meant that he fell outside of any theological jurisdiction. But if it made her feel better, what was the harm? Instead, he said, "I've been called many different things, but no one's ever accused me of being 'sweet'."
With that, he stood and gave her a nod.
"Godspeed, Bass."
"Auf wiedersehen, Mrs. Wily."
"Call me Oma."
"Never."
She chuckled, sounding so much like her son used to, as his appearance blurred and Bass disappeared in a flickering shower of light.