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Title: Hold On
Fandom: Tron (Legacy)
Rating: T - violence, mindfuckery, mild sexings. Oh, language too.
Disclaimer: I own my laptop and a sleep deficit. It's like owning the Tron franchise, except there's nothing in common.
Summary: There's a crash, a fall, and it's over. Only sometimes not. A different take on the lightjet scene: what if Sam ended up falling, too? AU end of Legacy.
Chapter: 8/11 - Tools
Wordcount: 1571
Sam stepped back, hand fumbling behind him as he yanked his identity disk frontwards. A click sounded, his helmet dropping into place, and he brought the weapon up, readied.
Clu glanced at him and smirked. The expression was mobile, derisive, but eerily empty, and Sam was fascinated, repulsed at the way it played across Clu's face. Dad's face. It wasn't his father; fuck, it wasn't even how he looked now. It's just how you remember him. But wrong, twisted, a lie, a mask almost as unnervingly blank as Rinzler's helmet—
Tron.
Sam couldn't see the program's face—not masked, not hidden, but turned away. Towards Clu, who rested almost casually against the slab of rock, eyes glinting with amused curiosity as he watched. Tron's body was rigid, hands clenching and unclenching, shaking with something Sam tried desperately to make out. Fear? Anger? Effort? Sam stared at the program, dead center between them and Clu, and a cold fear trickled through his mind.
He doesn't even have a weapon.
Quorra's voice cut through the silence, flatly disbelieving. "There's no way you followed me here."
Sam turned, realized she had edged up to his side, and hope wavered before his gaze caught on her damaged leg, burned face, the disk wound down her front. Her expression was pure life, though—shock, fury, and icy hatred. Calculation too—not in her look, but in how she looked, eyes flitting to Sam, resting warily on Tron and Clu. Blade up, disk ready. Sam just hoped she knew who to target.
Clu raised an eyebrow, responded calmly. "No. Your little trick was quite clever. Too bad Sam here's not as bright. Huh, kiddo?" Sam glared, opened his mouth, but Clu's voice continued, a darkly satisfied echo.
"After all, it's easy enough to find something that's mine."
His hand came up as he pushed off the rock, and Sam tensed, ready to dodge or defend against the now-visible identity disk in his grip. But Clu held it loosely, smirking at Sam's visible twitch.
"Something I've worked on."
The disk wasn't yellow.
Sam's eyes fixed on the orange ring at the center, a creeping dread coming over him as the disk pulsed briefly to life, white edge a vibrant contrast. Not white, blue-white—like the flaring response of Tron's circuits before they dimmed, flickering faintly. Tron made a low noise, hand reaching out, head jerking back in sharp denial. He shuddered, angry orange threading through the blue lights, and Sam's concern spiked to alarm as he stepped forward, his own disk lowering—
"No, Sam." The command was quick, urgent… and eerily synchronized, one warning from two directions.
Sam stopped, frustrated gaze passing from Quorra, whose even look was shaded with desperate concern, to Tron, face visibly panicked but surprisingly steady underneath. The program stared back at him, grey-blue eyes intent, flicking to the side to acknowledge Quorra's sharp regard before returning to Sam. Blue and orange mingled patchily throughout Tron's circuitry, and he grimaced before turning back abruptly, tension falling away. Tron dropped into a combat crouch, shifting on his feet. "No," he repeated quietly.
"Touching." Clu's tone was bored. "Rinz—"
"Shut up!" Sam's voice rose at the end, embarrassingly high pitched. It didn't matter. "You just—you're—" There weren't words for what he wanted to say, and he glared deadly fury as he stepped left. One clear shot. Please.
"You're done." Quorra's voice, from the right, cold animosity expressed infinitely more articulately than his own hot rage. "Flynn made it out. No matter what you try here, it won't make a difference. He'll derezz you. Delete you." Her teeth showed as she smiled. "Or maybe he'll just remove your admin privileges and let the rest of the Grid have a shot. There's a line."
Clu's impassive look remained, although it didn't quite meet his eyes. "Is that what you think? That Flynn will save you?" His mouth widened slowly in a vicious grin, gaze deserting Quorra for a better target. "I thought you had learned."
Tron flinched, froze, and something twisted in Sam's gut.
"Flynn abandoned you." His head rose as he spoke, including the ISO again as he continued. "But Flynn doesn't matter now. Or later." He smirked. "I've integrated myself with the system code. He can't touch me from out there—he can't even find me without ripping the Grid apart."
"Good." Sam's voice sounded strange in his ears, and Quorra's head angled towards him oddly at the edge of his vision. He didn't shift his gaze. "That means it's our turn."
He flung his disk with a yell, blazing white edge cutting a brilliant streak through the air. Clu leaned sideways and smirked. It flew past.
Quorra stepped to the side, eyes flitting across the scene in wary calculation, movements slow and careful on her damaged limbs. Tron shifted, repositioning in short, halting motions, attention fixed ahead. Sam caught his disk as it rebounded and raised it again, glared in rage and trembling fury, because that bastard—
Clu was laughing.
Shaking with laughter. One hand half rose in a dismissive motion even as the other came up armed. A click, a low hum, and Tron jerked, circuits flaring again as his disk lit in Clu's grasp. Sam tensed, but the program shook his head, facing forwards still, towards Clu. Who hadn't stopped laughing.
"You little moron." His father's voice cut across the gap, entertained and hateful and derisive all at once, and Sam flinched as he stared back at the yellow-lit clone. "You have no idea just how useless you are. I expected…" He broke off into a soft chuckle, letting Sam recall the rest on his own. 'More.' More than the screw-up dropout with his bike and his dog and fuck this. Clu wasn't his dad. He wasn't.
"I built the grid. Flynn may have set the foundation, but while he vanished for cycles at a time, while he wasted his efforts on a nothing like you, I created. And I learned. I built the system. I made it perfect."
Quorra caught Sam's notice—not through movement, or action, but in her absolute stillness. She stood, empty of tension but supremely unmoving, eyes fixed on Clu with a cold promise of death.
"I made this world. My code went into the structures, system protocols. Programs, even." His gaze fell to Tron, and he smirked, twisted glee chasing the self-righteous pride across his face. "Some more than others."
Clu's eyes went back to Sam, features twisted in faint contempt. There was something else, though, something stronger than the scornful blankness. Hate. Good. The copy's lips twitched upwards, and he shook his head, voice soft. "Really, Sam. What kind of ruler, creator—what kind of programmer do you think I'd be if I let people turn my tools against me?" Sam blinked, uncomprehending.
"Isn't that right, Rinzler?"
Tron didn't answer.
Sam's gaze drew haltingly towards the program, a hazy desperation rising. Tron should respond. Sam needed to hear his voice, to see his face, something. But there was silence, no sound at all as Tron stiffened. Colors pulsing, mixing, moving, orange chasing blue chasing orange in little streaks and threads and patchy broken edges through the visible lights as they dimmed, surged, crackled. Quorra was watching, face grim, eyes meeting Sam's in a brief glance as she shifted slightly, stance flowing to a new readiness, a new edge. And no, he had to tell her she shouldn't, she can't—but there was no sound, nothing but a distant rising hum that seemed to be building in the back of Sam's head as he stared at Clu's grin, at Tron's stillness—abruptly broken, head jerking around as Quorra frowned suddenly, her own head tilting—
The world exploded into motion. Quorra was turning, moving, throwing, but Sam hardly saw her, hardly cared. He stumbled back, disk coming up because I have to, but he couldn't. Because Tron—Rinzler—no, it had to be Tron, it had to be—was moving towards him in a low, dark blur of speed.
Face sectioning away behind a dark helmet.
The hum in Sam's brain was louder now. Uselessly, pointlessly, he thrust his disk frontwards. Rinzler dropped below, limbs flowing effortlessly around the desperate attack. Rigid hands closed on his arm, his shoulder, and Sam fell, was thrown sideways as the black shadow followed.
Breath left him as he hit rough stone, and Sam gasped, flailed frantically as he tried to force air to his lungs, movement to his limbs, distance. He was stuck—trapped, can't run—had fallen into a crevice of the dark rock, and he had to get up. But Rinzler was there, pressing down from above against his ineffectual struggles.
Sam stared up at the dark helmet, his throat tightening with pain and despair and furious refusal. Because… no. Not now, not… He was getting better. The thought was a quiet whisper against the raging, wordless noise in his mind.
"Sam." Distorted, voice harsh with effort, but clear. "Stay down."
Sam's eyes widened. He looked up in shock, head raising as the humming sound built—not in his brain, not at all. But not far. Yellow glow spilled out, casting across the shattered pieces on the ground, silhouetting the blue-lit program who crouched above Sam, pressing him down—
The broken jet exploded in a pulse of brilliant light before the impact slammed Sam to darkness.
Fandom: Tron (Legacy)
Rating: T - violence, mindfuckery, mild sexings. Oh, language too.
Disclaimer: I own my laptop and a sleep deficit. It's like owning the Tron franchise, except there's nothing in common.
Summary: There's a crash, a fall, and it's over. Only sometimes not. A different take on the lightjet scene: what if Sam ended up falling, too? AU end of Legacy.
Chapter: 8/11 - Tools
Wordcount: 1571
Sam stepped back, hand fumbling behind him as he yanked his identity disk frontwards. A click sounded, his helmet dropping into place, and he brought the weapon up, readied.
Clu glanced at him and smirked. The expression was mobile, derisive, but eerily empty, and Sam was fascinated, repulsed at the way it played across Clu's face. Dad's face. It wasn't his father; fuck, it wasn't even how he looked now. It's just how you remember him. But wrong, twisted, a lie, a mask almost as unnervingly blank as Rinzler's helmet—
Tron.
Sam couldn't see the program's face—not masked, not hidden, but turned away. Towards Clu, who rested almost casually against the slab of rock, eyes glinting with amused curiosity as he watched. Tron's body was rigid, hands clenching and unclenching, shaking with something Sam tried desperately to make out. Fear? Anger? Effort? Sam stared at the program, dead center between them and Clu, and a cold fear trickled through his mind.
He doesn't even have a weapon.
Quorra's voice cut through the silence, flatly disbelieving. "There's no way you followed me here."
Sam turned, realized she had edged up to his side, and hope wavered before his gaze caught on her damaged leg, burned face, the disk wound down her front. Her expression was pure life, though—shock, fury, and icy hatred. Calculation too—not in her look, but in how she looked, eyes flitting to Sam, resting warily on Tron and Clu. Blade up, disk ready. Sam just hoped she knew who to target.
Clu raised an eyebrow, responded calmly. "No. Your little trick was quite clever. Too bad Sam here's not as bright. Huh, kiddo?" Sam glared, opened his mouth, but Clu's voice continued, a darkly satisfied echo.
"After all, it's easy enough to find something that's mine."
His hand came up as he pushed off the rock, and Sam tensed, ready to dodge or defend against the now-visible identity disk in his grip. But Clu held it loosely, smirking at Sam's visible twitch.
"Something I've worked on."
The disk wasn't yellow.
Sam's eyes fixed on the orange ring at the center, a creeping dread coming over him as the disk pulsed briefly to life, white edge a vibrant contrast. Not white, blue-white—like the flaring response of Tron's circuits before they dimmed, flickering faintly. Tron made a low noise, hand reaching out, head jerking back in sharp denial. He shuddered, angry orange threading through the blue lights, and Sam's concern spiked to alarm as he stepped forward, his own disk lowering—
"No, Sam." The command was quick, urgent… and eerily synchronized, one warning from two directions.
Sam stopped, frustrated gaze passing from Quorra, whose even look was shaded with desperate concern, to Tron, face visibly panicked but surprisingly steady underneath. The program stared back at him, grey-blue eyes intent, flicking to the side to acknowledge Quorra's sharp regard before returning to Sam. Blue and orange mingled patchily throughout Tron's circuitry, and he grimaced before turning back abruptly, tension falling away. Tron dropped into a combat crouch, shifting on his feet. "No," he repeated quietly.
"Touching." Clu's tone was bored. "Rinz—"
"Shut up!" Sam's voice rose at the end, embarrassingly high pitched. It didn't matter. "You just—you're—" There weren't words for what he wanted to say, and he glared deadly fury as he stepped left. One clear shot. Please.
"You're done." Quorra's voice, from the right, cold animosity expressed infinitely more articulately than his own hot rage. "Flynn made it out. No matter what you try here, it won't make a difference. He'll derezz you. Delete you." Her teeth showed as she smiled. "Or maybe he'll just remove your admin privileges and let the rest of the Grid have a shot. There's a line."
Clu's impassive look remained, although it didn't quite meet his eyes. "Is that what you think? That Flynn will save you?" His mouth widened slowly in a vicious grin, gaze deserting Quorra for a better target. "I thought you had learned."
Tron flinched, froze, and something twisted in Sam's gut.
"Flynn abandoned you." His head rose as he spoke, including the ISO again as he continued. "But Flynn doesn't matter now. Or later." He smirked. "I've integrated myself with the system code. He can't touch me from out there—he can't even find me without ripping the Grid apart."
"Good." Sam's voice sounded strange in his ears, and Quorra's head angled towards him oddly at the edge of his vision. He didn't shift his gaze. "That means it's our turn."
He flung his disk with a yell, blazing white edge cutting a brilliant streak through the air. Clu leaned sideways and smirked. It flew past.
Quorra stepped to the side, eyes flitting across the scene in wary calculation, movements slow and careful on her damaged limbs. Tron shifted, repositioning in short, halting motions, attention fixed ahead. Sam caught his disk as it rebounded and raised it again, glared in rage and trembling fury, because that bastard—
Clu was laughing.
Shaking with laughter. One hand half rose in a dismissive motion even as the other came up armed. A click, a low hum, and Tron jerked, circuits flaring again as his disk lit in Clu's grasp. Sam tensed, but the program shook his head, facing forwards still, towards Clu. Who hadn't stopped laughing.
"You little moron." His father's voice cut across the gap, entertained and hateful and derisive all at once, and Sam flinched as he stared back at the yellow-lit clone. "You have no idea just how useless you are. I expected…" He broke off into a soft chuckle, letting Sam recall the rest on his own. 'More.' More than the screw-up dropout with his bike and his dog and fuck this. Clu wasn't his dad. He wasn't.
"I built the grid. Flynn may have set the foundation, but while he vanished for cycles at a time, while he wasted his efforts on a nothing like you, I created. And I learned. I built the system. I made it perfect."
Quorra caught Sam's notice—not through movement, or action, but in her absolute stillness. She stood, empty of tension but supremely unmoving, eyes fixed on Clu with a cold promise of death.
"I made this world. My code went into the structures, system protocols. Programs, even." His gaze fell to Tron, and he smirked, twisted glee chasing the self-righteous pride across his face. "Some more than others."
Clu's eyes went back to Sam, features twisted in faint contempt. There was something else, though, something stronger than the scornful blankness. Hate. Good. The copy's lips twitched upwards, and he shook his head, voice soft. "Really, Sam. What kind of ruler, creator—what kind of programmer do you think I'd be if I let people turn my tools against me?" Sam blinked, uncomprehending.
"Isn't that right, Rinzler?"
Tron didn't answer.
Sam's gaze drew haltingly towards the program, a hazy desperation rising. Tron should respond. Sam needed to hear his voice, to see his face, something. But there was silence, no sound at all as Tron stiffened. Colors pulsing, mixing, moving, orange chasing blue chasing orange in little streaks and threads and patchy broken edges through the visible lights as they dimmed, surged, crackled. Quorra was watching, face grim, eyes meeting Sam's in a brief glance as she shifted slightly, stance flowing to a new readiness, a new edge. And no, he had to tell her she shouldn't, she can't—but there was no sound, nothing but a distant rising hum that seemed to be building in the back of Sam's head as he stared at Clu's grin, at Tron's stillness—abruptly broken, head jerking around as Quorra frowned suddenly, her own head tilting—
The world exploded into motion. Quorra was turning, moving, throwing, but Sam hardly saw her, hardly cared. He stumbled back, disk coming up because I have to, but he couldn't. Because Tron—Rinzler—no, it had to be Tron, it had to be—was moving towards him in a low, dark blur of speed.
Face sectioning away behind a dark helmet.
The hum in Sam's brain was louder now. Uselessly, pointlessly, he thrust his disk frontwards. Rinzler dropped below, limbs flowing effortlessly around the desperate attack. Rigid hands closed on his arm, his shoulder, and Sam fell, was thrown sideways as the black shadow followed.
Breath left him as he hit rough stone, and Sam gasped, flailed frantically as he tried to force air to his lungs, movement to his limbs, distance. He was stuck—trapped, can't run—had fallen into a crevice of the dark rock, and he had to get up. But Rinzler was there, pressing down from above against his ineffectual struggles.
Sam stared up at the dark helmet, his throat tightening with pain and despair and furious refusal. Because… no. Not now, not… He was getting better. The thought was a quiet whisper against the raging, wordless noise in his mind.
"Sam." Distorted, voice harsh with effort, but clear. "Stay down."
Sam's eyes widened. He looked up in shock, head raising as the humming sound built—not in his brain, not at all. But not far. Yellow glow spilled out, casting across the shattered pieces on the ground, silhouetting the blue-lit program who crouched above Sam, pressing him down—
The broken jet exploded in a pulse of brilliant light before the impact slammed Sam to darkness.
