Chapter Text
“Okay, how do you do it?”
Erin Adams seemed more irritated than usual. This was noteworthy, as the Angel City Elite member’s tone bordered on hostile by default. BT supposed she was similar to Robert Taube in that regard. Perhaps that was why he had hired her. “Do…what?” Cooper asked.
“Sleep.”
Ashwin Narita spoke up from where he was tending to his own Titan. “Erin has insomnia and no self-discipline to follow proper sleep hygiene. I keep telling her…”
“You don’t even sleep anymore, Narita.”
“Erin, how many times do I have to tell you I was literally in the same boat when I had a flesh body? Cooper, tell her it’s that simple.”
Cooper shook his head. “Wrong person to tell her. It’s not a discipline thing with me. It’s the autism.”
There was a long pause. BT realized in that moment that neither of them knew. He knew, of course. It was in Cooper’s medical file under his cognitive notes. Autism Spectrum [No Extraordinary Support Needs]. He simply hadn’t commented because it had never mattered.
Did it matter to them? He didn’t know why it would. BT was wondering if he should intervene when Narita spoke: “Routines. Right, duh, that’s textbook.”
Cooper laughed quietly. “Yeah, my bed time is one of the only things I can control. Thought for a second you were going to say you couldn’t tell.”
“Cooper, I am wounded. As the digital copy of a man who had a lot of stuff going on, I know better than to say dumb shit like that.” Narita put a hand over where his heart would be on a human body, then turned his attention back to Adams. “But seriously, you’d sleep better if you had a routine and didn’t just crash wherever you happened to be standing…”
“Whatever,” Adams snapped. “You’re worse than Doc. You really are worse than Doc.”
That was more or less the end of the conversation, but BT found himself dwelling on it further.
Tai Lastimosa, while he was the uncle and legal guardian of someone on the autism spectrum, hadn’t exhibited any signs of being such himself. He had spoken of his niece Cassandra on several occasions, but as BT ran through every mention of Cassandra still stored in his memory banks, he realized what little he knew about her wouldn’t help him with Cooper. It was likely their symptoms manifested in completely different ways. Humans were, by default, much more cognitively diverse than Titans, regardless of neurotype.
So, he did what Cooper always encouraged him to do whenever he wasn’t sure about something: he asked questions.
“Pilot?”
“Hmm?”
“I realized that I have never asked you anything about your cognitive differences.”
Cooper tilted his head slightly, then laughed when he realized what BT meant. “You can call it autism, buddy, it’s fine.”
BT made a mental note of this. “Your medical file indicates that you have no extraordinary support needs. Is there anything you might need from me that doesn’t qualify as extraordinary?”
Cooper took a moment to think. “…nothing you haven’t already been doing,” he said. “But I’ll let you know if I think of anything, okay?”
“Understood, pilot.”
BT trusted that Cooper would tell him whatever he needed to know, whenever he needed to know it. They were a team. The questions he had now were not out of concern for his pilot’s well-being, but out of curiosity.
“Did you know that Captain Lasitmosa’s niece is like you?” he asked Cooper.
Cooper perked up. “Is she? I thought so, I just never asked. It didn’t feel relevant, when…” His expression dropped quickly. “...you know, other stuff was happening.” BT knew. “But I figured. The chew pendant gave it away.”
“Chew pendant?”
“Yeah, it’s like a necklace pendant but it’s made of...silicone, I think? So it’s safe to chew.”
“Is chewing a part of autism?”
“It can be. We do this thing called stimming. It’s not like what stim pilots use. It’s...uh, repetitive action as a means of self-regulation. Usually because there’s too much happening mentally and you’ve just gotta…” He grabbed the straps on his jump kit and swayed in place, rotating his torso in a gentle rocking motion. He had seen Cooper do that before, usually following a high-stress situation. “It helps.”
BT thought he understood. “And chewing is a form of stimming?”
“Yeah. I used to do it, but I was bad about chewing things that weren’t chewable and chipped a tooth. I switched to other things stims…okay, mostly I switched to other stims, but I haven’t chipped another tooth yet. Good thing, too, we don’t have the money for a lot of dental work.”
“You spin when you’re excited. Is that a stim as well, or does the too much happening mentally have to be negative?”
“No, that’s a stim, too. It can be positive things, just as long as you’re really feeling it.” He laughed quietly. “I forgot that people might notice I do that…it’s natural to me, you know? It’s just what I’m like.”
BT understood. “How long have you known?”
“Long as I can remember. I think I was diagnosed when I was…three? Three or four. I had some occupational therapy as a kid. It helped a lot, but I can be kind of awkward to be around.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen me try to make small talk. That’s part of the whole thing. My brain didn’t come with the programming for social rules or the programming to pick it up intuitively.” He perked up suddenly. “It’s like when you try to interact with humans. Your social programming is different than ours, so sometimes you don’t understand figures of speech and stuff. Right? That’s what it’s like for me.”
Interesting. “I understand. Are people ever unkind to you because of this?”
“Why, you looking to make a hit list?” Cooper’s fingers drummed against his vest. “That was a joke. Uh, yeah, sometimes, but most of the time it’s not because they know I’m autistic. It’s because I’m ‘weird.’ It’s the same thing, but they don’t treat it like it is. It’s less socially acceptable to make fun of the neurodivergent kid, but if I’m just weird, people think it’s fine?” He snorted. “Sometimes I think I’m the only person who notices that. Outsider’s perspective and all. Oh, do you want to see something cool?”
“Always.”
Cooper ran to his bag and returned with a brightly colored piece of plastic, three pieces joined together with hinges. “Check this out…” He twirled it expertly in his fingers like one would a switchblade, causing the plastic to light up and flash. “Doing this is a stim, too. Freaking love this thing.”
The movement made sense; BT had seen Cooper fiddle with knives before. “A switchblade without the risk of injury,” he noted.
“Basically. Knife tricks, but kid-safe.” Cooper gave the device one last twirl before tucking it in into a pocket. “Hey, uhm, sorry you had to find out that way. I didn’t think to tell you, I don’t usually bring it up unprompted.”
“It’s all right. I already knew. It’s in your medical file.”
“…right. Duh. You know my freaking blood type, of course you know…” Cooper rubbed the back of his neck, his ears starting to turn red. That was his psychological response to embarrassment. “Well. Thank you for being chill about it.”
“Of course, pilot. I believe being ‘chill’ about it falls under Protocol Three.”
Cooper’s blush faded as he laughed, all embarrassment leaving his features.
BT was pleased. It was always a good day when he was able to make a joke properly.