entreat me not to leave thee, idiot

The fact that everything Miles does in that book is a response to the ethics his mother taught him, and the way those ethics completely blindside Galen, because Galen thinks of Miles as Aral Vorkosigan's son, and not as Cordelia Naismith's son. The way that Galen came to prepared for a fight against the ruthless militaristic opponent that he imagines Aral to be, and never for a second imagined that his enemy would look at the weapon he had purchased and honed for this purpose and say:

It’s like a combination of the morbid fascination of watching a car crash in slow motion layered with the upbeat thrill of a heist movie plus politics intrigue and spy-movie style paranoia, all in a gigantic blizzard swirling around this one little guy. I didn’t know how I would be able to become attached to a character in this series after reading Shards of Honor and Barrayar, because I loved Cordelia so much as a protagonist, but Miles Vorkosigan did the job. Truly the character of all time.

He’s a strategic genius. He can figure out a solution to almost any problem. He’s in love with his childhood best friend and gets shut down repeatedly. He serves as the officiant at her impromptu wedding to a guy he saved through another random act of kindness, and plays out the roles of three different people in it like some kind of vaudeville comedy act. He makes people laugh. He inspires everyone around him to genuine loyalty and trust. He was playmates with the current emperor of his home planet when they were kids and is the heir of an aristocratic family. He refuses to get anything by nepotism and uses his mother’s maiden name when he meets people so they won’t know who he is. On a whim, he decides to help a random stranger and has to lie to do it. He commits to the bit so hard that he ends up faking his way into running a mercenary fleet whose existence was initially a complete lie and stopping a war he had nothing to do with. He has stomach ulcers from how stressed out he is. He refuses to break a promise, even when doing so would allow him to escape the web of lies he’s woven. His house of cards is always one gust of wind from toppling and he’s somehow able to keep it standing by sheer force of character. He will not stop because if he does he’ll have a nervous breakdown.

Steve is just, "...sure."

Eddie wiggled his arm until his pet crawls out of his shirt and Steve is just like, "Oh. Thank god. I thought you were gonna get your cock out. Let me hold your hamster."

Robin 'just trying to get a drink from the water fountain' Buckley: ???????

Eddie: *conjures a ferret out of thin air*

Robin: Oh, thank god. I thought he was talking about your penis.

Eddie: