Welcome to My Trash Heap

    “Because technically starting this morning, this is my own room, unfortunately. Did you at least pick up any unmentionables?”

    Gavin barks out an unfriendly laugh and turns to the keypad. Ritch commits the code 4629 to memory, having a feeling that Gavin won’t actually give him the code just to make his life harder. Just because he’s able to break into bunkers doesn’t mean he wants to more than what’s absolutely necessary.

    “I told you I don’t keep that kind of shit in my room.” He opens the bunker door and lets them both inside before continuing. “Also, why the hell do you call it that?”

    “What do you mean?” Ritch asks as he finds a clear space on the floor to set his bags.

    “‘Unmentionables’. That makes it sound like you’re some kind of prude, or some good little boy who went to catholic school, I dunno. More likely a nun with that baby face and mean stare.”

    Ritch sighs and grumbles, “Where should I put my stuff.”

    He just wants to get out of here and head down to the training room to help out a few of the struggling students. He’s just too mentally exhausted after all that’s happened today to properly banter with Gavin right now, and he can tell that bantering is all that Gavin wants at the moment.

    Gavin’s face falls for a split second, but he’s back to his aggressive self before Ritch can even comprehend what it could mean.

    “Left side of everything– left side of the shelves, left drawers, left closet– and the bottom bunk.” Gavin glares at him with a challenge in his eyes. Ritch doesn’t fall for it because he has no need to argue. That’s the space he took up in his and Connor’s room, so there’s no issue.

    “Perfect.” he says sharply, “Thanks.”

    He sets his bags down in the middle of the room in preparation to unpack. He gets his studying books (will he even need these anymore?) and puts them on the empty side of the shelf above the metal desk, then pulls out his personal books to put on the shelf above the last.

    Most are mainly about the science of how jaegers can safely transfer memories from one person to another without messing either person up, but some are just basic psychology books. The way people think and handle things have fascinated him ever since he first realized how different he and Connor are despite having always spent almost every waking moment with each other, and thus being in the same situations.

    Part of him hopes that Connor will do well on his own for the foreseeable future, but another part worries that there will be some kind of issue that could have been prevented if Ritch was there to stop it. Yet another part secretly hopes Connor gets used to being alone quickly so he isn’t as dependent on other people. He has the skills and brains to make it on his own, he just needs to use them instead of panicking or shutting down all the time. Hand-holding and direct interfering has proven less than effective, so maybe a hands off approach will help Connor realize his potential.

    “Alright, ground rules,” Gavin suddenly snaps as Ritch finishes putting the last of his books up. “First off, do not keep me up at night or you’ll regret it the next morning. And don’t wake me up early unless it’s an emergency either! Secondly, I get the first shower because the hot water runs out quickly here for some reason and I will make your day hell if I have to take a fucking cold shower. Thirdly, don’t touch my stuff. I don’t fucking care if you’re an OCD freak or something and I’ve left a mess, do. Not. Touch them, or I will break your hand. Got it?”

    Ritch nods simply. “As long as you don’t touch my stuff either, then it’s understood. Also, you don’t have to worry about me taking any hot water. I take my showers in the evening, and I prefer them tepid rather than hot.”

    Ritch hears the strange offended and concerned sound Gavin makes and looks up from digging his two jaeger figurines out of his bags. He doesn’t say anything, opting to silently raise an eyebrow at the pilot when he doesn’t immediately start talking like he expected. It works.

    “Why the fuck do you take cold showers? Have you never felt the glory that is a steaming hot shower before? ‘Cause you told me you were kind of sheltered earlier, but that’s just sad.” Gavin finally asks with what Ritch would call a sarcastic frown.

    He looks back down to his bag in an attempt to hide the pained expression he’s undoubtedly making. He doesn’t like reminders of that unfortunate night– dream. Nightmare. Whatever his brain decides that particular event was at any given moment.

    “It’s not cold, just tepid. You have your reasons for hating cold water, I have my reasons for hating hot.”

    “What the fuck do you know?” Gavin abruptly snarls, sounding every bit like he’s willing to kill Ritch or someone else.

    The tone snaps Ritch to attention, but he catches himself and freezes when he take’s in Gavin’s stance. He’s tense in a way that’s more defensive rather than his usual offensive position, and his face reveals equal betrayal and pain as rage. It completely catches Ritch off guard, which explains why he says what he does without trying to hide anything for the first time in a very long while.

    “Why do you get to ask me why I hate hot showers when you want to bite my head off for just saying that you have random reasons for hating cold water. Why should I care why you like hot showers when I’m the outlier in this situation, not you?”

    Gavin doesn’t respond, he just keeps glaring at him as if that will make him confess knowing something he doesn’t.

    Does he have a particularly bad memory/dream/nightmare like Connor and I do? What am I thinking, of course he does. He’s an official jaeger pilot; he likely has plenty of bad memories and experiences to choose from, Ritch thinks, making a note to himself to not bring up cold water or temperatures around Gavin anymore.

    Gavin must have finally come to some kind of conclusion, because he takes a deep breath and refocuses on the jaeger model that’s still in Ritch’s hands.

    “I thought I told you to leave your robot porn back in your bunker?” he snaps. At least he sounds less like he’s actually going to murder Ritch any moment now.

    “Sorry to disappoint, but just because you undoubtedly have explicit content hiding somewhere in here doesn’t mean I have any. Why are you so obsessed on this topic, anyhow?” he says smoothly as he gets up and positions his little models on the shelf. Are the jaeger figurines actually bothering him and he’s using this to somewhat cover it up, or is this another layer of teasing? 

    People can be incredibly confusing. Especially if their name is Gavin Reed.

    “I’m not obsessed with this topic. I’m just noticing that you’re obsessed with jaegers.” Gavin somehow makes climbing onto the top bunk look as lazy as plopping down onto the bottom bunk would. “So I’m just making sure you aren’t gonna be doing anything weird when we’re gonna be forced to drift together later on. I ain’t partnering with a fuckin’ creep.”

    “Well, nor will I.” Ritch rolls his eyes as he turns to fully face Gavin. “Actually, because I want a topic change, here are my own ground rules.”

    “Uh-uh! You don’t get to–”

    “Rule one!” Ritch declares over him, “As I said before, you don’t get to touch my stuff either. I am very particular about where everything goes, and I am a very private person. Rule two, do not wake me up in the morning unless it is an emergency. I have alarms set on my phone– that I place under my pillow so only I can hear it.” he adds when Gavin opens his mouth to retort, “I will always be on time to wherever I or we need to be, so please do not mess with me while I’m sleeping.”

    Gavin, surprisingly, just shrugs and says, “Fair enough.” It gives Ritch enough confidence to continue.

    “Rule three–”

    “There’s fuckin’ more!?–”

    “–and the last one I can think of for now. I am very introverted. Sometimes I will want to be left alone just because I am not used to having to constantly entertain someone, so try to not pester me 24/7. Although, considering your first rule, I think we can come to an agreement there as well.”

    Gavin doesn’t say anything for a solid minute, just scowling at Ritch from the top bunk. Ritch doesn’t move or break eye contact either. He’s played this game many times with Amanda over the years; breaking now would only be admitting defeat and showing that he isn’t as tough and confident as he is. Breaking eye contact and/or relaxing his tall, solid stance is something Connor would do, and while that seems to work for his twin a lot of the time, Ritch is most definitely not that type of person. He gets his way through confidence and logic rather than constant encouragement and compromise.

    “Fine.” Gavin barks. “We have a fuckin’ deal. And apparently the first part of the damned ‘personal schedules’ we’re gonna have to make.”

    That throws Ritch off track. “Personal schedules?”

    Gavin snorts. “Yea. It’s all bullshit, but all new partners have to do it. I’ve had to do one, like, three or four times now. It’s boring and annoying as hell.” He flops back down on his bed, so Ritch grabs his bag of clothes and starts unpacking them while Gavin continues, “We’ll write down that before breakfast and anything past nine or so are solitary times for our sanity. God, fuck all of this. Seriously.”

    “Will therapy appointments and trainee assisting have to go on these personal schedules? And are we turning these in to someone, or are these for private use?” Ritch asks as he puts his small pile of shirts in the locker-closet.

    “Yes to your first question. And people use these schedules to make bonding time or scheduled training or some shit, so we gotta turn them in.” Ritch doesn’t need to turn to know he’s probably doing his ever-so-famous scowl and glare. This entire thing is already becoming exhausting and they haven’t even started yet.

    The next several minutes are thankfully spent in blissful silence. Ritch isn’t sure what Gavin is hiding up on his top bunk, but he never came down for paper or a writing utensil before presumably starting the schedule, so he must have things stashed up there like Connor stashes his own things. If he’s that serious about his own privacy, then he’ll hopefully take Ritch’s request for privacy more seriously than he originally thought.

    “Okay, so I got my part of this fuckery down. You just slap on your schedule on this blank paper, we’ll hand this over. They’ll do a personality thing within the next few days, and then we’ll be back on our own separate ways.”

    That makes Ritch perk up from shoving his bags under the bed.

    “Why would they separate us so quickly?” he asks as he watches Gavin gracefully jump off his top bunk, dropping two pieces of paper on the bottom bunk before striding to the door.

    “Because I’m Gavin mother-fuckin’ Reed, retch.” He opens the door and steps through, but he pauses long enough to grin smugly and add, “No one lasts long with me.”

    He shuts the door behind himself with a clang as if to emphasize his point. It leaves Ritch alone with the silence. He picks up the papers and sees that it’s much simpler than he thought. It’s just a normal chart that has 7 columns for each day of the week. Gavin wrote down his activities next to a rough time estimate of when the various things normally get done.

    Gavin’s schedule has several chunks of time dedicated to patrolling halls that are all listed as “duty” rather than “free time”. Ritch is surprised he wasn’t just roaming the halls with the sole purpose of finding a way to cause trouble, but it makes more sense how he always manages to randomly run into people and trouble and not get reported or something if that’s his job. He wonders if that would still be Gavin’s job if he became a full-time pilot rather than a back-up one that no one really likes.

    “No one lasts long with me” he said? Well, he hasn’t met Ritch when he’s determined to beat a challenge, and “Gavin mother-fuckin’ Reed” just issued one whether he meant to or not. Ritch smirks to himself as he fills out his own rather empty personal schedule, making a vow to himself to stick around the pilot like a stubborn mold just to spite him.

    Maybe this will be slightly more fun than he thought, after all. Only time will tell how exhausting it will be in the long run, though.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Ritch heads to the training room after finishing up his schedule and leaving it on the desk for Gavin to see. He would have dropped it off himself, but Gavin never said where it needed to go during his dramatic exit, so he’ll just let him do it. It’ll be step one in training Gavin; if he doesn’t tell Ritch all of the information, then he’ll have no help finishing what needs to be done. Ritch just hopes that this is a lesson that’s learned quickly and easily because he doesn’t actually like the thought of passing work on to Gavin just because of lack of communication and information.

    He’s in the middle of weighing the pros and cons of finding Tina Chen and asking what things he should look out for or work on with Gavin when he hears North arguing about something down the hall. He has no clue what’s being said, but she must be complaining to someone else since she occasionally pauses before starting back up again. He finally gets an idea once he gets close to the training room’s entrance.

    “How am I supposed to pilot a jaeger without–”

    “You find someone new, just like Ritch and Connor are trying to.” Markus says, his tone implying that that was far from the first time he’s said that.

    “Technically, Ritch was given another partner this morning.” Ritch forces himself into the conversation, “Now, what is this about?”

    He uses a second to take in their surroundings to make sure they aren’t causing a scene but has to do a double-take. It usually takes more than expected to get him confused and shocked, but finding the room half-empty, despite it being the middle of a training session, sure did the trick.

    His emotions must be apparent on his face for once because Simon explains, “The purge happened this morning.”

    Ritch focuses his attention on Simon and ignores North as she starts loudly complaining again. Honestly, does she not understand that throwing a hissy fit won’t change anything?

    “The purge?” he asks when neither Markus or Simon elaborate.

    “Yea,” Markus nods tiredly, “Luther and Chloe kept several people behind after we left for lunch today, and Josh told us it was so they could let them go in relative privacy.”

    “Ritchie!–”

    “Ritch.” he corrects North sternly, but she ignores him.

    “You’re like the teacher’s pet, right?” She continues before he can give his input, “You gotta convince Luther that he’s making a mistake–”

    “But he isn’t.” he cuts in. “Josh is too much of a pacifist to make it as a jaeger pilot. Connor and I saw that on the very first day of training. But I think he’d be a fairly good fit for the science department, don’t you think?” He adds when North starts going red with whatever petulant emotion she’s feeling right now.

    Simon sounds genuinely intrigued when asking, “Science department?”

    “Well, he loves learning about things, and he’s quite smart and quick to pick up on things if the rate he was learning at during the study time of the day is normally how he is.” Markus and Simon nod, North continues pouting. “And he made friends with several people in the science department already, unless those people who brought the alcohol for that party thing were being bribed somehow.”

    North harrumphs. “I still need a partner, and there isn’t anyone left I like.”

    “Sometimes partnering with someone means you don’t like them at first.” Ritch feels like he’s talking to a child. It certainly shows that she’s always been the youngest of the group. “You just have to adapt and find someone you’re compatible with.” Even as he says this, Ritch doubts she’d be compatible with anyone else in the room. She’s just a little too… herself.

    “You literally can’t be compatible with someone if you don’t like them.” North crosses her arms.

    “Not necessarily.”

    “Yes! Absolutely necessarily!–”

    “No,” Ritch scolds her like a child or a pet, “You don’t. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have been told to pair up with Gavin Reed after we got caught fighting in the hallway.”

    With how wide the trio’s eyes get, Ritch is almost worried their eyeballs will fall right out of their sockets.

    “You seriously got a new partner?!” North exclaims just as Markus asks “You with Gavin Reed?”

    The combination of the two end up turning people’s heads, and Simon is doing nothing to de-escalate things like he would normally try to– he seems too in shock to do much else beyond gaping at him– so Ritch tries his best to explain calmly and quietly. He knows it’s more likely to rile them up, but this group has surprised him many times before. He’s hoping they surprise him again because he really doesn’t want to be known as “the trainee stuck with Gavin Reed” by everyone, especially since Gavin is very obviously not the kind of person who like~ to have a lot of attention on him. He just seems like a chaotic mess and chaotic messes usually get attention, whether it’s wanted or not.

    “This morning, Gavin and I were doing something, but we ended up… disagreeing is a good way of putting it, and it escalated into an actual fight. Marshal Fowler apparently saw it on security cameras and personally came to pick us up and tell us that our punishment is becoming partners.”

    The three gape at him for a couple of seconds before Markus asks, “They can do that? They partnered you up with someone you hate?”

    Ritch scans the room again before answering, just to make sure no one is really eavesdropping anymore. Thankfully, people have mostly turned back to whatever they were doing or talking about before. Ritch nods to where the punching bags are and starts walking towards them so the four of them aren’t right in the entryway.

    “To be fair, we do have an unusual level of compatibility when it comes to combat, and I don’t actually hate him.” He sits down on the ground and watches North as she starts wrapping her hands. “I’d almost say that I don’t particularly dislike Gavin, since I tend to disregard any rumors I hear about him. So far only a couple have been true; his love for fighting and being annoying and his habit of roaming around. And there are a lot of people who do those same things.”

    Simon finally snaps out of his shocked silence. “Wait, what? Haven’t you complained about him picking on you at lunch a couple of times?” Markus nods in agreement.

    Ritch shakes his head, slightly curious and confused. “No, I wasn’t complaining, exactly. It was just different. I poke at him as much as he pokes at me– or as I think he’s called it before– I give as good as I get.”

    North sputters out a laugh that causes Simon and Markus to glare, but Ritch doesn’t understand.

    “Just ignore her,” Markus says before Ritch can ask, “She’s always got her mind in the gutter.”

    Ritch tilts his head curiously. “That’s an inappropriate phrase?”

    Simon looks at him kindly. He’s definitely been the one who helps him the most when it comes to not understanding things, and he appreciates it.

    “It can be for certain people in certain situations. There’s nothing wrong with the way you used it and it makes perfect sense. North is just being an idiot child right now without Josh to balance her out.”

    Ritch nods in acknowledgement and understanding, making a mental note of what he’s learned about the phrase like he normally does with new slang. Maybe Connor had the right idea after all; a journal could be good for remembering everything. The human mind can only do and hold so much, after all.

    “So,” Markus starts, “What does being partners with Gavin Reed entail, then?”

    “So far just alone time in the mornings and nighttime for our sanity. He said we’ll probably be assigned daily bonding or training exercises because we both have large chunks of the day where we don’t do much.”

    North pauses her punching long enough to ask, “So, what are some juicy details?”

    “What do you mean?” Ritch does not like where this is going.

    “Like, what does his room look like? What kind of things does he have for fun.”

    If this is what North is always like without Josh, she won’t last much longer than a week. He just shakes his head with a sigh.

    “That is private information, and I wouldn’t know anyway. Unlike some people,” he sends her a pointed glare, "I actually respect people’s privacy, and he’ll respect mine.”

    “Are you sure about that?” she insists. “You won’t even peek at his stuff when he looks through yours?”

    “If he does– and I don’t think he will,” he corrects irritably while getting up, “why would I look through his things when it’d be easier and less uncomfortable for me to just ask to be removed from the room on an account of purposeful neglection of privacy.” He turns and starts walking away.

    “Ohhh, you’re leaving? It’s just a coincidence that you’re leaving while on this topic? You sure you’re not going to go check right now?”

    Ritch spins to face her so she can get the full extent of his unimpressed glare. It usually works on Connor, and while it seems ineffective on North, she definitely isn’t immune. If she was, he doesn’t know what he’d do to actually get her attention and let her know that he is absolutely done with her for the time being. He almost hopes she gets sent home or told off by Luther as some kind of wake up call for being a complete child right now.

    “I’m leaving because you’re being a nosey, whiny asshole because the partner you were barely compatible with was saved from having his mental health take a huge decline from the violence that a jaeger pilot’s life is filled with.” He sharply turns back towards the entryway of the training room. “Not everything is about you, and not everyone has the same views or values as you. That is what you need to learn before you’re even close to ready for finding a new partner, because I promise you that the people in here won’t be nearly as accommodating as Josh was.”

    He hears no arguments as he walks out of the room, so he’ll take the liberty to assume that Simon and Markus are silently agreeing with him, and that North is going to check herself at least for today, if not for the next several days. He’s unfortunately not naive enough to think it will last to the end of the week, though.

    Just as he steps out of the room, he almost physically runs into Gavin, who’s standing right out of sight from the people inside. Instead of stopping there and revealing Gavin’s poor hiding place, he casually walks past and stops when he, too, is out of sight from the room of trainees. Gavin watches him silently as he does this, then surprises him by not saying anything when Ritch leans against the wall right next to him. That normally gets Gavin at least glaring at him to leave his space, like he did this morning.

    “You know,” he murmurs, not wanting the trainees to hear him, “you could at least let people know that your job is to patrol the area. Less people would think you’re just looking for trouble all the time.”

    Gavin’s face remains relatively blank as he deadpans, “Where’s the fun in that?”

    “Less fun, true, but also less reports on Gavin Reed trying to start trouble, which means less things added to your apparently huge disciplinary folder? Wouldn’t that be worth it?”

    Gavin scoffs, then goes quiet. Ritch starts worrying. So far, he’s learned that Gavin isn’t one to stay quiet for long, but Ritch is also the very last person who should do anything relating to emotions. He’s surprised when Gavin starts explaining himself– Gavin Reed from the countless rumors he hears doesn’t like explaining himself to anyone but the marshal.

    “The official patrolling thing is a brand new excuse for me wandering around all day, but Luther’s always told me when he’s gonna start telling the failed trainees to go home so I can hover around and control any potential fights between punks who are upset that their partners and friends had to leave.” He turns to Ritch with a contemplative look on his face. “You ever think of picking up patrolling after people finally wake up and realize that we’re not gonna work as a pair?”

    “No, because I’d work better with jaegers than with the people. You know I’m not good with people or their emotions, or did you forget that I’m two steps away from being a robot?” he teases. He turns to leave then, not knowing what’s wrong with Gavin right now, but not wanting to accidentally push buttons.

    He stops and turns, however, when the pilot makes some kind of choked noise.

    Gavin huffs and glares at the far wall. “So why didn’t you tell her what my room is like, Mr. ‘this is now technically my room too’? It’s not like there was anything weird in there.”

    “If you heard that, then you heard my reasoning. Besides, with how much you’ve stalked me over the past couple of weeks, you should know by now that I hate drama and gossip.”

    Ritch turns and walks away, not having a real plan of where he’s going. If he knew where to turn in their personal schedules, he’d probably go do that, but he’s already far enough away that he can’t just ask Gavin over his shoulder without alerting everyone inside, and he’s not willing to turn and walk back to him just to ask a question as simple as that. One of them will take care of it later.

    He suddenly remembers Josh, how he’s the one who was told he wasn’t fit for piloting a jaeger. Even though Josh has told him multiple times that he was only doing it for North, that he wanted to be a teacher or something in the learning or education field, it probably still hits that he’s been let go rather than quitting on his own like he was contemplating doing. Although, at least this way North’s petty anger will be aimed at people she can’t touch and not at someone she can seriously damage emotionally, if not physically.

    With those thoughts in mind, he heads to Josh’s bunker to talk to him about maybe joining the science department, even if it’s just as an apprentice or intern or something. He figures with the multiple friends he has there and his obvious interest in the subject that it should be obvious, but it’s been proven time and time again that human brains just aren’t reliable. Maybe North will be less irritated and Markus and Simon won’t be quite as forlorn if he’s still nearby. 

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Gavin doesn’t know how to feel about Ritch anymore.

    At first, he was just some challenge, a robot he wanted to push and break until he showed some kind of reaction. Then the robot starts pushing and poking back, and they get into a surprisingly enjoyable rhythm. Then he’s suddenly perfectly fine with breaking the rules, even though that seems like it’d go against what Gavin knows of his personality. Then come to find out that he can fight damn well too. Then he’s only mother-fucking 23 years old and he honestly can’t tell if he was exaggerating about the “training everyday since 11 years old” thing or not. 

    Gavin’s used to a neglectful household, between his emotionally absent father and his mother who was so stressed she eventually just upped and left, then his step-mother who was more interested in the money and protection that his father’s job and location offered than the family. He grew up being the older brother who went to work right out of high school despite his father’s wealth because his parents seemed to forget that he and his brother even existed until they did something wrong.

    But training for something as serious and violent as jaeger piloting since 11? As much as Gavin would like to think that it was mostly play until tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum turned 18, Ritch’s level of skill and strength and just the way he carries himself can’t be learned and formed in just four or five years of adulthood. That, and Anderson wouldn’t voluntarily keep Connor around him if that twin was like the other trainees, so it’s not just Ritch.

    It also has come to his attention earlier that the reason why “Stern” sounded so familiar was because of the ever-so-famous Amanda Stern. Gavin doesn’t know much about her, but he does know that she’d probably be determined and crazy enough to adopt children in order to create perfect soldiers. She practically did it with Anderson from what he heard from the man before he became a low-life. Plucked him off the streets at the ripe age of 17, if he remembers correctly.

    Gavin isn’t going to get into that mess whatsoever, though. Ritch very obviously doesn’t see too many issues with how he was raised, and he certainly wasn’t sheltered to the point of living completely under a rock with how many references he’s able to make and understand without stuttering. So no, Gavin isn’t going to touch any of this with a ten foot pole, but he’s also curious of whether or not Ritch is just a really good actor, if he’s got some kind of stockholm syndrome, or if living with and being trained by Amanda fucking Stern instead of going to a public middle and high school wasn’t actually as bad as Gavin’s gut is trying to tell him it would be.

    The problem is, Gavin’s gut has rarely been wrong. Having good gut feelings and instincts is kind of a part of the job as a jaeger pilot. He hasn’t met a successful pilot that didn’t have a good instinct they listened to.

    He pushes himself off of the wall once it becomes obvious that none of the kids inside aren’t going to start a fight based on nothing but mutual anger for having partners and friends being let go. And isn’t that kind of weird, the fact he can easily call everyone in that room children when his partner is at least 3 years younger than the youngest person in there, but he also acts the least childish out of all of them. It almost makes Gavin curious of what kinds of things Ritch has seen and experienced to make him the way he is. What a fucking anamoly.

    When Gavin just turned 23, he was signing up to be a jaeger pilot for the first of two times after getting kicked out of his shitty apartment. He was starting to look for another construction job since they were plenty, but his history of violence wasn’t doing him favors.

    He still remembers the day he got a letter back saying they looked up surveillance videos of a few of the fights he’d picked once they got his second letter– probably because, as he now knows, people rarely try twice without sounding entitled and/or stupid– and decided that they’d take a chance on him, but to not get his hopes up. He remembers being overwhelmed in the best way possible when he and sweet, joyful Ty were finally added onto the “main pilots” list.

    He also remembers the first time he tried to enter the drift with someone after Ty. He remembers staring at himself in the mirror after washing his face with an expression almost identical to the one Ritch had while processing the fact they could be compatible. He remembers the day he found a way to keep his memories and experiences away from the drift.

    Gavin isn’t going to get nosey with this one, but it can’t hurt to stay observant. After all, he’s got a long history of winning fights against abusers of all sorts, and he doubts one old woman would be able to best him, even if it’s Amanda Stern. 

    He shakes his head to get rid of those types of thoughts and tries not to freak out about how protective they sounded even in his own head. He can’t exactly blame himself, though. Once a protective older brother, always a protective asshole who loves to start and finish other people’s fights. He’s done the same thing for Tina and her relatively new partner, so he’s not too terribly surprised to see that it’s starting to happen with the literal only other person he sees regularly. It doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

    He raises a hand to knock on Tina’s door and freezes. He doesn’t remember actually coming here and he doesn’t know why he’d want Tina, anyway, She can be insufferable with certain topics and this would certainly be one of them. He can already imagine her teasing about how she knew Ritch would be his new “boy toy” and hear her start making innuendos when he really, really doesn’t want to hear any of it today. Ty is too fresh in his mind, the fact that he can think his name instead of his “past partner” or just “him” proves it.

    Besides, now that patrolling is his actual job around here, he probably shouldn’t start skipping out. He may be irresponsible sometimes, but he tries to not be a total jackass about it. Skipping patrol as soon as it becomes his actual job– as opposed to something that he did because he’s a nosey shit and it also kind of annoyed people– would be an absolute asshole thing to do. With that in mind, he backs away from the door and strolls away with the intention to roam around like he usually does. However, he only makes it 3 steps before he spots his own door, which somehow reminds him of the personal schedules he and Ritch have to come up with.

    Gavin idly wonders if Ritch already finished his before setting off to wherever he was obviously itching to go. He certainly seems like the type to get things done immediately rather than putting them off, but he’s also surprised Gavin before in the past. 

    Before he even realizes it, Gavin’s opening his door and stepping inside. Right on the desk are two papers, one that he immediately knows is his own schedule. He strolls over and picks them both up, and takes them with him when he sees the “Signature of Completion” bullshit at the bottom. It stands out compared to the relative emptiness of the rest of the page. There are chunks of time dedicated to meals, and Ritch apparently likes going to help the rest of the trainees with physical training every morning, and has a note at the bottom noting a reserved time for “possible therapy, frequencies and assigned time unknown”. He must be therapist-hopping right now.

    Gavin doesn’t feel bad at all snooping through the schedule. If the higher-ups around here are gonna try to force a partnership on them, then he’s gonna find this shit out anyway. Even if that weren’t the case, it’s not like he’d see anything here that he hasn’t experienced or witnessed before. Therapy is something that is mandated for quite a few people around here, and is voluntarily sought after by others. It’s not anything to be shy about, and Ritch obviously agrees considering one of the first things he asked about these damn schedules was whether or not he’d have to add the sessions in.

    It’s an easy trip of carefully not thinking about anything and letting his mind be distracted by Ritch while not letting it focus too hard on him either. Well, maybe easy isn’t quite the word he’s looking for. It’s a simple walk without any interruptions, but complicated and kind of difficult to keep his head in check. He doesn’t even notice he’s in the office to drop off the schedules until a woman tries to take them out of his hands.

    Noticing her nervous look, he just apologizes, hands her the papers, and walks away. He doesn’t even have the energy to try to come up with something he’d normally say and do. He just wants Ritch out of Ty’s space. He wants Ty out of his own mind. He wants Ty back, but knows that’s impossible.

    He’d probably be over his old partner if they weren’t in the drift together when he was ripped out of the jaeger. He wouldn’t have felt most of the things he did. He may have even been able to say that it was always a possibility for any of them to die, and it was unfortunately him out of everyone else. 

    God fucking damn it. He’s gonna need to set up an emergency therapy appointment, isn’t he? God fuck it, Marshal Fowler should have probably talked to his therapist and whoever the fuck else before doing this. Gavin was actually starting to do better, if he does say so himself.

    At least Ritch seems like the type of guy who will leave him the fuck alone and won’t mess with his shit. He even put the morning and nighttime alone-times on his own schedule even though Gavin was half joking. Not to mention Ritch is the first person since Tina who teases him back just as much as Gavin teases while still knowing when it’s time to cut that out and be serious.

    Mother fucking fuck. He’s done thinking about this. He needs a distraction. Now.

    Gavin heads to the gym, hoping to work out any nervous energy he suddenly has now that the melancholy seems to have passed. He’ll set up that appointment tomorrow after he’s had some sleep. Besides, he wants at least some information on what kind of roommate Ritch is before he goes off to start complaining to the girl who loves to gossip. Going in without a plan is exactly what’s going to get the two of them stuck together permanently. That is, if their “natural compatibility” doesn’t start fucking up any time soon instead.

    It’s almost fucked up how this entire situation simultaneously feels like purgatory for being an asshole forever and a potential second chance. Whatever, Gavin’s just going to roll with it like he always does and hope things go back to normal soon enough.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Dinner finds Ritch sitting on the ground against the wall, feeling pitiful as he eats his very Americanized nachos.

    He tried sitting with his Markus, Simon, Josh, and North for all of a couple minutes before North drove Josh away while he was trying to explain the plan he and Ritch made to get him into the science department. Markus then told North off, who started snapping at Ritch for whatever damned reason. At that point it was either force himself to walk away calmly or cuff her upside the head, which would have led to her starting a fight he would have finished in seconds at the cost of disciplinary action against him.

    So he walked away, even if it took every ounce of his self-control to not grab her hand and sweep her feet out from under her when she tried to escalate things into a fight anyway.

    She’s turning into a new, whiny version of Alex and Ritch will not put up with any of it. If she doesn’t quit within the next couple of days, he’s going to have to bring this to Luther’s attention, because, according to Simon and Markus, she does not get nearly this bad during training. He just wishes he didn’t have to. He considered her a friend before, but now he’s not so sure he could handle any more unpredictability in his life. He has enough of it already with Gavin, and even then, he at least doesn’t antagonize for the sake of it. If he’s anything like Ritch, then he gets some kind of emotional release out of being a relatively unpredictable asshole.

    “What the hell are you doing here, vomit?”

    Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

    “I might ask the same question, book.”

    “Book?” Gavin asks with palpable confusion.

    “Vomit?” Ritch asks back almost mockingly. He figures Gavin’s most recent favorite nickname, Retch, went a little further and turned to vomit. “Look, if you want to sit, I’d suggest you do it. I’m not in the mood to play our usual games and, quite frankly, I’m hiding from someone.”

    Gavin’s eyes widen in visible surprise, but he takes a step forward and drops down to the floor. “You? Hiding someone? Why would the ‘top of the class’–” he makes air quotes “–need to avoid someone?”

    Ritch decides to be bluntfully honest. “To keep me from smacking them upside their whiny little head and getting me in trouble. Why would the man who’s known to love fights be hiding from someone?”

    “I never said I was playing coward, ass.” Gavin huffs irritably.

    “Then why aren’t you with Tina Chen like you always are?” he asks after finishing his bite of food.

    There’s a minute that passes where neither of them say anything to each other, but the ambient sounds of the food court keep things from going silent. Ritch hears Gavin muttering to himself, but he easily blocks that out because Connor does the exact same thing. He sometimes wonders if it helps people like them process and retain information or if it’s just a habit. Ritch certainly can’t force himself to speak when not necessary, and Amanda hadn’t ever said anything about him muttering like she had with Connor.

    “Tina Chen is a gossip at heart and loves making a big deal out of little things.”

    Ritch huffs. “I dislike people like that.”

    Ritch sees Gavin scowl and open his mouth to speak out of the corner of his eye. He never does say anything, though, he just closes his mouth and huffs in an irritable way.

    Neither one of them spend very long eating, and neither one of them say a single thing for the rest of their dinner. Ritch stands up to put his stuff away first, but he spots Gavin finishing and getting up as he walks out of the food court area.

    They say nothing to each other even though Gavin’s natural walking pace is a tad faster than Ritch’s, so they end up walking beside each other for a while. They don’t say anything while cooling down after dinner, and Ritch stays silent when Gavin calls his therapist on his radio thing and asks him for a “rant session” that evening. Gavin stays quiet and reads whatever book he has on his top bunk while Ritch gets himself together for his therapist trial.

    Gavin isn’t there when he returns, and Ritch is somewhat thankful for it. He actually likes this therapist, especially compared to the first one he visited, so he managed to gather the courage by the end of the session to mention keeping a journal to remember things. She said that keeping notes is a great way to keep track of things in a new environment and vent about anything he doesn’t feel comfortable telling other people. That, and more than plenty of people keep notes just for the sake of having reminders of events and other things, so they’re not just used for studying or therapy.

    Just a couple minutes after Ritch makes his charts on different people and a few lists of words and phrases and what they mean to most people, Gavin walks in. He immediately grabs some pajamas out of his locker with tense shoulders and jerky movements then goes inside the bathroom. Ritch decides to ignore as much as he can by reading a book that Josh recommended, since he may be leaving soon and will need it back. Gavin comes back out several minutes later, pauses to look around at who knows what, then settles his hands on his hips with a sharp sigh.

    Ritch tears his eyes away from the surprisingly good fiction novel in order to glance at Gavin. The pilot must take that as acknowledgement enough because he starts speaking.

    “So, my therapist had an idea I’d like to try, for once,” he declares.

    Ritch raises an eyebrow. “I’ve heard you’re supposed to listen to your therapist’s advice.”

    “Yeah, well, they’re not the fuckin’ know all be all of any of our lives, y’know?”

    Ritch emphatically does not know– he doesn’t quite understand what that phrase means– but he nods along anyway.

    “So anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard about how I used to have a partner.” Gavin sounds like he’s going to continue, but he doesn’t.

    Ritch hesitantly shakes his head. “I haven’t, but it makes sense since you’re in a two-person room rather than a single-person back-up room.”

    Ritch decides that he doesn’t need to know why said partner isn’t with him anymore. They either quit and left Gavin behind or they died, both of which are cases that need a lot more delicacy than Ritch has in order to handle and navigate without ruining what little truce they have right now.

    Gavin’s face scrunches up in confusion for what seems like less than a moment before he smiles sarcastically and claps his hands together.

    “Well then! Yes, I used to have a partner, and all of his stuff went where all of your shit is.” Gavin starts pacing. “And you see, I’ve always fucking hated all of my partners for valid fuckin’ reasons, right? And my therapist was always like, ‘you like who you like, and you can’t pilot with someone you hate’ yadda yadda yadda. So imagine my surprise when I come to him to complain about you, he stops me and tells me that I’m just afraid of replacing my old partner, right?” Gavin, once again, sounds like he’s just going to continue, but stops for whatever reason.

    Ritch nods slowly once more. “That’s an understandable feeling to have,” he says in a carefully neutral tone.

    “Yeah, sure, but it shook me up because that’s the first time he’s said something like this, right? So, turns out, my fucking therapist was on board with us pairing up and cleared it before we even knew it was our punishment. Like, what the fuck?”

    Ritch has no clue what’s happening, but he figures that if this is what’s going to keep Gavin from trying to fight him and their superiors every step of the way of whatever is happening anymore, then he’ll do what he does second best and sit silently. It’s not like Gavin ranting at him is going to do any damage as far as he can tell, even Ritch doesn’t understand why he would ever want to come to him with these types of issues.

    “So he’s goin’ on about his therapist thing that he’s paid to do, and he says that I’m gonna put up with your ass for a whole two weeks before we can request to split! All because he thinks our banter was a sign of some shit and our fighting styles are super compatible!”

    “They are,” Ritch interjects cautiously. “Compatible, I mean. I was taught to be able to tell in the event that something happened to Connor and I had to find someone else to pilot with.”

    Gavin blinks hard, then blinks a couple more times before shaking his head.

    “Your– You know what? I don’t have time to deal with your shit right now.” he replies combatively, tensing up as if preparing for a fight. Ritch holds back a sigh.

    “I… didn’t want to start anything? I was just listing facts. You mentioned that your therapist had an idea you wanted to try earlier? I assume it involves me– and I mean this in a kind way– or else you wouldn’t be venting to me, of all people.”

    Gavin goes blank and blinks once more, then snaps his fingers with a, “That’s right! Listen, we’re gonna switch our stuff around.”

    Ritch, as used to Connor’s random bullshit as he was, does not understand where the connection in any of this is. He just wants to read his book and get some good sleep before helping the angsty trainees tomorrow morning.

    Gavin huffs. “Look, He said it’s like I’m finding reasons to hate people because they’re replacing my old partner, right?”

    Oh. I think I understand now. I’m fairly sure I’ve read about this somewhere…

    “But I’m not replacing them. I’m someone else entirely, so you want to switch our stuff around so it’s not like I’m taking over his old space and replacing them further, but more like you’re keeping his old place and his memories safe, then I’ll be in your place where you aren’t as emotionally attached? Is that about the idea of it?”

    He meets Gavin’s wide eyes. This is probably the most genuine surprise and confusion he’s seen from him.

    “Uh, yeah. Kinda. How did you?”

    “I read psychology books in my spare time.” Ritch stands and looks away. If Gavin is going to offer something private information like that, then Ritch will return the favor. “People have always confused me, so I tried using psychology to learn about them more. Then I got more interested in how different kinds of people react in different ways when I realized how different Connor and I are from each other, despite being identical twins who grew up in the same conditions.”

    “But your eyes are blue.” Gavin blurts. Ritch is about to turn that question down when Gavin waves his hands dismissively. “Y’know what? I don’t actually care. I just want to move our stuff around so maybe my brain’ll stop fuckin’ me over. It’s been less than one god damned day and I’m already sick and tired of this shit. Two fucking weeks…” Gavin adds under his breath, but Ritch still catches it.

    Ritch nods in acknowledgement and moves to start taking things off the shelves. It may be a bit of an adjustment, getting used to his stuff being on the opposite side of where he’s used to reaching, but it shouldn’t be too bad.

    Gavin quietly follows after, sliding his stuff over to the other side of the shelf rather than actually picking things up and moving them. The silence continues after that. They don’t say a word to each other while moving things around, and really that may be a testimony to how compatible they are. Ritch moves some of his stuff when he notices Gavin preparing to move some of his own things in that spot, and Gavin follows him over to a new area of the room when he finishes a spot.

    Three mostly-silent hours later, the room has been readjusted and Ritch is clean and is climbing into bed to finally sleep. He’s out like a light just as he notices that Gavin is still on the top bunk even after everything else is switched. He’ll leave it alone; he really doesn’t want to have to climb up to the top bunk with injuries or during late nights, after all.

    Ritch wakes up the next morning to a note on his pillow and can’t help but smirk a little. “You won’t catch me dead on the bottom bunk. Have fun listening to creaking, whacking your head, and being closer to the bugs and shit down there.” It’s good to know they’ll agree to disagree on which bunk is best, at least.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Heyo! Sorry for the slow update, life irl got busy, and I’ve rewritten this chapter a couple of times. I don’t know why I feel like I can never get Gavin quite right? But hopefully that problem is solved once Ritch and Gavin get used to each other and fall into a groove I have planned for them Lol.

    Ritch watches as Marshal Fowler’s eye twitches and decides to step in before the situation can devolve any further. 

    “Marshal Fowler, I wasn’t recruited. I was the one who approached Gavin while he was watching Harold and Leach’s group from a distance, and I offered to get him inside their bunker. It was my idea to take a more hands-on approach.”

    “And why the hell would you offer to break into someone’s room just because of a vague suspicion?”

    How does he answer this without sounding like a narcissistic jerk, as North once bluntly put it? Is there even a way? He can’t think of one off the top of his head...

    “Because I’ve spent most of my life training to read body language so I can have a better idea of who is trustworthy and who would be more likely to give away or sell classified information.” Ritch reaches into the large pocket on his right outer thigh as he continues, “So when I think something or someone is especially suspicious, I’m confident that I’m not wrong.”

    He pulls his hand out of his pocket, revealing the two sheathed knives he stashed there in a hurry earlier. Marshal Fowler’s eyes widen slightly, and Ritch sets the two weapons on the desk between them. They both jump slightly when Gavin violently slams his hand down onto the desk.

    “Why the fuck did you not tell me you grabbed some knives, asshole!? We could’ve skipped the fight if you had and we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess! What the hell!?”

    “There were people in the hallway so–”

    “No there weren’t! I fucking checked!–”

    “If you had shut your trap for one second you would’ve heard the footsteps and Leach’s obnoxious laughing. But you couldn’t think about anything but throwing a tantrum and a punch.” Ritch has to keep himself from snarling the words. He barely manages it.

    “Oh, so you couldn’t have whispered it to me or something!? Or told me–”

    “Told you what, Gavin? To wait a minute? Because I knew there wasn’t any way to get you to listen unless I physically brought you out of your head.”

    “And that was a good enough reason to punch me!?” Gavin stands up from his seat.

    “At the time, yes!” Ritch curls his hands into fists.

    “Enough! Both of you!” Marshal Fowler snaps, “Sit the hell down, Reed, and don’t fucking test me.”

    Gavin drops himself into his chair, glowering at nothing in particular with his arms crossed tensely.

    “We’re not done talking about the breaking and entering–”

    “It’s not breaking and entering if we knew the code–”

    “Were you given the code, Reed? Was Stern?” The glare the marshal sends the pilot’s way is enough to make even Ritch freeze. It’s enough for Gavin to slightly shrivel in his chair.

    “…no sir.”

    “Then it was fucking breaking and entering.” Marshal Fowler heaves a deep breath and raises a hand to rub his temple. “We will talk more about that later. God knows we’ll have to. But right now, we’re gonna talk about that fight. And I want Stern to go first!” he adds louder when Gavin opens his mouth to speak.

    Ritch swallows, but he’s careful to not let his voice doesn’t portray the sudden nervousness he feels, “What would you like to know, sir?”

    The marshal sighs, but surprisingly doesn’t yell, “Why did you punch Reed? There’s no sound on those cameras.”

    Ritch grimaces, “I didn’t want to get in trouble, and he was starting to get riled up.” Gavin opens his mouth to speak, but stops when Marshal Fowler glares at him. “I thought a punch would get him to stop yelling and get out of his head long enough for me to say something. It worked, just not in the way I was expecting.”

    “And I’m assuming you punched back because Stern punched you first?”

    “Partially.” Gavin growls.

    The marshal raises his eyebrows and nods sharply to get Gavin to continue, which he does after a moment of visibly collecting himself; probably so he doesn’t explode.

    “I mainly punched that asshat because he punched me first, but he also dragged me out after I found the knives but didn’t let me take one. Had I known he’d taken one or more of them, I would have left quieter. Probably.”

    “I punched him back because I thought I could goad him into chasing me away from where people could see me, but he reacted quicker than I anticipated, so I couldn’t immediately step away.”

    “Okay then.” Marshal Fowler says tersely.

    He turns to grab something out of his desk drawers. He lifts up a tablet, taps a few things on it, then props it up on his desk so Ritch and Gavin could see the screen. The recording of the fight is on there, and according to the bottom of the screen where the marshal is manipulating the video feed, the fight only lasted a handful of minutes instead of how long it felt being a part of it.

    The screen suddenly freezes at the beginning of the fight, where they had both first paused to evaluate each other.

    “Why didn’t you run there?”

    That question is easy. “I don’t turn my back to an opponent unless I know I can outrun them. I underestimated how fast Gavin could react, so I no longer knew if I could run faster than him.”

    “Okay.” He responds in the same terse tone. If he hadn’t been subject to that type of tone frequently under Amanda’s care, he would likely be getting more nervous now.

    He distantly wonders if this is what Connor has to feel 24/7, and if it gets noticeably worse in tense situations. It would unfortunately explain a lot.

    Marshal Fowler simply presses play on the video so they have to watch their fight, instead of just skipping to where he wants to make his next point. It takes what feels like a couple minutes, but Marshal Fowler finally pauses where He kicked Gavin in the back of the knees.

    “And why didn’t you run off here? He’s down, you could have at least gotten a head start.”

    Ritch highly doubts that Marshal Fowler will like his answer, so he says nothing. He probably won’t like the silence either, but maybe there’s a chance he’ll move on to Reed–

    “Stern.”

    Shit.

    “I was… enjoying it?” he answers without much thought like an idiot.

    He sees Gavin snap his head towards him as Marshal Fowler continues in a mildly surprised tone.

    “Enjoying it. Is that a question or an answer?”

    Ritch shifts in his chair and avoids eye contact as he explains, “The only people I’ve ever sparred or fought with are Connor and the occasional personal trainer Amanda sent our way.” He shifts again. “I’ve never sparred with anyone where I didn’t know exactly what to expect from them or didn’t have any strict guidelines or rules to be aware of. Having something different was… enjoyable.”

    After a few silent moments where it becomes increasingly obvious Ritch is done talking, the marshal finally prompts more discussion.

    “So sparring with someone new was fun? Or sparring with someone like Reed, or even just Reed himself was fun? Because I need to know the difference.”

    Ritch blinks. He opens his mouth to say something along the lines of “it was the adrenaline of the fight I liked,” but he closes it again and actually thinks about his answer.

    If anyone other than Gavin threw a punch at his throat, he wouldn’t have just dodged. He would have grabbed that person’s arm and twisted it until it hurt then warned them that he wasn’t as inexperienced as they thought. Although, if anyone but Gavin was standing at the food court entrance staring at that group of jerks, Ritch would have ignored them and continued past to get the juice he was there for. If anyone but Gavin was mouthing off at him with those people behind him, he wouldn’t have punched them, he more likely would have slapped a hand over their mouth and signaled for them to be quiet. Although, that’s more because that method would probably work on anyone who wasn’t Gavin.

    He also truly wasn’t lying when he stated that the fight was fun, especially after they moved on from the basic punching and kicking; when there were no real rules to the fight but there was a silent understanding to not aim to seriously injure. He’s never fought like that with anyone before. It was exciting, and Ritch doesn’t know how to feel about that. He doesn’t know how to feel about anything anymore.

    “I don’t know. I do know that I wouldn’t have reacted in certain ways if the person I was sparring with wasn’t Gavin, but I also doubt that I would have aided anyone who wasn’t Gavin or Connor with this, and this isn’t something Connor would do in the first place.”

    Ritch looks up to meet Marshal Fowler’s eyes. The other man immediately huffs and turns to Gavin.

    “And you, I’m guessing you fought just because that’s what you do when you’re mad? You didn’t know when to quit?”

    Ritch looks to Gavin and is surprised to meet the pilot’s gaze instead of seeing the side of his head. He looks like he’s a mixture of curious, mad, and frightened of all things, and his shoulders are tense with whatever concoction of emotions he’s feeling. Ritch tilts his head in question, which causes Gavin to snap out of it with a deep scowl, and turn to Marshal Fowler with a sarcastic smile.

    “You know I always have fun when I’m brawling–”

    “I already know what your punishment is going to be, so don’t try to lessen it.”

    That makes Ritch sit straight and eyebrows furrow. He didn’t think Gavin was trying to do anything beyond his usual shenanigans.

    “And if you’re gonna do what I think you’re gonna do, then I want no fucking part of it.”

    “You don’t have a say in the matter.”

    “Like fuck I don’t! It’s my–”

    Marshal Fowler points to the screen forcefully. “Take one look at that video and try to tell me that you two aren’t compatible.”

    Ritch freezes. Gavin and Marshal Fowler keep talking and yelling but he suddenly can’t understand or even properly hear them.

    Compatible? I can be compatible with someone who isn’t Connor? Without retraining myself completely?

    Closing his mouth, not knowing when it opened in the first place, he reaches over to restart the video. He leans forward in his chair and watches the feed carefully, pretending this is another one of Amanda’s exercises– that it isn’t him and Gavin in the video, that it’s just two random people. How would he rate the pair’s compatibility, taking into account these two people have only been speaking to each other for less than a month (if the taunts he and Gavin trade can even be considered “talking”, that is).

    Several minutes later, once the video is over, his analysis is that he and Gavin are, objectively, extremely compatible for combat. Take that and add the fact that they both enjoy making fun of each other often despite Gavin clearly disliking it when anyone else does so and the fact that they have the potential to work well together outside of combat as well, if the initial breaking into the room is anything to go by… Ritch slowly sits up and leans back into his chair, not focusing on anything in particular as he rests his chin in his palm and lets his fingers cover his mouth in thought.

    They could absolutely be compatible with a little training and getting properly used to each other. They definitely could be drift compatible.

    Ritch knew he’d need to get a new partner, of course. He knew this. Yet, somehow he’s completely shocked that he could be compatible with anyone who isn’t Connor. He always assumed that if he was, then his twin would still be the closest he could get to true drift compatibility, and the other partner would be a case of “close enough”. Although, fighting with and against Connor has always been more of a chore than anything else, especially since it happened, and this fight with Gavin was just… not.

    Is that how sparring with someone is supposed to be? Enjoyable? He thought it was supposed to be a chore because jaeger pilots are not supposed to be fighting against one another, they’re supposed to fight and work together. He doesn’t know anymore. The one thing he does know nowadays is that he doesn’t know anything anymore, that nothing in this new world fits anything he thought he knew before. He doesn’t know if he can handle anything more being proven false in his life. He doesn’t know–

    “Hey ass-face.”

    Ritch blinks hard and turns to Gavin. A part of him knows that he should express his confusion instead of staring blankly at him, but a larger part of him is too tired and unsteady to even try. He then abruptly remembers that he’ll have to get better at conveying emotions before he starts doing it around Gavin because the new and failed attempts make the pilot extremely uncomfortable.

   Or would he be considered a trainee, now that they’re apparently partners? Or would RItch be considered an unofficial pilot?

    “Ritch.” Marshal Fowler calls in a more gentle voice, “You okay?”

    Ritch blinks again and forces his attention on him with a sharp nod. Why is his head moving so slow? Isn’t getting a new partner something he wanted? Everything he wanted, recently? It definitely still is, and he knows a part of him is happy–

    “Your punishment for the fight is rooming with Reed for the indefinite future and making an effort to get along on the basis of possibly being drift compatible. We’ll talk about the breaking and entering and theft when the people in charge of this contraband case has time to go over it with you. Go pack up your stuff, Stern.”

    Ritch sits up stiffly at that and his eyes go wide in realization. “Connor has never slept in a room on his own before. I don’t know if it’s wise for me to leave so suddenly–”

    “He’s a grown man. He can handle having a room to himself for now. And you’ll be talking to someone about that later too, with Connor and a therapist present.”

    Ritch decides against saying how he’s nervous to share a bunker with someone as potentially dangerous and unstable as Gavin. What if the pilot does something to his clothes or other belongings while he’s away or sleeping? The only reason he’s not worried about something happening to himself is because he’s a relatively light sleeper, but even then…

    “Why the hell have you two been sharing a room for so long? I understand sharing as children, but two adult brothers? You’re supposed to be young prodigies, so your what, 25? 26? That’s around how old Anderson and Fowler went on their first mission–”

    He turns to Gavin as he explains, “We were training to be pilots together. We can’t mourn or wish for separate rooms or more privacy if we never had it in the first place. And Connor and I are 23.”

    “Jesus christ. What the fuck.”

    Ritch tilts his head. “It’s sound logic.”

    Gavin looks at him like he’s growing a second head. “No the fuck it isn’t! And what the hell do you mean you’re 23? The legal age is 25–”

    “Nope! Okay, take this conversation outta my office. If you want to talk about that, do it while Stern is packing or when you’re in your bunker tonight. I’ve already had to sit through this particular talk twice, and I’m not going for thirds.”

    Gavin makes a sound that’s between a huff and a growl and storms out. He somehow manages to slam the door both open and closed, but Ritch tries to ignore this and instead stands and meets the marshal’s eyes.

    “May I show that video to Connor?” He says, pointing to the tablet on the desk, “He may not fully understand otherwise. And he really hasn’t slept anywhere on his own before–”

    Marshal Fowler interrupts with a heavy sigh. “I’m gonna be in here for a little while longer. You can grab him and show him this video if you think you really have to.”

    Ritch is already nodding before he finishes speaking.

    “Thank you, Marshal Fowler. I won’t be long, so I won’t hold you up.” He turns and leaves briskly, unable to completely contain whatever this new nervous energy is.

    “Just don’t think you’re gonna get out of this with your brother’s help!” the marshal calls after him.

    Ritch pauses by the door to the hallway to nod in affirmation. He doubts Connor would try to help him anyway, not with Marshal Fowler dealing the punishments and the video as proof. Besides, even if he did want to help, Ritch doubts he could be convincing enough to do anything.

    “Hey, baby face.”

    Ritch sighs to hide a groan and closes his eyes to hide the fact he’s rolling them. It doesn’t matter that Gavin’s tone is softer than Ritch has ever heard it before (though, that isn’t saying much), he just wants to break the news to Connor and process all of this on his own. Unfortunately, however, The sigh is enough of an acknowledgment for Gavin, who then continues talking.

    “Are you really 23 years old? Coulda sworn you were 26.”

    Ritch turns to him lazily, asking, “Why would I lie about my age in front of the marshal?” He starts walking down the hall. “I’m 23 as of a couple of weeks ago.”

    “How the hell did you even get accepted–”

    Ritch spins sharply to meet Gavin’s eyes with stress-induced irritation, and that’s thankfully enough to get the pilot to silence himself.

    “In the light of having to work together for who knows how long, you should also know that Connor and I have spent nearly every day training since we were a little under 11 just so we could become pilots, which is the only reason we were able to bypass the legal age limit and be accepted into this program at 22 years old. I also apologize in advance because that’s also why I will sometimes seem arrogant and cocky about my skills while other times I won’t have a damn clue of what anyone is talking about or referencing to. I don’t mean for either of those things to happen, but that’s what a group of my friends tell me happens anyway, and I have a feeling it will be a major point of irritation for you.”

    Ritch pauses to take a deep breath and calm himself since he was slowly getting worked up the longer he ranted. And that’s what it was, a rant. He’s tired of having those things– maybe also some others that he can’t think of at the moment– being constantly speculated on by other people. It’s exhausting in a way he didn’t expect when he made Connor agree to keep their decade of training a secret. He almost regrets asking Connor to do so, now.

    Gavin stays unnaturally and uncomfortably silent even though Ritch has just given him the perfect opportunity to mouth off back at him. With a small sigh, he turns around to head back to his dorm to fetch Connor and pack his things, but pauses after a step. He looks over his shoulder as he starts explaining.

    “I didn’t tell you this so you’ll treat me differently like everyone else seems to think they need to do. I told you this so you’ll be slightly more prepared for the unpleasant memories I have in my head in the case we enter the drift together. And maybe so you’ll be more likely to let me use your phone or something to look stuff up when I don’t want to ask the other people I hang around.” He faces forward and starts walking again. “See you this evening, water grass. I hope your room is cleared of porn magazines, or whatever it is you normal, adult men stash in their rooms.” He’ll make a small dig at himself if it means any chance of getting things back to normal.

    He hears a scoff. Ritch is glad his back is turned because he can’t quite hide the relieved and pleased smile at the promise of Gavin insulting him; a step closer to to Ritch’s new normal.

    “Fuck you, retch. I don’t buy that kind of shit. You better not bring your books on whatever robotic shit you get off on, though, or I swear to god I’ll burn them all.”

    Ritch hums sarcastically, enjoying the pilot’s grumbling at the lack of a real reply.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Connor is sitting at his and Hank’s table, picking at his lunch tray absent-mindedly.

    He doesn’t know how to feel about Ritch moving out so soon. Sure, he wrote down in his journal that Ritch would be more compatible with Gavin Reed, but that was more of a note to not even make an attempt with the irritable pilot than an observation of the pair. Although, this certainly makes the weird, insulting conversation they had when Alex went crazy make more sense.

    “Hey Connor.” Hank greets tiredly, a tray of food in his hands. It throws Connor off for a second; he’s usually the one to greet Hank first, not the other way around.

    Connor accepts the distraction from his thoughts with a small smile, nonetheless.

    “Hello Hank. Did you rest well?”

    Hank hums and nods his head once. He actually got restful sleep, then, even if it was only for a couple hours. If he hadn’t, he would have just grunted or tried to glare at him (key word being tried. Hank hasn’t been good at being genuinely mean to him lately, or maybe Connor is just desensitized to it). Besides, he’s pretty sure he saw Hank in his old tennis shoes, rather than the ratty slippers he wears when it’s a particularly bad day.

    North and Markus have let him know that it can be creepy to keep all these small tabs on different people, but studying habits to use to navigate people’s moods has been an important self-taught lesson while co-existing with Amanda and sharing a room with Ritch. Old habits die hard, after all, especially the useful ones.

    “You saw me this morning, didn’t you? Why didn’t you ask me then?” Hank grumbles.

    “Well, we were too busy talking about a variety of things then, so I never got to ask.”

    Hank shakes his head and rolls his eyes not unkindly.

    I wonder what has him in such a good mood today, Connor wonders to himself. He seems less drunk than usual, so he didn’t get another secret stash of alcohol...

    “Yeah yeah. I slept for three good hours. You happy, mom?” Hank takes a large bite of his food.

    Connor pauses before he nibbles on his lasagna, his fork still close to his mouth as he asks without thought, “Are mothers known to ask people how well they slept?”

    Hank pauses at eating his meal and just stares at him. Connor, having the distinct feeling that he said something weird or wrong again, scoops even more food onto his fork and shoves it in his mouth so he can’t give in to his impulse to ramble.

    “Y’know, Connor, sometimes you say things that somehow make me more depressed than I already am, but also make me wanna punch someone at the same time.” he finally takes another bite.

    Connor lowers his head as he swallows. “Sorry.”

    “Not your fault.”

    He frowns. “But you said that I–”

    “And I said it ain’t your fault.” he restates with finality, then sighs. “Mothers are stereotypically known to nag and ask their children about little things, like how they slept, if they’re hurt, if they’ve eaten enough– those kinds of things.” He mumbles something that sounds like “jesus christ” under his breath.

    “Sorry. For being clueless about these things.” he adds when Hank looks like he’s about to snap at Connor for apologizing again. “I’m trying to learn these little things as fast as I can, but it can be hard to do when I don’t have a way to regularly access the internet and the people who do can’t read my mind and tell me what I’m missing.” He finishes with a small, awkward smile.

    Hank nods with a weird mixture of a grimace and a smile then turns back to his food. Connor simultaneously doesn’t mind it and hates it because he desperately needs a distraction, but he doesn’t force Hank to talk any more than he wants to. This is about how long their conversations have been lasting recently. He doesn’t want to move progress backwards just so he can procrastinate thinking about being on his own for who knows how long. Being on his own isn’t even that nerve wracking, not that being without his brother for literally the first time in his life isn’t making him a little nervous, but that alone is manageable. It’s that this is all yet another change that’s happened while he’s been trying to regain stability in his new routine. He’s tired of his entire world being flipped over and over.

    He takes another small bite out of his food, wondering if he should have offered to help Ritch pack. After all, North, Josh, Markus, and Simon all talked about helping each other pack when they moved into their own apartment. He only has to spend a couple seconds thinking about trying to help Ritch when he realizes he would have just gotten in the way and irritated his brother. They didn’t even help each other pack their few belongings when they moved out of Amanda’s manor, why would he want help moving to another hall? Especially since Ritch already seemed tense enough as it was.

    Apparently he’s going to bother Hank more this lunch, after all. He doesn’t want to think about this anymore, but it’s the only thing his brain wants to think about for whatever reason, despite the fact that anything on the topic there was to think about has already been exhausted. He’s just repeating facts and predictions over and over again, and it’s getting annoying.

    Therefore, Connor blurts the first thing that comes to mind that isn’t Ritch or being alone.

    “Do you like dogs?”

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    ”Do you like dogs?” What kind of fuckin’ question is that?

    Hank probably looks as surprised and confused as Connor does, if not more. It’s a shock because Hank is supposed to be the surprised one since Connor’s the one who asked the question and he’s also supposed to be the stoic one, the one who doesn’t really let things affect him.

    And why the hell does Connor want to know if he likes dogs, anyway? What brought that up. If Hank has him figured out like he thinks he does, the trainee doesn’t ask unrelated questions. Unimportant, yes, more often than Hank would like, honestly, but never completely unrelated.

    “Yes.” he answers slowly, unsurely. “Why do you need to know?”

    Connor visibly hesitates. “I– I don’t?”

    Well that doesn’t sound like the usual Connor at all. Usually by now he starts rambling about why he needs or wants to know, then backtracks to explain how he came to think about whatever topic that prompted him to ask his question. Normally, when someone rambles like Connor does, Hank vows to get rid of them quickly, but Connor always has a surprisingly logical way of thinking that make his random topic jumps and rambling make sense. The small part of Hank that’s a nosey asshole has always liked it, even if the rest of him only puts up with it at best.

    Hank opens his mouth to ask what he means by “I don’t need to know”, but Connor starts rambling before he can actually say anything.

    “I don’t know. I just, I like the idea of having a pet? Even though I’ve never had one before? Like, I read that some dogs can help with stress and stuff, and I only looked that up because I noticed that someone around here walks around with a bulldog, but I don’t think I’d like one that small? It’d stress me out even more because I’d be afraid of stepping on it–”

    Good god, he’s a fuckin’ mess today, ain’t he? This rambling isn’t making much sense at all. If Hank actually puts thought into Connor’s words it makes sense, but he usually doesn’t have to.

    “What’s your favorite dog, then?” Hank surprises himself by asking.

    Connor’s mouth clicks shut as he freezes.

    “What?” he eventually asks. Apparently that pause wasn’t him thinking about his answer, then. He really is a mess today, huh?

    “You’re rambling about dogs, and you implied you did some research, so what’s your favorite dog breed.”

    As much as Hank wants to tell himself that he just wants Connor to start making sense or stop or slow his rambling, he really is just curious about what the trainee thinks his ideal dog would be. He already said he doesn’t like the idea of having smaller pets, so his taste in dog breeds can’t be horrible. Not that small dogs are bad, but still. 

    “Oh. Well. I haven’t looked too much into breeds, but I liked the way people described Labradors and Golden Retrievers. They’re usually portrayed as being very happy and cuddly dogs, even if they’re also kinda protective and want to eat everything. From what I saw, I don’t think I’d like german shepherds all that much. They have a lot of energy and take a lot of work and I’ve never had a pet, so it might be too much at first, especially in a space like this.” He gestures around the room. “I’d almost want a cat since they can move out of the way quickly if I’m about to step on them and are super soft, but they’re small and–”

    “And they’re usually assholes.” Hank finishes. Although, judging by Connor’s confused expression, that’s not what he was going to say.

    “What?”

    Hank rolls his eyes as he says, “Oh come on, Connor. You can’t tell me you did research on pets and didn’t see that most cats were assholes. There’s no way.”

    “I didn’t really do research on pets in general. Just dogs. I heard– uh–” He falters, then pauses for a moment, obviously contemplating something. “I heard that they can be trained to help comfort people? And as I’m sure a lot people around here know by now, I can be a mess when it comes to people. Like, point me towards a kaiju or fight and I’ll hold my own well, but tell me to have a normal conversation with a few strangers and I’ll probably start internally panicking right there on the spot.” Connor huffs a stressed-sounding laugh and starts picking at his food again.

    Hank can definitely relate to that. God, if it weren’t for Jeff saving his ass at almost every interview and other bull shit gathering in the beginning of their career, he surely would have been put on the back burner instead of front and center like he was. Possibly both of them would have, and if that had happened, there’s no way he would’ve been able to stay here at the base even though he’s a hop and a skip away from being completely useless these days.

    A small part of him thinks he should probably do something about his uselessness, but the rest of him doesn’t see the point. The damage has already been done, enough to the point of no return. And isn’t this a common scenario since he’s met Connor? Some small pieces of his mind suddenly wanting to change how things have been for years for whatever reason.

    Well, several things have already changed around him since these twins arrived, so what’s changing just one more thing among the others, right? He’s having a good day today, anyway, for whatever reason.

    “I– uh…” Hank rubs the back of his neck, “I get that. I grew up with dogs. They help. If they’re trained right, that is.”

    There, once more tiny change. Giving away a bit of personal information where he would usually grunt and glare. Connor’s wide eyes and slightly-dropped jaw is absolutely worth the onslaught of memories of his old dogs; Captain the corgi, Snow the black lab, Lex the tan mutt, and the first and last dog he’s had on his own rather than shared with his family–

    “Have you raised any puppies?” Connor blurts with eyes that are still wide.

    Hank sighs, “Yea, I have. Once. He was a good lug of a dog.”

    Sumo was easily one of the best dogs he’s ever had in his life, mainly because he took in that runt of a sickly pup for a huge discount and got him all healthy himself. He was still a bit small for a Saint Bernard, even when he stopped growing, but he was always a damn smart dog and very loving and protective of Hank, eventually Cole too when he came around...

    “Do you think the people in charge will let me get a dog? A bigger one?”

    Hank raises an eyebrow, mostly glad to have a distraction from that mess of memories, but also curious of what Connor’s getting at.

    “You were serious about the dog thing?”

    “Yes?” Connor tilts his head and frowns.

    Hank didn’t realize that he was being completely serious about that. He doesn’t know why he didn’t think it was serious– Connor rarely brings up unrelated topics– but no one can blame Hank. He hasn’t had a conversation last this long or remain this peaceful in a long time. It’s almost… nice.

    Hank shakes his head as if he can physically remove that last thought from his mind as he back tracks in the conversation a bit. He’s starting to need his own distraction with how weird his own head’s being now.

    “When you say bigger, what do you mean?”

    Thankfully, Connor takes it in stride like he seems to do with most things relating to Hank; there’s little confusion and no hesitation in his answer. Finally, Connor’s getting back to whatever version of normal he is.

    “I’ve seen people walk Labradoodles and Golden Retrievers by our manor before. I don’t think I want anything much smaller than them. I want to be able to hug my dog and I don’t want to hurt them by squeezing too hard or stepping on them. Plus, I read that small dogs can be yappy and can bark more than a lot of larger dogs. I don’t know how true that is, though. I just want something that can help ground me.”

    Hank hums in approval. Even Captain, as well trained and adorable as he was, was prone to barking and yipping a lot when he was excited or wanted attention. It was always cute at first until he wanted to play and everyone had work or school to do. Bigger dogs may take more care, but he prefers them over the small ones, unlike his parents had. Hank turns back to his food and starts eating.

   Just after his second bite is when Hank’s mind (un)helpfully reminds him of the reason why Connor’s been contemplating getting a dog in the first place.

    He always figured that Connor had some type of social anxiety– kind of hard not to tell when the guy puts up with Hank just to get some so-called “peace” during his day– and it’s been clear for weeks now that, while they act amicable enough towards each other when around others, the twins don’t get along as well as people may think. He remembers the epiphany he had about them being like how he and Fowler were towards the end of their stint as pilots.

    But none of that really matters at the moment, or preferably ever.The real question is, would they let Connor have a dog?

    It takes no time at all to come to the conclusion that, yes, they would let him have a dog if it was only dependent on how much good it would do him. In reality, he’ll probably have to find a partner that has had a pet before or something. Maybe they could have him do some kind of personality assessment to see if he actually could handle it? That seems like a thing people have to do to get an animal out here anyway.

    “They might.” Hank shocks himself by speaking aloud.

    “Who might what?” Connor asks, putting his cup down and giving Hank his full attention again. How long had the silence lasted? Almost all of Connor’s food is gone now...

    “The people in charge of whatever that would give you permission to get you a dog. They might let you have one. Not immediately, and probably not until you have a second person to help care for it since you have no experience, but I think you have enough of one if your– what do you guys call ‘em? dip days?–”

    “–Mood dips–”

    “–Yea, that. You get enough of those, which, from what I can tell and what you’ve told me, even an untrained animal could maybe help with. You just gotta prove that you’re responsible enough to take care of it and that you actually need it, which shouldn’t be an issue.” Hank stuffs the last bit of his food in his mouth to keep him from running his damn mouth any longer.

    God, if he’s fucking lonely enough to be talking about nonsense with some trainee, then maybe he could use a dog. Not that they would ever in a million years let him have one; he can barely take care of himself most days, let alone an animal. He has a feeling that even if he did the impossible and cleaned up his act, they still wouldn’t let him have one because of his self-sabotaging history.

    Wow, self-sabotaging. That’s a term he hasn’t heard or used since his bout of therapy years ago. Yet another small change in the flaming wreck that is Hank Anderson’s post-pilot life. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’s finally kicked out soon. He doesn’t even know how he’s managed to stay this long in the first place.

    There’s another lengthy pause where Hank finishes his drink, and right as he’s about to start getting up, Connor takes an audible. His head is down and shoulders hunched in the textbook form of hesitance. Considering Hank has already done plenty today that he wouldn’t normally do (namely just having a civil conversation with someone other than himself), he figures it wouldn’t hurt to stick around until Connor can get himself together. He’ll say that today was a weird day if it’s ever brought up, and it wouldn’t even be lying.

    Connor sighs and glances up at where Hank sits, then does a double take as if he wasn’t expecting Hank to be there. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, then clicks shut and his head falls again. Hank feels his own face twist up in a familiar grimace, then starts putting his trash and dishes onto the small tray so it can all be carried away.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Connor has apparently used up all of his courage and energy for this conversation and now can’t even look Hank in the eyes and apologize for taking so much of his time today. He doesn’t know exactly why he’s suddenly so uneasy around Hank, but he has a feeling it has to do with his new resolve to get the man to like him enough to maybe, possibly, try going into the drift. Even a single training session, even if it was the bare basics of combat, would please Connor.

    He watches subtly as Hank starts to clear his things and opens his mouth to apologize again, when the only useful words of the therapist he tried yesterday abruptly comes to mind.

    ”The first thing you can try for constant apologizing is stop apologizing and start thanking. Instead of saying sorry for not making sense or for getting something wrong, thank the person you’re with for being patient and trying to understand.”

    Maybe it’s a good thing he’s been stalling. Thanking actually seems easier to do than apologizing right now. Besides, Hank has mentioned multiple times that he doesn’t understand why Connor apologizes so often, and he always acts disgruntled even when he doesn’t say anything about the apology. After a success like today, he doesn’t want to taint the end of it with irritation.

    “Thank you, for listening to me today.” Connor finally manages to say, albeit softly. He clears his throat and forces his voice to go a little louder, “You didn’t have to entertain me today, or ever really, so thank you for doing so.”

    He finally manages to find the strength to look up at Hank, who had just stood up when Connor began thanking him. He now stands very still with something like surprise twinkling in his blue eyes as he seemingly studies Connor. While in this look and posture, Connor can very easily see how much strength and intellect Hank still has hidden under his unkempt hair and old, loose clothing. It only enhances his desire to have Hank be his partner, seeing that he still could very well be a pilot if he had the motivation and drive to.

    Connor realizes with shock that he feels nervous because, not only does he want to have the chance to see if he’s compatible with Hank– to pilot with him if all goes well– he also wants to be one of the reasons that gives the motivation and drive back to Hank.

    He doesn’t know what happened to make Hank this stand-offish with other people, but Connor wants to show Hank that he can put his trust in him and he won’t disappear.

    Connor knows that Ritch would call this hero-worship or hero-complex or something like that, but this feels distinctly different from anything like that. He hasn’t changed his mind on his view of saving people– he is still very aware from personal experience that the only ones who can save people are themselves– but he doesn’t want to just give Hank nudges and reminders every now and then anymore. He wants to help guide him, and maybe in a perfect world, have him guide Connor as well.

    He knows this isn’t a realistic scenario whatsoever, but a guy can still dream and hope, right? No damage done as long as Connor doesn’t actually go meddling. That kind of thing isn’t any of his business, anyway.

    Connor only realizes he’s been staring at Hank this entire time when the ex-pilot’s jaw suddenly tenses. Hank looks down and to the side with a contemplative expression before nodding.

    “Yeah,” he says in an oddly somber way, quickly glancing at Connor with a look he can’t quite read or understand. “No problem.”

    He slowly turns, then starts walking away. Connor follows his movements with just his eyes, curious as to what Hank is feeling or thinking. He walks as if he hadn’t gotten enough good sleep the previous night, but without the various signs of irritation and aggression that always go along with it. Connor takes the last bite of his food as he sees Hank stroll out of the cafeteria.

    As Connor piles up his own lunch dishes on his tray (Is it only lunch still? This day already feels like it’s lasted a year.) he tries to come up with a reason why Hank’s attitude changed so suddenly. Connor didn’t accidentally remind him of something from his past, did he? He hopes not, he thinks as he leaves everything to be washed and exits the food court. The last thing he wants is to be sent a step back before he can actually put effort into getting Hank to trust him. Not that he really knows how he’s going to get the older man to understand that it’s safe to like and trust another human in the first place.

    Maybe he just needs to keep doing what he’s doing, even if it doesn’t feel like enough. Stay on Hank’s side– even when it doesn’t exactly follow protocols– keep talking to him about things and treat him how Connor himself likes to be treated. Treat him like he isn’t a broken mess of a human like he’s gathered everyone else does from the things Hank says or has said to him, because Hank isn’t really broken.

    Maybe it really is enough to be the one person in this entire base that treats him like a normal human being, rather than the broken-down shadow of what was once the one and only Hank Anderson. Thinking of anyone like that is a sure-fire way to alienate someone, even without realizing it. Connor would know, with how often he was placed in Ritch’s shadow under Amanda’s care, and he isn’t almost world-wide famous like Hank was– still mostly is.

    That makes Connor pause with his hand on his and Ritch’s bunker door. He hasn’t thought of Hank as anything more than “Hank, the one guy who doesn’t ask too many questions and newest potential partner” and “Mr. Anderson, the retired pilot who prefers to be left alone” since the first couple of days. He hasn’t thought about what kind of media may be needed or wanted if he somehow successfully gets Hank to partner with him. Not that Hank would partner with him any time soon, if at all, but in this hypothetical, perfect world in his head, there’d probably be a lot of interviews and cameras. There’d probably be just a lot of people asking him “How did you manage to bring the famous Hank Anderson back to the field?”

    He doesn’t like that thought. He doesn’t know how he would answer, or if he’d even answer at all. Maybe if he’s lucky, Hank would step in and help–

    Connor takes half a step into the bunker. Seeing that half of everything that used to be inside is now gone is a harsh reminder that this is the real world. In the real world, he’s going to have to fall asleep without being able to hear Ritch’s breathing to let him know he won’t be alone if he has a nightmare. Ritch rarely ever helped him through nightmares, and Connor doubts he knew how frequent they used to be, but just having another living, breathing being in the room always helped immensely. Just knowing he wasn’t alone but wouldn’t be bothered usually did wonders for getting him out of bed, and why it’s been more difficult to since being here. Here, everyone either leaves him completely alone or bothers him until they leave.

    He turns and exits the bunker even though he hadn’t stepped completely inside yet. He needs to find Markus since he knows a lot of the “community” computers will be taken up by now or will be needed by others for more important things soon. Markus and Simon are the only two people he knows he can ask for their phones for research and have them truly not mind.

    He’s going to at least try to ask about getting a dog, but he wants to do at least some research on what breeds would be best for this kind of environment. Hopefully the more he knows and the more specific he is about his reasoning and options, the more likely whoever would be in charge of allowing Connor to take care of an animal will let him have one.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Heyo! So, funny story I thought I posted this chapter in mid-May? So last week I was reading through it to make the final edits before posting and realized why it was never posted Lol (three characters went wildly out of character for whatever reason 😂). So I rewrote the second half of this chapter, like, 4 times, and I’m still kind of iffy about it because 90% of it is just dog nonsense and people going “what the hell is happening now”, but hopefully it isn’t as filler-y and redundant as I think it is.

Good news, though! Next chapter will have a lot more Gavin and Ritch action! I plan on making most or all of it following those two around. 😄

    Thankfully, or unfortunately, depending on the point of view, he forgets about everything in that mental pile except for one thing after he finishes dinner. The therapist search. He and Connor have separate people they’re going to check out, since Marshal Fowler said it would be better for them to not have the same therapist. Both he and Connor readily agreed.

    When Ritch arrives at his appointment, the older man only greets him and introduces himself as Dr. Johnson before getting right down to business. That isn’t anything more than a rub in the wrong direction, but when Ritch gives an honest but simple request, “I’d rather not give any personal information before I know you’re right for me,” the man starts assuming possible situations that could be the reason why Ritch is here without letting him properly speak. Again, Ritch doesn’t have a particular problem with this– he certainly won’t be choosing this man– but Mr. Johnson then ignores Ritch when he requests that they get back on topic and instead takes that as a “clue” that he is “getting close” to the “real reason” and starts spewing even more ridiculous bullshit.

    (As if he, of all people, would have had any time or desire at all for a romantic relationship growing up, and that he would’ve been be vengeful, of all emotions, if “she” died in what would be considered a freak accident. As if he even knows if he’s interested in women exclusively or at all. It’s not like he’s had the time or desire to experiment with relationships or even the idea of them.)

    Ritch ends up so tense with frustration that he gets up and leaves long before the session is supposed to end, ignoring the calls behind him. He will not put up with someone who won’t listen to him, not again. Not if he has any control over it, and Marshal Fowler and Chloe had guaranteed that he does.

    After those short 15 minutes, he reluctantly decides to get some outside help, and there’s only one person he can think of that would have both the information he’s looking for and the potential willingness to help– even if it’s only for Connor’s sake.

    He’s surprised to see the man he planned on looking for during breakfast. After a beat of hesitation, he figures that the sooner he asks the better, and heads over to a table with only one, familiar figure sitting at it.

    “Hello, Mr. Anderson.”

    The ex-pilot doesn’t turn around to face Ritch or sit up from being hunched over his food, and huffs in lieu of a greeting. That isn’t unexpected, though, since it is a well-known fact that Mr. Anderson normally doesn’t get out of bed until lunch is already being served. It would almost make Ritch feel guilty for bothering the exhausted man if he weren’t also concerned about himself and Connor being eaten alive by strangers who claim they want to help.

    Mr. Anderson suddenly turns his head towards Ritch, as if just realizing something. “I thought I told you to call me–”

    Ritch sees the shock on his face when he registers his blue eyes instead of Connor’s brown ones. He probably should have waited to call out to him until he was seen and couldn’t be mistaken for his twin, but he didn’t want to spook the older man by appearing in front of him without warning. There’s nothing to do about it now, though, so Ritch tries his best to offer what could be an apologetic smile, but could also very well look like an awkward grimace.

    He’s not well versed in showing proper emotions yet since he’s only had a day or so of practice. Simon and Josh are trying their best to teach him so he doesn’t look angry at the press if/when he’s announced as a new jaeger pilot, but so far it’s been an uphill battle.

    He doesn’t voice any of those thoughts when he addresses Mr. Anderson again. He is not like his twin, who gets nervous and overshares and rambles as a result. He has more self-control.

    “I apologize for interrupting your meal, but may I ask you for a favor? Or rather, offer to owe you one in exchange?”

    Something curious yet cautious glints in Mr. Anderson’s eyes. “What kind of favors?”

    “The kind of equivalent exchange. I may be out of line to ask this, but you do have experience with the therapists and such here, yes?”

    “Why the hell do you want to know.” Mr. Anderson snaps and sits up defensively, but it doesn’t bother Ritch. He was expecting this and more to come.

    “I would like to know which ones Connor and I should avoid.” Seeing Mr. Anderson’s blatant confusion, Ritch figures Connor hadn’t mentioned these trial meetings to him and explains further. “We started mandatory therapist jumping yesterday and the one I started with was pushy, impatient…” He purses his lips and looks to the side. “I generally try to avoid using words like “unpleasant” when describing people, but that’s the most accurate word I can use for him.” Ritch pauses long enough to look him in the eye. “Of course, if you do trust me enough to tell me these things, then I’ll let you cash in a single favor from me whenever you’d like.”

    Mr. Anderson snorts and turns to his food again, trying and failing to not let his surprise show. Is he surprised because Ritch wants his help, even though he can count their interactions on one hand? He can’t imagine it being anything else, especially since he knows of some of their issues from Connor apparently mentioning and/or actually talking about them with the older man. Maybe his twin downplayed their experiences again despite being much more anxious than usual recently?

    God, this is way too much thinking for someone who’s been actively trying to not think for the past several weeks, years even.

    “Lemme guess, a favor within reason, right?” Mr. Anderson jokes sarcastically after a few moments.

    “I am not my brother or your old partner.” Ritch states.

    Mr.Anderson looks up at him at that, very still with slightly raised eyebrows, probably asking “Does that mean what I think it does?” silently. Ritch answers the assumed question with a slight upwards tilt of his head, “Yes.”

    Ritch has far less of an issue than Connor does with doing things that don’t exactly follow the rules. Not that his brother has any particular issue with breaking the rules, he just doesn’t like to anger people because he seems to have trouble making them not angry anymore. Ritch, on the other hand, usually knows exactly how to placate and bargain with most types of people, and thus he has very little apprehension of doing things against the rules.

    Mr. Anderson hesitates for a moment before nodding his head to the chair in front of him, saying, “Go and sit down. Should I wait for Connor before I start or–”

    “Wait for me to start what?” Ritch’s shoulders stiffen in surprise, but he quickly relaxes them again. He didn’t hear Connor behind him over the white noise of the food court. ”If you don’t mind my asking, of course.”

    Ritch turns to his twin. “Mr. Anderson has agreed to tell us about some of the therapists here so we can narrow our search. Did you have a pleasant experience with yours yesterday evening, Connor?”

    He knows Connor catches the silent apology in his tone for ignoring him yesterday when his brother wanted to “compare results”, as he called it. Ritch needed to focus on how to get the tight-lipped Anderson to talk about something he likely would rather not. This is all rather straightforward and easy compared to what Ritch thought he was going to have to do.

    Connor answers as he sits down in the chair to the left of Ritch and places a steaming cup near Mr. Anderson’s tray, “I wouldn’t call it pleasant, but I wouldn’t call it unpleasant either. I believe Dr. Amelia Johan would be suitable enough if there were few or no other options. What about yours?”

    Ritch feels his expression darken slightly and has to stop himself before he clears it, then he ignores how vulnerable and awkward he feels in order to exaggerate the emotion. According to Josh and Simon, not immediately returning his face back to neutral makes him seem more human, as mildly insulting as it was to insinuate that he wasn’t human for keeping his thoughts more private. It’s one of the things they insisted he work on, though.

    “Avoid appointments with Mr. Johnson.” Ritch states plainly, pretending he doesn’t see Connor’s concerned look and body language out of the corner of his eye.

    Hank snorts in agreement. “You were right to call that man pushy. Pushy and he never lets the conversation be turned to himself or give you a break for even a second. It’s like talking to a wall that always insists you got mental work to be doin’.” He shakes his head, “I guess it works for some people… From what I heard, the roughest appointment with him is the first one, especially if you don’t work with him, but I wouldn’t know.” he finishes with a shrug.

    Connor frowns. “That’s pretty much the opposite of what we’re looking for.”

    That visibly grabs Mr. Anderson’s attention. “You’re both wantin’ the same kind of shrink?”

    Connor nods with what looks like amusement in his eyes, “It was a surprise to us as well.”

    “We’d prefer someone who is kind and more casual rather than always controlling where the conversation goes.” Ritch finishes.

    “You’d probably like Alicia Steinfield or Alexander White, then,” the older man informs immediately. “If they even still work here, that is. And avoid Johnson–” he gestures to Ritch “–obviously, and Dustin Payne and Felix Antúnez. They’re pretty strict and prefer to follow the ‘therapy is only about work’ policy. I didn’t like them much, either.”

    The ex-pilot takes a slower, almost exaggerated bite of what’s left of his breakfast. Ritch wonders if that’s a normal thing for him and Connor, because his brother, without seemingly realizing it, starts eating his own previously ignored breakfast. Interesting.

    “Dr. Steinfield and Dr. White.” Ritch forces himself to nod as he commits the names to memory because that’s apparently a normal, human thing to do according to Markus.

    Connor turns to face Ritch. “Do you think we could request to change our schedules so we can meet them this afternoon instead of the ones we had previously?”

    “I’m willing to try. After we finish breakfast.” Ritch adds as Connor moves to get up. “I’m sure they’ll at least let us skip anyone with a similar... technique as Dr. Johnson.”

    Connor nods, settles back in his seat, and starts shoveling food in his mouth in a way that Amanda would definitely disapprove of. Ritch simply sighs and turns to finish his own food in a more respectable-sized bites. He and Mr. Anderson end up making eye contact for a moment, just long enough for the older man to nod at him, and for him to return it.

    Getting this information was much easier than he thought it would have been, indeed.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Once Ritch finishes his own food and leaves with the message that he’ll be going to the training room after requesting a meeting with whoever’s in charge of setting up their appointments, Connor quickly swallows his large bite of food. Speaking with a full mouth isn’t a habit he particularly cares about if other people do it (he’s had to sit through too many meals with too many “important” people who do that to truly care anymore), but he hates doing it to others. Besides, Hank may put up with his weird eating habits (some days, like today, he’ll shovel his food in his mouth because he can’t get enough, and other days he’s barely able to force down several nibbles), but he's pretty positive the ex-pilot draws the line at seeing what he’s chewing.

    “Thank you.” Connor says, not hiding any of his sincerity or gratitude.

    Hank harrumphs and looks away. “I did that for more selfish reasons than you think, Connor. You don’t need to thank me.”

    Connor simply raises an eyebrow. “If I know you as much as I’d like to think I know you, I know that if you didn’t really want to surrender that information, no amount of bribing from Ritch would have gotten you to tell us.” Hank’s head snaps up at that, but Connor pushes on. “And considering that I wasn’t far behind Ritch when coming to the food court, he didn’t have to barter with you very much to get you to agree.”

    He doesn’t explicitly say how he’s almost positive that means Hank actually care about people and things, even if he doesn’t realize or want to admit it himself. Hank hates even the mention of himself having any positive emotions for whatever reason. Connor doesn’t understand it, but he hopes to learn at some point in the future when Hank is ready. If he becomes ready.

    He almost expects Hank to get grumpy or irritated at him for even insinuating he may secretly be a caring person, but he just sits there and stares at Connor for a few moments. Connor decides against continuing the eye contact, since it usually make things more awkward for Hank when he snaps out of whatever it is that makes him zone out like this occasionally. He turns back to his food. Just as he raises his second bite to his mouth, Hank speaks up with a cautious tone.

    “How did you know he offered me something for the information?”

    Connor answers easily and nonchalantly, “That’s his tactic for getting something he wants.”

    “Huh?”

    Connor sets down his fork of food and looks up to study Hank’s confused– and concerned?– face. He figures the full truth of Ritch and Connor having to train themselves to be successful manipulators so they could get nice things while growing up would ruin everything he’s trying to do and be with Hank, will invalidate every single thing Connor has ever done or said to gain the fragile, unsteady trust he’s gotten from him, so he only tells a gross understatement.

    “When Ritch wants or needs something from someone he doesn’t know well but trusts enough to not be purposefully difficult or cruel, he offers a favor because he doesn’t know which specific thing that person may want. It’s nice to know that he trusts you enough to not purposefully send him into a situation that will get him hurt in huge trouble.” Connor smiles lightly and takes another bite of food, believing the conversation is over.

    “What about you?” Hank’s question pulls him out of his head.

    Connor snaps his head up in surprise. “Me? What about me?”

    Hank huffs in what sounds like amusement, and the assumption is proven right when Connor catches the slight uplift at the corners of his mouth as he shakes his head.

    “How do you get what you want from people?”

    Connor only hesitates in his answer because he has a feeling that Hank will not like it.

    “I like to do most things on my own without needing to ask for anything because I like the sense of accomplishment, so I usually only needed to pull little tricks when Amanda needed sponsors for something and Ritch and I decided to split up. In those cases...” Connor glances away.

    “People like giving things to people and creatures that look innocent, helpless, and fragile, like small children or puppies or kittens. Even on a subconscious level, people like having something to temporarily protect, whether it’s because of the ego boost or just because they’re a nice person and like to help. Even if everyone knows that I am the opposite of fragile and I’m certainly not helpless or childish, I tend to appear so when in uncomfortable situations, so it helped me gain pity points when making the rounds for sponsors.”

    “Is that part of why you get anxious if people don’t like you? The sponsorship stuff?” Hank’s winces, like he didn’t mean to say it, probably knowing how quickly this question could make things go wrong, but did anyway.

    But Connor doesn’t feel the same suffocating pressure he knows he’d feel if anyone else– even Ritch– had asked this same question. He knows Hank hates people, and that he hates gossip even more. He knows Hank isn’t asking him this to judge him or anything of the sort. If anything, he’s asking out of curiosity that has mixed with the same protectiveness that he showed when he gave him the weighted blanket and the stress ball, that leaked in his voice when he asked how old Connor was that same day.

    As much as he has been subtly pushing to get closer to Hank, Connor is only now realizing how safe and calm he feels around him compared to how he feels around the people closer to his age. It’s not logical by any means for someone who is unstable (hopefully only temporarily) to get along with someone who is easy to anger and snap– Ritch has made that beyond clear since the very beginning– but for some reason, it’s working for them. He doesn’t know how or why, but it is, and he’d really rather not look a gift horse in the mouth.

    “Hey, Connor, you don’t have to–”

    “I don’t know.” Connor quickly says, needing to interrupt Hank’s obvious attempt to take back the question.

    After a short moment of pondering, though, he sets his elbow on the table and his head in his palm, continuing in a casual tone, “I don’t actually know, I’ve never thought about any of it before.” He huffs a laugh that lacks humor, lowering his hand and turning back to his food. “That’s probably why I have to find a mandatory shrink, huh? To get me to analyze this with this stuff?” He shakes his head. “Ritch is not going to like this one bit, and it’s going to get much worse before it gets any better.”

    “Yea.” Hank says with obvious discomfort. It snaps Connor’s attention back on him. “Yea, it probably will be. You uh, you even okay enough for the shit that’s about to pile on ya? Especially 'cause you’re apparently going straight into a jaeger once you’re declared ready for it. Skipping training and all.” he asks with false nonchalance. Connor has no clue why Hank is asking these questions when he usually avoids this kind of thing like the plague, but he answers anyway.

    “I know I’ve been a nervous wreck since we first got here, but that’s mainly because Ritch and I have never been anywhere near as busy and overwhelming as this place can be. And it certainly didn’t help that we were trying our best to blend in with the herd and not stand out when we’ve spent the last decade learning how to do the exact opposite. Now that we’re slowly getting used to this place and not having to worry about holding back anymore, we’ll be able to show everyone exactly why we were able to graduate from this program so young.” he finishes confidently, head up and back straight.

    Hank just looks at him for a moment. Right as it starts making Connor unsure about his answer and has him coming up with things to distract from his bold statement, Hank nods and starts clearing his area. The ex-pilot makes eye contact with him with a strange, earnest look he doesn’t think he’s seen from the older man before.

    “I hope you will, Connor. Show ‘em what ya got.”

    Hank turns and leaves, leaving Connor with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

    The first thought that comes to mind after his thoughts have slowed down enough is man, I wish I had someone to tell about this. Of course, he’s sure that Simon, Markus, and Josh would listen (not North, though), but they wouldn’t understand why this is a big deal, especially since they still don’t seem to like Hank very much. For that same reason, Connor certainly can’t go to Ritch about this either, even with the fact that Ritch now voluntarily owes Hank a favor. Owing something to someone is different than tolerating them enough to listen to a twin get excited over the tiniest bit of encouragement and support from them.

    Connor quickly finishes his meal and cleans up before heading to the training area. If he’s going to prove to everyone that he deserves to stay here even though he and Ritch have lied multiple times on things that definitely should have gotten them thrown out, then he’s going to need a good partner.

    Traci is a good choice– and Connor’s first on his list– but she and Ritch get along easier with one another than she does with Connor. He doesn’t know exactly why, but she’s very hesitant around him and the atmosphere between them is awkward more often than not, so that’s probably a no-go. Jeremy could possibly work too, but his combat skill is too far behind for Connor to feel comfortable approaching him with something like offering a partnership. Plus, he doesn’t know much about his personality beyond “quiet” and “reserved”, so that is a bit of an issue. He’ll have to start some conversations with the other people on his list before he can properly narrow down–

    “Connor! Hey!”

    Unbothered by the interruption, he spins to greet Markus, then waves to Simon, North, and Josh who are close behind him. He pauses to let the four of them catch up before continuing on or saying anything.

    “I don’t think we’ve actually talked since the morning after the party. How have you guys been holding up with the training regime?” Connor asks with a smile.

    “It’s been hell,” North immediately complains, “and I know we haven’t even started the hard-core stuff yet. We’re just getting into shape and learning basics.”

    Markus nods in agreement, “You and Ritch are lucky you get to skip this.”

    “Maybe not so lucky…” Simon interjects, “That just means they’ve done all of this at an earlier age.”

    Don’t panic, don’t panic. They mean nothing by it, just don’t panic and make things weird, Connor chants to himself as he forces himself to answer aloud calmly with a shrug.

    “It wasn’t too bad. We were children with lots of energy when we started doing what you guys are doing now.”

    North and Josh nod together. It’s the first time he’s ever seen the two agree on something before. It’s almost frightening.

    “Traci started her self-defense and karate lessons when she was young, so it makes sense.”

    There’s a silence that Connor would describe as calm or peaceful that lasts for a few moments. He counts it as a win that he has managed to not visibly freak out like he is internally. He messes with his hair for a second to give his hands something to do in the hopes that maybe they’ll stop shaking if he does. Markus must catch the nervous movement for what it is, though.

    “You alright, Connor?”

    “Yea, I’m fine.” He plans on stopping there, but then he realizes that these four people are probably the best people he can go to for advice on making friends and finding potential partners. “I’m just worried about finding a partner, I guess. As you could probably tell, I normally don’t do too well around people I don’t know well.” Connor chuckles softly, but even he can tell that it’s somewhat off.

    “Any chance we could help with that?”

    Connor mentally blesses Simon as he says, “If you don’t mind, that would be amazing.”

    Josh smiles and comes around to Connor’s other side. “So what do you need help with?”

    He barely stops himself from saying everything short of learning the English language.

    “How did you guys know you could be compatible with one another? Because Ritch and I are technically compatible, but in reality we aren’t.”

    “So the difference between working well with another person and being drift compatible, you mean?” Simon clarifies, and Connor nods graciously. “I guess you wouldn’t have to learn too much about that since you were supposed to pair up with Ritch all along, huh?

    When Connor nods once more– again very thankful that Simon is insightful enough to figure this out without having to make Connor struggle to get a proper explanation out– Markus begins the explanation.

    “Well, I guess one difference is how well you know a person. Obviously, people who have known each other for longer are naturally going to be more compatible because they can be more in sync, but what we’re learning now in class is that that alone just isn’t enough to become jaeger pilots. Skill and mindset play huge roles in it too.”

    “Like the Hallowitts.” North offers. “They get along great and are as close as siblings can realistically be, but they are, by far, the least compatible pair in that room. I’d be surprised if they last another week here.”

    “I’m inclined to agree.” North snorts and Markus smiles at Connor’s wording, but he forces himself to pay it no mind. “As much as I’d like to think that everyone has an equal chance here, they just don’t. There’s a reason passing rates of the jaeger training are so low, and even those who pass aren’t guaranteed to become pilots.”

    Josh nods, “Exactly. Now, that being said, there are rare cases of two people who have never met being perfectly compatible.”

    “I guess the difference is how you mentally click with a person,” Simon jumps in, “Like you and Ritch don’t dislike one another, but you also don’t really get along or understand each other, right? Maybe at one point you did, but not anymore. You guys aren’t drift compatible because your mentalities and coping mechanisms are just too different, even though you both grew up in the exact same circumstances and have complimenting skill sets.”

    “So I find someone who understands the crazy things I do in certain situations and why I do it?” Connor asks dubiously.

    “And someone that can keep up with you, because damn, Connor, you and Ritch whooped each other’s asses on that first day.”

    Connor sighs heavily. He still has the aches from a couple of the worse bruises left over when he touches them, even though there are no more marks, because there hasn’t been any other training or exercises that have given him new bruises and scrapes so he can ignore the old ones. Don’t get him wrong, it’s nice to not have something he needs to actively ignore, but it’s yet another difference from what he grew up with and more proof that he’s in a completely different world now.

    Connor sighs again, with this one coming out as more of a groan than a true sigh. Where the ever loving hell is he supposed to find someone who can not only keep up with him in skill and not drag him down constantly, but also understand him and his trauma (if what Dr. Johan was going on about in their meeting yesterday is actually true for him, anyway) enough to know when to leave Connor alone and let him to his thing and when to step in to help.

    Ritch is relatively good at doing so, mainly because Connor usually likes being left alone, and Ritch always leaves him alone, but he doesn’t seem to understand Connor at all or care to learn the intricacies of him. He also doesn’t seem interested in letting Connor see any side of him that isn’t practically programmed by Amanda (the level of shock he felt when he saw and heard Ritch actually bantering with none other than Gavin Reed during the “Alex knifing” almost hurt. Why did it take such a publicly known asshole to bring out any kind of personality in Ritch? Why couldn’t Connor after his years of trying?).

    If his own brother can’t understand, then how can he expect anyone else to understand when they won’t have a clue of what he’s been through until it’s too late. He already opens old wounds over and over again with god-awful memories whenever he gets into a mood dip, he doesn’t want to scar anyone else who wouldn't even know what to expect, or worse, they think they do know what to expect. Although, how can they when he can barely think about it in his own head without going into panic-and-shutdown mode?

    “Hey,” Markus brushes his hand against Connor’s arm, gently bringing him out of his thoughts. He gets too lost in them too often.

    He nudges Markus’ hand kindly and says in a tone much more tranquil than he feels, “I’m alright. Just thinking of possible candidates.”

    “And?” North smirks. Count on her to try to lighten dark or awkward moods.

    “I’ve got pretty much nothing.” Connor chuckles much more genuinely than last time. If it has a tad bit of hysteria mixed in like he feels like it might, then no one reacts to it.

    At the four’s light insistence, he agrees to tell them why he believes he won’t match with anyone. He can’t look up from the floor at all. He tries to for half a second, but that makes everything so much worse about this situation, so he stares at his boots. If he tries hard enough, maybe he can forget that trying to explain this exact thing just a few weeks ago is what left him self-bedridden for a couple of days; maybe if he ignores hard enough, he can pretend that he’s talking to himself and there are only his footsteps instead of five sets in total. Before he realizes what he’s doing, he stops so the other four have to stop too if they want to listen. No more footsteps, problem partially solved.

    He can’t procrastinate that answer anymore.

    “I don’t know if you’ve been told this already, or if it’s just common sense to people, but in the drift, you share every single memory with person you’re pairing with. Certain events get more attention than others, obviously, and there is no known way to control what they both see or for how long. You just live through the other person’s memories as if you’re looking back on your own, and then look back on your own while a presence hovers over your shoulder and someone else’s emotions and reactions to events flow through the drift.” He takes another deep breath; his heart rate is getting too fast and his head is feeling too light.

    “And with that being said, I’ve got some real bad memories. Bad enough that Amanda used to try and convince me that they were just vivid nightmares. I think Ritch believes it’s a dream for whatever reason– or maybe he’s still on her side or something?– I don’t know, but it doesn’t work for me. I still can’t talk about it, but thinking like that and trying too hard to bury it is what made me break and sent me in that mood dip a while ago.” 

    He finally gets the courage to look up at the others and struggles to force his breathing to stay deep and slow. It helps that they only look concerned and surprised, rather than literally any other emotion his head was coming up with– fear and disgust, to name a couple. Although, he doesn’t know if the shock is a reaction to the information about what the drift is like, or to the fact that he’s actually talking instead of running and hiding in his room like he so desperately wants to.

    “I don’t want to scare anyone. I can’t live through those memories– not now, anyway– so how can I expect someone else to?” Connor shakes his head, trying to ignore the nausea that’s slowly but steadily growing. “I don’t even know how Ritch is gonna do it. I mean, the only people besides us who really know about this are you guys and–”

    Hank.

    Hank, who let him sit at his table on Connor’s first day even though he had a reputation of eating anyone who came near him alive, and had nearly done so to Connor at first. Hank, who stepped in and helped make him eat after his mood dip even though they had barely known each other for a couple days at most; who, almost immediately after, lead him back to his bunker (a place no one has been to in a long, long time, supposedly) so he could give him a weighted blanket and stress ball. Hank, whom Connor told he lied on essential paperwork when Hank was giving him a snack from his stash (another unheard of thing) and decided to tell Marshal Fowler to give him and Ritch a second chance instead of to get rid of them. Hank, who, despite saying weeks earlier “You’re still a kid to me”, had asked Connor to call him by his first name and has always treated him like a proper adult even though he is quite literally the youngest person on this base.

    Hank, who apparently loves (or at least used to love) dogs and, if the laugh lines and obvious protective instincts are anything to go by, used to be a kind, giving fellow who would laugh and smile easily; who now has to drown his traumas with alcohol and alcohol-induced sleep, not unlike how Connor drowns his own haunting memories with mind-numbing sleep brought by high-grade sleeping oils.

    No one makes– has ever made Connor as comfortable as he does, for whatever reason. It’s been years since anyone has been able to break down Hank’s walls like Connor has been doing effortlessly these past few weeks. They both have their issues, but Connor thinks that could help if they were to ever enter the drift together. Hank wouldn’t be scarred by his memories, and Connor doubts the ex-pilot’s memories could affect him any more than his own traumas affect him now. Besides, Connor has a feeling that he won’t be declared ready-for-battle as quickly as Ritch will be, so that’s plenty of time to wear Hank down, right?

    It’s not like the ex-pilot needs to do too much to get back into shape, anyway. Years and years of doing something over and over again makes every single technique and maneuver pure muscle memory that can’t truly be forgotten. That mixed with the fact that Connor based a lot of his own combat style on Hank’s and Marshal Fowler’s from when they were still active, they might fight better together than people would think. Plus, and Connor doesn’t think anyone else has noticed this between them averting their eyes from him and the hoodies he normally wears, but Hank is still rather built under that beer gut. He could probably carry Connor across the base if he really wanted to.

    Scratch that, he absolutely could if he tried, easily. He almost wants to test that some day. Maybe. Possibly.

    “Uhh, Connor? You good?” Josh tentatively 

    Connor shakes his head in wonder. “Yea, actually. I…”

    He pays close attention to himself, how his breathing is back to normal, the nausea and lightheadedness are almost gone, and he only just now realizes that his hands were shaking again because they don’t feel that way anymore. Yea, his heart rate is still a little high, but give it a few minutes and even that’ll be back to normal.

    He doesn’t trust this.

    “I feel fine. Way calmer than a minute ago.” He adds doubtfully, scrutinizing his own steady hands as if they can give him the answers he wants. “I think I found someone I may be compatible with, but I don’t even know if he’ll want to pair with me to pilot a jaeger. But even that made me feel better.” He looks around at the small group with uncertainty. “I’ve rarely calmed down that fast in my life, and never outside of my own room where I can be left alone to think.”

    North steps forward and carefully places a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Seems like you’re the plannin’ type of guy. You always feel better when you have a plan, and hate when you don’t, right?”

    Based on everyone’s light laughter and large smiles, he doesn’t hide his amazement and realization well enough. That makes sense, though, because he wasn’t trying very hard in the first place.

    “That… That makes a lot of sense. Perfect sense.” Connor smiles.

    He gestures forward, signaling that he’s ready to keep moving, and they all do happily. Connor doesn’t really stop thinking about how he could possibly get Hank to at least test their compatibility and get him warmed up to the idea of un-retiring.

    He doubts that Marshal Fowler would have a problem with helping him get Hank jaeger-ready if Connor can somehow prove their compatibility and Hank’s willingness to start piloting again. If he would have a problem with it, he doesn’t think Hank would be on the base anymore, let alone still bunking in the jaeger pilots’ hall. Marshal Fowler doesn’t seem to be the type to play favorites and put friends first, but Connor could always be wrong.

    As he slowly forms a plan in his head, he slowly becomes more at ease. It’ll take more in-depth thinking and several pages in his notebook, but where before he only had a vague hope, now he has a small chance, and that’s slowly becoming just enough for Connor.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Gavin is getting real tired of all this snooping around. He’s normally the type of guy to fling himself right into the thick of things and deal with the repercussions later; not because he doesn’t care about what kind of trouble he’ll get into later– at least not anymore– but because he doesn’t have enough patience to sit still and do nothing even though he knows there’s bad things going on.

    He tried to convince himself over the past couple of days to just do as Luther and Fowler said and not get involved in the “Alex Knife Supplier” case, as he’s been calling it in his head, but nothing has happened to his top suspects at all and he doesn’t want those assholes to get away scot free. It’s one thing to just be an asshole, it’s another to actively endanger the lives of coworkers and allies. Even he knows that.

    There’s still 20 minutes left of breakfast and he still hasn’t eaten or even entered the food court because he’s been too busy watching those assholes from afar in the hopes that he can catch anything that can bring up more of a case against them. He’d rather not tussle with them until he knows he can get into their bunker and confiscate whatever the fuck is in there, but right now it’s starting to look like he’ll have to tussle with them if he wants any evidence at all.

    “What are you doing, Reed?”

    Gavin instinctively spins around and throws a punch right at the man’s throat, but it’s expertly caught by none other than the Ritch Bitch. After a split moment of surprise from having his punch properly caught, rather than blocked or deflected (which other people have trouble doing sometimes), Gavin instantly scowls and rips his fist away from the other’s grip, silently hoping the goody-two-shoes decides against reporting him for assault or something like that.

    “Don’t fuckin’ sneak up behind me, asshole,” he sneers, “And it’s none of your god damned business. So fuck off.”

    Ritchie raises an unimpressed eyebrow– since when does this dude emote?– then tilts his head at him like a fucking dog. He shifts his gaze to the group Gavin’s been watching for the past hour.

    “Isn’t that the group Alex hung around before he was thrown out?” he asks in a weird tone, almost as if he was aiming for interest or teasing and fell flat.

    Gavin’s eyebrows rise in surprise for just a moment before settling back into a scowl. He hates how many times this prick has caught him off guard today.

    “M’ surprised you even know that. Thought you were too busy bein’ the top of your class to pay attention to what the others were up to.” he turns back to the group, watching them laugh about something Gavin would probably want to punch them over.

    Ritch steps closer to him, inviting himself into Gavin’s cover like an asshole, as he explains, “If anything, being the top of my class means I need to pay closer attention to the other trainees, since I’m somewhat a tutor and an example for them. But that’s besides the point, I know someone as impatient and conflict-hungry as you wouldn’t wait in the shadows without a good reason. What are you waiting for, hm?” the asshole taunts. At least he sounds more normal now. Gavin doesn’t know why, but it was really unsettling before.

    He huffs irritably, but doesn’t immediately taunt back. He may as well tell a part of it. If Ritch is right about being top of his class, then maybe he’ll have some new input, as much as Gavin hates the thought of needing someone else’s help. A mission completed with someone’s help is better than a mission failed with escaped villains, after all.

    “I think they had something to do with how Alex got his knives.”

    To his surprise, Ritch just nods in solemn agreement. “What’s stopping you from interrogating them?”

    Gavin huffs again, this time in irritation at the situation. “Fowler.”

    “Ah. You’re not supposed to get into it, but nothing has happened yet, yes?”

    Gavin whips his head around to glare at the human robot. He suddenly can’t be sure that that’s the expression his face actually makes, though, because the annoying asshole just nods like he’s confirming something to himself again.

    “Have you tried getting into their bunker to check for clues yourself?”

    When Gavin huffs, it comes out less irritable and more incredulous of how stupid this guy can be.

    “If I could do that I wouldn’t be fucking bothering with this, now would I?”

    The trainee just sighs and says, “Come on,” with a beckoning wave of his hand, then turns around and starts walking away. Gavin doesn’t move.

    “Where the hell do you think you’re going? And why the fuck should I follow your ugly ass?”

    “If you want to be caught and get us in some serious trouble, then sure, keep talking that loudly. Also, I’m almost interested in seeing the asses you’re used to looking at if you think mine is ugly.”

    Gavin barks a laugh that has very little amusement. What makes him think he can just start controlling the show out of nowhere like this?

    “You? Trouble? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, the golden child of the current gaggle of recruits or something?”

    Ritch spins around and looks at Gavin with an obviously forced smug and mischievous smile. “If you honestly believe that, then you’re just like everyone else here and have no clue how wide my skill set actually is.” He turns back around and starts walking again. “Come or don’t come, I don’t care.”

    It takes a second for Gavin’s brain to reboot because it’s obvious Ritch is obviously trying something new here and holy mother of god is it making him uncomfortable. This is not the Dicky Ritchy (that name was more than a stretch, never again) he’s been messing with for the past week or so. Once his head does reboot, though, his curiosity of what the hell baby-face is going to do and the irritation that he thinks he can one-up Gavin again wins over standing by the entrance of the food court and watching a bunch of assholes laugh a ways away as if they don’t realize they’re the scum of the earth.

    He speed-walks to catch up to Ritch, because it’ll be a cold day in hell when he’s seen running or jogging anywhere that isn’t to a jaeger or a kaiju. Once he makes it to Ritch’s side, the other speaks in a soft tone.

    “I don’t actually know where their bunker is, so you need to lead the way, unfortunately.” Gavin groans, but still pulls ahead slightly to lead. “How much time do you think we have until they return to the room, and are there any cameras?”

    Everything about this encounter with Ritch is throwing him the hell off– not just how strange the man is being– but he plays along anyway, never one to turn down some scheming.

    “The cameras in the pilot’s hall has been broken for months, maybe years. And the fucksticks will be out of the way for at least an hour. They always stay in the food court until they’re kicked out after breakfast is over, then they go to the gym for a while.” It’s why he avoids the gym like the plague in the morning.

    “Perfect.” he smiles with that same forced smile as before. Gavin’s had enough.

    “Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’re really startin’ to creep me the fuck out.”

    That rips the fake smile right off the robot’s face. Good, that was the main thing bothering him.

    “Am I?”

    “Yes.”

    “Oh.”

    There’s a silent pause, then Gavin’s starts talking partially because he fucking hates silences and partially because he needs to never see that kind of expression on Retch’s (he may actually use that one) face again.

    “So if I’m reading this right, you’re doin’ me a favor by apparently getting me into this dorm so I can raid their shit, right?” Ritch nods silently, so he continues, “Good. So I’m just gonna return the favor ahead of time and give you some advice because I hate being indebted to people. Got it, asstown?”

    Ritch turns his head to properly look at Gavin, then nods again, slower this time. There’s no smart ass comment to the insult, though, unfortunately.

    Gavin immediately launches into a half-taunting half-serious ramble, “Now I’m only gonna say this one time– so you better fuckin’ savor this, ‘cause I don’t do this shit for just anyone– but holy shit you need to stop making faces and using certain tones when you don’t actually want to. Like, you’re known for being a robot. You can’t feel emotions the way the rest of us can, or you just process them or show ‘em differently. That’s your thing, just like my thing’s being a fuckin’ dickwad all the time and Anderson’s is being a depressed drunkard.

    “Don’t try to go full human on everyone all of a sudden. Just stay fuckin’ blank if you wanna. Only cowards give in to peer pressure and shit.” Gavin huffs in exasperation. He’s is in a very huffy mood today, apparently. “I don’t like looking at your ugly-ass, baby-faced mug as it is, and it is so much worse when you try to smile or some shit like that when you’re obviously not feelin’ it. It’s fucking unatural is what it is.” He shivers and curls his lip in exaggerated disgust.

    Ritch just stares at him for a second, then states in his normal, flat tone, “The only unnatural thing here is how much you smell despite the fact you’ve been standing around and doing nothing for the past couple of days.”

    Gavin smiles evilly, secretly thankful that Ritch didn’t try to go down the genuine route and is instead continuing their normal interactions. Of all the nasty names under the sun he could call him, “unobservant” and “stupid” are two he can’t. “Emotionally oblivious” and “ignorant” or “naive”, however, are not off the table.

    “No, the unnatural thing here is that you’re a grown ass man and you use fruit-scented lotion.”

    Ritch gives him a weird look, but it’s at least genuine, thank god. “I do not use lotion, I simply shower everyday, unlike some people.” He pauses barely long enough to look Gavin up and down before continuing. “It’s not my fault you prefer what is obviously scentless men’s soap when women’s soap smells nicer and is less harsh on skin.” He faces front again.

    “Hold on,” Gavin wheezes, “You actually use women’s soap? Like, regularly?”

    “What of it? Are you not secure enough in your gender and sexual identity that using a soap with fruity smells that come in colorful bottles is too much for your poor masculine mind to handle? Poor baby.”

    Gavin wrinkles his nose. “Hell no. I’m gay as fuck but you still don’t see me using that girly shit. It’s a matter of preference, asshole. And I’m surprised you even know what gender identity even is, since you don’t seem to know much else about real humans.”

    Gavin doesn’t realize what he just blatantly admitted to until he’s done speaking. Of course he has to be enough of a dumb ass to officially come out to the one dude who was raised by an old woman. God damn it, he’s probably homophobic. At least it’ll give Gavin a reason to punch him the next time he gets irritated with him.

    Either oblivious to Gavin’s internal wariness or somehow reading his mind, Ritch explains in a condescending tone, “Amanda was insistent that we don’t treat people differently just because of how they identify, and one way of doing that was learning proper titles of people who aren’t ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ and other things your small brain would probably get bored with. But good for you for being just a normal ass and not a homophobic one. You’re slightly less likely to get punched now, anyway.”

    That… is actually pretty cool, the fact that Ritch apparently has no problem with anyone who isn’t cis-het. It’s a complete plot twist and surprise, but it’s cool to know that the dude would only hate him because he’s him and not because he’s gay. He’s been tired of the homophobic jokes and slurs since the 5th grade, so it’ll be refreshing to have someone that’ll skip right over that genre of insults with him, as refreshing as it can be when they’re ridiculing one another, that is (which can be damn refreshing, if you ask him).

    Gavin lets their talk end there as he slows down when they get close to the grease-heads’ bunker. He then silently checks the hall for anyone who could be watching or approaching, and quiets his voice down when he addresses Ritch, keeping a careful ear out for any footsteps or voices. He may be reckless half the time, but he’s not stupid enough to get caught breaking and entering someone’s private dorm.

    “Well, asshat, this is it. Work your robot magic and hack us in.”

    “It’s actually not hacking of any kind. I would ask if you want to learn how, but I doubt there’s enough room in your skull for a brain larger than a peanut with how huge your ego is.”

    An involuntary, offended squawk bursts out of Gavin’s throat, and after a short hesitation where he lets himself be embarrassed before moving on, he smacks Ritch on the arm. “Move over asshole. My ego ain’t that fuckin’ big, asshole, you’re mistaking me for yourself.”

    Gavin sees Ritch roll his eyes. “First, look at the keypad, you see the numbers that are more worn down than the others?”

    “2, 5, and 7? What about them?” Gavin replies in a more serious tone, suddenly a lot more invested in this than he thought he would be.

    “Those are the three numbers that are in the code. Basically, over time, as the same buttons get pushed over and over, the oils and pressure from fingers either wear down the ink of the numbers, or tint the glass over the buttons and give it a tan or brownish look compared to the other clear ones, depending on what kind of keypad it is.”

    “Okay then, genius, how do we know the order of the code, ‘cause–”

    “I wasn’t done,” Ritch interrupts, “The first button is usually the most worn down since the most oils rub off and degrade it more than the others, but in this case, since there are only three numbers worn down for a four code password, the most worn-down one is the one pressed twice, the next worn down is probably first. And when there are repeat numbers in a code as short as this, they’re rarely one directly after another.”

    “So the 2 is repeated, and the 5 is probably before the 7.”

    “Yes.”

    “What if the twos are actually right next to each other. What if they’re both first and last?”

    Ritch actually smirks this time. “I’ll be smart about it and we hope for the best.” Gavin gives him an incredulous look as he continues. “How many tries do we get to do this?”

    “Three. If you fuckin’ think you can–”

    “Watch and learn.” Ritch interrupts fuckin’ again as he gives his full attention to the keypad.

    He tries 5272 first and is denied, then immediately tries 2725 and the door unlocks with a small, green flash of light.

    Gavin doesn’t even know how to react. “What the fuck. I thought you said the 5 was first!”

    Ritch just nods and opens the door. “ I did, but there are other variables that I don’t feel like going over right now, we don’t have time to waste.” He nods to the door he’s holding open, “You go in and investigate and I’ll stand guard out here. I’ll knock if I think someone is coming so you can get out. Wouldn’t want you to get caught and rat me out to lessen your sentence, or have you get both of us caught in the first place.”

    “Ha ha. I’m glad you’re not coming in, anyway. You’d just get in my way, bitch.” He shoves past the trainee, purposely knocking his shoulder into his.

    “Close, but no cigar.” Gavin turns and looks at him in confusion. “My name is Ritch with an ‘R’, not a ‘B’. I can understand if you misread it, but mishearing it when you have no documented hearing problems is a different matter altogether.” He sighs dramatically while maintaining his straight face, which is kind of odd to witness, but not the same odd as before. “At least you’re learning, it was closer than ‘Dick’, anyway.” He finishes as he shuts the door.

    Gavin flips him off even though he won’t see it, then mumbles, “Fuck off, you prick.”

    Gavin quickly looks around the smelly, messy bunker. Time for the fun part.

    He knows better than to dig through places aimlessly and move things too much, so he goes to the tiny closets first. It’s crammed with useless stuff, but there’s nothing clearly illegal hiding in there and there doesn’t look like there’s a false back or bottom, so he closes it. The other personal closet is exactly the same– messy, but inconspicuous– so he moves on. He quickly checks under the bed (nothing) and on the top bunk towards the wall (again, nothing) before moving on to the bathroom.

    In the bathroom, the first thing that Gavin notices is that the mirror is slightly crooked, which shouldn’t be possible since the medicine cabinet behind it is welded to the wall. He opens it and it’s immediately apparent to Gavin that there is a false back; the cabinet is way thinner and more warped than his and Tina’s are, and all of these things are supposed to be basically identical. The fact that it’s empty only accentuates how wrong it looks because there’s nothing blocking the false back.

    He peels it back with ease and behind it is a stack of sheathed knives. Just judging by the handles of these weapons– and the fact that they were (poorly) hidden– they are definitely not pocket knives (the only knives permitted, since they’re mostly used for cutting wires and cables and are smaller, less harmful).

    Before he can do anything else about this new discovery, though, he hears the bunker’s door click open and shut again. Gavin’s in the middle of trying to figure out what to do when Ritch barges into the bathroom and grabs his arm.

    “Gavin, we need to get out of here!” Ritch hisses and grabs Gavin’s arm right above the wrist and yanks him out of the bathroom.

    He tries to yank and twist out of the trainee’s grip, but he isn’t successful. “Give me a second to grab–”

    “I don’t care! We need to go. Now!”

    Suddenly he’s being shoved further away from the bathroom. He hears the medicine cabinet slam closed, then the trainee tugs Gavin towards the bunker door with more strength than he expected. He tries again to pull his arm out of his grip, but Ritch moves his hand and presses his thumb into the sensitive part of the inside of his elbow. He’s yanked in a direction then hears the bunker door clicks shut behind them along with any possible evidence that he now knows for a fact is in there. He doesn’t even remember the code to the door anymore, all he knows is that the five isn’t first, so he can’t get back in.

    He takes a split second to look up and down the hall and sees that it’s completely empty. He could have easily grabbed at least one of those knives. Hell, even using his phone to snap a quick picture of the stack of them with the false back in view would be enough to warrant a search of their dorm– possibly even have them suspended immediately while the investigation starts– and this fucking prick pulled him out for no god damned reason.

     Overcome with anger, he blindly kicks out where Ritch’s knee should be. It works. The asshole goes down for only a second before he rolls into a crouched position facing him, his expression angry and hard. He gets up to his feet smoothly, but Gavin isn’t stupid enough to believe that his muscles are actually as relaxed as they seem, they’re combat-ready, and this asshole is three seconds away from getting his fight.

    “Gavin, cut it out. We need to go–”

    “No! Let me back in you fucking asshole! There’s no one here!” he shouts, spinning with his arms spread out wide, showcasing the nothingness that is in the halls. “You’re just being fucking paranoid. We need those–”

    Ritch suddenly punches him in the jaw. Gavin takes two steps back, but quickly rights himself.

    “I said. Shut. Up.” Ritch snarls, but his attention is on something behind him, and Gavin uses that to his advantage.

    He quickly throws a punch towards Ritch’s collarbone and throat area, but the little devil twists just in time for Gavin to only catch the sensitive part where his shoulder meets his pec. 

    At least that should bruise real nicely. Get what you deserve, asshat.

    He doesn’t get much more time to think about it, though, because there’s suddenly a fist coming straight at his face again, and he ducks. Gavin throws a punch to his gut, but his opponent spins out of the way. He then aims a punch to Ritch’s face, but that gets caught and twisted. He aims a kick at the asshole’s knees before it can get too uncomfortable, and even though Ritch loosens his grip to dodge the attack and he’s able to get his fist free, the trainee doesn’t go down like he wanted.

    There’s a moment of hesitation from both of them. It’s only long enough for Gavin to see Ritch scowling and to get himself in the position to effectively whoop some ass. His partner-in-crime-turned-opponent doesn’t take his attention away from him again, and instead uses the moment to study Gavin’s stance. He has no doubt he has the same kind of attentive scowl on his own face right now.

    Gavin makes the first move, moving as if he’s going to punch with his right hand when he’s actually planning to go to the left. Disappointingly, Ritch doesn’t fall for it, and catches his arm. Gavin dodges his attempt at tripping him, then aims a blow at the stubborn asshole’s neck. He ends up letting go in order to dodge Gavin’s move, but is back quickly with a punch of his own. He ends up catching and tries to shove Ritch into a more vulnerable position, but he ends up letting go to dodge a kick to his gut.

    This guy definitely has more skill than the average trainee, especially for one this new, that’s for sure. Although, that won’t change the fact that he’ll mess up or tire before Gavin will, and he’ll be in a heap of trouble and pain for blowing up the plan.

    The only thing that Gavin is able to focus on after that is where the next punch or kick is coming from and where there’s an opening for him to punch or kick back. One one hand, he’s feeling confident because he hasn’t been hit a single time beyond that first jaw punch. He’s been catching, blocking, and dodging all of his kicks and punches. He’s pretty positive that the only injuries he’ll have from this fight are maybe sore hands and some bruises on his arms from the amount of blocking and deflecting he’s doing.

    On the other hand, however, Gavin’s really starting to get pissed off because Ritch is taking about as much damage as he is right now, which is none. The damn asshole doesn’t even look tired yet. Not that Gavin’s getting tired– he can keep this pace up for a while longer– but what kind of trainee as new as Ritch is able to keep up with a well-seasoned pilot and brawler? He already knew Ritch was good, but he wasn’t supposed to fucking match Gavin like this in a fight.

    Once Gavin accepts that this won’t go anywhere unless he switches things up and stops playing by sparring rules, he lunges forward with most of his weight to punch Ritch in the diaphragm with the hope to knock the wind out of him. It almost works, but Ritch dodges at the last moment and kicks him in the back of the knees as he passes, making Gavin collapse roughly onto his hands and knees. Just before Ritch can pin him down, he shoves himself up into a handstand and his heel narrowly misses the asshat’s jaw as he leans out of the way.

    He sees Ritch quickly swoop his leg out to knock his arms out from under him, but Gavin springs up and flips back onto his feet. He spins to face his opponent and aims yet another punch to his face, but it’s caught and isn’t immediately released like before. A hand comes flying towards Gavin’s neck, but he blocks it, grabbing the other’s wrist and twisting his arm down. Ritch suddenly spins himself so his back is facing him, then grabs Gavin’s wrist and yanks him closer. Before he can do anything to prevent it, Ritch shifts his balance and flips him over his shoulder.

    Gavin somehow manages to twist himself so he can land in a low crouch and wastes no time in jabbing an elbow back. It doesn’t hit anything, but Ritch does loosen his grip so he get free. Gavin rolls out of the way before he can get kicked down, then grabs Ritch’s ankle as it returns to the floor. He stands, bringing his opponent’s leg up by his shoulder, but instead of toppling over like he expected, Ritch quickly switches his weight to his hands and latches his free leg around Gavin’s middle, and when he lets go of his ankle to shove the menace off, Ritch latches that one around as well. Gavin knows what comes next before it happens, and lets himself be twisted and forced to the floor by Ritch’s weight, allowing him to sit on top of Gavin’s chest.

    He lets this happen because he was able to control how he landed, and made sure his feet were planted on the ground just as his back hits the floor. He immediately jerks his entire torso off the ground before Ritch can properly situate himself again, and thus makes him topple over for just a moment. A moment is all Gavin needs, though. He spins onto his stomach and tucks his legs under him at the same time, then rapidly sits up and shoves his head up and back. Ritch dodges the headbutt attempt, and Gavin watches him roll backwards into a standing position as he spins and stands to face him.

    In that split moment of stillness where they’re trying to predict each other’s next move, Gavin suddenly realizes that, for the first time in literal years, he’s having genuine fun sparring with someone. It would probably scare him if he weren’t so focused on the surprisingly competent trainee. He doesn’t even have enough room to think about or process why he would or should be scared. God damn Ritch and his god damned surprises at it again, the fucker.

    Before Gavin can gather his head long enough to make the first move, Ritch suddenly jumps on him, somehow spinning so his thighs are clamped around his neck and head. He uses his weight to try to topple Gavin over, but Tina tried to do this to him one too many times before, so he knows to go to a wall so he doesn’t immediately go down. He then reaches up to twist and pull Ritch’s knee out to the side with his fingers pressing against the nerve bundle on the inside of it. Judging by the surprised noise Ritch lets out, he wasn’t expecting that, and he starts to slip. He suddenly shoves off the wall, leaving Gavin scrambling to regain his footing while keeping that knee tight in his grasp. Just before Gavin can properly get his balance back, Ritch leans back and slightly to the left, bringing them both down. His plan is faulty, however, because all Gavin has to do is put his hands down and land in a handstand and Ritch’s legs slip past his head, leaving him free to back handspring back onto his feet just as his opponent sweeps his leg where his hands used to be.

    Jesus, this is a lot more flipping than Gavin is used to doing. He can’t exactly flip in a jaeger and it’s been years since his gymnastics class.

    Feeling that his back is literally to the wall and watching Ritch flip back on his feet, still relatively untouched, he pushes off of it for more momentum, hoping he can take him by surprise or something. Just as Gavin reaches him, the trainee drops on onto his back and twists and curls at the same time. He doesn’t understand why until a boot hits the backs of his ankles hard and forces him down. Just as Ritch pounces to pin him down, Gavin turns onto his back and tucks his legs in. His opponent barely stops himself in time before he springs his legs up, so Ritch doesn’t get launched away like he was hoping. Gavin instead uses that momentum to sloppily flip into a crouch.

    He dashes up and nails Ritch in the gut with his shoulder and lifts him off the ground, ready to slam him back down to disorient him. He doesn’t get to because he flips forward out of his grasp. Next thing he knows, there’s an arm in front of his throat and he’s being shoved down and backwards, so he twists so he’ll land on his stomach and breaks his fall. He instantly twists and kicks his leg out to get Ritch on the ground too, but the asshole jumps to his other side. No matter, because now Gavin can wrap both arms just below his knees and he forces the man down hard. 

    He jumps up to get on top of Ritch, who is already rolling onto his back, but is held back by another set of arms. He immediately lashes out and knocks whoever was holding him back in the head, but it was enough to get his mind out of the fight just enough to understand that they’ve gained an audience at some point. Ritch must not have realized yet, though– or maybe he doesn’t care– because he sets himself into a crouch and Gavin is already shifting his weight to dodge right to avoid getting rammed into–

    “GAVIN! RITCH!”

    They both instantly freeze and go tense. Ritch’s eyes are wide with alarm and are focused beyond his shoulder. Gavin has a feeling that he and Ritch are thinking the exact same thing.

    Oh Shit…

    Gavin slowly, cautiously, spins around to face a very angry Marshal Fowler. There are around 15 other people who have apparently been watching the show, if the way Chloe is shooing them away harshly is anything to go by. There’s one burly man who looks like his job is probably moving heavy materials around here who is clutching his bleeding nose.

    In an attempt to put off dealing with Fowler for as long as possible– and maybe a little bit because he’s kind of concerned because he didn’t hold back on that headbutt at all– Gavin takes a step towards him.

    “Oh. Shit. Your nose isn’t broken, is it–”

    “Reed. Stern. My office. Now.” That voice was the worst one. Fowler is usually yelling or “not mad, just disappointed”, but that was the calm angry voice. And to make matters worse, it wasn’t “Gavin” and “Ritch”, it was “Reed” and “Stern”.

    Wait, “Stern”? Why does that sound familiar?

    Ritch lightly brushes his shoulder, silently urging him to follow the marshal. With one quick glance back to the injured man, who Chloe is now hopefully leading to a nurse, he does. They silently walk side by side and keep close enough to Fowler that he can hear their footsteps following him, but never get closer than five feet, as if they’re afraid he’ll randomly snap and start laying it on them. Who knows, he might. Gavin has never been in a fight that big before.

    God damn it, they are so fucked.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: I want to thank everyone who read this again, and thank you all for being so patient with me. I’ve had this chapter almost done since the middle of January and it’s been killing me to not be able to finish it and have it posted. But it was a crazy few months, then some other crazy stuff happened, then quarantine kind of zapped all of my motivation to do anything.

  But anyway, I hope this long chapter was worth the disgustingly long wait. I’m going to really try to get an update out every Monday, but I can promise that you’ll never go longer than a month without an update from now on. Comments (even if they’re just as simple as “nice chapter”) do wonders to motivate me! And I also have oneshot requests open to help motivate me! Here’s a list of ships I’ll write for!

    { Speak for yourself. My problem is that now I can’t stop thinking about that trend where couples would lick each other’s eyeballs. Please don’t tell me you’re going to do that to Petey, are you? }

    [ Even I know to have more confidence in him than that. Maybe. ]

    “Didn’t people die from that? Or go blind?” Wade murmurs out loud, knowing Peter doesn’t care when he does.

    “What did?” he asks back.

    “People licking other people’s eyeballs.”

    Peter gets that look on his face that he denies having. The one that says “I really wanna question where that came from because that was completely random and unrelated to our conversation, but I also don’t want to know the answer because I’m scared of the rabbit trail that lead you to it.” He rarely asks how he got to whatever topic he randomly brought up, but he always humors Wade and answers him as if he was talking to him and not the voices in his head.

    His expression turns to one of hesitant acceptance. “What are you talking about?”

    “When people were licking each other’s eyeballs for that one trend.”

    Peter just nods. “I think people went blind, but I don’t think anyone died. It was a risk, but wasn’t that back in, like, 2013 or something?”

    Wade shrugs and kisses Peter again. “Dunno. Yellow mentioned it cause your eyes look like chocolate. No worries, though, licking eyes is nasty.” he adds at Peter’s concerned and disgusted look.

    “Good, cause I’d never allow it.”

    “Same here.”

    There’s a minute of peaceful, comfortable silence before Peter breaks it.

    “Why the hell do all of our morning conversations end up like this?”

    [ Because you have even less of a filter than you normally do, which shouldn’t even be possible, but it is. Honestly, it’s terrifying. ]

    “White says it’s because we have less of a head to mouth filter than normal when we’re first waking up.” Wade paraphrases.

    Peter nods again, “Yeah… It’s probably a good thing you rarely see me when I first get up.”

    { He probably says some really cute things! Or maybe it would be much dirtier ;) }

    [ I can’t tell if you said “colon end parenthesis” out loud or just implanted a picture of a winky face in our heads and it’s making me uncomfortable. ]

    { Well technically you don’t have a head to implant that to. And I’ll do whatever the hell I want, so the readers won’t even get to know the answer to your inquiry. }

    [ Ooo, big word for you. ]

    { Yeah, bigger than your tiny– }

    “Wade, are the voices bothering you?” Peter interrupts, causing Wade to smile.

    “Nah, honey, they’re bothering each other more than me.”

    He affectionately bumps his forehead on his Peter’s and leaves it there, basking in the warmth.

    { You should ask Peter! }

    “Ask him what?” Wade almost groans.

    { If he says cute or dirty thing, of course! }

    “No. Later. ‘M warm.”

    { Pansy. }

    [ Right now he looks more like an Orchis italica than a Pansy, really. ]

    “Do I wanna know what those look like?”

    “What?” Peter pulls back.

    { Yesss! Nirlan left the links there for a reason! }

    [ Who the fuck is Nirlan? ]

    { Gasp! How dare you not know the name of the author of this fanfic! }

    [ There’s so many authors and artists out there, how are we supposed to ever keep up with them? ]

    “Can we not? It’s too early to be breaking this many walls…” Wade complains because hot damn the boxes are getting annoying, and, quite frankly, they’re taking over the fic at this point.

    The boxes don’t even get to respond before Peter is on Wade, kissing him in a way that is neither soft nor chaste.

    “Need a distraction?” he asks with that sexy smirk of his.

    “Always.”

    { I guess it’s dirty things, heheh ;) }

    [ I swear to god– ]

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    “And you’re sure that two hours is enough time for you to browse around? And you won’t get something absurdly expensive, even though we can afford it?” Peter asks for the third time right before they split up. Wade doesn’t even blame him for asking. They both know how he can get sometimes when shopping without a list.

    “I promise I won’t get distracted and show up three hours late with nothing or too much to show for it.” He hesitates, “Well, I can’t promise on the late part, but if I am late, I’ll have a really good present to make up for it!” He says it in his usual joking manner, but they both know that he’ll be on time unless something super-vigilante-y (‘cause he may be super, but he ain’t no hero) happens.

    Peter smiles in a way he can only describe as fond. Wade remembers when he was shocked every time he saw it on the other’s face, back when their relationship was newer and Wade’s self-esteem at an almost all-time low. Now, though, it only brings a rush of warmth. This person, this beautiful, humble, kind, strong man loves him– Him! A mess of a barely-if-at-all-human being that used to kill a shit ton of people for money and fun (even though they were all baddies, it still goes against the “Spidey Code”)– enough to smile all dopily at seemingly random times. Like, how did he ever get so lucky? What did he do in his past life do deserve such a sweet reward for going through the horrors he has?

    [ Maybe it’s less about previous lives and more about karma. You used to be an asshole and killed almost indiscriminately, so karma punished you. But then you started killing only people who had no right being alive, and here we are. ]

    { White! Did you just call Wade a good person! I thought you didn’t care! }

    [ Shut the hell up. The only thing I did was say that maybe karma realized that it went a little too far. I mean– ]

    “Wade, you alright?” Peter voices, holding Wade’s wrist and looking far more concerned than he should.

    “Yeah.” He shakes his head. “Yeah, actually. I think White just indirectly called me a good person.”

    [ I did fucking not! ]

    “Or, well, that I’m a good enough person now that karma decided I deserved one last good thing after all the shit it’s been giving me all my life. But close enough, right?”

    And there goes Peter, smiling that same fond smile as before, even if it has a touch more worry in it than it did before. Wade practically melts.

    “Of course you’re a good person. I don’t date just anyone, you know.” Peter kisses him quickly before letting go of his wrist. “Now we really should go get those presents. Meet back at the apartment in two hours, or sooner if we find something before then?”

    “You know it.” Wade blows him a large kiss with a wink.

    Peter catches it in a fist, which he then kisses and puts in his pocket before turning around. Wade follows his lead and turns to jog across the street while the crosswalk sign is still green. The bounce in his step doesn’t leave even as he slows to a casual stroll, or as casual as it can be in the middle of fucking New York City.

    God, never in a million years did he think he’d be a part of that couple. The couples who shamelessly blow kisses and make goo-goo eyes at each other in public. At least, not when it’s no longer the obnoxious honeymoon phase with someone he doesn’t really care for and he’s trying to subtly drive them away. He and Peter certainly aren’t in the honeymoon phase anymore, and Wade is actually trying his best to keep his boyfriend around for as long as possible this time before he inevitably ups and leaves.

    [ At least you’re self aware in that aspect. Nothing lasts forever. Even if you and him did, you realize that chances of you outliving him just because he ages is extremely likely, if not certain? ]

    { So you should get him a present now! A really, really good one! Not like your prank anniversary gift. }

    “Hell no, nothing like that. I was cleaning slime and glitter for weeks.”

    [ It was only four days. ]

    “Yeah. Like I said, weeks.”

    { So what should we get Peter? }

    [ We? ]

    { Yes we! I want to get him one too this time! He’s the only person besides Wade who tries to talk to us! }

    [I suppose that’s true… ]

    Wade can practically feel White thinking this over, but he already knows that there’s no swaying Yellow about this. He doubts (hopes) that Peter doesn’t mind that they got him stuff too. He already has plenty of reminders that Wade is insane as it is.

    { A blanket won’t do! And he doesn’t like stuffed animals like we do! }

    [ And he doesn’t like shoes or socks around the house because he falls off the ceiling easier. Mittens and gloves are out of the picture for the same reason. ]

    Huh, so White is planning to get Peter something, then.

    [ If I’m forced to, then a new camera. It’s functional and he’s been wanting that new Canon one. ]

    That is very true. Back when he and Peter were first moving into their current apartment (which is way nicer than either of them had before, Wade because he had no self-respect, and Peter because he had no money) found his old camera and eventually got back into the hobby. When he bought a more professional upgrade so he could dabble in selling some of his stuff, it ended up having a built in flash that turned on whenever it was darker than “in direct sunlight” unless he put it on the shitty “No Flash” setting. He returned it pretty quickly, but he still hasn’t bought a new one yet.

    Fuck, that would have actually been a really cool gift idea, and if White’s taking it–

    [ We’ll share it. ]

    Wade stumbles in the middle of the sidewalk.. Did he just hear that right?

    { Holy shit, I think you did! }

    [ Fuck off. You guys are hopeless. This is an offer of pity. ]

    { And that sounded very tsundere of you. }

    [ And I’m not going to grace that with a response. ]

    { Let it be known that White actually cares! }

    [ Do you never listen? ]

    Wade tunes the boxes out while they argue. As much as the camera is such a good idea– and he will be getting that; he’s on his way to a store he vaguely knows of to check for the one he thinks he remembers Peter wanting– he doesn’t like the idea of getting Peter something that White thought of before he did. It doesn’t exactly shout “I’m a good boyfriend” to buy something someone else suggested, even if he’s positive he would have thought of it eventually, if given some time.

    By the time he reaches the store, interrogates a knowledgeable employee and the internet for what the best Canon camera for Peter might be, buys a camera, extra lenses, a small, foldable camera stand, a reflector of the same variety, and a large, red and grey camera bag, and walks out of the store with several bags, the boxes have moved on from arguing and are strangely into the whole gift-giving thing. It was actually Yellow’s idea to get the stand and backpack, and White’s idea to get the extra lenses.

    He finds an empty alleyway to dump all of this stuff out and organize the goods into the backpack. He’s not stupid, he knows that alleys are usually where various crimes happen, but he’s also not so stupid as to let someone sneak up on him, either. This alley is completely empty, and it will stay that way either because no one comes around, or he returns it to its empty state. No one’s stealing his baby boy’s Half-Priced Candy Day present on his watch.

    It doesn’t take nearly as long to organize everything into and on the bag as Wade thought. Just put the default lense on the body of the camera and stuff that and the charger into the biggest hole in the bag, the other lenses get caps on both ends and they get put in the smaller ones. The reflector get is put on top of those and the bag still closes just fine, and the collapsible stand can be strapped to the side of this particular bag. He tosses all the boxes and bags into the nearby dumpster after pulling the camera bag on like a backpack and he’s ready to go.

    He casually heads out and starts making his way towards Target. That place usually has unique games that he and Peter sometimes play with a couple of other friends. That, and they usually have sinfully soft pillows, blankets, and sheets. He would get an indoor hammock chair, but they don’t own their current apartment and he doesn’t want to risk ruining the ceiling in order to hang it up. Besides, he doesn’t feel like carrying something like that back from Target by foot.

    [ So by process of elimination, you’re getting yet another soft blanket or pillow? ]

    “Listen, I don’t need your sass. There is no such thing as too many soft things, and Peter completely agrees.” he responds out loud. He is far beyond not giving a fuck about what other people (who aren’t Peter, of course) think about him.

    { That may be so, but, like, this is your chance to buy matching onesies? }

    “Peter doesn’t like onesies. They get too hot for him too fast, and they usually fall under the ‘no shoes or socks’ thing.” Wade gasps, “Gloves! He doesn’t like gloves because they cover his fingertips!”

    [ Yes, we all knew this Wade– ]

    “So finger-less gloves should be fine, right? I could buy a pair or two or seven for him!”

    { All different colors and patterns! And they’re still soft! }

    Wade hums happily as he skips into Target. He walks in with the resolve to buy at least five pairs of finger-less gloves, but probably more. After a while of looking around and mild complaining and raving, though, he ends up walking out with two pairs of finger-less gloves (one black and one mitten-convertible pair that are navy blue), an expansion pack for Exploding Kittens, some discount candy, a case of Peter’s favorite soda, and a grey teddy bear that is soft soft he couldn’t not get it (he made sure to get the one with the wonky face, though, because he and Peter always grab the ones with “personality”).

    A glance at his watch tells him that he’s already 15 minutes late, and he still has to walk home.

    “Shit!”

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Wade bursts through the apartment door, panting. Sprinting up the stairs instead of waiting a minute for the elevator probably wasn’t the best call.

    “Peter?” he calls out before he even gets inside.

    “I’ll be right out!” he hears from their bedroom.

    He heaves a sigh, closing the door behind him.

    “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I took so long.” he says at a normal, indoor volume, knowing Peter can still hear him clear as day, “I really didn’t mean to be late this time, but when I finally got out of Target I was already ten minutes late and I didn’t want to run and accidentally drop something, y’know?”

    Peter walks out of the bedroom, and Wade notes how he carefully kept the door closed just enough to where he can’t see inside.

    { Ooo!! I wonder what it is! Maybe a new comforter? }

    [ God, there’s no more fucking room in the closet for this shit. ]

    “Hi, honey.” Wade greets softly. His face feels warm and soft, so he knows he’s making heart-eyes at Peter, but he just can’t help it!

    “Hey, love.” Peter greets back, stepping forward and taking Wade’s face in his hands.

    They meet in the middle in a soft kiss, then lean each other’s foreheads against one another. It makes Wade suddenly aware of how much he missed Peter. Like, he normally isn’t this clingy, but NHPC day is meant for sleeping and cuddles and all Petey time.

    “As much as I liked trying to find surprises for you, I don’t think I want to do this again.”

    Peter hums, getting Wade’s unspoken message. “I agree. I missed you, too.”

    They stand there for a while, swaying slightly together with Peter cupping his cheeks and Wade pressing as close to his other as he can without the bags becoming awkward to hold. Peter kisses his nose, then both of his cheekbones, then his cheeks, then his mouth and lingers there. When they pull away, Peter takes a step back.

    “So, what’s all this?”

    He wrings his hands together as he tries to inspect the bags. He’s nervous or anxious about something, and, honestly, Wade doesn’t blame him for being worried about what’s in the numerous bags. Not after their last anniversary and April Fools, anyway.

    “Nothing bad, I promise. Should we move this to the bed?–”

    “Couch is fine!” Peter says a tad too enthusiastically and spins to go sit on the couch.

    Well, that just means there's something in the bedroom, but he can be patient if it’s for his Petey.

    He settles everything onto the floor before sliding the bag off of his back and handing it to Peter. The vigilante stares at it with wide eyes, and takes it extremely carefully, as if the bag will fall apart if he so much as moves it too fast.

    “So, normally, people open the biggest thing last so they aren’t disappointed with everything else, but…”

    Peter takes the hint and sets it on the ground so he can unzip it and open the flap. He removes the round reflector and suddenly freezes. Wade can’t tell if it’s a good freeze or a bad one, and that in itself is decidedly not good.

    “I don’t know if this camera is too advanced or too shitty for you so...” Wade trails off again, not sure what to say.

    Peter picks up the camera and inspects it. He tries to turn it on, but it still needs to be charged, so he assumes the screen remains black. He flips it around to look at it and uncap the lense, flips it back to hold it and maybe find the buttons. He looks through the camera and manually adjusts the focus. After that, he adjusts the focus back to where it was, puts the camera safely back into the bag.

    A split second later, Wade has a lap and armful of Peter.

    “Woah! Okay, I take it you like it?” Wade curls his arms around Peter’s middle while his abdomen, in return, is squeezed.

    “Thank you.” Peter whispers into his neck.

    Wade squeezes him tighter. “You’re welcome, love.”

    Upon hearing the seldom-used name, Peter kisses Wade one more time. It quickly becomes much less than innocent, and as much as Wade is loving this, he still has a few other gifts to give, and at least one thing to get in return.Therefore, he reluctantly pulls away, softly stopping Peter from following his lips.

    “You still have a couple gifts from me.”

    Peter does not move. “Describe them.”

    Damn if Wade doesn’t like it when Peter gets like this. Any other time he would have given in to that sinful look on the other’s face, but not this time. He’ll prove he has at least some self control.

    “As much as I would love to– and I really would– I wanna see your reaction to two of the other things I got.”

    Peter huffs and sits back with a slight pout. “Fine.”

    He quickly eyes the Target bags and gathers his presents. He politely thanks Wade for buying the candy and soda because he didn’t have time to for a reason he didn’t state. He finds the expansion pack and smiles at it, and challenges Wade to a game as soon as they’re done with gifts and snuggles. Then he finds the bear with the wonky face.

    “I actually got you something similar to this.”

    He seems nervous again, almost more so than before. It has Wade becoming concerned.

    “Hey, you know it’s alright if all you got me was a stuffie, right?” He reaches over and grabs Peter’s hand. “It isn’t a competition.”

    He smiles fondly in return. “I know.” He gets up and offers Wade a hand. “Time for my presents.”

    Wade accepts his hand, but barely uses it to get up. Peter doesn’t let go once he’s standing on his own and the ex-merc finds himself being led to the bedroom.

    { What do you think it’s going to be! I vote for the room being covered in petals and Peter offering himself as a gift! }

    [ Peter has stated many times that he has more dignity than that, so no. ]

    { Aww, you’re such a party pooper… I can still dream, you know! }

    [ That’s what I worry about the most. ]

    { Hey! }

    Peter opens their bedroom door and what Wade finally sees inside almost makes his jaw drop.

    There are colored fairy lights strung up simply around the room, just like he’s always wanted, but either forgot the lights or lacked the motivation to try setting it up. The bed is made with a new bed set that is predominantly apple red with accents of maroon, and when Wade strokes his hand across it, it is extremely soft, but doesn’t feel like it’ll overheat them and irritate his scars. On the center of the bed are a little Spiderman and Deadpool tsum tsum-looking plushies laying right next to each other. It’s perfect.

    “How did you even have time to do all of this?” Wade asks as he takes in the lights while stroking the comforter.

    “I was banking on you being a bit late, actually.” Peter clears his throat– another obvious show of nerves. “Do you like it?”

    “I love it.” Wade doesn’t hesitate, “This is beautiful. Where did you even find all this?”

    “Uh, you know, at the store.” Peter sounds more anxious than before, so Wade turns around to ensure that everything is perfect–

    This can’t be happening. Wade feels his eyes widen and his jaw properly drop. This can’t be real. There’s no way.

    { This isn’t another hallucination, is it? }

    [ I don’t think so. No one is trying to kill us. ]

    Peter is on one knee right in front of him. Those stupidly handsome eyes flicker around his face, and his shoulders are tense in a way that broadcasts he’s nervous. They’re standing in their gorgeous room that’s in their shared apartment, they’re both in the comfiest clothes that are still appropriate to go out in public in, and Peter is kneeling in front of him while holding out a ring that’s made of rose gold with a large, deep-red center gem with tiny black ones swirling around it.

    This can’t be fucking real. This is way too good to be–

    “Judging by your face, this is completely unexpected, but this is something I just realized recently that I’ve been wanting for a while. And I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I think you know what I’m talking about anyway.”

    Peter didn’t ask for a response or acknowledgement, but Wade nods anyway. He understands the feeling. Peter’s gaze moves to the walls and the floor, purposefully avoiding Wade now. That isn’t a great sign.

    “Like, everyone else I dated I kinda new from the start wouldn’t last? But with you, everything feels natural, and we work really well together, in suits and out of them, and I just– I was thinking about something or other, and I imagined trying to live a life that didn’t have you in it, and I couldn’t do it. As disgustingly cheesy as this is going to sound, I don’t think I can live without you anymore, at least without it being torturous, ‘cause you’re the one who literally knows the most about me and you help me stay away from especially bad habits but don’t treat me like a child when I do something stupid. And, like, the only way you can leave my life permanently is if we broke up– well I guess we could still technically get a divorce, or you could just say ‘no’ right now and break up with me eventually–”

    “Yes.” Wade hears himself say, quietly. Peter doesn’t register it, so Wade doesn’t try to use words again. He’s too caught up in his head. He kneels down to Peter’s height and reaches around Peter’s outstretched hands to cup his cheeks. Peter blinks, looks into Wade’s eyes, and lowers the ring closer to their chests, but never stops speaking.

    “–but anyway. You’re actually the best thing that’s happened to me since Spiderman and it would really mean the world and more to me if you say–”

    Wade cuts him off with a slow, soft kiss. He slowly pulls away when his own smiling makes it too hard to continue, but keeps their faces close.

    “Yes.”

    Peter blinks hopefully. “Yes?”

    Wade yanks him into a tight hug. “Of course! Why would I ever say no?– Actually, don’t answer that. But god, yes! Fuck, I love you so much!” Wade suddenly pulls back. “Lemme see the ring! How did you even get something this nice on such short notice?”

    Peter takes his left hand– and oh, if that doesn’t send a pleasant thrill up his spine then he doesn’t know what will– and gently slides the ring on– actually, that right there would– and then doesn’t let go of his hand.

    The ring looks more feminine on his finger than it did in the little, velvet box, but if anyone knows Wade, it’s that he doesn’t give a flying fuck. He actually really loves it. It’s rather unique, especially compared to the classic “white diamond(s) on a silver band” engagement rings. And while Wade would have loved a ring like that if Peter got him one, he probably would have only liked it for what it symbolized, rather than actually liking the ring itself like he does this one.

    “I did some research during the late night patrols yesterday, and found this one online this morning before you were up. I just went to pick it up after it got sized.”

    “It’s beautiful.”

    “I was worried it wasn’t flashy enough–”

    “Nonsense, Peter!” he exaggerates an accent.

    “–then I was worried it was too flashy for just in case you wanted to wear it under your Deadpool suit–”

    “Of course I will!”

    “–and I didn’t want it to irritate your scars, but, again, I didn’t want to be super simple or flat. That just isn’t the Spiderman and Deadpool way, after all.”

    “No, it really isn’t.” he confirms fondly.

    Wade looks back down at the ring. It hasn’t quite hit him yet that they’re officially engaged.

    “So…” Wade starts seductively, “How about we try out these new sheets?”

    Peter perks up. “Snuggle day time?”

    Wade’s smile turns into a large grin. “You go get the candy and soda, I’ll rearrange the pillows.”

    “Maximum effort!” Peter says as he jumps up to sprint out of the room.

    Wade gets up too. “Hey! That’s my thing! And this is mediocre effort at best!”

    As Peter’s laugh rings pleasantly through the apartment, all Wade can think is that this is hopefully going to be the rest of his life. He’ll get to have moments like these for years and years to come, snuggles and candy with someone he loves and someone who loves him back for years and years to come. And since the boxes aren’t arguing anything, that must mean it’s true on some level, at least.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <~

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    As soon as he told Wade this, the ex-merc went all out. He made an entirely new suit for the occasion instead of just taping a flag to his shoulders like Peter was expecting. He argued that “How are the people supposed to know we’re there to help and support if all they see is the usual red with black and red and blue?” and admitted he already had designs for their pride suits ready to go for ages. Wade’s was based off of his pansexuality with all the red parts turned bright pink, the black became bright blue, and all of his weapons (most of them being non-lethal now, thanks to Peter’s insistence) replaced with ones that are bright gold and yellow.

    That first year, Peter refused an altered suit, mostly because back then their relationship was newer and he was worried about somehow paying Wade the favor back. Although, he allowed Wade to make it the next year since the design for it was much more subdued than Wade’s by far, and he seemed to have so much fun in his new get up. For Peter’s suit, the blue stayed the same, the red became magenta, and his eye-pieces and web designs became purple all in tribute to his own bisexuality.

    The next February after that was when Peter (not Wade, surprisingly enough) came up with the idea to wear these suits on their annual Valentine’s day 20 hour watch, just to show the heteros that they still exist outside of pride month.

    That, and “Bi-derman” and “Pan-pool” slash “Dead-pan” are kind of a big hit, so why the hell not?

    Peter hasn’t done much altering to his suit beyond repairs, but since last June, he’s completely remade the suit in a tougher material and made the blue and magenta more vibrant and the purple web designs darker to help with the contrast. He also made his eye-pieces white because holy hell was it hard to see through those darker lenses.

    “You have a good eye, ‘Pool. Do you like it?” He sticks his arms out and slowly spins as he continues, “I remade it with the extra money from that raise I got a while back.”

    Wade quickly grabs Peter and pulls him close again, this time letting his hands roam over the fabric. He can feel the appraise Wade is silently sending him, and the part of him that was worried about making the protective padding on his chest and gut look more muscular rather than lean settles immediately.

    “Mmmyes. Me likey this a lot.” He takes a step back and pointedly looks Peter up and down, “Where did you even hide this? I swear I looked in our secret closet and under the bed when I definitely wasn’t snooping for my Christmas presents again.”

    Peter rolls his eyes, and he bets that Wade knows it even if his eyes are covered. “If I told you where then I’d have to find a way to erase your memory, because killing you isn’t an option.”

    “I dunno, babe, you just might kill me with this damn suit.” He hesitates, then flops his head back with a groan, “Fuck, you’re right, I only get to see it on you for a month and a day a year. How did you even get this level of muscle definition to show through your suit? You look like you do in some of the comics! Clothes in real life don’t work like this!”

    “Bullet-resistant padding thanks to Tony and a lot of neat seam-work to make it look like natural muscle.” Peter states matter-of-factly, “Get me the materials and I could do the same for your suits, since I don’t think Tony will offer to give you any.”

    “Nah. I don’t need it, and I don’t want to distract from this gorgeous bod’–” he cups Peter’s face “–anytime soon.” Wade gently places his forehead on Peter’s, letting their masked-noses bump. He ruins the moment by murmuring “Is there anything I can do to make you wear this suit in the bedroom?”

    “No.” Peter swiftly turns and walks to the edge of the building, waiting for Wade to hop on his back.

    “But baby...” the man in question whines, “You wear your other one–”

    “Only sometimes and only when you distract me before I can completely change, and I don’t want this one ruined before I can wear it this June.” He ignores Wade’s pout and says, “This fabric is much harder to wash.”

    “Ugh, fine. At least I get to watch you flip around some baddies today” he wiggles happily.

    “You won’t if you don’t friggin’ hurry up!” he sing-songs, casting a web out in preparation to swing away.

    Wade doesn’t respond, but his spidey-senses tingle a warning of something incoming, so he braces himself as his boyfriend leaps onto his back. He loops his legs over Peter’s hips and his arms around his shoulders, then they’re off.

    They swing for almost 45 minutes before the duo hear their first cry for help of the day.

    Peter hastily swings over to where they heard the woman cry out, and from there it isn’t hard to find her being held hostage by a man in a wolf mask (seriously, why a wolf? Could he only afford a mask from the halloween clearance shelf?) while a well-dressed man shakily pulls out his wallet. Wade drops in, and Peter pretends he didn’t hear the crunch of one of his joints twisting wrong during the landing. By the time Peter drops in to help calm the couple down, Wade has already knocked out and tied up the perpetrator. The couple thanks the vigilantes, then hurry off to the subway, eager to get back to a safer part of the city.

    As per usual on their Valentine’s day “event”, they personally drag the mugger to the police station themselves. The police usually have enough on their plate as it is without Spiderman and Deadpool calling them all day to pick someone up if the duo can just do it themselves. Besides, it gives the couple a chance to interact with the public, even if that’s sometimes less-than-pleasing.

    Thankfully, they don’t run into too much drama on the way to the station. A young man on the way to work stops them for a picture, admitting that he’s been excited to see the pictures of them in their pride uniforms online later today while a stranger scoffs at them, but that’s hardly drama and is completely expected.

    When it starts getting close to seven o’clock in the morning, things start picking up. By the time nine rolls around, they’ve stopped two more minor muggings and talked someone down from trying to commit a crime, which doesn’t successfully happen nearly as often as Peter would like. They buy an ungodly amount of breakfast and hand a chunk of it out to homeless people before they spot someone trying to break into a window on the fourth floor of an apartment building. Peter goes to take care of it while Wade skips away to pass out more food.

    “Yo!” Peter calls jovially as he climbs up the wall, “You know, this is extremely dangerous for someone who doesn’t have spider powers, so if you could just–”

    His spidey senses suddenly warn him and he jumps to the left, narrowly missing a metal skewer to the shoulder. 

    “What the hell?! Do you know how dangerous it is to carry those around–” he dodges another one “–normally? And, like, you’re on a rickety– woah!–” He twists his body in order to not get hit “–rickety old fire escape throwing them, so–” He narrowly misses the next one “–Damn it! Would it hurt you to stop for two seconds! Why are you even getting into this specific apartment? There are easier and sneakier ones to get into!”

    “My ex wife lives here.” He confesses, throwing another skewer, “She cheated on me with two other people, then divorced me and is trying to take everything! See! I’m not some low-life criminal, so just leave me alone!”

    Peter wasn’t actually expecting an answer, but he can try to make-do with this.

    “Do you have evidence of her cheating?” he tries, and it must work on some level because the man stops throwing skewers. Just how many did he have, anyway? And why skewers of all things?

    The man nods, still hesitating on the next skewer. Damn it, he needs to think of something fast. Well, he doesn’t need to, but he’d rather not send this guy to the cops. He seems like one of the dudes he can calm down.

    “Okay, well, do you know if the people she cheated on you with knows she’s cheating on them?”

    The guy ponders this for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

    “So… Why not try getting together and form a mini mob to maybe, I dunno, publicly humiliate her? Instead of breaking into her apartment or hurting her? Or both? Instead of making yourself out as the bad guy?”

    “Ooo! Who are we publicly humiliating!” Deadpool calls from the bottom of the fire escape. “I want in on the action! I’m really good at scheming!” he rubs his hands together like some kind of mad scientist.

    “Deadpool, now is not the time–”

    “So you’d help me get revenge on my cheating ex-wife?”

    “Wait–”

    “Oh hell yeah! We’re gonna blow her cover just like I blow–”

    “Okay!” Peter shouts over what was undoubtedly about to be Wade bragging about their nighttime activities again. Or maybe he was actually going to mention one of the explosives or grenades he has back at home, who knows?

    This scenario is one of the “If you can’t beat them, join them” type, isn’t it? Well, in this case it’s probably closer to “If you can’t stop them, leave and pretend that it isn’t happening for as long as possible, then deny it did for even longer.”

    He sighs and mutters “I can not believe I’m about to do this,” before shouting down to Wade, “Since you’re apparently going to actually do this, can there not be any bodily harm or apartment destruction? If not anything else?”

    “Aw, but baby boo, arson is the third best crime to commit…” At Peter’s stern look, he relents. “Fine, but if we’re gonna do this right, but I want a little fee for this amazing plan I’m coming up with!”

    Peter takes that and the man’s positive response as his cue to leave and pretend his boyfriend isn’t plotting to cause a huge scene with three other people today. It’s much easier to do once he catches some asshole slipping his hand up some girl’s dress while keeping her at gunpoint in some alley.

    A web here, a punch there, and another punch, and a kick. Then one last kick and punch just for good measure, along with another web, and the girl is saved and the wrong-doer is unconscious and tied up. In the not sexy way, Deadpool would probably add if he was here.

    “Thank you, Spiderman!” he hears the woman sobs before she pounces on him with a hug.

    “Woah, hey, you’re safe now.” He awkwardly hugs the stranger back.

    “He’s been stalking me for a while and I’ve just been hoping that I could get close to a police station or something but then he disappeared and cut me off and I couldn’t run in these heels and he got me–”

    “Hey hey hey, he’s gone now. He’s not gonna hurt anyone anymore, okay?” He pulls away from her, and she gives a shaky nod. “Okay, do you have anyone you can call–”

    “Spidey!” he hears the familiar voice sing at the end of the alley, “You left without me!” The footsteps suddenly stop, and Wade’s voice becomes much softer. “Hey, you alright? No one important is hurt?” He glances over to the webbed up man briefly.

    The woman shakes her head. Knowing that Wade will probably keep quiet for now, Peter restates his question.

    “Do you have anyone you can call for now so you’re not alone?”

    The girl nods again, “I was just on my way to meet my partner. They’d come right away.” She huffs a wet laugh, “They actually adore you two. You helped them from a bunch of bullies at pride two years ago.”

    “I’m glad we can get to them in time, then.” Peter smiles.

    “Hells yea! The world could do with more people who say “fuck you” to gender rolls!” He points to nothing as he continues, “And you read that right, readers! Rolls with two L’s wasn’t a typo, because gender rolls are the nastiest kind of bread. Yuck!”

    The woman huffs a laugh then looks up from her ringing phone, tilting her head in sudden confusion, “Readers? Typo?”

    “Don’t worry about it,” Peter cuts in, “It’s just a thing he does.” He doesn’t want to take the time to explain Wade’s weird habits of doing something called “breaking the fourth wall”, and how he addresses some things to readers and others to viewers or watchers and other to his two internal “boxes” named “Yellow” and “White”.

    Peter hears the person on the other end finally pick up the phone and ask if something’s up. The woman asks them to go to a certain coffee shop to meet her instead of the fountain– wherever that could be in a place like this– to meet her. The other person immediately agrees. Peter is also mildly impressed and rather touched that they also asked for her to stay on the line until they meet instead of just hanging up in a rush like plenty of people seem to do. This person is definitely good for this lady.

    They end up walking with the woman to the aforementioned coffee shop, and they chat a little with the person on the line while Peter keeps a very close ear out for anything odd that may need his assistance and pays close attention to his spidey-senses. They get a photo with one group of kids and their parents on the way, then a few more pictures once they meet up with Kasandra’s (they finally got the woman’s name) partner. After that, a group of teens on a triple date quickly came up for pictures and complimented their pride suits.

    Peter’s spidey sense starts going off before the teens can say much else. With Deadpool quickly and securely latching onto his back, he climbs up a wall to safely swing away to the danger.

    After that, it becomes a pretty normal day, as far as patrolling goes. Despite the fact that most of New York City knows that Spiderman and Deadpool patrol all day and night long on most holidays, the crime rate still rises on them. It makes Peter wonder just how many people they don’t get to whenever they patrol; how many people call out for them specifically when Peter is too far away to hear them or sense them being in danger?

    He doesn’t want to know the answer to that, and Wade does his best to help Peter keep his brain from travelling down those dark paths once he figured out it made his depression and anxiety that much worse.

    He honestly doesn’t know what he’d do without Wade. They’ve been together for so long that Peter can’t imagine a day where he’d be gone for good. Yeah, he still sometimes spends weeks or, very rarely, months away for some SHIELD job, but he always eventually comes back. He’s almost completely immune to his “Parker Luck” because he’s technically immune to death and injury. So the thought that one day Wade may leave and not come back because something between them just couldn’t be worked through?

    It’s terrifying.

    The thing about that last thought, though, is that Peter can’t imagine not being able to work things out with Wade. They always work things out. They’ve been living with each other for years now, so that was something they had to learn how to do a long while ago. Even their various friends agree that, as much as they banter like best friends, they also tend to argue and compromise over small things like an old, married couple. He and Wade never try to argue their observations either. Peter isn’t quite so sure about his other half, but he feels like they’re already a married couple. There’s just no rings or legal papers to make it official yet.

    Yet.

    He abruptly pauses at webbing a group of home intruders to the brick wall in front of him to watch Wade with wide eyes as the other chatters away, searching for a cell phone to call the police with so these guys can be picked up.

    Wade’s self-esteem would probably never allow him to ask Peter to marry him, even though they’ve been dating for over six years now and living together for about the same length of time. Even if they had been dating for twelve or twenty years, he doubts Wade would be able to do it without backing out or panicking just because he’d probably feel like he was trapping Peter or something bizarre but sadly understandable like that, especially if his boxes are in a shitty mood that hnypothetical day. 

    He doesn’t doubt for a moment that Wade loves him deeply, even with all the shit they give each other. Hell, especially with all the shit they give each other. It means a hell of a lot when people can make fun of each other and poke at each other and can trust wholeheartedly that the other person knows that it means nothing or comes from a place of pure love, especially for people with backgrounds filled with anxiety like Peter and Wade.

    It takes a lot of trust to open oneself up completely to another person, and Wade is the first person like that for Peter ever since he became Spiderman, and Peter hopes he’s close enough to being that person for Wade in return. It takes a lot of love and trust on both of their parts to deal with the somewhat common panic attacks, depression dips, and self-punishments and the less common hallucinations and serious depression dips and still stick around after all is said and done.

    They’ve been together through thick and thin, through grave injuries and actual death (on Wade’s account, anyway). They’ve stuck together through sickness and loss, happiness and wealth (there was a few months where Wade was apparently secretly convinced that Peter would leave once he was no longer dirt poor, but that’s been proven wrong a hundred times over by now). They’ve been through everything the traditional wedding vows mention, and the “until death do us part” really only works on Peter, but his powers and trained skills don’t make him an easy target, either.

    Peter knows what he wants to do, or rather, he’s just now realized what he’s been wanting for a long while. And now that he knows what’s missing, he’s going to take the first steps to get it. Wade took the first steps in starting their relationship, so it’s only fair that Peter takes the first step or two towards their marriage. Probable marriage, he corrects himself, because if there’s one thing he’s learned from being with Wade all these years, it’s that if something has even one percent chance of happening, it’s plenty of wiggle room for the ex-merc to do it. And Peter’s only 99 percent sure that he’ll say yes.

    That just means he needs to make tomorrow the best National Half-Priced Candy Day yet.

    “Spidey?” Wade snaps him out of his thoughts, sounding like that wasn’t the first time he called for him.

    Peter shakes his head. “Sorry. Just got a bit carried away in my head I guess.”

    Wade nods thoughtfully. Peter can practically see the concern dripping off of him. “You need a break? We’ve been at this for–” he checks the stranger’s phone still in his hand, “twelve hours now. Dang.” He pauses. “I know right? But you know what they say, time flies when you’re having fun, and I’m always having fun when our snookums is around!” Wade’s bright grin stretches the bright pink and blue fabric of his mask.

    “I usually have fun when you’re around too, ‘Pool.” Peter grins and turns away. He hears a gasp behind him.

    “Baaabe!!” he whines, “Only usually? You wound me! I am always fun, especially when–” He abruptly stops. When he doesn’t immediately respond to whatever his boxes are saying, Peter turns around.

    Wade is looking at Peter with a strangely somber expression, one that’s obvious through his mask. Then he picks himself up in what Peter can now tell is false cheer.

    “You know, Spidey, if you ever get tired of me–”

    “Never gonna happen.” Peter walks towards Wade and puts his hands on his undoubtedly surprised face. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, ya doof.” He pecks a kiss to his masked nose then pulls away. “Come on, then! We have more criminals to stop and people to save!”

    Peter hesitates just long enough for Wade to jump on his back before taking off. As he swings them through the city, he starts thinking of a plan of action for tomorrow.

    If there was any chance that he was wrong about Wade’s self esteem not letting him pop the question first, what the ex-merc just said squashed it, which means Peter will have to be the one to do it. He could go the easy way and go about their usual NHPC day and get down on one knee when they’re back at home (because for as much as Wade puts on an act of shamelessness and seems to constantly overshare, he’s strangely a rather private person), but he doesn’t particularly want to.

    A quick look to the left mid-swing and he thinks he has the perfect thing.

    His spidey-senses guide him to the right, so he follows. It doesn’t take very long at all for the pair to spot the dark smoke in the sky directly ahead of them. They make it there quickly, taking in the apartment building that is almost overrun by bright flames, the two fire trucks, and the group of firefighters on the street trying their best to evacuate people and put out the worst of the fire. Wade points out that the fire escape must either be engulfed by flames or has broken off or something because he can see a couple through a window on the top floor.

    Without stopping to ask what happened or what’s needed of them– mainly because they’d probably say something that basically means “go away and mind your own business”– they enter the building through a window on the top floor (“Wade! You didn’t have to break it!” “The entire building is basically broken! It’s fine!”) since they both believe that, with the get up most of them are wearing, the firefighters are working on evacuating the people in the thick of the flames now and haven’t reached anyone in the higher floors.

    Besides, the materials Peter and Wade use to make their respective suits aren’t exactly heat and flame resistant, so this is how they can be helpful.

    Inside the building is, predictably, hot and smokey from the flames, and Peter knows it will get louder too as they reach the floors that are closer to the majority of the fire. They split up and work through the top floor first with Peter safely lowering two small families, two couples, and several animals down one or two at a time while Wade searches for any others and gathers them to their chosen window. Once Wade says it’s clear and the civilians are safe, they move downstairs to the next floor and set up the same system.

    This floor is proven to be a bit more difficult when Wade comes back with two cats and informs Peter that their owner is a business man that recognized Deadpool as the mercenary he hasn’t been in a long while and accused him of setting the building on fire while simultaneously begging for his life. So Peter has to leave his post at the window and let Wade lower the few remaining people down while he goes and talks to the business man.

    Peter easily finds the middle-aged man cowering in the corner and tries to calm him down. Although, it very quickly becomes apparent that he isn’t having any of it because “Anyone who works with Deadpool only thirsts for blood, and you will not have mine that easily!” Peter just huffs and picks him up like a potato sack, ignoring his shouting and struggling while he carries him to the window in his kitchen. Peter casts a new web and makes a quick harness, gets the man– who had stopped struggling real fast once he realized he was no longer inside– and lowers him down faster than he had for the others.

    He meets up with Wade in the hallway, who apparently cleared the rest of the floor while Paranoid Man was causing a fuss, and they move down again. They hastily clear out most of the apartments on the third-to-top floor when Peter hears a shout and a gunshot from down the hallway. The only people there to lower the two small dogs he has on the line now are three siblings, the oldest being no older than 16 and the youngest no older than 10. Another gunshot forces Peter’s hand, though.

    “Hey! Do you think you could lower these pups down while I go check that out?”

    The oldest sibling, a girl with a pixie cut, ripped jeans, and a black sweatshirt, looks out the window and nods. She silently and shakily takes the webbing from him and starts to lower them. Peter doesn’t waste any time in sprinting down the hall to the last apartment where he last saw Wade disappear. Inside he finds a woman in her forties or fifties holding a gun to Wade’s unmoving body. Whether he’s dead or unconscious, he doesn’t know, but that doesn’t matter.

    “Hey! What the hell, lady! We’re trying to help!” Peter stomps towards her.

    “I’d rather die than be contaminated by freaks like you!”

    His spidey-sense suddenly screams at him, and Peter jumps and rolls to the side just in time to dodge the bullet that would have hit his chest.

    “What the fuck?!”

    “Get out of my damn apartment!” she screams, pointing the gun at him again.

    “Lady, there is literally a fire–”

    “And I will not be saved by faggots like you!”

    Oh… How fun… One of those people… 

    But she’s still a civilian, Peter reminds himself, and he really shouldn’t web her up in the corner of the room just because she’d rather die than accept help from someone who isn’t straight. No matter how much he kind of wants to right now. The fire probably won’t even reach this floor, anyway… But he still can’t.

    “This is a matter of life and death for you, what the hell–” He jumps to the left to dodge another bullet.

    “And I don’t fucking care!” She screams, “You can all go and burn in hell! But I won’t let myself be swayed by your cursed ways!” she shoots once more, and she should have only one shot left at most, if Peter’s counting right.

    She doesn’t get to shoot again, though, because Deadpool comes up behind her and knocks her out.

    “Do you know how close I was to killing her? Do you know how easy it’d still be to? God sometimes I wish I was still a mercenary. I mean, look at this! She got blood on my gay suit!” He complains, staring down at the woman disdainfully and poking at the single bullet wound in his chest. 

    Peter, instead of praising him for not killing her or explaining why they should keep her alive, just nods and jogs out of the apartment. He has other people he needs to save, afterall.

    He pretends to not hear Wade’s gasp and sinister chuckle behind him.

    He gets the siblings down, and Wade comes back with a dog and two cats in his arms, and the unconscious woman being dragged behind him by Wade’s new, golden whip (“Now I can be just like Wonder woman!” “Like who?” “Wonder Woman! She’s from the DC Universe and she’s my hero! Besides you, of course!” “Whatever you say, Wade…”). If anyone notices that he lowers the animals before he lowers the human, then they can deal with it. And if they notice that she has “BEWARE: HOMOPHOBIC ASSHOLE” written on her forehead in permanent marker, then it’s not his fault that he can’t control his boyfriend.

    Looking out of the window this time, they realize that the fire has gone down quite a bit. Wade comes running back down the hallway– when did he even leave?– cheering that the fire escape was just covered in fire, but now it’s safe to walk on. Before Peter has the chance to ask if it was safe for civilians to walk on or just supers, Wade jumps in and clarifies that he pretty much cannon-balled onto it and it didn’t bend, and it was only pretty warm through his ruined suit, rather than very warm.

    With that news (and after Peter tested it for himself), they waste no time in telling the other tenants they find to put thick shoes on and go down the fire escape. By the time they finish clearing the few people and animals left in the building, it’s pretty much dark out and some news stations are gathered around outside reporting what happened here for the nightly news.

    “Excuse me, miss,” He hears Wade say to his right. He turns and finds him talking to a young police officer. “How did this fire start? And why’d it get so big?”

    The young woman scowls a bit and opens her mouth to speak, but an older officer behind Peter interrupts her.

    “Someone was trying to make a romantic dinner on the fourth floor and started an oil fire, then tried putting it out with water. It got so big because traffic was horrible today, and we just couldn’t make it here as quickly as we needed.” he smiles ruefully.

    Peter turns to properly face the officer, “Do you know if anyone was seriously hurt?”

    He shakes his head. “But we know that so far there haven’t been any deaths reported so far. Animal or human.”

    Peter nods as Wade speaks. “Thank you, officer! We appreciate the work you do ‘round here, but we should get going!”

    Peter takes his cue and starts walking towards the building across the street to climb up and swing off of.

    “Hey,” the officer catches Peter and Wade’s attention, “I know a lot of other police officers don’t like you doing their job, but you’re doing some real good work out there. So thanks, Spiderman and Deadpool.”

    Peter nods, not really knowing what else to do, while Wade openly gapes through his mask. He pulls the ex-merc towards him, and he immediately clings to Peter’s back. They’re gone pretty quickly after that.

    “Babe! Baaabe!!” Wade shouts into his ear mid-swing, “That was amazing! We found someone who doesn’t hate us! And he thanked us!”

    “I know!” He cheers back. It’s always nice to get some positive recognition.

    Wade squeezes on to him tighter. “God, I’m so fucking glad I stopped murdering people.” He kisses the back of his neck through their suits. “I’m really glad I chose you. So happy... The happiest.” he continues quieter, more genuine.

    If Peter didn’t know better, he would’ve thought he wasn’t supposed to hear that last part, that it was just meant for himself and his boxes. But, well, he does know better.

    His brain decides to remind him of the ring he still has to buy by the end of tomorrow.

    Peter’s spidey-senses start humming at the same time that Wade shouts that he saw a young man and a suspicious older woman in an alley shortcut. They easily stop the woman from assaulting the poor teen before she could try with the element of surprise on their side, then they escort him back to a more populated area where it should be safer. Both Peter’s and Wade’s stomachs growl at the scent of sandwiches, so they go in and order enough for an army before and climbing up to the nearest rooftop to take a very-much-needed food break. They sit down and start digging in.

    Peter weighs the options of buying an engagement ring as Spiderman and risking outing his plans to everyone before he gets to properly propose to Wade, or somehow taking time out of their NHPC day plans (do nothing except go out to buy cheap candy together, cuddle, and munch on said candy) to buy a ring without being suspicious to the man whose job has always been finding people who don’t want to be found out.

    “Hey Wade?”

    Wade hums around his food and scoots more into Peter’s lap in lieu of a real response.

    “I was thinking we could do something slightly different than usual tomorrow?” Peter leans a bit to the side to get a better view of Wade’s reaction. It isn’t a negative one, but it’s also not positive.

    “Why? What’s up?” he asks once he swallows his food.

    Peter shuffles a bit. “Well, I was thinking, since candy isn’t usually the only thing that’s half-priced tomorrow, we could maybe split up for, let’s say, an hour or two? Just to buy a cute present for each other or something–”

    Wade’s excited gasp interrupts Peter. “Like those little stuffed animals that go right into clearance after Valentines? Or those super soft blankets and socks!” Wade squeals and waves his hands, flinging sandwich bits everywhere. “Petey-baby! You are brilliant! Like, I knew that already, but you’re just proving what we all already know! Even the boxes agree! Although, Yellow’s idea of a present is too close to Yandere simulator, but White thinks going down to Coney Island would be cool! But I don’t even think the rides are even open this early in the year. Besides! I just told you about it! So it isn’t a surprise anymore!” He points a finger high in the air and announces loudly, “Disqualified!”

    Peter smiles as he absently listens to Wade go on and on about present-buying tomorrow. Now he just needs to find the perfect ring online and pick it up at the store. If he can’t find the perfect one on such short notice, he doubts Wade will mind if he got a unicorn plushie and a very soft blanket instead. The ring and proposal doesn’t have to be rushed, as much as Peter really wants it to be. How could he not, when his fiance would be a sarcastic asshole and secret sweetheart like Wade Winston Wilson?

    Now the only important question left is, would it be Peter Wilson, Wade Parker, or Peter and Wade Wilson-Parker, or Parker-Wilson?

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

~> Next

    Markus then unloops his arms from their shoulders and sets off at a faster pace. Connor and Ritch quickly catch up to him. It doesn’t take too long to make it to Simon’s and Markus’ bunker, and when they do, there’s two other people waiting in front of it. One look at Ritch proves that he doesn’t know who these people are either, but they’re holding drinks, so they must be Josh’s scientist contacts.

    “Did you guys bring any snacks?” The tanned woman waiting calls amicably. 

    Simon shakes his head, “No, the cafeteria was completely closed, and no one was willing to donate to our cause.”

    The woman shakes her head with a sarcastic frown, “The greedy fucks.” She smiles, “Lets get all of this inside, then, shall we? I don’t want Hank or someone coming around the corner and seeing this.” She lifts up four bottles of amber-colored alcohol.

    “Why not?” Connor didn’t mean to ask out loud because he has a feeling why she would say that, but there’s no taking it back now.

    “Because this is his favorite stuff.” She walks through the door that’s been opened by Simon, “He used to always try to leech this off of me until what’s-his-face came along and was happy to give up his small ration. And now he’s on complete prohibition by the orders of the Marshal.” She sets them on the desk connected to the wall. “Honestly, it took him long enough.”

    Connor simply nods and makes a note of the brand while looking around the room. It’s an exact copy of his and Ritch’s shared room, except Simon and Markus have photos and drawings hung up with sticky-tack and little trinkets and other small souvenirs on the higher shelves, along with plenty of fictional books among their brand new study material.

    Where Ritch and Connor decided against paying extra to get the study material, they signed up to bring their own (which was almost free because Amanda had most of the books needed). Most people wouldn’t have that kind of luxury, and it makes Connor almost feel guilty for just a moment, then it goes away just as quickly when he spots a family picture on the shelf. Younger versions of North, Josh, Markus, and Simon are all posing around an older caucasion man in a wheelchair outside under a tree. It’s very nice, and it makes Connor wish he somehow had taken pictures of him and Ritch as they were growing up.

    This room makes the twins’ bunker seem empty and lifeless, but Connor doesn’t even know where to start in getting their room to look this lively, besides being cheesy and hanging up Jaeger posters when there’s a loading dock of them in the same building. Maybe he’ll try drawing one of the newer models to hang up if it’s allowed– not that he can draw well, but it’d be a nice challenge on one of his slower, emptier days.

    “Let’s get this started!” North suddenly shouts, making everyone cheer and Connor glad that these rooms are pretty much sound proof with all of the metal and concrete everywhere. 

    Instantly, there’s a bottle and a small cup pushed into his hand. The cup is partially filled with the amber alcohol that that woman, Vanessa apparently, told him was Hank’s supposed favorite. Connor tries a sip of that first and finds it disgusting, plus the burning sensation down his throat is too off-putting for Connor, so he sets it aside. The second bottle is something pink that Simon put in his hand with a wink. A sip of this is like drinking some kind of fruity soda with a certain zip to it. Connor decides he likes it, and grabs the same brand in the four other flavors after reading it barely has 3% alcohol in it versus whatever the hell is in that amber stuff.

    A few hours and many, many drinks later, almost everyone is some degree of drunk and has split off into two groups. Markus turns out to be very tactile when he’s drunk, and is currently cuddling Simon while the blond and North are giggling about anything and everything over where they’re sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. Josh is sitting on the lower bunk, gushing about something he can’t understand to Vanessa and Riley, and Ritch seems to be following along well enough from where he’s sitting calmly on the ground. It makes sense. Ritch was always more into the tech and psychology side of science, and Connor was more interested in biology and first aid. Neither of them really loved science, but those were their preferred types when they had to choose one for schooling.

    Connor gets up from where he’s leaning against the desk with all of the drinks. Over the past few hours, he started a game with himself; how many bottles can he hide somewhere on himself before someone notices. It slowly grew more challenging the more bottles he was stashing away, and he almost got caught twice, but now he has a total 13 bottles of different-colored wine coolers stashed in the fluffy jacket he’s wearing (everyone got hot and lowered the thermostat, so Connor was given Markus’ jacket to keep warm after refusing to drink the beer and whiskey to keep warm) and in various pockets of his cargo pants, and everyone is too drunk and/or preoccupied to notice him taking a 14th one.

    Well, Ritch might be noticing him, but if he has, he’s made no move to stop him. He’d like to think that his brother has secretly joined in on this little game, or made his own in some way. It’s more likely that he just doesn’t care what Connor’s doing, though, and he tries to tell himself that it’s perfectly alright. It actually kind of works, this time.

    The point is, this was all fun earlier when people could still talk, but were stupid and loose enough to do and say ridiculous things. Now, though, he’s the only one sober enough to walk in a straight line (except for Ritch, who only choked down a beer or two after deciding wine coolers are too sweet for him), and everyone else is too shit-faced (North’s words from earlier) to properly hold a conversation. 

    There were four bottles of whisky and two large packs of beer and a thing of wine coolers when this all started, so Connor’s a bit worried that, between six people, there is only half a bottle of whiskey and a six spare beers left (not including the 13 wine coolers poorly hidden on himself). That whiskey is supposedly strong, and he has absolutely no clue how much alcohol an adult body can take before bad things start to happen– he mainly learned about injuries, not drunkenness or illnesses. He doesn’t really trust North around this stuff, since she looks the closest to going into a coma and had been going back for more drinks more frequently than anyone else.

    With that, a sudden idea pops into his head.

    He still needs to thank Mr. Anderson for talking to Marshal Fowler and for everything else he’s done for him, and if what Vanessa said earlier is true, then he won’t be able to get access to any alcohol for a long while, if ever. Connor may not know much about anything outside of injuries, but he does know that completely cutting someone off suddenly when they have a drinking addiction as strong as Mr. Anderson’s is not good. It can lead to worse things, and he doubts he’ll stop drinking just because of the threat of not getting anymore. Maybe he’ll slow, but not stop. He’s pretty sure that’s not how it works.

    Connor glances at the clock, which glows the numbers “1:07” in bright blue. Although, if this whiskey is really Mr. Anderson’s favorite drink, then he shouldn't mind if Connor brings it over this late– or this early– as a quick thank you, especially so if he isn’t supposed to have this kind of thing anymore. Connor knows this isn’t a good idea, but quite frankly, he trusts Mr. Anderson with it more than North at this point. He at least should know how to handle his drinking so he doesn’t immediately die from alcohol poisoning, and Connor wouldn’t be surprised if she already has poisoning to a certain degree.

    Now that he’s finally convinced himself that this is, indeed, what he wants to do, he carefully unloads some of his bottles of wine coolers (he wants to bring some back to his bunker to put in his and Ritch’s mini-fridge because they’re delicious in smaller, occasional doses). That makes just enough room for the several beers he stashes in their place. It takes just over fifteen minutes of shuffling so he isn’t being completely obvious, but no one seems to have noticed yet, not even Ritch, who’d surely be giving him a very strange look by now if he did.

    Now the trick he wants to use for the whisky bottle (shove it in a pillowcase with a pillow and carry it just right, so it looks like it’s just the pillow he’s holding) won’t work because everyone is hoarding the pillows, and the bottle is a bit too square-shaped for that. He can’t even use the balled-up-blanket trick because the only two in the room are occupied as well. Hiding it under his jacket would make the whisky bottle clink against the beer and wine cooler ones, and there’s no way to keep it up in his jacket and look natural at the same time, anyway.

    Unless it didn’t need to look completely natural.

    All it would take to get it out of the room is tucking it under his jacket, and who is going to be walking down the bunker halls this late at night (early in the morning?)? Connor highly doubts that there are guards stationed in a hallway filled with people whose entire job is batting and killing giant aliens that destroy cities for fun. The only other people he could think of that could be out at this time are people working the night shifts, and he doubts anyone focused on their own job will notice or care that he has a bottle in his hand, even less so if the label is covered by something to make it less obvious that it’s alcohol and not some kind of juice or tea.

    Therefore, Connor looks around to make sure that no one is watching– Josh and Ritch are still talking quietly, but Riley is asleep and Vanessa looks about there too, with Markus, Simon, and North following her close behind– then takes three napkins and the bottle and shoves it all under his jacket carefully. He takes two experimental steps towards Ritch both to test how loud the bottles are and to tell his brother that he plans to leave. There’s minimal noise as long as he shuffles “tiredly” rather than taking actual steps. He stops right by Ritch, who looks up questioningly at him.

    “I’m gonna head to bed. It’s getting late for me.”

    Ritch nods, “Alright. I planned on leaving soon as well. I want to get everyone situated and comfortable before I do.”

    Connor nods a single time, then turns and leaves silently. He keeps his arms curled around himself as if he was still cold despite the jacket as he opens the door. Again, if Ritch has noticed anything, which he must have by now, then he doesn’t say anything. Connor keeps his arms like that until he decides the coast is clear, then pulls out the bottle and napkins, loosely wrapping the napkins around it and holding the covered bottle like he would any old water bottle.

    He passes his own bunker on the way to Mr. Anderson’s, but decides against going inside to drop off his wine coolers. Even though less bottles would allow him to move more naturally, the time it would take to dig them out and put them away isn’t worth it, since he’s to get back before Ritch does. He moves on a bit quicker at the reminder of his self-set time restraint. 

    While Connor hopes that Mr. Anderson is still up, he knows the chances of that are rather low. As he approaches his lunch companion’s door, he realizes he needs to come up with some kind of plan of where to keep this stash if the retired pilot won’t wake up or won’t let him inside to unload everything. He doesn’t want Ritch to know about this any more than he probably already does, after all.

    He quickly decides that he’ll put the alcohol under his own blanket. His reasoning is that the mini-fridge is out of the question for anything except for his own colorful alcohol because there’s just no room in the ridiculously tiny thing. Plus, because Connor is on the top bunk, it would be difficult to see unless someone climbs up there, and no one would do that, especially not between now and lunch. No one has even been in their room before, not unless Ritch brought someone in there without his knowledge, but he’s more protective of their space than Connor is, so that’s very unlikely.

    As Connor raises his hand to knock, Connor realizes what it may look like for someone to knock on the known-alcoholic’s door in the middle of the night with a covered bottle in hand. He quickly tucks the whisky bottle under his jacket carefully and hugs his left arm to his chest to pin it in place as he finally knocks.

    He waits a few moments for any sign that Mr. Anderson is up, then knocks again, this time more firmly. When there’s still no response, Connor turns to go back to his room. He doesn’t want to wake him up if he’s still asleep, after al. He pulls out and readjusts the bottle and napkins in his hand so it doesn’t slip from his grip and keeps his stride at a tired shuffle. He makes it five steps before the sound of a door opening stops him in his tracks.

    “Connor? What the fuck are you doing? It is 1:30 in the morning.”

    He spins around as quickly as he’s silently able to with all the bottles tucked into his waistband. It ends up not being very fast.

    “May I talk to you? Inside?” he asks boldly. He notes the other’s disheveled appearance, with the stained shirt and holey sweatpants. 

    “Fuckin’– What?” he shakes his head incredulously. “Could this not wait until a decent time to be awake? Why now in the middle of the night?”

    “I just wanted to give you something as my thanks, and I’d rather do it without people around to poke their noses into it.” he replies genuinely, “But I guess it can wait until after lunch–”

    “Wait a minute.” he interrupts, “What do you mean, ‘give me something as a thanks’? A thanks for what? And why would people not mind their own businesses?”

    “I mean, I’m sure they would, but I’d still rather not talk about this in the middle of the hall.” He swings the whiskey bottle in his hand, hoping the other man will figure it out on his own. If the way Mr. Anderson tracks the movement with his eyes says anything, he definitely did.

    “Fuck’s sake, get in here.” He turns and disappears behind the door, leaving it open behind him. Connor hears him mutter “not like I was actually sleeping anyway…” before he makes a move to enter.

    Connor can’t help but notice that the room is cleaner than it was last time he was in here. The top of his desk is empty. There’s only one bottle Connor can spot out in the open, versus the several before. All of the clothes that were once in one large pile are now in two piles and a folded stack, which Connor elects to assume means “unwearable”, “not clean”, and “clean” based off of Mr. Anderson’s habits and normal wardrobe. He carefully shuts the door behind himself and eyes the older man, who’s leaning against the desk tiredly, now. It looks like he quickly ran his fingers through his hair, but he looks more tired despite that.

    “You cleaned again.”

    He really didn’t mean to say that out loud– hell, he didn’t even mean to say it the last time he was in here–, but Mr. Anderson doesn’t seem as bothered by it as he was before.

    “Yea? You gonna say that every time you come in here and I’ve made progress? What about when it gets messy again, hm? ‘Cause I guarantee it will.” he challenges.

    Connor just shakes his head calmly with a nervous smile. “If you’ll believe me, I didn’t actually mean to say that out loud. And this isn’t my room, it’s yours, so I don’t see why it’d be any of my business what you do with it beyond keeping potentially harmful bottles off the ground.” He pauses to eye the desk Mr. Anderson is leaning on. “Do you mind if I use your desk for a second?”

    It’s a rough topic change, but it’s one that Mr. Anderson takes silently. He simply moves out of the way, overplaying exasperation of having to as he waves to it. Connor nods a silent thanks and walks over, mentally cringing at the feeling of the bottles in his waistband rubbing and clanging together with each step. Apparently his lunch companion couldn’t tell that he was hoarding bottles until now because he’s suddenly extremely interested in what Connor has.

    He puts down the whisky first and uncovers it, discarding the napkins on the ground for now. Mr. Anderson is immediately at his side to investigate, obviously surprised to see the brand.

    “What the fuck? This is full?” he whispers, then continues the same way as if someone will overhear him if he speaks too loud. “Where the hell d’ya get this? And how?”

    “I heard that Marshal Fowler suddenly went from somewhat tolerating your drinking to cutting you off completely,” he answers partially, ever-so-carefully unzipping his jacket so the bottles barely tucked inside the inner pockets don’t slip out and crack or shatter. “And strictly from a medical point of view, it’s not healthy to cut off an addiction like yours like that so suddenly, so I decided to help out as thanks for talking to the marshal about giving me and Ritch a second chance. But don’t expect me to do this again, I was only able to this time because I was at a celebration and everyone was extremely inebriated.”

    Once Connor has his jacket unzipped, he slowly pulls out the two beer bottles in the most danger of falling. The one on the left side makes his wine cooler bottle almost fall, so he has to pin it under his left arm so he has time to put the beer in his right hand down and catch it. He then digs out two more beers and sets them down, realizing there’s no good way about unloading Mr. Anderson’s alcohol without making his own fall out. 

    “Jesus. How many bottles did you take?” He picks up one of the beer bottles, studying the label.

    “I had 16 bottles on me, plus the whisky–”

    Mr. Anderson’s head snaps to him, “Wait, what?–”

    “–and I think the only bottle people will notice missing is the whisky, since there were only four of them and there wasn’t enough room to stash them in the recycling with the beers and wine coolers. Though I doubt they’ll really care or question why there’s only three bottles left in the room.” Connor pulls out the last beer in his jacket pocket, then starts the process of freeing the one in his waistband, which is going to require taking them all out then resizing the belt. “Oh! And the wine coolers are mine, so you can’t have any.”

   “I don’t like fruity drinks anyway.” he answers, staring at Connor as if he has a second head or a third leg. Connor ignores this easily, it’s a look he’s very used to, sadly. 

    He moves to pull out one of the two beer bottles from under his belt and immediately realizes his mistake. The wine-cooler bottles carelessly tucked in the biggest pockets are heavily weighing his pants down, and he doesn’t feel like flashing anyone. With a defeated sigh, he pulls the two bottles from the pockets over his calves (People rarely look down when they have somewhere they need to be, so the chances of someone other than Ritch noticing those two and the two lumps in his nearly-untied boots then commenting on it are lower than people seem to think). He then tries to get the bottle out again, but the three in the back start slipping, but if he tries to keep them from falling, then the bottles in the front will fall.

    Realizing how stupid this delema is since it’s his bottles that are about to go down his pants and not anyone else’s, he simply pulls out Anderson’s bottle and lets the rest drop down his pant legs. He tightens up his belt, then removes the two from in his boots and lets the fallen wine coolers in his pant legs slip to the ground unharmed.

    “Jesus fucking christ, you actually had 16 bottles tucked away.” Connor looks up and sees Hank shaking his head in disbelief. “How in the fuck did you manage that? Actually, why would you try to do this in the first place?”

    “I got bored, and despite what everyone thinks of me, I’m not a rule-following teacher’s pet.” He sits on the ground and starts working on lacing his boots properly. “I just make sure that my ‘crimes’ aren’t serious and are done without anyone noticing.” He finishes tying boots onto his feet, then looks up to smirk up at the ex-pilot. “Like hiding 16 bottles of alcohol in various places and delivering seven of them to someone who’s supposed to not have them.” He starts stuffing the coolers on the ground away in his pockets, not wanting to impose on the other man too much longer.

    “And where did you say you got all of this from? A celebration?”

    Connor nods and stands up. “Some of my and Ritch’s mutual friends had a small gathering with copious amounts of alcohol because tonight we found out we’re staying!” Connor beams. It feels very strange on his face after so long of being in a tense or panic-like state. “And with the way Marshal Fowler was speaking, it sounds like we’ll be able to graduate as soon as we find partners to pilot with. So that’s what all this is,” he gestures to the bottles, “It’s a thanks for that, because he mentioned in passing that you spoke to him, and he trusts your judgement of people.”

    Connor sees Mr. Anderson’s expression of surprise, and doesn’t try to work out if it’s a good or negative type. He just waits patiently, knowing that he’s probably trying to figure out a way to say something. That’s what these lengthy silences meant most of the other times, anyway.

    “You do realize that you’ll get in big trouble for this if you’re caught. After all the paperwork stuff and everything.” It’s not the kind of thing Mr. Anderson has to work himself up to say before, but Connor is the last person to push someone for withholding potentially sensitive information or opinions.

    “Then it’s a good thing I won’t be,” Connor states confidently, “I may get anxious or uncomfortable with a lot of things, but these past couple of weeks of adjusting to how things work around here are not how I usually am. I’m not normally that fragile or easy to upset. Besides,” he leans on the desk casually, “if there’s anything I’m good at, it’s yoga and stealing food and drinks. I’ve had more than enough practice growing up to feel confident in my abilities to get away with tonight’s heist, Mr. Anderson.”

    He stands up straight again before blinking in shock at himself. He just mentioned a detail of his childhood and isn’t affected by it. Hell, now he’s actively thinking about how he and Ritch had to sneak out of the house with stolen money if they ever wanted any kind of junk food and he’s still completely unbothered by the memory. There must be more alcohol in his system than he thought. Just how many wine coolers did he have to drink in order to get loose like this?

    “It’s Hank.”

    Connor snaps his head up, not knowing when it lowered in the first place. He’s extremely glad all of his bottles are tucked safely away because if he was still holding one, he might have just dropped it on the hard floor.

    “I’m sorry?” he asks politely. There’s no way the Mr. Anderson is asking Connor, the annoying kid with the fucked up head, to call him by his first name.

    It’s extremely disrespectful to call someone older than you anything other than Miss, Misses, or Mister, even if they’re only older by five years, Amanda’s voice informs in his head.

    Never judge a person purely based on their age. Some people, like you, are completely mature despite their age still being a comparatively small number. Some people, like Howard over there, still act like children even though they’re older than me. Treat a person with a careful balance of how they act and what social standards require, the same voice scolds louder.

    “Look, if you’re still going to bug me during lunch and dinner, then I’d rather you just call me Hank.” He sighs and looks away. “Having someone like you call me ‘Mr. Anderson’ makes me feel old, and honestly? A little fuckin’ creeped out too. Mister and miss or whatever is reserved for children, and you don’t look like a fuckin’ child to me.”

    For the first time in a long while, Connor chooses to ignore Amanda’s irritated voice in his head. He’ll only call him Hank because the other wants him to, and he has a feeling that they’re something he calls “quiet friends”. Friends without stating it and never mentioning as much for one or both people's sake, but still friends nonetheless. But in the end, it doesn’t matter because either way, Connor feels accomplished. He just made his first friend that didn’t tie in to Ritch at all.

    Connor realizes too late that he hesitated for a tad too long, so he tries to break the growing tension with a very bad joke.

    “Well then, Hank, you can just call me Connor, now. No ‘Mr. Stern’ necessary anymore.”

    It takes Mr. And– Hank a second to understand the joke that he never once called Connor by his last name before, then he’s shaking his head at the ceiling with a huff of amusement.

    “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

    “Most likely. Hopefully it won’t be too painful, though.” Connor smirks.

    Hank looks back down with a scowl, but Connor swears he can see mirth in his eyes.

    “Just get out of here and go to fucking bed before anyone gets any wrong– or right– ideas.” he nods to the door.

    Connor nods and quickly gets to the door. However, he pauses just as he’s about to open it, then turns back to Hank.

    “As I said before, I won’t be doing this again and feeding your issue, Hank. I’m just acknowledging that quitting cold turkey like Marshal Fowler wants you to can be dangerous. You still need to work on slowing down with the goal of stopping.” He pauses to see if the ex-pilot has anything to say, which he doesn’t besides a sigh. “Good night, Hank. If, uh, you ever really need sleep one night, I’d be willing to give you some of the oil that allowed me to sleep for two days during my mood dip.”

    Was that only last week? Or was it the week before?

    “Thank you, Connor. I may take you up on that.” He sounds surprisingly genuine, and the trainee can’t stop the small smile from appearing. “Now get out of here before I decide to hate you again.”

    He nods quickly, not bothering to hide his elation that Hank basically admitted that he likes him, and opens the door. “I hope your night gets better.” he says as he shuts the door.

    Ritch is already in bed by the time he makes it back, but he doesn’t question Connor about his whereabouts. That means he probably knows exactly what he was doing and confirms Connor’s assumptions that he knew about the hidden alcohol bottles. Oh well; Ritch probably isn’t too put off by it since he never said anything despite obviously holding off sleep until he got back. They both sleep soundly that night.

    The next morning, Connor is in the training area doing his morning stretches with Ritch at his side when he sees the Jericho Squad walk in, very obviously hungover. Simon and Josh don’t look as bad, but North is in the worst shape, unsurprisingly. She squints against the lights of the room and stumbles directly behind Markus, who doesn’t appear to be miserable, but also isn’t smiling and chatting along with Josh and Simon like he usually does. North suddenly turns her head and immediately spots Connor.

    “How the fuck are you two not miserable?” she shouts across the room.

    She opens her mouth to probably yell again, but Connor quickly stands up from his spot in the corner and moves over to their group so they won’t call anymore unnecessary attention to themselves. He doesn’t hear echoing footsteps behind him, so Ritch must have stayed behind to properly finish his stretches.

    “I’m not miserable because I kept my drinking under control.” He answers quietly as soon as he’s close enough to. “Besides, once you’re jaeger pilots, excessive drinking isn’t allowed anymore, so you guys should start practicing prohibition.” Connor scolds in a teasing tone.

    “Well,” Simon begins, “lucky for us, we aren’t actually pilots. Only trainees, so we can do what we want for now.”

    “But Ritch and I probably will be as soon as we find suitable partners, so I don’t expect us to–” Connor’s teasing is interrupted by North.

    “Woah, woah woah woah. You mean to tell me that not only are you guys sticking around, but you’re graduating early too? And you didn’t even tell us? How skilled are you exactly? What the hell...” 

    Connor thought someone who is this hungover would be quieter.

    “Did Ritch not tell any of you last night?” Everyone shakes their head. “Oh... Huh. Well, as soon as we retake evaluations and find partners, we’ll probably be graduating and moving on as pilots.” Connor pauses, “I think that’s kind of a problem, though, because as far as I know, there’s only one more jaeger, and by regulation, each pair needs their own in case of an emergency where every available pilot is needed–”

    “Wow, yup. Already boring me.” North bluntly states.

    Connor makes a mental note to not talk about jaegers and regulations while she’s around. It’s odd that she wants to be a jaeger pilot but doesn’t want to hear anything about the jaegers. Maybe that’s part of the reason the passing rate of this training is so low? Some have the skills and drive to fight kaijus, but not enough desire to keep up with the less exciting things (if putting one’s life in danger by fighting ginormous aliens can even be considered “exciting”).

    “North!” Markus chides, ”Just because you hate memorizing all of this stuff doesn’t mean everyone does. Leave him be! Besides, you’re gonna have to know all of it if you actually wanna fight kaijus.”

    “Connor’s right, you know.” Ritch’s voice points out from behind him suddenly. “About everything. I don’t know what Fowler plans to do with two possible new pairs and only one known jaeger, unless he has some prototypes hidden up his sleeve, but those would have to be in testing stages now, not available for pilots to use quite yet.” He crosses his arms and looks to the side, a tell that Ritch is thinking through something carefully. “The only thing I can think of is that he has one that’s almost out of testing that we just haven’t heard of yet for whatever reason. Or he just didn’t want to miss a chance having at least two more pilots around here and compromised with whoever about this, despite only having one available jaeger.”

    Josh nods, shifting his weight onto his other leg, “I think it’s more the second reason than the first. There haven’t been nearly as many people looking to be jaeger pilots since the propaganda stopped standing a chance against the horror stories on the internet and news.”

    Everyone silently nods their agreement.

    “Either way,” Connor begins, “I don’t actually know how often we’ll see each other outside of meals now. With us having to redo our evaluations and partner hunting and stuff.”

    “I doubt they’ll keep us out of the class, Connor.” Ritch doesn’t bother to turn to look at him like he would with someone else, knowing he wouldn’t be put off by it. “I don’t know if we’ll still be top of the class, since we’ll likely be overqualified for what stage everyone here is at, but I don’t see why Luther and Chloe wouldn’t let us stay and help, even if it isn’t your favorite thing to do.”

    Connor shakes his head with a shrug, “It really isn’t. I don’t like leadership roles like you do.”

    Ritch nods. Connor has a feeling they’re both thinking about how Amanda didn’t mind this particular dynamic between them, even though it took a bit of time for her to warm up to it. Before Connor can get too wrapped up in his head, North snaps him out of it.

    “So you gonna show us what you can really do today, since you were supposedly holding last time? Which I still don’t believe, by the way.” she challenges with a certain glint in her eye that he has grown to dislike.

    “No.” he retorts at the same time as Ritch. Everyone goes quiet.

    Connor continues quietly, “We weren’t holding back as much as we have with everything else last time. I don’t want to have to do it again and get hurt worse…”

    “I agree. I don’t like fighting against Connor.”

    “The only things I want to fight are kaijus and assholes.”

    “Snobbish, biggoted assholes.” Ritch specifies.

    Out of the corner of his eye, Connor spots a few other students entering the training area, so instead of correcting Ritch that he would fight any asshole if they did something to warrant it and have his brother inevitably push back against that, Connor just huffs. Ritch will understand that he means it as a show of disagreement; and he does, if his version of an eye roll is anything to go by.

    “Well, I suppose I better go off and try to find some kind of jaeger partner. I’m going to need a lot more time than Ritch because… Well, you all know exactly how I was when we were trying to get to know each other.” Connor smiles genuinely. If there’s one thing he can do right, it’s turn his short-comings into jokes or some form of amusement for himself.

    Although, everyone except Ritch smiles awkwardly, so Connor immediately knows that these people don’t really do self-deprecating jokes. Ritch simply frowns sympathetically probably because he already figured out that they don’t use that type of humor, and he takes that as his cue to actually leave. Before he can turn to leave, however, Chloe shouts Connor’s and Ritch’s names. When they look to her, she waves them over with a smile. They say a quick goodbye to the group as they calmly walk over. Connor is painfully aware of all the silent attention they’re getting.

    “Just as Marshal Fowler said yesterday, you need to start reevaluations today. Would you prefer to do them over in the gym, or in here? I can’t promise we’ll have the gym to ourselves, but it may be less crowded than in here.”

    He looks to Ritch, who gives him a sort of curious look. It’s up to Connor, then. He turns back to Chloe and shrugs with a polite smile.

    “I guess in here is fine. It seems more convenient than going all the way there then back again in a few hours.”

    “Are we going to have to do the combat evaluations again?” Ritch cuts in, “Because I will not fight against Connor again if that’s the case.”

    Chloe blinks, her features turning into a careful balance of blank and attentive. She blinks again when neither Ritch or Connor expand on the request.

    “Did you hold back that much the first time?” she half-jokes lightly, but he sees the slight concern in her eyes.

    The only responses she gets for several moments are Ritch’s shoulders tensing and Connor looking away nervously. Although, it’s obvious she’s waiting for some kind of verbal confirmation.

    Ritch sighs and finally answers quietly, “It’s dangerous for us to not hold back when we’re not fighting to kill.”

    Connor only nods solemnly in agreement.

    Chloe takes a deep breath before speaking, “Okay then, you won’t have to do that over again.” She flips through her clipboard of papers and marks something down quickly, “So let’s skip to flexibility, okay? Go ahead and line up against the wall.” She nods her head to the area next to the doorway where some basic equipment is.

    They go through the basic stretches. For the sit and reach, they use the block, adjusting the measurements to their size, and start with both legs on it, then just one at a time with the other bent. Ritch does above average, and Connor does extremely well if Chloe’s expression means anything.

    Next is the v-sit, so Chloe has Ritch put his feet against the wall and lean forward down the middle, then lean to each side. It turns out that he’s a bit more flexible on his right side than left for whatever reason. He’s then told to bend to the middle and touch his toes, which he does relatively easily. When Connor starts, he foregoes the wall, despite the confused look Chloe gives him, and lets Ritch hold his feet in place while he leans forward. He can almost put his forehead on the floor, and when leaning to either side, he lightly rests it on his knees. Chloe starts marking on her clipboard again, and Connor has to ignore the numerous stares he feels from the other side of the room.

    The rest of the stretches go similarly. Next they stand and touch their toes (Ritch manages to do so, but Connor is able to put his palms flat on the floor and bends his arms), then they move on to the butterfly stretch, calf flexibility test (they both pass this one with flying colors), side bending, and trunk rolls (this is the easiest one for both of them). Before they know it, almost an hour and a half has gone by and they’re done with their official stretches.

    “Hey guys,” Chloe calls the twin’s attention quietly. She continues when both of them look at her. “Do you mind if I do just a couple more stretches? We did the same thing for North and Traci. It’s to see if we should start designing a jaeger that has more rotation and flexibility for our more bendy pilots.”

    Connor looks to Ritch, who answers. “Sure, whatever you need.”

    She smiles. “Can you do some lunges?”

    They both nod and get into position and hold it easily. Chloe marks something in her book before she tells them to sit on the ground and spread their legs as far as they can go. Ritch raises an eyebrow at Connor for whatever reason before attempting to do the splits. Connor easily does it, then holds the position as he puts his chest to the ground, then sits back up. When Ritch gets up to shift the direction of his legs, leaning into something close to a lunge, Connor doesn’t get completely up, instead just sitting then shifting his legs over. He leans forward towards his knee then, too, just as he taught himself, then sits up, torso perpendicular to the ground and his legs.

    “Surprising,” Chloe states in a praising tone, jotting something else down on her clipboard.

    Ritch gets up and smirks down at Connor. He can’t stop himself from smiling back a bit as he gets up too. It’s nice to actually be praised for something that he had only gotten huffed at for in the past. Now he’s kind of glad that he missed this evaluation altogether while he was going through his mood dip because he wouldn’t have wanted to hold back. Plus, having to rush off to let the next person go and/or having everyone’s undivided attention on him would make this nerve-racking, even if he would’ve held back.

    A sudden wolf whistle from across the room shoves him out of his thoughts.

    “Yass Connor!” North yells obnoxiously, gathering most people’s attention to them, “Show ‘em who’s queen!”

    “North, why are you like this?” Connor shakes his head, feeling his face heat in embarrassment. That question is better than what he actually wants to ask; are you still somehow drunk?

    “Wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t.” She then winks and blows Connor a kiss and a winks, the entire act overplayed and an obvious show of teasing him. Maybe she’s overplaying being okay so people don’t suspect her actual hungover state too much.

    Connor just sighs and shakes his head again, watching Ritch as he does his equivalent of an eye roll.

    “Alright boys,” Chloe says behind them, “do you want to do stamina and cardio next or strength and weights?”

    Ritch and Connor glance at each other, then nod simultaneously.

    “We’ll do cardio today since we’re already stretched for it, if we can push strength to tomorrow?” Ritch answers, the end sounding like a question rather than a reply.

    Their instructor smiles, “Sure, that works for me! Let’s head over to the gym for the equipment, then.”

    The rest of their time before lunch is spent doing various cardio and stamina tests. Most of their time is spent on the treadmills and exercise bikes for sprinting and and different kinds of endurance. Chloe gives nothing away about how well they did this time, and they return to the training area just as the rest of the class is finishing up punching techniques with Luther. They’re all released at the same time to go shower before lunch. Connor and Ritch are told to head to the testing room instead of here when they finish lunch so they can retake their written evaluations.

    Connor lets Ritch have a shower first and picks up their room a bit. It’s not really messy, just a few stray clothes in a pile on the ground around the hamper instead of in it, but it gives him a reason to do some very-needed organization in their desk drawers. He spots his journal in the third drawer and suddenly remembers several things from last night and this morning he wanted to write down.

    He writes down North’s hatred for regulation and technical talk. He then adds that he thinks Josh will probably transfer over to the science section of this entire operation, and that North may pair up with Traci if that’s the case and she’s not let go for her lack of interest. He notes that Traci used to be a dancer and is ranked at least third in their class, if not first or second, so she may be a good partner candidate. With that, he starts writing down everyone’s personality and the likelihood that they’ll leave or their partner will leave, and the probability of them leaving if their partner does. He immediately crosses out a bit more than half of the names in the class just from this, knowing he would never work well with them, so he moves on to the active pilots.

    He writes that Gavin is much more likely to partner up with Ritch than himself, since they apparently know each other already, and crosses that name off without writing anything about his character down. Pretty much everyone else he knows of has a partner they work well with, and even with insufficient data, he knows that the chances are low to none of them wanting to suddenly switch partners or share.

    He makes a quick note of Hank’s favorite whiskey and how Hank used to have a dog and probably still loves it according to Marshal Fowler. He’s finishing jotting down the fact he’s probably Connor’s “quiet friend” while idly wondering if Hank would ever consider getting another dog when Ritch steps out of the bathroom. 

    “You’re writing in that journal again?” Ritch says almost immediately, crossing his arms.

    “Yes, because I’m going to screw up if I don’t, especially now that I need a partner.” He closes his book with a thump.

    “Connor, despite what you think, you really don’t need that.” Ritch nods to his journal, sounding softer than usual, and it’s somewhat disconcerting.

    “Yeah, I really do. You’re welcome to read through it if you like.” He makes a point of putting it on the desk. “So far it’s just basic temperaments of different people and the probabilities of the other trainees graduating.”

    Connor walks past his brother into the bathroom to wash up, reflecting on everything he wrote down, trying to figure out if he missed anything. He doesn’t think he has.

    This is going to be a lot harder than I thought, Connor thinks to himself, At least I kind of know what I’m looking for now, though. The only problem now is finding this perfect type of person within the next few weeks…

•◊•◊•◊•◊• 

Previous <~> Masterlist <~> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊• 

A/N: Hey guys! I am so so sorry for the huge delay for this chapter. Life decided to creep up on me and bash me over the head with a bat there for a second, plus I wanted to make some kind of art for my new TDBU masterlist, but now you should be getting updates faster from now on! I’m hoping to get back on a weekly or biweekly update schedule because I have a ton of other things I want to write, but I refuse to until I finish one of my WIPs 😂😅 Also, sorry for the ton of Connor POV recently, I promise that next chapter will be more Reed900 action!! And with that, I hope you all have a good day/night! Until the next update!