#protege!au

Protege!Ekko was caught by Enforcers while attempting another raid on a shipment of Shimmer. He was sought after for a while and was recognized for his intellect and talents. Councilman Talis decided to strike up a deal- he was to work in his lab with him and Viktor for a lesser sentence, which he accepted. Jayce begins to develop feelings for the firecracker while Ekko’s feelings are slower to come, but he pushes it down (much like how it is in my vanilla HammerTime stories).

Ekko is highly intelligent and often treats Jayce and Viktor like “geriatric morons”, yet he’s grown to appreciate them both for their talents. (Viktor and him have a higher understanding due to them both being from the Undercity.)

In this AU, P!Ekko’s personality is nearly identical to his Arcane counterpart. However, he’s a lot more bitter about his predicament, only providing the bare minimum of involvement in the labs until Viktor and Jayce slowly win over his trust.

Jayce’s personality here is identical to his Arcane counterpart. (There isn't much change canon-wise, just a what-if kinda thing here!)

His relationship with Jayce is very much “mentor x mentee”, but they try to keep it under wraps. Jayce does harbor some guilt, battling his feelings of the power dynamics between the two. Ekko pretty much made peace with it and does what he wants, knowing when to come around and when to pull back for publicity’s sake. Ekko isn’t above using the Councilman’s feelings for him to his advantage.