Work Text:
“So what’s your deal?” Duo asks G, as if from thin air. Duo has two sandwiches on one plate. He takes one for himself and gives the other the G, who smirks at the strange offer. The work space is quiet, except for just the two of them and G never heard him coming.
“My deal?”
“Yeah, I have to wonder to myself, ‘What’s up with this guy?’ He has all kinds of jammers, high level security, in a junker craft that’s not moving as fast as junker ships do,” Duo lays out, watching G’s movements, looking for anything sudden. “Takes me on board instead of flinging me into space. Puts me to work on menial things a half-baked programmer could do in an hour. But doesn’t make a grab for me. So, what’s your deal?”
“You’re very straight-forward,” G observes, but doesn’t touch the sandwich just yet.
“And perceptive, too. Don’t under-estimate me, old man. Or it’ll be your funeral.”
“My, my, forgive me then.” It's dry and sarcastic.
“Nice try,” Duo says after taking a bite and swallowing after only a few chews. “I asked you a question, maybe answer it, pal?”
“My deal, eh?” G leans back and thinks, while Duo keeps eating, but waits. Patiently waiting and observing. “I suppose you could say that I’m just waiting for the end of the world…”
Duo scoffs. “Aren’t we all? But what’s your end goal? What’s your stake?”
“Who said I had one?”
“Who said you didn’t?”
G laughs, purely delighted by the tenacity, whereas he once would have been furious. No, after years of slowly building to this moment, after years of stagnation, it feels like an old, dead weight has been ripped off.
“I’m just a Professor of sorts, I suppose. Of engineering.”
“Yeah? I don’t see any students.”
“Maybe you’re not looking hard enough.”
Duo’s frown is tight. “Me? Oh, no. I ain’t the book type. Last time I went to school, kids ended up in the hospital.”
“Because they underestimated you?”
Duo’s frown stretches taught against his cracked lips. G can see something shift.
“No, because they deserved it.”
“Oh, ho,” G says quietly and Duo’s eyes dilated sharply. G doesn’t need to see it to know that this kid has a weapon on him and is dangerous, more dangerous than he ever could be. “So, revenge is it?”
“What d’you mean?”
“That’s your ‘deal’? You’re living for revenge.”
“I never said that,” Duo answers, but it’s much colder than before.
“Revenge on who, I wonder? The ones that did this to you, right? The ones that took everything from you.”
The sandwich rolls and twists in Duo’s stomach as that beady eye from this old man digs into him, like a little knife plunging into his heart.
“I-...” Duo has never been asked this before, not so directly. “Yeah….Yeah, I want to destroy them. All the ones that thought it was okay to leave us like that. To treat us like garbage on the street. I don’t-...That can’t happen anymore. I won’t let them do that anymore.”
“Oh?” G asks, prodding him, “So, what’s the plan, then? What are your grand schemes?”
“Hey,” Duo snaps, body tight with anger. “You think just because I’m young, I’m powerless? You think I don’t know anything or can’t do anything? Keep thinking that. It’ll be more fun for me that way.”
G clicks his tongue and his nonchalance gives Duo pause. “Isn’t that always the problem with people? Ignoring the young... and the old ? Always under-estimating their abilities and focus?”
There’s a pause in which Duo thinks, trying to find the point of allyship that he can feel poking about, all around them. G takes that moment to grab the sandwich and take a bite. It’s an act of trust that Duo needed.
“Maybe, though...Maybe I could teach you a few things, hmm? I am a professor in need of a student, as you’ve said,” G slowly says, “And maybe it’s time to show those people what happens when they minimize our threats for too long…?”
“So...okay. But what’s your deal?”
“Oh, I make unicorns,” G grins and that unsettles Duo’s digestion even more. “Have you ever piloted a mobile suit before?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. I’m not bad at it.”
“Well, let’s change that. Let’s make you such a good pilot, they’ll never even imagine who’s inside. They’ll never even see you coming.”
In a way, Duo feels like this is a deal with the devil. There’s so much left unspoken of, so many gaps without explanation or detail...But it’s here. His shot is finally here and he’s not going to question it. He’s not going to shy away.
“Deal,” he agrees with conviction and G smiles.
They take the next bite of their meal synchronously.
***
“You have to remove the pressure lock before you can open it,” G says after watching for an hour Duo try to remove the front plate of a jammer.
“You couldn’t have said that in the beginning?” Duo grumbles, hands running across the machine to find the lock.”Little help?”
“I thought I already gave you a little help. More than a little help.”
“Geez, this guy can't even cooperate on the same damn thing,” Duo mumbles, already hot and frustrated.
“I didn’t know children complained so much,” G mentions, looking over his own work to Duo. “Maybe I should have left you. I hear space is nice this time of year.”
“I didn’t know old creeps were so funny. I would have bought tickets to your show.”
“Humor comes at an expense.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?” Duo grunts as he pulls on a latch that won’t give.
“Pain, of course. Only the best humor comes with the deepest pain.”
The latch doesn’t budge. “Never heard that one before.”
“No, I imagine not, being only twelve and all.”
“How the hell do you know how old I am?”
“You don’t think the medical scans were for suntime funtimes, did you?”
Duo huffs and decides to take a break. He pulls out some jerky and sits on the cold floor.
After a few moments of just listening to the ship rattle and softly creak, Duo asks, “So, what about you? How’d you get to be so funny?”
“My, Duo, are you actually trying to bond with me? I might shed a tear,” G’s nasally quip stings at Duo. Of course, he’s an idiot to try. This guy isn’t like the others he’s met along the way. This guy is a killer, he’s certain. This guy has a past, Duo can just feel...And he feels some kinship with that. He feels less alone. Less like a freak.
“You know your parents?” Duo asks instead, which seems like a good place to start.
G considers the question and wonders the motive. “I suppose so. Why?”
“Jus’ wonderin’.” Duo answers quietly, sucking on a bit of jerky.
G grimaces from his work and pauses before adding, “I guess you mean my actual parents, of flesh and blood. Sure, until I was around four. Then they died. A shuttle malfunction back in the day. In L2, near the moonbase - GX230K. I was in boarding school on Earth-”
“Oh.” Duo leans back and eyes him up and down. “So you’ve got money.”
“Had,” G corrects, “I spent most of it in my twenties and thirties. That was a long time ago.”
“And then what?”
“‘Then what’ what? I survived. I went to school. I was adopted and kept plugging along. Got a sense of humor along the way. Here I am…Are you going to sit around all day, or just most of it?”
“So, someone even like you got adopted, huh?” Duo muses and chews off a tough piece.
G’s eye squints at him, almost in menace, but not in pity. “Oh, let me guess - you didn’t? Here's some advice: Life is awful. It never makes sense. It’s never justified. That’s why you and I are here, isn’t it? To get revenge? To make sure ‘They’ never do what they did again?”
Duo’s quiet a moment, chewing through that hard jerky to the point he tastes blood. He swallows roughly, feeling his gums sting. “Who’s ‘they’ for you? Since your parents died all normal?”
“Get back to work,” G diverts the attention, feeling an old sting all the way down his belly. “I’m an old man, I’m going to take a nap.”
He leaves Duo, but they both realize he was holding back.