Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mediation

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Song spoiler mentioned in the beginning notes (because you evidently can't put a hyperlink in those) is here.  But again, I seriously recommend you wait until said scene and it pops up in the text as the same blue underlined bit.  Or skip it entirely, as you like.  

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April 28^th 199 – Tuesday – Berlin, Germany – Executive Suite of Hotel Ensō Berlin

            Jovi grinned at the familiar face when the guardsman opened the door, for all that it wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for.  “Hey, Kansas.  Did I pick the wrong door?” 

            The captain gave him a dryly amused look that reminded him of Stefan in a nostalgic way – that didn’t hurt this time, thankfully.  

            The hits of grief he used to get from that look were mostly faded now, though they still came at odd moments.  It was little things, sometimes… but it was also good to see that Stefan had had surviving relatives.  He’d hoped he might, and… that had to be enough, now. 

            He liked Cassidy Foreman.  Smart, same wickedly dry humor as his cousin, very capable in the field, and he had a deep sense of loyalty.  He tended to be quiet, but the fact that he was originally one of Relena’s and only on loan to Mitchell for the Strike Force had raised the princess higher in his books, that first meeting.  She’d held up against his best hopes since then too, but you could tell a lot about a person by who they surrounded themselves with – and so far as he'd seen, the Guard were all damn good people. 

            “You do realize we have this whole wing tapped?” Cassidy pointed out.  “And I saw you knock on two other doors already?” 

            His grin widened.  “I do now,” he offered, filing the fact away.  While the thought had occurred to him, he hadn’t given it serious consideration – he was a regular visitor now, and carried no threats.  Odin level of security paranoia when away from home?  Check.  Not really a surprise, especially since Foreman had said they were all trained up by Odin’s big brother.  While the two of them hadn’t known each other for the majority of their lives, he’d already seen quite a bit of circumstantial evidence showing how relevant those shared years had been. 

            Quatre had not been impressed when Jovi compared the younger Miller to him.  Though it had admittedly been less in a ‘I don’t believe you, take this seriously’ fashion and more of a ‘fuck my life’ way.  Which was adorable in a ‘I want to ruffle your hair’ way, but also true enough to be entirely unhelpful. 

            He was still circling around the Miller issue, but so far?  Relena had been just unhelpful enough in that arena, even while she opened the floodgates on others, to show a strong loyalty to the man.  The reason for the bond could go in any number of directions, some more interesting than others, but it was significant. 

            He had a favorite theory, but it had no real backing yet, and his gut sense of things was off by miles a good eighty percent of the time.  But… if the connection was romantic, wouldn’t that be an interesting solution to all their problems? 

            Well, for a lot of them anyway.  It didn’t answer every question – and in fact raised a few more instead – and there were some major roadblocks on that pathway that made it unlikely, which was why it was a pet theory and not something he’d mentioned to anyone else.  But half the fun of watching drama unfold was dreaming up all the weird ways it could go. 

            The retired colonel was still hospitalized and would be for days yet, however – Jovi wasn’t here for him.  “Is Razo in?” he asked instead.  Not that he minded seeing the princess and her people, but he’d come for his friend – and maybe David too, if the man was feeling chatty.  He wouldn’t turn a blind eye to work if it fell in his lap, but he hadn’t arrived with politics in mind. 

            Cassidy waved him in as he took a few steps back and, predictably, pointed to the side where two women stood – he recognized one, though he didn’t know her name, but the other wasn’t familiar.  They were quick, thorough, and entirely professional about frisking him – which was part of the normal routine of visiting the princess – and he didn’t fuss over them wanting to check out his bag and keep his phone.  That was all pretty standard procedure. 

            He knew the ladies wouldn’t care to talk, so he took the opportunity to look around instead.  The suite was nice – very classy and modern, with a bit of an Asian tilt – but still a significant downgrade from the usual.  Which was expected, honestly – Sarracenia was something else entirely.  And they were here to work.  While he hadn’t been privy to the opening day of the Mitchell negotiations and the news had yet to release anything on it, most of this hotel was filled with delegates, quite a few of them mingling in the public spaces downstairs… and the overall mood was promising.  No one upset, overall ranging from neutral to bored. 

            No one looked excited either, but…  Well, he was under the impression that very little was generally accomplished on day one of these things, so that probably didn’t mean anything? 

            Still, he didn’t think it could hurt to ask the question he’d been turning over since the official announcement of the first meeting came out.  Meeting Cassidy’s eyes, he admitted, “I’m surprised you guys didn’t get the talks moved to Munich.”  The princess’ compound to the south was technically more centrally located for others to arrange travel for, and after the disaster last week, no one would be able to deny her if Relena tried putting any weight behind the motion. 

            Captain Foreman shrugged.  “The security gaps have been closed, and this allows Duchess Shiavonne to regain her lost grace.  It’s as good a place as any other.” 

            Both true.  But he couldn’t help but wonder how much of their willingness to stay put might relate to Miller not being cleared for transfer.  Whatever flavor of relationship lay between him and the princess, it was close-knit. 

            Not that he would get anywhere from poking at that particular curiosity – at least not now, with Kansas.  “I suppose it is,” he returned agreeably.  He wouldn’t prod at Razo either, out of respect for his choices, but Dave was fair game… and the princess sometimes gave him a clue or two, intentionally or otherwise. 

            At least a few of the ideas he’d tossed around were probably false trails, though, either of his own making or hers.  He liked people, and they liked him back – but he wasn’t always good at guessing motives or teasing out the right meanings, at least on the first try.  He just listened and kept at it, and always enjoyed the process – and people had a way of picking up on the last part, which made them enjoy his company even more, and want to keep talking. 

            People were the best kind of puzzle; too complicated to understand the whole of often as not, but fascinating every step of the way.  Sometimes it took him a while, but he got to the bottom of their wants and needs eventually, and everyone involved was somehow his friend by the end of it.  Even when they moved on, they remembered him fondly, and that worked well when he needed to network. 

            When he was younger, he’d mostly networked by accident – then later, as a sort of plan against a rainy day.  He’d long since decided it was the key to how to live a good life, riding the back and forth.  When the sky rained fire in the Fall, he’d cashed in quite a bit of that karma trying to get his extended family sorted – if a freaking battleship almost ending all life on earth wasn’t the time to pull out all the stops, you were delusional.  But then… 

            Well.  Then Cambyses came, and it all went down the drain anyway, no matter what he tried.  Shit happened, whatever contingency you tried to plan for.  Sometimes you skated it, and sometimes you crashed. 

            Thing was, nobody could stay in the wreckage forever, and despite everything… he still liked people.  He’d found a hard limit and an inner steel for dealing with those only out to cause pain, who wanted to destroy instead of protect, but… maybe that was for the best.  His instructors had always said it was lucky he fell in the middle of the talent range – not good enough to put in a suit, but too talented of a fixed wing pilot to waste on the ground – because they’d thought him too soft for infantry.  ‘Too interested in finding a third option in the middle of a fight,’ they’d said, convinced his distraction or cumulative angst over perceived failure in the face of victory would see him dead, and he hadn’t argued… 

            But he had disproved it, in the end.  Not out of any desire but survival, but…  He’d been so glad to find Robby.  He hadn’t been sure until the statistics started pouring out after everything was cleared and the terraforming started, he’d stopped paying attention to the calendar almost as soon as the Regime rose and he’d signed his enlistment confirmation, focused on not thinking about how little time he had to get his sisters and their kids figured out before he had to leave, just trying to get all his ducks in a row… 

            But apparently he’d been in one of the original areas Cambyses took over, the first spring after the Fall.  Him and Nick both, not that they’d really interacted before Robby took them both in from separate camps.  Jovi had been passed around between so many camps before Robby that he’d lost count, always considered an asset, but one that never quite fit in.  Almost a luck charm or mascot with his ‘golden retriever for life’ personality, but not quite enough of a boon to mind giving up for a more worthwhile advantage. 

            Quatre had been the first person in nearly a year that had treated him like more than a thing.  As more than a tool, or at best, a pet to be favored or disposed of at a whim. 

            He’d… forgotten that he wasn’t.  For a little while. 

            He really wanted to talk to Odin – had hoped to catch him today, but Audi said he’d dropped her with Jack and bailed to go get some R&R with Lu before facing the music, which was totally fair.  But… he’d read the file.  And while the methods had been different – the ‘retraining’ had been a far more personalized hell than the Iron Ghetto, worse in some ways even while it looked far better in others… 

            The people who had hurt Odin had done their best to turn him into a thing too.  And that… was relatable.  Both of them had found ways to claw back out of the mire, and considering how different the two of them were, he figured the goals and maybe even methods had differed too, but… it still might be nice to talk about it.  Odin was weird, but that didn’t make him bad company. 

            In the end of the day, no matter where he was or what he was doing?  Jovi had found he still liked people – and the more complicated they were, the more he was drawn to them.  He liked problems. 

            Sometimes untangling a person’s knotted web of grief and anxiety was the only thing that made him feel like he was worth anything.  Those were bad days.  But they had a way of leading back in to more and more good ones, as the universe passed back some of what you gave, and…  

            While terrible things happened, life didn’t have to be about those terrible things. 

            He’d just been declared acceptably clean of weaponry – not that they were stupid enough to leave him unwatched, they knew he was a vet even before Cambyses turned him into a living weapon – when Dave came around the corner, a bounce in his step jostling his signature curls that he’d let grow a little long.  “Jovi!” 

            “Dave!” he called back just as happily, and met him in the middle for the offered hug – he’d always liked that Mitchell wasn’t stingy about that sort of thing.  “Good to see you on the other side of the treason charge!” 

            “Eh, glad it didn’t take me as long as I’d worried it might,” Dave returned, squeezing tight and slapping his back once before backing off.  “I heard you and yours might have had a hand in that?” 

            Ah, he’d half expected the question, if not right out the gate.  “Prisbrey is a friend, but she actually blew off the tips we were offering her to write up your article,” he admitted, tucking his hands in his pockets.  “She’s an even closer friend now for having done it, but you got that on your own merit.”  He pursed his lips, then tugged on one ear, turning his head first to the left, then right.  It was probably safe to talk freely given what Cassidy had said about them having the whole wing, but… 

            “That’s good to know,” Dave returned, giving him a thumb’s up before going on to prove the point.  “Especially since I know you lot were aware Lena and I had some behind the scenes shit going on.  Her acting solo means the dominoes fell right without a helping hand, which is nice.” 

            Jovi grinned, appreciating the notion.  “We did turn her onto the bullshit the Regime was trying to pull on Cambyses vets afterward,” he admitted.  “And that was before she knew all but two of our founders came from the desert, and she still seems to like us.  So.”  He shrugged.  Ardith had warned him that Shel was here for the talks, but they’d decided they wouldn’t poke their noses into her business these next two weeks unless something emergent came up – she wasn’t a member, and she certainly didn’t have to be at their beck and call.  “Shel is good people.  Treat her well, mm?” 

            “That’s the plan,” Dave returned agreeably, taking the hinted threat in stride.  “You guys willing to talk to me openly, now that I’ve told Treize to mind his own business?” 

            He bit back a laugh, feeling his grin widen.  You don’t waste time, do you?  “Mm, probably,” he returned noncommittally.  In truth, they were only a month or two out from talking to Treize via the Winner connection, but he didn’t need to give them that edge.  “Let’s see how the negotiations pan out, huh?  By the end of that you’re likely to be Relena’s again anyway, as I understand it.”  The ‘and we do like her’ was also left hanging, but he felt it was well understood at this point. 

            “Eh, true enough.  The Accorded Nations standing as a power in their own right is the end goal, and that’s… synonymous, I think.” 

            He’d guessed as much at this point, but it was nice of him to drop another clue.  Real friendly-like.  “Then we can sort it out later,” he assured.  “I’m not here on business anyway.  Where’s Razo?” 

            The door opened behind him, and Jovi turned in time to see Cassidy grinning at Razo, one hand still raised to knock.  His long hair was halfway dried, but still wet enough to make it clear he was fresh from the shower.  “Really, Kansas?” 

            “Have to get my kicks somehow,” the captain replied drolly.  “At least until the regular program comes back on.” 

            “Promises, promises,” Dave argued, grinning.  “I’ve been here an hour, and nothing yet.  Maybe he doesn’t care.” 

            About to open his mouth to ask, Jovi paused as Relena came around the corner, a smirk on her lips as she settled her hands on either hip.  “If he doesn’t, it will be a welcome show of restraint that he has thus far lacked,” she announced.  Shaking her head, she dusted imaginary lint off her skirt and strode over to offer him a hand.  “Always a pleasure, Jovi.  Is this a social visit, or does something need my attention?” 

            “Purely social,” he assured as he shook, appreciating her forthright nature.  “How tight of a leash are your borrowed men on tonight?” 

            She grimaced as she took a step back for sake of propriety.  “Technically they have the run of the town, but I would appreciate it if no one went too far just yet.  Everyone is still settling into the new peace.”  She shrugged one shoulder.  “I was hoping we might take advantage of the facilities and have drinks and dinner at the restaurant here this evening.  It will help smooth things over that little bit further – and you’re more than welcome to join, Jovi.  But if not here, I would prefer you hold off on being seen with them in public until at least tomorrow, ideally Friday or later.” 

            He only thought about the implications for a moment.  “Dinner here sounds great.”  Ardith had mentioned Prisbrey gushing about this place when she found out Mitchell’s invitation to the press section included room and board, and people noticing him at the same table as Mitchell and the princess would only do good things for Rubato’s reputation, both now and after shit hit the fan. 

            Besides, he was leaving town on Thursday.  Maybe he’d be back before the negotiations got sorted, but he might as well take what he could get in the meantime.  The future was never a guarantee. 

            Relena’s lady major came back around the same corner Relena and Dave had, interestingly not in uniform, followed quickly by Major Sobrie, who pointedly was.  Any mystery he wanted to ponder there was quickly solved as Mailin wrapped a possessive arm around Dave’s back, and… right, that was a thing, wasn’t it?  Or at least, it had been… but he’d thought it was a one-off?  Which, whatever, but… 

            He focused on Relena.  “Won’t that imply more friendliness between your factions than you want to have come across for the past few months?” 

            Mai answered instead.  “It might, but I’m a known harlot,” she informed him brightly, grinning and leaning back when Dave dropped his face to her neck, giving him better access.  “And in the meantime, this rumor will give him some protection from worse.”  Then she laughed and slapped playfully at her date, twisting away.  “Dinner first!” 

            “That’s a first,” Lin announced, looking dryly amused. 

            “I have to spice it up and keep people on their toes somehow.” 

            Still feeling like he was missing something, Jovi pointedly met Relena’s eyes.  “Rumors?” 

            The look she gave him was mildly exasperated.  “Dorothy.” 

            Oh, right.  He had heard something about the Romefeller Heiress being knocked up this afternoon, but honestly hadn’t cared.  “That’s an issue?” 

            “I’m fairly certain people are going to try and make it one,” she agreed.  “I would love it if they didn’t, but nearly every man with easy access to her last fall is going to fall under suspicion, at least until they realize she used to party till sunrise for four or more nights week.  I can protect my household well enough and she’ll handle hers, but David is in limbo.  Despite the dates not matching, people are stupid and might try to imply one of his visits lines up, especially since he took furlough without notice a few times.”  She rolled her eyes.  “An accusation wouldn’t hold water if someone tried to pull it apart, but I’d rather avoid the drama, and Mai decided she wasn’t getting enough attention.” 

            He blinked.  “Last fall?”  He’d assumed-

            “She is almost eight months along, yes,” Relena agreed, her smile in place, but tone flattening into something closer to irritation.  “I found out right before my little meltdown in France.  It should be noted that Dorothy will do as she likes, when she likes, without much thought to anyone’s opinion on it.”  She sighed.  “And she is not coming out tonight for the same reason Mai is putting on her show.” 

            “If it’s a show, I get to charge!” 

            “Save it for the bedroom, major,” Relena snapped back, eyes narrowed… at least until she rolled them.  “Or at least David’s suite, but warn people before you start shit this time.” 

            Jovi raised his brows.  Not that he minded, but usually the princess was a little more prim and proper than this, at least in front of him.  He didn’t think he’d ever heard her curse. 

            He couldn’t help himself.  “This time?” 

            The glint in Relena’s eyes was deeply amused, even as the rest of her expression read exasperation.  “Strip poker.  In the dining room.” 

            “That was Dorothy,” Mai immediately argued.  “I just helped it along.” 

            “You turned porn on in the movie theater and set up a camera before bolting to see who would show.” 

            “The numbers were honestly lower than I anticipated.” 

            “I-” 

            “I promise to not embarrass you in public,” Mai interrupted, using one finger to cross her heart.  “I’ll be a perfect lady tonight, and keep it behind closed doors.”  She shrugged.  “The house is different and you know it.” 

            Relena let out a soft breath, but she was smiling as she nodded.  “It is, but I appreciate the oath.” 

            “We’re still waiting,” Cassidy announced in a bored tone.  “For night shift, if nothing else.” 

            “The reservations are for fifteen minutes out,” Relena continued.  “If he keeps it together for another ten minutes, I’ll leave my phone behind and deal with any fallout afterwards.”  She frowned, leaning back on one heel to call around the corner.  “Hayden?  Could you let the restaurant know we added one to our party?  They said they were using the largest table already and asked if I needed more spots, it shouldn’t be any trouble, but-” 

            “I got it,” someone, presumably Hayden, called back. 

            Hmm.  He didn’t think he’d ever met that one.  Or any of the night shift, actually, and probably half the day, so…  Eh.  There had to be a decently large pool if everyone wanted to sleep and take vacation. 

            “How’s your version of heroing been, then?” Razo asked as he came to stand by him.  “Mine’s getting old.” 

            Despite this being a recurring conversation for them over the last several phone calls before the Strike Force cut communications, Jovi’s mind immediately flew back to Odin, and he grimaced.  “Certainly better than some.” 

            Razo, unsurprisingly, didn’t miss a beat.  “The Yuy thing is chewing on you?”  He didn’t sound surprised, exactly, but… well, except the part where he did?  “I thought Rubato had their hands all over that.” 

            Jovi grimaced again, but… eh, if someone was eavesdropping, he’d implied enough of a relation already that he wouldn’t face recompense for confirmation.  “Him telling us to milk it doesn’t make me like the process,” he explained.  “There’s a reason I turned down interviews about my time in Africa, and he likes his business shared even less than I do.  It doesn’t matter how much utility we’re making of it now – that’s just about damage control.  If he’d had any say before it got blasted over the internet, it would’ve stayed buried.” 

            “He is well, though?” 

            Damn it.  He’d known better, and this was fine, but he still steeled himself before meeting Relena’s gaze again.  “I haven’t seen him in months,” he temporized.  “But I was in the room when Luke called him for his stance on how to handle the spin on Abadie’s article, and he basically told us that our panic over old news was not his problem before giving us a blank check to ‘make it worth something’ and hanging up.”  He rolled his eyes.  “He’s hard to read in person let alone over an audio-only line, so I don’t really know, but he at least says he’s fine.”  He’d see for himself tomorrow, or Friday at the latest, but he certainly wasn’t going to spill the beans on that. 

            All the same, he and Relena’s people had been carefully tiptoeing around the fact that he was in contact for the last week, and it had been a likely suggestion before that, as soon as Odin owned up to their involvement in the Bianchi business – back in January.  Openly admitting the connection would win him some favor to earn intel back with, and the only downside was that they might try asking questions he would have to refuse to answer.  Relena, at least in this small of a group, was not interested in hanging him out to dry for the sake of a rumor he could easily lie about.  With a mixed audience he was less sure about how she might triage, but here… 

            Damn it all, but he was trying to build a bridge – and if she did turn around and try to fuck him over, they had the foundations down for going public.  Soon, it wouldn’t matter if she blew the whistle or they pulled back the curtain.  At the very least, this media extravaganza shit on Odin has been helpful on that front.  They were spinning him up into a larger than life hero instead of letting everyone keep him purely in martyr territory, and riding on that momentum was going to make the rest of their campaign a lot easier. 

            He sighed.  “I stand by everything I’ve pushed publicly and I do consider him a friend, but no one would be happy about having their dirty laundry outed like that, even when none of the blame falls on him.  We’re making the best of a poor situation.” 

            Thankfully, instead of pressing, she only stared at him hard for a long moment as if trying to decide if he was being truthful – then nodded and let out a sigh.  “I don’t know that this makes anything better or worse,” she admitted, “but technically the secret was outed nearly two years ago, when the Barton Foundation dumped Dekim’s personal files into the Regime’s database as part of their recompense for his coup attempt.  As I understand it, the files were poorly organized and not well-marked, but…”  She gave a tired sort of shrug.  “Anyone who found the back door into the mainframe could have read them.  There is evidence that the majority of the intel in that database was farmed by multiple parties before the hole was found – copies therefore existed in multiple places even before someone was crass enough to blast it over social media.” 

            Which means it was always a matter of how and when, not if.  Jovi closed his eyes, debating… then shook his head.  Not my problem.  “I don’t know if that’s better or worse either, but I’ll pass it along the grapevine.”  Otherwise, the implication…  “You already knew.”  It wasn’t a question. 

            The smile she offered him was distinctly melancholy.  “My head of intelligence gave me the rough shape of it in January, around the same time he realized Heavyarms now has multiple pilots – right before pointing out that statistics suggest Heero Yuy was in control when my brother tried to pick a fight with China by attacking the Insurgence’s Sudanese base.”  Her mouth flattened.  “It made a number of events during the war make more sense, even as they hurt all the deeper.” 

            …Oh boy.  He made sure to keep his breathing steady, and only offered a wry smile.  “Does your brother know he faced Yuy in Sudan?”  He’d seen the mech forums that kept the gundam statistics under a sticky with a running compare and contrast after Adam had suggested playing around on them.  They were old and a bit buried, but he knew what she was probably referencing, and there wasn’t much point in denying it.  Relena already knew he was connected to the Insurgence. 

            A wry curl touched the corner of Relena’s mouth as she tipped her head to the side thoughtfully.  “Oh, I suppose he might have noticed?  But then again, maybe not – I’ve made a habit of stealing his more intelligent staff.  I haven’t bothered trying to tell him how to do his job in some time now.” 

            “I distinctly remember you telling him how to mitigate the Italian fallout,” Cassidy pointed out dryly. 

            “I was in the middle of goading him into letting me lay claim to an independent army,” she returned, tone shifting to something distinctly sardonic.  “Besides, all I said was for him to keep letting it fall on Lee, which he was going to do anyway.  He only listens to me when I feed his ego first.” 

            “He listened well enough last week,” Mai offered. 

            Relena gave Jovi a long-suffering look.  “He only listens to me when I feed his ego or screech like a banshee,” she amended.  “It’s a balancing act I’m not particularly fond of, but have nevertheless been forced to navigate.”  She shrugged again.  “And in any case, the results are still minimal enough that he barely affords me any breathing room.  I have my independence in large part because the man thinks I’m busy playing up an international country club – I intend to have the Accords on solid foundations by the time it sinks through his skull that I’m not coming back.  I’m done trying to plug holes in his sinking ship.” 

            Mm.  Despite managing to not outright say anything discreetly treasonous that could be quoted against her?  That little tirade, complete with the snippets from the Guard, painted an interesting picture.  A pleasant one, truthfully, though he wasn’t sure how far he should trust it.  So he’d leave that for now, let it ferment in his mind so he could poke holes in it later, and take advantage of the mood for a few clarifications of his own.  “How long have you known about the hole in the Regime’s mainframe security?” 

            She didn’t even hesitate, though her smile turned conspiratorial.  “I only found out when the Regime did, last November – but the hacker who placed it in February of 196 found the resulting hullabaloo downright hysterical.  He was a mole that built it as a ‘fuck you’ to my brother and a red herring against Treize loyalists that had access to alternate routes of information trade, and had assumed someone found and quietly patched it up within a few months of its creation.” 

            Now that information, if true, was more than worth anything he’d let slip today.  “One of Treize’s huh?” 

            That smile, while still conspiratorial, gained an edge.  “You already knew I stole people from Treize as well as my brother.”  Her tone, if anything, was admonishing.  “I may share a number of dreams with my allies, but I’m far from the only one that takes issue with the methods Khushrenada has shown a preference for.  While I understand that they may have been necessary in the past, the point of these last few years has been to make something better, and he has habits that need curbing.  A significant part of his acceptance into the Soleil triad were a series of checks and balances on his behavior – and while I am hopeful, we are still waiting to see if they hold water.  Quite a number of people are done giving him significant power over their lives.” 

            “That’s probably the nicest way I’ve heard anyone say it,” Dave announced, coming over to stand between her and Razo.  “He screwed the pooch as many times as he stood victorious during the war, and I kept with him after mostly due to a lack of better options.”  He shrugged.  “Prisbrey laid out my perspective remarkably well for someone who’d never actually met me.” 

            “Except for the part where you told Treize to go fuck himself?” Jovi pointed out.  Because they’d as good as told Jack and Odin that there were friendly auspices there. 

            “I mean, I politely told him to go fuck himself?  I can be friends with a guy without kowtowing to him.  He needs someone to tell him to go sit on his thumb when he’s taken a wrong turn.  Jake deserted in 191 so he could do it without fear of repercussion when he disagreed with something his Excellency wanted done, and they still hiss and spit at each other like cats over where lines should be drawn.  There’s a good reason Jake ghosted everyone for the first six months of the war – I only found out why last Christmas and I’m still pissed, so, you know.  Problems.” 

            Jovi raised his brows, entirely unsure of what to do with that.  There were a lot of interesting facts buried in those statements he would like to take the time to tease out, but he didn’t want to misstep in what was beginning to look like a quagmire.  Build a bridge, he reminded himself.  Drop the Treize issue until I can get Quatre’s take on it.  Whether or not their claims were accurate, it would go a long way towards explaining how and why the Winner women had gotten mixed up with Khushrenada.  At least in part – his friend had made a few only half-joking comments that the Soleil situation might be as simple as him gaining a new brother-in-law, which… well, that was a lazy sort of solution that they wouldn’t get any evidence for or against at this stage, so they mostly just kept it on a shelf. 

            Either he’d hesitated too long or Relena was just feeling chatty.  “For what it’s worth, I also consider Heero a friend.  I’m not asking for any kind of trust I have yet to earn, but…  I was happy to take his actions in Sudan last summer as a proof of life.  At this point, the only one of the five we have no confirmation on is Quatre.” 

            Oh, and isn’t that a beautifully leading hook of a statement?  He gave her his best smile, more than entertained enough to make it true even as adrenaline shivered under his skin.  He was not commenting on that, because literally any answer would lead straight into a trap he was not prepared for – though he felt like he should maybe go shake Adam and see what relevant facts fell out of his pockets like loose change.  Because damn it all, while Adam had a face that blended into most crowds, OZ had never lost his recruitment photo and he kept pretending like that wasn’t a problem. 

            “I haven’t seen or heard from Trowa since 197,” Dave admitted, almost as if he could hear his thoughts.  “It was only a chance meeting in the first place, and while he technically left a line of contact open, the domain on the email he gave me expired before the year was out, and he never reestablished contact again.”  He shrugged.  “Given the Heavyarms situation and the way Po has steered clear of anything vaguely smelling of Treize, we assumed he stopped freelancing and was never going to reach back again.” 

            Jovi just kept smiling – because while he understood the logic, he was doing his damndest to not laugh out loud.  The very concept of Adam settling down and following someone else’s rules was fucking hilarious.  Though at least this bit of intel about contacting Treize was old enough to be mostly obsolete, and would hopefully give Mark less of a hernia when he passed it along. 

            Thankfully, before they could tempt him with some other leading tasty tidbit or he had to say something like ‘no comment,’ Relena’s cell phone started to ring. 

            Everyone’s stance immediately changed, tipping in her direction as she fished it out of her purse and eyed the screen with pursed lips.  “I’ll need a moment,” she announced, turning away from them and wrapping one arm around herself as she tapped the connect.  “Hello, Brother.  I trust you’re well?” 

            It was muffled and slightly garbled, but Jovi still managed to make out part of the man’s sneering response.  “-ry to tell me you had no idea?” 

            Relena’s hand dropped down to her hip, feet planted in a posture that men everywhere knew was best to avoid.  “Thank-you, I’m doing very well indeed.”  She started walking away, towards the rest of the suite behind that corner.  “My knowledge has very little to do with her choices – I should think you might remember that from when she still worked for you.” 

            Jovi blinked and otherwise managed to not visibly start when Cassidy opened the doors again for a group of men in black Regime uniforms to file in, chattering easily with each other.  Night shift, right.  All new faces to him. 

            “That mode of thought is both severely outdated and irrelevant, and the fact that you brought it up makes me a little ashamed for you, if I’m honest.” 

            Dave chuckled, low and deep in his throat with one hand over his mouth to muffle the noise – Relena spun around and pointed at him with a warning look belied by the smirk she wore. 

            Jovi found himself smirking too, crossing his arms and settling his weight back on his heels.  The dynamic on each of his visits before had been tight and informal, often a bit teasing, but never so playful as he was seeing today.  And it wasn’t a one-off or directed to a specific person – this was just… them being more relaxed in front of him.  Maybe Mitchell being present helped shape it into this, but… 

            This wasn’t just a group of people who worked together – they were all friends.  Maybe not full equals, but this wasn’t unlike the Rubato guys hanging out while waiting for something to start. 

            It was relieving, even as it failed to surprise him – whether because he’d already known what lay beneath the veneer they allowed him to see, or at seeing it in the first place. 

            Relena had gone back to the corner and was now standing on the border, leaning in like she was gesturing to someone.  And he heard her voice but didn’t make out the words as Cassidy nudged him with an elbow.  “Don’t suppose you know if Jack is back in town yet?” 

            Right, because that was the other end of the confusion over Jake Miller.  “He either is or will be soon, but I’m pretty sure he’s jet-lagged,” he offered.  And babysitting.  Not that Audi strictly needed someone watching over her at all times, but there had been some level of drama between Quatre and Odin over the phone about that.  Jovi had never really thought about how the kid didn’t go anywhere unless it was with a select set of people, but apparently Jack had recently made the list and Quatre was even more exasperated than usual.  “I don’t keep close track of Da Capo assignments,” he pointed out.  “I don’t know when he’s next expected to ship out.”  Technically he’d been on something like family emergency leave for the past week anyway, but that was a bunch of HR talk that Raphael handled, not him. 

            And technically, both of the man’s sons had been going through serious crises, so accidentally or not, Jack had fully covered his bases on that one? 

            Then he frowned.  “You have his number,” he pointed out, starting to feel weird about the question. 

            Cassidy made some weird gesture with both hands which… was surprising to not recognize, because really, Quatre’s version of hand-talk was extensive as hell.  “The Millers are awkward, and they’re trying to do better but are both bad at it.  Jake texted a few times, then decided he was being a needy nuisance because he’s cooped up in a hospital bed and can’t sprint a few miles to wear down his anxiety, so I thought I’d circle around and try some damage control.  I thought I might poke at the old man, but while that’s helpful if he’s nearby and can come visit, it’ll just make him feel shitty if he’s far off with bad reception.” 

            That… was actually a little sweet. 

            Dave made a thoughtful noise, even as he grimaced.  “Jake’s always more morose on medical leave,” he agreed.  “Are they at least letting him pace?” 

            “Not since they realized he was hiding how much it hurt,” Lin negated, shaking his head.  “It was a complex enough break that they’re worried he’ll pop the new seams holding all the pieces of his shoulder blade together if he moves too much, and he can’t have surgery again unless his levels drop significantly.  So he’s back on bedrest.” 

            Having recently read a ton about Remalene treatment as an attempt to get his head back on straight after going through Odin’s torture file… that sounded brutal.  Not that he was surprised; the specifics hadn’t been released on the extent of either Noventa or the younger Miller’s injuries, but he’d seen the footage.  That, and today made a week that the man had been in the ICU, which implied worse. 

            They tended to get all cagey when he tried to broach the subject of the retired colonel, and the man himself had avoided him on enough of his visits that he didn’t think he’d be welcome in a hospital room.  Still, he was opening his mouth to ask about just how bad it was when Relena’s sharp laugh cut him off. 

            “That’s why you felt the need to call?  Are you sure?  I’ll give you one chance to backpedal, Milliardo.  I understand that it’s early there.” 

            Her voice was just as sharp as the laugh, vicious in a way he’d only seen that day in France when she tore into Minister Merriweather, but far stronger; she wasn’t chasing the edge of a collapse today.  Peripherally, he noticed the attention of everyone else in the room shifting the same way, drawn to a single point – it was in moments like these that you could feel that magnetic pull the princess carried, the same as anyone who had ever seen Treize at a speech described.  Even if he’d had no interest in what was going on, his attention would have snapped her way. 

            He saw the flare of her skirt as she pivoted, mostly out of view but still just barely around the corner, not truly trying for privacy.  “Milliardo,” she crooned, sugary sweet and venom rolled into one.  “If that was why, rest assured – I wouldn’t have bothered with an engagement while I waited for you to get your head out of your ass.  I would have married him, then sent you an announcement.  No.” 

            Mai let out a quiet but entirely delighted cackle, while Lin pressed a hand over his eyes and one of the night guardsman groaned out, “He didn’t.” 

            Jovi was pretty damn sure the prince had asked if she was pregnant, though.  She’d mentioned the man wasn’t happy about the match, but if he was grabbing at that kind of straw?  “I didn’t realize it was this bad,” he found himself muttering. 

            “This is actually pretty tame,” Cassidy informed him nonchalantly, hands in his pockets. 

            “No one’s screaming at each other yet,” Mai agreed cheerfully. 

            “No,” Relena decided, in answer to something none of them could hear.  “I’m not, but I’m also done with this conversation.  I stand by what I said before.  Goodbye, Milliardo.”  A moment later she was striding back into view, spots of color high on her cheeks but otherwise appearing unaffected as she held out her phone to the captain that had come in with night shift.  “If he calls back, mute it – I don’t want to risk him making a scene at dinner.  If we weren’t always at risk for an emergency, I’d turn it off altogether.” 

            “You got it,” the man returned, thinking for a moment before holding it out for the lieutenant that had followed him in.  “Boonen, you heard the lady, yes?  I’m on point tonight.” 

            “Yes sir.” 

            “We’re a little early, but I say we head down now,” Relena announced, picking an elegant sweater that matched the rest of her outfit up off an armchair and pulling it on.  “I feel a need to stop at the bar and walk around sipping something obviously alcoholic before I have to field any more stupid questions.” 

            That would kill two birds with one stone, Jovi realized, a grin creeping back up… and joined the crowd as they bustled out. 

-

***

-

Canada

            “Am I good or am I good?” Hilde demanded, crossing her arms.  “Not even two full days in and we’re hitting paydirt.  You should’ve waited for me to even start.” 

            “So you could have scouted all the same areas I still would have hit first and gotten despondent?” Adam returned dryly, uploading the changes Hilde had mapped to the main display… and grimacing.  “Eh.  We need to circle around.” 

            She narrowed her eyes at him.  “If we have a diameter, why waste the time?  Just do the math.” 

            “You’re showing your roots,” he argued.  “Math isn’t always the answer.” 

            “And what are you, immune to spaceborn foibles?” 

            “I’m mostly sure I didn’t go to space until the nineties,” he returned.  Not that he really remembered enough to claim either origin, honestly, but at least for this, he knew he was right.  “A hot spot could be a live plant, but alternately?  We were just at a hot spring.” 

            That made her pause.  “You think we’re on a volcano?” 

            …He had literally never gone to school, why did he know more about geology than her?  Did they just… class that as nonrelevant information for the spaceborn?  “Almost half of this continent has some variant of volcano.  Where did you think mountains came from?”  She just stared at him – and actually, that wasn’t relevant, so after covering his face with one hand for a moment, he tried again.  “The Fall was so bad as it was because it set off a couple volcanos in the ring of fire, and however dormant people say they are, volcanos set each other off.  There was a psychotic chain reaction happening through Asia and both Americas for months.  Theoretically, that should be over with.  But no, you never know when they’re going to wake up.”  He shrugged.  “And an early sign, at least with all this ice, might be that an area is getting a little too warm.” 

            “…And people willingly live near these things.” 

            He rolled his eyes, gesturing out the windshield at the snow.  “Not here.” 

            “No, but, like, in general?” 

            “…It is literally part of how land is made, so yes.”  And there were the underwater ones too, but he didn’t think pointing that out that was going to help head her off on whatever issue she’d struck now. 

            Hilde was still giving him a narrow-eyed look.  “The earthborn are fucking crazy.” 

            …Yeah, there was nothing he could do with that.  After all, they were… but so was everyone else? 

            Taking a deep breath, he opted to sidestep the issue rather than agree.  “It’s tedious, but our best bet is to map out the border of the hot zone and see what that tells us, then scout inwards from there.”  He grimaced.  “But the need to keep an eye out for surveillance is stronger than ever, so it’s not going to be as fast.”  If this was a plant and they tripped some kind of security net, they were so isolated that he wasn’t entirely sure they would make it out. 

            Hilde considered the map, them grimaced and nodded.  “Slow and steady it is, then.” 

-

***

-

April 30^th 199 – Thursday – Berlin, Germany – The Berlin House

            Marie rubbed at her eyes.  “You really think so?” 

            Anne, warm and calm as ever, rubbed her shoulder as she nodded, pushing the box of tissues closer.  “Your mother certainly believed it, and she’s our expert on these things.  All we have is a lack of information; I would defer to her judgement.  If the Regime knew their information network was compromised, it would make sense if they were careful about handling such a valuable hostage.” 

            “But Odin-” 

            “Odin handles loss by finding ways to move on in spite of it and refusing to lean back, because he can’t afford the pain if he wants to stay on his feet,” Anne argued.  “It makes him resilient as hell, but it’s a loner mindset that doesn’t really suit his lifestyle anymore.  He’s jumping to conclusions because he can’t find a way to fix the problem, so he classed it as ‘unfixable’ – especially since she forbade him from even attempting, and he feels bound by that promise.  Your mom is the pro on the political arrangement here, so I say we trust her expertise.  Until we have proof otherwise, she’s alive but under lock and key.  The fact that no one countered the Board saying she died in 194 when they responded to the retraining article is particularly promising, in my opinion.  If she was no longer useful, the Regime could have thrown egg on the Foundation’s face for lying, because we know they have proof that she faked her death.  If she was actually dead, they could have released something about it with whatever narrative they wanted, to put a better collar on the Board.” 

            Marie sniffed, made a face, and grabbed a few tissues to wipe her nose.  “I guess that makes sense.” 

            Anne gave her a wryly amused look.  “Odin is the last person you should rely on for political acumen.” 

            She groaned at that because oh my God, wasn’t that the truth… and sighed.  Or tried to, at least, because it made her half choke and then spend a while blowing her nose… 

            Crying sucked.  Maybe it was healing or relieving or whatever, she did usually feel better after, but she still hated doing it. 

            Anne didn’t push her to talk, or act bored or fidget with her things while Marie gathered her thoughts, which was nice.  She felt a little unsure, but…  Well, Anne and the rest of the Sronas did know, and she felt a bit silly for forgetting she did have someone other than Odin to talk to about her mom.  Like, technically there was Adam too, but he’d never met her mom, and…  Adam was more of a ‘do things’ person than a talker. 

            So it felt kinda bratty so say it, but…  Odin and Anne both said that you shouldn’t apologize for feelings, and that sometimes they made no sense.  “I just feel like there’s nobody other than him to talk to about any of this,” she admitted. 

            Instead of looking annoyed or offended, Moira’s daughter just nodded thoughtfully.  “Well, we disproved that at least a bit today – but I know we’re not close.  You can always reach out to me, but you might want to consider telling someone else.” 

            She… hadn’t gotten around to talking to Odin about that yet.  She’d meant to, but after their fight in the hangar, he’d been… different.  Not as sad, but… spacey in a way he hadn’t really been since they first met – like, the mental version of someone being overwhelmed and not knowing what to do with their hands.  And he’d been so upset when Adam recognized her, even though he was literally one of his best friends… 

            “Odin says that the more people who know, the more likely it is to get out,” she explained dully, recalling his explanation when she’d asked about his reaction when they first went to the circus. 

            Anne nodded thoughtfully.  “That’s true,” she acknowledged.  “But there’s a certain danger involved in them not knowing enough to shield or protect you if it came down to it too.” 

            Marie frowned, turning that over.  “I guess.”  But since no one but Adam had recognized her since before they found her mom… not the best argument for convincing her brother. 

            “Also, it’s your life, and sometimes quality of life depends on a little bit of risk.  I’m not suggesting you shout it from the mountaintops, and if accidental exposure is a concern, by all means, don’t tell Rubato as a whole – that’s a lot of moving parts.  But what would be the downside of, say, Quatre knowing?  He’s everyone’s secret keeper these days – there’s no way he’s going to slip up.”  She shrugged a little.  “I don’t know if Duo would appreciate knowing more secrets than absolutely necessary, he gets anxious about that sort of thing, but why not Lu?”  Letting out a short chuckle, Anne admitted, “To be perfectly honest, I thought Quatre and Lu did know.  The two of them are both of your closest confidants, and I don’t understand why it hasn’t been brought up.” 

            Marie bit at her lip, because Anne wasn’t wrong, exactly, but…  “Odin only found out about the empathy after he looked up his fingerprints, and tries to not put more on Cat’s shoulders than he has to,” she explained.  “Like… he feels really bad about some of the things he put him through after the Fall, and he doesn’t avoid him over it, but… he mitigates, I guess?”  She made a face.  “Though some of that is probably also because Cat was all ‘We need to avoid this Jake Miller person until we know more’ and then Odin, like… decided to not mention when he started talking to him.  I completely get why, Quatre can get bossy and he tries to control everything if you let him, and it’s Odin’s family, so not really his business, but, like… I feel like this one is going to explode in our faces a little.” 

            Anne raised her eyebrows.  “Okay, I’m going to bring that one up with him too, but did you notice how much of what you just said relates to you?”  When Marie hesitated, she continued.  “We’re talking about your life and your family.  If you decide to tell someone, even if he gets frustrated about it, Odin can’t exactly call you out.  He is literally doing the exact same thing.” 

            That… was true.  Huh.  At the same time, though?  “What about the exploding in my face part?” 

            “A life with no risk at all is worth very little,” Anne told her, sounding as if she was quoting something.  “Every interaction with another person requires a leap of faith.  All we can do is stack the odds in our favor and plan for the possible fallout.  Choosing to never jump will see you stagnate in misery, and then eventually you’ll jump anyway out of desperation with no planning whatsoever.  It’s better to be smart about it.” 

            Huh.  As crazy as that sounded, it also… made sense? 

            “What’s his excuse for the love of his life?” Anne asked in a droll voice. 

            Marie grinned at that, thinking… and coming up blank.  “I think he’s just decided he’s never telling anyone,” she decided.  “That, and they get… distracted.”  She found herself blushing a little, but mostly rolling her eyes. 

            Like… sex was a thing people did.  And she figured it was going to be a thing she would be interested in eventually.  But while she was happy that Odin was happy, she didn’t really get it.  And was mostly glad?  Because while her mom had always made it clear she had no regrets, having a baby at fourteen sounded horrible.  So just… no. 

            Also, the whole process sounded gross, so the feelings leading up to the act were going to have to be pretty freaking spectacular to make her even go near it.  Just… ew. 

            Anne just smirked, shaking her head almost indulgently.  “They certainly do.  Mm.”  Then she shrugged.  “My take-home here is that the ball is in your court – and whether you want to ask permission or forgiveness, I don’t see a problem occurring.  Just take your time to be sure you feel comfortable with it first.”  Then her eyes narrowed.  “Though I strongly recommend easing up on how much you use Jack as a lever – I don’t know if you realize just how hard that is on them.” 

            “They’re doing way better,” she protested. 

            “Yes, but you gambled and they’re a bit raw for it.  I’m not saying don’t, just to give them a chance to cool down a bit.” 

            Okay, that was probably fair, what with the whole… 

            Suddenly the tears were back, and her next breath shuddered.  “I can’t believe he thought it was his fault,” she gasped. 

            Anne slumped a little, looking tired.  “The one thing he’s had control of in his life is himself, and he copes through affirmation.  When they took even that away, he had to rationalize it somehow or break irreparably.  It’s more common than you think.” 

            “It sucks,” she half-sobbed, scrubbing at her eyes again. 

            “Yeah, it does.”  Anne reached out again, rubbing a soothing palm over her back.  “But he’s already circling it; he’ll get there.  Don’t try and force it now that he’s picked up his feet again.  It’s a process.” 

            Marie just nodded, pressing her hands to her eyes and trying to steady out her breathing… partly because she was really sick of crying, but also because Quatre was supposed to come in soon.  And she wasn’t ever going to try and suppress all her feelings down for an empath, but she didn’t need to be rude either. 

            It was one thing if she was legit upset and needed help.  Quatre liked helping.  But there wasn’t anything left to try and fix.  This was just… aftershocks. 

            Again, Anne waited until she had a decent grip on herself, just being patient and present, and it helped her feel like less like a baby throwing a tantrum by the time she was okay again.  Then, instead of commenting on it or offering another consolation, she changed the subject.  “Are you set for the weekend, or do you still need to throw a few things in a bag?” 

            Marie sniffed one last time, grabbing a tissue to wipe at her face and grimacing at how little it helped.  Ugh.  Gross.  “I’m good,” she assured, gesturing to the bags waiting by the door.  It was more than what they’d traveled with before striking rich, but not by much – the biggest difference was that Odin’s bag wasn’t a standard duffle anymore, to account for the suits.  And she had ended up getting a dress too when she and Lu went shopping, so that was in the garment portion of his case to keep it from wrinkling too much.  Sitting up straighter, she stared up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to get a full handle on herself, before meeting the woman’s eyes.  “You’re coming too, right?” 

            “Yep.  Matt’s dropping our little monster with my folks right around now, and he’ll meet us there.  Then when the weekend’s up, we’re going back to our normal lives in Essen.  But I’m only a call away, alright?  Or you can always come visit, with or without Odin.”  She clasped her shoulder again.  “Odin isn’t the only one who forgets he has a support network, you know?”  She grinned.  “I know all these boys have their flashy ways, but seriously, a little bit of normal can be nice sometimes too.”  When Marie only laughed and nodded, Anne stood.  “Come on, then.  Let’s get washed up before Quatre comes in and starts wondering what’s taking your brother so long.” 

            Marie groaned, but followed.  “Are we telling him?  Or making Odin handle his own mess?” 

            “I hadn’t decided,” Anne admitted cheerfully.  “If he really wanted to keep his best friend from finding out what he was up to, he’d be trying harder.  Let’s play it by ear and see what happens.” 

            Marie giggled a little, feeling a bit helpless but also…  “Give him a taste of his own medicine, you mean?” 

            “Either he’ll appreciate it at face value, or he’ll have to acknowledge why other people get frustrated with him,” Anne agreed.  “But either way, he’ll have earned it, mm?” 

            Marie couldn’t help but laugh harder, trying to rub the crust out of her eyes even as she followed her over to the bathroom.  Because that… was so true. 

-

***

-

Berlin, Germany – Hildegard Medical Center – Intensive Care Unit

            “Well, I suppose I’d better go get food,” David decided, standing up and stretching.  It might be a two hour recess from the talks, but he’d already burned thirty minutes of it.  “Any preferences?” 

            Jake snorted, reaching out and grabbing his arm.  “That you order it from here.  I haven’t seen you in months and I’m trapped besides.  If the hotel is even half as nice as you keep suggesting, I’m about ready to AMA and camp out in a recliner.” 

            David smirked and shook his head, sitting back down – sliding his arm loosely through his friend’s grip until they could clasp hands instead.  “You only have two more days,” he reminded him.  “They’re the experts for a reason.”  You’re still in the fucking ICU.  That goddamn vid of his best friend taking five rifle rounds was going to haunt him for years – only the fact that he’d rolled over and screamed afterwards had kept him from damning every security protocol they’d put in place and calling Relena directly.  “You can handle two more days.” 

            “I am locked in a glass box with strangers touching me every hour,” Jake growled.  “I have one arm strapped to my chest, I can’t feel my left side or my legs, and I am completely unarmed.  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this helpless.” 

            That… was valid, actually.  David grimaced.  Unfortunately, there was still a good reason he hadn’t been moved to a normal ward yet. 

            “At least at the hotel, I would have the Guard,” Jake continued.  “I wouldn’t be doing anything different.  At this point, I’d be willing to hire a nurse and stay in a damn wheelchair.  I still think the epidural was excessive, but I will concede it and stay immobilized if they will let me go.” 

            “Jake, not even I believe you’d stay in a damn chair,” he protested, squeezing his hand once to try and soften the blow of his words.  As secure a facility as Hildegard was, he completely understood the creeping anxiety about security, even before getting into the privacy issue – but there was a reason they’d settled on the limited measures they had in place.  Even injured, he was far less of a target than Relena – and technically, Jake was enough of a no-name that any midway security measures would draw the same level of attention as if Relena had officially set up camp here.  The local police had beefed up surveillance in the entire neighborhood and the hospital itself had bumped up to their highest alert level, but going further than that… 

            There was a certain safety in being a nobody, and the empath playing some sort of video game on the sleeper sofa by the window was a hell of an asset, especially since the nurses almost never seemed to see him.  If no one knew you were important, they didn’t plot against you.  And this… was probably one of the last times Jake was going to be able to hide in plain sight.  In some ways, it was a final boon before he shot his anonymity to hell. 

            “At least wait for the results from today’s tests before you start pushing to leave again,” he suggested.  “That’s the final factor on if you need another dose, right?  If the fragments are all fused and you can tolerate letting the epidural run dry, you can just get your blood checked until you’re clear of the toxicity.”  If the new joins in the bone were still flexible, he could end up needing to go back under the knife, and he might end up hospitalized for a month under worse conditions. 

            Personally, he’d stay put in the damn bed if he couldn’t have painkillers for a simple fracture.  But he’d seen Jake run on a broken leg before – then try to keep going despite getting two bullets in his gut after that.  As much as the asshole whined, he could be a fucking juggernaut when he got stubborn about something. 

            This really wasn’t something he needed to get stubborn about.  Unfortunately, considering the almost crazed look in the younger man’s eyes?  They were definitely heading in that direction. 

            Before he could think up another argument, he caught motion from the corner of his eye and turned.  Rhett had dropped his feet off the opposite end of his couch, handheld game system held limply in one hand as he sat up straight, eyes focused on the middle distance. 

            Dave’s stomach dropped.  “Stahl?”  Low risk wasn’t no risk, and he might have tipped the scales by coming here himself.  I should have brought back-up.  It was supposed to be a social call in full daylight, everyone knew he was friends with Jake and it shouldn’t have caused any ripples, but- 

            “Jack’s back,” Rhett announced, standing in a deeply relaxed, almost boneless sort of way, as if he was drugged. 

            Jake perked up, which was something of a miracle on its own, really.  “Cool.”  Then he looked at the empath and frowned.  “Rhett?” 

            “I need to go find someone,” he decided.  “I’ll wait until your dad’s here, I needed to say something, but… then…”  He tipped his head, staring at the wall like it held all the secrets of the universe.  “Maybe?” 

            Uh… huh.  He’d been warned that this guy was a bit weird, but this was pushing it.

            And yet Jake was smiling?  “That much of an impression, huh?” his friend asked, looking satisfied. 

            David frowned.  “Jake?” 

            “My dad said they might swing by after their errands, if they had time,” his friend explained.  He looked like he’d be vibrating if he had control of more of his body. 

            They.  His own heartrate picked up. 

            Obviously he’d never been half as invested in Junior as Jake, but he had spent a not insignificant amount of his life looking for him – first during that crazy year after he went missing, then intermittently since, when one or both of them stumbled across an idea that had a chance of bearing fruit.  Whether or not they got along, it would be gratifying to meet the guy at least once. 

            And from what they knew so far?  He might be really good company. 

            “Is he loud too?” Jake asked. 

            Rhett blinked once, then twice, before turning wide eyes on the colonel.  “What?” 

            Jake blinked back, then bit his lip.  “Are you okay?” 

            Rhett jerked his head to one side in a quick motion like he was trying to dislodge something, blinking again, before asking, “You ever stand on a beach and stare out at the ocean long enough to feel empty and small, but almost one with the universe?  And it’s not until you reach solid ground again that you realize you’re half deaf from the noise of the crashing surf?  But instead of worrying about it, all you want to do is go back?” 

            …That sounded deeply overwhelming. 

            Jake pulled his hand away – Dave hadn’t realized he was still holding it – to rub at his mouth thoughtfully.  “So… pinnacle Taoism, sort of thing?” 

            “That’s… not a bad way to put it,” Rhett decided.  “Except loud.  And that doesn’t cover the riptides or anything else lurking.  He’s as complex as anyone else, but it’s all under.”  He tipped his head, not unlike a dog trying to zero in on a specific sound.  “Though right now, that’s… excited, happy, maybe even exultant… a little apprehensive too, but…”  He focused back on Jake and grinned.  “If you’re a cell phone playing music on full blast right next to my ear, he’s like standing next to the biggest subwoofer at a concert – except it’s so much white noise that it cancels out to be virtually silent.  Wow.”  Then he started to laugh.  “That’s your brother?” 

            Jake just smiled, looking as thrilled as Rhett.  “I guess we’ll know in a few minutes.”  Then he shook his head.  “I’m still surprised you are okay with me.” 

            “Yeah, I’m really not sure what that’s about,” Rhett admitted.  “But I can’t do anything about the blacklisting beyond suggest that someone look into it.  They don’t listen to me – I’m far enough off standard that the community alternately treats me like a god or pariah, not a respectable reference.” 

            “That… sounds like an experience,” David decided, not really sure what to do with the statement. 

            Rhett just smirked.  “They care; they even get upset when I go off grid for too long.  But while everyone wants to know what I think, and some people try to follow my advice or even come learn from me sometimes?  Most space hearts think I’m crazy.  Though the fact that my little sister keeps a similar philosophy and is coming to terms with a less extreme lifestyle is making a lot of people reconsider it.” 

            David blinked.  “And what lifestyle is that?” 

            Rhett grinned.  “I am an emotional communist,” he announced proudly, his smile edged with arrogant pride.  “What’s yours is mine, I pay it back twofold, and you can’t stop me.”  He shrugged.  “I haven’t come across anyone unhappy with the arrangement so far.  I find what I like and mirror it back, and people are into it.” 

            He considered that.  “Seems reasonable.” 

            “Yeah, but the other space hearts get hung up on the idea that I let other people take the lead, as if I’m giving up my sense of self-agency.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Like choosing to go along isn’t a decision, seriously.  They can stay holed up in isolation if they want – I’d rather take what humanity has to offer instead of being scared away by the fact that no one’s perfect.  It’s less about trying to stay in your own head than it is about finding people you want to live with – and isn’t that the same goal as anyone?  The isolationists are miserable right up until they find their exception to orbit around, and we’re social enough just as a species that we all go looking for some kind of companionship eventually – even if it’s only from a dog.”  He shrugged.  “I just have a better feedback system than everyone else that lets me cheat and skip all the typical steps where I’m insecure about it.” 

            Huh.  “That sounds pretty cool, honestly.” 

            “Right?  They all just get hung up on getting hurt.  Like normal people don’t hurt each other all the time just as bad; the only difference is that they can do it to a space heart on accident, instead of in a relationship with consent.  Like, seriously, as much as I support the movement and awareness in general, I don’t know if the way they coddle people is really for the best.  Life hurts sometimes – you have to find ways to deal and move on.  I wish they focused half as much on that part as they did on promoting safe spaces.  Isolation is a stopgap, not a solution.” 

            “I think I’d get pretty hung up on the lack of consent,” Jake countered, grimacing.  “I mean, I know how messed up my head can be, even while I’m good at keeping people from realizing it.  There’s a reason I never tried to argue my case when I got blacklisted.” 

            Rhett eyed him for a long moment, then shook his head.  “I have no idea.  I’m not the best judge, but I’m not getting anything that would even put you on a yellow listing, let alone the orange you’ve got.  They’ll have the reasoning and descriptions tucked away somewhere, but they don’t give out that kind of personal information without permission or a major incident.”  At their looks of confusion, he grinned and offered, “Yeah, there’s a whole rating system.  Yellows are volatile hotspot types that have proven to be regular but intermittently problematic, but orange is the first instance where someone might take the steps you described – dangerous the majority of the time, but not malicious.  You might’ve just toned down from it.  Red implies crippling depression or sheer malevolence, but might pass by societal standards because some people have twisted brains but don’t follow through.” 

            Jake looked thoughtful.  “So the assassin was red?” 

            Rhett grimaced.  “No.  When people phase in and out of sheer malice and null without warning, that’s usually a result of military training – that or you’ve found a legit psycho.”  He scrunched his nose.  “It’s different.  A lot of cops and soldiers will come off  like they’re batshit during a dangerous situation because they ride the thrill of adrenaline in order to get by – but conversely, you’ll feel someone get pissed off and fall into an utterly murderous rage, only to handle it by beating up a punching bag or tearing somebody a new one in all caps on an internet forum.  We have no context for what they do with the emotions unless they’re standing in front of us, the same as anyone else. 

            “I thought we had a dangerous situation last week for three reasons: the setting was both political and controversial, I’m good with direction and distance, and I didn’t think anyone was supposed to be there.  By the time I was trying to get your attention, I’d run through a ton of scenarios and settled on the idea that what I was picking up was either a lady bodyguard that was deeply annoyed with what a coworker said over radio, since she was alone – or an assassin.  There was no downside if I alerted you to one of your own people in a mood, so I acted on it.”  He shrugged.  “I had enough real-life context to fill in the gaps. 

             “The fact is, we feel emotion, not intent, and we wouldn’t be people if we didn’t have internal drama.  Space hearts are not lie detectors, and we can’t tell the difference between a murderer flying into a rage and a woman who, in the moment, wants to strangle her husband but will never do it.  We can’t read thoughts.  Though the fact that our assassin felt righteously vindicated rage and was deeply satisfied is something I usually see from soldiers…”  He grimaced again.  “And also irritated employees doing some serious malicious compliance.  I didn’t know – I made an educated guess that turned out to be right.  We are members of a warring society that institutionally trains teenagers en masse to fall into certain mindsets in order to commit severe violence, which makes danger a serious possibility. In the end of the day, I’d rather be embarrassed over revealing someone filling their bully’s shampoo with glue than face the guilt of a ‘what if’ for the rest of my life. 

            “Anyway, everyone has outlier moods and moments – the classifications are meant to cover long-term status, the mental state people are in eighty percent or more of the time, not the variations.” 

            David raised a brow as he gave Jake a look.  “And you were depressed and blaming yourself for every bad thing that happened to you while convincing everyone around you nothing was wrong for the last decade.” 

            Rhett blinked, then raised his brows when Jake shrugged and looked away instead of refuting it.  “…Yeah, major depression with violent angles thrown in from your profession would get you an orange rating, if it lasted long enough.  And even if it was really bad, they don’t usually rate anyone under twenty as a red.”  Then he tipped his head, looking thoughtful.  “So, like… you met your girl and went and got happy?” 

            “Something like that,” Jake grumbled, still looking down. 

            “He was also blaming both himself and their dad for his brother’s death, and apparently he’s alive, which helps,” Dave added. 

            Rhett started to nod, then blinked a few times and narrowed his eyes.  “Wait, you said… how old were you when you got blacklisted, again?” 

            “Twelve.” 

            “…Huh.  You might be the youngest person to ever make the list.” 

            Jake sighed.  “Yeah, that was implied at the time.” 

            “Most twelve-year-olds don’t go on epic quests across space after spending a year doing black book investigations to root out corruption in the most powerful organization on Earth,” Dave pointed out wryly.  “Though we picked that back up again for a few years after giving up the chase.”  He had been eighteen when he and Jake started investigations, and had still been considered young for it.  No shortage of people who hadn’t actually known Treize’s young foster brother had thought it was some coded way to save face without losing rank while he got stuck babysitting the pre-teen.  

            Of course, none of them had had any idea how unstoppable the kid was, even at eleven. 

            He damn near jumped when a deep voice chimed in.  “I think I mostly stopped doing investigative work by twelve.  I stayed closer to home after that, with a few exceptions.” 

            Jake straightened up, grinning broadly.  “Yeah?” 

            The dark-haired twenty-something nodded as he came through the doorway, and that face…  Even if Dave hadn’t seen the picture from the day Senior died recently, he would’ve gotten some serious déjà vu from that mix of Asian and white on the backdrop of blue eyes.  While a lot of L1 was a hybrid of the two ethnicities, not many were combined so strikingly; Jake could mostly pass for white until he tanned or did something to accent the ever-so-slight cant to his eyes.  Jack showed their Greek blood the strongest, for all that he had enough Asian features to confuse anyone trying to codify him.  Meanwhile, despite looking a lot like his father, the jawline all three of them shared was about the only Greek that Junior had gotten.  Instead, it was like he'd somehow spliced together the best available features of their Finnish and Japanese lines near exclusively, until he looked like something that stepped off the screen of an anime. 

            Well, except for the height.  He looked like he was wearing boots with those jeans, and he was still short – five foot five at the most. 

            “Not about corruption, though,” Junior continued.  Then he tipped his head, mouth pursed.  “Not directly, at least.  More… problem-solving.  Finding people we took issue with who had things we needed, and deciding what to do about it.” 

            Jake blinked.  “Like…  Odin’s methods?” 

            Junior shrugged.  “A couple times, when the problems were particularly nasty.  It was left to my discretion.”  One shoulder came up in an awkward shrug.  “After a big business or arms dealer passes a certain peak of power, it’s pretty rare to not find drugs, sweatshops, and human trafficking.  Drugs on their own, I don’t really care, but they never happen in a vacuum, and…”  That shoulder came up in another shrug.  “Some things shouldn’t be walked away from.  So long as I accomplished what he sent me out for, my mentor left the method to me.”  Both shoulders came up this time, before the young man settled back on his heels, relaxing somewhat.  “By 192, we were more focused on advancing the tech than clearing out bad business or gathering materials.  I went out a few times those later years, but not nearly as much.” 

            Huh.  “So the Bianchi situation wasn’t all that far out of your field,” Dave summed up. 

            “It had been a while, but sure.”  Those sharp eyes fixed on him – darker than Jake’s dusky sapphire, but still just blue enough to never get described as anything else.  Twilight blue, came a whisper from an old art lesson.  “Mitchell, right?” 

            “I’ll answer to it,” he agreed.  Plenty of people straight up forgot it wasn’t his first name – but this was Jake’s brother, and therefore family.  He stood up and held out a hand.  “I prefer Dave, though.” 

            The returning handshake was firm.  “Odin.” 

            He supposed that was a directive to not call him Junior.  Nodding, he shifted to the side to wave a hello at Jack and free up the space closest to Jake…  

            Only to have the brothers stare at each other as if unsure what the next step was. 

            Damn it.  He cringed a little at Jack, slumping his shoulders in an attempt at commiseration, because at this rate one of them was going to have to- 

            “You brought it, right?” Jake demanded, an impish grin in place.  “How’d it turn out?” 

            Huh.  Maybe not. 

            Odin, for his part, smirked back and dug in his pocket for a small pouch.  “Just in time,” he agreed, handing it over for inspection. 

            Jack shifted a little restlessly, so David stepped back a few paces to look around, debating…  Huh.  He felt like he’d forgotten something.  The old man had tentatively stepped forward when he moved back, though, so Dave waved him in – he’d more or less figured that Jake’s brother would rather not have a stranger standing elbow to elbow with him.  He was curious about the details of the engagement, however, and Jake would’ve told him to get lost already if he didn’t want his company, so he made his way around to the opposite side of the bed, further from the windows. 

            The style of the ring Jake pulled out of the bag looked delicate in an almost ethereal way.  A triangular stone was set in such a way that it seemed to float, with sinuous lines of a bright chrome metal almost seeming to flow away from it – it was shiny enough that there might have been diamonds involved there, but he couldn’t be sure without getting up in Jake’s face.  The sides of the band were open and twisted against the rest into something reminiscent of but not quite an infinity symbol.  Very airy and minimal.  Nice.  About to make a compliment to that effect, he hesitated when his friend twisted it around and he realized the bottom of the ring was set with a thin rectangular diamond that also looked like it was held in place by magic instead of physics, which…  Wait, no, that didn’t make sense. 

            “This can’t be a dual tension setting,” Jake mumbled, sounding deeply distracted. 

            “The tanzanite has a unique mount,” Odin agreed, looking pleased.  “It’s just well hidden.  It’s a soft enough stone that she was able to drill it, then the follow-up treatment and nanocoating shored the stone’s integrity back up.  The palmar diamond is tension set, and the others are more traditional.” 

            “It came out even better than I imagined,” Jake mused, though… he looked a little troubled as he met Dave’s eyes?  All the same, his smile was genuine enough as he held it out for closer inspection.  “Can you see?” 

            He glanced at Odin to make sure it was okay before he took it to hold up to the sunlight streaming in.  Yes, there were tiny diamonds embedded along the upper part of the band, adding more texture along the swooping curves twisting fluidly away from the main stone.  But… he’d thought tanzanites were blue?  And this one looked mostly blue at first, but up close it was a vivid sort of indigo that refracted at least five different shades of rich purple. 

            His breath caught, unexpected emotion flooding him as he realized what had unsettled Jake. 

            Lena’s ring was very different from this.  Hers almost looked like spun lace turned metal, with diamonds sprinkled throughout like drops of dew caught in a spider’s web, the whorls of the designs a layered symbolism that only Jake fully understood.  It looked as intricate as a snowflake under a microscope, but made from an unbreakable marriage of two discreet metals weaving together.  It was insanely complex and gorgeous without being gaudy; a good analogy of her and Jake’s relationship. 

            This one, while far less involved, was also one of the most elegant rings he’d ever seen.  The bold lines of it reminded him of calligraphy, flowing organically in a deceptively simple style that had to have been damn hard to cast in metal.  They were nearly flush with the large stone as they swept past it, but even as he looked for the setting with what Odin had said in mind, he couldn’t see it – it still looked precariously balanced, as did the long, flat diamond on the other side, light shining all the way through.  The abstract, asymmetrical pattern of the metal reminded him a little of the more fanciful handguards he’d seen on rapiers, and that struck a chord too.  Which… 

            He’d think he was just being a nostalgic sop if it weren’t for the glimmer of confusion in Jake’s eye.  Because this…  As much as Lena’s ring represented her and Jake?  This, to him, summed up Lu.  He was probably reading too much into it, but the coloring, the style, the grace of it? 

            …They didn’t know what Lu was up to these days.  With how she’d always insisted on staying at the academy instead of taking missions, had quit OZ with every intention of becoming a homemaker, even before getting into how utterly fucking depressed she’d been during the war?  They’d all just assumed she’d gone civilian. 

            But…  What if she hadn’t?  It was a hell of a leap, but- 

            Junior’s voice broke his train of thought.  “Is there any particular reason everyone’s ignoring you?” 

            What? 

            Looking entirely amused, Odin reached across the bed to pluck the ring out of his fingers and- 

            He felt like something in his brain broke, pulse spiking as Rhett was suddenly right there at the foot of the bed. 

            The empath only smiled as he inspected the ring himself, looking impressed – though maybe not about the jewelry.  “Would you believe me if I said you’re the first person to ever see through that?” 

            Odin’s returning look was skeptical.  “No.” 

            “I turn invisible,” Rhett insisted, looking giddy.  “People even forget that I never left.” 

            Jake’s brother looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh.  “That’s stupid.” 

            “You know, it really is.  And yet, I’ve learned to not question it.”  He held out the ring for Junior to take back.  “You love her.”  It wasn’t a question. 

            Odin opted to close his fingers over it instead of looking away from the space heart to take the silk bag back from Jake.  His smile was bemused – as if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was playing along with, but thought it looked interesting.  “Yes.” 

            Rhett nodded assertively.  “You have a feedback loop,” he explained.  “Not a fragile one either – looks permanent, despite the fact that no one else is in it right now.”  He tipped his head to one side, looking fascinated as he stared into the middle distance at something the rest of them couldn’t see.  “It’s unusual.” 

            Jack shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable.  “Ah, that might not-” 

            But Odin let out a short, delighted laugh, cutting him off.  “My lady has a minor Talent,” he agreed.  Turning towards his father, he added, “Cat’s mentioned it a few times, but he can only sense it when it’s active.”  He shrugged.  “And I’m functionally immune, so it only works one way.” 

            Jack relaxed.  “Ah.  Sorry, I just know that Cat…”  He trailed off. 

            Odin just shrugged, turning back to Rhett.  “My best friend uses me as a filter,” he explained.  “Anchors and cycles through to dampen his field.  But since I can’t feel it and don’t otherwise enforce it, his ties are temporary strings that break every time he switches anchors, not a bond.” 

            “Bonds require a lot of affirmation from both sides, physical and otherwise,” Rhett agreed.  “Most empaths develop one with their spouse eventually, but unless you’ve got a specialist, it can take years.” 

            Empath.  Dave felt relieved and let down all at once as that dashed his theory before it could finish getting out of the water.  Lu was earthborn, so there went that idea.  He found himself meeting eyes with Jake and sharing a chagrined look. 

            Odin was smiling in a secretly pleased way.  “Specialist,” he confirmed. 

            Rhett hummed happily.  “Lucky,” he decided. 

            Odin shrugged again, though he still looked deeply satisfied.  “It’s a mild ability,” he insisted.  “Most of the time even she can’t access ours, and when Cat’s pointed out that she is, she hasn’t been able to distinguish what’s hers or mine – though that might have to do with us already being in sync at the time?  She has a few other bonds, but even when Cat can read something through them, she either doesn’t notice or thinks she had a mood swing.  There’ve been exceptions, but they’re rare.” 

            The empath looked a little surprised by the information, then thoughtful.  “I usually can’t pick up familial bonds,” he admitted.  “The flavor’s too different – they just feel like anchors when active, and look the same as the leftover cobwebs of an old anchor when dormant.  Hm.”  He shrugged.  “Not my specialty, I guess.” 

            “Taylor said you were more of a generalist,” Odin agreed.  “Though…”  He glanced back at the rest of them, looking skeptical.  “You really couldn’t see him?” 

            “He does it often enough that I’ve stopped jumping,” Jack announced dryly. 

            “You know me?” Rhett demanded, sounding delighted. 

            Odin was nonplussed.  “You were on TV with Jack while my brother was being shot, and Taylor is my best intern.  Yes.” 

            Jake settled on a more pertinent question, all things considered.  “What does ‘functionally immune’ mean?” 

            Junior’s smirk was a little dark this time, smugly self-satisfied.  “Empathic influence relies on active pressure from the space heart,” he explained.  “Unless he does something to convince his target to tie the association to a memory of the event and essentially trick them into thinking that way long-term, the Pushed emotions fade as soon as the space heart loses focus.  But it also relies on him being powerful enough to overwhelm and replace the native emotions in the first place.”  He tipped his head to one side the same way Jake did when considering a new idea.  “Though maybe something more subtle requires less strength?  I don’t know.  He said it’s easier the more you ‘set the stage’ so people fall into the assumptions you want them to make even before the Push.” 

            “Yeah, but I don’t try that hard,” Rhett argued.  “So I can guess, but!  Did this Cat guy say why it doesn’t work on you?  It sounds like you let him test it.” 

            That darkly pleased smirk came back.  “Something about trying to push back the tide.” 

            Great.  Yet another grossly overwhelming analogy, if also a cool one.  This seemed to be a theme. 

            Rhett grinned.  “That sounds accurate, honestly.  Huh.” 

            “Nice to know there’s a workaround, even if it’s unique,” Jake mused.  “His disappearing act has had my old team scrambling for contingency plans without much success.  Someone watching him through a camera at a distance isn’t affected, but even being told where he is doesn’t keep your eyes from sliding right off him.  It’s a proximity issue.” 

            “But too small of an instance to be useful in general,” Dave decided.  Offering Junior a smile, he added, “But a hell of a boon for you.” 

            Odin just hummed thoughtfully.  “It is, and it isn’t,” he argued.  “I like it, but it’s automatic to the point that it serves as a singular type of blindfold.  I don’t have control of it, with shades in between – I miss things.”  He hesitated, glancing at his brother, then met David’s eyes.  “It’s also not unique.  Though we’re not sure if it’s a natural outlier or more… experience-based.” 

            Jake shifted.  “If it can be learned-” 

            “No.” 

            David took in the closed-off body language and circled to the other side of the issue for insight.  After all, Odin had looked at him before admitting it, as if it was something or someone he thought would be recognized.  Making sure to keep his tone friendly, he asked, “Who else has immunity?” 

            There was something almost thankful or at least relieved in Odin’s eyes as he looked back in his direction.  “Cory di Gallo.” 

            Immediately, an image came to mind of the too skinny, blonde thirteen-year-old he’d found in the Sahara last June.  Cor Accardi now, and being doted on by all of the Revenants according to Jack, but the most haunting thing about the kid hadn’t been the whipcord muscle on his otherwise bony frame, or even his bright fascination with things that should have been standard. 

            No, the thing he still had nightmares about was the blank, flat look in his eyes, even as he proved competent in practically every task put in front of him.  The startlingly functional, walking form of catatonia had been disturbing as hell. 

            “It could be innate,” Odin offered, opening his hand and focusing on the details of the engagement ring there instead of meeting his eyes.  “Certain types are likely to attract empathic attention in any population.  Cat and I met by chance, but he plucked Cory out of a crowd because he makes emotive white noise.  There’s a selection bias at work.” 

            It could.  But the fact that Odin didn’t want to look at him or Jake while pointing it out said plenty about where he placed his own bets. 

            Jake bit the bullet on this one.  “But you don’t think it is.” 

            Odin released a long, slow breath through his nose before closing his fingers around the ring again and jamming his hands in his pockets.  “It could go either way,” he deferred.  “Neither of us knew any space hearts before Cat, and there’s nothing documented about the phenomena.  We don’t have enough data to make a conclusion.” 

            Left unsaid, however, was the fact that there apparently was enough data to suggest it was a trauma response – especially given the way Jack’s face tightened up at the non-answer.  He was harping on about abuse markers, wasn’t he? 

            Meanwhile, there was nothing to be gained from ratcheting the room’s tension higher, so he opted to redirect the conversation before it got any worse.  Taking the jeweler’s bag back from Jake, he gestured with it, smiling, as he offered it to Junior.  “You got a plan for how you’re going to do it?”  Jerking a thumb back to Jake, he added, “This one went for a beach.” 

            Odin blinked, and then the self-assured smirk came back as he flicked his gaze back at his brother.  “In February?” 

            “Southern hemisphere,” Jake explained, obviously working to put in the extra effort for the subject change, and mostly succeeding.  “It was a nice vacation.” 

            “Hn.”  He thought about that, then the wickedly amused smirk made another return.  “I’ll tell you after,” he decided. 

            Jake snorted.  “You can’t think I’m going to try to crash it – not like this.”  He gestured at his tied up arm. 

            Odin didn’t relent.  “Security is going to be bad enough as it is,” he argued blandly.  “I’m heading out tomorrow.  You can wait.” 

            Rhett butted back in then, grabbing the rail at the foot of the bed and leaning in to get everyone’s attention.  “You know what can’t wait, though?  Food.”  He reached out and poked David in the shoulder with one finger.  “Weren’t you talking about that earlier?  I thought this was your lunch recess.” 

            Point.  And anyway, if alcohol was life’s social lubrication, food tended to level up friendships.  “He’s not wrong.”  Turning his gaze back on Junior, he noted, “You’re the local – what place would you recommend we order from?” 

-

***

-

Dublin, Ireland – Trinity College Campus

            “Look, it’s fine, we’ll figure it out when we get there,” Skye reassured.  “I’ll spot you.” 

            “You guys literally asked me to handle one thing about this trip,” Nick stressed. 

            “And now I get to make jokes that you had to come up with ways to make sure I wasn’t going to bail on you again,” his friend returned with a grin, picking up Nick’s duffel and slinging it over one shoulder.  “Seriously, no one will care – we’ll go shopping as soon as we land, and then you’ll still get all night to kick back and all Friday to do your thing.  No big deal.” 

            He closed his eyes, knowing his jaw was clenched but refusing to grind his teeth.  Because he knew Skye meant well, but… 

            He had been the one to make the offer of some candid shots for the romantic occasion, honestly not expecting Yuy to take him up on it, but thrilled anyway – if a little thrown by the ‘Can you do Friday?’ with all of three days notice.  But he didn’t have class on Friday and it wasn’t a big deal to miss this afternoon’s lecture – he’d checked, and his professor waved him off with a reminder about the essay due next week.  Cat had been quick to say that they’d handle the details so long as he brought himself and any gear he wanted, and then Skye had turned up yesterday just about bouncing off the walls with a tourist trap to-do list from either heaven or hell. 

            Apparently Budapest was known for both its architecture and its hot springs.  And evidently the solution for ‘How do we let notoriously famous people do semi-public social shit and relax without worrying about discovery?’ involved everyone in the group going to the same place to act as both gatekeeper and smokescreen.  Somehow this had devolved into booking an entire wing of a swanky hotel and reserving the place’s equally swanky spa for the entire weekend under the guise of some kind of company vacation or conference.  People from the Insurgence were coming too – and all the extra bodies were as much security if something did go wrong… while still also being free access to a lavish long weekend, courtesy of one incognito Quatre Winner. 

            The full extent of it had been in the works for about a month now, even if his own addition was new – they had enough space that adding another person was more of a help than a hindrance.  The trip had originally centered on the May Day Affairs Festival that was more of a fancy dance hall than anything, but the nearby safehouses weren’t exactly romantic – and after Odin’s dad had snuck up on him, the guy was more paranoid than ever.  Besides, no one was complaining about the impromptu vacation.  The way Cat said, it, Odin hadn’t realized the city was known for its public baths when he insisted on the location, but hot water was literally one of his favorite things to indulge in, and it hadn’t taken long for everyone to start pulling out the stops until they’d come up with this semi-ridiculous event surrounding the man’s proposal. 

            And that was before any of them knew about the whole ‘retraining’ thing.  Honestly, the general mood was relief that they already had a plan in place to let the guy relax in peace after the media shitstorm of the last week.  There probably would have been some awkward overtures that Odin attempted to dodge entirely when his friends tried to do something similarly nice as a ‘Oh, hey, we just remembered you got really fucked up while repeatedly saving the world a few years back – have a drink on me?’  Because apparently the name of the game with their literal hero was ‘If you pay any more attention to me than normal, I’m leaving.’ 

            But if it was part of the overly extravagant event he’d been plotting out for his girl?  It was all above board.  Everyone had decided to take advantage of that with prejudice. 

            The problem he was having was that while he’d cleared out his closet when he left Cardiff, the only formalwear he’d bothered to keep was the suit he’d inherited from his father, since it had always been big anyway.  But he hadn’t tried putting it on until a niggling doubt hit him this morning and…  He’d known he was taller than before he left for Africa, but hadn’t acknowledged just how different his body was in terms of muscle mass.  He’d mostly been living out of polyester and denim that had some stretch – not wool. 

            Skye was right that it was fine, and they could get some slacks and a button-up off the rack somewhere.  He was embarrassed over flubbing the issue at the last minute, it made him feel like a flake, but the issue was that the fucking suit was one of the only things he had left from his dad, and he’d always assumed he’d wear it for the more important formalities in his life, as a way to carry on the ghost.  And maybe it could be altered, but…  He hadn’t realized he’d gotten taller than his dad.  His memories of the man were fuzzy, but that just… made him want to scream. 

            It was… way more than he wanted to unpack right now. 

            Skye was watching him now, waiting for him to say what was on his mind or move on… and Nick gritted his teeth, picking the hanger back up from the bed and pivoting to hang the suit back up.  I’m being stupid.  It was a bit of cloth, not a real keepsake, and he could figure it out later.  “Let’s go,” he decided, picking up his backpack and camera bag.  People had been complaining endlessly about delays on the ports and going through customs this week, and if the bureaucratic hellscape that was the airport during his last trip was any indication, they were going to need the extra time. 

            Skye stared at him for another long moment… then dropped the suitcase and pulled the suit back off the rack, undoing the zipper and shoving it in without any care or ceremony. 

            His stomach ached.  “Skye-” 

            “Fancy hotels often mean fancy tailors on call,” his friend informed him without looking up.  “Whether or not you wear it, they’ll be able to figure out if it can be fixed.  What does it hurt to ask?” 

            My pride.  Though that wasn’t strictly accurate either, and he didn’t really need to say it.  “Yeah, okay.”  Whether or not it was pointless, it didn’t hurt anything to bring it.  “Let’s get out of here.” 

-

***

-

Berlin, Germany – Hildegard Medical Center – Main Entrance

            The courier offered them an awkward grin when his son raised one hand in greeting.  “Name on the order?” 

            “Odin.” 

            She relaxed a little, even as she set her large, insulated bag down on the sidewalk to open the zipper.  “Your ID really says that?” she asked skeptically.  The first things she pulled out, thankfully, were two paper bags with the restaurant’s logo instead of the delivery service, which she promptly unfolded and starting to set cartons into. 

            That’s a nice little extra, Jack decided.  They’d both come down because he’d remembered that this delivery service didn’t give their carriers away, and between the five of them, they’d ordered enough that without one it would’ve been tricky for one person to carry.  Someone was thinking ahead.  Then again, with how many diplomats were in the city right now, it made sense – all the tourists must be keeping the restaurant business at a full sprint, right now. 

            “Last time I checked,” Odin agreed, swiping through his phone to show the restaurant’s order confirmation and holding it out to her for inspection. 

            “Alright then,” the woman returned agreeably, shaking her head as she continued repacking their lunch, though her eyes settled on Jack.  Clearly seeing the relation, she sarcastically suggested, “What does that make you, Bor?” 

            He snorted, amused in spite of himself.  “I think Bor was more a concept of a mountain than a character,” he argued.  “Anything more is Hollywood, not culture.  Besides, he gets that from his mom’s side.”  Not that the Lowes had done it for cultural reasons.  So far as his brother-in-law had ever explained, their mother had just wanted to name her kids after gods – Rhea, after all, was a Greek goddess, not Norse. 

            In any case, after his wife heard out his argument that middle names were for family, she’d decided to name both their sons after her brother.  Jake had always just made a habit of excluding his middle name on paperwork to the point that most didn’t think he had one, because as long as he’d been on his own, association with his uncle had been dangerous. If he hadn’t been pulling Des’s leg, Jake had literally never said the man’s name for more than ten solid years.  The habit of compulsively concealing details about his uncle was something he still struggled with, despite actively working to break it. 

            He probably would have been more offended by the double usage over honoring someone in his family if she hadn’t also named Junior after him.  Though in practice, that was weird enough that he wished she’d picked a different J name for a second boy instead, like they’d talked about before finding out more children would be a bad idea. 

            “As it goes,” the courier returned cheerfully, finishing her repackaging and handing Odin a receipt – while his son tucked that away, Jack preemptively picked up both bags by the handles.  “Have a good day!” 

            Since he’d opted to play pack mule, Odin stepped back to open the door – security had had them in view the whole while, so they shouldn’t have to go through the checkpoints again.  “What was that about?” 

            Seeing as Audi had been able to list off the names of all the movies Odin had seen on her fingers, he wasn’t surprised.  “Pop culture nonsense,” he reassured.  “Bunch of movies – they’re okay, I guess, but I don’t know that they’re worth the time sink.”  He shrugged.  “Bunch of comic book fantasy – superheroes, saving the world, Batman gambit sort of logic that can’t hold up to common sense but somehow devastates everyone anyway.”  Bit of a brightly playful version of things his family had lived through too much of a grittier version of to much appreciate, he figured. 

            That said, he had followed the reference.  So maybe that was a good example of what pop culture was?  He shrugged.  “Your brother’s partial to Váli,” he admitted.  Not that he’d heard of him using it as a handle in a long time, and it might be categorized as adolescent embarrassment now – especially given the whole ‘born for the purpose of avenging his brother’s death’ thing – but it could spark another safely neutral conversation between the boys.  The Norse stories were completely batshit, but that was what made them interesting.  “Anyway, if you-” 

            He cut himself off as his Odin’s body language abruptly shifted, taking on that dangerous stillness Senior had instilled in both his sons.  Keeping it casual, he made himself startle slightly before shifting the takeout bag in his right hand to his left and pivoting, like he thought he’d dropped something and was looking for it. It gave him a moment to scan the hospital lobby for the issue.  The staff here took safety very seriously, and while he assumed Odin was still armed, he wasn’t, and would be more inclined to handle an issue by kicking a fuss for the security guards to notice.  He’d already clocked one in sight, quietly chatting with one of the ladies manning the desk, and knew from previous visits that others wouldn’t be far – every time he’d come by, they’d managed an impressive balance between casually present and thoroughly prepared.  If he was still looking for security work, he’d be inclined to see if they had an opening. 

            Odin’s attention had been caught by a man in his mid to late twenties wearing jeans and a t-shirt under his open coat.  Not staff.  Good.  Or at least, not on duty – presumably, there were locker rooms where he might have left scrubs or a uniform, but he didn’t have a satchel, and most people carried something to and from work.  Caucasian, fairly nondescript features, midrange brown hair and eyes… not someone he would be able to pick out of a crowd again, probably.  No, the only thing to draw the eye, aside from his son’s attention now, was the wide-eyed shock in his expression, and… a tremor? 

            Oh, shit.  That was some kind of recognition.  Recognition and fear, and something more nebulous, which… 

            His son was just staring at the guy, cool and calm and utterly still, ready to explode into action but refusing to make the first move.  This was not a good place, for a multitude of reasons.  Jake was still admitted.  A revelation of some kind of anti-Regime sentiment here could- 

            The stranger’s stance firmed up as he reached some kind of decision, straightening, and Jack was just about ready to drop the food and cause some kind of scene to distract from Odin making an exit when instead of hollering or moving towards violence?  The guy looked Odin straight in the face, gave a firmly respectful nod, and strode for the door. 

            His son just watched him go, seemingly stunned. 

            …What the fuck just happened?  Obviously, a lack of confrontation was good, but- 

            “I’m leaving.” 

            His heartrate rocketed up as the kid met his eyes, thinking of all the things he could be meaning.  “Are you-” 

            “Just catching an earlier flight,” he reassured, keeping his language oblique.  “It’s… probably fine.”  He grimaced, shaking his head.  “I need to go.” 

            And suddenly, inexplicably, Rhett was there – had probably been there all along and seen everything, damn it all.  Might as well make use of him.  The way Tay had said it, the kid probably felt like he owed him something anyway.  “Is he going to cause problems?” he demanded. 

            “Context,” the kid reminded him, looking uncertain.  “But grateful people are usually only an issue if they’re mobbing you?”  Then his eyes darted to the side, and he reached out to Odin with a grin.  “Want a hand?” 

            And just as abruptly as the empath appeared, they both vanished. 

            No one in the lobby seemed to notice anything had happened.  And since the cameras would presumably show Rhett taking Odin’s hand or shoulder and them walking out…  Theoretically, everything was fine. 

            He just… needed to make up an excuse about an emergency that made him have to leave abruptly.  Ideally something about Audi; some kind of perceived emergency he could laughingly debunk as thirteen-year-old histrionics later. 

            He took the stairwell, and moved slowly to gather his thoughts.  Whatever that had been…  Rhett didn’t know, Odin wasn’t sharing, and even if he was right, people changed their minds – and people recognized the similarity between their faces nine times out of ten.  The smart thing would be to also leave today, and not come back – better if Jake was out too, since he’d never been covert about who he was visiting.  If Rhett didn’t come back…  They had only agreed to not giving Jake a guard or two because Rhett was here, and guards now would draw unwanted attention. 

            And he couldn’t tell Jake why leaving was a really good idea.  Fuck.  His oldest was going to be upset about his brother bailing even with a decent excuse, and Jack was going to have to nudge him in the right direction without being obvious, which wasn’t exactly in his toolbox. 

            What the fuck had that even been about? 

-

***

-

Berlin, Germany

            “Do we have a destination in mind or…?” 

            “Away,” Odin muttered.  He was heading in the direction of home for now, but had no intention of taking a virtual stranger there, as much as he appreciated the shielding.  Without it, he’d figured he would grab a medical mask on his way out the way Lucrezia often played it and proceed to get on and off the transit system for a while, losing any possible tails while coming up with a better plan. 

            It had been so long since someone had recognized him that, despite the altered picture on his passports, despite the things he’d said, he’d mostly stopped believing it would happen again.  Honestly, not that many people had ever seen him in action, and the majority of those were either allies or dead.  He hadn’t recognized the stranger – he’d just known what that kind of focus and body language meant and… 

            That had never happened before.  People yelled, took a shot at him, or ran.  Some of his allies came in closer for a real greeting.  But the stranger, presumably some soldier he’d encountered but left alive during the war, had just acknowledged him and gone back to his own business. 

            It was a nice idea, but far too alien and good to be true to trust.  And besides, even if Rhett had read that right, what if he changed his mind? 

            I should have grabbed a mask anyway.  If he’d been thinking beyond the imperatives, beyond making sure Jack didn’t panic and set of a different chain of events, he would have – but when the older man’s eyes suddenly slid away from him and he realized Rhett could extend his field to others, he’d gone back to basic imperatives and opted to just get out.  He’d never made a habit of wandering around town before – the soldier could be a local, and he… had no way of finding out. 

            As terrible as this felt, though… it had actually gone pretty well?  Far better than he had begun planning for, once he noticed the attention. 

            …Why did he nod at me? 

            Quatre whipped around the corner ahead of them, pointedly wearing a mask, eyes narrowed, and demanded, “What’s the damage?” 

            Oh.  He’d felt it.  “Theoretically, none.” 

            “You were at the hospital,” his friend returned as he came closer, sounding aggrieved.  “Did you see him?” 

            “I freaked out after that,” he pointed out.  He liked his brother.  “That went great.  Separate issue.” 

            Quatre rolled his eyes, flipping his hands out in an aggravated gesture.  “‘Great,’ he says.  Lovely.  Were you ever going to tell me you decided to do this?” 

            “I mostly thought you’d find out before I made a decision.”  He was honestly surprised it had taken this long. 

            Quatre just stared at him for a long moment, probably parsing through his emotions – and with half his face covered, Odin couldn’t… he hadn’t realized just how much of facial expression was done with the mouth.  But he wasn’t sorry, just… worried about the consequences?  The only thing he might’ve done differently was wear a mask himself, maybe right from the outset, but… 

            If he hadn’t been recognized, he’d still be at the hospital.  Given where they were now, Quatre had been on his way before his emotions bottomed out in the lobby – Audi or Anne had probably said something.  He wasn’t sure if his friend would have thrown caution to the wind and come in after him or just waited outside for this confrontation, but it had been coming either way. 

            After a long moment, Quatre sighed, though his posture remained fully upright.  “I don’t understand why you went behind my back on this,” he finally admitted. 

            Fair.  “I didn’t want to have to dodge your attempts to stop me.” 

            Quatre threw up his hands.  “When have I ever tried to stop you from doing anything?!” he demanded.  “I might have tried to talk you out of it, but there wouldn’t have been any dodging!  I’m not your keeper, Odin.  If I’d known you were going for it despite the risks, I would’ve supported you.”  He clenched his hands into fists.  “This isn’t an ‘us and them.’  You are my friend and you’re allowed to tell me to buzz off.  If you wanted to prioritize your family, all you had to do was say so, and I would have helped.” 

            …Oh.  Had he… really been thinking about it that way?  Like…  “I didn’t think about it,” he admitted.  He just hadn’t wanted to annoy the other man with it, because… 

            There wasn’t a reason, actually.  It had just felt more comfortable.  Less… dangerous. 

            Emotions were such bullshit sometimes. 

            Quatre’s eyes were narrowed, but from the way he took his next deep breath, it was with upset, not anger.  “I am never going to penalize you for not conforming to what I suggest we do.  I do not give you orders.” 

            He went a little cold as that… really struck home.  Because he hadn’t realized he’d been acting that way, but… Quatre had admitted to reading the whole file on the retraining. And the phrasing… 

            “I know that,” he agreed quietly, the depth of his shit striking him once again.  Because he’d known Quatre would get over it, that his friend would follow his lead if he pushed, but… 

            It had been easier to not think about it. 

            Bad habits.  Maybe a little bit was that he wanted to figure it out on his own without Quatre’s interference – Marie meddled more than enough – but…  He could have just said that, and his friend would have respected it.  He’d chosen to sidestep any involvement at all because… 

            It felt safer?  But it wasn’t. 

            Because it was more familiar? 

            …He’d been so convinced Marie didn’t really need him anymore that he’d been ready to walk away at the slightest provocation.  Which was wretched to realize, because he hadn’t thought that way at the time, but…  Is that how it started, with Odin?  Doubt and mistakes and… trauma building up until you try to leave your child in the middle of a war zone because you think he’ll be better off there than whatever you can offer?  He hadn’t gotten anywhere near that point, and at least he’d been building Marie a comprehensive support structure as he did it, but…  

            It had been the same shit.  Less extreme, but the same fucking path.  And he needed to not follow it, because he did not want to be the same as his father. 

            But apparently he was letting other shit he’d been through dictate his life too, and he needed to get ahead of that.  “I’m sorry.”  Not for following his heart, but for the way he’d sidelined his friends while going about it. 

            As far as he made it from the retraining and the war, from the ways his father had screwed him up as a child without knowing any better, there was always so much further to go.  It was exhausting. 

            But worth it.  He didn’t want to carry Odin’s regrets.  Life was complicated enough without resenting the perspective his childhood had foisted him into – he could change how he handled things.  He didn’t have to be a product of what happened to him so long as he still chose what he wanted and refused to let the obstacles bog him down. 

            “This is the biggest trip I’ve had since that time I tried acid,” Rhett announced.  “You’re both in full reverb here – I’ve never had another space heart anchor on someone I was already holding.  Dude.  Is this what a feedback loop feels like?” 

            Quatre shifted his gaze over to the other empath.  “I wouldn’t know.”  After another moment of consideration, he held out a hand to shake.  “Cat Wilson.” 

            Their new friend took it happily.  “Rhett Stahl.” 

            Quatre blinked, visibly startled.  “Wait.  Really?” 

            Rhett’s smile widened into a delighted grin.  “You’ve heard of me?” 

            Quatre let out short, disbelieving laugh.  “We’ve spoken over the forums a few times,” he agreed.  “Not since 194, and not about anything memorable, but… yes.” 

            “Did I help you at all?” 

            Quatre tucked his chin slightly to one side in a motion Odin almost recognized, but the mask hid so much.  “Only insofar as alternate context expands your view,” he admitted.  “I haven’t looked in on the community since then – too busy with all the ways my life collapsed around me since, especially with how my own abilities mutated under pressure.” 

            Rhett’s face lit up with curiosity.  “See, that sounds like an excellent reason to reach out to the community,” he argued.  “The scientific inquiry end is the highlight of what they do, as far as I’m concerned.”  He pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “When you say ‘mutate’ do you mean late growth, or change?” 

            This looked like it was going to take a while, and Odin really wasn’t in the mood to stand out in the open.  “Are we still invisible?” he asked.  He wasn’t actually taking an earlier flight, but he hadn’t told Jack he was planning to go today either, so saying it had been an automatic sort of misdirect – he had just been using his time… unwisely. 

            Or maybe efficiently?  Burning it up to the last minute, instead of maintaining a buffer. 

            Quatre frowned.  “Is that what this is?” 

            “Give or take,” Rhett hedged.  “I missed exactly when you anchored, and only realized you’d done it when he reacted to you.  But the anchor would have looped you into the field before it could Push.”  He shook his head.  “That’s some crazy range.  I can feel people about a mile out, but I usually have to touch a person to make an anchor.”

            “My range makes no sense,” Quatre agreed dryly.  “It varies dramatically by individual.”  He met Odin’s eyes, then pulled out his phone and started to tap out a message.  “Jovi was with me when I felt you panic – he drove, and I had him let me out once we were close.  He can pick us up.” 

            Huh.  “Was that panic?” he asked.  From the way everyone always talked about the emotion, he wouldn’t have guessed. 

            “As close as you get, before you drop into action,” Quatre agreed in a dry tone.  “Who were you worrying about protecting?” 

            “Jack.”  He wasn’t sure if ‘protecting’ was the right word, but…  It wasn’t wrong?  For a long moment he’d thought the stranger was going to yell something about gundams, the way so many idiots had during the war.  And while he no longer thought the news would break the relationship, he still wasn’t looking forward to it. 

            He’d become aware of just how much it was going to hurt the man.  His brother too.  The retraining hitting the news, while simplifying matters now, would probably only make that blow worse when it came, and…  Unlike the last week, he was probably going to have to be present to witness it. 

            Quatre quirked one eyebrow at him.  “We’re close to that point of no return we talked about.  It might be time to bring him all the way in, if you’re that sure.” 

            He was, but he also still didn’t want to.  “Maybe,” he hedged. 

            Despite only being able to see his eyes, Quatre clearly looked unimpressed – likely seeing right through him.  “And where does Jake Miller fall on that same scale?” 

            “…Close.”  Probably about the same if he went with his instincts, but there was an element of danger there that he was… perilously close to disregarding?  But willing to acknowledge that might not be the best idea he’d ever had. 

            He’d promised Lucrezia he would at least try to be less stupid about danger. 

            A dark sedan from Rubato’s motor pool turned the corner from the direction Quatre had come, Jovi behind the wheel, and Odin, still facing Quatre directly, slid his eyes meaningfully to Rhett.  He didn’t particularly care whether the empath that had latched onto Jack during the shooting stayed or came along; given the way he and Quatre had immediately become comfortable, he would defer to him on this. 

            Everyone kept insisting the whole point of this weekend was that he not worry about anything.  Technically that was only supposed to start when they reached Budapest, but this bled through enough that he had no problem with dropping the responsibility back in Quatre’s lap. 

            Rhett sucked in a breath, looking disoriented for a long moment as Quatre leaned away from them and held out a hand for Jovi to notice them – breaking the shield, maybe?  A moment later, he turned his attention back on Odin.  “How much did he see that might be damaging if it got out?” his friend asked in the Arabic.  

            He’d been in the lobby for the whole thing, so…  “The same as Jack,” he returned in the same language. 

            “He would have gotten more from it than him,” Quatre mused. 

            “He said what he felt out loud, so it’s probably equal,” Odin argued.  “Someone recognized me.” 

            Quatre stiffened, then demanded, “How is that ‘no damage?’” 

            “He nodded at me and left without causing trouble.” 

            Quatre took a deep breath in through his nose, gestured for Jovi to wait as he pulled up to the curb, and zeroed in on Rhett, demanding, “The other person in the confrontation, what was he feeling?” 

            The other empath took it in stride, though there was a new wariness in his expression.  “Surprise and fear that bordered on shock, that resolved into awe and a gratefulness that bordered on reverence.  Respect, if we want to simplify it.”  He shrugged, crossing his arms.  “I don’t know enough of what it was about to say more, but like I told Jack, it didn’t feel problematic.” 

            Quatre raised both brows as he turned his gaze back to Odin.  “Did he say anything?” 

            “No, just walked out like nothing had happened.” 

            He turned back to Rhett.  “No fear or anticipation as he left?  Excitement, even?” 

            The other man frowned.  “No.” 

            Both brows went up again as he turned back to Odin.  “That’s a nice change.” 

            “I don’t know what to do with it,” Odin admitted. 

            “If we’ve done our homework right, it should be a continuing shift of sentiment.” 

            That… made no sense.  “What?” 

            Quatre smiled, broadly enough that he could see the change in his eyes.  “When the weekend’s over, you need to spend some time online – ideally with Adam too, once he’s back.  That blank check you wrote on public opinion is bearing fruit.”  Then he turned back to Rhett.  “I’m open to exchanging numbers, but this is where we part ways,” he decided. 

            Rhett narrowed his eyes for a moment like he was going to argue, then glanced back at Odin before resettling his weight.  “Both of your numbers,” he negotiated.  “You’re in my tier if not higher, something I wasn’t sure would happen this generation, and you,” he nodded at Odin, “might be the key to figuring out a few things about empathy I’ve been trying to pick apart for years.” 

            Quatre glanced his way to check for a negation, then inclined his head.  “Acceptable.  But you don’t post or talk about what you find unless we agree,” he added. 

            “That’s common courtesy,” Rhett agreed.  “I would’ve done that anyway.  Sure.”  When Quatre held out a hand expectantly, he dug out a phone and unlocked it before passing it over. 

            “No one’s going to answer you this weekend,” Quatre continued as he programmed the numbers in.  “And we travel frequently.  We’ve started negotiations with the princess’s faction, but it’s not stable yet.  So I would appreciate you not interfering there, but am aware that you’re at least partially tangled already.” 

            Rhett grimaced, though there was a stubborn gleam in his eyes.  “I can limit that, but I not disassociate.  It’s bigger than just me.” 

            “I’m not asking you to,” Quatre clarified.  “Just limit how much you rock the boat while the rest of us get our footing.  We’re aiming for an alliance, but we need to finish sorting a few things out first.” 

            “We?” 

            Quatre quirked one eyebrow again, somehow looking skeptical this time.  “Revenant Rubato.” 

            Rhett blinked a few times, looking startled.  “Wait, really?” 

            Odin was mostly sure Quatre was smirking as he handed the phone back.  “Who did you think you were talking to?” 

            “Him?”  He pointed at Odin.  “Jake’s brother who feels like nothing I’ve ever even heard described, and the best friend that he mentioned was an empath?” 

            Quatre considered him for a moment, probably doing something far more in depth than what it looked like, then hummed.  “How refreshing,” he decided.  “All true.  But yes – Rubato.”  Walking around the car to open the front passenger door, he added, “Don’t follow.  I’ll know.” 

            Rhett chuffed out an incredulous sort of sound, but waved back when Odin raised a hand to him as he opened the back door and slid in behind Jovi… and tucked his hands in his pockets to watch them drive away. 

-

***

-

Canada

            “Alright, pay up.” 

            “We didn’t make a bet,” Adam reminded her, considering the drone footage.  Definitely an active plant.  Technically, from what they had this could still be a remote but legal assembly line for suits, not dolls… but that he would be willing to bet on. 

            Not that Hilde would take it. 

            “So what now?  More surveillance and finding a clear route in?” 

            Technically, yes, but…  “I’d rather be more specialized for insertion,” he admitted.  It needed to be done subtly, but he wanted a better fallback, and more firepower than the little skiff they’d been operating out of – more people.  While the two of them could probably pull it off, they might also die and reception was so dead out here that no one would even know where to find the bodies.  “Let’s mark it and get out of here,” he decided.  “Come back with a bigger team and better equipment.”  Maybe there wouldn’t be aggressive surveillance systems leading into the complex, but he wouldn’t know until he tripped them, and his infiltrations mostly focused on the human element – given the miniscule margin for error, he’d rather have an expert on the case now that he'd covered the grunt work of proving it wasn’t an impossibly long shot. 

            Howard might have everyone he needed, or he might have to call up some agents from Sally – but even coming back, the next part of this job really wasn’t his speed.  It might be best to pass it off entirely, and only come back on it if someone made a good case for it – or if, after infiltration, they didn’t have the exact location of any additional sites.  He had the trawling through tundra down enough at this point that he was probably fastest if more needed to be done…  But they were probably in the clear. 

            “Let’s get out of here and regroup,” he decided.  Sliding his gaze back over to Hilde, he added, “You needed to get back on the sims, right?  Deathscythe Hell is supposed to be done at the end of the month.”  Or something like that – he didn’t have the exact dates. 

            She crunched her nose.  “Yeah I do.” 

            Adam frowned.  “What?” 

            Hilde shook her head, mouth twisted.  “It’s a completely different beast compared to the modded Heavyarms.  I’m going to try, but my first run with its ghost was… not good.  The scythe is a fucking nightmare, but even if they just attached a beam saber, I don’t…”  She sighed.  “I need to try,” she agreed. 

            …That’s promising.  Though he supposed they had started construction after Hilde got trapped in Italy, and might have been jumping to conclusions – that, and Duo had a way of overestimating the people he was close to.  Hm. 

            Either way, not his problem.  She’d learn, or she’d do something else in the coming conflict. 

            For now, it was time to go. 

-

***

-

Berlin, Germany – Executive Suite of Hotel Ensō Berlin

            “I’ll make the Monday session,” Sylvia announced, voice taut. 

            Relena frowned, and no wonder – Jake was supposed to still be in the hospital, but even while his injuries had been critical, he hadn’t been in danger of losing a limb.  “Are you sure you don’t want to assign a proxy?” she suggested.  “If the treatment- ” 

            “It’s going to be what it will be, at this point,” the other noblewoman countered, sounding determined despite the sour note tucked away in her tone. 

            Relena obviously heard the same, and asked the question Lin had focused on.  “Were they able to save it?” 

            Sylvia let out an irritated sigh.  “We rescued more than estimated, but still less than I hoped for,” she explained.  “The vascular compromise damned two fingers and a third of my palm before I made it to the first surgery, and there’s a decent chance I’ll lose more tissue before it stabilizes – but only time will tell.  I might be better off with a full prosthetic in the end, they were able to salvage all the nerves for good control, but I’m putting that decision off until we have a better idea of what I do still have.  For now, I need to become left-handed.  My handwriting is atrocious.” 

            Lin grimaced; he hadn’t even known there were such things as partial hand prosthetics.  Though admittedly, the first image that came to mind was the fucking claw Dr J had been so infamous for, which… anything had to be better than that, right? 

            Given how rampant the Yuy article still was, there would, unfortunately, be no way people wouldn’t suggest that once Noventa was back on scene.  Hopefully her prosthetic would be nice enough that they could draw a sharp contrast between them. 

            “Jake will be out by then, yes?  We’ll make matching bookends – despite the lack of shoulder damage, my life is easier right now when I can rest my lower arm in an extended sling.” 

            “He’s out now, if still on full bedrest,” Relena admitted.  “Our new empath friend got distracted by something shiny and disappeared, and his imaging was stable, so he’s camping out in a recliner right now.”  Bringing the phone down to press against her chest, she called out, “Are you regretting your decisions yet?” 

            “No!” 

            Rolling her eyes, Relena brought the receiver back up to her mouth.  “He’s decided he needs to suffer,” she continued.  “His father tagged along to baby him through it.  I haven’t decided if it’s a bonding experience or a powder keg.” 

            “He should only need this much help for a few more days,” Jack pointed out, voice carefully bland.  “I can leave if everyone wants to be an assh-” 

            “Jack, I greatly appreciate you, please stay,” Lin interrupted, walking away from the princess.  While the hospital was arguably the best treatment plan, they had been relying on Stahl for security, and so long as Jake wasn’t going to rebreak something, the issue was only about him being a grouch once the nerve blocks wore off tomorrow.  So long as the elder Miller was here – far more armed and dangerous than any middle-aged non-soldier really ought to be, but that family, seriously – Lin didn’t need to account for extra rotations in managing Jake on top of everything else they had going on. 

            If it did turn into a pending explosion, Jack could go, and he’d figure it out.  But they’d been doing better, and Lin didn’t think it would come to that. 

            “I meant what I said before too,” Jake muttered.  “Thank you.” 

            “For once, you are not the one being an asshat,” Jack returned just as quietly.  Then, with a smirk, he added, “At least not yet.” 

            “Nurse comes by for a blood draw in the morning,” Jake reminded him. 

            “And you probably won’t be cleared for meds until Saturday.” 

            “Historically, it’ll be tomorrow afternoon at worst, and the doctor even agreed.” 

            Personally, Lin was impressed they’d arranged for continued care under the same provider and a courier phlebotomist despite the AMA.  In his experience, signing one of those made medical professionals wash their hands of you.  They might have gone out of their way to psych up the danger concerns and imply he’s a high roller.  The doctor he’d gotten the paperwork from was one of the ones who had seen Relena sitting on the edge of the colonel’s bed, and they obviously already had concerns about assassination running. 

            While Lin understood Jake wanting to come back into the fold as soon as possible, he also really wished he hadn’t pushed the envelope over something nonessential.  However much he dismissed the pain issue right now, none of them had any real idea of what he was going to be facing tomorrow.  As nonchalant as Jake seemed to be about it, the rest of them were barely holding off panic, particularly Relena. 

            The room’s line started ringing, and Relena went about wrapping up her call as Hayden answered… and blinked a few times.  “Yes.  Of course, thank you for checking.  Send him up.”  Noticing everyone staring at him as he hung up, Polanski rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head.  “Uh.  So that whole thing about Stahl going missing?  No one told his aunts about that yet, right?” 

            “I’m still mostly sure he decided to stalk my brother,” Jake pointed out.  “Delilah warned us that he was likely to wander.” 

            “He wandered back?” Lin confirmed, getting a nod from Hayden, and… resisting the urge to sigh. 

            Well, it was too late to take Jake back to the hospital, probably.  Not that it made this any less frustrating. 

            “Junior was leaving town this afternoon,” Jack pointed out.  “That was the whole issue his sister was having.  And if he didn’t want me going, he wouldn’t have had a problem ditching a tagalong.” 

            David nodded.  “Especially considering the whole immunity angle.” 

            Fair enough.  Though really, if nothing else, that little tidbit made Junior’s partnership with Robby Stanton far less intimidating.  Jack had told them it was peer relationship and Jovi had confirmed the two of them were the originators of the Revenants no matter how many extras they had included as ‘founders’ but it was nice to know it couldn’t all be run by space heart games. 

            Which… was horribly discriminatory and literally not how the abilities worked, he knew that, but the knee jerk reaction and fears were still a little hard to swallow back down sometimes. 

            In any case, it was only a few more minutes before the empath was in front of them again, not looking nearly as sheepish as he should have.  “Hey!” 

            “You have this thing,” Lin reminded him, keeping his tone flat, “called a phone.” 

            “I maybe had a fit of paranoia and traded it away,” the guy returned, meeting his eyes.  “I need to go buy a new one.”  When they all just stared at him, he shrugged.  “I’m mostly sure that was stupid, but, you know.  Gut feelings.  I don’t suppose any of you know a guy named Cat Wilson?” 

-

***

-

May 1^st 199 – Friday – Budapest, Hungary

            Quatre leaned against a pillar at the edge of the balcony, reveling in the roil of the crowd.  Usually feeling this many people at once was a more chaotic experience – that or they gained enough of a mob mentality that they blurred into a strangely singular organism despite all the moving parts.  And the dance hall had a bit of the latter, but very few had fallen into it.  Instead, everyone here was just… caught in the joy of the moment.  Individually.  It was like staring into a rainbow disco ball of sheer happiness: layers of faceted light refracting in too many directions to follow to their end destination, but all bright. 

            As much as he usually reveled in accomplishment, in doing something better and faster than someone else?  More days like today were worth pursuing.  They’d lounged in more pools than he’d bothered to keep track of, wandered in and out of saunas, and eaten light delicacies, the majority of his friends all simply existing together in a state of relaxation.  With such a firm read on the room, even Odin had been convinced to get a massage – though that was also through some form of peer pressure.  Audi and the older women hadn’t stayed half as long, off to more focused primping, but they seemed equally pleased as the rest, and… 

            It was lovely, really.  Part of him wished the day would never end, even as it was now long after sunset.  And maybe this particular outing was on the extravagant end, but he thought he understood the elements of it enough to recapture it in a more succinct form later. 

            For now, he was enjoying the show.  Plenty of people were whirling around the dance floor, a chaos of dancers from all backgrounds finding their favorite rhythms in response to the electroswing beat.  Lu, it turned out, really enjoyed swing dancing – though everyone kept switching styles by the song, and she had grown increasingly thrilled as Odin showed off his lessons.  Everyone had taken a turn on the floor, himself no exception, but while there had been breaks to drink and catch their breath, Odin had clearly made the right choice of venue because all Lu wanted to do was keep dancing.  While far from the most talented dancers tonight, not least because they were still picking up each other’s rhythm and quirks, they’d certainly been noticed – in part because they were improving at a prodigious rate, but also because they rarely took a break. 

            There was a purely aesthetic appeal too.  Odin was all fluid motion, so much slower than what Quatre was used to seeing from him, but that only highlighted the finesse behind each transition – he caught the eye.  Though personally, Quatre was impressed he hadn’t ditched his hat somewhere at this point, given the sweat his friend had worked up.  Then again, after what happened yesterday he’d almost gone the route some of their fellow patrons had taken and glued on a domino mask – but his lady had provided the fedora as a compromise she preferred.  Especially since it turned out he knew how to shift or gesture with it as part of a dance – that had been about when Quatre decided to stop anchoring on Odin until the weekend was up. 

            Despite both claiming they couldn’t pick up on their feedback loop, they used it, and Lu had… an appetite.  So far as he could tell, they were both just so into each other that they missed the subliminal hints in favor of the physical. 

            That, and his own Talent had always been so strong that he couldn’t pass it off as something else unless he felt particularly delusional.  Lucrezia’s gift was so delicate and ephemeral that she likely could have gone her whole life thinking she had a good sense of intuition and high emotional intelligence.  In part because she did have those – she just also had an extra spark that occasionally gave her a hint more.  Though given the fact that she only formed bonds with people she felt extremely close to and they only worked rarely with erratic results at best…  Honestly, it was more of a bragging right than an actual ability. 

            Most of the earthborn Talents he’d observed seemed to be that way, for all that his friend was the only one he’d gone out of his way to interview so far.  If he did get back into the community it might be an interesting topic to pursue, once things cooled down again on the global front.  He was curious to see which way the research would point. 

            Liquidly dripping silver drew his eye back to the couple again, as they swayed, and he smirked, feeling more than a few people snap their attention that way.  The long silvery chains looped through her ears and hair swayed and spun as much as the layers of her skirt, inevitably drawing attention back to her again and again, and she cut a striking figure tonight even aside from that.  Her dark blue dress left her back largely exposed, and the draped front made up for the lack of fabric elsewhere in layers of draped folds making a low cowlneck; the skirt was asymmetric and layered in such a way that it clung over her hips and hung close to her body when still, but whipped about in multiple directions with every pivot on the dance floor.  Some kind of metallic thread was worked through the cloth that gave the fabric an impression of stars in a midnight sky – though subtly enough that the effect only came into being when she spun. 

            Between that gentle shimmer, the jewelry, and her laughing, near constant motion, as if she’d been born to dance, someone might mistake her for a dark deity there to revel in a pagan holiday most had forgotten before vanishing into the morning dew.  Art in motion.  By the visuals, Odin was practically a shadow leading her along, not a person in his own right. 

            He was looking forward to Nick’s pictures.  If his friend managed to capture even part of the night’s mood, it was time well spent.  Printing them would be a poor idea for now, but the gundams would be done soon.  When even Odin was beginning to chafe at the secrecy their lives had fallen into you knew it was time to find an out. 

            Not long now.  Howard projected them at three weeks, and Odin was matching that – though only because it gave him additional time for testing.  Apparently he thought assembly could be finished in five days, but was inclined to further finesse them so long as he didn’t have anything to attach the wings and mods to.  The prototype he’d been feverishly working on was now back at the dark site, having the final kinks worked out of it by Howard.  Realistically, something was likely still going to cause a delay and push them back another week or two, which was probably fine, but… 

            He felt like they were running out of time, and couldn’t decide if it was intuition or paranoia – though the doll problem was a hell of a sword of Damocles.  Whether or not she knew about that, Relena reportedly was done with the Regime, which was good – he liked the shape of the Accords so far, as did Sally.  But Noventa’s assassination attempt last week, whether it came from the East or elsewhere, was a concerning harbinger.  As prepared as Sally wanted and tried so hard to be, they weren’t omniscient – the fact that they couldn’t pin down the assassin’s motive made that clear as day. 

            They would be unprepared for something.  That was how it always went.  The only reason they were still procrastinating at this point was because Odin’s fortune had given them access to an overwhelming advantage too valuable to risk squandering.  Once the conflict began, they would have to adapt on the fly – and frankly, he would rather do so with the Accords’ support. 

            There was a secret just barely out of his reach when it came to weaving that possibility into reality.  He’d passed enough emails back and forth with the RLTT proprietor now to be sure he was dealing with a singular person, not a board or committee – and despite Odin’s initial reservations, he liked what he’d put together about the man.  He did what he thought was right, and didn’t let anyone or anything get in the way – Quatre could relate.  The fact that he’d continued to support Brigadier Mitchell after his fallout with the Regime, despite putting a lot of people’s backs up, actually firmed up his own opinion of RLTT.  The affluent will behind the fund rang true for how his own family operated, preferring secrecy and competence over fame – though he was genuinely curious about the hints the man had dropped about going public. 

            He hadn’t known enough about the Tomorrow Today Fund to consider it until after the fact, but Rubato resembled RLTT significantly.  The scale was the most dramatic difference, but that was likely due to both manpower and funding – while RLTT was certainly very well endowed, he doubted it was on the same scale as Odin – or if it was, he rarely flaunted it.  Additionally, from what the proprietor confirmed in their letters, all of his projects had functioned with only one or two hands on the wheel, often while the man himself maintained a separate career – Rubato could pull off massive ventures because there were over thirty of them to manage the various businesses top-down, full-time.  And if he considered the earlier projects under the perspective of a learning curve, especially since the man had professed to having no formal schooling in business?  Even if their goals didn’t align – and they very obviously did – this was someone he’d like to know. 

            Which brought them back to the issue of secrets and the current catch twenty-two he found himself in.  No one wanted to take that first step into the limelight – though apparently that was changing, since RLTT had practically said his own public reveal was pending, if somewhat delayed by current events.  If he was serious… that might be the best olive branch they would get, and he would be a fool to pass it up.  The R.L. Tomorrow Today Fund was becoming synonymous with ‘Relena’ anymore, and that also looked like an intentional move, not an inference, which… 

            That was his personal breaking point, he decided.  He could be wrong, but he felt like everything else could very well hinge around that truth, especially if that was RLTT’s ring on Relena’s finger.  But while he could draw up the likelihood and deviations of everyone near the woman with those facts in mind, he didn’t like any of his suspects enough to commit to the idea. 

            Jake Miller clearly had the money know-how to pull the role off given the way he’d worked Odin’s accounts – seemingly as a bizarre sort of shrine or memorial to the dead – but too many counter arguments could be made against him.  While he could have any amount of cash flow from the same source as his brother, separate or siphoned long before Quatre had access to the records – or even from his rumored black book work for the Khushrenadas – the level of finesse shown in RLTT from its earliest days…  Jake had been twelve when the Fund began its first project.  That and, from what he’d picked up through Jack and the speculation weaving through both public and private sectors, the younger Miller had literally been a missing person for most of that year, trying to find Odin.  While technically feasible – in that he could have been orchestrating from a distance, not to mention how much Quatre knew he or even Audi could compute financials at that age – Miller hadn’t had the education to back the theory.  He’d clearly learned in the intervening years, but it didn’t fit the timeline. 

            Additionally, while reports on the now retired colonel varied dramatically between ‘feral,’ ‘lethal,’ and ‘infiltrator,’ his records were too damned erratic to make sense of – and Quatre had dubbed him as too dangerous to feel out personally without considerable preparation.  Of course, his best friend had apparently thrown that out the window without consequences; and the history of espionage made all ‘official records’ of the man suspect, so he might just have to dismiss his research on that front entirely.  It was very possible, especially if he had any of Odin’s same skill with computers, that the younger Miller had fabricated the majority of his findings. 

            But even if his education was fabricated and he had somehow been able to pull off RLTT from the start, Jack was a puzzle piece that made the rest look impossible.  Because as troubled as the relationship felt even from the outset…  Jack Miller was still Jake’s father, and the older man’s living situation before Odin took charge was fucking abysmal.  Maybe his own troubles with his father paled in comparison to whatever was going on there, but he couldn’t imagine having regular free access to RLTT’s pocketbook while also letting even a hated relative edge that close to homelessness.  It left a bad taste in his mouth. 

            Alternately, Miller was still clearly an integral part of Relena’s household despite his retirement, and any notions that he was training his replacement had long since expired.  If he didn’t have anything to do with RLTT, it was possible that he had some planned role in a more advanced version of the Accords when it rose into a true government – or that he was a standing ambassador for Treize.  Or it was possible that Quatre was missing the intel that would explain some other perfectly valid reason for the man’s continued presence in her court. 

            But he didn’t have any other decent candidates for RLTT or the fiancé in what was visible in Relena’s court.  Also, the sheer level of dysfunction in what he did know about the Miller-Lowe family tree might surpass what he could comprehend when it came down to family and priorities. 

            So he had quite a few really suspicious puzzle pieces all pointing to Miller, but still couldn’t figure out how to twist them into a recognizable picture – probably because he was missing at least a quarter of the facts and could only overcome so much by making intuitive leaps.  Which also meant that he was missing enough pieces to have reached entirely false conclusions. 

            It was deeply frustrating, especially since Jovi was mostly convinced that the ‘erratic’ part of Miller’s personality was only a mask designed to draw attention away from his true actions. 

            It was, again, relatable. 

            He caught a familiar soul's recognition and happy focus from his right, and turned to see Audi making her way along the mezzanine, holding two cups.  He raised a brow at her, a little surprised to see her on her own.  Everyone had been taking turns playing chaperone, as one form of deterrent or another, because Audi didn’t look thirteen, especially in the classy cocktail dress and low heels Lu had helped her pick out.  Enough people were drinking tonight to raise concerns – though less because she couldn’t handle a man unaware of how close he edged to pedophilia so much as none of them wanted to deal with the inevitable scene when she broke his hand. 

            She rolled her eyes, but shifted to look back and raise one of the glasses in a ‘cheers’ motion to… Skye, over on the stairs. 

            Right.  Evidently, this was a handoff. 

            “Give me a break,” she teased, handing him a cup of something pale and fizzy…  Ooh, soda.  The bar had been crowded enough that he hadn’t bothered with the line, instead opting for the bottles of water settled in ice chests around the venue.  “It’s crowded enough down there that I thought I might miss it, and you looked like you had a good view.” 

            Not a bad point, he mused, looking back down.  He’d been distracted enough with his thoughts and the mood of the place that he’d lost track of the music.  Listening now, he recognized the current song as a popular one with a distinctly romantic vein, but nothing else came to mind.  “Did he end up picking a sequence?” 

            Audi shook her head.  “He wanted to see what she liked best first.  This one’s the signal for six romantic ones of the right genre in a row, though, and I picked three for the mix after we’d been here for a bit – DJ’s choice on the others.” 

            Quatre nodded.  “That’s a good way to do it.”  Nothing too precisely planned meant more opportunity to improvise, and left room for a short break if they’d run themselves ragged with poor timing.  As it was, he had no doubt that even with all the PT today and actually taking his meds tonight, Odin was going to have an impressive limp tomorrow.  But he’s not flagging yet.  The scattered timing also gave Nick more opportunities for candid shots without penning him into a box.  “How heavily did you have to bribe him?” he asked curiously. 

            “She didn’t want extra payment at all,” Audi informed him primly, looking smug.  “She was thrilled to be involved.  But I’m a lady, and I make a point of tipping well.” 

            Quatre smiled, appreciating that on all fronts.  “That’s a good policy,” he agreed. 

            She nodded, a little solemn, if in a thoughtful way.  “My mom always insisted it was important,” she admitted.  “But I saw it from the other end, growing up, and…  It’s different if you can’t.  But if it’s an option, rewards shouldn’t just end with school, you know?  It helps people, in their hearts as much as the money end.  Enough people live hand to mouth that extra money is always appreciated, but the thought is usually what makes a difference, you know?” 

            He nodded, enjoying the earnest goodwill coming from her as much as the concept.  “My sisters taught me similarly,” he agreed. 

            She shifted, becoming slightly apprehensive, but not… in a bad way?  “Do you miss them?” 

            Ah, nerves.  They hadn’t covered this sort of topic before.  “Sometimes,” he admitted.  “But the way I grew up, it was months before I would see one of them again, so it doesn’t feel as disconnected as you might expect.”  He sighed.  “My father passed me between them as a convenience, but I could always tell they wanted me there, so the weight of that didn’t sink home until I was about your age.  He and I were never close, but my sisters had elaborate games and arguments over who got to take me home for how long and when.  Really, they and their husbands were the ones who raised me.”  He considered her pent up curiosity that verged on excitement for a moment before making a face.  “I’m pretty sure one of them tried talking my father into letting her raise me entirely – and then he didn’t let me see her again for over a year.  That was the first time I ever felt unwanted, and it took some of the shine off my charmed life, for all that I grew past it.  I think I might miss her most; she never expected anything of me.  She genuinely only ever wanted to see me happy.” 

            Tamelia had been the first he sought out after Sanc, though Camille would have been next even if she hadn’t been down the street at the time.  They didn’t live all that close to each other, but Camille traveled a wide circuit and the two of them had always been close.  He remembered something being said about how they were raised together, which had originally struck him as an odd thing to say, since they were adults as far as his memory went, but…  They’d probably been around Audi’s age when their mom died and everyone scattered.  They must have meant they stayed together after. 

            When he did go back to his sisters, he hoped the fact that he was now the de facto head of both the family and Winner Corp would mean someone finally spilled the damn tea on just what had happened.  A single woman’s death, no matter how beloved, did not explain his shattered family, let alone all the secrecy wound through it. 

            “Was your dad… bad?” 

            He watched Odin and Lu dance for a long moment, thinking about it.  “Not intentionally,” he decided.  “But the older I got, the more I realized I didn’t really know him, despite the edge a space heart gives you.  He was… distant.  By the time I stopped trying and-” he waggled his fingers with an awkward grimace, because he was not saying anything about a gundam here, “he was angry with me so often that I almost wanted him to do something terrible.  To break the cycle, if nothing else.  But I think he meant well.  He was just… broken somehow, by losing my mother.”  That was what his sisters claimed, at least. 

            He’d never been able to decide if it was true or just a pretty lie he wouldn’t be able to disprove. 

            Audi hummed.  “My grandfather was always distant,” she offered.  “I never had a dad, and both he and my uncle…  I think I was four when I realized they were always angry with my mom because of me.  And my uncle always played with me, spoiled me every chance he got, but we didn’t…  They were both always away doing ‘something important,’ you know?  And when I was little, I used to think they’d get over it eventually, because I thought they loved me even if they didn’t get along with my mom… and I think my uncle maybe did?”  She sighed, the uncertainty in her soul weighing into melancholy – but in an old and tired way, not current upset.  “But they also… didn’t really care, if that makes any sense.” 

            He stared at her incredulously.  “Why would they be angry because of a toddler?” 

            Her mood turned bubbly with nervous humor, and she set her cup down and gave him a sheepish shrug.  “My mom was my age when she got pregnant,” she admitted.  “Big scandal, you know?” 

            That… usually came with implications that made him more upset that someone had blamed this woman.  “If she wasn’t-” 

            She’d clearly had this conversation before, because she cut him off before he could finish asking the awkward question.  “No, not like that.  Mom always said it was more ‘kids being stupid’ but, like…  I got the sex talk really young.  Because as much as my mom loves me, that’s… really stupid, you know?”  She shook her head, melancholic acceptance blending with curiosity and longing.  “She still loves my dad; can’t stand to talk about him at all.  She never let her family find out who he was, but by the time she thought I was old enough to keep the secret…  Well, he died at Libra.” 

            He blinked a few times, sorting through the contradictory emotions that… he supposed mostly made sense, given the complexity of all that.  Eventually he settled on the trite response; he could add on it, but certain things should be said.  “I’m sorry.” 

            Audi shrugged a little.  “Thanks.  But a lot of girls lost their dads there, you know?  And I know he loved me – she says they used to exchange letters, and that I met him once, when I was really little.”  She sighed.  “My grandfather was just…. really terrible.” 

            That was a good enough lead in for what he’d wanted to say – because if it really had been a case of ‘kids being stupid,’ Romeo and Juliet laws protected her father from statutory rape charges, no matter how furious her mother’s family might have been.  He could see Audi’s mother holding out for a few years out of paranoia if her father terrified her, but if she’d been fourteen when she had the baby, she would have been twenty-four when Libra fell. 

            That didn’t compute.  And didn’t Odin say that Audi’s mother was a physician?  That didn’t translate into stupidity. 

            “How terrible?”  She’d used past tense already, so it wasn’t a current issue, but- 

            A bubble burst, and he grit his teeth as a helpless sort of grief mixed with indignant anger and righteous stubbornness washed over him.  Audi took a deep breath, clenching her hands into fists at her sides and looking up with a determined set to her jaw… and despite the suddenness of the onslaught, it felt worn and faded too, like a worry stone with a hollow rubbed into its center.  It didn’t last.  He gave her a moment, but when she didn’t look down for ten seconds he quietly prompted, “Audi?” 

            She groaned in frustration, pressing her palms to her eyes before bringing her head back to a more neutral position.  “I’m gonna wreck my make-up,” she whined. 

            Ah.  Definitely okay then, though there was still the almost nervous anticipation humming through her.  “I’m sure we can fix it,” he offered, for all that he wouldn’t know the first step of how. 

            “It’s so dumb,” she insisted, starting to hunch over.  “I seriously just-”  Then she abruptly cut herself off, uncertainty swamping her.  She stiffened, but before he could ask, it erupted into giddy, incredulous disbelief and she dropped her hands to stand up straight, eyes wide.  “Oh my God, she didn’t!” 

            He had no idea what the abrupt change was about this time.  “What?” 

            She started giggling hard, wiping at her eyes, and insisted, “I swear, this isn’t one of the songs I picked, okay?  But if he doesn’t run with it, I’m going to do something totally obnoxious to him.” 

            The music?  He blinked, focusing on the female vocals, but before he could make out the words he effectively got punched in the face by sheer glee – from a number of sources, but Lu in particular, the loop through Odin active and serving as an amp so it was practically a beacon as she let out a loud, utterly delighted laugh.  Odin’s hat obscured his face from here, but he felt bemused, maybe a little exasperated… but mostly pleased with himself. 

            More or less how he always felt when he realized he’d made his lady happy, really. 

            Quatre didn’t recognize the lyrics, though it seemed slower than what Lu had responded to most all night – and as happy as she and Audi were over it, he found himself wondering if Odin was going to improvise entirely.  “Does he know the song?” he tried. 

            “To fight the rising odds?” 

            “Dude, I found just about every hero related song there is when Jack first started getting him into music, just to make him laugh.  And that was before the last two weeks.”  She pouted, stepping closer and leaning both hands on the balcony rail to peer down at them.  “He’s totally going to think I put the DJ up to it, though.” 

            “Late at night, I toss and I turn, and I dream of what I need…” 

            He was about to make some comment about an obligatory slow dance when the music abruptly shifted into something much higher in energy, and Odin immediately spun his date into a furiously fast tempo, her laugh still ringing out. 

            “I need a hero! I’m holding out for a hero ‘till the end of the night!” 

            Quatre started laughing himself, giving Audi a sideways glance.  “I’m not sure I believe you’re innocent on this one,” he decided.  Listening to more of the song as the couple moved aggressively enough around the floor that others were giving them more space than before, a few stopping to watch, he added, “It’s a little too on the nose.” 

            “Like anyone’s going to think too hard about it,” Audi argued.  “It’s old but keeps getting remade, and it got a huge popularity bump these last two weeks.”  She tipped her nose up in the air.  “Since it wasn’t me, and it’s your publicity campaign that gave the song a resurgence, I blame you.” 

            He laughed again, rolling his eyes.  Honestly…  That popularity gambit was going far more successfully than he had imagined.  And Odin still didn’t seem to know about it, which only made him want to laugh harder.  So instead of arguing he shrugged, focusing on his friends below for a long minute, buoyed by their joy.  Though…  “If they weren’t pilots, they’d probably be falling down dizzy by now.”  The speed at which they were whirling was giving them space enough to work with – especially as a few people noticed Nick stepping in with a camera and guessed some sort of event was happening. 

            Audi just hummed back at him, watching the scene with a dreamy heart. 

            He smirked and let it lie, leaning back to watch himself – this was the cumulative point of today, after all.  There were a few whoops and whistles as they executed a complicated looking dip, the first time they’d slowed at all from the start, before diving back into it. 

            This was a good crowd – quite a number of the people here were classically trained to the point that he assumed there was a significant percentage of nobility present, but none of them carried the typical arrogance he would have expected from a formal event.  Everyone was here to have fun without recognition, whatever their walk of life, and he could feel it. 

            For one night at least, no one was worrying about politics or saving face, content to just be.  It was addictive. 

            The song started to wind down into slower repetitions of the chorus, and as the final chords sounded, Odin swept down to one knee.  Exclamations and gasps sounded from the audience, turning into laughter as there was no presentation or clear attempt to ask the question, the man instead simply sliding the ring he pulled out of one pocket onto her hand – but more than a few people clapped when her response was to tug him back to his feet for a kiss.  Equally presumptive and wordless.  It suited, really. 

            Then again, this was take two.  Despite all the crap everyone had given him for getting ahead of himself the first time, though, no one could say he hadn’t put in the effort today. 

            Audi sighed as a slower song came on and the couple settled into a much more sedate dance.  Standing back up straight, she turned to lean a hip against the railing instead, complaining, “She didn’t even look at it.” 

            Personally, he thought that was half the reason why so many of their watchers were so charmed by the display.  Aloud, he noted, “She has time.” 

            “I guess,” the girl returned begrudgingly, picking her cup back off the railing. 

            He shrugged and took a sip from his own, debating how much longer everyone would want to stay.  Depending on the mood, he might hang back until closing… but if everyone else was tired, he likely would be too, just from immersion. 

            He pursed his lips as the girl’s melancholy rose up again, remembering their previous topic.  Not sure if she really wanted to get back into it or not, he asked, “Are you okay?” 

            “Oh, yeah,” she mumbled unconvincingly.  “Just… he really is a hero, you know?  Not just for the pun.  He found me because I ran away from my grandfather, and… anyone else would’ve either taken me back or given me to the authorities.  And he offered to do the latter, but as soon as he knew who I was and what I was running from, there wasn’t any question.  He just… made it his job to keep me safe.  I don’t think he had any intention of trying to teach me at first, but I was bored and he was so cool, and…”  She sniffed, then made an annoyed noise, shaking her head as if to ward off the emotions – though it was less sadness and more that she was overwhelmed, this time.  “Anybody else in his shoes would’ve been happy to get rid of me, I think.  I didn’t know half the reasons why at first, and he’s never brought it up, but…  With everything that happened to him, he shouldn’t have wanted me, you know?  But we’re family now, and it just is.” 

            Quatre considered that.  He’d certainly been surprised his friend had slowed down and calmed enough to be willing to look after a child when he first found out, but that didn’t sound like what she meant.  Not to mention the fact that the girl had certainly not slowed Heero down; if anything, she drove him higher.  He thought about making a listening sort of noise and letting her continue, but her confidence was rarely this shaken, and she’d been talking leadingly enough that she might be waiting for a real question in the first place.  “Why would you think that?”  When she didn’t answer that, and instead even refused to look at him, he frowned.  “Audi?” 

            Her emotions settled into something closer to resolve, shoulders settling into a line.  She still didn’t look at him, however, as she said, “I prefer Marie.” 

            He blinked, considering that.  The way she said, it, the name sounded nearly identical.  The M was an addition, but the way they rolled the D in ‘Audi’ was already with that distinct L1 combination of R, L, and D – what he assumed was a written R didn’t sound different, with the faintly Italian accent you saw so much of in L3.  In any case, the cadence of how she said it was the same as before.  “Okay.”  He might have guessed, given the fact that she’d been going by an M name when he met her, but it didn’t particularly stand out. 

            The nervous excitement from before came back full force, for all that you wouldn’t be able to tell by her face, and she took a pointed look around to make sure no one was close enough to eavesdrop before meeting his eyes.  “It’s short for Mariemaia.” 

            He just… stared.  The words made sense, but didn’t compute into something meaningful.  “Oh.” 

            She gave him a skeptical look.  “Yeah.  I didn’t…”  She brought her free hand up to push through her loosely curled hair.  “I knew my grandfather was bad, I ran away because I could tell I was just his latest toy that he’d found a convenient use for, but I didn’t…  I knew Odin had been in the program, he told me the same day he found me, after I said my name, but he never told me about…”  She made a shaky, flippant gesture.  “You know?  He just kept me safe, chased off people we found following me and helped me find my mom, but we were family by then, and…”  She sniffed.  “I think he told her?  They talked a lot while he was down from the surgeries to fix his leg, and they didn’t let me listen to a lot of it.  But I asked him last week, and he said… that even if I’d been a total brat, he wouldn’t have left another kid with my grandfather, you know?”  She growled, sniffling again.  “And it keeps making me want to cry all the time.” 

            Clinically, he started rearranging all the facts in the new, correct pattern, and snorted out a laugh as he realized… she had told him she was due to inherit a fortune, one time.  He’d thought it was some kind of inside joke with the way Odin laughed about it, but… 

            Mariemaia Barton was being raised by Heero Yuy.  Obviously they weren’t going to tell anyone for a while, but… all the work of the last two weeks could do a lot to recoup the losses the Barton Foundation took too, given the flipped context.  She could make good use of that when the time came. 

            For now though, she was still his best friend’s little sister – honestly, the details only made Odin’s life weirder, rather than reflecting anything on her.  Precocious as she was, as brilliant as she was growing to be, Marie was still a child.  But… yeah, Odin had taken in his abuser’s grandchild and done right by her, which was… huge.  The man would never think of it that way himself, but as Marie said, it went a long way to even further show his true colors. 

            She’s going to be one of my business partners someday.  He’d already considered the idea likely, though he’d been under the impression it would be through Odin’s holdings after he retracted his own claws to prevent conflict of interest when he went back to Winner Corp, but…  She was the future head of the Barton Foundation.  Poor Odin is going to have to find someone else to manage his money.  Then again, maybe that had been part of why he was initially so bullheaded about it.  Between the three of them, they had control of three major powers in space – or at least, Da Capo would be a major power eventually, once it built itself up more. 

            That… left a great deal of interesting opportunities for the future. 

            Sighing, he set his cup on the railing and reached out to pull her into a hug.  He wanted to tease her about how he should have realized he was training his competition, but she felt fragile right now and this was calmer.  She seemed to appreciate it. 

            Glancing back down at Odin, he resisted the urge to shake his head.  Revelations aside, he could get the details later, once the weekend was up.  Nothing had changed. 

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***

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May 2^nd 199 – Saturday – Berlin, Germany – Executive Suite of Hotel Ensō Berlin

            “It’s fine,” Jake insisted, chuckling as he leaned back into his fiancée’s side.  “I get it, but I wish everyone would stop making such a big deal out of this.” 

            “You almost died,” Relena reminded him, though without any heat.  Instead, she opted to reach up and comb her fingers through his hair, pressing her mouth against the side of his head. 

            “That was last week,” he argued cheerfully.  “And also not what I was talking about.  As irritating as the live Remalene felt, it also kept the nerves too busy to let much else through so long as I stayed still.  It was a long way from the worst I’ve ever felt, and now I have dissociative painkillers again, so seriously.  I’m fine.” 

            Personally, Jack couldn’t decide if that was better or on the same level as ‘It’s just pain.’  As glad as he was that none of his fears about assisting his son out of the hospital ahead of schedule had materialized, he also knew how skewed perspective could get. 

            He checked his phone again, despite not having felt it vibrate.  As much as everyone here was enjoying their late breakfast and lazy morning out of the public eye, now that Jake was back on standard medical care he didn’t figure he’d be able to stay much longer.  Though for once, he wasn’t sure if that would be because Jake would grow distant enough that it hurt, or if he would just feel awkward enough to jettison himself.  He’d thought about going home once his son got cleared for meds last night, but he’d also known the house would be empty, and that… 

            Odin had let him know he was in the clear after leaving town on Thursday, and Jack had known to not expect anything from him yesterday.  But despite how welcoming Jake and Lena’s household was going out of their way to be, he still felt cut adrift.  He’d already gone ahead and emailed Raphael to check that there weren’t any projects on hold by him dealing with family stuff, half looking for an excuse to bolt because the sheer anxiety of the situation was eating away at him.  Then, while waiting for a response back – one that was probably delayed because he thought Raph was also in Budapest and possibly sleeping off a hangover – he’d given into the urge to text Odin a quick, ‘How’d it go?’ before he could second-guess himself.  He had no reason to think it hadn’t gone well, but… 

            At this point, he was willing to acknowledge that he was just seeking some kind of external reassurance that, despite knowing it was okay, someone else agreed that everything was not in fact fucked. 

            His heart leapt in his chest when he saw the ellipses pop up in the chat showing that his son was writing something – though he started stewing more than being excited when it seemed to take a while.  He’d never caught an incoming message like this, but he’d seen how fast Odin texted in general.  As soon as he started to think something really had gone wrong, though, an image came through, and he grinned so hard his face hurt. 

            It was clearly a selfie shot, if a neatly anonymous one.  A woman’s hand rested on a naked male chest, wearing the engagement ring. 

            He shook his head a little, leaning back.  That was plenty an answer.  They either hadn’t gotten out of bed yet despite the late hour, or had gotten back in.  Either way they were happy, and he wasn’t going to bug them for the rest of the weekend. 

            Rhett sat down next to him, looking bright-eyed, and Jack rolled his eyes and showed him the screen.  The kid was kind enough to just smile and nod, happy to share in the moment instead of making a scene of it.  And… it was nice to have someone else sitting on the neutral fence to share it with.  As much as Cat had apparently spooked the other space heart, he’d also impressed the hell out of him – something about being thrilled to no longer be the biggest fish?  And that was before getting into the fact that his younger son was basically catnip for empaths. 

            Not that there was anything incriminating about the photo – he could show Jake.  But his oldest could also interact with his brother properly and earn it himself.  They’d probably do better if he didn’t try to hold their hands through it at this point. 

            Though, watching him and Lena be carefully lovey without doing anything egregious in company... it might not hurt to nudge a little.  The layers of secrecy between his boys was the real barrier, and the hospital staff had to be starting rumors by now, intentionally or otherwise.  “How much longer until you two go public?”  The shitshow from the press about Dorothy’s pregnancy had hardcore restarted all the speculation about Relena’s engagement. 

            Finding out Jake’s ‘Lena’ was Relena might go a long way towards melting Odin and Rubato’s disposition in general. 

            Jake sighed, pulling away from Relena.  “RLTT goes first,” he pointed out.  “Which, ideally, is as soon as I can go on camera and be charming, without any major tells for pain.”  He made a face.  “Which means I should have brought up the issue with Senior the other day at the hospital, but I procrastinated and then he left, so…  I guess I’m going to have to do that over the phone.” 

            Oh.  He’d forgotten that he hadn’t told Jake about that conversation at the Sigma site.  So much of it wasn’t up for discussion that it had been easy to table, but he’d also maybe dropped the ball a bit.  “Ah, I actually asked him about that last week?” he admitted, chagrinned. 

            Jake’s eyes rounded but he didn’t otherwise react, which was probably a good sign.  “Yeah?” 

            Jack could feel the stares of the rest of the Guard as he laughed a little helplessly, running a hand over his head.  “I mean, I posited it as a theoretical of Senior’s history becoming known, and he shrugged it off entirely?  When I pointed out that you were worried about it, he made fun of you and argued that he was too young when Senior died for anything the man did to fall back on him.” 

            “…He called me stupid, didn’t he?” 

            Jack just laughed, not bothering to confirm.  “I think he appreciated the warning, but made it clear that he doesn’t care.”  Had said it was the least of his problems, but considering what had happened in the hospital lobby two days ago, he was not letting that suggestion into the open. 

            Jake made a rude noise but otherwise relaxed, leaning back into the couch he was on with a small wince.  “Depending on how I do over the next few days, then, I might try an interview to bring RLTT out of the dark as soon as Friday,” he decided. 

            “It might to best to wait until the final decision about David is reached and publicized,” Relena countered.  “Instead of muddying the waters.” 

            Jake grimaced.  “Or that.  Listen to the person not on opiates, please.” 

            “I thought you were happy about the opiates,” Cassidy teased. 

            “It’s a really unhealthy, love-hate relationship,” Jake snarked back, grinning even as he closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the couch cushions.  “Very abusive.  I’ve already packed my bags and am looking for a convenient escape.  I’m worth more than that, you know?” 

            “Jake,” Relena growled warningly, though her eyes were lit with amusement. 

            He leaned over enough to touch foreheads with her.  “Sometimes, it’s laugh or cry,” he reminded her.  “I’m getting there, I promise.” 

            Relena sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, then made a face when her phone began to ring. 

            Jake only smiled though, slowly pulling away and settling into the couch cushions.  “Duty calls,” he offered. 

            Jack debated if that was his cue, especially once Relena had pulled the device out and was frowning at the screen.  Unknown caller, or just someone she didn’t expect?  Instead of handing it off the way he’d seen her do a number of times already, however, she answered.  “Hello?”  Her frown deepened.  “Yes, speaking.  Is Ava alright?”  Eyes flashing, she made a sharp gesture to her guards that Jack couldn’t follow, even as she pulled the phone further away from her ear and tapped the volume rocker.  Across the room, Jack was still too far to make anything out, but Jake had already sat up with a wince and was leaning in, expression going distressingly blank. 

            This… was starting to feel alarming. 

            “Of course I do,” Relena announced calmly, though her politician’s face was firmly in place.  “This is my personal number.”  There was a longer pause this time.  “I see.  Well, you certainly have my attention.  May I know exactly whom I am speaking to?”  She listened for a while, brow raising, before simply saying.  “Ah.”  Her chest rose and fell with a heavy but silent sigh before she announced, “I’m going to need to verify this information before we talk further.  Is that acceptable?”  She listened to the response, before saying, “Of course.  And I would expect the same in turn.”  Her tone hardened.  “You have me at a disadvantage.  While I do appreciate the overture in reaching out to me directly and will do my best to forestall hasty action, you cannot think me happy about your methods and claim to still understand my ideals, Sir.  Yes.  Give me two hours.  Goodbye.” 

            One of the men Jack had seen around Sarracenia with some frequency but had never caught the name of was the first to say something.  “Relena?” 

            “That,” she announced in a clipped tone, “was General Devin Fosse of Libramentum.”  She turned hard eyes on the man.  “He claims to have completed a full takeover of the British Isles.” 

            Oh shit. 

            “Whether or not that is entirely true,” Relena continued, eyes still boring into the man, “he has quite a number of Romefeller hostages, as they were sure to keep the main populace out of the conflict.”  She pursed her lips.  “And they would like to ransom them for a seat and equitable terms on the Board of the Accorded Nations.” 

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