Chapter Text
The start is banal enough. They go off-script in front of a U.S. senator.
"I insist that you give the bibliography a thorough search. His presentation could only cover so much, but Jayce's technology is beyond the cutting edge. At least five years ahead of every contemporary project seeking advancements in the study of holography." And then Mel smiles. Confident, but wry. As if to say, It's all right that you dozed through the last six presentations! So did I!
She had not.
"He's even outpaced Dr. Heimerdinger at our very own academy," she gushes. "His guidance would have kept the project ground-tied to optical trap displays. But Jayce harboured dreams of flying higher." You see? Even I can understand this realm of science. And my mind works like yours.
The senator blinks her blue eyes and nods, completely dazed. Johnson was her name, a statistical inevitability. A pouffed and powdered Wyoming fish out of water here within sight of Catalina Island's silhouette, but rich nonetheless in old connections, oil, and various sundries.
"That's... certainly impressive," she hazards. Mel smirks.
Every twist in Mel's gathered braids, every handcrafted thread in Mel's reticulated suit, all the way down to Jayce beside her with the single dark curl falling over his forehead - somewhere, it hints, there's a Superman lurking under all that Clark Kent - is a siren song promising that Mel's smile knows things. They've got it down to a science.
Jayce's grin, right on cue, is GQ cover worthy. "Mel's just flattering me," he says, so American. And on first-name basis with the foreign socialite? The man's instincts were nothing less than prodigious. "The contributions of my team can't be overstated. There's no way I'd be here without them."
Never mind the startled cough somewhere to Jayce's left.
No, Jayce is too busy commanding the senator's attention, who blinks up at him like a lost puppy finally thrown a bone. Thank god, she's thinking, a hound among foxes. "I promise," says Jayce emphatically, like a proper boy scout, "that this project is only the first step. Our innovations will not only turn Piltover into a haven for equality and opportunity, but I've got a feeling we can get the rest of our great nation to follow in the footsteps of our success."
The pretty words haven't even finished flowing by the time the senator's glazed look sharpens into something else. It's more perfect than Mel had dared hope. "Jayce's holography is only one project of many in his labs, but there's nothing like a strong, focused foot forward." Mel only has to reach out a little, and the final blow lands. Her fingers touch the back of Johnson's pale hand. "At the next hearing, I'm certain we'll come out the victors. If offered, your support won't be soon forgotten."
"I thought my support went without saying," says the senator, aghast, and relief sweeps through Mel like soaring. "It's not just about the presentations, isn't it? It's not just about the projects. It's about the people behind them."
"Speaking our language, Senator." Jayce is barely keeping himself in check, all but vibrating with excitement. God, forget her original plans for him, unfurling slowly over the coming months. She's going to buy him every drink he can keep down at the first bar they can crash between here and Academy Row. If he was shy about loosening his tie in front of her, well - nothing her hands couldn't fix.
Then it's like the senator simply can't help herself. "I have to tell Ambessa how impressed I was today," she says, her eyes having the audacity to look a little watery. Like she thinks she's being generous, like she's the damn Pope giving Mel a ticket straight to the pearly gates. "Home can't feel too far away, if you've got such great people who need you here. Everyone says California is lucky to have Piltover, but I say America is lucky to have you." A cool, wrinkled hand squeezes hers, truly a reversal of fortune. "She'll be very proud, Mel."
"I'm sure," says Mel, strangled, "you'll be wanting a copy for the hearing, yes?"
No distractions. The first Medarda to trip over a finish line won't be this one.
So Mel smiles. The senator smiles. Because Mel knows things. She slips her hand free without even looking like she's yanking it away, her skin crawling. And then Jayce holds out the binder and the senator reaches for it like they have the Holy Grail itself stuffed somewhere inside it. Mysterious and unknowable, but that won't matter. Jayce's research, presentation, and bibliography could be a Betty Crocker cookbook for all this woman cared.
The senator takes it. Mel's year-end spreadsheet practically updates itself before her eyes.
Then with a start, it hits her - the research assistants. She'll break the news to them herself first thing in the morning. Americans are such a noisy bunch, her ears will be ringing with the undergrads' happy screaming all day long. Mel smothers a stray grin or else, by her calculations, risk looking smug.
"We'll give the team your best," Mel says pleasantly. "We must arrange to have dinner after the hearing is done. I know the applications to defense will be of particular interest to -"
"Ridiculous."
Ah.
The superheated derision in that one word is enough to curl the toupée of every business mogul in the hotel concert hall. Even though, like with most disasters both natural and not, it doesn't feel real at first. An isolated giggle bubbles up from the crowd, then cuts off in the taut silence.
Mel would have preferred another cough. Or a good, honest Twitter canceling. The Italian heir who'd sworn off his inheritance for her, on camera, at the Met Gala, was a classic. Namely, what she'd done to him to negotiate the money's swift return. Every time she'd been caught out of doors without makeup. The cult that Father may or may not have led, before his children found sunnier shores in their own disgrace. She was a fan, personally, of all the tinfoil-hatting over the alleged Freemason ties in Nigeria. But Mel wasn't choosy.
Would she have preferred being shot? She gives it a moment. Yes, she'd take a bullet, just somewhere convenient, please, she hasn't got a death wish today. Her flat burning down - her paintings were safe in a studio anyway, so what did it really matter? Maybe even, as Kino had whispered to her behind the podium at Ambessa's last general election campaign - right before Mel had met his grin with a grimace and told him, "You're banned from David Attenborough clips. For life." - a surprise rectal exam from a giant armadillo.
She'd prefer all of it at once to the quiet, politely insane laugh that makes everyone turn and gape.
Anyone would have to be completely mad to try talking now. Try telling that to the perpetual PhD in residence.
"You cannot be serious," Viktor sneers from around Jayce's other shoulder. "The American military. Do you have a particular billionaire's Twitter intern on speed dial? It's more polite to at least wait for the ink on the patent to dry before you sell out."
If the corridor wasn't silent as the grave before, it certainly is now.
Except for the senator, who says with total serenity, "Ah, you're already that far along, are you?"
"We're discussing it!" Jayce blurts, shooting the words from the hip. Good boy. "At great length. It's a little too early to tell at this stage, but once we get there, as our supporters, you'll be the first to know about how the patent process is going."
But because this is Mel's life and there are no red-caped heroes to boldly lay down their lives, the exchange drops like a stone, not a soul around brave enough to try and scoop it back up. There's just Viktor standing there, glaring right between Jayce and the senator like they're so many specks of dust, straight as a laser beam at her.
Let the record show - Mel doesn't flinch. Medardas don't flinch. A strange calm washes over her, almost a stupor, and she ducks the first featherings of her panic like a boxer weaving in the ring. "Viktor is Jayce's partner in research and development," she tells the corridor coolly, never taking her eyes off him. He's so gray, he practically disappears into the wall. Her attention pins him against it like a bug on a corkboard. "And he has many ideas of his own for their hologram's applications. If you ask me, it's enough to electrify even the most mundane mind."
If Jayce is to be believed, Viktor is fluent in several languages. Well, then. He can try hers on for size, if he likes.
He must, because Viktor's eyes narrow to yellow slits, all the harsher for the nearly color wheel-perfect complement of sleepless purple bruises framing them. Of course he'd refused to sit for cosmetics. Of course he'd make the effort to be difficult. Still, Mel's smile quirks wider on one side. Even though what she knows about him could fit on a smudged note scribbled on her own palm, one thing is clear. Outside of Viktor's lab - well, she knows a fish when she sees one, trying to fly and peck among the birds.
Maybe he's due a little credit. Sullen as he was, and quiet - somewhere, he'd worked out how to squawk like one.
"I would think, considering the good senator's campaign focus of the last, eh, six months," says Viktor, his cane creaking in his grip like he'd stab it through to the Earth's core if he could, the sleek lines of the brace over his right pant leg catching the light, "that the medical applications would be of greater interest."
The senator wouldn't remember Jayce's presentation if someone held her pet Goldendoodle to ransom for it. "The medical applications are varied and fascinating," Mel says soothingly, a lovely offset to how unsoothed her blood pressure is at this very moment, and at his suspicious scowl - "Imaging. Surgical guidance. Modeling. Patient monitoring. 'And much more.' Slide fifteen, wasn't it?"
Oh, but it's hard not to appreciate the way the doubt hesitates on his face. "I - yes, that's -"
"A good scientist considers all possible angles. Even your own presentation said so."
He's ready for her this time. "My own presentation also said that Piltover has a great responsibility." For a man who looks like he has the social circle of Robinson Crusoe, his retaliation flicks out easily, almost lazily. "One wonders toward whom."
"I wonder who's wondering," says Mel, smiling warmly. The weight of dozens, even thousands of eyes on her has never been heavy for the likes of Mel, but it's there all the same. Today is a day for meeting expectations. Not thwarting them. "It's not hard. People who have, give to people who need. Piltover has a lot, and people need many different things. Far be it from us to decide who needs what. You don't agree?"
It's like Viktor's face craves motion, betraying every thought without being so good as to spell out what each one is, not without his permission. But the eyes and mouth and sharp planes between the bones are as reactive as alkaline. His jaw slides forward ruefully, and she tries not to break into a grin. Well, good for him. He had a nice little go at her. Now -
"That isn't our decision, but it is someone's," Viktor snaps. "And I do not think they're present. We designed this project with people in mind." He nods at Jayce, whose complexion is rapidly graying to the color of factory grain cereal. "That discussion stays between us. For now."
Oh, she wants to purr, hasn't Jayce told you? Because clearly, he had not.
But he had told her.
It'd be foolproof, if she said it. Still, a girl has her morals. And there is more than one surefire way for Mel to encourage a man - to get anyone - to follow instructions.
"I've heard Jayce's thoughts on the subject several times, but I don't think I've ever heard yours," she says, coaxing. "We should find some time to discuss them, just you and me. I find that different points of view can open us all up to new opportunities. And you strike me as someone who knows where to look." She smirks - he's got the sharp edges for it. "For the right opportunity."
And Viktor - Viktor curls his lip. "I'm not in the market for something new. Those who are in need are mine."
What the hell.
Well, if Viktor wasn't the type, then - he wasn't. Of course he wasn't. Dammit, but could he let nothing be easy -
"I mean." The new voice is startling, but it's only Jayce, watching the senator thoughtfully, assessing. "It's defense, isn't it. There's more than one way to help people."
Viktor gapes up at him. "We agreed that this would never be a subject for debate -"
"Without a doubt, it speaks to the brilliance of Jayce and Viktor's work that their holographic imaging can be so readily applied to a variety of unrelated fields." There, she'd called him brilliant. Men love that sort of thing. When Viktor looks back at her, she widens her eyes and thinks with every synapse firing in her brain, Now please, shut up.
Viktor cocks his head at her like a cat caught batting a water glass across a tabletop. So she can hardly muster surprise when, with deliberate delicacy, he slaps it right over the edge. "I would just hate for anyone here to be confused. When I think of improving lives, weapons and soldiers aren't what come to mind."
Jayce catches Mel's eye nervously. Assessing again. "Viktor and I are dedicated to Piltover's ambitions of making the world a better place for everyone. Each one of you has our word - whatever direction we choose to point it in, that north star couldn't have more devoted champions than us."
Ah yes, the north star that changes alignment according to choice. That north star.
One of Mel's old aunties holding a plate of sweets could look like a serial killer standing next to Jayce and all his good intentions - but she can't quite bring herself to look at him just then. Or at the image of him grinning on a bar stool next to her, tie askew.
But not for nothing did Mel, age eight, with a gap in her teeth and a glorious puff of hair crowning her head, win Most Likely to Bring World Peace for an impassioned speech on London bottle recycling. Before Viktor can open his mouth, Mel says, "I used to dream I was a hero, when I was a girl. Being saved never really crossed my mind, not even then." Pause for laughter. The fond, self-reflective tittering trails off. "Childhood may be in the past for all of us, but the dream doesn't need to stay a dream. Not even when the realities of the world catch up with us. I think of Jayce's goals as magnetism . Wherever there is the greatest need, his work will be pulled in that direction. The world is changing, and so we all must be agile if we wish to help the people in it."
Oh, she hopes that someone is recording. She pictures Ambessa's face, her hearing that , and suddenly Mel's entire day is looking up.
But somewhere out there in the Balkan wilds, probably in some concrete block of an apartment building, there's a mother and a father sleeping soundly, content in knowing they had never taught their son subtlety. "The goal of navigation tends to be mitigating disturbances," Viktor says sourly.
The smile is so tight on her face, it hurts. "Oh, some disturbances, I long to mitigate."
And then for the first time - Viktor goes very still. His thick brows draw together. Only his gaze moves, flickering oddly across her face, searchingly. So maybe here, she can finish him here. "Come on, Viktor. Let the metaphor breathe a little."
There's laughter, and for most men that would mean the end of it. Call it recency bias, but Mel cannot for the life of her think of a worse way in which Viktor is not like most men.
"Moving from one thing to the next, wherever the siren song is strongest. Your views hardly surprise." It might be the harsh lighting casting unruly shadows, but - she's pretty sure he looks her up and down, exactly once. "Given your background."
Oh?
Oh. So this is what he wants.
To be honest, it takes her back. Years ago, she'd looked at a reedy academic over the top of Jayce's head while he bent over the county jail's release forms, and that academic had looked at her, and the silent agreement had been beautifully simple. They'd politely ignored each other ever since.
But this? This was a - a trespass . This was a containment breach of b-movie proportions, with him as the specimen, and her as the - the what? The damsel who was supposed to deflect, then run ?
Something - prickles , under her skin. Something electric slips up her spine, her blood tingling. "I understand your need to keep going straight on," she says, maybe a touch too sweetly. Surely no one will notice. "On and on in one track, for years on end, nothing ever changing. Given your foreground."
He's closer than he was a moment ago. With languid purpose, without her leave, her feet are moving across the carpet. Suddenly she's fully aware of the scant, lucky inch her heels grant her over him. And of the line of his throat pulling taut, stopping himself from swallowing. "I take my work very seriously."
"And I see you take your reputation just as seriously," she says, glancing pointedly around at their thinning audience. "You would even take your city's with it."
He's much closer. There's moles on his face. A touch of red in his brown hair where curls are struggling against how he'd tried combing them away. That's her voice that's dropped into an undertone, perhaps too quiet for even Jayce to hear right beside them.
Whatever the opposite of shrinking under her scrutiny would be, he certainly approaches it. "Please. I'm afraid I don't blush that easily."
Of course not. The man's veins probably run with frayed copper wire. "Oh no, I'd hate for you to so exert yourself. It's a rare gift you must have."
"Some of us do have several."
"Some of us," she says, smiling so softly, when all she wants to do is bare her teeth, "never feel shame. Can you imagine it."
She's poised for the next volley - but then Viktor frowns at her, as focused as he is frustrated, disappointed, and this must be the last thing his faulty prototypes see before they're disassembled. A more manageable mystery in pieces. "I would do as I like with myself and with this city," he says flatly. "Until Piltover's reputation is that we improve life for the ones who need it most. Or that we do nothing at all."
They stare at each other over that one. Given the blazing evidence, the years and years of it stacked against him, the sheer enormity of his bluff -
Not a single crack in his composure. He has got to play her at cards, someday. Tragic, how that would require them breathing the same air.
"No one would ever ask you to bend in a way you weren't already very willing to," she says, unimpressed.
He seems to like that for some reason. Her previous infraction cautiously forgiven - or a fresh one has arrived to cauterize the old. The thin line of his mouth softens, his fingers tapping on the handle of his cane. "They can try. I have fused vertebrae. The bend is a feature, not a bug."
"You'll make me doubt how accurate your project can ever be." It's a surprise even to her, the playful note she hears in her own warning. "Your character is so upstanding, you could talk your imaging into showing me every part of you, flawlessly aligned."
Viktor's lips part on a breath, like she's reached in and stolen the comeback right off his tongue. Hesitation, teetering on a decision - and then that look is back, his gaze flickering curiously across her face. "My work places me in a vulnerable position." He shifts his weight before her, adjusting with one shuffling step forward, challenging her. "If you wish to look, then look. But even if my stance concerns you so much, I won't apologize for making exceptions as I see fit. Where I bend is my own problem."
The more stubborn the bastard, the more proud, in her experience. "I understand. You place enormous pressure on yourself - and on your performance." He snorts, then purses his lips, contrite. She rolls her eyes. "You're hardly special; I've seen too many before you do the same. If you didn't face that pressure so alone, your exceptions could be a thing of the past."
"I'm not alone -"
"And yet here you are, complaining to me." He scoffs, but that's it, the full extent of his protest. "You're rigid - and you've done it to yourself. But you could straighten out as much as you wanted. Maybe if you asked very nicely," she says, not unkindly, "I could do something about that for you."
Something, a guarded tension in Viktor's face, instantly gives way. To her amazement, he fights down - not a smile. A smirk, very nearly surprised right out of him, trying to curve up one concave cheek, pleased as a cat with cream. Wherever he's looking, it's not at her eyes, like he's hiding something from her - his own are shaded by the dark fan of his lashes.
"You realize what it is I'm offering you," she says, annoyed. And his mouth shakes, trying so hard not to laugh. His degrees and accolades were all sad mistakes. He was clearly an idiot. "I'll take that as a no."
He shakes his head, sobering up. "Placing my work in the hands of others requires a certain level of trust. Why not in myself, for the sake of others like myself?"
"Sounds lonely. Giving in only to yourself."
He doesn't smile this time, she thinks. Well - maybe a little. "I make do."
She lets her lashes flick downward once, brushing the tops of her cheeks. You think you're so clever. "That's nice - for you. But there will always be people who need what Piltover has to offer, and I intend to answer to them. Even if that stiff, upright character of yours is off somewhere all by itself, collecting dust in protest."
He doesn't blush. He doesn't even frown. Viktor just blinks at her, like he's seeing her for the first time. "Everyone loves a good speech. But some of us only get lab space for rent, not audiences. Goals and intentions can be lost in translation."
"You're not proud of your assets?"
"I think you're not aware of them," he says boldly. "It must be difficult to find time to go see such things, between all of that - answering, you're doing."
You cannot be serious , he'd said. Oh, but Mel can be serious. She gives him her sweetest smile. Which the dusty nerd in his drainpipe-tight suit, no surprises, can't be arsed to return. No, he just stares at her with unnerving intensity, like a hunting hound pointing at a banana peel on the ground, thinking it's a bird. Such a sad, fruitless endeavor. She's been persuaded more artfully by drunkies in London back alleys. Rich ones, or pretty or both, but still .
"That's a generous offer, but I'm afraid my schedule is full up."
"With viewing the wonders of engineering elsewhere, I hope."
"Oh, no. With trysts, obviously." He coughs in shock, and if there's a laugh in there somewhere, it's lost in the handkerchief he quickly presses to his face. "Between myself and paperwork, and people who privately prefer that Piltover make less money next year than the entirety of Silicon Valley."
Viktor rights himself and grimaces, like prosperity is a bout of cholera he's unlikely to pull through. "This threesome sounds ill-advised."
She wills a twinkle into her eye by imagining that ridiculous suit of his ripping down only the most unfortunate of its seams. "I can think of worse ideas." He can take that however he likes it.
Or he can take it, wrinkle his nose at it, and then drop it with no ceremony whatsoever. "You hear an idea, and where to sell the patent is already clear in your mind. Nothing else. Maximum reach, maximum effect, maximum profit - these are the things that matter to you, but that can't be all there is for science ."
"You'd rather your innovations exist in the hypothetical?"
"Nothing in our lab is hypothetical," he says scornfully. "Just a little underfunded."
She huffs. "This is the worst way you could possibly think of to ask me for money."
The face he pulls. Lady Disdain's got nothing on him. "I have a funded project. I thought we had an - understanding." He must see something in her expression, because he reaches for one final card, his stare fevered. Desperate. The look of a man with too little sleep, too few fucks to give, and an obsession. "I thought you'd be curious, what else your investment buys besides a slice of the military budget. But, if you don't have the time..."
The man could make Mephistopheles sound like he was full of grandmotherly advice.
No one here would think twice if she let him down gently. No need. No time. No interest, they would all agree privately. No red-blooded financier bought Tesla stock in the morning and booked a trip to Palo Alto in the evening to go decode the mysteries of batteries and controllers. Jayce had already shown her everything she would ever need to know about their research.
She couldn’t indulge someone who called her - Mel Medarda - ridiculous.
Mel could even stand to back down from one. In theory.
“I’m sure the latest scientific journals are - illuminating,” she begins, slowly. “But maybe you haven’t heard. Some very smart people have worked out how to make time.”
The universe gives her half a second to savour the genuine surprise that crosses Viktor’s face. It takes a few years off those haggard, protruding cheekbones.
Then a hand claps Viktor on the shoulder. A protective hand, she realizes with a jolt. “Well!” Jayce says. “This has been great, you guys.”
Viktor snorts.
And just like that, she remembers - there are other people here, their faces emerging from the vague shadows at the edges of her awareness. Horror creeps up her neck, but - but at some point, she had come to stand so close to Viktor that their audience had shuffled off into murmuring groups along the walls, entirely forgotten. A senator, an entire wing of security, a dozen businessmen, and a handful of engineers all pretending not to watch, looking on with the guilty eagerness of teenagers watching the big kid about to shove the littler kid into a locker.
Oh, god. She still owes Jayce that drink after all. “Of course. Let’s not bore the senator with debates of such an - academic nature,” she says, her voice jarringly loud suddenly in her own ears now that other people can finally hear it. She aims for magnanimous. Lands somewhere a bit too close to the truth.
Medardas don’t - Mel doesn’t give in to distractions.
“Actually,” says the senator nearby, her mouth edging toward mirth, “I found it quite - what’s a good word? Stimulating.”
Mel doesn’t notice that she and Viktor have both turned on her, that they’re both opening their mouths to form the exact same protest, until -
“Who wants refreshments?” Jayce grins boyishly between them. “Mel? Senator? If I may…”
Like any good politician - and she would be one, tabloids and Mother's meddling be damned - Mel lets the two of them spill out of the hotel lobby and onto the porte-cochère before her. She follows sedately, her hands knitted in front, where she can see the ring glinting gold in the aura of lamps and traffic lights beyond the protective archway. The distinctly urban colors are blurry behind a fine pattering of rain.
She can’t make anymore mistakes. Not even here.
Jayce slicks back his hair with a groan the moment the rainy night air washes over them, a picture if there ever was one. But there is also company .
Viktor digs his fingers one-handed into the perfectly symmetrical knot of his own tie, loosening it with a vengeance. "That was not what we discussed," he hisses, tugging at the patterned silk until it hangs askew like a sliced noose around his neck. "Not even close. In the entire process of development, we never even entertained such an idea -"
It isn't a mistake, Mel tells herself, when she rounds on Viktor. No, it's been a long time coming. "Maybe this hasn't ever occurred to you," she says, and yes, that's definitely her voice that's rising and falling sweetly, but when his gaze snaps to hers under the archway lights, sweetness is clearly not what he sees. "But there is such a thing as strategy."
"Is there?" he jeers. "No, I'd never think you'd say something in there that you didn't mean."
It feels viciously good to shed whatever had come over her in that hotel. She is Mel Medarda, and she hasn't the time for games. She hasn't the time for someone who stands in her way and laughs about it. "That senator and her old business contacts have the means to float your project a hundred times over, and if we show her that we have what her friends want now, we can negotiate with her sensibilities later. That doesn't work if the second name on that project makes an ass of himself for everyone to see."
Viktor's eyes are already narrowing shrewishly, his head cocking once more, and for just a moment - she's giddy. He's going to bring all of it back - Would you prefer I make an ass of myself privately? , or, Flattery will get you nowhere, but at least I made an impression , or something equally stupid, and she is already plotting her rejoinder - Oh no, no one remembers the mouth on the smartest engineer in the room, but everyone remembers the one who talks out of his ass , and of course that mouth would just keep on going. Probably not even the pounding rain or a crash of thunder could shut him up. No, that is obviously going to have to be her job, as if she doesn't have enough on her plate already. Still, someone has to do it. So he shoots her a look and sets his cane aside to lean it expertly against the pillar behind him - oh yes, now this is serious - and she squares up in front of him, arms crossing, fighting the tug at the corners of her lips, electricity fizzing up her spine, and -
"Come on, you guys," sighs Jayce. "Everything turned out just fine, didn't it?"
It's because Mel freezes that she sees the exact moment Viktor does too. A good thing there's no one around now to see the true comedy - them blinking at each other, the rain falling past the streetlights tracing flickering shadows down Viktor's pale face. And then the moment's gone, Viktor turning away from her, shrugging his suit jacket down off his shoulders in one quick, but tired, motion. "Certainly nothing has changed," he says.
"You know Mel's right -"
"Yes, but you're also an ass," says Viktor. As exasperated as he is fond.
Jayce snorts. "I mean - you know what I mean."
Hell, if she only knew what to do with this disappointment so heavy and so sudden in her chest, she could play her role. But all she can find is her mask. "The two of you can certainly flatter a girl," she says.
There's benefits to Jayce being so on edge - he's quick on the uptake. "You were great in there," he tells her, trying for a smile in the dimness. All she can see is the apprehension he'd been accumulating all day - the coming hearing. The very real prospect of failure. The realization that most of his presentation was probably wasted on an auditorium where only a few actual engineers had managed to squeeze themselves into the nosebleed section.
Someday, she was going to take him aside and smooth all of it away. Jayce was an inevitability, after all.
"Really," he insists. "Everyone just hangs on to every single word you say. They trust you."
Viktor grunts. He's wrestling himself out of the suit jacket, so tight on him the sleeves invert on the way down his arms and wrists - but he fights himself free at last, flipping it back over his shoulder and sighing, like he's torn himself free of this entire day and of her as well for good measure. "If that is what we're calling it."
"How kind of you," says Mel blithely, ignoring him. "I was hoping you didn't find our - discussion - too unsettling, Jayce."
"It wasn't! It -"
Viktor grunts again. Jayce presses his lips together, watching Viktor take up his cane, looking nobody in the eyes. "You know what? Let's not get into this now. It's been a long day. We can talk more tomorrow, right?"
"We can certainly talk about it." Viktor's voice is soft now, barely a croak. Exhausted. "But tomorrow, I'd prefer to stay in the lab."
"Dude, I'm buying you kebab tomorrow, remember? We're not screwing with tradition."
It's like something in Viktor has been snuffed out in the rain. "I think I'd rather not spend my time talking."
Jayce winces, and Mel's stomach falls. Oh, Jayce. How he was always so eager to meet her in private, to soothe his worries over this long project, to solve his inward divisions, letting her set him on the right track that leads to victory -
That discussion stays between us, Viktor had said. It hadn't. And whatever Jayce had been telling him - it wasn't enough.
And now here Viktor was, making a scene over his work for perhaps the first time ever, when she'd only ever seen him lecturing testily in her hurried glimpses of undergrad courses, or else head-down over his work station. One against two was poor odds.
A room full of important, pivotal people to his goals, and Viktor's mouth had respected no boundary. But now?
God, she's annoyed. "If you have something you need to say to Jayce, I can head over there," Mel says loftily, waving out at the rain. "It was stuffy in that hotel. I could use the shower."
Viktor glances at Jayce - then back to her, his jaw working - and he looks away. His fight gone, his mad courage from hardly an hour ago all but deserted him, like it was all for nothing. The arc of her own white-hot fury at that, at him, sends her spinning.
"Viktor," she tries.
He waves a tired hand. "The project will get off the ground. I can feel it. Jayce only needs to comb his hair and remember to floss and smile at people."
"Hey -"
"Say 'progress' or 'opportunity' every two minutes. Then anyone will do whatever we want."
"You are... such a jerk," Jayce sighs, in such total relief that it bleeds into Mel too.
Her mobile buzzes in her coat and reality rushes back in. Thank goodness for Elora, for how easy it is now to slip back into her calm, into that familiar, safe sensation of being in control.
For a moment there, she hadn't even recognized herself. Dangerous territory.
"My car is coming around," Mel says, and the words sound like the conversation is over. "We can drop you two off if you like. Make sure you don't lose yourselves to total hedonism on the way home."
"No, thank you," says Viktor, as warmly and easily as if she'd just asked him to give an address at a flat-Earther convention.
"Nah, I already got an Uber. I'll text you if we get axe-murdered." Jayce's hand slips into his pocket, and then he's frowning down at his own mobile. "Uh, I take it back. Mel, my phone's gonna die. You can text Viktor if you think of anything heading back."
She can't help but smile. She's sent him half a hundred ideas like that, in the middle of a car ride, in the middle of one of Jayce's own presentations, almost botching the whole thing when he'd startled like a rabbit in the middle of the Q&A.
But now she looks at Viktor blankly, who frowns back at her just as blankly, only the building rush of falling rain having anything to say in their defense.
"Oh," says Jayce. "You don't have -" He stares at Viktor. " Neither of you have - but it's been years !"
Headlights flash into the porte-cochère, making them all wince, and then the quiet sigh of a sporty Audi dripping with rainwater. It eases in beside them under the archway, the passenger rear door opening silently in reverse for her on its own. "Has it been?" asks Mel. "Time flies when you're having fun." She brushes Jayce's sleeve, and the headache building in her temples is cured just a little from how his Adam's apple bobs in his throat. Even more of it is cured when, out of the corner of her eye, she catches Viktor rolling his eyes. "You did wonderfully, Jayce. You can celebrate this one - but try not to have too much fun. Not without me."
Jayce's laugh is stuttery, his eyes glued to the contrast of her hand on his white sleeve. And then his mobile is buzzing in earnest, and he curses, pulling away. "Wait, sorry, I have to - I have to send you this, first -"
Mel chuckles. "Duty calls. Goodnight, Jayce." But he's already reeled away from her and the rush of the rain. Without Jayce watching, she lets the tiredness find her at last. She taps Elora her thanks on the tinted passenger window, and then she's moving toward the boot and the open side door, sliding carelessly out of her coat, when -
When she feels a hand catch her coat's collar, the lift of the weight of the fabric from her shoulders. Ah. Hadn't Mother used to tell her? A wolf should know better than to turn her back too soon.
A moment to brace herself, and then she slides out of the wool sleeves, eases herself into the car, and turns. Viktor is leaning hard on his cane, but he hands her the coat neatly folded over his free arm. She sets it in her lap just to give her hands something to do. He always looks a little unpleasantly disheveled, but at least it's on purpose now, half undone in his shirtsleeves and inside-out jacket over his shoulder. The pale albedo from his shirt is enough to show her just how inscrutable his angular face is, his cavernous eyes on her one last time.
"My offer still stands," he tells her, voice pitched over the rain.
Well. She's gotten worse apologies. "I thought we'd agreed that we said things we don't mean."
"That you don't mean," he corrects evenly. "And you did not argue the point. Wonders never cease."
"I'll let Jayce know if I decide to accept your - offer," she finishes a little lamely. They both know she absolutely will not. She lifts her chin. "And you know I do mean what I say."
Viktor's eyebrows almost vanish into his peaked hairline - the rain is bringing his curls back with a vengeance. "I do?"
Mel frowns. She'd been so furious and so agog - the military could probably use Viktor's sheer audacity to send swathes of enemies into throes of acute stress disorder - but no, she's quite sure she hadn't told him any lies. Their firefight had taken all her focus, right down to her clinching the last word. "You're thinking something very loudly," she accuses, "but I assure you, I don't just say words to make noise."
"Oh, good. You offered - what was it? To do something about my spine." His smile is so small, and if she didn't know that not a drop of human blood coursed through those veins, she'd also say: endlessly pleased.
Heat scorches her face. Her jaw drops. "You - I did not -"
"I decline." Then he shuts the door on her, and Elora doesn't stop giggling from the driver's seat until they're all the way past Bluewind Court, and the rain has become a deluge that drowns her out anyway.
Mel's mobile buzzes once more on the steps up to her flat. Jayce.
But it's only Viktor's contact information, number and all.
It's 2 AM when she's shoved her laptop away with a sigh, wrapped her hair in satin, padded off to bed, and slid under the covers, glaring at the new contact with all the dignity and indignity she can muster.
If he cares so deeply about having the last word? Well. He'll need to work for it a little bit harder than that.
Tomorrow at noon. You have an hour.
Try not to waste my time.
Mel can't remember how old she was the last time she'd slept decently. But the next thing she knows, she's groaning awake at 8, every single one of her alarms disabled like she'd done it in the depths of an elusive REM cycle so rare, she's tempted to call her physician just to celebrate.
Instead, she sees the messages waiting for her - delivered not two minutes after she'd sent hers. At such an ungodly, incomprehensibly, offensively late hour, not unlike the man himself.
wouldnt dream of it
is there a reason youre still awake or
has money invented no cure for insomnia
allow me to assist you
recommended reading:
a.) electrical engineering
...
What follows is a list of links so long, sorted alphabetically by subject, that Mel flings her mobile away on the second scroll. After a solid minute of grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes until they go numb, she grabs it up again.
And puts it back down.
Holy shit. I could do something about that for you, she'd said. She'd thought - she'd been so certain that he'd laughed in her face, at her offer of her support, to unburden his moral character -
He'd sneered at her at first - he'd said he wasn't interested, and so she hadn't even thought - she'd just let her mouth run, uninhibited as she never allowed it to be, and -
She'd known what the words meant, every single one that passed her lips, it was all plain English and they were both fluent. Fluent - and then some.
- showing me every part of you, flawlessly aligned - if you wish to look, then look - sounds lonely, only giving in to yourself -
- not proud of your assets? - I think you're not aware of them - if you wish to look, then look - god. They'd just gone on and on -
You offered to do something about my spine. Well, damn, she may as well have told him she'd drag him upstairs, back him into one of the suites, and push him right down - that coy, infuriating ghost of a smile looking up at her - they'd been in a hotel, so why the hell not.
You have an hour. Try not to waste my time.
Calmly, Mel carries her mobile through her bedroom, out into the sitting room, her kitchen, the front door. Finds the mail slot. Gently, and neatly, slides it through. Listens to the clatter out on the tile, no harm done.
Back in her room, she drops down on the bed. Then she rolls over onto her back, pulls one of the pillows over her face. And shrieks into it.