I'm always down to write for glitchless! Thanks for the request. (Here's the prompt list for everyone else!)
“It’s like they’re always waiting to catch you off your guard,” Gyro mutters. He’s hardly even focusing, hands busy dismantling a glitchy piece of the cloud. “And then they mess things up.”
Gandra laughs, a nervous but pretty sound. “Something like that, yeah.”
Gyro looks up, just for a second. She’s typing something on a hologram keyboard, her bangs hanging halfway in her face, a band-aid across one cheek after their fight with Beaks. Her free hand is shaking a little, betraying her worry with so many new people, but she’s still smiling and doing her best to finish her work. He turns back to his own task before he starts blushing.
Fenton was right. She is incredible.
“When you aren’t paying attention, they watch you,” he presses something wrong, and the glitch turns the familiar blue of a computer error. He frowns. “And then things go haywire as soon as they start going well.”
“Exactly! Huey said you’d get it. That you, uh… how did he phrase it? You didn’t start out a hero either.” She sits down beside him at the workstation, reaching for his tools. “But something tells me it wasn’t FOWL you got mixed up with.”
“It was just as bad,” he admits, turning the glitched piece so she can look at it. “My old mentor tried to destroy Tokyolk.”
“Very cool of him,” she says sarcastically, squinting and tilting her head as she looks over the glitch. “I bet you weren’t getting paid near enough for that.”
He laughs. It’s been a while since he’s talked to someone he felt could actually understand him, much less joke about the things he’s dealt with. “Of course not, when do they ever?”
“Never. At least, not with Bradford.”
“I was almost glad when he turned out evil,” he flicks his hand, creating a set of hex keys, then pulls out the smallest one. “He’s a terrible boss. Always talking about budgets and turning down good projects.”
“He really is!” Gandra laughs again, leaning over the glitch with a screwdriver in one hand. This time, she sounds a little more comfortable. “You’d think after decades of master planning he’d at least be a good villain, but he’s just some tightwad in a suit.”
“That’s Bradford, alright,” Gyro laughs too. But he’s distracted now, spinning the hex key between his fingers. She hates stuck-up businessmen almost as much as he does, and she’s prickly but kind, and her hair is falling over her very blue eyes again like it’s a shield, but she’s letting him past it. He remembers Fenton telling him earlier, in a hurry, that she was a “really good person and so understanding and just like us, if you’ll give her a chance” and he gets it. He gets her.
She’s a scientist with big dreams that the world keeps burying. A hopeful heart she’s had to hide, because sometimes plans don’t work out and people aren’t kind to new ideas. He understands that all too well. It’s what he bonded with Fenton over, despite their many differences—they see each other, all of each other, like nobody else has ever been able to before. And though they’ve barely met, he knows why Fenton’s fallen in love with her, and he’s trying to keep himself from doing the same.
After all, what are the odds they both look at him the same way?
“I think that should do it,” Gandra declares, a hint of triumph pushing through the anxiety. “That might be all of them.”
“It should be,” Gyro agrees, looking around at the beautiful landscape. “You two built something really… special. I’m impressed.”
“Oh! Um, thanks. Thank you,” all of a sudden, she’s blushing. “Fenton said you’d be happy to help work out the kinks, but I was worried it would go wrong and… well, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.” He sighs, pushing away bad memories of past disasters. “That’s the hardest part of inventing things. But I’m… glad you trusted us.”
“I’m glad I trusted you too,” she looks away, her voice suddenly turning soft. “It’s… nice to know someone else understands, I guess. Nobody else has before.”
“Yeah,” Gyro looks out over the yellowed sky, the jagged clouds drifting past. He could never have invented something of this magnitude alone, but working together has brought one of Fenton’s elaborate ideas to life. And though he’s loathe to admit it, his former intern is becoming a great scientist in his own—
“Hi, Dr. Gearloose! And hi Gandra!” Fenton chirps, suddenly behind them. “M’ma had to head home, and honestly I’m kind of relieved. She can be so protective sometimes, and I know she means well, but—well, I can take care of myself. And I trust you guys! I think I managed to convince her it’ll be okay if I stay late to work on the Gizmocloud a little while longer.”
“Gizmocloud. What a stupid name,” Gyro remarks, before he can stop himself. He’s trying to be the mentor Akita could never be for himself, but sometimes Fenton’s personality and his just… clash.
“That’s what I said!” Gandra declares, reaching over to kiss Fenton’s cheek. “We’re still workshopping.”
And there, beside them both, watching the pixelated waves roll and taking in a view they’ve built together, Gyro decides he could get used to this. He could get used to being loved and part of something.
I like to hc that Gandra exclusively uses nicknames/petnames when referring to Fenton and Gyro...and then use their full names out of the blue, just to mess with them.
Gandra: Gyro Gearloose, hand me that soldering iron.
Gyro: ....I'm not sure what I did this time, but I feel like it's in my best interest to apologize anyway.
I do have some, yeah! I’ve been thinking a lot about the ship, long before the latest episode, but I didn’t actually post about it until now. I wanted to see how Gyro and Gandra would interact before I really wrote a lot of their dynamic. But now that I know a little more(thanks DT crew!) I have a lot of things about them I can say.
I’ve been calling the ship “glitchless” as a sort of ship name that doesn’t use their names, because their first thing together as a trio is getting rid of the glitches in the Gizmocloud. I think it’s kind of important because separately, their experiments, the suit, Gyro’s robots, they all end up malfunctioning. But together they made something work, and that’s where their relationship together starts.
Gyro likes Gandra because he understands her. He knows what it’s like to have people not like you or be afraid of you, all because you have ideas for science that didn’t go so well. He knows what it’s like to be different, and after Astro BOYD he’s really worked out a lot of his own problems. When they meet, he obviously respects her work instantly, even if he’s still struggling with expressing that. And she says that maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to let people in, right? So they get along in the lab and things develop from there.
Fenton and Gyro have this sort of one-sided enemies-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic, where Gyro has to warm up to him, but now that he’s grown as a person, they become closer. He calls Fenton “Doctor Intern” because he really doesn’t bother with learning names anymore, but on special occasions, he sometimes will call Fenton a pet name, like “my love” or something like that.
Speaking of names, Gyro remembers Officer Cabrera’s in the new ep! I’m assuming it’s because after Tezuka and Tokyolk, he’s careful around cops, not to mention Cabrera threatening him in Moonvasion after he says they’ll use Gizmoduck as bait. But now that she’s his M’ma-in-law, I was thinking he probably spends more time around her, and he knows she deserves a lot of respect.
M’ma loves Gyro and Gandra both. She worries about them a lot, because lab work means a lot of late nights. It’s not uncommon to find one of them wrapped up in a blanket she left there, sleeping at their desks, or M’ma sending Fenton along with lunch enough for three.
Gyro makes Gandra a spare Gizmosuit. It’s styled a lot like her suit in the Gizmocloud, but more armored. She’s more of a behind-the-scenes kind of tech expert, like Gyro is, but he wants her to be safe if someone ever needs to go out and watch Fenton’s back(because Fenton needs to be safe too).
Fenton is very physically affectionate. He likes to hold hands and give kisses, and Gandra laughs at him, but he does it anyway. As long as her hands aren’t full with work, she doesn’t much mind. Gyro is less of a fan of touch, but when he needs a shoulder to rest his head on, he knows where to turn.
After FOWL, Gandra doesn’t really have anyplace to stay—they’d been paying for her apartment, after all—so she moves in with Gyro. Fenton stays with his M’ma for a while longer, but to them, “home” is wherever they’re together. If it’s snuggling in bed on a lazy morning, watching the sea out the lab windows, even stargazing from the manor’s backyard, it’s just as good as anywhere else.
Gandra doesn’t like to be alone. After everything she’s been through, she has a lot of nightmares, and being in the dark too long freaks her out. To make her feel safer, Gyro and Fenton will both walk with her if she needs to go anywhere, and Fenton’s really good at comforting her if she needs a little extra love.
They end up inventing a lot of elaborate, helpful projects together, work-wise. Now that Bradford isn’t on top of funding for the team, they have more freedom. Between Gyro’s tech know-how, Gandra’s determination, and Fenton’s people skills to share the ideas, they really have a powerhouse team going, plus Manny, Fethry, and the kids are around the lab quite often now too, all helping out. They really put the “science” part of Team Science into play.
One of my more general headcanons is that Fenton and Gyro both have anxiety, and Gandra and Gyro are both trans. In a relationship scenario I like to think they’d set alarms to remind each other to take meds, stretch, get a drink, just general self-care things. Gyro is probably the worst at remembering that sort of stuff, but they all forget sometimes, especially if they get really focused on a project.
Gyro also tends to just... ignore the fact he’s tired? Even if he really needs to sleep, he won’t put down his work until he gets done. They’ve got two solutions for that, depending on whose turn it is to remind him he needs to sleep. Fenton will sit beside him and rest his head on Gyro’s shoulder until he gets the hint. Gandra will take a tool she knows Gyro will need off the desk, and when he looks for it she’ll catch his attention and convince him to rest.
That’s all the ones I can think of right now. It’s getting pretty late here but I’ll post more if I think of them. Like I said earlier I’m gonna call the ship “glitchless” so that’s what I’m gonna be using as a tag for them.
