No Way Out (Brother I Let You Down)
Welp. I finally caved in to one of the plot bunnies @keferon 's Mecha AU keeps putting in my brain. So here, have some Swindle and Vortex ANGST.
(under the cut because it's over 2k words)
It was the middle of the night. The lights in the hangar were dimmed, the sounds of the skeleton crew that worked as night shift far away in the mechanics’ sector, not on the hangar floor. The mecha stood still in their refuel bays, waiting on the next time the Quintessons attacked, when the alarms would blare and the hangar would become a frantic cacophony of activity.
For now though, things were quiet. Still.
Lonely.
Swindle walked silently across the catwalk strung between the mecha, the smell of oil and gear lubricant seeping into his nose like an old friend's aftershave. He didn't smell that often enough nowadays. Sometimes he missed it.
Sometimes, he thought, turning at a path junction to walk down to one particular mecha's bay, one that towered over everything else in the hangar. Sometimes he just missed the people that the smell accompanied.
No one would have ever guessed that he and Vortex had been close friends. They fought like cats and dogs, always sniping at each other, yelling and picking at each other until Onslaught had to break them up before things got too physical. They'd both ended up in medbay more than once after a fight hadn't been broken up quickly enough. They were the youngest of the group, after all, and so close in age that fights seemed almost inevitable.
Swindle had thought of Vortex as the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother. When he didn't come back from that ill-fated mission...
The former pilot stopped in front of the giant mecha in the bay, the faint hint of old blood adding itself to the scents mingling in his nose. Vortex's mecha always smelled vaguely bloody, though since that young medic-turned-pilot, First Aid, had taken over, things weren't as strong. Swindle thought that might be a good thing. Maybe.
He wasn't one to really believe in ghosts, not in the way people meant. A spirit that haunted the living? Seemed improbable. Ghosts were the memories that lingered when you stared at the things the dead had left behind. The scents that once followed them suddenly wafting through the air, the feel of a missing presence, an ache that never went away. That was a 'ghost'.
But when Swindle stared at the red visor of Vortex's mech – it would always be Vortex's mech to him, no matter who piloted it or for how long – it was all too easy to imagine the other kind of ghost. All too easy to give in to the superstitions surrounding this mecha, to believe that a malevolent spirit haunted it, for all it seemed to at least like First Aid. One pilot it didn't want to kill.
The visor stared back blankly, and Swindle caught sight of his own reflection, warped and twisted by the thick, bullet-proof plexiglass. Somehow the warped reflection felt more like it was the real him than the him that existed in his own skin, at that moment. All of the stress, the heaviness, the days of lying through his teeth and pretending he cared less than he did, that all he was in things for was the money, that the pilots that came back to base maimed and traumatized didn't matter to him as long as the program got the money needed, that his best friend who couldn't even remember that he was Swindle's best friend was laying in a hospital bed, half of his body burned and his mind in tatters didn't matter beyond his ability to bring in investors...
It was too much. It was just...too much.
"H...hey," he managed, flinching at how much his own voice cracked. Where was the smarmy car-salesman he pretended at being? The smooth operator, the con man? "...Vortex, if...if you're in there, buddy, y'mind? I just..." Tears pricked at the corners of Swindle's eyes, startling him and making him put a hand to his face. Man, he was losing it, wasn't he? "I...I just needed..."
Before he knew it, Swindle found himself slumping to the catwalk floor, his back to Vortex's mech. Knew that if the ghost stories were true, that might not be a good idea, but he'd always trusted his friend. His brother. Saw no reason to stop now. "I miss you, y'know that?" He murmured, trying to stem the flow of tears without letting his voice hitch. "The entire...the entire program's shit. I know we knew that already, but...Vee, it's got so much worse. And here I am...actively promoting the damn thing 'cause we have no other choice. " ...he hadn't called Vortex 'Vee' in years. It was usually "Tex"; that was what Vortex had preferred. Swindle was the only one that could ever get away with calling him Vee without getting punched, even so. Swindle had reserved it for special occasions, knowing he held privilege. Now seemed like as good a time as any. Vortex wasn't there any longer to half-heartedly gripe at him for the affectionate diminutive.
That didn't make it better.
Swindle leaned his head back until it thunked against the catwalk railing, letting him stare up from behind his rose-tinted glasses toward the ceiling, heedless of the tears streaming down his face. "I dunno what to do to stop it, Vee. You were always the one c-coming up with the harebrained schemes that somehow worked. You always were smarter than I am, just damn crazy. We worked so good together, like brothers, you 'n me." He laughed mirthlessly, a shaking hand coming up to cover his face as he sobbed, unable to stop himself. "...though guess I'm probably the crazy one now, h-huh. Talkin' to your mech like somehow you c-can hear me through it. Like you're gonna act like my crazy older brother again and somehow tell me this's all gonna work out in the end, and I'm not a heartless monster for doin' this, goin' along with this shit."
He didn't pay attention to the faint nudging at his side at first, figuring it was just the edge of the railing digging into his ribs. When the touch became more insistant, however, he looked down, blinking away tears. Only to stare dumbly at the very large fingertip pressed ever so gently against his side. His breath caught, and for a moment Swindle couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't move, because that was the hand of Vortex's mech, his index finger pressed almost lovingly to Swindle's side, rubbing up and down very slightly now that Swindle was actively paying attention. Almost as if it were trying to comfort him.
Dashing tears from his eyes with the back of one hand, Swindle switched his attention from the massive finger at his side to the head of the mech beside him, expecting to see First Aid curled up inside the cockpit controlling things. But no, the cockpit was empty, the faint lights inside just enough to let him see through the visor before everything flared to life, the visor turning bright and opaque as the mech's head turned slowly to look directly at Swindle.
He'd spent years pretending there was no such thing as ghosts, hating that Vortex's mech killed pilots, but refusing to believe it was anything other than glitches. To say otherwise would be having to say that something of his friend, his brother, still lingered, and Swindle couldn't help him. Now, though, he couldn't deny it. He could feel Vortex there, staring at him through the mech, through that red visor so much like Vortex's own remembered helmet. He blinked as the sound of soft static filled the air, a mechanical text-to-speech voice whispering through the speakers embedded in the mech's head. "Swindler, c'mon now. You never were one for tears, little bro."
If...if Vortex intended that to stop Swindle from crying, it had the exact opposite effect. Sure, the voice was mechanical, it sounded off, but that was still, somehow, Vortex's voice, and Swindle hadn't heard it outside of old recordings for far too long. He shakily got to his feet, one hand covering his mouth to muffle himself while the other scrabbled frantically for Vortex's finger, any and all fears about the rogue mecha deciding to crush him into paste fleeing from his mind in his desperation to have some part of Vee touching him. Only Vortex ever called him "Swindler". Only Vortex ever called him little bro.
"A...are you really in there, Vee?" Even to Swindle's own ears he sounded pathetic. Not like himself at all. It was the stress. It had to be the stress. That was the only explanation.Maybe he was crazy. Maybe watching Blurr almost die was the final straw that broke him, and now he was headed for the looney bin as soon as someone found him. Damn. But hearing Vortex's voice, even distorted by machinery, coming from his mech, broke something inside Swindle's soul, and grief came pouring out whether he wanted it to or not.
Again that soft static, again that voice. "In the figurative flesh, Swindler." Somehow it even managed to retain Vortex's characteristic croon, the way he only spoke to those he actually liked, not the bitten-off snark of those he tolerated, or the open hiss to those he actively hated. Vortex carefully raised his hand over the railing, making Swindle step back a pace, and lowered a couple of his fingers, beckoning carefully. "C'mere. Can't hug you, know you need it, but c'mere anyway." Swindle should have thought twice. Every protocol to do with Vortex – the mech, not the long-dead person – screamed about caution and wariness. But this was Vortex. The person, not the mech. Crazy, full of bloodlust, stay out of his way on the battlefield, don't make him hate you, sure, but above all else he was Swindle's mech partner, his brother, his friend closer than a brother. The one who always had his back on and off the battlefield, in ways Onslaught never could.
He stepped into Vortex's hand without hesitation, trembling hands coming down to help hold himself steady as Vortex's fingers and thumb gripped him in a hold too gentle to come from a mech's default pilotless programming. He saw the visor open, and before he knew it he was deposited gently inside, warm air that smelled vaguely of vanilla – had First Aid hung an air freshener somewhere? – already wafting through the cockpit.
The speakers crackled to life. "Find a seat, little bro." Cabling hissed out of hidden apertures, operating oddly like hands and arms as they found Swindle, pulled him in closer to the emergency jumpseat off to the side of the pilot's seat, designed for maintenance and a place to stretch if trapped in the cockpit for too long, pulling it out from the wall and ushering Swindle to sit. Like Vortex knew Swindle couldn't bring himself to sit in the pilot's seat of a mech that didn't belong to him, that still belonged to Vortex, even if First Aid was 'sharing' it now.
"Vee..." "Hush." The voice was rough, kindness having always been oddly difficult for Vortex to manage, always making him sound like he was angry at himself for daring to show any kind of humanity. That was the case now, of course. Death hadn't changed some things. A lot of things. Still, Vortex's cabling wrapped gently around Swindle once he sat, draping over his shoulders and snaking across his lap like one of Vortex's annoying full-body hugs that had always been so good simply because of their rarity, even if he had to be drunk to give them. The thought made Swindle want to tear up all over again, grief and stress radiating off of him even as he reached out to brush over one of the cables, feeling unseen eyes watching him as he did his best to gather himself, unable to feel any fear for the faint malevolent presence that surrounded him, because he knew that malevolence wasn't directed at him. It never had been."I...you didn't come back," Swindle whispered, swallowing to try and keep his voice steady. "You died, Vee, and everything else went to hell after. It's only gotten worse now, and I...I didn't...I didn't even know you were still in here. You died."
"Yeah, I died. But. Still here, little bro. Got me a good pilot now that I like, finally, but I'm still here." Vortex's voice softened a little, in ways that would make almost anyone who knew him before his death stare at him like he'd lost even more of his marbles. Nobody ever really got to see this side of him other than the one pilot in their group who was younger than him; Swindle had been the only one to deserve the softness he was capable of, and even then only in secret. "Can't get rid of me that easily. I still got your back, y'know?" The cables wrapped around Swindle tightened slightly, reiterating Vortex's point and enclosing him in just that little bit of security. A hug from his dead friend, who was not entirely dead, and always closer to being more than even a brother would have been.
"Okay Swindler. Let's talk, you'n me. Let's come up with a plan. I'm here, little bro." "Always will be."
