#The Man of Progress | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sabraeal · 4 months

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The Man of Progress, Chapter 3

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If there is one thing Viktor has learned wrangling with these crystals these past two years, it’s that Talis’s forges can cast a blast door as sturdy as will still take a hinge, but they still can’t make steel thick enough to keep Jayce’s voice from cutting through.

“He’s not going to go for it.” The man might well be standing in the same room for all the door does to stifle it; a pillow might do a better job. To make matters worse, his voice is pitched lower still, trying to locate a whisper and instead finding the precise frequency that turns solid metal into a screen door. “You can ask him if you want, but I don’t know what good it’ll do you.”

The Councilor’s reply is muffled; her cultured tones may be able to quell a querulous council room, but it cannot defy the very laws of physics. Little more than the highest curves of her conversation curl through the gap between steel and concrete, but Viktor doesn’t need to hear the content to know exactly what’s happening in that showroom. Their patron has a plan, and as much as Jayce might dig in, a broad-shouldered barrier between her and their work, Councilor Medarda hasn’t ascended to Piltover’s loftiest heights to be stopped by mere flesh and bone and spirited protest. No, she’ll bully herself right past him, and if six feet of muscle-bound engineer can’t stop her, eighteen inches of steel won’t be much of an impediment either.

The door swings open with a squeal, stopping only just short of the dent Jayce made the first time he opened it. She approaches at an unhurried pace, not so much a sashay but a stride, confidence radiating from every subtle clack of her golden heels. They echo up the walls, gathering in the the ceiling’s vault like the prelude to a storm, inexorable, unavoidable—

And here. “Viktor. Good Morning.”

He sighs, contemplating the pliers in his grip. There had been boys who would gather at the shore when the clouds turned heavy out to sea, who used to dig into the sand when thunder pealed over the waves, waiting for the lightning to scrape across the sky. They’d stand in the water up to their knees, watching the skies churn even as their own darkened, swearing they could feel sparks when it hit. That there was a thrum that came in with the tide— better than Shimmer, one of them had boasted, long before any of them had been lost to it— one that made them powerful, invincible, like the enforcers in their armor—

At least, until one of them was struck. Wandered too far, or maybe too close, and was swept away before any of them could see if there was enough of him left unburnt to breathe.

Jayce’s scuffled steps struggle over the threshold, stumbling to catch her heels, and he might as well be knee deep in the water, wading out to see the storm. There are just some boys, it seems, that long to be burned. “Councilor, wait…”

Viktor, for his part, keeps his feet on terra firma. The sand’s no place for a man with barely a leg to stand on. He’d learned that well enough watching the other children scuttle across the rocks as he tinkered with his boat. Playing the same games as them only ended in bruised pride and scuffed knees.

So he only dares to glance at her in reflection, through the warped mirror that chrome creates. At least there she looks something closer to human than sublime. “Councilor.” He sits back on his heels, squinting into the clockwork clutter. Makes no move to turn toward her— she’ll get what she wants by the time she sweeps out of this lab, but he’ll be damned if he lets her have it ten steps through the door. “To what do we owe this pleasure.”

Jayce strains a breath through his smile, all his dire warnings about teeth and hands that feed caught between his own. But even the warped reflection can’t manufacture the lift of the Councilor’s eyebrow on its own, or how her mouth moves to mirror its curve. “Am I not allowed to check in on my investment?”

She circles behind him; a slow, measured saunter marked by the clack of her heels on the concrete. And by the accordion pull of her reflection, languidly stretching across the metal’s peaks before pooling in its valleys, a flicker of the real before the reinstatement of the absurd. And yet there’s no mistaking where that sharp gaze lingers— not on the machine, but on his back, carving a line between his shoulders from attention alone.

“We’re the best minds the Academy has to offer, Councilor, do give us some credit.” The pliers clench around a cog, wrenching it to where its teeth mesh with the ones beside it. “I think we’ve learned by now that we couldn’t hold you back, even if we tried.”

His name hisses out from behind Jayce’s perfect smile— oh, this afternoon’s going to be a litany of hands, food, and would it kill you to be nice for once?— but the Councilor only lingers behind his shoulder, mouth stretched so wide across the metal that a millimeter more would turn her all to teeth. “What a…flattering assessment.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” he lies. “I’m simply acknowledging the reality of the situation. No matter how unpleasant.”

Jayce practically chokes on his own forced laugh. “He— he doesn’t mean that. We enjoy every moment you choose to spend down here.”

“Not that we have much of a choice,” Viktor adds, setting aside pliers for a wrench. “Since I doubt there’s a man alive that could keep you from where you mean to go.”

One perfect brow twitches. “Some have tried.”

And failed, she doesn’t say. Doesn’t need to with the way her chin lifts, conquest etched in every line. He nearly likes her better for it— after all, if a storm is meant to sink ships, it should take pride in each one scuttled in its wake.

At least, he might, if he wasn’t already watching one founder. “Councilor, Viktor’s just, er,” —making Jayce sweat bullets, from the look of it— “joking. He’s a real kidder.”

Viktor’s head swivels on its axis, quick enough to make his neck ache. It’s worth it to spear his partner with a scowl where he stands, letting the angle of its furrow heavily imply, what the hell are you doing?

Jayce’s hands splay helplessly in a shrug, eyebrows hiked so high there’s barely any forehead left before his hairline. What are you doing?

“A kidder.” The Councilor is unconvinced, arms folded under her chest like a guillotine’s blade. “Really.”

It’s not a question. But at a bulge of his partner’s eyes, Viktor cobbles together an answer. “That’s me,” he blurts out, ignoring the coughing jag coming from behind her shoulder. “A jokester. A real…funny guy.”

The inviting pout she wears tightens to a close-lipped purse, eyes narrowing the way doors might before they slam shut. “I would never have guessed.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a laugh riot.” Jayce steps up beside her, grin so wide Viktor’s gut goes cold. “You should ask to see his Heimerdinger impression.”

The Councilor glances back— incredulous, of course, though too politique to show it in anything more than a squint of the eyes— and Viktor lets his brow pinch behind her, displeasure seeping out of every pore. His early years at the Academy had made for a veritable world tour of puerile pranks; a lame boy from the Undercity made the perfect target for callow youths, missing the sort of bullying they had been able to wreak at all the best private institutions Piltover could offer. He had become a connoisseur of the uncomfortable, an epicurean of embarrassment— and with a glare, he lets his partner know he has not forgotten a single one.

Jayce sends a worried glance toward the coffee pot. Ha. A single trick he’d been subject to would make that man beg for bodily fluids in his cup.

“I’ll take your word for it.” She turns back, frowning at his placid expression. “Though I do wonder what inspired him to humor this morning.”

“I thought I would keep the mood light,” he tells her, already angling himself towards his cogs. “You know, since you two seem so serious after conspiring in the showroom.”

Jayce nearly chokes. “You heard that?”

“You weren’t exactly subtle. So go on”—he spares the Councilor a weary look— “what is it I’m not going to like?”

“The Distinguished Innovators Competition,” she informs him, shameless, as if his eavesdropping had been part of the plan all along. Knowing the way Jayce’s voice could carry, it might well have been. “I was just discussing it with Mr Talis. He didn’t think you’d be a fan.”

“Distinguished Innovation?” Two relatively benign concepts. “What’s not to like?”

“She wants us to enter it.” That earns the golden boy a glare from the Councilor. Apparently throwing her beneath the carriage had not been part of her plans.

“Oh.” He glances between them, disinterested. “He’s right.”

“What I was saying,” she begins, sharp enough to tug his attention away from cogs and chrome. “Was that it would be a good opportunity to show that Hextech is a real, viable resource, not just another pipe dream of two Academy engineers.”

“Oh?” He blinks, sitting back on his heels. “I didn’t realize pipe dreams regularly blow out windows in the government building. How difficult that must be for you, Councilor.”

She grunts softly; a palpable hit. That’s one point to him. “I’m not talking about a proof of concept. If you can show these people a concrete demonstration of just one crystal’s power, the interest it would generate in Hextech’s future…it would be enormous.”

“We have enough interest.” He shakes his head, turning it back towards the table. “The last thing we need are more investors wandering around here, cackling over their winning horses.”

Jayce shifts, leaning so close to the Councilor their reflections blur together, one big puddle of patron and patronized on stilted legs. “I told you.”

Her hand lifts, a soft curl that quiets him quicker than a shout. With a turn of her head— a tilt of her chin, really— she manages to say without speaking, I’ll handle this. Or maybe, I’ll handle him— a mistake, on her part. Viktor has learned to keep his head down, to toe the line these top-siders are so partial to, but he’s Undercity, through and through. Ungovernable, as her colleagues are so fond of saying.

A fact Jayce knows all too well. But although he may snort, may toss his head like one of those metal steeds strapped to their track, he still turns, tromping his way right across the floor. Throws his hands up for good measure, with a shake of his head to give it a resigned flavor. It’s a lost cause, he doesn’t say, because the slam of the door says it loud enough behind him.

It's still ringing in his ears when her hand presses flat to the table; a warm earthen brown stark against the cold gray of metal and stone. Comically small next to the gauntlet’s size, like a child’s pressed against their father’s. Something startlingly real compared to plates and pistons. The rest of her follows after, the curve of her hip resting against the hard corners of the counter.

“I’m not recommending you participate for bragging rights, you know.” The Councilor’s voice is lower now, less strident; not made for an audience but to fill the inches between them. Intimate, almost. Enough to make his shoulders itch just beneath his nape. “If you place in the competition, you’ll have all the clans bidding to sponsor you. Enough money to fund you for a year, at the least.”

Tempting. But then, what she offers always is. “What’s the matter, Councilor? Purse feeling a little tight?”

Something huffs out of her, not a laugh but a kissing cousin, one not so sweet but infinitely more interesting. “It would take more than a lab like this one to beggar Medarda’s coffers. But needless to say, you are hardly our only investment.”

Just the biggest risk. Or at least, the most entertaining one, by how often her itinerary takes her past the workshop. “Even so. We’re more than adequately funded through the next three years, let alone one.”

“Oh?” One brow lifts. “For all your projects?”

Her gaze rests pointedly past him, on a tarp haphazardly tossed over a machine, dust collecting in the valley tented between its arches. An ungainly shape, sequestered to the most solitary corner of their workshop, abandoned yet refusing to be forgotten.

“It’s part of the process,” he murmurs, faint even to his own ears. “Innovation requires experimentation. And some are…less promising than others.”

She shifts, close enough to startle him, to make him stare straight up into the shine of her eyes. “Albus Ferros has outbid every clan for the winning innovator seven years out of the last ten. He may not have been sold by Cassandra Kiramman’s little sales pitch last year, but if you show him that you can outshine your competition…well, you may think my pockets run deep, but Clan Ferros…”

She hardly needs to tell him. Ferros may not sponsor many Academy graduates, but the ones they did— their portraits all hung in its hallowed halls, its proudest successes: men who changed the world.

And lined their pockets doing it. Though that mattered more to the students that walked those halls, rather than the trustees who commissioned the portraits.

“It’s also a good opportunity for you.” Gold glimmers as her shoulder lifts, following her movements less like metal and more like a second skin. “At least, to be known as more than Jayce’s assistant.”

Ah, that’s the problem with letting the Councilor linger around here, watching the process. As much as she learns about her investment, she also learns about them, and it leads to— to this. To this way her words wedge beneath his skin, caught like a metal sliver beneath his nail.

“I’d rather people that close to the top not know me by name. It’s bad for the neck,” he explains, rubbing at his. “You see, I like how mine is attached to my shoulders. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

The Councilor doesn’t frown, but her arms cross, cheeks stretching sharp over the architecture of her face. “What, so you think they’ll string you up for being clever? Insolence? Magecraft?”

“They did once,” he mumbles into his machinery. The Undercity doesn’t teach history to its children— at least, not anything past the debts the Chem-Barons collect when a person is fool enough to deal with them— but he’d seen the frescoes on the government buildings walls, the paintings hung in Heimerdinger’s office. “What’s to say they won’t find a taste for it again? Some of them could use a hobby.”

Her eyes narrow, honing all that carefully maintained beauty to a fox-like point. “Don’t tell me you’re intimidated by my colleagues.”

“I’m not intimidated.” He rolls his wrist absently, wrench still in hand. “I’m cautious.”

She sniffs, all incredulity. “I must admit, I’m not seeing the difference.”

“You wouldn’t,” he mutters— a mistake. She’s too close for it to be lost in metal and machinery, an aside gone astray. No, the Councilor hears every word, spine stiffening with the affront only the privileged can afford. “Councilor, when you look at me— what is it you see?”

Viktor does her the favor of leaning back, of turning toward her so that she can take all of him in. He half-considers reaching for his crutch, of maybe even getting to his feet and taking a step toward her, so that she could see the way his shoulder dips as he walks, the grotesquerie of his movement—

“A genius.”

That’s it; no hesitation, no pity. A simple assessment without the fixed point of her gaze ever straying.

“Councilor…” he coughs, surprised. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Her mouth threatens to smirk. “No, it won’t.”

“No,” he agrees, oddly amused, “it won’t. You’ll call me a genius today because you’re pleased with my progress, but when I disappoint, well…then I’ll be—”

“A pain in my ass?” she offers with a quickness that implies practice. She shifts, spine falling into its usual coy curve. “A downright bastard.”

A laugh barks out of him before he can leash it. “To say the least. To your honored colleagues, I might be an Academy engineer today, one of the best and brightest balls of gas the professor has ever condensed into a star, but tomorrow…” His mouth rumples around the sour taste in his mouth. “Tomorrow I could just be another piece of Undercity trash. A rat from the sewers who slipped under the door.”

He leans toward her, one arm braced on the table, conspiracy curving his smile. “I’m sure you know how it is, Councilor— the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. Academy Engineer might not seem like a lot to you, but to me, well” —his shoulder lifts, lazy as he sits back— “I have much deeper depths to plunge.”

He expects her to huff, to protest, maybe even to laugh— that’s what Jayce has always done, shaking his head at every refused invitation as if he were a child pushing away a full plate. But instead the Councilor simply stares at him, her smooth brow marred by a furrow. Utterly still, not even a twitch to give her away as something flesh and blood.

Ah, now he’s done it. Made things awkward. “Jayce is better at dealing with those people anyway,” he tells her, a pleasing patch over an unpleasant truth. “He even looks like one of them.”

Because he is. For as far as he is from the Council’s heights, he’s still a clansman, albeit a minor one. Not something he enjoys being reminded of, especially not when he’s being stuffed inside one of those monkey suits, going off to ape his betters.

“Ah.” The Councilor hums, her chin taking its usual superior lift. “So that’s it. You think that next to Talis, they’ll find you—?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” At least, he’s not trying to. But the words come out at all angles, the way his shoulders do when he walks, and the only way to stop them is to snap his teeth around them like a steel trap. “I don’t care what those people think of me. I know who I am.”

“An easy thing to say.” Her heels clack, achingly slow as she steps towards him, so close that the hair raises along his arm. “A harder thing to live. Especially when you aren’t the one drawing the line in the sand.”

He risks a glare at her, but she only smirks, amused.

“If the only face they see with Hextech is Talis, then they’ll assume that Talis is all there is to Hextech.” Her hand may rest on the wrought wrist of the gauntlet, but her gaze swings wide, settling on the ungainly mess in the corner. “And it will only ever be his vision that sees the light of day.”

Viktor’s jaw clenches, hard enough it aches. “Our ideas are implemented equally. It is just the nature of the work that not all of them bear fruit.”

The Councilor hums, fingers brushing across smooth metal as she removes them. His own wrist flexes in some strange sympathy. “If you say so.”

She stands then, fabric flowing after her like a wake. “Think about it, at least. The Distinguished Innovators Competition, I mean.”

On a lesser mortal, that skirt of hers would tangle, would trip her up as she sashayed across the floor. But instead it moves like a part of her, her walk all hips and suggestion.

One that turns into a question when she stops, one foot lifted hesitantly.

“For what it’s worth…” she tosses over her shoulder, gaze not quite meeting his. “Even if you didn’t win” — not likely, her tone says— “I think you would at least cause quite a stir…”

“Sorry about all that.” Jayce scratches at the back of his head, bashful, the way naughty dogs were. “I didn’t want to put you on the spot like that. But you know how Mel is.”

Viktor grunts, one brow hiked. Funny, it’s all Councilor this and Councilor that when she’s swanning around the showroom, deigning to grace them with her esteemed presence, but once the woman’s out of earshot—

Mel. Ha. By the flush slapped across Jayce’s neck, it’ll take a few more years yet before he tries it to her face. A couple more of those fancy parties, one or two awards under his belt. Get more than a few stiff drinks in him, and Jayce might try it even sooner— clothing optional.

With a snap the wrench tumbles out of his hand, clattering across the table as something small and metal pings against the concrete. Viktor blinks. Ah, well…that’s never happened before.

A hand comes down heavy on his shoulder, a perfect lantern jaw hanging itself over it. “Woah, you okay there, buddy? Lose your grip or something?”

“The opposite.” His hand uncurls— aching, still— to show where a small spike of metal juts out from the plating. “The bolt sheared right off.”

“Huh.” Jayce looms closer, squinting at the jagged edge. “Well, would you look at that. I’ll have to talk to the professor about it— it’s fine if it’s one or two, but if it keeps happening, someone’s going to need to talk to the supplier about quality control.”

“Right.” Viktor flexes his fingers, oddly light-headed. “Quality control.”

It’s a clean fingernail that prods at the wreckage, not a speck of grease trapped in its bed; Jayce must have scrubbed before the Councilor came in the door, saving her the indignity of touching anything real. The broken shank doesn’t give so much as a wiggle, not even when a thumb joins the finger, bearing down before it tries to twist and tug.

“Man, that’s in there good.” He steps back, slapping a pair of pliers across Viktor’s palm. “At least it’s one of the small ones. Not a lot of metal, not a lot of room for mistakes. Probably just flawed from the start.”

Viktor grunts, fitting the nose hard against the shank. Flawed from the start. That’s one way of putting it.

“If we were to do this…this Distinguished Innovators thing,” he says, uncertain, twisting until threads peek up from the gap. “I’m not saying we are, but…what would we present?”

It’s easier to talk about this with Jayce behind him; that way he doesn’t have to see when his jaw drops. “If we…?”

“Hypothetically,” Viktor reminds him, but it’s too late; he can hear the excited pace to his steps, like a dog that has caught a glimpse of its leash.

“Of course, of course.” It may sound like an agreement, but Viktor knows all too well: it’s a clearing of the slate, a tabula rasa of thought. He can protest all he likes, but to Jayce, a maybe is as good as a yes. “We’re coming along pretty well on the gauntlets, aren’t we? With a couple more weeks on them, we might have something that could really wow people.”

Viktor takes in the visible bolts tucked between chrome plates, the barely hand-like appendages jammed onto the end of its wrists. When he looks back up, catching Jayce with the corner of his glance, he hardly needs to say, bit of an anemic showing.

“W-well, I mean, we won’t just have the presentation,” Jayce stammers out, scrubbing a hand through the thick mass of his hair. “We’ll have floor space too. We could probably show off most of what we’re working on. Let people get a real glimpse of everything Hextech could do.”

“Everything?” Viktor asks, tone utterly even.

“Ah, well” —Jayce glances to where the tarp sits, wrought metal peeking out beneath its hem, before his eyes skitter away— “Sure. Why not?”

His words might convince him, if only a note of it was sincere. “Because you’re afraid of it.”

“I’m not— I’m not afraid.” An assertion that might stand if he didn’t flinch while making it. “They’re just not…er…”

Safe. That’s what Jayce means to say. It’s not safe. It thrums in the air between them, like the moment before lightning strikes, so charged— so contentious that all his hair stands on end.

“…I just don’t think they show off Hextech to its best advantage,” Jayce says instead, mincing through his words like he was barefoot and each one was a shard of glass. It’s careful, politic, and it sounds more like that woman than it does his partner. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“They are a proof of concept.” It’s the same disagreement they’ve had a dozen times— no, two dozen. None of the sting is left in it, all his arguments so worn that his brow settles into its furrow like a cog does in its groove. “A demonstration of the power that could be wielded by the crystals if we could be refined past their raw state. Something beyond the household applications we’ve tried, which—”

“Which isn’t what Hextech is about,” Jayce says, loud enough that its echo rings throughout the lab, buzzing in his ears. “I appreciate the work you’re doing on it, really, I do. Even if it’s not the direction we chose to take, it belongs at the show. But if we’re going to present something…”

He hefts the gauntlet onto his arm, visibly straining under its bulk. “It’s got to be something people know how to use. Only academics appreciate the abstract.”

Viktor can’t argue with that. But that hardly means he doesn’t have a quibble or two. “You can barely lift that.”

“That’ll just make it all the more impressive,” he grunts, teeth more grit than grin. “When we fire this thing up and I’m swinging it around like I was born with it.”

They’re still weeks away from that, from getting the crystal to do anything but spit and sizzle as it sits in its bezel, but even so— he can picture it. The way Jayce will swing his arm, gesticulating with the cogent verve these merchants clans breed into their children; the halting way the fingers will fold into a fist, unnatural and yet more human than any machine could manage. And the bare blue glow of the Hextech beneath it all, casting a new set of shadows across its onlookers.

“All right,” he relents. “As long as the arches are displayed too.”

“They will be.” Jayce claps him on the shoulder, as good as a promise. “We’re in this together, aren’t we, partner?”

The Councilor wastes no time in submitting their paperwork; within a day she has a form couriered to them, every field filled in her meticulous cursive save for their abstract . It’s blatant enough that even Jayce grimaces, tugging at his collar as he asks, “You don’t think she, uh…?”

“I think,” Viktor says, plucking the sheet from his hand. “That she was not willing to entertain second thoughts.”

“Ah…” Jayce rubs a hand over his neck, concern finally filtering through common sense. “Right. When was this thing supposed to be again?”

“Six months.” At least one of them knows to read the fine print. “It’s part of the lead up to Progress Day.”

“Right, right.” Jayce sucks in a breath deep enough to broaden his shoulders, hands coming to sit at his hips. “Well, that’s plenty of time.”

Viktor turns, arching a dubious brow. “Is it?”

“Hell yes.” His hand drops, giving a gauntlet a proud pat. “We’ll have these babies done with weeks to spare.”

Viktor tries not to find something ominous in their dull clank. “If you say so…”

What had seemed a spacious six months quickly becomes a cramped two weeks of all-nighters and mounting anxiety. They had fallen for the siren song of Piltover’s spring; thinking that their projects would bloom in the passing weeks with all the steadiness and ease as the city transitioned through its seasons. Oh, how easily they had forgotten what even the first year engineers knew all too well: progress was never linear. Two steps forward often led to ten step back, and by the time the competition loomed on the horizon, well—

“Just a little more,” Jayce promises, a pair of over-glorified tin snips in his hand, trying to notch the last few gears. His hands tremble, gripping tighter as the steam carriage rocks beneath them, groaning with each sharp turn they take. “Couple more clips and we’ll be done, I promise.”

Viktor groans, head wedged between the cabin’s wall and his elbow, struggling to keep the bile at bay. The carriage must be on a mission to find every pothole between Midtown and the Academy, engine rattling as it hurtles over the cobbled streets. “I’m going to throw up.”

“You’ll be fine.” That might assure him, if any of that confidence came from an actual lack of concern, rather than force of will. Jayce does spare him a glance, one that turns quickly toward a grimace. “When was the last time you slept, by the way? Or ate?”

Cogs jostle as the driver goads the gears faster, setting the acid sloshing in his stomach. The faces of the other passengers are pale, some even screwing their eyes shut, as if that might save them from a flying gear. Viktor tries the same, wondering if it might stop the roll of his stomach, but oh, ah…that’s worse. So much worse.

“Viktor!” A hand bands around his shoulder, as much a steel vise as this brace he wears, and his eyes jolt open, meeting Jayce’s open concern. “Seriously. You look like you need a sandwich.”

Just the thought of it puts acid in his mouth.

“I think if we win this thing,” he manages, swallowing back bile. “Heimerdinger needs to clear out a lab.”

Jayce huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Sure thing, buddy. It’s the least he can do for his most promising protégés, right? Be nice to get a little recognition around here.”

He lets his head lean back, settling against the seat. “I’ll just take never having to get in one of these hellish conveyances as long as I live.”

If it could have been left just at that, the carriage would have been at worst an inconvenience; a mode of transportation Viktor would require copious cajoling to consider again. But instead the whole carriage hitches, weightless for a moment before it pitches from one side then to the other. Other passengers are nearly flung from their seats, held in only by the strength of their own grip, but their gears— they fly off Jayce’s lap, skittering across the carriage floor, lost beneath a confusion of boots and skirts.

With all the subtlety of a burst pipe, the whole thing lurches to a stop, engine spewing steam into the cabin, and Viktor—

He can’t take it.

To say he struggles with the door would be an overstatement; he merely jiggles it until the latch prises loose, managing two shuddering steps across the cobbles before he pitches to his knees and loses what little breakfast he forced into his belly in the gutter.

“Viktor!” Jayce springs out after him, hand clasping his shoulder. “Are you all—? Oh, hell. The whole baggage compartment…”

With a queasy glance over his shoulder, he sees it: the metal compartment tucked beneath peeled open like a can of sardines. Bags are strewn across the street, too haphazard for the other carriages to miss, crumpling beneath the wheels of those who can’t bring themselves to stop.

“I want to go home,” he groans, sitting back on his heels. “Can we do that?”

There’s no humor in Jayce’s laugh, just simple bravado. The simple refusal to be cowed by whatever fate can throw at them. Viktor might even feel fond, if he had room for anything but the nausea. “We’ve come too far now. The convention hall is only two blocks away. Just let me find our case, and we can hoof it.”

Viktor glares up at him. “Don’t tell me you expect me to walk.”

“Come on.” He claps him on the back this time, nearly bowling him over. “I think a little fresh air is just what we need.”

Viktor arrives at the convention hall with all the dignity of a collapsed soufflé: drenched in sweat, covered in stains of ignominious origin, and worst of all, limping.

“Really?” Jayce croaks, shouldering him up the steps. Not that his weight is the problem— soaking wet, Viktor would struggle to tip the scale to eight stone— but with both him and the gauntlets’ case, even his partner’s knees start to buckle. “That’s what’s got you? You walk with a cane.”

“A cane is dignified,” Viktor informs him loftily. As much as one can when the only way air can enter and leave through his lungs is a wheeze. “This is” —pathetic— “a trainwreck.”

Complete with a peanut gallery to rubberneck. Each head swivels as they pass, curiosity and pity mingling in most of their onlookers, but others— others sneer with disgust, or worse, forget to smother their smirks. They should have told us there’d be a freak show, one man in a white waist mutters just a hair too loud, I would have brought peanuts.

Viktor heaves himself away, brace clanking under the sudden shift in weight. “I can do it myself.”

One arm still hovers behind his back, as heavy as if it held him still, and Jayce raises a brow. “You sure? You look like you’re going to fly apart like that boiler—”

“Don’t.” Bile gags him at the thought. “Just— my crutch.”

“It’s seen better days,” Jayce warns, and ah, it’d never sat straight to begin with, but there is distinctly more twist to it now, as he hands it over. “Really, Viktor, if you need help, I’m happy to—”

“I’ll manage.” Annoyance sharpens the words to a point, one his partner hardly deserves aimed at him. He shakes his head, fitting the support beneath his shoulder. “Our table is only around the corner. If I can’t make it that far, then maybe I should have gone home.”

“As long as you’re sure. It’s not like I can’t handle it. Heck” —Jayce grins, flexing one of his ridiculous arms hard enough his shirtsleeve strains over his bicep— “I could probably carry two of you without even breaking a sweat.”

Viktor’s mouth twitches. “Rub it in, why don’t you.”

“Hey, it’s not rubbing it in if it’s true. Just because I’m the buffest guy in this whole Academy doesn’t make me any less of an engin— ah, here.” Jayce doesn’t so much set the case down as heave it onto its side as gently as its weight allows. “We made it.”

Their projects haphazardly litter the floor, dropped wherever the university’s teamsters saw fit to leave them. Despite all of their hours of last minute fussing, peeling years off their lives until chrome was polished and shined to gleaming, it would take time to get them showroom ready again. With a hundred other academic hopefuls’ dreams to cart from every corner of the city, the workmen had handled every project with equal care— that is to say, none at all. It’s time they don’t have, half of it lost between the carriage catastrophe and the convention hall.

It’s enough crunch to make his stomach churn, acid washing over his tongue with all the familiarity of an old friend. But if there’s no time for a spit and shine, there’s even less time for panic; with a steeling breath, Viktor bends his mind to what it’s best at: numbers. He tallies up every last tweak and polish, the number coming out just shy of impossible. Improbable, maybe, but he’d seen projects more hopeless.

That is, until Jayce pops the latches on the case, proving that the carriage’s mishap caused more casualties than the contents of his stomach.

“The gauntlets…” Its case might sit open at his knees, but there’s nothing glove-shaped inside, just a thousand piece puzzle made out of the most delicate machinery human hands had ever made. “They’re…it’s ruined. All of it. I can’t…we can’t…”

Viktor sways on his feet, not so much crouching beside him as falling into a squat. “You put them together, didn’t you? You can do it again. I’m sure someone around here has some solder—?”

“These took me over a year to put together, schematic to prototype.” Devastation turns his voice thready, same as it had been in that council chamber, years ago. As it had been when he stood on that ruined ledge of his apartment, unable to watch as his foot took a step into free fall. “There’s no way I can build it all again in” — he glances at the clock overhead— “oh, god, a half hour? That’s all we have?”

“Huh.” Viktor grips his crutch, settling into his squat. “So that carriage ride was the longest in my life.”

It’s not much, but it’s enough to get a huff out of him, even if there’s no humor in it. “We have to withdraw.”

Jayce levers himself to his feet, scrubbing a hand over the stubble that’s already started to pebble the planes of his jaw— really, what do they feed them in Clan Talis?— leaving Viktor to stare up at him, acid churning in his gut. “What do you mean?”

His hands splay, fingers spiking out toward the case. “We don’t have anything to present! It’s all ruined, every single part of it. And we can’t…”

He shakes his head, shoulders slumping as he turns, putting his back to it. To all of it. To him. After Viktor already walked half the city to be here, shaved days off his life to meet a deadline just short of impossible to have the chance of winning this ridiculous competition.

“We can’t just give up.” Viktor can hardly believe he is the one saying it. “It’s a blow, I’ll admit, but it’s hardly the only thing we have. Our other prototypes are here, in working order, I assume. We can just—”

“But we can’t present any of them,” Jayce snaps, looming over where he squats. “The gauntlets were the thing we put all our time into. We can’t even guarantee any of these will turn on, let alone perform.”

Viktor’s grip tightens on his crutch, chin tilting up to meet his partner’s desperate glare. “There’s at least one.”

Jayce blinks, but confusion quickly clears to fear. “No. No way.”

“I could get them up and running in fifteen minutes,” he reminds him, creaking his way to standing. “All you would have to do is look good. And stand where I tell you.”

“Uh-uh. Not happening.” His hands wave between them, as if somehow Viktor might manage to physically force him to use the thing. “’Stand where you tell me?’ Viktor, I appreciate that you’ve done the work, but that thing isn’t safe.”

“It’s completely safe,” he insists, “so long as you listen to me.”

Jayce stares at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“You wanted to show something big, didn’t you? Something they’ve never seen before.” He sweeps a hand toward where the arches sit, impressive even covered. “And this fits the bill, doesn’t it?”

“I meant something that would represent Hextech. Something that would be helpful. Not…” Dangerous. Jayce sighs, hand raking through the mass of his hair. “Hextech isn’t supposed to be…be…”

“Who knows what it’s supposed to be, Jayce.” It’s not easy to approach him— every step aches, even with the aid of his crutch— but Viktor does, not stopping until dark eyes peer up from that hung head, more scolded dog than agonized academic. “It’s the arcane. We’ve been working on this for two years, and we’ve hardly scratched the surface. There’s so much we don’t know…that we’ll never know if we stop here.”

“Yeah? And maybe we’re not supposed to.” His head wrenches away, a scowl furrowing the stern lines of his face. “You ever think of that?”

Viktor stoops, mouth pulled thin. Enough was enough. “You didn’t sign every page of your notes to give up whenever things got a little too hard, did you?”

Jayce glares at him. “It’s not just…hard. It’s impossible. Suicidal.”

“So?” Viktor steps back, shrugging his shoulders. “What’s progress but a laugh in the face of death?”

“Of course you would say something like that,” Jayce grumbles, arms folding forbiddingly across his chest. “You’re proud of blowing out that window.”

“It was a promising result. Nothing a little calibration couldn’t fix.” He casts Jayce a long look from the corner of his eyes. “Besides, I bet a man like Albus Ferros needs a little danger to impress him.”

A laugh saws out of the vault of Jayce’s chest. “Well, he’s certainly not known for being safe, that’s for sure.” His head shakes. “Fine. You got me. Let’s do it.”

Viktor blinks. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Jayce gets to his feet, brushing the dust off him. “And hey, who knows. Maybe if this stunt of yours does impress Lord Ferros, we can try things your way. Think big. Outside the toolbox.”

He coughs, shaking his head. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Well, well.” The Councilor sweeps down the auditorium aisle no different from if it was a grand stair, lingering on every step as if there were more than empty seats to provide her adulation. The addition of the professor, however, does detract from the dignity of it, hopping down happily with that poro hot on his heels. “The prodigal engineers arrive. Fashionably late, I see.”

Jayce’s wrench rattles the tray as he turns, arms stretched as wide as his smile. A showman if there ever was one. “That’s why you like us, don’t you? We have style.”

“I’d like you more if you showed up earlier than the eleventh hour,” the Councilor sniffs, skirting around his outstretched hands to circle around the podium. “But I’ll take what I can get.”

Heimerdinger hops up to the stage, peeking his head through each portal, whiskers bristling bushier with every step. “This isn’t the project I thought you would be presenting today,” he says, a note of distress threading through his hum, “What happened to your…er…what did you call them? Alter garments?”

“Atlas gauntlets,” Jayce corrects, tugging at his collar. “They had, ah…technical difficulties in transit.”

The Councilor arches a brow. “And what does that mean?”

Viktor grins into the guts of the machine. “They broke.”

“Oh, ah!” Heimerdinger’s shaggy brows hike up his forehead. “Well, there’s no helping it then. If only you boys had let me bring it over earlier, we might have been able to avoid such an unfortunate setback with your research!”

“There were still some last minute tweaks we wanted to make,” Jayce informs him, broad smile slapping spackle over the holes in that argument. Sounds better than, we hadn’t finished it, at least. “We thought we might sneak in a few more man hours if we finished it in the— ah, I mean, before the carriage arrived.”

“Ah, I should have known.” The professor puffs up proudly, even as he shakes a finger at them. “I hope all this has taught you boys a valuable lesson. Just like any artist, an engineer needs to learn when a project is best left done!”

It’s the sort of fatherly chiding that always set Viktor’s teeth on edge, but Jayce simply chuckles, huge shoulders heaving in a bashful shrug.

“Of course, sir. But I think we’ve got something here that’s just as exciting as what we had planned.” A broad hand pats an arch with the same sort of blustering pride as a lord with his new steam carriage, boasting about how fast it crawls through the streets. “Viktor’s design, actually. One he’s been working on since, er…”

“You blew a hole in the side of the government building?” The Councilor offers, the hem of her skirt sweeping so close to chrome Viktor’s atoms practically vibrate in sympathy. “So what does this do, exactly?”

Jayce flounders. Make real big sparks isn’t exactly what this room wants to hear. Neither is, we don’t quite know. “Ah…”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait and see.” Viktor hands never pause in their work, but he spares her a glance from the corner of his eyes. “Patience is a virtue, isn’t it, Councilor?”

The stare she turns on him might be unimpressed, but a smile flirts with the edge of her mouth, tempting a wayward corner to curve. “It is. My least favorite, I must admit.”

He smothers his smirk to a twitch. “I think a person of your caliber can live with a little delayed gratification.”

“I can.” One finger reaches out to trace up a wrought curve, skin barely brushing the metal. “As long as I leave satisfied.”

A strange static crackles along his skin, his assurances stuck in the scoured pit of his throat— a nervous response, perhaps; a reaction to seeing his invention so thoroughly inspected. An engineer’s instinct—

One Jayce must share, since he barks out, “Don’t touch that!”

The Councilor’s fingers flinch away, hovering uncertainly above an arch. She glances over her shoulder, first at him— still speechless, though for different reasons now— then at where Jayce stands, wide-eyed.

“It’s, uh…” Dangerous, that’s what he’s trying to say— it’s written in the furrow of his brow, in the glaring whites of his eyes. This is no prim protest, but pearl-clutching alarm. And for some reason, glances toward him for support. “…Delicate?”

Viktor scowls up from where he’s crouched. Between the two, he’d rather frightening than fragile. At least one doesn’t call into question his credentials.

“Oh.” The Councilor’s laugh bubbles over his shoulder, rolling up from deep in her chest. It does nothing to help the static. “It’s hardly my first time. But I promise I’ll be gentle.”

Jayce grimaces. “Viktor…?”

“What? I’ve told you. It’s perfectly safe,” he scoffs, turning back to where a panel sits open, gears and wires exposed. “Not going to blow up just from being turned on, that’s for sure. This time, at least.”

The Councilor’s hand drops down to her side with a sigh. “Please do not explode the exhibition hall.”

“Not to worry, Councilor Medarda,” Heimerdinger hums brightly, circling the stage. “If I’m correct in my understanding of how this particular machine is engineered— and I’m sure I am— there’s simply no chance of it exploding.”

“Well." Her arms cross over the narrow nip of her waist, as casual as she is unconvinced. “That’s a load off my mind.”

“Oh, yes.” For all the professor’s previous reservations, he’s quite chipper as he adds, “With a design like this, the only risk is of implosion.”

There’s a slight pause before she turns to Jayce with an artfully rumpled brow. There even seems to be actual concern— for the lecture hall, most like. “Please tell me he’s joking.”

His partner smiles weakly. “Kind of?”

The Councilor sighs, pinching at her brow. “If you would do me the favor,” —her heels clack as she takes the steps up to the doors— “keep the property damage minimal, please.”

Viktor sits back on his heels. “No promises.”

“That,” she sighs, “is exactly what I was afraid of.”

It’s only when Viktor has nearly finished his last round of calibrations— and finally put the final chalk ‘X’ on the stage floor— that Jayce blurts out, “I can’t do this.”

He blinks up from his crouch, chalk still pinched between his fingers. “Of course you can. All you have to do is stand around and look good. You already do that all the time, I’m not sure why you think it will be hard to—”

“No, I mean…we shouldn’t.” The back of his hand rubs at his forehead leaving a smear of grease behind. “This…this can’t actually be safe. What if it hit someone? What if it hits me?”

“It won’t hit you,” Viktor assures him. “As long as you don’t move from your mark, at least.”

“Urgh, I knew it,” Jayce moans, clapping his hands over his face. “This is a mistake. Someone is going to get, uh…”

“Teleported, theoretically.” He lifts a shoulder, unconcerned. “If my math is right. If it works at all.”

“Great, not only do we not know what this thing will do if it hits someone” —his hand swings out, jabbing at the arches— “we don’t even know if it’ll work.”

“It will work just fine.” Viktor grips his crutch, hauling himself to his feet. “I’ve done it dozens of times in the lab. As long as I haven’t dropped a decimal or forgotten to carry a one, there shouldn’t be anything to—”

“And what if you have, huh?” Jayce snaps, a dog at the end of his leash. “You were just sick all over Grand Avenue this morning. Just how good is your math right now.”

Better than yours, he doesn’t say— even if it’s true. The last thing he needs now is to be pulling transcripts when they need every second to prepare. “You’re really not going to stand in the cage?”

Broad shoulders square, and ah, Viktor knows that stubborn set to Jayce’s jaw, that firm line of his mouth. “No. I’m not.”

“Fine.” He sighs, fitting the crutch beneath his shoulder. “If that’s how you feel about it.”

He gets two steps across the stage before Jayce asks, “What are you doing?”

“Recalibrating,” he grunts, crouching down. “I’m shorter than you, which means I can get closer to the cage without worrying about getting my hair singed. It’ll look more impressive.”

“That’s…” Jayce scrubs a hand over his face. “When I said I wasn’t going to do it, I didn’t mean you should.”

“Well, someone’s got to.” He traces another ‘X’, reaching out to smother the last. “And if it’s not going to be you, then—”

“It shouldn’t be either of us!”

“What?” Viktor cocks his head, curious. “You think the Councilor will do it?”

“What? No! Hell, Viktor…” He groans, clawing through the thick tangle of his hair. “I think we should shut the whole thing down.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous! You could get yourself killed— or worse!”

“Teleported?” He sits back on his heels, forearms balanced across his knees. “I’ve already told you I’ve done the work: it’s safe.” He hesitates, the floor suddenly unsteady beneath him. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Viktor, I— of course I do!” His hands catch on his hips, breath heaving. “You’re my partner. I’d trust you with my life.”

Funny thing to say when he’s the one quibbling about which set of shoes are going to stand on a chalk mark. “But you won’t trust me with mine?”

“That’s not what I’m”—Jayce grits his teeth, an annoyed grunt straining through them— “that’s not what this is about!”

Viktor cocks his head, agitated. “Then what is it about?”

There’s a pause-- too long, too heavy not to be something-- before Jayce sighs, shaking his head. “You know what? Fine. Go stand in the cage.” He leans over, plucking the wrench out of Viktor’s grasp. “But I’m the one finishing up these calibrations.”

“What?” His nose wrinkles, stopping just short of a sneer. “You think a little light vomiting is going to keep me from remembering where the decimal place goes?”

“No.” Jayce shakes his head, mouth slanting into a smirk. “I do think you need to change though. You smell like a gutter. Looks like you just rolled out of one too.”

Viktor glances down, taking in the grease and sweat and faint stains of something that still smells vaguely of sick.

“Ah,” he hums, smoothing a hand down his front. “Fair enough.”

It’s impossible to find a spare set of clothes his size, Viktor would know— he’s the one who painstakingly takes in his trousers until they stop falling off his hips, who changes the fit of his shirtsleeves so that the stiff corsetry of his brace makes a seamless line with his chest. What Jayce does manage to dig up is a set of women’s trousers— he won’t ask how— with a shirt to match. The hips are far too wide, and the chest refuses to sit flat, but it’s nothing a few safety pins and a jacket can’t cover.

Even still, when he hobbles out in front of that crowd, crutch twisting his frame as he makes his mark, he feels less like a lecturer in front of his peers, and more like a child playing dress up in his mother’s frock. By the looks the gallery gives him, half-curiosity and half-disgust, the reality cannot be far off.

Viktor doesn’t make a habit of attending symposiums— and even less the kind that draw crowds like this— but he’s seen Jayce put on a show before, striding out onto the stage with all the confidence of a born actor. This is the part where the crowd is supposed to hush, awed by the cut of his jaw, or the way his shoulders fill out a jacket. But for him there’s not even a pause, not even a lull he could elbow into. Hell, he’s pretty sure it gets louder, speculation suddenly running rampant as the room realizes another man has taken Jayce Talis’s place. That somehow the sideshow has taken over for the ringmaster.

“Welcome.” His accent bites into the word all wrong, all elbows and knees instead of Jayce’s sure stride, and the murmur only grows, rising like the noise might swallow him whole. It was a mistake to come out here; they’re all expecting a man to rise from the stage perfectly formed, like a god emerging from sea foam, and instead—

Instead they have him.

Presenting isn’t that hard, Jayce had told him as the lecture hall filled. Just pick someone, anyone. Make eye contact. Then it’s not some big show— you’re just talking. Anyone can talk.

Easy thing to say when someone’s walking around looking like him. With a suit one size too large and a face that looks like it’ll faint the next time someone breathes a little too hard in his direction, Viktor isn’t exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to attentive onlookers. At least in this crowd.

He scans the seats, eyes darting from one face to the next, trying to find someone— anyone, really— to hold to. This is why he’d done so well as an assistant all those years; he faded so well into the wallpaper, no one thought to hesitate in front of him, to wonder if Heimerdinger’s dour shadow might remember the promises they made, or the offhand remarks they let slip. But now there’s not one set of eyes that will—

There. It’s the Councilor, half turned in her seat, her conversation partner rambling on, undaunted by her lack of interest. Their eyes meet, that strange static building beneath his skin, and when her brows rise, there’s a question in it— no, a challenge.

“Welcome.” It’s louder this time, breaking through the loudest crust of conversation. “Ladies, gentlemen. Fellow academics.”

Her whole body swivels in its seat, facing him, one hand raised to stem her partner’s words to silence. Her head tilts. Well, it says, curious. You have my attention. What are you going to do with it?

His mouth twitches. Wouldn’t you like to know? “I am sure many of you here have heard of Hextech. That one day we will harness the arcane— the same force that allowed mages to build empires and make miracles— and put it in the hands of ordinary people, just like you, or me.”

This is where Jayce might pace the stage, weaving through the arches like the first step in a magic trick. But Viktor only steps back between them, placing his feet firmly over the smudged cross.

“A pipe dream, some of you might call it. Impossible. Destined to be a pale imitation of the power they wield. But today” — Jayce said to smile here, to be friendly, but Viktor takes one glance at the Councilor's raised brows and it’s a smirk that unfurls instead— “you’ll see the true power of Hextech.”

He lifts his arm, the cue to start flipping switches, to turn a trick to reality, and—

There’s nothing. Not a single spark. Such absence of something that Viktor can’t help but wonder if Jayce has changed his mind, if he’s decided that this is too much of a risk after all. If his second thoughts have brought him back to handy tools and tight boxes, leaving him out here to flounder.

And then, the lights flicker. A flash of dimness that sets a murmur through the crowd. Another chases its heels, longer this time, and in the darkness—

There, the first arc of arcane, stretching from the side of one arch to another. A larger one next, a bolt from top to bottom. Three, just after, bleeding into each other until there’s a pane of glowing blue, so thin he can see through it a moment before it collapses. But then there’s another, and another, larger pieces of a rippled window, staying for seconds before flashing to nothing until—

Until a pane stretches down every arch, roiling like waves against the rocks, a glowing cage that nearly lifts himself off his feet.

“There you have it,” he manages, barely holding back a gleeful laugh. “Man-made arcane.”

He stops fighting his weightlessness, crutch dropping as he floats up from his mark, watching his audience like a fish does from his bowl. Their face fall agape, hands pressed to bosoms and men half crawled out of their seats, torn between awe and fear, and—

Well, there’s one way to make sure it’s wonder that wins the day.

“As you can see…” He reaches out, fingers just barely skimming the surface of the arcane—

Only to find himself on the other side of the arch, gently lowering to the stage. “Even surrounded, I am perfectly safe. Anyone could stand in my place and never fear injury!”

There’s more murmuring now, a din threatening to rise to a fevered pitch. There’s more to the little speech Jayce drilled into him, but there’s no hope of making them listen, not when doubt and fascination already struggle to hold their attention.

None of it ends up being necessary, however. Not when a clear voice calls out “Do you take volunteers?”

Viktor looks up into the Councilor’s self-assured smirk, the glow of the arcane turning the gold flecks on her skin to stars, and reaches out his hand.

There’s more than enough back-clapping and congratulations to last Viktor a lifetime when he steps off the stage, feeling too heavy under his own weight. Former classmates— ones who had so easily let their eyes drift over him when he stood in Heimerdinger’s shadow— crawl out from the woodwork, crowding him before he can get a word in edgewise.

“Hey, hey! Give me some room to get to the man of the hour,” Jayce laughs, elbowing a few engineers aside. “You can ask him for the whole spiel when we’re on the exhibition floor.”

“Don’t make promises I don’t plan to keep,” Viktor grumbles, wincing under the hand that clamps onto his shoulder, too tight.

“Speaking of promises,” Jayce says, smile stretched thin as they mount the stairs to the door. “I don’t think we talked about that little stunt you pulled up there.”

Ah, well. “Inspiration of the moment.”

“Inspiration of the…? Are you kidding me?” He groans, scraping a hand over his stubble. “What if you had gotten split in two? Or shattered into a thousand pieces? What then?”

“I ran the calculations,” Viktor informs him primly. “That didn’t seem likely.”

“Likely.” He shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”

"Listen, may--"

“Excuse me.”

A man stands at the top of the aisle, frock coat squared at the shoulders, capped by what seems to be actual gold epaulets, toothed like actual gears. But for all the attention his coat demands, the man beneath it is rather nondescript— save for the mustache, perhaps, and the spectacles set above it.

“I hate to interrupt,” he says, not the least bit contrite. “But I was wondering if you lads might have a moment.”

Jayce blinks. “Ah, we were just heading back to the exhibition hall—”

“Of course, of course. It’s only…I saw your presentation.” The man takes a single step down, and in the light, the rune of Clan Ferros shines. “And I find myself quite…interested in the future of Hextech.”

#melvik #arcane #arcane league of legends #The Man of Progress #my fic #1000 followers #friends let me tell you i was not sure if this thing would be out on time #the first 3K went so slow i thought i would tear my hear out #and i was terrified because oh god this is supposed to be 7K I can't do 7K like this....#well good news the next 7K went REAL WELL #and now this is 10K #and has thrown my writing schedule into disarray because GOD i have had to edit this TWICE #and it takes HOURS. HOURS to edit this much #but like worth it. can't wait to write these idiots again #in fact going off to write my notes for ch 4 so i don't forget what stuff i was planning on doing 🤣#thankfully everything for the next few weeks should go a LOT faster

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sabraeal · 6 months

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The Man of Progress, Chapter 2

[Read on AO3]

Written for @infinitelystrangemachinex, who is the whole reason this fic exists in the first place, since if she had not introduced to me the potential of Mel and Viktor to begin with I never would have watched Arcane, and then if she had not made this fic her birthday wish last year, the idea for it would have definitely moldered in my Potential WIPs files, neevr to be seen. This was ALSO for her birthday, but the draft did not stop at 6K, and so I decided to take my time with it 🤣

The glacial pace of progress might exasperate those more used to the churning cogs of commerce, ever ready to break the unwary between their teeth, but this is hardly the first time Mel has patronized one of these academy engineers. Oh, they might bow and scrape and extend their gratitude on bended knee before money has changed hands, but once that investment sits heavy in their accounts, well— there is a fine line between patron and employer. These engineers might tolerate the first, but under the latter, well…there are statues around the Academy of men throwing off their chains, as much warning to potential investors as it is a celebration of their achievements.

Innovation Does Not Suffer Tyrants. Neither, it seems, do their students suffer direction.

So Mel opens her purse when Talis shuffles up to her doorstep, wearing a smile that’s sure to have opened doors for him before, if not a couple of windows. For all his fresh-faced, boyish charm, he is a skilled negotiator— or rather, a skilled beggar; a talent he must have acquired from years of being under Councilor Kiramman's well-manicured thumb. In all his blustering talk of progress, he only obliquely brushes the angles of their meeting that fateful night, flattering her broad-mindedness and forward-thinking while also thanking her for her continuing interest. A neat little way to put her in a corner, provided a promise was made.

Which it was not. She’d been careful to hedge her bets with this boy wonder, no matter how prettily he performed that impassioned plea.

But there’s little harm in letting him believe that there’s an understanding between them, that her actions in that darkened corridor confer a loyalty that transcends simple business. On the contrary, that’s the currency in which these Academy engineers set their stock. Money may move mountains, may turn a floundering lab into foundry of progress, but these academics sank or swam on the height of their reputations, rose or fell on the strength of the hands helping them up— or shoving them down. A nice bit of seed money would see her a cut of the profits, but letting Talis think that a bond was forged in Hextech’s glow, well…

She couldn’t outbid Heimerdinger— not that he’d ever be gauche enough to put his own money down; he’d call it an Academy Grant and let himself be seen as a benevolent mentor rather than vile investor— but she could at least ensure that they played on the same field. A thing that mattered now, when all the other councilors raced to put their hats— and their wallets— into the ring.

Kiramman was already of the opinion that she owned him down to his hammers, eager to play mother and master in equal measure. And Hoskel, well— for a man whose fortune was made on sail ships and long-haul voyages across the Conqueror’s Sea, from Damacia to Lokfar and beyond, he’s strangely insistent on babysitting his investments on land, arriving for an hour every other day or so to wave his hands around and be seen, as if simply standing on the site made it his. Salo must be much the same, even if she hears less about it; slinking and sneering makes so much less of an impression than Hoskel’s huffs and haws. Why, he must be half covered in hives by now, surrounded by so much grease and dirt and work.

So Mel gives them their space. They have a lab to construct and wonders to build; they hardly need councilors swanning in day in and day out, demanding to be shown how every last bit of their investment was spent, down to the last Washer. She had to stand apart, to be the one that didn’t press. A councilor who understood the process. An investor they could trust with their vision.

To the assistant, at least. Viktor. No last name. Typical of the Undercity. Talis might glad-hand and rub elbows and kiss babies, but it’s Heimerdinger’s shadow who ensures that every Silver Cog received goes where it should instead of passing through that strange field of theirs, never to return.

“Not that one,” she hums, waving away silk and lace, as cunningly draped as it is. “What on earth was that man thinking? Really.”

Elora blinks, first at her, then at the dress, confusion weighing heavily on the corners of her mouth. “The designer had been sure you would like it. He said it fit your…aesthetic sensibilities.”

She trails a finger down the back line, lower and lower until she reaches its nadir, right where her low back would have turned to something lower still. Pity. “It’s white.”

“Well, yes,” Elora allows. “That is the primary color in your wardrobe. He must have taken your preferences into consideration when he made it.”

Mel arches a brow, a corner of her mouth following suit. “Yes, but what he should have considered is why.”

Where some might knit their brow, Elora’s only lift, a question even as she answers, “Because you like it?”

“Because I want to stand out,” Mel corrects her, amused. Only two steps takes her to the window, where Piltover spills out beneath her outstretched hand. “In a city of blue and brick and beige, white shines.”

“Ah. Right, I see.” Her head bobs, officious and efficient, as Medarda expects from their domestics. “Dressing to impress.”

“No, dear.” The phantom of her reflection smiles in the glass . “I dress to awe. Especially reclusive little inventors who don’t make a habit of going to these little soirées.”

Elora glances down at the gown, mouth furrowing at the corners. “I think Talis is already impressed.”

A snort spills out of her, quickly stifled. “No, no, not him. The other one”—her hand waves; elegant, simple, and completely dismissive— “Heimerdinger’s assistant. Former assistant now, I suppose. Of the two of them, he’s the one I need to convince into my corner.”

Too bad her own assistant hardly is. “That one? He doesn’t seem very…?”

“Personable? Sociable?” she offers, amusement dripping from every word. “Human?”

“Important,” Elora decides. “Talis is the one that has been meeting with their investors. He’s practically the face of Hextech. But his partner…”

Is no more than a blur in the papers, a face turned away when the shutters closes, a smear in the background of Talis’s singular achievement. If Jayce Talis has made himself the face of Hextech, then Viktor is the ghost that haunts it. The phantom that is churning out their prototype even now.

“All the more reason to catch his attention,” Mel hums, thumbing through the rack of gowns rolled against one wall of her office. “Talis is a known quantity. Academy engineer, scion of a minor house, has a jawline you could forge a hammer on. Handsome, clever, and sure to wave whichever way the wind blows. But the assistant…he can be managed.”

A corner of her mouth curls. “Who knows, I might even come as a relief, after being bullied around by the good professor all these years. I just have to…impress him first.”

Elora glances at the gown slung across her fingers, skepticism marring the smooth line of her brow. “And you think a dress will do it?”

“Not that one, certainly,” she snorts. “But another…that might put him off his guard. Let me insinuate myself a little more firmly into his good graces. A little novelty never hurts on that front.”

Neither does a little attraction, but, well, a woman must always leave a little mystery in reserve. Even with her most trusted assistant. “That’s quite a bit to put on a dress, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps.” Black and leather and silk slithers over Elora’s arms as she lays another across them. “But I think this one can handle it.”

On the hanger, the dress intrigued, a study of soft and hard, of supple and stiff, of structure and drape. A winner, the Revered Professor might say, so long as it was about gears and cogs, and not fashion and fabric.

But on a body— her body— the dress is less a work of art and more a marvel of modern engineering, a bulwark of leather and boning that somehow gives off the same gravitas as marble or granite, while yet still possessing the same ease of movement as water down a fall. It eddies around her legs, baring and concealing with each step, a come-hither wrapped in a stand back. Councilor Kiramman corners her not three strides across the floor, stemming the opportunity for compliments— on purpose, she’s sure— but by the palpable press of the stares on her back, it seems that it has achieved its purpose.

“Is that your plan then?” Elora murmurs at her shoulder as Kiramman holds court, words straining to bear her disbelief. “Shock and awe?”

Mel allows her head the barest tilt. “Are you worried?”

“Not so much worried as” —she hesitates, casting her eyes about the room, as if it might give some hint as to how to smooth the edge of this blow— “it’s putting quite a bit of cargo on one ship, isn’t it?”

Her mouth curls. “You’re not much of a gambler, are you?”

Elora’s brows raise, not impertinent enough to be reproach, but it was certainly a cousin. “I hadn’t thought you were either.”

“I’m not,” she hums, rolling the stem of the flute between her fingers. “But even I know that roulette can’t be won by going all-in on a single bet.”

Her mouth puckers, unease drawing heavy brows together. “Then how—?”

“There he is!” Councilor Kiramman tears herself from her sermon with a smile, arms falling wide as she calls out across the floor, “The man of the hour!”

“The trick,” Mel murmurs, only loud enough for Elora’s ears. “Is to know the man at the wheel.”

She prepares her own smile as she rolls her weight off the pillar she's attached herself to, one that’s both gracious and dazzling, designed to set the gold spattered across her cheeks shimmering and throw weary engineer eyes wide—

But when she turns, her night sky is occluded by an unexpected front of broad chest, barely contained by its waistcoat. “Mister Talis,” she hums, her dulcet tones hardly disguising the spines of her disappointment. “What a pleasure to see you here.”

“Of course it is,” Kiramman laughs, patting him right below the silken knot of his tie. “We can’t have a gala without its guest of honor.”

His grin tugs to a grimace, but with a face as fine as his, Kiramman hardly notices. He pats her hands absently, as an indulgent son might his doting mother— fitting, since the councilor has already turned her attention away, humbling boasting about his achievements, as if she were his.

But it’s Mel that his amber gaze fixes to when he rumbles, “I’m glad to hear that, Councilor.” He adjusts his tie, bashful, the way men who are certain of their welcome can afford to show. “I have to admit, it’s nice to see a friendly face here. I’m not used to fancy shindigs like this.”

That’s hardly what his suit suggests. Oh, it’s certainly a few years out of fashion, the cut not as close as the young men like to wear it now and the colors not as bold, but menswear changes by degrees, not entire angles. It’s still well within the bounds of modernity, hems and cuffs worn but well-repaired, every seam neatly tailored from the start.

“I would have never known.” She can spare him this little earnest comfort; he certainly won’t be seeing much more of it tonight. “You look like you could have been born with a champagne flute in your hand.”

“Ah…” To think that a boy his age could blush so completely, red from collar to hairline. “That’s kind of you to say. I feel like everyone in this room looks at me and sees hammers.”

Perhaps, but only the ones measuring the breadth of his shoulders and comparing it to the tuck of his waist. “How is your partner doing? I suppose he must be even more left-footed among this crowd.”

Talis blinks, bashfulness breaking under a boisterous laugh. “Oh, Viktor? He isn’t here tonight.”

“He” —her gaze falls to his elbow, lingering on the empty space where a scowl is conspicuously missing— “isn’t.”

“You know how it is.” He leans in, one side of his mouth hooked into a boyish smirk. “This isn’t really Viktor’s crowd.”

Only moments ago he had claimed it wasn’t his either. “I was under the impression that a guest of honor typically attends their own party. Especially one thrown by the patrons funding their research.”

“Ah…” Talis has the grace to look sheepish now, scratching at the back of his closely clipped scalp. “Well…when you put it that way…”

Kiramman laughs, a haughty little giggle that would fit better in her daughter’s mouth than her own. “Oh, come now, Councilor Medarda, I can hardly take offense. Jayce came, after all.”

“He did,” Mel allows with a smile so gracious her teeth ache. “I simply expected that at a gala to celebrate the future of Hextech, we would be able to see both men helming the project.”

“Oh, really. It’s not as if we don’t know who came up with the idea.” Kiramman hooks her hand around Talis’s elbow, giving him a pointed jostle. “When we honor Heimerdinger, you hardly invite his whole laboratory to celebrate.”

“Ah, but you see, Councilor…” Talis clears his throat, hesitant. “Viktor’s not some technician. He’s my full partner. There wouldn’t be Hextech, if he hadn’t—”

“Of course, of course,” Kiramman soothes with a motherly pat on his sleeve. “We all have our assistants, don’t we? I don’t know where I would be without Alannah keeping me on point.”

Those healthy cheeks take an ashen cast now, his gaze darting to her as if she might spare him some quarter. But Mel simply takes a sip of her champagne, making a mental note to compliment Hoskel on the vintage. “Yes, I’m sure that’s very useful, Councilor. It’s only…Viktor—”

“’Great minds must be free for greater ventures,’” Kiramman quotes, though Mel could hardly say from where. Perhaps one of Revered Professor’s contemporaries, by the way Talis jolts at her side. “Don’t you agree, Jayce?”

He laughs, one hand tugging at his collar. “Ah…of course. Great minds.”

“Is that so?” Mel raises her brows, utterly unimpressed. “And here I was, under the impression that it was action, not ideas that saved Hextech from the incinerator.”

“Councilor!” Talis practically chokes on the word. “I—”

“Oh goodness, is that Lord Albus?” It’s Lady Kiramman that tugs on Talis’s arm now, all gracious smiles as she peels him away from the councilors jockeying to get a word in edgewise. “Clan Ferros has been quite interested in your progress. If you talk to Albus now, I’m sure he would be quite amenable to working out a generous understanding…”

“But Councilor Medarda—”

Kiramman’s smile sharpens, carving a line in the parquet between them. “I’m sure she will excuse us. Won’t you, dear?”

“Of course.” She lifts a hand, the barest shrug. “Far be it from me to keep you from Lord Albus and his generous mind.”

And wallet, she doesn’t add, but by the desperate look Talis spares her over his shoulder, she hardly needed to.

Elora might marvel at her endurance when it came to wearing heels the length of her arch, or gowns with the sort of architecture that left marks as dark as a lover’s in the morning, but it’s always been the mask that has wearied her most, the unending strain of smiling where there was not a granule of good humor left in her hourglass. An actress might don a role for three acts, but a politician lived it for every waking hour of their day— and sometimes, well into the night.

There are moments, however, where she might let her cheeks rest, where her face might fall into its natural lines instead of to the ones her act demands. She locates one well into the night; a balcony left abandoned now that night had fallen and there was no sun to set Piltover glittering. This one would have been on the wrong side of the estate anyway; there’s only the suggestion of trees when she squints into the night, a handful of the hundred that flood the landscape this far from the city proper. Nothing that would interest any of the pillars of Piltoverian progress milling about the Kiramman ballroom.

So to find Talis there, tucked away in the shadows, is a surprise as well as a disappointment. Not much of one— she had expected him to find her later; there is nothing men love to do more than explain away their foolishness, especially in front of a woman— but she must admit, she thought he might be alone when he made the attempt.

“Councilor!” He straightens from his hunch, the bulk of his body no longer blocking the slim one curled beside him. “I, er…”

“I’m sorry,” she says, annoyance leeching sincerity from her tone. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t! It’s just…” He sends one of those helpless looks to his companion, and she huffs, unfurling all her coltish limbs until only Kiramman’s daughter remains. There’s none of her mother’s elegance in her— there rarely is, in fourteen year old girls— but there is her sheen of shrewdness, and the promise of her father’s height.

“It’s fine.” The girl’s chin tilts proudly, the familiar curl of her lip breeding true. “I don’t mind. I was done talking anyway.”

She wasn’t, and she does— at least, so the pouty pitch of her voice implies— but she’d die rather than admit it. Especially in front of her. Better just to pretend it was and sulk in private.

Mel’s mouth twitches. That girl would make a good councilor herself, in time. Or at least a very convincing cat.

“Caitlyn…” Talis may call out, but he doesn’t do much else to stop her, watching her walk out with little more than a wince. “Ah, sorry about all that. She’s just a kid.”

He shrugs, as if that should mean something to her. Perhaps it would, if she were used to children. Maybe more, if she had ever been a child herself. “I think my forgiveness is the last of your concerns tonight.”

Mel settles a hip against the balustrade, for once looking down on Piltover’s most popular lantern jaw. It brings her close enough to see the flex of his cheek, nerve jumping right beneath the skin. “Ah, don’t worry. Caitlyn’s a good kid. She’ll just be glad I didn’t talk over her head like everyone else.”

Her eyebrows arch. “I wasn’t talking about her.”

His head snaps up, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, reminding her of nothing more than one of Kiramman’s hounds caught stalking tonight’s entrée. “Ah…?”

“You let Cassandra Kiramman call him your assistant.” She snorts, one arm folding over her waist. “You better hope it doesn’t reach your business partner’s ears. At least before you can explain yourself.”

“Ah.” His teeth clack down in a grimace. “Yeah, Viktor won’t take that very well.”

“Great minds rarely do.” She hums around the rim of her glass, obscuring her smirk. “I hope you have a good excuse ready. I’d hate for your project to fall behind due to some…creative differences.”

“That won’t happen.”

He snaps upright, and she expects that stiff spine to radiate with earnesty, for those honeyed eyes of his to gleam with academic fervor, but instead there’s a sort of desperate calculation in them, the flywheels of his mind running an entirely different set of numbers.

“Listen…” Talis scratches at the back of his head, the line of his shoulders tense. “I know this party, well…it wasn’t really your idea.”

To put it mildly. A fund-raising gala might have been in her plans eventually, but was supposed to come after a working prototype, something she could arrange to show to its best advantage after a few drinks and canapés. But Kiramman had needed to flex her talons, showing just how deep she could sink them in Talis, if she had the interest.

“I’d like to make it up to you.” Talis favors her with his most charming smile, the kind that opened wallets as easily as hearts. “You were our first investor after all.”

She lifts a brow. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

“A personal tour. Tomorrow. All access.” She’s half tempted to shield her eyes from the way he beams, eager to please. “It’s the least we can do, considering how much you’ve helped us out.”

That’s certainly one way to refer to the small, personal fortune she’s put in their accounts. But she’s hardly going to quibble over verbiage when he’s offering what she’d been planning to charm out of him. “And you’ll be there? Both of you?”

“Sure.” His mouth tightens around the word. “Why not?”

For men who have walked the hallowed halls of the Academy, who are used to the great vault of its atria, filigreed columns stretching their ribbed arms toward the heavens, the warehouse is just as starkly humble as the day they bought it. At least it isn’t just as empty. When Talis comes to meet her, he emerges from one of the newly erected partitions, hurrying across the floor to clasp her hand.

“Councilor!” His greeting echoes from all directions, all-encompassing, with a smile just as overwhelming. “You made it.”

“How could I not when you promised to show me around personally?” She lets her mouth slant, teasing. “After all, everyone notices when the guest of honor doesn’t arrive to their own party, don’t they?”

“Right. Of course.” Talis’s smile wavers, just for a moment. “I’m just glad to see you were serious about this.”

“I’m not in the habit of making light of my investments, Mr Talis,” she assures him. Unlike some of my colleagues, she doesn’t say, but by the way his eyes tighten, she doesn’t have to.

“Ah, of course, councilor.” He claps his hands together, dispelling the awkward air that’s settled between them. “Well, I hope you’re ready for your tour! Everything’s still in development, but I think there’s some real exciting things I can show you if—”

“Just you?”

Talis blinks down at her, confusion knotting the space between his heavy brows. She peers pointedly at the empty space beside him.

“Ha, ah, yes, well, Viktor’s busy.” His tongue trips over the polite lies trying to rush off it. “We’re still trying to stabilize the spheres, you know, or well— their output at least. See what we can actually do with Hextech, once we can get it up and running on demand. I know that’s probably too technical for an excuse, but, er— lots of places we can improve. Lots of places we have to improve, to make our deadlines. You know how it is.”

Mel stares up at that simpering smile and bites back a sigh. “Well, then,” she manages, perfectly cordial as she winds her fingers around his elbow. “I’m glad that you could be spared, then.”

Pink tingles the highest arc of his cheeks. “Well, councilor, you’re a top priority to us.”

“Some people in this warehouse have a strange way of showing it.” She hums, letting her smile widen.

There it is, that grimace. That barest flash of apology in his eyes before he looks away. “Ah…I’m sure…er…”

“Don’t worry, Mr Talis.” She pats his arm, radiating confidence. “This will hardly be my only visit. I’ll have plenty of time to get to know your partner.”

“Right.” The word see-saws in his mouth, uncertain. “Next time, maybe.”

“Next time,” she agrees. “Definitely.”

Councilor Hoskel is the sort of man who prefers to attend parties, rather than host them; despite the decadent vintages he imports, he would rather sell them rather than serve them, mainly at exorbitant prices that make even the highest lords hesitate. And yet, he cannot squirm out of the duty entirely, not without earning himself a reputation as an unrepentant miser, a skinflint whose clan others should be wary of associating with.

And so when he must unbend, it is to this: not some gleaming gala or intellectually stimulating social, but gambling.

“Did you know that in Demacia, they race actual horses?” Hoskel’s laugh wheezes across his lap, spindly fingers sketching out the thinnest suggestion of a thoroughbred. “Barbaric, really. All down to the animal at that point. Nothing at all to do with the skill of the jockey.”

It’s a smaller track than the ones she’d chased Kino around as a child, his gold-banded coils whipping against the gleaming scale of his armor, smile made all the broader by memory. A place like this couldn’t fit the mounts they rode, prancing and proud, roan coats gleaming under a Noxian sun. Or Demacian, for one summer. Shuriman, for two years, as Mother painstakingly carved a red river between the dunes. It hadn’t mattered, just so long as there was space enough— and time enough, without Mother breathing down their necks— to have hooves wear down a track.

Mel’s read poets from Lokfar to the Shadowed Isles— required reading for the daughter of Noxus’s premier warlord— but there has never been a one who could do justice to the way the wind felt as it whipped at her cheeks, sand churning beneath her mare’s hooves, the taste of freedom clenched between her teeth. And so there is no hope for her, not here in this city that does not expand out but up, an endless stretch of stone and metal and miracles of engineering, ever reaching toward the sky.

Especially not to a man like Hoskel, whose eyes gleam not at the sight of a fine bit of horseflesh but at the delicate gearworks that replace it. Already it spins and sparks, a poor substitute for the prancing of a high-spirited mare, but its jockey gives its slender steel neck a pat anyway, form preserved if not function. There’s a team of engineers behind him— students, she understands, responsible for the maintenance of the track’s mounts for credit— running through the last few checks, but there is no shield science can provide these men, not when wheels might miss tracks, or sparks may catch cloth. Even if these horses have no legs, there’s still a half dozen ways to be trampled.

That’s part of the appeal, she knows. Not that any of the councilors here will admit it. But Mel has eyes enough to see how they lean forward, breaths caught as they wait for the starting shot. Oh, they might scoff at the Noxian compulsion for conquest, call them warmongers and barbarians and worse, but there’s hunger in there, a desire for blood beneath the thin veneer of civility.

But it would be rude to speak of it, beyond the pale for the squeamish Piltoverians. So instead Mel smirks, adopting a casual lean against the curved arm of her seat. “And not a poor way to pick out talent from the Academy’s pool either, I suppose. A pity I paid so little attention to it last year.”

Hoskel might find challenge in a children’s toy, but he divines her meaning easily enough. “Ah, yes, I’m sure Talis must have made a good go of it more than once. Can’t remember it, of course, but— must have been a winner, whichever one it was. Really shown these boys how to put one of these fillies through their paces!”

A cackle wheezes out from that too-wide mouth, punctuated by a chummy slap of his thigh. “He’s a good chap, that one. Took me around the whole lab just last week! Showed me all the new fangled doodads they’ve been cooking up in there. All highly secret, of course,” he confesses humbly. “But if there’s anyone who can keep his mouth shut, why—”

“The whole lab?” Mel asks, alarm sharpening her question to a point. “Even the workshop?”

Hoskel scoffs, wrist swiveling dismissively. “As if I’d go in there! There’s smoke and grease and who knows what else in a place like that! Do you know how much these trousers cost?”

She’s quite tempted to ask if he does, but instead she simply smiles, enjoying the way he squirms underneath it. “A small price to pay to be at the forefront of progress.”

“Ha! Progress, you say?” That narrow neck shakes. “It’s work that’s done in those laboratories, my dear! Grimy, filthy work, done by bodies made for the business! If you’re looking for progress, well, that’s what comes afterward, when the men with great minds decide what to do with it!”

Her brow twitches. “Is that so?”

“I even told Talis to get a few more people manning the place.” He huffs, arms crossing over his chest. “Boy like him shouldn’t be getting his hands dirty.”

“Really.” It’s a struggle to keep her mouth from curling. “I thought his family made hammers?”

“They hire people to make the hammers.” Hoskel’s bulging eyes roll. “Clan Talis simply decides what to do with them. I understand he’s an engineer” —how quickly a vaunted profession can sound like a disease caught from Midtown whores in his mouth— “but really, there’s no reason for him to bother with all that labor. Beneath him, really.”

“Of course.” Mel hums, too amused. “Not like Viktor.”

Hoskel squints at her over his glass. “Who?”

The first time is excusable; there are deadlines to make, more than a few she’s had a hand in setting herself. An abbreviated tour is only to be expected, to be later expounded upon in reports. If she is not allowed access to the workshop, it is a small price to pay for steady progress. One she’s happy to pay, since it seems few of their other investors make it past the showroom floor.

But when it becomes a second, a third, a fourth— well, let it never be said a Medarda can’t pick up a hint.

However, that doesn’t mean she’ll take it. Not quietly, at least.

“Councilor.” Talis is at his most ingratiating this morning, anxiety palpable as her mouth settles into something just short of a scowl. “You’re here! Perfect timing. We just just put a little something in the showroom that might interest—”

“Ah.” Mel cocks a hip, impatient. “So you’ve been sent to get rid of me, I see.”

His smile stutters to a stop, just like his steps. “Ha ha, get—get rid of you? No, no, of course not. It’s just…”

She knows what ‘it’s just’ all too well, but she only folds her arm, waiting. If he’s been sent out here to be bait, then he can squirm on the hook like one too.

“Well, you know how Viktor is.” His arms spread, half apology, half shrug. A gesture that’s so familiar fatigue rolls over her in anticipation. “Doesn’t like distractions.”

“It’s impossible for me to know how Viktor is,” she informs him with no little venom, “because he won’t ever speak with me.”

“Ah, ha ha.” Talis rubs a broad hand over the back of his even broader head. “Now, that’s a good—”

“I am not being funny, Mr Talis.” If only he were smaller, more engineer and less blacksmith, he might find out just how far past humor Mel has traveled. Even still she has to clasp her hands to her elbows just to keep from shouldering past to get her glimpse behind the curtain.

With a steadying breath, she forces her fingers to relax, to let the line of her shoulders ease to a sultrier slope.

“Jayce,” she sighs, letting one of those fingers raise to her cheek. “I am one of the main investors in this little venture of yours. If you are going to insist that this is a joint project, one in which this…Viktor is an equal partner…”

“He is.” His jaw sets with all the implacability for which his clan is known. “There wouldn’t be Hextech without Viktor.”

She allows her face to soften, to imply that she’s dropped her guard, just for him. “Then I would like to meet him one day.”

“Ah…” Guilt hikes his shoulders, but the gaze he gives her is soft— no, fond. Perhaps more than she would like. But she’d have to be a fool not to be grateful for the advantage. “Understood, Councilor. I’ll, ah, try to talk to him about it. Maybe for today we could—?”

“I’ll call ahead next time,” she promises, turning her back on him. “Then maybe Viktor can pencil me in properly.”

“Right.” He deflates. “Of course. Have a, er, nice day, Councilor.”

It’s at another one of Kiramman’s interminable teas where the woman corners her, smile all edges, and says, “It seems like those boys are coming along now, aren’t they?”

It’s a surprise, an ambush, and for once Mel is happy she’s been caught with her mouth full, if only to give her a moment to push past the shock to a smirk.

“They are, aren’t they?” Mel tilts her head, the very picture of graciousness. “Jayce was just giving me a tour the other week to show me what they’ve been working on. Those little— what does he call them? Beads. They’re quite impressive, aren’t they?”

“Jayce?” Kiramman’s mouth purses sourly, gaze scouring her from head to toe. Mel only smiles. Let the woman think what she likes. Talis would certainly love for her worst imaginings to be a reality. “I believe he calls them…spheres.”

“Ah, yes, spheres.” Though with all those rough edges, they hardly resemble one. “Clever little things, even if they are still wickedly dangerous. Hate to see what one of them might do to the neighborhood now, if they got out.”

“I must admit, I haven’t gotten to see their latest prototype. Jayce told me that they weren’t quite ready to take out of a lead lined box.” The councilor may throw her head back, may laugh like a little lark, but her eyes narrow above it, skeptical. “I suppose you must have been in the workshop…?”

If only. Then Kiramman’s guests could have seen some real entertainment.

“Hardly. Jayce brought out the case from the lab so I could see it in better light.” For your eyes only, he’d said with a wink, but she knew better to trust a face as handsome as his. And one so well-connected. “But you, surely…?”

It’s a gamble— for all that Viktor has seemed to have forbidden her from the lab without so much as a word, Mel cannot assume he could manage the same stolidness with Cassandra Kiramman. She’s Talis’s long-term patron for one, with far more cause— and inclination— to bustle her way in, so long as Talis didn’t put up a fuss.

But she only huffs, waving a hand. “Only a peek,” she admits, annoyed. “But that’s fine enough for me. I’ve never been much interested in that sort of thing— machinery. Dreadfully dirty. I much prefer to see what’s been polished.”

“Of course,” Mel hums, suppressing a smile. “And Jayce is so good at showing it off to its best angle.”

“Isn’t he though?” She puffs up, like a proud mother hen. “I’ve always thought he was quite charming, just the way a peer should be. And so obliging…”

That, Mel thinks, is exactly the problem.

It’s not Talis who meets her when she sweeps into the laboratory. No, it’s some gawky girl, half-hidden behind a set of squared-off spectacles, shrinking smaller behind her clipboard by the second.

“Councilor Medarda,” she gasps, knuckles white around the hardboard. “We, uh, didn’t know you would be coming by today.”

Mel stares down at her, mouth pursed. Talis had mentioned they would be taking on new staff, but she hadn’t heard of any new hires. “And just who are you?”

“Ah…I’m the n-new assistant, councilor. Sky,” the girl murmurs, feet shuffling beneath the white of her coat. “I-I’m afraid Mr Talis isn’t here at the moment, but if you’d like—?”

“I’m not here for Mr Talis.” He’s charming, of course, handsome. A clansman in his own right, however small the line— and entirely too eager to please. Enough that even the likes of Salo or— heaven forbid— Hoskel has sniffed it out. However finely chiseled that jaw is, and however easy— or pleasurable— it would be to turn it, Mel knows: a pawn liable to switch sides makes for a poor playing piece.

Let all the other councilors waste their time wooing the boy wonder, hoping to catch an edge over their peers. She, however, has options.

Or at least she will, if she can get past this girl.

She’s a shivering little thing, quailing beneath her bite. A thing Mel might feel bad about, if Talis hadn’t hired her for the sheer purpose of having an assistant to put her off, instead of doing it himself. “I-if you need any help, I-I’d be glad to, um, help you. The showroom has several of our—”

“No, thank you.” Mel is in no mood to be managed. Not by Talis, and certainly not by this child. “Is Viktor here?”

The girl blinks, eyes giant behind her frames. “Well, yes. He’s in the workshop—”

Her smile hones to a point. “Perfect.”

It’s nothing to sidestep the girl, striding with the purpose to where the workshop door looms, a heavy, leaden thing only Talis could possibly open with ease. When her hand clenches around the handle, she’s half-convinced it won’t budge, preemptively locked against unwanted distraction. But it opens easily beneath her touch, swinging wide on well-oiled hinges as Talis’s new assistant stammers after her.

It’s cavernous, walls stretching high above them, catching echoes in its vaults. There’s windows too, placed so high only the sparest light illuminates the dusty floors, but where they do sits a strange stand of arches, almost organic in the way they fold together— and the bent man working on them.

Viktor isn’t dressed for company, that’s to be sure. Jacket and tie have long ago been discarded, decorating a chair half-tipped against the wall, leaving only shirtsleeves and vest. Which are hardly more modest when he’s got the first buttons of his collar popped, sleeves rolled nigh up to his elbows.

“I see we’ve relaxed the uniform,” Mel observes, heels echoing in the empty space.

To his credit he doesn’t even stiffen, doesn’t even pause when he tells her, “Progress doesn’t have a dress code. Only results.”

Mel smothers her smile to a smirk as he stands, wearily submitting himself to her attention. She's won their little contest of wills, after all, and an audience with him her prize. With a sinuous movement, she slips between man and machine and takes it. “The results could be wearing their shirt properly.”

He hesitates now, mouth pursed, sparing her only the sourest of glares. “I wasn’t aware we’d be having a garden party amidst the gears and soot.”

But even still, a palm runs down his front, subtly adjusting the set of his shirt, fixing the skew of his vest. Mel’s lips twitch. Not so shameless as he would like to pretend, then. “Hardly.”

He flinches when her hand lifts, but it’s not him her fingers wrap around— she’s pushed far enough on that front for a first meeting— but the arch of his strange machine. If anything, his discomfort deepens, the smooth space between those heavy brows furrowing more profoundly with every minute she weaves through his portals, strolling casually as if it were just another turn about the room.

“But your investor has come calling,” she reminds him, peering at him through one of them. “You might try to look presentable.”

He frowns, pulling his already gaunt face tighter still. “I have more important things to worry about.”

“Like this?” She runs a finger down the arch, biting back a grin at his twitch. “What is this anyway?”

He heaves a sigh, setting aside his spanner, or, well, whatever it is he’s been working with. Mel knows quite a few things, but tools are hardly one of them. “An attempt to stabilize the hex field.”

She arches a brow, and with an even more aggrieved huff, he explains, “I’m trying to remove the boom.”

“Ah, yes.” Her finger flits away on reflex. “I have noticed there aren’t many windows here.”

One spiny shoulder lifts. “They’d be a pain to replace.”

“And expensive,” she huffs, thinking of the bill the council had dickered over for the ones in the library.

Viktor grunts. “That was included in the aforementioned pain.”

She steps out from the frame, taking a wider look at the wrought metal monstrosity before her. It’s familiar, in a way; she’d hardly had time to look closely at their initial prototype, not when security had herded all of them out from the glass and shrapnel made by it, but if she tilts her head, letting the vague film of memory fall over her…

“So.” Her heels clack as she paces, coming to stand behind where he’s crouched, already back at work. “You went…bigger?”

“Scale matters,” he explains, impatience underpinning his words. “Smaller is easier to power, but bigger makes more visible mistakes.”

She leans down over his shoulder. “Or makes a bigger boom.”

This time, he does flinch, rubbing at his neck as he mutters, “I don’t make things go…boom.”

“More’s the pity,” she says, stepping away. “But the question stands. You think that increasing scale will solve issues, rather than create more dangerous ones?”

“Small requires attention to detail. It requires fussing.” He sits back on his heels, scratching behind his ear. “We are still dealing with functional issues. It’s better to see them writ large than to miss them in the fine print. Missing the forest for the trees, as they say.”

Not here. It would probably be something about…cogs and gears, if she were to take her guess. “Then why was Jayce’s prototype so small?”

A breath hisses through his nose. “Because no one wants a tool the size of a room.”

“Oh.” She frowns, remembering the glass that had littered the library floor. She’d had to throw out that dress; it cut her every time she wore it after. “Are we putting these in houses?”

That shoulder lifts again, wearier this time. “To the man who makes hammers, everything fits inside a toolbox.”

Mel steps into the barest edge of his vision; he turns, just slightly, to keep her in his periphery. “And what about the man who makes progress?”

Silence stretched between them, too long. “That’s yet to be seen.”

She takes the arches in again, slowly pacing around their perimeter, thinking of hammers and boxes. Of what might not fit in them, and whether they should. Of whether there was profit to be had in moving things from room to room.

"I have to admit, I can't quite see the purpose of it." His hands suddenly still over his tools, as if so long as he didn't move, she couldn't take their funding away. "What I saw...that doesn't seem like something that will want to fit in a box."

"That was proof of concept," Viktor assures her, flitting back to fuss with a set of cogs. Clever as those hands of his are, he can't quite get them to mesh. "What happened that night-- that's not all Hextech can do. Floating and explosions and pretty lights."

"And things moving from one place to another." Mel can no longer remember which hand reached out to the coin, but she knows at one moment it was there, and with a shiver, it was somewhere else.

He snorts, shaking his head. "Teleportation is not an avenue we're moving forward with."

She blinks. "Why not?"

"Hextech is supposed to put power in the hands of the everyman, whether they're born it the highest penthouse in Piltover, or the dirtiest gutter of the Lanes." His mouth hooks into a rueful smirk. "Now imagine every one of them with the ability to be anywhere they want, whenever they want."

It's a struggle not to let her mouth thin, to let the grimace grit behind her lips show. "But surely there's useful applications of that power. Ones that might better more lives than simply...lifting boxes."

There's a twitch at the corner of his jaw; subtle, lost in the angles of his chin and cheeks, but there. A purse to his lips, a faint furrow to his brow-- the marks of an argument long lost, but not forgotten. Or perhaps, she thinks, watching how his face smooths to glass, never had.

"That may be," he allows, the tone all but removed from his voice. "But Jayce would prefer to focus on something that would be useful at a personal level. Handy. We aren't trying to cause chaos, after all."

"No," she agrees, letting her mouth linger around the word. "Just a revolution."

That gets him to look at her now, lips slightly parted. Surprised, maybe. Seduced. Looks like she didn't need the dress after all.

“Pity your partner is so limited in scope,” she muses, once more tracing the edge of an arch. “I wonder how far this could go if you weren’t limited to a box.”

For all the girl's protestations that Mr Talis was unavailable, he's waiting for her when she steps out of the workshop, hands wrung so tight they've gone white in his grip.

"Councilor Medarda," he gasps, falling breathlessly into step beside her. "How was...? Did Viktor...?"

He puts a hand on the door to open it for her, the sounds of the street rushing in. His throat clears, and his mind must as well, since he manages, "I hope you're happy with our progress."

“Me?” Mel turns he head, obscuring her smile. “Yes, I think my investment is coming along quite nicely.”

#melvik #arcane #the man of progress #my fic #god FINALLY this is finished. I wanted this to be out in june originally #and then everything got shunted last second so i was like #andi will ask for it for her birthday! it's fine! AND SHE DID AND IT WAS GREAT #but this thing was supposed to be 6K on the outside. it's like 7.5 now #was editing down to the wire on this one too because the last scene needed some clarification #ending up adding a WHOLE NEW SCENE #anyway deeply sorry to my melvik fans for having to remove what was originally her fixing his shirt #but since she touches his machine i figured that would be just as good 🤣

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