Chapter Text
Once their tour of the ship had been finished at the flaming garbage pile that was Teagan’s shop, Danse led the blondes back out towards where they’d docked their vertibird to find Maxson loitering at the end of the metal catwalk, hands behind his back while he stared thoughtfully out upon the navy depths of the bay. Maxson was a sh*thead but 76 couldn’t accuse him of not believing in or practicing what he preached. He really seemed to have absolute faith in his self-imposed ‘calling’ to rescue the people of the Commonwealth from the Institute. It would have been a welcome trait if the young leader weren’t so, for the lack of a better term, genocidal.
The elder turned to face them before they’d even came within a couple of yards, expression stiff but pleased, and 76 took note yet again of Nate’s immediate change in countenance—how his back straightened and his hands clasped behind his back.
“I trust that your tour went well."
“Yes sir,” Danse answered for them. “Both soldiers have met with the proctors and have had their measurements taken for their power armor. Morrison’s paperwork has not yet arrived from the Capital, but once it does, he shall receive a proper medical exam.”
“Excellent. Well, now that you’ve both become better-acquainted with my ship and crew, are you ready for your next assignment, brothers?”
Nate gave a small nod, which seemed to be enough to satisfy Maxson, who turned and looked back on the bay as though considering what he was about to request.
“Good. Let’s get right to it then, shall we?” Maxson turned his head to nod at an isolated strip of beach, where a large building was surrounded by smaller, ruined houses that speckled the sand in clusters of concrete. “Take a look over there. That’s Fort Strong, and it’s infested with supermutants.” The elder turned back towards them, disgust glimmering in his dark eyes. “Having those aberrations close enough to smell is making me sick to my stomach. To make matters worse, they’re sitting on top of a stock of Fat Man shells that we could use in our campaign. I want you to head over there, wipe out everything that moves, and secure that stockpile. The Brotherhood cannot allow these abominations to have a nuclear arsenal at their fingertips. Understood?”
“Consider it done, sir.” Beside him, Nate betrayed no sign of emotion, his expression having turned solemn. It was an expression 76 recognized all too well as one that Jack put on; the cold and unfeeling fallback of a comfortable nothingness. SEP solider #06 was undeniably related to Jack.
“It’ll be a pleasure to exterminate that mutant fifth,” Danse sneered.
76 was only a little bit shocked at how Danse rose to meet his elder’s intolerant tone, and it was at that moment very evident how Maxson’s bigoted view of the world and narrow-minded ideas of ‘humanity’ effected his soldiers. Even good-hearted people were clearly subject to Maxson’s flavor of dogma. The Brotherhood of Steel had always been a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of group, but 76 had never heard Reinhardt or his men speak like this about anything. Hating supermutants was justifiable—a majority were unintelligent butchers that ripped people apart for food, after all—but this was a deeper sort of contempt that made 76 exceptionally uncomfortable.
Maybe the synth had bitten off a bit more than he could chew this time.
“We have a vertibird on standby at the airport, fully armed and ready for takeoff. Use it to carry our message to Fort Strong and wipe those dirty mutants from the face of the earth. Dismissed.” Maxson put his fist to his chest and turned to once again star out at the bay, leaving the blondes to be led off by an eager Danse
“I do wish you’d reconsider,” Danse grunted unsatisfactorily while boosting Nate up in to the veritbird. He’d never seen a man with such a small waistline before, and the soldier weighed a good deal less than Danse would have liked. Perhaps now that he was in the Brotherhood, the young knight would get proper meals to bulk him up some. Not that he was lacking in physical strength or capability—on the contrary, Washington had proven to be far stronger than he looked—but if he were this combat-ready while surviving on irradiated tatos and moldy Instamash, Danse could only imagine how much he could do on hardier and healthier foods. “You’re going in to a battle without proper gear. You’re going to be vulnerable and put everyone else in the squad at risk if we have to cover your back.”
“Danse, relax,” the Knight laughed, and Danse cursed inwardly at how the sound made his bones warble. Nate winked and offered a hand to help him in, like he could actually lift a man with several inches on him and wearing full T-60 power armor. Danse ignored the offer and gripped the handle to pull himself inside, Nate’s look-alike effortlessly leaping in behind him, though Danse took marketed note of the way Morrison glanced at the minigun with some unease before sitting down and buckling in. “I’ve been in a war before. Besides, I hate power armor. It’s so bulky and slow, and it never fits me right. It pinches me right in the joints, it’s the freaking worst. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“It will fit you properly once appropriately customized. Proctor Ingram is modifying a frame to suit your particular needs.”
“I can’t move in it,” Washington insisted, raising his light voice over the roar of the engines during their uneven liftoff. “I need to be quick on my feet, Danse. I’m no good in heavy armor. Even this breastplate is a bit much for my tastes.”
“You may have been in war before, and I’m not about to demean your personal experience, but I will press the fact that you’ve never faced an army of supermutants,” Danse argued. “You don’t know these monsters as well as I do. If one of those things gets a hold of you, they’ll rip you apart if you’re not properly protected.”
“Scribes don’t wear power armor,” Nate puffed.
Danse moved to buckle the fussing knight up and gripped the handle on the roof as the airship tilted. “Scribes aren’t meant to be in the battlefield, and when they are they’re in the back and out of direct line of fire. They only engage with the enemy when absolutely necessary. And you,” he swept his eyes from the pouting Washington to a grinning Morrison, “what’syourexcuse?”
The larger blonde shrugged. “The same as Nate, actually. I’m a runner. You can keep your T-51, Paladin. Besides, my armor’s stronger than it looks. I can take direct shots better than Nate can, I’m faster than he is and I deal more damage on the run.”
“Hey! You do not!”
“You’re both preposterous. You’re going to get yourselves or me killed.”
“Only if you get in the way,” Jack commented dryly. Danse would have taken it as a sarcastic quip but the blonde seemed to be genuine about the claim, and he wasn’t sure how to react to it, much less feel about it.
He sighed through his nose and turned his attention back towards Washington, who was staring at the floor wearing a thinly-veiled unease that the paladin had seen more than a few times. “Airsick?”
Washington glanced up and smiled through the discomfort. “Just a little,” he admitted. “It’s been a while since I was in a veritbird this much. We didn’t use them a lot in my line of work.”
Danse pushed a button to release a small compartment from his leg, revealing some hidden Big Pops bubblegum. “Take this. It should help.”
“Thanks,” Nate smiled a bit awkwardly, looking green at the gills as he snatched out a stick and pressed the compartment shut.
“You should have mentioned this issue when you had your physical on the Prydwyn,” Danse scolded, once certain that Nate had put the gum in his mouth. “Cade has crafted a medicinal beverage based on ginger-root that has proven reasonably effectual in easing motion sickness. Your discomfort was completely avoidable, had you simply been up-front.”
Nate made an expression that Danse couldn’t decipher as annoyed or ashamed. “I guess that I didn’t think it was going to be relevant.”
“Our base of operations is steelairship.”
“Oops,” Nate smiled apologetically and Danse hated himself for finding it endearing.
“Talk to Cade,” he pressed.
“I’ll do it at the earliest opportunity, sir.”
“If that was sarcasm, I’m going to throw you out of this vertibird.”
The blonde only laughed and Danse had to swallow a sigh. Washington was going to be challenging but Morrison was arguably worse. Danse at least was familiar with and trusted Nate—they’d fought together a few times by this point and had a solid rapport built on trust—but he didn’t know Morrison terribly well yet. It certainly didn’t help things that Danse’s name and honor were on the line if either blonde turned out to be serious trouble, and Maxson had made it abundantly clear that he was going to be taking a singular interest in the pair, particularly Nate. Danse needed to brand them with the Brotherhood’s regulations and expectations of character. Luckily for everyone involved, the duo were at least acquainted with the military.
Danse had been a paladin long enough to sniff out unruly personalities, and could generally predict how and when difficult soldiers would act out, but Nate and Jack were challenging because they were well-above the skill and experience level of average initiates. Danse expected that both men could run circles around him, particularly Nate, whom he’d seen take on a dozen hostiles without injury. Nate was…astounding. Danse found himself entranced, and he’d be lying through his teeth if he said he wasn’t enthusiastic to see what the soldier could actually do. He anticipated that Nate wasn’t going to disappoint. And if the way Morrison held himself was any indication, he wasn’t going to be too far behind.
Danse was in over his head with his newest recruits but he was holding out hope that he could forge a legitimate relationship with at least Washington to help guide the Knight in the right direction. He just had to see the Brotherhood through Danse’s eyes; to understand how much they wanted to save Humanity from its past and future mistakes. If Nate would only permit himself to trust Maxson and the Brotherhood of Steel, Danse had zero doubt that Nate would find the camaraderie and belonging and fulfillment that he was searching for.
Washington was undoubtedly going to change the world. Danse just had to pray that he would take the Brotherhood with him.
“Target acquired, sir!” Their pilot yelled over the copter’s blades when the beach came in to view.
A hundred or so feet below was a three-story supermutant behemoth, a beastly thing with misshapen muscles atop muscles under its mangled, green skin. Danse had personally seen more than one eat a man in half. The monstrosity was throwing rubble at the planes, attempting to take out the vertibirds coming in for a landing like a child tossing rocks at circling vultures. The intention was to utilize their mounted minigun to take the abomination out from a safe distance before coming in for a landing, but Nate seemed to have other ideas.
“What the HELL do you think you’re doing?” Danse barked when Nate unstrapped himself to approach the side of the aircraft, blatantly ignoring the ping-pangs of incoming fire from the bloodthirsty giants below. “Regulation demands that you remain in the bird until we’ve landed or until I’ve given further orders otherwise!”
“Relax, Paladin.” The smaller of the blondes gripped the iron handle to the left of the minigun and flashed a smile that Danse couldn’t decipher as reassuring or harassing. “I know what I’m doing.”
“KNIGHT!” Danse lunged but it was too late to grab him. Nate leapt from the vertibird, though they were still a solid hundred feet in the air, and Danse was helpless to stop him. His stomach was thrown to his throat, eyes blown wide with horror at what had just transpired. Damn it! Was Nate TRYING to kill himself? But the knight landed effortlessly, as though the drop had been only a few feet, and showed no signs of injury or hesitation, rifle already in hand as he sank to creep along the dirt towards the behemoth. “Don’t you DARE!” Danse hissed when noticing Morrison lining himself up to leap. “You’ll wait for us to land! That’s an ORDER, Morrison!”
Jack tilted his icy gaze to leer at him out of the corner of his eyes, staring for a moment before withdrawing from the edge of the ship and snapping his mask on. “Understood.”
A roar of sound and the continued cursing of their pilot grabbed Danse’s attention back towards the front lines below, where the behemoth had dropped. The flurry of bullets between sides had halted, and standing on the twitching body was Washington, with several knights and paladins yelling and shouting excitedly on the ground before they continued to fire in to the crowd of monsters guarding the fort.
Danse sighed in remittance and motioned with a hand, and Morrison dropped down before bounding in to the field and firing his rifle while pilot brought the vertibird around. She landed the craft on the beach to let Danse off after the paladin had finished the final procedures. “I’ll be back within the hour. Keep the engines warm. But if the bird takes too much damage, return to the Prydwen for repair and we’ll get a ride elsewhere.”
“Yes sir! Good luck, and ad victorium!”
“Ad victorium,” Danse smirked eagerly and loaded his laser rifle to fall in step with his comrades, who were collectively slaughtering the supermutants and pushing others back. He swept his eyes across the beautiful chaos in search of his charges, finally spotting Morrison, who was leading a group of knights and initiates in to combat as though he were an experienced paladin, himself. Jack’s positioning was perfect. The way he moved, so confidently and with such experience, how he knew just how loudly to speak and how firmly, how he knew just when was the right time to shoot and when to hesitate… He was a leader by nature, and Danse knew on instinct alone that Morrison wasn’t going to stay a simple knight for long. Like Nate, Jack was destined for greatness.
Nate… Damn it… Where was Nate?
Danse scoured the battlefield for any signs of the knight. It was already evening, dark and chaotic, and Washington was small and quick-footed and challenging to track amongst the wreckage and plumes of gun smoke.
“No use looking for him, Paladin,” Morrison’s voice came in over the comm. “He’s already inside.”
Danse put a finger to his earpiece to hear him clearer through the screaming and explosions. “Knight Washington’s in the fortress?”
“Yes sir. He slipped in about a minute ago.”
“Damn! How didn’t I see that?”
“He’s pretty good at the whole sneaking thing. I’m going to help clear the beach and keep the airfields open for quick evac. Nate could use backup, though. He’ll whine about it but he’d benefit from a tank covering his flanks.”
“He’s my responsibility so I’m going to go in after him. Why is he not wearing a comm?”
“It’s probably turned off. Nate works with people but he’s a lone wolf sort, much more than I am, and I bet it distracts him. I’m accustomed to leading groups in combat but Nate was specifically trained to work alone, so it’s not a shocker that he’d want to slip out. This really isn’t his scene like it is ours.”
“This organization is about collaboration and cooperation, not lone-wolf tactics.”
“I get that, sir, but I honestly doubt that Nate’s methods will change just because someone’s telling him to. You’re better off learning his techniques and supporting him as best as you can. Nate’s built for small-group operations, and that’s where he shines. Who knows, maybe he’s more suited to a Sentinel lifestyle.”
Sentinels were the closest thing a Brotherhood soldier could be to an elder but were very unique. The title permitted them to operate without oversight or justification for their actions or decisions. Sentinelhood was extraordinarily rare, and only handed to remarkable individuals who had proven their loyalty to the Brotherhood, had a specialized and incredibly skill set, and gained some sort of advantage by working alone. Generally speaking, an elder only had one or two sentinels in their faction. Maxson had yet to assign one, as he had no reason to, but maybe Morrison was on to something. Nate was certainly exceptional enough to marker him as deserving, but he’d have to prove he shared the Brotherhood’s values and fell in to line with Maxson’s code of ethics. That took time, usually decades of service, and though Danse deeply wanted to believe that Nate would be with them long enough for that, something told him that their collaboration wasn’t going to last that long.
“Maybe,” Danse sighed, his enthusiasm thinned at the thought of Washington’s departure.
Morrison and his adopted squad cleared a path for Danse to jog to the fort’s main entrance. “Good luck, Paladin. I’ve got things covered out here.”
“Yes,” Danse arched an eyebrow at the organized chaos. “I believe that you do. I’ll report in with you once Knight Washington and I have secured the fort and located our payload of interest. Paladin Danse over-and-out.”
“Understood, sir. Morrison-out.”
Danse moved inside and did a comprehensive sweep of the entrance gallery with his laser rifle, surprised by the quiet. Bags of chained flesh and bone hung in gory display from the ceiling, oozing rotten blood in to brown pools on the warped hardwood floor of the once prestigious fort. Supermutant corpses were scattered on the floor and the stairs that led to a raised platform that split off in to two separate directions, both doors missing off their hinges. The building creaked and groaned as though alive, and Danse could hear the distant rumblings and snarls of the monsters elsewhere in the building, but he found no sign of life in the first room. Just as before, Washington’s methods were brutally efficient, leaving no hostiles alive in his path. Danse only needed to follow the trail of bodies to find the soldier.
The paladin dropped low and crept towards the left doorway, moving quickly but quietly through the crumbling offices. It wasn’t in his personal taste to be stealthy but even Danse knew better than to go charging in to a building of unknowns.
Several minutes of following the trail of bodies later and Danse found himself taking an elevator that led to another hallway to a large room bellow a metal stairwell. A few mutants were patrolling around what appeared to be a generator, with more silhouettes stomping through the dirty glass of lower hallway windows. A harsh overhead light lit the room, and Danse only just managed to catch movement in the corner of his eye as some of the harsher shadows flicked over Nate’s small figure. Washington was already downstairs, half-hidden behind a pile of bound flesh that had once presumably been a person…or two, or three. He was wielding a silenced rifle, which struck Danse as preposterous-looking, and was readying an aim while remaining almost perfectly still. There was a perfectly good shot to be had against any of the mutants in his sight, but Nate seemed to be waiting for…something.
Danse could garner attention to make sure that the knight wasn’t going to be noticed but decided the best course of action would be to wait and see what Nate’s plan of action was. He really needed to stress that the blonde keep his comm on.
A tense half-minute ticked by before Danse heard a familiar TING of a silenced weapon going off, and two mutants dropped. TING, TING. A green, hulking mutant hound dropped when it entered the room to investigate, and there was the sound of a large body hitting the floor when another figure collapsed in the hallway. The only way Nate could have made the shot was if he’d managed to snipe through a crack in the window, which was insane to Danse, but obviously not impossible. Nate reloaded his rifle and crept across the floor, hesitating to hide behind the generator to check his Pip-Boy.
“Knight,” Danse whispered.
Nate perked his head up, startled for a fleeting second. “Danse?” he whispered back. “sh*t. What the hell are you doing here?”
The paladin did a sweep of the room and moved down the metal stairs to join him, crouching to his subordinate’s level, meeting Nate’s flat blue glare. “I’m here to assist in your task. You’re my responsibility.”
The blonde grunted and shook his head. “Danse, you shouldn’t be here. They need you outside.”
“I’m your Commanding Officer, Knight. You can’t give me orders.”
“Danse, come on. I work best alone or with people that complement my skill set.”
“You work with others all of the time.”
"Fine," Nate snorted, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. “You can come along. But we do this MY way.”
It had been years since the last time Danse had taken orders from anyone besides Maxson or a few select and higher-ranking officers, since he primarily worked with his own squad, but this was Nate’s assignment, not his. The whole point of Nate being here was to prove how valuable his skills were to Maxson. Danse could assist, and he certainly intended to do so, but he needed to give the soldier room to breathe. “Understood. I’ll follow your lead.”
“Thank you,” Nate nodded and reloaded his rifle. “Let’s clear the building of any remaining hostiles. I don’t want to be looking around and get jumped.”
“Agreed. Lead the way, Knight.”
Nate took in a deep breath before nodding once again to reaffirm the plan and began to move. He kept low to the ground, silent and stealthy, every move devoted to his craft. Danse did his best to mimic the knight, knowing that the creaking of the gears and servos in his armor was louder than his partner would have liked but Nate didn’t comment on it. Danse briefly flirted with climbing out of his T-60 but shot the idea dead before it fully flowered. They were in a hostile area and Washington required proper backup.
“Disgusting,” Danse grumbled when stepping around the mutant hound’s carcass. Like the supermutants that raised and trained them, mutant hounds were green-skinned, hairless monstrosities; further evidence of science gone awry. But as Danse looked at the beasts with nothing short of disgust, there was only curiosity and neutrality in Nate’s cobalt eyes.
“They’re definitely not pretty to look at but they’re just animals. There’s no reason to get worked up over them.” Nate crept towards a terminal and Danse perked his head enough to see through the shattered glass of the room’s windows before crouching again. Certain the area was safe, the knight stood and filled the tiny concrete room with the click-clacks of his magic.
“These creatures are only proof of what sorts of things science is capable of when not properly handled and overseen by those that respect its power.”
“Science isn’t magic, Danse,” the blonde chuckled and made a pleased noise when he’d gotten through the security system. Nate began to click through entries but neglected to comment on whatever he’d found. “FEV was made in my time, you know. It was controversial and obviously the war sort of spread it unintentionally. I’m sure this isn’t exactly what the scientists that created it had in mind.”
“And what exactly did they have in mind to do with a virus capable of forcing evolution and causing aggression and mania?”
“I don’t know,” Nate shrugged honestly and turned the monitor off before crouching to check the clip of his rifle. “But I don’t think it matters much anymore. Decisions have consequences, Danse, but there’s no reason to be so judgmental towards people that lived literal centuries ago.”
“I don’t see why not. They’re the reason the world’s in the state of mess that it’s in.”
“The world would have fallen with or without FEV. The scientists weren’t the ones that dropped nukes on us or China or whomever else.”
“Regardless, their work has been responsible for the murder of millions of Americans since the bombs fell. How many people would be alive if it weren’t for things like supermutants or deathclaws roaming the wastes?”
Nate shrugged again and began to creep out of the room, his voice dropping. “I guess it doesn’t effect me so much.”
“It’ll effect you when you fight a deathclaw.”
“They’re not that bad,” Nate smirked over his shoulder at the shocked Danse.
“You’re not seriously suggesting that you’ve fought one of those things.”
“You just have to know where to shoot them. Don’t worry, Paladin, I’ll teach you how to kill the big lizards.”
Danse scoffed but followed, going quiet again so as not to gather any attention from remaining mutants. But though a thorough sweep of the building produced nothing but more terminals to be hacked and a couple of safes to be broken in to. He studied Washington as the knight snatched an empty can to stuff in his bag, now comfortably moving around with the knowledge of their security. “What could you possibly be doing with that garbage?”
“Hm? Oh, the can? You’d be surprised at how handy aluminum is,” Nate chuckled and tossed a few more items of literal garbage in before closing the bag. “Do you think you’d be up to grabbing that extinguisher for me?”
Danse turned his dark eyes towards the item in question. It was covered in rust and hardly looked capable of putting any fires out. “You’re not serious.”
“You don’t have to, but the rubber and stuff in there’s actually really useful. I could use it to fix up a water purifier back home but I can't carry it. My bag's overflowing as it is.”
Danse sighed and stomped over to grab the extinguisher off the wall and turned to brandish it. “Happy?”
“Yes sir.” Nate smiled so genuinely that Danse’s stomach turned over. “Thanks! Now then, the storage should be just around the corner…” The knight swung his bag over his shoulder and strolled down a hallway and turned, leading Danse through the final area. Nate paused to glance at a locked wire mesh door that looked to be a storage area for some extra gear, but Danse was preoccupied with the items they’d actually come to acquire. The hallway ended in an open arch that overlooked an enormous room packed with military ammunition cases carrying all the parts necessary to piece together Fat Man bombs, each part neatly settled in dark grey foam.
“Outstanding,” Danse smirked and shut one of the crates after having dropped down to check through a few. “There has to be at least two-hundred crates here.”
“Two-hundred and thirty-five,” Nate called from where he was busy poking through the now opened storage room. “And each crate has the parts to eight bombs, meaning we’ve got about eighteen-hundred and eighty shells, assuming they’re all in good enough condition.”
“Elder Maxson will be pleased.”
“I’m sure he will.”
Danse looked up from the crate towards Nate, who was now standing in the arch, the harsh overhead lights behind him making him appear almost ethereal. “You don’t sound too excited.”
Nate dropped down. The jump might have caused a normal man outside of power armor to stumble but the knight took it with grace. Danse figured that he’d probably never forget seeing Nate leap from that vertibird. “You know, for a guy who’s so paranoid that science is going to destroy the world, you’re sure as hell not nervous about a military inheriting a stockpile of mini-nukes.”
“We know what we’re doing. Unlike those men and women, the Brotherhood is a responsible organization.”
Nate stared at him, blue eyes hard and cutting, but smiled. Danse didn’t know Nate well, but he knew him well enough to recognize one of his false grins when he saw it. “Right. Of course. Well then, Paladin, let’s report in. It’s late and I’m ready for a bite to eat.”
“Yes,” Danse nodded and watched as his blonde peer began to pretend to be interested in one of the open crates. “Let’s go home.”
Apparently, even the Brotherhood of Steel was good enough to their people to serve them a decent meal for Christmas Eve. It was a small dinner but not an awful one, with various meats to choose from, mashed tatos and vegetables, and various mufruit-based desserts like cobblers and pies. None of it was up to par with anything Gabriel had made, especially not for a holiday meal, but the fact that Maxson at least well-fed his soldiers during such special events was nice to see.
The Prydwen was packed, many soldiers having come up from the airport to join them, resulting in overflow rooms all around the ship for people to eat at. Their group—Nate, 76, Danse, Brigitte and Fareeha—had found an open table on the upper decks, close to the enormous helium tanks used to keep the ship afloat. Child soldiers called squires occasionally ran by their table, laughing and playing until corrected by passing soldiers. Fareeha smirked at them fondly and occasionally barked for them to calm down or to find their parents but seemed to be amused and pleased by their presence. She’d been the one to suggest the table there and 76 figured it was so that she could watch the kids run around. The fact that Maxson had dragged children in to a warzone bothered him more than just a little bit, but not was not the time to make a fuss. He’d just have to keep his mouth shut.
“I know that you haven’t officially joined the Minutemen yet, but do you think you’d be willing to lend me a hand with some things?”
“Sure,” the synth shrugged and scooted over to make more room for Nate when the blonde sat beside him, sliding his dinner tray over to make room for the mismatching bright blue cafeteria tray the General was using. Nate’s platter wasn’t nearly as stacked as 76’s, which struck him as odd. Due to his unique biology, 76 required a lot of calories to keep himself running, even with special modifications that made him digest foods better to get the most out of the crap available to eat; Nate had to be similar, in some regards. Jack and Gabriel had both eaten a ton of food, and though they were arguably more enhanced than Nate was, the blonde had to be hungry most of the time with how much work he did. 76 had a mountain of food, grabbing as much as they allowed him to take, and had already made plans to go back for seconds. Nate’s plate looked like a ten-year-old’s, mostly sweets and some meat with a dollop of tatos on the side like he felt he was obliged to eat it. “What exactly do you need from me?”
Nate poked a fork at his warm mutfruit cobbler before taking a test bite and nodding as though making silent, internal approval of the taste. “Well, I could really use someone taking a look at some of the farms and stuff. You’re familiar with Sunshine Tidings, right? Maybe you could check up on it and make sure things are working well there. I haven’t gone back since we cleared the place. Preston says it’s looking better but the pipes aren’t functional yet. And hey, if you can seriously install plumbing, I’d really love it if you took a look at the stuff in Sanctuary for me. Maybe you could work with Sturges and get it back up and running.”
The idea of going back to what had once been Blackwatch didn’t appeal to 76 but he swallowed it and nodded. “I can take a look. Gabriel was the one that did most of the plumbing, but I’m good at planning it all out and I know where to look for issues. I assume Sturges is another friend of yours?”
“He’s a mechanic,” Nate smiled. “He’s a little strange sometimes but he’s friendly and honest, and I trust him.”
“Think I’ll ever get to meet him?” Brigitte had self-inserted herself the moment she’d seen Fareeha sit at their table, and 76 had already gotten the feeling that some sort of crush was going on. The girl seemed kind enough, though, and Reinhardt had come by and virtually insisted that she take his place with the group since he had some meetings to attend. It looked like even Christmas wasn’t a good enough reason for the buy to take a day off, not that 76 was much better about it. This was the first holiday in years that he’d celebrated anything at all. But then again, there was never much to celebrate.
“Meet him?” Nate arched an eyebrow. “I mean, if you want to come see him at Sanctuary, that can be arranged, but why?”
“Brigitte’s a grease monkey,” Fareeha snigg*red. “She’s considered a knight but acts way more like a scribe. Nerd.”
“I am not a nerd!” the red-head puffed, making her peer burst in to laughter when a red blush flashed on her cheeks.
“She’s in to fixing stuff up and building things and making designs and mods. She’s invaluable. And also a nerd.”
“Rude,” Brigitte huffed as her face turned to a shade of beet, and Nate smirked playfully at her, making it even more pronounced.
76 fought back a smile, hiding it with a large mouthful of a surprisingly-palatable molerat meatloaf of some sort. “I’d be happy to help out where I can.”
“Great! I’ll message Hanzo and let him know to expect you. You know Ana and stuff, too, so maybe you can help her get acclimated.”
“I’d like that,” the synth smirked before digging back in to his food.
“So what sorts of things do you tinker on, Brigitte?”
The girl beamed at Nate, her brown eyes sparkling at the idea of discussing her work. “All sorts of things! My dad’s big in to building weapons and turrets and things like that, but I prefer to focus on armor and weapon mods. I’ve been helping out with building a brand new prototype for new power armor that is almost like a tank. It’s less of a harness and more like a vehicle, if that makes any sense. It’ll come with rockets and machine guns, a special armor system similar to my and Paladin Reinhardt’s Light Shields, and built-in rocket-boosters to give it more maneuverability. I’m really holding out that it works properly. Elder Maxson’s found a pilot and she’s going to be here any day now to give it a test-run when we’re ready. We’re also working on fixing up an old-world piece of tech we found in an Enclave bunker. Hey! Maybe you know about it? Since you’re from the military. Do you know anything about the Bastion project?”
“Bastion,” Nate furrowed his brows, obviously struggling to pick through his shredded memories. “Ah… I know the name… But…sorry. What is it? And uh, what’s an Enclave?”
“The Enclave was a faction that rose from the old-world Government,” Fareeha answered between sips pof water. “They’re not around anymore.”
“Oh.”
“The unit we found is a sort of mix of a tank and mobile turret,” Brigitte explained. “It’s capable of switching between modes and all sorts of weird things that we’ve never seen before. It also came with some AI, so we’re trying our best to hack it and figure out what sort of AI we’re dealing with and whether or not it’s functional before we proceed to activate the thing. AI can’t always be trusted, and it’s probably so messed up from sitting around in the dirt that it’s not working right, anyways. But we’re going to see what secrets it has. Plus, its design is pretty amazing. I’m excited to work on it some more. My dad’s the main engineering lead driving that force, though. He’s not excited about the AI thing, but he’s interested in it so we’ll see what happens.”
“That sounds interesting,” Nate agreed. “I have some hacking skills, if you’d like me to take a look.”
“Really? Sure! I’ll drop your name at the next meeting and see what my dad thinks!”
“Sure,” Nate chuckled and flashed a grin. “I think you’ll get alone with Sturges just fine.”
“Good evening, Knights. I heard about your success at Fort Strong.”
76 looked up from his tray to see Lancer-Captain Kells standing aside their table, hands behind a laced back and dark eyes gazing down upon the blondes with something resembling respect.
Nate glanced up from his meal and gave a small but gracious nod. “It was no big deal, sir. We were just doing our job.”
The pilot wasn’t even looking at Jack, his attention wholly on Nate, who’d returned his eyes to his dinner. “The fact that you nearly single-handedly took out that beast without utilizing power armor or heavy weaponry is reckless but admittedly impressive. Remarkable, even.”
Nate offered a reserved shrug that 76 couldn’t decide whether to categorize as shy or not. “The bigger the barn the easier it is to shoot, sir. It wasn’t a challenge. Supermutants are intimidating only because they’re able to soak up more bullets then people can. But if you know where to shoot them, it’s not much of a challenge, even the big ones.”
“I see. Your techniques would be good to pass along to our soldiers, should you be willing to share them.”
“I’m sure the opportunity will present itself. I’ve got a mission to find a missing recon squad with Paladin Danse starting tomorrow, but next time I’m here I’ll see how to set up a class or something. But Jack was the one that managed that whole parade of guns out there,” Nate attempted to deflect the subject of conversation. “You really should be thanking him, not me.”
“Both of you exceeded my expectations,” Kells admitted and nodded respectfully in 76’s direction. “Good job out there today, both of you.”
“Thank you, sir,” 76 smiled.
“I trust that you both will have a pleasant evening this holiday. Ad victorium, soldiers, and good night.” Kells pressed a fist to his chest before sauntering off to continue his meet-and-greet rounds.
“Commander Kells isn’t so bad,” Brigitte smiled at Nate. “He’s a little stiff but he’s a good man and holds everyone to high expectations. I think he likes you, actually.”
“That’s liking me?” Nate scoffed. “I’d hate to see him hating someone.”
Danse set his tray down and sat at Nate’s left at the end of the picnic-style metal tables they were using, and opened a beer and sat a small case of them down for the group to share. Many of the soldiers they’d seen were already inebriated but weren’t scolded by their superiors for it, resulting in drunken singing to the radio filling the background. The air inside the Prydwen was warm and rich with the smell of meat and soup and cigarette smoke and laughter, reminding 76 so much of the old days of Blackwatch that his heart clenched and rolled in his chest. Gabriel’s smiling face flashed in his mind’s eye, igniting a cold and yearning fire in his veins as Jack’s mourning swelled. The synth snatched one of the beers and took a deep swig to hide his frown against the brown glass, suddenly wishing that his tolerance for alcohol wasn’t as high as it was.
“Trying to forget something, soldier?”
76 dropped his bottle to look at Danse, smiling as though amused but Nate saw straight through the act. Danse had already proven himself to be an observant creature, though he was ironically unaware of it entirely, and his knack for blatancy made scenes like this likely to repeat themselves. “Oh. No. I uh, just haven’t had a beer in a while. Sort of wish it were cold, though.”
“We run out quickly during holidays and special events. We’re lucky any was left at all, so don’t go through it too quickly.”
“So,” Fareeha leaned in to flash a smirk at Nate; he still didn’t know why everyone was so damn fixated on him, “how do you like the Brotherhood so far? Pretty cool, right?”
“It’s definitely a military organization,” he chuckled and scooped some more mashed tatos into his mouth. They were creamy and tangy and probably the best thing he’d had since he’d woken up. Nate himself wasn’t much of a cook. He burned almost everything that went in an oven, and Hanzo hadn’t proven to be much better. Preston was an all right cook from what he could tell during the little time they’d spent on the road together, but no one could beat Codsworth. Either Nate or Nora were great in the kitchen so they’d decided to get a Mr. Handy to help around the house once they both realized they’d be playing ‘real suburban family’. Before Nora got pregnant, both of them were busybodies and almost never saw one another.
Nate’s brows furrowed as the memories swirled in his head, fuzzy but there and so close to being clear that he was almost desperate. Per usual, he remembered…feelings; things; no images, just dry facts. Facts like being terrible at cooking. Facts like knowing that they’d once tried to make a Thanksgiving turkey and it had nearly burned their house to the ground but spent half the night laughing about it. Facts like that Nora was older than him, and how they’d met on campus when she was studying her law degree, and how she was ferocious and beautiful and charming and perfect and GOD, how much he missed her…
“Are you all right?”
“Hm?” Nate felt the haze clear in his eyes when he smiled up at Danse, who was looking down at him with concern. The paladin was out of his ridiculous headpiece thing that he insisted on wearing with his power armor, and his dark brown hair was an absolute disaster, tousled and wild but clean. They’d all showered when they’d returned. It was unsurprisingly a communal shower but the water was lukewarm and not irradiated and f*ckingamazing, so he didn’t care. Danse had a separate bathroom to use, one set up for higher-ranked soldiers, and Nate could only imagine how much grease and dirt was in that thing with how Danse looked half the time. With his face finally clean of all the grime and grunge, and not smelling like a burning pile of oil, and his hair free of that stupid helmet, Danse looked…nice. Nate could now clearly see the thin, silvery scars that dressed his skin, and the knick taken out of his left brow. His short hair was still wet and was too long in some areas, like he cut it himself with a knife, making some of the strands curl in odd ways. His shadow that threatened to become a thin beard had been cleaned up, and he was dressed down to his orange and cream Brotherhood uniform with a flight jacket on top to fend off the chill from walking on the catwalks outside. It all struck Nate hard and without warning, his stomach curling and turning warm, even with all of the negative feelings coiling in his guts: Paladin Danse was handsome.
sh*t.
Nate felt his eyes go glossy again as the guilt swelled in his belly. He’d found men attractive, always, and it had never bothered Nora, but it now unsettled him to find anyone attractive but her. Nora was this pristine goddess propped up in a glass case carefully constructed around what little memory he had left of her, and any threat to it was to be dealt with. She would have certainly chastised him for it. Nora wasn’t the sort of partner that would have wanted him to be alone or to spend every waking hour mourning her, but it had barely been two months and the wounds were still raw.
It was Christmas and he was alone. The world was over. Nora was dead. Shaun might be dead, too. And it was his fault.
“I asked if you were all right,” Danse repeated. “You look ill. Are you well?”
“Ah… Uh… No. I’m…fine. I’m just thinking. Sorry.”
A deafening silence blanketed the table and Nate knew that everyone was staring at him, trying to decipher what was going on in his head. He was doing a pretty terrible job of hiding his anxiety and could feel his panic beginning to uncoil. He needed to find a way out—now.
“I actually promised Preston that I’d radio in about some Minutemen stuff. I was just thinking about that. There’s always a lot going on with my settlements and all that. I need to check in before it gets too late and he starts to worry.” Nate stood and compulsively fiddled with his lighter. “I’ll be back.” He flashed a smile meant to reassure them and hoped that it would be enough to disseminate any concerns to return the small group to their festivities while he made a casually-paced break for it.
Finding a private place on the busy ship wasn’t an easy task, particularly with the holiday rush and Nate’s unfamiliarity with the vessel’s layout, but his walkthrough earlier that day had given him enough to know where to go to avoid the worst of it. Nate cut through the Prydwen, managing to avoid conversation by worming through the drunken troops and depending upon his relative obscurity and talent for vanishing in a crowd to protect him, which it gratefully did, and he eventually made it to the safety of the catwalks. The air outside was sharp and frigid, and they were high enough above the bay that the winds made it feel much worse, but the cold discouraged anyone from lingering too long outdoors.
He found a series of aluminum storage crates and tucked himself between them, swallowing his vertigo, closing his eyes and turning himself to stare in to the walls and giving in to his anxiety. It came in a series of waves, flooding him and making his entire body shiver, filling him and coiling and rolling like a storm contained in his body.
It was Christmas and he was alone. The world was over. Nora was dead. Shaun might be dead, too. And it was his fault.
He should have known. Should have done something—anything. He’d let it happen. He’d failed his country, his wife, his son, and the whole f*cking world. If he’d only been good enough. If he’d just tried a little f*cking harder, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. He could have stopped it all. He didn’t know how but he knew it.
Nate couldn’t remember the details of his missions but he remembered failing them. He remembered knowing he wasn’t strong enough or good enough to stop what was coming. He remembered being a failure.
He was afailure.
He was a failure then and he was a failure now.
What the hell was he doing? People were so stupid thinking he could do anything to actually help. They only wanted him because he was an SEP soldier, because they were supposed to be some sort of superheroes. But he hadn’t stopped the end of the world and he couldn’t possibly drag it out from the depths after the fact.
His fault…
His fault…
It was his f*cking fault…
It was Christmas and he was alone. The world was over. Nora was dead. Shaun might be dead, too. And it was his fault.
His fault.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
“Knight.”
There was a knife in his hand and he’d swerved to put it to the intruder’s throat, instinct acting on impulse, but the hand had been caught and Nate felt his fingers loosen enough for it to be solely removed, his strength drained by the same anguish that threatened to suffocate him. It took a long moment for the voice to press through the dense blackness clouding his mind enough to clear the way for light to cut in, but Danse’s face came in to view, stern and handsome and troubled. He was holding Nate by the wrist, stooped down to his level. Even outside of his armor, Danse was a large man, tall and wide-shouldered and brawny, and his broadness was enough to hide Nate away from the whole damn world. “Knight,” he repeated gently, “you’re having a panic attack. Focus on my voice. You’re going to be all right.”
Nate choked on a messy sob, suddenly too overwhelmed by his anxiety to hide it. He was now aware enough that he could feel his whole body shaking, and could tell that his cheeks were wet. sh*t. He was crying, actually f*cking crying. He hung his head and shook it but no words formed in his throat, only more disgusting blubbering.
In Nate’s personal experience, most people, particularly other men and even more so fellow soldiers, didn’t do well when around an adult man having a complete breakdown, but he sensed no judgment from the paladin who was just watching him and keeping close without invading his personal space.
“Do you want me to leave?” Danse asked.
Nate grabbed at the paladin’s flight jacket with his free hand, and he felt his left be released which he quickly used to grab on to the fabric like it rooted him to reality.
“It’s all right. I’m here.” Danse put a large hand on his shoulder. “I’ll make certain that no one bothers you. You’re safe with me.”
The shivers returned and overwhelmed him, and Nate felt his waist buckle as he fell forward, face in Danse’s chest as he cried, open and ugly and awful.
He didn’t know how long had passed of him just crying like that, but Danse never once hinted that he’d had enough of it. The paladin only shifted once he’d sensed that Nate was beginning to settle down. Danse moved to sit cross-legged in front of him, still blocking Nate from the view of the bay and from the worst of the wind, his chestnut eyes studying the blonde very carefully. “Are you all right?”
“Y-yeah… Sorry about that,” Nate managed. He wiped his face with his right sleeve, sniffling and smothering a hiccup. “I didn’t mean to fall apart like that. I know I should be better than to cry like a little kid. I just…it just got to me. This is my first Christmas without Nora. Hell, I don’t really even remember any of the ones we had,” he chuckled miserably and leaned his head back, rolling his eyes at himself. “But it just…hurts…so much… I miss her so f*cking much… Sorry…”
“There’s no need to apologize,” Danse grunted. “You’ve been through hell. There’s no shame in crying, and certainly none in mourning your family. No one on this ship could possibly come close to understanding what you’ve lost, and you shouldn’t feel obligated to hide or be ashamed of it. That’s wholly unhealthy behavior.”
Nate stared at Danse for a moment before smiling and laughing, his face falling into his hands.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“I just…didn’t really expect you to be a therapist.”
“I’m hardly a therapist, Knight. I’m simply concerned about your emotional well-being.”
“Thanks, Danse,” Nate smiled, knowing that he looked pathetic with red and puffy eyes and tear stains, but Danse nodded gently down at him, close enough that Nate could feel his radiating body heat. “I mean it. I have occasional anxiety attacks. I had them before everything, but the serum made it worse. I’ll try and keep it from getting in the way of my duties, though. I’ll be fine.”
“Nonsense,” Danse snorted as though somehow offended. “Knight, if you ever require to find a safe space, you need only tell me and I’ll make certain that you have the privacy you require. I’m aware that your enhanced physiology makes it a challenge for medications to be sufficient in managing chemical imbalances, but Brotherhood employs qualified personnel that might be able to assist you.”
“Hell no,” Nate frowned and shook his head adamantly. “NO shrinks. I spent two years locked up talking to people like that and I’m not about to do it again.”
“I see. Very well.”
“How did you even know where I was?”
“I didn’t. I located you by simple search and exclusion. No personnel had recently seen you indoors, so the catwalks were the next obvious place to look. I simply followed my instincts based on my knowledge of your personality and preferences.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a funny way of talking?”
“Yes. Often.”
Nate chuckled again. “So…you were worried about me?”
“I was concerned about you, yes. You were obviously suffering heightened levels of distress, and though I wasn’t certain that it was my place to offer aid when it was not specifically invited, I believed that it would be prudent to at least discern your whereabouts. When I saw you experiencing an anxiety attack, I decided that it would be wrong if I didn’t at least offer my assistance, though I was fully prepared to back off should you have asked it of me.”
“I see. Is it normal for paladins to go chasing after their crying soldiers?”
Danse pressed his lips together, seeming to consider the question much more seriously than Nate had intended. The man was too literal, but it was sort of endearing. “May I share something of…personal…nature with you?”
“Uh…sure. I mean, you’ve seen me cry like a toddler so it’s not like I can judge you.”
“Things were…difficult…when we arrived here. My recon squad had originally consisted of seven members. The first squad had radical success and no losses. The second all but disappeared. We were sent to check in on that squad and to send back any relevant information that we could find regarding hostiles and other such things. But we quickly found the Commonwealth to be far more hostile and chaotic than the original recon squad had reported, and time after time we had to fall back and suffered losses. My soldiers kept dying, no matter how hard I tried to keep things together. Things just kept getting worse.
“One of my men was severely injured in a standoff against a horde of supermutants when he was repeatedly shot in the back. He fell in to a coma and was completely paralyzed, and his organs began to shut down one by one. Scribe Haylen struggled to keep him alive. She stayed with him through the night, but it was quickly apparent that he was not going to survive, and that should he manage to wake up that he would suffer. His brain had also been severely damaged due to a lack of oxygen for a time. Even if she’d been able to bring him from the cusp of death, he’d have had no real life.
“The following day, I made the hard call. I ordered her to administer a deadly dosage of medicinal chems to end his life. Haylen complied with my orders without question, though I could see that doing so deeply hurt her.”
“You doubt your decision?” Nate asked quietly, once there was a natural lull in conversation.
Danse looked up and shook his head once, firm and confident. “No. I stand behind every order I’ve ever given. That man would have led a life of misery, had he survived. It was better for him to have died with integrity than to be a vegetable just for the sake of saying that he was ‘alive’, if you could even call it that. But I could tell that Haylen was deeply unsettled by the experience.
“One night, a few days later, when I was considering approaching her about the situation while Knight Rhys was out gathering some much-needed provisions, Haylen requested to speak with me in private. I complied, of course, but she had difficulty getting her feelings across, culminating in her breaking down. She fell against my and just…cried. I wasn’t sure of what to do so I just held her for a little while… Several minutes later, she withdrew, thanked me, kissed my cheek and left, and that was the last time we got close to discussing the nature of what had happened. She seemed to recover from the event after that, though I know that she continues to be burdened by it to some degree.”
“Do you feel bad for asking her to do it?”
“Sometimes,” Danse admitted, his gritty voice going distance and quiet for a brief moment. He lifted his eyes, no tears clouding them but emotion and sentiment drenched in the earthy colors staring down at his attentive subordinate. “I’m not particularly skilled with talking anyone through their emotional problems but I’m capable of at least listening to them. Haylen calls me a ‘sound board’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Just…know that I’m here, Knight, and that I won’t judge or mock you. I’m your commanding officer but I’m also personally invested in your well-being. I want to be someone that you know that you can depend upon and trust and know that you’re safe around. I…guess that’s all that I wanted to say.”
Nate smiled softly. “Yeah… I know. You know…when I first met you, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. You were like this totally masculine soldier guy that seemed to just blindly follow a belief system similar to one that I’d discredited. But…maybe you’re not so bad, after all.”
Danse smirked when Nate’s lips crooked, and the pair of men chuckled like giggling schoolgirls under a football stadium. “Thanks, I think. I don’t particularly have many friends but I’d like to think that we get along well enough.”
“We’re friends,” Nate nodded. “Friends look out for each other. I think you’ve just proven as much. Not everyone’s so willing to overlook someone’s fragilities. Especially in the military. And hell knows I’ve got a lot of them…”
“You’re hardly fragile.”
“That just speaks to how little you know me.”
“Everyone has their own baggage,” Danse murmured, his eyes dropping slightly in self-reflection. Nate thought that that was the end of the thought but Danse surprised him by continuing. “I don’t sleep well, and I suffer insomnia and migraines. Cade says that I have PTSD and has repeatedly attempted to force me to take personal leave.”
“PTSD is normal amongst soldiers, Danse. If your doctor is encouraging you to take some time off, maybe you should.”
“No,” Danse snorted. “No, that wouldn’t help at all.”
“Didn’t you just encourage me to talk to someone or take meds if they’d help?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
Nate arched a cynical eyebrow and Danse flit his eyes towards him and away like a bashful child knowing they’d been caught in a lie. “Danse. Please.”
“I’d rather just sit here with you, if that’s fine with you.”
Nate sighed but nodded, not willing to argue since he was in a similar boat. “All right. I guess we can help each other, maybe. And hey, if you want to cry, feel free.”
Danse smirked up at him, his dark eyes sparkling some as he fought a chuckle, and Nate smiled. It was easy smiling with Danse. He was stubborn and brainwashed and devoted to a maniac, but he wasn’t completely lost. “Thanks for the offer but I’m all right.”
“Hey, just saying. The offer’s on the table.”
“Thank you. Are you ready to go back inside?”
“I guess so,” Nate sighed. “But I need to crash soon. I really need to get back to work early tomorrow, if possible. You’re going to come with me, right?”
“That’s my orders, so yes.”
“We can look for information about the recon team on the way. I’ve got a settlement close to where I think is a good place to start, so we can have a bird drop us off there and see where it leads after I check in with the locals and fix some stuff up. I hope you’re good with a wrench, big guy.”
“I’m…adequate.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Nate smiled.
Danse nodded and smiled back, and the pair of men basked in their quiet moment, hidden away behind stacks of boxes on a catwalk hundreds of feet above the skeleton of Boston Bay.
It was Christmas and he was with his new friends. The world was starting over. Nora was gone but not forgotten. Shaun was out there somewhere waiting for him. And Nate was ready to face it all.
He was ready.
