Work Text:
It's kind of hard to look at Viktor, but also so, so easy.
They're hunched over papers and gadgets, a familiar scene for them, in Viktor's dark-shady-basement-supervillain-laboratory, decidedly not speaking. Jayce slumps low in his chair, reading his notes up in front of his face as a buffer for the occasional glances they're throwing at each other. Viktor has 2/3 of his arms braced on the other side of the stone table, casually thumbing through piles of technical illustrations with his third. The harsh looking claw appendage is bad at turning pages without tearing them, but then again it's not built for delicate motor function. It's mostly built for lasering.
Viktor is clearly making a big show of using it just to spite him. Jayce watches the arm move sharply, mechanically, out of the corner of his eye. He knows he's sulking. Viktor leans back, that metal chest plate glinting under the light of the single, dusty window, and cracks all 14 of his knuckles. Jayce scowls.
It's hard to put your ego aside and ask your sworn-cyborg-laser-armed-nemesis for a favor. Knocking on Viktor's wrought iron villain lair door wouldn't have been on his itinerary normally... but he'd be lying if he said he'd never thought about it. Marching into Zaun, smashing the gate off its hinges with his hammer of ultimate justice, charging into this laboratory for a second time, making Viktor finally see reason. Ripping off that laser arm. Holding him by the throat. Pushing him up against that wall. Finding out if any of him was still flesh and blood. Making him say he was sorry. Making him say Jayce-
There is a metallic cough, and Jayce realizes he's been caught staring. He idly pretends to be looking at something over Viktor's plated metal shoulder, and reshuffles his notes. He still has hair, under that mask, some part of him thinks. Or maybe not mask, maybe face. This thought makes him want to puke, so he focuses on pretending to read again.
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For not having seen each other in a year, their reunion that morning was stiff. Jayce rang the pager buzzer on the wall of the alleyway in deep Zaun, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his collar turned up against the undercity air.
"Hah"
"Don't start."
"Are you here for my charity like the others, Jayce of Piltover? Looking to replace your inferior brain?"
"Something like that. Unlock your gate."
And the creaky gate swung open, and Jayce walked carefully down the rough stone steps into what was possibly the most stereotypical evil laboratory he'd ever seen. Gadgets were whizzing and gurgling. The ceiling was dripping. There was a little bit of mysterious atmospheric green fog. And Viktor was standing there, looking right at home.
"You haven't really replaced your brain, have you?"
"And what if I have?"
Jayce tried to read those inscrutable, piercing red eyes for any sign Viktor was joking. Results inconclusive. He changed the subject.
"It's the hexgates. They're malfunctioning, they've been down for-"
"I know" Viktor laughed, shortly, gratingly. "Ripples in Piltover make waves in Zaun, the trade halt effects us as well. I admit it surprises me you cannot fix the hexgates alone." Jayce fixed him with a glare he hoped conveyed the illusion of some dignity, of which he had little lately.
"So much for the man of progress." Viktor squinted and tilted his head, a sardonic smile on a face with no mouth. "I will help you, however. Zaun suffers too, so it seems we have a common interest. But, I am still almost hurt this isn't a courtesy call."
Now he was definitely joking.
"Missed me?" Jayce said, in a way he hoped read spiteful and not desperate. And they said nothing else, and got to work, and now here they are.
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Jayce watches Viktor's gloved hand write in that curling, precise handwriting. That hand seems real. It moves with the fluidity of something bone and sinew, but the letters on the page are so perfectly uniform he can't be sure. His gaze drops to Viktor's abdomen. He tries to project the familiar skinny frame under the wide iron chest plate he sees now. If it's still under there, he can imagine the ribs, free of a back brace, taking easy, hydraulic assisted breaths. He watches how Viktor moves now, no longer hunched over a cane. His movements are powerful, careful, as assured as his mind. Jayce shivers.
Occasionally, Viktor shoots him an unreadable, faceless glance, while welding or note taking or pouring through books. They move in the little laboratory like the other is electrically charged, squeezing by without touching, passing notes without speaking. The air is so thick. Typical of Zaun, but maybe it's because Jayce is breathing like he's running whenever they hunch over the same manuscript. Viktor traces his waist with his mechanical arm on occasion when he passes behind him, making Jayce want to yelp or maybe throw up. He tries to get his nerve back by refusing to retreat when Victor crowds him, looking down at the cyborg over his chin. Clinging to that three and a half inch height advantage. They do this dance, tensely, carefully, in between the cautiously familiar rhythms of their work. Pushing at each other with little glances and motions. Maybe it's all in Jayce's head, but the way Viktor fidgets his hair absentmindedly (with that fucking shoulder hand) is almost coy.
He wants to say, hey, remember when we used to fool around and then not talk about it, and then do it again? He thinks about the feeling of nails on his back and breath in the crook of his shoulder. He remembers when Viktor still felt warm. Now every touch is ice, and the sound of softly whirring machinations. He remembers Viktor clinging so desperately to life, that he threw away what made it good.
Jayce shuts the book he was holding with violent force and stands up. Viktor glances up at him from across the table, and Jayce flashes his teeth.
"Vict-or. Come here for a second."
He pulls Viktor over by his gloved wrist to examine a schematic. They stand too close, and he doesn't let go of that arm, clenching it in his fist while he points out details on the diagram nonchalantly. He pointedly does not look at Viktor, who's eyes are boring into the side of his head. His grip on Viktor's wrist is vice tight, enough to hurt, enough to bruise, but Viktor says nothing. Jayce glances back at him, and twists the arm slightly.
"Oh, sorry, did that hurt?"
It's a dare, they both know it.
"This is childish. Our current work is more important than your personal vendetta."
"Oh fuck you. Is it?" Jayce spits out. He yanks Viktor's arm in further, twisting it at an angle that should be painful. Should.
"Can you feel this at all? Is it making you mad?" Jayce jerks him downward. Iron knees hit stone floor with no protest. Jace stares down at him, searching for something in that polished face plate and finding only his reflection; furious, tired.
"You don't even care. You probably lobotomized yourself a long time ago. Who am I even kidding." Jayce falls to the floor in front of him, almost on top of him. Their knees knock together. He holds Viktor by his ridiculous fucking cape around his neck and leans into that mouthless face, thinks of something vile to say. Maybe, I wish I let you jump. Or, I wish you let me.
In the end he can't muster anything. His mouth stalls once, twice, and he lets out a kind of shuddering gasp and his face falls under Viktor's chin. His forehead hurts where it hits the chest plate.
"Do you miss me. Do you ever even think about me."
Viktor's hand, the gloved one, comes up to rest on his shoulder.
"What comfort could I possibly offer you now." The steel hand comes to rest at his back, and it is cold, and hard. Jayce's fists hold the cape like a lifeline.
“God-Offer? I don't care what you... Viktor, imagine I don't give a shit about your third hand or whatever. Do you ever still think about what you want from me?"
The hands tighten on his shoulder, on his back, and Jayce arches into them.
"All the time."
They move so slowly it's agonizing. They paw at each other for a second, completely at a loss for where to start. Jayce wants to kiss him, he's nearly fully in Victor's lap, wants to pull at his shirt like he used to, but he's met with all metal and sharp edges.
"Mask" Viktor says. They both reach for it. Jayce's hands sink into Viktor's hair, fumbling for the clasp, and when it clicks loose he nearly throws it across the room. It thwaks Viktor's nose on the way off, and he should feel bad about that, but oh, Viktor's nose, Viktor's face.
It's always been angular, but his cheeks aren't as sickeningly hollow and his dark circles have faded. Jayce bites back a gasp of relief, suddenly flung back to every bedside hospital visit. Viktor is staring at him in a way that's both determined and tentative, and the hand on Jayce's shoulder is still gripping him shakily.
They fall forward simultaneously, heavy-lidded eyes open for way too long. The kiss is stomach flipping.
Their teeth clash, but he remembers how to turn Viktor's chin up so their noses don't bump, remembers how to pull the hair at the base of his neck, and somebody groans with relief and it honestly could have been either of them. Jayce's hands are shaking when he flings them around Viktor's shoulders, nails scrambling against steel. It almost knocks the wind out of him, and he inhales sharply into Viktor's mouth. Their legs tangle as Jayce urges them backwards, they fall together against the wall. Viktor slides his real hand from the underside of his knee up his thigh, and it's all Jayce can do to not make a really very embarrassing sound. There is a grin against his mouth and a shaking ice-cold hand at his back.
Viktor's staggeringly reaches for his chest plate, which slides off with a thud. He pulls away from the kiss, panting apologies, voice no longer harsh from behind the mask.
"Sorry, sorry, this one is complicated." God his accent is hot. Viktor moves to undo a leg guard. Jayce pulls back to take him in, unbuttoning his own shirt gracelessly.
Underneath all the pieces of exoskeleton, Viktor amounts to one permanent leg brace, one metal torso (rising and falling so easily), a metal arm, a metal leg, a pair of boxers and a flushed, uncertain face. One real arm. One real leg. One creepy third robo-arm folded shyly behind his back but whatever, Jayce'll take it.
He puts his hands flush against the metal of Viktor's chest when they fall together again, and is delighted to find it almost warm.