Chapter Text
“No, no,” Jayce insisted over your guffaws, pointedly ignoring Viktor’s scowl. “He really told Mel that he’d mistaken it for his bedroom.”
Viktor’s frown deepened and you couldn’t help yourself leaning towards him with a teasing grin. “All those smarts and for what? An excuse any undercity urchin could top in a heartbeat.”
“You’re forgetting I have been an undercity urchin,” he grumbled. “I was nervous. It was the first act of rebellion of my academic career.”
“Oh, sure,” you intoned, as Jayce, chortling, picked up his cutlery and dug into the remains of his dish. You and Jayce had succeeded in convincing Viktor to take a break and accompany you to the academy dining hall for lunch during a lull period in one of his experiments. The food was average, more so than the nearby cafés, but the surroundings were undeniably grand; long bay windows lined one side of the room, providing stunning views of Piltover shining under the spring sun.
More importantly, eating in the dining hall rather than venturing outside the academy meant there were fewer steps to impact Viktor’s bad leg on his way to and from the lab. You had never given this as a reason that you always pushed for eating inside the academy rather than venturing outside, but you could sense that Viktor was silently grateful when you did so.
Jayce had been regaling you with another account of how he and Viktor had first met. It was a story you had heard countless times during their partnership, but one that Jayce enjoyed embellishing with each re-telling. You privately didn’t mind that the details got slightly more grandiose every time you heard it; it was worth it for the way Viktor would roll his eyes at Jayce’s exaggeration but couldn’t help himself from interrupting with details he’d deemed too important for his partner to leave out.
“There has been more than enough talk of our misadventures. What of your work?” Viktor asked, his amber gaze meeting yours. “Have you fulfilled those teaching credits yet?”
You shook your head. “No. Still another semester’s worth, at this rate.” One condition of your scholarship at the academy was to meet an annual quotient of hours as a teaching assistant. Coming from a no-name family with no money to spare, you didn’t have nearly as much freedom as Jayce had with his Talis surname and Kiramman patronage. You had been marginally better off than Viktor, a disadvantaged Zaunite…though of course that had changed with his advent of hextech, a project that the academy was clearly coming to look at as a future cash cow.
“A shame,” Viktor said. His hands rested on the top of his cane, eyes pensive. “I’m assuming you won’t have a chance to go scouting at the inventors’ gala.”
Jayce made a sympathetic face at you over his plate. The upcoming inventors’ gala was a yearly fête where students and faculty alike rubbed shoulders with the elite of Piltover and visiting foreign dignitaries, schmoozing for funding like their research depended on it – which in some cases, it did. It had a formal, fancier title, but for those of the academy, it was just another party. A necessary evil to some, and to others, an excuse to dress up and sip on drinks they never otherwise could afford.
This year, you were in the latter category. “Yeah. Most of my time right now is spent lecturing and grading. There’s no time to put towards work of my own, let alone something that could attract a patron.” You had been looking forward to talking with potential investors regarding your proposals on medical tech. What you hadn’t anticipated was just how many hours of backlog teaching credit you’d amassed, and you’d had to grudgingly admit that continuing your biomechanics research would have to wait until next year.
“Must be different for you two, huh?” You nudged Viktor’s thin, and he and Jayce exchanged a look that was both excited and apprehensive. In the grand scheme of things, hextech was still in its infancy, although huge steps had been made towards its advancement, and the buzz around it was growing by the day. “The academy’s golden boys will be the talk of the event. There’s going to be a lot of bigwigs at the gala with their eyes on you.”
Even now, seated at your table in the busy dining hall, you would occasionally see someone peering over at your small group then turning to confer with their friends. Viktor and Jayce’s names were being carried into infamy, even in a place where genius was the norm.
“It’s the first gala Heimerdinger has given us the all-clear to attend,” Jayce told you, rubbing a hand over his pomaded hair. “Now that he’s decided our research is on safe enough ground that we won’t blow ourselves and half the academy to kingdom come.”
“Or rather, he thinks that whatever blast we cause can be localised to our lab,” Viktor added, his lip quirking up at the side.
“Or that,” Jayce agreed.
You smiled at your friends’ back and forth. As their soundboard and occasional helper, you knew the grand scale of their hextech ambitions better than most, with all the risks that came along with that. You also knew just how qualified the partners were to realize their ambition.
“You two are going to change the world,” you said firmly. “If Heimerdinger thinks you’re ready, then you’re ready. Not that his opinion stopped you from doing what you wanted before,” you added teasingly.
“You’re right,” Viktor said. “This is our first chance to gain private funds for our work; the opportunities this will afford us are incalculable.
“Thank goodness I have Jayce to plumb the deep pockets on behalf of us both,” he continued, sounding weary. He wasn’t a fan of social gatherings, and he generally deemed parties an occasion too frivolous to waste his time on. “It is always the most tedious event.”
“Hey,” you faux protested. At previous galas, after you’d spent time networking on behalf of your own projects, you’d try to catch Viktor after he’d done the rounds with Heimerdinger, and he and you would swap stories on the various toffs you’d encountered and had had to sweet-talk. They were some of your fondest memories of your time at the academy, Viktor’s dry humour in your ear as you sat at the edge of the room and swapped observations about the attendees.
“I misspoke,” he said, his amber eyes softening at the corners. “You are always the one saving grace.”
A peculiar feeling bloomed in your chest, and you looked away to avoid showing him your blush. You sometimes had the most inexplicable reactions to some words or action of Viktor’s; he’d take your hand to help you make adjustments to a difficult equation or would mutter a phrase in his native tongue as he tinkered with a piece of machinery, and your stomach would flip, your cheeks flush. You reasoned to yourself that it was a natural response to the man. Handsome, brilliant, witty. Who wouldn’t get flustered?
“Well, I’ve no other reason to be there this year,” you said, fiddling with the table in front of you. “I might as well join for the free drinks and sarcastic commentary.”
Jayce nodded his head solemnly. “For the love of god, please come along. Heimerdinger might try to liven things up again with an impromptu speech on thermodynamics.”
“I thought it was a fine speech,” Viktor objected, to which Jayce clapped his shoulder. “Of course you did.”
That night it was late enough by the time you finished reviewing thesis proposals that the sky was dark, and you could make out the burnished glow of streetlamps in Piltover’s walkways.
You stretched and yawned, happy that you’d made it through another pile of papers before feeling tired enough to turn in. You missed the practicalities of research, of playing about in the lab and letting your intellect loose in the search for answers, but there was something quietly satisfying about piecing your way through these more sterile academic commitments. Plus, if you ever felt too stymied, you could easily visit Viktor and Jayce and assist with their current experiments.
Your thoughts turned to them as you locked up the office, slipping your jacket over your shoulders as you made your way down the corridor. The wing adjacent to yours housed the hextech lab, and upon a hunch you took the turn towards their rooms on your way to take the exit stairs.
Sure enough, despite the late hour there was a light under the lab door. It pushed open easily, and the light source, the only one in the room, expanded into a harsh blue glare that made you scrunch up your eyes before they started to adjust. It obscured the cluttered tables and benches littered with artifices but lit up Viktor’s thin form. He sat with his back to you, his profile limned in the blue light emanating from the metal contraption that he was hunched over.
It was a familiar sight – Viktor, lone occupant of the room, still prodding at his work well after all the other students and colleagues had left for the night. That was how you had first become acquainted with him, some years before while he was still acting as Heimerdinger’s assistant. You had both audited classes in the same corridor and often were the last to leave, though you had to admit that even your work ethic and dedication to study had been dwarfed by the hours that Viktor put in. Nobody had his dedication or passion for progress, another trait of his that had drawn you to him.
You leaned against the room’s threshold and took a few fond moments to study his figure before you gave a couple of raps on the door. “We’ll have to knock together a new back brace if you insist on carrying your posture like that.”
It only took a beat before Viktor replied, his head still bent over his work. “You believe my brace was a joint effort? If memory serves, it was I who put it together while you waved a screwdriver and added witticisms.”
“But you do admit that there was contribution from my end.”
Viktor turned, pushing his goggles on top of his head. Your stomach clenched – there was something so sweet about Viktor like this, hair mussed from his hands running through it, his eyes shadowed from hours of scrutinising of his work, but no less inquisitive for his exhaustion. “Are you leaving for the night?”
“Mmm-hmm. Finished the grading I wanted to get through. Are you finishing soon? We could walk together.” Your voice sounded almost shy at your request, and you internally winced. Why did you keep having these reactions in his presence?
He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here a while longer; I’m still conducting tests. Goodnight, though.”
You knew better than to coax him away, especially as he had been leaving the lab at a reasonable time – for him, at least – for the past few days. Viktor’s timekeeping ebbed and flowed with the compulsions of his research, and you and Jayce had learned when to pick your battles in getting him to go home for sleep.
“No staying too late. We need you hale and hearty for the gala next week.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, bringing his goggles back down. “You and Jayce both fret too much.”
“You don’t fret enough,” you returned, a common refrain, although you recognised when the work was pulling his attention back in. “But I won’t push. Night, Viktor.”
He nodded to you absentmindedly as you pulled your bag back on your shoulder and went to leave.
“Ridiculous man,” you said under your breath, and you heard his answering chuckle as you pulled the door shut behind you. That laugh was enough to leave a smile on your face as you left the building, and followed you until you were home.
A few days later, you arrived at your desk to find a letter on it in Jayce’s loopy handwriting, requesting that you visit him and Viktor at their lab that afternoon. You didn’t think much of it; they would usually drop off notes like this when they wanted to bounce ideas off someone or if they needed a third pair of hands.
You were kept steadily busy throughout the day and by the time you managed to drag yourself away from your desk it was already a few minutes past the hour that Jayce had requested you to visit at.
Entering the lab, you immediately made eye contact with Viktor. He was sitting at a different desk than the one you had last seen him at, now wrist-deep in wiring, and as always, something in your stomach clenched when he said your name in greeting.
“Hi, Viktor,” you said, moving to join him. “Is Jayce not here? He asked me to meet him at this time.”
Viktor cleared his throat as you took the chair beside his, your thigh brushing against his own. “No, he left half an hour…” His eyes caught on a nearby timepiece hanging on the wall, and he gave a twitch of his shoulders, a rueful Viktor shrug which translated as guess I got caught up again. “Maybe more than an hour ago. If you are waiting for him, you could assist me with assembling this?” He indicated to the parts and wires strewn across the desk.
“Anything for you, Viktor,” you said sweetly, laying a hand on his leg and batting your eyes. It had been done jokingly, but you were almost surprised to see colour rise on his neck, above his cravat, and his eyes flicked back to his work.
“Ah – yes. Thank you,” he said hurriedly, and gestured to the section he was working on.
Not half an hour later, your and Viktor’s heads were bent closely together as your fingers made quick work of splicing a part of the wiring that had been giving him trouble.
“You always were good at this,” he said. You didn’t look up at him, attention locked on the task in front of you, but could feel his eyes on your face. “When I was his assistant, Heimerdinger often mentioned your proficiency at mechanics.”
“Easy for you to say, you were top of the class in very nearly everything else.” You moved to clip off the wire. “We’re just lucky there were any opportunities left over for us mere mortals.”
You nudged your shoulder against his to let him know you were joking, and whatever Viktor’s response was going to be, it was disrupted by Jayce entering the room. “Excellent, you’re both here,” he exclaimed, and held the door open behind him. “You already know Mel.”
Viktor shot you a mystified look as the councilwoman entered the room, resplendent in a white gown. You knew that her and Jayce were friends, as well as her being one of hextech’s first supporters, but she rarely made the trip to the academy. Nevertheless, you enjoyed Mel’s company. She was intelligent, a wonderful conversationalist, and you had your suspicions that her and Jayce’s feelings for one another ran deeper than they liked to let on – which always resulted in a distinct chemistry underlying the two’s interactions.
“Mel!” You made your way to embrace the other woman. “It’s good to see you, it’s been far too long.”
Mel returned your hug, squeezing your shoulder. “And you. I’ve been very busy with my work on the council. I’ve found that a firmer hand has been required the last few months, to properly rein in some of the more…erratic members.”
Viktor had gotten up and leaned on his cane as he exchanged pleasantries with Mel, although he soon turned to observe Jayce, who was rubbing his hands together.
“So,” Viktor said to his partner, picking up on Jayce’s obvious eagerness to share some news. “What is it you have to tell us?”
Jayce and Mel swapped glances, and he gestured at you and Viktor to sit down. “I admit, it’s not just a social call Mel is paying on us today. She has quite an interesting proposal. Please, take a seat.”
You slipped back behind the desk and offered Viktor a steadying arm as he lowered himself down to his seat. You sat yourself down more hesitantly. Although you were more involved with hextech than most, you couldn’t think why your presence was required in hearing news from a council member.
“An attractive opportunity is about to present itself,” Mel announced with little preamble, tapping her fingernails against the countertop she stood beside. “I have it on good authority the upcoming inventors' gala will be attended by a certain individual, an ideal candidate to assist in elevating hextech to the prominence it deserves. He’s rich beyond what most of us could dream for, and I’ve heard that he is looking to invest in exciting new technology.”
Beside you, Viktor leaned forward, his interest evident. He held the gala’s wining and dining in little regard, but you knew the lure of additional resources to help advance his dream had piqued him.
“Who is this man?”
“A member of the Demacian royal family. A duke, in fact. I’ve never met him, although his family and mine have a loose alliance.” Mel’s eyes hardened ever so slightly, as they always did when her earlier life was mentioned. “Distasteful as it may be, I’ve found it useful to retain information networks in Noxus. An acquaintance informed me that the duke has recently been tapped to start a more ambassadorial role; this is his first solo trip outside of his court, and he is eager to make some prolific associations on behalf of his family. Demacia is aware that the world is changing, and that the heart of progress is to be found in this city.”
“Who better to show him progress than us, right, Viktor?” Jayce had a satisfied look on his face; he’d evidently heard the news from Mel before they’d come to the lab. His partner nodded, thoughtful.
“This all sounds appealing. However, there will be many potential investors at the gala, searching for the next big project to tie their star to. What makes this duke that much more of an opportunity for us?”
“The obvious answer? Resources. I know enough of his family that he has an embarrassingly generous stipend to do with what he pleases. However, he is no louche. Edwarn is a loyal son. He will want to make an investment that reflects well on his family, a deal that will have courtiers fawning over his patronage of the sciences.
"All that he bestows – money, technology, materials – will be of faultless quality, with no strings attached, nor expense spared. I am sure that if presented attractively, his resources would be exclusively promised to hextech research, for you both to do with as you wish.”
You shifted in your seat, acutely aware that you didn’t have any skin in this game. This was Viktor and Jayce’s opportunity, not yours.
“Uh, Mel?” you began. “This all sounds fantastic, and I’m really happy for the guys.” You smiled brightly at both men – it did sound like the opportunity of a lifetime. “Just…how does this affect me?”
Mel nodded. “I’m glad you asked.” She looked at you appraisingly, and you couldn’t help but feel a little awkward.
“Hextech is still untested. Brilliant, of course,” she added, and held up a hand as Jayce and Viktor both opened their mouths to argue in defence of their baby – “but it doesn’t yet have the settled air of reputable science that Edwarn will be looking for. For him to commit to funding hextech, with no conditions placed on what you do with your research, it will have to be marketed to him as an investment opportunity beyond reproach.”
Her hands clasped, she looked between you, Jayce, and Viktor. “Now, the duke isn’t a simple man, but he is a member of a nation’s extended royal family. He is used to court life, to charm, wit, and flatteries, and is particularly partial to a pretty face. I have no doubt that he would happily offer his investment, if given sufficient…. convincing.” Her gaze fell on you, and out of your peripheral vision, you saw Viktor’s head turn between you both. “What exactly are you suggesting?” he asked Mel, a note of suspicion evident in his voice.
You raised your eyebrows. “I think I know what you’re getting at, but I’d like to hear it plainly, please.”
Jayce leaned forward, his face earnest. “We were hoping that you would agree to talk to the duke for us.”
“We?” Viktor said sharply. “You did not inform me before making this proposal.”
“I meant myself and Mel,” Jayce said to his friend, voice conciliatory. “She just learned this information last night and I wanted her to be the one to explain the situation.”
He turned to you, hazel eyes wide. You didn’t say anything, although you couldn’t help but feel a pinch of affection when Jayce gave his puppy dog look. In a lot of ways, it felt like he was your big lug of a brother who you just wanted to see happy.
“I think you’re our best bet to charm him for our cause. You know our plans for hextech better than anyone other than me and Viktor; you’ve even worked on it with us. I know that you believe in it as much as we do. Plus, you know…” he made a vague up and down gesture in the direction of your body.
“What?” you asked, amusement growing by the second. Jayce was rarely flustered.
“You’re – you know.”
“I have breasts?”
Jayce flushed, Mel laughed, and you heard Viktor make an abortive choking sound.
“Uh, yes. Exactly.” Jayce cleared his throat (somewhat more successfully than Viktor, who was still wheezing lightly). “Mel said the duke is susceptible to a pretty face.”
“Well,” you said slowly, not knowing how to immediately respond to that, “not to point out the obvious, but Mel, you’re objectively the best-looking woman in any room. Why don’t you try to sway him?”
“You’re sweet,” the other woman smiled, “but I’ll be attending as a councilwoman. I have my own duties to attend to.”
“I did suggest myself,” Jayce said to you, in an almost confiding manner. “But Mel advised me that you’re more the duke’s speed.”
You were too distracted to laugh as you usually would have, turning over matters in mind. A big part of you wanted to giggle at the absurdity of being asked to flirt your way into bagging academic funding for your friends, but another part of you, the curious part of your brain that had driven you to become a scientist…
“Why not,” you eventually grinned. “I was only going to the gala to hang out with you two, anyway. If I can help you out, all the better.”
Jayce gave a whoop of cheer and Mel patted his shoulder, obviously pleased. It was Viktor who turned to you, his eyebrows furrowed and voice low.
“Are you sure about this? You would be doing us a great service, but…there is something unsavoury about this affair.”
“Why, Viktor?” Mel asked, one dark eyebrow quirked in question. “Is there some reason you wouldn’t want her doing this?”
Viktor’s eyes darted back to your face, so quickly you thought you must have imagined it. “I’m averse to the thought that we will essentially be loaning out our friend in order to further our own research. Maybe if Jayce had consulted me on this beforehand,” at this he scowled at his partner, who had the good grace to look abashed, “I wouldn’t have felt so blind-sided. But as it is, I’m very grateful.”
You felt a warmth rise in your chest at his thankful tone. Maybe you couldn’t describe the lengths to which you would go to help he and Jayce, but this was something you could happily do for them. Finagling a rich kid – no matter how royal – into parting with his money was an easy challenge to accept. Doing so under Viktor’s molten gaze would be another matter entirely.