Work Text:
Wired again
Now look who's laughing
Me again
All fired up on you
- Ben Howard, "Time Is Dancing"
——
“So do you want to beat these little assholes or not?"
Cortez chuckles. “I’m not sure you can call a bunch of teenagers ‘assholes,’ Joker.”
Joker blows out a frustrated breath and mutters, “You can if they’re being assholes.”
They are being a bunch of assholes, and Cortez’s ever-charming affable-dad schtick isn’t helping. He needs Cortez locked in. Focused.
He needs to win.
But irritatingly, Cortez just leans nonchalantly against the side of the arcade game. “They’re just gloating.”
“Only because they’re winning,” Joker spits back.
Cortez raises an amused eyebrow.
Okay, fine. He knows this is stupid. It’s just a stupid game in a stupid arcade on the stupid Silversun Strip. There’s a literal end-of-the-galaxy war going on outside the safe and secure walls of the Citadel at this very moment—a war that both Joker and Cortez have flown actual, successful missions in, mind you—so Joker has, you know, perspective or whatever. These stupid teenagers and their stupid game literally don’t matter.
“This really matters to you, doesn’t it?” Cortez says sympathetically.
Joker scowls. “It really fucking does.”
“Okay then, what do we do?” There we go. Locked in. Joker can tell when Cortez is focused because of the way his face…shifts, ever-so-slightly. It’s subtle. So subtle that when Joker tried to point it out once to EDI, her only response was, “I suppose I will need to spend as much time studying Lieutenant Cortez’s facial features as you have.”
Whatever that means.
Cortez continues, blithely unaware of how the corner of his left eye has turned slightly up, “I mean, these kids live here. They probably fly on this game every day. They’ve got the whole thing memorized, and it’s a test of player coordination.” He shrugs again. “Hard to beat them on their home turf.”
“But we’re literal pilots. Like actual, Alliance-trained, I-took-a-killshot-on-a-Reaper-and-you’re-also-pretty-good pilots. It’s literally just a flight sim!”
Cortez’s other eye crinkles upward. “Home turf,” he repeats. “Unless you’ve got any special ideas up those sleeves of yours, I think we might need to bow out gracefully.”
“Fuck that,” Joker snorts with as little grace as he can muster. “I do have an idea, actually.”
“Is it cheating?”
Joker grumbles but says nothing.
Cortez chuckles. “They’re kids, Joker. We’re not cheating against—“
“Hey fuckwads, are you ready yet?”
Cortez’s face freezes in mid-syllable, eyes narrowed slightly. Joker knows this look, too, remembers it from the last time a very drunk James Vega almost got into a fight for “the honor of the Alliance” against, of all things, a hanar. Later, Vega complained more about the hour-long lecture he got than he did about his hangover.
“Yeah, grandpa, I’m talking to you!”
Joker stifles a snicker as Cortez calmly turns around, facing the teen manning the third of the four game consoles. “So I think—“
“Yeah, I don’t care, gramps,” the teen continues, “you’ve gotten your ass kicked twice and you’re still standing there. And we’re letting you take a breath because you’re old and if you die they have to shut down the arcade. But you’re taking as fucking long to sit down again as you did during your last run, when you flew so shitty it’s no wonder you guys are losing the war, so if you and boy wonder aren’t gonna play, move so someone else fucking can.”
There is a not insignificant part of Joker that, truly, wants to laugh and applaud along with the kid’s groupies. It’s the kind of speech he’s given many times, ever since he had to make a name for himself among the idiots at the academy. And once on Arcturus, to a particularly smarmy salarian vendor. He knows the formula. Be crass, be brief, and above all, be a dick. He’d be proud. Except for two things.
One, the split-second shift in Cortez’s face at “when you flew so shitty it’s no wonder you guys are losing the war.” This isn’t a look Joker’s familiar with. Tight lines in the forehead, mouth turned down, eyes wide and unfocused. If anything, it looks like fear. Or grief. It puts an instant twist in the pit of Joker’s stomach.
And two, fucking nobody calls him “boy wonder.”
Cortez gives the teen a tight smile and turns back to Joker. “Okay,” he says under his breath. “Now I want to beat these little assholes.”
“Even if it’s cheating?”
“Especially if it’s cheating.”
Joker smirks. “Give me…twenty seconds.” He puts his finger to his ear to activate his aural implant.
So this stupid fucking game is a two-player-team precision flying sim, right? You fly one fighter, your partner flies the other, you work together to clear the field before the other team can clear theirs. Great. Fine. If that were it, actual professional pilots Jeff Moreau and Steve Cortez would’ve blown these asshole teenagers out of the sky thirty-seven minutes ago. The catch is that you don’t know what your partner is doing. And what your partner does has an effect on your part of the field. So you just have to kind of guess and hope for the best. That is, if you’re a normal person with a real job. If you don’t happen to be actively fighting a war and can just hang around an arcade all day, though, you can full-on memorize each course’s layout and how to move precisely to get the bonuses your team needs in order to win.
Option A, “guess like an idiot,” has already wasted the last half-hour of Joker’s life and most of the patience the Reapers haven’t yet vaporized. Option B, “mooch off your parents and pretend you live in a video game,” sounds great except that reliving his teenage years is the last thing Joker wants to do.
So, Option C it is.
“EDI,” Joker calls calmly and quietly, “I need you to hook Cortez’s haptic implants up to mine.”
There’s a brief pause. “Jeff, I do not understand. Please repeat.”
Joker blows a breath out. “Route the signaling from Cortez’s haptic implants so they buzz mine.”
There’s another brief pause, during which Joker silently curses his best spaceship-shaped friend. This isn’t a difficult request. In the same way that all Alliance personnel are outfitted with standard aural implants in order to communicate without having to, like, tap a badge or flip open a receiver or whatever, Alliance pilots are also equipped with haptic implants in their hands. Most ships run on haptic interfaces; the holographic panels that Joker sweeps through when he’s flying the Normandy only respond to the tiny sensors embedded in his fingertips, which buzz and pulse and push in concert with the screens to give him ultra-fine control over the ship and her systems. Much more responsive than the haptic gloves most freighter pilots have to wear. All he’s asking EDI to do is make it so that when Cortez moves his fingers—and therefore, his implants—they’ll buzz Joker’s. Not that hard.
“EDI—“
“Done,” she says calmly in his ear.
A beat. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“No,” he says, clicking off the comm channel with a satisfactory grunt.
He turns back to Cortez, who’s returned to leaning against the arcade console, consciously ignoring the increasingly agitated teens. For the briefest of moments, Joker can’t help but to admire the man’s sheer unflappability in the face of asshole teenage ire.
There. A twitch of the eyelid. Okay, maybe not so unflappable.
“Anytime you want to share your secret plan for domination,” Cortez murmurs, “I’m all ears.”
“Let’s test it,” Joker replies. “Hold up a couple of fingers behind your back.”
Cortez raises an eyebrow.
“Just do it, man,” Joker says, blowing out another breath.
Cortez shrugs. “Okay.” He shrugs, then stands upright, squares his shoulders, and puts his hands behind his back.
Joker’s fingertips buzz. Internally, he yells, holy shit, but aloud, he calmly says, “Ring finger and pinky on your right hand, thumb and middle finger on your left.”
Cortez’s eyes go wide. He slowly brings his hands out, showing exactly the fingers Joker described. “Holy good night, how did you—“
“I had EDI route your—“
“My implants!” Cortez realizes with a crow, and Joker’s heart leaps at the beaming smile on Cortez’s face. Because…he’s glad it worked like he wanted.
That’s all.
“You are a genius,” Cortez laughs, patting Joker gently on the shoulder.
That’s…definitely all.
The Lead Teen starts to get up from his console. “Fuck it, we’re gonna bounce since—“
“We’re ready,” Cortez smoothly interrupts the teenager. “Sorry for the wait, but you know how we old people are.”
Joker stifles as a chuckle as just the middle finger on his right hand buzzes.
——
Joker collapses happily, if a little drunkenly, into his bed. His big, fluffy, comfortable bed. His. In his own room! With walls! By himself!
He giggles to himself. Okay, more than a little drunk.
It’s earned, though. All of it. Including, and especially, this room. With its bed. And its pillows. Its fluffy, pillowy, pillows. Victory pillows. For an incredible victory.
He laces his fingers behind his head as he relaxes in the overstuffed bed, still buzzing from the last few hours. They hadn’t just beaten those asshole teenagers. They’d cleaned their clocks. Stuffed ‘em in a locker. Flown circles around them and shamed them, their mothers, and their dogs.
It had been glorious.
He chuckles to himself, remembering Steve’s victory dance. The man has a dance, because of course he does. And it involved taunting the teenagers—which was a stark change from Mr. “We Can’t Call Teenagers Assholes”, so, you know, points to him—and then it involved twirling Joker around into a perfect dip.
So, you know. Again. Points to him.
And then they left the arcade, and went to a bar, and then they went to another bar, and it was great. So great! Talked for hours, got absolutely shit-faced, talked some more. Steve told him about Robert, a lot about Robert. Robert sounds like a good guy. It’s a shame Steve lost a good guy like Robert. And Joker talked about his mom, and he never talks about his mom, and Steve listened. Really listened. No one ever really listens, but Steve just sat there with his beautiful eyes and listened to Joker talk forever about his mom and how he got into flying because of her and how that one maneuver he did in the game where they beat those assholes was something he learned from her and how much he misses her. And Steve listened, the whole time.
And then he took Joker dancing, which is not something Joker ever does because, you know, the bones, but Steve carved out a space in the corner where there weren’t any people to bump into him and Steve used his own body to block for Joker and then they were dancing and it felt like flying. No one’s ever wanted to dance with Joker before. Joker’s never wanted to dance before. But with Steve…
Joker sighs happily, moving his still-buzzing hands down to his chest. This is a weird feeling. Not the buzzing, that’s just weirdly familiar, but this feeling in his chest. No, deeper than that. Steve. Every time he thinks about him, his stomach does a little flip, like when you take a ship around a gravity well and, just for a second, you’re at the mercy of unfamiliar gravity and uncontrolled momentum and you’re not sure if you’re going to clear its pull or get sucked down into it.
Joker kinda wants to get sucked down into it. Into Steve.
He rubs his eyes, slightly embarrassed at the stream-of-consciousness nonsense he can't quite bring himself to break. Man, he must be really drunk. Kinetic shields down. He’s gonna regret thinking about all of this in the morning. Hell, maybe he won’t remember in the morning. That’s probably for the best, yeah?
The buoyant joy in his gut curdles a little.
This isn’t like him. This can’t be him. He’s got a job to do, and any day, Hackett’s gonna call Shepard and give the order for the final assault on Earth and…
“Easy, Jeff. That’s a problem for tomorrow. Focus on tonight.”
He smiles again, the knot in his stomach easing. His hand still buzzes where Steve touched it when Joker’d said those very same things to him when they got to the hotel. Or when Steve practically carried him here. A nice place, very nice, not like the Alliance temp barracks down on Zakera Ward where the crew’s supposed to be staying during the retrofit. Steve said it was a victory present, paid with his own credits. For the briefest of moments, Joker’d found himself hoping it was just gonna be the one room. But no, Steve’s a gentlemen, he got Joker his own room, with the fluffiest of beds, and then bid him goodnight.
So easily Steve floats on the currents of life, instead of getting battered every-which-way like Joker. Joker could stand to be more like that, maybe. He could try at the very least. He looks down at his hand, imagining Steve touching it again, feeling that buzzing, hoping—
Wait. Buzzing?
He flexes his hand. That’s not a memory. His hand is actually buzzing.
Joker's eyes go wide. Holy shit, I never told EDI to break the connection between our implants.
His hand goes to his ear to activate the aural implant, and…stops halfway. The buzzing is nice. Too nice. Reminds him that Steve is alive. Nearby.
He’s not sure he wants it to stop just yet.
His hand falls away from his ear, back onto the mattress.
A buzz on his right index finger, then his left. He wonders what Steve is doing right now. The haptic implants don’t give him any other feedback than the heaviness of the touch and a slight sensation of motion. But Joker’s smart—even with a brain full of alcohol—so he can do this. He settles down into the bed and closes his eyes, feeling only the sensations from his hands.
Both index fingers are buzzing now. Heavy pressure. Motion in the accelerometers that feels the same as swiping a holopanel away. No, not away. A swirling motion. Slow, but deliberate. Joker chuckles. Steve’s putting on lotion, the nerd—on his face probably, given he’s only using two fingers. Makes sense, though. He must have some kind of skin-care regimen. His face is so smooth, even though he’s a little older. Smooth, and…beautiful, if Joker’s being honest.
Beautiful. Huh. That’s a new thought.
He lets the thought percolate as his fingers continue buzzing intermittently. This has been such a strange day. Steve found him in the arcade bar, glaring at the teens across the way who had stolen his arcade game, and he didn’t make fun of him. Just listened. And convinced Joker to go over and try again, with him. And listened to Joker’s ideas after their first ass-whooping, and the second.
All five fingertips on his right hand buzz one after another, then again, then again. Steve’s drumming his fingers on a hard surface. Probably thinking about something.
Nobody listens to Joker like Steve has today. Not just today, Joker realizes. He replays old conversations in his head, times they’ve eaten together in the Normandy’s mess, or after poker, or talking shop in the cockpit. Steve's a great conversationalist when you get him alone, largely because he's so good at listening. Joker's used to banter, but the number of times he's found himself talking with another person he could probably count on one hand.
Until Steve.
All ten of his fingertips tingle intermittently, haphazardly. Steve's...grasping something? No, moving something. A brief sensation of huge pressure, like all of his weight is on his hands, then nothing. Wait, not nothing, just very gentle pressure, like his hands are resting on something soft.
Steve's climbed into bed.
Joker smiles at the thought that Steve's starting to drift off, like him. Steve deserves a good night's rest in a fluffy bed. Steve deserves a lot of things.
Joker's fingertips all start to vibrate in concert.
Why do I care so much about what Steve deserves? Well, not for nothing, but the guy's been through a lot. They all have, sure, but Steve...it seems like all the tragedy in his life has only made him consistently kind. It's breathtaking, really. Kindness isn't something Joker thinks a lot about. Not until Steve.
Not until Steve.
He relaxes further into the pillows, that thought lazily drifting back and forth through his head, as his fingertips continue to pulse. Not until Steve. It seems like Steve's hands are working together on something. Not until Steve? Heavy touches together, fading to light. Not until Steve... A rhythmic motion, consistent speed, almost like he's—
Joker's eyes fly open, his face turning tomato red as he sits straight up in the bed, his hand flying to his aural implant. "EDI! Break my connection with Steve's haptic implants, now!"
There's almost no delay before the thrumming in his hands disappears, as if it were never there.
——
"Good morning, Jeff."
Joker grunts into his coffee cup, barely looking up. "Why're you here?" he whispers hoarsely, wincing at the bright glare of the hotel's artificial lighting off EDI's chrome hairpiece.
"Samantha and I had a lovely evening at the turian opera," she responds, sitting primly down in the seat across from him. "She believed this hotel was closer than the Alliance barracks afterward."
Joker glances around at the hotel lobby, grunting again at the sluggishness of the movement. Wherever Traynor is, she isn't down here. "But you don't sleep."
"No," she says, "I do not."
A pause. Then, Joker smirks, clinking his coffee mug into her outstretched fist.
"What're we celebrating?"
Joker jumps in his chair, coffee almost going everywhere, then groans in pain. He can't bring himself to look up and meet Steve in the eye, choosing instead to hood his eyes with his spare hand, hoping the very real hangover he has will cover the blush rising up the back of his neck.
"Jeff and I were just discussing the finer points of turian opera, Lieutenant Cortez," EDI says. Joker makes brief eye-contact with her, grateful for the cover. "Though I believe the celebration should be for you, if the records at the Castle Arcade are to be believed."
Steve laughs as he sits down, his own mug in one hand as he slaps the surface of the table with the other. Joker winces. How in the galaxy is this man not hungover? But he's clearly not, a broad grin stretched across his face.
Joker's heart flutters again. He takes another sip of his coffee to quell whatever it is he's feeling. Can't deal with it right now.
"He tell you what we did?" Steve says to EDI, gesturing with his coffee mug.
"I facilitated the connection," she responds.
Steve laughs again. "Yeah, that figures."
EDI looks up, seeing Traynor exiting one of the nearby lifts. She smiles and gets up from the table. But Joker knows that smile. He taught her that smile. That smile is full of mischief, the type of smile he uses when he's about to blow someone's shit up.
His eyes go wide mid-swallow. Oh fuck, please don't—
"And then I broke it seven hours, fourteen minutes later."
Joker spits out his coffee.
"Gentlemen." His best spaceship-shaped friend, her work done, saunters away from the table, takes her girlfriend by the arm, and walks out of the hotel.
Joker coughs up a lungful of liquid, Steve patting him on the back with concern while he deftly wipes up the mess with his other hand. "You alright?"
Joker just waves his hand. When the coughing subsides, he takes one look at Steve, turns bright red again, and thunks his head on the table.
"Yeah, you're alright," Steve chuckles, calmly taking another sip of his coffee.
"'Msorry," Joker mumbles into the table, completely unable to make eye contact. "Please don't yell at me."
"Why would I yell?"
"I felt you—" Joker stops, starts again, his mouth feeling like sandpaper against the table, the curdling in his stomach almost unbearable. Can't believe I already ruined it. "I felt it when you, uh, when—"
"When I gave you the show?"
Joker whips his head up, instantly regretting the motion as the alcohol-leadened morass in his brain oozes from one side to the other, only to see a look of pure and utter filth on the other pilot's face. "You..."
Cortez takes another long, slow sip of his coffee, never breaking eye contact. "You made me do the 'guess what finger' trick a hundred times in the second bar. I knew we were still connected."
Joker squints, trying his very best to remember, but so much of the night is a blur. At least, discrete moments are. The overwhelming feelings, though, are suddenly, blindingly, crystal clear. His face somehow goes even redder. "You..."
Steve just grins. "Me."
Well, holy fucking shit.
Joker studies Steve's face for a moment. It's all there. The crinkle in the corners of the eyes, the upturn of the mouth. He really does know Steve's face well, EDI be damned. Steve isn't angry, or embarrassed, or annoyed. There's just a pure joy at the look on his face. As he looks at him.
Joker very, very slowly smiles back.
If anything, Steve's face gets even brighter. He takes another long, slow pull from his coffee mug, then says, "So. What do you want to do today?" And he ever-so-casually slides his hand along the surface of the table, entwining his fingers with Joker's.
This time, the buzz in Joker's fingertips has nothing to do with haptic implants.