Chapter Text
He's working in an alley, on a Tuesday, on the south side of the building. It's a First Order Aerospace annex, one of the office towers that house the creative minds of hundreds of engineers. It's midday, unremarkable, and he is in a foul mood. This is the fourth, maybe fifth time he's been down in this grubby alleyway in the last month. They short the circuits, running their experiments, and all three of his requisition reports, asking for the new wiring that would solve the problem, have gone unanswered.
He's banging on the lid of one of the panels, in the little alcove in which he barely fits, cussing a blue streak because if they would just – give him – the fucking parts –
There's a shamble of sound toward the far end of the alley, where it terminates into an L-shape lined with garbage bins. The sound resolves itself into the appearance of a grubby street urchin, knocking into another bin in his haste to round the corner. The urchin runs toward him, limping somewhat, breathing in ragged half-breaths. “H-Help, please- um, Matt.”
“What?” Matt groused, letting his arm drop to the side. The distraction meant that feeling had started to return to his hand, and it was throbbing now.
“Please,” the urchin repeated, coming closer. He glanced back the way he came, biting the side of his lower lip so hard it went white. “They're coming, please help me-”
“You know my-?” Matt started but then stopped. His magnetic name tag was still on. He had to wear it when inside any of the annexes. “Get lost, man, I'm working.”
Matt turned back to the panel he'd been fighting, but before he could grab another plug or wire the urchin grasped at his elbow, pulling the fabric of his jumpsuit tight around his bicep. “What the fuck, man-!”
He stops himself. The urchin isn't that much shorter than him, though he's aborting his height with his crouched shoulders and tense back; his hair is that uncommon, blowsy red that Matt only sees occasionally, but what is exceptional, what stops him from jerking his elbow out of the urchin's shaking grasp, is his eyes.
They're blue- incomprehensibly blue. There's a part of his mind that recognizes the sound of voices, distant, yelling. But the forefront of his thoughts is sidelined by the depth and scope of the ocean blue staring up at him. Pleading. The urchin hasn't let go of his sleeve, and the blood is rushing back to the dent his teeth left in his lip. His eyes are- they're Augments. The yelling is getting closer, loud.
“I'll do anything, please. Please,” the redhead whispered, and then the most incredible thing happens. At the corners of his impossibly blue eyes, where there's an inflamed cast to his sallow features, twin bands of wetness begin filling at his waterline. “Please.”
“You can cry with those things?” he breathes, in awe. Another shout down the alleyway; a whimper from the urchin – something about its tremor and sniffle involuntary, and desperate.
Matt grabs the urchin, first by the elbow, then the shoulder and back, and shoves him into the alcove, where the electrical panels are still humming and waiting for further repairs. He slides his employee key-card through the lock and the thin door slides into place, scant millimeters from the urchin's nose.
They hadn't broken eye contact until that moment, and when it was cut away, Matt felt a thrill of lightning cross his spine. He took one deep breath and turned himself to the tool cart he had wheeled outside, what seemed a lifetime ago, before the artificial tide of some stranger's eyes washed over him.
A brawl-faced thug came barreling up to him, several inches below his line of sight, but not short on muscle. “You see an Aug run through here? Red hair, yellow shirt?”
“Red hair, yeah,” Matt grumbled, weighing for a moment, the risk of concealing this strange little fugitive. He shrugged, digging through a tool kit for the thinnest of his copper wires, “Didn't know he was an Aug.”
The thug, two more of his type closing up rank beside him, growled low, a menacing sound that was both practiced and natural. “Which way did he go? And I don't think I need to tell you the value of your honesty.”
“Fuck, man, I'm just working here,” Matt threw down the pliers- he could wind the copper into a coil in a moment. This situation was go big, or go home. He could out-crazy this grunt. “Assholes on the fifteenth floor plugging in all their fancy toys, I'm down here paid on the worst contract this side of the Republic, and now I got some gang crawling up my ass on a fucking Tuesday–!”
The thug took a step forward, one arm raising- but Matt gestured first, in a wide arc, “He went that way.”
The men were gone as abruptly as they had arrived, but Matt waited. He'd sent them in the direction that was generally opposite of the direction he'd be taking home. After he was sure, he opened the panel; the urchin the gang had been so fervently pursuing spilled into his arms, hands still raised from being stowed with no warning. Their prey was gasping, gulping in the fresh air, and shaking as Matt righted him; his incredible eyes were still wet, pale lashes stiff with salt.
“You- I thought for a moment- you saved me...”
Matt tore his gaze away and grabbed the copper back up. “You have a place to be?”
The Aug tucked himself against the wall beside the panel, scuffing his palms over his eyelids. A streak of rust-colored wet drew down the side of his nose. He kept rubbing. Looking back and forward to each side of the alley. “Just... where I used to be.”
How could his voice be so small- how could he be so stupid?
“You didn't plan this out at all, did you?” Matt grimaced, irritation blooming under his jaw, where the tightness began. The Aug shook his head, red hair like a rat's nest of grease and straw. “Fuck.”
Matt took five seconds to breathe before starting to push the tool cart toward the restricted access door that led to the alley. The Aug had mostly caught his breath, but looked exactly as lost as his circumstances would have suggested. Matt looked back, rolling his hand in an exaggerated beckon. “Well, come on. I have a spare coverall in my Kellowna.”
“You have a scooter?”
Matt stopped, glared. “So?”
“Nothing, no, I'm sorry,” the urchin piped, voice wavering and low. He crept close behind, still keeping an eye on the mouth of the alleyway. Matt huffed, held the door open – this was not how he wanted his day to go. This Aug was going to get him killed.
Worst fucking Tuesday ever.