Archive of Our Own

Solo Agent Missile Mouse and Doctor Ulrich Vondorf were finding it increasingly difficult to keep out of each other’s pockets.

It wasn’t very noticeable at first. After all, a lot of people were spending time with Missile Mouse. It wasn’t every mission that landed the solo agent in the Galactic Security Agency’s medical centre. Every field agent who had vaguely interacted with him at least once had come to see him, regardless of if they were his friend or not. After the Axius 3 mission, everybody was treating him like a celebrity. And with his reputation for getting himself into wild situations on even mundane missions, they all wanted to know what had happened, even if Missile Mouse could only give them the heavily redacted version of the events.

Ulrich was there for a different reason. Under the watchful eye of the physicians, the Cerebellian dragged his equipment from his lab into the hospital room every day to perform tests. Intensely watching cell samples collected from the Rodentian, holding a luminometer tightly to measure any abnormally high readings from the ATP reactions. Scrutinising electrograms for any unexplainable spikes. Holding his breath each time for the worst possible outcome, only to not find it.

This kind of work was far from his wheelhouse; he was a physicist, not a biomedical technician. But with the guidance from the physicians and med techs, he worked his way through it efficiently and intensely. This work was important. He needed to do it right.

The GSA Council for Operations certainly didn’t want anything belonging to the GSA meeting the same fate that the Rogue Imperium of Planets fleet had. And they wanted Ulrich to make sure for certain that whatever amount of dark plasma had been in Missile Mouse was gone for good. If it had been up to them, these tests would’ve been done the moment Missile Mouse had been stabilised. But Ulrich vehemently refused to test on his fellow agent while he was comatose. If there had been dark plasma still in the field agent’s system, there was no telling what could’ve happened. And regardless, Ulrich didn’t feel like violating his friend’s agency that way.

With every day, and every test, Missile Mouse and Ulrich would talk. First, they would talk about the mission, carefully waiting until they were left alone to try and process the absolute madness they had been through less than a week prior. The order of silence the council directors had placed on them both was sudden and swift; any mention of the mission’s true events to anyone not in the know would get them both into serious trouble. But that couldn’t stop them from talking to each other about it. And keeping the secret from their colleagues so intensely had been driving them crazy.

Both of them carefully avoided talking about Agent Hyde; that particular sore spot was still fresh for both of them. And neither of them felt like giving that traitorous rat the satisfaction of occupying their conversation.

Eventually, their conversations turned to other things, more mundane things. They started talking about their careers beyond the mission: their colleagues, their schedules, their usual activities. Their normal lives, which seemed so far away after everything that had happened.

Ulrich talked about his fellow physicists, many of whom often pestered him for help with their work. Which he found himself unable to refuse. Missile Mouse talked about his fellow field agents, who he often hung out with during his breaks. Thought it never really felt that way to him, since they only really talked to him if something interesting had happened to him.

Ulrich talked about his scientific work as a physicist. He talked about his prior work of decoding the Ancient Cerebellian language, and bringing old scientific blueprints and outdated dissertations into the modern day. He talked about his new work, incorporating the dark plasma the GSA had recovered from the remains of the RIP fleet into his energy studies. Missile Mouse talked about his various jobs as a field agent. He talked about his more mundane assignments, like catching criminals and conducting investigations. He talked about his more adventurous missions, like driving large beasts away from newly fledged colonies and shutting down organized crime rings.

From their conversations, three things were very much apparent.

One: their lives were about as different as they could possibly be.

Two: they were about as different from each other as night and day.

Three: they still wanted to talk to each other anyways.

Once Missile Mouse was out of the medical centre and back to work, both men thought things would go back to normal. They would go back to work, Axius 3 would be far behind them, and things would be as mundane and boring as they had been before.

But they soon found that normal had quickly changed for both of them.

Missile Mouse wasn’t spending as much of his time training as he had before. Not as much as he should’ve been, at the very least. Instead, whenever he was off duty, he found himself wandering down the halls of the GSA labs, a place he had previously dismissed. He’d find his way into the physics labs, where Ulrich worked. The first time he poked his head in, Ulrich seemed surprised, but not displeased, to see him there. And while the other physicists whispered behind them as Missile Mouse found himself a seat out of the way, Ulrich either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He just seemed excited to finally be able to talk to someone that would listen without interruption.

Whenever Missile Mouse was there, Ulrich would spend hours talking to him, excitedly explaining his progress on the dark plasma, and even demonstrating some of his experiments. And Missile Mouse would watch and listen intently, happy that Ulrich seemed so passionate about his work. Even if he didn’t understand a lick of what he was talking about.

Ulrich was spending less time in his lab too. Instead of eating his meals while working like he had before, he found himself leaving the lab and taking his lunch to the other side of the GSA compound. Before long, he had started eating his meals in the common cafeteria, a place he had previously avoided like a plague. The first couple of days he ate alone, trying to work up the courage to go and sit with Missile Mouse and the other field agents. But he didn’t need to; the third day, Missile Mouse noticed him sitting alone and moved to sit next to him. And the rest of the field agents followed. The other agents expressed surprise; the novelty of a nerdy scientist sitting with a hardened solo agent was amusing to them. But they soon turned their attention away from the odd pair, instead talking about themselves. Recounting overexaggerated tales of their missions, painting themselves as great heroes and charismatic desirables.

Missile Mouse didn’t say much of anything during these talks; unlike his colleagues, he didn’t seem one to brag. Though he would quip back every once in a while whenever another agent got a bit too boastful. And although Missile Mouse didn’t talk much, he did seem much more at ease whenever Ulrich was sitting next to him, especially compared to how Ulrich had seen him in the cafeteria before.

Eventually, instead of the cafeteria, Missile Mouse brought Ulrich to the mechanics’ workshops to eat lunch. There, he introduced Ulrich to Bitner, the mechanic that he worked with regularly both on and off mission. It was quickly apparent to Ulrich that the Gravian was much more than that to Missile Mouse; the pair had known each other for well over fifteen years. They had first met upon joining the agency, with Missile Mouse fresh out of the GSA’s training academy and Bitner fresh out of the Galactic Institute of Technology. And they had been working together ever since. It was no surprise to Ulrich; Missile Mouse and Bitner stuck out like sore thumbs against the upper-class cohort the majority of the GSA was made up of.

Bitner expressed surprise at Missile Mouse talking to Ulrich so earnestly. According to Bitner, the mechanic was Missile Mouse’s only real friend, one of the only people he actually confided in. Until now, at least.

Bitner and Ulrich got along well. Their respective colleagues were remarkably similar, constantly loading their work onto the two men. Ulrich would then begin eating his food at the workshop frequently, hanging out with Missile Mouse and Bitner as they listened to the radio and joked about the dramatics of their haughty colleagues. Though for some reason, Bitner would give Missile Mouse a look of some kind that made the Rodentian roll his eyes.

When Ulrich and Missile Mouse learned that they both had weekends off most weeks, they started spending those weekends exploring Venturi. It was something neither of them had done much of before; they had always been too focused on work for it. And with both of them hailing from other planets, it was like exploring a new place for the first time. Their own little mundane adventures.

They avoided the common tourist spots and instead investigated the lower levels that the rest of the planet gazed over and dismissed without much thought. They discovered the little hidden gems. Cafes, restaurants, obscure libraries and museums forgotten by the rest of Venturi. They would spend days exploring the menus and looking at antiques from times long past. They would talk about things other than their work. Things like the weather, or something interesting they had heard in the news, or exchange a couple of jokes, even.

And through it all, they simply enjoyed each other’s company, smiling much more than they had in years.

The budding friendship between the Rodentian and the Cerebellian was a shock to almost no one.

Ever since the two of them had met on Venturi Minor, before heading to Axius 3, they had been practically inseparable. On the days when Missile Mouse wasn’t on assignment, it was rare to see one without the other being somewhere nearby. The rest of the GSA found it rather amusing; despite being polar opposites, the two of them got along better with each other than with most of their colleagues.

Really, the one who was most surprised at the development was Maxwell. He had known that sending Missile Mouse on the dark plasma mission with Ulrich was the best choice he could’ve made; the solo agent, while not always the most consistent, had made a habit of improvising successes from devastating setbacks. And he had hoped that he and Ulrich would be able to tolerate each other long enough to complete the mission.

But everything that had happened afterwards was totally unexpected. Maxwell never thought that the impulsive and confident solo agent who notoriously hated having partners would get along so well with the careful and reserved physicist who preferred to write research papers alone. Such openness was uncharacteristic of Missile Mouse; Maxwell hadn’t seen his former apprentice be so personable with anyone but Bitner in years. With how close Missile Mouse and Ulrich had become, Maxwell was pleasantly surprised at how good his choice to put the two of them together on assignment had turned out.

But after a while, it became apparent to Missile Mouse and Ulrich that there was far more to it than that. They had been observing their friend for some time now, watching their moves, listening to what they said. And both of them soon came to their own individual conclusion:

Missile Mouse and Ulrich were not okay.

Frankly, it astounded them that no one else had come to this conclusion; it just seemed so obvious. Yet the rest of the GSA didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. Nothing off about the two senior agents that they had clocked within only a couple of months of getting to know each other.

Now, there was nothing new about this revelation. Both men had noticed that someone was amiss with their companion back on the mission, when they had first met.

Whenever Ulrich was implored to talk about the genetic memories of his ancestors, the ones that he had inherited due to the unique Cerebellian ability, it unnerved him. The mere thought of those memories seemed to make his skin crawl, as his fingers would fidget and tug at his sleeves whenever he talked about it. In fact, Missile Mouse actually regretted asking him about it back at Aquinox, because Ulrich just looked so uncomfortable explaining it to him. As if drawing up the memories caused him physical pain. To be fair to Ulrich, the memories he had inherited were very upsetting memories. But to Missile Mouse, Ulrich seemed to be far more uncomfortable with his genetic inheritance in its entirety, not just the bad memories of the grisly fates of his ancestors involved in the dark plasma project.

And Ulrich knew there had to be some serious demons haunting Missile Mouse’s sleep. Whenever he was asleep during the mission, he tossed and turned fitfully, muttering and grimacing. It had been so bad that he had nearly broken Ulrich’s wrist on accident when the scientist had attempted to wake him. As though he was physically fighting off a nightmare. Maybe it was due to the nature of his dangerous career, full of near-misses and harrowing encounters. But to Ulrich, it had to be something far deeper and far more distressing; Missile Mouse never talked about his missions in a way that made it seem as though they had seriously impacted him. The only exception was Axius 3, but this distress was already occurring before that fateful day. It was because of something that had happened earlier.

But after spending so much time together, both of them soon realized that the problems their companion was facing were far more severe than they had first estimated. And it was slowly getting worse.

And the rest of the GSA just didn’t seem to notice. It was invisible to them. No matter how obvious it seemed to the pair, the others never gave them a second glance. They just didn’t see it. Or maybe they just didn’t care enough to see it.

Didn’t the other scientists see how uncomfortable Ulrich became whenever they asked him about his genetic memories? Or the disheartened frown on his face whenever someone praised his brain as a valuable asset?

Didn’t the other field agents notice Missile Mouse’s tail lashing with unease whenever they asked him about his Rodentian heritage? Or how exhausted he was whenever they fawned over him after a dangerous mission?

Their colleagues talked about them a lot, whether it was about their work or their strange companionship. None of them seemed very interested in talking to them all that much, except to satisfy their burning curiosity.

Didn’t the directors see how overworked both were? After Axius 3, the council loaded both Missile Mouse and Ulrich with even more work than before. Didn’t they see the problems it was causing? How piling on mission after mission, assignment after assignment, had rubbed them both down to the bone?

Didn’t Maxwell see any of this?

The only other person who did seem to see it was Bitner. But the mechanic seemed powerless to help either of them. The order of silence meant that he could never know what Ulrich and Missile Mouse had truly gone through during the Axius 3 mission. And the level of distress both men were exhibiting was something that Bitner seemed unequipped to assist them with. He could only watch silently, watching as his friends slowly grew more and more withdrawn, hiding behind carefully plastered smiles and carefully chosen words.

Three long years after Axius 3, Missile Mouse and Ulrich were rapidly slipping as far as they could go.

Eventually, somebody was going to snap.

If you ordered an average person to go dig a hole in the ground by hand, they’d laugh in your face and walk away.

If you ordered a GSA agent to do it, they’d shake your hand, thank you for the vacation, and get right to work.

These days, the GSA’s many agents and workers were thankful for any sort of distraction they could get. Work had become rough for all of them, as the galaxy of Nebulon slipped deeper and deeper into conflict. Many of them were occupied with attempting to quell the growing unrest in the Red Shift Territories, which threatened to cut deeper into the inner Blue Shift Territories that the Galactic Union resided in.

The scientists and techs were studying the various new black-market technologies that were popping up with increasing frequency, trying to find ways to better control and counteract them. The mechanics were doing their best to keep up with demand, making and repairing security droids to fill the widening gaps that the short-staffed agency’s workforce couldn’t fill. The field agents were driven to madness chasing the few leads they had on what was left of the RIP, and dealing with the power vacuum that the massive organization had left behind.

And everybody was anxious that the RIP’s ruthless General Nivlak was planning a cruel and bloody vengeance on the GSA. They had never found his body in the fleet’s wreckage, the wreckage that the GSA’s own Agent Missile Mouse had created. And no doubt he was planning some grand retribution for the destruction of what was once the largest fleet of warships in the galaxy.

Maxwell found this paranoia…distracting, as did the rest of the department chiefs. Less than optimal. Anything that prevented his field agents from working at their optimal efficiency was something that the Chief of Field Agents had to deal with.

So he, along with the rest of the department chiefs, decided that a break was in order.

The Galactic Union had recently approved for the GSA to purchase and repurpose an old, abandoned factory, demolishing it and transforming the land into an underground hangar for the brand new Gravion fighter ships they had commissioned from Hokutosei Defence. The diggers and excavators had already cleared out most of the land, leaving a gaping pit in the ground.

And as they left, the architects arrived. And with them came the delicate job of planning the building and digging out the pit to shape by hand.

And for a job like this, the builders and architects weren’t going to turn down a few extra hands.

So the GSA’s Central Headquarters went into its skeleton crew, those not assigned to work travelling to the construction site under Maxwell’s watchful eye. The off-duty field agents and mechanics put down their blasters and wrenches and picked up their jackhammers and pickaxes. The scientists and techs put down their instruments and datapads and picked up their calculators and white pencils. While the techs and scientists sat with the architects to help plan out the building’s exact measurements, the field agents and mechanics descended into the pit. Every one of them thankful for the distraction, taking to the work well.

But none of them took to the work quite like Solo Agent Missile Mouse and Doctor Ulrich Vondorf.

With a white pencil in one hand and a compass in the other, Ulrich worked expertly and rapidly on the blueprints, quickly scribbling out equations and calculations. The numbers and symbols came from him so effortlessly, almost as if they were directly spinning from his fingers like spider’s silk. The architects were astonished with his talents, and the techs and other scientists looked on with envy. But none of them were surprised.

He was one of the galaxy’s best physicists, descended from and guided by the memories of an entire family of physicists. Gravity calculations and weight measurements was nothing compared to the physics he and his ancestors were used to working with. And for Ulrich, this was his passion. The kind of work he lived for, the kind of work that recharged his batteries.

Armed with only a pickaxe, Missile Mouse was digging a path into the pit so fast he was moving almost as quickly as those using the jackhammers. He swung the pickaxe so smoothly, as if it was just an extension of his ungloved hands, and the crack of the pickaxe hitting the stone was as steady as a heartbeat. The other field agents and mechanics watched on, amazed and jealous. How could an agent always in such hot water with the higher ups work so well and fast?

But in the end, it was expected. Despite his insubordination, he was one of the GSA’s best field agents, and no one expected any less from him. And for Missile Mouse, this was just second nature. Nostalgic even. He hadn’t mined anything this way since he was much younger, since before he became even a cadet at the GSA academy. It was nice.

Now, had it all ended at that, there would’ve been no need for intervention. After all, both of them were working, and both of them were working well. Hell, they were enthusiastic, enjoying it even!

The problem began to manifest around lunchtime.

When Maxwell called for the scientists and techs to get lunch, they all got up from their seats, dropping their pencils and rulers down on the tables. They all went and got their tins of food from the chefs that had come out to the site, returning enthusiastically as their stomachs growled. Focusing their brains on work had left them with quite the appetite. The architects gave them death glares as they returned to the tables, the looks clearly promising a painful death if they spilled so much as a crumb onto their precious blueprints. The GSA scientists and techs gave them innocent gazes in return, conveying a promise that they would do no such thing.

But in all of the excitement over food, none of them noticed that one of them didn’t have a meal in front of him.

Ulrich had not even moved from his seat, still scribbling away at the blueprints at breakneck pace. He had leaned so far over the blueprints, as if to carve the equations through the paper into the table itself. So, as the others chatted and ate, he continued to work quietly, not pausing for even a second. And none of the other scientists and techs noticed.

But Missile Mouse had. He had been watching from inside the pit. Had seen that Ulrich had not moved from his seat, hadn’t stopped to eat, hadn’t taken even a single break.

And he was worried.

“Ulrich hasn’t gotten any food,” he thought aloud to the other field agents, attempting to sound unbothered. “He’s surely going to get hungry soon, right?”

“Nah, don’t sweat it Double M,” Agent Todd replied loudly. “Sometimes when you get those scientists and tech-heads going, you can’t make ‘em stop. They live off of their work, and you can’t pry them off of it with anything short of a crowbar. They get real cranky if you try to. Got a good chewing out from my techie the last time I tried to ask her something while she was working her code. Nearly blew my ears out!”

“And I hear Dr. Vondorf is well-known for it,” Cloe the mechanic chuckled. “I heard he once spent three days straight in his lab, working non-stop. No food, no sleep, only a couple sips of water. Just to get an article done before deadline. They say he lives off of his ancestors’ memories. They sustain him just as well as actual food. All he has to do is remember a time his great grandma ate soup and he’s all set!”

The field agents laughed at the joke, but Missile Mouse found himself unable to do the same. All he could do was watch Ulrich as he continued to work, his frown deepening lower and lower.

He didn’t look very sustained. He looked exhausted.

When Maxwell came by to supervise his field agents, Missile Mouse decided to voice his concerns to him.

“I wouldn’t worry yourself MM,” Maxwell replied nonchalantly, waving his hand. “Ulrich’s an adult; he’s more than capable of taking care of himself. He understands where his limits are. He’ll get some food and take a break when he’s ready. Right now, he’s just focused on his work. You should be more like him. I haven’t seen him working this well in a long time. Don’t worry about it. You’re just overthinking things.”

Missile Mouse frowned, tightening his grip on the handle of his pickaxe.

He’s right, he thought to himself. I am just overthinking things.

Which was very strange, because overthinking was not something Missile Mouse was prone to doing.

Once the techs and the scientists were eating their lunches, the call came for the mechanics and field agents to take a break. They all laid down their pickaxes and jackhammers, and began the long trudge back up out of the pit. Eagerly grabbing their meals, they all settled down on the floor next to each other, stuffing their mouths to silence their empty stomachs. As they ate, they talked. The field agents asked the mechanics when their vehicles would be done in their repair shops. And the mechanics gave jokingly vague answers back.

However, with all the socializing and eating going on, none of them noticed that their numbers had reduced by one.

Missile Mouse was still in the pit, mining away at a lightning speed. He was striking the stone even harder than before, sending shards of rock flying. So, as his fellow field agents and mechanics ate and talked, he continued to carve a path deeper and deeper into the pit. And none of the others noticed.

But Ulrich had. He had been watching from his vantage point at the table. Had seen that Missile Mouse had not left his station, had not slowed his pace, hadn’t stopped mining even once.

And he was concerned.

“Missile Mouse has been mining for a while,” Ulrich remarked, attempting to sound only mildly curious. “Won’t he be getting tired soon?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Vondorf,” Professor Salazar mumbled, not looking up from their work. “Those field agents and mechanics will do anything if it works them up into a sweat. Doesn’t matter how bad it makes them feel afterwards, they’ll do it anyways. It’s a pride thing, I think. Sounds masochistic if you ask me personally. But what are you going to do, tell them not to do it?”

“Missile Mouse is notorious for it,” Doctor Yama laughed. “I heard from Agent Todd that he once snuck into the hangar after getting suspended, stole a ship, and did a week-long scouting mission on Venturi Major! Just to prove a point to Maxwell. He’s so determined and stalwart, and it’s why the bosses make us work so hard to catch up. Though I don’t think they’d be asking that of us if it made us as bratty as him.”

The scientists chuckled at the remark, and Ulrich chuckled too, uneasily. He slowly turned back to the pit, watching Missile Mouse as he continued to mine, his tail lashing out like a whip behind him.

He didn’t look like he was proving a point. He looked upset.

When Maxwell came to see the progress on the blueprints, Ulrich decided to explain his observations to him.

“Don’t worry about it Ulrich,” Maxwell answered dismissively, shaking his head. “Missile Mouse is just still mad that I landlocked him after Stratus 5. He’ll take a break once he’s calmed down and blown off some steam. He’s bold, I’ll give him that. You could learn that from him. I haven’t seen him working so hard since Tankium 3. It’s fine. You’re just letting your anxieties distract you.”

Ulrich sighed, twisting his fingers around the pencil in his hand.

He’s right, Ulrich told himself. I’m just letting myself get distracted.

Which was rather odd, because Ulrich had never let anything distract him from his work before.

As the agents worked, the sun crawled its way across the sky. Soon enough, it was sinking below the horizon, the bright day turning into starry night. Once the sun was gone, Maxwell called for work to be done for the day, and for all of the workers to go get dinner. The mechanics and field agents made the long march back out of the pit, and the scientists and techs left the blueprints behind.

Sitting under the large spotlights illuminating the site, the agents all chatted as they ate their dinner. They talked about the things they usually did. The field agents boasted about their latest missions, overexaggerating their successes. The scientists rolled their eyes in response, ignoring them to instead discuss the experiments they would run once they returned to their labs. The mechanics and techs argued with each other about which of their professions was more important, a long-standing feud between the two departments that the field agents and scientists were stuck listening to. All of them content with the mundanity of their existence.

Finally, once dinner had been finished, they all bid each other goodnight and retired into their trailers for the night. The spotlights were switched off, plunging the site into darkness, and everybody drifted off into peaceful sleep.

Not one of them, not even Bitner nor Maxwell, noticed that Missile Mouse and Ulrich were not with them.

They were still exactly where they had been in the morning when work had begun. Neither of them showed any sign of slowing down. Neither of them planning to stop any time soon. Both of them eager to hold onto the distraction for as long as possible.

Normally, night would be as bright as day on Venturi. But this district of the city had shut down its electricity for routine maintenance, plunging this side of the planet into darkness. With the spotlights shut down, the only light on the site was two tiny torchlights, one near the edge of the pit and the other deep within it. The entire place would be pitch black, if not for Venturi’s second smaller moon, Venturi Minor, hanging in the sky and casting the city in a ghostly pale glow. In the wee hours of the very early morning, the only sound was the rhythmic crack of the pickaxe against the stone.

Using a torch to see his work, Ulrich was sitting in the same spot he had been for hours, scribbling down endless equations. He knew far better than to work on the raw blueprints without the supervision of the architects. So he had switched from white pencil to black pen, working on a notepad. His hand was so cramped from writing for so long, and his back was sore from sitting in the hard-backed chair, but he refused to let it slow him down. He was going to get these calculations done.

His space illuminated by a lantern, Missile Mouse had managed to carve a deep path into the pit, hacking away at the dirt and stone. His pace had slowed considerably at this point, but that was okay. He was going for a marathon, not a sprint. His clothes were soaked with sweat, which was doing well to keep him cool as he worked. His hands were burning from holding the pickaxe for so long, and his arms were shaking so bad that it could cause him to drop the pick at any moment, but he refused to let it stop him. This pit was not going to dig itself.

But even if Missile Mouse was determined to keep going, his workspace wasn’t so up to the task. The wheelbarrow he had been using to hold all the excess stone and dirt had filled to the brim, mere moments away from tipping over. Wiping his sweaty brow and sighing deeply, Missile Mouse dropped the pickaxe and picked up the lantern. Hooking the lantern onto one of the wheelbarrow’s handles, he lifted up the wheelbarrow with a grunt, and began the long tiring trudge back up out of the pit.

Once he was back up at the campsite, Missile Mouse dumped his load onto the large pile of stone and dirt that had been accumulating over the course of the day. He grabbed the lantern from the wheelbarrow, lifting it up to examine the pile. At least a quarter of that stuff had to be his handiwork. Though he couldn’t remember exactly how many times he had walked in and out of the pit…

A rustling sound came from behind him, and a bright light shone into his back. Missile Mouse whirled around, thrusting the lantern out…

…to see Ulrich standing up from the desk, pointing a torch at him.

The two of them stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

“Missile Mouse?” Ulrich mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “What are you still doing up? Have you been down there this whole time?”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Missile Mouse grumbled back, hand on his hip. “When was the last time you moved from that chair?”

Ulrich shrugged at him, before sitting back down and continuing to write. Missile Mouse watched, his tail lashing behind him in worry.

Ulrich looked horrendous. His verdant green eyes were rimmed with red, and deep dark bags hung under them. His lab coat was crumpled, creased where he had been sitting on it for so long. A large smudge of black ink was smeared across his hand, which was shaking from exhaustion and pain. His normally bright green skin was sickly pale. He looked like he hadn’t stopped working once.

“You should get some rest,” Missile Mouse told him.

“Gotta get this done first,” Ulrich grumbled back, not looking up at him. “You go to bed. Pit can be dug tomorrow.”

“Uh, no. Not happening. Have you even had anything to eat today?”

“Go to bed Missile Mouse,” Ulrich snapped. “Let me work. And go take a shower; you reek.”

Missile Mouse scowled in agitation. Working down to the bone was his job, not Ulrich’s. He was the one who could take such a long stint. Why did Ulrich have to be so insistent? With a frustrated huff, Missile Mouse dropped the lantern back into the wheelbarrow and stormed up to Ulrich.

Ulrich had not stopped writing, still working away as Missile Mouse came up to him. But with how rapidly and messily he was scribbling down into the paper, he looked as though he was writing curses to inflict onto his mortal enemies. His wrist was bent awkwardly, clearly sore from writing for so long.

Ulrich huffed, pausing to look up at the solo agent.

Missile Mouse stared angrily at him for a couple of seconds. Then, without warning, he snatched the pen out of Ulrich’s hands, tossed it down onto the notepad, and pushed Ulrich’s chair over.

Ulrich landed on his back with a grunt, a shock of soreness running up his spine. Furious, he jumped to his feet and turned his attention to Missile Mouse, but he was already walking back to his wheelbarrow.

“What the hell was that for?!” Ulrich shouted after him, holding his arms out.

“Get some rest Ulrich,” Missile Mouse snapped back at him, lifting up the wheelbarrow. “Please. You can keep being grumpy at me tomorrow all you like, but just go to bed.”

He then turned away and began walking back down into the pit.

Ulrich opened his mouth to shout at him again, but a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over him. Clutching his head, he quickly picked up his chair and dropped himself down onto it before his legs gave out under him.

He sighed as he squeezed his eyes shut over and over, rubbing his aching wrist. The world kept spinning around him; he felt like he was about to fall off the chair again.

What was he doing? Why was he doing this to himself? He could easily be doing this work tomorrow, when he had a clear head and proper light to write to. Instead, he was punishing himself by working himself to his collapsing point. Just to keep his mind off of the real problem.

He turned back to pick up his pen again, but stopped. Where Missile Mouse had dropped the pen, there was a dark smear sinking into the paper. Aw man, had Missile Mouse broken the pen?

Ulrich grabbed his torch from the table and pointed it at the notepad.

Instead of black ink, a reddish-brown drop stared up at him. And soon enough, a scent of iron was hitting his tongue.

Blood.

All of Ulrich’s anger for Missile Mouse evaporated instantly. Forget being upset. Missile Mouse had been hurt, potentially seriously so. And mining down in that pit was only going to aggravate that injury and make it even worse.

Getting up from his chair, Ulrich staggered down into the pit as fast as he could, the torch swinging in his hand and sending stray beams of light all over the place. As the sounds of cracking stone and clanking metal got louder, he slowed down as he got close.

Down in the pit, Missile Mouse was hacking away at a particularly tough wall of stone. Ulrich brought a hand to his mouth when he caught sight of him.

He looked horrible. His brown fur was drenched in sweat, his clothes even more so. His entire body was shaking violently with each strike of the pick, as though he would collapse on the ground at any second. And where his ungloved hands had been holding onto the pick, the rope handle had rubbed his palms red raw, spots of blood beginning to bloom on the irritated skin.

With how hard and fast he was striking the stone, he was less mining it and more attacking it. Hacking away at it as if it had insulted his family bloodline. It was clearly hurting his hands, as they twitched with each strike.

“What are you doing?” Ulrich asked him.

Missile Mouse stopped, pick paused mid-strike over his head. He turned to stare at Ulrich over his shoulder. “Working.”

“You need to stop,” Ulrich stressed sternly. “You’re going to hurt yourself even more if you keep going.”

“Good,” Missile Mouse mumbled despondently, turning away. “Doing my job right. Need to get hurt. Need to keep going.”

Missile Mouse slammed the pickaxe down into the stone particularly hard, sending a loud CRACK echoing across the pit. Ulrich flinched at the sound, and Missile Mouse clearly jarred himself with the force, stepping back to rub his arms. But he soon stepped back up to the stone, lifting the pickaxe over his head again, winding up to strike it down.

Ulrich knew that he had to stop him. If Missile Mouse kept going like this, he was surely going to break his arm.

Decisively stepping up to him, Ulrich grabbed the pickaxe and pulled Missile Mouse away from the stone as hard as he could. Missile Mouse snarled angrily and yanked back even harder, and Ulrich stumbled to keep his feet. But even against the field agent’s strength, he managed to pull Missile Mouse away and turn him around.

Ulrich opened his mouth to launch into a lecture about hypocrisy, but he stopped dead when he saw Missile Mouse’s eyes.

They were full of tears. He clearly had been crying for some time; his eyes were almost as red as his bleeding hands, and there were two deep tracks running through the fur on his cheeks. He hadn’t seen it at the table from a distance, but up close like this it was now impossible to ignore.

Missile Mouse let out a huff, turning away. Waiting for Ulrich to make some jeering remark about his tears. After all, any other agent would take the solo agent’s weakness as perfect blackmail material, an opportunity to drop him down a notch. He wasn’t supposed to be crying like this. Not now, not ever.

“Missile Mouse, what’s wrong?”

Missile Mouse opened his mouth to fire back a snarky remark, but his voice died in his throat once the question actually registered in his head.

How…how long had it been since someone had genuinely asked him that? Weeks? Months? Years?

Why was he doing this to himself? Working himself to death? So that his mind wouldn’t spiral? So he didn’t have to confront the real problem? What was he doing? What was the point?

Exhaustion swept over him all at once. He dropped his arms, letting the pickaxe fall and clatter to the ground. His knees suddenly gave out, and he stumbled, falling into Ulrich. The scientist caught him, holding him up by his arms and leaning into him. Missile Mouse squeezed his eyes shut and let out a whimper of pain. His entire body felt like it was on fire, and the world was spinning all around him as pain hammered into his skull.

“Let’s go back,” Ulrich urged him in worry. “Please.”

Missile Mouse looked back up at him.

He nodded silently, his ears lowering.

This work was done for the day.

With Missile Mouse leaning onto Ulrich for support, the two men staggered side by side back out of the pit. Once they were at the top, Missile Mouse dropped onto his back, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. He dug his nails into his palms, the irritated skin flaring up with pain and blood getting under his nails. It hurt, yes, but it was also keeping him from passing out.

Ulrich stumbled away toward the crates of supplies set out for the agents. Pulling a few of them open, he began rummaging through their contents, his torch gripped between his teeth. The Cerebellian pulled out a first aid kit, a few water bottles, and a couple of ration bars (the grey ones, because the brown ones tasted like dirt), stacking the supplies beside him. Once he was done, he picked up his pile and stumbled back to Missile Mouse, precariously balancing his haphazard tower of gear.

Missile Mouse sat back up as his companion sat down next to him, resting the supplies in his lap. Ulrich got to work right away, grabbing two of the water bottles and some electrolyte tablets from the first aid kit. Opening a bottle, he dropped a tablet in, and shook it up as best as he could until the water inside had turned a shocking shade of orange. He handed the bottle over to Missile Mouse.

“What’s this for?” Missile Mouse asked, taking the bottle from Ulrich’s hands and staring at its contents.

“You’re dehydrated and hungry,” Ulrich explained, preparing another bottle for himself. “I’d rather that neither of us pass out from hypoglycaemia or thirst while I’m trying to work on your hands.”

Both men downed the bottles rapidly, their throats dry and burning, begging for water. They drained the bottles of their contents in seconds.

And then they both immediately retched.

“Stars above, that tastes awful,” Ulrich gagged, pulling his empty bottle away from him. Why did those tablets have to taste so bad? Who even made them, Cosmic-Cola?

“Tastes like space slug slobber,” Missile Mouse chuckled in disgust, a shudder running through his body. “Has the same consistency too.”

“I don’t even want to know how you know that.”

Missile Mouse chuckled again, dropping his empty water bottle down on the ground next to him. Ulrich abandoned his own soon enough, rummaging through the first aid kit again. He pulled out a pair of tweezers, bandages, and a bottle of antiseptic ointment, dropping them all into his lap before grabbing another bottle of water and screwing it open.

Ulrich held out his hand to Missile Mouse, and the Rodentian eventually laid one of his burnt hands into it. Ulrich leaned over and gently poured its contents over the rope burn.

Missile Mouse closed his eyes for a few seconds, the cooling water running off of his palm and seeping into his fur. It felt wonderfully chilly against his burn, especially with the breeze blowing against it.

Ulrich put the bottle down, replacing it with the small pair of tweezers. He got to work slowly plucking out the clumps of dirt and rope fibres out of Missile Mouse’s palm, cleaning it carefully and wiping the offending debris onto his lab coat, leaving brown smears on his sleeve. He gave the field agent’s palm another gaze, before nodding in satisfaction and resting the tweezers back onto his lap.

“This one’s gonna sting,” Ulrich warned him, picking up the bottle of ointment and screwing off the lid.

“Mhm,” Missile Mouse nodded in acknowledgement, taking a breath.

Ulrich didn’t hesitate, pouring the contents of the bottle onto the burn. Missile Mouse hissed in pain as his palms stung, his fingers twitching and threatening to dig into his palms again, but he didn’t pull away. He simply gritted his teeth as Ulrich gently rubbed the ointment into the wound, before wrapping his friend’s hand in bandages.

Once he was finished, Ulrich grabbed a ration bar, unwrapping it and putting it into Missile Mouse’s bandaged hand. Missile Mouse munched down on it, his growling stomach finally receiving some sustenance, as Ulrich worked on his other hand. Eating had made him realize how hungry he actually was. Now he was wishing that he didn’t skip lunch or dinner.

Once he was done, Ulrich grabbed his own ration bar and quickly scoffed it down, trying to silence his own complaining belly.

The two of them sat there in silence for a while, finishing off their meagre meals and staring out into the dark night. Above them, Venturi Minor and the stars of Nebulon slowly crawled across the sky.

Missile Mouse rubbed at his arms, shivering. It was freezing out here. He had changed out of his jumpsuit into a tank top and cargo pants to ward off the heat of work, but now he had little protection against the cold night air.

He startled when something dropped onto his shoulders. He looked up to see Ulrich had taken off his lab coat and placed it over his companion, leaving him in his blue jumpsuit. Mumbling a thank you, Missile Mouse wrapped the lab coat around his body. For something so thin, it was surprisingly warm.

The two of them sat in silence for a few more minutes. Each one waiting, deciding whether they should say something first.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ulrich asked tentatively.

Missile Mouse glanced at him, before turning away. “No.”

More silence.

“…Do you need to talk about it?”

Missile Mouse frowned, before nodding lightly and shuffling a little closer to Ulrich. He then groaned, burying his face into his bandaged hands.

“Ah, gems Ulrich,” he mumbled into his hands. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I was being such a jerk. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. That was stupid.”

“I think we were both jerks to each other tonight,” Ulrich replied, rubbing his eyes. His hands still stunk with ointment. “We’re both tired and hungry and angry and upset. We were going to end up snappy at each other at some point. Sorry I said that you stink.”

“I do stink though.”

They both chuckled at that. But Missile Mouse soon frowned again, turning to Ulrich.

“But what were you still doing up?” he asked, shaking his head lightly. “Surely that work could’ve waited until tomorrow, right?” Ulrich turned to glare at him, but he lifted up a finger. “Trust me, I am well aware how hypocritical that sounded. You can pester me about it all you want later. But I want to make sure you’re okay first.”

Ulrich looked down at the ground, before looking back out over the pit.

“I don’t know,” he answered quietly, grabbing at the sleeves of his jumpsuit. “I guess I was trying to keep my mind off some things. You know how it is.”

Missile Mouse nodded knowingly. “Everybody’s looking for a distraction these days.”

“It’s been on my mind a lot longer than that,” Ulrich mumbled back. “I…I was thinking about Axius 3.”

“Thought so.”

“I just…” Ulrich sighed. “I can’t do any of my work without thinking of that day. I try to keep positive, but it’s hard to not think about it. And my memories, and my ancestors’ memories, and what happened to you, I just…”

“Ah jeez,” Missile Mouse sighed apologetically, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to have to witness that. It couldn’t have been nice for you. Gems, I didn’t even think—”

“Why the hell are you apologizing?!” Ulrich shouted at him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “You threw yourself into a doomsday weapon and almost died and saved my life, and you’re apologizing?! I’m not mad at you! I’m mad at my family and my coworkers!”

With an angry growl, Ulrich threw himself onto his back, sending a cloud of dust up where he landed. He rubbed at his face with a groan, staring up at the sky. Why did all of this have to be so absurd and awful?

Fanning the dust away, Missile Mouse lowered himself down to lie next to him.

“So…” Missile Mouse began awkwardly. “Are you mad at your ancestors for getting sucked up into black holes or…?”

“No, no, I…” Ulrich corrected himself quickly, waving his hands. “I meant my living family. It’s kinda hard to explain. How much do you know about Cerebellian genetic memory?”

“Not much admittedly,” Missile Mouse replied, his ears lowering. “I only know about as much as you and Maxwell told me. I didn’t want to ask you about it. I know it makes you uncomfortable to talk about it.”

That made Ulrich pause for a moment.

Missile Mouse…knew it made him uncomfortable?

Well, that was a shock.

“Uh, right,” Ulrich stammered, shaking himself out of his thoughts. “Here’s the thing. When a Cerebellian gets their genetic memories, it usually only comes as vague impressions, like out of a dream. It’s rare for one of us to get memories clear enough to be useful from any more than a couple centuries ago. So when I go mine, and started seeing things from a thousand years ago clear enough to read scientific notes…everybody freaked out about it.

“I became a celebrity practically overnight. And then, all of a sudden, I’m the guardian of all of our ancient physics. I mean, everybody thought all of this stuff had been lost to time centuries ago. But then I come along, and now I’m responsible for learning Ancient Cerebellian and deciphering old physics.”

Missile Mouse winced and gave him a sympathetic nod. Ulrich had shown him what Ancient Cerebellian looked like several times when he showed him some of his note recreations. And while Missile Mouse was rather talented linguistically, with how many languages he had to learn for his job, he had told Ulrich that Ancient Cerebellian looked like total gibberish to him. Which, Ulrich admitted back, it sometimes was. Learning it alongside learning Modern Cerebellian and Common simultaneously in his youth was not easy.

“Everybody was bad about it,” Ulrich continued, “but my parents were the worst. They paraded me around like a show animal, calling me the link to the great family’s legacy. They were the ones who kept pushing me to become a physicist.”

Missile Mouse lifted his head slightly, tilting it in confusion as he raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Ulrich quickly elaborated, waving his arms. “I love my job. Most days at least. I just…sometimes I just wish I had more choice in the matter.”

Missile Mouse stared for a few seconds, before nodding lightly, seemingly satisfied with the answer. He laid back down, laying his hands over his chest.

“I guess I understand that,” he conceded quietly, staring up at the sky. “Kind of. I can’t say I’ve ever been forced into a job. I worked hard to get this position…even if the road to get here was a bit unconventional.”

“Yeah, but at least you get to complain about your job when it gets too much,” Ulrich continued, his voice sharpening. “Whenever I complained about it to my parents, they called me an ungrateful brat! Said that it was a great honour to know all the ways of our ancestors. How I should show my gratitude by learning the old language and continuing their research. How I should be honoured to be in the position to keep those traditions alive.

“No one ever asked me if I ever wanted that! No one ever asked me if I liked being plagued by visions of death over and over and not being able to stop it! I lament about my family’s past hijacking my own future, and they call me selfish! No kidding I’m selfish, it’s my life we’re talking about! But according to them, that doesn’t belong to me anyways. I…I don’t talk to my parents much anymore.”

Ulrich let out a huff, his fingers digging into his sleeves.

Talking about it all was making those memories come back. The memories of his mother scolding him for backtalking her about his university applications. His father watching him icily from the door of his room, not moving to comfort his son as he cried after a bad nightmare. All of the conferences, the parade appearances, and all the fake smiles he wore when he knew his parents were watching him. All of those memories Ulrich had tried to leave behind on his home planet of Cerebra.

The older, much older memories of his ancestors started emerging in response to their mention, but he managed to force those ones back down into the deep recesses of his mind with a mental NO.

“I thought if I moved to Venturi and offered my services to the GSA, things would be different,” Ulrich continued to rant, his breath hitching slightly in his throat. “But it only got worse. Since nobody here knows what genetic memory is like, they think I’m some sort of perfect genius! They keep putting all their work onto me, and if I say no, I’m selfish, and if I even think about asking for help on my projects, they think I’m lazy!

“And everybody who doesn’t work with me keeps pestering me to tell them about my ancestors’ memories, and I don’t want to! And then they call me stuck-up for not answering all of their questions! No matter where I go, I can’t get away from what everyone thinks I should do with my life. My family’s past will always come first. Not me. People only like my brain when it’s convenient for them.”

Next to him, Missile Mouse frowned and let out a hum. “Gems, that sounds exhausting,” he sighed in agreement.

“And then I met you,” Ulrich said quietly, pointing at the Rodentian. “And everything changed. I mean, you asked me that question about my ancestors back in Aquinox, and I was bracing myself for you to ask me more questions. But then you didn’t. You didn’t care about any of that stuff. And it was great! I thought that maybe now that you were around, I could be myself for a change, and not worry about that stuff either.”

Ulrich sat back up, wrapping his arms around his knees and bunching himself up.

“But…then everything on Axius 3 went wrong,” he mumbled, his voice faltering. “Hyde was a traitor. We got captured. The RIP activated the star crusher… And you stopped it. Not me. You almost died because of something I was responsible for. And I’ve felt guilty about it ever since.”

Missile Mouse let out a strangled sound of protest. He sat up to face Ulrich, his eyes widened with horror.

“Ulrich, you can’t possibly feel guilty about all that,” he objected loudly, concern riddling his voice. “What happened wasn’t your fault!”

“But it was!” Ulrich cried back, throwing his arms out. “I’m the only one who knows anything about dark plasma in the entire galaxy. I have a responsibility to not make the same mistakes as my ancestors. To make sure this technology was never used as a weapon again.

“If I had never been caught by the RIP, they never would’ve known where to look for the dark plasma. They never would’ve gotten to the cache. None of this would’ve ever happened. But I was stupid enough to get caught, and they got the star crusher, and it put the entire Axius system in danger.”

Stars above, Ulrich wanted to scream. It felt like the weight of the whole galaxy was pressing against his neck. Everybody’s eyes glaring at him, always criticizing, always judging him. And Missile Mouse, poor Missile Mouse, had been dragged straight into the middle of it alongside him.

“The only reason the RIP hasn’t subjugated the entire galaxy is you,” Ulrich whimpered, watching as Missile Mouse’s face fell. “You risked your life to stop it, and did something you really shouldn’t have survived. You could’ve died dealing with something I had the responsibility to control. I should’ve been the one to go in, not you. I shouldn’t have been such a coward and let you do it. And now I can’t stop thinking about how much I failed everybody. You, my family, my people. How you could’ve lost your life and it would’ve been all my fault.”

Looking at Missile Mouse now, it was impossible for Ulrich to not remember how he looked when he was first brought back to the GSA after the mission. Lifeless, covered in burns and scorch marks. Propped up in a hospital bed, hooked up to a million machines and monitors, a shadow of the bright and momentous man that Ulrich had met. Comatose, in a silent sleep, with no guarantee that he would ever wake up.

Missile Mouse. The man who had saved Ulrich’s life several times over the course of three days. Who did it all without asking for even a thank you. Who got beaten and almost killed for his troubles. Who took a sacrifice Ulrich should have taken himself.

Ulrich hugged his knees tighter and dropped his head onto his arms, trying to resist the urge to sob. Trying to ignore the hollow feeling in his chest, the desire to rip open his skull and tear out his brain. Trying to swallow back the guilt he felt for wishing that he wasn’t a Cerebellian some days, so that the endless memories and nightmares would cease for once. Choking on the guilt he felt for his cowardice, for even letting Missile Mouse go through with something so monumentally reckless and dangerous it might as well have been a suicide mission. For everything he should’ve done…and didn’t.

Ulrich finally swallowed, lifting his head back up. His breath clawed at his throat every time it hitched in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a few breaths to compose himself. With a sigh, he turned back to face Missile Mouse.

He was staring at Ulrich in horror. His ears pinned back, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape.

And then, like a switch, it changed. His mouth set into a frown, his brow furrowed. And the horror transformed into a resolute anger.

“Ulrich, you’re not stupid,” he declared sternly. “And you’re not a coward. The fact that you planning to fuse with the dark plasma yourself tells me that. Do you have any idea how many field agents I know who would’ve run away from something like that, knowing they would’ve condemned the Axius system in doing so?”

Missile Mouse got up and began pacing back and forth, his boots kicking up dust. Ulrich watched as the Rodentian went back and forth, his hands balled tightly into fists and his tail lashing out like a whip behind him.

“The only reason the RIP even abducted you in the first place is because they needed you to the read the star compass,” he ranted angrily, waving his arms wildly. “And the only reason that they even had that compass is because I failed my mission to get the damned thing. And the only reason the RIP got their grubby hands on the cache is because of Hyde. That traitorous little brat sold us right out to the RIP without an iota of remorse! Yet here you are, blaming yourself for my screwups and Hyde selling us out! That makes no sense Ulrich! And I know you’re smart enough to know that!”

Ulrich frowned, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. That…was true. It didn’t make sense to blame himself for the actions of others. His actions were all he could hold himself accountable for.

But like a reflex, the guilt still poked through. Some trained habit in him that had been there since childhood. He almost blurted out an apology, but he managed to bite his tongue and change it into something else.

“But I shouldn’t have let you stop it,” Ulrich bemoaned, his fingers digging into the dirt under him. “I should’ve stopped the star crusher, not you.”

Missile Mouse’s brow furrowed, and he bent his knees slightly to be eye-level with Ulrich.

“Ulrich, dealing with dangerous superweapons is my job,” he explained, bluntly and matter of fact. “If you had ever gotten hurt, let alone died, doing something like that under my watch, I’d never be able to live with myself. That responsibility was mine, not yours, simply by virtue of the fact that I was assigned to protect you.”

The Rodentian sighed, shaking his head. “Ulrich, none of this was your fault. And the dark plasma is only your responsibility now because you decided that for yourself. You’re not responsible for what happened at Axius 3. You’re not responsible for overseeing all of your ancestors’ past. That part is your decision to make. No one should’ve been forcing you to do any of that.”

“But—” Ulrich began to protest.

“No,” Missile Mouse snapped sternly. “I don’t give a damn what your parents said. Your parents are disgusting people for robbing those choices from you, for their own selfish egos. They sound like actual grease buckets. I could never imagine having parents so selfish.”

With a grumble, Missile Mouse sat back down beside Ulrich, turning away. His tail flicked against the ground, kicking up its own cloud of dust.

Ulrich stared at him, taken aback. He…he could never imagine that anyone would be so upset on his behalf. He had expected Missile Mouse to react with indifference when Ulrich explained his troubles to him, like the rest of his colleagues. But Missile Mouse being so angry was the last thing he had been anticipating.

Missile Mouse was silent again, but Ulrich could tell that something about this was still bothering him. He fidgeted with his fingers, tugging at the bandages on his hands as his tail continued to twitch. He…seemed like he wanted to say something else.

“Missile Mouse, is something wrong?” Ulrich asked, leaning over to try and face him.

Missile Mouse glanced at him over his shoulder, before turning away even more.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “It’s your life; I shouldn’t be complaining about it.”

“Well, everyone asks me questions and pesters me about my life all the time,” Ulrich remarked, almost jokingly. “You’ve only ever asked me one question about it in three years. And you’re my friend. I think you of all people deserve to comment a little more.”

Missile Mouse slowly turned back around, shuffling himself on the ground. Ulrich had been right; he was clearly still bothered. His ears had drooped down considerably, and the twitching in his tail had escalated into batting. The Rodentian wrapped his tail and arms around his legs and leaned onto his knees.

“I wish I had known about all this sooner.”

Ulrich’s face fell. “What?”

“I wish I understood better,” Missile Mouse continued, bringing a hand to his forehead as he rambled. “I wish I’d known that this is how you felt. That you were blaming all of these things out of your control on yourself. That it hurt you so much to even think about it. I didn’t even think that seeing me go through with the plan would’ve brought back all those memories for you. I didn’t know any better. And I wish I did. I should’ve. Because for three years, I’ve been watching it slowly eat you up inside.

“If I knew, then maybe I’d be able to say something to help. To make you feel better, even just a little. You’re my friend, and I hated seeing you so upset. But I didn’t understand. And I didn’t want to say anything out of turn in case I made it worse. In case I said something like everybody else did and made you feel even worse about the whole thing.”

Missile Mouse let out a whimper. “Maybe I should’ve asked. Should’ve done more research myself. Maybe I should’ve done something, instead of just sitting on my hands. But I didn’t want to do anything wrong. I didn’t want to make things worse. I just wanted to help, and I didn’t understand enough to do so until now. And I wish I did!”

Letting out an angry sigh, Missile Mouse shook his head and ran his hands over his ears. He turned back up to Ulrich.

To find that the Cerebellian was beginning to cry. His big green eyes were welling up with tears, and his lip was wobbling.

“Augh, I knew I shouldn’t have said that!” Missile Mouse growled in frustration, grabbing at his ears. “Gems Ulrich, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset, I just—”

“I’m not upset,” Ulrich croaked, cutting him off, his voice trembling. “I’m…I just…I can’t believe that you care so much. It’s…it’s nice. It’s nice to have someone care. For someone to actually care about what I want. To try and understand and being patient instead of pushing. It’s nice for a change… You know?”

Ulrich tried to smile at him, but it was hard with his lip shaking so much. He only managed an awkward half-smile that forced the tears in his eyes to roll down his cheeks. His cheeks hurt and his eyes stung. It must’ve made him look so childish.

Missile Mouse didn’t say anything in return. He didn’t make a face or crack a joke. He didn’t try and change what Ulrich was feeling. He simply held out his arm to Ulrich. A rare, but very meaningful, invitation for closeness.

And with that, the dam broke.

Before he could stop himself, Ulrich pulled Missile Mouse into a tight embrace, sobbing into his shoulder. Holding his friend tight as he ditched whatever sense of professionalism he had left.

Missile Mouse didn’t pull away or flinch. He simply wrapped his arms around Ulrich’s back gently as his friend wept loudly. A safety net that held him up against all of the too-big feelings that Ulrich could no longer keep in. Ulrich felt kind of bad for getting his tears all over him, but at least he had his lab coat to mop some of them up.

But Missile Mouse didn’t seem to care either way. He simply held Ulrich as he wept for every shred of freedom and choice that had been taken from him. For his own pain, that had never before taken precedence over his family’s pain. For all of the personal dreams that had been pushed to the side.

Nebulon stared down at them, the stars watching on silently as Ulrich wept. They had seen all of the memories Ulrich had inherited, all of the atrocities and loss. And they didn’t care. They didn’t care like Ulrich cared. They didn’t care like Missile Mouse cared.

Missile Mouse held onto Ulrich until he finally pulled away, wiping his eyes with his sleeve and clearing his throat.

“Alright, I’ve done enough whining,” he huffed, sniffling a little. “Stars, that was a lot. What were you still doing out here?”

Missile Mouse stiffened up, freezing.

Uh-oh. He had been hoping that, in all of his talking, Ulrich had forgotten that Missile Mouse had promised to spill.

“Ugh, right,” he groaned, running his hand through his fur nervously. “I was…trying to get my mind off of things. I…haven’t been feeling right for a few months.”

“Yeah, I figured that was what was going on,” Ulrich replied knowingly, nodding his head.

Ulrich knew exactly the time frame he was talking about. Frankly, everybody at HQ probably knew what time frame he was talking about.

Because five months ago, Missile Mouse returned from the Tankium 3 mission. Now, everybody knew that something had gone down, even those who didn’t know him personally.

Because for a week straight, Missile Mouse didn’t say a single word.

No matter how much people had tried to pester him about what had happened, he didn’t make a squeak. It unnerved most people; everybody was used to the solo agent being even a little conversational. It had especially freaked out Ulrich and Bitner, as Missile Mouse was usually the chattiest amongst their tight friend group. He was usually the one to break the silence with a quip or a random non-sequitur. But for that week, he couldn’t bring himself to do even that. It had been bad enough for the council to prepare to send him off on paid leave. It was clear to everybody that something that had happened on the mission had seriously spooked him.

Understatement of the year.

But once he started talking again, everybody had dropped the issue. Most people had assumed, at least publicly, that he was fine now. But from the way Ulrich had looked at him after that week, it was clear that he had thought that something was still wrong. He had gone to Missile Mouse later to ask about what had happened, but Missile Mouse had only ever given him the basic rundown.

“…You remember what I told about the Tankium 3 mission, right?” Missile Mouse asked uneasily.

Ulrich nodded again. “The locals were getting mind-controlled into slaves for that bandit king.”

“Yeah…well, I didn’t say this before…but it wasn’t just the locals getting chipped.”

Missile Mouse had been running his hand through the fur on the back of his head. Some of the fur there was a little bit shorter than the rest. He then lifted his hand up, parting his fur to reveal the skin underneath.

On the back of his head, perfectly spaced between his ears, was a large scar. Round, with a few perfectly spaced spikes. Way too perfect to be an organic wound earnt in a scuffle. The mark of something mechanical latching onto his head.

Even though he couldn’t see Ulrich’s face, Missile Mouse could practically feel Ulrich’s eyes widening as he let out a sputtered gasp.

“For stars’ sake Missile Mouse!” Ulrich shrieked in worry. “When you said that you had been captured, you never told me that you got chipped!”

“I know, I know!” Missile Mouse cried apologetically, holding his hands up in defence. “I’m sorry! I should’ve told you sooner. But I had a lot on my mind, and I couldn’t bring myself around to it.”

Ulrich sighed in frustration, rubbing his face with his hands. The worry and anger were palpable. Missile Mouse didn’t usually talk about his bad missions with people, and this was primarily the reason why. Bitner and Ulrich especially would freak out and worry themselves sick if he shared some of the grislier stuff.

And that was the sanitized version of the truth. He could talk about how Robot 44, his partner on the mission, had been brutally dismantled saving him, and how he had numbly disassociated the entire shuttle trip home because of it. He could talk about the nightmares about mindlessly beating his friends to death with a sledgehammer that plagued him the entire week afterwards. He could talk about the time he had woken up in the middle of the night, aimlessly wandering the halls of the company housing he lived in with a screwdriver clutched tightly in his hand. And how it had spooked him so bad that he locked himself in his bathroom each night afterwards until the sleepwalking and nightmares finally stopped.

But frankly, those things weren’t what had been bothering him these last few months. Those things had screwed him up for a few weeks, no doubt. But that was his job. He was a security agent. Sometimes, bad things happened on a mission that could leave someone out of sorts for weeks. And sometimes all an agent could do was acknowledge the bad and move on.

But…moving on from this particular thing had not been progressing like everything else. Maybe it was because it had hit so close to home.

“During the mission,” Missile Mouse began explaining again, “when I was talking to Lasukus, he said that being mind-controlled was like being in a coma. A week of his life, completely gone in an instant, with no clue of what he had actually been doing that entire time. But when it happened to me…it wasn’t like that.

“I saw something. It was like living through the past. I kept going through my memories. Like a clip show. And they were of my father.”

Ulrich perked up beside him, listening intently.

Missile Mouse had only ever talked to Ulrich about his father once. Frankly, once was the only time he talked about his father when it came to anyone. He had told him about how his father had raised him alone in the tiny Red Shift system of Kreo. And usually, that was all he ever told anyone about his father.

Not this time.

“For a while, what I saw was pleasant,” Missile Mouse continued. “They were good memories. Things I had been too young to remember. The stuff that I always think back fondly on. Like when he gave me this.”

Missile Mouse rummaged through one of the pockets of his cargo pants for a few seconds, before his hand closed around the familiar shape. He pulled the Zogdonian crystal out of his pocket, holding it up to his face. The light of Venturi Minor reflected off of its shiny surface, setting it aglow.

Ulrich’s eyes lit up with recognition. “So he was the one that gave that to you,” he remarked with a smile. “I figured it must’ve been important if you held onto it so tightly.”

“Well, yeah,” Missile Mouse chuckled, stuffing the crystal back into his pocket. “I almost broke your wrist over it. I’m still sorry about that.”

“You were asleep, you didn’t know any better.”

“Still.”

Ulrich let out his own chuckle, shaking his head. But soon, his face fell back into a frown.

“You’re stalling, aren’t you?” he asked quietly.

Missile Mouse stiffened again, his nails digging into his arms. He turned away, a nervous smile flashing on his face.

“Right, um…” he stammered again, his tail batting against the ground. “Right. It…I mean, it was nice to have those memories that I lost back. It was nice. But…the last memory. It was…it’s the one thing I wish I could forget. The one I keep seeing over and over, for years now…”

It took effort to say it. It was a blockade he had been reinforcing for years, and it tugged at his throat. But he finally managed to take a shaky breath and open his mouth.

“It was the memory of the night when he died.”

And just like that, the walls crumbled down.

Missile Mouse had guarded this secret so close to his chest for so long. There was only one man alive who knew why he did what he did, why he was the way he was. And Missile Mouse had kept that memory buried as best as he could, kept it out of his waking life with all of the strength he had.

But reliving that memory again, not just as a dream, had forced it straight back into the forefront of his thoughts. And saying it out loud caused it to all come rushing back, all at once in a wave that thudded against his chest like a freight ship.

“He was killed when a bunch of RIP grunts robbed our home, twenty years ago,” Missile Mouse continued, unable to stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth. “He didn’t lift a finger to hurt them or fight back. He was kind. Gems alive, he was a pacifist! But that didn’t stop them from shooting his chest open the second he tried to negotiate with them.

“And I didn’t do anything to stop it. I just watched it happen. I just sat there like a damned coward while he got shot. And when I finally had the courage to do something, anything, it was too late. There was no saving him.”

Missile Mouse could feel his hands shaking violently. Remembering as his father grabbed onto them for the last time, his grip loosening, his voice weak and raspy, as his eyes went glassy and his head dropped to the ground with a thud. As his breathing and heartbeat, the sounds Missile Mouse had been surrounded with all his life, went quiet. The moment he realized he would never hear those sounds again.

“And after all of that, I couldn’t even bring myself to fight back against them,” Missile Mouse babbled. “I was so scared. They were laughing at me, a scared little rat. I felt so helpless. They then told me that if I ran back into my hiding place and let them take everything without stopping them, they would let me live. And I did. I ran away. And after that, I swore that I’d never run away from anything ever again.”

Missile Mouse could feel tears starting to well up into his eyes again, but he bit them back with gritted teeth, shaking his head. His breath heaving, he slowly turned to Ulrich.

Ulrich was staring at him in abject horror. He had brought a hand up to cover his mouth, his green eyes wide and his body quivering slightly.

“Stars above Missile Mouse,” he muttered quietly. “Does…does anybody know about this?”

Missile Mouse was silent for a few seconds, before nodding lightly.

“Does Bitner know?”

He stiffened again. He rested his tail on his lap and gripped onto it tightly.

And then…he shook his head.

“Missile Mouse.”

Missile Mouse shook his head again, trying to ignore how sick his stomach felt.

Bitner. His oldest, closest friend. And he had kept this from him. Just like everybody else, Missile Mouse had kept him in the dark. Bitner often talked about his family to him; his mother, his sisters, his nieces and nephews that he was proud to be uncle for. But the only thing Missile Mouse had told him about his family was what he had told everybody else: that his father had raised him alone in Kreo, and that it had been a very long time since he had seen him. Not a lie. Not the truth either.

“I didn’t want him to see me like this,” Missile Mouse explained desperately, shaking his head. “I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I didn’t want to screw this all up. This is all I have.”

“Missile Mouse, what do you mean by that?” Ulrich asked sternly, clearly confused.

Missile Mouse looked at Ulrich, giving him a sad frown.

“Ulrich, the RIP destroyed everything in my old life,” he lamented. “They destroyed our home, destroyed everything not worth stealing. The only things they didn’t take were the clothes on my back and the contents of my pockets. By the time the GSA responded to the RIP presence in Kreo, any record of my existence was gone. Who I was before is gone. He doesn’t exist anymore, except in my memories.

“This job is all I have. And the only reason I even have this job at all is because Maxwell was willing to take me in and train me and put in a good word for me. I’m more than a solo agent; I’m the perfect agent. One with no civilian ties. Nothing outside of the GSA that someone could blackmail me with. They keep me on because I’m willing to do any job, and because I have nothing outside that could be traced back to here.”

Missile Mouse grabbed onto Ulrich’s lab coat, still draped over his shoulders, and wrapped it tighter around himself.

“This job is the only thing I have left,” he growled. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. And because of that, everybody thinks that they can treat me like dirt and get away with it. None of the other field agents care about me except when I almost die. Back when I was a cadet, they even made fun of me. They thought I’d never make it as an agent. Now, all they do is ask me questions and pry about my missions and gawk at me like I’m some circus animal.

“And the directors are worse. They know that I can’t afford to lose this job. And if I push against them too hard, they’ll replace me without a second thought. So they know they can give me the most dangerous missions without any pushback, and it’s only gotten worse after Axius 3. They don’t give a damn about what happens to me. Need to send an agent on a mission where said agent is sure to get beaten, tortured, and almost certainly die? Missile Mouse is the man for the job!”

He threw his arms out in a joking exclamation, but the sharp anger in his voice overshadowed whatever levity joking could’ve brought. He was shaking from the outrage of it all. All of the fury and sadness he had been swallowing down for two decades straight was now bubbling to the surface, and in that moment, he had no way to contain it anymore. All of it exploding as he continued to pour out his soul and couldn’t stop himself.

“And if I die who freaking cares?” he snapped. “I’m expendable. It’s gonna happen eventually, so why should anybody even bother worrying? The other agents will maybe give me an honorary toast, and that’s all. Why bother with anything more when there’ll be new hopefuls and security bots to take my place? Any field agent would kill to have my job.

“The public will be saddened in the moment, but they don’t know me. All I’ll be to them is some little footnote at the end of their day, when their loved ones ask if anything interesting happened. In fact, the most remembrance I’ll get is from the people I fight, and they’ll be celebrating that I’m finally gone!”

Next to him, Ulrich reached out his hand to grab Missile Mouse’s shoulder, but not quite bridging the gap. His eyes darted back and forth, his mind clearly racing as he tried to think of a retort.

“But, but what about the other Rodentians?” Ulrich asked, his brow furrowed as he looked at Missile Mouse. “Couldn’t you go to them if you had to?”

Missile Mouse gave him a wry smile, one that threatened to send tears rolling down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or cry.

“Why would I?” he asked despondently, his breath hitching in his throat. “I don’t know them. And they don’t know me. I don’t remember anything about Rodentia. I don’t even know where the damned place is! I barely know anything about the rest of my kind. I’m probably nothing like them. So why would they want anything to do with me?”

His tail wound around his legs and tightened, squeezing hard against them. “I’m not sure if I can even call myself a Rodentian anymore. I’m just an agent in a Rodentian’s fur.”

Missile Mouse looked at his Zogdonian crystal again, staring at it as he twisted it in his fingers. His face, eyes red from crying and fur dishevelled and full or dirt. And he was sickened by how foreign it looked to him. How a stranger stared back every time he looked in the mirror.

In all the years he had been with the GSA, and all of the places he had gone on during his missions, he hadn’t seen a single other Rodentian in the galaxy. He had asked Maxwell only once about it, and he had shown him the data files. How the planet had been locked in bitter civil war ever since Missile Mouse was just a pup, making it impossible for anyone to get in or out.

It was more than his father had ever told him about the planet. His father had never told Missile Mouse anything about Rodentia. And Missile Mouse had never asked him. He had been content with his life in Kreo, content to live in that tiny bubble his father had kept him in. Why didn’t he ask?! Why didn’t he ask until it was too late?!

Missile Mouse, the agent in a Rodentian’s fur, all alone in the galaxy. Even if the rest of his kind were still alive on their home planet, that would most likely mean nothing for him for the rest of his lifetime. As far as he, and the rest of Nebulon, was concerned? He was the only one.

Missile Mouse stared at his shaking hands, wrapped in bandages and clutching tightly to the only evidence of his past life. How small they looked. How small he was.

“I’m an agent,” Missile Mouse declared, pain wracking his voice. “That’s all I am. I don’t even have a real name. Agent Missile Mouse is all that there is. And it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. My father said that I did, and he asked me to remember that. And for twenty years I have tried so hard to remember that. I’ve tried. But I just can’t believe it anymore. I don’t matter! Not to my bosses, not to my colleagues, not to my people, not to anybody!”

He let out a choked sob. “Not even to myself.”

Missile Mouse curled into himself, wiping away the tears that had sprung into his eyes. All of his pains had been laid out bare and in the open, his chest torn open to reveal the bleeding heart underneath. And the galaxy had done all it had ever done for him.

It made him feel small. Weak. Helpless.

Ulrich had not said anything for some time. He had been listening intently, his brow furrowed and his mouth set into a firm line.

Silently, Ulrich took his hand and gently grasped onto Missile Mouse’s own. The same way he had held onto him as the star crusher counted down to detonation, their lives hanging in the balance. Missile Mouse looked up to see Ulrich staring at him, his face firm and resolute.

“You matter to me,” Ulrich declared.

Missile Mouse stared at him in shock. As if nobody in the galaxy would ever openly say such a thing.

“You keep saying that you don’t matter, but I know for a fact that it’s not true,” Ulrich said, his voice wavering with emotion. “Think about all of the people that have you to thank for making their lives better. The Karonians. Cobb and the rest of the people of the Axius system. Lasukus and his people. Bitner. Me. All of these lives you’ve touched, all of these people who you’ve helped, and you say that you don’t matter. And I wish I knew sooner that you felt this way about yourself so I could tell you these things sooner. Because you needed to hear it.

“And I know that you matter because you’re one of the bravest people I know. You’re funny and resilient, and you’re so much smarter than you give yourself credit for. And you’re kind. You showed me that there could be people that could do good things just because it was the right thing to do. You should me that the galaxy could be better because you made it better. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks about you. Because I know they don’t see you for who you really are.”

Seeing how much Missile Mouse’s hands were shaking, Ulrich gently cupped them with his own. He rubbed his thumb along the Zogdonian crystal.

“I know you feel that what happened to your father was your fault,” he whispered gently. “But you were fifteen. You were a kid. You shouldn’t have been expected to protect your dad from an entire squadron of soldiers. Your father’s choice to be a pacifist was not a wrong one. But that doesn’t mean that the responsibility to protect him fell to you. You held this all in because you thought people would think lesser of you. But Bitner and I would never think lesser of you just because something this awful happened to you.”

Ulrich wrapped his arms around Missile Mouse, pulling him close into a gentle embrace.

“I don’t agree with you thinking that you’re just an agent,” he announced, shaking his head. “I’m not bothered by you not knowing who you should be as a Rodentian. None of that stuff changes what you are to me. I care about you because you’re you. You’re Missile Mouse, my best friend who cares. That is the part that makes me so thankful I met you. That’s the part I’m so proud of, that I wish you appreciated just as much as I did. I’m so glad that you’re still here.”

For a few seconds, Missile Mouse sat there in Ulrich’s arms, frozen still as his words sunk into his mind and echoed in his ears. Wondering how Ulrich could look at him – broken, pathetic, worthless Missile Mouse – and see someone worthy of such praise. Worthy of such gentleness and patience. Worthy of such compassion.

And then he began to sob. Large, uneven breaths that shook his body violently, as the tears that had been welling up in his eyes began to roll down his cheeks. Ulrich held onto him tighter as Missile Mouse wailed into his chest, ditching any and all attempts at dignity.

He hadn’t cried this hard since the night he had lost his father. He was bawling like a little pup, but he couldn’t care less. He just wailed and sobbed. And for once, he didn’t stop himself, letting years of pent-up emotions flood out of him.

Ulrich didn’t pull away. He didn’t flinch or distance himself. He only held Missile Mouse close and let him cry into his chest. An anchor as Missile Mouse’s mind spun and the world fell out from under him. Holding onto him as tight as he could.

Above them, the stars of Nebulon watched on. Stars of a galaxy that looked on with indifference, that didn’t believe Missile Mouse mattered. But they could think that for all he cared. Because at least there was one person that thought he did.

Finally, when Missile Mouse’s sobs had lessened into whimpers, he forced himself to pull away. Ulrich loosened his arms, allowing the Rodentian to sit back up, coughing and wiping his eyes.

“Gems alive, we’re pathetic,” he groaned, sniffling. “And we’re supposed to be senior agents. Are all senior agents this snotty and gross?”

Ulrich laughed, a bright and bubbly sound that carried on the wind. “I don’t think so, but I don’t care,” he replied with a shrug. “If we’re pathetic, so be it. This made me feel better.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“You know,” Ulrich began quietly, looking down at Missile Mouse. “I think I need to amend my previous statement. You’re not just the bravest and kindest person I know. You’re the bravest and kindest person I think I’ll ever know. And I mean that. Thank you.”

Missile Mouse stared back at Ulrich with an expression of…something. Ulrich wasn’t quite sure what the emotion was; he couldn’t quite decipher the Rodentian’s face. But whatever it was, it must’ve been good, because he then flashed Ulrich a large, warm smile.

“Thank you for everything Ulrich,” Missile Mouse answered back, his eyes bright and sparkling. “You mean the world to me too.”

Ulrich rested his hand down on the ground, opening his hand up. Missile Mouse shuffled over and grabbed his hand back, squeezing it. He leant into Ulrich’s arm, and Ulrich leaned into him back. Both of them staring up at the night sky. Feeling like the only two people in the whole universe.

Above them, Venturi Minor hanged in the sky, casting a ghostly green glow across the land. A place dedicated to industry and factories and production for the Venturi people. Most people would normally dismiss it as nothing more than that. But to the two men sitting on the edge of the pit, it was more than that.

It was where they had first met. That weird night before everything went wrong, running from RIP grunts and scientists. It was where their lives had irreversibly changed forever, where their futures had become brighter. Simply because they now had each other.

“I guess I can finally thank the odds for something, huh?” Ulrich asked jokingly. “I mean, if the universe brought us two together, then it surely can’t be so bad.”

Missile Mouse didn’t reply. Ulrich looked down to see his friend had fallen asleep, exhaustion finally sending him into a quiet slumber. Leaning on Ulrich’s arm, wrapped in his lab coat, and a restful expression his face, Missile Mouse looked more at peace than Ulrich had ever seen him. Ulrich smiled, trying to not chuckle as the other man began to snore lightly.

He wouldn’t try to move Missile Mouse until he was a little deeper in sleep. He wouldn’t want to accidentally wake Missile Mouse up when he was trying to move him to his trailer and into his bed; his friend desperately needed the rest.

So he would stay out there with him for a little longer, staring up at the stars.

And that was how the others found them the next morning.

The morning crew woke up to quite the interesting sight: Missile Mouse and Ulrich, propped up, leaning against each other, fast asleep. The moment Maxwell called out to them, they both snapped awake and pulled away from each other as fast as possible, Missile Mouse scrambling out of Ulrich’s coat.

The medics were called immediately, and both senior agents got chewed out for staying out all night and not eating anything the day before. But they were both mostly unharmed, thankfully, and the medics even complimented Ulrich’s handiwork treating Missile Mouse’s hands. Both men were cleared to continue working for the day, but only after they promised to take breaks with the others, and only after Missile Mouse swore he would wear gloves and take it easy.

Maxwell was none too pleased to learn that the agency’s best physicist and his former apprentice were outside all night, exposed to the elements. But once the medics told him that they were both okay, he dropped the issue without another complaint. He didn’t bother asking the two of them what the devil they were doing out there all night by themselves. It was frankly none of his business, and besides, he had much more pressing things to worry about.

Like ensuring that the agents under his watch didn’t spend all day spinning the rumour mill. Intimate relations between employees were technically not prohibited; none of the agency’s attempts to punish perpetrators had ever ended well. But they were still actively discouraged and somewhat taboo amongst the agents. And this incident would put both Ulrich and Missile Mouse under fire. And with how busy both of them were, it was the very last thing they needed.

Maxwell called the morning crew and ordered them to ignore the events of the morning, and to say nothing about it to their fellow agents.

That half-hearted attempt at quelling gossip ended in almost immediate failure.

The moment they were let back in with the rest of the group, the morning crew began telling their colleagues what they had seen. Within the hour, every agent, from the newest of techs to the most hardened of senior field agents, had heard of how Missile Mouse and Ulrich had been found that morning. Soon enough, everybody was talking about it as they worked, spreading rumours about a secret whirlwind romance between the two men, joking about melodramatic dates and cheesy love confessions.

The architects didn’t care much for the rumours, as they were too busy fussing over their precious blueprints. But the other scientists and techs certainly did. In between calculating counterbalancing and tensile limits, they asked Ulrich dozens of questions about what had happened the night before. All of them were wondering how the most cautious and introverted amongst them managed to woo the GSA’s resident problem child. Doctor Yama even made a reference to a high school romance novel she had read once that had a similar plot.

Ulrich, to the best of his ability, gave half-answers and directed the conversations away from himself. But that didn’t stop the questioning, which continued until well after lunchtime.

Missile Mouse wasn’t faring much better. A hardened solo agent being so vulnerable and unguarded was something none of his colleagues expected, especially around someone from a different department. And all of them were eager to knock the confident agent down a peg. By lunchtime, there wasn’t a field agent or mechanic among them that hadn’t relentlessly teased Missile Mouse for falling asleep on a nerdy scientist’s arm. The only one who hadn’t was Bitner, who decided to leave his usual teasing in the box for today. Frankly, he didn’t care what Missile Mouse was doing with Ulrich. Whatever it was, it had made him far happier than Bitner had seen him in months, so all the power to him.

Missile Mouse, to his credit, shot back at every jab with his usual quick quips and snarky comebacks. Even if most times the only response he got back was more laughter directed his way.

Missile Mouse and Ulrich independently decided to leave each other alone for that day, to spare each other and themselves the worst of the embarrassment. But that didn’t stop them from stealing glances at each other from across the worksite. A couple of times their gazes met, and they would quickly look away. Thankfully, the prying eyes of their coworkers were turned away each time it happened.

But in the end, neither of them refused the accusations of their colleagues. Not that anybody noticed. Not even Missile Mouse and Ulrich themselves. At least, not right away.

By the time dinner rolled around, most of the gossip had finally died down, save for the more juvenile field agents still making cracks at the two men’s expense. Though a couple of death glares from Maxwell quickly shut them up. The conversation finally turned back to its usual topics, like boasting about missions, upcoming research projects, or whether hardware or software engineering were more important in the GSA. Everything returned to the way it had been before. Amongst them, Missile Mouse and Ulrich only listened silently, picking at their meals as everybody else around them chatted.

Lights out came soon enough, and the agents all retired to their trailers for the night. Silence fell over the worksite once more, and the spotlights shut off. The site was plunged into darkness, and that night, there was nothing to replace it.

That night, Missile Mouse and Ulrich were once again awake. Though this time, they weren’t working themselves to death, and it wasn’t an unholy hour of early morning. Ulrich was working at his desk, scribbling out solutions for dark plasma equations in a notepad. Missile Mouse was laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and counting the rivets in the roof. Both of them quietly ruminating on the previous night’s events.

Ulrich knew that these equations had gaps. It was to be expected for formulas constructed from ancient notes and the fuzzy memories of his ancestors. And it was going to take some serious thinking and creative problem solving to find a suitable patch for each hole. But he wasn’t expecting to for one of those gaps to be filled with a doodle of the scientist’s solo agent friend, with that warm smile he had given him the night before.

Ulrich quickly shredded the paper and flushed it down the toilet for good measure. He had plenty of copies of the equations back at his lab, and perhaps a blank slate was exactly what he needed to get a spark of inspiration.

With his work interrupted, Ulrich sat at his desk, spinning the pen he had been working with between his fingers. Wondering why his mind kept wandering back to that solo agent. Why Missile Mouse kept distracting him from his work, no matter how hard he tried to focus. How Missile Mouse had convinced him to talk about his greatest insecurities and frustrations in his life. Things he wouldn’t dare tell his family, his colleagues…anybody, really.

Missile Mouse was sitting on his bed, overthinking for potentially the first time in his life. He was used to thinking in rapid-fire short bursts, jumping from one thing to the next and improvising when his missions inevitably went sideways. Yet here he was, replaying the night’s events over and over. Examining every single word between him and Ulrich, every facial expression. And yet, he still couldn’t figure out how Ulrich managed to sway him into spilling every single one of his greatest fears and pains.

He had told him everything. His father, his insecurities about his heritage, his frustrations and sadnesses with his place in the GSA and the galaxy, everything. He fell asleep on his arm while wearing his coat, for gems’ sake!

Such vulnerability was dangerous for a solo agent; it meant leverage. And without a regular mission partner, Missile Mouse had no fallback if he was compromised. Leverage was every criminal’s sweetest dream. Missile Mouse had to make every step to avoid giving it to anyone. And yet, Ulrich had convinced him to reveal the most damaged parts of his soul, and he still couldn’t understand why.

Eventually, after a lot of thinking, both men came to the same conclusion:

Oh.

OH.

OH NO.

Ulrich dropped the pen, the writing apparatus clattering to the floor. He immediately began scolding his brain for coming up with such a preposterous hypothesis. And of course, the moment his brain finally focused, it focused on the one thing he was trying not to think about. Sighing loudly, Ulrich thudded his head against the desk repeatedly, as though that would shake the thought out of his head and banish it away forever.

Ulrich’s brain was composed of the memories of the most talented physicists in the last thousand years and his own lifetime devoted to study. It was built for science and research and uncovering the secrets of the universe. It shouldn’t have been thinking about anything even tangentially related to romance. Especially directed towards someone like Missile Mouse. Missile Mouse was confident, brave, strong, and charismatic; everything Ulrich wasn’t. He was the last person Ulrich would ever imagine even being in a relationship with, for a million different reasons.

Relationships for Cerebellians were more akin to a business deal, families combining to accumulate as much knowledge as possible. And Missile Mouse’s candidness was the exact antithesis of the Cerebellian upper-class subtlety that Ulrich came from. Their jobs would never allow for such an intimate relationship; not when there was a risk of spilling such dangerous state secrets. And Ulrich had resigned himself to the eventual fate of a loveless marriage with a woman he could probably tolerate for the sake of having children that would inherit his horrid genetic memories, at least if his parents ever got the last say about it. Yet now, the possibility of a life with Missile Mouse was flooding his head and he couldn’t stop it.

There was no way in Nebulon that Missile Mouse would ever want someone as awkward and dorky as Ulrich. And if he did…well, Ulrich had no way to resolve that scenario.

The moment the revelation hit his mind, Missile Mouse’s ears flushed red from the embarrassment, and his stomach started to toss as though he had been poisoned. He cursed his stupid body for betraying such a dangerous accusation from his stupid mind, which it seemed to be making a habit of as of late. With a frustrated groan, Missile Mouse buried his face into his hands, stewing in his stupid flustered feelings.

One of the most successful solo agents the GSA had ever seen, despite his inconsistency and habit of questioning authority at inopportune times. Over a thousand successful missions across his career. And he was having a crush. Gems alive, how ridiculous. He was acting like a pubescent schoolchild! Ulrich was sophisticated, intelligent, and graceful. He was leagues above Missile Mouse, socially speaking. Him and Ulrich being an item, let alone a romantic one, was completely inconceivable in his mind. There were a million problems with that stupid idea.

Missile Mouse was the furthest thing from sophisticated and classy; he had come from one of the poorest systems of the Red Shift. Scruffy was the descriptor that came to his mind first. Not the kind of person Ulrich would be bringing along to important networking dinners with his colleagues. If the directors ever found about about him having a relationship like this, he could kiss his job and life at the GSA goodbye. And Missile Mouse had never felt this way before; he had never met a single person that caused him to seriously consider the possibilities of a long-term partnership. It had never been anything he wanted before. But now, the idea of one with Ulrich was making his heart flutter and he wanted it to stop.

There was no way in the universe that Ulrich would ever want someone as impulsive and messy as him. And if he did…well, Missile Mouse had no clue how to feel about it.

But love is a funny little thing. It can’t be shooed away with mental commands of no and stop and go away like a misbehaving foxcat. It’s subtle, worming its way into the mind. And once one realizes it’s there, it’s taken root, and it can’t be consciously picked out without endless patience. Rationalization doesn’t work; it only buries the feeling before it resurfaces even stronger than before. The only thing that can reliably coax it to leave is concrete proof that the muse in question is no longer a desirable source of inspiration.

And for Missile Mouse and Ulrich, such proof simply didn’t exist.

It wasn’t without trying though. Both of them spent the next few minutes going through every single rationalization they could, every dubious reason that could even mildly prove that their feelings for the other were senseless and irrational. But it was no use. They had exhausted every possible excuse, and the feelings still persisted. At that point, they had no other choice but to accept the truth, which somehow seemed scarier than anything either man had seen in their careers:

They cared about each other. Much more than either of them intended to or were willing to admit aloud. Much more than the majority of anyone else they worked with was bothered to, with Bitner being the only person even remotely close to being an exception. They had proved how much they were willing to give for each other, each willing to give up their own life to save the other the sacrifice. They had noticed when the other had been so out of sorts that it was becoming a serious issue. And they had trusted each other enough to share their deepest pains and fears and hopes with each other, knowing it would make them both better off and happier in the long run.

Missile Mouse and Ulrich cared about each other. They loved each other. As friends, as allies, as confidants…as something else as well, maybe. Something neither of them were quite brave enough to name.

Now they were standing at the edge of another cliff. Facing the galaxy as it slipped into uncertainty, side by side. Axius 3 may have been far behind them, but the future could bring anything to them. Maybe another star crusher someone had to eventually fall into. Something that would leave Ulrich and Missile Mouse holding onto each other, holding hands at the edge of oblivion.

But now, neither of them would be willing to let the other fall unless they both did.

Missile Mouse and Ulrich could only bring themselves to a single, verbal response:

“Oh no.”