Bitter. If Matt knew it was a term being applied to him, he would have laughed. There had been a time, not long after Halsey had dismissed him and before his first posting that he had wondered what it had all been for. He had no memory at all of what life had been before he had been taken. The fact that his name was Matt only survived because it had been used since day one. At this point he couldn't even say whether it was his full first name or not, he had lost so very much. Had he possessed a family, had he been loved? Was he from a core world or a colony? Was his home planet glasses? Was he an orphan or did his parents still live out there, still hold on to his favorite toy?

Matt was a mystery to himself, and Spartan had been everything. The men and women he grew up with had been his family. Kurt and Linda practically real siblings in his mind given they had been set up day one as a unit.

No records would ever show that the young man, deemed unfit for Halsey's project, had wondered if his dead brothers and sisters weren't luckier. If the crippled ones weren't luckier. Whether he should cease. After his first deployment he wished he could become a real soldier, but even that hadn't really worked out. Nowhere seemed to last. He had no home like Spartan had been to him growing up.

And none of it could be said. Not even now. After all this time apart he still wasn't sure he could trust even Kurt to know how close he was to just giving up. How he saw this as his second chance to prove himself. To belong. To find a family.

There was only one thing he could think of to say, only one thing he could say despite his almost clenched teeth and his tightly balled fists giving away how wound up he really was.

"They don't shake much anymore. Almost never unless I'm tired. The last job, they. I don't know how read in you are. They helped. I would pass her standards now."