janitorscloset | [meme] RvB & Halo AU Meme

"They are training these kids to die," Maine growls, the very idea of it making him sick. And having the best of them pulled for other units means hurting the unit they have.

"If you have a good AI... I would not suggest trying to get them into the files of my former company. That would be illegal. Even if the project has access to reduced size active camoflaugr units. Which might be adapted to even smaller units of only using small bursts of time. Bad thing to do, even with their less secure systems given the strangeness of their ship AI."

Maine understood some about AI. He knows there was no good way to keep the things away from their crew. The fact that whatever AI ran the ship hadn't seemed to have flipped out over the loss of AI many Freelancers was... worrying.

""I also wouldn't recommend looking into the Charon Corporation with whatever contacts they have, given I am certain they horde Covvie tech for R&D purposes and would likely enjoy ONI contracting to them for fear even if it was at a minor loss."

Just because he had never gotten into the politics of his project didn't mean he hadn't known a bit of what was going on. He had recognized the company's logo in the building, as well as the training of their 'Insurrectionists'. Those were UNSC troops no doubt, possibly even loaners.

Kurt's lips thinned to a bloodless slash as he visibly fought to control his reaction to Matt's statement. Not because he disagreed but because he had been struggling for twenty years to remain strong in the bitter reality of what the Spartan-III program was. "We have to train them to not die. Now you see why I need you, Matt? You and anyone else who can give them any kind of edge so that they can survive the suicide missions ONI puts them on. They play the numbers game. Three hundred lives paid for millions spared."

He heard what the other Spartan was saying and more importantly...what he wasn't saying. They had dumb AI who served a variety of capacities around the camp but what Matt was describing would need the abilities of a smart AI. Kurt spared a moment of regret for the loss of Deep Winter recently. It had been very accommodating and showed a great amount of concern for the Spartans who resisted at Currahee. It had used the last pieces of it's lifespan in an attempt to warn Kurt of the illegal cocktail of drugs incorporated into Gamma's augmentation procedures, never realizing Kurt had been the one who had them placed there.

Now, he was stuck with this unknown new AI who had been installed in Deep Winter's place. The info dump he'd received on the AI hadn't exactly filled him with a lot of hope. This new AI, Endless Summer seemed very standoffish and he had a feeling it might end up being difficult like Eternal Spring had been. He would have to wait and see.

"I will see what I can do. ONI has it's own smart AI that is housed on the planet but that might be a can of worms left undisturbed." He strongly suspected Matt had just been telling him a round about way who he needed to look into but if his brother wanted to skirt around it in hopes of maintaining some level of plausible deniability, he wouldn't rob him of that.

"We will figure it out," Maine insists firmly. He won't let them die. He will do all in his power to keep them alive. It was only right that he do so. Hopefully together they could do something different. Something big. Something to change all of this.

"I want to look over the specs deeper. Learned a lot about armor with my last gig. So I might be able to come up with more. I will do my best to that end actually."

Perhaps that might be the best arrangement. He frowns though at the situation. "Okay. So we need... we are going to have to wake them up soon. Be officially introduced. Schedules to be made while they adjust."

"Thank you, Matt." He said that with honest sincerity in his voice as he regarded the other Spartan. It was heartening in a way to see someone else just as determined to make sure that Gamma would not fall to the same fate as Alpha and Beta companies had.

"You'll have full access to everything we have. And...if this will help in any way, this as well." Kurt had to enter a completely different code in order to access the locker containing his MJOLRNIR armor. It was in pristine condition even after all these years because he'd spent countless hours learning the ins and outs of the armor even if he didn't wear it anymore. The power plant was still online and functioning smoothly to keep it ready and on standby for whenever he decided to take it up again.

"I expect there will be some grogginess so Mendez will only put them through some light paces today to help them loosen up and shake off the cob-webs from being in stasis. Tomorrow is when the real work will begin. Have you decided how you want to address the elephant in the room? Will you tell them you're Spartan?"

For a long time Matt doesn't answer. Mjolnir. He stands there for a moment, staring. He doesn't dare touch. He had never been deemed good enough for it. Even now he would get SPI if he ever wore anything. This was what a SPARTAN earned.

"Beautiful," he says softly. Envy I clearly there in his voice. Seeing it only reminds him, though, and Matt turns away.

"Might as well. They don't need to know I wasn't good enough for the armor. Knocking me down some might even build confidence."

Kurt hadn't worn it in almost twenty years himself because he'd had to divorce himself from that part of his past if he could survive as the man they expected him to be. Kurt-051 had died as far as anyone was concerned and now, Kurt Ambrose had to walk his own path. So in a way, he understood the complex emotions no doubt racing through Matt.

But he wasn't prepared to his hear brother speak of himself in such a self-deprecating manner and was shocked to find just how much it troubled him.

"Matt...it wasn't that you weren't good enough. You just had a bad reaction to the augmentations just like half the other people in our class did. That was not on you." Kurt being the person he was, the person he had become learning how to care for war-scarred orphans automatically sought to try and boost Matt's confidence and to try and make him see that he was not lacking just because he could not wear MJOLNIR. "You're still a Spartan even without this overpriced piece of tin. That is something you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt because you have been fighting in this war just like the rest of us and you're still alive which is more than way too many of our brothers and sisters can claim. That's why I'm trusting you to help me train Gamma so that they can survive as well."

"You take for granted what you had," Maine counters. Kurt never had to take that rejection, that failure. "You don't know, Kurt. You're lucky like that. Because you were chosen. To be more. To guide. To lead. I was discarded. You say I survived this war, but you've seen my record."

So many positions, no advancement, and nothing lasting. Too many instances where he was the last surviving member of a team. Plenty of time in the service in recovery until it had gotten to the point where he could feel the difference between a hairline fracture, a fracture, a break, or just a sprain. He knew it all. He was a mess of scars and he'd probably broken more bones than many other Spartans.

"You were wanted, Kurt. I wasn't because my hands shook a bit. Could have handled that. But no, can't give me a chance to deal with it. Can't see if there is a way to deal with my hearing. A far lesser man managed it. Our program didn't think it was worth it."

He hasn't been a Spartan for a very long time. If he can steal the title back now he will take it.

He didn't react in the face of all off that terrible, bottled up bitterness and resentment that poured from Matt like a wound that desperately needed to be lanced. In a way, he didn't necessarily disagree with what his brother said either.

But then, that was at its core, his major issues with Catherine Halsey summed up neatly. Her wastefulness and willingness to write off those who didn't meet her strident criteria out of hand.

"That is Catherine Halsey's short-sightedness. She is the one with the obsession with perfection, not me. You might not meet her exacting standards of what a Spartan is supposed to be but she's a civilian living in a perfect, self-created bubble. You and I have seen this war in all of its gruesome messiness. Yes, I think it's a complete waste that you've spent the past twenty years not being used to your fullest potential but the fact that you spent twenty years on the front lines and are still alive and kicking while plenty of our brothers and sisters have died says more about your skills than you give yourself credit for."

Kurt said with a deadly serious look on his face. "That armor does not make a Spartan. My III's have as much guts and heart as we ever did. Maybe even more so because they volunteered for this rather than being hijacked into this life. But they have given everything including their lives to stand between humanity and the Covenant. Which is what Spartan is at its core. And it hurts me to hear you dismiss your value so easily because you're just as much of a Spartan as me or any of my III's. Fancy equipment and perfect genes don't make us who we are, Matt and twenty years ago, if I'd been in the position I am now I would have snatched you up in a heartbeat because you have all the same training and ability as any of the other II's even if your hands shake a little and your hearing wasn't as good as it should have been."

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."

Kurt was trying to understand where Matt was coming from but it was hard for him because their paths had been so different. Sure, they’d both seen a life outside the program, had experienced things no other Spartan had probably ever known but Matt was right in one regard.

He hadn’t known the sting of rejection, hadn’t been labeled as unfit for duty because of a side-effect he had zero control over. Of course, Kurt would argue that Matt didn’t know his story either or the trials he’d faced. For the first time, he became aware of a gulf of distance between them. And it unnerved him because there had never been one there before.

It made him want to overcompensate, to prove to his brother that despite the time and distance, their relationship would not change. But it already had in a multitude of ways.

"I got the broad strokes. Something about lending you out to one of those magic bullet programs trying to figure out how to win the war. Never heard of the guy in charge but the briefing said he's a civilian scientist contracted through ONI and that he was doing something with some experimental armor and AI integration."

"They said AI, not that one was provided before you," Matt admits. If Kurt knows that much he can keep going, clearly.

"Had to lay in a more complex neural net than we already have. Don't know why. Whatever it was they did took out most of the shakes. Only happens now if I haven't slept for days. Still not the best shot."

The memories of Linda's disapproval almost made him want to laugh.

"Think they put in something for my hearing while I was under. Don't know. Don't have access to my own medical records. Don't have clearance for it."

How ironic was that? The very thought gets him to crack a smile and melts his tension. Kurt was still Kurt. Matt's bitterness was something he had learned to put behind him. It was the armor Kurt didn't even wear that made him upset. He had no intention of ever looking at it again.

That earned Matt a curious look because he hadn't been told that interesting tidbit of information about him needing a more complex neural net installed.

"Sounds like they were maybe doing the upgrade to support an onboard AI passenger maybe?" Kurt himself was still equipted with the original neutral net implant and never had his upgraded mainly because he saw no need for it. He didn't wear any of the newer, more upgraded MJOLNIR, didn't even wear his original suit because he didn't particularly feel like he was worthy of wearing it these days.

Matt might judge him for that if he'd known but they both had their own secret traumas they were working through and as it was becoming clear, they'd both gotten good at holding onto their secrets.

"I'm glad they were able to help you out as much as they did then."

"Maybe they helped me but they tried to tear people down," Maine counters. The very memory makes him angry.

"What I'm here for is to build up. These Spartans of yours, they're going to live, Kurt. I'll give them everything I've learned. I will do everything I can. Just tell me how I can help you."

He wants to start moving. Start doing something. Or maybe they can let Mendez and the younger Spartan Bravos take over. He almost wants to just sit with Kurt and play cards and talk about techniques and maybe spar a little. Be friends while they can.

Kurt was visibly troubled and obviously wanted to say something to that but couldn’t come up with anything to say. He hadn’t been given that much information about the shadowy Project Freelancer beyond the broadest of strokes. Ackerson had implied Leonard Church was cut from the same cloth as Catherine Halsey which was yielded more like it was a curse than a compliment. He took that to mean the man was a civilian scientist who didn’t care whose toes he stepped on with his single-minded focus on attaining his goals.

The man didn’t seem to be kidnapping children and replacing them with flash clones though so at least the man hadn’t stooped to that level yet.

“That’s what I want, thank you, Matt.” Kurt said sincerely and clapped the other man on the shoulder tightly in an attempt to convey just how much that meant to him. He was demonstrative for a Spartan but even he wasn’t the huggy type and that brusque touch was about all he knew to offer.

“Let’s continue the tour and grab some grub from the mess before things get too crowded. You’ll pleased to hear we have plenty of chocolate pudding to go around.”

"I eat more than pudding," Matt laughs as he moves to Kurt's side. Another time, another situation leading up to the tension, he might have indulged in a hug. A brief one. An arm wrapped around a shoulder. That much he had gotten somewhat okay with, given the behavior of some of the other Freelancers.

Truth be told, though, all he manages is a pat on Kurt's back. "Let Mendez work. After all he put me through, I'd like to see him shout at someone else before I step in to help."

Tomorrow is soon enough to meet the new Spartans, to introduce himself. To let them know that it gets real from now on.

“I should hope so or we’d have to have an intervention for you.” Kurt teased with a laugh as he and Matt left the armory behind. It didn’t escape the brunette that he’d probably laughed and felt happier in the past few weeks than he’d been in the past decade.

He sensed Tom and Lucy had noted the change in his demeanor and Mendez had given the two of them some knowing looks but thus far hadn’t called the two Spartans out. But honestly, he was just too damned thrilled to be reunited not only with a fellow II but also his original squad mate and the man who was as close as he had to a brother in everything but blood.

“Heh, Mendez hasn’t lost a step even with age. Sometimes I’ll hear him shouting at the recruits all the way across the compound and have to fight the urge to snap to attention myself.” He confessed with a wry look.

"When I heard him back when you heard me..." Matt shakes his head and smirks briefly. "I almost did. Wasn't sure how to handle it. That he would be there."

Stranger still was the way Mendez treated him. But knowing now what he knew of Mendez's long work with Kurt, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Thing was he didn't know how to process that. He felt young, he felt hopeful, he felt like he might be home, and none of it made sense after everything he'd been through, after everywhere he'd gone and all the things he'd done and all the people he'd known.

"So... which of the kitchen staff do I have to butter up for that pudding?" Matt teased lightly. He needed to get some once in a while. Make sure the staff knew he liked it in case they chose to favor him with their fondness.

"It's strange, meeting him as an adult and on more equal footing." Kurt agreed softly with a wry twist to his mouth. For him, it had been even stranger because he'd outranked Mendez when they were reunited and finding the scrip flipped completely with the other man acting deferential to him had been a bit of a mind trip at first.

"First time he called me 'sir' I was ridiculously glad for my helmet because otherwise, Alpha company would have had to watch me pick my jaw up off the floor and it would have set a terrible example." He was exaggerating somewhat of course but it had definitely been a surreal moment.

Matt asking him which of the kitchen staff he had to bribe to get an in on the chocolate pudding market in and around Currahee dragged a laugh from the base commander. "I'd start with buttering up the requisitions officer myself. They're the ones in control of what gets put on the resupply lists."

Edited 2017-09-15 02:33 (UTC)

"Sir," Matt shakes his head, because really, he's never been called sir except by people on shore leave. Fact of the matter was that Spartans didn't really get rank, except for John and Kurt. The point was that they didn't need it. They were followers, not leaders.

He supposed that was going to change, or had changed with Kurt.

"Rec officer? Yeah, point me at them," Matt smirks. That was going to work. At least for him. Now he just had to figure out a suitable bribe.

“Trust me, it took a while for that title to not feel super weird.” Kurt admitted almost conspiratorially. “I certainly never planned on being an officer but I couldn’t very well run this entire camp as just a non-com.” Ackerson had given him his lieutenant’s bars but Kurt’s hard work had helped him to climb the ranks to Lieutenant Commander all on his own.

“You’re asking me to help you game my own requisitions systems?” He teased with a bland look but the twinkle of devilment in his eyes betrayed him. Kurt was amused rather than put out by it. “Don’t tell me your recon skills are so rusty you need to be told who holds which rank and position at a base this small?”

"I was thinking that, as your best friend, you'd spare me some effort," Matt counters, smirking. He can do it himself. Hell, he could probably do it with just intimidation skills, he had a lot of those. But that didn't chance the fact that he had a preference for the easy way. Soon things weren't going to be easy at all and he wanted to bask in that before it was gone.

Too soon things would be gone. Including these new recruits.

"Food, cards, sleep," Matt decides. Those are his priority now, with a connection to Kurt built in. They won't be able to be as close to each other after this. They'll have responsibilities. And he doesn't want those. He just wants his friend. Everything else is something expected of him after that.

Now if only they had Linda here.

“It seems to me, I would be doing you a disservice by letting your skills grow any more rusty and disused.” Kurt countered with a matching smirk. Contrary to his teasing, he knew the chances that Matt had grown that rusty were all but impossible.

Some things were just ingrained too deeply into them and the ability to gather intel was as second nature as breathing to a Spartan. He knew Matt would soon enough figure out the inner workings of Camp Currahee as though the man had been stationed here for years rather than a handful of days.

“Let’s check number one off of that list. And hopefully you brought that deck we were playing with back on the Hopeful because these days, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to sneak in a hand of cards so I doubt I have any back in my quarters.”

Matt huffs at the idea that not letting him sniff around would be a disservice. But if Kurt is going to play at that he will prove himself worthy. Give him time. He will manage. Even if it will take some time. Thing was he was less practiced now than he had been when they were young.

"You really think I stole those cards from the enlisteds?"

How dare he? Well, in Kurt's defense he could be certain Matt had them in his highly lacking sack they had dropped at his room. There had been no time or chance to return the cards before. They would be able to get them easily to play.

"Let me get them and meet you? This time you get the food and we actually play a hand or two."

Kurt had just been giving him a heard time mainly because he was fully confident Matt could weasel that information out all on his own. Linda had been one of the best at running an intelligence network back during Boot and they’d picked up more than a few tricks from her over the years.

“I had simply assumed you got them from the commissary.” He had no idea the terrifying Freelancer Agent Maine had intimidated a couple of hapless enlisted men into giving up their cards.

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll be sure the charm the cooks out of a couple pudding packs to celebrate your arrival on Onyx.” He said with a boyish looking smile that had both dimples flashing briefly. With that, he left Matt there and headed off in the direction of the mess hall to procure them both some food and also the aforementioned chocolate pudding.

Were this a Freelancer and not Kurt he would have flatly joked that he could kiss Kurt for the pudding.

Going back to his room is interesting. Lord help him, Matt stopped inside of his door, basking for a moment in his space. Just for him. He didn't have to share. This space was his to do with as he pleased. Where he didn't have to listen to other people gossip or have sex. No one else breathing. No one praying. And it had dimensions suited to a SPARTAN.

After he breathes it in for a moment he fetched the cards out of his bag and made his way for Kurt's office. He knew where that was but he would need more direction to find. And with the cards in hand he waited for his friend to come back. Because off hours Kurt was his friend and brother first.

[meme] RvB & Halo AU Meme

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