[ The Enclave invasion of the Commonwealth is easy to miss, when it begins. Easy enough that Danse does miss it, despite having cut his teeth on the war against the Enclave back in the Capital Wasteland and earned his promotion to paladin for his valor in it. To him, it's mostly a matter of complacency--why worry about them anymore when the Brotherhood took care of them so decisively over a decade ago? He isn't looking for a reason to revisit history, and so he doesn't see it.
There's a slight question of desensitization, too. The only reason he hadn't shot the first eyebot he'd seen in the Commonwealth was because Rhys had been quicker on the draw and taken it out first, but the next time the squad had encountered one, they'd heard its message before being able to pinpoint where it was coming from, and it had turned out to be nothing but an ad for Wattz Consumer Electronics. The little floating bastards had proven surprisingly useful, actually, in directing them toward old treasure troves of weapons and supplies, and he's long since fallen out of the habit of attacking them, even if he doesn't bother to listen to what they're broadcasting anymore either.
(Though he has begun to cast a warier eye on them of late, ever since Arcade had explained that the models are prone to explosive self-destruction if not safely taken out at range. Danse has never seen one do that, and he's pretty sure the citizens of Diamond City wouldn't suffer them to hover around the streets if one had ever caused any damage there--but he'll always be more inclined to trust Arcade's scholarly expertise over the reliability of janky pre-war technology. What reason would he have to lie?)
The music doesn't get the chance to set his teeth on edge, either. There's only one specific frequency he needs to tune into for orders from the Castle, and he rarely bothers in his leisure time with anything other than Travis "Much Improved" Miles or the Charles River Trio these days. He'd already more or less managed to avoid the treacly tedium of Enclave Radio back in the Capital, first by having better music options and then by being outright forbidden to listen anyway, but not all of his colleagues had been so fortunate. He recalls the first time Nora had set up a radio beacon to entice new settlers to the region, how proud of herself she'd been for finding pleasant cheerful patriotic music to play between the repeating messages--remembers overhearing, too, as Deacon had gently taken her aside and mentioned that the songs in question "have some not-awesome connotations now, boss," and been interrupted by MacCready's sharp and far less tactful "Turn that crap off!"
But here they are on the airwaves again, shrill renditions of "Dixie" and "America the Beautiful" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and more, on channels entirely unrelated to settlement recruitment and easy to stumble across without really trying. The eyebots drifting across the abandoned highways and through the dirty streets near Goodneighbor are still mostly playing ads for long-defunct and looted businesses, but among them, indistinguishable except that they look a little newer and cleaner, are a few with an ominous new message: "The Enclave is back, America. And no, not just on your radio. Right now, Enclave troops are patrolling the Commonwealth."
The last word is faintly garbled, as if edited in later by a different voice, before the message continues. "These fine men and women have one mission: the restoration of American peace and order. Don't you, my darling America, deserve that? Don't you deserve a future free of war, and fear, and terrible uncertainty? Of course you do."
[ Arcade doesn't miss it. But he has the benefit of years of paranoia, rather than complacency, backing his already heightened skills of observation. And some part of him has always been prepared for the worst.
He's just been wrong this whole time about what the worst would actually entail.
It was foolish of him to think he could disappear and leave his past behind, that he could travel as far as travel would allow, and none of those bad things would ever find him. But it was Rangers he was expecting. Maybe even Brotherhood stragglers, whatever might've been left of the Hidden Valley chapter, after Hoover. Men with guns and no particular love for the source of all the contradictory propaganda now playing on hijacked airwaves across the Commonwealth. Not that Arcade has any, either. But guilt by association is still a crime punishable by death, in the Wasteland. And this far from NCR territory, there wouldn't even be the pretense of a mock trial.
Somehow, though, it's none of that. And having only been prepared his whole life for one version of the worst outcome possible, he isn't braced for this new one. He doesn't hide it well, either, moody and distracted and always too busy, all of a sudden. He has plans to make, though, messages to send. (He's lied about a lot of things, since he found his way to Goodneighbor, chief among them that he came all this way largely on his own.) He has things to unearth and repurpose once again.
It would've been impossible to go unnoticed sneaking an entire suit of original issue Tesla power armor into town with him, and besides that, Arcade's smart enough not to want to. The Remnants no longer keep a centralized bunker, but have split their cache between a few remote locales. (Maybe as a result of having been dug up once, already, none of them felt quite right going back to the status quo.) Arcade's is north of town, at an old Poseidon facility too run down to be host to much wildlife or any raiders. It also contains the least: only his father's armor and a few firearms, ammunition.
He makes the hike there alone, as he intends to do all of this, at least until the reinforcements come. If they do. He hasn't waited for verification, but while he knows it's reckless, he doesn't feel like he can afford to. Every minute he wastes is another minute that "Enclave troops are patrolling the Commonwealth."
The message repeats, staticky on the radio behind him, as he leans into the suit through its open back, checking the lining, the wiring. He may not be a mechanic, but he knows the maintenance of this particular piece of machinery inside and out. Even while he can feel his pulse beating at his temple, anger and anxiety a sickening milieu in his head, he isn't going through the motions. He's meticulous, focused. He doesn't hear the door, doesn't expect there to be any reason someone should've followed him, let alone all the way down to this well-hidden bunker. Or perhaps been pointed in its direction by a well-informed acquaintance. ]
[ It's less a well-informed acquaintance and more a game of telephone, because if Danse knew precisely where Nora had gotten her intel, he wouldn't have trusted a word of it, and if the quiet request to go look into things hadn't come directly from her and been phrased as an order, he would have refused. His loyalty is a force to be reckoned with when he decides to commit it, and these days, the only person who commands more of it than Arcade does--and then only professionally, situationally--is the General to whom he owes his very life.
It's not that he hasn't been hurt by the sudden distance between them. If it had come on more gradually, it would be preoccupying him with worry, making him wonder if he'd done something to cause it, offended Arcade somehow or been too high-maintenance a partner or simply been replaced in his affections by someone else, all the usual things that tend to cross a person's mind under circumstances like these.
He's entertained these thoughts only at sparse intervals, because they don't really add up. He knows Arcade well enough now to know when he's upset, even if he doesn't know why; he knows that it's likely some impetus that has nothing to do with their relationship at all, given how the moodiness and brushing-off had begun all but overnight. He'd asked, of course, and in the continued absence of a thorough explanation had lost his temper somewhat and snapped that Arcade knew where to find him when he was ready to quit avoiding the issue. Had he not been ordered to come here instead, he would have turned up at Arcade's place in Goodneighbor to apologize.
Because how could he want to do anything but that, really? However suspicious this might all look, however much he wants answers for himself, Danse still trusts Arcade enough not to go stalking him across the Commonwealth of his own volition as if trying to catch him at a crime. But orders are orders, and here he is, having taken a slightly different route to the bunker (stealth is not his forte, not in his own suit of power armor) and not completely expecting to find Arcade there at all, let alone anything else in this little tableau. ]
What in the name of god is going on here?
[ His tone is accusatory, as he takes in that incriminatingly-familiar model of armor, but quietly so. It can't be what it looks like. Surely, it can't. ]
[ His own anger evaporates like a fine mist, a wave of heat that turns bitterly cold in an instant when he turns from the armor and locks eyes with Danse. Arcade doesn't look like he's slept, not for a while, dark circles under his eyes, his hair in disarray, and more stubble on his jaw than he ever allows for long. The smudges of oil on his fingers and forearms and neck don't help, standing out like bruises in the harsh, white light illuminating his makeshift hideout.
For a moment he doesn't move, or breathe, or blink. Then something in him punctures, deflates. He drops his gaze, jaw clenching against whatever immediate justification, whatever ultimately empty platitude leaps to the forefront, first.
It's not what it looks like only gets them so far. He'll still have to explain what it is. So why not just cut right to the bone?
He gestures toward the radio, now playing some quiet, tinny stream of treacly fanfare. ]
The Enclave is here. Or someone pretending to be them, but that's bad enough.
Regardless, I'm putting a stop to it. [ At the very least, he's going to try. And he isn't going to sit around, waiting for someone else to make all the hard decisions for him, this time. ]
[ The information available to the Minutemen right now is sparse, not even as much as Arcade himself has pieced together, save for a few other reports and rumors of civilian deaths that aren't being broadcast anywhere--but almost none of it has been given to Danse yet. He's been told only that there's a potential threat his Brotherhood training makes him the best-equipped to investigate, and that there's some reason to believe Arcade might know something about it, and no mention had been made of the personal relationship that ought to make such an investigation a conflict of interest, because these things don't matter in the law of the wasteland either.
The General has picked up some Machiavellian cunning from the Railroad. She'd known perfectly well that had she mentioned the Enclave and accused Arcade of anything to Danse's face, he would have refused to believe it and denied it to the point of insubordination, and then the bad blood on all sides would have been difficult to overcome had she been wrong. But sending him to do his own research, in essence--letting his mind fill in the gaps on the way with his own concerns and suspicions, given how Arcade has been acting, and how familiar Danse already is with his opposition to just about everything the Brotherhood believes--is a solution that seems likely to yield the most useful results, if not the happiest outcome.
And there hadn't been anything yet to accuse him of. No real evidence of suspicious associations, let alone proof. This, here, is evidence--but Danse isn't processing it as such, not immediately, still reeling from the far more pressing and horrifying knowledge that the Enclave has rebuilt its strength to such a degree, and is here on their doorstep with no local military force any the wiser or ready to strike back.
The armor is momentarily forgotten in favor of evaluating Arcade himself. Danse is skilled enough at compartmentalizing to also push aside the part of himself that aches with concern to see him in such a worn and weary state, but the inarguable conviction in his voice seems right and expected at first blush. Of course Arcade would abhor the Enclave and want them driven back; Danse certainly knows his political leanings well enough by now to expect nothing else from him. Only after a few moments' thought do questions begin to flood in again. ]
No. This isn't making sense. Setting entirely aside the question of where you even acquired this--
[ He gestures to the armor, as if he isn't wearing a near-identical suit of X-01 as they speak. That isn't the most pressing question, though it's up there. He wants, at first, to ask what Arcade would even know about the Enclave, when the ones who'd fled the West to wreak havoc in the Capital must surely have done so before he was born. But there are innocuous potential explanations for that, too, when one has incentive to grasp at straws for them. ]
If you're so hell-bent on stopping them, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me about any of this?
[ That's the heart of it, really. He can't make it completely impersonal, not even with effort, and all of his other questions circle back around to that one in the end. ]
[ And, to a lesser and far more selfish extent, because he didn't want to have this conversation. It'd have been bad enough if the last time he ever saw Danse, it was in the midst of a brief, heated argument, entirely his own fault. But he could have lived with that (maybe - barely). It was far from ideal, but this look of betrayed confusion wasn't there. That simmering note of accusation wasn't, either.
Arcade, for his part, merely sounds resigned. Determined, unmoved, but as if that overwhelming weariness has finally begun to hit him.
There's a rusting metal chair pulled up to the table the radio is set up on, surrounded by annotated maps, both hand-drawn and pieced together. But Arcade only glances at the seat, as if he considers taking it for all of one instant before giving up on the idea of rest altogether.
Instead he steps back toward the armor, looking up at it under the harsh lights as he rests a hand against the open back of it. ]
This belonged to my father. He was an officer stationed at a base called Navarro, on the coast.
I still don't have the full picture of how things were, here, but back west the Enclave was more or less wiped out before I was even born. Only isolated outposts remained, and the NCR and Brotherhood made short work of most - or maybe even all - of those. I was five, I think? When they got to us.
[ He drops his arm, looking back at Danse with apology in his cast of his eyes and the furrow in his brow, but no less conviction. ]
...Ever since then, I've been running from it, I guess. Trying to make up for the things my father had to pledge allegiance to just to survive.
[ And somehow, still, never managing to get far enough. ]
[ At another time, Danse would bristle with offense, temper flaring again with the still-unhealed pain of the losses at Adams, at the idea that repelling an Enclave invasion could somehow not be his responsibility.
But he isn't prone to speaking over Arcade, not even in anger, and not now of all times, when answers are so much more important than grudges. Certainly not when he can tell that a fight of any kind is the last thing Arcade needs, verbal or otherwise. Danse has never seen him look this exhausted before--and with their similarly unhealthy sleep schedules, there's been competition for that superlative.
Barely-consciously borrowing the technique Arcade uses to get him to go to bed when he should, Danse steps out of his own armor with a hiss and a clank, perching himself on the edge of the table because it's the only other seat available. He needs the rest far less right now, but if he takes it, Arcade has no excuse not to. And he listens.
He's known from the very beginning that there was some kind of conversation to be had here, something making Arcade so thoroughly deflect all of Danse's infatuated curiosity about his past, and continue doing so no matter how intimate they'd otherwise become or how much he came to know about Danse's origins in turn. There had been a time when Danse had wondered if it wasn't something similar to his own predicament--amnesia, false memories, things simply not tangible enough to be worth talking about--but the explanation hadn't fit.
He understands now that the similarity runs far deeper than that, even if different in nature. The thought occurs to him that he's glad he'd gotten out of his armor when he had. This is not a conversation where he should be looming over Arcade and dressed for war, not while hearing him talk about running for his life as a child with the Brotherhood in pursuit, whether that's in a more literal or a metaphorical sense. He doesn't know and it doesn't matter.
Even if Arcade were speaking with defiance or blame right now, Danse would let him do it without protest, but the contrition on his face when their eyes finally meet again is so unexpected it startles him, and the expression in his own eyes is unguarded, sympathetic distress. It hasn't even been a year yet of looking over his own shoulder in a panic when he thinks he hears a vertibird or a laser or a distant ad victoriam, and to think that this is how Arcade has had to spend his entire life--
And all of it for a crime he could never even have been complicit in, let alone committed. He begins to ask if the NCR truly is so draconian as to punish children for the sins of their fathers, willingly committed or not, but he realizes that this doesn't matter either. There are Brotherhood officers even here who would consider it justice to take the casualties of the Capital out on Arcade if they knew, cry "For the Citadel!" while beating a man who'd never set foot anywhere near it, and know Maxson would turn a blind eye. ]
It...it all makes sense now. Maybe I should already have suspected. I don't know.
[ The pause before this has been so long that he's afraid it will have looked like silent condemnation, but he's been at a loss for any other words. ]
But you haven't done anything to make up for. Not the way you're telling it. Not enough to go running at the enemy half-cocked with no backup like you're trying to go out in a blaze of glory. You were a child, for god's sake.
[ Maybe I should already have suspected feels like a not-so-silent condemnation, after that long pause, to Arcade's exhausted mind. He expects the worst, though, even now. Even from someone he knows better than that, trusts more than that. Because it's how things are supposed to go, the awful way this all comes to an end, by any logical measure.
Then he takes note of the distress in Danse's expression, the deliberate efforts he's making to deescalate this situation, already. If it weren't for the look on his face, he'd almost seem at ease, there, half-seated on a table filled with Arcade's furious notes and meticulous triangulation of the past several weeks.
Arcade swallows around what feels like a heavy, dry stone lodged in his throat, looking away again. There's still that other shoe to drop, of course. ]
This isn't half-cocked. [ Firm and insistent, as he crosses back to the table, to where Danse is. Arcade shuffles aside a few loose scraps of paper - as easily as he does the idea of his innocence, the very notion of debating it - straightening out the apparent mess before them. ]
I've been tracking them - these broadcasts, rumors, the area they have those eyebots patrolling. I have two likely sites where they could be holed up, and maybe a third—
[ His briefly re-energized fury takes a hit, guilt flashing in again as he glances sidelong at Danse. ]
[ Danse never had quite forgotten the pointed oddness of Arcade's response to his confession about being created by the Institute. He'd sounded more familiar with the details of their philosophy than anyone from clear across the country had a reason to be--but eugenicists are the same everywhere, at their core, and Arcade might not have been engineered in a lab himself, but it's never been lost on Danse either how he stands out among the stunted and malnourished wastelanders around him. He'd supposed maybe people were just generally taller and healthier out west. And that maybe plasma weapons were commonplace there, for all he would know.
None of it had been enough, either on its own or together, to push him to a conclusion like this, but in hindsight, it seems more obvious than it really was. But for all that, it isn't condemnation, and Arcade clearly realizes that now as well. Danse looks down at the paperwork on the table, getting up off it again to better evaluate it, his own stomach sinking as the scale of the problem fully dawns on him.
The General had been right after all, at least in part. Wrong about Arcade's suspected motives, but that can be dealt with later. If there's anything Danse will condemn here, with lingering sub-surface anger, it's having been kept in the dark about something of this import when Arcade knew this much about it, but the guilt on Arcade's face goes some way toward halting that argument for now. ]
What do you mean, you already have backup? None of the forces in the region are prepared to move on this. The Minutemen are still scouting, and if the Brotherhood had any clue about it they'd already be going scorched-earth.
[ Arcade takes a half-step back, leaning on a hand, and lets Danse have the maps and the notes to himself. The layout is fairly self-explanatory, anyway, the information easy enough to parse, despite Arcade's shorthand and the hasty, messy script most of it's written in.
The Minutemen aren't ready, and the Brotherhood doesn't have a clue, but— ]
The Remnants are.
[ There's a cautious, tentative tone in his voice as he offers this, as though it is a confession of far greater weight than his own past ties to the Enclave. In a way, of course, it is. He's admitting to the only real crime he can be said to have committed - aiding and abetting wanted criminals, decades' worth of it. But he's also outing them, people who have given up their own lives in the service of safe-guarding his. His family, all that he has left of one.
There is a painful sincerity in the look he levels at Danse, pleading with him to understand. He can be as angry as he wants, they can argue as much as he'd like - but right now, he won't talk Arcade down from this. It's a machine he's already put in motion. ]
You said it yourself: I was a child when Navarro fell. I wouldn't have made it out alive if I had to escape on my own.
[ Let alone survived this long outside the carefully controlled and monitored confines of any Enclave facility. He owes them that, too. ]
I made it out with my mother, and my father's old company. We're short a few of that initial number, these days. But no one else is better equipped, literally and figuratively, to deal with a threat like this.
[ The lede is buried well enough there to circumvent what would otherwise have been a knee-jerk refusal to accept this, the old thought-terminating Brotherhood tribalism taking over and walling him off. Had Arcade led with the insistence that Danse entrust any part of this fight to actual Enclave veterans, he could never have brought himself to agree. But the initial phrasing makes the Remnants sound more like just some local militia he hasn't heard of yet, or at worst, some shadowy organization like the Railroad that he can grudgingly coexist with if someone he cares about vouches for them.
And in a sense, once all is said, this is precisely what they are. The desperation on Arcade's face is already eroding his defenses, finding gaps and weakening his resolve, when it's already taken a beating from these weeks of missing their usual closeness and another sucker punch from the worryingly worn-out state Danse has found him in. He recoils a little, as expected, at the explanation of exactly who these people are--but when it's being hammered home this hard that they're the reason Arcade is here right now, Danse can't deny that he owes them something himself. Consideration, if nothing else--though not of that particular claim. ]
I am.
[ He leaves it at that, flat and unqualified, because it isn't a boast. He can elaborate on his credentials when they're done. But he has to decide what to do about this, mind beginning to reel again, enough to make him sit back down on the table as he works through it. ]
They've been here in the Commonwealth this entire time? And you know for an absolute fact that none of their loyalties are suspect?
Their loyalties have always been to each other first, not the Enclave.
[ And if he had reason to suspect it was any different, after more than thirty years of living like this, he'd have taken his chance and left them behind in the Mojave, too. There's no doubt in him, his answer confident and immediate. There may be cracks in the whole, disagreements and old dislikes - but they've stuck together, this long, hinged on nothing but that old promise. On the memory of his father's good will. If they were going to be swayed by propaganda or promises of impossible futures, they would have been decades ago. ]
After my father died, and since Navarro, they've been busy living thoroughly unremarkable lives.
[ Almost all of them, anyway. Henry still has more ambition than all of them combined, but he's up to slightly less fantastical things than medicating super mutants and transplanting brains for aging cyberdogs, lately. ]
But always in close orbit to mine. They wouldn't pick this fight, themselves, but if I asked them to...
[ Well, they'd do just about anything.
The notion brings that guilt back to the surface again, and maybe in it Danse can see just a hint of Arcade's reasoning for not asking for his help, too. There's more to it than the weight of dragging someone else into this fight, but on the surface there's more than a little of that worry. That he doesn't have the right to ask this of anybody, let alone one more person who'd drop everything to help. ]
[ All of this is still testing the limits of what a veteran of the Brotherhood-Enclave War can be asked to take on faith, but the borders are holding. He does have enough faith for that. The conviction in Arcade's voice doesn't put Danse's doubts to rest, but it quiets them enough to let him carry on. And that "if" is more worth pursuing right now than any further interrogation about the past (though that will come, now that the door is open for it.) ]
...You mean that you haven't asked them yet.
[ He won't be stubborn or resentful enough to tell himself that concern for him wouldn't have played any part in why Arcade left him out of the loop. There are a lot of reasons, some of them glaringly obvious now, but he will let himself register that worry, and let it blunt the sharp edges of upset so that his voice stays calm when he speaks. ]
Listen to me. I understand now why this is personal for you. And why you didn't tell me before, given...all of the history at play here. But that's exactly why I need to come with you.
[ This is no more up for debate now than Arcade going himself, but it's just as much a jumble of confused too-close-to-home reasoning. It's not a situation that can be evaluated dispassionately from a distance. ]
You said you weren't familiar with everything that transpired on this side of the country. I have more experience with it than anyone in the Commonwealth who isn't up on the Prydwen right now. Defending civilians from the Enclave has always been my responsibility, exile or not. But aside from all of that--
[ Compartmentalization has its limits, at a time like this. He breaks, just-perceptibly, shoulders sagging as he reaches quietly for Arcade's hand and catches it just at the fingertips. ]
Arcade, you mean the world to me. You can't possibly expect me to just sit on my hands and do nothing while you put your life on the line. It's downright absurd.
[ Quick and defensive, because he isn't that reckless, to be this far into making preparations without any idea of when backup might arrive. Or that it will, at all.
But his face falls again a second after that forceful confirmation, something like chagrin creeping in, as he looks anywhere else but at Danse. ]
I just... haven't heard back, yet. Not from all of them.
[ They don't communicate directly, for obvious reasons. None of them except for Arcade and Daisy, at least. And even those letters are couched in decades' worth of coded language. But the delay means some things are still up in the air. That he's just taking it on faith that he isn't charging blindly into a bad corner, alone.
Which isn't really a defensible position, so he isn't going to try.
It's almost a relief when Danse seizes the moment to argue his own case. Almost, because it does nothing to loosen the knot of fear and anger and anxiety tangled around Arcade's ribs, sitting heavy and tight in the center of his chest. But at least it isn't an argument he intends to rebuff.
These are facts he has already considered, naturally. But his reasons - beyond the pure, self-interested survival instinct in not coming clean sooner - for not bringing someone with Danse's knowledge and experience to the table, too, are less rational than sentimental.
When Danse's hand touches his, it seems to trip the last frayed wire keeping him running. The air goes out of him, as he folds, finally, to collapse into the chair beside him. His hand slips over Danse's, gripping it firmly. ]
...Between the Institute and the Brotherhood, you've barely had a chance to live your own life. Who am I to ask you to put it at risk all over again?
[ All of this, of course, is bigger than both of them. Has much farther-reaching implications than the potential ends it might put to either of their lives, really. Still. He never wanted to be the reason Danse ended up back in this situation, either way. ]
What the hell's the point of a life that involves cowering in a settlement instead of defending against a threat? You know me better than that.
[ The way he clasps that hand tight in both of his own is incongruous with the fierce indignation in his tone, but it's a gesture both second-nature and born of genuine relief, at seeing Arcade sit and rest and at the reciprocation that lets him know they're all right. Affectionate touch is never exactly mutually exclusive with lecturing, on either of their parts. No matter how moved he might genuinely be, on a different level, by the sentiment that he's loudly protesting. ]
You know good and goddamn well that if I'd found out about this before you did, I'd already be there. You're not asking me to do something against my will; I'm telling you not to leave me out of something that's as much my duty as yours.
[ He would say that it's arguably more so, because he signed up for it on purpose while Arcade never asked to be born into it, but the mention of the Institute cuts that argument off before it even fully forms. It puts in perspective for him exactly how incandescently furious Arcade must be at this incursion, when Danse would probably manage to shoot lasers out of his eyes like Liberty Prime at anyone who tried to tell him he had less investment in the Institute's destruction than the Railroad does.
In that light, he can understand this as a matter of honor, righteous vengeance, the kind of storybook notions he still clings to and probably always will, but that doesn't mean Arcade shouldn't have help with it. But this leads back to the question of their reinforcements, and Danse exhales slowly as he considers the timeline. ]
How much longer were you planning to wait on the response? Because you're in no shape to march or fight without a good rest anyway.
[ There are miles of ground to cover between a life lived cowering in a settlement and one potentially thrown away on the altar of just and necessary vengeance. But Arcade isn't going to debate those details with him, now. (No matter how much he usually enjoys it.) There's no real matter to argue here. Danse is coming with him, one way or another, and Arcade isn't going to be the one to push him toward another.
Maybe tellingly, he doesn't wilt the way someone probably should, on the receiving end of all of that sharp, reprimanding insistence. Instead, he smiles, soft and tired and not entirely what one might describe as happy, but real, as his hand relaxes in between both of Danse's. He isn't about to let go, but maybe he doesn't have to hold on so tightly, either.
It's a short-lived moment, though, when that question drags him back to the present. And reminds him of the terrified jumble of questions that skittered across the top of his own mind, when he turned to find himself not so alone down here anymore. His brow furrows, as he glances across the hectic array of notes and pieced together maps in front of him, dragging his free hand through his already mussed hair. ]
Only until dawn. I feel like I've wasted too much time, already. But I needed to be sure.
[ And to have some time to prepare, even if most of what he's done has been redundant, too cautious.
Those frown lines deepen as he looks up at Danse again, unsure. ]
...I'd also like to know how you found me. Not for nothing, but if anyone else knows where we are, we might not even have those few hours to wait.
[ He'd never expect Arcade to wilt, not in the face of this or anything else, but that smile in its unexpectedness manages to be contagious. It's one thing, common enough, for Danse to derive grim satisfaction from the prospect of battle with a particularly hated nemesis, but another entirely--newer, rarer, a capability he owes to Arcade--to look forward more to the peace after the fight than to the fight itself. And with the secrets between them laid bare now, it's even more hopeful a prospect--
--but not without its obstacles, still, as Danse too is forced to admit. Even presuming they survive this, which is already further ahead of himself than Danse likes to get, it's a more than valid question, and he wishes he didn't have to answer it. ]
It's...not as immediate a problem as that. I came on the General's orders. I don't know who tipped her off about this location and I don't like any of the guesses I can hazard, but the fact that I'm the one she sent to investigate--
[ When he assembles the whole picture now, there's a slightly troubling hint of deja vu about it, almost as if she'd taken the page from Maxson's playbook, but he can't fathom why she would. He shakes it off. ]
She'll wait for me to report back before taking any other action. Nobody else will be coming tonight. And all I need to tell her in the end is that you identified the threat and we neutralized it. The Minutemen don't need to know why.
[ Nobody does. Candid though Danse prefers to be about most things, he won't have any difficulty keeping this between them. ]
[ Whatever lightness briefly raised the pall of weariness and paranoia that's fallen over him these past few weeks is snuffed out in the face of that particular piece of news. He could have shouldered Danse's suspicion easily. It was warranted, earned, and well deserved. But Nora is not such a trusted place for that kind of insight to be coming from, and it rankles him in similar fashion to see the dots connecting as Danse briefly flounders for a thought to complete that sentence. He doesn't really have to. Letting it drop is just as telling - and better, maybe, than trying to give voice to those particular worries, too.
It won't change anything, if Danse is right, anyway.
His chair creaks as he rocks back in it, still frowning, his eyes sweeping across the maps and notes on the table. ]
...As long as you're sure.
[ He doesn't sound much of it, himself, but there aren't a lot of options to correct course, now. Rubbing a thumb against his jaw, he runs back over the plan, tries to fit someone else into the next few steps of it. In this case, it isn't that hard. ]
We only have a few hours. If there are any preparations you need to make - I have ammunition, spare parts that should fit your armor. [ He drops his hand, waving it lamely at the rest of the bunker behind them. ] Take whatever you need.
[ Had Danse been left to his own devices, his suspicions alone couldn't have driven him here. Far enough to turn up at Arcade's home and ask him more forcefully, perhaps, maybe refuse to leave without some clearer answers, but not to violate his trust with outright stalking. But there would have been nobody there to answer the door, and Arcade would still be alone here waiting on backup.
He can say at least that he's come out of this explanation more strongly in Arcade's corner than he already was. And he does have faith, still, that the Minutemen will drop the issue once they've been satisfied that no more civilian deaths are forthcoming. He has to remind himself sometimes how much narrower they consider their remit than the Brotherhood ever did, when from the outside he'd always assumed it to be the opposite. ]
I'm sure.
[ There's more confidence in his voice as he reasons it out further, and he can be more persuasive when time is less of the essence. For now, though, he casts an eye over the supplies he's being directed to, formulating his own plans. He hasn't brought as much with him as he'd want to for a job like this, but what Arcade's gathered in the bunker will go a good way toward making that up. ]
And I will. But--
[ One thing he does have on hand, and which he retrieves from a compartment in his armor now, is a bedroll. He expects resistance. He's used to resistance, but the firm tone he would have taken with Haylen or Rhys is absent from his voice even though it requires a deliberate wrench away from the mission-focused mindset he's otherwise steeped in. His reasons for asking are as sentimental as Arcade's reasons for leaving him out of this to begin with. ]
I need you to spend those hours getting some rest. I'll keep watch. I won't be ready to go until I'm done briefing myself on your findings anyway.
[ He presses the bedroll into Arcade's hands, and just for a moment, lays a hand alongside his cheek, feeling the unfamiliar rasp of stubble overgrowth. ]
For my peace of mind. If I'd worked myself as hard as you have, you'd be reminding me I'm not a machine.
[ He wants to protest. Rest isn't something he's factored into his plans, at this point, and he's sure he can manage without, besides. He's gone longer running on less than he has in the tank now. He'll manage.
But where surviving the next 24 to 48 hours feels necessary and possible on any amount of dwindling energy, fighting with Danse looks like a long, unnecessary detour running exhaustingly uphill. The hand on his cheek is already a persuasive argument, warm and familiar. So is the thought of lying down on a bedroll that smells like Danse, even if it's only to wait a handful of impatient hours as sleep evades him entirely. There could be worse ways to spend that time.
Reluctantly, Arcade nods, grip tightening on the soft bundle in his hands. ]
You'll, ah... come and sit with me, when you're done?
[ The concession, when he knows Arcade wants to protest, prompts a distracting ripple of grateful relief; the request makes him wish the location were a shade more secure. The bedroll isn't large enough to share, but neither are half the surfaces they've managed to sleep jointly on before. His thumb rubs softly and longingly over Arcade's cheekbone before his hand drops. ]
Absolutely.
[ It doesn't take him long. Danse leaves Arcade to set up where he wants to, while he arms himself more thoroughly from the supplies and swaps out the bracers of his suit for the type of upgraded Tesla model he's never gotten to see up close before.
It's the sort of thing he would want to spend ten minutes excitedly expounding on, under more opportune circumstances--under his previous impression that Arcade's expertise about it would have been more about the underpinning scientific theory, not firsthand experience with the armor itself, and that they could meet somewhere in the middle. His mind is still reeling slightly from the revelation that this isn't the case.
It's worth sticking a pin in, because he wants to talk about it. He wants to learn more, wants to watch Arcade lock into that suit and see what he can do, wants to hear what he could say about it when he doesn't have reason to change the subject or hide what he knows, but neither of them can afford that distraction yet. Danse gathers the maps and papers neatly from the table and takes them over to the bedroll instead, sitting on the floor by the head of it to read.
As he absorbs himself in the information, overlaying what he knows about the local settlements and mentally mapping out an order to the operation, he finds himself reaching over with the hand that isn't rifling pages and letting it rest wherever he can on Arcade's back or shoulders, just for the reassuring steady warmth of the contact. It helps him focus. ]
All right. I think I've determined an optimal course.
[ This after a couple of hours, his voice low as he glances over to be sure Arcade isn't asleep. It's not quite dawn yet. ]
[ There's a half empty supply closet off the banker's main room, nothing but a crumpled metal shelf in one corner, an ancient exhaust fan turning slowly in an overhead vent in the other. That's where Arcade sets up the bedroll, out of the brightest swath of the lights he's set up, where there's a hint of sky through that half-buried vent - so when daylight starts to creep through, he'll know. Not that he doubts Danse will warn him well ahead of time. But he's already come this far paranoid and prepared. What's a little further?
He doesn't really sleep, but it's easier to doze than he would've expected. The floor is hard and the bedding minimal, but it's been so long since he let himself settle that the weariness doesn't bother holding rest out of his grasp. The intermittent sounds of familiar work, mechanical noise, lull him into a place between awake and not with an unexpected swiftness.
He's more on the awake side of that drifting, in-and-out consciousness, when Danse speaks up. At some point, Arcade pulled the hand from his back into one of his own, and his grip tightens as he blinks, expression sharpening again. ]
[ Deep as Danse's focus has been, having spent this time almost wholly absorbed in catching up to speed and formulating strategy, that unconscious reach for his hand had temporarily derailed him. There had been no room for martial thoughts until the startlingly fierce affection welling up in his chest had calmed itself again, and he could have told himself more easily that he was just taking a break to rest his strained eyes if he had actually closed them instead of spending the next ten minutes pensively adrift and watching Arcade doze.
What would I do if something happened to him? He's asked himself the question before, but never until now had a truly pressing reason to dwell on it.
He hasn't let go of that hand for the past forty-five minutes, and he doesn't now, only returns the squeeze. He's satisfied already that the rest seems to have done Arcade some good. ]
It's counterintuitive, because if you're right about where this radio signal originates, there's an encampment closer to this location than the one I recommend we prioritize. But if we target it last, we'll be near two well-fortified settlements to spend the night and recuperate as necessary.
The one I think we should make for first is on the west end of Malden--near the hospital, if god forbid we need more supplies than you already have. I know the area particularly well.
[ Though the path there from here doesn't quite need to take them within sight of the listening post he'd once thought would be his grave. Just within about a quarter mile. He leaves that thought aside, in favor of a more immediate and deeper concern that he's been working through. ]
Do you have a way to...securely leave word here, for your allies? [ He's not quite sure how to phrase that, or what to call them, but that's his best effort. ] Explain our plans, so there's no danger of them deciding to assault the same locations? I don't want to risk friendly fire if I can't immediately distinguish who's on our side.
[ As Danse explains his plan, Arcade starts to shake himself more deliberately awake to listen. Breaking their careful connection, he reaches for his glasses, scrubbing a hand over his face and sitting up. When he sits forward, his eyes are fixed on the map, tracing between the points Danse outlines, following the path he's already built in his head. It takes a moment for him to respond, as he plays over his own (readily scrapped) course and reworks it to fit.
That intense focus breaks like clouds parting after a storm. It's relief and gratitude and a hint of lingering want, like he'd lean over and kiss Danse if they had any more time. Instead he starts to brush himself off, as he pushes to his feet, sidestepping his maps and heading back toward the radio. ]
Give me fifteen minutes.
[ He spends ten of them hastily drafting a message and the other five fiddling with the radio, then relaying the words he's scribbled out to it. It sounds like nonsense, a mixture of old military code and something clearly made up, and the flat tone in which Arcade speaks makes him sound eerily like some Pre-War relic. He could be an old holotape spinning its wheels in the dark, somewhere, message as meaningless as it is incomprehensible, in the current age. Nothing anyone else will think twice about, if they stumble on the adjacent frequency, where his voice plays back in an even stranger and more distant echo. He only listens for a second before shutting it off. Just long enough to be sure the power's still on, and the recording will play at all.
Then he steps back from the table, glancing back at the armor behind him, before his gaze slides to Danse. ]
I guess that's everything. Unless you've thought of anything else?
[ Danse spends those last five minutes listening to this with fascination, even if it unnerves him as well. It's one thing to hear Arcade explain the way he's spent his whole life running and looking over his shoulder, but another to catch a glimpse into the true depth of paranoid subterfuge it's made necessary, layers upon layers of bitter context built up like scar tissue over those thirty years.
Part of him had been ready to ask, hesitantly, if there might be a good spot to designate as a rendezvous point when this is over, to let him meet these people for reasons more personal than mission-related, as if this were some pre-war joke about bringing your boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner and trusting him not to argue politics with your uncle. But the notion feels too silly to speak aloud right now, even if the desire remains.
A thought comes to mind--I don't really know him at all, do I?--but it's gone in another moment. It would be true if Danse had found him down here preparing to join the soldiers in those camps, or aid them, but this passionate determination to root them out at any cost is still exactly of a piece with the Arcade that Danse knows and loves--
This thought, too, he silences, not for the first time. Danse has never been a superstitious enough man to believe in the concept of tempting fate, but he tells himself that it would be foolish to say something distracting right when they both need all their faculties about them. Maybe even worth the regret of holding back, if there never comes another chance.
...no. Not so worth it that he won't take this last minute before they lock into their armor, and answer that question with the kiss that Arcade had foregone. They've made all the preparations they're equipped to except for this one, Danse's fingers sliding into Arcade's already-disheveled curls and anchoring there just a shade too tightly in their desperation, tongue slipping between his lips as he lets it say everything he isn't going to articulate right now.
If this kills us, it's been an honor.
He lets go, and steps back into his power armor. ]
I know a shortcut that can get us there well before noon, if complications along the way are minimal.
[ He glances toward Arcade's armor as well, the direction of his gaze obvious even when helmeted, and the anticipatory warmth in his tone audible even under the buzz of the vocoder. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
for taediosum
There's a slight question of desensitization, too. The only reason he hadn't shot the first eyebot he'd seen in the Commonwealth was because Rhys had been quicker on the draw and taken it out first, but the next time the squad had encountered one, they'd heard its message before being able to pinpoint where it was coming from, and it had turned out to be nothing but an ad for Wattz Consumer Electronics. The little floating bastards had proven surprisingly useful, actually, in directing them toward old treasure troves of weapons and supplies, and he's long since fallen out of the habit of attacking them, even if he doesn't bother to listen to what they're broadcasting anymore either.
(Though he has begun to cast a warier eye on them of late, ever since Arcade had explained that the models are prone to explosive self-destruction if not safely taken out at range. Danse has never seen one do that, and he's pretty sure the citizens of Diamond City wouldn't suffer them to hover around the streets if one had ever caused any damage there--but he'll always be more inclined to trust Arcade's scholarly expertise over the reliability of janky pre-war technology. What reason would he have to lie?)
The music doesn't get the chance to set his teeth on edge, either. There's only one specific frequency he needs to tune into for orders from the Castle, and he rarely bothers in his leisure time with anything other than Travis "Much Improved" Miles or the Charles River Trio these days. He'd already more or less managed to avoid the treacly tedium of Enclave Radio back in the Capital, first by having better music options and then by being outright forbidden to listen anyway, but not all of his colleagues had been so fortunate. He recalls the first time Nora had set up a radio beacon to entice new settlers to the region, how proud of herself she'd been for finding pleasant cheerful patriotic music to play between the repeating messages--remembers overhearing, too, as Deacon had gently taken her aside and mentioned that the songs in question "have some not-awesome connotations now, boss," and been interrupted by MacCready's sharp and far less tactful "Turn that crap off!"
But here they are on the airwaves again, shrill renditions of "Dixie" and "America the Beautiful" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and more, on channels entirely unrelated to settlement recruitment and easy to stumble across without really trying. The eyebots drifting across the abandoned highways and through the dirty streets near Goodneighbor are still mostly playing ads for long-defunct and looted businesses, but among them, indistinguishable except that they look a little newer and cleaner, are a few with an ominous new message: "The Enclave is back, America. And no, not just on your radio. Right now, Enclave troops are patrolling the Commonwealth."
The last word is faintly garbled, as if edited in later by a different voice, before the message continues. "These fine men and women have one mission: the restoration of American peace and order. Don't you, my darling America, deserve that? Don't you deserve a future free of war, and fear, and terrible uncertainty? Of course you do."
The message repeats. ]
no subject
He's just been wrong this whole time about what the worst would actually entail.
It was foolish of him to think he could disappear and leave his past behind, that he could travel as far as travel would allow, and none of those bad things would ever find him. But it was Rangers he was expecting. Maybe even Brotherhood stragglers, whatever might've been left of the Hidden Valley chapter, after Hoover. Men with guns and no particular love for the source of all the contradictory propaganda now playing on hijacked airwaves across the Commonwealth. Not that Arcade has any, either. But guilt by association is still a crime punishable by death, in the Wasteland. And this far from NCR territory, there wouldn't even be the pretense of a mock trial.
Somehow, though, it's none of that. And having only been prepared his whole life for one version of the worst outcome possible, he isn't braced for this new one. He doesn't hide it well, either, moody and distracted and always too busy, all of a sudden. He has plans to make, though, messages to send. (He's lied about a lot of things, since he found his way to Goodneighbor, chief among them that he came all this way largely on his own.) He has things to unearth and repurpose once again.
It would've been impossible to go unnoticed sneaking an entire suit of original issue Tesla power armor into town with him, and besides that, Arcade's smart enough not to want to. The Remnants no longer keep a centralized bunker, but have split their cache between a few remote locales. (Maybe as a result of having been dug up once, already, none of them felt quite right going back to the status quo.) Arcade's is north of town, at an old Poseidon facility too run down to be host to much wildlife or any raiders. It also contains the least: only his father's armor and a few firearms, ammunition.
He makes the hike there alone, as he intends to do all of this, at least until the reinforcements come. If they do. He hasn't waited for verification, but while he knows it's reckless, he doesn't feel like he can afford to. Every minute he wastes is another minute that "Enclave troops are patrolling the Commonwealth."
The message repeats, staticky on the radio behind him, as he leans into the suit through its open back, checking the lining, the wiring. He may not be a mechanic, but he knows the maintenance of this particular piece of machinery inside and out. Even while he can feel his pulse beating at his temple, anger and anxiety a sickening milieu in his head, he isn't going through the motions. He's meticulous, focused. He doesn't hear the door, doesn't expect there to be any reason someone should've followed him, let alone all the way down to this well-hidden bunker. Or perhaps been pointed in its direction by a well-informed acquaintance. ]
no subject
It's not that he hasn't been hurt by the sudden distance between them. If it had come on more gradually, it would be preoccupying him with worry, making him wonder if he'd done something to cause it, offended Arcade somehow or been too high-maintenance a partner or simply been replaced in his affections by someone else, all the usual things that tend to cross a person's mind under circumstances like these.
He's entertained these thoughts only at sparse intervals, because they don't really add up. He knows Arcade well enough now to know when he's upset, even if he doesn't know why; he knows that it's likely some impetus that has nothing to do with their relationship at all, given how the moodiness and brushing-off had begun all but overnight. He'd asked, of course, and in the continued absence of a thorough explanation had lost his temper somewhat and snapped that Arcade knew where to find him when he was ready to quit avoiding the issue. Had he not been ordered to come here instead, he would have turned up at Arcade's place in Goodneighbor to apologize.
Because how could he want to do anything but that, really? However suspicious this might all look, however much he wants answers for himself, Danse still trusts Arcade enough not to go stalking him across the Commonwealth of his own volition as if trying to catch him at a crime. But orders are orders, and here he is, having taken a slightly different route to the bunker (stealth is not his forte, not in his own suit of power armor) and not completely expecting to find Arcade there at all, let alone anything else in this little tableau. ]
What in the name of god is going on here?
[ His tone is accusatory, as he takes in that incriminatingly-familiar model of armor, but quietly so. It can't be what it looks like. Surely, it can't. ]
no subject
For a moment he doesn't move, or breathe, or blink. Then something in him punctures, deflates. He drops his gaze, jaw clenching against whatever immediate justification, whatever ultimately empty platitude leaps to the forefront, first.
It's not what it looks like only gets them so far. He'll still have to explain what it is. So why not just cut right to the bone?
He gestures toward the radio, now playing some quiet, tinny stream of treacly fanfare. ]
The Enclave is here. Or someone pretending to be them, but that's bad enough.
Regardless, I'm putting a stop to it. [ At the very least, he's going to try. And he isn't going to sit around, waiting for someone else to make all the hard decisions for him, this time. ]
no subject
[ The information available to the Minutemen right now is sparse, not even as much as Arcade himself has pieced together, save for a few other reports and rumors of civilian deaths that aren't being broadcast anywhere--but almost none of it has been given to Danse yet. He's been told only that there's a potential threat his Brotherhood training makes him the best-equipped to investigate, and that there's some reason to believe Arcade might know something about it, and no mention had been made of the personal relationship that ought to make such an investigation a conflict of interest, because these things don't matter in the law of the wasteland either.
The General has picked up some Machiavellian cunning from the Railroad. She'd known perfectly well that had she mentioned the Enclave and accused Arcade of anything to Danse's face, he would have refused to believe it and denied it to the point of insubordination, and then the bad blood on all sides would have been difficult to overcome had she been wrong. But sending him to do his own research, in essence--letting his mind fill in the gaps on the way with his own concerns and suspicions, given how Arcade has been acting, and how familiar Danse already is with his opposition to just about everything the Brotherhood believes--is a solution that seems likely to yield the most useful results, if not the happiest outcome.
And there hadn't been anything yet to accuse him of. No real evidence of suspicious associations, let alone proof. This, here, is evidence--but Danse isn't processing it as such, not immediately, still reeling from the far more pressing and horrifying knowledge that the Enclave has rebuilt its strength to such a degree, and is here on their doorstep with no local military force any the wiser or ready to strike back.
The armor is momentarily forgotten in favor of evaluating Arcade himself. Danse is skilled enough at compartmentalizing to also push aside the part of himself that aches with concern to see him in such a worn and weary state, but the inarguable conviction in his voice seems right and expected at first blush. Of course Arcade would abhor the Enclave and want them driven back; Danse certainly knows his political leanings well enough by now to expect nothing else from him. Only after a few moments' thought do questions begin to flood in again. ]
No. This isn't making sense. Setting entirely aside the question of where you even acquired this--
[ He gestures to the armor, as if he isn't wearing a near-identical suit of X-01 as they speak. That isn't the most pressing question, though it's up there. He wants, at first, to ask what Arcade would even know about the Enclave, when the ones who'd fled the West to wreak havoc in the Capital must surely have done so before he was born. But there are innocuous potential explanations for that, too, when one has incentive to grasp at straws for them. ]
If you're so hell-bent on stopping them, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me about any of this?
[ That's the heart of it, really. He can't make it completely impersonal, not even with effort, and all of his other questions circle back around to that one in the end. ]
no subject
[ And, to a lesser and far more selfish extent, because he didn't want to have this conversation. It'd have been bad enough if the last time he ever saw Danse, it was in the midst of a brief, heated argument, entirely his own fault. But he could have lived with that (maybe - barely). It was far from ideal, but this look of betrayed confusion wasn't there. That simmering note of accusation wasn't, either.
Arcade, for his part, merely sounds resigned. Determined, unmoved, but as if that overwhelming weariness has finally begun to hit him.
There's a rusting metal chair pulled up to the table the radio is set up on, surrounded by annotated maps, both hand-drawn and pieced together. But Arcade only glances at the seat, as if he considers taking it for all of one instant before giving up on the idea of rest altogether.
Instead he steps back toward the armor, looking up at it under the harsh lights as he rests a hand against the open back of it. ]
This belonged to my father. He was an officer stationed at a base called Navarro, on the coast.
I still don't have the full picture of how things were, here, but back west the Enclave was more or less wiped out before I was even born. Only isolated outposts remained, and the NCR and Brotherhood made short work of most - or maybe even all - of those. I was five, I think? When they got to us.
[ He drops his arm, looking back at Danse with apology in his cast of his eyes and the furrow in his brow, but no less conviction. ]
...Ever since then, I've been running from it, I guess. Trying to make up for the things my father had to pledge allegiance to just to survive.
[ And somehow, still, never managing to get far enough. ]
no subject
But he isn't prone to speaking over Arcade, not even in anger, and not now of all times, when answers are so much more important than grudges. Certainly not when he can tell that a fight of any kind is the last thing Arcade needs, verbal or otherwise. Danse has never seen him look this exhausted before--and with their similarly unhealthy sleep schedules, there's been competition for that superlative.
Barely-consciously borrowing the technique Arcade uses to get him to go to bed when he should, Danse steps out of his own armor with a hiss and a clank, perching himself on the edge of the table because it's the only other seat available. He needs the rest far less right now, but if he takes it, Arcade has no excuse not to. And he listens.
He's known from the very beginning that there was some kind of conversation to be had here, something making Arcade so thoroughly deflect all of Danse's infatuated curiosity about his past, and continue doing so no matter how intimate they'd otherwise become or how much he came to know about Danse's origins in turn. There had been a time when Danse had wondered if it wasn't something similar to his own predicament--amnesia, false memories, things simply not tangible enough to be worth talking about--but the explanation hadn't fit.
He understands now that the similarity runs far deeper than that, even if different in nature. The thought occurs to him that he's glad he'd gotten out of his armor when he had. This is not a conversation where he should be looming over Arcade and dressed for war, not while hearing him talk about running for his life as a child with the Brotherhood in pursuit, whether that's in a more literal or a metaphorical sense. He doesn't know and it doesn't matter.
Even if Arcade were speaking with defiance or blame right now, Danse would let him do it without protest, but the contrition on his face when their eyes finally meet again is so unexpected it startles him, and the expression in his own eyes is unguarded, sympathetic distress. It hasn't even been a year yet of looking over his own shoulder in a panic when he thinks he hears a vertibird or a laser or a distant ad victoriam, and to think that this is how Arcade has had to spend his entire life--
And all of it for a crime he could never even have been complicit in, let alone committed. He begins to ask if the NCR truly is so draconian as to punish children for the sins of their fathers, willingly committed or not, but he realizes that this doesn't matter either. There are Brotherhood officers even here who would consider it justice to take the casualties of the Capital out on Arcade if they knew, cry "For the Citadel!" while beating a man who'd never set foot anywhere near it, and know Maxson would turn a blind eye. ]
It...it all makes sense now. Maybe I should already have suspected. I don't know.
[ The pause before this has been so long that he's afraid it will have looked like silent condemnation, but he's been at a loss for any other words. ]
But you haven't done anything to make up for. Not the way you're telling it. Not enough to go running at the enemy half-cocked with no backup like you're trying to go out in a blaze of glory. You were a child, for god's sake.
no subject
Then he takes note of the distress in Danse's expression, the deliberate efforts he's making to deescalate this situation, already. If it weren't for the look on his face, he'd almost seem at ease, there, half-seated on a table filled with Arcade's furious notes and meticulous triangulation of the past several weeks.
Arcade swallows around what feels like a heavy, dry stone lodged in his throat, looking away again. There's still that other shoe to drop, of course. ]
This isn't half-cocked. [ Firm and insistent, as he crosses back to the table, to where Danse is. Arcade shuffles aside a few loose scraps of paper - as easily as he does the idea of his innocence, the very notion of debating it - straightening out the apparent mess before them. ]
I've been tracking them - these broadcasts, rumors, the area they have those eyebots patrolling. I have two likely sites where they could be holed up, and maybe a third—
[ His briefly re-energized fury takes a hit, guilt flashing in again as he glances sidelong at Danse. ]
...And I already have backup.
no subject
None of it had been enough, either on its own or together, to push him to a conclusion like this, but in hindsight, it seems more obvious than it really was. But for all that, it isn't condemnation, and Arcade clearly realizes that now as well. Danse looks down at the paperwork on the table, getting up off it again to better evaluate it, his own stomach sinking as the scale of the problem fully dawns on him.
The General had been right after all, at least in part. Wrong about Arcade's suspected motives, but that can be dealt with later. If there's anything Danse will condemn here, with lingering sub-surface anger, it's having been kept in the dark about something of this import when Arcade knew this much about it, but the guilt on Arcade's face goes some way toward halting that argument for now. ]
What do you mean, you already have backup? None of the forces in the region are prepared to move on this. The Minutemen are still scouting, and if the Brotherhood had any clue about it they'd already be going scorched-earth.
no subject
The Minutemen aren't ready, and the Brotherhood doesn't have a clue, but— ]
The Remnants are.
[ There's a cautious, tentative tone in his voice as he offers this, as though it is a confession of far greater weight than his own past ties to the Enclave. In a way, of course, it is. He's admitting to the only real crime he can be said to have committed - aiding and abetting wanted criminals, decades' worth of it. But he's also outing them, people who have given up their own lives in the service of safe-guarding his. His family, all that he has left of one.
There is a painful sincerity in the look he levels at Danse, pleading with him to understand. He can be as angry as he wants, they can argue as much as he'd like - but right now, he won't talk Arcade down from this. It's a machine he's already put in motion. ]
You said it yourself: I was a child when Navarro fell. I wouldn't have made it out alive if I had to escape on my own.
[ Let alone survived this long outside the carefully controlled and monitored confines of any Enclave facility. He owes them that, too. ]
I made it out with my mother, and my father's old company. We're short a few of that initial number, these days. But no one else is better equipped, literally and figuratively, to deal with a threat like this.
no subject
And in a sense, once all is said, this is precisely what they are. The desperation on Arcade's face is already eroding his defenses, finding gaps and weakening his resolve, when it's already taken a beating from these weeks of missing their usual closeness and another sucker punch from the worryingly worn-out state Danse has found him in. He recoils a little, as expected, at the explanation of exactly who these people are--but when it's being hammered home this hard that they're the reason Arcade is here right now, Danse can't deny that he owes them something himself. Consideration, if nothing else--though not of that particular claim. ]
I am.
[ He leaves it at that, flat and unqualified, because it isn't a boast. He can elaborate on his credentials when they're done. But he has to decide what to do about this, mind beginning to reel again, enough to make him sit back down on the table as he works through it. ]
They've been here in the Commonwealth this entire time? And you know for an absolute fact that none of their loyalties are suspect?
no subject
[ And if he had reason to suspect it was any different, after more than thirty years of living like this, he'd have taken his chance and left them behind in the Mojave, too. There's no doubt in him, his answer confident and immediate. There may be cracks in the whole, disagreements and old dislikes - but they've stuck together, this long, hinged on nothing but that old promise. On the memory of his father's good will. If they were going to be swayed by propaganda or promises of impossible futures, they would have been decades ago. ]
After my father died, and since Navarro, they've been busy living thoroughly unremarkable lives.
[ Almost all of them, anyway. Henry still has more ambition than all of them combined, but he's up to slightly less fantastical things than medicating super mutants and transplanting brains for aging cyberdogs, lately. ]
But always in close orbit to mine. They wouldn't pick this fight, themselves, but if I asked them to...
[ Well, they'd do just about anything.
The notion brings that guilt back to the surface again, and maybe in it Danse can see just a hint of Arcade's reasoning for not asking for his help, too. There's more to it than the weight of dragging someone else into this fight, but on the surface there's more than a little of that worry. That he doesn't have the right to ask this of anybody, let alone one more person who'd drop everything to help. ]
no subject
...You mean that you haven't asked them yet.
[ He won't be stubborn or resentful enough to tell himself that concern for him wouldn't have played any part in why Arcade left him out of the loop. There are a lot of reasons, some of them glaringly obvious now, but he will let himself register that worry, and let it blunt the sharp edges of upset so that his voice stays calm when he speaks. ]
Listen to me. I understand now why this is personal for you. And why you didn't tell me before, given...all of the history at play here. But that's exactly why I need to come with you.
[ This is no more up for debate now than Arcade going himself, but it's just as much a jumble of confused too-close-to-home reasoning. It's not a situation that can be evaluated dispassionately from a distance. ]
You said you weren't familiar with everything that transpired on this side of the country. I have more experience with it than anyone in the Commonwealth who isn't up on the Prydwen right now. Defending civilians from the Enclave has always been my responsibility, exile or not. But aside from all of that--
[ Compartmentalization has its limits, at a time like this. He breaks, just-perceptibly, shoulders sagging as he reaches quietly for Arcade's hand and catches it just at the fingertips. ]
Arcade, you mean the world to me. You can't possibly expect me to just sit on my hands and do nothing while you put your life on the line. It's downright absurd.
no subject
[ Quick and defensive, because he isn't that reckless, to be this far into making preparations without any idea of when backup might arrive. Or that it will, at all.
But his face falls again a second after that forceful confirmation, something like chagrin creeping in, as he looks anywhere else but at Danse. ]
I just... haven't heard back, yet. Not from all of them.
[ They don't communicate directly, for obvious reasons. None of them except for Arcade and Daisy, at least. And even those letters are couched in decades' worth of coded language. But the delay means some things are still up in the air. That he's just taking it on faith that he isn't charging blindly into a bad corner, alone.
Which isn't really a defensible position, so he isn't going to try.
It's almost a relief when Danse seizes the moment to argue his own case. Almost, because it does nothing to loosen the knot of fear and anger and anxiety tangled around Arcade's ribs, sitting heavy and tight in the center of his chest. But at least it isn't an argument he intends to rebuff.
These are facts he has already considered, naturally. But his reasons - beyond the pure, self-interested survival instinct in not coming clean sooner - for not bringing someone with Danse's knowledge and experience to the table, too, are less rational than sentimental.
When Danse's hand touches his, it seems to trip the last frayed wire keeping him running. The air goes out of him, as he folds, finally, to collapse into the chair beside him. His hand slips over Danse's, gripping it firmly. ]
...Between the Institute and the Brotherhood, you've barely had a chance to live your own life. Who am I to ask you to put it at risk all over again?
[ All of this, of course, is bigger than both of them. Has much farther-reaching implications than the potential ends it might put to either of their lives, really. Still. He never wanted to be the reason Danse ended up back in this situation, either way. ]
no subject
[ The way he clasps that hand tight in both of his own is incongruous with the fierce indignation in his tone, but it's a gesture both second-nature and born of genuine relief, at seeing Arcade sit and rest and at the reciprocation that lets him know they're all right. Affectionate touch is never exactly mutually exclusive with lecturing, on either of their parts. No matter how moved he might genuinely be, on a different level, by the sentiment that he's loudly protesting. ]
You know good and goddamn well that if I'd found out about this before you did, I'd already be there. You're not asking me to do something against my will; I'm telling you not to leave me out of something that's as much my duty as yours.
[ He would say that it's arguably more so, because he signed up for it on purpose while Arcade never asked to be born into it, but the mention of the Institute cuts that argument off before it even fully forms. It puts in perspective for him exactly how incandescently furious Arcade must be at this incursion, when Danse would probably manage to shoot lasers out of his eyes like Liberty Prime at anyone who tried to tell him he had less investment in the Institute's destruction than the Railroad does.
In that light, he can understand this as a matter of honor, righteous vengeance, the kind of storybook notions he still clings to and probably always will, but that doesn't mean Arcade shouldn't have help with it. But this leads back to the question of their reinforcements, and Danse exhales slowly as he considers the timeline. ]
How much longer were you planning to wait on the response? Because you're in no shape to march or fight without a good rest anyway.
no subject
Maybe tellingly, he doesn't wilt the way someone probably should, on the receiving end of all of that sharp, reprimanding insistence. Instead, he smiles, soft and tired and not entirely what one might describe as happy, but real, as his hand relaxes in between both of Danse's. He isn't about to let go, but maybe he doesn't have to hold on so tightly, either.
It's a short-lived moment, though, when that question drags him back to the present. And reminds him of the terrified jumble of questions that skittered across the top of his own mind, when he turned to find himself not so alone down here anymore. His brow furrows, as he glances across the hectic array of notes and pieced together maps in front of him, dragging his free hand through his already mussed hair. ]
Only until dawn. I feel like I've wasted too much time, already. But I needed to be sure.
[ And to have some time to prepare, even if most of what he's done has been redundant, too cautious.
Those frown lines deepen as he looks up at Danse again, unsure. ]
...I'd also like to know how you found me. Not for nothing, but if anyone else knows where we are, we might not even have those few hours to wait.
no subject
--but not without its obstacles, still, as Danse too is forced to admit. Even presuming they survive this, which is already further ahead of himself than Danse likes to get, it's a more than valid question, and he wishes he didn't have to answer it. ]
It's...not as immediate a problem as that. I came on the General's orders. I don't know who tipped her off about this location and I don't like any of the guesses I can hazard, but the fact that I'm the one she sent to investigate--
[ When he assembles the whole picture now, there's a slightly troubling hint of deja vu about it, almost as if she'd taken the page from Maxson's playbook, but he can't fathom why she would. He shakes it off. ]
She'll wait for me to report back before taking any other action. Nobody else will be coming tonight. And all I need to tell her in the end is that you identified the threat and we neutralized it. The Minutemen don't need to know why.
[ Nobody does. Candid though Danse prefers to be about most things, he won't have any difficulty keeping this between them. ]
no subject
It won't change anything, if Danse is right, anyway.
His chair creaks as he rocks back in it, still frowning, his eyes sweeping across the maps and notes on the table. ]
...As long as you're sure.
[ He doesn't sound much of it, himself, but there aren't a lot of options to correct course, now. Rubbing a thumb against his jaw, he runs back over the plan, tries to fit someone else into the next few steps of it. In this case, it isn't that hard. ]
We only have a few hours. If there are any preparations you need to make - I have ammunition, spare parts that should fit your armor. [ He drops his hand, waving it lamely at the rest of the bunker behind them. ] Take whatever you need.
no subject
He can say at least that he's come out of this explanation more strongly in Arcade's corner than he already was. And he does have faith, still, that the Minutemen will drop the issue once they've been satisfied that no more civilian deaths are forthcoming. He has to remind himself sometimes how much narrower they consider their remit than the Brotherhood ever did, when from the outside he'd always assumed it to be the opposite. ]
I'm sure.
[ There's more confidence in his voice as he reasons it out further, and he can be more persuasive when time is less of the essence. For now, though, he casts an eye over the supplies he's being directed to, formulating his own plans. He hasn't brought as much with him as he'd want to for a job like this, but what Arcade's gathered in the bunker will go a good way toward making that up. ]
And I will. But--
[ One thing he does have on hand, and which he retrieves from a compartment in his armor now, is a bedroll. He expects resistance. He's used to resistance, but the firm tone he would have taken with Haylen or Rhys is absent from his voice even though it requires a deliberate wrench away from the mission-focused mindset he's otherwise steeped in. His reasons for asking are as sentimental as Arcade's reasons for leaving him out of this to begin with. ]
I need you to spend those hours getting some rest. I'll keep watch. I won't be ready to go until I'm done briefing myself on your findings anyway.
[ He presses the bedroll into Arcade's hands, and just for a moment, lays a hand alongside his cheek, feeling the unfamiliar rasp of stubble overgrowth. ]
For my peace of mind. If I'd worked myself as hard as you have, you'd be reminding me I'm not a machine.
no subject
But where surviving the next 24 to 48 hours feels necessary and possible on any amount of dwindling energy, fighting with Danse looks like a long, unnecessary detour running exhaustingly uphill. The hand on his cheek is already a persuasive argument, warm and familiar. So is the thought of lying down on a bedroll that smells like Danse, even if it's only to wait a handful of impatient hours as sleep evades him entirely. There could be worse ways to spend that time.
Reluctantly, Arcade nods, grip tightening on the soft bundle in his hands. ]
You'll, ah... come and sit with me, when you're done?
no subject
Absolutely.
[ It doesn't take him long. Danse leaves Arcade to set up where he wants to, while he arms himself more thoroughly from the supplies and swaps out the bracers of his suit for the type of upgraded Tesla model he's never gotten to see up close before.
It's the sort of thing he would want to spend ten minutes excitedly expounding on, under more opportune circumstances--under his previous impression that Arcade's expertise about it would have been more about the underpinning scientific theory, not firsthand experience with the armor itself, and that they could meet somewhere in the middle. His mind is still reeling slightly from the revelation that this isn't the case.
It's worth sticking a pin in, because he wants to talk about it. He wants to learn more, wants to watch Arcade lock into that suit and see what he can do, wants to hear what he could say about it when he doesn't have reason to change the subject or hide what he knows, but neither of them can afford that distraction yet. Danse gathers the maps and papers neatly from the table and takes them over to the bedroll instead, sitting on the floor by the head of it to read.
As he absorbs himself in the information, overlaying what he knows about the local settlements and mentally mapping out an order to the operation, he finds himself reaching over with the hand that isn't rifling pages and letting it rest wherever he can on Arcade's back or shoulders, just for the reassuring steady warmth of the contact. It helps him focus. ]
All right. I think I've determined an optimal course.
[ This after a couple of hours, his voice low as he glances over to be sure Arcade isn't asleep. It's not quite dawn yet. ]
no subject
He doesn't really sleep, but it's easier to doze than he would've expected. The floor is hard and the bedding minimal, but it's been so long since he let himself settle that the weariness doesn't bother holding rest out of his grasp. The intermittent sounds of familiar work, mechanical noise, lull him into a place between awake and not with an unexpected swiftness.
He's more on the awake side of that drifting, in-and-out consciousness, when Danse speaks up. At some point, Arcade pulled the hand from his back into one of his own, and his grip tightens as he blinks, expression sharpening again. ]
...Yeah? Let's hear it, then.
no subject
What would I do if something happened to him? He's asked himself the question before, but never until now had a truly pressing reason to dwell on it.
He hasn't let go of that hand for the past forty-five minutes, and he doesn't now, only returns the squeeze. He's satisfied already that the rest seems to have done Arcade some good. ]
It's counterintuitive, because if you're right about where this radio signal originates, there's an encampment closer to this location than the one I recommend we prioritize. But if we target it last, we'll be near two well-fortified settlements to spend the night and recuperate as necessary.
The one I think we should make for first is on the west end of Malden--near the hospital, if god forbid we need more supplies than you already have. I know the area particularly well.
[ Though the path there from here doesn't quite need to take them within sight of the listening post he'd once thought would be his grave. Just within about a quarter mile. He leaves that thought aside, in favor of a more immediate and deeper concern that he's been working through. ]
Do you have a way to...securely leave word here, for your allies? [ He's not quite sure how to phrase that, or what to call them, but that's his best effort. ] Explain our plans, so there's no danger of them deciding to assault the same locations? I don't want to risk friendly fire if I can't immediately distinguish who's on our side.
no subject
That intense focus breaks like clouds parting after a storm. It's relief and gratitude and a hint of lingering want, like he'd lean over and kiss Danse if they had any more time. Instead he starts to brush himself off, as he pushes to his feet, sidestepping his maps and heading back toward the radio. ]
Give me fifteen minutes.
[ He spends ten of them hastily drafting a message and the other five fiddling with the radio, then relaying the words he's scribbled out to it. It sounds like nonsense, a mixture of old military code and something clearly made up, and the flat tone in which Arcade speaks makes him sound eerily like some Pre-War relic. He could be an old holotape spinning its wheels in the dark, somewhere, message as meaningless as it is incomprehensible, in the current age. Nothing anyone else will think twice about, if they stumble on the adjacent frequency, where his voice plays back in an even stranger and more distant echo. He only listens for a second before shutting it off. Just long enough to be sure the power's still on, and the recording will play at all.
Then he steps back from the table, glancing back at the armor behind him, before his gaze slides to Danse. ]
I guess that's everything. Unless you've thought of anything else?
no subject
Part of him had been ready to ask, hesitantly, if there might be a good spot to designate as a rendezvous point when this is over, to let him meet these people for reasons more personal than mission-related, as if this were some pre-war joke about bringing your boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner and trusting him not to argue politics with your uncle. But the notion feels too silly to speak aloud right now, even if the desire remains.
A thought comes to mind--I don't really know him at all, do I?--but it's gone in another moment. It would be true if Danse had found him down here preparing to join the soldiers in those camps, or aid them, but this passionate determination to root them out at any cost is still exactly of a piece with the Arcade that Danse knows and loves--
This thought, too, he silences, not for the first time. Danse has never been a superstitious enough man to believe in the concept of tempting fate, but he tells himself that it would be foolish to say something distracting right when they both need all their faculties about them. Maybe even worth the regret of holding back, if there never comes another chance.
...no. Not so worth it that he won't take this last minute before they lock into their armor, and answer that question with the kiss that Arcade had foregone. They've made all the preparations they're equipped to except for this one, Danse's fingers sliding into Arcade's already-disheveled curls and anchoring there just a shade too tightly in their desperation, tongue slipping between his lips as he lets it say everything he isn't going to articulate right now.
If this kills us, it's been an honor.
He lets go, and steps back into his power armor. ]
I know a shortcut that can get us there well before noon, if complications along the way are minimal.
[ He glances toward Arcade's armor as well, the direction of his gaze obvious even when helmeted, and the anticipatory warmth in his tone audible even under the buzz of the vocoder. ]
Let's see what you've got.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)