[ 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. ]
[ He doesn't expect the kiss, but he doesn't realize he's simultaneously hoping for it, anyway, until Danse's fingers are tightening in his hair and their lips meet in such a desperate crush that he bows against Danse as if the jolt of electricity that the kiss sends through him has magnetized him as well. It's over too quickly, and he's forced to let go of the white-knuckled grip he's taken on Danse's shoulders with too much left that he wants to say (but doesn't want to say).
Danse steps into his armor, and Arcade takes a last look around, collecting something like himself while all the pieces still feel scattered around. At Danse's prompting, though, he nods, gaze settling back on his father's old armor. His armor, now, technically for longer than his father ever had it, in the first place. ]
Don't get too excited. I'm pretty rusty.
[ That edge of warmth he detects is more exciting than it has any right to be, at a time like this. He can blame the sense memory of Danse smelling like grease and metal and old, cracked leather - a strong hit of which he inhales, as he steps up to his own suit, taking a little more care as he slips inside. But it runs much deeper than that.
With a steadying breath, he flexes an armored hand, reaching for his helmet, latching it on and disappearing completely behind the heavy, metal facade. ]
You've said that before. You didn't disappoint then, either.
[ Maybe he's blurring the lines too much with that, defeating the purpose of not letting that kiss linger too long, of forcing himself to pull back before he could melt into it any further and risk letting desire and longing sap his focus from what they need to do.
He's hard-pressed enough to keep that steady as it is, watching Arcade climb into that suit with obvious experience, with visible competence and strength underneath that rusty caution, everything Danse has spent half a lifetime sublimating his libido into admiration of before Arcade gave him both reason and permission to express it openly again. Never would he have expected the two to combine like this, except in the occasional fantasy he's been too embarrassed to mention.
Even now, there's a less sensual earnestness to the appreciation as well, acknowledgment of the skill and the training it takes even for this much fluid movement in a walking tank. Like you were born for it, he could say admiringly, and nearly does, but blessedly catches himself as he remembers just how literally true the Enclave must have intended that to be. No need for either of them to dwell on that now.
The sight of Arcade's fingers flexing in the armor makes Danse feel the throb of that bruising-tight grip on his shoulders all the more acutely. They have hours of travel ahead of them for him to collect himself and sharpen up again, but he wants that sensation to linger as long as it possibly can. He leads the way out, setting a course for Malden with the rising sun at their backs.
It's a little while before he speaks again, partly to save breath on a tough portion of the hike, partly because silences with Arcade can be comfortable--though this has never been tested in circumstances quite so serious--but mostly because his thoughts are racing, in light of everything he's learned and the million new questions it all raises. ]
Tell me more about...you called them the Remnants?
[ It's not as if he hadn't asked about Arcade's family with genuine curiosity before, after all, on those first early dates. He just hadn't gotten much of an answer. ]
[ It's a relief to be tucked safely into the obscurity of his armor when Danse rattles that one off - though his face is still visibly red, even angled away, before he can disappear beneath the helmet, too. If they live through this, he'll have more than an emotional deficit to make up for, after these past few weeks.
He feels an uncharacteristic flare of claustrophobia, as the layers of steel and padding cut him off from the outside world completely - and, more specifically, from the opportunity to reach out and actually touch Danse again. The terrifying notion that that may well have been the last time, just moments ago, tries to rise to the surface of his mind on a bubble of fear-clouded doubt. But Arcade brushes it aside, taking a deep breath as he checks his weapons, and then turns to follow Danse, leaving the bunker behind.
The silence that spins out between them as they move is comfortable - for the most part. Arcade can't help all of the worries that creep in as the minutes wear on, step after step. What comes after is chief among them, still a blank space, a dark void of wild uncertainty. But when his gaze slides sideways, latching on to the familiar silhouette of now familiar armor, most of that uncertainty settles. Questions for later can wait until the job is done.
Questions for now startle him out of his forward-facing focus, a slight hitch in his step before the crackling sound of him clearing his throat breaks his silence. ]
Like I said, they were my father's old troop. Loyal to each other, first. And then to my mother and me. Now - just me.
[ A fact for which he has never managed to feel (or sound) any less guilty. But who is he to deserve that kind of deference? That loyalty? Just his father's son, really. ]
There are five of us left, myself included. You, uh. May have even met a couple of them, already. Daisy used to be a pilot. She's a scrapper, these days, orbiting the settlements closer to Sanctuary, usually. And Judah's taken up residence in Diamond City. He was their captain, though he's living like a real retiree, these days.
[ It's easier to talk about them than it ever has been himself, and the more he speaks, the easier it gets. Some minor floodgates open, and he feels even more of the night's exhaustion fall off him like water, somehow, as if this is the real relief, even more so than those few spare hours of thin sleep. ]
Doc Henry and Ca— Uh, Johnson aren't such social butterflies. Henry's doing what he always did, curing the incurable, solving the unsolvable, just because he can. Or, science can, I guess.
Johnson's even more of a hermit. Given everything he's been through, though, it's not exactly a surprise he lost his taste for polite society a long time ago. I feel bad dragging any of them back into all this, but him maybe most of all.
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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. ]
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[ 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. ]
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[ 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. ]
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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[ 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. ]
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...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.
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[ 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. ]
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[ 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.
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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.
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--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. ]
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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. ]
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Danse steps into his armor, and Arcade takes a last look around, collecting something like himself while all the pieces still feel scattered around. At Danse's prompting, though, he nods, gaze settling back on his father's old armor. His armor, now, technically for longer than his father ever had it, in the first place. ]
Don't get too excited. I'm pretty rusty.
[ That edge of warmth he detects is more exciting than it has any right to be, at a time like this. He can blame the sense memory of Danse smelling like grease and metal and old, cracked leather - a strong hit of which he inhales, as he steps up to his own suit, taking a little more care as he slips inside. But it runs much deeper than that.
With a steadying breath, he flexes an armored hand, reaching for his helmet, latching it on and disappearing completely behind the heavy, metal facade. ]
Let's get moving.
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[ Maybe he's blurring the lines too much with that, defeating the purpose of not letting that kiss linger too long, of forcing himself to pull back before he could melt into it any further and risk letting desire and longing sap his focus from what they need to do.
He's hard-pressed enough to keep that steady as it is, watching Arcade climb into that suit with obvious experience, with visible competence and strength underneath that rusty caution, everything Danse has spent half a lifetime sublimating his libido into admiration of before Arcade gave him both reason and permission to express it openly again. Never would he have expected the two to combine like this, except in the occasional fantasy he's been too embarrassed to mention.
Even now, there's a less sensual earnestness to the appreciation as well, acknowledgment of the skill and the training it takes even for this much fluid movement in a walking tank. Like you were born for it, he could say admiringly, and nearly does, but blessedly catches himself as he remembers just how literally true the Enclave must have intended that to be. No need for either of them to dwell on that now.
The sight of Arcade's fingers flexing in the armor makes Danse feel the throb of that bruising-tight grip on his shoulders all the more acutely. They have hours of travel ahead of them for him to collect himself and sharpen up again, but he wants that sensation to linger as long as it possibly can. He leads the way out, setting a course for Malden with the rising sun at their backs.
It's a little while before he speaks again, partly to save breath on a tough portion of the hike, partly because silences with Arcade can be comfortable--though this has never been tested in circumstances quite so serious--but mostly because his thoughts are racing, in light of everything he's learned and the million new questions it all raises. ]
Tell me more about...you called them the Remnants?
[ It's not as if he hadn't asked about Arcade's family with genuine curiosity before, after all, on those first early dates. He just hadn't gotten much of an answer. ]
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He feels an uncharacteristic flare of claustrophobia, as the layers of steel and padding cut him off from the outside world completely - and, more specifically, from the opportunity to reach out and actually touch Danse again. The terrifying notion that that may well have been the last time, just moments ago, tries to rise to the surface of his mind on a bubble of fear-clouded doubt. But Arcade brushes it aside, taking a deep breath as he checks his weapons, and then turns to follow Danse, leaving the bunker behind.
The silence that spins out between them as they move is comfortable - for the most part. Arcade can't help all of the worries that creep in as the minutes wear on, step after step. What comes after is chief among them, still a blank space, a dark void of wild uncertainty. But when his gaze slides sideways, latching on to the familiar silhouette of now familiar armor, most of that uncertainty settles. Questions for later can wait until the job is done.
Questions for now startle him out of his forward-facing focus, a slight hitch in his step before the crackling sound of him clearing his throat breaks his silence. ]
Like I said, they were my father's old troop. Loyal to each other, first. And then to my mother and me. Now - just me.
[ A fact for which he has never managed to feel (or sound) any less guilty. But who is he to deserve that kind of deference? That loyalty? Just his father's son, really. ]
There are five of us left, myself included. You, uh. May have even met a couple of them, already. Daisy used to be a pilot. She's a scrapper, these days, orbiting the settlements closer to Sanctuary, usually. And Judah's taken up residence in Diamond City. He was their captain, though he's living like a real retiree, these days.
[ It's easier to talk about them than it ever has been himself, and the more he speaks, the easier it gets. Some minor floodgates open, and he feels even more of the night's exhaustion fall off him like water, somehow, as if this is the real relief, even more so than those few spare hours of thin sleep. ]
Doc Henry and Ca— Uh, Johnson aren't such social butterflies. Henry's doing what he always did, curing the incurable, solving the unsolvable, just because he can. Or, science can, I guess.
Johnson's even more of a hermit. Given everything he's been through, though, it's not exactly a surprise he lost his taste for polite society a long time ago. I feel bad dragging any of them back into all this, but him maybe most of all.
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