Work Text:
Rhys was overthinking this. He had to be. He always thought to hard and long about the weird little things that usually were another, as opposed to how he often under thought moments that required more than a brief glimpse. Wrapping his brain around small blips of time probably help to distract from the large instances dealing with rebuilding the relations of Atlas. He just wasn’t really sure how to go about handling it, much less whether or not there was any actual problem to manage, or whether or not he was overreacting or-
Breathe Rhys. Just take a deep breath and focus for five seconds.
Okay, starting from the beginning would probably be a good idea. Starting from the top, the very first things he remembers.
It wasn’t much long after he had reestablished Atlas as a competing company on the surface of Pandora that he began to notice the other being that would inhabit his personal space in the facility. And by began to notice, he means that Zer0 has probably been sneaking around the whole place since he first drug himself in here, or maybe even before, and has been watching him ever since. However, the assassin had made himself known to Rhys much long after the Vault of the Traveler had long been opened and Rhys had been more than set up to run the company by himself. Now though, he did have a few friends up his sleeves in case he needed to find something or have someone get something for him.
Or even better he had people to test his prototypes for him in the field and then bring them back with better data then he could have ever asked for.
Well, he didn’t exactly have people to do that.
Fiona would never take his prototypes out with her. Based on the fact that while she trusted him, she didn’t trust in his ability to properly make something that wasn’t going to explode in her hands or her face as soon as she activated it, or pulled the trigger, or did whatever she was trying to do while holding it. She saw his work on dumpy, and she was not impressed.
Athena still did not trust him, in the slightest. Which he thought was pretty fair after what had happened. Plus she was happily retired now with Janey back on Elpis, and he had no real way of contacting her without getting a hold of both of them, and he couldn’t exactly ask Athena to test weapons for him in front of her wife that wanted her to do the exact opposite of what he was asking. But it was nice to talk to them and see how they were doing. Maybe someday he’d get the courage to ask Janey for some combustion tips. But that would have to wait for them to fully trust him again. Plus he was very much intimidated by the both of them.
Sasha? …. Just look back at why he can’t get Fiona to do it and multiply the awkwardness of trying to ask her by about infinity and you can get the reason Rhys didn’t want to try and ask Sasha. Even though he knew she was a huge weapons geek, and would probably love to test some one of a kind stuff, he still couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d like to leave it at that.
He knew he could call up Vaughn and ask his friend if he wanted to try out some new inventions of his, but he also unsure that Vaughn would be able to defend himself properly if it didn’t work. Vaughn was smart, but even after all the time they had spent on the planet, they both were still making mistakes. So he didn’t trust himself to make something that was going to actually keep his closest friend from the harms of their new home. Which isn’t a good characteristic of the CEO of a weapons company, but he was doing his best to overcome that. He’d work on it while trying to also overcome the rest of the problems he wasn’t prepared for when he took the deed.
He wasn’t sure just how far into the ground Jack had driven Atlas into the ground, but when he want back to hollow point, and went digging for something, anything in their stock, or their reserves, or anything, he found nothing. No real resources, no source of funding, and Athena had already taken care of the workforce question for him.
Rhys was alone. He had no one to test his weaponry, had no one to help them tweak it and had no one to help him with more functional ideas for practical designs and reconstruction of old ideas.
Or, actually, he wasn’t as alone as he thought.
The first time he had encountered Zer0 in the lab, rhys was half asleep and was almost soldering his own fingers to the stock of an original design for a pistol he had come up with that morning. A nimble hand had grabbed the motorized wrist of his arm and pulled it back away from the gun, effectively startling the man from his daze and his posture snapped back up, head whipping around to the source of the arm while his other hand had dropped the soldering iron on the table with a loud, hollow thud on the metal. His eyes found the sleek face of the helmet he had seen before, but never this close to his own face. Zer0’s face was focused on Rhys’s own and his head tilted a bit before looking back to the table where the gun sat half built, then back to Rhys, a frowny face appearing on the surface in a bright light that made Rhys’s eyes burn at how close it was to his tired eyes. He leaned back away from it slightly, squinting with a groan before sitting up a little more proper in his chair, flesh hand coming up to rub the ache from his eyes, biting back a yawn.
“Zer0? What are you doing in here? How did you even get in?” His voice sounded a little more sleep drowned than he would have prefered when talking to the vault hunter he admired so much, but it was too late now. It was out there, and he couldn’t take it back no matter how much he wanted to.
The tall hunter just looked to him before looking back to the item on the table and Rhys’s eyes followed and he hurried to grab the tool he had previously discarded, turning it off before it causes any irreparable damage to his things.
“Oh! Did you just come here to watch me work? I mean, I have a few other things here for you to see if you’d rather see something that’s a little more.. Functioning and put together?” He offered with a nervous chuckle and a grin, and Zer0 tilted his head again at the man before this time a smiley face appeared, and it made Rhys all excited, taking over the bone dead tired feeling that had seeped deep into his core, and he hurriedly scampered over toward the cubby on the wall, opening it to dig around and find one of the rifles he had managed to salvage and tweak to his own desires, turning to Zer0, shocked to see the man standing right there behind him. It made him jump, almost dropping the sniper rifle. Zer0’s hands actually reached out quickly to steady the gun in Rhys’s arms, keeping it from the cold embrace of the ground.
“Heh, thanks.” Rhys looked up to the emotionless shadow in front of him before pushing it more into Zer0’s grasp, letting him take it and look over it as a whole. “Here, look over it for me. See if you like it. It’s the original Pearl Zeus mode, but I found some imperfections in the lock, and the measurements of the scope and I tweaked them to try and improve on the accuracy and the control of the shot.” He watched the posture and mask of the being standing imposingly in front of him, seeing if maybe there would be a change in either to indicate whether or not he enjoyed the changes, or if he could see any difference. Or Hell, even if he liked it.
But nothing.
Zer0 didn’t change in the slightest. His gaze didn’t pull from the gun, didn’t stop feeling over the stock, holding it up to the face of his mask as if to peer through the scope, but there was no vocalization, no motions at Rhys, no focus shown toward him.
And then Zer0 actually had the gaul to turn and walk away, like he was just leaving!
And Rhys just let him go!
With the GUN!
A few moments passed of lonely silence before Rhys came back to himself and looked to the entrance of his lab, blinking dumbly.
“Uh… Okay, yeah, good talk. Thanks for, you know, just taking my gun, yeah. That’s cool.” He rubbed the back of his head and smoothed back his hair with a groan, looking back to the Static Justice he had been working on, and decide to call it a night before he once again fell asleep and ended up soldering his face off or something. So he put the prototype away and turned in for the night.
Lo and behold, he actually saw the assassin back in his lab the next morning, like he was waiting for him. Zer0 was sitting in the work chair that Rhys had been seated in the night prior, and had been facing the doorway.
Rhys wanted to know how long he had been waiting, and secretly hoped it was for many hours, just sitting and twiddling his thumbs while he waited for Rhys. It made the CEO nervous, but at the same time glad that he had woken up later than usual and made the other wait, since, you know, he took his best prototype without even asking. Hell, he didn’t even say hello.
“Zer0, what are you..” Rhys was interrupted by the flash of Zer0’s LED sporting a bright ZZZ… across the face, and he couldn’t fight the snort that pushed through his nose.
He must’ve been waiting a while then, if he had fallen asleep in the most uncomfortable chair Rhys had ever owned.
The snort must’ve been loud enough and probably startling enough to jerk Zer0 from his REM cycle, because the ZZZ...s transitioned rather quickly to !!!, and Zer0’s head snapped up from it’s almost prone position and focused in on Rhys.
The man straightened himself out and cleared his throat, doing his best to try and hide the amusement on his face and in his voice.
“Zer0, welcome back. I didn’t think I’d see you so soon after last night. I thought you’d be off with my gun.” He kept his tone light, but his eyelids narrowed briefly at the memory that Zer0 had taken his pride and joy.
Zer0 tilted his head and stood from the chair, keeping his eyes on Rhys, and clearing the space between them in a few easy strides, the action very intimidating. Rhys didn’t like it. But he didn’t like what Zer0 did next even more. The taller pulled the gun from off his back, or at least, he pulled the rest and most of the body, but the barrel and the scope was all busted and almost blown apart.
“My gun! What did you do?!” Rhys looked on in horror at the state that the sniper rifle was in, thinking back on all of the hours he put into cleaning it, putting all the little intricate pieces into place, and getting that scope just right.
Zer0 looked to the gun and with his finger he felt along the remains of the barrel and pointed to where the metal seemed to bend outward in a curl, almost like it was under incredible heat. He got there and looked back to Rhys before making a fist and expanding his hand in a quick gesture, symbolizing an explosion, emphasized by an angry face lighting up the black glass of the mask.
“It.. It exploded?” Rhys reached forward and all but snatched the ruined weapon from Zer0’s gloved hands, looking over the damage with a frown before looking back up to him. “Hey! Don’t look at me like that, you took it last night without my permission!” He looked back to the gun in his hands and his bristled nature slowly faded as he thought about it. “And… You took it to test it and it exploded on you.” He looked back up to the other quickly. “Oh my God it exploded on you! Are you alright? It didn’t end up hurting you too bad did it because-”
Zer0 held up a hand to silence him, and Rhys’s mouth snapped shut at the action. He then held up a thumbs up, a smile flashing on his mask and Rhys couldn’t help the little laugh that left him at that.
“Oh good, glad to know that.. I didn’t some hoe accidentally kill you.” He looked back to the gun before back up to Zer0, still unbelieving of what was happening to him.
And it continued to happen to him.
For many days to come.
Zer0 came back time and time again, field testing any of the finished weapons, or shields, or grenade modifications that Rhys had managed to finish. And everytime Zer0 came back, with each one in hand, he would show Rhys what needed to be fixed and just how it needed to be done.
It was the best time of his life.
Rhys enjoyed spending his time with Zer0, and felt more of a desire and drive to finish his projects, and even gave him the inspiration for more! Just to have Zer0 test them out for him. Just to have the assassin there with him. It was nice.
The first little heart shining in his face was more than startling. It practically had his heart stopping. He had seen it before, but not directed at him like this. The time in the elevator was amazing, but like, it didn’t have the context of the assassin molded to his side with his gloved hand over Rhys’s own hands, showing him the proper technique for molding the wires together in the spike launcher of the Oz kit. The light had caught his attention, and he had craned his head to get a better look at what he thought was going to be another frustrated emoticon on the assassin’s mask, but the heart he was met with was mesmerizing.
And then the little gestures didn’t stop after that.
The faint brushes of Zer0’s hands or fingers touching him in passing, the winky faces or hearts thrown his way, the collection of data and even spare parts to work with collecting in his lab that he had never seen before. They were almost like gifts.
Zer0 was giving him gifts, and being super nice to him, and…
Oh my God, Zer0 was flirting with him.
The revelation made Rhys’s head go sideways and the man was almost beside himself at the idea that the vault hunter that he admired and had the smallest of crushes on was actually flirting with him.
And he had no idea what to do about it.
How do you just handle that/
Rhys had no idea.
But apparently Zer0 did.
One morning when Rhys was coming down the concrete steps to his workshop, the soft clack of his shoes and the sips off the rim of his cappuccino echoing off the hollow walls his only companion, he was almost disappointed to not come across Zer0. The hunter was usually in here at this time and had been there to greet him every morning for the last three months after he had returned from some mission to the far side of Pandora. Rhys had missed him when he was away, but when Zer0 returned with the largest rocket launcher Rhys had ever seen and the prettiest little shotgun modification, as well as the promise of his comforting company, Rhys found it easy to welcome him back with open arms.
Walking over to his chair and looking down at the table, sitting down with a sigh. He set his coffee down, more than grateful for Zero’s help in fixing up the broken coffee maker in his office. Athena had been right, Atlas knew how to make a good cup of coffee. His fingers brushed against what felt like paper and his eyes flickered over to it curiously, taking it in his grasp and bringing it closer to his face, making out words written in a familiar, very simple handwriting.
Reading it made his heart stop.
“Soon, I will return,
Embrace you fully this time,
Tell you how I feel.”
On the back of the paper had a heart drawn in the script of Zer0’s little emoticons, and it made a breathless laugh fall out of Rhys’s mouth, confused at what exactly Zer0 meant. His cheeks flushed a bit but he didn’t have long to ponder it before a dull thud came from behind Rhys and it made him jump, almost knocking over his half drunk cup of coffee.
Whipping his head around he saw Zer0 standing there with blood splattered all over his suit, little bloody footprints tracked down his stairs behind him,
“Zer0, what-” He had stood up from his chair in a scrambled motion, but he was unable to finish as Zer0 approached him and met him halfway, raising his hands for Rhys to see what exactly he had been up to.
In the one hand, Zer0 was holding the severed head of a man, and it almost made Rhys throw up, at the very least he gagged a little at the sight, and he was sure if there was actual food in his stomach, he would have actually thrown up all over the other’s bloody little shoes. Upon closer inspection, Rhys recognized it as the head of a man who had been giving him some problems with shipments out toward Sanctuary. The leader of a bandit gang that had threatened him personally. That boggled Rhys’s mind a bit, that Zer0 had gone out and killed this man, he wasn’t sure if Zer0 had known that this man threatened him, or even how he would have found out, or if the bastard had done something to the assassin personally. Either way, that would no longer be an issue, and Rhys found some peace come to his mind at the thought of that.
But in the other hand was some other, fleshier and grosser thing. Rhys was sure he was going to throw up at the sight of blood oozing from it and through Zer0’s fingers. It took Rhys a moment to focus enough to see that it was a heart. He could put together easily that it was the boss’s heart.
“Zer0 what the-” He was once again unable to finish his sentence, cut off by the voice of the voice modulator in the other’s helmet chiming in in the almost cracking, recording sounding tone.
“Was a threat to you,
So, I could not let him live,
Care for you too much.”
Rhys looked unto him dumbfounded for a moment, before Zero pushed the hand with the heart closer to Rhys with a smiley popping up on his face plate, as if he was just handing Rhys a box of ordinary chocolates.
Then it dawned on him.
Zer0 might as well have been doing that. This was essentially Zer0 courting Rhys with a box of chocolates, or getting him a simple gift out here. This was Pandora, and he was still getting used to all the weird and barbaric ways, but… He might be able to get used to these ones.
He cracked a smile and pushed his stomach back down into his abdomen, taking the gift from Zer0 and smiling more when he feels the cool press of Zer0’s mask against his forehead, closing his eyes to not get blinded by the shine of the heart from the hunter.
“Thanks. I care about you too.”
Yeah. He could easily get used to that.