Chapter Text
It was late at night by the time you finished with your work for the day. Your project was coming along great, all your tests had worked seamlessly today. As you clean up your desk to head home, you see the file Heimerdinger dropped off in your lab earlier today. ‘Hextech’, you’d heard the name pass through the halls, as well as word about the break-in into Heimerdinger’s lab about two months ago.
“Look into it, my dear! You might be able to lend a hand!” the yordle had said when he handed you the file. But, the name tied to the file made you hesitate. You hadn’t spoken to him in two years by now, and neither of you were exactly a big fan of the other. But, still, you were curious about the supposedly ‘revolutionary’ discovery.
You sigh, knowing that your curiosity would win from your logic anyway, and open the file. No matter how bad you wished to find their discovery rudimentary, you had to agree that the praise they’d been getting since their stunt was more than deserved.
Their theories were great, and their equations were well-thought-out. There was nothing in the file about the empirical aspect of their research, and without realizing, you were already thinking of ways to put their theories into practice.
But you quickly banished those thoughts, knowing that it didn’t matter anyway. It’s not like you’d ever work with him , or he with you for that matter. You put the file in one of your desk drawers, grab your bag and close the lab to head home.
Your lab was in the same hall as the new Hextech lab. For the past two months, you’ve made a point to ignore the lab, never looking in and never making any contact with the two scientists within. But now, as you walk past, you just couldn’t help yourself from peaking through the open lab doors.
Luckily, he wasn’t there, which gave you an opportunity to take a proper look inside. A broad figure sat slumped at a desk, elbows resting on his knees and head in his hands. The stress and frustration was visible, shoulders tense and hands pulling at his hair.
The source of his frustration quickly became clear. On a table in the middle of the room sat a machine. The smoke that came out of it suggests that it malfunctioned mere minutes ago. Without thinking about it, you took a few steps closer to inspect the machine. The glowing, blue crystal sat in the middle, electricity sparking around it.
You can spot a few flaws in the engineering, and can see that it is in no way an Academy-approved construction for what they’re trying to achieve. At least this makes Heimerdinger’s reason of giving you the file a lot clearer.
You reach a hand out to the crystal, fascinated by its properties, but a hand closes around your wrist to stop you. When you look up, you’re face to face with the broad figure, who you assume is the infamous Jayce Talis.
“Can I help you, miss?” he asks, his eyes narrowing slightly. You pull your wrist out of his grasp, looking down at your feet embarrassed at getting caught. “Sorry, just interested, that’s all. Heimer dropped a file of your research off earlier. I just wanted to see it for myself.”
“Ah, so you’re the top engineer at the Academy? Heimerdinger mentioned giving them our research,” he says. You laugh incredulously, “I wouldn’t give myself that much praise, but I am good at what I do.”
“Well, I don’t know if there’s much to see right now. We can’t get the damned machine to work like it’s supposed to,” he admits, the frustration clear on his face. You look back at the machine, scanning it for possible improvements. “You could start with a better conductor, this is nowhere near suitable enough for the amount of energy that you crystals produce. Besides, this doesn’t look like anything the Academy would approve of safety wise.”
Jayce’s eyes widen more and more as you continue rattling off your ideas. “How did you figure all that out so fast? We’ve been stuck on this for weeks! We could never figure out what was wrong.”
You shrug, “Eh, sometimes all you need is a fresh set of eyes.”
“Well,” he continues, “any other fresh ideas? We could clearly use the help.” He gestures around the lab, at the various broken and failed machines that lay scattered around the room.
His charming smile is convincing, but you hesitate. You doubt his partner would want to partake in any form of collaboration with you. But their ideas are too interesting to turn down, and could really bring improvements for several lives. “I might have a couple,” you smile. You’re about to ask what his partner would think of this, but that question quickly gets answered by a voice at the door.
“What is she doing here?” The disdain in his voice still stung, no matter how much time had passed. You turn to see him standing at the door, not even acknowledging you as he looks at Jayce with furrowed brows. Jayce doesn’t seem to notice the tension growing in the lab. “She’s the engineer Heimerdinger was talking about earlier! She wants to help us with–”
“Absolutely not.” Viktor interrupts his partner. Jayce’s face falls, finally noticing the weird air in the room that hung between you two. The anger and annoyance bubbled up in your chest, as it always did when he was near you. You scoff at him, “Really? You’re gonna let a silly rivalry come in between the biggest research opportunity you’ve gotten?”
He finally meets your eyes, brows furrowed and anger clear behind his golden eyes. “Don’t you have your own projects to work on?” he spits. His normally composed nature cracking as it always did when you got under his skin.
You smirk slightly, “Yes, I do.” You take a few steps towards him, never breaking eye contact. “I’m not offering my help for my sake here. I have work of my own. I’m offering my help for your sake, since you clearly need it.”
You were surprised at the venom in your voice. You hadn’t spoken to the man for two years, and all the anger came up to the surface. “But looks like you still can’t accept help when you need it, hmm? You never could.”
You see his eyes falter, shocked at your words. But you’d never had this chance, he’d never given you the chance to express your feelings about what he did. And by now, the only feeling that was left was hate.
You turn back to Jayce, who’s jaw hung open at the interaction unfolding in front of him. You put your best, friendliest smile on your face. “It was lovely to properly meet you, mister Talis. If your partner ever comes to his senses, my lab is three doors down. Good luck with your research.”
And with that, you turn to leave. You throw one last look of disdain at Viktor, before retreating down the hall to finally head home. And you hate to admit it, but you’re disappointed. Their research was truly something revolutionary, and you would have loved to be even a small part of it.
And part of you hoped that this hate between you and Viktor would have dissipated by now. You thought you were over it, that you didn’t care anymore. But that clearly wasn’t the case.
You think back to the old times, before rivalries and hate soured your relationship. Gods, you used to be such good friends…
***
You still couldn’t believe it. Over the past two weeks, you had read the letter over and over again, multiple times a day. You had been accepted into the Piltover Academy. A mix of nerves and excitement swirled around in your chest as you stood in front of the gigantic entrance to the building.
You could feel so many eyes on you. In comparison to all the neat and clean Pilties, you stuck out like a sore thumb with your dishevelled clothes and appearance. But, honestly, you didn’t care. You were here as a student, just as much as they were.
You took a deep breath, and finally passed the threshold into this new chapter of your life. When you could properly see the entrance hall, your jaw dropped and your feet were rooted in place. It was three times the sizes of your house back in the lanes. The high ceilings were supported by elegant marble columns, and beautiful golden statues lined the rich walls.
You stood there for a while, breathless at the sight. But soon the feeling of eyes on you returned. You looked around to see the other students pointing and staring at you.
As you came to your senses, you noticed a young man stood next to you. His weathered down clothes clearly showed a similar background to yours, and his astonished expression showed an equal shock at the Piltovian architecture.
You tapped him on the shoulder and gestured around at the people, still shamelessly judging the both of you. Once the man realized the stares, he retreated to one of the corners, and you followed suit. As you passed by, you picked up on some of the whispers.
“What are those trenchers doing here?”
“God, look at those clothes.”
“He probably got in because of pity, with the cane and all.”
When the two of you reached the corner of the room, you both leaned against the wall. You didn’t speak, both just observed the other students rolling in for the start of the academic year. But it was a comfortable silence. It felt like you understood each other, all the nerves and excitement and hesitations, without having to express it.
About six months later, you frantically ran through the halls of the Academy. People still stared, even though you now wore the same clothes they still knew you were ‘different’. But, by now, you really stopped giving a fuck.
You almost knocked down the Academy golden boy Jayce Talis, shouting a sorry as you continued running. You finally reached the door. You knocked and knocked until the door swung open.
“What do you want?” an accented voice asked as you almost fell into him. He tried to sound annoyed, but the smile on his face diminished that immediately.
You walked past him, into his dorm room, and put your bag down on his floor and sat down beside it, already taking out your notes and materials. “I had this idea, been drawing out plans of the machine all day, but I can’t get the math right! So-”
“So you need me to draw out the equations while you start building it,” he finished your sentence. You hand him your notes as he sits down on one of his kitchen chairs, both with the biggest smile on your face.
“Well, it is what makes us such a great team, ain’t it?”