spartan051 | (no subject)

"Alright, let's try that and see what happens." He finally agreed after a long pause as he visibly absorbed what Matt was saying. It made sense of course but it was so unlike anything they had been trained to do.

His closest bonds in boot had been with his fireteam.

Kurt of course would argue his Spartan-III's had lost as much if not more than even them. Sure, they'd been absconded from their families but every single III was a war orphan who'd suffered through the traumatic events of Covenent glassing their homeworlds. It gave them a fire and a motivation to get the job done to say the least.

"Okay, lets get Mendez and see who all we can match up. Are we filling in deficiencies in skill sets? What's your plan, Matt?"

"Randomize them each pass. It's about communication. Sometimes you need to communicate overlaps and how that causes problems. My last team just about fell apart because of communication issues."

One day he might tell Kurt about it. Just a bit longer for him to feel... less like he's betraying them. Not like Kurt would tell anyone else. It would stay between them. He trusts Kurt like nothing and no one else.

His fingers come up to his eye to rub at it.

"I want them to be able to do more than this. If they can start getting good at it, we'll see about working the grav hammer in on lower settings. Get them catching it."

"I see, alright, let's try it." Kurt, bless him, seemed able to read Matt even after all these years and recognized that he wasn't ready for him to press him about his old team just yet.

He'd always been the most empathetic member of their training group and had an almost uncanny ability to read people.

"Well, do keep in mind, they are still in their adjustment period post Augmentations so we do need to exercise some patience with them." Kurt moved to clap a hand on Matt's shoulder. "Come on, we can figure all of this out while we get some chow. You must be famished."

"Communication was an issue before the augmentations if they won't communicate. And my issue isn't what they can and can't do. It's that they don't talk. I had two come at me at once and all I had to do was side-step to get them into each other."

He's being thoughtful here, Kurt. And he doesn't know how long you have to get these boys and girls ready.

Famished? Now that Kurt mentions it Matt can't help the way his stomach growls.

"Haven't had that serious of a workout other than sparring with you since I left the front lines."

"I understand that, Matt, but you also need to keep in mind that they're not at their best right now. You remember how awful it was after our augmentations. None of us were ship shape for weeks afterwards."

Unfortunately for both of them, it was only a matter of months until graduation. Kurt knew he could buy some time but not a whole lot of it. Ackerson would want his numbers in a relatively timely manner and he suspected the man wouldn't be willing to accept the excuse that they needed some time to fine-tune unit cohesion.

The other Spartan couldn't contain his smile when Matt's stomach suddenly rumbled loudly.

"Good, at least you hopefully won't become too bored here."

And when they had gotten ship shape, he'd gotten the boot. Matt just looks at Kurt. Because he doesn't like to think about that. One of the best examples of a fail out, but a fail out.

Good thing his stomach distracted him from having to deal with that pain.

"Not worried. Continue working on my degrees in my spare time."

Kurt would have felt like a Grade-A ass if he'd been privy to Matt's thoughts. He hadn't meant anything by that comment but it had inadvertently hurt Matt.

"Degrees? Typical over-achieving Spartan I see." Kurt teased with a grin. But he was pleasantly surprised all the same. He didn't know any Spartan who'd chosen to try and better their education beyond what they had been taught in the war. They were soldiers, not scholars.

"Had a lot of down time at my old black-bag."

More than that, of course. It wasn't like he could use the full of his capabilities in most cases. He was a control group for comparison to the mods in some ways. There was an actual pleasure here at being allowed to lift to the limits of his abilities which had turned out to be on the high end even for a SPARTAN, getting stronger over the years like Kelly had gotten faster, like Kurt had quite clearly gotten even smarter. And even better at putting too much on his own shoulders.

"Only thing I could easily do that I was allowed to do was access as much network materials as I wanted. Working on engineering and city planning. Materials science. Better to use to contemplate combat in an urban environment."

See, he couldn't even research without turning it to war.

"Free time, huh? I've heard of that term before. Wouldn't know what that's like." His brother said drolly while they headed towards the staff mess hall.

He listened with open interest as Matt explained the classes he'd taken and his reasoning behind the decision to pick them.

The fact that Matt had somehow found a way to apply his education in a war-like fashion just made perfect sense to him. "I'm really proud of you, Matt. I can't imagine how hard the last twenty years have been for you but you made something of yourself despite everything and are continuing to find ways to improve yourself. That's really something."

"That wasn't a good thing," Maine shrugged. He just had to do something. It wasn't about improving himself.

"Way I saw it, I need to stay relevant. ONI is never letting us go. Almost feel constructive here. I just needed something to fill the space up. The time."

Here, at least, he had something valuable to do for a larger part of the day.

"In what way?" He asked, genuinely puzzled.

Something in Matt's words struck a chord with him and Kurt's heart ached for his brother. "I understand that. More than you can imagine." His jaw tightened as he bit down on his back teeth.

"I love what I do and I genuinely do believe I'm doing the most good here rather than being out there on the front lines. But it's hard, you know? Being relegated to the sidelines, knowing your brothers and sisters are out there possibly dying because you're not there to have their backs." Pain threaded its way through Kurt's voice as he confessed that. "Knowing you could be doing something and striking back at the Covenant in some physical and tangibly satisfying way. But ONI had different plans for all of us."

The brunette broke off suddenly and paused for a moment to make sure there was no listening ears nearby. "I haven't worn my MJOLNIR in over two decades and honestly? These days, I don't even feel like Kurt-051 anymore, it's like Kurt Ambrose has consumed him completely and that's all I am." That was something he'd kept inside his head for so long, something he couldn't confide even in Mendez. But he knew Matt would understand what he was saying and what he felt.

Yeah, he understood. Trust him, he understood. He had served on the line but not with his brothers and sisters. He'd served as the control group of programs trying to be effective compared to SPARTANs. He'd seen more death than he wanted to, and none of it on the right side of the war.

"Sometimes I am surprised I even remember my designation," Matt shrugs, because he gets it. "But Ambrose is just another part of Kurt-051. Just another part of my brother. Like this jackass I play cards with and who laughs at my poker face is still Mendez, which is hard to rectify. I'll tell you something I learned out there, Kurt. People got all kinds of faces. Some for the public, some for themselves, but they are always a product of where they came from. You're always Kurt-O51. You always will be. And maybe someday the call will come that puts you back in that armor. Maybe it won't. But no matter what, here?"

He reaches out and lays a hand over Kurt's heart.

"This is where are names are. Branded there when we were kids. You will always be SPARTAN. And these kids need that. They know it, on some level."

Kurt hadn't realized just how much he needed to hear that. He and Chief Mendez had graduated from student and DI to coworkers and friends but there were some things he couldn't discuss even with his old friend and this was one of them. Matt understood it though perhaps better than anyone in the world.

He knew what it felt like to lose your sense of identity, to find your purpose changed by powers outside your control and of course the pain of isolation that came from being separated from those you were closest too.

Emotion filled Kurt's chest and he felt genuinely choked up for a moment. The weight of Matt's hand pressing against his heart helped tether him and he reached up to cover that hand with his own.

"Thank you, Matt. You don't know how much I needed to hear that." If his eyes were prickling a little and his vision got a little misty for a moment, he didn't mention it and trusted that Matt wouldn't either. "I missed you so much, I can't say how glad I am that you're here."

"You reminded me of the same thing," Matt counters, because it's that simple. "You made me remember it. I've been nothing but a series of code names. Here, I'm Matt. The kid you grew up with."

That makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe not. But damn, it looked almost like he'd gotten Kurt upset. Was that even a thing? He doesn't quite know what to do with it. He does take his hand back after a moment, though.

"I missed you too, brother. But I'm here now. And we're going to keep your kids going. We're cutting down the number of MIA count for SPARTANs. No matter how you number them, they're us."

"Well now we're here to remind each of that fact." And maybe now, they both could stop feeling so damned lonely.

Matt hadn't upset him so much as this was just twenty years of repressed emotion bubbling to the surface because even the most socially adjusted Spartan could be overwhelmed by his emotions and poor coping skills.

Kurt had to close his eyes and breathe in deeply because what Matt was promising was the thing he'd been striving to do for the better part of two decades. Every Spartan-III who'd died, he took it to be a personal failing. "Thank you." He managed to say around the lump in his throat. "That's all I want."

"We're SPARTANs, Kurt. We make the impossible reality," he says, and it's the first time he's claimed the term for himself. This is it. This is him. Him moving on.

Now, it's probably time. Time for a lot of things. Including a meal.

"Now move, boss. Gotta feed you otherwise you're going to be too small to fit in that armor someday."

He noted the way Matt actually grouped himself in with the rest of the Spartans which was something he'd never done before.

It was gratifying in its own unique way.

"Keep talking and I'll have to drag you out to the practice mat and show you I'm still strong enough to get the job done." Still, that seemed to shake some of the sadness from Kurt and he smirked over at Matt before continuing on towards the mess hall.

"I'm pretty sure I could take some desk-jockey down no problem," Matt grinned as he slapped Kurt on the shoulder. What, is that a bit much force that he did there? Trying to make you stumble? No, never.

At least they are moving toward the food now. Nothing like a serious meal to recharge you after a day of beating up super soldiers.

"A desk jockey!? How dare you." Kurt huffed without any real heat in his voice or true outrage. When Matt tried to slap him on the shoulder hard enough to throw him off is stride, it was like trying to smack solid rock and it was about as immovable. The III's might be weaker facsimiles of the II's but Kurt was still in fighting trim and nowhere near as easy push around.

Soon enough the reached the mostly empty mess hall. There were a few DI still lingering around one of the tables playing some poker while Chief Mendez sat nearby leisurely enjoying one of his infamous cigars. "Evening, gentlemen." Kurt called out in greeting and got a chorus of polite 'commanders' and 'sirs'.

He tried to maintain a friendly relationship with every one of his staff but in the end, the chain of command still had to be maintained and that would always put a subtle wedge between Kurt and everyone else on Onyx.

There are eyes on them briefly, a glance that Matt has already adjusted to. No doubt there is some mixed feelings about how quickly Maine's gotten into the CO's good graces. Of course anyone with a brain should be able to put some things together. With Matt as a comparison point, an understanding of what Matt was doing as an instructor, and the fitness routine he kept himself up to when not directly with the new class, was it even any question?

"Who ever would have thought you'd come this far, Ambrose," he smirks as he moves to fill up a tray with food.

Kurt noted those curious glances and privately suspected he and Matt were't as subtle as they thought they were being when it came to the closeness of their relationship.

Not that Kurt or Matt were openly advertising the fact that they were Spartans but there were still a few DI who'd been with them since the beginning of the Spartan-III operations. They'd seen Kurt make his address in his MJOLNIR armor and while he hadn't work that in almost to decades, it was common knowledge among the staff that he was a former II.

"Certainly not me, at least not in this way." Kurt agreed with a matching smirk and filled his own tray with food.

Like it mattered what they thought. There could hardly be preferential treatment over the other DIs. Matt was there outside of normal structure, existed only to take what Mendez built up and make it stronger. To give them something to measure up to. For experience.

“That gonna be a problem?” he asks Kurt quietly. Should still be cautious anyway. Granted his experience since the program made a bit of an ‘us against them’ mentality. Especially Freelancer.

It didn't which was why Kurt wasn't overly concerned about the attention. So long as it didn't make any friction between Matt and the other DI's, he saw no point in worrying about it or their questions.

"I don't believe so. Shall we join the Chief and go over your latest ideas for the Gammas?" He asked while picking up a cup of chocolate pudding. It wasn't his favored desert but he knew Matt would appreciate the double portion.

"Got no problem with that," Matt agreed, and he grins at the extra pudding. Hell. Yes.

That was the one upside of Freelancer. Plenty of pudding cups. What? He had never grown out of his sweet tooth.

Whereas Kurt had never been a big fan of sweets and preferred crunchy or salty and savory snacks. Once they'd fetched their food, he and Matt wandered over to sit across from Mendez who was still slowly puffing away at his cigar.

When they'd been children, Mendez had been a fierce and merciless trainer who meted out verbal abuse and occasionally a swift kick in the ass. Normally, this was what a drill instructor was expected to do but they'd been six year old children. It had been strange to be reunited with the man only to himself on a more equal footing with the man who'd made their childhood hell. More than that, Kurt had technically outranked the Chief but thankfully for the both of them, he'd never harbored any resentment towards the man.

After all...he'd taught them how to survive and crafted them into the best soldiers humanity had ever seen. And over the years, a friendship had grown between them and he offered the older man a warm smile as he sat down. "Evening, Chief."

"Kurt," he squinted at Matt for a moment as though taking in his black eye and bruised status. "Bite off more than you can chew, Matt?"