Archive of Our Own

Bot fighting isn't illegal. Betting on it is, which is why when one wants to partake in said illegal activity, they don't do it under broad daylight.

They wait for nights like this, when New Corona's police force are more or less focused on more pressing matters, when an alleyway is deserted enough that no law-abiding citizen will so much as glance twice at it. To learn the whereabouts of such an event is another matter entirely, but Varian has always been clever.

Anyway, that isn't the point.

The point is that profiting from bot fights, while very illegal, is also very common if you know where to look. And Varian does, which is how he ends up in a deserted— well, supposedly deserted— alley much too late at night, watching two robots no larger than a house cat clash into each other over and over beneath a flickering street light as people cheer them on.

It's an exhilarating sight to see, because the machines truly are a work of art. One of them with oversized… forks? for arms, the other with clamp-like attachments that almost remind him of a crab. They slash and stab and slam each other into the ground as their creators— a gangly man with a long, pointy nose and a black eye and a woman with an intimidating sleeve of tattoos— sit on either side of a chalk circle with controllers, furiously smashing buttons in an attempt to get their bot to overpower the other.

One bot seemingly takes the lead, landing a powerful uppercut that sends its opponent flying. The man with the swollen eye grins, an expression that has people grimacing. The bot advances, arm raised to deliver the final blow, but before it makes contact, the tattooed woman's bot swings with a spinning blade that slices clean through its enemy.

Half of the crowd erupts in cheers while the others groan at the idea of losing their money because of a bad bet. Another woman comes through, giving a thick wad of cash to the winner.

"The winner— by total annihilation!— Lady Caine!"

The crowd erupts halfway in cheers again as the woman takes her earnings with a boisterous grin. "Who's next?" She challenges, clearly not a woman to quit while she's ahead. "Who has the guts to face Lady Caine?"

Absolute crickets from the crowd. Those without bots stare down at the ground, and those who brought their own in hopes of winning a little cash tonight hide them behind their backs.

Caine laughs. "What, afraid of a little challenge?"

More crickets and awkward avoidance of eye contact as she turns to her gang and laughs at the cowardice of onlookers. No one is stupid enough to go up against her, not when she already has so many wins under her belt. To accept her challenge is to lose. Everybody knows that.

"Can I try?"

Everybody except one person.

Caine pauses, turning to watch the crowd part for a teenager with wide blue eyes partly obscured by unruly black hair. He clutches something in hands covered by the sleeves of a hoodie that is too large to be his. He reveals the object with a shy, tooth-gapped grin— a small, clearly homemade… toy. It's got arms and legs and a face painted to look like a raccoon's, and it's difficult to take seriously. "I've got a robot. I built it myself."

The crowd erupts into laughter, clearly amused by the notion of someone they perceive to be a child taking on someone like Lady Caine. He must be arrogant or stupid, or both.

Lady Caine regards him, seemingly disinterested. "Beat it kid. House rules: you gotta pay to play."

The boy swallows and reaches into the pocket of his hoodie, pulling out a crumpled wad of cash. "Is this enough?"

She grins, all teeth like a shark. "It certainly changes things. You got a name?"

"Varian," he responds, though it comes out sounding more like a question than a sure statement. "Varian Ruddiger."

"Prepare your bot, Varian."

Varian and Lady Caine sit on opposite sides of the circle, each with a controller. They place their respective money on a plate that is then whisked away by the same woman who announced Caine's previous victory. The crowd watches on, but not with as much anticipation as before. They know the outcome. They know this naive teenager won't be going home with a victory.

They're proven right almost immediately. There's a countdown and the battle starts and Varian's bot waddles towards Caine's, who wastes no time in swiping at its opponent with its claw-like arms and separating the head from the body. The bot falls apart easily, the pieces separating like magnets being pulled apart. There's no wires to keep it together, nothing to suggest its truly damaged aside from the body parts no longer being together.

The head of Varian's bot rolls to a stop in front of him and his eyes go wide as onlookers jeer and taunt him. "Wait," he begs. "That— that was my first fight, I— let me try again!"

"No one likes a sore loser, kid," Caine sneers as she reaches to take her earnings from the plate. "Go home."

But Varian has never been one to do what others tell him to.

"I've got more money," he says instead, pulling a neater, thicker roll of cash tied together with a green rubber band.

Caine eyes it suspiciously, wondering how a teenager could've possibly gotten his hands on so much cash. She keeps quiet though, because it's only an opportunity for her to grow more rich. She withdraws her hand from the plate, signaling her acceptance of his challenge. She pays her own share, and just like that, the reward has more than doubled.

This time when the countdown begins, there's a certain steadiness about Varian. He doesn't fidget with the edges of his hoodie like before, instead pushing the oversized sleeves past his forearms and concentrating on the challenge ahead of him.

"Fighters ready?! Fight!"

Caine's bot jumps to life as Varian presses a button on his controlled that has the pieces of his robot magnetically reattaching. It stands, awaiting Varian's next move.

He grips each end of his controller and pulls, making it longer. "Ruddiger," he says with a grin, "destroy." He presses another button and his bot's face spins, switching from a smiling raccoon to a crudely drawn snarling one.

Caine's confident expression falters, clearly not having expected… whatever this is. Gone is the timid child who seemed much too young to fit into a place like this, replaced by a calm, collected, confident teenager who believes this is a fight he can win.

This time he has a chance.

From the moment they jump into action, it's clear that Varian has more talent— or experience— than he originally let on. His bot, despite being smaller than Caine's and not having any visible weapons to fight with, is agile, quick to dodge each blow that it's opponent tries to land. For a while Varian doesn't even fight back, face impassive as his fingers fly along the numerous controls that make his robot flip and dodge and avoid Caine's strikes.

She's growing frustrated by the time her bot makes contact with his. It brings down a fist, clearly intending to smash it, but all it manages to do is separate the body parts, which Varian is still fully able to control. The separated parts inch up the larges bot's body, circling around the spot where torso meets arm, and squeezes.

"No!" Caine shouts, looking downright murderous as she watches the arm of her bot disconnect from the body.

Varian isn't done yet. Ruddiger takes the clawed arm and uses it to brutally stab off its other limbs. A bit gruesome, but hey. It's bot fighting. Both arms go flying into the crowd as Ruddiger's body is finally pulled back together, and Varian wastes no time in rapidly delivering punch after punch to the bots head too quickly for it to fight back.

Caine's bot is strong, but not strong enough to endure the rapid speed of Ruddiger's blows. It's a surprise to everyone except Varian when the head is flung off in the general direction of the arms, leaving the headless, armless bot defeated.

It falls to the ground in front of a bewildered Caine, and just because Varian can't resist showing off a little, Ruddiger does a backflip off the corpse, bows, and switches back to its original unassuming happy face.

He takes his bountiful reward with a smirk. "No more Lady Caine," he says smugly.

"But what—?" Caine stares at her beloved bot, face growing more red by the second. "How is this possible?!"

Varian grabs Ruddiger and takes a stand, smile never once leaving his face. He can't help it, he loves the thrill of victory. "Hey, I'm just as surprised as you are. Beginner's luck, right? I mean, if you can find a way to repair your bot, I'm sure we could go again, but—"

When he looks up, his mouth goes dry. Caine is standing over him, face covered in shadow in a way that forces him to remember that, oh yeah! This woman is very powerful! And probably doesn't appreciate losing for the first time in— well, however long, to a teenager.

A group of men approach behind her, and he suddenly feels like a fox cornered by hounds.

Shit.

☆ ✮ ☆

So that's how Varian ends up being shoved against a wall by one of Lady Caine's goons. Obviously she wasn't too happy about losing, about being hustled, and uh, she wasn't too keen on letting Varian get away without paying for his insolence.

"No one hustles Caine!" She hisses, snatching Ruddiger from his hands.

His heart drops at the sight of her walking away with his bot. His bot! "Wait, hey—"

She doesn't even spare him a glance as she speaks to her men. "Teach this child a lesson."

Varian scowls as her men focus their attention on him. He hates being called a child. They advance on him and his hands become fists because he may not know how to fight, but he sure as hell isn't going to go down without swinging. What was it his cousin had taught him? Thumb tucked in, right? No, that's how you break it. Maybe. Probably.

He tries to swallow down his fear as the man advance on him, and braces himself for a hit just as one of them winds his arm back and—

And a set of blinding headlights floods the dark alleyway, illuminating the shocked expressions of Caine and her gang. The loud roar of a motorcycle engine echoes off the building walls and the men scramble over each other to avoid a collision.

Relief swells within Varian when a familiar face stops in front of him, concern evident in his features.

"Varian, get on!"

"Eugene!" Varian exclaims, grinning as he hops onto the back of his cousin's motorcycle. "You have no idea how impeccable your timing is!"

Eugene rolls his eyes, tossing Varian the extra helmet he always brings with him and not wasting a second in turning the way he came and zooming away.

"Wait. Ruddi—" Varian sighs and reaches into his pocket, pulling out his controller. He mashes an assortment of buttons, listening for Lady Caine's yelp in the distance. A moment later, Ruddiger is trailing behind them, jumping up into Varian's outstretched hand.

The satisfaction of a sweet, sweet victory seeps in as he watches Caine and her gang grow smaller with each second the distance between them grows. A laugh escapes him, wild and disbelieving at their— well, mostly his— narrow escape. Sure he's had a few close calls before, but this has to be the most trouble he's gotten himself into yet. He doesn't know what he would've done if Eugene hadn't found him when he did.

Which, speaking of.

"Hey, Gene!" He calls over the engine. "How'd you manage to find me?"

"Oh, it only took combing through some of the sketchiest places in Corona," his cousin bites back sarcastically. "Ran into a bunch of thugs grumbling about a kid stealing their win and figured it must've been you. They pointed me in your direction."

Varian bites back a smug grin. His win against Caine had been the second of the night, the first being against some blond guy who clearly hadn't been expecting a loss. Varian tried the whole innocent, wide-eyed thing with him too, delighting when it worked in his favor.

"Are you okay?" Eugene asks, sparing a glance over his shoulder. Varian nods. "Are you hurt at all?"

Another glance behind them and Caine's gang is officially out of sight. Phew. "No, I'm fine."

"Then what! Were! You! Thinking!" Eugene shouts, emphasizing each word with a swat to Varian's arm. "Knucklehead!"

"Ow!" Varian yelps. "Eyes on the road!"

"You could've gotten yourself killed!"

Varian rolls his eyes. "I doubt she was actually going to kill me. Rough me up a little, send me home with a few bruises, but I don't think she would've—"

Another glare from Eugene has him shutting his mouth.

"Right, yeah, okay. Could've gotten myself killed."

"Is that my hoodie?"

Varian glances down at his— Eugene's, actually— hoodie and shrugs sheepishly. "It's laundry day; I had nothing else!"

He doesn't hear so much as feel his cousin groan as he wraps his arms more securely around his torso, because as much as he loves taking risks, Varian is not a fan of how fast they're going right now.

"I know it's laundry day!" Eugene exclaims. "I'm the one that had to round up your dirty clothes while you were off doing who knows what with god knows who!"

"I was just—"

"You graduate high school at fifteen and this is what you do with your life?!"

Eugh, he's heard this enough times to know exactly how it's going to go. "Bot fighting!" He shouts. "It was literally just bot fighting!"

"Which is illegal!" Eugene argues. "You're going to get yourself arrested!"

Varian scoffs. "Bot fighting isn't illegal! Betting on bot fighting, that's… well, that's illegal, yes." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out just one of the thick rolls of cash he earned tonight. "But so lucrative, look at this!"

Eugene looks back for a moment and his eyes widen. "Jeez, Var!"

Varian laughs at the stunned reaction. "I know, right?! I'm telling you, I am on a roll with this thing, and there is no stopping—"

Me, he doesn't get to say before Eugene pulls to an abrupt stop. Varian lurches forward so violently that the money falls out of his hands, and he's about to start questioning his cousin when he can suddenly see why they stopped.

His blood runs cold.

The sound of police sirens can be heard only a second before two cop cars show up to block the exit to the alleyway they were about to escape from. Red and blue paints the brick walls on either side of them, and as a pair of cops step out of their cars, Varian hears Eugene swear under his breath.

And just like Varian, his immediate reaction is,

"Shit."

☆ ✮ ☆

Varian's never gotten the uh, opportunity to experience a prison cell from the inside until tonight. He can say, with absolute confidence, that it's a complete zero star experience, even though he wasn't there for that long.

It also doesn't help that the people he'd just hustled at the bot fight got caught too, and decided to subject him to their withering glares for the entire hour he was stuck in there.

And the police take his money! All of his hard-earned winnings gone, ripped from him in a matter of seconds because it was illegally acquired.

What a fucking joke, but at least they let him keep Ruddiger.

He and Eugene are eventually released by a stone-faced policeman who squints at Varian as he walks past, and the cousins are met by the sight of a familiar face pacing in front of his car.

Varian purposefully lingers a little behind Eugene, who sighs. "Hi, Dad."

The man— Uncle Edmund to Varian— immediately rushes over to them and pulls them both into a bone-crushing hug that makes Varian feel like his lungs are going to pop. "Thank goodness my sons are okay, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Edmund has always been a bit fussy, especially over Varian, who feels a pang of guilt at the thought of how worried his uncle must've been to get a call from the police station about his son and nephew so late at night.

"We're both fine," Varian says when his uncle finally pulls away.

Edmund blows out a relieved breath. "Good."

One moment everything is fine, and the next, Edmund is tugging on Eugene and Varian's ears, dragging them to the car despite their vehement protesting. "Then what on earth were you two knuckleheads thinking, hm?! Get in the car!"

They do as they're told, Varian in the back, Eugene in the passenger seat, both rubbing their ears as Edmund gets in and slams the door behind him.

"Unbelievable," he mutters as he starts up the vehicle. "Absolutely unbelievable. What on earth made either of you think this kind of behavior was okay?! Bot fighting, Varian? Seriously?!"

The disappointment in Edmund's voice is like a physical thing, wrapping around Varian and clawing at him until he feels a familiar lump in his throat. He shrinks back in his seat, clutching his bot a little tighter.

"And you, Horace!"

Eugene winces at the name, imperceptible to anyone who isn't aware of Eugene's heavy distaste for the name. He's tried so, so many times to get his father to call him by his middle name to no avail. "Dad, I—"

"Ten years. Ten years, Varian has been living under our roof, been your brother, and you can't even keep him out of trouble?"

Eugene crosses his arms. "I went and got him, didn't I?! I went out there and searched for him the moment I realized he was gone, and I was bringing him home when the cops stopped us. Don't blame this on me!"

"This shouldn't have happened in the first place," Edmund continues, clearly not interested in hearing any of Eugene's defenses. "It's your responsibility to keep him out of trouble, to keep him safe. Why can't you do at least that?"

Varian watches Eugene's hands ball into fists and decides it's time to intervene, because he's seen enough arguments between the two of them to know that it's not going to end well for anybody in the car. Edmund loves his son, and Eugene loves his dad, but their fights are often volatile, with words shouted back and forth that only escalate the situation.

"I'm sorry!" He shouts, cutting into whatever Eugene had started to say. "It's my fault, not Eugene's. I decided to go out, I made it harder for anybody to realize I was gone. I would've left no matter what he would've told me, so if you're going to yell at someone, yell at me."

Edmund won't yell at him. He never has, and Varian doesn't think he ever will, but his words are enough to make his uncle pause.

His uncle glances between the cousins with a heavy sigh. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you two."

They aren't lucky enough for the scoldings to end there. Varian desperately wishes the car ride back home could just be silent, but five minutes later, Edmund is going on another lengthy tirade about how he's tried his best to raise the two of them alone and what would your aunt and uncle think? to which Varian snarkily replied, "they would be disappointed we got caught". Which, naturally, did not help things at all.

When they finally, finally get back home, Varian is ready to tear out his hair from all the ranting he's had to endure since stepping out of the police station. From Eugene's tired expression, he clearly feels the same way.

The building they enter is the one beneath their apartment; a quaint cafe that had originally belonged to Varian's father, and Edmund had taken over after… well, you know. Aunt Adira and Uncle Hector stopped by every once in a while to help out, but it's mostly been Eugene and Varian who help Edmund keep things running. It's usually a very welcoming atmosphere, all warmth and comforting scents, but Varian feels none of that when they walk in now. The cafe is warm in an almost suffocating way, and there's no trace of any freshly baked goods in the air.

Edmund heads straight for the display case, where he angrily pulls out a donut and starts eating. Yikes, must be bad if he's stress eating his own products. "You know, I had to close up early because of you two felons. On poetry night. Poetry night!"

I don't know why he's acting so mad about that, Varian thinks as something furry brushes up against his leg. He smiles at Ruddiger— his cat, not his bot— and scratches his ear. Everyone who performs for poetry night can barely find adequate rhymes.

"Sorry," Eugene mutters.

Varian clears his throat and manages a weak, "we love you, Uncle Edmund."

"I love you too!" Edmund shouts, spraying crumbs into the air. If he's this high strung without sugar, Varian shudders to imagine how he'll be with sugar in his system. He decides he's not keen on finding out. "Now go to your room, both of you."

Eugene places a hand on Varian's arm and guides him up the stairs to their apartment. Varian sticks his hands into his pockets, disappointed when he feels nothing but his bot. If the cops hadn't gotten to them, he would be walking up this staircase victorious right now, not to mention a couple hundred dollars richer.

The moment they get to their shared room, Varian makes a beeline for his desk and powers up his computer, setting his bot beside it. He can't just let all his hard work be for nothing. He didn't do all of that tonight just to come home empty-handed.

Behind him Eugene is saying something he doesn't quite catch because honestly, he isn't paying attention. "…make it up to Edmund before he stress-eats the entire cafe."

"Uh huh…" Varian squints at his screen and types some things into the search bar.

Come on, he thinks. It's Corona, there has to be another bot fight happening somewhere. He scrolls a bit, and…

"And I hope you've learned your lesson from this."

Bingo.

Varian spins in his chair and gives Eugene his most saccharine smile. "Absolutely!"

Eugene squints at him. "You're going bot fighting, aren't you?"

Can't ever get things past his big brother. Varian tries for a nonchalant shrug as he stands and swipes bot-Ruddiger off his desk. "There's a fight across town. If I leave now, I can make it, and I'll actually have something worthwhile when I come home."

"Seriously?!"

He speedwalks toward the door, praying he can make it out before being stopped by Eugene, but of course he isn't that lucky, because then a hand is yanking at his hood and spinning him around to face his cousin.

His cousin who looks wholistically exasperated with him. "When are you gonna start doing something with that brain of yours? You're so smart, Varian."

Varian shrugs Eugene's hand off his shoulder because this is also something he's heard a million times. "Do what? Go to some big fancy college like you did? Sit there in a classroom while people tell me things I already know? I already went through enough of that in high school, 'Gene, it's why I graduated early. I've learned all anyone can teach me."

"Unbelievable," Eugene says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What would Ulla and Quirin say?"

He says it quietly, moreso a question to himself than to Varian, but it doesn't fail to dampen his mood a bit. He looks down at the untied laces of his shoes as he murmurs, "I don't know, but it doesn't matter." They're gone, he almost says, but he doesn't have to. One glance at Eugene tells him the other man regrets bringing them up at all, and Varian swallows past the lump in his throat.

Varian turns for the door again. "I'll be back later, if Uncle Edmund asks where I am, just—"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence before a helmet is being thrown at him.

"Ow!" He shouts, rubbing the spot it hit his head. "Eugene, what—"

"I'll take you," Eugene says, brushing past him.

Varian blinks. There's no way he heard that right. "Wha— really?"

"Really."

He raises a suspicious eyebrow. "But I thought you didn't want me bot fighting."

Eugene shrugs. "I can't stop you from going, but I'm not letting you go on your own."

Varian pauses, wondering what Eugene's angle is. He doesn't hesitate for long, though, because the idea of going with Eugene sounds much more appealing than going on his own. Especially after how the last one went.

"Sweet!" He exclaims, clipping the helmet straps on under his chin and following his brother down the stairs.

☆ ✮ ☆

He should've known better than to trust that Eugene had a sudden change of heart.

He should've known better when he pulled up the location on his phone and Eugene batted it away, insisting he knew where they were going.

And he definitely should've known better when they turned onto the well-lit road he knows leads to the New Corona Institute of Science and Technology.

"What are we doing at your university?" Varian asks, doing nothing to mask the irritation in his voice. "Bot fighting is on the other side of the city!"

Eugene remains frustratingly silent as they speed through the campus, which Varian has to admit is pretty nice. He's visited a few times to hang out with Eugene, and if he weren't currently so preoccupied with being annoyed at his cousin, he'd actually enjoy the scenery.

It's too late at night for many students to be wandering around, but it isn't difficult to imagine what campus life would look like during the day. It's easy to envision student sitting beneath the willow trees, lingering outside the pristine buildings between classes, or even rushing across the courtyard with their bags over their heads, laughing as they try to avoid the rain.

Varian knows quite a bit about this place, thanks to Eugene making it his whole personality when he was in his last year of high school. He'd already been a huge science geek thanks to Varian's mom, who'd taught him everything she knew before she died, and one day he came home from a class field trip to the university and declared it to be his dream school.

"It's NCIST or nothing!" He'd proudly announced.

Of course he got in, because he's Eugene. He's smart. He works hard. He found a place to belong.

And while part of Varian envies him for that, he doesn't understand why that means he has to be dragged along tonight.

They finally slow to a stop in the parking lot of the robotics lab— a huge, circular building with so many windows the wall might as well be made of glass. Varian's never actually stepped inside before, but he knows it's where Eugene spends most of his time.

When Eugene steps off the motorcycle and removes his helmet, Varian gives him a deadpan look. "What are we doing here?"

"I gotta grab something," is Eugene's vague reply, and then he's marching towards the stairs, leaving Varian hopelessly confused.

"Hey— wait up!"

The interior of the building isn't any less impressive than the exterior. Everything is impossibly sleek, from the white walls to the blurred glass of the laboratories and the people working within them. There's a the steady humming in the air, most likely that of the air conditioning that's blasting cold air into the hallway. Varian shivers and rubs his arms.

"Is this going to take long?" He feels like a child on a road trip repeatedly asking are we there yet? But honestly, he feels like he has a right to.

Eugene scoffs. "Relax, you big baby. We'll be in and out." He pushes open a heavy looking door to the left, not waiting to hold it for Varian. "Besides, you've never gotten to see my lab before."

Varian arches a brow as he slides into the room before the door closes. "Wait, you have a—"

"Watch out!"

Varian barely has time to register the warning that's shouted at him before a blur of black and blue streaks past him, just narrowly avoiding a collision.

He watches in amazement as the blur— a person, he realizes as they stop moving, a person on some sort of paper thin bike with even thinner wheels— stops on the other side of the laboratory. They hang the bike on two hooks dangling from the ceiling and grumble something before walking away.

Eugene doesn't seem fazed by this at all, and only when Varian actually takes a look around does he realize why.

All around the massive room, there's dozens of people— students, presumably— all doing something out of the ordinary. One pair plays a game of ping pong against a robot arm while another seems to be testing some sort of hoverboard prototype. Everyone is experimenting with one machine or another, and he can hardly tear his eyes away as he trails after Eugene.

This is where Eugene spends all his time? These are the kinds of people he gets to be around, the kind of things he gets to do?

Varian clutches his robot a little tighter, and he can't help but feel like it's almost unimpressive compared to everybody else's inventions.

When they pass the motorcycle that nearly slammed into Varian, he can't help but linger a little just to get a good look at the sleek vehicle. He pauses, and upon closer examination, he can't find anything attaching the wheels to the actual body of the bike, which makes him wonder…

He waves a hand between the wheels, listening to the low humming sound it makes. He recognizes it as electro magnetic suspension, kind of like what he used when he built Bot-Ruddiger.

The clearing of a throat behind Varian has him snatching his hand away like a child who'd been caught rifling through the cookie jar. He finds himself staring at his reflection in the pitch black visors of a helmet that belong to none other than the very person who nearly ran him over when he walked in.

"Who are you?" She asks, not sounding very pleased with him.

Varian blinks, startled. "Uh, I'm—"

"Cass!" Eugene exclaims. "I was wondering if that was your bike."

"Who else's would it be, Fitzherbert?"

Eugene shrugs. "I'm just saying, it's been so long since I've seen you actually ride that thing. Last time, you got so mad that you almost tore it to pieces."

Varian glances between the two, not missing the playfulness of Eugene's tone that he usually only reserves for, well, Varian, or friends. "Wait, you know her?"

"Unfortunately," the bike rider grumbles.

"You wound me. Cassandra, this is my brother, Varian."

Cassandra pulls off her helmet, revealing an unimpressed expression. She brushes her dark hair out of her face, looking Varian up and down. "Yeah, I've heard a bit about you. Welcome to the nerd lab."

"Uhm… thanks?" Varian replies, unsure whether or not that was a sarcastic remark or not. He watches her place her helmet on a small workbench near the bike. "You know, I've never seen electro-magnetic suspension on a bike before."

"Zero resistance, faster bike." Cass says, grunting as she pulls the back wheel off. "But it's not fast enough." She holds the wheel like a frisbee, and the next thing Varian knows, she's launching it towards a bin filled with dozens of other wheels just like it. "At least not yet."

And then she's walking away and Varian is trying his very best to pretend like he isn't intimidated by her.

He turns to Eugene. "Is she always like that?"

Eugene shrugs. "Eh, more or less. Not all of them are like that, though. Cass is just a special kind of off putting."

"Right." Wait a second. "Who's 'all of them'?"

"My friends!" Eugene perks up. "Come on."

The annoying, little brother part of Varian wants to quip something about not knowing Eugene had any of those, but he decides to bite his tongue for now. Instead, he lets Eugene lead him to another part of the room, where a guy with a wispy mustache is hunched over, writing something down. There's a whiteboard behind him covered in equations and doodles of split apples, and when Varian tries to get a better look, the guy looks up and panics.

"Oh!" He shouts. "Nope, no! Do not move, I need you behind the line please, I'm not looking to get sued!"

Varian stumbles back, confused, until the man gestures to the ground. Varian looks down, and— yep. There's a line of caution tape that he (stupidly) hadn't even noticed.

"Sorry," Varian mutters.

The guy blows out a relieved sigh. "What, are you trying to give me a heart attack, kid?"

"Lance!" Eugene confidently strolls right past Varian— right past the line, how dare he— and swings an arm around the man like they're the closest of friends. "This is Varian. Varian, meet Lance."

Lance's eyes light up, and he carefully extracts himself from Eugene's hold to shake Varian's hand. "Nice to finally meet you, little man. Prepare to be amazed."

Eugene moves over to where Varian is standing while Lance puts on a pair of science goggles and grabs an apple from his workbench.He stands beside two poles that stand opposite each other. He fiddles with something on the side of one— some sorb of button that turns from red to green.

Lance brandishes the apple like it's something sacred too be hold. "Catch!"

When Lance tosses the apple, Varian's instant reaction is to step forward and stop it from falling to the ground. But it does something he doesn't expect. When the apple passes through the space between the two poles, it splits so quickly he would've missed it if he so much as blinked. What was a whole apple just seconds ago is now dozens of slices, thin enough to be translucent as they lazily float around the air.

Varian reaches out to catch one, amazed. It's a little warm, like something fresh from the microwave. "How did you do this?" Varian asks, amazed.

Lance presses another button, and thousands of tenuous lasers emitting a bright blue light are suddenly visible.

"Laser induced plasma?" Varian cautiously takes a step around the lasers, joining Lance at his workbench.

The older man nods, moving around the assorted scientific instruments on the surface until they're perfectly organized. "With a little magnetic confinement for ultra precision. Pretty cool, right?"

"Lance kind of has a thing about perfection," Eugene remarks as they watch him organize his tools. "If you think this is neat, you should see his kitchen."

The total opposite of Varian, who wouldn't know organization if it walked up to him, introduced itself, and slapped him in the face. Keeping his workspace organized is just something that's never been important to him— there's this little thing called controlled chaos— and it's not like it's ever been an inconvenience to him before.

Well, that's a bit of a lie.

Most of the time, it isn't an inconvenience to him.

"I have a system," Lance says as he moves a screwdriver the smallest bit to the left. "There's a place for everything, and everything in its place—"

"Need this!" Cassandra shouts, swooping in like a hawk catching her prey as she grabs the screwdriver Lance had just been messing with and bolts.

Lance, naturally, doesn't take this well.

"Hey!" He shouts indignantly. "You can't just— that's an invasion of my workspace! Get back over here!" He takes off after her, leaving a bewildered Varian and an unamused Eugene behind.

Varian doesn't even get a chance to breathe from the chaos, because one minute lance is running off, shouting after Cassandra, and the next, he's stumbling out of the path of some girl shouting "excuse me!" as she rolls a behemoth of a black sphere between him and his cousin to another section of the lab.

Eugene's face immediately breaks out into a smile bright enough to rival even the sun, and then he's jogging after her and pulling Varian along. "Sunshine, wait up!"

When the girl finally gets to where she was going, she looks up and gasps. "Oh, Eugene!" She exclaims excitedly, rushing towards him. "I didn't know you were going to be here tonight, why—" she stops when she sees Varian. "Oh! Hi, Varian!"

Finally, someone he knows. He recognizes her as Eugene's girlfriend of seven months; Rapunzel. She's stopped by the cafe plenty of times, whether to study with Eugene or wait for him to finish a shift, and he's had the pleasure of talking to her on multiple occasions.

It's difficult not to like Rapunzel. She's the embodiment of the sun, like the universe decided to take all the good things about humanity and shove them together in the form of Rapunzel. Varian has no qualms about her, at the very least, and Eugene is annoyingly lovesick whenever he gets the opportunity to talk about her.

Varian lifts a hand in greeting. "Hey, Rapunzel. Long time no see."

"No kidding!" She leans over to give Eugene a light peck on the cheek, and Varian pretends not to notice the way his cousin sways after her when she retreats. She tucks a strand of blond hair that escaped from its long braid behind her ear. "So, what are you boys up to tonight?"

"Just passing by," Eugene says. "I gotta take him to another bot fight, so we can't stay for long."

Rapunzel frowns. "But I thought you hated—"

Eugene waves it off. "It's a whole thing, I'll explain later."

She glances between them and nods slowly, like she's pieced something together. "Oh! Has he met the others? Cass? Lance?"

"We just ran into Cass and Lance, but I haven't seen Beanpole yet." Eugene glances around. "Have you seen him? I wanted to introduce them."

Rapunzel shakes her head. "He left a while ago, I'm not sure if he's coming back or not."

Varian clears his throat, eyes on Rapunzel's giant… ball thing. "Sorry to interrupt, but is that tungsten carbide?"

"Four hundred pound of it!" She squeals, and then she's taking Varian's hand and dragging him over to her work station. "You're going to love this!" She gestures to a series of chemical tubes and vials, all bubbling with various liquids. "A dash of perchloric acid, a smidge of cobalt, a hint of hydrogen peroxide—" she stops Varian from moving as she grabs a blowtorch from the end of her worktable (because that's safe) and blasts the vial holding the chemical mixture, "—super heated to five hundred Kelvin! Come on!"

She uses a small pair of tongs to pick up the vial and hold it over her giant sphere. When she pours the purple mixture over it, it works quickly to cover the ball and when it hardens, her excited smile only widens.

"Ta da! Pretty great, isn't it?"

Varian tilts his head, puzzled. "It's so… purple."

Rapunzel giggles. "That isn't even the best part!" She leans forward, hand poised to touch it. "Oh— uh, you might want to step back a bit."

Varian does as she advises and watches with amazement as she touches the sphere. The moment her skin makes contact, it bursts into a cloud of lavender.

When the dust finally settles, Rapunzel turns to face him, giddy and covered in purple. "Chemical metal embrittlement! So much fun to experiment with."

Eugene laughs, reaching out to wipe some of the purple off of Rapunzel's face with his sleeve. "Yeah, until you make the mistake of touching one of those things without knowing what it is."

Rapunzel fondly rolls her eyes. "I told you and Lance not to touch it, and you did anyway. That's just karma."

"It was totally worth it to see the look on your face when you came back, though."

"Was it worth it when Cass relentlessly made fun of you for it for weeks after?"

Eugene considers this. "Just barely. But only because it made you smile."

Rapunzel laughs, and Varian fights the urge to gag. Ugh, love. Gross.

The pair is interrupted by someone's voice coming from a further point in the room, slowly drifting closer. A boy around Varian's age who looks achingly familiar turns the corner, in the midst of pulling his blond hair into a ponytail.

"—bother me, alright? I'm not in a good mood tonight, I just lost a lot of money because of—" the blond finally looks up, halting in his tracks. His eyes go wide and recognition recognition clicks in the back of Varian's mind.

"You!" They shout in unison, pointing at each other like school children.

Rapunzel glances between them curiously. "You two know each other?"

The other boy scowls. "You could say that."

"Sore loser, much?" Varian asks with a scoff.

"You scammed me!"

Eugene makes a choked noise. "I'm sorry, what?!"

"I didn't scam you!"

"Yes you did!" The blond argues. "You came in acting all— all innocent, with your stupid toy—"

"It's not my fault you underestimated me to the point of betting all that money," Varian retorts, crossing his arms. "Which, by the way, was a very satisfying weight in my pocket."

This boy, who'd been introduced as the Glasses Bandit (stupid name, in Varian's opinion) when they first met was the first to lose a bot fight to Varian tonight. His own bot had admittedly captured Varian's attention, but his cockiness upon seeing Varian enter had been his downfall.

And oh, what a satisfying win it had been to wipe that smug grin off this guy's face.

The blond is about to retort, marching up to Varian until they're toe to toe, but then there's a hand on Varian's shoulder pulling him away from the group.

"Alright," Eugene is saying, clearly displeased with the turn of events. "I don't know what happened— and, quite frankly, I don't want to know— but we aren't about to start a fight over it."

It's obvious the other boy wants to say more, but thinks better of it once Eugene gives him a meaningful look. He sniffs and pushes his glasses a little further up his nose. "What is he even doing here, anyway?"

"This is my cousin Varian, and we're just here to grab something from my lab. Which," he uses the hand on Varian's shoulder to guide him forward. "We are actually going to now. Goodbye everyone, don't blow anything up, Cassandra."

There's the sound of metal being dragged off of something, and Eugene preemptively ducks as a screwdriver flies past his head.

"That was one time, Fitzherbert!"

Eugene snickers as they exit into a thinner hallway, not deterred by the slightest at Cassandra's attempt to take off his head.

"Is that… normal for you guys?" Varian asks.

Eugene waves his concerns aside. "It's how she shows her affection, don't worry about it. What I'm curious about is how exactly you know Hugo."

"Hugo?"

"Glasses. The blond kid you were just provoking."

Oh, him. "I beat him in a bot fight a few hours ago and took his money."

Eugene lets out the largest what are you doing with your life, Varian sigh. "No wonder he was so upset. You know, I'm almost impressed. It's not super easy to rile him up."

Is it bad that Varian feels a sense of pride about that? "Well, it was an embarrassing loss, I'm sure. He seems like quite the sore loser."

Eugene hums in agreement. "Nevertheless, I was kind of hoping you two would've gotten along a little better. He's a lot like you, you know?"

Varian arches an eyebrow, doubtful. "In what way?"

"Well, you're both cocky, arrogant little shits—"

Varian interrupts his cousin with a shove. "Ha ha," he says dryly.

Eugene laughs. "Okay, okay. Seriously, though. You're both so smart, and—"

"Everyone at this nerd school is smart."

"Let me finish." Eugene gives him one of those older brother looks that makes him shut up. "You're both on a level that most people have yet to reach. You both think through equations like human calculators, you're constantly creating new things and experimenting, and you do it like it's in your blood. Like you'd go crazy if you weren't. You've got passion."

Varian stays silent, because he knows Eugene is right. He's always been clever for his age (hello, early graduation), and while the passion for science is something he shares with his cousin, even he can admit that it's different between them. Eugene made the conscious effort to study science and worked as hard as he possibly could to get to where he is now, whereas it's always just sort of come naturally to Varian. Yes, he works, there's no choice but to when it comes to this specific area of interest, but not like Eugene. There were no late night study sessions because he needed them. There was no sacrificing his personal life for science unless he chose to, which he very often did. Because oftentimes, it feels like science is his life. Like there's no other way.

Ever since he was a child, he's always had a deeper curiosity than most, one that was never quite satiated. Things clicked easily for him, whether it was creating sticky new compounds to humanely trap rodents or coming tantalizing close to the creation of a new element. It was why he never cared much for school. He already knew everything they tried to teach him, and when he graduated, he graduated unsatisfied. Friendless and without the feeling of achieving something satisfactory, he saw no need to continue his studies further. What would the point even be, if he'd continue to be the smartest person in the room?

He tries to imagine someone relating to him the way Eugene says Hugo does. He tries to imagine having somebody to talk to who would actually understand it.

He tries to imagine what sort of connection could possibly come of such a mutual understanding.

"Earth to Varian?" Eugene waves his hand in Varian's face, making him snap out of the thoughts he was spiraling down. "You good?"

"I'm fine." Varian blinks a few times before coming to the realization that they've stopped in front of a door.

Eugene watches him a moment longer like a scientist studying a microorganism beneath a microscope. "Alright," he says before pushing open the door.

It seems like your basic science lab, with the white walls and fogged glass windows, and yet there's still something distinctly Eugene about it. There's a Tales of Flynnigan Rider stuck to the wall with blue tape. The corners are curling inwards as they peel off the wall, and hey, that actually used to be hung up beside his bed. There's a small bookshelf shoved to the side that seems to be filled with everything— trinkets, a dead plant in a pot, gum wrappers— but books. On top is a cluster of various piles of paper and a reading lamp that isn't even plugged in. There's a large window at the far end of the room and some sort of metal box with round edges. It's blue, and it looks like there's some kind of button, but Varian couldn't even begin to guess what it contains.

Framed pictures crowd his desk and the wall behind it. Some are of him and his friends, some with him and Rapunzel, some of just Rapunzel.

Varian stops to grin at one picture in particular; an old one of him and Varian at an apple orchard when they were much younger. It was a few months after his parents' death, and Edmund had taken the picture because Eugene cracked some stupid joke and Varian smiled for the first time in a while.

"Shouldn't your stuff be packed up?" Varian asks, turning his attention back to his cousin. "I thought classes end soon."

Eugene shrugs and heads over to another table, searching for something. "I'm trying to put that off as long as I can. I need all my stuff, there's always something to be created."

Judging from the inventions he'd just been shown, Varian certainly can't argue. "What have you been working on?"

Eugene lights up. "I'll show you!"

He grabs… a roll of duct tape? And rips off a piece while he walks towards Varian, who is wholly unimpressed.

"Duct tape?" He sighs. "I hate to break it to you, but that's already been invented. Might have to go back to the drawing board and come up with something actually cool, like a growth serum?"

Eugene scoffs. "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" He holds out the hand not holding the tape. "Arm."

Varian raises his arm and Eugene lays the tape over the skin. "All I'm saying is that it's a little under—"

Eugene rips the duct tape off Varian's arm without warning, tearing a pained howl from his younger cousin.

"OW!" He cries, ripping his arm back. The area of skin that Eugene had so rudely hurt is red and angry, the pain stinging and sharp. "Ow, ow, ow! What was that for?!"

The blue box beneath the window beeps, grabbing Varian's attention. The button lights up, and something like a balloon blows up and out of it.

Except it's not a balloon. It's a robot, if Varian had to guess, because its shape is vaguely humanoid despite simultaneously reminding him of a marshmallow or the Pillsbury Dough Boy. It's the same pristine white as the walls of Eugene's lab, save for the two black dots on its face that serve as eyes.

"This is what I've been working on," Eugene says, proudly gesturing to it.

Varian tilts his head, that unquenchable curiosity surfacing. He watches with intrigue as the robot take one squeaky step, then another, out of its box.

"But what is it?" He asks as the robot is stopped by a stool in it's path. It pauses. Stares at the stool, like it doesn't know what to do with it. It reaches its arms out to move it and gently moves it over to the side, watching as the stool rolls until it bumps into a wall.

Eugene smiles fondly at his invention. "It's full title is Restraining Invasive Diseases and Encouraging Recovery. It's easier to just shorten it into an acronym, though. I call him—"

"Rider," Varian finishes, a disbelieving grin on his face. "You named your robot after your favorite fictional character. And you call me a nerd!"

Eugene rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "It took me a while to come up with it, okay? Be nice."

Varian snorts as the robot finally lumbers over to them. "I can't believe this."

The robot— Rider, lifts a large hand and waves. "Hello," he says. "I am Rider, your personal healthcare companion. I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said, 'Ow.'"

His voice is the most peculiar thing. It's very obviously the voice of a robot in the sense that his words all consist of the same tone, but he doesn't sound off-putting or creepy at all. His voice is gentle, like he's talking to a child.

A robotic nurse. Fascinating.

Rider's torso lights up, displaying a projection of a pain chart with ten different facial expressions, each growing more pained as the numbers get higher. "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"

"Physical or emotional?" Varian asks, glaring at Eugene because he is not yet over the betrayal of the very person he looks up to ripping duct tape of all things from his skin— which is still very much irritated, by the way!

Eugene makes an exaggeratedly sad face, mimicking the seventh expression on Rider's diagram as Rider says, "I will scan you now." Before Varian can respond, there's a beeping noise. "Scan complete. It seems you have a slight epidermal on your forearm. I suggest—" Rider holds up his pointer finger, "—an anti-bacterial spray."

Varian raises an eyebrow. "What's in the spray?"

"The primary ingredient is bacitracin."

"Hm, no can do. It's a bummer, actually. I'm allergic to that," Varian lies, purely to test just how well Eugene programmed this thing.

Rider tilts his head to the side. "You are not allergic to bacitracin. You do have a mild allergy to hazelnuts."

Varian laughs, holding out his arm so Rider can spray the antibacterial solution onto his arm. "Not bad, 'Gene. You've done some serious coding on him, haven't you?"

Eugene nods eagerly. "I programmed him with over ten thousand medical procedures." He steps forward and taps a circle that lays over where Rider's heart would be. It slides open, revealing a green card with a smiley face with the Eugene's name scribbled across the top. "This chip right here is what makes Rider… well, Rider."

Varian reaches out to push the card back in. "It's really cool." He steps around Rider, taking in his appearance. "What's he made of? Vinyl?"

"Mhm. Going for a non-threatening, huggable kinda look."

"He looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. You should get him a chef hat and a whisk."

"He's a doctor, not a chef."

Varian shrugs, grabbing Rider's face to get a better look at his eyes. "Are these hyperspectral cameras?!" He asks excitedly.

"Yep. His skeleton is actually made of—"

"Titanium?"

"Carbon fiber," Eugene corrects.

Right. Even lighter. Varian releases Rider's face in favor of pressing his face into the vinyl stomach. If he pushes hard enough, he can see the skeletal figure Eugene is talking about. "Wow," he breathes. "Killer actuators— where did you get these things?"

"Oh, you know," Eugene says, feigning indifference. "Machined them right here, in-house. No biggie."

Varian perks up. "In house?!"

Eugene laughs at his enthusiasm. "Took forever, but it was totally worth it. He can lift up to like, a thousand pounds."

Yeah, Varian's jaw might drop a little, but honestly, who can blame him? This is one of the coolest things he's ever seen! "Shut. Up."

"You have been a great patient," Rider says. "Have a lollipop." He holds up a red lollipop and… yeah, Varian honestly doesn't know where he got it from, but he's never been one to turn down free sugar.

"Thanks!" He takes the candy and tears off the wrapper. Rider tilts his head to the side like he expects something more. Varian frowns. "Is there something else, or…?"

"I cannot deactivate until you say you are satisfied by your care."

Varian glances at Eugene, who nods encouragingly. "Well then, I'm satisfied with my care."

The two cousins watch Rider walk back over to his box, one with pride and one with an overwhelming sense of intrigue that he hasn't felt in a long time.

"He's gonna help a lot of people," Eugene says, voice thick with emotion.

People like Mom, Varian thinks, and even though his cousin doesn't say it, he knows they're thinking the same thing. People who contract sicknesses that doctors don't have the medicine to prevent. People like his father who get into car accidents on the way from the hospital in a spot too remote for emergency services to respond in time. People who were supposed to live longer than they did, whose children would spend more time mourning their parents than they spent knowing them.

Varian clears his throat as Rider deflates and compacts himself back to the way he was before he'd been activated. "Hey, what uhm. What battery does he use?"

"Lithium ion."

Varian considers this. "You know, super capacitors would charge way faster."

Eugene pauses like he hadn't thought about that. "You might be onto something there."

Of course he is. Eugene isn't the only smart one in the family.

"Burning the midnight oil, Mr. Fitzherbert?"

The two of them turn to see a woman standing in the doorway. Varian recognizes her as Eugene's professor, if only because of the scar running up her face and nothing else. Her gaze is intense, the kind that makes you uncomfortable enough to want to look away, but too afraid not to.

And that gaze is fixated on Varian.

"Evening, Professor. I was just finishing up." Eugene makes his way over to her, leaving Varian no choice but to follow.

The woman hums. "You must be Varian," she says as Eugene rummages through his desk. "The bot-fighter, correct?" Varian nods and she gives a small smile. "It's an activity my son enjoys as well. He doesn't know it's something I'm aware of. He thinks himself more cunning than he is." She reaches out her palm, gesturing to Varian's robot. "May I?"

"Uh…" he swallows. "Sure."

She holds it with great gentleness for somebody who exudes such strength, examining it like a biologist studies a cell. "Hm. Magnetic-bearing servos."

"Pretty sick, huh?" Varian asks, a bit of pride swelling in him. "Wanna see how I put them together?"

"Hey, genius!" Eugene calls from his desk. "She invented them. And that bot-fighting son of hers is Hugo, by the way."

Varian's eyes widen as he looks back at the woman. "You're Donella Rottewange," he realizes. "As in the Rottewange-Catmull spline, as in Rottewange's Laws of Robotics?"

Varian has heard of her before, and now he knows why he recognized her. Not just because she's Eugene's professor, but because for years, she's been at the head of many major technological advancements.

Also, wait. Hugo is a Rottewange?

Donella nods, slightly amused by his shock. "That's right. You know my son?"

Varian swallows, about to say that he doesn't know Hugo, not really, because taking someone's money and then arguing with them shouldn't really count as meeting them, but Eugene beats him to it.

"From what I heard, he totally kicked your kid's ass earlier."

"Eugene!"

"Bot-fighting!" Eugene quickly exclaims. "Varian beat him in a bot fight."

"Impressive," Donella says with a nod. "Kid's got a big ego, hopefully you managed to knock him down a few pegs."

Judging from Hugo's reaction upon recognizing him, he just managed to piss the blond off more than anything else, but she isn't going to say that to her face. "Yeah, hopefully."

She goes back to examining the bot a bit before she speaks again. "You know, I knew your mother when she was alive. Ulla, right?"

"How'd you know?"

"You have her eyes." Donella pauses. "You know, the two of us were quite close when we were younger. We attended this very university together." She hands the bot back to him and fixates that intense gaze on him once more. "Have you thought about applying here? Your age wouldn't be an issue. My son attends classes here and he's but a year older than you."

Varian? Attending this school?

He couldn't. Not after spending so long insisting that there's nothing else he can be taught, that he already knows everything he needs to. Because for so much of his life, it was true. There wasn't anything he was being taught that he didn't already know or that he couldn't teach himself. He was more knowledgeable than majority of the people around him, peers and teachers alike, and the frustrating, caged feeling that came with it is one that he didn't wish to keep feeling after he graduated.

So he turned to bot fighting, because at least that was something that reaped rewards, both monetary and emotional. He thought he got rid of that feeling of never being satisfied, of always craving more.

But now, he finds himself questioning all of that. He finds himself wondering— no, realizing that he was wrong about a lot of things. Maybe there are things he doesn't know. Maybe there are still thousands of things he can learn from people who know more than him, or even are on the same level as him.

The thought thrills him. The idea of finding a place brimming with people who think like him, who long to keep creating just like he does. The thought of finally finding a place to belong after giving up on such a motion so long ago.

Varian is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't notice Eugene has shut off the lights in his lab and closed the door until he's cracking a joke to Donella about how serious Varian is about his career in bot fighting.

Varian blinks, tripping a little over his feet to follow them when they start to walk away. "W— well, kind of serious."

"I can see why," Donella says. "With your bot, winning must come easy."

"Yeah," he mutters. "I guess."

He doesn't tell her how unappealing the idea of an easy victory seems to him, especially after what he's seen tonight.

They come to an elevator at the end of the hallway, Eugene stepping in as the doors open. Donella lingers outside, focusing on Varian. "Well then, if you like things easy, then my program isn't for you."

Is it just Varian's imagination, or does she sound… disappointed? And why does that bother him?

"Why not?" He asks as he steps into the elevator.

"We push the boundaries of robotics here," she says simply. "My students go on to shape the future." She steps back, allowing the doors to slowly slide shut. "It was nice meeting you, Varian. Good luck with the bot fights."

☆ ✮ ☆

They're outside again. Eugene is prepared to leave; helmet on, motorcycle engine revved and ready to take off, but Varian is stuck in his place on the steps, unable to tear his eyes away from the massive building they'd just been inside.

Donella's words echo in his head, an unwelcome earworm that do nothing to silence the thousands of thoughts excitedly racing through his mind.

"We gotta hurry if you want to catch that bot fight!" Eugene calls.

Varian looks down at Ruddiger, clutching the bot so tightly it nearly hurts.

Good luck with the bot fighting.

And that's what hardens his resolve.

He whips around to face Eugene. "I have to go here!" He exclaims, taking a few steps to the side, then to the other, until he's full on pacing on the steps of the school. "I— Eugene, i—if I don't go here, I don't— I can't even— there was so much— I might literally— I don't understand how—" he cuts himself off with a groan, throwing his hands up in the air. "Eugene, if I don't go here, I'm going to lose my mind! I have to get in."

Eugene's startled expression quickly melts into one of satisfaction, of victory, and that's when the realization hits Varian that he'd been hoping for this very outcome. There was nothing he needed to get from his lab. The sole reason he'd taken Varian here was to make him see another possible path, and by god, does Varian want to choose it. He can't even be mad at his cousin for basically tricking him, because he has something now that he didn't before.

He takes a deep breath. "How do I get in?"

Varian has a purpose. He finally has something important to create for.

And he's not going to let that go.