Chapter Text
“Sooo…you and Mike?”
Chuck craned his neck up from the hunched posture he had been typing in. Swiping away the green holo screen of code, he turned his attention to Claire, who was busy inspecting her perfectly coated nail for chips or dirt. It had been weeks since he spoke with her, between Kanebot attacks and working on Mutts code algorithm, he had been stretched thin these last couple of months.
Instead of the usual excitement he felt whenever Claire was within 10 feet of his vicinity, all he could muster was tired confusion.
“Um, you mean my best friend, right, what about us?” Questioning where exactly this conversation was headed.
Claire turned her focus to Chuck and hesitantly seemed to weigh the question in her head before asking outright.
“It’s just you two are so close, it's kinda like what me and Julie are like, I just wanted to ask how you two met?”
Figuring he’s earned more than the measly ten-minute breaks he gives himself to use the bathroom and refuel, Chuck swipes away his screen and fully turned to Claire for her answer.
“If you're wondering about how we first met, we were actually pod mates,”
‘Ohmygod they were pod mates!’ Claire squealed mentally.
“We both were part of the foster system at first, Mike had so much energy that it wore people out a two weeks in, and I was so anxious and twitchy no foster family could stand me for more than three weeks.”
Chuck pulled up a small four by three inch photo on his screen, a slightly grainy image of a much younger Mike with a tooth missing in his wide grin and a constantly hunched Chuck showing a wobbly smile towards the camera.
“Aww, you guys were so young!” Claire cooed, seeing them as scrawny adolescents reminded her that the Burners were just as human as she was.
“Funny story about that photo, it was the first time we’d been introduced as pod mates actually, I’d never met Mike before that since we were both bouncing from family to family until they decided we were old enough to get our own pod and room together instead.”
“Mike begged that we take a picture together to celebrate becoming roomies of our brand-new pod, and despite hating photos, I agreed and took our photo as a way to commemorate our first ever pod; that eventually became the starting point of lifelong friendship even when Mike transferred to cadet school and I did my interning for the R&D Department.”
“Wait, pump the freaking breaks, you interned for the R&D Department!” Claire was baffled, she obviously knew Chuck was an expert at coding, but she also knew that even applying to intern at R&D required qualifications and exams passed with enough flying colors to give someone a seizure.
The R&D Department was Deluxe’s main Research and Development department, any new idea implemented in Deluxe’s society had a 99% chance of coming straight from R&D. It was the type of department that only let the smartest of the smartest join, anyone who couldn’t meet expectations was immediately fired from there.
“Tells you a lot about where my anxiousness comes from, doesn’t it,” Chuck laughs mirthlessly.
“Yeah, being part of R&D was cool, I won’t lie, but I couldn’t stay there, I had nothing holding me in Deluxe.”
“What do you mean, you had a spot in one of the best departments Deluxe could offer,” Claire sputtered, “People would kill to even be considered for a spot, and you basically had the job guaranteed!”
Chuck could understand where Claire was coming from. Even he knew that back in Deluxe he had it made, if he continued with the R&D Department he probably could have reached senior researcher status by now.
But what good was having it all when you had no one to share it with.
“I had already finished my internship with the R&D Department and was waiting to see if they would send me a return offer, when I got a call from Mikey,”
Chuck pulled up a holographic screen of a voicemail message, the Caller ID showed a random unsaved number and a message that was only two minutes long.
(XXX) XXX-XXX
“Hey Chuck, it's me Mikey, I know you’re wondering why I’m calling you on a random number, but that's not super important right now, I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving; I can’t keep hurting people for Kane anymore, and I wanted you to be the first to know that I’m leaving for Motorcity. I’m hiding out in some abandoned factory right now, but I just wanted to be the first you hear the news from, hopefully by the time you hear this I’ll be out of Deluxe, and they’ll be too busy chasing me to interrogate you.
…
I’m gonna miss you, Chuckles.”
“Wow, that's intense,” Claire was speechless, not only did Mike basically confess to defecting and running from Deluxe, but he also gave away his location to Chuck as well.
“Right! Imagine waking up to a random voicemail only for it to be your childhood friend telling you he’s defecting and that you’ll never see each other again,”
Chuck shook his head and let out a sigh.
“Even thinking about it now still raises my blood pressure, not only did Mikey give evidence of his defecting, but he even gave me his hideout location, I could have turned that in and been praised as a hero in Deluxe for aiding in his capture.”
Claire quirked her brow at his statement and asked,
“Did you?”
Hearing this, Chuck let out a full bellied laugh,“Nope!”, he shook his head with mirth in his eye and told her what he actually did.
“Instead of turning Mike in and guaranteeing myself a cushy life with the R&D Department I called the number back and told Mike he was an idiot, for thinking he could run away from Deluxe without my help getting through the gates sensors, and that I was on my way to punch him over the head for even thinking that I wouldn’t follow after him.”
While recalling his hectic beginning with Mike, Claire saw the fondness in Chuck’s eyes, even when all his words were covered in exasperation with Mikes self-sacrificing attitude.
She could see that the bond they had was deep, and that if defecting and leaving everything they’d ever known behind them wasn’t enough to break it, then there wouldn’t be a lot more that could.
But Claire could also tell that the affection Chuck had for Mike wasn’t purely a platonic bromance situation, she could tell he was hiding some kind of deep-seated romantic feelings. She could tell just from how he looked at Mike with a fondness in his eyes that felt a bit too familiar to her.
It was like how she stared at Julie.
And maybe if she and Chuck were on the same page as each other when it came to each other's hidden crushes for their best friends, then maybe this could be the beginning of a camaraderie between them.