Chapter Text
Peat was walking around the halls of the reformed guild, with a look of focused thinking on his face. He had been in deep thought most of the morning, thanks to his brief talk with Sherry the weekend before. It really put some things into a bit more perspective. He understood... some of what she said, but he wasn't sure how to go about using her 'advice'. Any time his thoughts went back to Marc, his airheaded, yet strong rival, it caused his thoughts to spiral more about her, which constantly caused him a source of embarrassment or making him not pay attention. This had to stop, and the only way it would stop, is if he took action. He took a step into the hangar and noticed the girl of the hour herself was there, tuning up her old fashioned biplane. She was humming to herself, gently bobbing side to side as she used the spanner on some nuts. A slight heat came to Peat's face, as a thought rushed through his mind.
'Marc's being cute today...' Peat shook his head and made a slight annoyed grunt. "Dammit, again?" he muttered. He huffed to himself. He steeled himself and walked over to her.
"Mornin', Red Barrel." he greeted her. Marc turned her head and gave a small polite smile.
"Peat, you don't need to use our aviator names when we're not on the job." Marc gave him a fake pout. "You need to be more sociable." Marc and Peat's personal and work relationship has been quite a wild one. She started in the guild being a victim of Peat's jealous ego. Did missions that only worsened his ego with each lost dogfight. She was annoyed at his insistence upon himself and his constant poking at her 'newbie' status, despite proving time and again that she was the better pilot, and a more sensible mechanic. That rivalry at one point became very tense, despite the serious situation going on with Malt's Flying Castle plan. But with a harsh scolding from Islay and time away from the Guild due to it needing to be rebuilt in many senses of the word, Marc had to admit he had matured a little. Sometimes she picked up on his old habits, and was annoyed by them. But their current bond was much more healthy between them both.
Peat made a slight noise at his realisation and faked a cough. "My bad. I'm still not used to uh, taking this whole thing less seriously." Marc raised an eyebrow.
"You do need to still take this seriously. Just be more... Well, I guess be less..." she paused. She had no clue how to word what she wanted to say. Peat could tell her mind blanked and he sighed, grinning a little and shrugging.
"Blue Crow to Red Barrel, hello?" he gently teased. "Get those gears moving, space head." Marc squeaked and, this time pouted for real.
"D-Don't call me that...! You sound like Sherry..." she grumbled, a pink hue coming to her cheeks. Peat gazed upon his pouting colleague and another intrusive thought came rushing in.
'Man she's cute when she's pouty...' He squeaked and shook his head again, gently hitting it with his fist. Marc squeaked as she watched him do this.
"P-Peat! Why are you hitting yourself!?" she asked with genuine concern.
"N-No reason!" He quickly responded.
"..N....No reason?" Marc was now just confused.
"A-Anyway! Uh, when you're done fixing the Red Barrel..." Peat paused. Now his entire brain was rushing as he had to think how to word his next sentence. Marc tilted her head and looked at him quietly. "Uh..." Peat fumbled. "Do you... uhhh... would you..."
Marc just watched Peat quietly as he went around in circles. She was confused, but finding it amusing how long it was taking him to even finish a sentence. After a full minute, she decided to put him out of his misery.
"Peat, I need to get back to tuning up Red Barrel. When I'm done, do you want to get lunch at the village?" With that, Peat sighed heavily in relief as she asked his question, to himself.
"Yeah, sure. Sounds good."
"Of course I'll need to wash up first, and change clothes."
"Yeah, that's fine."
They stood quietly for a moment before Marc just grinned slightly. "Peat, my plane. Need to fix it. You going to just stand there and watch or...?"
Peat squeaked and shook his head. "M-My mistake, I'll uh, wait for you outside the guild, I guess... Uh, bye!" And then he dashed away out of the hanger. Marc stared quietly at the doorway for a moment, before she broke into giggles.
"Hehehehehe. He went from a stuck up boy to a weirdo. I'll take that over old Peat any day." she commented and smiled, going back to focusing on the Red Barrel.
His face was bright red as he hid around the hangar door, his hands clutching his ruffled tie. His breathing slightly heavy with anxiety.
"...Her giggles are so cute...!"