Chapter Text
It takes days for Jayce to convince the doctors to release him from mandatory bed rest. A chance to see sunlight, to smell salt drifting from the sea—these things feel keenly like keys that might allow him to reclaim a missing part of himself—something rest and healing have yet to restore.
For the first time, he understands the corrosive quality of forced stillness. When he finds himself staring at the ceiling, cataloguing hairline cracks in the plaster, he feels he must grasp at least some small part of what Viktor endured for years—the unrelenting hounding of a mind that refuses stillness when the body demands it.
With at least one treatment under his belt, Viktor appears marginally stronger, though fatigue still pools beneath his eyes like spilt ink. Every now and again, when the hospital room grows stifling and Viktor undoes the first couple buttons of his shirt, Jayce catches a glimpse of the healed skin tinged purple around the shimmer port embedded under his skin. The discolouration has softened from its initial angry violet to something that resembles a bruise fading toward recovery—a mark that looks oddly at home there, like a signature that marks everything they’ve done to reach this point.
He gleans what he can from observing these subtle transformations, as Viktor gives him only perfunctory reports on the happenings at the lab. Sky and Thomas, too, remain maddeningly tight-lipped about Viktor’s Hexcore treatments and any refinements they’ve made to the process, though Sky does take the opportunity to joke about the amount of work Viktor has her doing whilst Jayce is incapacitated.
“At this point, you should make me a partner,” she says with a laugh that has Thomas looking at her with a smitten expression he thinks Jayce doesn’t see.
Despite this steady stream of visitors, he itches beneath the skin to get up and do something—he knows there’s still so much to be done whilst he lies here, convalescing and simmering in his boredom.
The first to bring him substantive information, to his surprise, is Mel. Her usual composure appears fractured, not from seeing Jayce bedridden, but by their newly evolving friendship giving her a place to lay her concerns.
“Silco’s death has changed the Undercity,” she says during one visit, staring through his window at the university courtyard below. “But more concerning are the shifts in Piltover.”
“What kind of shifts?” He studies the tension across her shoulders, the way her fingers worry at her ring.
“Power operates like water, Jayce. When barriers shift, it finds new channels. The Merchant Clans may appear untouchable, but they have weaknesses—infighting and inner strife. An assassination of a prominent Undercity figure, your near-death—it creates ripples no one anticipated.” She deflects his follow-up questions with promises to discuss more once he’s recovered.
Thankfully, when Cait and Vi arrive the following week, they bring more concrete updates. Vi drops into the bedside chair, like she’s collapsing after a long march, while Caitlyn positions herself by the window, where she can monitor both the door and the courtyard below.
“The Undercity is restless,” she reports without preamble, her fingers drumming against the windowsill. “Silco may have been one of the worst things to happen to it, but with him, there was, at least, stability.”
Jayce glances at Vi, watching her pick at a fraying bootlace. “And… Jinx?” His memories of those final moments on the bridge are hazy, but he recalls Jinx’s face—how it crumpled when Silco collapsed against her. She was just a girl watching something she’d initiated, something she’d tried to do to help, give way to flames and ashes.
Vi’s expression tightens, a raw protective reaction flashing across her features before she heaves a sigh. “Won’t talk to me. Ekko says she’s not talking to anyone. Won’t go back to the Last Drop either.”
“So, where’s she staying?”
“Some workshop, I think.”
“Ekko’s… managing the situation.” Caitlyn’s diplomatic phrasing suggests the arrangement is more precarious than she’s letting on.
Vi gives a rueful laugh. “‘Managing’ sure is a word for it. They’re like two cats in a sack—but nothing’s blown up yet, so…” She shrugs, the gesture attempting nonchalance, though her eyes belie deeper concern.
“That’s something,” Jayce offers, though he can picture the volatile dynamic all too clearly. The midway lab, with its delicate equipment and volatile compounds, might seem like a powder keg at first glance, but with its distinct ties to their efforts with Rio, he wonders if it might actually be the best place for a girl grieving her father.
They have little in the way of further details about the larger political landscape, so Jayce can only focus on the daily work of actually getting better. He eventually manages to wheedle Viktor into conceding on giving him a project. This becomes the bearer of all his frustrations; at first, they collaborate on a new brace, preparing for when he might be able to bear weight on the injured leg. Once that design is finished, Viktor lasts only a few more days of complaints before he drops a stack of sketched plans and notes into Jayce’s lap with a sharp, “Here.”
Jayce picks them up, shuffling through the rough diagrams bearing his partner’s scrawl in the margins. “Blitzcrank?” He reads aloud from one, recognising the automaton plans he found in Viktor’s bedroom last year. “Rather whimsical for the man who once named a prototype ‘the Hexclaw’.”
A fetching touch of pink dusts Viktor’s prominent cheekbones. “It reminded me of the first night.” Jayce raises an eyebrow at him. “With Hextech,” his partner rushes to clarify.
Jayce smirks. “So you are sentimental.”
Viktor’s deepening blush does something ridiculous to Jayce’s pulse—makes him want to frantically record every word or gesture that might produce that same delightful colour, that momentary vulnerability breaking through Viktor’s composure. He offers the other man a genuine smile. “Honestly, I like the lack of Hextech branding—makes it feel like something just for us.”
“For you, actually.” Viktor’s gaze passes over Jayce’s splinted leg. “Once you’re released, I imagine you will push yourself back into this bed trying to work like before. I have had years to adjust to my limitations—you, however…” He shrugs. “You will need assistance.”
The thoughtfulness behind the gesture settles warm in Jayce’s chest. Though certainly less guarded than in years previous, Viktor still couches his emotions; the depth of his feeling, however, is apparent in gestures like this, in the way he predicts Jayce’s behaviour and acts in advance of it. He reaches out, drawing Viktor closer to his bedside, and tugs him down for kisses that start tender and deepen until Viktor sags against the mattress edge, leaning into him like a plant seeking light. When they separate, there’s a heat in his face, his eyes are soft, and Jayce’s weeks of uncharacteristic beard growth have pinked his skin where they were pressed together.
“This is nice,” Viktor murmurs, half-dazed, fingers combing through the scruff.
“Oh?” Jayce’s grin widens when Viktor tugs gently at his unruly hair.
“Always so keen to be admired,” Viktor teases.
It’s good to see Viktor relax, to feel them finding a familiar rhythm again. What happened changed something between them—brought them closer while awakening something protective in Viktor that has been manifesting in near-militant attention to Jayce’s needs, his medication scheduling and dosages, and fully laid-out plans for his approaching rehabilitation.
He recognises the signs, the way Viktor turns away when his emotions threaten to spill over, how his voice flattens to neutrality when they edge too close to the magnitude of what they almost lost. It’s Viktor at his most volatile—not the thorny distance of their early reunion, but something softer and infinitely more fragile—a love offered like a single thread, meant to unravel with the slightest pull and leave no mark of its stitching.
The care feels conditional, like something Viktor is prepared to withdraw the moment it becomes too dangerous. Viktor’s whispered plea from the night of their first kiss echoes through his mind like a prescient warning.
‘Don’t let me run.’
His attention increasingly turns to this conundrum, examining it from every angle to find a path forward that won’t shatter their fragile balance. He’s deep in these thoughts following one afternoon sojourn—only to make an unwelcome discovery when his doctors wheel him back to his room.
His latest guest is Camille Ferros.
Of all the people who might visit, she ranks dead last. After their confrontations, the Ferros family’s manipulations, and the violence they’ve orchestrated—seeing her here feels like a brazen threat. It’s almost enough to ask his nurse to remove her before he attempts to walk out under his own power, leg be damned.
But they deposit him back into bed without him managing any demands, Camille watching their exit with unsettling blue focus. Only when the door seals does she turn that attention to him.
He doesn’t give her the satisfaction of opening on her terms. “Why are you here?”
One perfectly arched brow climbs her forehead at his directness. He feels oddly feral in his current state—unshaven, stripped of the armour that tailored clothes ordinarily provided. The rawness makes him opt for bluntness, pinning her with a hard stare as if daring her to try her usual misdirection.
“Because we have matters to discuss, Mr. Talis,” she replies in a measured tone—cold, precise, disturbingly polite.
“I can’t imagine what.” Anger simmers under his skin at her uncanny composure.
“The circumstances that brought you here, naturally.” She sounds almost bored discussing what nearly killed him.
“So it was your man who eliminated Silco.” He abandons subterfuge entirely. His body is too tired and sore for games.
“Quite an accusation.” Her expression remains smooth, unshaken by the implication of cold-blooded execution.
“I’ve had a difficult few weeks, Camille.” He blows past polite propriety, unable to stomach the niceties. Going through the motions as if they’re sipping champagne at just another Hextech dinner feels like a farce that turns his stomach. “If you’re here to threaten me, do it. I’m tired, I hurt, and I’m done performing for bloodless murderers.”
“Careful with that anger, Jayce.” Her mirrored lack of formality is pointed. She steps closer to his bedside, her lethal pose calculated as always, needle-sharp and fatal—though today her mechanical augmentations hide beneath tailored perfection. “It makes you weaker than you realise.” She pauses as he sucks air to spit back fury. “Ah—no, that wasn’t a threat,” she remarks, her tone mockingly absent of care despite its surface intention to pacify. “We are, as you suggested, here to speak plainly at last.”
“Then speak,” he snaps. “I don’t have the patience to listen to you dance around the point, acting superior.”
She seems to consider this, then visibly shifts back into formality—a tactical move. “Do you know, Mr. Talis, what an intelligencer does for the great families?”
“Plan assassinations?” His reply comes terse. She doesn’t so much as twitch.
“We gather information, build alliances, and use subtlety to grow power and protect our houses’ positions.” The description sounds rehearsed, delivered with practised boredom.
“I’m aware you support your family. You’ve made your amorality quite clear.” She looks down at him with a weary gaze, as if he’s a petulant obligation. He stares right back with a hard glare, refusing to be made a churlish fool.
“This city’s true power lies in its ideas. In monopolising what the world hungers for.” Sudden intensity transforms her face into something predatory and sharp. “Your vision of a City of Progress—it’s far more than inspirational fantasy.” She leans forward slightly, making him acutely aware of his injured state and his inability to move or retaliate should she choose to act. “Piltover has no standing army, no great military to repel those pacing our borders. What we have is brilliance. Minds like yours, or the ever-idealistic Professor Heimerdinger. These are what make our city great.”
“Is this a love confession, Camille, or are you making a point I’ll care about?” He hates hearing this assessment from her, especially because it reflects brutal political realities he’s avoided considering. The world is wider than Piltover and its fraught relationship with the Undercity. For her, as an intelligencer, this is life—constant strategic consideration.
For a moment, he understands her superior tone. His and Viktor’s interference has distracted her from larger concerns. That understanding does little to cool the burn of his anger. His leg is throbbing, his head hurts, and it’s almost time for his afternoon medication. He reaches for the water pitcher, nearly flinching when Camille’s hands intercept him.
“It’s crucial you understand our actions aren’t simply about profit,” she continues, pouring a glass and offering it to him. “Or shouldn’t be, if we hope to survive. The Undercity is problematic. Its people are disorganised, myopic, and embittered.”
The way she and others like her speak of people from the Undercity has begun to ignite something in him. Jayce raises the glass to his lips, trying to still the agitated trembling of his hand.
“So you poison them and starve them of opportunity?” He demands after a sip, setting the glass aside with a sharp clink. “I fail to see where this lecture is going, Camille. If you hope to win me over, you should consider how you talk about the part of the city that saved me.”
She offers only a slow, considering blink. “I tell you this because these qualities make them easy to underestimate. To forget they mirror our city’s brilliance, however twisted their innovations become. They have their own ambitions and machinations.”
She turns then, a soft scrape of metal on granite heralding her movement as she meanders towards the window, smooth and graceful as a dancer. “Silco was merely the first domino requiring removal to allow those with… sharper… power hunger their opportunity. Others already work to fill that void.”
A soft sigh escapes her—the first genuine frustration she’s shown. Her head tilts down, nearly colourless hair catching golden in midday light, lending her an ethereal gleam. An avenging force, divine and terrible, hovering feet from his bedside.
“Killing Silco would have been simple for me, but hardly ideal.”
Jayce chills at the matter-of-fact manner of her delivery. “What are you saying?”
She inclines her head slightly, giving her profile the strange suggestion of prayer, before she turns to lock eyes with him. “That I possess enough intelligence, Jayce Talis, not to assassinate a political enemy in open daylight with a firearm, knowing blame would be difficult to pin on someone from below—hardly their usual weaponry.” She states this with feeling, which is almost more disquieting than her usual coldness.
“So you didn’t order his death to derail our plans. Which, I assume, you knew all about—I’d love to know your sources, by the way.” He tries for sarcasm, more off-balance than he likes.
“I did not. But I’m not my family’s head. My brother… lacks the caution useful for someone holding our legacy.” The revelation hits like a blow to his solar plexus. Mel’s earlier warning makes perfect sense now.
“So he…?” Jayce stumbles over the words.
“Ambition serves us well,” Camille interrupts. “But greed is a poison. It opens one to all manner of manipulation.”
“Why tell me this? How does confession serve you? I don’t believe you’re soothing a guilty conscience.”
“Hardly. Changes are coming to our family. They must, if we’re to survive the inevitable inquest that will follow this mess.” Her frankness stuns him—a glimpse behind the curtain of family operations. “I’ll be far too occupied managing that situation to spare time tracking your resource shipments and monitoring your Undercity visits.”
“So this is you surrendering harassment of our work?” Jayce can barely believe what he’s hearing—the prospect feels too convenient, too clean.
“This is me offering a warning. You’re always more valuable alive, applying your mind to our city’s benefit. Or have you forgotten that when you were young and seeking sponsorship, the Ferros clan recognised your worth? We’ve always wanted your work to succeed. Others…” She pauses meaningfully. “The Undercity will move in strange patterns with Silco gone. His crude crusade toward that imagined free city of Zaun was at least organised.”
Hearing her speak that controversial name—still whispered in the Undercity’s darkest corners—shocks him.
“Understand that you’ve nearly been lost to the destruction typical of those Undercity wretches.” She steps forward, blades scraping like an approaching executioner. “If accidental fumbling almost dispatched you…”
“Not Undercity fumbling,” he manages, lifting his face defiantly. For perhaps the first time, something resembling anger flickers across her cold features.
“There are people with far more elegant understanding of playing games for power.” The words are low and measured, a quiet, unsettling confidence. “Perhaps even clever enough to whisper suggestions toward a great family’s short-sighted head…”
“Just name this person if you know.”
“I’m… surprised it hasn’t occurred to you already.” Her tone borders on exasperation. “Scientists—always so narrow in focus. Young Miss Kiramman has been tracking Glasc Industries for months. I should learn not to dismiss her instincts simply because she’s too soft.”
Glasc Industries. The name sticks like tar, familiar but distant. A villain hiding in plain sight.
“So I’m to take your word,” he says through gritted teeth. “Ignore what you’ve done and accept you pointing fingers at some convenient Undercity scapegoat?”
“Do whatever you like. The Ferros family has deeper concerns than you. Even the Man of Progress can occupy only so much of our attention.” She waves dismissively. “But you should ask your friend what she’s discovered below. She and that pink-haired sump rat playing hero have extracted more from the city’s dark corners than I expected.”
Heat flashes across Jayce’s face, his leg throbbing. “Yeah, I’ll do that, and you can just—”
A click at the door. Uneven footsteps, familiar as his heartbeat.
“Jayce?” Viktor’s voice cuts sharp as he enters, amber eyes immediately locking onto Camille as he positions himself between her and the bed. His stance shifts, weight balanced on his good leg while his cane becomes less support than potential weapon.
“V—” Jayce starts, startled less by Viktor’s entrance than by the cold, protective fury radiating from him.
“Step. Away.” Viktor ignores Jayce entirely, his attention fixed on Camille with icy focus. The words come low and dangerous, brooking no argument. Camille tilts her head slightly, studying Viktor’s white-knuckled grip on his cane and the way his body lists, still weakened by his treatments, despite the tense energy vibrating through him.
“Viktor, isn’t it? Looking well, I see.”
“Well enough to make a scene if you don’t leave this room.” His hand presses firm but gently into Jayce’s shoulder, an anchor point in the sudden tension crackling between them.
“My, my. I thought you were cleverer than to walk in and bare your throat.” Camille moves away from the window, gliding on bladed legs toward the exit. “If you hoped to telegraph how deeply Mr. Talis matters to you, you’ve succeeded brilliantly.”
Jayce hates her tone, the casual dismissal aimed at Viktor. He slides his hand over the one on his shoulder. “V, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not, Jayce,” Viktor snaps back, though his fingers curl softly around Jayce’s own. “She should not be within sight of you after what her people caused.”
“You’re behind the times, Viktor,” Camille remarks. “Jayce and I were having a perfectly civil discussion about the circumstances surrounding his accident.”
“Get out.” Viktor’s response comes blunt and final.
“I assure you, I take no pleasure lingering longer than necessary.” She glances back at Jayce. “Remember our conversation, Jayce. Whatever you believe, it may serve your little crusade below.”
She pauses at the door, hand on the knob, voice strange as she speaks. “You know, I loved a man once—long ago. A brilliant scientist not unlike you two, but…” She seems lost in memory. “The heart is a fickle thing—inefficient, reckless. A weakness, well deserving of sacrifice for the good of the family.” Jayce wonders if the statement is for them or a long-held mantra for herself. “It has been… illuminating to see what might have been had I chosen differently.”
She doesn’t turn while speaking, offering no further comment as she opens the door and leaves. The click and scrape of bladed footsteps recede down the hall, leaving them in sudden, deafening quiet.
Viktor’s hand trembles slightly as he moves it to sweep through Jayce’s hair, inspecting him with focused attention as if checking for wounds that might have spontaneously appeared during Camille’s visit. “What did she want?”
“To… well, not extend an olive branch.” Jayce leans into Viktor’s touch, gazing up at his partner, feeling weary with pain. “More like… telling us we’re no longer worth her time.”
“What?” Viktor’s eyes focus on him with curiosity, as if wondering if Jayce might be concussed.
“It’s complicated, V. I’ll explain everything, just… once I process it all.” He squeezes Viktor’s fingers. “All I know is the message was pretty clear: the Ferros family has bigger problems than harassing our work—at least for the near future.”
“You must pardon my lack of faith,” Viktor mutters, anger at finding Camille at Jayce’s bedside still simmering beneath the surface.
“Fair enough.” Jayce studies Viktor’s face—the protective fury slowly giving way to something more vulnerable, more lost. He stays like that a moment longer, until his breathing finally evens out and his agitation cools and becomes manageable. Jayce watches the tension drain from him before Viktor shifts his attention to his well-worn leather satchel, checks a watch he pulls from it, then turns to the pneumatic chute across the room that, sure enough, releases with a hiss.
“Just on time.” Viktor retrieves Jayce’s afternoon medications from the small delivery canister. Jayce observes his newfound steadiness, his bearing fatigued but more substantial. He accepts his regimen of pills from Viktor, dutifully swallowing them with a gulp of water as Viktor pulls several rolled schematics from his satchel and unfurls them across the bed.
“What’s this?” The blueprints are a combination of chaotic sketches and neat, blocky lettering. Jayce leans forward with only a wince, ignoring the protest of his ribs in favour of the focused intensity initiated by a novel project.
“Ekko and Jinx’s proposed solution to Rio’s habitat problem.” Viktor leans over the side of the bed, tracing the lines of the design with a slender finger. “A continuous filtration system.”
The design is elegant in its simplicity—a network of pipes and chambers that would cycle water and oxygen through Rio’s makeshift pool. Jayce leans forward as Viktor walks him through the mechanics, pointing out where Ekko’s environmental expertise has combined with Jinx’s unconventional engineering solutions.
“See here? The system maintains optimal pH balance while filtering toxins from the Gray. And this chamber—” He points to an ingenious collection reservoir, “—allows for medical sample collection without disrupting the ecosystem.”
Even as they discuss intake valves and pump mechanisms, Camille’s implications gnaw at the edges of Jayce’s concentration. Her warning about those who lurk in shadows and others who have the ear of Piltover’s mercantile clans lodges beneath his fractured ribs, almost as distracting as the pain.
“If they used a copper-zinc alloy for the main conduits, they could naturally inhibit microbial growth,” Jayce contributes, forcing himself to focus on the schematics. “Thomas would be a great resource for them—he’s brilliant at finding this kind of stuff.”
Viktor laughs, the sound almost inaudible as he scrawls a note into the margin. “If Ekko permits it, and if Mr. Prescott does not faint from anxiety at being led, blindfolded, into the Undercity.”
The mental image of Thomas descending into the Undercity’s hidden spaces, hyperventilating whilst hauling a load of scrap metal he’s seemingly pulled from thin air, draws a genuine smile from Jayce.
The unspoken thought hangs between them—that Jayce, constrained by injury, is already strategising how to contribute, how to be a part of the work even from a distance.
“When I get out of here, I can help with the installation,” he says, the statement a promise to himself as much as an offer of assistance. “Maybe coordinate with Ekko directly about—”
Viktor clears his throat, his expression crowned by a sceptical raised eyebrow. “And when, exactly, did your doctor say you could be discharged?”
“Well,” Jayce hedges, his hand rising to rub the back of his neck, “we haven’t discussed that specifically yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I’m stable, I’m lucid, the pain is manageable with just the oral medication—and I do need to start putting weight on this leg soon, or—”
“Ah, of course.” Viktor shakes his head with exaggerated despair. “Exactly as I foresaw—you are eager to overexert yourself even before leaving. You must be setting records.”
The affectionate exasperation in Viktor’s tone takes some of the sting out of the admonishment. Jayce knows he’s being predictable—Viktor is right, but the urge to be useful, to be anywhere but this sterile room, gnaws at him relentlessly.
“Well,” Jayce says, attempting innocence and failing spectacularly, “there is this one other thing.”
There’s a searching lilt to his words that gives away a more serious note than his typical restlessness.
Jayce traces the outline of a valve on the schematic with his fingertip, Camille’s words echoing louder in his mind. The suggestion that someone else entirely has been orchestrating events, watching, waiting.
His voice drops, quieter now. He can’t help but feel that voicing his concerns might prove prophetic, but he has to ask. He waits until he has Viktor’s full attention, then continues after a deep breath.
“The notes you got from Cait… Did they say anything about Glasc Industries?”