Chapter Text
Mario chanced a nervous glance over his shoulder, feeling like some kind of criminal hiding from the suspicion of a cautiously-trusting police officer. Speaking of which, Luigi sensed his wandering gaze and caught his eye, the older one sucking in a breath and trying for an impulsive, cheery wave that was only slightly less incriminating than if he had cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted out to his sibling that there was nothing to see here.
Sure enough, Luigi sifted through his files on accusatory gestures, settling on the tried and true classic of squinted eyes and the slow step forward, setting out the mental hourglass that gave Mario exactly five seconds to change his mind about investigating. Dueling outside forces seemed to have had money placed on his success, because two things happened at once. Those three gossiping ladies started squealing about some brand new trouble brewing and Toad popped up from behind his counter with the amplified announcement that he had found what Mario was looking for.
Luigi's head swiveled between them both, curiosity warring with responsibility. After all, his entire purpose of hanging around by the fence had been to mask his eavesdropping behind the facade that he had a deep and passionate love of birdwatching, and Mario had taken full advantage of the fact that Luigi would find nothing suspicious about his statement, equally passionate, that he would rather be thrown overboard than make the same admission.
The older twin held his breath, waiting for the scale of Luigi's decision to tip in the way that benefited him, and then blew out that breath as his brother scowled in his direction before relaxing back against the fence, eyes returning to the sky.
Mario whirled around to face the vendor's oblivious grin.
"Toad! 'Subtlety'—you ever met 'im? Great guy! I'll introduce you, some time!"
"Now, this," Toad ducked under the hint, throwing the weapon onto the counter with exaggerated force and leaving a crack that would be hard to fix later, but in the moment, his little matchmaker heart had paired buyer to product with the kind of alignment in stars that hadn't been seen since Juliet's name had been inked in beside Romeo's, and the damage to his desk was simply the price paid for introducing two soulmates, "is the brand new, never-before-seen...Steel Hammer!"
Irritation waning, the glint of sun reflecting off of this beauty almost made up for the risk it took in revealing itself to the world.
"Wow."
Mario traced a finger over the blunted edge, noting a slight inverted curvature towards the middle that might just be perfect.
"Now, that's a hammer."
"Mm-hm, mm-hm," Toad bounced in place, fingers tapping together. "Perfect for adventuring. You see how the handle has these little grooves?"
Mario turned his attention to the other end of the weapon, laying his fingers in the crevices to check the fit.
"Matches perfectly with those high-quality, tear-resistant gloves you guys just bought. The indentations were made to fit those gloves, so when you hold it, you get a better grip for more damage!"
"What happens if you take the gloves off?"
The seller tilted his head, considering a question so out of left field that an answer had to be thrown together from the scraps of an auctioneer's persuasion.
"Well...it probably wouldn't work as effectively, but why would you want to take the gloves off? Can you really put a price tag on your protection?"
Mario shrugged, unable to argue.
"Exploitive, but true."
"Right?"
Mario checked that Luigi was still occupied before taking a few practice swings, noting the weight and balance. Toad propped up an elbow on his broken counter, smile dimming as he rested his chin on his hand, eyes flickering between the two brothers as the salesman stepped back to make way for the friend.
"Why don't you want Luigi to know you're testing hammers?"
Mario paused, glancing back at his sibling one last time before returning the weapon to the table.
"There's this one...enemy," his words were hesitant, but started gaining a bit more traction when his brain processed that Toad's curiosity was untempered by any sort of judgement, "and we've gone back a few times to try to beat it, but we just haven't been able to."
He shook his head, speech muted by shame.
"Luigi wants to let it go. He doesn't think we should keep trying to beat it, but I don't know. It's gotten in my head, and I know I'm fixating, but I just can't let it go! I made a promise, and I intend to keep it! I keep dragging us from vendor to vendor, and I know he's getting sick of it, but I can't get it out of my head, that if we just had the perfect weapon and the perfect chance..."
"I get it," Toad responded easily, Mario breathing a sigh of relief. "It's a matter of pride."
"Exactly! Luigi's way more humble than I am; he's able to let it go, but I can't."
"Maybe I can help you pick out something perfect. How does this guy fight?"
Mario felt his eyes light up. Someone actually got it. Someone understood. Someone even offered to help.
"It's really a timing issue, we've been having. We have to look up to judge projectile distance, and if we miss, even once, it's pretty much over."
"Ah," Toad nodded sagely, seemingly recalling all the murmurs about that troublemaker on Rumbla Island and happy to lend his assistance to bring him down.
Mario wasn't about to discourage any advice, even if it didn't end up proving useful.
"Not to push a product, but this one really is probably your best bet," he tapped the hammer. "If you don't have to worry about your grip, you can focus more on your timing."
Noting Luigi had started to inch away from the ladies, the red plumber pulled out their bag of gold.
"You're right," he spoke quickly, only half-focused. "It's worth a try. We'll take two."
His friend accepted the distracted payment and ducked back down to retrieve the second weapon, completing the transaction mere seconds before Luigi reached them.
"Tell me you didn't buy another one."
Mario stifled a yelp, his brother's voice right in his ear, and whipped around to lean casually against the table, which backfired completely when it let out a cacophony of creaks to command attention to its contents, loyalty obviously with the younger twin.
"I, uh...I didn't?"
"Lying to me, now?"
"I'm not lying! I didn't buy one!"
"He's right," Toad piped up, slamming a hand onto the cracked counter, "he bought two!"
Mario closed his eyes, giving his friend a pained nod and smile.
'Subtlety.' He really needed to set up an introduction.
"I've got your back, Buddy," Toad assured, reaching up to pat at his hip.
The older twin opened his eyes, heart sinking. Luigi's anger, he knew how to diffuse. Panic was easily soothed. Joy was easily shared. But disappointment? He'd rather be shot; it would hurt less.
Luigi just sighed, accepting his new hammer by the handle and dragging it off the counter, slinging it over his shoulder and walking away without waiting for his partner.
Mario abandoned his own weapon, chasing after what was important.
"Luigi, wait! I'm sorry! That was dishonest, and I'm sorry."
"You just can't let it go, can you?"
"You know I haven't been able to let it go!"
"It's not just you who has to face this, you know," Luigi finally stopped, turning to confront him. "I get dragged into it every time you insist we have to, and it's wearing me down! I'm tired of trying! No one is going to think less of us if we move on."
"But, we got so close last time!"
The younger brother let the hammer fall to the ground with a thud, leaning on the upturned handle and pursing his lips, gaze on the sky as he requested a boost to his patience statistic. Luckily for Mario, Luigi's convictions had always been built on foundations of kindness, though, he sometimes felt guilty for exploiting the structural instability of such fragile load-bearing beams.
"Please?"
The opener.
"Just one more try?"
The offer.
"For me?"
The closer.
Who said Toad held the gold medal for best sales pitch?
Luigi met his eyes, unimpressed, but Mario lifted his chin, unashamed. He knew what he was doing. He knew Luigi knew what he was doing. He knew Luigi knew that he knew what he was doing. It didn't matter. Whoever said that the ends justify the means either had a twin brother or had met Luigi in some alternate reality.
"It's not gonna be 'one more try,' and you know it. One try with these hammers," he gestured to his weapon, "maybe, but you're not gonna be satisfied until you've won, are you?"
"No."
"Fine."
"That's it?"
Even he was surprised by the egregious lack of eye-rolling.
"Anything that's important to you," he sighed, so very put upon, and there was the eye-roll, "is important to me. Go get your hammer."
Was it possible to love someone beyond mental capacity?
"Have I told you, lately, that you're the best brother in the world?"
"Not since yesterday. You're falling behind on your quota."
The tiny smile he received was all the permission he needed to bolt back over to the shop window and collect his new weapon.
"Good luck!" Toad waved, excited.
"That's the goal!"
Mario grabbed his brother's hand, dragging him over to the blue pipe.
Toad jumped out of his chair when a hammer was dropped onto his counter, adding another crack.
He surveyed the weapon, noting the dents and scratches, before chancing a glance up at his customers. Tiny hands gripped the back of the table and he slowly shrank down until just the tips of his eyes were visible.
"...Sooo, uh...how'd it go?"
Mario could almost feel the steam of his exhale.
"You have anything with an everted center?"
"Um..." he searched his inventory, quickly emerging with a new creation, "the only thing I've got like that is this Double-Edged Hammer, but it's just a prototype. Everyone who's tested it says the center digs into you when you try to swing it back, so I'm still working out the kinks-"
"We'll take it. Just one."
"Mario, come on," Luigi's voice of reason was drowned out by the humiliation of such a quick defeat, not to mention the crushing disappointment of having come closer than ever before and having dropped the ball. "You're obsessing over this."
"You said you were on my side!"
"You're not buying something that hurts you."
"If it'll help us win, then I am."
Luigi grabbed the wrist reaching for their coins, tugging it away.
"No, you're not!"
Mario tugged back.
"Yes, I am!"
Toad hesitated when the older twin held out the allotted gold, unsure which brother he was supposed to betray.
"Toad, don't give it to him!"
"Toad, take the money!"
Their friend's head popped up fully, eyes bright with a solution to his own problem.
"No charge! Take it if you want it, but I'm officially not recommending it!"
Mario was content with that, gripping the handle and turning to stomp away, but not before Luigi grabbed his fist, emptied it of the coins it held, and tossed them onto Toad's counter before racing after him.
"...Good luck?" the vendor's voice was timid.
Toad had his back turned, the slam of a hammer onto his counter startling him into ducking for cover under his desk, only coaxed out by the familiarity of the voices behind it.
"You have a problem."
"That's your opinion."
"My opinion is the only one that matters to you, and I say you have a problem."
"Here! Here, you go. Right here!"
Both turned when a new model was tossed onto the table.
"Whittledown Hammer! Not as sturdy, so I wouldn't recommend using it to thin out big crowds, but it packs a punch."
Mario ran a hand over the center. Flat. Heavy. He inspected the handle, noting that the connection between the grip and the metal was screwed, not welded, so that may be a problem, if used too frequently without maintenance, but for just one battle? Maybe, it would work.
"Two, please-"
"One," Luigi interrupted, caustic. "We need enough left to buy some mushrooms, remember?"
The small puncture wound in his back certainly remembered, but he wasn't about to let his brother have this one.
Toad saw them coming, this time.
"I'm starting to sympathize with Luigi."
"I wanna try something lighter."
"Here," the mushroom man already had one ready and Mario tried not to be offended. "Full-Belly Hammer. Lightest one I've got."
"Is it effective, though?"
Luigi, ever the logical one.
"You'll move faster, so I'm sure that makes up for less weight. It'd probably feel heavier if you were hurt or exhausted, but it might be worth a try. Nothing else has worked, right?"
"How much?"
Mario was already digging into their pouch.
"Take it, Man," Toad pushed it across the counter. "This is just sad, at this point."
"Have you ever considered that maybe it's not the hammer?"
"What, you think it's the time of day? We can go at night so the sun's not in our eyes."
"Yes, conditions are always improved by limiting visibility. Good call."
"I don't see you throwing out ideas. He's making fools out of us! Besides, we lost that last one because you got distracted by a butterfly."
"And we lost the previous two because someone stopped swinging to respond to taunts instead of paying attention!"
"Guys?"
"I'm sorry, what are the chances of you having to yawn on four separate occasions when it was your turn?!"
"Guys-"
"About as high as the odds of a screw falling out of your hammer five times that you missed your hit."
"Guys-"
"You swing too slowly!"
"Guys!"
"You swing too quickly!"
"GUYS!"
"What?!"
Toad was nearly blown off his feet by the force of their simultaneous response, but he brushed it off, readjusting his mushroom cap and tugging his vest back into place, ever the professional businessman.
"...Your hammers are ready."
Mario redirected his focus to the table, where two new Soft Hammers had been lying in wait for their collection for the past ten minutes.
"You said these are malleable?"
"Slightly."
Luigi's expression was pinched.
"Yeah, I'm failing to see how that's a good idea for a weapon, Toad. Is it gonna bend out of place as soon as we swing it?"
"Nah, it's not that flexible. If you smack something hard enough," he mimed the action, "it'll just leave an impression in the metal, so if you hit the same thing again, it'll have adapted to its shape and do specific damage to it!"
"Sounds fancy."
"Sounds like a fancy way of saying you forgot to cool the metal down properly-"
"We're trying it," Mario made the executive decision, officially out of ideas.
Gripping Luigi's hand, he dragged him back to the pipe.
Mario's pride would say that he had lost track of his successes. Arrogance might chime in that his failures could be counted on one hand. Humility, however, was about to smack him in the face with the glove of acceptance until he acknowledged the fact that counting out his defeats would now require both sets of fingers.
Luigi was over by Toad's station, the two in deep conversation and his friend's expression full of pity. No doubt, his brother was sharing the news that Mario, the hero, the pursuer of justice, had finally given up. His face burned with humiliation, paranoia trying to convince him that it was more than just Toad now aware that he had failed. They were watching—waiting for him to give up on them, next, and he could barely stand it.
So lost in thought, he was almost startled when Luigi plopped down beside him, wrapping an arm around him and dropping his head onto his shoulder. The stench of failure subsided, slightly, and he let his temple tilt to rest on his soulmate's soft hair, grateful. They remained that way for a while, watching the birds in silence, before the younger twin dropped a couple of somethings into his lap.
"Here."
Mario glanced down, wondering briefly if his sibling was mocking him before banishing the thought to the dumpster of nonsense.
"What are these?"
"Toad called them Bros. Hammers."
He ran a hand over the iron head. Flat. Rounded edge. Turning his inspection to its connection with the handle, he found a clean, welded line. The grip was simple.
"Wh- I don't-...what's special about these?"
"Nothing about the hammers, themselves, but Toad told me they were made at the same time—out of the same metal. They were crafted to be identical, and there are only two in the world." He smiled. "They're a set, like us—two halves of a whole. We make them special."
Mario's hand traveled to the second weapon, tracing along the twin brandings marking that these two mallets were made to complete each other. A smile threatened his lips with sentimentality, but he forced it away, pushing the hammers off his lap and shaking his head.
"We already agreed that we'd be done trying."
Luigi's eyes followed the fallen weapons, now lying in the swaying grass.
"I thought you made a promise to yourself?"
"Any promise I make to you trumps everything else, including my pride. I told you I'd be done, if the last ones didn't work, so that's it. He wins. I lose."
"Don't you mean we lose?"
Honestly, no, he didn't. The idea of Luigi losing at anything was foreign, as anything that didn't grant him success was either inherently faulty or so far below him that it failed itself out of shame for wasting his time.
His brother studied him for a moment before getting to his feet, grabbing one of the handles and starting towards the blue pipe. Mario's question on what he was doing had been lying in wait, patient for understanding to dawn on him without words, but he quickly found himself scrambling upright in a panic, heart pounding.
"Where are you going?"
"You may be done, but I'm not. That guy mocked us for failing. Are you really going to let him get away with it?"
He had nothing to say in response, Luigi granting him a knowing little grin when the dying embers of his winner mentality were suddenly fanned by the permission given from the only person whose approval held access to add or subtract from the scales of his worth.
His eyes turned to the remaining hammer, looking quite lonely without its twin, but luckily, it was well within his abilities to correct that little anomaly and reunite the two halves.
"Wait for me, Lu!"
"You look...happy."
Toad's statement set up camp somewhere between Hesitantly-Relieved Road and Justifiably-Apprehensive River.
Mario didn't respond, his beaming grin no doubt speaking for itself, and he dropped his hammer on the desk—its place of rest—its job complete. Luigi laid his down with a little less self-promotion, his exhaustion seeming to finally catch up with him as he leaned against the table and released a breath of closure.
"I take it you were successful?"
Their friend's eyes were bright with hope, a jar of wood glue being coaxed into an out-of-sight corner with what passed as discretion, in Toad's world.
"It's a funny thing," Mario relaxed beside his brother, giddy and exploring some indescribable, abstract knowledge that had taken a comprehensible form, in the wake of this achievement. "You can have all the accessories in the world," he inspected his gloves, patting his hammer in congratulations for a job well done and admiring the little gold medallion hanging from Luigi's pocket—four-leaf-clover engraving happily twinkling back at him, "and, in the end, success came down to something we never even considered."
"Really?" Toad leaned forward on his toes, ready to absorb some great wisdom. "What?"
The older twin opened his mouth to deliver, but Luigi spoke first.
"Earplugs."
Toad fell back on his heels, immersion ruined.
"...Oh. Well, what'd you get out of it?"
"Self-respect." "A sore neck."
"Huh. Was it worth it?"
"Yes." "No."
"Well, I'm just glad it's over."
The older brother nodded, pleased to share this victory with someone who was so happy for him, he couldn't even contain his tears.
"Me, too, Toad. Me, too."
With success to his name, a skip in his step, and an error counter that had yet to reach a number higher than five, he grabbed his mallet and swung it over his shoulder, ready to jump into a new mission and ride this high on life until the next wave of triumph carried them over the horizon.
"Well, if you ever need more gear, I can recommend some excellent vendors."
"Thanks, Toad," Luigi collected his own hammer, leaving a smile for their friend. "We really appreciate all your help."
"You bet. I hope the next island doesn't have a troublemaker as bad as Gorumbla."
Mario grabbed Luigi's hand, ready to pull him away, but his twin resisted, a frown on his face.
"Wait a minute. Gorumbla? What did this have to do with Gorumbla?"
Toad's head swiveled between the two, growing unsure and fiddling with his hands.
"Um, isn't that who you were struggling with, all this time?"
"...Nooo."
The younger sibling slowly turned to face his brother, realization knocking on his door to let him know that accusation had been left on the porch.
"Is that who he said we were fighting?"
"I never said that! He assumed!"
"That's what he implied!"
Fleeing the scene was sounding quite appealing, at the moment, but Luigi's hand was a vice, keeping him in place and tugging him around until he was facing Toad and feeling very much like a toddler, whose father was forcing him to apologize.
"You're going to stand right here and tell him exactly what we've been doing, and I'm gonna watch."
He shook his head, defiance on its way to his tongue before his brain could process Luigi's glare as crucial information, about to be filed into the cabinet designated to self-preservation.
"No, I'm no- okay, fine!"
Toads eyes were wide, flickering between confusion and annoyance, but he pinched his lips closed and waited.
"...There was this opponent-"
"Mario-"
"I'm getting to it!"
Luigi sighed, but let him continue.
"All right, there was this...situation on one of the islands that we couldn't solve. Not to mention, some of our enemies eventually started placing bets on how many times we'd fail. This one guy was the worst-"
"Mario? The point? Can I help shorten the distance between the two of you, in some way?"
"I said I'm getting to it! It's not that simple!"
"Not that simp- right. Okay, allow me to translate for you," Luigi stepped forward, exasperation clear as he redirected his lines to their audience.
"By 'enemies,' he means 'bewildered citizens,' and by 'situation,' he means a game of volleyball that had a previous high score of ninety-nine, and he took that personally, for some reason."
Mario held his breath when Toad's expression remained neutral, staring at them both for several moments before his gaze slowly turned to focus on the older brother. Luigi shifted his weight, preparing to mediate the resulting argument and perhaps protect his brother from physical harm.
The flat line of their friend's mouth began to curl on the edges until he broke out in a grin of congratulations.
"...Nice, Man! Give me that!"
He held his hand up for a high-five, the red plumber happy to oblige, the two whooping over victory.
"Show them who's boss!"
"See?" Mario gestured sporadically to the mushroom man, wanting Luigi to understand that he was the one who was wrong. "You see?! It wasn't just me!"
"You want me to validate your psychopathic tendencies by reassuring you that you're not the only one?"
Toad was laughing, almost hysterically, at this point.
"'Only one!' That reminds me," he wiped at his tears, ducking into a corner and retrieving that bottle of wood glue. "'Only one.' You're gonna be the only one fixing all these cracks!"
"What?"
"C'mon, Luigi," Toad stepped out from behind his counter, grabbing the younger brother's hand and pulling him away, "you and I are due for a long break."
"Wh-"
Mario was left with an abandoned table and a half-empty jug of glue, wondering how this suddenly got so turned around and flipped out of his favor. Also, Luigi was looking just a tad too smug, hooking an arm around his neck to offer a discreet whisper to his ear before he was escorted to his long-overdue rest.
"I'm going to be plucking gold from the walls of this mine for years to come."
Mario felt himself scowl, the brunt of his bad mood dulled when his twin pressed a quick kiss to his temple before heading off, leaving him to his probably-well-deserved job.
The glue was pungent, the gnats were sticking to his progress, and he swore Luigi and Toad's distant laughter was at his expense. However, he kept reminding himself that it had all been worth it. They'd gotten the luck charm, hadn't they? It wasn't all just a matter of pride. He had been justified; he would die on this hill.
A distracted hand set itself down directly in a puddle of the sticky substance and Mario exclaimed in annoyance, wiping his palm on his overalls and taking a little too much pleasure in the fact that Luigi forbade him from ever touching the laundry after that one time he threw one of his shirts in with a load of their socks.
However, even his punishment couldn't fully dampen his mood. Luigi and Toad could say what they wanted, but he had been justified—incontestably, undeniably justifi-
"So, Mario?"
He whipped his head around to meet a sweet, amused smile. Delicate hands were clasped behind her dress, eyes glimmering with just a touch too much entertainment.
"What's this Luigi and Toad tell me about a volleyball game?"
Scratch what he said earlier. Nothing was worth this.
~THE END~