Chapter Text
Prologue
Viktor moved around the lab in slow consideration of the work at hand. His chalkboard, although filled with futile attempts, showed no actual progress towards any solution to the problem of transporting ships. In the air. Without destroying the people on them. Or tearing a hole in the fabric of spacetime to get them there safely. It was a tedious problem. He wasn't moving forwards, he was moving sideways and in circles.
In theory the Hexgates were a revolutionary ‘must-have’ for the city of progress, destined to put Piltover on the map - and yet the more Viktor worked on it, the more he considered it a waste. Of course tomorrow when he returned to the lab with a fresh set of ideas he would once again see them as a technological feat that was the future of Piltover and Hextech. That was if he left the lab at all tonight.
Jayce walked in, holding himself high and walking with a tight gait. To Viktor this typically meant that he had come from the council and one of them had followed him. Surprisingly Heimerdinger followed suit. “Professor” Viktor began, now aware of the riddle of his mistakes up on the board behind him “a bit late for you no?”
”Ahh, no my boy, not tonight, never too late for science”
Viktor took a long slow breath. Heimerdinger never came into the lab this late, rather he criticised Jayce and Viktor for doing just that. This meant that the council had said something.
Surmounting pressure for the partners to finish the Hexgates had led to this increased frequency of council members in and out of their lab. Rarely did Viktor appreciate it. Especially not as they were now intruding on his time at night, when the lab was silent, the world was silent around him.
Heimerdinger's unexpected arrival also meant that Viktor had no chance to talk to Jayce. His partner had been around sporadically, focusing his efforts on not only the gates, as Viktor was, but also in maintaining the image of HexTech. Since the published reports of the ‘magic’ they had found, people grew in both support and concern, with a myriad of theories following the men as they moved throughout Piltover. The theories ranged from Hextech being used to create weaponry, to Hextech being used to manipulate people and turn its creators into gods. Viktor tended to ignore such speculation, however Jayce found himself protecting his creation publicly, discussing every theory as it arose. He hardly stopped long enough for Viktor to have a conversation with him.
Now, of all the things the Viktor never thought would happen tonight, Heimerdinger was drawing on his chalkboard.
“Ah sir, I don’t know if that is necessary”
“Im helping out my boy” hardly taking a moment to turn from the board “the council is very worried about you both. Working so hard to what seems like little results”
The ending chirp in Heimerdinger's tone added fuel to the fire that was Viktor’s growing headache. Jayce moved to stand behind Viktor - visibly cringing as the professor drew lines through Viktor’s and his own handwriting. Rather than watch, Viktor turned and glared at Jayce who merely shrugged, before declaring a hopeful out, “maybe I should give it a rest for tonight then professor?”
“If you want, if you want…”
A dull pain shot through Viktor’s back, a recent side effect of long nights and time spent relying on his cane over a chair. As such, he fell into a chair, cane falling to meet the desk beside it. He passively watched Heimerdinger move across the board and occasionally through some papers he had left around. Mostly he was watching Jayce.
His partner remained in an almost statue-like trance, unfortunately for Viktor, unable to act out against whatever the council thinks is best. They were funding the partners' experiments after all. Mel Miranda seemed to be the one pushing the hardest for this progress, as she had with their work stabilising Hextech, undoubtedly as she would with whatever they began working on next.
She was also the one that had first purported the phrase “putting Piltover on the map” as the selling slogan of the work. As always, the council tended to side with her, Jayce included.
Heimerdinger continued to search through their work. Viktor continued to watch in horror as Jayce did little to nothing to stop him, aside from a few half-hearted comments and going to stand next to the chalkboard, almost as if to remind Hiemerdinger whose work it was.
“We should give it a rest for the night” Viktor tried again.
Hiemerdinger didn't bother to grant him a response this time, continuing to follow Viktor's logic across the board, crossing out numbers and ideas as he went. Jayce looked over at him, his face cringing into an apology.
That was enough to send Viktor's headache into his eyes, and convince him to retire to bed. He stood, not again, attempting to convince everyone else to follow him. By the time he got to the door out Hiemerdinger had basically erased all of his work, and made notations on everything that was left. While Viktor was often undeterred by the influence of Hiemerdinger, especially not to the extent that it impacted Jayce, he was self conscious at the edits made during his planning phase, where every idea was written down and nothing was scrapped until everything was written and explored, and watching Hiemerdinger point out flaws, as if Viktor had plans to turn the ideas into reality, stung.
He was followed out of the lab by Jayce, who seemed immediately overcome with apology.
“I’m sorry Viktor, I didn't realise that the meeting was going to end with someone coming with me. They all seem very concerned, and I know that you have been in here all day… I just thought that you would have something to show them. I didn't think that Hiemerdinger was going to come and look through it all. I know were just in planning and i was prepared to ask for the funding you needed to run the test on the model ship–”
“Jayce, your worrying is not getting us anywhere. It's fine. If it will get Heimerdinger off our case for a bit then I'm glad he came.”
The forgiveness was not really supposed to calm Jayce down as much as it was to get him to leave Viktor alone.
“Maybe if he keeps coming you'll have to start going to bed sooner”
The joke and lighthearted tone fell on deaf ears as Viktor ignored his partner, breathing slowly through his headache and the ache in his hips and leg.
Jayve moved in front of him, continuing his apology for some ungodly reason.
“Im sorry, you do a lot of hard work, especially at night, and I shouldn't have let him follow me in there and mess up the lab, but I think I might have figured out the ‘people-abord-the-ship-problem”
At that Viktor's headache fell wayside to a wave of anticipation. Jayce smiled almost apologetically before continuing,
“Although I must admit it is Heimerdinger's fault that I thought of it at all”
“Just don't tell him that”
Viktor turned and the two moved back to the lab.
Two and a half years later - the Hexgates were the centrepiece of Piltover, the city of progress.
Chapter one:
“Keep at it, and I'm sure you will discover a way to safe guard Hextech against misuse”
Viktor wanted to follow Heimerdinger out, protesting his willingness to put the Hextech against anything that will prove how safe it could be against ‘misuse’. One mishap. A single regulation could be in place to prevent the Hex Claw from acting out like it had. They could fuse the Hextech to the glove, put in a safety guard so that it could be turned on and off. At most that would take them a week.
Not a decade.
A decade to keep away tools that could make jobs accessible, that could promote the development of Zaun. A decade that regular people would be kept from potentially life-saving technology.
To Viktor, a decade was time he was allocating to push Hextech further. Not as grand as the Hexgates, or as driven to the progress of Piltover as a city, but far more important. It was time that they could develop for the people. Individuals, who need specific help that they could offer, a time for the development of technology that could push past adversities that would be myths and tales of fiction in a decade.
It was not time to develop tools for the miners and fisherman alone.
Jayce wasn't pushing it. Despite having devoid time and resources already to the gear that had strayed from the direct demand of the council, he was not willing to push Hiemerdinger on allowing this technology. He held out his arm to block Viktor as he began to follow after the head councilman. Jayce was reluctant to risk the council shutting the Hextech program down if he and Viktor didn't play the role of obedient scientists.
If Heimerdinger says that time must be taken to refine it, then so be it.
“A decade..”
And yet, despite his conviction to do as he was told, the defeat in Viktor's voice reflected his own longing to show the world what they had built.
“It won’t take a decade I’m sure. We can work on it quicker than that. In two or three years we can show them that we fixed any concerns that might have. Heimerdinger was just being cautious. Overemphasising even, to push us to work harder. And it's not like we're at a loss for things to present tonight” Jayce punctuated the sentence with a half-hearted smile, hoping to relieve some of the worries filling the air.
“I wasn’t all that concerned about what you will be presenting tonight” Viktor countered, barely hiding the anger in his voice. “A decade is so long, Jayce. Three years is hardly better. It's time we could spend improving lives. Regardless of what Heimerdinger says, this technology doesn't need more time, the people need more time.”
Jayce quickly responded, fearing where the conversation was headed.
“Maybe Heimerdinger has a point. The HexClaw could have killed someone in that one demonstration alone. If not even we can control it, who are we endangering by giving it to the people?”
“And who are we hindering by keeping it from them?” Viktor raised his voice before sighing and falling into his chair, cane falling beside him as he hunched over with his head in his hands.
“You weren't as afraid of Himerdinger, or the council, before” Viktor continued after a quiet beat passed “ what happened to it being our turn to decide the future of Hextech”
Jayce considered. His partner wasn't wrong, but while Jayce was proud of them for pursuing their own goals beyond that of the council, he was beginning to fear that Hiemerdinger was right. They were lucky that the HexClaw didn't do anything more than startle Heimerdinger's poro. While a decade seemed excessive, Jayce was becoming more fearful of their so called ‘magic’ being in the hands of people who have less experience with it than them. This technology could cause real harm, especially if it got in the hands of people from the undercity - and safeguarding it may not be enough anymore.
The two sat in the mounting tension of silence. The Hextech tools sat stagnant.
Finally Jayce spoke, “I know we worked hard on this, and it's not as if it'll never see the light of day again-”
“Are you honestly taking Heimerdinger's side?”
“It could be dangerous in the hands of people”
“It could be dangerous if the people don't have access to it”
“I would rather us wait and get it right before we give it to the public”
“It is right. Now is right, Jayce. We aren't working on it so it can sit idle because people fear it, Hextech is supposed to change the world. It can't do that if the world doesn't have access to it”
Jayce moved towards his clipboard with his progress day speech on it. He considered it and Viktor's words. He wanted to change the world, but not for the worse.
“You’re not listening are you?” Viktor said, his tone rising to a yell, “You just follow the lead of the council, you do what they want above what we want, what I want.”
He stood and begun to move towards the lab doors, Jayce at his tail
“Viktor wait, its not like that-”
“It is Jayce. But it's up to you. You are the man of progress after all.”
Viktor slammed the door behind him.