The first time they came to him was when he was still a mechanic.

Well, came for him was more like it. He had been working on a sweet ride inside, blissfully ignorant of the bloodshed outside. The men in charge of the hit on his lowlife of a boss realized he was in the shop & went back to silence him. Only to be silenced by him.

(Ha! Deaf puns. Mr Numbers would be proud.)

The second time they came to him, they offered him a job. And like the one he just lost due to, y'know, his boss being murdered, he did his job well. He did not however keep his partners alive well. Inherent work hazard for them he supposed. He knew he wouldn't be able to help them if he don't see them but they don't seem to understand that flaw in his design. He was pretty sure at least 3 of them were attacked behind his back.

The last one was stabbed with pencils.

The man who stabbed his partner was the man who will come to be known as Mr Numbers.

He almost took a pencil to the neck if he had not caught sight of the other man's poofy pompadour out of the corner of his eye.

Since his bosses only ordered him to bring the other man back alive, Mr Not-Yet-Numbers ended up with 4 broken fingers and a black eye.

He did not see the man for another 3 months.

When he went back to Fargo after leaving yet another dead partner behind, his bosses decided to sic the newly christened Mr Numbers with him. He did not know what Mr Numbers did to annoy the bosses so much at that time but he bet it was something impressive. Turns out, the man cannot keep his mouth shut. His bosses thought it was funny to pair him up with a deaf man.

And also maybe get rid of him permanently by proxy. Because why else would you stick a man who crunches numbers (Ha! Another pun! He's on a roll.) and cook the books behind a desk in a dimly lit cubicle for most of his life with a man who gets his partners killed after almost every job?

But who knew both his deafness and his impressive list of dead partners did not deter the man. In fact, when the bosses told him his new partner was the man who broke his fingers, Mr Numbers cursed up a storm. He only gotten a few words but he got the gist of it. He gave a small huff of amusement anyway. And when the bosses told him his new partner was deaf, he gave him the finger.

"You understand this? This is the universal sign language right?"

Mr Wrench guffaw in earnest.