Written for scoutsauce, aka cawburn on deviantART. She recently turned eighteen, and so I tried to write some cute stuff with Engineer and Scout having a sort of mentor and student relationship. It didn't really work out as planned, but, you know, I tried.

Engineer knew, without a doubt, that even if the war went on for years, his and the rest of his team's employment with RED would not last forever. Eventually they would either become too old or simply get bored, retiring, quitting, maybe even getting fired. It was good to have a back up plan, regardless of their high payrolls. (You never really knew what would happen with money.) He had one—more than one, really—and from what he had gathered, talking to them over the time they'd all been together, most of his colleagues had plans as well.

The only one who didn't have a plan was Scout. It fit the kid's personality; he always went into situations before anyone could talk to him, before he had even thought about what might happen. He was impulsive. Engineer also hadn't seen Scout exhibit too many skills past talking fast, running, and beating people to death with baseball bats. They were all certainly good for what he was doing right now, but what about when Scout had to go back to civilian life? He couldn't exactly walk into an office with that on his résumé.

So he took it upon himself to teach Scout some skills outside of murder. That decision was how he found himself standing outside of the base, pencil and paper in hand, trying to convince the young man to let him teach him physics.

"It'd be a great opportunity," Engineer wheedled, grinning. "I get to practice my teaching skills, which are mighty rusty, and you get to learn something! It's a perfect trade."

"Science is for fags," Scout said, frowning.

Engineer glared at him, for both the slight against his own honor, and the slight against the honor of scientists everywhere. "You try telling that to a man like Nikola Tesla."

"Never heard of him." Scout crossed his arms, looking skeptical. "What'd he do?"

"Only everything! He was an inventor, and an electromechanical engineer; he worked on remote control, and computer science, and nuclear physics, and radar, and Hell, even robotics—"

"Jesus, don't get too excited," Scout said with a snort. "He get any hot chicks for it, or was he just a nerd?"

Engineer scratched his cheek. "Well, not exactly. I mean, he had ladies running after him and all, but he believed chastity was the way to a clearer mind. Reaching knowledge was easier, and all that… I mean, it's not strange," he hurried on as Scout raised his eyebrows. "Newton had the same sort of ideas, and look at what he contributed, too!"

"They were both fags, then. And who the fuck is Newton?"

Engineer clapped a hand to his forehead. "You don't even know Newton? But you must have studied gravity in school—"

"The fuck is gravity?"

Engineer backed away slowly, shaking his head as he did so. "I can't teach you. You're… It's too much." As he walked quickly into the base, he wiped his forehead, already trying to block the memory of Scout's supreme ignorance from his mind. Let the boy keep his limited skill set! He could join a gang, so long as Engineer never had to heard the words "what is gravity" from anyone above five years of age ever again.

Back outside, Spy took off his disguise and laughed until he choked.