It was quiet here under the trees, except for the crunching sounds of their footsteps. The boots on X's feet were oversized for human footwear, if not for reploid: Zero'd watched him put on several pairs of socks, but the alternative was wearing snowshoes. While they both understood the importance of foot surface area to not denting floors in full armor, snowshoes seemed too easy to trip in, too easy to get caught on something.

Not that they were likely to be attacked here, and if something did try it, they could teleport in their armor.

Zero hoped not, watching X look up at the sky. They were heading into summer and the nights were getting shorter: was X looking up at the peaceful stars while he still could? While they were still peaceful?

A few scatterings of clouds, high up, but other than that the night was cold and clear, a three-quarter moon providing enough light for a human to see in this kind of light tree cover and "You haven't said anything," Zero said, and cursed himself.

X didn't lower his eyes to look at him, standing there in that pale blue padded coat, white-gloved hands in his pockets. "You still haven't killed anyone."

Zero almost jerked back, because while yes, he might agree with that statement, X saying something like that?

"You and your younger self… You weren't two different people. My family's home has a lot of sensors, for all kinds of reasons," science, security, evidence to clear someone's name if need be, "and that particular kind of energy…" after the stardroid invasion? "They showed me the waveforms, and I did a little reading to confirm some things, because I am rusty. You remember all of Sigma's bodies?"

Of course, he'd destroyed how many of them? "You're saying that Sigma got that from me." Along with the virus, with everything else that erased everything he should have inherited from Dr. Cain, from X, from the legacy X himself was only now getting to know.

"If you weren't capable of inhabiting different bodies…" X's fists clenched. "Then a part of you, a version of my best friend, would be dead, instead of just absorbed into you. Yes, I am angry with you. It's a reminder of how many times you've let yourself die. You hurt yourself again, Zero: you're my friend, of course I'm angry when you're hurt. I'm afraid. You're the only person I've managed to protect, the only person I've managed to save, and…" He shook his head. "I wish that you mattered to yourself. I feel so selfish, saying things like 'it hurts me that you do this to yourself,' when you did that because you're the one who is really in pain. My brother was maverick, and the only reason you didn't tell me, the only reason I didn't have to, didn't have to kill him was because you wanted to kill your father first, and…" X let out a deep breath, and determinedly unclenched his hands, wrapping his arms around himself instead. "There's still the time machine, if we have to. I suppose, in the end, I haven't said anything yet because I don't know what to say. I can't just install a chip and fix you. I never could, because this is not about your systems, or your origins, about what you really are. It's about who you really are. You're a hero," he said, turning sad green eyes to Zero.

His partner threw back his head and laughed.

"I'm serious," X said, finding himself smiling now because of how ridiculous it was, that Zero couldn't see this, after all this time. "You fight so hard to save everyone, regardless of the cost to yourself, and I really wish you'd stop doing that. I can't look after your emotional health: I can't even look after my own. Killing all those children who never had a chance, year after year: you're not the only one who was killing yourself, Zero. I suppose that's why it hits me so hard, why I know that's what you're doing. And I can't stop you, and I can't stop myself. I couldn't, because I had to do it, but now we're here, now I don't have to be a Hunter anymore. If you were less of a hero, if you were a little more selfish, if you were willing to do whatever it took to live, then I wouldn't have to worry about you, Don't you feel the same way about me?"

"Of course I'm going to worry about you," Zero said firmly. "This entire mess…"

"No." X said, holding up his hand. "Stop right there. I am not conceding that the virus is in any way your fault, but the problems we are facing, the danger we are in right now, has nothing to do with you. I am not in danger because of you."

Two pairs of green eyes met, and finally X sighed. "Someday I am going to win that one," he insisted.

"Someday it might be true." Someday, Zero might stay dead.

"Someday you might admit that it's true. Stranger things have happened. Like time travel." Zero's laugh brought another smile to X's lips.

"It's just how things are." How Zero was built. Objective realities.

"Fate, you mean." X looked back up at the sky. "Do you know," he said, "that at the end of one of the wars, after you saved me in a way that you only could have if…"

"If I was really a maverick, all along? If I was Dr. Wily's creation?"

X shook his head. "That's not what's important. I was panicked then, I wasn't…"

"Oh," Zero said, nodding. "That time. Of course I know when you're talking about," he told X. "You don't panic easily." Of course it had taken something like that. Sigma claiming that he could possess X, that X could be used to harm innocents.

Zero was sure X didn't register the compliment: X's bravery was just something he needed to have, to save lives. He really did take it for granted. "Perhaps it was because I'd just been threatened with my worst nightmare that I was in a state of mind to imagine a worse one. I thought… Maybe it was true. Maybe Sigma was right, that the two of us were supposed to fight. That it was my destiny, that I'd have to fight over and over as long as you continued to exist, just like my brother had to fight over and over until he died. As long as both of us existed. Maybe one of us would have to die, for the wars to end, and maybe… I'd already chosen to kill people, to save lives. Maybe I would have to fight you. No, maybe I would have to choose to kill you. Maybe it was my destiny to kill you, a fate I couldn't avoid, because if it was fight you or stay silent, do nothing, and let people continue to die… And it probably looks like that's the choice I made to you, doesn't it? That I chose to let innocent people go on suffering, just because I valued your life more than I should have."

"You're too trusting, and too kind," was all Zero could say to that.

"And if I wasn't trusting, if I didn't have compassion, what then?" X demanded, anger in his eyes. "Then you'd…"

Zero smirked, not sure whether he'd won or lost. "I made you admit it."

"It is not true that you would be a maverick if it weren't for me."

"I don't like Sigma," Zero admitted. "I hate what the virus turned him into. He pretended to believe in me, X. Told me that I could use my power to save lives. Now you're the one that thinks I'm a hero… But that's only because I can look at you, to see what it is to not be a monster."

"I am not conceding that you're right, but, so that we don't get bogged down in this argument, let's say, just for the sake of the current conversation, even though I shouldn't be arguing from faulty premises…"

"Whatever you say," Zero said, gracious in his victory.

"I'm not too trusting or too kind. If I was too trusting I'd believe Sigma's propaganda because he's my son, and if I was too kind, I wouldn't fight him."

"If you were less trusting, then you wouldn't let me fight by your side. If you were less kind, you wouldn't keep forgiving me for everything that's happened because of me." X was still in danger for those very reasons. The things that saved Zero from being a maverick were the things that put X in danger.

"Trust and kindness are strengths, not weaknesses: the second and first cardinal virtues and… you're trying to distract me because you'd rather have me trying to beat you up, even verbally, than feeling sad." X gave a tree a considering look, not that he would actually bang his head against it, or even a wall. "This was much easier when you were two and didn't know enough about how to interact with people to carry on a debate well despite being completely wrong. I can't believe that I thought, 'well, when he's older, he'll have a little more perspective, and decades of saving the world will have proven that he's a good person who does good things. The evidence will speak for itself, because he's an intelligent reploid who will listen to the evidence.' No, you have just gotten incredibly stubborn in your old age."

"Says the android that woke up with a hundred years' worth of stubborn. I admit that I've done… some good things." Not everything. No matter how necessary or inevitable it was, Iris' death was never a good thing. Keeping X alive, fighting so he could have a chance to make the world a better place: that was a good thing. "But not because I'm a good person."

"You're a good person and determined to stay a good person," X told him. "And as long as you believe I'm… I don't even know. You clearly don't think I'm a good example…" Given how often he critiqued X's decisions and how he was constantly saying that X needed to be less of a good person, which was true. It would help him live longer, and he couldn't save anyone if he was dead. "As long as I'm a magic feather with the miraculous power to turn evil into good, then because you refuse to be a bad person, you'll keep me alive no matter what. You'll die, you'll throw your life away piloting shuttles rather than let me die, and I just remembered that you were right all along!" X said, suddenly grinning.

"About what?" Zero said cautiously, giving X the 'I know this is a trap' look that was mostly employed when the Shinobi and Elite 17th were doing war games against each other.

"I know you think that no matter what, you're not going to be able to die and the world will never be free of you," X said. "Dr. Light and Roll think you're right." While Rock thought that while it looked that way, and it was clearly Dr. Wily's intent, you really couldn't just go and let people blow up because in theory they'd be fine. What if something went wrong? "And that means that you can be an idiot and kill yourself as much as you like and I don't need to worry about you." So there. "In fact," X said, smile broadening. "You're the one who has to worry about me. Who knows how many people will be trying to kill me while you're gone? And since I apparently delude myself into mistaking evil people for heroes, if someone I trust stabs me in the back because you were too busy hating yourself to stay alive and watch it, then it will be all your fault."

Zero raised his own eyes to the heavens, and fell back the about six inches until his back hit a tree. It didn't even shake much, nothing compared to how it would have if he was in armor.

"If you die, and I die before you come back, I swear I will haunt you," X warned him, probably shaking a finger at him. "I will float around and say 'Zero…' and it will all be your fault for blaming yourself for the virus and thinking that I'm in more danger with you here than with you buried underground somewhere."

X's voice soft and serious now, Zero heard him say, "I'd rather say that you should live because you're a good person and you deserve to live, for all the people you've saved and all the people who have fought so you can live. No. I'd rather say that you deserve to live, the way everyone deserves to live, and have you understand that. But you hate yourself too much to listen to me when I say that, and I want you alive, so I'll fight whoever I have to in order to keep you alive. Including you, but especially destiny. I don't have to like it."

"Remember our big, climactic battle?"

"That was not a big climactic battle. That was you trying to…" X took a deep breath. "This is why I didn't want to talk to you about killing the younger part of you. The part that was actually enjoying life, as thought that's such a horrible thing."

"Maverick virus." X's brother.

"We weren't able to have this conversation in the open all those years," because someone might overhear, "but we've still had it too many times. You know how I feel. You might think it's because I'm too good a person, as though good is something divorced from reality instead of the right thing to do for a reason, but you still know how I feel about this. How many times have you saved my life, Zero?"

"You've saved mine, too." If Zero really was immortal that might not be true, he realized. He'd always thought that X had wasted his effort: turned out he was right about that for two reasons. But if X realized this, if X thought he hadn't repaid Zero at all? Then he'd try even harder, not realizing that he didn't need to repay Zero, Zero was the one who owed everything to him.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you." Here, in this frozen, starlit forest, with a house far behind them containing a would-be world conqueror who had spent the past six hours getting a nice lesson in what it felt like to have some creep come along and ruin all your hard work by blowing it up and an Axl with no idea what it was like to lose a family or have to wonder what he was, if it was his fault they were all dead. "Meaning I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your father. Probably because my family wouldn't have lasted long enough to build me. I agree with you that we need to do something about him," X admitted, "but he's an important part of the current balance of power. It's an unstable situation, and if one of the major supports is kicked out, rocks are going to fall and crush my family." Among a lot of other innocent people.

"If we need to do something about him, and he won't stop until he's dead…"

"Zero. I don't want to say it."

That meant whatever he had to say was cruel, at least by X's standards. Zero didn't care, X cared too much about not wanting to hurt Zero, when he could take it (when he deserved it) so, "Well?"

"There's a difference between 'we have to do something about Sigma' and 'we have to do something about Repliforce.'"

"General was a coward and a traitor who would have gotten all his men dead or infected: how is that different from…"

"I don't care what happens to humanity," X said, with the air of someone quoting someone else, someone they didn't agree with, "I just want the people I care about to be safe."

"That's different."

"Why? Because she only tried to kill you, and you don't count? Even though killing you would have deprived the world full of people she wanted to just let die of one of its protectors, meaning hundreds of thousands more innocent deaths? Well, then who do you think would have fought her next, Zero?"

"Iris… It wasn't right!"

"No," X agreed. "It wasn't right. She was… misguided. They all were, and it put countless lives at risk, and we had to do something about that, but I know you wanted to save them. They weren't maverick, they still had a chance." Not like Sigma, not like the poor bastards infected with Zero's virus. "Killing all of them wasn't a success, it was a failure. Just like killing your family would be a failure. Can you understand that?"

"…If you say so," Zero said, looking away.

X sighed, because now they were back to Zero's self-loathing, and leaned against the tree next to him. "I miss your admirers." Being able to sic them on Zero.

"If I ever find out that you were the one who told Layer…"

"She has optics, Zero." Had.

No response. It would have been a relief to turn to look at Zero and see the slight angle of his right shoulder that meant he was considering reaching for a beam saber, if it weren't for the fact that even reviewing audio logs, X had no idea what Zero detected that put him on edge. Zero couldn't know either, not when the moment dragged on without Zero either relaxing or going for the blade, not even a hint that he was focusing on a single direction, or a single type of sensory input. If Zero couldn't find what he'd detected, what system sounded the alarm, that meant it wasn't conscious-level input, and Zero's subconscious?

X summoned his armor, and as it teleported in they finally heard something.


Magic Feather is a trope. 'I swear I will haunt you' is a Zero series reference, of course.

I mean, Zero left him alone with people that forced him to rule the world! And he didn't even have Zero there to kill annoying people or introduce excess paperwork to his beam saber! If X wasn't X, vengeance would involve rattling chains, because Zero slept for how long, the lazy bum, while X was pulling all-nighters?

I should have made more deadbeat dad jokes in Definition of a Reploid than I did.