The pair of them are currently en route to Greenland, to help relocate a climate monitoring station, caught on a dangerously shifting ice shelf after some local seismic activity. It's a remote posting with only two people manning it, and neither of them are in anything like immediate danger, having evacuated their little research pod promptly, as instructed when they'd first called International Rescue for assistance. But an entire year's worth of research is at risk of falling off of Greenland into the sea, and so Virgil and Kayo are on their way out to pick the station up and move it somewhere more stable.
They've been in the air for about an hour, traveling at a leisurely Mach 3, because the situation doesn't actually merit a push to TB2's full speed. Early in the flight they'd gotten the standard briefing from TB5 with regard to their ETA and the situation on the ground. By all accounts this is still pretty far from disastrous; the pair of scientists waiting from them are waiting in a well-insulated pop-up shelter, nervous about the state of their station, but warm and safe, and otherwise patient and hopeful and in good spirits, displaying the typical Nordic resilience in states of crisis.
TB4 is loaded in the cargo bay, just in case the ice shifts again and they need to go fishing in Baffin Bay for a year's worth of climate data. Kayo can pilot both ships at need, is approximately as versatile as Gordon is with either, if technically less experienced—but even from across the cockpit, Virgil can tell that this isn't what's bothering her. He's got some guesses, but nothing he's actually vocalized. Thunderbirds aren't exactly what you could call quiet machines, so it's not exactly like you could hear a pin drop in the silence—but there definitely hasn't been much by way of conversation. It's starting to get awkward.
Kayo sits in Gordon's spot, and looks less comfortable and less naturally at ease than Gordon is, as TB2's usual co-pilot. Virgil hasn't said so, but she's been uncharacteristically fidgety and unsettled for the duration of the flight so far. At one point he'd offered her the flight controls, just to give her something to do, but she'd declined and they'd gone back to sitting in silence. Ironically, it's Gordon who Virgil misses, with Kayo here in his place. The three of them flying together always have plenty to talk about.
The pair of them aren't often alone together. And when they are alone together, it's not usually in this context. It's usually in a very different context. And on the clock, on a mission, with TB2's cockpit audio on an open channel and being recorded as a matter of course—it's not like they can talk about that.
Of course, there's an obvious topic of discussion that Virgil hasn't proposed yet. He's pretty sure it'll break the ice, snap the tension like a rubber band. It's just going to take a slight adjustment of circumstances.
Virgil reaches up and thumbs on a comm button, hails TB5. "Hey, John?"
There's a brief delay and then John's familiar avatar pops up above the central console, as responsive as ever to requests for his attention. "Virgil," he acknowledges. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, we're all good here. But hey, since there's no big rush on this one and we've got time to kill on the flight anyhow, I think I'm gonna run a few quick engine tests. Just wanted to clear that with you, and let you know I'm gonna mute my cockpit audio for a bit, it's probably gonna get loud in here."
"FAB, Thunderbird Two. Let me know when you're done."
"Will do, John. Thanks."
The call drops. Virgil hits the big red button overhead that disables TB2's main comm. Kayo looks at him sharply across the cockpit, arching an eyebrow.
Virgil has absolutely no intention of running anything like an engine test. That'll show up on telemetry later, but he'll deal with that if it becomes a problem, but he's betting it probably won't. It's not like Virgil's any kind of stranger to lying to his brothers, anyway.
Particularly not where Kayo's concerned. This is something he's done mostly to accommodate her particular quirks and foibles, to say nothing of her absolutely staggering level of paranoia, as far as their whole situation is concerned. He just wants her to feel comfortable enough to have a genuine discussion, when he clears his throat and says, "So. Gordon and Penelope, hey?"
With the comms off, the change in her is immediate, like a switch has flipped. She stops fidgeting, pulls her legs up to sit cross-legged in the co-pilot's seat, even as she turns towards him, suddenly lit up with intrigue and interest as she says, "Oh my god, I know."
Gossip about the rest of the family is not the best thing he and Kayo could bond over—but it's effective, and her enthusiasm manifests as a grin he can't help but mirror right back at her. Her eyes flicker upward, just briefly, to the red MUTE light overhead. Vigil doubles checks the comm again just to be safe, then flashes her an unnecessary thumbs up.
"I cannot believe she slept with him," Kayo exclaims. The tip of her ponytai flicks back and forth behind her shoulders as she shakes her head, emphasizing her sheer shock. And then, "I thought it was supposed to be Lady Penelope?"
That seems a little uncharitable, represents a rare but extant streak of meanness in Kayo that almost never has a chance to manifest itself. "To be fair," Virgil starts, because Fairwould probably have been a better middle name for Virgil than Grissom, "you don't know that that happened."
She scoffs lightly at that. "To be fair, I'm pretty sure."
Virgil still prefers to stick to the facts when the facts are available, just for the sake of prudence. "Well, I mean, we know things got pretty hot and heavy between them to begin with. We know they've been keeping in touch ever since whatever it was went down. And we know that she's taking him to Paris for Valentine's Day. Even if they didn't hook up—"
"Which they did," Kayo insists, with no small degree of relish.
"—either way, it clearly wasn't a one-time thing, it was an inciting incident. This is a thing that could get to be like, actually serious. Whatever happened that night is old news, what's happening—" Virgil glances at his forward panel, checking the time and doing some quick mental math "—three hours from now…that's what's wild. Gordon and Penelope. Penelope and Gordon. On a date. In Paris. Like, officially."
Kayo chuckles at that, and unfolds herself from the co-pilot's seat, leans back and puts her feet up on the forward console. Gordon would not get away with this, but Kayo has substantially nicer legs. "Paris," she echoes, with what might almost be a dreamy sigh.
Virgil glances across the cockpit at her, and for a moment he's not entirely sure how to interpret that.
Virgil and Kayo are not a couple.
If he had to approximate a label for their particular arrangement, he'd probably default to "friends with benefits"—mostly because it sounds less harsh than "fuckbuddies", though neither term feels quite correct. They have an arrangement. They've had an arrangement for what's probably over a year now, though by the very nature of the way it started, it's sort of hard to pinpoint a start date.
It's not a relationship—or, rather, it's not a capital-R Relationship, because neither of them wants that—and it's definitely not the sort of thing either of them want to be public about. The secrecy of it all is a built-in component, half the fun and nearly as satisfying as every other aspect. All the clandestine rendezvous and the carefully exchanged nods, the unambiguity of it all. Both of them know what they want from each other, and that's just a level of physical intimacy that just isn't readily or conveniently available, within the structure of their lives.
Whatever Gordon and Penelope are doing seems like it's started in secret, but neither of them seem to want it to remain that way, or they wouldn't be making the grand, obvious gesture of spending Valentine's Day in Paris. Clearly that's meant to mean something.
"I've never been," Virgil says, in lieu of trying to figure out just what exactly might have been coded into what may or may not have been a dreamy sigh. Part of what he likes best about his not-a-Relationship with Kayo is that the terms of it are so clearly defined. He doesn't have to guess at what she might have meant. If she meant something, she'll tell him.
She goes on, sounds more prosaic now, as she remarks, "It's a beautiful city. It'll be totally lost on Gordon, I'm pretty sure, but it's a beautiful city."
"Well, if he's there with Lady P, then yeah. No, he's not gonna notice, probably he couldn't give a flying fuck, so long as she's there."
For his part, Virgil's privately thrilled for his little brother. The rest of the family's opinions seem to run the usual gamut: mild, slightly impatient derision from Scott; John's typical faint bafflement when it comes to affairs of the heart, and Alan's complete and absolute indifference. Their grandmother might be the only person who's just as happy about the whole situation as Virgil is, though she's been far more vocal about it. Virgil's kept his own positivity a little more low-key, but he might be the only member of the family who knows just exactly how much this actually means to Gordon—just how long his brother's wanted this and how badly he's wanted it. He doesn't have the heart to be anything but hopeful, for Gordon's sake.
Kayo clears her throat, seems to hesitate for a moment before she goes on to make an offhanded comment, "You would like it. I mean, you'd appreciate it. There's a cynical part of me that always thinks that places like that—what do they call it, the City of Light? Or the Windy City or the Big Apple—any place that gets a nickname. I never think they'll live up to the hype." There's an endearing little shrug of her shoulders as she shakes her head again, sheepish. "I'm pretty much always wrong."
"I'll have to find a reason to go." He pauses, and then asks, "When were you in Paris?"
This is the sort of thing that they don't know about each other. This is the sort of conversation other people probably use to fill up awkward silences. Kayo's nonchalant as she explains, "Exchange semester during college, with some ops training on the side. My dad knows some people in French intelligence, he thought I might like the flavour of some of their fieldwork. Just to help round out my training."
"Oh. Got it."
He hasn't, actually. He hasn't got it even a little bit. Kayo and her father have been adjacent to Virgil's family more or less since childhood—functionally she's always been there. He's known her since he was twelve. She'd never known his mother, and he'd never known hers, and the commonality of their childhoods was that they both had widowed fathers. But for as long as they've known each other, it's strange how much there still is to learn. Sometimes Kayo keeps secrets as a matter of necessity—the truth of who her uncle is was something that had rattled IR to its very foundations—but sometimes Virgil wonders if Kayo might not keep secrets because they're just a fundamental part of who she is.
If he had to mark the onset of when he and Kayo got together, he would probably mark it down somewhere in the aftermath of the reveal of her one great big secret. If he were to wonder about these sorts of things, he might wonder if maybe she'd only gotten involved with him because'd needed to fill the void where that first secret used to be. If it could just as easily have been Scott she'd gone to, or Gordon.
It's a good thing they're not in a relationship, or he'd just have way too damn much to think about all the time.
Before he can get lost in all the things he doesn't have to think about, Kayo changes the subject, kicks them back on track. "I don't think I did any of the things that Gordon and Penelope are probably going to get up to," she comments archly, obviously intending to draw him back into a conversation. "I never booked the penthouse at the Four Seasons, for example."
"Penelope did? How do you know that?"
"John's been doing the Big Brother thing again. Like, the slightly dystopian why-did-we-trust-him-with-a-space-station thing. You know? He mentioned he was keeping an eye on Paris, I asked what he meant by that. He said it's just force of habit, he just wanted to know where he'd be able to reach the pair of them if he needed to."
It's times like these that Virgil remembers that Kayo's paranoia isn't entirely misplaced. "Well. I'm sure he doesn't care about any of the gooey details."
"The gooey details are the best part. How do you think she is in bed? I always had her figured as a bit of a prude. Apparently not."
There's a point past which Virgil isn't willing to speculate, mostly out of loyalty to his little brother. Partially out of respect for Penelope. But it's hard to talk to Kayo about anything that isn't other people, so he decides to split the difference, glancing over to her again for a moment of sincerity. "You know he's really in love with her, right? That this is probably gonna be one of the best nights of his life?"
Kayo shifts where she's sitting, and her boots up on the console switch places, her left heel settling in the crook of her right ankle as she adjusts. "I mean, sure, he's always—"
Virgil cuts her off, before she can be dismissive of what he's trying to tell her, "No, I mean really. I mean, this is—Gordon didn't think this was gonna happen. This was not a projected outcome. He came up to me after the party last night with a bottle of Fireball, and told me what he wanted to tell her. And then he told me he'd probably be back in about twenty minutes, and would I mind being the adult supervision while he got well and properly blitzed."
She winces at that, a rare show of sympathy. "What did you think when he didn't come back?"
He can't actually remember. He remembers playing cards with Kayo and Parker, and that things had gotten a little ribald around the table. He remembers glancing back towards the bar where a bottle of Fireball stood sentinel—less two shots taken for luck— had remained otherwise untouched, when he'd finally decided to head up to bed. And he hadn't actually given Gordon a second thought, hadn't even expected that the midnight knock on his door would be his little brother. He knows the rhythm of Kayo's knuckles on his bedroom door too well to have been surprised by her late-night arrival.
Virgil shrugs, a little guiltily now. There's a rumble of turbulence beneath him and his hands automatically steady on the controls, as the autopilot shudders slightly and then reverts to his control. Kayo takes her feet off the console. The skies are getting a little rough as they skirt the edge of the Bering Sea below. It gives him a few minutes to think about his answer, at least. "I didn't, I guess. I don't know, maybe I figured she'd just let him down gently enough that his heart didn't actually break. I didn't even consider the other thing. That they might actually get together."
"Penelope and Gordon," Kayo repeats, and then again for emphasis, "Gordon and Penelope."
There's an unexpected tug on his heartstrings at that, something that brings a smile to his face and a funny warm feeling to his chest. "Gordon and Penny," he corrects, idly. "He already calls her Penny whenever he talks about her, he's just never worked up the nerve to say it to her face."
This time, Kayo catches his grin, and mirrors it back to him. "Well, I bet he does now."
"Well, why shouldn't he?" Virgil counters.
"Touché. I have to admit, it's got a ring to it. Penny and Gordon. Penny and Gordon and Valentine's Day and Paris. As far as first dates with the love of his life go, it sounds like he pretty much won the lottery."
Virgil chuckles, but fondly. Say what one will about Gordon—and there's certainly plenty to be said—he's always been uniquely suited to being in love. It's a funny thing to have a knack for, but perhaps it's a natural consequence of being born on Valentine's Day. "I hope it all goes well," he says, and means it. "They deserve it."
"Yeah," she agrees, after a moment's pause, and he immediately adds the slightly wistful note in her voice to the list of things he's not required to think about. "I guess they do."
Beneath his hands, the turbulence shuddering through TB2 starts to subside, and the flight evens out again. His hands remain on the controls, for want of something to do with them. Idly he starts to check over their telemetry, and then reaches up to disengage the hardware mute on the main comm. Before he can hit the switch, Kayo clears her throat, coughs in a significant sort of fashion. "What's our ETA?" she asks, suddenly brusque.
Virgil's hand drops from the comm and he glances at his main display again. "Still about an hour and change," he answers, equally businesslike, presuming that this is an indication that Kayo wants to get back to work.
"Do we need to check in with TB5?"
"Probably not, last I knew Scott was supposed to be heading for South America somewhere, some sort of climbing accident in the Andes. You know how Scotty and mountain ranges don't mix. John's probably got his hands full with that."
"Right." Kayo gets up from the co pilot's seat, standing and stretching and then putting one foot up on the aftward section of the cockpit, pausing in the act of climbing up and heading back.
Virgil expects she's going to go double check the gear in the cargo bay, going to use their remaining hour responsibly, the way Gordon would, to start getting ready for the mission that waits for them on the ground. He's about to tell her to have an extra close look at the hydraulics in his exosuit, as these have been known to gum up occasionally in colder climates. But instead he looks up, and catches her slowly undoing the zipper that runs from her throat, down over the ridge of her collarbone, plummeting between her breasts. But it's the green-gold glint in her eyes that keeps his attention as she asks, soft enough that the comms probably wouldn't catch it, even if the red light weren't still on overhead—
"Wanna go fool around?"
And Virgil's already setting the autopilot.