To say Beck had questions for Tron would have been an understatement. To say Beck had questions about Tron would have been about as much of a colossal understatement as saying that Tron didn't like Dyson very much.

The Grid's greatest protector. The one program older than than Grid itself. The hero who'd been saving other systems before the rest of them had their first line of code written.

Who wouldn't have questions for Tron if they met him?

But Beck bit his tongue when it came to those questions – metaphorically, now, but it had been pretty literal in his early days as the Renegade because Tron had a habit knocking Beck upside the head if he let his guard down to chat in the middle of a training lesson.

Tron did not like talking about his past, and if he ever did choose to bring it up, it was just to prove a point in some lesson he was teaching. Beck had gotten used to that over time. He accepted that he wasn't going to get a personal and detailed version of Tron's life story.

Didn't mean that he stopped wondering, though. Especially after Cyrus.

But now Tron was healed. Healed and – dare Beck say it – happier. His slight smiles were more frequent, a small chuckle wasn't too uncommon, and Beck no longer stopped to make a special log entry every time Tron made any form of attempted humor.

Not that he'd slacked off training Beck at all. Oh, no. If anything, now that uprising was building and Tron was back out fighting, he just pushed Beck even harder to make sure he could keep up.

The point was, though, that Tron was becoming just a bit less guarded around Beck. Relaxed, almost, and that made Beck more relaxed around him in return. They'd settled into a comfortable rhythm lately. Comfortable enough that a question Beck never would have bothered to ask before – because he knew he wouldn't get an answer anyway – just slipped out.

"So, what's up with that circuitry on your hand?" Beck asked, his arms crossed as he stood by Tron's side in their base.

It was a question that had sat on the tip his tongue from one of the first times he'd met Tron. Such a small detail, but one so unique. Beck had never seen anything like it on a program before.

Tron paused, his left hand almost straight out and hovering over the controls of the base's display screen in front of him.

Beck tensed at Tron's hesitation. That… was unusual. Tron always worked while talking.

Still, Beck's eyes were glued to Tron's hand. It was almost like he'd put the circuitry in question on display.

It wouldn't have been so odd had just been a light line, but it was almost like… a flattened identity disc. Embedded into the surface of the finger second from the left. And it didn't change colors, no matter what modifications Tron made to his suit, Beck had noticed. It was just there – a solid, unchanging band of black with light lines through it. Light lines that didn't seem to match any of the patterns Tron favored.

"It's a imitation of a User custom," Tron said finally, after just enough silence that Beck thought he wasn't going to answer. He resumed tapping away at the screen in front of them. "If they find another User with whom they wish to spend the rest of their runtime, and the feeling is mutual, they both obtain rings of related designs. Flynn referred to them as a promise of commitment."

Beck took a moment to absorb that. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. "So… they wear them for someone they care about?"

Tron grunted in confirmation. "Usually the one they care about the most, I gathered."

Beck mulled that over, shifting his weight to one side as he absently watched Tron's work.

Small, flat User identify discs of affection… How interesting. He wanted to know more, but he didn't want to pry and get Tron to shut him down for being nosey.

…No, it was the worth the risk.

"Did Flynn have one?"

Dumb question. Waste of Tron's limited patience for this kind of stuff. Of course Flynn would have had one, or Tron never would have known about the whole thing.

"He did." Tron's tone was subdued. "Unfortunately, he lost the User he shared his with to vehicle accident after only a short time in their world."

"Oh…" Beck didn't really know how to react to that. He knew Users weren't immortal, of course, but to think that one could be lost in something so simple as a light cycle accident…

Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Beck had been missing some very obvious implications here with all this.

Why did Tron have one of these this User affection… rings?

"So… if you have one, that kind of implies…" Beck drifted off with an anticipatory wince. He was definitely pushing thing here. Tron might have been positively chatty compared to normal, but Beck was expecting him to close up any moment.

But Tron just sighed resignedly, a flash pain flickering across his face that Beck hadn't seen he'd been healed. "Yori. She's still in my previous system. Flynn always intended to eventually bring her here. It's fortunate he didn't."

Oh… That was… Honestly, Beck had expected to hear that Clu had derezzed her, so he guessed this was better. But it was still terrible. Alive, but completely out of each other's reach.

Beck's gaze flicked back to Tron's hand for a moment. "Those are her circuitry patterns, aren't they? And hers has yours?"

Tron nodded softly.

"Well, hey! The uprising is going well lately! It's until the end of your runtime, right? Just say alive, and once we get the Grid back, I'm sure Flynn can arrange something for you." Beck pat Tron on the back. "And I'm going to have to stay alive too, because there is no way I'm derezzing before I meet the girl willing to put up with you."

Tron shook his head, and Beck could have sworn he saw a roll of the eyes too. "Something to look forward to." He flicked the tabs on the display away, leaving them with a clear view of the city. "Come on. You have training to complete."

Annnnd that was it. Conversation over. Not that Beck could complain. That was a lot more than he usually got. And it had been very enlightening.

Sometimes Beck forgot that there was more than betrayal and pain in Tron's past. He'd had real friendships. A serious relationship. Things that Clu had taken from him.

Beck frowned as he followed Tron to the training room. Everyone saw Tron as the one that fought for them, but was making an amendment right now to fight for Tron too. Not just with him.

If anyone deserved happiness, the Grid's hero did.