A/N: I'm not too happy with this chapter... Gendry's mood changes were hard to pin down properly. Oh well.
It isn't even four o'clock, and Gendry is already wrecked. Mott gave him a call this morning and told him that he wouldn't be able to get in today and that he'd have to handle it all himself, which is fine; he'll be paid overtime, and Seven knows he needs the money. But he's hungover and tired and generally in a bad mood, which doesn't help when you're dealing with customers worrying that their transmission is gone when, really, their car mat just got wedged under the brake.
He sighs, and finishes jacking an old Lyshi up. His creeper is almost gone; its wheels are making alarming noises, and it creaks threateningly each time he puts weight on it, but he isn't about to shell out for a new one. The Lyshi's cat has failed, and he starts by removing the oxygen sensor. As he's loosening the bolts, the garage door swings open.
"Mott? Thought you weren't coming back," he calls, sliding out from under the car and sitting up. "Did you f-"
Safe to say, the figure standing in the door isn't his boss. Arya picks her way through assorted bits and pieces, kicking some old valve springs beside. A navy beanie slouches off her head.
She settles on the car beside him; luckily, it's already done, so it isn't on jacks or anything, so the whole thing doesn't collapse underneath her. "How goes the work?"
"What in seven hells are you doing here? I swear, if you broke your bike again-"
"No, I didn't! I was bored!" She huffs, and yanks her hat off.
He knew something was wrong. Her hair was long before, and curly; after her shower in his flat the other day, it hung down her back in a wet mass. Now it's all gone, hacked off to just above her chin.
She sees him eyeing her new hairdo. "Ya like it?" She tosses her head like a vain cheerleader.
Yes, he does, but he isn't going to tell her that. "It's almost as short as mine."
"That's what I was going for," she tells him evenly.
"Who did it?" Not a professional, in any case; the edges are ragged.
"My sister. Mother went off the rails. She says I should be done with teenage rebellion. Looks like I'm not."
He snorts, but as he opens his mouth to say something he'll probably regret, the computer over over in the corner shrills. He pushes the creeper away to go check it out; a businessman brought a Dorn Lancer in today, and he's had diagnostics running on it since.
"Fuel injection," he mutters. "Of course, it's a Lancer, what else is new?"
Arya pops up behind him, and he almost drops the scanner. "Seven hells! Make some noise when you walk, will you?"
"I didn't think an car mechanic would have to use a computer," she observes, forehead crinkling.
"Everything has a computer in it nowadays. Cars are no different." He knows he's being rude, but he's wrecked and he's sick of people taking the term grease monkey far too literally.
"Huh," she mumbles, scrolling down the list, eyes running over data she doesn't have a hope of understanding. "Just didn't think you had it in you."
The comment is innocuous, probably meant as a compliment more than anything, but it rubs him the wrong way, inflames the inferiority complex that has largely remained dormant since secondary school. He steps back, and she moves forward to get a closer look at the wires hooked up to the computer. "Of course. I'm too thick for that, aren't I?"
She whirls around, grey eyes hot. "What's wrong with you? I didn't mean it like that!"
He's already regretting this, but he's tired and angry and confused, because this girl has waltzed into his life and made everything else seem dull by comparison.
"I'm sure you didn't, Lady Stark, you're much too polite and mannerly to insult a blue-collar, aren't you?" He stops to glare at her, her back to the desk as he towers over her. "Oh. Wait."
Her eye are no longer narrowed in anger, but have been widened by shock. "Stark? How did you-"
"I can use a computer. I'm very good with computers, in fact. I know your social security number, I know your medical record, and I know about your druggie bastard brother."
He expects her to explode at him, to grab the wrench beside her hand and beat him bloody with it. Instead, she grins wide. "Gendry, you're exactly-"
"What? Right?"
"No. I would never underestimate you, you know that!" Her fingers fasten around his arm to pull him down to her level, and he's suddenly very aware of how close he's gotten to her in his anger. "You might be exactly what I'm looking for!"
"What, an angry bastard mechanic?"
"An angry bastard mechanic hacker," she counters. "I don't believe in fate, but this is..."
"Get on with it."
"I need you to create a false identity for me." Her grip tightens, vice-like.
"Why, exactly?"
She breathes in, lashes veiling her grey eyes. "I'm going to infiltrate the Bloody Mummers, but I won't stop there. The Cleganes, the-" Her breath hitches, and she pause, as if she can't believe that she's going to say this. "The Lannisters. I'm going to take them down and rip them into tiny pieces. I'm going to get my brother back."
"You think a haircut will make you unrecognisable?"
"Ever heard of a binder?" He stares at her, incredulous, and she rushes on. "I mean, I don't have an awful lot there already, but if I do that, if I get contacts and the right clothes, get fake scars and stubble-"
"You're going to become a boy?"
She presses her lips together and nods.
"Won't your parents notice?"
"I'll move out, but I'm going to tell them I'm going railing in the Free Cities for a while, keep with the teenage rebellion thing. Sansa will cover for me. They won't notice."
"And I come in where?"
"You'll be my partner. Backup. I'll never ask you to hold a gun or anything, just... research. You found all that shit about me out in... what, two hours?"
"One."
She smiles sharply. "I need an advantage against these people. You can hack security systems, can't you? Take cameras offline, steal data transmissions..." Her eyes are passionate, determined. "With me on the ground and you backing me up, I'll be unstoppable. I'll give you whatever you want, it doesn't matter. Just help me. You'll be duly rewarded."
He stares at her as his mind launches into overdrive. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is ruffled, sticking out from her head.
This is dangerous, more dangerous than anything he's ever done, and he once tried to go drag racing after four shots of tequila. Logically, he should say no; he learned not to bring trouble down on himself a long time ago. But he's sick of this living, of mundanity; the mediocrity of his life scratches at his lungs, and makes his ribs buckle. This is his chance to do something, to claw his way put of his poverty-stricken life, to get away from his desolate past.
In any case, he can't let her do it alone. Arya is more courageous than a lion, and as fierce as a wolf, but she's going to need someone in her corner. He doesn't mind; in fact, he wants to help her, even if her plan is crazier than old Aerys Targaryen.
He was doomed, really, from the moment she wheeled her motorcycle into this garage.
"All right," he agrees, finally. "I'll help you out."
Her face brightens and she grins widely. Her arms twitch, and for one mad moment he thinks she's going to hug him.
She doesn't. Instead, she pushes him gently away.
"I knew you would." She sounds incredibly sincere as she turns her face up to him.
"I can't let you do it alone. If you landed into my flat like that again, I'd have a heart attack."
She scowls, and he can't help the grin that spreads across his face. "Don't you have work to do?"
He starts; he almost forgot about the Lyshi up on the jacks. He'll work the Lancer out later. "You're right." He moves towards the other side of the garage, and she follows him.
As he lies back down on the creeper, Arya perches herself on a workbench scattered with tools. "You're not going home?" he asks.
He hears her, rather than sees her, shake her head. "Do you mind if I stay here?"
"Just as long as you don't break anything." He picks the wrench up and begins to unbolt the cat, first the front, and then the back.
She ignores that. "What are you doing?"
"Replacing a catalytic converter."
"This thing?" He scoots out from beneath the car, the busted cat in hand, as she waves the new one around.
"Yep." She hands it to him, along with the gasket he indicates. He retreats back under the car, and replaces the gasket. Levering the cat into place, he asks "You know anything about cars?"
"I'm better with bikes. I maintain mine."
"You didn't build it, though." He tightens the nut onto the pipe with his hands.
"No. Jon did." She's quiet, feet knocking against the counter. "I miss him a lot."
He stills under the car, a bolt slipping from his fingers.
She continues, hesitant. "He always treated me properly. Robb was always a little condescending, and Sansa thought I was a freak of nature... Jon and I bonded. The day he left, I..."
Gendry waits for her to speak, but she doesn't make a sound. "Why did he leave?"
"I don't know. He had an argument with Dad, and before we knew it he was storming out of the keep with Ghost. The dogs howled all night." The banging of her feet ceases. "He didn't even say goodbye."
Ghost. A dog, probably; he's seen the telltale hair on Arya's clothes. "And he fled all the way to King's Landing from Winterfell?"
"Yep." She laughs bitterly. "I bet he never expected us to follow; I didn't. But one of my dad's old friends needed help... Ned Stark always comes to the rescue."
Gendry screws the oxygen sensor back into place, quickly checking the wiring as he does so. "Your father sounds like a good man," he tells her as he emerges from beneath the car to remove it from the jacks.
"He is... but he's too good." She stands up to help him, and once the car is grounded, she asks if she can test it out. He relents, probably too easily, but he feels guilty about his tantrum earlier. He hates his temper, hates the outbursts that take even him by surprise. He always worries, after; what would happen if he lost control? Would he hurt someone, or worse? He almost hit one of his foster fathers once, in an argument that he can barely remember; they weren't long kicking him out after that.
He tries to imagine hitting Arya, but the image sends a shudder down his spine. In any case, she'd hit him back, and twice as hard.
He makes a stab at apologising when she glides back into the garage, but she brushes him off with oddly noble grace. "No harm, no foul," she says breezily, flapping a hand, as she moves over to the Lancer. "So, what do you have to do here?"
The remaining few hours proceed in much the same fashion; Arya aiding where she can, and complaining where she can't. Gendry hits his head off an exhaust pipe at one point, and she laughs so hard that she falls off the step-ladder she's sitting on. Slowly, he begins to learn about her life; her dog, Nymeria, an ageing Northern Skagosi wolf dog, her passion for boxing (she demonstrates a few moves and almost breaks a winch), and her little brother Rickon's recent suspension. In return, he tells her about the foster father who thought he was Bael the Bard, the hedgehog he tried to adopt when he was five, his first disastrous job as a bartender.
"Turns out you're supposed to tilt the glass," he finishes, as Arya breaks into cacophonous laughter.
Her phone begins to chime; he recognises the song, some saccharine dance hit from across the Narrow Sea. "Sansa," she sighs, and turns away to answer the call.
He stands up and stretches, glancing at the clock and flinching. Eight? Sure enough, outside the sky is fading to a dusky indigo. In the time he's been talking with Arya, four hours have slipped by.
"No!" Arya's voice is high pitched, embarrassed. "Sansa, I didn't-! Stop it! I swear, if you don't shut up..."
There is silence, and then a snarl from Arya as she shoves the phone into her pocket.
"Did you argue?" he queries, wiping the grease off his hands.
"I told her we're partnering up, and she took it sort of... um..."
He hopes he's not blushing. "Oh."
"She's just...excited. I don't really go in for boys."
"What about girls?"
She gives him a scornful look.
"Just asking."
She shakes her head, and grabs her hat off the workbench she left it on. "Boys." The word drips with the kind of derision generally reserved for vapid celebrities and corrupt politicians. He grins as she marches towards the door, pausing by the sign. "See you tomorrow?"
"Of course, milady."
She growls something indistinct, and when she flips the sign around it clatters against the window.
He smiles to himself, and begins to close up.