Chapter Text
In the end, William Solace was half an hour late for work, a fact that his boss was not happy about.
The blond worked in an office in the center of the city that belonged to a very successful law firm. Will himself did not have any experience or knowledge on the subject, but he had managed to get a job because of his father’s connection to the CEO. That didn’t sit very well with the other people in his department, who always gave him the cold shoulder when he would pass them by. William didn’t fully understand though.
He supposed if he was in their situation, he’d feel the same way. Anyone would. But this department was pretty much the charity case of the company. They just appointed the useless employees to that dark room full of dust to sign meaningless papers all day and paid them to keep them satisfied and make them feel like an important asset to the company.
Of course he’d never bring this to anyone’s attention. No one likes feeling useless. Will didn’t mind being disposable, though. Sure, the job was boring, but it paid and if he finished quickly he could even work on his assignments. Med school ended up being harder than he thought, but he liked it either way.
With his briefcase in hand, he walked over to his desk next to the window, greeting his coworkers (who not-so-kindly ignored him), and let himself fall into his chair, defeated.
The walk to the building from the train station had ended up being one of the worst experiences of his life. His head would keep going back to the stranger from earlier.
‘ I should’ve asked for his number… ’
He had beat himself up about that fact ever since the raven boarded his train. Will could’ve at least asked what his name was. He felt like smiling as he recalled their interactions.
And now Will would probably never see him again.
He sighed, feeling awful already. He wanted to go home. Will shook these thoughts out of his head and decided to just start working already, laying his briefcase on top of his desk and pulling the sheets out. He couldn’t help but notice that someone had laid another pile of papers on his desk. Great.
Will stretched his hands over his head, preparing for another long day, and as always, looked out the window for a while. The building stood just in front of the Elysium university, a prestigious technical school that had been there for over 200 years. Truly, the city’s pride and joy. The classrooms were usually empty as classes took place at night, but it seemed there had been a change to their schedule, because they were now being filled with students.
Will would have just passed it off as a fun observation and gone on with his work if he hadn’t spotted a familiar mop of black hair through the window across and 2 floors down from his own. Will had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
Oh gods, it was him .
The stranger from the station sat down next to a girl who was already seated by the window and he could finally get a look at his face. Will was far away, but he could have recognized him anywhere. Hell, that face hadn’t left his mind for the past hour and a half.
What was he doing standing there? He had to do something.
Will started moving his hands out the window, trying to get the raven’s attention. Seeing as it wasn’t working, he got back inside only to be met with strange looks from his coworkers. Embarrassed, he tried to laugh it off and everyone casted him one last judgemental look before going back to work.
But Will couldn’t.
His eyes would just go back to that man, who was intently staring forward as he listened to the lecture and would occasionally take down notes.
He needed to talk to him.
He really wanted that stranger to smile at him again.
Will desperately looked around, trying to find a way to get him to look over to him. That was when something on his desk caught his eye: One of his sheets, crooked in the center where the stranger had grabbed it. He recalled how a flying piece of paper had brought this man into his life.
And suddenly, an idea popped up.
Grabbing one paper from the pile, he folded it once, and twice, then one more time, and he kept going until he was holding a paper plane in his hand.
‘ This is so stupid ’
But he couldn’t come up with anything better, so he gave it a shot either way.
Aiming for the classroom’s window, Will threw the paper plane.
And missed.
The blond watched as the little plane flew off with the wind. He hadn’t put enough force into throwing it. Damn it.
He prepared another one.
——————————————————
Leo was not having a good day.
He walked out of the university’s building feeling dejected. He wasn’t a student there (not yet, at least), but he’d just had a meeting with the head of the board of trustees to try and talk his way into getting a scholarship. Usually, his amazing performance in both maths and physics during his school years would have been enough to get him into any other institution free of charge, but of course Elysium was different.
If any of his old classmates looked at him in that moment, his normally messed up, curly hair brushed in an attempt to make it look nicer, his dirty clothes replaced by the only good shirt he had, which had once belonged to his father, and his ever present smile gone, they wouldn’t believe their eyes.
In the end, it was all for naught.
He was pissed. At the board, at life, at himself. Leo Valdez had always been an outspoken, confident person, so why did he get so nervous back there? He’d barely managed to utter a coherent sentence, much less a correct equation. Then again, he was always better at practice than at theory.
Leo needed this scholarship. Granted, he could always go to another technical school, but attending Elysium wasn’t just his lifelong dream, but his mother’s too. And, sure, the orphanage had taken care of paying for his education and new clothes every now and then, but even if he used every single penny he had saved up over the past 10 years he’d never be able to pay tuition in such a place.
Therefore, a scholarship was his only way in.
And he had busted it.
Leo clenched his fist, crushing the small trinket he was playing with inside of his pocket. He felt angry, exasperated and so, so humiliated. He had acted like such a fool that, in the end, the boy had had to throw himself to the floor and beg for another chance to prove himself. Luckily, no one could say no to the ‘poor orphan boy’ act, not even the merciless Elysium board of trustees. But that didn’t make them any less ruthless, as apparently their idea of a “second chance” was giving him one day to make a model of his choice and defend it in front of the university’s professors.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have the skill to do it, but they were demanding something big from him, some great idea, and he had none. None good enough anyways.
As much as Leo wanted to stay positive, he couldn’t find it in him to do so.
So he walked, slowly, with his head down and started heading to the bus stop. He just wanted to go home.
But in that very moment, something fell from the sky, on his head. Leo yelped, jumping, and then looked around hoping no one had been there to witness such an embarrassing reaction. Curious, he raised a hand to his head and pulled the object away from his dark curls.
It was a paper plane.
Despite himself, Leo smiled a little. He remembered loving planes as a kid and pestering his poor mother all day for her to make dozens of paper planes as he always broke them in less than a second.
He could recall the first time he was given a plane toy. Not a paper one, but an actual, miniature plane his mother had built specially for his birthday.
Leo felt puzzled, but his mood had been lifted quite a bit. He adored his mother and he loved remembering his time with her as a troublesome child. His eyes stung.
Leo blinked the memories away and tried to find whoever had thrown the plane, but there was no one around. He couldn’t fight the smile that rested on his face. ‘Welp, if nobody wants the plane back then might as well keep it.‘
Later that day, as Leo sat down at his work table, messing with some mechanism he decided to try out, his eyes drifted over to the small paper plane. He grabbed it, threw it and watched it fly for a bit before landing on the floor of his room. As he went to pick it up, he couldn’t help being a little fascinated. Now that he thought about it, Leo had always felt drawn to things that fly. Right after his plane obsession ended, he replaced it with a new object of interest: dragons.
Even as an adult, Leo still found dragons cooler than planes. They fly and throw fire? Now that’s what he’s talking about.
Then again, planes were real and something that could actually be built so…
‘Hold up.‘
Leo’s eyes widened. He rushed to his desk, tripping over a dirty shirt that had been tossed on the floor some time in the past month, and pulled out a sheet of paper.
He had an idea.
It took Leo an all-nighter and 13 cups of black coffee to finish the blueprints and the miniature model of his new project. And while, based on their expressions, a flying, flame throwing mechanical dragon was clearly not what the board had in mind when they had given him another chance, they seemed pleased with his job.
And so, Leo Valdez would be able to add “graduated from Elysium technical school” to his resume in just a few years.