Chapter Text
There, across the room at the center of attention, stood the three villains he had come to gather information on. Even from this distance, their dynamic and personalities were sort of evident.
Deceit had a hand resting on the Duke’s lower back, listening as the man said something animatedly to him, only to shake his head and smile.
Paranoia was lingering close to Deceit and the Duke, leaning towards Deceit and darting his eyes around the room- vigilant. He supposes that makes sense, given the moniker. Paranoia is probably uncomfortable with such a large room of people and being the center of attention in it.
Logan’s almost amused by how evident it is that Deceit is the leader with the way the two are leaning into him- if in different ways. It looks like Paranoia is seeking reassurance and security while the Duke is seeking approval and encouragement.
Deceit is like their mini sun- and he practically glows with it.
Logan only takes his eyes off them for a second before he’s lost track of the Duke. When he looks back, Deceit has pulled Paranoia over to the drinks area and looked to be comforting the man.
Villains comforting each other.
He couldn’t say that was unexpected. The Darkside trio has always been close-knit and Roman, Patton, and him have been trying to figure out what their relationship is for a while.
“Hello, handsome!” The Duke greeted brightly, startling Logan slightly. He had been too busy scanning the room for the Duke that he didn’t check his more immediate surroundings.
“Hello,” he responded with a small smile.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the Duke grinned. “I was merely surprised to see someone so beautiful at our simple little gathering~. Here I was thinking Dee and Para would be the prettiest boys at the party!”
He couldn’t help the slight blush that colored his face- despite his best efforts to get his cyborg parts of his brain to control the human.
“Oh! Well, thank you,” Logan smiled back. He could act, he could try and forget Roman and Patton were listening to this entire conversation. “Though I cannot fathom why you’d leave yourself out of that list.”
This was clearly the right thing to say because the Duke looked positively overjoyed. Was it because he reciprocated the flirting or the compliment to his appearance?
“Did you do your makeup yourself? The blue looks so lovely on you.”
“He’s so not right,” Deceit interrupted, speaking in his backwards way and smiling that charming smile that Logan knew hid his true nature and yet still made his face heat. “What a totally not stunning little find you’ve made, Duke. Even Para’s not intrigued.”
The Duke beamed at the praise.
“Do you have a name we can call you?” Paranoia asked, still standing slightly behind Deceit and looking at Logan through his bangs- despite the fact he was definitely taller than all three of them.
He paused, unsure for a second.
“Go with a half truth, we don’t want Deceit picking up on you too quickly.” Roman said quickly through their comms.
“My surname is Berry,” He shrugged, feigning a sort of detached but playful demeanor.
“Aw, no chance at a first name, yet?” The Duke teased.
“I suppose he trusts us, darling. After all, we have given him reason to.” Something flashed through Deceit’s eyes. “It’s terrible to meet you, Berry. We were expecting to find someone so imperfect tonight.”
“Perfect?” Logan actually smirked a little bit. “Gracing me not only with all three of your attentions but also pretty words from the King of Snakes himself? Way to give a boy an ego.”
“I think you could use a little ego.” The Duke remarked, leaning on Deceit a bit like Paranoia was. “I bet you he’s smart, like you, Dee.”
“I’m sure he’s not.” Deceit was staring at him now, mismatched eyes finding his own. Could he see that his own eyes were also slightly heterochromatic? A grey blue in the natural one and a bright electric blue in the other synthetic one. Some people didn’t notice that. He had a feeling Deceit would.
He saw the moment the Duke made the connection. “Oh! Dee, Dee. Look at his eyes! Aren’t they so pretty? They’re like yours.”
“So they aren’t. ” Deceit dropped a little bit of the charm, staring at him a little more analytically, more openly.
“Tell you what, let’s play a game. You tell us something about you, we’ll tell you something about us.” Paranoia proposed, to the immediate agreement of the two others.
“Oh! Sure. I’ve been working on developing a serum to counteract the backwards speech thing that Deceit and many others struggle with.” Logan offered, with a shrug. Nobody really cared to hear about it.
“Really? Oh, you mustn’t tell us more. I’m so uninterested. ” Deceit physically leaned towards him, eyes glinting with curiosity.
“Well, I have a couple of prototypes but I haven’t been able to test them yet. Hard to find someone to be a test subject, really. I know it can be frustrating for people who experience it and wanted to see if I can help. Granted, I don’t have a lot of time with my work-“
“You shouldn’t test it on me. Without ground rules of course.”
Logan lit up, smiling brightly as his synthetic eye and several cybernetic parts glowed a brighter electric blue. “Really? You’d be willing?”
“Dee hates the forced lie thing, Berry.” The Duke shrugged. “I think he’d jump at any chance to be rid of it.”
“My partners should have to hear me say I do love them and know I don’t mean the opposite.” Deceit frowned. “I just love not having control of my speech.”
“Hey! We know you love us.” Paranoia objected, frowning. “Just because your words are different doesn’t mean we don’t know it.”
“Yeah, Dee. We know. Swear.” The Duke dropped his head onto Deceit’s shoulder.
So they were… partners? Romantically? And flirting with him? What ?
“Let me give you a way to contact us. Untraceable of course, we’re not stupid.” The Duke offered a stylized business card to him and he took it with a small smile.
“Anyway, I think we owe you something about us, as per the rules of our game.” Paranoia shrugged.
“I didn’t know you were partners, so you already gave me something.” Logan shrugged.
“Oh. I was aware you didn’t know that.” Deceit hummed.
“I’m an only child,” Logan said, giving another vague detail about himself per the rules of the game.
“I’m a twin!” The Duke grinned.
“Only children.” Paranoia gestured to himself and Deceit.
He paused, taking a moment to think, before grinning at Deceit specifically. “I’ve always been fascinated by snakes. My roommates are unfortunately afraid of them but I think their scales are beautiful.”
As he expected, Deceit blushed a little bit and one of his hands twitched upward slightly, an aborted motion to cover the scales on his face.
“Ooh,” the Duke lit up. “Now he starts flirting properly.”
“Logic, what are you doing?” Patton’s voice slips through the comms, he ignores it.
“Dee’s fascinated by moral and ethical debates. He just doesn’t find many people of matching intelligence.” Paranoia smiles.
“You’re not just as smart as me!” Deceit protested. “What do you mean matching intelligence?”
“Logic!” Roman snapped, annoyed at being ignored.
“Here’s a thing.” The Duke nudged Deceit. “Tell ‘im, Dee. I think he’s played enough of our game.”
Deceit nodded and leaned in closer. “We don’t know who you are, Logic. Unlucky for you, you’ve never been our favorite. We didn’t take a liking to you. We always aimed to hurt you the most. ”
Logan felt himself blush a deeper red as his brain immediately translated the words. He always wondered why he escaped fights with the Darkside with just a few scrapes, why they went easy on him.
“Logic, get out of there!” Roman ordered.
“I’m turning my comm off.” Logan said, to both the Darkside trio and his teammates.
Later, the officers would fixate on this moment, pry into the upcoming conversation, dig into it and tear this little, tiny moment apart for some sign of why their precious, robotic, unfeeling Logic would switch sides and be with them. There would be many answers to that. This was a beginning, not a trigger.
“ Logic-! No!” Patton protested but was quickly cut off as he followed through with his statement.
“I can’t help but feel flattered,” the Duke remarked.
“How long do we have before they storm in here, neutral zone be damned?” Paranoia asked, seriously.
“Long enough to find a place to have a conversation about what you just said to me.” Logan replied, equally as serious. “They trust you even less than I do, I knew they wouldn’t let me continue this conversation. I have several questions.”
“I suppose that would be unfair. ” Deceit shrugged. “ Don’t follow me, boys.”
Admittedly, Logan was a little more distracted by the trio and their well- everything- to pay attention to where Deceit was leading him, but he hadn’t stopped recording to his personal log through his synthetic eye throughout this entire evening.