#don't tag as toonshipping

[rosalind-hawkins]

Mastershipping Musings ft. Pegasus

Pegasus is obviously a point of contention between Duke and Kaiba.

Pegasus and Kaiba still have to be business partners after Duelist Kingdom in anime canon, and that's the primary canon I follow because I'm still working on the manga. (side-note: Pegasus probably makes Kaiba pay through the nose for BEWD royalty rights, don't ya think?) Anytime they encounter each other, in business meetings and gaming conventions and tournaments, they have to play (mostly) polite in front of the cameras, but Kaiba can't stand him. That said, he's built his entire company based on Duel Monsters, so he has no choice but to put up with him. I imagine that Kaiba keeps Mokuba away from Pegasus as much as possible, to the point of making sure they're never ever in the same room together and trying to just never mention Pegasus to Mokuba if he can help it. Mokuba doesn't act outwardly traumatized after DK, but he's not taking any risks and not putting his brother in harm's way. Pegasus is a dangerous man, and Kaiba learned that lesson the hard way.

{Long post, rest under cut}

Duke idolized Pegasus as an artist and creator, and was basically the sole inspiration for Dungeon Dice Monsters. Once he finds out about what Pegasus did to the Kaibros in Duelist Kingdom, he's going to feel so conflicted. I think the internet's been around for long enough that we've all had a creator that we liked get outed for something awful they've done (I feel like it's happened a lot) and then we have that uncomfortable feeling afterwards of "but their art/content is so good" "but I shouldn't support them" "but you can separate the art from the artist" "but not when consuming the art is giving them money." Duke is gonna have a whole crisis about it when he finds out. When.

I don't think Kaiba feels a need to explain to Duke what Pegasus did, as he really doesn't come up too often as a topic of conversation between them, but also because he doesn't want to deal with the memory of it.

This gets a little bit into something that's fun for me: the different histories that Duke and Ryou have with Kaiba. Ryou experienced Duelist Kingdom (complete with the Kaiba bros getting their souls stolen by Pegasus) and Duke knows nothing about that. There's no reason for anybody in the friend group to tell Duke about what Pegasus did to Kaiba, or that Pegasus even had a Millennium Item (I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that never even comes up around Duke in season four). Ryou has no reason to talk to him about Pegasus because Ryou never thinks about Pegasus. Just forgets about the dude most of the time. And it also slips his mind that Duke doesn't know about that.

On the flip side, Ryou knows nothing about the Noah Kaiba virtual world adventure (I imagine Duke calls it the Battle City Bonus Round) because he was in the Shadow Realm, so he doesn't know about the KaibaCorp missiles that still exist btw (that's something important from that arc that I think it's easy to forget about, but yeah, Kaiba still owns all the weapons that KC had when he took over) and he didn't meet Noah or Gozaburo or find out how screwed up the Kaiba family is from that. He gets told or finds out later that Seto and Mokuba are adopted, but that's about it.

It's also entirely possible that at some point these three—Pegasus, Duke, and Kaiba—will sit down to a business meeting together because of the deals between their three companies. Just imagine Duke going into this meeting with no idea of the personal history between Pegasus and the Kaibas, all he knows is the professional stuff between their companies, and he assumes that they're on friendly terms with each other. Boy oh boy, is he in for a surprise (yes, this is a scene that I have planned for Power of Three). Duke goes in clueless with his boyfriend and the artist he adores, and then they're both going for the jugular, and he's just in shock. One of the few things that can leave Duke truly speechless, but he's got words for Kaiba after the meeting, you can count on that!

Power of Three snippet/preview below, because this scene won't be getting published for a looooong time.

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"You were so much cuter when we first met," Pegasus sighed. "Fifteen and full of hope, and so terribly naïve."

"You've always been an opportunist,” Kaiba scoffed. “I wasn't nearly as naïve as you thought I was."

"You were naïve enough, dear boy. After all, you trusted me."

"At least you admit that you're untrustworthy."

Pegasus smiled.

Again, Duke was at a loss.

"Have you seen the pictures of when we first met?" Pegasus asked Duke, his smile smooth and charming. "He was downright adorable."

The way he stressed that last word made Seto's skin crawl.

"I'm not sure that's relevant to the topic of royalties," was Duke's tactful response. Seto had told him to keep the conversation on-topic; he’d thought Seto meant for him not to get distracted, not to keep the other two on track.

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"I'm not the one luring children to my private island in international waters,” Kaiba sneered, and Duke couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him look so angry.

"Children are delightful, and they have such vivid imaginations." Pegasus laughed, his relaxed posture a sharp contrast to Kaiba's tension. "I can only imagine what Mokuba invented about his visit with me that makes you so resentful."

"You call that a visit?"

"Of course it was a visit. He even had his own little room." Pegasus's single brown eye twinkled. "And so did you, for that matter."

Kaiba stood sharply, glaring down at Pegasus, who simply leaned back in his chair and met his gaze. Duke held his breath, too confused to know what to say at this point. The silence stretched out, the clock on the wall audibly ticking down every second that passed.

"You're a damn lucky man that I can't cut ties with you," Seto finally said, releasing the fists that had been clenched at his sides.

"I'm a damn clever man for making things that way."

The air felt heavy in Duke's lungs and on his shoulders as he looked between the man he loved and the man he idolized.

"As long as you're damned, I'm content." Kaiba carefully sat back down.

"You're never content, but that's alright. I like you that way." Pegasus leaned forward again. "Back to the contracts?"

"Yes."