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hello-galad · 4 months

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No one asked for this but here i am shoving my Cid age-related headcanons down y’all’s throat.

This all started because I saw @renegadeem ‘s comment on a post about Valenwind and Cid’s age and the Curious Case of Square Enix Not Giving Us Characters That Are Canonically Over 40 (then you take a look at some of them and you know in your heart they are 62, twice divorced and currently screaming at some kids to get off their lawn).

Alright, buckle up. I’m about to monologue, ladies, gents, non-binary peeps and everybody else in between:

Note: Have in mind I headcanon Shera to be two years younger than Cid and to have also been part of the Shinra Youth Science Program but at different years. Note note: this might change in the future because I’m like a sponge and i absorb hcs.

At 16 years-old Cid Highwind Gets into the Shinra Youth Science Program at Midgar.

I’m sure Shinra has programs like these to catch brilliant minds that help them build their empires (labor force that already know how to do the job you want them to) like most transnational companies do in our world.

There, all students must take military training, they even share some classes with the Cadets for SOLDIER.

On a side note, given his stats in the game and his weapon of choice I say he comes from a family of dragoons and Heidegger takes an interest in him but Cid is focused on becoming an engineer and that is more useful to Shinra.

There is a fic i really love that sorta touches the topic of Cid’s family as dragoons by one of my favorite authors Vinvalen right here (Valenwind: Crusader rain) .

At 20 years-old Cid graduates top of his class as Mechanical engineer. He starts working on building aircraft and flight hardware for Shinra as he starts his career to become an Aerospace Engineer.

At 24 years-old he graduates top of his class as Aerospace Engineer at Shinra.

At 26 years-old Cid gets his pilot’s license with more than 500 hours of flight. Starts the prototype for what he started calling THE SHINRA I. He would later develop the blueprints further to build what will be THE HIGHWIND.

At 28 years of age Cid and Shera present the initiative for the Space Program to Shinra with the initial project and blueprints for a rocket and satellite. The Satellite should have been deployed first and left to circle around The Planet in the upper orbit a year before the rocket launch.

Shinra approves of the project eight months later and Cid Highwind becomes Chief Engineer of it with Shera as Chief scientist and his second in command. The base is settled in a small town outside Midgard that will later be known as Rocket Town.

At 32 years old, Shera (30) and Cid get married. They never really dated, but they spent so much time together that they both decided “why not?”.

Evidently, that goes downhill from there because tHAT IS NOT HOW HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS ARE BUILT.

When Cid is 33 years old, the first satellite gets deployed earlier. The mission is a complete success and Shinra has plans to put a couple more in orbit except instead of using them for research, Scarlet and Heidegger wish to weaponize them with Mako Canons. Cid is against this at first but understands that he can’t really say no to Shinra when they are the ones funding the Space Program.

Him and Shera don’t really talk to each other outside of work, they do fuck occasionally to let out steam but that keeps happening less and less.

When Cid is 36 years old Shera almost dies and Cid stops the launch to save her.

Cid is downgraded from Chief engineer and one year later, Shinra cancels the Space Program taking away every single blueprint and infrastructure project Cid ever created when working for Shinra and they basically try to alienate him when Cid tries to fight back. Shera keeps working for them in charge of space communications. Cid is devastated.

As a side project, Cid starts the blueprint and building of the BRONCO I (Later known as the Tiny Bronco. Later known as a) the plane Cloud almost broke and b) The “ARE WE SERIOUSLY USING MY FUCKIN PLANE AS A BOAT DAMMIT FINE WHATEVER IT TAKES TO FUCK SHINRA OVER”).

When Cid is 37 years old, him and Shera get divorced, the divorce documentation was initiated by Shera. Despite the fact that they haven’t even slept together in the same room in literal years, Cid was willing to live unhappily for her sake. She decides to stop that, but her mental health is still not the best and she has developed an attachment to him so she stays in Rocket Town “Taking care of him” as Cid goes in what Shera is afraid is a sort of self-destructive path.

Cid works on personal projects, flying people and cargo across The Planet and fixing and building things for other people. Shinra sends a Turk sometimes to spy on what he’s doing to make sure that whatever he’s building isn’t something that goes against Shinra. After all, they know he’s capable of building a ship with the right tools and Cid is quite crafty.

At 38 years old Cid is angry at Shinra, Shera, the planet, everyone really, and specially himself. He loathes Rocket Town but can’t bring himself to actually leave. He thinks he has to deal with what he thinks was the failure of his lifetime (“To atone for his sins” in a way *cough cough*). He starts flying people around and killing the Mako infected beasts that attack Rocket Town occasionally. He’s kept himself in shape all this time because habits are hard to break and he’s mildly paranoid of Turks (with good reason) and other shit he knows Shinra has been developing.

In the year he reaches 39 years of age he meets a group of eco-terrorist weirdos that seem to travel with the daughter of Ilfana, a scientist he once had the hots for back at Shinra.

Said group is made of a rogue traumatized SOLDIER, a girl who could kick his ass with her fists, Ilfana’s daughter who is actually a part of a now extinct ancient human race, what appears to be a talking lion, a robot cat that rides a mog, a teenage ninja girl that gets a kick out of calling him old, a mother hen in the shape of a very ripped man with a gun for an arm and a gunslinger vampire.

Then Cid Highwind goes to space, Vincent is next to him on the Rocket, Shera is Chief Mission Control working along with his old team who also decided to say “fuck you” to Shinra and have taken over a building. This is the start of a new chapter for him, finally.

By this point Cid had been telling himself he is not in love with Vincent for almost a year, you know, like a liar. He has never loved anyone like he loves Vincent. He used to love Shera, of course, but not like this. He still cares for her, but when he married Shera they were both 30 and it seemed like the right next thing they had to do. He never bothered to learn about Shera’s favorite books outside the ones related to their work or which desserts would make her close her eyes in delight. They would fuck when they were horny and sleep on the same bed but never did Cid whispered bad poetry against her collarbone and slept better when he could feel her hair against his shoulder.

When Sephiroth is defeated, Meteor is stopped by Holy and everyone goes home for a while to rest, him and Vincent talk and Vincent knows that he wants to stay with Cid but he is still so scared. Years of torture and trauma are slow to heal, sometimes they don’t heal ever, and Cid is okay with that. Whatever Vincent needs, Cid will give him. Vincent loves Cid so much he is willing to try.

Shera and Cid talk and she stays at the house for one more year before she finally decides to go over everything that happened and starts living her own life for herself.

When Cid is 41 years of age, him and Shera create HIGHWIND Corp as co-owners with Shera as CEO and Cid as Chief engineer. They work alongside the WRO to rebuilt the planet using sustainable energy and building sustainable hardware and software. Cid knows Shinra is involved, with Rufus re-building Shinra with an eco-perspective now. This time though, HIGHWIND Corp is negotiating through the WRO and Cid and Shera are not afraid to say “fuck you, no”.

Vincent comes and goes from Rocket Town. Cid buys some land almost in the middle of nowhere and stablishes his house, hangar and workshop there, Vincent follows. He has his own room at the house even if Cid and him sleep in the same bed most of the time and Vincent spends a lot of time perched somewhere on a crate looming over Cid at the workshop, usually reading and listening to Cid work.

Yuffie is also a common guest and she has her own room there as well.

Vincent receives a call from Reeve, there’s been a couple of disappearances and an organization that calls itself “the underground” seem to be responsible. Cid flies Vincent around on his mission to destroy the underground and happily blows some shit up.

After literal decades, Vincent finally faces the fact that he was a victim, that Lucretia was just as guilty as Hojo. He discovers what happened to Grimoire, visits his mother’s grave and is finally on the path to believing that he was not responsible for the awful things done to him.

Turns out that Vincent’s past demons are worst than his actual very real demons. He gets into common ground with them and they recognize him not only as their host but as their link to the Planet and are willing to fight for him.

Chaos decides to go against their nature as a demigod of death and destruction and they defeat Omega.

Chaos doesn’t go back to the planet, he stays with Vincent, although their relationship changes from “I was trapped inside in this vessel against my will and I’m angry” to “you are my host and we take care of the host, thank you for being our link to The Planet”.

The others agree. Vincent receives them not because he has to, but because he wants to.

[Vincent goes to Lucretia’s cave after that and he tells her about what he found in her and Hojo’s archives, tells her that he’s sorry he couldn’t protect her and that he knows and remembers what she did to him. For the first time he is not seeing her as perfect, just as she was: a scientist who wanted results, a human who was moved by the power of knowledge, imperfect, responsible for some of the scars on his body and his mind. She was not responsible for the perfect imagine of her he made up in his head. For his own unresolved trauma that lead him to believe he had to love her and she could have loved him.

Vincent tells her that Grimoire’s death was not her fault. He tells her what he knows now of Chaos, how they are more than just a creature, more than just rare materia.

Then, Vincent tells Lucretia about Cid. About how he loves him and the way he loudly snores. About how Cid loves going star-watching. About how he’s been painting, The Planet and Vincent being his favorite subjects.

Vincent tells her about how he was so scared of falling in love again but then in those moments after defeating Omega and realizing he might die for real this time, he was more scared of Cid not knowing he loved him.

He tells her about how, when he fell to the ground, Chaos in distress inside of him, Vincent too tired, too many bones broken and internal bleeding to move, the realization that he was not healing settling in; he thought about his life, about his parents and Veld, about his new friends and Aerith, who he knew was watching over them from the livestream, about the letter Tifa would carry with her everywhere, the beautiful strokes of Aerith’s handwriting unmistakeable, even when a couple of years ago, tears had soaked the paper. About Cloud crying every night after he managed to remember who he was before he was experimented on by Hojo, about him carefully cradling the dog tags Tseng gave him after Meteor was gone, the same name on them that Cloud used to whisper on those long nights when he thought everyone in the party was already asleep: “Zack”.

He thought about Sephiroth believing Jenova was his mother instead of knowing of Lucretia, of having his own father treat him like an experiment. He thought of that young SOLDIER, Genesis, half broken and willing to sleep forever, just like Vincent once did, until he was reminded there’s more to live for.

He thought of Marlene and a distressed Barret wondering if his daughter was still alive, of Nanaki, still young and a guardian now. He thought of Shera and her husband and how their daughter liked frogs and helping Uncle Cid build rockets made of cardboard.

Thought of her, Lucretia, and how Vincent’s love for her sprouted out of a promise to Grimoire to keep her safe before he disappeared mixed with the guilt that he couldn’t keep his promise. Thought of dumbapple pie from the dumbapple tree that randomly started growing in Cid’s land, about spring and Cid and Vincent building their garden.

He thought about home.

Finally in what would become the moment Vincent begins to let go he thanks her, forgives her. Then, the Planet finally lets Lucretia go, the cristal she was trapped in atoning for her own sins breaks and she finally joins the Lifestream. ]

When Cid turns 43 years old, AVALANCHE celebrates at the Seventh Heaven, there are old and new faces alike, almost all of them familiar. Shera and her husband and kid are there along with an older man with a scar on his face that Vincent calls “partner”. The Turks had the nerve to turn up but Cid stops giving them the evil eye when Tseng walks straight to Vincent’s “Partner”, eyes red and upper lip trembling and hugs him. All this in seconds before the Turk is back to his serene almost stoic face.

Rufus Shinra sends a present with them, of fucking course. Reeve takes it from Cid’s hands before he rips it apart. Funnily enough, its a bottle of his favorite whiskey and an actual damn letter reading “My gift to you is not having to see my face for the whole day, you are welcome. No, the whiskey is not poisoned. Stop being so paranoid Captain Highwind” in it. “Yah, I’ll stop being paranoid of damn Shinra when that fuckin’ brat stops wearin’ suits with more belts than the ones that’re supposed to keep yer pants up and yer gun in place, dammit!”

When Cid is 50 years of age, him and Vincent attend Yuffie’s wedding (they are like her parents. She didnt imprint on them, they imprinted on her. Vincent still calls her to reminds her to eat enough vegetables every week even when she’s over 30, Cid still calls her ‘mah kid’).

Vincent wears a suit, Cerberus rests in its holster on his right thigh and if he appears behind Cid with an actual shovel, eyes glowing Mako red and Chaos golden as Cid’s having a “friendly talk” with the groom…thats between him, Cid and the poor bastard. Cid wears his Captain uniform. Both look hot as hell. Both rail each other after the reception. Life is good.

(Check out @mamoru-chiba-ua ‘s art for the reference of Cid and Vincent at Yuffie’s wedding)