Chapter Text
Prince Andrew had always assumed royalty would be simpler than people made it out to be.
Loud, yes. Excessive, certainly. Too many banquets that lasted too long, too many conversations that went nowhere, too much gold spent on things Prince had to admit he didn’t really need. As he grew older, the darker underbelly of royalty revealed itself to him. The side that involved politics, battles that ignited over pride rather than necessity, a constant low hum of violence beneath everything like a balloon stretched thin, waiting to pop.
Andrew endured it all with trained competence. He trained. He smiled when required and learned how to hold his tongue (most of the time). He brought home victories, crowns and treasures.
Although, what no book, strategist, or well-meaning oracle had prepared him for was this.
Watching his older brother pine.
Uselessly.
Like an absolute idiot.
Prince had grown up on fairy tales, he was a bit of a hopeless romantic he’ll admit. He remembered the novels where the heroic warrior saved the princess from whatever evil had her captured. He remembered the sweet confessions and confidence those characters in the novels had instead of… whatever this was.
Naturally, he’d assumed that if anyone would manage love competently, it would be his brother.
Dark Prince. His older brother. A man who treated problems like obstacles to be cleared and emotions like inconveniences. Alexander, who did not hesitate or even so much as flinch in the face of death, was reduced to this mess.
Usually Prince would not give it a second thought, the thought of watching paint dry was more interesting than his brother’s love life (ew) but he had enough of this.
********
- “Who’s the lucky lady?”
Andrew entered Dark Prince’s room with a letter clutched in his hand. Something addressed to his brother about recruit training protocol or something, Prince couldn’t be asked to care.
Dark Prince was seated at the desk, back straight enough to pass inspection, boots planted flat on the stone floor. The quill hovered in his hand with the same lethal precision he applied to everything in his life, his eyes held a glare at the parchment beneath as if it might suddenly lunge for his throat. Candlelight slanted across the desk, glinting off the sealing wax and the polished edge of a dagger left carelessly. The room smelled faintly of ink and parchment.
If you asked Prince, he would have sworn he had not meant to snoop. He only came to deliver a letter, and fine, even if he had meant to snoop, that’s what younger brothers are for.
Alexander had that look on his face, focused, and deeply invested despite pretending otherwise. His brow furrowed a quiet concentration. The kind of look that suggested he’d been staring at the same sentence for far too long changing it over and over again.
Andrew squinted.
“Who’s the lucky lady?”
Dark Prince’s hand stilled.
Just for a fraction of a second, a tell which Prince easily caught. Years of growing up under the same roof with the most annoying brother had taught him something at least.
Then Alexander continued writing, jaw tightening as if the pause had never happened.
“No one.”
Andrew hummed, long and thoughtful.
The letter was already half a page long. That alone was suspicious. Alexander’s correspondence was typically cold and direct. After all, Prince was the poet in the family. Though Prince caught glimpses of ‘PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE-’ and whatever attempt at romance his brother was trying to pull off. Yeah… Andrew was definitely still the poet.
The handwriting was unusually careful, each letter shaped with intention rather than speed.
A sentence had been scratched out and rewritten twice, the ghost of the original still faintly visible beneath fresh ink.
“No one,” Andrew repeated, voice light, almost amused. “Is that why you dotted all of your i’s with little hearts?”
Alexander reacted instantly.
He covered the parchment with his forearm, quill lifted sharply, chair scraping back an inch as his shoulders squared. His glare could have curdled milk.
“Andrew, my dear brother,” Alexander said, voice measured and flat. But the twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
“Yes?” Prince’s voice responded dripping with innocence.
“This is why I’m Dad’s favorite.”
Andrew let out a mock gasp, pressing a hand to his chest. “Woah there, Alex. Careful with your words. You’re really breaking my heart here.”
Dark Prince rolled his eyes, his arm remained firmly planted over the letter, protective in a way Andrew had never seen him be over ink and parchment before. That alone was telling.
Prince leaned back, pressing a shoulder against the doorframe, grin growing evil. “Listen, Alex, I’ve been watching you stumble around for the past month. All the sighs, the daydreaming, the way you think no one notices. I have never seen you like this.”
Alexander ran a hand through his hair feeling annoyed and a little cornered. He wanted to snap at Andrew, but… if even Prince, who paused mid-battle to admire his own reflection in a shield, noticed, then yes, maybe he had a problem.
“So who is she? Is she like… really hot or something?” Andrew asked, smirking.
Images of the thick biceps straining against chainmail armor, the glances of a certain knight’s Dark Prince stole during training. He let out a defeated sigh “…Yeah. Very.”
Prince blinked. He leaned a little closer, scanning the paper where Alexander had scrawled out lines about how this mystery lady’s eyes shone brighter than the moon. “Very? Just very? That’s it? This letter is basically a declaration of war- on your dignity.”
Alexander’s glare could have pierced steel, but it didn’t. There was a stiffness to his posture, sure, but his fingers twitched slightly on the quill. ‘Oh no he’s whipped’ Prince thought.
“She’s not only hot..I respect her,” Alexander said finally, voice low. “She… listens. And she’s… she’s observant. More than anyone I’ve… cared about in a long time.”
Alexander’s eyes flicked back to the letter, and Andrew noticed something dangerous in the softness there. He looked almost… tender. And Andrew’s grin widened further.
“By the way I’d probably reduce the amount of ‘Please’s’ in your letter y’know give it less of a desperate feeling.” Prince grinned and threw the letter he was delivering to Alexander on his bed before running out of his room.
——
Mega Knight sifted through his mail the next evening. Bills, taxes, a letter from the goblins inviting him to poker night and, at the bottom of the stack, an envelope that looked wildly out of place.
It was thick. Sealed with dark red wax stamped cleanly with a familiar sigil.
Marcus picked it up and frowned.
The sender was… his acquaintance? Friend? He wasn’t entirely sure what to classify Dark Prince as. Superior? He did fight alongside him in the arena. Come to think of it, he could vaguely recall Dark Prince staring at him for uncomfortable lengths of time during training.
He broke the seal carefully, as if the letter might explode, wondering what on earth the royal had wanted to write to him about.
Inside was a single sheet, folded once. The handwriting was precise, angular, and clearly written by someone who valued efficiency. Although the contents of the letter were anything but.
Mega Knight unfolded it. He read the first line. Then stopped. Then read it again.
‘ Marcus,
I will be direct, as I am not the best with words.
Go out with me…
Please?
-Alexander’
Marcus’s ears burnt. He wasn’t sure what dark prince had meant. Surely it wasn’t in a romantic way. After all he had seen Alexander with partners before all women. Marcus’s heart sank a bit in disappointment, all beautiful and delicate. No. Surely Dark Prince had not meant it in the way he was thinking.
He scanned the letter again. Maybe he was trying to be his friend? They had started fighting together in the arena recently so that only made sense. Team bonding right?
Marcus leaned back in his chair, sure of his conclusion. Alexander always listened to him ramble about boxing and fighting techniques. He didn’t roll his eyes or try to change the topic when the knight got excited and rambled in jargon that he was pretty sure the royal didn’t know. Mega knight felt a small twinge of disappointment in his chest at the letter not being romantic but he was grateful nonetheless.