#Gravel and Platinum's dynamic is fun for this kind of thing too

[johannstutt413]

(Post-Nearl Light Platinum fic, as promised)

“Senomy? Could you excuse us for a moment?” The Doctor asked her as Platinum entered his office.

“Doctor, you know I trust your judgment,” Gravel replied, glaring daggers at the Kuranta, “but you know how I feel about her.”

He patted her on the shoulder. “I do. You also know how I feel about her, though, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do, but…My whole purpose here is to protect you from danger, and she’s practically a walking knife.” Not that she’d be any match for the Zalak’s pair, should it come to that-

“Gravel.” Since she wouldn’t take it as a request, it’d have to be an order. “Watch over Amiya for the rest of the evening. You’ll report back to me in the morning.”

Senomy sighed, slid the partially-unsheathed knife back in place, and gave Platinum a stabbing glance instead. “Watch yourself.”

“Oh, don’t worry about little old me; I’ll behave,” Centaurea teased. It was fun knowing the Zalak really couldn’t do anything about it, either-

“Please don’t antagonize her too much.” The Doctor propped his feet up on his desk as the door to his office closed. “Ready to go?”

The Kuranta gestured to her casual outfit. “Of course. Are you wearing that to the park?”

“Yes and no.” He flipped his hoodie inside-out; the only clear change was that the Rhodes Island logos were nowhere to be seen.

“Clever. Now we’re good?” She waited for him to stand up and walk past her, locking arms with him as he did. “Let’s have some fun.”

He snickered. “I’d hope we’d have some at an ‘amusement park.’”

“Have you ever been to one?”

“Not that I remember,” the amnesiac admitted. “You?”

Centaurea rolled her eyes. “With what time?”

“No downtime at all? Kazimierz really does make being an assassin boring as hell, doesn’t it?” The Doctor was happy to say that at least his organization made it properly exciting, even if it wasn’t really ‘assassination’ in the classic sense.

“Especially once they hollow you out to be a proper little puppet.” She sighed. “I don’t want to think about all that right now, though.”

He nodded. “Same here. We’ll take the fast way there.”

The ‘fast way’ was, of course, visiting one of Dusk’s paintings - a brightly-lit forest path, something one of her fans had managed to smuggle out of her dorm during a rather risky ‘salvage operation,’ as Engineering had called it - and popping out the other side in a Rhodes Island waypoint less than a ten minute walk from the park. One of the perks of being with the Doctor: all the perks he had, he shared when he could.

“Tickets please! Thank you, young lady.” A Feline holding a wooden box with a slit in it smiled as Platinum dropped the tickets inside. “Have a wonderful evening~”

“You too.” The Doctor gave him a fist bump as the pair walked past.

It wasn’t a particularly busy evening at the park; honestly, they seemed to have picked the perfect time to go. There weren’t any long lines when they found something they felt like trying - for example, a shoot-the-apple booth which the Sniper absolutely took to town in exchange for a small burdenbeast plush - but there were the sounds of cheer and merriment all around. Clearly someone was having fun.

…It was just hard for Centaurea to tell if she was that person or not. “Do you feel like you’re being watched?” She asked the Doctor, seated on a bench, as he brought her a caramel-covered apple-on-a-stick.

“Always,” he casually replied. “People know exactly where I am and why at all times.”

“And that doesn’t bother you? Isn’t that part of the point of getting away like this - to ‘get away’ from the day-to-day?” Sure, it certainly felt like an unusual day, but she’d had plenty of those during the most recent knights’ competition anyway.

He gave her a curious look, mostly discernable from his voice rather than his shrouded face. “As long as I’m not doing office work, I am away from the day-to-day. I guess it’s the differences in our specialties.”

“I suppose.” Platinum bit into her apple, and her eyes popped open a little. “It’s so sweet…How much sugar is in this?”

“Well, it’s covered in caramel, which is basically cooked sugar, so a fair bit.”

The Kuranta frowned. “I’m not one to count calories, but the only reason I’m finishing this is because you bought it for me.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to live a little.” The Doctor flipped his fully-cleaned stick into the air. “Oh, there’s one thing we absolutely have to try before we leave.”

“I thought you’d never visited an amusement park before?” She took another chunk out of her snack, pondering if they’d be better off having dinner back at the ship rather than eating only fair food-

He poked her shoulder. “You good? Kinda spaced out on me there.”

“Did I?” Must’ve been the apple. It was annoyingly delicious. “What were you saying? Something we absolutely have to try?”

“The observation wheel.” He pointed past her to a large spoked contraption a fair distance away.

Platinum blinked. That would explain the feeling of being watched better than some Armorless Union spies, honestly. “Are you a fan of heights?”

“Not particularly,” the Doctor admitted, “but I read about it in a magazine yesterday.”

‘After I asked him to come here with me?...Did he research this place ahead of time?’ “If you want to try it, sure.”

He smiled, the corners of his cloth mask lifting subtly. “Great. We can take out time - park doesn’t close for another couple of hours.”

“No, we can go now. Nothing else really catches my attention.” Not even the sound of sizzling meat on a grill…Actually, “After we get something more savory to eat. Someone’s grilling loud enough for me to hear, and that’s usually a good sign.”

“Lead the way.” They stood up, arms locked once more, and went off in search of the sound Centaurea’s heightened senses had picked up on.

Eventually, after a couple kebabs were purchased and shortly thereafter devoured, the couple stepped into the grounded passenger car and sat on the singular bench within. As they rose into the air, Platinum realized it certainly lived up to its name: above the amusement park, she really could observe everything, and with her eyesight, it would’ve made a great sniping posi- 

“There really is no escaping it, is there?” The Doctor’s comment pulled her attention back to reality. “I saw your face scrunch up. You realized this would be a great way to take down a target, didn’t you?”

She sighed. “More or less.”

“You know, you don’t have to escape your past completely to have fun. I know, probably sounds like a load of beast-shit coming from a guy who can’t remember more than a couple years of his own life, but it’s still true.” He rested a hand between them on the bench.

“It’s…it’s not just that.” Her hand pressed on his as the Sniper turned to look at him, but it didn’t register in the moment. “I was hoping that coming out here with you, I’d remember what it was like before I had a hundred voices ordering me around, a thousand eyes scrutinizing my every move, but even sitting hundreds of feet above it all, I still- did we stop moving?”

He nodded; they’d reached the pinnacle, and the car had stopped. “We got in just in time for the show.”

“The show?”

“Yep.” There was a whistling sound in the distance, followed by a brilliant sapphire explosion. “The fireworks show.”

The Kuranta’s eyes widened. “You knew it was about to start.”

“I did,” the Doctor smiled back, pulling back his hood and sliding his mask down.

“...You planned for this.” Centaurea’s focus was still on the ongoing flashing lights. Colors she’d forgotten could look so bright, a faint smell of gunpowder on a gentle breeze, near silence outside the occasional echoed laughter and far-off whistling of another rocket on its one-way journey to delight its two-person audience. “You knew when this was happening, and you had us stop for food at just the right time so you could ask me to ride this wheel with you.”

He wasn’t about to deny it. “Got it in one.”

“But…why?” She looked back at him, mouth dropping a little as she saw him for the first time without the layers of obfuscation. Without them, it was hard to recognize him as the Doctor, frankly. He looked so…normal. Mortal, even.

“I like knowing what I’m getting into when someone asks me to go somewhere with me.” His hand flipped under hers to hold it, thumb on top. “More than that, though, I thought you’d enjoy the fireworks. Are you?”

Is that what this feeling was? The audible thumping of her heartbeat, the dazzling lights of the explosions meant to delight rather than destroy, the twinkling in his eye that felt like it was mirroring one in her own - was that what enjoying something was supposed to be? Was she having fun? Because in that moment, it felt like something more than that. Something stronger. “I’m enjoying being here with you.” Well, fuck, that’d just kind of slipped out-

“Even better.” He scooted a little closer, and with both their guards entirely down, he kissed her cheek. At least, he would have, but there was just enough time for Platinum’s whirring id to catch onto what he was doing, and she turned her head just enough so that kiss would find her lips instead.

“...So that’s where this was leading, all along.” Centaurea’s voice was small, quivering. More like the one she heard in her head than the one she normally spoke with. “I didn’t want to make any assumptions, but I…I’d hoped you weren’t just humoring me.”

The Doctor was a little embarrassed that he’d missed his original mark, but happy his feelings were well-received. “After what you’ve been through, you deserve more than one evening of happiness, and, um, I realized I wanted to be the person to give you that opportunity.”

“‘Deserve?’ How do I deserve this?”

“Everyone deserves to live well and be loved.” He wiped a tear away from her cheek; it’d snuck past while their lips were locked. “It might take a while for that to sink in, but I’ll remind you every chance I get, if you let me.”

The former Platinum looked into his eyes, confused and surprised, but more than anything, grateful. “Gravel’s going to kill me for this, isn’t she?”

“Is that a yes?” He tilted his head to the side, a smirk on his face.

“You asked a question?” She leaned forward for a second kiss, only answering after the Doctor gave it to her. “...Then yes, Doctor.”

The fireworks at the park stopped shortly after, and the wheel began to turn again. In their cabin, however, they’d only just begun.