#I recently watched Legion of Superheroes and Supergirl/Braniac-5 have SUCH Reidan energy

[nitewrighter]

okay hi i have a lot of prompts and stuff to suggest bc i am the person that spent all night reading the kids continuity fic

- aedan and rei domesticity they are so cute

- aedan growing stubble, running out of razors, asking the twins for a razor and they flex and say they use hard light razors. then aedan having to ask jack where the razors are because he doesn’t know (this would probably be around the time he asks him about reaper LMAO)

- marti aim training with amelie?

- obv there’s already been a lot of gency but maybe some of them talking about rei and aedan and being nosy

- more genji pleeeeease he’s so cute <\3

Argh I have a really strong Marti idea but I've got a bit of brain burnout and my idea for her doesn't really match what you're describing and also I haven't written Aedan and Rei in what feels like ages and I miss theeemmmm. Also I like the idea of having some kind of... honeymoon post-Dragonback stuff and also Live Mercy Reaction.

-----

The afternoon sunlight was blazing outside, but Aedan could hardly tell with the windows tinted. He was chewing on his thumbnail as he watched a holographic projection of Andrea's cells. The sample wasn't nearly as stable as he'd like, given the fact that it was mixed with his own blood, but Morrison and Reyes's DNA at least made it easy to quickly distinguish the cells before they morphed back to nanites. She was virtually gone from his system at this point, so he knew any creeping feeling of her still in there had to be purely psychosomatic.

He managed to identify and isolate one of Andrea's neutrophils before it was destroyed and scan it quickly enough to create a rough holographic projection, and he rotated the projection in the air, frowning. He heard the whoosh of the lab doors opening behind him and said, without turning around, "Do you think I could get a blood sample from Morrison?"

"Maybe if you sneak up on him," a voice that was clearly not Mercy's spoke up from behind him and he glanced over his shoulder to see Rei holding two bento boxes.

"...thought you were your mother," he said blankly and Rei made a crinkly-eyed, pressed-lip smile at him, "Sorry--that was weird, wasn't it?"

"Not that weird," said Rei, setting the boxes down on the desk a safe distance from the monitor's keyboard and pulling up a chair, "It's nice that you finally have more lab privileges."

"You missed a lot in LA!" Aedan spun in his chair slightly to face her, "I mean, Marti and the others definitely trust me more than the old guard, but still, there's been a lot of progress!"

"'People will let you experiment with their blood' progress?" Rei arched an eyebrow.

"Well... no. But I was thinking I might be able to delineate the effects of the SEP serum better and isolate the stabilizing factors of his DNA if I have a sample," Aedan had fallen back to his previous train of thought.

"You've been at this for hours," said Rei, looking at the hologram.

"I just... wish I was able to find out more before my body destroyed all evidence of her," murmured Aedan.

"Well, what do you know so far?" asked Rei, looking at the projection.

"I know she's stable--incredibly stable."

Rei snorted.

"Well not mentally, obviously, but cellularly. I've never seen such seamless transitions between nanite and cell. I mean I thought her nanite secretions weren't as prominent as mine because she wasn't working with a biotic rig, or--you know, because she was kicking my ass, but I think mum managed to really perfect the metabolic processes with her," he made a kind of flailing, spread fingered gesture at the white blood cell hologram with both hands, "Just... specimen."

He felt Rei's hands lightly but firmly close around his shoulders

"Should I be concerned you're gushing about the girl who collapsed your ribcage?" Rei cooed, rubbing her thumbs at the tops of his shoulder blades, "And her perfect, perfect cells?"

The initial touch gave Aedan an involuntary shudder, but he melted into his seat as she worked at the knots at the back of his neck. "A lus na gréine, you have nothing to worry about. She's my sister from another amnio... nister... tank..."

"Okay that is low blood sugar talking." Rei slipped her hands from his shoulders and grabbed one of the bento boxes, plopping it in his lap, "Eat." She grabbed her own chair and bento box and sat down.

"It's just.. a weird relief in a way," he said quietly, still looking at the hologram, "One of the reasons I was made was to help try and find ways to stabilize Reyes. But if anyone's going to save him, it's her."

"Yeeahh it is a weird relief that she's going to save the guy who wants us all dead," Rei agreed, stirring up her own box. Aedan saw green. Some kind of salad?

"...I don't think he wanted you dead," Aedan said.

Rei looked up from her own bento box to him.

"There was a moment back in Urdr when we were shuffling through in those stolen uniforms, you were still a bit drugged up. He looked right at us and I could have sworn he knew it was me, he knew something was off, but he just... let us go."

"Well he must have changed his mind if he's sending Daughter Dearest after us," said Rei, taking a bite.

Aedan scoffed. "He could barely look at me knowing what I was, there's no way he would agree to--" Aedan caught himself and his face dropped, "...there's no way he would agree to Talon making another him."

Rei's chewing slowed. "...so it's messing him up just as much as Jack, probably?"

"Probably," Aedan shrugged.

"Eat," Rei said again, pointing at his bento box with her own chopsticks, and Aedan shuffled his chair slightly away from the holo-monitor closer to her, opened his own box, and started eating across from her. It seemed to be a loose interpretation of a sushi bowl, brown rice and surimi and edamame, with extra greens and a sliced up hardboiled egg on the side, all drizzled with sesame oil and soy sauce and doused with furikake and red pepper flakes.

"Avocado..." Aedan said, "The Californians got to you."

"Don't knock it. You need monounsaturated fats," said Rei.

"I'm not--thank you, for making this," said Aedan. He took a bite and immediately felt the calories hit in the only way they can when you've forgotten to eat for a lot longer than you'd care to admit.

"It's just tossing a bunch of stuff together in the mess hall, it's a lot better equipped than it was when I was a kid, really," Rei held up the bento box, "But I had to bring these from home."

"Back home with the folks, huh?" Aedan perked up in his seat, poking around.

Rei huffed through her nostrils, choosing her words as she chewed. "It's nice... " she said slowly.

Aedan considered leading with 'But..?' to prompt her to say more, but decided humor might be the better route.

"Ah, but you've tasted the freedom of Hollywood," Aedan waved his chopsticks around, "And so the tinseltown dreams have taken roost in your heart. Your soul forever unsatisfied until you're once again in the dazzling spotlight."

Rei snickered. "I was a stunt. And... it was weird. Using all my training to.. pretend to fight--even if it was as my childhood hero. And like, the whole time I had this nagging feeling that even if I could make a career out of it, I'd always feel a hole where the dragon was. And I felt like... everyone back here was throwing themselves into danger while I was licking my wounds and bouncing around in silly costumes. But now I'm back here and... I don't know. We fly everywhere. We go on these missions, but the world feels smaller somehow. It feels like a wall's come back up."

"You're telling me that squatting on a rocket launch facility and traveling pretty much exclusively for missions feels limited compared to having free rein in one of the biggest cities and entertainment capitals of the world?" Aedan smiled.

"Okay, when you put it like that--" Rei cut herself off to chew some more surimi.

"I felt the same way about Oasis," Aedan shrugged, "Even if it is a young city, it's done everything in its power to draw the greatest minds from all over the world. One of the tourism boards wanted to bill it as 'The New House of Wisdom' except that got shot down because it felt a little archaic, potentially orientalist, possibly muscling in on Baghdad's tourism... and also like it might be inviting disaster. But, point stands, you felt special while you were there. Chosen."

"And you miss all your fancy 'son of the minister of genetics' perks," Rei smiled.

"Not nearly as much as I used to, these days," said Aedan, "I might either be going crazy or Jack might be onto something about that 'building character' stuff."

Rei snorted. "Maybe I'm just being weird about moving back into my childhood room."

"Well I should let you know that in your absence I've upgraded the dormitories into quite the bachelor pad. Convinced the twins to put in some hard-light privacy dividers, moved some of the extra beds into storage...the holo-projector was always in there, but I have a couch now!"

"Aedan O'Deorain, are you inviting me to your place?"

"Door's open," said Aedan, shrugging.

Her mouth just quirked off to one side in a smile and they both continued eating, letting that percolate in the air between them.

Rei was scraping up stray edamame beans and bits of furikake from the edges of her bento box when she noticed Aedan had set his empty bento aside and his attention was drifting back to the giant hologram of the neutrophil, his expression hollow and searching. He had pretty much inhaled his food, which was good, but Rei had seen enough of Marti, Samir, and her own mother to know when someone's brain had driven them into a rut that they weren't going to get out of without help.

"You know, if she's already out of your system, it's not like you'll find new data now that you can't find later," said Rei.

"Mm?" Aedan looked back at her.

"You need a break," said Rei.

"But---there's the flow factor," said Aedan.

"Oh, the flow factor," said Rei, rising from her seat.

"And like, yes, this is probably trauma talking, but I want to feel like I came away from that fight with a bit more than memories of a giant hole in my chest."

"Aedan," Rei braced her hands on both of his forearms on the seat's armrests, "We did."

She looked at him expectantly with those big, dark gray eyes, and his own eyes widened. Technically, it had been a mission accomplished. They had set out with the intention of getting the dragon back, and, miraculously, they had gotten it back, even if it was far from the circumstances any of them actually imagined getting it. Surviving an encounter with Talon when none of them were really equipped for that level of combat was nothing to sneeze at, either.

And there was the other thing, Aedan thought, as Rei's mouth closed on his.

Surimi and hard-boiled egg, in general, are not the optimum pre-making-out foods, and Aedan honestly could have used a nap and a shower in either order, but after hours of staring at blood samples and holograms of the woman who had nearly killed him, just the sensation of having Rei on his lips made none of that matter. That itch wasn't gone from the back of his mind, though. He wanted to do more, to claw just a little further ahead in this fight, to find something that would turn the tide. He wanted the fight to be over. He wanted the world to feel open for her--for her to go to LA or Oasis or wherever she wanted, to not have to worry about everyone back here.

She sank into his lap and his arms wrapped around her, letting even those stubborn thoughts melt away, if only for now, if only for a few moments. He hefted her up in his lap and he felt her breath puff out of her nostrils in an amused sound--maybe he was adjusting her to get to a more comfortable position, maybe he wanted to get the point across that he had put some muscle on with Marti's team, but either way she dove into the kiss hungrily. Aedan's arm curled around her more, trailing up her back, as his other hand brushed down her hip.

And then there was the vwoosh of the lab door opening.

"Aedan, I'm going to need to commandeer the holo-projector from you for a minute, one of my colleagues sent---" Mercy glanced up from her tablet to see Rei and Aedan, staring at her, tangled up precariously in one swivel chair.

"...Rei," Mercy said, straightening herself up in the doorway.

"Mom," Rei said, not making any movement to get out of Aedan's arms.

"Eh--" Aedan squeaked, sheet white with ears redder than his hair.

"I can come back later," Mercy said with a terrifying blankness.

"Mom--" Rei started, but Mercy put both hands up as the door whooshed close in front of her once more.

Aedan's heart was pounding in his ears. "She's going to kill me."

"She's not going to kill you," Rei rolled her eyes.

"She's going to kill me," said Aedan, his mind blank with terror.

"Aedan, we're adults, it's fine."

"You didn't tell her!?"

"I was going to tell her," Rei gestured vaguely, "You know... when I figured out how."

---

Genji was at Athena's main monitor browsing through some old Blackwatch files when the door opened behind him. He caught the barest reflection of her silhouette before turning around and brightly greeting her with, "Angela!" before quickly realizing that she was panting hard and her hair was disheveled. "Did you... run across the Watchpoi--?"

"When were you going to tell me?" Mercy's voice was almost a growl.

"Tell you... what--?""

"Our daughter! And the clone! I mean--the boy! Moira-clone-boy!"

"Aedan," Genji said easily.

"They were in the lab... c-canoodling!"

"Canoodling?" Genji repeated.

Mercy huffed out a tense breath, "...kissing," she clarified.

"Oh," said Genji, visibly relaxing.

"Did you know about this?" Mercy briskly closed the distance between them.

"Well... emotions did get a little high in Shirakami-Sanchi, but it wasn't really relevant to the mission debriefing."

Mercy just folded her arms in front of him.

"And... I figured it was Rei's business to tell you."

"Well yes but--" Mercy caught herself, now coming to terms with the fact that she had raced over her out of an outrage that she was far from being able to articulate, and the more she thought on it, the more (frustratingly) her sense of her right to outrage seemed to slip away from her.

"I feel like we've had this discussion before," said Genji.

"We said there was a possibility, that's very different from them making out in the lab."

"Oh no! Not the lab!" Genji said with clear amusement, "No one's ever made out in that lab before!"

Mercy's shoulders slumped and she looked at him sourly.

"I'm sorry---" Genji caught himself, "Obviously, I've had more time to come to terms with this, and I was there when things... started, sort of--"

"What do you mean 'sort of?'"

"Well it's in the debrief that both Rei and Aedan were missing from our campsite when they encountered Andrea. Rei's debrief says she was going back to the pond to try summoning the dragon again, and Aedan's debrief said he had headed away from the camp to relieve himself, but... I'm not ruling out the the possibility that they also could have snuck off together."

"They were sneaking off together under yours and Hanzo's noses!?"

"Honestly with the state Rei was in during that whole trip, it seems pretty unlikely that they were doing that," Genji murmured.

"Genji..." Mercy pressed her knuckles to her forehead, the burn of outrage now simmering down to exhausted frustration.

"Look--don't worry about that. What I'm saying is, when we let her go off to LA, we agreed we would trust her judgment, right?"

"Yes..." Mercy said slowly, lowering her hands.

"And you do like Aedan--I mean, I know it's been hard for you, overcoming everything you know Moira is capable of, but you two really have come a long way since he's joined the team."

"He is a good lab assistant," Mercy conceded, before muttering, "Though clearly he's gotten a bit too comfortable in that lab."

"Plus... it's not like we can really judge on the whole 'falling in love with your rescuer' thing," Genji stroked a knuckle down her jawline.

Mercy's lips were pursed, but a smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth as she glanced off.

"And if it's any consolation, I know he's still terrified of you," said Genji.

Mercy snorted. "It is fun to put the fear of god into him," she mused. She paused, still not meeting his eyes, before sighing and slumping her forehead onto his shoulder. "I'll be fine," she said, her voice reverberating against his cybernetic chestplate, clearly trying to convince herself just as much as him, "It will be fine. I can be calm about this."

"You really ran across the watchpoint, huh?" Genji brought his arms around her and rubbed her back a little.

"...yes," she admitted, and he just chuckled and set his chin on her head.