#the bea guarantee is that I will hate this tomorrow but oh well
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bramblebeau · 5 years ago
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What’s in a name?
Thinly sliced angst with young and dumb filling.  Heartbreak aftermath is good fun :)
Hints of F!Ortega/F!Sidestep.  Spoilers for Retribution open demo and Sidestep’s backstory.  Brief canon-typical mentions of physical trauma.  Brief mention of blood. 
*
“HC641?”
It took her a long time to realise that someone had spoken. A snake sliding through the fog of drugs and pain. How long had it been since she’d heard a voice? The beeping of machines and scraping of metal tools had been the only sounds to reach her for what felt like an eternity. 
That, and the endless screaming in her head. 
She didn’t know how she was still alive.
Maybe she wouldn’t be for long.
Bodies aren’t supposed to stay intact after falls like that. 
“HC641, respond.” 
They were speaking to her, she realised. Some part of her mind recognised her name from all those years ago. No, not a name. Names didn’t have numbers. And names were for people. 
She shouldn’t have forgotten that.
“So, what do I call you?” 
The smile was bright against blood-spattered and bruised skin. It had been a tough fight, but Marshal Charge had pulled through like always. They both had.
Now they were sitting on the concrete floor opposite one another, breathing heavily from exertion. The threat had been dealt with and all was quiet. It was just them now. 
She knew she should move. She needed to disappear, to return to the shadows before Charge started to build a lasting image in her mind. Or ask dangerous questions, like the one now hanging in the air. 
But the warmth of that smile sunk into her bones and weighed down her limbs. She could rest for just a moment, couldn’t she?
“What makes you think we’ll see each other again?” She kept her tone light, casual, even if her thoughts were anything but. 
Charge’s smile didn’t fade. Her mind was unreadable, which was still unsettling, but her intentions were written all over her face. She wasn’t getting away that easy. 
“Oh come on, you’ve been hitting some big targets lately,” Charge shuffled her foot to the side so it tapped her leg, hardly a kick but enough to make her jump from the static shock.
“You’re good,” she continued, her gaze somehow firm and gentle at the same time. “Better than a lot of vigilantes I’ve known, and without all the fanfare.”
“Huh,” she huffed in reply, too tired to argue the point, and not planning on explaining why she chose to be as discrete as possible in her operations. 
“I’m pretty confident I’ll be seeing you again soon.” 
Charge punctuated her words with a wink and, unexpectedly, she felt her cheeks warm in response. Not for the first time, she was thankful for the mask and goggles covering her face.
“Besides, I’d hate to have to start referring to you as ‘The Mysterious Stranger’ or something equally terrible.” 
“I actually think that one’s taken.”
“Ha! It is, isn’t it?” Charge’s rich laugh echoed through the space above them, bouncing between metal and concrete until it became something unrecognisable. “One more reason why you should give me a name.”
“I...don’t have one,” she answered truthfully, confident that Charge would just assume she was talking about a vigilante name. 
“Really?” A look of genuine surprise. “You’re going after assholes like this”, she waved an arm around the ruined warehouse for emphasis, “and you haven’t come up with one yet?”
She shrugged, wincing as the movement pulled at her aching and battered body. 
“Didn’t seem important.”
Charge gave her a strange look that she couldn’t quite read, then quickly slid a wicked smirk over it. 
“Well, you’d better think of one soon, otherwise I will and it’ll be really awful, I promise.”
“As bad as ‘The Mysterious Stranger’?”
Even in the low light she could see her dark eyes glinting with mischief. 
“Oh, much worse.”
“Hell,” she sighed. “Fine. Give me a minute.” 
Charge looked delighted. Smug asshole. 
A voice in her head pointed out that this was what she’d known would happen if she didn’t keep contact to a minimum. Questions would be asked. Questions she wanted to answer even though she shouldn’t, even though they were dangerous, because no one had ever sat and laughed with her before, or looked at her in the way Charge was now. 
Ignoring reason, she spent a few minutes trying to think of something. The woman opposite didn’t seem to mind the wait, closing her eyes and letting her head rest against the concrete pillar at her back. The rise and fall of her chest eventually slowed and she could see some of the adrenaline-fuelled tension slide from her shoulders. If she hadn’t just witnessed the same woman rampaging through the warehouse with lightning bursting from her fists, she might have thought she looked a little vulnerable in that moment. 
Name. Right. That was what she was supposed to be thinking about.
The corner of her mouth twitched when an idea finally came to her. It was stupid, but it wasn’t like she was actually going to use it. It was just something to say to get Charge off her back tonight. If she played her cards right, she could make sure they never even ran into each other again. She’d have to be more careful when choosing targets, pay more attention to news stories and rumours about the Rangers. The last thing she needed was to become associated with the most celebrated and photographed hero in the city. 
The woman in question opened her eyes as the silence finally broke. 
“What about...Sidestep?”
She waited for the raised eyebrows and awkward laugh but neither came. 
“Sidestep?”
A fresh smile bloomed across Charge’s face. How did she make it look so effortless? 
“Yeah, I like that.” 
It shouldn’t have mattered what she thought about the stupid name. It shouldn’t, but her lips still itched with what might have been the beginnings of a smile. 
Charge got to her feet smoothly, as though a few minutes of sitting on a cold hard floor was enough to cure all ills, and held out her hand.
She hesitated, looking at the hand like it was booby-trapped. In a way, it was. But after a moment she finally accepted that Charge probably wasn’t going to electrocute her and reached out with her own. Another static shock made her jump and Charge laughed again, the sound rumbling around them like a summer storm. 
Before she could blink she was on her feet, pulled up like she weighed nothing. Charge’s face was suddenly close. Too close. And her hand was too warm, even through layers of nanomesh and polyester. 
She didn’t have time to panic before Charge patted her arm with a wink and then sauntered off towards the exit. 
“See you soon, Sidestep.” 
No. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about... 
Pain. She was in so much pain. Shattered bones and shattered dreams. Harder to ignore when she remembered what it felt like to be real. 
She didn’t want to be weak in front of them. She didn’t want them to know how much it hurt. But it did. Everywhere all at once. And something else had finally snapped inside her, making way for tears and hysteria. 
“HC641?”
“Please...” she tried to beg through strangled gasps, but only a dry wheeze came out. 
The voice went quiet. 
No more questions. No more words.
She was alone again. Alone with silence and screams.
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