#the ones you���ve carried for the last decade - the ones you’ve feared and hoped for ever since

[moss-sauce]

    HEY i really like northstars and, by default, this includes viper’s gal. so i wrote about him and her. this is pure angst :)

AO3 link

The Draconis collides with the ground in no gentle manner.

Metal screeches as it is rendered and wrenched out of position, bent in impossible ways. The sound of glass breaking. The hull collapses, letting out a groan as boulders and trees rip into it like paper. 

Viper does his best to hold on.

Holding on is hard to do with one arm and a damaged torso.

Finally, the Draconis rumbles to a stop. He’s thrown forward as inertia carries him, sliding off the ship’s top and landing hard and ungraciously onto the disturbed dirt below.

It takes him a moment to regain his senses. His feed is overwhelmed-- errors reporting his missing limb; multiple bullet wounds in his torso, shredding the delicate mechanics inside; severe trauma to his head. He tries to move, but his body refuses, at first. 

Viper is not going to lay here and die.

With renewed strength, he drags himself away from the fiery wreckage with his remaining arm. His legs, at least, seem to be intact, and he uses them to push himself forward as best he can. Once he deems himself safe a fair distance away from the downed ship, he rests.

The remnants of the Draconis remind him of a downed bird. No more wings to fly. Doomed to her end on the ground below. 

His mind snaps to his Titan.

He does not know where his Titan is. He hasn’t undergone the trauma of the Link breaking, so he knows his Northstar is still kicking in some manner. Like him, she is resilient. A force that will not be stopped so easily.

“Fang,” he coughs feebly. He hates how weak he sounds. “Fang, do you copy?”

Fang’s end of the comm link fizzes in his helmet. The HUD scrolls warnings and errors alike in an unending stream. TITAN - CRITICALLY DAMAGED. RECOMMEND STRATEGIC RETREAT. PROTOCOL 3.

“Fang!” he barks. “Report!”

Through the static, he vaguely hears her.

“-rror...critical d-damage…-ystems-s failing-g…”

She does not sound good, he decides.

“Protocol 3, Fang.” He hates to use the Protocol to force her into moving to find him, but it is necessary. “I am by the wreckage of the Draconis. Locate me.”

Trusting that the command had gone through, he slumps. The sudden weight of what has happened presses down on him. The other Apex Predators are dead. Any left alive probably think he’s dead. It’s a surprise he survived the landing. 

Nobody would come looking for a dead man.

Would he rather Blisk know he’s alive, after failing?

He decides against contacting the man.

All the fight ebbs out of his body. He wants to sleep for a decade. He wants Fang to be alright. He wants to forget today.

Would he have been better off dead?

He snaps his head, shaking the thought out. Viper is not one to give up. A bad day is nothing to lament over. There will be time to reunite and repair, then to go charging back in with the same prowess he knows he has.

And so, he waits.

The star illuminating Typhon starts to hide behind the horizon. The shadows grow longer, reaching and crawling across the landscape before him. The wreckage still crackles and pops, fires refusing to die out with such ample supply of fuel.

With the sinking of the star brings the rising of wildlife. He hears things in the forest behind him. Twigs breaking underfoot. The birds have gone eerily silent. His mind supplies him with an endless barrage of worst-case scenarios.

Maybe a Prowler finds you, and mauls you.

Perhaps a Flyer takes interest in you and carries you off.

He wishes he could quell it. It does no good to him to fret like this. 

He pointedly focuses on something else.

Something thumps on the other side of the wreckage. It startles him, making him jolt and whip his head around. Even through the cracked HUD, he can see things approaching on the radar. 

Viper would rather not be ultimately killed by wildlife. He deserves an honorable and proud death.

Slowly yet furiously, he drags himself back to the wreckage of the Draconis. Maybe the flames would startle off any curious eyes. If he hides, Prowlers surely wouldn’t expend the energy to dig him out. Flyers have to be afraid of fire, right? They wouldn’t attack an already-downed airship.

Whatever it may be, it lumbers closer. Heavy footsteps that rumble the ground as it nears. He tried to identify it as Fang, but her tracker systems have been shot offline. 

While he hopes it is Fang, he braces for the worst, hunkering back under twisted metal as the footsteps round the Draconis.

“Pilot?”

The relief slams through him harshly. It shuts down his thoughts. He stubbornly holds back a whimper.

“Fang,” he croaks. Her stark silhouette comes into view.

She is most certainly worse for wear.

She leans on one leg heavily. He can see the struts bent on the other. Her chassis is riddled with bullet holes from both the damned Pilot’s and their Titan’s guns. Her shoulders and optic spark erratically, spitting orange particles that hazily fall to the ground and die out. Her optic blinks, fritzing. Fang shakes her head to stop it, or to at least try. She is unarmed. 

“Oh, Fang…” he laments. 

“Pilot-t Viper. Sta-ate your c-condition.”

“Don’t worry about me right now,” he huffs. “I’ll be alright.”

“Protocol-col 3 demands th-that I ensure your s-safety, Pilot. That is-s my top priority r-right now.”

“Forget about the fuckin’ Protocol,” he spits.

“There is-s no Protocol-l for--”

“Fang!” he begs. “Take things seriously here. We’re both on our last legs.”

“Cor-r-rection,” she warbles. “I am techni-c-caly on both pedes.”

Viper lets out a delirious, frustrated sound. His Titan is barely standing and she is still quipping to him to keep him comforted.

“What do we do?” he mumbles quietly. “We’re left for dead. Nobody is going to come looking for us. We’re stranded. Abandoned.”

“Still, w-we are not hopeless-less, Pilot.”

Anger hits him like a punch. Would he rather Fang be as pessimistic as he? He holds back.

“Typhon is heav-vily populated by IMC b-bases,” Fang continues. “It is entirely-ly possible we c-could locate one.”

“Yeah? And what?” he says. “I highly doubt they’re going to take us in if we’ve already failed them.”

Fang is silent.

“What the everloving fuck can we possibly do, here?” he bellows. “We failed! We can’t even die when we’re supposed to! If Blisk finds out we didn’t die, he’s probably going to finish the job himself!”

“I have contacted-d Kuben Blisk-k, Pilot.”

His mind blanks. “You what?”

“I have acquired con-tact with th-the foreman of-f the Apex Predators-s.”

“Why?!” He can’t help but scream. “You gave him our location?”

“Af-f-firmativ-ve.”

He throws himself back against the jagged metal behind him in a fit of rage. His remaining fist balls up and slams into the dirt with a feeble, barely-audible thump. He kicks his legs angrily. “You fucker!” he snarls. “Protocol 3 includes not signaling the only motherfucker that would be the most enraged about our failure! And you’re leading him right to us!”

“Pilot,” Fang sounds reluctant, hurt. “I am doing-g what is b-best for you. Your survi-vial is my priority.”

“You just did the exact opposite of making sure I survive,” he growls. He rips the helmet off his head and throws it at the Northstar, missing by a great distance. Still, Fang flinches, accidentally leaning on the wrecked leg and nearly collapsing. “Leave.”

Fang recoils.

“Pilot--”

“You damn well heard me,” he says. He makes eye contact with her. “Get the fuck outta here.”

Hesitating, Fang shifts from foot to foot. She hangs her head sadly, optic locked on the ground in front of him. “That would-d be dis-disobeying Protocol 3.”

“You’ve already gone and done that,” he responds coldly. “You’ve basically killed us both. Go.”

Quietly, Fang gives him one last desperate glance, only to find that Viper is pointedly avoiding her gaze. He hears her vocalizer spit out some semblance of a whimper as she turns away. He listens as she stumbles to the other side of the ship’s wreckage, settling down as quietly as she can with a lame leg and off-kilter systems. 

Immediately, he deflates. His head thumps back against the metal. All the anger fizzles out and leaves him despaired and hopeless.

He knows he shouldn’t have done it. He should not have taken his anger and fear out on his Titan. As she said, she is acting in his best interest. She may not understand that Blisk would want him dead. To her, she is contacting an ally for rescue, even if it turns out to be the exact opposite.

Suddenly alone, he feels exposed, even hiding in the wreckage. He knows Fang’s coding would prevent her from going too far--she sounds like she stopped on the other side of the wreckage. 

The facade of bravado and skill falters, leaving behind a fearful, distraught husk of...something. 

He chooses to not name it.

    He has effectively clipped the wings of a once free-flying bird.