Heavyweight

Her gaze quickly shoots back up to him as he rises to his feet and calls for her to join him. He’s right, and she knows he’s right, but that doesn’t make the act of walking away from her sketchbook not feel like walking away from Rhys. She wants desperately to object. To argue that she can’t get up for something as trivial as water when Rhys is still missing, but his earlier point comes back to her. She’s not going to be any good to anyone if she’s sick or worse from not taking care of herself. It feels selfish, but she takes some comfort in the fact that he’s telling her to do it. It’s not as if she’s walking away willingly; she’s been given permission to. She’s been practically demanded to.

So she tries to get up.

And she can’t.

Not at first. Her whole body locks up – her back and neck are aching from being hunched over her book, her butt and thighs are practically numb from being seated on the hard chair beneath her, and her eyes and head still throb horrifically. She has to steady herself with both hands on the table in front of her as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Her exhale is slow and measured, drawn out to force her to relax enough to release some of the tension in her body. Carefully – so, so carefully – she rises from her seat.

“Gosh, I need to stretch,” she thinks aloud, making a mental note to find a space where she can do just that now that she’s up. Maybe she’ll pull out her pointe shoes and find a quiet place to unwind once she’s a little steadier on her feet. As it is now, she half walks, half shuffles forward, looking straight up into the man’s eyes when she’s at his side as they head for the kitchen.

“Um. I-I’m Friday. ….when we met before I don’t think I ever introduced myself. Or said thank you.”

He waited for her to stand, giving her plenty of space and time to do it however she wished. What was just careful observation in his eyes quickly turned to concern as he saw the struggle she was going through to pull herself to her feet. However, he refrained from reaching out to her, it was something she had to do by herself. Bern gave her a little nod, both in recognition of what she’d managed to do and in agreement to her statement. “There’ll be plenty of time for that once you’ve eaten.” His eyes flicked over her once more, assessing whether she’d be able to make it without help or not. He decided against carrying her but that it would also be too cruel to make her do it by herself. So he took a few steps closer and took her arm in an attempt to put it around his shoulders before having to settle for it around his waist when their height difference proved more than he’d anticipated. His own arm took up its own place on her, mirroring the position. 

“You let me know any time you need to stop.” There was some quiet almost abstract thought in the back of his mind that whispered that she might think poorly of him for making her walk when her limbs clearly protested it. But it wasn’t something he paid much attention to. Not when being liked was far from the most important thing - getting her healthy and moving around again was. Besides, nice was something he’d left far behind him, abandoned to his childhood days when his mother had been by his side to give him that glowing example to follow. Now the best he could be was present and help in his own way, which was enough to leave him content enough.

Setting their pace slowly, he set them on course to the kitchen. Though he couldn’t be sure how the girl - Friday, she’d said - was feeling, he could take a good enough guess that it was probably something she’d need her mind taken off, which is why he decided to say more than he had strung together in months when she referenced the first time they’d met. “Bern and you don’t have to thank me.” It was something any decent person would have done and he hardly counted himself as even that these days. He was swift to move it one for once, not wanting gratitude when it had been as much for his benefit in relieving rage as it had for her. “So what do you do, Friday?” 

She’s half worried about herself but mostly worried about what being out of commission will mean for her search for Rhys. She can’t give up; she can’t not find him. That’s simply not an option. But if she’s worked herself to illness or worse, she won’t be able to bring him home. Her eyes begin to well up as her breathing picks up and shallows. Her body starts to tremble little by little. It’s been quite a long time since she last had a panic attack, but these are the early signs. She knows what’s coming.

Before she can work up a good panic though, he’s crouched down next to her. His hand – one of two huge, powerful hands that she’s seen do incredibly violent things – reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and she almost cries over how gentle the act is. She’s not used to gentle touches, to delicate treatment. Even when he pulls his sleeve over his fingers to wipe the blood from her face, it’s so much less harsh than she’d expect from the man she knows him to be. Maybe there’s more to him then, she thinks. It’s not like she can know everything about him after only seeing him twice.

“N-no, your–… your shirt…”

He doesn’t seem at all concerned that he’s now got her blood on his shirt, but she is. Before she can reach for him to inspect the fabric, he’s telling her in no uncertain terms that it’s time for her to stop. She looks over at him, wanting to argue but stopped by his proximity and the seriousness of the look on his face. She’s so busy just looking at him that she misses his question. It takes several moments for her brain to string his words together into an intelligible inquiry and several moments more for her to respond.

“I–… I don’t know. I don’t remember. ……..I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here.”

There’s a small tug at the corner of his mouth when she stops her protests over his shirt with one look at his face. It wasn’t something he was going to take an argument over. It was just a shirt, it’d wash or he’d buy a new one. He wasn’t about to let her sit there with blood trickling down her face when the mere might of it only teased the rage that was always lurking below his skin, making his hands itch to form fists that he knew could do so much damage.

But there was no point in paying attention to the violence he longed to unleash when the ones he wanted on the receiving end were out of his reach. Right now the only thing he could do was make sure they were all ready, this redhead included, so while he might not have been the one for sympathy he could do patience and wait for her to give her answer even when he wasn’t sure she’d even heard the question in her worry.

Giving her a nod of acknowledgement he stood up once more. “Come on.” Once again, Bern left little room for argument in his voice - not when she so clearly needed to take care of herself. “Leave this for now. You need some water and something to eat.” The cupboards of the Estate were open to all of them and he intended to find something that she could stomach in spite of all the worry. 

She’s surprised by how gentle he sounds when he tells her to take it easy. In her experience with him, gentle isn’t his strong suit. The words that follow are more like him – harsh but well-intended. She frowns.

“’M not sick. And it’s not like I’m doing much goo– wha–…?”

It’s at that moment when she goes to tuck her hair behind her ear that she feels the blood trickling down the side of her face. She brings her fingers around so she can see them, staring almost uncomprehendingly at  the bright spot of red on her pale skin. But yet again, she’s far too drained to really be scared.

“……That’s never happened before…”

His jaw clenches as he sees graceful fingers come away from her ear stained red. There’s that much blood on his own hands adding to it isn’t something that bothers him any more but he hates that the world has caused an innocent like her to have to witness that shock of red on their fingertips - even if it is her own. If anything it only adds to his hatred of the Initiative and makes him reaffirm the vow he made when they dragged his mother away from him.

Seeing the blood there becomes too much for him and just as quickly as he was at her side, he’s crouching by her side. “Here, let me look at that.” It takes a lot for him to manage to move his hand gently when they’re more accustomed to throwing a punch than moving the strand of hair away. He moves his hand away only to pull his sleeve over his hand to wipe it away, not caring if another item of his clothing is marred with blood - it’d hardly be the first.

“Time to stop and rest.” There’s no room for arguing left with his tone, not when they all need to be keeping their strength up if they’ve any hope of getting the ones taken back. “When did you last have a drink?”

“I-… I know staring’s not gonna help, that’s not what I’m doing…” She sighs again. She ignores the splitting headache she’d developed several hours before and closes her eyes, turning back to her page. “…C’mon, Rhys, please…”

But she’s been pushing herself too hard for too long. Her head hurts the more she pushes and still she keeps pushing, not realizing her ears have begun to bleed.

There’s maybe the slightest feeling of regret when she stumbles out an answer to his words and goes back to closing her eyes  Even more so when she mentions Rhys’s name and the man can’t help but wonder just how close they are and how much his loss has been affecting her.

A trickle of red catches his attention and before long he’s at her side. “Take it easy.” The words come out just about as softly as he can manage but there’s no denying the next ones sound harsher and more chastising than they should. “Making yourself ill isn’t going to help anyone.” 

Definitely not his first name.

It doesn’t matter though – what’s important is that he seems to have recognized that they’re on the same side. Just as the remaining agent apparently recognizes that he’s not going to have an easy time with either of them.

Curiously, Bern hands over the reins of their little skirmish for the time being, telling her in very few words that the last guy is hers to take care of. She almost smirks, but she’s too angry now – she’d been having a perfectly chill day, she’d met a new drinking buddy… and now she’s fighting for her life, fighting to get back to her son and safety.

She’s fucking pissed.

And it shows when she picks up the chair from the table to her left. Nyx is a fighter, for sure, but not one of the fancy, martial arts kind: she’s a street fighter which means she’ll use anything and everything around her to her advantage. Including that chair.

Once ore they come at him and once more he meets them with the same precise ease, as though he’s not prepared to use any more energy on a single one of them than necessary. They’re all unimportant, in the way of what he wants and he’s clinical in the way he disposes every single one of them. There’s a crushing of bones as he twists one agents arm up behind his back, moving it into an unnatural position to cause maximum damage with minimum effort. Then comes the next one, who is dispatched much like the first blood he drew of the day, by slamming his head into the nearby table. There’s a crack that should probably be sickening to him but once you’d done it enough times the noise was simply to be expected. A sign that they were taken care of.

More approach him and he has enough time to think on their stupidity and just how brainwashed they must be to still approach him after witnessing what he could do. Bern handles them all with ease. Punches fly and more bones or broken as he himself takes few hits and none of any real ability to cause damage. There’s a smash nearby and his gaze shifts to the female agent who goes down, sparing a nod for the woman who helped him before something else catches his eye.

The club’s baseline was palpable, like always. The line to get in was a mile long, like always. The same guy was a bouncer at the club door, like most nights but not always. People have to have nights off eventually, yo. There was one key difference tonight.

A tiny, under aged white kid was in line.

Okay, so he knew the bouncer and was possibly going to get let in despite his age. Maybe he just really wanted to get drunk tonight. He knew once you were inside nobody carded. He may or may not have staked out the club from a fair distance away with a pair of home-made binocular glasses. Nobody cared what you did inside the seediest club. It was getting in that was tough. That was where Bern came in. He’d let Connor in, because the boy had finally learned enough precision to doctor his own ID.

It was a thin film of glass, making the ID look laminated. Right over the age and the birthdate, however, the glass was subtly bent and altered to reject the passage of light in a certain shape along the glass, making the “19” on his ID suddenly look like a “22”, and the ’98 look like an ’88. It was bound to get him in, no question. He had it solved.

So, smug and secure, he smirked as he handed his undetectable forgery to Bern at the door. “Come on Bern. You gotta admit. I do good work. Lemme in.” He attempted to persuade without smiling. Apparently he’d been told he looked like he was twelve when he smiled.

The queue progressed as it should, nothing out of the ordinary happening as he let them in to get their fix of the more risque. Even if he’d been the type to have more than a few drinks it wouldn’t have been his club of choice. He preferred somewhere a little more peaceful, though it did at least have dark corners in it’s favour. But the place had Syndicate ties and he got to keep an eye on the girls while keeping a roof over his head. There were worst ways to be earning a living, as he well knew. At least this income was honest.

Then a kid steps in front of him, wearing a smug look that Bern was pretty sure he was going to wipe off his face in a matter of seconds. If he hadn’t been holding up the line maybe there would have been a smile at the confidence the kid had, or at least the tightening of his lips that passed as a smile. But there wasn’t, Connor was met with the same deadpan expression as every other customer who tried to pull one over on him.

“Not gonna happen kid.” There was a finality in his tone and despite still reaching for the ID he wasn’t going to change his mind. Eyes were cast over the little card and his expression morphed into an impressed one. But it still wasn’t enough. “Good job but it’s still no. Move along now.”

Nothing.

Not one single drawing.

Any other time when she wouldn’t want to draw, she’d be filling notebooks, but now that she’s desperate to? Radio silence from her powers.

At the moment, she’s too tired to even cry, so she sits in a random empty room of the Selvaggio estate and hangs her head, pencil hovering over a depressingly blank page in her sketch book.

Maybe her wasn’t the best one to give sympathy but it was the acknowledgement that they were all in this together that made him stop instead of just walking on by when he saw the red head he’d saved looking so forlorn.

Stepping into the room Bern takes up residence leaning against one of the walls, simply regarding her for a few moments before speaking. “Staring at it isn’t going to help.”

She can appreciate that. She feels the same way.

His eyes scan the crowd as hers had done when she first sat down, but while she’d spotted several faces that she knew or at least recognized, he’s interrupted in the act by the hoard of yelling agents that came rushing into the tavern. The newcomer rises slowly to his feet, and every inch of his body screams fighter. Screams killer. 

She’s not disappointed when he (very, very nicely) handles the man who comes at him. While the other two debate whether or not to approach, Nyx lets go, letting the thick walls and guards she builds up around her power crumble…

And nothing happens.

“Fucking Corinthians,” she hisses, just as her new punchy friend asks her whose side she’s on. She quirks an eyebrow – she really can’t help but be a smartass, it’s in her nature – but before she can spit out a sassy retort, one of the men is rushing at her.

Nyx picks up the napkin dispenser in her left hand. The force from her backhand swing sends the man running at her crumbling to the ground screaming, blood dripping down the side of his face and off of the dispenser itself. With a foot on his crotch to make sure he doesn’t move or try anything, Nyx reaches down and relieves him of his firearm, disassembling it and throwing the pieces to the ground behind her with no trouble. She then turns back to the man in front of her.

But he could appreciate the way she handles herself. The other agent is dispatched in brutal fashion and he can’t help but admire just how much blood she’s shed within seconds. Exactly what needs to be happening.

Her actions answer his question for him and he gives her a curt nod in return, though it’s possibly on the warmer side than the first one he’d given her. “Bern.” He left off a reply about them kicking ass together - whether it was a good thing was yet to be soon.

Had there not been bullets flying and the sound of glass shattering he might have almost smiled at the terrified expression on the man’s face as the question was raised as to who would take him. As it was, he didn’t let any amusement chink his armour, because his stony expression was as much a part of his protection as anything else. Made people think twice about approaching him and that was all he needed. Just a split second to get a hold of them and then it was all over.

“After you.” Usually he wasn’t one to pass up a fight but he wanted to see what this woman could do. If they were going to work together he neede to get some idea of ther strengths and weaknesses.

She’d gotten to the tavern just before the rush – it’d been easy enough to order her drink and grab a table in the corner where she could be alone and watch everyone else get drunk and crazy. Laugh at everyone else causing themselves problems rather than contemplating their own. As business started to pick up, Nyx was more and more glad that she’d come early. Having to push her way through this throng of people to get to the bar and then be stuck without a table would’ve pissed her off to no end. Such was her mood. As it is, she’s already glaring off unwanted advances from half drunk suitors who wouldn’t even hold her interest were they sober.

It’s as one such rejected guy walks away that another shuffles up. For some reason, she’s not alarmed though he’s huge and, when he speaks, gruff as hell. She can tell he’s not the cuddly type, but that’s okay. She nods to the open chair regardless, offering him a quick smile.

He rose to his feet as soon as they entered. Slowly and deliberately. The set of his shoulders and the way that he planted his feet showed them that this was not a surrender, he would not comply. No, he was standing his ground and not going down without a fight. His body tensed as he tried to summon the metal that was always resting underneath his kin but it didn’t come. Maybe it should have caused a bigger reaction than the smallest of frowns lasting only seconds but he wasn’t worried. Causing damage with his bare hands was something he’d been doing for ears.