Checo117

* Astrophage is more like a virus that either alters people, causing them to commit crimes or violent acts, or a power that supervillains are starting to use.

* Grace is still a middle school teacher who got bitten by the spider, obviously.

* Adrian is the one who stitched up the suit (the Aunt May of this universe).

* He has all the perks of a normal Spider-Man, but he's still Grace, so he's incredibly clumsy. He does have a super-strong spider sense, and that's what saves him 100% of the time, but he absolutely does not have the agility. When adrenaline kicks in, he can do anything, but otherwise he'll trip over the most ridiculous things.

* He was wearing his yellow raincoat the first time he saved someone, so now he wears it over his suit (along with his white Converse).

* The spider was discovered by SHIELD (which is undercover as a scientific research facility that Grace works for part-time). After the original test subjects (who were only able to survive the spider mutations if they possessed a specific gene) were killed in an attack, Eva delivered the spider to Grace so he could be bitten before other villains got their hands on that power. (My boy gets unwillingly turned into a savior in every universe.)

* Simon is still an ex-convict who, in exchange for his freedom, is asked by the evil company of the day to test a series of mines infected by what appears to be blood from a meteorite (which eventually turns out to be the symbiote Ellie!).

You don't really know how you got into this situation, well, you do, but it was a blur of adrenaline and pure unadulterated panic.

You wiped a bead of sweat from your forehead with the back of your sleeve, sighing as you stared into the open maintenance panel of the secondary oxygen. The wiring looked like a nest of multicolored snakes, and none of them seemed to want to cooperate.

"Hey, Ry?" you called out, your voice echoing slightly in the cramped corridor. "Did you re-route the primary bypass to the starboard grid, or am I looking at a ghost current here?"

From the lab area a few meters away, a head of messy, blonde hair popped out from behind a microscope. Ryland Grace blinked at you through his smudged goggles, his glasses in one hand and a half-eaten pack of sour skittles in the other.

"I didn't touch the starboard grid!" he called back, his tone carrying that characteristic blend of manic energy and mild exasperation that you had come to associate with him. "That was Rocky! He said the Eridian equivalent of 'if it ain't broke, make it shinier.' Don't touch the blue wire unless you want a face full of static!"

"Fascinating. Thanks for the warning after I almost grabbed it," you muttered, leaning a bit further into the access hatch.

You were the third wheel on this bizarre, suicidal, savior-of-the-galaxy unicycle. When the Hail Mary mission had been scrambled together by Eva Stratt, you had been shoved into the extra bunk as a jack-of-all-trades technician—someone to keep the ship from falling apart while the brilliant Dr. Grace did the actual science. You hadn't expected to wake up from amnesia alongside him, and you certainly hadn't expected to become best friends with a five-legged, rock-hard alien who spoke in musical chords.

But here you were.

You reached deeper into the panel, trying to snag a loose zip-tie that was dangling dangerously close to the main power terminal. Your fingers brushed the plastic. Just a little further...

Snap.

It didn't happen in slow motion. It happened in a fraction of a heartbeat. A heavy, spring-loaded titanium tension bar—one that hadn't been properly secured during the rush to launch—snapped out of its housing like a steel trap.

It struck the back of your right forearm with a sickening, heavy thud.

The force of the blow tore a sharp, choked gasp from your throat. Your arm violently jerked back, scraping against the sharp, raw edges of the metal hatch casing. The pain didn't hit immediately; there was just a terrifying, numb coldness, followed instantly by a white-hot, throbbing agony that made your vision go entirely black around the edges.

"Ah—! Shit! Shit! SHit!" Your voice cracking as you stumbled backward out of the corridor, your knees giving out beneath you. You hit the deck plates hard, clutching your right arm against your chest.

Within seconds, the heat arrived. A deep, agonizing throb pulsed through the bone of your forearm, and when you looked down, a jagged, angry tear in your jumpsuit was already blooming a dark, stark crimson. The metal hatch had sliced a deep line from your wrist halfway to your elbow, and the skin beneath was already swelling and turning an ugly, bruised purple from the impact of the bar.

"Hey! What happened? I heard a—"

Ryland’s voice cut off abruptly as he rounded the corner. The casual, exasperated scientist vanished in a fraction of a second, replaced by the ghost of the man who had survived a suicide mission by sheer force of will. His eyes went wide behind his glasses, staring at the blood pooling on the deck and the way you were curled into a ball, trembling.

"Oh, Jesus—[Name]!"

Grace dropped his glasses. It hit the floor with a loud clatter that echoed through the ship, but he was already moving, sliding on his knees across the metal deck to your side. His hands hovered over you, trembling slightly, before his training—or maybe just his frantic, protective instincts—kicked in.

"Don't move, don't move, let me see, let me see," he muttered, his voice climbing an octave into pure panic. He gently but firmly grabbed your shoulders, guiding you so you were leaning back against the bulkhead rather than slouching into your own wound. "Where hurts? Just the arm? Did you hit your head?"

"Just... the arm. God, Ryland, it exfuckingcruciating ," you wheezed, using a ridiculous amalgamation of words because your brain couldn't quite process English correctly through the haze of pain you were currently experiencing.

"Okay, okay, exfudgingcruciating isn't a word, you're shocky," Ryland babbled, his hands finally settling on your upper arm to stabilize it. He looked at the deep gash, his face paling. "Okay, that's a laceration. A deep one. And that swelling... man, that bar hit you hard. I think it might be fractured. Fudge. Okay. Breathe. Just breathe."

Before you could reply, a frantic tapping sound echoed from the Xenonite partition wall.

Clack, clack, clack-clack.

Through the thick, transparent barrier that divided the human atmosphere from the hot, high-pressure Eridian environment, a dark, rocky figure scrambled into view. Rocky’s five legs moved in a blur, his carapace clicking against the floor as he rushed to the window. His small, sensitive radar organ on top of his body was spinning frantically, scanning the scene.

A series of rapid, high-pitched musical notes erupted from his vocal organ. The translation software on Ryland’s computer lag-ly groaned to life a second later:

“What is noise? What is leaking, question? Friend is leaking! Grace! Why is friend leaking red?!”

"They snapped a tension bar, Rocky!" Ryland shouted toward the partition, not looking up as he frantically ripped open a nearby emergency medical kit. "The arm is broken! Or cracked! And cutting! There's a lot of blood!"

Rocky’s musical chords turned into a chaotic, discordant screech—the Eridian equivalent of a scream. “Bad! Bad! Friend is broken! Fix it, Grace! Apply glue! Apply pressure! Do not let friend empty!”

"I'm trying!" Ryland yelled back, his hands shaking as he pulled out a bottle of antiseptic and a roll of sterile gauze. He looked at you, his eyes softening with an immense, heartbreaking amount of worry. "Okay, [Name]. This is going to sting. Like, a lot. I'm so sorry."

"Just do it," you choked out, squeezing your eyes shut and bracing your head against the wall.

When the antiseptic hit the open cut, you couldn't stop the loud, pathetic sob that escaped your lips. Your whole body tensed, your good hand clawing at Ryland’s shoulder for an anchor. You hated crying, hated feeling vulnerable, but the pain was an absolute inferno.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, you're doing great, just look at me," Ryland murmured frantically. He didn't pull away from your grip. Instead, he leaned closer, using his body to shield you from the sight of the wound, his voice dropping into a soft, soothing cadence that sounded distinctly like a teacher comforting a terrified child. "Look at me, [Name]. Focus on my voice. You're okay. The Hail Mary isn't crashing, the astrophage isn't exploding, you just had a fight with a piece of metal and you lost. It happens to the best of us."

Behind the glass, Rocky was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. His heavy, metallic claws scraped against the Xenonite wall.

“Grace! Give comfort! Press friend close! When pebbles break carapace, we hold them in the center! Why Grace not holding friend?!”

Ryland shot a wild look at the glass. "I'm trying to bandage the wound, Rocky! I need two hands for this!"

“Bad response!” Rocky chimed angrily, his chords buzzing with deep, resonant vibrations. “You are bad! Bad parent! The pebble is weeping! Hold the pebble!”

You let out a weak, watery laugh through your tears, the absurdity of the situation piercing through the pain. "Did... did he just call me your pebble?"

Ryland paused, a strip of medical tape held between his teeth, his eyes wide. "Uh. I think he did." He quickly finished wrapping the gauze, securing it tightly enough to stop the bleeding but loose enough not to aggravate the potential fracture. He then carefully lifted your arm, placing it gently into a soft sling against your chest.

Once the arm was secured, Ryland didn't step back. True to Rocky’s frantic demands—and honestly, probably driven by his own skyrocketing anxiety—Ryland shifted his position. He sat down flat on the deck plates right next to you, wrapping a heavy, protective arm around your uninjured shoulder and pulling you firmly against his side.

You didn't protest. You leaned your head against his shoulder, letting out a long, trembling breath as the initial shock began to fade into a dull, exhausted ache. Ryland’s chest rose and fell in a steady, exaggerated rhythm, giving you a pace to match your own ragged breathing.

"There," Ryland muttered, his hand gently patting your upper arm. "See? Not emptying. Contained. You're good."

Rocky finally stopped pacing, pressing his front two legs against the glass, his radar organ focused entirely on the two of you curled up together on the floor. A low, purring chord emanated from him—a sound of deep relief.

“Good,” the translator droned. “The stone protects the pebble, statement. The leakage is stopped. The small one is resting against the big one. Is correct biological behavior.”

Ryland sighed, rubbing his temple with his free hand. He looked at the partition. "Rocky, buddy. We need to clear something up. [Name] isn't my pebble."

The translation software paused for a moment before outputting a sharp, quizzical note. “Contradiction. You share small vessel. You possess greater age and mass. You protect. You provide nutrients. You scold when they touch the blue wire. They are your genetic continuation.”

You snorted, a little bit of blood-tinged adrenaline making you feel slightly giddy. "Yeah, Ryland. Why did you scold me? Bad dad."

"Oh, shut up, you," Ryland said affectionately, nudging your head with his cheek. He looked back at Rocky. "No, Rocky. Humans don't just travel with our children. [Name] is a grown, independent adult human. Well... mostly adult. Sometimes they eat dry cereal out of the box at three in the morning, but legally, an adult."

“An adult?” Rocky’s chords sounded profoundly confused. “But they are so small. Their skin is smooth. They do not have the grey fur on head like you. They make the high-pitched distress noises of a juvenile.”

"Hey!" you protested weakly from Ryland’s shoulder. "I'm [your age]!"

"And I have grey hair because of stress, Rocky, not just because I'm old!" Ryland defended himself, though he couldn't help but chuckle. "Look, in human biology, [Name] is not my child. We do not share DNA. My genetic code did not combine with another human to create them. We are completely unrelated."

There was a long silence from the Eridian side of the glass. Rocky stood perfectly still, his radar organ slowly tracking back and forth between you and Ryland. To an Eridian, who lived in a deeply communal, strictly biological caste and family structure, the concept of two unrelated individuals forming a tight, protective bond was completely foreign.

“Not genetic?” Rocky asked softly, his tones low. “Then... why do you care? If the small one breaks, your genetic line does not fail. Why does your heart beat fast? Why do you weep from eyes when they are hurt?”

Ryland’s arm tightened around your shoulder just a fraction. The playful banter died away, replaced by a profound, heavy warmth that filled the small corridor. He looked down at you, his eyes incredibly soft, full of a fierce, quiet devotion that didn't need a bloodline to justify itself.

"Because," Ryland said quietly, his voice carrying clearly through the intercom to Rocky’s side. "Humans have this thing. We don't just love the people we're born with. Sometimes, we find people in the middle of a dark, terrifying universe, and we look at them, and we decide 'You're mine now.' We adopt them into our hearts."

He looked back at the glass, smiling gently at the little rock alien.

"Think of it like an adoption, Rocky. [Name] isn't my biological child. But they are my family. I am responsible for them, and I care about them just as much as if they were my own blood. When they hurt, I hurt."

You felt a lump form in your throat, a sudden wave of emotion that had absolutely nothing to do with the physical pain in your arm. You squeezed Ryland’s waist with your good hand, burying your face into his shoulder for a brief second to hide the fresh tears prickling your eyes. Waking up on this ship with no memories had been terrifying, but finding Ryland—and Rocky—had given you a home in the middle of nowhere.

Rocky’s radar organ spun in a slow, beautiful circle. He didn't speak for a long time, processing the complex, beautiful concept of human chosen family. When he finally played a chord, it was a sequence of notes that sounded like a lullaby—warm, harmonious, and deeply respectful.

“Chosen offspring,” the translator read. “A beautiful concept. Eridians do not have this. We only love the hive-blood. Human mind is strange and soft. But good. Very good.”

Rocky then tapped the glass gently, right in front of where your head was resting against Ryland.

“I also choose,” Rocky stated firmly. “If Grace is the sire of choice, I am the uncle of choice. I am Uncle Rocky. I will make a hard carapace for the chosen offspring's arm so it does not break again.”

You couldn't help but burst into a genuine, bright laugh, the sound echoing happily down the corridor. "An uncle? Rocky, I would love to have you as an uncle. But please, no Xenonite armor on my arm, I still need to be able to lift things."

“We will discuss armor design later,” Rocky replied primly, his chords vibrating with amusement. “Now, Grace. Take the chosen offspring to the sleep-bunk. They require rest and hot liquid food. I will monitor the ship. I will not touch the blue wire.”

"Thanks, Rocky," Ryland said, a massive grin breaking across his face.

Carefully, with an immense amount of gentleness you weren't used too, Ryland helped you stand up. Your knees were still a bit shaky, but he kept a firm arm around your waist, bearing most of your weight as he guided you away from the maintenance panel and toward the living quarters.

As he tucked you into your bunk, pulling the thick blankets up to your chin and handing you a warm bulb of re-hydrated broth, Ryland hovered over you, checking your bandage one last time.

"You okay, kiddo?" he asked softly, a teasing smirk playing on his lips.

"I'm fine, 'Dad'," you smiled back, your eyes heavy with exhaustion. "Thanks for patching me up."

Ryland rolled his eyes, but the sheer, unadulterated affection in his face was impossible to hide. He gently patted your head, smoothing down your messy hair. "Anytime. Now get some sleep. Tomorrow, your Uncle Rock is probably going to try and teach you how to eat heavy metals, and I need you fully rested to say no."

As you drifted off to sleep, wrapped in the safety of the blanket and the rhythmic, now comforting hum of the ship, you realized that being lost in space wasn't so bad. Not when you had a father-figure to hold you when you leaked, and a rock alien uncle keeping watch in the dark.

HOPE U GUYS LIEK THIS. OK BYE

ryland grace - he is so intimidated by you at first, but he's totally down with it once he gets to know you. this is a man who hasn't had very many relationships. sure, he's intimidated by the height on you (especially if you're confident enough to wear heels), but he's also just intimidated by you in general. you're so smart, so kind. he's got a crush on you from afar for a while for sure. "statistically your height isn't as rare as you think"

court gentry - the definition of a man who does not give a singular shit about how tall you are. whether he meets you as a fellow agent or a citizen, he doesn't give a damn. he notices, of course he does. notices that you shrink in on yourself and slouch next to shorter people and dread heels and a dress. but he gives you CONFIDENCE baby. such a "you look beautiful, darlin" kinda guy who says you look so sexy in heels and reminds you to sip up straight. not in a bothersome way but in a a-want-you-to-think-you're-as-beautiful-as-i-do way.

lars lindstrom - HE. DOESN'T. GIVE. A. FUCK! you think he's so cute and at first, when you try to introduce yourself, he's such a stammering nervous mess (as per usual) that you think it's because of you that he was like that. the fact that you have at least an inch on him. but it's because he thinks you're so pretty and ya know, general human interaction. but once you've interacted a few times lars gets more confident. asks you to go on a walk with him. he just thinks you're the bees knees.

"All the horns are yours to toot, honestly," Grace lifts up both hands in surrender, then gesturing at you with open palms as if to say the stage is yours. "I had heard your name come up multiple times the moment I was cleared to handle confidential information." He mirrors your earlier shrug, like he doesn't want to fully commit to his perception. "Stratt sounded oddly self-assured, like you were the one ace up her sleeve that wouldn't fail her."

That draws a short bark of a laugh out of you. Eva Stratt is many things, but unprepared is not one of them.

Having blind faith in people, also. Not her style at all.

"That's an exaggeration," you push at his shoulder like you push away the ridiculous idea, "I had many back-ups like everyone else, I assure you." Stretching out your legs, you sink back into the impromptu pillow fort with a sigh, "I trust your judgement. If you say so, that is how it must've looked like to an observer. Even if so, it's probably just that she saw high odds of success with my presence or something. Nobody is indispensable to Stratt."

"Oh, I would know."

The bitter chuckle that leaves his lips drip with venom.

... You probably shouldn't ask, but what is humanity without curiosity?

"Could be a different case for you," Nodding, you carefully try breaching the subject. "She was very insistent that you join. I know she's bossy and persuasive, but I still cannot fathom how she managed to convince you. That's Stratt, alright."

It takes you a second that might have come off as you underestimating him.

"Not in a bad way!!" Before he can speak, your hands fly up in defense, "I mean, you just seemed so..." Rolling your hands before clasping them together once you scrambled for the appropriate word for long enough, "... Hesitant. Not to say you were meek or bad at your job or anything, but I was under the impression that you didn't want to be involved any more than the bare minimum needed for the science." Taking a breath through your teeth, you offer a quiet "Sorry."

"You're right on the mark," he says, tone somber, and oh, you're not sure if you can bear to look at him. You have come across him with a mournful expression on his face once or twice, seemingly expressionless but the bleak mood hanging heavily in the air as he watches the stars; and it tugs at your heartstrings in all the wrong ways. "She didn't."

"Hm?"

"She didn't convince me."

Heart dropping to your stomach at the implications, you turn your head to face him at the speed of a medieval gate opening.

"I didn't volunteer," His mouth twitches up, though it's more a grimace than anything else, "I refused — tried to escape when she tried to force me into it. The memories are still a little spotty, but I remember being hunted down."

The sheen of tears in his eyes reflects your own, your lower lip wobbling as he continues; "The grass against my cheek. Uncomfortable pressure on my lower back. A rainbow. The feeling of an intrusive needle in my neck."

They didn't give him a choice. He was hunted down like an animal and forced on a suicide mission with one order, all in the name of greater good. And yet.

And yet he works to help those back home — home, if you can even call it that with the newfound revelation. You cannot imagine being stripped of your autonomy in such a way and still have the resolve to help the very people that betrayed you.

Sure, it is not the entire population. A powerful few, if not just one, but still. You don't dare label him a saint or assume his feelings on the matter, with considerable effort.

The feeling of being betrayed, deceived, far outweighs the sorrow, your resentment manifesting itself as molten anger streaming down your cheeks.

How dare they. How dare they.

"I'm nothing like you, Yao, or Ilyukhina," Grace mumbles, the words haphazardly thrown together as he moves to get up. "Sorry I'm not who you think I am."

Your hand flies to latch on his wrist so hard you hear one of your joints pop.

"We," Swallowing thickly, you close your eyes to pull yourself together, trying to refrain from choking on your words, "We were told you agreed. Yao was against forcing you from the very beginning, as were the rest of us. Stratt said after a long discussion, you wanted to be put in the medically induced coma before launch for nerves or something—!!"

Bile raises in your throat. Your ignorance makes you feel almost complicit in what happened to him, even if you had no say in the matter.

"I'm so sorry," you barely manage to get the words out, lightly tugging at his wrist.

Grace crumples in your arms like a flimsy doll, fingers clumsily digging into your shirt in a poor attempt to hold onto you — or to hold himself together. You can't tell.

"Thank you," you barely hear the words, muffled by your own shoulder, "It's nice to know at least some cared."

Your circumstances could not have been more different. The revelation hangs in the air, present yet not in focus.

It's not like you had someone to die for, you have told Grace that much. No heroism or bravery was involved in your decision, you did simply because you could. No grand aspirations behind it.

It would be nice to be hailed as a hero if you succeed, though it's a double edged sword. You have enough grasp on history to know how quick people are to pin the blame on whoever is the easiest target, in which you and Grace are the very ones.

"I still think that you're extremely brave." Grace croaks, breaking the silence. The glassy sheen in his eyes match yours.

Craning your head to meet his gaze, you can't help but furrow your brows in disbelief. "... I just told you I wasn't thinking much of anything. Might as well have been on autopilot the entire time."

"Doesn't change a thing," Grace shrugs with a surprisingly smug smile that comes with proving himself right, pinky bumping against yours as he adjusts his position gaze at the pixellated beach more comfortably, a small oop— sounding in the room at the contact.

"I think you're extremely brave, too." Before he can pull away, you curl your pinky around his, grip loose in case he wants to pull away, "Brave, and kind."

His pinky curls around yours. The gesture feels like making a small promise, though you don't know what you're swearing to.

The space walks are the fun part of this entire ordeal, rare as they are.

Grace — Ryland, disagrees. He has always been more at home in the lab, which, you get it, him being the lead scientist, and being the only one who can manage to get something done and all.

"Are you sure about this?" Ryland grunts, hooking a foot in the net as he spins around, trying to put his suit on to accompany you, despite it being more strategically aligned to have someone on base at all times, having insisted you don't go exploring alien territory on your own.

Especially in the form of a golden ship at least three times as long as Hail Mary harbouring intelligent life.

"More than," you chuckle, floating over to zip him up, stabilising both him and yourself with practiced ease. "We're not saying anything, though. Can't risk jinxing it. But they did invite us in the form of attaching themselves on our ship, so at least we're not uninvited guests. All implications included."

"Alright, yeah, got it, no problem," Ryland rambles, releasing a shaky breath as he raises his chin as you zip him up, giving you the most unsure thumbs up combined with the soggiest look you have ever seen.

Holding back a giggle, you pull his helmet closer, though you make sure to splay a palm over his head to mess up his hair affectionately before putting it on him, finally baiting an exasperated chuckle out of him.

He still looks like an elastic band stretched too thin, threatening to snap any minute, though. Like, you're sure he's going to get cramps from how tense he is from nerves.

The solution to such a problem comes to you in the form of latching onto one another, which proves surprisingly effective.

Until Ryland gets startled upon first contact.

The scream scared off himself, you, and the creature, until the situation was somehow diffused, and hopefully written off as a misunderstanding on both sides.

The creature is extremely intelligent, and you love it immediately.

Similarities in culture is not impossible by any means even across stars, though it's still astonishing that body language and gestures convey their meaning this well, mimicking aside. You gesture for it to wait, and after a few demonstrations, it understands, and waits. Mimicking the gesture as closely as his physiology will allow, it tells you to wait as well, and you wait.

God, you're communicating. You're actually communicating with an alien creature.

You decide to take shifts to avoid losing time — or brainpower. Ryland tripped four times just trying to bring a clock over, and you walked in circles back and forth between Mary and the Blip-A for seven minutes before it dawned on you that you forgot what you were searching for.

The process of breaking the language barrier is as close to smooth sailing as possible after the arrangement, so much so that after you take off the soundproof earphones when you wake up, a robotic voice greets you.

"Hi friend!"

You take off your eye mask to see Rocky greeting you with a three-clawed wave.

Any semblance of sleep you had in your body evaporates.

"Hi Rocky!!" you coo, voice going up several pitches from excitement as you jog to meet him behind the xenonite, waving at him before turning to Ryland, "You gave him a voice?"

"Makes things a lot easier," he tilts his head, voice laced with sleep. "Welp, guess it's my turn to sleep." He places a hand on your shoulder, lingering before it slips off your bicep, "Knock yourselves out."

"What Grace mean, question?" Accompanied by two taps for emphasis.

"It's an expression, Rock. He means have fun."

There is a void all around you.

No sound, no sight, no feel. No memory of what happened.

Inhale, exhale.

You feel your lungs fill with air before you force it out. That means you can breathe. Good.

There is still no feeling in your fingertips. Nor your face, for that matter, and you worry it's blunt force trauma. Chances of you being treated in some void pool meant for sensory deprivation is quite low. You try shifting your weight somewhere to test where you are. On the floor, probably, until you feel your entire weight pull you down, and suddenly you're like a marionette on a string.

Not the floor, then.

The tension tells you you're strapped in, and—

Blue eyes blown wide with terror flash in your mind. A hand reached out towards you, not your face, but in front of it before your memories cut off.

You yank the safety belt off with pure muscle memory, your entire body protesting as it tries to stand upright, your arm shooting out to find support wherever the panels are.

Your senses come back to you slowly, like static sounding more and more coherent until you stumble upon a channel when searching for one in the radio.

The once muted sound of beeps are now deafening alarms blaring in your ears. The once blurred lights are now blinding as they flash red. The smell of something burning makes you gag.

An inhuman wail makes its way to your ears, and the sight that greets you is of Rocky in the corridor, trying to pull a limp Ryland towards the Lab.

Rocky is out of his space, wisps of black smoke rising out of him. So I no die in Grace and friend atmosphere, you recall. Ryland is unconscious, and probably in worse shape than you are.

You lunge forward before your brain can register what you're seeing.

"Your results are everything I could hope for," Says Stratt, and though her voice remains stoic as ever, you can tell she's impressed as she looks over the report in her tablet, your chest swelling with pride. "To call your body durable would be an understatement. Your performance has not fallen under the optimal metrics in any of the environments we tested you for; not to mention your short recovery time. The textbook definition of sturdy, really."

Your hand hooks into the back of Ryland's collar as you throw your body forward to drag him faster without falling over, barely managing to avoid slamming into Rocky, putting one foot in front of the other with unprecedented determination.

The moment Armando is in sight, you grab the first thing you can reach, which happens to be the insulated blanket Ryland has left lying around, and you flick it in Rocky's direction.

Before you can rasp out the command; ever so smart, Rocky steps onto the blanket, and you waste no time dragging him to his enclosure with all the strength you can muster, even with the world swaying beneath your feet, vision growing dim.

The small wail that comes from the medical bed falls on deaf ears.

"I will make it," you hiss, more for yourself than for Rocky, eyes trained on the clear xenonite, "I've got you, buddy."

Only one out of you three set out on this mission to die. You're not about to let either of them be the ones to die, not when Ryland wants to live. Not when Rocky has a mate, a home to return to.

Your hand slams on something as you lose your footing, though you make sure to curl your arm up, just to save Rocky a few steps.

"Please, God, anyone—" you croak, not having the strength to even lift your head to see if Rocky made it, "Please let them make it. Let them live. Kill me instead. I'll do anything. I'll die, I'll live— anything."

Your world descends into darkness like your plug has been pulled.

"Eye movement detected. Good morning, Doctor Grace."

There is an eery stillness around him.

Blinking to shake off any uncertainties he has, Ryland sluggishly gets up, gaze dropping to a faint trail of black, peppered with red spots, leading out of the lab.

Dread weighs on his shoulders heavier than a boulder as he moves slowly, trying to brace himself for whatever sight that will greet him with each deliberate step.

He sees you first.

Laying face first on the floor, your face is shielded by your arm curling around your head. If he didn't know any better, he would have assumed you had taken a particularly nasty fall but was too embarrassed to get up.

Swallowing thickly, he brings a shaky hand to your neck, resting his fingertips on your pulse—

There is a faint rhythm beating against the pads of his fingers.

He releases a breath he didn't know he was holding, curling in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut, letting his tears fall.

Your other hand reaches out to the xenonite, towards Rocky, and a sob tears itself from his throat when there is a slight move, quiet wheeze of a sound, followed by a thrum.