l e g a c y .

her wound steals his attention. another moment of surprise, this time echoed by a soft hum. light fingers press against the torn clothes to peer at the how the bullet lodged into carbon fiber. curiosity rips through them at lightning speed; questions bubbling on their tongue, scenarios of what-ifs for friends dead, and wonder if saskia chose this as a precaution.

but he stills every thought. saskia never gave explicit permission to take her pain. just a flesh wound --- a blessing, but still a wound that he could help ease. and yet ----

"you're welcome. i'm glad i was nearby." a beat, then another, hesitation dancing across their face. but they squeeze her hand back. slowly tugs at the thread that pulls at her pain as they release their own suppression. the pain thrums at their stomach, a dull ache. not carrying the full weight of what saskia feels, but enough to alert her. to wonder, if she wants them to take it all. "any better?"

at least she can take comfort in the fact that ryoji doesn’t know her well enough to realize her role as a kronos pr pet. or, as she prefers, pr pest.

all thoughts of that dissipate when she feels her pain lessen - mind whirring to connect the dots in only a few seconds. he’d squeezed her hand, things didn’t hurt quite as much. enough pain taken to clear her mind some, to let thoughts churn faster and focus on other things. namely that he’s not just a vigilante, but a super.

saskia’s eyes narrow, giving him a once over that’s equal parts suspicious and curious - a scientist through and through. “where does it go?” into him, surely, but then - what? it makes her think of the paragon super, saint peter. a healer. but this is different. pain has to be like energy, taking it doesn’t get rid of it. “what do you do with it?”

there's no official betting pool, nothing more than bragging rights if her prediction is correct, but delphine wants it regardless. the more bodies she can examine, the further she can take her research, and the stronger she can become in breaking cecil's chains on her.

as if reading her thoughts, saskia turns the conversation to her dear family member. "cecil remains tight-lipped as always. wouldn't be surprised if they've managed to grab the fake and examine it in their labs by now."

popping her knuckles --- from pinky to index, twice over --- she asks, "and what about buchanan? surely he had some directions for the team leads, no?"

even the good ones.

“i would’ve thought we would have heard from them by now if that were the case.” the nsa has excellent people on their teams, but they are a government entity. the best and brightest minds work for kronos, not for a pithy government pay check with shit hours. if they want to turn this into a jurisdictional pissing contest, society’s doomed.

she brushes her long braids over her shoulder, cants her head delphine’s way. “boss man wants to make sure the gala fiasco doesn’t happen again. heads turning into spaghetti bolognese doesn’t really convince the people with deep pockets to want to try it out, y’know?” saskia could easily point out what the fix is: stop rushing her team. give them time to breathe and understand all the side effects before sending the show ponies out. convincing a billionaire of that, however, is stupidly difficult. “did the tests on the twins yield anything interesting? any potential answers - besides the obvious.”

a single glance is spared to the perpetrator ( alive, chest slowly rising and falling ), before ryoji's attention is completely devoted to saskia. i'm fine is a statement that still carries blood. as she slides down the wall, he kneels beside her, a hand barely lifted if she needs assistance.

they're not sure she would've accepted it.

gaze flits across her closed eyes to open skin to the hand against her stomach. the urge to remove her hand to view the wound themself thrums under his skin, but he shoves it aside.

"would you let me look at the damage, please?" his tone is careful, soft, as his eyes land on her face again. he's no stranger to understanding the pain rippling through her. "and i --- i can take the pain. if you want. but only if you're okay with it."

in the grand scheme of things, no. doesn’t mean it hurts any less than it currently does, doesn’t mean it’s not an all consuming type of pain that, in the moment, feels like the most pain she’s ever been in. her hand trembles against her stomach - eyes going in and out of focus as ryoji speaks and she wants to say she doesn’t need the help but she can’t think straight when everything hurts this much so she relents, takes the hand still offered to her though she’s seated firmly on the ground with her bloodied one.

doing so reveals the wound on her stomach; stitches will fix it and she’ll look good as new. the carbon fiber armor did it’s job. when she risks a glance down, she can see it shimmering through her blood. it makes her queasy so she puts her head back against the wall and breathes deep through her nose- unaware of how hard she’s squeezing ryoji’s hand. “see? i’m fine. just a flesh wound.” she laughs, the sound a little more than desperate, and tries not to think about how pathetic she feels. “it’s.. thank you. for being in the right place at the right time.”

chaos of the fake serum remains an easy prediction. exactly what chaos, and how it will unfold --- that is where the wonder lies.

"so, how long do you think we have to wait until we see heads just --- " her lips press together hard, a sharp pop sounding as a hand extends to the crowd.

"i'm putting my bet in for a week."

that's saskia's conclusion anyways when it comes to delphine and her brothers. she's only met the oldest a handful of times which was more than enough for her to find he sets her teeth on edge; the other brother comes across as a narcissistic manchild.

and then there is delphine.

she's got years of experience on saskia, but she's also her subordinate in the kronos hierarchy. funny how that works.

"ugh, please- that's the last thing i want to think about when i'm having spaghetti for lunch." she makes a face. she spends more time than she cares to think about trying not to think about the consequences of someone making a bootleg of the serum. "i just want the nsa to do their job and get it off the streets before we start seeing it every other day."

a pause. "has cecil said anything to you about that? it feels like he's called his hounds off of us for the whole gala thing at the least after samael."

if they had more time, perhaps he would've thought to activate their mask. act as dolor rather than ryoji. but they're already wearing a regular cloth mask; besides, what did they say before? they tend to immediately act when they see a gun.

he launches at the suspect, slamming to the ground in a tangle of limbs. a hand darts toward the gun, and the suspect leans out of reach. but ryoji's fingers land on open skin, nails digging into the person's wrist.

the person is unconscious within seconds.

ryoji stands with a groan, their suppression taking a moment longer than desired. but they manage to easily snatch the gun and switch the safety on, removing the magazine as they turn to the victim.

"ms. sarkisian?" their brows shoot up, then furrow as their gaze drops to the hand at her midsection. "are you hurt?"

“i’m fine.” which is the opposite of true. in a sense. the armor beneath her skin is unblemished. what blood there is comes superficially from the tear in her skin. but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel like she just got shot. now that the shock of it is wearing off, the pissed off feeling turns into light-headedness and the pain becomes more real.

she stumbles back a step, reaching blindly for a wall to brace herself again and sliding down it until she’s sat on the ground, hand still pressed to the wound on her stomach and heart pounding in her ears. “i’m- i’m fine. i just.” she closes her eyesand swallows, trying to work past a sudden wave of nauseaand the clamminess she feels. “need to sit. that’s all.” 

odessa: people are not gonna shut up at work tomorrow too. like you know the answers any better than they do??

odessa: but it doesn’t look fake??? this is so fucked though

"Legally they're adults, but they're still kids. To cheat the background checks, they could not have done it alone. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, Ms. Sarkisian, but I think it's within our best interest to open investigation regardless."

she regards the nsa officer coolly. a pretty woman in a vibrant red dress on the arm of cecil royce who, notoriously, avoids societal functions if saskia remembers correctly, emerald savoya comes from her own wealthy family. something to keep in mind, to redirect the conversation if she needs to.. “you work for a government agency. surely the nsa has run into their fair share of people who lie and cheat to advance themselves. the same thing happened here and it’s unfortunate, ms savoya, but shouldn’t the real investigation be into how many nsa-sponsored heroes failed to save the senator?”

she can’t help but glance at saskia’s tablet as she passes by, but as valuable as whatever might be on her screen is, she doesn’t understand it. nothing clicks in her mind; it’s simply a string of indecipherable equations and confusing diagrams to her. what she does understand, however, is saskia’s distracted tone. she can work with this. “stuck on something? it is late,” queries suzu lightly with a touch of sympathy, tossing someone’s old take-out box into her cart. part of her wonders how much saskia will divulge to a stranger, even one that works in her building. “don’t remember the name, honestly. it was hard enough trying to remember where everything is. i swear, it’s a maze in here,” she replies sheepishly. she did see a carter on the list of employees, but better to play it safe. “you still ever get lost?”

but not even the strongest super alive can rival the power of the kronos pr machine.

saskia takes a sip of her tea and watches kairi clean, enjoying the warmth from the mug radiating through her palms. “every hall looks the exact the same as the others when you first start,” she agrees. “at least hospitals have colored lines guiding you.” colored lines would make kronos look less pristine. would make it look more inviting than it is. she watched plenty of talented individuals wash out of internships and jobs alike; there’s a certain ruthlessness you have to have to work for robert buchanan.

“you can scan your id on the touch pad next to the elevator and it’ll give you a map projection of the building. shadowed areas you won’t have access to, highlighted ones you can go. that fact saved my butt during my internship, actually. which feels like a lifetime ago if i’m being honest.” saskia glances over at jj’s work station before looking back to kairi. “in a way, it was. things were crazy different three years ago. you know?”

sharp gaze scans white walls and humming devices, the sterility unnerving. it’s nothing like the alleyways of novus, a haphazard collection of crooked buildings and flickering neon lights; everything here has its proper place. crisp, clear, cutting. “so, what exactly should i definitely not touch?” she asks, gloved hands resting on the janitorial cart. “the guy who showed me around was kind of lazy about showing me the ropes, said that’s why we have robots. but they’re not going to make sure all the corners are done, you know? automation only gets you so far, or something like that.”

saskia sits at one of the tables, taking advantage of her newfound company to give herself a much needed break. both her head and her eyes will thank her tomorrow. “don’t touch anything on the tables or counters. it’s really just the trash and the floors that need to be done.” taking a sip of her tea, her eyes fall to her tablet and she unlocks it - unable to keep herself from looking at her work. from puzzling over the things that don’t add up, that keep going wrong. “i won’t be in your way, will i? just let me know and i can move as you need me to.” there’s a distracted quality to her tone. her problems are staring her in the face but she can’t put her finger on where things go wrong.with a heavy sigh, she tears her gaze away. “was it carter who trained you? he’s such a waste.”

"ryoji." he links hands with hers for a steady handshake. "a pleasure, saskia. this is my lucky night to meet one of the actual masterminds behind tonight's surprise."

when they withdraw, they purse their lips. "i didn't put my foot in my mouth earlier, right? because that critique was a shot at your boss, not your team."

she shrugs a little. “what do you do?"

— s.r.m. @belovedbi