Echoes of the Void

talk about a boring day of work turning completely extraordinary & outright batshit insane. on one hand, she can't complain since this served as a perfect opportunity to show herself at very best, but on other ... ? well, it was pretty scary to explore the unknown, sci-fi looking hallways which contained secrets no mortal civilian would find in their regular day. never in her wildest dreams would've robin imagined the chain of events which happened only in few hours, no matter how 'wild' her own imagination could turn. here she thought decrypting russian codes would be the most illegal action she'd commit, yet here she is - exploring the mysterious looking lab with none other than so-called "the king", steve, whose panic went unnoticed.

light blue eyes rolled with obvious irritation before slapping the man's shoulder in attempt to snap him out of it. ❛ yeah, no shit, dingus! i didn't know we weren't supposed to be in a super secret lab, where shady fuckers did some shadier experiments! ❜ speaking with sarcasm everybody knew robin for, she pauses to sigh lowly. ❛ h-how do we get the hell out of here, anyway?! we were just meant to find another stupid job, man, not look even more into these freaky monsters! ❜ she looks at steve with skepticism in her eyes. ❛ you got anything in that pea brain of yours?! unless you just wanna go for the good ole' 'take them out guns blazing' style, then we're totally screwed! ❜ god, how does she always get stuck in these with this man?!

well, at the very least, she couldn't deny it was comforting to have the one person whom she could be herself with ... not without a single fear of being judged.

God his life was a mess.

When Steve tended to panic he panicked with his whole body; he was having a hard time figuring out what was going on with Robin but he knew that he was broadcasting his feelings and emotions. Maybe she was more surprised where as he was panicking because every time something unusual happened it typically turned into a life or death scenario for him… Not that he could (or would) tell anyone about the shit he had seen if they weren’t already there.

But he had a bad feeling about all of this.

Rolling his eyes at her preferred sarcasm the young man let his eyes wander towards her, “As much as I would love to go in Guns blazing, I don’t think anyone knows we’re here and I’m not exactly jumping at the chance to get tortured and drugged again, so what do you say we retrace our steps?”

“You say that like you think you can take me,” she offers, trying to be playful with her words so it doesn't inevitably continue this fight right now. When push comes to shove, he'll always protect Nancy first, and there's a significant part of her that's actually counting on that. She knows that everyone else will be safe with him, which gives her the exact leeway to do what she needs to do to save Max. If she can count on anything right now, it's Steve's desire to be by Nancy's side.

Actually, that last thought gives her pause because she knows that she should be thinking about Nancy too. They're finally friends again the way things almost used to be and she's what? Plotting to get herself killed so that Vecna's gaze leaves Max alone? It's insane to her, actually, that their lives have led them to this moment, but Max is Ally's entire world right now. She doesn't know when that happened, but the best thing to come out of meeting her and Billy was undoubtedly Max. The two have understood each other since their first conversation, and with all this guilt Ally harbors inside of her about how horribly she dropped the ball to save Max the pain of losing her brother, she just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel right now. If she fails this, then three people she loved will be lost, and all three feel entirely on her.

“So...do you have some plan I should be privy to when we get there?” Ally asks as she gets into the car with him, pretending she's done thinking about all of this for now.

Damn it.

Then she offers what can only be described as an olive branch and his lips curve into something resembling a smile because there is something charming about her words and her attempt to cheer him up even if he should be the one trying to cheer her up- that was what he brought to this group isn’t it? He was the one people relied on.

He couldn’t let himself start slipping.

“Oh I have no doubt that I can’t take you. But I’m rather scrappy.” The young man’s expression curved into a smile, looking over at her- wondering what she was thinking. Sometimes Ally was hard to read, sometimes he was rather stupid.

“But I’ll save Max. I made a promise..” Years ago now, but that was beside the point. He snorted when she asked if he had a plan, “I never have a plan. Henderson probably will though, smartest pain in my ass I think I’ve ever met.”

"That's okay." It's been a long time since someone's offered him something like that, and in a way it's refreshing to know someone who hasn't been bogged down in monsters and horror for decades. Grace, of course, has known horror- that situation with Gideon was probably still fresh in her mind, but she still had time to leave it all behind if she wanted.

nervous gulp was followed by the quivering grunt as grace's knees press tighter against her chest & arms wrap around her legs - clearly assuming the protective position which has been a longtime, terrible habit of hers for as long as she remembered. the symbol of hope, her damned ass! what kind of 'hope' kept ruining everything she touched, even the people she was supposed to protect with her life?! emily's morphing still ran fresh in the hopeless' girl's mind, which made her gulp. she tries pushing those away, oh so hard, in order to focus on the elder, much more experienced veteran before her. if she was going to push on without anymore regrets, at least she ought focus on the one who was also brimmed with same feelings.

❛ n-n-....no, i-i-i can't just sleep while you're h-hurt! ❜ she responds through stammers, forcing deep breaths past in & out her lungs - how the hell was anything attached to her being, was her biggest question - then exhaled softly, in poor attempt to calm down. ❛ y-you... did too much for me, s-so i'm not just gonna leave you! please, i ... can't fuck this up, too. ❜ no more regrets. no more guilt. no more fear holding grace down. ❛ i'll stay up with you, okay? that's, um - it's least i can do, e-especially after everything that happened .... ❜

Truthfully it hurt like a son of a bitch, but he wasn’t about to admit weakness in front of Grace- the kid was strong, but he wasn’t exactly looking to push that to the test. His eyes glanced over at her, he could tell that everything was starting to get to her; he knewthat feeling well, there were so many times in Raccoon city where he thought he was going to lose it. To this day he didn’t know where he’d gotten the strength to keep going- although that wasn’t true was it, he’d had Claire and (unbeknown to him at the time) Sherry counting on him, just as he’d been counting on them.

Seemed like somethings might never change.

“There’s nothing you can do about-” But she kept going, and god in some ways she reminded him so much of his younger self, the idealist who had just wanted to help people- what had happened to him? Sometimes he thought he might not still be that person, that his line of work had finally succeeded in taking that away from him too.

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