Warnings- Attempted angst?
Author's Note- This is heavily inspired by the song Run by Joji. So I'm back after not finishing the one-shot for like a year. I had part two ready, then I didn't like it, so here we are. I got lazy and proofread a small amount, so hopefully it's not terrible.
A few weeks of planning later, you executed it, using Mirage as an anchor to tip Blisk about adding you to the games. The games already had one disowned bounty hunter, but you weren't necessarily disowned; you openly walked away. Your skill sets would be entirely different from his, mainly because you wanted nothing to do with that Clan.
Coming up with something wouldn’t have been hard. Using random salvage found in dumpsters throughout Psamathe, you were able to make a disruptor that would activate through a pair of gloves with a snap of your fingers.
With a passive that highlights any enemy equipment on the battlefield, a tactical that makes you harder to see through recon or highlighted/ pingable abilities, and an ultimate that temporarily disables any equipment within a 30-meter range, you were set.
It started small; it had to be. Every match would fall into your hands as you tried to ruin his games.
Make him feel small and make him useless.
It didn’t take much to force third parties onto his squad or even take out a teammate or two to make his odds worse. It had to be slow; every move needed to count.
A mind game you had to learn over time. You were an ex-bounty hunter, so tracking people may have been easy, but this was a different ballgame.
Over the course of months, all his matches went nowhere. He barely scraped into the top ten. If his team even reached the top 5, he was usually just running and trying to respawn his teammates, but ultimately failing.
It didn’t take long for people to notice the pattern. You would split off from your team, then something went wrong for Sparrow. If you said you had a bright idea, it usually meant starting a third party and forcing more teams to focus on his squad.
As time went on, the anger only grew. Every time Enea had hope things would get better, they got worse.
Yet for some reason, that little part of your heart that fluttered when he asked to take you back kept you from becoming completely rotten.
One day, you were forced to sit out the games. Mirage had asked you to return for a night to bartend; he missed having someone run the bar so he could try and fail to impress the other legends.
That day gave Enea the opportunity to win. That was the only reason he found out you were the main reason his life was so terrible at the moment.
Newcastle tried talking to you on multiple occasions. As a father trying to do good, he suggested that talking to you might fix things. The weekend you were bartending at the party Mirage threw for Alter after she helped him win the game that week, and even in the training room when he knew you would probably be there, you were nowhere to be seen. You avoided him like the plague because he kept asking about you. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he may have caught on to what you were doing to Sparrow.
By the end, you had gotten fed up. You wanted to put an end to the suffering. It needed to end for both of you.
Out of all of the maps, this was the worst. The humidity on the tropical island made your skin feel icky. The illusion of bugs crawling on your skin made you itchy. Maybe it was the giant spiders that lived on the island that made you feel that way. None of that mattered, though. You were going to end it here, on this horrible island during this horrible game.
Only about five squads remained. You couldn’t name most of the teams, not that you were paying attention—just not caring enough. Only one team was on your mind.
Bangalore was leading their team's assault. Every push was coordinated by her. Sparrow was their recon, and Catalyst was their control. A weird group, but it was working well until the 4th ring.
You had split off from your teammates, Wraith and Mirage. They didn’t care, since Wraith could see something was going on with you. Every time Mirage tried to push and ask, Wraith pulled him away.
You hid in one of the huts over the hill next to The Mills. The ring barely ended at the edge of the POI, but with your hard-earned effort, you were able to force his team to push from Barometer toward you. You had hoped the whole team would push toward you, then leave, allowing Sparrow to loot for a second.
The whole match, you spent pushing them around, not allowing Sparrow to get loot and depleting their heals that they could find.
Bangalore and Catalyst just assumed that teams were chasing them and that third parties were forcing them to keep moving, but Sparrow knew. He wanted to talk to you again, clear the air, and rephrase what he meant that night at the bar.
Clearly it never happened, though; he was too caught up in the what-ifs to actually try with you. Would you be mad? Would you rekindle things?
Fate was on your side when Sparrow entered the hut closest to the destroyed IMC ship in the water. His teammates pushed toward the bigger building while he checked the small one, hoping for loot.
The door going upstairs was already open, a sign someone had been there, but maybe something could still be upstairs. He shot his tracking dart at the ceiling, anticipating that you were already there out of paranoia, something you had slowly drilled into him.
Sparrow knew you would get tired of playing games and, at some point, make a move. He just didn’t know when. The moment the dart landed into the ceiling, a small, barely audible snap could be heard, but he moved forward up the stairs and peeked over the small ledge, revealing the empty room.
A small sigh escaped Sparrow. He didn’t even notice he was holding his breath or that his heartbeat had picked up. Some cells sat on the ground next to some light ammo.
For someone so paranoid, you would’ve assumed he saw the black blur jump over the ledge through the corner of his eye the moment he rounded the corner.
Sparrow reached down to grab the cells, which were obviously placed in the middle of the room. In a split second, with his guard down, you dashed at him. You didn’t bother hiding your footsteps. Unlike when he shot his tracking dart into the ceiling, you had to time your snap at the exact moment it landed to blend in with the noise.
The first move you made was to go for a roundhouse kick, using the momentum from running at him to hopefully land hard enough on the ground. He had barely enough time to react, using his arm to try to block it. Missing by a few inches, your foot connected with his wrist. You could tell it was painful by the way his face contorted.
Now you’re moving against time itself. The ring would probably start closing soon, and it wouldn’t take long for spare teammates to notice. You had at most about a minute before one of the others ruined your plans. You dropped your leg and followed the direction your body went by pulling out your wingman and trying to use the butt of the mag to hit him in the face.
Your back was to him, putting you in a very vulnerable position as he caught your wrist to prevent you from hitting him.
"Amore Mio..." Sparrow tried to talk to you, but you released the wingman from your hand, crouching, trying to catch it with your other hand and pulling the trigger immediately.
Sparrow saw the opening you gave him by having your back to him, but he was hesitating, so he didn’t capitalize on it. He, however, did have enough time to react to use his knee to hit the wing man before you could catch it.
This was the clear sign that if he hesitated again, you were very much going to kill him. So this is where you both started going blow for blow. You both are doing a good job at countering each other and immediately following up with another punch or kick.
The heat was starting to get to you. Your sweat was making your suit stick uncomfortably to your skin. You tried everything in your power to gain the upper hand on him. Sparrow wasn’t hesitating anymore, but when he occasionally landed a hit, it still felt like he was holding back.
Somehow, you both ended up on the floor, and the first thing you did was grab the discarded wing man that he hit away from you. He saw what you were trying to reach for, and he kept pulling you back towards him. At first, your kicks were doing a decent job of keeping him back, but it wasn’t helping you get towards the wingman, so you allowed him to pull you completely towards him. You turned onto your back and kicked him with your other foot.
The amount of force had sent Sparrow backward, and by the next time he saw you, you were no longer on the ground with him, but standing a few feet away from him, pointing the wingman out of his face. He put his hand up as if he was trying to silently bargain with you.
This should’ve been the moment you pulled the trigger, but for some odd moment you didn’t. You just stared at him, both of you, panting in exhaustion as you were both fighting for your lives with different motives.
“Why….” You paused as you spoke. Like the words were struggling to form in your throat. He looked at you, puzzled, probably for two reasons. This was the first time you spoke to him in months, and you hadn’t shot him immediately.
“Why couldn’t you have chosen me?” It physically hurt you to say those words out loud. For the sole reason that it meant you had to admit you were still hurting.
Sparrow was quiet, putting his hand down and leaning back on his forearms. His expression softened from the stone-cold stare he was giving you a moment earlier.
“I was willing to give up everything for you. Gosh, I was slowly doing it anyway. But why couldn’t you do the same? Was I not enough?” Your voice cracked as you held back tears. “I guess listening to the elders still got you in the same position as me.”
The look on your face turned from resentful to regretful. Joining the games to get back at Enea was a terrible idea, 'cause now you're standing there, not even sure you can pull the trigger. Revenge started to make you feel crappy now that you had a clear opening. You lowered your wingman.
A small thunk sounded as an object hit the wall and exploded into smoke. It engulfed the room, but neither of you moved.
“Sparrow!” Bangalore called out to him
The last thing he saw was how hurt you looked before the smoke engulfed you both, but when the smoke finally cleared, you were gone.
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