━━ ❛ FORTUNE IS NOT ON THE SIDE OF THE FAINT-HEARTED
LUISA NAVARRO, ALIAS RICOCHET. enigma. metal-skinned, former second-in-command, retired superhero.
skeleton. character stats. pinterest. playlist.
( 𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗧 : 𝗀𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗅𝖾𝗌𝗈𝗎𝗋𝖼𝖾 )
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈: 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓
trigger warning: parental neglect, mentions of the foster care system, injury, violence, crime, blood, death.
* / i.
luisa ortiz entered the world as an afterthought, born to an unwed couple with no warmth in their hearts to extend to her. after being discarded on a curb, the foster system was the only destination willing to take her in. it was well-known within the system that many households would take in kids to cash in free meal tickets and bragging rights, only to send the child back the moment they were perceived as “rowdy” or “disobedient”. cold halls were thus often overrun by heartbroken children who looked just like her, all hoping for a soft place to land but rarely reaching the consideration of couples looking to adopt. too talkative, too clingy, too needy, she never made any of the cuts.
it was amidst that darkness that luisa found a home — not in the form of a roof over her head but in the form of a person. the decision to flee a place that would never feel like a home was easy enough. it was in that moment, long before becoming 1/7 of a team, that luisa ortiz became half of a whole.
for what felt like an eternity, ricochet and masquerade came as a matching set. they became accomplices and confidants to equal extents, partners in crime and mutual safety nets all at once. all recollection of a life alone became swiftly smothered and buried six feet under in the soil that would witness the bloom of a heart unfamiliar with abandonment.
over palms cut open and tightly intertwined, the two swore to remain by one another. familia ante omnia, as the whispers would chant, their blood flowing in the other’s veins. knowledge of luisa’s background before gorgon’s adoption would be a burden only for masquerade to bear, and the inverse in return. an oath — blood of my blood by choice, against all things.
* / ii.
luisa — doe-eyed and looking too defenseless to pass up — had never really imagined going into a ‘life’ of grifting (especially at such a young age), but she was good at it, and everyone knows that something you are good at ought never be done for free. dressed in mended hand-me-downs too large to fit even her frame, she would play dumb and helpless in front of tourists and strangers while another set of hands dug into their pockets to fish out their billfolds like the claw machine at an arcade. the angle was rarely the same; sometimes, she’d pretend to be a lost kid looking for her mother, or to be collecting donations to buy her non-existent baby brother a christmas present. if the spiel ever became too elaborate, you could tell masquerade and ricochet’s confidence had grown bold.
when their powers arose, it only made sense to turn them into part of the angle. they could parade around like show-ponies, steel skin shining under the scorching sun, and collect the money turned in by the mesmerized audience. they would crush cans in their hands and hear the crowd go “oooh” in awe, all distracted just enough for the other kid to get ahold of their valuables without any of them noticing.
there was always a twinge of guilt that nibbled at her at the end of the day. it pooled and choked her from the inside, that tar-black shame. who they would target was never a personal choice; none of them seemed people who deserved to be resented for having what the two of them lacked. to tell herself it was just so they could make it through another day never made it easier to digest. luisa loathed having to sort through the purses and wallets only to find pictures of the person’s children or partner tucked between the bills. she wondered about them, about their jobs and wedding vows and stories. when masquerade didn’t notice, luisa would hold onto these photographs, uttering a soft apology under her breath and a promise to become better than this one day. someday.
* / iii.
luisa likes to insist that she has always been a part of the enigma team, even before the enigmas came to be. the memories she has held onto all unfold in a rundown mansion of mismatched furniture, under the shadow of a strict silver-haired parent and surrounded by other kids plucked out from the shadows just like she had been.
ricochet was no stranger to gorgon at the time of their first introduction — well, at least not in the way many would anticipate. they had presented themselves to a few of masquerade and ricochet’s grifts, secluding themselves in the shadows yet observing every move. once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time’s a pattern, so by then, they knew to expect a move from gorgon’s side.
luisa, however, didn’t expect the kind of proposition gorgon and bloodhound placed on the table for the two kids. she had assumed they were undercover cops, or child welfare agents. additionally, it wasn’t so much of a proposition as it was them getting adopted into their growing team of superpowered children without much room to opt out. even then, no part of ricochet ever intended to opt out. the sight of the mansion and whispers of children with abilities like theirs enamored them. there was little holding them back: leave behind nothing, in exchange for the chance to find everything.
after the leap of faith (well, more like a surprisingly confident waltzing in), luisa entered every training session with high hopes and an unwavering smile. she learned to do atomic drops, iron claw slams and death valley drivers before she ever learned how to ride a bike. she perfected bending the barrel of a gun with her index and thumb like it was a paper straw over learning children’s hand games. over the years, her muscles grew experienced at taking in all kinds of hits. soreness and bruising became well-known sensations and jumping in front of a blade or a ballistic became second nature.
she had never reckoned she was being weaponized like every other mutant child in the ‘90s and ‘00s. the idea of dedicating her powers to a good cause at last — making up for and redressing every single evil deed she had perpetrated — always hung at the back of her mind. it was the vision driving every blow as the missions’ danger and the pain became old acquaintances.
there was a rhythm to be found in the crisis, a certain serenity to all the chaos. the navarro’s were not your average family, but that was never a bad thing. spectacle’s eccentricity, masquerade’s cunning, zephyr’s wit, fearmonger’s heart, silhouette’s idealism and warden’s cheer all came together to form the most harmonious puzzle ricochet had ever seen, and there was no qualms in her mind about why to be a part of it. simply put, everything — from the laughs to the blanket forts and even the pent-up resentment and exhaustion at the end of it — made sense. her role in the family made as much sense as the enigmas’ place in the world did.
so, no matter that she still bumped her head against door frames and ran into glass doors and tripped over her shoelaces, luisa would take every single hit in the name of every one of them. for as long as it would last her to be able to come out unharmed, she would take the punches and shots so neither of them had to.
because luisa ortiz was a no name kid; luisa ortiz was left behind. but luisa navarro was someone else, someone with a family and something to lose. she did things that mattered to others alongside a family who did not walk out on her. luisa ortiz was as good as dead, still waiting on that curb for someone who would never show up, but luisa navarro was more alive than ever.
best part was, luisa navarro was ricochet.
and ricochet? ricochet could be anything she ever wanted.
* / iv.
ricochet was never truly the same after warden’s death. she had long taken it for granted that there would be seven of them heading back home at the end of the day. for years, that was the case… and then, in a matter of seconds, it wasn’t.
the harshest part wasn’t simply that warden was the baby of the navarro family, and that they would never get to say goodbye; that he would never know how much he meant to her and to the family because luisa had been too awkward to explicitly tell him up until then; that he had a whole life ahead of him, snatched from him just like that. it wasn’t just that homura was a good person, and that he had done nothing to deserve such demise. it was that it could happen to any of their siblings, at any point. it wouldn’t matter how much they fought to clean up the streets if two evils sprouted every time they took out one. it had been her job, her responsibility to look after everyone and stand between the danger and them to make sure they made it home safe, and she had failed.
the loss of such a treasured member only pushed ricochet to exert herself more. with one less person on the team, she had to grow used to putting in more effort as means to compensate for his absence. they couldn’t break or falter in the face of everyone else, so in between every tactic and move she would take roll calls of all the enigmas inside her head. more than a paranoid coping mechanism, it was a vow — warden’s had been the first funeral, but if she could help it, it would also be the last.
because what is family, if not hearts bound by the same promise?
* / v.
there are various universal truths — the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, water as we know it is colorless and odorless, and luisa was always going to stay after the enigmas’ disbandment. to stay or not to stay was never a question that manifested in her mind, unlike it did for everyone else in the team. she never felt the urge to pack up and leave, though she was admittedly surprised that no one else felt any qualms before doing so.
repetition and routine proved to be good antidotes for a melancholic heart. even if it was just her, luisa continued to go on missions. gorgon wasn’t too dissatisfied with this at first. they facilitated all the outings, from finding their target to coordinating the whole hit. but years down the line, when crime dwindled and florence failed to find any more mutants to fill in the gaps left behind by the enigmas’ original roster, even gorgon stepped back. after pushing them out en masse and sucking them dry to keep crime at bay, the world had no use for mutants anymore.
without fully knowing how or why, luisa picked up construction work. it was straightforward and repetitive, enough to quiet down all the unspoken feelings that had pent up inside her head surrounding her time as an enigma. she was lucky, unlike the oculus members, that gorgon’s paranoia had kept their identities secret until now and that no one had managed to recognize in her normal skin. besides, none of the guys in her team minded too much that she could break up scaffolding and unload a full cart’s worth of cement sacks without breaking a sweat.
the best part of her day was to be greeted by nostalgia all over again. she would come back to the same address and be confronted by the same ghosts: the dents, the height measurement markings, the old masks and uniforms put away. in secret, luisa kept the house from falling into disarray whilst gorgon and bloodhound were away: she fixed up the pipes and seal the leaks, switched out the cabinets’ rotten wood, sometimes even change the bed sheets if she had a feeling one of her siblings (save for zephyr, bless their heart) would fortuitously come spend the night. unbeknownst to either caretaker, luisa even kept a police radio they had stolen as kids ages ago, which she tunes into every now and then to know where to make an appearance once situations have escalated too far. no one asked her to, but then again, no one had asked her to stay, and here she was.
whenever she gets to see any of her siblings — the rarest of occasions nowadays, rarer even than bank robberies and alien attacks — luisa always asks the same question: will you stick around a bit this time? she asks with a naivete unlike that of a child bred solely to bear their fists. she knows the answer, too, but all there’s to it is to rinse and repeat. this time less forcefully, this time more tenderly. each refusal after that is a dagger to the heart, but luisa always finds it in herself to ask again next time. slivers of hope have remained intact, not thanks to the protection of her steel exterior but to the hope of seeing her family come together again.
maybe this time next spring the answer might just change. maybe one of her siblings might just stay around once again — not for their teammate but for their sister; not for duty, but for her.
if you had asked her years ago, luisa would’ve said she knew how her story would end. much like her earliest memories, each thread in the narrative would feature a different sibling, and in the end, it would all come together into the tapestry she thinks it was always meant to be.
nowadays, she is not quite sure. the scar of that old blood oath tells her something different every time — she is luisa ortiz and luisa navarro, both left behind, both ghosts trapped in a lair somewhere, waiting for someone who might not show up.
but there is still ricochet. ricochet, the strong one; ricochet, the hero. as long as there is someone worth waiting for, she’ll do what she has always done, what she has always known to do: she’ll take the hit so one else does.
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐈: 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓
ricochet was found with masquerade. they’d met when they were very young and just recently abandoned by their caretakers. together they worked to survive despite not having a home or family. when gorgon adopted them ricochet was overjoyed to find a home and purpose. they finally got to the hero they’d always dreamed of being and they were eager to go out and prove themselves. even after the team disbanded and everyone else moved on with their lives, ricochet stayed at home base with gorgon and continued to go on smaller solo missions. they haven’t given up on the hero life.
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐈𝐈: 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄
* / a.
naturally, i would love to explore luisa’s relationship with her siblings, especially with zephyr, masquerade and warden since there is a lot of potential to get to navigate the underlying misunderstandings and tension. it’s a good opportunity to look at the forms of communication that the enigmas have internalized and learn to normalize, not many of which are healthy and have led to them bottling up their feelings. luisa has always perceived confrontation to be just equal fighting, and fighting was something they did together as a unit against a force of evil, so she has avoided questioning into the radio silence/weird attitudes on her siblings’ end out of the fear that it means she is intentionally stirring up intra-family confrontation. at this point, she is struggling to own up to her anger and sadness directed at her family as a byproduct of her experiences with abandonment, so i would love to get to write out how embracing such strong emotions whilst staring at her own insecurity right in the eyes could be the first step toward becoming more open with her siblings and clearing the air between them.
* / b.
i think luisa deserves the chance to go absolutely feral. she has internalized the role of the family protector so much, and it has been largely fueled by her age, her place within the family, and her superpower + the role (of the tank) that she was assigned as a result. for that, she feels like she cannot mess up nor let down her guard, that she cannot be weak nor feel any panic, that she has to sacrifice herself for each one of her siblings even if it means there is nothing left of her for herself (if that makes sense). she’s always the shield, and it raises this image of “you save everyone, but who saves you?”. while i think that would be interesting to explore in a moment where luisa is fully dependent on her siblings (which would help reassure her that not because they chose to walk out of a toxic household means they don’t love her), i think i would just really like to see whether she could just… let go of everything. let go of this sense of duty, of responsibility, and just allow herself a moment of full independence, full carelessness, full detachment from every expectation she has embedded into her self-perception. go crazy!!
* / c.
in line with plot b, i would love to have some room for a conversation between hollis and luisa. she idolizes hollis, but she has so much resentment, anger, bitterness, and anxiety that have all fanned into proper wildfires inside of her so much of which has to do with hollis’ upbringing and the expectations they placed on ricochet. i would be fascinated by the questions someone in luisa’s position would ask hollis if they could, everything from what did they see in young luisa that encouraged hollis to train them?, was hollis ever really proud of her?, did they ever fear that luisa would no longer be able to hold it together? really, having a heart-to-heart with your flawed parent from whom you couldn’t feel any further apart emotionally speaking could be somethin so personal cathartic sometimes.
* / d.
luisa desperately needs a moment that effectively cracks her black-and-white world view. i would love to see a moment where the team (or just her, lol) are presented with such an intricate, complicated dilemma that it is virtually impossible to cast judgment or pick a side easily - and this could easily and definitely involve the oculus team or even harold. she needs to realize that the world exists, rather, in shades of gray, and just because one might commit questionable actions does not mean they are an ipso facto villain in the same sense that just because someone might be committed to upholding the greater good does not make them a good person.
* / e.
last but certainly not least, i want her to befriend people from the oculus squad!!! i would love love love to see her interact with characters with similar values, temperaments and goals, such as blitzbang, bladebender, sew and trident! while she can easily overlook that they are on opposite teams if they otherwise share a well-meaning and benevolent outlook, i can imagine it’s easier said than done to break through the historically cemented rivalry. truly, luisa just wants to make friends with others, but not everyone might be so on board with the idea of rubbing shoulders with the enemy just because they pass the vibe check, yanno?
𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐗
PINTEREST BOARD
A GENERAL RIVALISHQ PLAYLIST
A RICOCHET PLAYLIST (VERY MUCH A MESS TBH)
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STATISTICS
smaller hcs:
will 100% let you call her ‘rico’
ABSOLUTELY DID THIS WITH MASQUERADE, where she was in steel mode and just threw them at the bad guys (or maybe as kids, to try mess with people)
hates smooth jazz with a burning passion
