Soft and Hurt

None of the agents answered either of you, and one of them waved a beeping box with an antenna in your direction. It seemed to beep more violently when pointed at Eddie than yourself. "This one's the object," he informed his superior, a woman designated as such by a badge that was much shinier than the others'. "But our intel said there were two of it."

"Hey!" You stood up as well, protesting your boyfriends being called an "it," collectively. "You creeps better get out of here."

"With all due respect," and you could hear the mentally added 'none,' "we don't answer to civilians or upholstery." The ranking agent snapped her fingers, and there were instantly two agents on either side of each of you. Your hands were forced behind your back, and years of being something of a doormat cowed any resistance as your wrists were cuffed.

Eddie, however, was being difficult, as he was with many things in life. He pulled away from the agents, swearing and reaching for something to use as a weapon, but with you securely held back by a singular agent a third one went to help corral him. "Hold still, damn it!" one of the agents snapped, grabbing something that nearly made your heart stop before you realized it was not a pistol.

You thought oh, it's just a stun gun, he should be fine before remembering that Eddie was now an entire human and not simply the metaphysical personification of electricity.

Two of the agents held Eddie still, wrestling to get him under control, and the third jabbed the stun gun into his ribcage and pulled the trigger. Eddie seized up with a cry, all limb control lost long enough for his wrists to get cuffed behind his back. "Eddie!" you cried out, struggling to pull away from your agent. However, with Eddie now rendered unsteady and gasping, the ranking agent snapped her fingers again.

"Get them in the van. We need to move before more of them show up."

---

Inside the van was dark, and made darker by the thick blindfolds that were tied over your and Eddie's eyes once you were thrown onto the scratchy carpeted floor. You tried to inch closer to him, but it seemed like someone was going to do the job for you and pushed him up against you. "Packages secured," someone said. "En route to base. We need to lure in the other half of the object, though."

Staticky words came in from some speaker, but you ignored them. "Eddie?" you whispered, tilting your head til you made contact with his chest. "They get you bad?"

"That--sucked." His voice was tight, and this close you felt his quickened heartbeat. "Don't tell me that's what it feels like for you when--"

You couldn't even stifle your giggle. Leave it to him to try and make you feel better. "Okay, clearly you're fine if you can make stupid jokes. But what do you think they want with us?" With you, you didn't say, because the Department of Overseas Violence had always had plans for using dateable objects towards... overseas violence. You were just human collateral.

Eddie grunted, and you heard the clinking of his handcuffs. "Dunno. Probably not lookin' for my wit and charm, since I don't have either." He sighed and tried his best to tuck you under his chin, and you leaned into him. "Shit, live wire, I'm sorry. I'm real lousy at protecting you."

You felt someone shuffle closer to you, and then felt something snap softly over your ears, and then noticed a total absence of sound--only a startling rumble as the van started to move. "H-hey," you said, and you could barely hear your own voice. Only the vibrations from your chest and throat reassured you that you had actually spoken. "What did--what's this for?" You had to fight not to raise your voice, and you struggled to try and sit up, rubbing the headphones on your shoulder instinctively to try and remove them. One half slid off, giving you just enough time to hear Eddie.

"You bastards--take these off, amp, fucking--" His voice hitched and caught, and you heard something that was probably a booted foot colliding with Eddie's stomach, and then someone adjusted your headphones and all sound was gone again.

You shuffled forward on your knees until they collided with Eddie's trembling, curled body, and then you laid yourself across his form as gently as you could, feeling his shudders and sobs. You didn't know Eddie was prone to panic attacks, or that he didn't like noise canceling headphones, or--or whatever was hurting your boy. It didn't matter; you had to be the one to protect him now.

Eddie's shakes eventually subsided, but every now and then, you felt his body heave or jerk, or felt him press up against you for comfort. After far too many hours, the van came to a stop for several minutes, and you held your breath in anticipation as the faint light that pierced your blindfold changed. Heavy hands grabbed hold of you, and you yelped and squirmed in defiance as you were dragged away from Eddie and slung across someone's broad shoulder.

You would have liked it if the air outside the van was fresh, but it smelled smoggy and chemical, and you wrinkled your nose. Factories? Power plants? You tried to think what the nearest one of those would be to suburban Coolsville, but you were quickly moving, and the acrid air changed to an all-too-familiar corporate staleness, the faint light becoming cooler. Movement, and rumbles from the chest of whoever was carrying you, and then you were dropped onto an uncomfortable couch. After a few more seconds, Eddie's familiar weight came down next to you, and he immediately leaned into you. He was shaking again.

You hunched over him, protective, and waited in the dark and silence.

It was another few minutes before the headphones came off, and you could hear the buzzing of fluorescents and the distant hum of an HVAC. The blindfold was next, and you gasped and squeezed your eyes shut tight after the half-second of interior light nearly blinded you. "Eddie? Eddie, baby, are you okay?" you said, trying futilely to reach your cuffed hands out to him.

"He's fine," a cold voice said, and you winced and made yourself look just to be sure. After a second of blurriness, you noted that Eddie was still blinded and deafened, and you saw a growing bruise on his cheekbone, and you were also very proud to see blood crusted near his mouth.

"He bit someone, didn't he?" you said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. The touch startled him, but he didn't hesitate in leaning closer, a slight smirk on his lips. "That's our lightning bug."

"Yes, and the agent he bit has to get vaccinated for everything now, because we don't know what conditions that thing can communicate." You glared upwards and saw the ranking agent standing before you in her sharp black suit. "I'm surprised you let it wander loose in your home."

"He's not an it," you said, bristling. "He's an entire god-damned human like me and you. And you'd better take us back home in one piece before our friends come after us."

Because, oh, they would, and you hoped they would, because it would be amazing to see Kristof doing violence on these agents as revenge for hurting Eddie. You also hoped they would show up before he got hurt any worse.

The agent sniffed. "I don't foresee that happening. And if your 'friends' are more things like this one, we'll be ready to collect them for study." She leaned forward. "You will call me Agent Marva. I am willing to allow you certain concessions during your stay with us, as long as you cooperate. For a start, you're probably starving."

Your stomach growled, and you realized it was probably long past lunch time.

"I thought so. I will have some food and water brought in and your cuffs will be removed. We need some time to prepare for the interrogations."

"I don't want your shitty food," you did not say, because you were in fact starving and you knew Eddie was as well. Plus, if your cuffs came off, you could hold him and help him calm down. Help you calm down. "Fine," you said instead, watching Agent Marva turn and leave, the door shutting and locking behind her.

You exhaled shakily and adjusted yourself, letting Eddie fall into your lap as you took in the room. It was very greige, and looked like a corporate break room. The couch was old and faded, and there were no windows. There was a single plastic table and a chair that you knew just by looking wobbled when someone sat in it. The lights would probably give you a headache after too long. It reminded you of the five thousand rooms you'd had interviews in before Valdivian hired you.

If this used to be a Valdivian building, you were going to either laugh or cry or both.

After a few minutes, another agent entered the room. He placed two wrapped protein bars and two plastic water bottles on the couch, and motioned for you to move forward. You didn't like disturbing Eddie, but your arms were killing you, and you wanted to take care of your boy, so you scooched and turned until your cuffed wrists were available. The agent leaned in and unlocked them and pulled them away with him before turning to leave.

"Wait--what about his cuffs?" you asked, realizing that Eddie was still bound.

"Fucker bit my partner," the agent said, stone-faced, as he looked back. "He can stay like that."

The door was shut, and you heard it lock, and you quickly pulled the headphones and blindfold off Eddie.

"Fuck," Eddie gasped, turning his face into your lap and shuddering heavily. "Fuck, amp, never, never again. Fuck."

You shushed him gently, running your hand through his sweat-soaked hair and scratching his scalp. "It's okay, baby, I'm here. If they try that again I'll do the biting."

The noise he made was more a wheeze than a laugh, but you got the intent behind it. You just sat for a few minutes, petting his hair and holding him close while he managed to wring a few more sobs out. When he finally moved like he wanted to sit, you helped him, and you wiped under his red and puffy eyes with your thumb. "We better eat," you said, reaching over to grab the protein bars.

"Don't feel like it," he muttered, but he let you feed him one of the bars and help him drink one of the bottles of water. The bar tasted terrible, and the water was room temperature, but it would keep you both going for now.

Eddie seemed to doze off soon after eating, slumping down and sliding down into your lap again. You tangled your fingers with his, and saw how bruised and red his wrists were, realized how much he must have been struggling the whole time. "Poor lightning bug," you murmured, and he grunted softly in a half-aware response.

When the door unlocked and opened a short time later, you grew tense and pulled Eddie closer in your lap, as if you could protect him from the two burly agents who entered one after another, followed by Agent Marva. "Put the object in room one," she instructed, and one agent stepped forward and pulled Eddie from your grip, carrying him out into the hall beyond as he came slowly awake again. "Room five for this one."

You seethed as your wrists were cuffed behind you, but at least the brute let you walk as he lead you down the hall. You leaned around him and saw Eddie disappear through a door, and you dearly wanted to try and kick that door down as you passed it, but a meaty hand on your bicep reminded you that would be a bad idea.

Room five was two doors down, and you were lead inside what looked to be a cop show interrogation room, with a table and one chair on either side. You were seated in one, and the agent leading you sat in the other. After a moment of shuffling papers, he squinted at the top one and seemed to remember to turn on the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, making you grimace. "Okay," he said. "I'm Agent Harris. Now, we don't wanna hurt you, but we gotta ask you some questions about the object."

"His name is Eddie," you said, before he could add on to the pile of dehumanizing remarks your boy had already gotten today.

"Uh-huh..." Agent Harris retrieved a ballpoint pen from his front pocket and scribbled something on the top sheet of paper. "What, uh, what kind of object is it? He? It?"

You weren't proud that your first instinct was to blurt "Your mom." Fortunately, Agent Harris seemed too confused and upset by your answer to retaliate. He sputtered over a few more questions, but the angry blush rising in your cheeks seemed to intimidate him, and he quickly decided that the interview was concluded and escorted you back to the break room.

The room was empty, and Agent Harris just scooted you in before shutting and locking the door behind you. You kicked the wall in frustration, mentally apologized to Wallace, and sat down on the uncomfortable couch. There was nothing you could do but wait, especially with your hands still cuffed behind you. God, you wished you'd gotten Bobby to teach you some tricks before they left with I, Ronaldini. You also wished that in that scenario you wore bobby pins. What were bobby pins actually for, again?

With nothing to distract you, and not wanting to let your thoughts linger on what Eddie's interrogation could be like, you let your mind wander. You wondered if the couch you were sitting on and berating was just doing their best. They probably were, and you started to feel bad. Couches were meant to be comfortable; it wasn't their fault when they got old and their cushions got lumpy and out of shape. You wondered if this was another instance of Koa, but decided after eyeing the burlap-like fabric and lack of pattern that no, this was not another Koa.

Damn, you missed your couch. And Koa.

You wondered if you'd had your Dateviators that if you spaced out and stared at the wall for long enough you could summon Doug. You decided that even if you could, Doug wouldn't be helpful.

You sighed dramatically and tried hard not to think about your actual circumstances.

You were trying to remember some of Barry's skincare tips when the door opened, and you jerked your head over to watch as Eddie was thrown into the room. "Eddie!" you gasped, dropping off the couch as the agent who had delivered him rolled him closer to you with his boot. "Baby, you okay? Were they--"

Eddie's eyes were unfocused, and he had to blink several times when he noticed you. Blood trickled down his face from a gash on his forehead, and there were fresh bruises on his jaw and at his throat. "I didn't know electricity could get concussions," came Agent Marva's voice, and you grew tense and hunched protectively over Eddie. If you looked up at her you felt like you would blow a gasket. "Or that it needs to breathe. Very, very interesting."

"I'm gonna kick your ass," you growled. Marva simply hmphed again.

"You. Babysit them."

"What? Why me?"

"Because you let a 'your mom' joke get to you you, you fucking baby." There was a grunt, footsteps, and the door slamming. You looked up and saw Agent Harris, who was giving you an uneasy look, clutching a laptop to his chest.

"Touch us and I'll bite your finger off," you warned, and Agent Harris just nodded quickly and turned away to set up the laptop.

It took some work, and Eddie was too dizzy to stand, but you both managed to sit propped up against the couch. His breathing was ragged, and he couldn't keep his eyes open for very long even when he managed to focus them for longer than a few seconds. "Live wire," he mumbled, tucking his head into the crook of your neck. "This sucks."

"I know, baby," you murmured, wishing so badly you could just hold him close. Concussion, Agent Marva had said. You tried to remember what you'd learned about them with Farya while helping her study. Could an ice pack help? You bet you could bully Agent Harris into bringing you an ice pack, but you also didn't think there would be any way to actually keep it on Eddie's head. The most important thing was to rest, you remembered.

Well, if anyone tried to disturb Eddie's rest until you got out of here, there would be biting.

At least Agent Harris did not seem to be a very attentive babysitter. He left the laptop open with what looked like security camera feeds, when you craned your neck to look at the screen. You also heard the sounds of Candy Crash from the phone in his hands, which he focused intently on instead of the security feeds. You hoped he was getting demolished by Stella and wasting his government paycheck on extra lives and powerups.

It was impossible to tell time in here without a clock, but after a short while you felt Eddie's breathing slow and felt him settle against you more thoroughly as he drifted to sleep. You didn't dare to move, so you just tried to distract yourself with your terrible view of the laptop screen. Definitely looked like an industrial park, if that was an outside camera. So you must be in some sort of administrative building. At least it didn't seem to be that far from Coolsville.

There was a flicker on the screen that you, at first, thought was one of the exterior lights coming on. But it was moving, and pulsing, and when it got close enough that you saw the shape of it, you shouted, "Oh shit!"

Eddie jerked awake, tense, and instinctively curled up closer to you with an agonized whine. "What the hell is that?" Agent Harris asked, looking between you and the bolt of electricity zipping closer and closer to the exterior camera, before something bright struck the screen and the feed cut out. You couldn't help it; you grinned.

"Our boy's coming," you said to Eddie, and this time the sound he made was more a laugh than a wheeze.

You watched the screens eagerly, while Agent Harris started to sweat. Volt tore through the halls, and you saw others following in his wake, cleaning up any agents who tried to chase him. The flash of silver--that had to be Jon Wick, and yes, that could only be Kristof throwing a guy like a javelin. The sounds of violence echoed down the hall and crept under the gap in the break room door, and you saw Agent Harris decide this was not worth whatever he was getting paid and he opened the door and tried to run. A mass of blue rage rammed him out of sight, and you spotted Bobby creeping up behind the carnage, a wince on their face before they realized you were in the room. "Oh shit!"

"Hey, Bobby," you said, wiggling one shoulder in a wave. "You wanna help us out here?"

"Uh, yeah! Uh--VOLT!" They turned and shouted down the hall after him. "Volt, they're in here!" They turned back and jogged over to kneel down at your side. "You guys look like shit."

"More than usual, you mean?" Eddie managed to say, earning a snort of laughter. When Bobby undid his cuffs, he brought his arms around with a groan, eyes screwed shut. You massaged his shoulders gently, and you looked up when the whole blue brightness of Volt stood in the doorway.

"Eddie?" he breathed, his voice startlingly soft and shaky. "Live wire?" He took a couple cautious steps. You'd never seen him like this, even before Realization, and you were shocked that he was capable of this as a human. His hair crackled like it had before, sparks firing off at random, and his skin was the pure bright blue of a bolt of lightning. His shoulders shook, and he looked like he wanted to touch you more than anything in the world.

"Come down here," you said, beckoning, and he obediently dropped to his knees a foot away. He reached out, but hesitated. "Volt, it's okay, we're safe."

"I-I can't," he said, pulling his hand back and looking down as his skin threw off more sparks. "I'll hurt you, I'll hurt Eddie, I can't stop it--"

You shook your head and reached out, grabbing his hand. Volt cried out in fright, but all you felt was a little tingle, kind of like when your leg falls asleep after you've been watching TV too long. "See? See, it's fine. You can't hurt your live wire."

Volt whimpered, and he leaned forward, gathering the both of you into his arms. The simmering storm was calming, his skin returning to its pale tone, his hair settling down. "I was so scared," he said, burying his face between yours and Eddie's shoulders. "When I got home and the door was broken, and you were gone, I feared the worst, I wasn't there to protect you, I--"

"Shh." This came from Eddie, who reached a wobbly hand up to rub Volt's back. "Hey. No spiraling. Head hurts too much to deal with that right now."

There was a wretched half-sob half-laugh, and then both your shoulders were getting soaked with tears.

---

Bobby stood guard at the doorway as the three of you calmed each other down. It took time for things outside to calm down enough, but when Jon Wick came to fetch you all, cleaning some blood off his candlestick, you were all eager to get out of there.

Eddie could hardly walk, and Volt was all too eager to carry him bridal-style. You thought he would have carried you too, if he had two more arms, but you were steady enough to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Volt and keep a hand held in one of Eddie's.

You passed by Kristof emerging from a room with a pile of limp, but groaning and alive, agents, and he looked at Eddie's bruised face with stern approval. "I see Jonathan and I are not the only ones partaking on this glorious evening," he said.

"He bit someone," you supply, and the viking cracked into a grin and cracked his knuckles.

"It is a dirty tactic, normally, but I approve of this violence in this moment."

Out in the parking lot, you added Farya and Dorian to your cadre of rescuers. While Dorian seemed to be directing a small squadron of ValdiviCorps staff to secure the premises, Farya hopped out of the back of a ValdiviAmbulance and ran over to meet you. Volt was reluctant to let Eddie out of his arms, but he did relent and ease him onto a stretcher so Farya could examine him. You sat out of the way with Volt, rubbing circles on his back as his shoulders trembled with nerves.

"I don't think he'll need the hospital," Farya announced after coming back to you two. "Head injuries sure bleed a lot, though, so just keep that plaster on. Get him to take some Flylenol when you get home and make sure he doesn't strain himself."

"Of course," you said, because Volt still seemed a little bit beyond words. "...Do we get to ride home in that?" You pointed at the ValdiviAmbulance.

"Obviously!" Farya beamed, then remembered the severity of the situation. "But we won't run the siren, because it'll make Eddie's head hurt."

Through the combination of not being blindfolded, and of having access to a clock, you timed the ride back home to be just under three hours. It felt like longer, on the way to the building where you were held, and you shuddered to think of Eddie terrified and blinded and deafened for that long. Exhausted as he was by his ordeal, Eddie wasn't exactly keen on falling asleep in the back of an ambulance, and so the three of you arranged yourselves as comfortably as possible. You and Volt sat on the cushioned bench, and Eddie curled up as much as he could across both of your laps.

It was dark by the time you got home, and Farya made sure to escort you all inside and give you a printout of how to care for Eddie's concussion. You were all dead-tired by this point, and changing into pajamas was out of the question, at least for now. Hell, going upstairs would have been out of the question too, but nobody really felt like collapsing on the floor.

"Mmph," you mmphed, once the three of you were in a pile on your bed. "My boys."

"My sparks," Volt murmured. He had insisted on making himself the middle of the sandwich tonight, Eddie curled up on his left and you nestled up against his right.

"My head's killing me," Eddie added, helpfully.

Volt turned and looked at you, mustering some exceptionally sad puppy eyes that you suspected he didn't need to put any extra effort into. "Okayyyy," you whined, theatrically, rolling out of bed. The sooner you got Eddie some painkillers, the sooner you could go back to being Outer Spoon.

You shuffled around, bringing the water glass from the bathroom and helping Eddie take two Flylenol tablets. You knew he should really eat something substantial with them, but fuck, you were all so tired, so you just reached into the dresser drawer where you hide your favorite candy and made him eat a few pieces. You pretended that you didn't grab any for Volt until he pouted.