Physical contact has never been a good thing for Athena, especially not if it came from men. Right now was not a time she was expecting it to be initiated– and maybe it had something to do with the fact that she truly believed her life meant nothing to the other vault hunters. Maybe Jack would care if she died, but that’s only because she’s a great fighter and she gets things done exactly the way he wants them to be done. That’s the way it’s always been for her– people care about her and want her around as long as she continues being useful. If that goes away, she has no doubt every single one of them would have tossed her to the curb like a stray dog. She was born and raised to fight and kill, after all. What other use could she have?
After being away from the vault hunters for three days now, she hadn’t prepared herself to be hugged. The Lost Legion had gotten the upper-hand on her and before she knew it, she had been knocked unconscious and ended up waking up tied up to a chair and with guns pointed at her. They had plans of interrogating her, but they never expected her to be able to free herself– even with her hands and feet bound to the chair. Really, the chair ended up being her shield and her sword during that moment. She ended up with a bullet shot on her thigh and one on her shoulder, but compared to those guys… well, she got the easy end here. Her entire body tenses up and she almost groans out in pain once Wilhelm wraps his arms around her much-smaller body. It takes her a few seconds to fully process what’s going on, but once she does, she lifts one of her arms and lightly pats his lower back in return. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t flustered and confused at his excited reaction to seeing her again.
“Um… hello to you too, Wilhelm.”
Having one part of the team missing in action for any set of days was always a worrying thing for the Elpis crew-- Jack wasn’t one for sending the misfits on solo missions [if not only for his more intimate dirty-work, just ask Wilhelm]. Athena’s disappearance, although short-lived, really tugged on the cyborg’s fear receptors; it took more than one drink with Nisha and much-more-than-gentle persuasion to convince him to stay on the station.
She can handle herself, he repeated to himself in chained mantras. While that was true, he couldn’t help but ponder the morbid thought of one lucky opponent catching her off-guard and totally taking over the situation--
The burn of alcohol would wash that all back. Eventually.
So seeing her back on the station not much further after? It spurred more than delight deep in his chest. Some sort of impulse had driven him to go right on up and scoop the Gladiator into his arms for a quick-but-sweet hug.
The thought was quick-- an instinct, if one was brave enough to call it. There had always been some sort of reverence for Athena herself and her safety bubbling in his gut. Now that he knows she’s safe--
“---------urhm--” He breaks the embrace almost too quickly after a few seconds, feeling like he just totally tripped on some unwanted stairs here. Trying to shrug off how he probably just spooked her, the internal scorning begins, changing the subject.
“---You alright?” he almost whispers, large hands cupped lightly over her shoulders as scanning eyes looked her over. Definitely some wounds left unspoken for the moment, noticing them right away. Concern. CONCERN.
