#tswtnc

[1] during a meeting 

“—can see the Foxtrot maneuver has only been 72% successful in mission combat, so we are strongly recommending one of two options…”

megan lets out a long breath through her nose as she goes back to ignoring the man talking at them from the head of the table. he’s wearing an ill-fitting suit. every time he gestures, the sleeves of his coat ride up past his wrists and his shirt is becoming more untucked with every emphatic motion. 

they’re going over mission combat for what feels like the hundredth time in one week. even sophia is staring dully at the agent at the front of the conference room, looking like she would rather be anywhere else.

megan glances over at dani, who’s doing a slightly better job of pretending to be invested. she has her chin propped on one hand, blinking slowly. the other is tracing shapes aimlessly into the tabletop. 

the only people who look like they’re really listening are lara and manon. lara scribbles notes onto a pad of paper, tilting it for manon to look at every now and then. sometimes lara does take real notes for manon to read when manon needs a break from her hearing aides, but megan knows that’s not what’s going on right now. she’s pretty sure she can see a game of hangman sketched on the notepad, and yeah, manon is definitely fingerspelling words to lara under the table. 

megan turns to yoonchae beside her. 

she’s watching the presentation dutifully, but her eyes keep slipping shut, head dipping forward before she catches herself and jolts back upright. reddened indentations dot the back of her hand where she keeps pinching herself to stay awake. she’d come to hybe straight from school, where they’ve been subject to back-to-back meetings for the past few hours.

if it were anyone else, megan thinks, she might ignore it. she might turn back to the meeting and keep pretending to pay attention. 

but it’s not anyone else. it’s yoonchae. 

megan reaches towards the middle of the table where a small stack of notepads and a mug of pens are sitting, and grabs one of each. the agent at the front of the room seems too engaged in describing a slide full of numbers to notice. 

yoonchae’s head dips forward again, and megan slides a hand on top of yoonchae’s before she can pinch at it again. beneath her palm, yoonchae’s skin is hot. megan’s willing to bet there will be bruises blooming on her hand in a few hours. 

“stop,” she murmurs, taking her hand back to uncap the pen. it’s cheap and hybe-issued, but she scribbles on the notepad a few times until the ink runs smoothly. she presses the uncapped pen into yoonchae’s hand and lays her own on the table between them, palm down. 

the thing is, she could just give yoonchae the notepad to draw on. she knows this. she also knows that sometimes, when yoonchae writes, she presses the pen too hard into the paper and the tip snaps off, bleeding ink all over her work. it’s a lot harder to regulate super strength after a day of public school and hours of pointless all-hands meetings.

yoonchae wouldn’t dream of pressing a pen into megan’s skin that forcefully. and, as a bonus, megan gets to look down later at spiraling lines of ink that will make her smile. 

“we’re particularly concerned about this next one…”

yoonchae’s nose wrinkles as she peers over megan’s shoulder. she looks so distressed that megan glances over too. at the bottom of the screen, she catches the fading preview of how many slides into the presentation they are. 23/57.

“yikes,” she whispers, widening her eyes at yoonchae. 

“too many,” yoonchae grumbles, slumping back into her seat. it’s as careless as megan’s ever seen her be during a meeting—normally she at least tries to sit upright and pretend to be paying attention. 

“here, c’mon.” megan taps her fingers against the table. “draw me something.”

she can feel eyes on the side of her head and she turns to face front again, hoping yoonchae will listen to her without any further convincing. 

it takes two more slides before she feels the pen press gently into her skin, dragging a line slowly up towards her wrist. she focuses on the feeling instead of the monotonous drone of the presentation, watching yoonchae out of the corner of her eye. 

hair brushes against her wrist as yoonchae leans in closer, focused on whatever she’s inking into megan’s hand and forearm.

sophia turns to look back at them, eyes narrowing like she’s about to scold them to pay attention, but she seems to catch something that stops her. 

megan waits. yoonchae hasn’t noticed. she continues drawing on megan’s hand with the kind of single-minded focus she usually only gets on missions. 

“is something interesting over there?” 

an hour of presentation and megan still hasn’t learned this guy’s name. she thinks it might start with an s.

summers? smith? socenzki?

“nothing, agent sanford,” sophia replies smoothly. 

yoonchae hasn’t even looked up. megan isn’t sure if that means she hasn’t noticed what’s going on or she just doesn’t care. 

sanford turns back to his slideshow after a long, awkward pause. sophia nods at megan once, curt, but it still makes her feel a lot like she’s just earned something. 

she chances another glance down at her hand. yoonchae has shifted, revealing a roughly outlined tree making its way partway up megan’s arm. all around it, hangul megan doesn’t know how to read curls around itself in twisting patterns. 

later, she’ll ask yoonchae what it all means, and yoonchae will shrug and say like, a thank you. with more colors. 

[2] as a reminder 

“megan,” yoonchae hums, sticking a hand out between them. 

for a long moment, megan isn’t sure what’s being asked of her. there’s nothing within her reach that yoonchae could be asking for—unless yoonchae wants her to hand over the chair she’s standing next to, but that doesn’t make any sense. eventually, she just puts her own hand into yoonchae’s, making an apologetic face. 

“yes,” yoonchae says, nodding, like she’d heard megan’s entire internal struggle loud and clear inside her own head. “thank you.”

megan pulls a face, unsure if yoonchae can even see the look she’s giving her behind the sunglasses. she’s almost tempted to take them off so yoonchae can see her bewilderment in full force when yoonchae tugs megan’s glove off and drops it onto the table next to them. 

“hey,” she protests. “i need that.”

they’re twenty minutes out from a mission, holed up awkwardly in a meeting room because hybe messed up their briefing schedule and now they’re suited up before they even know what they’re walking into. yoonchae has her mask on already—she won’t risk taking it off on the lower levels of 

“you can have it back when i’m done,” yoonchae replies.

megan can’t see what’s going on behind her mask, but she’s pretty sure she can imagine it. annoyance, probably. maybe an eye roll. she still doesn’t pull her hand back, curious about where yoonchae could possibly be going with this. 

“pull.”

“sorry?” 

“pull.”

yoonchae is brandishing a pen at her, cap-first, clearly unwilling to let go of megan’s hand to do it herself

“bossy,” megan grumbles, but she obeys despite herself, using her free hand to pull the cap off. 

yoonchae gets to work immediately, pulling megan’s hand closer to scribble something across the back of her hand. 

“that’s gonna get smudged. i have to put my glove back on.”

“no,” yoonchae shakes her head. “let it dry.”

over megan’s shoulder, someone snorts. she glances down at her hand. it reads: bring poster for history class to school tomorrow. 

“why couldn’t you have written this on yourself?”

she’s pitching her voice to sound exasperated, but she’s willing to bet yoonchae knows full well that she isn’t. 

“no gloves,” yoonchae shrugs. which is true—her suit doesn’t have removable gloves like megan’s does. it’s mostly one piece, which is probably why she’s wearing a hoodie over it right now.

“a piece of paper wouldn’t have worked?”

“now you won’t forget either.”

“yeah, megan,” lara drawls, draping an arm across her shoulders. she’s still in a normal shirt and leggings. unlike the rest of them, she can suit up in about fifteen seconds flat. “you won’t forget either.”

yoonchae huffs, tossing the pen back onto the table.

“no teasing before a mission.”

the door swings open and a woman in a suit rushes through, shuffling papers. she doesn’t say anything, but lara lets megan go to find a seat anyway, and yoonchae follows suit. megan hurries to slip her glove back on before she sits too, and she’s careful not to let the fabric smudge the ink. 

[3] after an injury

they won’t let her go home. 

she stares into sophia’s foggy mirror instead of her own, watching her reflection carefully. by all accounts, everything is in order. her reflection blinks when she blinks. when she brings a hand up to scratch her nose, her reflection does the same. her wrist is still sore, tender where the bones had come apart from each other and kept going. 

megan’s not a stranger to limb loss. if anything, she’s well-acquainted with it. but she doesn’t think she’ll ever get more used to watching it happen. or feeling it. or healing from it. it’s sickening every time—her stomach coiling tight as she tries to breathe through her nose and keep her eyes on anything except where her flesh is trying to mold itself back together. sophia had been there today, palms hot on megan’s cheeks as she murmured over the noise of the others still fighting. 

eyes on me. you’re okay, meg. 

it had been comforting in the moment, but megan’s pretty sure she’s not exactly okay, even though it’s been hours since they’d gotten back from the mission and now she’s freshly showered. her hand is working just fine, apart from the soreness. missy had assured her someone would have her suit fixed by the next morning. 

everything’s fine and not okay either, because megan keeps catching herself taking shallower and shallower breaths. 

she blinks at herself in the mirror and tries to take in a full breath. it works, sort of. the air is too warm and thick with moisture to feel refreshing.

a knock at the door startles her away from herself. out of the corner of her eye, she can see pink strands swinging as she turns to look at the door, unable to bring herself to answer.

“megan?” sophia’s voice is warm through the wood, and megan thinks she’d open the door and fall into it if she wasn’t still dripping from her shower. “you okay? it’s been a little while.”

she can feel her throat working around a response. at her side, her wrist twinges painfully. she tries to wiggle her fingers and hopes they’re moving. she can’t get herself to look down to make sure. 

“yeah,” she manages after one too many seconds. “just drying off.”

sophia is quiet for a moment, but megan can feel her presence on the other side of the door. she steps forward, leaning to rest her forehead against it, closing her eyes. 

“okay. do you need any help?” 

megan shakes her head against the door. it makes a strange ssh-ing sound and she wonders if sophia can hear it, if she knows how close megan is to flinging the door open and begging sophia to tell her she’s still real. the steam from her shower makes the whole room feel dreamlike. 

“no,” she says, realizing sophia can’t actually see her. “i’m good.”

“i’m going to check on you again if you aren’t out soon,” sophia warns gently. “dinner’s ready whenever you are.”

“okay.”

megan feels sophia leave more than she hears it. her blood is rushing too loudly in her ears for her to pay attention to what she knows should be the sound of socks on the floor and golden jewelry clinking softly. 

she dresses quickly, avoiding the mirror. her hand fumbles awkwardly over the waistband of her pants, the zipper of the hoodie sophia must’ve taken from yoonchae’s closet. she clenches it into a fist to watch the blood drain out of her knuckles and back in again as she relaxes. her breathing is coming too quickly again. 

outside of the bathroom, the air is cooler. it’s easier to breathe it in and let it out slow. she takes a few calculated breaths on the way to the kitchen. she’s expecting sophia—hoping for sophia, really—but she finds yoonchae instead, bent over a packet of homework at the table. her own plate of food is half-eaten beside her, discarded in favor of what looks like calculus. 

“having fun?” megan tries to joke, hovering at the threshold of the room. she doesn’t see another plate and wonders if sophia meant dinner was ready for, like, everyone but her. 

“sophia left you a plate in the microwave,” yoonchae informs her without looking up. she’s using a blue pen, like always. 

sure enough, there’s a full plate waiting in the microwave, which has a little sticky-note attached to the front. 

back soon. enjoy :) 

“she had to go help dani with something,” yoonchae says as megan slides into the chair next to her. 

megan hums, poking her fork into the mound of rice and chicken taking up a third of her plate. she thinks it might just be meal prep, but sophia clearly cooked the accompanying vegetables fresh, and the rumbling in her stomach surprises her a little. usually, her stomach doesn’t settle for so long after missions where she really has to use her powers that she doesn’t end up eating until the next morning. 

she knows that makes it worse. it hurts more when her body doesn’t have enough energy to complete the healing process in full. but the memory of her hand pulling away from her wrist like that would usually be enough to—

“hey,” yoonchae nudges her. “can you help me?”

megan nods before she’s even sure what yoonchae is asking for help with, trying to focus on the feeling of their shoulders pressing together. she watches the tip of yoonchae’s pen as it moves across the tiny strings of letters and numbers. it’s faintly familiar, what yoonchae’s describing. move the variable, plug in a different formula, divide. 

she leans closer, bringing a hand up to point at the spot in yoonchae’s equation where she’s gone wrong. her fingers are a little clumsy, and she huffs. yoonchae must notice, but she doesn’t say anything. she shifts her hand over a few inches like she means to grab onto megan’s and pauses again, pressing the tips of her fingers into the table.

“well, anyway,” megan says, “you’re doing it right. you just mixed up the numbers here.”

yoonchae scribbles out the messed up equation and slowly writes out a new one. she glances up briefly to check herself, and megan folds her clumsy fingers into a thumbs up. 

“thanks,” yoonchae murmurs. “it’s good tonight.” 

“what?”

“sophia’s cooking.”

“oh.” megan looks back at her untouched plate. “it usually is.”

she knows what yoonchae’s trying to say is eat something. she leaves her left hand splayed awkwardly on the table where she can see it as she takes a few small bites. she’s a little afraid it might disappear if she’s not looking at it. she keeps having to check to make sure it’s still there. the soreness in her wrist will probably move down into her hand overnight and she’ll be able to feel it again, even if it hurts. but for now, her hand just feels weird and tingly.

she’s a quarter-way through her food when yoonchae sighs, dropping her pen to the table. 

“you done?”

“yes,” yoonchae hums. “finally.”

she shuffles her papers around, putting them back into her folder and the folder back into the backpack at her feet. she leaves the pen on the table, and when she sits back up again, she reaches for it determinedly. 

“i need to practice writing the formulas,” she tells megan seriously. “i don’t have any paper.”

she has a backpack full of paper right next to her. 

“here,” megan sighs, shifting her left hand a little closer. “you can’t do it on your own hand. your teacher will think you’re cheating.”

yoonchae’s hands are warm. she keeps one wrapped loosely around megan’s wrist as she begins to write careful calculus into her skin, lining the equations up with tendons and veins. 

the press of the pen is duller than it would normally but it’s grounding anyway. the tightness in megan’s stomach loosens just a little and she takes a few more bites, pretending not to watch the concentrated furrow in yoonchae’s brow. 

by the time sophia gets back, megan’s hand is mostly blue and her plate is mostly empty. yoonchae had given up on the equations at some point, choosing instead to trace intricate spiraling patterns in and around the numbers, curving them up towards megan’s wrist. megan’s head is resting against the back of yoonchae’s chair, cheek so close to her shoulder that her shirt brushes megan’s cheek every time she breathes in. megan isn’t sure when that happened either. 

sophia takes in the scene silently, humming as she takes their plates. megan hears one go clanking into the dishwasher and the other get covered in foil to go into the fridge. sophia will make yoonchae finish her dinner eventually, but not now. not while megan is still gathering up the courage to let her cheek tip fully onto yoonchae’s shoulder as she watches her reline some of the blue patterns that got smudged. 

her wrist is still sore, but it’s less. she takes in a big breath and smells something woodsy tinged with lilac. 

“the food was good, mei?” sophia asks after a while. her hand comes down gently on the back of megan’s head, stroking over her hair. 

“mhm,” she replies, eyes slipping shut. she feels the pen over her knuckles, hones in on the feeling. yoonchae’s other hand is still holding onto her forearm, just above her wrist to make room for new spirals. her thumb moves back and forth over megan’s skin, absent-minded. 

megan’s cheek meets something warm and the long breath that leaves her is mostly involuntary. she’s tired. she reattached her hand to her body today and kept fighting right afterwards. sophia’s hand keeps moving over her hair, and the pen is still inking new lines into the skin that she’s pretty sure is real now, and she’s really not sure how much longer she can stay awake. 

sophia’s voice is just hazy, distant background noise when it comes again. 

[+1] one time she doesn’t

the thing about being a superhero is that almost dying happens a lot. the thing about being deadpool is that actually dying happens a lot. 

megan thinks she should be much better at dying than she is. she still wakes up gasping every time, reaching for something to ground her. more and more often it’s been people. it used to be her weapons, the ground, her own knees. now, her hands find sophia’s shoulders, lara’s wrists, yoonchae’s face. 

“fuck,” she breathes, choking on the air. around her—around them, because dani is crouched at her side—the others are still fighting. it’s not often that she dies and comes back to the battle being over. 

“you good?” dani asks, hands careful at megan’s wrist, fingers pressing into her pulse point. 

“i’m back,” megan replies. she’s dodging the question, maybe. she’s not entirely sure how it happened this time. she remembers falling, someone screaming. “was it bad?”

“i didn’t see it.” apologetic, dani lets go of her wrist and squeezes her shoulder once. “you ready for more?”

“always,” megan says. what she means is never, but she lets dani pull her to her feet again anyway. 

the rest of the fight is a dusty, sweaty haze. they win, or something. the giant lizard-thing ends up limp in the middle of the street, oozing a deep purple gunk onto the pavement. megan can already hear bystanders muttering about the cleanup. she can’t find it in herself to care. she’s still kind of unsteady on her feet, dehydrated and still sore from healing. 

something slams into her side and she’s reaching for her holsters instinctively before she registers the red and blue spandex. she can feel the raised lines of yoonchae’s suit through the fabric of her gloves, and she just barely manages to stay on her feet, hugging the other girl tight around the shoulders. 

“woah,” she murmurs, cautious of the small crowd forming nearby. over their comms, lara’s voice crackles. she’s talking about extraction and prepare yourselves. “are you hurt?”

yoonchae shakes her head against megan’s shoulder. megan can feel her heartbeat hammering against her own chest, even through her thin armor. 

“are you—”

“incoming,” lara says over the comms, and megan barely manages to contain a yelp as she feels her feet leave the ground. she tightens her grip on yoonchae. needless, really, because the hold around her waist is iron-clad. 

“you couldn’t have warned us?” she hollers. 

“i did.” 

she’s expecting a jab about their position, hugging in the streets next to a huge lizard monster carcass, but lara doesn’t say anything else as she flies them into the bay of the quinjet, dropping them both to the floor a little unceremoniously before zipping back out again. sophia and manon are already there, and sophia grabs both of them by the elbows to steady them. 

yoonchae still hasn’t let go of megan, but she seems mildly embarrassed about it now, clinging only by her hand around megan’s belt. 

“go sit,” sophia instructs. “we’re leaving once lara gets dani.”

“but the cleanup—” megan tries to protest.

“hybe is sending a crew. go sit.”

normally, they try to stick around to help pick up the rubble that usually follows their bigger battles. dani’s getting really good at giving people instructions on how to file insurance claims for their damaged cars and ruined apartment windows. 

megan lets yoonchae drag her over to a pair of seats and leans forward the second she’s sitting down, tugging her mask up and off her face to examine her better. 

“are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

yoonchae nods and holds both arms straight out in front of her for megan to inspect. there’s barely even a tear in her suit. the only thing megan can see that could possibly hint at an injury is the shattered left eyeplate in yoonchae’s mask. behind it, yoonchae’s eye is glossy, blinking too fast. 

“yoonchae, what—”

the bay door thunks shut. the sound of whistling wind quiets and is replaced by the hum of the quinjet’s engines, low and even. 

lara and a windswept dani are meeting sophia, all three talking in hushed tones that make megan want to creep over there and eavesdrop. manon doesn’t move away from the controls, but she glances back, first at the other three, then at the pair of them. she catches megan looking and lifts an eyebrow. 

megan looks away hurriedly, embarrassed for reasons she can’t name. her eyes find yoonchae again, concern reigniting in her stomach. 

“you fell so far.” 

yoonchae’s voice is flat, but megan recognizes it as the same cadence she adapts when their trainer yells at them one too many times. 

“well, yeah, but i’m bouncy,” megan tries to joke. “i’m really fine.”

“i couldn’t—” yoonchae waves her hands between them, vague and frustrated. “why didn’t you yell?”

megan wishes she had a better answer than i don’t know. she can’t remember exactly what happened. it’s the first she’s hearing that a fall had been involved.

“i figured i’d be fine,” is what she ends up going with. 

yoonchae’s fingers curl around the armrests of her seat. she doesn’t say anything for the rest of the trip back to hybe, and megan doesn’t either, too wary of shattering yoonchae’s eerie, fragile calm. she doesn’t get up to leave, despite how badly she wants to. her own hands are still shaking and she needs to find a corner to curl up in for a little, just until she stops feeling so brittle. but she stays put the whole time, and doesn’t say a word about how yoonchae has hooked her ankle around megan’s, so she probably couldn’t get very far even if she tried. 

when they get to hybe, she loses yoonchae almost immediately. she’s being rushed towards the medbay before she really even knows what’s happening, and she’d be far more inclined to complain if sophia wasn’t at her side, snapping at the nurse that comes in too quickly with the needle for megan’s blood draw. 

they do this almost every time megan dies on a mission. what they’re trying to figure out, she’s not entirely sure. she’ll get a general physical too, sure, but she’s pretty sure all the data they take isn’t strictly for her own benefit. 

“none of that today,” sophia says, putting herself between megan and the nurse. 

she’s sitting on a raised table covered in crinkly paper. she’s not sure when that happened. she figures her brain won’t stop being fuzzy until she gets some water and a nap, but neither of those things seem to be top priority at the moment. 

“ma’am, if you’ll just step aside—”

“i said no.”

sophia is sparky when she’s angry. it used to scare megan. now she’s just glad to have it in front of her. the last thing she wants right now is a needle in her arm. all she wants is—

“water, mei.”

“what?”

sophia is pushing a little paper cup into her hands, full of what’s probably sink water. her eyes are wide and worried. the nurse with the needle is gone. megan blinks, looking cautiously around the room like he might pop out from behind the trash can or the blood pressure monitor.

“drink. you’re losing time. this should help, right?”

she can’t remember if she’s ever told sophia about how loopy time gets after a really bad one. a really bad death, that is. 

she takes the water and drinks. she feels it all the way down. 

“can i have—”

“more, yeah. i got it.”

sophia stays through the whole thing, ignoring son’s voice over the comms asking her to come to the debrief. 

“they have it handled,” she assures megan, threading a hand into her hair. 

megan lets her eyes slip shut at the feeling and doesn’t open them again until she’s moving. 

she’s upright, buckled into a seat. this happens more now than it used to—her waking up in places she didn’t fall asleep in. it’s getting less and less scary. 

beside her, yoonchae is slumped in her own seat, asleep. or pretending to be. her hands are still curled into white-knuckled fists. either way, megan doesn’t try to bother her. in front of her, sophia is scribbling onto a stack of papers in her lap. lara is driving, and she meets megan’s eyes in the rearview mirror briefly.

“morning, sunshine,” she says, sounding too relieved for it to be biting. “how are you feeling?”

“hungry.” megan surprises herself with her own answer, even more surprised when it makes lara laugh lightly. 

“we’ve got food at home,” she replies, and megan doesn’t bother trying to argue that she’s not going home. 

she thinks she can probably take being made to stay in the compound for one night, especially after the day they’ve all had.

dinner is quiet, but dani and manon show up unexpectedly, and megan finds herself surprised yet again when manon comes to hug her before yoonchae. 

“took that fall like a champ,” she tells her softly, rubbing a hand at the top of megan’s head. 

she’s getting the picture that it must have been a really really bad one for everyone to be acting like this. dani doesn’t say anything, but she slips into the seat beside megan after getting her plate from sophia and lets their elbows as she cuts into her food. 

across the table, yoonchae pokes disinterestedly at her plate. she has her mask on—a new one, with intact eyeplates—and it’s pulled up only as far as her nose so that she can bring food up to her mouth. manon looks at lara with a quizzical expression. the one she gets in response says i know it’s weird but we’re pretending it’s not. 

sophia starts up a quiet, mostly meaningless conversation. megan doesn’t really participate, letting the sound of cutlery and voices slur together until it’s just a peaceful background hum. she’d cleared her plate within minutes of sitting down, body desperate for something to help it finish knitting itself back together. everything aches dully, but dani’s elbow bumping into her own keeps megan from feeling too disconnected from herself. 

she feels her head slump forward without really deciding to let that happen, and someone’s hands close around her shoulders, steadying her. she lets herself lean into them, trusting, and is falling helplessly into sleep for the second time that evening. 

this time, it’s hours before she wakes again. 

when she does, it’s dark and still. she’s in someone’s bed and it’s not her own. her senses get there before she does—lilac and sandalwood, weighted blanket draped over her knees. yoonchae’s room. 

her eyes adjust slowly, honing onto the nightlight in the far corner of the room casting a dim glow. she sits up carefully, testing herself. her body is tender, but not aching. relieved she lets herself fall back down against the pillows. 

yoonchae is curled away from her atop the covers, still in her day clothes, still in her mask. for a long few moments, megan isn’t entirely sure she’s even asleep. 

she becomes sure of the fact that yoonchae is asleep at the same time she becomes sure of that fact that yoonchae is having a nightmare. mostly, unless it’s really bad, yoonchae dreams quietly. megan’s learned to read the muscles in her shoulders and the pattern of her breathing for these sorts of things. 

she reaches out before she can overthink it, flattening her palm between yoonchae’s shoulder blades. 

“yoonchae,” she whispers, feeling the muscles under her hand tense. “yoonchae, hey.”

a tiny subdued flinch. yoonchae breathes out hard through her nose. a fighting kind of dream, maybe. megan pushes a little harder, scooting closer so she can use her other hand to start easing yoonchae’s mask off her face. she thinks of lara just hours earlier: it’s weird and we’re not talking about it. 

she’d be upset if someone took her sunglasses off without asking, but probably less so if she was dreaming and it was yoonchae that woke her up. she tries not to linger on that too much as she repeats yoonchae’s name, louder. it makes yoonchae flinch even harder, and megan abandons the mask in favor of gripping yoonchae’s shoulders to shake.

“yoonchae!” 

the way yoonchae comes awake reminds megan a lot of the way she comes back from dying. gasping, hands reaching out. yoonchae’s head snaps up off the pillow in a way that looks painful, and the hand not curled around megan’s arm scrabbles at her mask. 

“it’s okay,” megan tries, helping yoonchae guide the mask fully off her face. “you’re at home. with us.” 

she’s assuming yoonchae’s dream had something to do with hydra. it usually does. 

but yoonchae doesn’t seem comforted by the words. she glanced around the room, half-frantic, before her eyes settle on megan again, chest heaving. 

“you fell,” she finally manages. 

and oh, maybe she hadn’t been dreaming about hydra. megan suddenly feels shy, ducking yoonchae’s piercing gaze. 

“i fell,” she agrees. 

“and you—you’re here.” 

“yeah,” megan whispers. she stares at their hands. yoonchae’s are shaking. “i’m here.” 

it doesn’t seem to help much. there’s something, maybe something lingering from yoonchae’s dream that’s keeping her from being able to calm down. her breathing keeps coming in awkward, stuttering waves and megan realizes belatedly that she’s crying. 

“hey…hey…” she wishes she could think of something better to say, but she’s always been better with doing. she reaches over yoonchae to the bedside table, scrabbling for the pen she knows yoonchae keeps there. this is familiar. this is something they can both do with their hands. “here, yoonchae.” 

yoonchae takes it and accepts the hand megan pushes at her, but her own hands are still trembling too badly to keep the pen steady. it skitters awkwardly over megan’s knuckles and a low, upset sound escapes from her lips. 

“megan.” 

when she looks up, she’s met with the same expression she caught the corner of behind yoonchae’s broken mask earlier that day. she tries to think about dying from someone else’s perspective. what it must feel like for yoonchae to watch her come back to life over and over again, never really being sure if it’ll work this time. 

she thinks of yoonchae’s arms around her waist, uncharacteristically unyielding. the mask at dinner, her stonier-than-usual silence. 

“yeah,” she murmurs, taking the pen back, tossing it in the vague direction of the bedside table. “okay.” 

she opens her arms instead and is only partially surprised, for once, to get an armful of superhero in response. she tucks her chin down against yoonchae’s shoulder, letting out a shuddering breath of her own as it hits her anew that she just as easily might not have come back from her fall like she did. yoonchae’s hands move over her back, fingers tracing the ridges in megan’s spine like she’s making sure all the pieces are still there. 

sophia would tell them to talk. she would want them to explain the things making them shake, so that the next time it happens they can figure it out a whole lot quicker. 

but megan isn’t sophia, and now that yoonchae’s crying has slowed into sniffling, she doesn’t want to risk starting it back up again by saying something like how does it feel to you watch me die every other day? would it make it better or worse for you to know how much it hurts me too?

“i’m right here,” she says instead softly, because yoonchae keeps readjusting her grip on her shirt like she’ll disappear at any moment. 

“you get so tired,” yoonchae says into megan’s shoulder instead of anything about her dream, casual like she isn’t still teary over it. “when it happens. you should be sleeping.”

megan thinks about sophia’s hands in her hair and how nice it feels, and slowly puts one hand through yoonchae’s.

“let’s go back to sleep then,” she suggests carefully. she can feel yoonchae stiffening against her at her words. 

“no, i—”

“let’s just try.” 

it’s partially for herself. she really is still so tired. and she knows yoonchae will keep feeling worse about having woken her up the longer they stay awake. 

she shifts, twisting to lay back against the pillows, bringing a mostly pliant yoonchae down with her. 

her eyes flutter shut of their own accord the moment she’s horizontal again, and she feels yoonchae shifting against her. something pointy digs into the center of megan’s chest and she forces her eyes back open to see yoonchae looking at her with her chin propped on her chest. 

“ow,” she mutters sleepily, not really meaning it. 

yoonchae mumbles an apology and tips her cheek down again megan’s chest instead. a memory resurfaces as megan’s eyes slide shut again, and she puts her hand thorough yoonchae’s hair again as she tries to sort it into something speakable. 

“you can listen to my heart,” she says finally. “and you’ll know i’m here.” 

“i can hear it from over there,” yoonchae replies after a beat, maybe looking at the side of the bed she’s abandoned. 

sometimes megan forgets about the super senses thing. she wonders if her hand in yoonchae’s hair is too much and she pauses. 

“you can go back over there if you want,” she offers, suddenly anxious. she manages to get her eyes to open again, wanting to get the point across. “if you don’t want to be here.” 

yoonchae shifts a little closer, pressing her cheek harder into megan’s chest. she shrugs once, faux-casual. her hands aren’t really shaking anymore, and she’s definitely stopped crying, so megan decides a win is a win. she hums and wonders how that sounds with super senses. her hand in yoonchae’s hair starts moving again, even though she knows she’s about five seconds from falling asleep. 

“sorry about your pen,” she breathes on the last legs of her consciousness. “i’ll find it in the morning.”