#although I did try to design her as close to canon-compliant as possible in both personality and looks

[rockturbot]

apologies is this comes off as weird but I'd literally die for mvk and his wife. your take on her is so good and excellent and wonderful and AAAAA I find myself looking at her like SHE! QUEEN! so invested into those two

Not weird at all. I'm very glad you like her, and them together!! I think about them all the time honestly. <3

[inawickedlittletown]

Walking The Wire (89/?)

Summary: Tony Stark always knew about Peter Parker. He didn’t know that Peter was going to get superpowers and become Spider-Man, but he always knew about Peter because Peter was his son.

This will span from pre-Iron Man up through the rest of the MCU (eventually including Infinity War) and will be for the most part canon compliant except where I’ve taken some liberties and interpreted canon a certain way.

Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Tony/Steve (endgame), Tony/Mary (past)

A/N: If you want me to tag you when I post new chapters let me know. This fic is also on AO3

I used Collider’s MCU timeline to stay canon and the title of this fic is an Imagine Dragons song that is just so fitting for Peter and Tony

Masterpost

Chapter Eighty Eight

They watched Back To The Future when they got back to the den complete with bowls of popcorn and Tony had even gotten out a couple of blankets for them which just built up how cozy, comfortable, and easy the night had to be.

Peter had watched the first movie only once before with Ben and May and it was a good one. He liked that it was something he had already watched -- something entertaining that he didn’t have to necessarily put all of his attention on. His mind just kept drifting back to being under all that concrete and how in that moment he had wanted Tony -- he had wanted his dad -- because somehow he always just seemed to be there to help him and save him and make things better and he just hadn’t disappointed.

It made him just a tad embarrased now, to think on how he had been yelling and how easily he’d slipped into calling Tony dad in those moments. He sort of -- he wanted to keep doing it.

“You’re thinking kind of loudly over there,” Tony said.

Peter sighed and turned to look at him. Tony hadn’t even pulled out his phone or tablet like Peter had expected him to because Tony nearly always needed to be doing something with his hands. Instead, he was actually watching the movie.

“I’m -- I called you dad,” Peter said.

“You did,” Tony said. “I don’t mind.”

“Oh,” Peter said and he smiled a little. “I think -- maybe I’d--”

“You can call me whatever you want, Pete,” Tony said and he reached over and squeezed his wrist.

Peter was warmed by the easy way that Tony just breezed past the awkwardness that Peter felt and just made everything seem okay. Made it seem normal.

“I’ve never had a real dad,” Peter whispered. “Ben was always just Ben and I don’t really remember Richard all that well but you’re -- you’re really my dad. You know?”

“I know,” Tony said and smiled at him. His eyes looked maybe a tad misty, but Peter couldn’t really tell and then they both turned back to the movie.

Peter fell asleep a few minutes into the second Back To The Future which made it easier to just watch him and not the movie as Tony had been doing. Eventually, he turned it off and shifted Peter into a better position on the couch and hoped that he’d stay comfortable. He fixed the blanket over him and then just lingered and watched him. He looked even younger while he slept.

Tony wasn’t tired. And even if he was, he just knew that sleep wasn’t going to come easily. Instead, he went and reviewed everything that the FBI agents from earlier had left after they finished their inspection. He was sure Pepper had taken care of all of it already, but he just wanted to see what they had left behind. Then, he grabbed a tablet and sat down and got to work on some designs for SI. Every once in awhile he looked up and found himself just staring at Peter. His bruises had faded and his hair had dried floppily on his head.

It was a while later, when Tony got up to get a drink that he heard Peter scream. He rushed back. Peter had pushed away his blanket and it pooled on the ground next to him. Peter whimpered and gasped and his head went from side to side. He almost rolled off the sofa, but Tony pushed him back on it and he dropped to his knees next to Peter and shook him gently.

“Peter, Peter, wake up.”

He shook him a little again. Peter’s forehead creased and he groaned and then he woke up slowly, eyes looking everywhere in confusion but wide and with just a tinge of fear in them.

“You’re okay,” Tony said and he placed a hand on each side of his face to keep him from moving too much. “You’re okay.”

“A building fell on me,” Peter said. His voice was soft and a little breathy.

Tony nodded.

“You came for me.”

“I did.”

His breathing slowed down and then Peter just wrapped his arms around Tony’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he said.

“We’ve been over this already, kiddo,” Tony said.

“No. For -- for being here now,” Peter said as he pulled away, moving so that Tony could sit next to him. “Can we just keep watching the movie?”

“Sure, kid.”

Peter scooted close to Tony as Tony put the movie back on and then after a few minutes, Peter leaned his head on Tony’s arm. Tony lifted his arm and wrapped it around Peter’s shoulders and he could tell that they both needed this. Peter let out a sigh and moved closer and Tony couldn’t help but smile.

“Three more days,” Sam announced.

They were in Wakanda and this time, Steve had brought everyone with him. Sam more than any of the others seemed amazed by the place. He just didn’t seem to be able to believe that a place like Wakanda could exist in their world. Natasha as always kept her reaction low key and invited herself to train with the Dora Milaje as soon as she could. She and Okoye hit it off. Nevertheless, they were all excited to be heading home.

Wanda for her part just kept to herself -- quiet and reserved possibly because she knew that she was responsible for the deaths of some Wakandians even if it hadn’t been intentional.

Their trip to Wakanda had become necessary once the UN decided that they could go back to the states. But before they could do so they had to sign The New Accords. T’Challa had offered Wakanda for the signing and Steve had been grateful because he knew that once the papers were signed they would go to a hearing in New York City and their punishments would be doled out. They all knew that it was going to be house arrest -- they just didn’t know what the length of their punishment would be. Going to Wakanda to sign gave Steve the option of seeing Bucky before they went back. Another goodbye because it really seemed like they were destined to be torn apart. Maybe that would change in the future.

Bucky’s whole situation was one that Tony and T’Challa didn’t want to bring up yet. There was too much that he had done as The Winter Soldier and too much to risk by trying to get him cleared of his charges just yet. Tony hadn’t said it -- but he was still a little bit sore about his parents too and it was certainly a factor in him not trying harder. Steve didn’t resent him for it. Bucky was happier in Wakanda irregardless and Steve didn’t know if Bucky would even want to leave a place where he’d finally found some peace. He loved the people and he loved his hut and just everything about his daily life in Wakanda. There wasn’t a fight for him to engage in and he could just learn to become himself. Steve could tell how well he was doing there.

“I know,” Steve said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Tony really did it. It’s been barely four months,” Sam said. “Not that I’ve been counting or anything.”

They were all a bit shocked at how well everything had gone. It was just crazy because normally things didn’t work out in this manner quick and without anything going wrong. It almost made Steve suspicious except that Tony was behind it all and he could trust Tony. Steve had been expecting to stay on the run for the next year at least and somehow that just wasn’t the case. It wasn’t going to be amazing to be stuck at the tower for however long the US government and the UN felt that he might need to be, but he’d be with Tony. He’d be home and that would be enough. Not that any of it would actually matter if there was a real threat.

“His boyfriend’s involved -- of course he’s getting us all back there,” Natasha said as she walked towards them. “And I don’t doubt that he has plans to make house arrest easy and fun.”

Michelle had tried to enjoy the rest of the dance, but since she didn’t really like anyone that was in attendance and it wasn’t really her thing in the first place, it just hadn’t felt all that fun. Still, she had gotten what she went for which was to see Peter leave early. She hadn’t expected it to happen so early on -- basically with his arrival -- but it had and Ned had gone off too soon after. Michelle had considered following but that had felt like really doing a bit too much.

They had all seen Ned come back later on, though, with his hat held in his hands and looking like he didn’t know how to act. He stayed mostly on his own, constantly checking his phone and looking worried.

Michelle had tried to approach him and talk to him about it, but he was just too distracted and then eventually Ned just went home, leaving much earlier than anyone else and Michelle felt like she should go home too so she called her mom and got picked up.

The weekend felt long and no one reported on anything to do with Spider-Man although someone said that Iron Man was sighted somewhere in Brooklyn. Then, it came out that Liz’s dad had been arrested. No one knew exactly why he’d been arrested, but it had apparently been something big. It happened the night of the dance which seemed just a little suspicious. Maybe even connected to Peter leaving the dance early.

The other thing that happened that night was that Spider-Man stole Flash’s dad’s car. It was a little hilarious because Flash and his date had walked into the dance stunned and then Flash had started telling everyone that he’d lent the car to Spider-Man. Except that Rita who had agreed to go with him for some reason or another just told a different story entirely -- a more believable story -- about how Spider-Man had demanded the car and Flash’s phone and then taken off. But more importantly, she had also mentioned that Flash had been pissed off about the whole thing especially when Spider-Man did some damage to the car as he left. All in all, Michelle had been pretty amused.

By the time that Monday came around mostly everyone knew about Liz’s dad. They also knew about the state in which the car had been found.

Michelle almost expected to not see Peter at all on Monday, but he walked in with Ned at his side and Ned seemed to be pestering Peter about something again.

She felt some relief to see Peter and to see that he was actually okay, but she still didn’t try to talk to him about the whole thing. Instead she watched him from afar for the next few days. She even saw him when Liz showed up to pick up her things with her mom. They all knew that she was leaving and Michelle didn’t blame her. Michelle left them be while they talked and was surprised when Mr. Harrington approached her.

“With Liz having to leave the school year early, I was hoping you would take on the mantle of team captain,” Mr. Harrington said.

“I -- really? Me?”

Mr. Harrington nodded. “Yeah, well the other real choice is Ned and I think you’d be better at it.”

“Um, sure. Yeah. I’ll do it.”

“Good. Good. We’ll meet up today like planned and we can let everyone else know then.”

Michelle nodded. She hoped that Peter would show up because they really did need him to stick around for the team and show up to future competitions. They all knew how smart Peter was and with Liz gone they would definitely be needing Peter if they were going to have any kind of chance at next year’s nationals.

When Ned and Peter did show up to the meeting, Michelle pretended to not be relieved.

“Congratulations, Decathlon National champions,” Mr. Harrington said.

Everyone was cheering and happy. Peter clapped along with everyone else even though they all knew that he had skipped out on the competition. How the rest of the team hadn’t figured out that that meant that Peter had to be Spider-Man kind of boggled Michelle especially since they were all supposed to be smart. They really did not notice much, did they?

“I’ll have to put this back in the trophy case soon but just for motivation right now at this practice we’ll have it out here. I’m ahead of the game, but we will need a new team captain. So I am appointing Michelle.”

Everyone started cheering and clapping. Peter who was sat in front of her smiled at her and Michelle tried not to let them all know how much she appreciated their reaction.

“Thank you,” she said. “My-- My friends call me MJ, though.”

“I thought you didn’t have any friends,” Ned said because it was Ned.

Michelle looked at Ned and then Peter and she ducked her head. “I didn’t,” she said.

Peter smiled when Michelle looked back up and then he fished out his phone when it rang. “I have to go,” he said and looked genuinely apologetic.

“Hey,” Michelle said as he stood up. “Where are you going?”

The others were distracted and not even paying attention except for Ned, but that didn’t matter.

“What are you hiding, Peter?” Michelle asked.

Peter looked like a deer caught in headlights, like he couldn’t believe that Michelle had just asked that question. He didn’t even seem to know how to respond.

“I’m just kidding,” Michelle said. “I don’t care.”

“Um, okay. Bye.”

He rushed away and Michelle turned back to the group. “Um, we should get some practice in.”

Ned nudged her and looked dead serious with his eyes narrowed on her. It was almost comical. “What do you know?”

Michelle shrugged and smirked to herself when she looked away.

Chapter Ninety

[pendragonfics]

Strange, Beauty

Paring: Armitage Hux/Reader

Tags: female reader, set during Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, past abuse, workplace relationship, friendship/love, canon compliant, fluff and angst.

Summary: From one tough place to another, Reader works as an engineer in the First Order, and catches the eye of General Armitage Hux.

Word Count: 2,357

Current Date: 2018-01-14

When the First Order recruited the factory that you worked for, there was no possible answer to it other than being yes and surviving. Not that you were a resistance-follower, no. The only qualm you had was that before working for the factory, you had been sold into slavery by your own family, and kept against your will. Now, instead of wearing a hand-sewn sack-like uniform, you were outfitted in the standard First Order uniform, and instead of working on Florrum, you were aboard one of the starships. But there was no time to think of your position in life, or wonder wistfully if you could be elsewhere – there was only work, and then, when there was no work, there was sleep.

You were assigned to a sector of the Subjugator where you worked as a mechanic, following the guidelines assigned by droids to complete tasks. It was still known for human labour to still be highly coveted – in a world where droids all had a sole purpose, sometimes it paid to have people working around the clock. So, you did what you did best; ignoring everything else but your job, and did the best work you could until you were allowed a rest.

It was just that which caused your blunder.

It was on a changing of shifts where you had worked so efficiently, your supervisor, a formidable man, noticed your work. You had no idea what you had done wrong, and within days, you were referred to a superior officer, who then granted you a promotion.

“Congratulations,” the superior officer shook your hand, and passed you a standard-appearing package. “Not many mechanics have the chance of proving themselves to become engineers.”

That was five years ago.

“_________, I swear, we’re getting too old to be single.” Your friend Osira, a fellow engineer, smacked your arm playfully. You were on the walk from the dining hall to the lounge, savouring what spare time after a shift on Zhellday had to offer before curfew, and then work on Benduday. “I for one, intend on working on getting someone.”

You raised an eyebrow. Osira Westmore was no stranger to ‘getting someone’. But then again, her home planet and culture spent before signing up to the First Order was quite colourful with its parings, and she was no stranger to relationships. For her, it was the simple factor of getting someone, and keeping them. For you, it was the opposite.

“Good for you,” you tell her, siding up to the small bar in the lounge. It was indeed small – manned by a droid on one end, mixing drinks, and a bartender attending to orders. “You’re the kind of woman who goes and gets things done when she wants, and I congratulate you.”

Osira harrumphs at that, and wastes no time ordering a row of Tipples for herself, knocking them back as soon as she gets them. She blinks, dazed momentarily, and asks, “So, what are you working on? And don’t say plans for improving stormtrooper blasters, y–you incorrigible girl.”

She slurs the last part, and you laugh, ordering a sparkling water. “Incorrigible, am I?” You repeat, taking a sip. “I’m just doing my job. Following orders.”

An alarm sounds throughout the lounge, a fifteen-minute warning until curfew is put into place. Osira flags the bartender hearing it, and orders another round of Tipples. “Yeah, you rule-following killjoy. You’d have thought, of all the people I could befriend, I get the one who doesn’t want to colour outside the lines.” As her Tipples arrive, Osira wastes no time downing them.

Your fingers uncurl from your glass. “Well, I’m sorry you’re stuck with me.” you tell her, and gathering yourself, walk off toward your room. “See you tomorrow, Westmore.”

On the walk back to your rooms, you try your best to not take her words to heart, and take the quickest route as to not break curfew. Rule-following killjoy. You’re too busy trying to get back to your room, and do not see a man in the upcoming crossroads of the corridors, and it’s entirely your fault when you both smack into one another, and the Datapad he’s holding flies out from his hands, and smacks the metallic wall with a thud.

“Do watch where you’re going!” he snaps, irate.

Your eyes are wide, and heart going so fast you’re afraid it’ll stop beating within your chest. You, a lowly engineer, have walked right into the path of the General himself, and not only that, have possibly broken his Datapad.

“I’m very s-sorry sir,” you amend with a stammer, bowing your head as you hurry to stand before your superior officer. He stands as well, dusting his slacks. You dive once more to gather the Datapad to save him from bending to do so, and hand it to him. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

“I should hope so.” General Hux nods curtly, and adds, “What is your name and rank, officer?”

You swallow, hearing the worst in his tone. By asking for those, you know he’s going to report you to your supervisor, and then you’ll suffer a demotion, and there was no way you’d go back to a mechanic, not when you’re now working on greater things. But you know the penalty for not obeying a direct order from a superior officer, and you acquiesce.

“I am _________, sir, _________ _________. Engineer.” You stand to attention, all-but saluting him. It’s then the second, and last curfew reminder sounds throughout the halls, and your eyes go wide. “I’m sorry, but I have to go, I can’t overstep curfew.” You excuse yourself, raising your hand in a weak salute, and flee.

---

It’s next Benduday when you see him again, and a week later, you’re still trying to keep your cool about the encounter. While work has been excitable – gossip around the ship told of a soon to be rebel uprising – it hasn’t been enough to keep busy with both your hands, and your mind, and while you’re not trying to get the face of the disgruntled General out from your mind, you’re swatting Osira off, trying to stop her from asking too many questions about your disposition for the last week.

It gets too much, and discreetly, before your supervisor catches on, you tell her. “Last Zhellday, after you called me…those things, I ran into General Hux.”

Her eyes grow wider than a moon. “How are you still alive? I heard he’s ruthless!”

You shake your head, remembering how brash he was, at first – commanding, harsh. But you could have sworn that after he asked for your name, the edge had come off from his voice, and you weren’t talking to a terribly stressed general, but just simply, a man.

“No, no, the other one’s that,” you correct Osira, “You mean the one who wears all black, and choked Darryl from maintenance last week. Kylo Ren.”

“Engineers _________, Westmore!” your supervisor snapped, marching toward you both. “May I remind you that you are contracted for designing construction for the First Order, not talking?” He narrows his eyes. “Consider this you first, and final warning before punishment and or demotion, officers.”

“Yes sir.” You said. Osira agreed.

You both returned to working on the calculations for the new weaponised planet. It wasn’t until the day had ended that you spoke once more, or really, looked at your friend (you really did fear punishment and or demotion, and did not take it lightly). But when you did, it was not to Osira, at all, or your supervisor.

It was him. General Hux.

Luckily for you, this time, you weren’t running late for curfew, and you did not knock into him again. Osira had organised a date for herself (“She’s a Stormtrooper, and likes Corellian wine too,” she said) and left alone, you were sitting in the main congregation area for the Subjugator, nursing a glass of white alcohol, and reading the day’s unread reports upon your Datapad.

“Mind if I join you, Engineer?” An educated voice intoned. Only glancing up from the reports, you realised it was General Hux. He wore his greatcoat, and dark uniform, and had a tumbler of whiskey in hand. When you did not protest, he sat beside you on the lounge.

“Please forgive me for asking,” you tell him, aware that you’re talking to the leader of the First Order, “but why are you on the Subjugator? I thought your main vessel was the Finalizer.”

Hux considered your question, and replied, “It’s for an inspection,” he nurses his drink close to his chest, and adds, “Although, I’m not here on business.” You raised a brow, turning off your Datapad to pay full attention to him. “I’ve only just had the time to consider your history. If I should say, you’ve lived a strange life.”

You raised your glass to your lips, somewhat amused. If the General of the First Order believed that, then, well, it must be true; for you, it was just your life. “It all began with a farm on Ryloth, that had no animals.” You looked down, only now remembering all the suffering you’d gone through before you’d been rescued by the First Order, and placing your half-empty wine beside where you sat, you rose to leave. “Please excuse me, General, it’s been quite a long day.”

---

It was a year later when the weaponised planet came to fruition. Life got very busy – the weapon’s plans went into action, and building a planet from metal and mathematics took time and sleepless nights. But in the end, it’s construction was a marvel – breathtaking. Named Starkiller Base, you were one of the first to be assigned from your division to it. Whilst working on it, you were promoted to an architectural role, and luckily because of your career advancement, had access to the evacuation pods and escaped the inferno.

All that hard work, and still, the rebels managed to ruin it.

It was another four months after the destruction of Starkiller Base when you crossed paths with General Hux once again. Supreme Leader Snoke had been killed, and his student Kylo Ren had inherited the title. Jedi master Luke Skywalker had died, but still the Jedi religion prevailed. While the rebels were nearly crushed within an inch of their life, they still found a way to survive. With every win, came a loss, and as much as you disliked it, you were sure the General felt the same way.

You saw him in the hallways of the Finalizer, late at night. The day shift had turned to night, and walking to your own quarters, you heard a whimper, a sort of lost noise nearby. Even though it had been years since your days at the factory, your heart went out to every mistreated soul like you had been, and unable to stop, you sought out the person who was in pain.

General Hux stood in front of the entrance to his quarters, leaning on the wall at an awkward angle, hands wrapped around his midsection. You let out a sigh. Not waiting for his approval, you opened the code pad for his door and hotwired it to open.

“Come on.” You tell him, offering your arm. “You don’t look so good, General.”

He accepts your help, and you walk him into his quarters. They’re the same as your own, apart from a small living area and desk adjacent to a personal kitchenette. Walking him in, you get Hux to sit upon the small couch, and waste no time searching the room for a medical kit.

“What – are you doing?” He asks, slightly out of breath.

Having found the kit, you take it over to where he sits. “You’re injured, sir.” You tell him, and you know he already knows that detail. The fact that he has colour in his cheeks, and real emotion upon his face is enough of a tell, even if you couldn’t see the way he favoured his side, and middle. You begin to undo his jacket, and pushing it from his shoulders, he recoils.

“What are you doing?” he asks, aghast.

You raise your eyebrows. “When I was a slave, I had to treat a lot of the other children for the abuse we got, sir,” you tell him, not touching the subject of your General being somewhat repulsed by being undressed by another person. “If this is the work of the new Supreme Leader, there will need to be medical attention as soon as possible. I could get a droid in –,”

He groaned. “Just – take my damn shirt off, _________.” He grits his teeth.

You do so, and laying him down, see the damage. From what your probing finger can tell of the tender flesh of his stomach and chest, there are a few bruised ribs, and kidneys. The skin is turning green and blue where it hurts the most upon him, and his left wrist seems to be completely out of action. Perhaps broken when he took a fall.

“Oh, General,” you whispered.

He couldn’t look at you. “It’s regular, now. There’s nobody to keep his anger upon a leash now.” His voice crackles, and you see tears start to fall from his crystalline eyes. “I – I don’t know what to do.”

“General –,” you begin to say, fingers moving to touch his shoulder.

“Armitage,” he corrects you, meeting your eyes. “_________, what do I do?”

You consider your words before you say them. “Confront, or cower.” You tell him. “It’s either one or the other, there is no midground between them. You can be the General that the First Order and whole galaxy knows you to be, or a boy.” You cradle his face, and whisper. “I cowered, when I was small…a word of advice, though, it never helped me.”

Armitage makes a noise, and moves to sit. “How do I know I can be strong enough to do that?”

“I’m not quite sure,” you whisper. Slowly, you kiss your fingers, and place them upon his chest, where his heart lays beneath the surface. “But, you’ve always got me.”

[dee-brief]

I thought I’d already hit my low of being a bad friend on this site. Apparently not. @littlefandomheaven sent in this prompt close to a full year ago, and I’m only getting off my ass right now. I’m… I don’t think sorry quite cuts it. And I know that the few Stitchers readers who were around probably aren’t any more. But I will fulfil my promise to write this prompt, so help me.

 This is part one of two, and it is 100% canon compliant. Part two is me taking the prompt for the team to be protective of Cameron as an endorsement to write the AU of 2.0 that has been in my head since I first saw the episode. Please note, however, that although part one is compliant with canon, my adoration for Cameron Goodkin has not diminished in a year. So this fic is littered with me making him all kinds of awesome. And lots of headcanons of his relationship with Ayo, Linus, Camille and Maggie. Because I can =P

 Prompt: The whole team must have found out about Cameron's heart condition at some point, like Kirsten found out about it on screen, but what about the others? Maggie must have known beforehand, but what about Camille, Fisher, Linus and the rest? They must have all seen the scar in the season 1 finale and figured out what it implies. There is this line in the episode from Camille: "Who says your heart can take that?". So did she already know? How did she find out? Or was that just a figure of speech and when she sees the scar, she's like "Oh, crap." And what about Fisher when somebody tells him about Cameron's actions while he's in the hospital, because somebody definitely had to. He probably asked (Camille? Linus?) how Cameron is when he woke up, because he probably wants to know that Cameron's fine as he pushed him out of the way. And they have to tell him what happened. And then they could be all very overprotective. They can't go on like nothing happened, right?

The first person to find out was Maggie.

 Well. No. If one wanted to be incredibly accurate about it, the first people to find out about his heart surgery were his parents, as they’d been at his bedside as soon as he was rolled out of the operating theatre. And after them came a slew of nurses and doctors, some friends of the family and some people they employed to look after him or to stop him from going up the wall in frustration while his mom kept him as locked up as she could.

 But the first person to find out post his eighteenth birthday and final escape into independence was Maggie, and as far as Cameron was concerned she may as well have been the first. Everybody else had been told about him; over his head and despite his protests. And their reactions to knowing had been various shades of the same constricting cloth. And Maggie…

 Maggie had appeared out of the crowd of people at the MIT table at the science conference as though she’d materialised only a second before, back straight and eyes piercing and set of her mouth decidedly no-nonsense. She hadn’t bothered even glancing at the other exhibits; had marched directly up to his and had started firing questions at him like the frontline artillery of a war. He answered, a little bewildered, a little caught off guard, a lot intimidated, until the niggling suspicion got loud enough that he blurted it out loud.

 “You’re not… really interested in this, are you?”

 “What makes you think that?” Her gaze was a dark glacier.

 “You…” He remembered squashing the model of the brain he’d been holding because his nervousness caused his fingers to twist it too many times. “There’s too much… detachment, there.”

 Not everybody was passionate and excited about the mind, he knew, but everybody who asked beyond the usual checklist of questions had a… a spark. A connection to the thing that reflected in their eyes. He learned rather quickly that this was her way with almost everything, and learned just as quickly that his own bias toward warmth and passion and true connection would halt any real relationship forming between them, to the point where she would, many years later, accuse him of disliking her. But at that first meeting, without many interactions to show him how to read the signs, all he saw was the wall of precision that juxtaposed so spectacularly with the questions of interest she sent his way.

 “No,” she said, after a beat. “I’m not interested. Not in this particular presentation, anyway. I am, however, interested in you, Doctor Goodkin. In your work. And in your mind.” Cameron squirmed under the calculating look she sent him, twenty-two and still trying to get used to the doctor before his name being literal and not just teasing. “I’ve spent a lot of time researching you.”

 His tongue used the time where his filter was shut down by his surprise to blurt, “Are you going to tell me to choose between a red and blue pill, next?”

 Maggie stared at him in blank, reproachful silence for a moment and just as he began feeling mortified she replied, “Maybe. That depends on how you see my offer.” She put a business card down on the table in front of him. “Call me, and we’ll set up a time when you can meet alone. Without any…” She glanced to the right, and Cameron saw his supervisor returning from his bathroom break. “…interference.”

 And then she’d melted back into the crowd, back straight, eyes forward, and he’d wondered if one of the other guys was playing a prank on him. It took a while to call the number on the card, and even when they met up again the desire to ask whether he was having his chain yanked burned strong on the tip of his tongue. Maggie introduced herself then – the casually added NSA to her name and surname had the intended effect on him, he was sure – and instead of giving him answers she gave him more questions. Thirty-four of them, to be exact – hypothetical situations she wanted to see if he could solve and how long it would take him to do so. None of it made any sense, but he was waiting for people to email him back so he got started on the problems. And then he got sucked in. And then he was making a ten pm decision to screw sleep and the actual work he had to do, because the hypothetical situations were both completely science-fiction but also, strangely, excitingly, impossibly real.

 Three days later he shoved a stack of documents – hand-written, because he’d been told not to trust any printers – at Maggie, and spending some of the tensest moments of his life watching her flick through things. When she looked at him next, there was almost a smile of approval on her face. She, in turn, shoved a thick stack of documents towards him. An algorithm. An algorithm that, apparently, made the ludicrously science-fiction things he’d been working on neither science-fiction, only hypothetical or ludicrous.

 “Is this for real?” He finally couldn’t help but blurt the question out, leafing through an impossibility. He was a scientist, for heaven’s sake. But also… But also. “Can this… does it work?”

 “It could,” Maggie told him, still straight-faced. “If your designed tools and adjustments are good enough.”

  Cameron must have laughed, but he could never quite remember how he’d reacted to that knowledge. Probably like a gibbering idiot, some sober part of him liked to hypothesise when he thought back. In any case, Maggie didn’t change her mind. Instead, she explained that they had a location for a lab, and an opening as head of that lab that he could fit into. She explained the utmost secrecy the job would entail. She explained unnecessary things like how many people they’d be able to help if the algorithm on the paper managed to be turned into actual, working science. She explained that she had names of many others that he would help her interview for his lab once some of the hypothetical things he’d created for her had been tweaked now that he knew they were not-so-hypothetical. She explained that the list of others were all the best in the country and even in the world; that the team under their leadership would be brilliant and passionate and able to break ground and innovate in ways even his most passionate, secret dreams had never dared hope.

 And his only response, other than slack-jawed shock and gibbering idiocy, was, “Why me?”

 “We’ve approached others over many years,” Maggie admitted, calmly. “Some of them got further along in our interview process than you are right now. But they couldn’t take it to the point where the theory was made a reality. You were just next on the list of people to approach.”

 And, somehow, that made Cameron feel better instead of stung; made it more realistic and more attainable and less like something that was going to be proven to be a hoax. If he didn’t get this fantasy lab with the brightest in the country, if he didn’t get to make and update already existing technology that would look into dead people’s brains, then it would simply be because he was not smart enough to cut it. Not because the possibility was not a realistic one.

 And then Maggie put another pile of papers – how big their filing room must be – bunched in a folder onto the desk between them. It had his name on the corner, and Cameron eyed it warily before looking at Maggie. She was watching him even more intently than before, the promise of some sort of test in her eyes.

 “As I said before; we’ve been researching you. I have information on you from when you were ten years old.”

 The way she said it made Cameron know instantly that she knew. And he hated it – he hated that this woman who was offering him the potential at everything was the first to find out since he clawed his way to freedom. He hated that she looked at him with the power that knowing gave everybody, and how his words dried up under her gaze, leaving him unable to give a defence. Maggie Baptiste, scary government lady and potentially his boss, was the first to find out.

 And Maggie was the first to ask him. “Will any of this be a problem?”

 She meant his mother and her expectations and her not being able to know why he was quitting MIT. She meant James Miller. She meant that he was twenty-two years old and under the thumb of an old family friend who was only an old family friend because he was wearing brand clothing and driving a car worth more than some people’s apartment buildings. She meant the scarred tissue on his chest, and everything it implied.

 And for the first time, Cameron was able to reply instead of having the decision made for him. “No. It won’t be a problem at all.”

 Maggie watched him for another moment and then nodded. And because of that nod, Cameron put a halt to all of his current research and threw himself at the stitching possibility. So much so, that it only took four days before he was presenting what would become the first draft of the corpse cassette and a simulation that had stolen sleep and some sanity from him. But it gained him his first half-smile from Maggie Baptiste, and her telling him to show up for work on Monday. He, Cameron Goodkin, had done what all of the others she’d approached had never managed to. In four days.

 He grinned back and handed in his resignation to MIT within the hour.

 Ayo was the second to find out.

 Maggie and Cameron had been at a hospital doing a covert interview for some doctor Cameron didn’t remember any more – they’d barely spent five minutes with him before brilliant but no became very apparent where he was concerned – when they ran into her by chance. Their interviewee was walking them down a hallway, nattering on and being generally irritating, when there had been a commotion in a nearby room that distracted them all. The door burst open, and another doctor dragged Ayo out by her arm, already reaming into her. And Ayo stood, back straight and face fierce, and took every comment thrown her way – everything from the possibly warranted right down to the derogatory. And then she fought back with quiet, firm dignity, proving her knowledge and backing up her decisions, ploughing through the anger and the spit and the disgust thrown her way.

 “Do it again,” the doctor seethed, “and you’ll be without a job. I don’t care how much you think you know. This is my department. And you’ll never work for anybody if I say you won’t.”

 Their interviewee said some half-calming words to Ayo that basically implied that although the other doctor was known for being a big-headed jerk she must have screwed up in some way, and she’d shaken her head but said nothing. Their interviewee went inside the room to smooth ruffled feathers, leaving her standing alone and suddenly slumped in the hallway.

And something about that response of hers – or maybe it was something about her eyes – had Cameron undermining Maggie for the first time so he could blurt, without consulting his boss first, “You could work for us.” Ayo blinked at him, uncomprehending, and Cameron saw Maggie cross her arms out of the corner of his eye. But Cameron didn’t care. He wanted this one for their lab; something in his gut told him so. “I mean it,” he said, looking at Ayo and ignoring Maggie. “I don’t care what that guy said. We’d hire you.”

 “For what, exactly?” Ayo said, sounding more tired than interested.

 Cameron glanced at Maggie, who shot him a narrow-eyed look and didn’t move. For a moment, he feared he’d have to take back his offer, but then Maggie unfolded her arms, strode closer to Ayo, and started talking. And the interested quickly grew on Ayo’s face.

 Ayo had been employed by the NSA for three weeks – and still slipped up and called him Doctor Goodkin despite the others having settled happily into the first-name-basis of the lab – when she called him into the medical room she’d rearranged until it somehow reminded him of her. He was still faintly wary of doctors’ rooms for various reasons, and he’d planned to give her the help she needed quickly and then disappear, leaving the more friendly banter for when he was in a space that didn’t smell like memories he’d rather forget.

 “I’m doing a full medical on everybody in the lab,” Ayo told him and dashed every plan of a quick and painless escape in one violent blow. “It’s your turn.”

 “You’re here to watch the vitals of our stitchers,” Cameron protested, standing rooted to the spot. “Not the rest of us. Besides – I’m sure Maggie’s hacked all our medical records.” He’d prefer her not to know at all, but reading it in black and white was far better than her finding out while poking and prodding at him.

 “This whole lab is my responsibility, medically,” Ayo replied, readying tools and charts. “And I’d rather get clean data that I can add to with medical files, if necessary. It’s not exactly like I have a lot of work at the moment, anyway.”

 “Maggie wants me to – ”

 “Maggie gave me permission to do this, Cameron.” Ayo narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly calculating. “She wants the head of her lab in the best hands.”

 “Cut off one head and two more shall take its place.” Cameron was starting to wonder if this was Maggie’s covert way of getting back at him for undermining her with his offer to Ayo. It had all worked out in the end, of course – Ayo was brilliant and a wonderful fit and a wonderful person, besides – but he wouldn’t put it past Maggie to make sure he’d never forget who was really calling the shots again.

 “You’re stalling,” Ayo said, and her voice was suddenly a lot gentler. “I promise, I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. It’s just some general check-ups. Okay?”

 It wasn’t okay, but he was backed into a corner. And so he clenched his jaw and let her poke and prod around and tried not to cold-shoulder her as he tersely replied to questions about his contacts, his lack of smoking, his exercise and diet habits and the like. And then the stethoscope came out and she asked him to unbutton his shirt and he sat there for a long, long minute, staring at nothing and trying to tell himself not to whimp out about this. She prompted him with his name, and he did as she asked, and he wasn’t looking at her but he could feel the moment she saw and started putting pieces together.

 “Ah.” Ayo said, succinctly. There was a long, loaded pause, and then she took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure you’re aware about the concept of doctor-patient confidentiality?”

 It was not where Cameron had expected her to go, so he found himself glancing at her, puzzled. “Yeah,” he replied, slowly. “But that’s not…” He sighed. “And that gets overridden by Maggie, doesn’t it? Who already knows, by the way. Those hacked medical records, and all.”

 “It gets overridden by Maggie only in the absolute extreme circumstances – when it affects this lab to an extent that I cannot keep silent. Most of the other times? Maggie won’t need to know anything.” She waited until Cameron, still puzzled, met her gaze. “And I’ll make those calls the way I always have, Cameron – by giving sensitivity and the benefit of the doubt to my patient, not an organisation as a whole. But.” She paused for a moment to let it sink in. “But then it has to go both ways – you have to tell me everything. And I mean everything – even the things those hacked medical files don’t say.”

 Cameron scoffed. “What makes you think my files aren’t comprehensive? The doctors who repeatedly scanned every last hair follicle on my body would be offended, Doctor.”

 Ayo raised an eyebrow at him in a very mom-ish way, putting her hands on her hips. “Uh-huh. I did my residency in a hospital where everybody and their mama was hiding something. I know what trying to hide things looks like. And you, I’m afraid, are terrible at it.” Cameron tried to splutter, but Ayo shook her head. “That’s the deal I’m offering. I’m on your side, but you have to tell me everything you want to hide from everybody else. Deal?”

 “You really don’t need to – You’re employed here to make sure the stitchers are okay.”

 “I’m here to make sure you don’t get dead,” Ayo shot back at him, and he couldn’t help but crack a smile at her words.

  He repeated those same words back to her three years later when Kirsten first appeared in their lab, and she laughed at him, bright and understanding and amused; solidified in their quiet understanding of one another. She’d kept her word and had been on his side – and by his side – through the exciting and the terrible. And so he couldn’t even really be mad at her the first time ever she broke their agreement in order to tell Maggie about 5ccs of Potassium methochloride. Especially not when she kept all his secrets through his explanation of the plan to stop his heart. And especially not when she was the second face he saw when he woke up in a haze, and her relief was tear-stained and tight-gripped and a word in a language he did not know that he was pretty sure was her cussing him out.

 “If you ever do that again our agreement is off,” she snarled at him, her hands on his face and her face still relieved.

 “W’sn’t I g’nna fire you?” Cameron slurred at her, mouth twitching.

 She shook her head at him with a scoff, and squeezed his hand tight.

 Linus sort-of found out next, which was surprising. Surprising, because Cameron hadn’t expected to make actual friends with those in the lab, let alone good friends and let alone so quickly. ‘Friends’ had always been a concept he’d mostly left behind in memories before age ten, to the point where meeting and befriending people as an adult was not actually half as doable as he yearned for it to be. He’d had a few years of actual practise by then, and as such he’d managed to make friendly acquaintances with a number at MIT, especially those in research with him. But he’d never really managed to make them friends rather than just friendly colleagues, and he’d subconsciously assumed that the stitchers lab occupants would follow the same pattern. He gelled with the people in the stitchers lab very quickly, and in the quiet moments in his head he wondered whether it was because they shared a secret and a grand purpose, whether it was circumstance, or whether he’d helped pick them not only based on their skills and brainpower that he frequently fanboyed over but also because some part of him knew they would connect with him personally, and he was just that sad, lonely, desperate little boy he used to be that would allow his own issues to influence something as important as his new work. But it was hard to let those thoughts run too rampant, because regardless of his own bias the members were brilliant, and did fit in spectacularly, and although they got friendly quickly, they all stayed on the friendly-colleagues level without moving into plain ‘friends’ or showing any real potential of heading that way.

 But then Linus came on the scene. And he had that same… aura about him that Cameron had miserably conceded existed around himself – that something that made them half a beat out of time with the rest of the world. And instead of making it more difficult for them to get along – instead of it making Cameron irritated at Linus’ naïveté or jerk-ness at times – it somehow just made them slip into friendly a lot quicker. And, before Cameron could even realise it was happening to try and analyse things, Linus and he were hanging out after work. For non-work-related things. And somehow, spontaneously, Linus became a friend. A real, flawed-annoying-exasperating-awesome friend with two PhDs, brain and personality similarities,  great taste in fandoms and an appreciation for good food and loyalty in equal measures.

 Still – Cameron had certainly not intended for Linus to ever pick up that anything at all was amiss. But they’d been standing in line to watch the premiere of Star Trek: Into Darkness, surrounded by a throng of similarly-excited people, and two in the crowd had begun a very lively debate that turned into a bit of a brawl. Their antics had knocked into the people standing in front of Linus and Cameron, and the two men had received sticky, freezing slushies to the chest. They waved off the apologies, and set about the seemingly impossible task of getting slightly less sticky and wet (“Man, now I know why the Glee guys hate these so much.” “You watch Glee?”).

 Cameron started peeling off the Kirk Tshirt he wore, intending to wad it up and just walk around in the plain long-sleeved he’d worn underneath it that was comparatively unscathed. But the Tshirt stuck to the shirt underneath, and when he pulled the top layer up, the bottom went with it. He was quick in yanking the long-sleeved down, but apparently not quick enough: Linus was blinking in the vicinity of his chest, frozen in his mopping movements, looking slightly bewildered.

 “Woah. Dude -?”

 “Eh. Old childhood thing,” Cameron dismissed, quickly. “Looks a lot worse than it was. You got any napkins left?”

 Linus let the conversation be changed, and Cameron breathed a sigh of relief. It was only much later, when Linus was sliding into his car after they’d spent hours excitedly talking about the movie and theorising about what was to come and nitpicking at the changes, that he turned to Cameron with an unsure, serious look on his face.

 “So… Uh… Earlier on…” Cameron let him squirm in embarrassment, hoping it would keep him from bringing it up again. “You said… childhood, right? As in… in the past?”

 “Yeah,” Cameron said. “Yeah, you know how things just happen when you’re little.”

 And that had been the end of it; Linus had been completely put at ease until years later, when he found out what the scar meant for certain after Cameron had been brought back and he overheard Ayo explaining the bare minimum to the doctors as Cameron was admitted to hospital. In his defence, he took the deception well – Cameron half-awoke to Linus threatening to kill him, but when he managed to fully peel his eyes open, Linus greeted him with gentle warmth and relief instead of true anger.  After some of the chaos of the next few days died down, Linus came over to his house and started citing various episodes, books, movies and comic volumes that warned against team members, friends or family members keeping important information from others.

 “Trust goes both ways, Cameron,” Linus said, seriously, and that cut Cameron deeper than anything else.

 Linus accepted his apology easily, and Cameron was relieved to find that Linus didn’t pick up hovering as a habit. His friend was a lot more hesitant about suggesting and going through with certain things than he had been, but he still trusted Cameron to know his limits, and trusted himself to be able to have Cameron’s back when the need arose. He did, however, join Kirsten and Camille in limiting his amount of daily caffeine intake, the traitor.

 Kirsten found out fourth, also in stages. Honestly, Cameron should have thought to lock his bedroom door. But he’d never had to before, and had thought the line of personal boundary he drew around himself was obvious enough to keep the three in his livingroom at bay. He’d let them in further than almost anybody else, and even they subconsciously toed the boundaries he’d spent years putting in place in the desperate hope that he could have friends that still left him to hold a piece of himself without them feeling they could reach out and take it from him.

 But he’d forgotten Kirsten wasn’t very good with boundaries. And he’d glanced up and found her in his doorway, startled by her blinking at the sight of him in a towel. And then he’d watched her eyes flick down to his chest and linger before purposefully following the scar back up to his face. He kept waiting for her to say something as he moved closer, but she did not and he found some relief in being able to shut the door in her face. Even she could understand that obvious gesture of keep out; too close.

 Kirsten was a master of not mentioning things, so he didn’t mention it, either. Just like that kiss. Just like how he felt about her – how every bit of him was gravitating toward her day by day like something being sucked into a vortex. He found himself wondering what she’d been thinking as she looked at him that night, and how she saw him every other time.

 And then he stops wondering for a while, because his crush before her ends in a hailstorm of bullets just feet away from where he’s crouching behind her closed front door.

 Kirsten was the fourth to find out, but the first he ever tells. He didn’t necessarily want to; she knew too much already, a large part of him argued. But, hell, he was pretty sure he was stupidly in love with her, and they were both dying, and she just didn’t want to accept that his very real version of the monster under the bed that he’d been carrying around with him since age ten was attaching itself to her, too. She didn’t seem to understand what it meant to have a life that was close friends with death. She didn’t seem to understand how you didn’t care when you died, but everybody else sure did, and being the cause of that much pain was enough of an incentive to live if nothing else was. And if she couldn’t – if the monster won – then, damnit, she had to minimise the damage she left in her wake. He didn’t particularly like Liam at all, but he could guess at how much Kirsten meant to the guy. And every human being deserved whatever balm to the pain of losing somebody as amazing, breath-taking, unique, lovely as Kirsten that they could get.

 He forgot that Kirsten tended to slay scary monsters on a daily basis. And if he loved her just a little bit more because she caused his constant, lurking companion to back a few more feet away from him. Well…

 He certainly loved her a bit more when the inevitable coddling didn’t come. She treated him exactly the same as she always had, even with the knowledge in her head, and the relief was a warm, tingly, gratifying rush every time she proved herself unconcerned with managing his life for him. And by the time the fretting did come – thanks to a damn fake psychic, of all things – he was too in love with her for her protectiveness to make him back a hasty retreat. Thankfully, Kirsten was also incredibly practical, and he could brush off her concerns without much effort at all. She trusted him to have her back; to come along and do his bit. To help.

 Kirsten was the fourth person to find out, the first person he told, and the first he’d willingly gamble his game of keep-away with the lurking monster on his back for. Because he trusted her with one of the deepest parts of himself and she still let him keep his freedom. And he’d be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to let her see she could trust him, back.

 Camille found out fifth, in a process that was half Ayo, half Kirsten, and fittingly so. Fittingly, because he trusted her as much as Ayo and loved her as warmly as he did Kristen, just with a completely different kind of love.

 Cameron had slotted into place with her faster and easier than he had even with Linus. He had no real words to explain their relationship, and neither did she. So they simply shared a lot of looks and comfort in the language they both spoke so well and let whatever it was between them just be without poking at it with a stick and a magnifying glass. If she was some sort of undeserved gift from the universe to make up for lonely years then he was going to buy the gift horse an entire damn stable instead of looking anywhere near its mouth.

 So when, during one of her random visits to his apartment that had become frequent after their stakeout of the store across the road and his attached mi casa es su casa statement, Camille opened the wrong kitchen cupboard, he wasn’t as defensive or panicked or upset as he would have been had it been anybody else.

 “Uh… Cameron? Why do you have rat poison in your grocery cupboard?”

 “Hmm?” he said, distracted by the laptop in front of him.

 “There’s a bottle labelled ‘Warfarin’ in your handwriting in here.”

 That got his attention. And sunk his insides to the bottom of his shoes. “Oh, no, it won’t be in that cupboard,” he said, hurriedly, twisting around to find her standing in front of the tiny closet door in his kitchen cabinets that most people thought was just for show. She’d been distracted by the Warfarin, and hadn’t yet explored the other incriminating evidence in the tiny space. And he hoped to keep it that way. “It’s probably above the sink, Doll,” he added in his most nonchalant voice. “Did you look there?”

 But Camille would not be deterred. She smirked at him, amused and waiting for the funny story she thought she could smell, rattling the bottles of pills at him questioningly.

 “I got them when you started coming over,” he tried. “So your nemeses the mutant rats ever arrive we can poison them off quickly.”

 She gave him an unimpressed look, her lips twitching. “Har har.”

 For a moment, it looked like his gamble worked and he’d gotten away with it. But then he watched her put the Warfarin back and freeze as her eyes took in the other bottles and packets of pills stacked and neatly labelled by his hand in the tiny closet. He saw her shoulders clench, and assumed her hesitation was because her mind was whirling with questions and alarm and curiosity and worry and the war between asking and forcing herself to not stick her nose in his business. She took a deep breath, half turned to him, then seemed to change her mind and closed the cabinet slowly.

 Cameron sighed. How the hell was he supposed to work for a secret government agency if he couldn’t even keep one tiny, personal secret from a handful of people? He sucked at being a spy. But that didn’t mean he had to suck at being a friend. Taking a deep breath himself, Cameron set aside the laptop and made his way into the kitchen, nervousness and embarrassment churning bitter in his gut. But he couldn’t not give her answers; not somebody who fit that damn, sappy Bronte quote about souls with him so well. Not somebody who was like Ayo – full of compassion and warmth and heart for the world that made her see too much.

 He didn’t exactly have a script for that sort of thing, and so he simply buttoned down his shirt. She turned around, face hooded as she struggled with not asking about what she’d seen, and her eyes immediately popped in shock.

 “I had heart surgery when I was ten,” he said, and she swore a little breathlessly. He loved her a little bit when she tried not to stare. “Mostly sorted. Still need some meds, though.”

 “Cameron…” She searched his face, at a loss, the most complicated range of emotions in her eyes. And then she put one hand on his arm and squeezed and he found himself able to smile a little. “I…” He shook his head at her, pleading a little with his expression, and she huffed. “Why in your kitchen like that?”

 “More people tend to look in the bathroom cabinet,” he answered, honestly. “They’re much better hidden in an obvious place everybody thinks is just false panelling.”

 She eyed him for that, but didn’t say anything more. Not only that evening, but ever again; never brought it up even in passing or by a super obvious reference. But he was attuned enough to her to notice the way she looked at him a little harder, and stood a little closer at times, and seemed to count the number of coffees he had in a day. But those were little things, and he couldn’t begrudge Camille for caring because without that she wouldn’t be Camille. And when she did cross a line about it in his head, blurting for all the world the doubt that his heart could take being brought back – he was too busy to begrudge her for it. And he sort of got her back by dying on her a few moments later, so he couldn’t claim they were anything but even, really.

 (“I’m learning krav maga, now,” she told him out of the blue, weeks later.

 “I heard – that’s awesome.” The question was in his tone.

 “Yeah. Some of us possess this thing called self-preservation.” Her glare was somehow loving and angry and threatening all at once. “You pull a stunt anywhere near what you did in that lab that day ever again, Goodkin, and I will kick your ass. And then I’ll hack you so hard you’ll feel it for the rest of your life. Got me?”

 “Careful there, Agent. You’re almost getting scarier than Maggie.”

 “Good,” she said with a predator’s smile.)

 The rest of the lab found out as a collective not long after Camille. He knew they couldn’t have all found out at once, but he wasn’t exactly conscious (alive) to keep track of who noticed what when and who put the pieces together and who confirmed it for whom.  He was very sure they couldn’t have missed the scar or the way it took too many tries to get his heart started again.

 He felt a little bad for making them run around in a flat panic because their boss and usual stitch pilot had decided to off himself. But only a little bad. His whole world was being threatened – his life’s work, the potential to help and save so many, the colleagues that were his responsibility, the people he loved like family. You have to protect it, Jessica had told him of his heart. And he’d be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to keep his heart safe and able to continue on. Even if it meant stopping his physical heart. Even if it meant he’d never get to see their shared dream for the programme take its first breath. Even if it meant giving up Kirsten.

 It all turned out fine, though, because they couldn’t really use the knowledge against him. For one, he was their boss, and not a close enough friend for them to have a say. For another, he’d come back fine. The monster had finally caught up with him, and Cameron had beaten it back. And how could he let anybody have a say on that area of his life when the thing he’d been taught to be terrified of almost all his life finally happened and… it didn’t kill him. Not forever. The apocalypse it had been painted to be turned into a mild inconvenience. And it didn’t matter who found out because Cameron was the one with the true knowledge, now. And he’d never be boxed in again.

 Without him knowing, Fisher was the last person to find out. While Kirsten sat at his hospital bedside, watching him sleep, Camille had stayed at Fisher’s side. And she was there when he woke up a few times during the night, and when he finally truly woke up the next morning, groggy but coherent. She gave him a vague sketch of events, but Fisher wasn’t a detective only in title.

 “What about Cameron? Did I get him out the way in time?”

 “Oh, you totally saved his ass,” Camille agreed. “He got knocked in the noggin a bit, but he didn’t even stay in here for a day.”

 They turned to other topics, and she’d almost gotten away with keeping Fisher in the dark about things that could potentially stress him out when Linus popped in and mentioned about stopping by Cameron’s room. Fisher turned on Camille with narrowed eyes.

 “Explain,” he said, tone booking no nonsense.

 And once she started, Camille couldn’t seem to stop. Yes, she’d held Cameron’s hand and seen him smile wonkily at her and heard his teasing and assurances. But she couldn’t stop seeing him, eyes wide and face grey, keeling into Kirsten. She couldn’t stop seeing the blurred outline of his still body while Ayo choked to Chelsea to call time of death. They’d nearly lost Fisher, but they’d come that much closer to losing Cameron. And her very heart rattled and moaned in her in exhausted horror at the very idea.

Fisher waited until she was finished, his mouth a grim line. Linus asked if he was in pain; if he should get the nurse, and Fisher shook his head jerkily.

 “That damn…” He exhaled sharply. “This is why we don’t let civilians…” He broke off again, jaw clenched. “’Protect my kids’, Maggie says,” he muttered, darkly, after a pause. “It would help if she told me I was also meant to protect them from themselves.”

 “He’s okay, though,” Linus tried desperately to reassure.

 Fisher just gave him a stony look. “My dad had one of those ops,” he said, quietly. “I know what sorts of long-term things go along with the cure. Specifically, I know how easily those people bleed. And don’t stop bleeding because of blood thinners. And that damn kid has been in all sorts of shit. Without a damn vest.”

 Camille slipped her hand into Fisher’s. “Hey, there. You’re not supposed to get worked up.” She squeezed gently. “Besides; I thought he wasn’t your friend?” she teased, gently.

 Fisher snorted, closed his eyes for a minute and sighed. “Hey, do me a favour and call Kirsten here,” he said to Linus. “I need to talk to her – before something else happens.”

 Linus nodded and patted Fisher’s feet. “Take it easy, man, okay? You gotta get better. And stop me from killing Cameron, which I now want to do all over again.”

 Fisher snorted. “I’ll start a protocol,” he said, and it didn’t even sound much like he was joking.