Chapter Text
The moment the car slows to a stop, Joe is already peering behind the passenger’s seat.
Nicky catches his eye. “Same as before?”
Andy strains against the seatbelt to get a better look at her teammates. Nicky quietly inserts a full clip to a pistol and hands it off to Nile. Joe takes Nicky’s hand, nodding at him.
“Hayati,” Joe’s eyes seem to sparkle as he locks eyes with his love. “It will absolutely not be like before.”
Andy glances up at him. A smirk forming along the edge of her lips.
“Are you accusing me, my love?” Nicky cocks his head in Joe’s direction.
A scoff comes from the backseat. “I will.” Nile fills her pockets with ammunition. “We all saw the hole in your shirt.”
Nicky’s face could be made of stone as he says: “I tripped,” expressionless as he places bandages and gauze into his backpack.
Joe shakes his head. “You mean to tell me you ripped it? Bullets flying at us, men lunging with knives, and you just rip your shirt?”
“I’d never lie to you, Tesoro.”
Joe clutches his heart. “Andy, you hearing this?”
Andy chuckles under her breath as she pushes open her door. “Kids, not while we’re on a job.”
Nile, a step behind Andy, chimes in. “Who cares? Not like he’s gonna win again.”
Humming in agreement, Joe claps Nile on the back. “Yes, because you will.”
Nile ducks to tie her shoe to hide her smile.
“Just remember to be aware of your surroundings--” Joe adds.
“--and to take it slow. It’s not a race…” Nicky murmurs as he hovers around Andy, watching closely as she adjusts her kevlar vest.
Nile rolls her eyes.
“I am sorry you all don’t appreciate my film choices,” Nicky says, cocking his pistol.
“When Harry Met Sally becomes stale after three viewings, caro--”
Nile stretches her arms. “Doesn’t matter.” She cracks her neck. “Movie night is mine.”
“You ready, Judge?” Joe asks.
Andy shrugs. “Whatever, let’s just get what we came for.”
The team nods, gathering around Andy to go over the plan as they have for the last few months.
“Merrick’s research is likely on the third floor. Civilians on the first two. We do this quietly, understand?”
“Using innocents as cover…” Nicky whispers.
Joe scoffs. “Definitely Merrick.” He loads and cocks his shotgun. “Fewest injuries wins. Let’s go.”
Acting confident can get a person almost anywhere. It’s how Nile got through her first year in the military. Acting confident makes you confident. And they let you through security nine out of ten times. Nine point five if you have a fake badge on you. Just flash that sucker, then get the hell out of there.
It worked through the first floor, then the second, but the third floor…
Andy curses, turning to the team. “Copley didn’t warn us against this.”
“This wasn’t on the blueprints,” Nicky whispers back.
Andy cocks her head to the left side of the branching hallway. She takes a step forward before turning to Nile, “Kid, with me.”
“Comms on.” Nile points to her ear.
Andy scoffs but does as she’s told.
Nile smiles a bit and represses the urge to tell Andy, good girl.
Joe and Nicky head down the right hallway, searching for the laboratory’s storage room.
A burst of static comes through the comms and Andy jumps.
Nile huffs a singular laugh before Andy silences her with a look.
Another quick shot of static through the comms, then the two hear: “Stop!” and a quiet, “Cazzo.”
They don’t need the comms to hear the gunshots.
Andy makes a run forward but Nile puts out her arm to stop her. They’ve reached the end of the hallway. Only way to go is to the left.
They pause for a moment. A silent argument. Andy wants to go first. Nile wants Andy to stay alive.
Before either can win, a bullet rips through Nile’s shoulder and she gasps. Even after the marines, she’s always surprised by the heat that flows around the wound. The hot, sticky blood that soaks through her shirt. The sting that seems to spread around the wound and gets sharper with each pulse of her heart.
Andy shields herself behind Nile as she pulls Nile to cover.
“Shit.” Nile crouches behind a wall, feeling dazed. The men shooting at her couldn’t have been older than her brother.
“That’s one point for Joe,” Andy whispers, gruff and with a smile.
Nile shakes it off. “Something’s not right…”
“Last week we faced military and stole our samples from a bunker. These guys are armed toddlers.”
Nile shrugs and throws a hand back as if to say, “stand back.” She keeps her weapon drawn and turns the corner.
The boy standing with his gun drawn isn’t the first thing Nile notices as she instinctively lifts her weapon. It’s his hands, trembling with his finger on the trigger. There’s a bead of sweat sinking into his patchy facial hair.
"Hey, it’ll fill in."
Her brother’s voice startles her. Nile flinches and lets her rifle clatters onto the floor.
The safe house is silent when they enter, save for Joe’s incessant chatter.
“I mean I was really rooting for you, Nile, but a win’s a win.” He collapses onto the couch that’s older than Nile.
Andy drops her backpack by the front door and rips off the velcro on her clean vest with more force than necessary.
Nile flinches at the sound, and Nicky moves to gently help peel off her shirt. It sticks to her skin, tacky with blood and sweat.
Andy watches from the kitchen with her arms crossed.
“I mean, not a scratch on me!” Joe laughs oblivious to his husband’s glances. “Besides Andy, I don’t think anyone else made it out clean.”
Nile locks eyes with Nicky and he nods.
“Hayati, a shower perhaps?” Nicky takes Joe’s hand and leads him down the hallway.
Nile runs her hand down her chest, absentmindedly looking for proof of her injuries. Nothing, of course. She almost misses Andy walking up behind her.
“You wanna tell me what the hell that stunt was?”
The image plays back in Nile’s head: that soldier, that boy, looking at her with his machine gun larger than his head. Old enough to enlist in whatever this corporation was selling. The fear outlining his features was impossible to overlook.
Nile wants to pretend to not know. To play stupid. But the anger just waiting beneath the surface takes her by surprise.
“I’m not sorry.” Nile crosses her arms, mimicking Andy’s stance.
“I thought you were a marine?” Andy shakes her head. “What? Now you’re scared?”
Nile scoffs. “Not a marine anymore, right?”
Andy’s voice softens. “Nile, you were a liability today.”
“Everything worked out fine.” She feels like a child. Like how her brother rationalized going for a joyride when he was thirteen.
“It did. Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds later.” Andy took a breath as if just the conversation was draining. “Not all of us have the luxury of knowing we’re going to get back up.”
Padding feet make their way into the kitchen.
Nile doesn’t look up from the floor.
“That was fast,” Andy comments.
“Well, only needed a rinse.” Without looking, Nile knows Joe is smiling like he just won the lottery and holding up another shitty action movie.
Nile isn’t sure if it’s her loss of appetite or her guilt that’s making her sick. Andy, Joe, and Nicky took the couch. Even though Nile is on the floor, leaning against the sofa, it still feels like the floor beneath her feet is shaking. Moving slowly in one direction, then being pulled out from under her.
Then, there’s the gunfire. First, it’s from the movie. A quick, rapid machine gun. Then it’s right behind her. She’s sure it’s all in her head. But the memory of the bullet entering her forehead is all too real.
There’s an explosion on-screen and Nile flinches, closing her eyes, and digging her nails into her palms. Joe continues staring at the screen, engrossed, and Andy is too stubborn to look at Nile. Only Nicky spares her a glance.
He clears his throat and Nile remembers where she is. “That man has internal bleeding. I don’t care if he’s superhuman. He needs to see a doctor.” Joe throws his head back with laughter and
Nile remembers Indy. On his birthday last year, they saw one of the Marvel movies in their local cinema. She had whispered her predictions for the plot in his ear while he pelted her with popcorn.
“I wish my axe electrocuted people like that.”
Indy better not be thinking about joining a corporation like that kid. Or the army. God help her mother if both of her children go into the military.
“Who’s that?”
The thought alone of Indy pulling the trigger. Indy, who asked her to get a spider out of his room when she was home on leave last year.
“He was in the last movie. You gotta watch them in order, Nicky. Right Nile?”
And she could have killed him. He could have killed her. She did kill him, right?
“Nile?”
Nicky is looking at her, his eyebrows scrunched together with concern.
Nile just shakes her head at him.
The thoughts quiet when she’s moving. She thinks it’s the pain distracting her.
First, she was just running sprints in the sparse backyard with some trees and not much else. But the image of her brother, her Indy, kept returning.
It wasn’t real. Nile let gravity pull her down. Indy is at college. She pushed up against the ground. He is at Loyola or UC or DePaul. Down. He used her military annuity as a downpayment for classes. Up. He wouldn’t end up like-- Down. Blood pools on the floor of the laboratory corridor. Up. Bright brown eyes stare up at the ceiling. The gun is still in the boy’s hand. Down. Nile reaches out to his hand. She brushes his palm with her fingertips. Up.
Nile’s not sure how long she held that position in the backyard. She’s not even sure how long Joe was standing behind her.
“...just talking to your door like an idiot.”
Nile releases a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding and leans back onto her legs. She turns to Joe and watches his composure move from annoyance to fear.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Nile’s breathing quickens, and her chest becomes tight.
“Nile.” Joe drops to his knees beside her. “Breathe with me, okay?” He takes her shaking hands and squeezes tightly.
The touch makes Nile jump, her body still on alert. She begins to shake her head. She’s not a child. She doesn’t need to be babied. But before she can protest, Joe crushes her body against his in a tight embrace.
“I’m so sorry, Nile,” Joe whispers. “I shouldn’t have been such a sore winner.”
Nile’s breath comes back to her to laugh, and Joe releases her. He stares at her like she’s lost her mind. Which could be true, given that she’s an immortal living with other immortals in the middle of nowhere. The thought throws her back into a fit of laughter.
“None of this,” Nile sighs and leans back into the grass. “None of this has anything to do with you, Joe.”
He breathes a sigh of relief and joins her in the grass. “If not me, what’s making you crazy, Nile?”
She looks up at the stars; the ones she could never see in Chicago. Out here in the countryside, they’re magnificent.
For a couple of moments, they just breathe together. Watching the sky.
“Did you know that American slaves would follow a constellation to the northern states and out of slavery?”
Joe hums a quick note of encouragement.
“I don’t know how long they’ve been looking out for us, or how long they’ll be there. But, they’re always there, you know?” Nile sighs. “I’m honored to have been chosen, or whatever, but I’m not ready to be watching over the world for so long.”
“Nile--”
“--And I don’t want to be Andy. Or to end up like Booker.” Her voice breaks, and she has to take a shaky breath. “I just want to be me.”
Joe waits a beat, letting Nile catch her breath. “What happened at the lab, Nile?”
The boy’s eyes are tearing up as he holds the pistol in his trembling hands. And all Nile can see is what this boy’s future could have looked like if he had only chosen a different path.
Instead of joining this militia, what if he had applied for scholarships? Worked a part-time job? Lost his childhood to the workforce in order to have a future? Grown-up too fast but to be able to live later?
Nile drops her weapon. She holds up her hands. She shakes her head. “I’m not doing this.” Nile turns to look at Andy turning the corner. “I’m not doing this.”
The bullet enters her skull. It’s a quick death, merciful. She dies instantly, only to wake up less than three minutes later. When Nile does open her eyes, she’s staring at the body of her assassin; only, his face is replaced by her brother’s. She allows the sob forming in her throat to release as she grasps her brother’s hands.
Seconds later, Nile’s fingers are pried open. And she’s carried away from her family.
Joe’s face falls as Nile turns away to look back up at the stars. “He wasn’t your brother, Nile.”
“That’s not--.” Nile flips onto her side, away from Joe. “But he could’ve been. He could still be.” A flash of anger rises in Nile. She sits up and turns back to Joe. “And I can’t help him because I got caught in the same damn trap!”
Joe just looks at her sadly.
“Wait, Joe--” Nile starts, “I didn’t mean you.”
He shakes his head. “I hate to see you hurting, habibti.” Joe smiles at her, reaching out his hand.
Nile can’t help but reciprocate. She exhales a small smile and takes his hand.
Andy wakes on the floor of her bedroom. Must’ve rolled off the cot during the night. She sits up and is assaulted by a spiking pain in her lower back and a crick in her neck. She stands up, stretching her arms and twisting her back like Nile had shown her.
Andy sighs. Nile. Maybe she was too harsh on Nile. On everyone. She makes her way to the kitchen, beelining for the coffee maker. (The best invention so far).
She’s not surprised to see Nicky awake. He hums a welcome at her without looking up from the newspaper and gestures for her to take a seat.
This is surprising.“What happened?”
Nicky is expressionless as he folds up the paper. And even more silent when Andy finally takes the seat across from him.
“Am I going to need something stronger?”
Nicky sighs and forces the coffee into Andy’s hands. “Drink.”
Andy frowns, scrunching up her face, in thought. “Joe?”
“He won’t be getting out of bed today.” Nicky shakes his head. “He hasn’t said a word, but he will.”
Andy freezes.
“Drink. They both just need time.”
She drops the mug onto the table, spilling the contents over Nicky’s newspaper.
Nicky raises his voice, “She’ll come back…” but Andy is already in motion, moving swiftly toward Nile’s slightly ajar door.
Her bed is made tightly, with care. The sheets are clean, the pillows fluffed as if it’s never been slept in. Andy turns her attention to the dresser beside the cot, ripping open the drawers. Empty.
Back to the bed, she tears off the sheets, throwing them against the door. Empty. She picks up the singular light in the room and smashes it against the floor.
Andy bellows down the hallway, “Passports?”
“She only took her own,” Nicky states, as calmly as if listing groceries he needs from the market. “Took her stipend as well.”
Andy drops to her knees, looking under the cot. Whipping her head back to Nicky, she seems to beg, “Tell me she at least took…” she thrusts her hand under the bed and pulls out a duffle bag.
“She did not.” Nicky sighs.
Andy tears her eyes away from the bag but refuses to look Nicky in the eye. “I don’t think I can do this again.”
Nicky wraps his arm around Andy’s waist. And murmurs, “I know.”
She moves the stack of paperwork between her hands, rubbing her palms on her jeans. There’s nothing to be afraid of here. If they wanted to find her, they would have. She shakes her hands out and steps forward as the line advances.
Her hair is no longer in braids, but in a ponytail that allows her hair to coil upwards, haloing her head. Her fashion is also her own, fun yet understated. A statement jacket over her jeans. Not in disguise, but finally herself.
The woman at the front desk finally waves the next guest forward. She hands her paperwork across the desk, and the woman reads over the documents with little hums.
“Congratulations for being accepted into the University of Paris, Miss Rivière.”
Nile smiles, and finally lets the tension release from her shoulders. “Happy to be here.”