Chapter Text
First, there had been the blonde man in the Chicago jailcell, beaming at her with his mouth still streaming blood and speaking something completely nonsensical as she bailed him out.
"I'm not convinced about these guys." Florence says into the phone, starfished on her back across her small bed. A sigh rustles into the receiver on the other end of the line. She can't tell if it's fond or frustrated.
"Then why hire them at all? Y'were the one in charge of choosing these folks, Flo. You had the final say."
Another jail, this time in Los Angeles, no bail, just wirecutters and praying for the best as her target- whatever it was- shot out into the night, whooping and laughing as she tried desperately to hush it.
"I knowww, I know, I just. Is it too late to be having second thoughts about all of this?"
"Do you really need me to answer that, kid?"
She sighs, heavily and dramatically, and on the other end, Dell Conagher lets out a fond sounding huff.
"I think some'a this is nerves. About your skills, about your choices, that sorta thing." She can hear him fussing with something, the rustle of fabric as he settles down, fussing some more.
"Might be." Florence agrees. "It could also be that this whole project goes up in flames and then I'm never trusted to do anything ever again."
"That could also happen, yeah. But that's sorta the point of experiments, ain't it?"
"I guess."
The guy in Boston had been particularly weird, turning up the charm like he wasn't teetering on the edge of parole.
And that had just been the States.
"You haven't seen these guys, Dell. I mean it. They're-"
"Weird? Antisocial? Violent? Honey, I got some bad news about the company you normally keep."
"Sure, but you're different. You're only weird and antisocial and violent when you're with me."
Dell chuckles. It's a warm, rusty thing, the sound of comfort and whiskey. "I've seen peeks of their files. They ain't all that bad."
Florence thinks briefly to the man in the jazz club in Paris. "Y'know one of them threatened me with a knife?"
"I know, Flo."
"Because I called him by name."
"I know, Flo."
He'd been bizarrely courteous after she'd explained she was there to hire him, apologising as if he'd bumped into her on the street and not held a blade to her neck.
"He wasn't even the worst example."
She couldn't pick a worst. The gigantic man in the mountains around Khabarovsk had glared at her the entire time like she was carrying a bomb on her person, his eyes flicking between her and the other women in the room constantly. She could never tell if he was listening.
The man in Glasgow, in between a massive explosion that had nearly sent her flying but had painted a huge grin on his face, at least seemed to be the most capable. The live demonstration had helped, even if he was overly enthusiastic about the destruction.
The Australian, picking his nails with an oversized knife as he leaned against the outside of the bar, had watched her with cold green eyes and looked everything like what she imagined a predator looked like to prey, to say nothing of the casual way he demonstrated his skills with a gun.
And then, in West Berlin, there had been the doctor. There had been something markedly wrong about him, something missing in his wide, toothy smile and his ramrod stance. He, more than any of the others, had well and truly frightened her.
"Can we change the subject?" Florence says, abruptly. "I've decided I don't want to think about this anymore because I'm gonna ralph if I do. How's your, um."
"My um?" Dell repeats like the jerk he is.
"Y'know. Your...special friend?" She isn't sure exactly what to call the person that Dell's brought into his home, that he had personally suggested for the team.
"Ah, y'mean my sweetheart." In her defence, it doesn't exactly sound like Dell knows either. "Burnt our breakfast just this mornin', so you know my darlin' is settlin' in just fine."
It comes out gravelly and soft with adoration, something she's never heard in Dell's voice before. He sounds like he really loves this person, which would be sweet, if the person in question wasn't a convicted arsonist.
Florence takes a deep breath and tries not to judge her dearest and most beloved friend more than she already has been doing. "That's...nice, Dell. Really. I'm glad."
Dell hums, the sound crackly.
They sit in silence, separated by nine hundred miles and a phone line, breathing in sync.
Florence, because she can't help herself, shatters it. "I'm scared, Dell."
"I know, honey."
"I've never done anything this big before."
"None of us have."
"I don't want to disappoint her."
For a moment Dell says nothing, thinking, always thinking so loudly she can practically hear the cogs and wheels in his head turning. "Flo, I want to say that that ain't possible, but."
"But." She parrots.
"But she ain't an easy woman to please at the best of times. And this is an experiment. I want to tell you that nothing'll go wrong, that you'll be her shining star and the project'll go off without a hitch, but you and I both know that ain't the way our world works. That ain't the way she works."
"...I know."
"It ain't the end of the world if she's not happy with you. She's never happy."
"But if I could just-"
"Flo." Dell interrupts her. "I get it, okay? I get it. You know I do. But you should focus on the here and now, the work that needs t'be done, 'stead of chasing an unattainable goal. You hear me?"
The line crackles with silence. Florence wants to do something childish, cross her fingers behind her back like she's still fourteen and not twenty-four, not a grown woman in charge of the lives of eight strangers and her best friend. She wants to scream and yell and call him a hypocrite, slam down the phone and throw a tantrum. Instead, she nods, even though she knows Dell can't see her.
"I hear you." She lies into the reciever.
"Good." Dell says, warm and lovely and reassuring as ever. "Get some rest, 'kay? There's a helluvalot of work ahead of us."
"I will. I love you."
"Love you too, honey. G'night."
The disconnect tone, dull and painfully loud, shrills into Florence's ear. She dangles her arm off the bed and lets the phone drop to the floor, staring up at her peeling yellow ceiling. Tomorrow, four am sharp, she has to be up to begin preparation. There are forms to be signed, weapons and machinery to inspect and catalogue, living spaces to give one last once over, a battlefield to oversee. Tomorrow, four am sharp, the biggest day of her life starts.
Florence takes a deep, calming breath.
Florence rolls over and screams into her pillow.
It'll be fine, she reasons, once she's screamed all of the air out of her lungs into cheap cotton. It'll be great, even. I'm going to knock this job out of the freaking park.
Morning cannot come soon enough.