Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1

She’s familiar. The hair, the eyes, the tone of her voice, everything about her rubs him the wrong way.

“Officer, is there a problem?”

    Hamilton, smile still on his face (did it ever go away ), blocks his view.

“... No. Just thought I saw someone I knew for a minute.”

    Then there’s a deceptively strong hand on his arm, leading him towards the site of the break-in. Not that he has to do much, the culprits are already webbed up in a corner of a holding tank--screaming bloody murder behind the soundproof glass.  Probably due to the absolutely massive alien spider(?) in there with them.

“I told them not to do that-”

    The brief moments of panic raise his hopes.

“-they’re upsetting her! We just got her to start hunting again-”

    And they come crashing down in a second. He tunes out the disturbing dialogue, waiting patiently until he’s handed the blubbering men. God knows why people even try to break into Hamilton’s habitat anymore, considering the insane security measures and the deadly creatures every few feet.

    When they arrive back in the main control room, he sees her again. The unnatural blue hair strikes him once more, eyes unable to leave her. She’s working on something, ignoring her boss when he calls out to her. Hamilton doesn’t seem miffed, just lets her be and moves on. He doesn’t. She doesn’t seem to hear him as he moves up behind her, hand brushing off the tiny robot at her shoulder.

“Excuse me, miss-”

    She starts at his hand, twists around faster than he expected, and all he hears after that is a peculiar, distorted scream. When it cuts off, all he can feel is pain, pain, pain like nothing he’s ever experienced.

(Jenny remembers the screaming, all of the pain and the suffering and the deaths of her “sisters”. She remembers the running, the train hopping, the years of surviving in the worst criminal hives. She remembers the injuries and the close calls and the hands on her shoulders before the bomb goes off. She remembers and she goes for the closest invention that she has.)

    He wakes up in the hospital, Dex Hamilton and Her at his bedside, and he remembers. She was the one that always got away. And now there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s more grateful than he should be for that.

Chapter Text

2

    It had been a fairly routine capture, all things considering. Usually there was a lot more that went wrong. The space pirates weren’t new either, but the lab was. He’s grateful that the others hadn’t been taken with him, but there is another part of him that is already screaming.

“Oh my . Zap, isn’t it? It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

    The lab coat sends shivers down his spine, old memories threatening to surface  already.

“Such a perfect specimen. I would love to meet your creator, but then, wouldn’t we all.”

    The abominations holding him loosen their grip at the maniacal laugh, tremors running through them all the same. This is someone that isn’t to be messed with. Too bad Zap delights in pushing the limits.

“Well, aren’t you just wonderful. What is it this time? Torture, interrogation, both?”

    The grin on the shadowed face stretches just a little too far.

“ Study .”

    He really should have expected the needle to the back of the neck. The locking of his muscles suggests some kind of paralytic, which is fine. He can power through if he has enough time.

    He does not have enough time.

    The lab table is cold, his face pressing against the rivets as the restraints are locked. He can’t see anything, but he refuses to let the panic take over. He can survive this, he’s survived worse. Humming fills the room as scissors cut through his shirt, fingers searching for something. Then they’re grasping and pulling and they’re touching his wings. What should have been a scream comes out a whine, body tensing and twitching. Only Dex is allowed to do that, and only with his express permission.

“Oh yes, perfect indeed.”

    Memories hit him like a train, blurry and unfocused from the lack of sentience he’d had back then. Fingers always pulling, scratching, cutting the wings on his back. There’s not much human left in Zap when he catches a glimpse of the scissors, and the screech that tears its way out of his throat is the only warning anyone gets.

    By the time Dex and the others find him, he’s free and halfway off the ship. Whatever had him captive isn’t dead, but it isn’t likely to live either. He doesn’t remember what he did in his panic-induced rage. He doesn’t want to.

Chapter Text

3

    Tung knows what it’s like to be laughed at. Children are cruel, and sometimes that mean-spirited laughter turns into vicious hits and thrown stones. And it doesn’t stop when those children grow older. It just gets worse.

    He isn’t set off easily, or enough to make him violent like the others. There hasn’t been an incident since Zap first came to live at the habitat. He still remembers how it was back then, the day Dex found the boy he considers his brother. Or more like how Zap had crashed right into Dex, scared and hurt and overloading from all of the stimuli around him. And how their leader brought him home and bandaged him up and took custody. Tung remembers helping him choose his new name, distracting him when his eyes got too far away, helping him pack for his first day of high school. He’d tested into the normal human grade he should have been in.

    He remembers how they’d made progress while Zap healed, how Dex had cried happy tears when they were trusted enough to be shown his wings. And then it had been back to square one after the first few months of school. It had been chance that Tung was the one to bring the forgotten lunch, witnessing the daily harassment. Name-calling that turned into shoving that turned into a beating. That stopped the instant Tung slammed into them, conveniently forgetting that his legs were much stronger than any human’s. Being thrown several yards back and a couple of bruised ribs was enough to keep them back long enough to get Zap on his feet. The ensuing fight was legendary.

    Zap was homeschooled after that.

Chapter Text

4

    Dex is always smiling. If he’s upset, he doesn’t show it around the team. He’ll be the first to put an arm around someone’s shoulders, or to pat someone on the back. As long as they don’t try to do the same to him.

“ Hamilton! ”

    And for Sally Keener, this is something that irritates her to no end. The Devil Banshee incident wasn’t the last time she’d had to see him, and this particular assignment wouldn’t be either. She’s soaking wet, covered in mud, and bleeding from ten different minor cuts from the first fall alone. Dex isn’t even breathing hard.

“Yes, Ms. Keener?”

    His fond exasperation only adds fuel to the fire. She takes a swing at him and misses. The reason? He’d just dropped to the ground to look at some other creepy-crawly bug.

“We have been lost out here for two days. Two days! No communication, no homing beacon, no trackers-”

    Of course that’s when the rest of the peanut gallery shows up, followed by a very big bug. She runs and runs and runs like her life depends on it. At some point she hits something soft and warm and then she is pulled into some sort of natural cave.

“Are you alright Ms. Keener?”

    If she had the breath to speak, she would be screaming. She settles for a solid punch to the back. It seems like time slows down after that. Sally had never considered Dex to be dangerous. Eccentric, yes. A bit cracked in the head, definitely. But never has she considered him to be a threat. Thus the strangled noise that comes out of his mouth, and the punch that the bug boy has some difficulty catching, is quite the shocker.

    She doesn’t know that he’d spent quite a few of his formative years on the operating table, being filled with metal and foreign DNA to enhance his physical body. She doesn’t know that he has massive scars running along his shoulder blades and his spine, scars that still burn like fire when he can’t remember why. She doesn’t know that sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he sees wings in the mirror and his soul cries out. She doesn’t know.

“Dex! Dex, she didn’t mean any harm!”

    No response from the entomologist. He’s stopped struggling, held in place by the arms hooked around his torso, and he’s just limp. And then the moment passes, he looks back up with the normal smile on his face, and leads them on to corral a riled-up alien insect like he hadn’t almost killed her.

    She’s said it once and she’ll say it again:

Someone at the network must really want her dead.