#I just vibe with em though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

roseverdict · 2 years

Text

Unreal Superhero Three

Alternate Title: Variant Hero Timeline

Well, the good news was that Henry's new implants were absolutely baller.

The bad news was that he had no idea if Ellie had managed to get away.

Even if she had, it was likely she thought he was dead.

He would probably never see her again.

He probably couldn't go back to find Charles without his condition and overall health sparking an international incident, and knowing how touchy people in power could be with their weapons of mass destruction…it wasn't worth it.

One man's happiness wasn't worth the world. Not when it was Henry Stickmin's.

(or: oops i tripped and spilled my sticks everywhere! guess i'll throw a bunch of timelines in a blender!)

He sat at the bar, tapping his fingers along the wood.

The bartender, used to him after the weeks of his constant presence, simply slid him a plate of his usual order as she puffed on a cigar.

He nodded to her- he'd pay her back like he usually did, with a shift in the kitchen later tonight- and started eating.

The door opened, and a voice he hadn't heard in weeks spoke. His Russian was still a bit sloppy, but he could still make out most of it. "Excuse me, miss. Have you seen this man?"

He turned to the voice and looked at the poster in the newcomer's hands.

His own face looked back at him in the form of a mugshot, with the Russian words for "Henry Stickmin: Reward for Location of Body" visible underneath it and the actual reward amount obscured by the Wall officer's lower hand.

Luckily, Henry had found himself a purple scarf and face mask within a few days of his initial escape, and nobody here had seen his face underneath it.

Of course, he wasn't exactly completely recognizable under it, anyway.

"Still nothing, much like every other time you come in, Grigori," the bartender scoffed. "When will you learn? That man is gone to the bottom of the sea!"

Grigori scoffed and rolled his poster back up. "Rule number one of my job: never underestimate a criminal. Stickmin is capable of a great many things. He could be right under my nose this very second!"

Henry kept from flinching back with the ease of practice.

Grigori turned to him. "Have you seen Stickmin?"

Henry shook his head and said one of the few Russian words he trusted himself not to screw up: "No."

Grigori sighed at the sound of Henry's voice, the digitized overtones to it rendering it unrecognizable to the man who'd only heard Henry's grunts of pain. "Well, if you see him, make sure to report his whereabouts, yes?"

"Yes," said Henry, exhausting both his ability to easily speak aloud for the day and his Russian vocabulary.

"Good." Grigori turned on his heel and stormed out, muttering under his breath about something or another.

Henry couldn't help the way his shoulders relaxed slightly as he went back to his food. The longer he stayed put, the more likely it was that he would be discovered.

But where could he go? His arrest had to have been done with the assistance of someone in the US military, otherwise there was no possible way for him to have been going to bed one day and waking up in the Wall the next.

Still, living life on the run was still better than being trapped in the complex for the rest of his days.

Henry wondered if Ellie had gotten away.

When he finished eating, he stood up to head back to the kitchen, but the bartender held up her hand.

Henry stopped in his tracks. Though she couldn't see it, he blinked owlishly at her.

"You cannot stay here, Henry," said the bartender in accented English. Then, before Henry could bolt because she knew his NAME, "Not everyone here agrees with Wall's way of doing things, but not everyone disagrees, either. You should start finding your way out of here."

Henry almost signed at her before remembering that ASL likely wouldn't work outside of America. Instead, he picked up a napkin and one of the pens in the bartender's little mug and wrote in Russian.

How do you know my name?

The bartender looked at it for a moment, then used the lit end of her cigar to set the napkin ablaze. "Drifter comes through here right after prisoner escapes Wall for first time in over 50 years? I notice things, Henry."

Okay, that was fair.

"I watch news, you know. Two prisoners fled that night," continued the bartender. "What happened to her?"

Henry sighed and managed to force out a quiet, "Escaped, hopefully."

"What, did she leave you?" asked the bartender in dismay.

Henry shook his head quickly. "Not her fault."

The bartender hmm-ed to herself, but thankfully dropped it. "Well, whatever case may be, I recommend you leave as soon as you can, да?"

Henry nodded.

"Good. Now go," said the bartender. "It is on house tonight."

Henry nodded again, this time shooting her a thumbs-up and a hidden grin, then headed for the door.

3 weeks earlier

"Ooh, see that there?" hissed Ellie, pointing out at the docks. "If we grab that dinghy, we can be out of here before they even realize we're gone!"

Henry nodded with a smirk. They just needed to sneak over and nab it, and they'd be home free!

He dug through his pockets and found a few brown leaves. These, however, were no ordinary leaves.

He grinned and passed one to Ellie.

"Ooh, tanuki flight! Sick!" she said in that special tone of voice reserved for Excitement When One Had To Be Quiet. "Let's go!"

The pair of them quickly crushed their leaves in their fists, and with the tails that appeared on each of their bodies, they floated silently over the top of the two guards posted on the docks.

When they landed, however, things went wrong.

Henry landed face-first, as his luck tended to dictate. Ellie landed on her feet, because she was just that cool.

Ellie just so happened to land on her feet on Henry's back.

Henry squeaked and threw his hands over his mouth.

Ellie tried to apologize quietly, pulling him to his feet.

The guards looked up at the commotion.

"Hey, you!"

Henry and Ellie shared a single panicked glance and bolted for the dinghy.

"Nicolai, radio the others!" ordered one of the guards. Then, at the fleeing prisoners, "GET BACK HERE, INMATES!"

Henry just shoved Ellie into the dinghy before leaping in after her and yanking the engine cord once, twice, thrice-!

The engine roared to life, and they shot away from the dock at top speed!

Ellie and Henry were quick to take up positions in the front and back of the boat, but for all their teamwork, for all the sick tricks they pulled off to avoid getting shot out of the water, they were just two escapees against an entire complex of jailers who wouldn't hesitate to end them.

It was almost like Henry forgot that last part until the very last second.

There were shouts and gunshots ringing across the water, and their stolen dinghy was racing along at the speed of freedom-

-but then Henry saw a glowing red dot appear on Ellie's back.

Henry's voice failed him.

It was too dark to see his hands.

He couldn't tackle Ellie out of the way without knocking one or both of them overboard.

So Henry shot to his feet.

Thunder rumbled.

Fire burst through his chest, and Ellie squawked a split second later, whirling around to gawk at him.

He managed to stay conscious just long enough to watch her eyes flick between Henry and something behind him, then grow wide.

He smiled and forced out a weak, "Keep goin' 'thout me."

Whatever Ellie did next, though, Henry didn't know.

There came another burst of fire in his skull.

The world toppled to one side before becoming cold, dark, and wet.

Someone's voice was screaming in the distance.

He hoped it wasn't Ellie.

In the Present

Henry carefully sipped at his tea, making sure to keep every possible inch of his face covered as he did.

"I thought I told you to get out of town," said the bartender in Russian with a fake lightheartedness that could barely contain her nerves.

"I will," Henry said quietly, the better to keep his voice from distorting. "Think I found something. Just wanted to say goodbye."

The bartender relaxed slightly at that. "Well, then, I hope you enjoy yourself, sir."

"Thanks," said Henry, using the word he'd just learned the other day.

Before anything else could happen, there came shouts from outside, and Henry poked his head out the door to have a look.

There were three Toppats and a safe, and there were two government agents of some kind facing off against them.

Henry whipped out his knife- the one someone had stuck in one of the tables in the bar and never reclaimed- and flung it at the nearest Toppat, pinning them to the wreckage of a probably-stolen truck by their shirt.

His intervention drew shocked glances from the Toppats (and probably the agents, though he wasn't looking their way right then), but then a freaking beam of light hit the two remaining thieves and their loot.

Henry gawked as the two Toppats he hadn't hit were whisked away with their stolen safe, but quickly recovered to take his knife back and tie the third Toppat's hands behind her back.

Only once that was done did he step away and actually look at the government agents.

Charles and Ellie stared back at him, shock clear on their faces.

For a moment, Henry let himself hope that they would realize who he was, and he reached up in preparation to remove his hood.

"Those were some slick moves there, stranger," remarked Charles sunnily, holstering his gun.

"I'll say!" Ellie agreed. "Dude, we've been trying to catch one of these guys for weeks! How'd you manage it on your first try?"

Henry froze up. On autopilot, he fed the TTS engine in his implants the phrase, "Beginner's luck."

No, no, why would he say that? That implies he's the stranger they think he is, not their long-lost friend-!

Henry bit his tongue. He just…needed to find the right moment to tell them. It'd be fine.

This totally wouldn't backfire on him.

"Really?" said Charles. "Well, if you're as good as you were just now, we might be able to give you a job. We kinda need all the help we can get with the Toppats, anyway. You interested?"

Henry weighed his options.

On the one hand, he should probably stay legally dead. He was shocked that tensions hadn't boiled over with Ellie's apparent team-up with the American military, but it was possible that she'd kept what she'd been through to herself.

On the other hand…being a part of a team with both Charles and Ellie was a dream come true. Surely it couldn't hurt to just…go for it, right?

Right.

Henry nodded silently.

"Good," Charles said.

"C'mon, let's get this gal back to base," said Ellie, hefting the Toppat over her shoulder like it barely even winded her.

Charles nodded. "Now there's a plan. C'mon, stranger. Hope you're good with heights."

Henry nodded right back and set off after them when they turned to head back to a waiting helicopter.

This…would be eventful.

"You got a name, Purple Guy?" asked Ellie once they were in the air.

The stranger shrugged and shook his head, and the automated voice replied, "Not anymore. I don't really have a preference, either, if you're wondering."

Charles glanced back at the two of them in mild surprise. "Really? Because if you leave it up to me, I'm calling you Hank. Y'know, like that one guy from Nevada me and Ellie here keep hearing about?"

The stranger snorted quietly, the sound as digitally distorted as the robotic voice he used, but he still said, "You can call me Hank if you want."

Ellie found herself snorting, too. "Hank. Yeah, okay. Great idea as ever, Charles."

"Why, thank you!"

Charles flew them home in relatively companionable silence. Usually she and Charles would be ribbing each other over little things all the way back, but with Hank in their midst, Ellie didn't really feel like doing that.

…at the same time, Hank's silent presence wasn't exactly unfriendly, either. Whenever Charles started humming to himself and tapping his fingers along the yoke in front of him, Hank pressed a hand to where his mouth was covered by his mask, almost as if stifling laughter.

The stranger was an enigma, to be sure, but by the time they landed back at base, the sun that had just been coming up in Russia was already more than halfway across the sky. If they were going to be rested up for the big mission the next day, they had to push past their jetlag fast, not worry about what the deal was with the stranger in purple.

And maybe they should actually get the OK from the General to bring Hank along.

That was probably important.

"Okay, I'm gonna go break the news to the General that we've got someone new to help out," Charles said, getting out of the pilot's seat. "Hank, you mind staying in here until getting the all-clear?"

Hank nodded and flashed them a thumbs-up, and Ellie helped Charles bring the Toppat down from the 'copter and into proper custody.

The General nodded proudly as the Toppat was led past, then smiled at them. "Nice work, you two. We were starting to think the Toppats were untouchable."

"Well, thanks, General, but we can't take all the credit," Charles said modestly. "We actually got some help at the last second."

"Oh, really? From whom?" asked the General.

Ellie and Charles nodded to each other, and as Charles headed back into the helicopter, Ellie explained, "He said he doesn't have a name 'anymore,' but we've been calling him Hank and he doesn't seem to mind."

The General's eyebrows rose, but that was the moment Hank followed Charles out into view.

"I swear, it's like my gut is telling me we can trust this guy," Charles told them.

Ellie nodded. "Yeah, I feel the same way."

The last time she'd felt that gut instinct, she and Henry were fleeing the Wall together, and Henry had proven her right by taking not one, but two bullets for her.

She refused to let Hank meet the same fate as Henry.

Hank's hand slowly came up to his chest, then he ducked his head and looked away. If Ellie had to guess, it looked like he was probably beaming under that mask of his.

"Mind letting us see your face, young man?" prodded the General.

Hank's shoulders shot up to his ears, and in his robotic voice, he said, "If it's all the same to you, General, I'd rather not. Please."

Ellie's eyes widened. That was right, if he had some sort of cybernetic implant to use as a voice, then the odds that his face still looked like his face were…

The General seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he sighed and nodded. "Fair enough, I suppose."

"C'mon, Hank, we need to reset our sleep schedules before we head out to space!" declared Charles, grabbing Hank by the arm and dragging him off in the direction of his and Ellie's apartment.

Hank made a surprised laugh, this time in a voice that sounded like it had been organic before being digitized, but let Charles yank him along.

"You're sure you can trust him?" asked the General quietly.

"Positive." Ellie nodded. "When Charles and me were going after those Toppats in Russia, all three nearly got away. If Hank hadn't stepped in to help apprehend one of them, we'd have come home empty-handed like every other mission."

The General frowned thoughtfully. "…well, trust worked out well enough with Henry. If you believe we can afford to extend that same trust to Hank, then we will. He'd best not make us regret it."

"We'd make him regret it first," assured Ellie. "Thanks, General."

Henry sat on the cot Charles had set up for him and tried to keep from exploding inside.

He really should have told them who he was from the get-go.

Now they were treating him like a stranger. A friendly stranger, to be sure, but there was none of the rapport he'd gained with Charles over infiltrating the airship. There was none of the bond he and Ellie had forged on their escape from the Wall.

For all they knew, he would leave once the job was done.

Henry groaned quietly and buried his still-covered face in his hands.

If he tried to tell them who he was now, then they might get mad at him for hiding it to begin with, to boot!

Oh, he'd really screwed himself over now.

Way to go, Stickmin.

With his cybernetic ear, he could hear Charles and Ellie talking quietly in the kitchen. Maybe they were being too quiet for a normal human to hear them, but Henry's augmented hearing picked up their discussion with ease.

"I know it might just be me trying to read too much into things, but it's almost like Henry's still here," Charles was saying.

"Yeah," Ellie agreed. "…hey, he mentioned you when the two of us were getting out of the Wall, but he never got a chance to explain how he actually knew you. Could you give me your side of things?"

A sad chuckle from Charles. "Well, there's not much to say. We brought him in for a raid on the Toppat clan's airship division, and he actually listened to my plans when I suggested them. Only other person who does that is the General, really."

"And me," prodded Ellie.

"Heh, and you," Charles conceded. "What about you, huh? How'd you meet him? You never really went into detail."

There came a beat of silence, then, "We were put in the same holding cell."

"Woah, no joke?" Charles gasped. "So how'd he get to the Wall in the first place? We pardoned him, and I thought the rest of the world had, too. The enemy of the Toppats is my ally, y'know?"

"He never told me, but from what I overheard of the warden, the guy doesn't believe in pardons," Ellie bit out. "I'd say Henry more than earned his, though."

Another beat.

Charles swallowed. "When…when I first saw you, you were in prison clothes…with blood on them that wasn't yours."

"…and cranial fluid," Ellie mumbled. "The tests got back to me the other day."

Charles took a shaky breath.

"Jerks were aiming for me," Ellie muttered. "Henry stood up in the boat we were escaping in to block the shots. Fell out and disappeared into the sea. No body was ever found."

Charles made a choked noise, and there was the rustling of fabric.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut and forcibly shut himself down for the night.

He'd so screwed up this time.

2.5 weeks earlier

The next thing Henry saw was a blonde ponytail and pink glasses.

"Ah, you are awake," said she in a Russian accent. "Here, sit up, sit up- carefully."

Henry did so with a groan, only to freeze up.

The voice that had just come from him was not his voice.

"Easy, easy!" the woman said, carefully holding his arms at his sides. "Your voice is different now, да, but it was necessary in order to bring you back to life."

Back to-?

BACK TO LIFE?!

Henry shot her a panicked look.

"You were gone for short time there," confirmed the woman. "Luckily, I was able to repair what had been destroyed. Would you like mirror?"

Henry swallowed, then nodded.

The woman nodded back, then picked up a mirror from a nearby table and gave it to him.

Henry couldn't stop staring at the reflection that was allegedly his own. Metal covered the right side of his face, and the eye on that side was now a series of LEDs in white and blue. The metal continued down his neck and shoulders, encircling part of his torso and expanding over part of his left arm.

And yes, his throat was completely made of the stuff now, it seemed.

"-water inhalation, and there was frostbite damage to deal with, and you suffered serious gunshot wounds on top of that," the woman was saying when the ringing in Henry's ears died down. "Still, you pulled through surgery in record time. Your will to live is astounding!"

The memories of what he'd just been doing came rushing back, and Henry gasped, stumbling for the door.

ELLIE!

"Oh-! What did I just say?" the woman said, exasperated.

Henry could only gawk at the open ocean outside the boat he found himself on.

The woman cleared her throat to get his attention. "I could tell from bullet patterns- you had run-in with Wall, да? Brutality of their methods is rather unique."

Henry nodded, glancing over at her pleadingly before gesturing wildly at the bright daylight sky.

Thankfully, she got the message. "You have been on my boat for three and half days. First day was surgery."

Henry found himself ghosting his fingers along the metal side of his face. Right, surgery. The surgery that had apparently been necessary to save his life had ended with him becoming a freaking cyborg.

"Please, come back in," said the woman. "We can make introductions, then I can show you functions of cybernetic implants."

Henry swallowed, then nodded.

Maybe he'd be able to ask if she'd seen Ellie once he calmed down a bit.

In the Present

"That's a spaceship," said Hank's robotic voice.

Charles beamed and nodded. "Yeah!"

"That," said Hank again, gesturing with his whole body, "Is. A. Spaceship!"

Charles nodded even faster and bounced on the balls of his feet. "Yeah!"

"Pretty sweet ride, right?" Ellie agreed, slinging an arm over Charles's shoulder with an easy grin. "And this guy is gonna fly us up there."

"What can I say? I'm just that cool," Charles said, totally nonchalant and definitely not buzzing in excitement.

"When do we plan to leave?" asked Hank.

"With luck, we oughta be in the air by noon," Charles responded. "That'll give us time to eat, drink, use the room, that sorta stuff."

Hank glanced down at one of his implants on his left wrist, the only one that extended that far down his arm, and tapped a button. A digital readout of the current time appeared in front of him: 10:54.

"We'll wanna be back here in about half an hour to go over pre-flight checks and stuff," Charles explained. "In the meantime, was there anything you really wanted to do?"

Hank shifted his weight to one side and tapped at his chin for a moment.

A few yards away, one of the other doors to the hangar opened up, and Charles beamed. "Oh, hey there, Dr. V! What brings you over to the spaceship hangar?"

Hank stiffened and spun on his heel to look.

Dr. V smiled, though she did shoot Hank a distinctly unimpressed look for some reason. "I heard one of my patients was on base. Thought I would give him checkup before he launched into space. That is not problem, да?"

Hank shook his head. "That's no problem. I wasn't expecting to see you again, but since you're here, I kind of have a few questions to ask, too."

"Come along then," Dr. V said. "Let us make sure cybernetics are at full function."

"Meetcha back here in half an hour, Hank!" Charles chirped.

Dr. V's eyebrows shot up, but she wordlessly led Hank outside, likely going to the medical center for his impromptu checkup.

"We're spying on them," Ellie said matter-of-factly.

"Wh-? No?" spluttered Charles.

"C'mon, man, that whole interaction was weird, you gotta admit," pushed Ellie. "Besides, I wanna know a bit more about Hank anyway. This way you get to supervise!"

Normally, Charles would be completely against eavesdropping.

However, Charles had been working with Ellie for the past couple of weeks.

"Okay, but if we're spotted, I'm not taking the blame," he stated.

Ellie shrugged. "Fair enough. C'mon!"

The two of them darted after Dr. V and Hank, and they came to a stop just under a window as they heard the doctor's voice.

"…and I just can't take this seriously. Hank?" she demanded, as if the name itself was more of a question than anything else. "When you were on my boat, didn't you tell me-?"

"I know, I know," said Hank. "I know what I said. It's still true, I just…"

Hank's actual voice groaned before he continued. "I screwed up, Doc. They didn't recognize me at first, and then by the time I realized I should just get over myself and say it, I'd already dug myself into a hole. If I tell them now, they'll just be mad at me for keeping this to myself!"

"As they very well should be," sniffed Dr. V.

Metal clanged, and Hank squawked.

"However," the doctor continued, her voice softening, "I believe they will be happier to know who you are and that you yet live. I've been here week now, you see. They have bonded over shared experience, this is true, but there is hole in each of them. You know how hole can be filled."

Hank didn't speak for a moment, then swallowed. "I'm not sure I can, but…for them, I'll try."

"Good. That is all anyone can ask," said Dr. V decisively. "Now, let me see your throat. You told me yourself you do not speak aloud much, but I can already tell TTS has had workout. Let's tune that up, да?"

Hank chuckled at that, but Charles put a hand on Ellie's shoulder and gestured back with his head.

Ellie swallowed silently, her eyes wide, then nodded.

They crept away, only feeling brave enough to speak once they were all the way back in the hangar.

"So," Charles croaked.

"So," Ellie stated.

"There's no way."

"Absolutely none."

"Just a coincidence."

"Definitely."

"People don't just un-die."

"Of course not."

There was a moment where neither of them spoke, then Ellie forced out in a rather high voice, "…but Dr. V is the greatest at her craft-"

Charles immediately crumpled into a ball, barely balancing on the balls of his bouncing feet as he stifled a wordless shriek of excitement with his knees.

"You good, buddy?" Ellie managed. Then, before Charles could answer, she groaned and slapped her hands to her face. "Oh, who am I kidding, of course you aren't! I'm not either! I've got half a mind to pummel that man-!"

"No, you don't," squeaked Charles.

"No, I don't," agreed Ellie without hesitation as she began to pace. "How long has he been out and about? Why was his default reaction to lie even though he wants to tell us the truth?!"

Charles took a shaky breath and pushed himself back into a standing position. "Well, he was presumed dead for the better part of a month, and he was still in the Wall's territory. Maybe that had something to do with it?"

Ellie nodded thoughtfully. "Probably a reflex, then. And do we know if he's got any kind of anxiety?"

"He's selectively mute, but I don't think that counts," Charles tried. "Um, he always seemed really confident in the airship on that one mission? But I don't think I actually saw him relax until it was all over and everybody but me had left the helicopter, so I dunno."

"And he seemed pretty cool-headed at the Wall, at least right up until he took two freaking bullets for me," Ellie added. "Ugh, self-sacrificial idiot's gonna be the death of me, gonna give me a heart attack-!"

"We should probably let him tell us when he's ready," Charles suggested.

"Hopefully he tells us soon, otherwise I think I'm gonna have to just wring it out of-" Ellie began.

The hangar doors opened, and Charles and Ellie scrambled to compose themselves.

"Hank" glanced at them, his head tilted questioningly, but he simply said, "The doc cleared me to fly. Uhhh, what's with him?"

Charles wasn't quite sure what "Hank" meant for that last part, but then Ellie jammed an elbow into his gut and-

-oh, he'd started beaming uncontrollably at the sight of their friend. That'd do it.

"Ignore him," Ellie lied coolly with a roll of her eyes. "He's just becoming a space case as we speak."

Charles rolled with it. "I'm just so excited! Can you imagine it? Fly me to the moon, let me PLAAAY amongst the stars-!"

"Hank" tried and failed to stifle a laugh.

Charles's beam returned in full force.

2 weeks earlier

Well, the good news was that Henry's new implants were absolutely baller.

The bad news was that he had no idea if Ellie had managed to get away.

Even if she had, it was likely she thought he was dead. According to Dr. Vinschpinsilstien, the bullet he'd gotten to the head had skimmed his cranial cavity closely enough to actually send some of the fluid flying. Miracle of miracles, his brain had survived unscathed, but since Ellie had only had dark silhouettes and bloodied prisonwear to go by, she probably didn't know.

And even if she did, most people who got shot in the head and fell in the ocean didn't live to tell the tale anyway.

He would probably never see her again.

One man's happiness wasn't worth the world. Not when it was Henry Stickmin's.

Henry looked up at the sky- a stormy white now, not the clear blue of the day he'd first reawakened- and ran one last diagnostic, the text flashing in his right eye's field of view as it ran.

Shoulder online.

Throat online.

Heart online.

Brain online.

Weapons systems online.

Flight systems online.

Chaos systems online.

Henry took a deep breath, then let it out.

The good doctor came up next to him and leaned on the railing. "You are planning to leave now."

It wasn't a question, but Henry nodded anyway.

"What will you do?" asked Dr. V.

Using the text-to-speech feature in his implants rather than his altered voice, Henry said, "I don't know. Let my friends know I'm alive once tensions with Russia die down? Find something I'm good at that isn't illegal, maybe."

Dr. V. nodded, then glanced at him. "Good luck, Henry. In whatever you choose."

Henry smiled, then did one of the few signs he'd managed to teach her over the past few days. "Thank you."

"It was no trouble," Dr. V. said with a smile of her own. "Now, go find yourself, кибервор."

Henry grinned and activated the jet wings in his back, taking flight and slicing through the sky.

He'd find land, first.

After that…

…well, he'd work it out.

In the Present

"There it is," Charles breathed.

Henry couldn't help but nod in agreement. The Toppat's base would be going down in flames if they had anything to say about it, but dang if it didn't look cool.

"Alright, how're you bringing us in, Charles?" asked Ellie, leaning over his shoulder to peer at their destination.

"You're both in your suits, right?" asked Charles by way of answering.

Henry nodded, as did Ellie.

"Great! Get in this ball of trash!"

Henry glanced at Ellie, who looked just as unimpressed as he felt.

"What."

Charles grinned back at them. "It's a good idea, trust me."

Well, Henry trusted him, and clearly Ellie did, too, because she shrugged. "Welp, guess we're garbage now."

Henry snorted and nodded, burrowing into the side of the trash ball opposite Ellie. Once they were both secure, Charles started hitting buttons. "Once you're there, I'm gonna fire a super accurate laser shot in the hull to make an entry hole for you. Get in, sabotage the engine, and get out of there so I can pick you back up."

"You got it, Charles," Ellie said, her voice muffled.

Henry lifted a thumbs-up from within the ball of garbage before pulling it back in.

The trash ball bounced, then shuddered…and then it was like he wasn't even moving.

"Testing comm frequency A113, come in Trash Pandas," said Charles's voice from Henry's ear.

"Trash Panda Red standing by," said Ellie with a giggle.

Henry stifled a snicker, but still radioed in. "Trash Panda, um, Robot standing by."

"Aw, c'mon, man, can't you think of anything better?" groaned Ellie.

"Wait, wait, wait, hang on, I got it!" Charles exclaimed. "You can be Trash Pandaborg!"

Henry grinned. "Sounds good, Trash Can."

Ellie burst out into laughter (possibly hysterics? Maybe she was just nervous about the mission) at that while Charles spluttered.

Henry let the moment take root in his chest like a warmth that would never go out. His two closest friends were playing off each other like they were made to be a team, and even though they didn't know who he was, it was easy to fall back in step with them.

He would tell them after the mission, he decided.

The moment came to an abrupt halt when the trash ball hit the Toppat station, and Henry quickly grabbed onto the nearby light to steady himself.

Ellie wasn't quite as lucky.

"Woah, woah woah woah-!"

Henry gasped at the sight of her floating away, then glanced down at his besuited left hand. His arm wasn't fully cybernetic, but Dr. V had clearly put in a good word at the last second because the suit had a port connected to the wrist-integrated grapple hook in his implants.

He grabbed tighter to the light with his right hand, then shot the grapple at Ellie.

The moment it hit her arm, he closed the hook and reeled her back in. Only once she was able to grab onto the light under her own power did Henry allow himself to relax. "You okay, Red?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay," Ellie panted. She gave herself a little shake, then shot him an oddly-heavy smile. "Thanks for the save back there."

…why had she said it like that?

Before Henry could ponder it for too long, Charles piped up. "Good catch, Borg! Now, lemme just find a good spot to…actually. Y'know what? Naw. This calls for some bold action."

Henry knew in an instant what Charles was planning to do. He'd only gotten to hear him talk about it countless times before his brief tenure at the Wall, after all.

Their UFO came barrelling in to Charles's excited fanfare.

"I'm the bold action MAAA-!"

Metal squealed (probably) and Henry found himself clinging to Ellie's wrist as they went flying into the rocket and tumbled to the catwalk inside.

"WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE TO CORE. PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."

The world grew fuzzy for a moment, but Henry quickly shook himself back to the present and pushed himself to his feet.

Ellie groaned and rolled onto her side. *"Charles, I take back what I said earlier. You're the idiot."

"I'll take that as a compliment!" Charles declared, laying facedown on the ground for a moment before shakily standing. "I've always wanted to do that."

"Of course you have," grumbled Ellie as she tugged her helmet off. "C'mon, we gotta get outta here before it blows."

Henry detached himself from his own suit, grimacing as his helmet caught on his facemask.

The right side came a bit loose, but he was fine.

Really, he was.

"Charles, your headset!" Ellie gasped.

Henry turned to look and stiffened.

Charles's headset was beaten in, dented, and broken. The microphone dangled by just one wire, but as Henry watched, the wire snapped.

"Eh, better my headset than my head," Charles said simply. "Now let's beat feet!"

Henry nodded and ran after the other two as they sprinted from the core of the station. They quickly skidded to a stop in front of a mostly-shut door, however.

"Don't tell me. This is our only way through," deadpanned Ellie.

"Got it in one, sister," Charles said with a grimace. "Anybody have any ideas?"

Henry considered brute-forcing their way out, or maybe having one of them hack the nearby keypad, but then something else caught his eye.

"What about the vent?" he asked, gesturing to the air duct in question.

"Ooh, good thinking!" Charles declared.

Henry reached down and pulled the grate clean off with his cybernetic strength, setting it aside, then stepped aside and gestured grandly to the opened vent. "Official government agents first."

"Why, thank you, my good man," said Ellie in an overly-posh voice as she clambered in.

"Most gentlemanly of you," added Charles with a giggle as he followed.

Henry grinned, then crawled in after them.

After a short while of wriggling through the vents, the alarms blaring outside, Charles started singing under his breath. "Craaawling throoough the veeents…"

"This staaation's gooonna blo-ooow…" chimed in Ellie.

Henry pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, but when the metal beneath them bucked in time with a loud bang elsewhere on the station, it became a lot easier to keep the giggles in.

They came to a stop, and Ellie hissed, "Toppats in the hall, give it a second."

After the promised second, she scrambled from the vents and turned around to pull the other two out and up. "There's gotta be escape pods around here somewhere, right? Every self-respecting space station's gotta have escape pods."

Charles glanced around for a second, then nodded. "I know where they are. Follow me!"

Henry found himself running after Charles and Ellie as they darted through the station, then came on a row of three still-unsent pods.

As they watched, a Toppat fled into the furthest one still usable, but between the one labelled "Luxury" and the one with a cracked window, they didn't really have the best options to choose from.

"I ain't dealing with the Toppat elites today," said Ellie, walking right up to the pod with a cracked window.

Henry shrugged and stood next to her as she pressed, then smacked, then punched the button to open the pod's door. He did his little 'operatives first' gesture again, but Charles and Ellie pushed him in front of them, situating him in the seat opposite the door before they went to sit down.

…weird, but okay.

"Man, what a rush!" said Ellie, sinking into her seat.

"Can't wait to get back to-" Charles started.

"Heh…" snickered the Toppat in the hall as he yanked Charles out of the escape pod.

Henry was moving before he even fully realized what had happened.

Body-check the Toppat-

Grab Charles under his arms-

Hurl Charles back in the pod-

Realize distantly that his mask came off-

Taze the ever-living daylights out of the Toppat, no mercy-

Watch the escape pod's door slam shut-

"HENRY STICKMIN, DON'T YOU DARE!"

Ellie's furious shriek snapped him back to himself, and Henry whirled around, wide-eyed.

Ellie and Charles were both pounding on the door now, but neither of them seemed surprised to see Henry standing there. They mostly seemed terrified.

Oh, right, they were in the only escape pod in reach and-

-yep, there it went.

Henry's earpiece crackled, and Ellie's voice came back. "DON'T YOU DARE DIE ON ME AGAIN, STICKMIN, DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

"Seriously, dude, you gotta find another way outta there!" added Charles.

Henry took a shaky breath and spoke. "You…you knew?"

"Only since Dr. V gave you a checkup," Charles said mournfully.

"It was my idea to eavesdrop," said Ellie. "We wanted to let you tell us in your own time, not-"

A choked sob.

"Not this!"

The computerized voice of the satellite spoke. "T-minus 30 seconds to self-destruct. Better hurry."

"If you die on us again, I'll, I'll strangle your ghost!" Ellie snapped.

Henry scrubbed at his eyes and sniffled. Before he could say his goodbyes, however…

"T-minus 20 seconds."

Henry squinted at the metal on his arm, then gasped.

His implants!

Dr. V, you mad genius!

He raced forward and started beating on the door that had sealed once Ellie and Charles had been ejected.

"15, 14, 13,"

He was denting the metal, but it wasn't enough-!

"12, 11,"

Henry roared from the effort, from the fear, from the determination he felt welling up in his chest-

"10,"

He broke through to the outside.

"9,"

He tore the hole he'd made open even wider.

"8,"

He stepped back to get a running start.

"7,"

Further…

"6,"

Further…

"5,"

NOW!

"4,"

Henry slapped a button on his arm and sprinted for his life.

"3,"

Mechanisms in his back and arm unfolded rapidly.

"2,"

A handlebar extended from his left wrist, and a steering column shot down from its middle.

"1,"

Henry leapt from the station and grabbed the other side of the handlebars while a thin platform folded out from the steering column.

"0."

He revved the engine.

"Goodbye."

And then there was light.

3 weeks ago

Charles had been on a routine patrol (and definitely not another search for Henry) when he saw the Russian military corralling a redheaded woman.

Considering the fact that he was currently flying over American soil, that was a big no-no.

He pressed his intercom button and descended. "Hey, there, neighbors! Can't help but notice, uh, you're on American property. Um. Why?"

Instead of answering, the Russians fled. One of them tried to grab the redhead, but she jabbed an elbow into his gut and made a break in Charles's direction, waving her arms frantically.

Well, Charles would be happy to oblige.

He dropped lower to the ground and opened the door. "Quick, get in!"

The redhead leapt up into the helicopter and rolled all the way to the other side.

"Pilot, if you take girl, you take prisoner of Wall!" barked one of the Russians.

Charles glanced back at his new passenger, noting how bloody and roughed-up she seemed, then zeroing in on a familiar-seeming face.

He hit the intercom.

"Actually, I think I'm bringing long-lost American citizen and information specialist Ellen Rose back home," Charles quipped lightly. Then, with forced cluelessness, "You guys wouldn't happen to know how she disappeared off the face of the earth, would you?"

That got the Russian leader to back off. He was visibly seething, but he didn't make any further moves to stop them.

Charles flicked off his intercom with a self-satisfied, "That's what I thought."

He turned on the autopilot and set a course for the base, then hopped from his seat and helped Ellen sit up. "You alright, ma'am? You look pretty beat-up."

"Blood's not mine," Ellen said shortly. Then she shook herself and offered a weak grin. "Thanks for the assist, flyguy."

Charles swallowed, but decided to hold off on asking whose blood it was that stained her prisonwear. Instead, he gave her a light slap on the back. "No prob. Just doing my job."

The radio crackled, and General Galeforce's voice came out. "Charlie, why're you coming back so soon? Your patrols are usually longer than this."

"Ooh, I gotta take that," Charles said with a grimace.

"Go on, I'll be fine," said Ellen, waving him towards the cockpit.

Charles squeezed her shoulder, then headed back up. "Oh, uh, heya, General. I didn't, um, find Henry, but I did find somebody else who'd gone missing. Apparently the Russians had her in custody and-"

Ellen's voice was almost too quiet to hear. "You knew Henry?"

Charles's heart sank like a rock, and he slowly turned back around. "Why did you say it like that? Why the past tense?"

"Henry Stickmin, right? He got captured and taken to the Wall," Ellen choked. "He helped me break out, but, but-!"

The world shattered.

"No," Charles breathed.

"The blood on my clothes isn't mine," repeated Ellen. Her face screwed up in a valiant effort to keep herself from breaking down, but it didn't help. "I'm, I'm so sorry-!"

"Dear God," breathed General Galeforce, who had apparently heard every single word.

Charles stumbled to the side of the helicopter and crumpled to the ground, unseeing and unhearing.

Ellen scooted over and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder, and he broke.

In the Present

The Toppat station exploded in a burst of light that was as beautiful as it was terrible.

Ellie couldn't look away.

"C'mon, Henry, you've beaten death before, c'mon!" chanted Charles under his breath.

Ellie searched the wreckage frantically, begging to see some flicker of motion going against the flow.

For a long, horrible moment, there was nothing.

Then-

"I see him," breathed Ellie. Then, louder, as she shook his shoulder, "Charles, I see him!"

"What?! Where?!"

"There!"

Ellie jabbed a finger at the window, and Charles crowded in to look-

-and there he was, weaving between scraps of metal and heading straight for them. There was a faint blue glow from his right eye that only grew brighter as he approached, and-

Charles laughed breathlessly. "His dumb scooter from the Tunisian Diamond heist! Dr. V must have souped it up and put it in his implants or something!"

"I am never gonna underestimate that lady ever again!" Ellie crowed.

Henry got close enough to the pod to be visible as more than a dot, and he immediately shot them a teary, cheesy grin and started doing scooter tricks in the sky.

"Henry, do a flip!" cheered Charles, stealing Ellie's comm.

Henry did a kickflip. Then he did an aileron roll, just for the heck of it.

Charles whooped and fell back onto his seat with his arms in the air.

Ellie laughed until she cried, only stopping when the escape pod began to rumble from re-entry. She took her comm back. "Wait, Henry, the atmosphere-!"

Henry flashed them a thumbs-up, then hit a button on his souped-up scooter. Metal plates rose up around him, and suddenly his scooter was a very small, very sleek pod of its own.

The two pods fell to the Earth together, with Henry's orbiting slowly around the other.

"He's alive, he's alive!" Charles repeated, his hands flapping fast enough to blur in Ellie's vision.

Ellie could only laugh.

The Toppat pod ejected a parachute after a few minutes of falling, and Henry quickly pulled his own back up to rejoin them. Now that they weren't falling at terminal velocity, he had the scooter-pod retract back into his implants in favor of the jet wings he apparently had, the better to do loop-di-loops in front of the window.

Ellie snorted thickly. "Henry, the General's gonna have your head."

"Eh, not if we get it first," remarked Charles conversationally.

Henry managed to sign to them as they fell- ooh, had he been avoiding signing to try and act like a different person?- with a cocky smirk. "You'll have to catch me, first!"

"You're on!" Ellie cheered.

They came to a landing in the forest, and Ellie downright kicked the door off its hinges and tackled Henry clean out of the air before he had the chance to even pretend to fly off. "Gotcha!"

"Ooh, yeah, dogpile!" Charles whooped, leaping on top of both of them.

Henry laughed, and he laughed, and he laughed a bit more, tears starting to fall. The TTS voice he'd been using kicked back into gear, though distorted and damaged-sounding. "You'rrre not m-m-mad?"

"Oh, I'm downright furious!" said Ellie brightly. "You should have just told us, you dweeb, absolute peabrain, empty-headed, no thoughts-!"

"I'll probably be annoyed later," Charles said. He tugged Henry to his feet ("Hey-!" protested Ellie as she fell to the ground) and engulfed him in a bear hug. "Right now, I'm just glad you're alive."

Ellie gulped down the lump in her throat and nodded, throwing her arms around both of them and burying her face in their combined shoulders.

When the General came to find them, he'd learn Henry's identity and alive status, and Henry would get ripped a new one.

For the moment, though, Ellie just clung to her two closest friends and didn't let go.

3 weeks and 1 day ago

"If we could get you up there, you could get in and open this door," Ellie said, tapping the door to the security office for emphasis.

Her silent companion nodded thoughtfully, then gestured for Ellie to lift him with the Force.

Ellie nodded and focused, levitating him to the ceiling and letting him drop.

A second later, he fell face-first onto the ground. Ellie winced, but he just beamed at her before scrambling to his feet and inspecting the buttons.

After taking a moment more to check the buttons over, he pressed one, sliding open the door to the security office.

Ellie glanced back, but the guard on the next floor up didn't seem to have noticed.

She hurried into the security office with a grin and followed her fellow escapee to an empty elevator shaft. "Good job, dude."

Her friend smiled, then cautiously moved his arms in-

"Ooh, sign language?" Ellie realized.

The other prisoner nodded in relief and repeated himself. "My name is H-E-N-R-Y."

Ellie grinned. "Nice to meet you, Henry. I'm Ellie, and I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Henry beamed.

MISSION COMPLETE

RANK:

UNREAL SUPERHERO THREE

#rosie writes #henry stickmin #ellie rose #charles calvin #valiant hero #presumed dead #convict allies #ghost inmate #revenged #with a slight sprinkling of that one fail where henry sits down on the train and doesn't get up because Anxiety™#BREAKING NEWS: rosie finally writes something without any actual curse words for the first time in years!#the stick figures just don't have the Vibe to me (though ellie gets closest) dfsajlfdashlfkj #wait hang on more timeline tags #triple threat #special brovert ops #cleaned 'em out #(not really that last one as much but the component ranks (gspi and gi) are there. ellie and charles are the brovert ops here though fkdsj)#ellie gets to be the #international rescue operative #how many timelines can i combine into an amalgamation without it losing all coherency? survey says This Many

11 notes · View notes