Chapter Text
“I'm quitting the Squidbeak” were the last words that Eight expected to hear from Three.
He looked down at her, sat slumped on her bed, completely dejected.
He was at a loss on what to do.
Three had started to seem less and less like herself as time passed, her patience wearing thin, her temper short, her resolve completely lost - but perhaps, maybe this was herself after all, Eight thought, a little horrified that possibly he hadn't known her as much as he had liked to think.
Three now seemed like a bit of a shell compared to the Inkling he had (properly) met in the hospital, of all places, because every other time he wanted to introduce himself, she had happened to be hanging on the edge of consciousness.
In there, however, she was aching to get out, to now show her new friend her world, Inkopolis - she was incredibly determined and she hoped and prayed she would recover well.
She was the girl that he fell for.
Was that really her? Or is this really her?
It's not like he still didn't like her, no, he’s completely infatuated with her, it's just now she just seems like… a completely different person.
The girl in front of him was none of that.
She was broken by things beyond either of their control, struggling to deal with her sense of identity that she said had forced her to re-evaluate her whole life.
She was frustrated with herself.
She didn't know what to do with herself.
She was Agent 3, for god's sake she was supposed to be cool, in control of herself, and most importantly she was supposed to be strong.
She didn't really feel like any of that.
It'd been well over a year now since the Kamabo Co days, and whilst it haunted both of them, Eight had managed to distract himself enough with what the surface had to offer, which let him push past it.
Three was stuck.
She thought every day about how that telephone broke her body and broke her mind.
How she had to retrain her leg muscles so she could actually walk and how sometimes the pain was still so bad she had to stay in bed all day.
How she thought she was going to be fine but she keeps having to restart her recovery.
How she failed her summer exams because of it all even when they had been a year after the incident - so she couldn't join Eight in further education, but he'd been lucky to get in with special consideration.
Why not her?
Deepening her wound was getting out of that hospital and learning there was now an Agent 4.
Who the fuck needed an Agent 4?
Why was she replaced?
Why was he now better than her?
Worse of all, she thought and thought and mourned how her mind had been controlled - she was able to be used as nothing more than a tool, used to almost kill Eight, forced to watch helplessly, paralysed inside her body that was being used up with the full intention to fight until there was nothing left of her.
It tormented her.
Sure Eight saved her.
It was one of the reasons she loved him.
But she should have been able to save herself… right?
God, here she is, running away from the one thing that seemed to give her direction in life.
Something safe, people she could trust.
She had just said she wanted to drop it.
Eight spoke the only word he could think of, “why?”
“Because,” she said, voice breaking. She was thumbing the edge of her cape. “because, bec… I'm not good enough! And- and that's been made clear by everyone else!”
Three was jealous, so, so jealous of Eight.
She adored him but her jealousy of him was making her bitter.
She knew it was going to ruin him if he found out.
But he was lucky Eight, lucky Eight who seemed to have everything go right for him.
She felt sick that she was thinking of him in this way, he was her partner, she shouldn't be so spiteful.
She knew what he had been through and he deserved every good thing that came his way, but she was jealous.
She was so sick of herself!
But she couldn't help herself ramble on.
“Marie… Marie hasn't put me down for anything in weeks, and- and I talked to Gramps about it and I thought he would do something for me but he hasn't, nobody wants to deal with me, fucking unreliable Three… god, she said it was to ‘help my health’, but how is this helping me!”
Eight's nose stung a little as he listened to her. He quietly wiped his eyes.
“So, that's why I'm quitting. I don't have to be a bother for everyone to manage, or maybe I'm just attention-seeking… I don't fucking care…”