Work Text:
Lucy knew it was only a matter of time before the Rittenhouse goons figured out where they’d gone. Hopefully, it would be enough time for them to escape. They were almost flying down the stairs and she was praying to anyone who might be listening that her clumsiness wouldn’t make an appearance. She’d rather not go tumbling down the stairs and break her neck.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears and the stitch in her side was annoying, but she pushed onward. She froze on the next landing, Flynn and Wyatt nearly crashing into her. A Rittenhouse agent stood there, gun pointed at her. He must have been coming up the stairs to investigate the noise.
Before her brain could even process that there was a gun pointed right at her, Flynn was flying past her, tackling the man down the stairs. A scream of his name erupted past her throat as she watched both vanish from her view, thuds echoing in the stairwell.
“Flynn!” She screamed again, before launching herself after him. Wyatt called after her, but she ignored him, fear pulsing through her with every breath she took. A part of her took note that Wyatt was rushing after her, cursing “suicidal, Croatian terrorists”.
It seemed to take forever to make it to the next landing, and when she did, her heart nearly stopped in her chest. Both men lay slumped in a heap, neither moving. The rational part of her screamed to make sure the agent was incapacitated first, but she found herself rushing to Flynn’s side instead.
Wyatt again called her name, this time in a disapproving tone, and she once again ignored him. Her hands shook as they hovered over Flynn’s inert body, her breathing seeming too loud in her ears.
At that moment, she realized how much Flynn actually meant to her. He’d gone from being a hated enemy to a trusted coworker to an unlikely friend to a...she wasn’t sure what he was to her now. Only that she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.
She grasped his shoulder and tugged, turning him onto his back with some difficulty. His face was slack with unconsciousness, unnatural in its stillness. She touched his cheek tentatively, his stubble prickling her fingertips, “...Flynn?”
He gave no sign of hearing her and her fear once again spiked. Lucy slid her hand down his cheek to his neck, searching out his pulse point. Relief flooded her as she found his heartbeat, strong and steady. She felt a tell-tale prickle and swallowed back what she knew were tears.
“Flynn, come on,” her hand slid once again to his cheek, cupping it, her thumb stroking his chin, “We have to get out of here.”
Still no response, and she had to force herself to stay calm. She wasn't sure she and Wyatt would be able to carry him if he stayed unconscious. Not only was he too long and heavy, it would take far too long to drag him to the Lifeboat.
And leaving him behind was not an option. She licked her lips, bending down closer to him, “Flynn! Flynn, please, wake up!”
Alarms suddenly began blaring and both her and Wyatt started. The soldier cursed, striding toward her, “Lucy, we need to go!”
The panic that she'd stuffed down to a corner of her mind clawed its way out, and she tightened her hold on Flynn's body.
“Flynn! Garcia!”
His first name fell from his lips by accident. She'd been used to referring to him as Flynn, but her mind had stopped calling him that back when she'd asked if she could trust him and he had nodded.
Flynn was the terrorist, the man who'd rampaged through history. Garcia was the man who shared beers with her, watching old movies on a lumpy couch. Garcia was the one who had sat with her, drinking and talking into the wee hours of the night. He was the one who had woken her up with coffee and a dorky sex joke. Garcia had been the one to hold her broken self together when her mother had died and they'd lost Rufus for a time.
She wasn't sure if it was the alarms or his name that finally got through to him. His eyes blinked open and he groaned as he sat up.
Her hand dropped from his face, though Lucy kept the one over his heart where it was. For reasons she didn't have time to examine, she wasn't quite ready to relinquish her hold on him. She needed to hold on to him, to reassure herself that he was alive and well, “Garcia? Are you ok?”
He froze, green eyes snapping to her face, jaw slack. She squirmed, glancing at Wyatt, who looked like he'd swallowed something sour.
Her eyes immediately returned to Garcia, who cleared his throat, his heart thumping underneath her fingertips.
“Well,” his eyes slid to the stairs and back to her, and something about them must have been amusing to him because his lips tilted into his signature smirk, “Looks like I've really fallen for you, Lucy.”
Lucy felt her mouth fall open, incredulous, “ A pun? Seriously? You could have died!”
“What can I say? When I fall, I fall hard,” his green eyes twinkled with amusement but there was a hint of sincerity that she picked up on that made her heart stutter around in her chest.
“You fell down a flight of stairs, Garcia,” Lucy said sternly, though her traitorous mouth twitched, yearning to break into a giddy smile.
He shrugged, his smirk turning into the smile he seemed to reserve just for her, “Worth it if I get to hear you say my name.”
She flushed, suddenly feeling hot under his intense stare. Wyatt's cough broke the charged tension, his face hard as they both turned to look at him, “Are you guys just going to sit there or should we get back to escaping?”
“Right, yes,” Lucy felt the heat from her cheeks spread. She stood rather ungracefully and turned to watch Garcia get to his feet, all lithe agility.
For a man who had just taken a tumble down the stairs and probably had a concussion, he shouldn't be allowed to be so graceful, she thought a little enviously.
They took off once again, running toward the Lifeboat and Rufus. And if Lucy just so happened to be running so close to Garcia that her arm continually brushed against his, that was nobody's business but her own.