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“I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.”
―
She sneaks in sometimes when she knows he won’t notice and presses up against the glass, fingerprints smudging.
“Hello, Missy,” she breathes, and without fail, Missy will look up with that same grin, Cheshire-like.
“Hello, Doctor,” she says. It’s sweet as honey and traps her every time.
—————
It’s a dance they play, high risk and no reward. At least, that’s what the Doctor tells herself when she stands in the TARDIS, fam off in Sheffield for the week, deliberating. A dance, and a stupid one at that. Notions not worth pursuing.
She tells herself this when she’s stepping through the huge, heavy door, and she says the same thing when she’s standing outside that glass cage, watching Missy pretend not to notice her.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she tells her honestly, and Missy tuts in disbelief.
“Oh, dear Doctor,” she purrs, and leans forward in her chair. “You know exactly why you’re doing this.”
“Do I?” She doesn’t even realize she’s stepping closer until she’s up against the glance, fingerprints pressed flat. “Why am I doing this, then?”
Missy leans back and smirks. Her umbrella props across one leg. “Because you miss me.”
The truth hurts.
—————
Once upon a time, and all that tragic fairytale nonsense, they were friends. Not even lovers, though they always had that edge to them, a maybe that they tiptoed around until it was too late to pursue. Then they were just friends turned enemies, running rampant throughout the universe and leaving destruction in their wake.
The Master left destruction, the Doctor tries to convince herself. She only cleaned it up.
That’s not true, and she reads it off her face in the mirror every time she’s about to visit. She doesn’t do much there, because she doesn’t know how—make up is a mystery to her, this body being no exception—but she washes her face and plays with her hair until she’s satisfied it doesn’t look stupid, and brushes any spare dust off her coat. They don’t matter, these little things, and she sometimes wonders enviously how Missy managed to slide so easily into make up and dresses and silly girl things, all the stuff that gender is supposed to be made up of, except when it isn’t. It’s not that she wants those things, necessarily, but she wants to be good at them because Missy is good at them, and competition is as natural between the two as a breath of fresh air.
Missy has something she doesn’t. The Master, too, has always had something the Doctor doesn’t, and she’s never been able to put her finger on it.
Maybe that’s why she stands across from Missy’s glass enclosure on those spare few nights, hands curled into trembling fists as Missy reads the same book she always reads, and looks up when she knows the Doctor is watching to cast her a smirk.
The book is called ‘Men Explain Things to Me’. The Doctor looked it up herself once, and fell face-first into a spiraling list of essays on what it meant to be a woman. She read them all start to finish, and discovered that being a woman was about doing twice as much as men for half as much recognition, and about having things explained to you when you knew perfectly well what you were on about, and about embracing your masculinity without eschewing your femininity. A lot of it was about how to survive in a man’s world.
Nowhere did it say anything about how to apply make up.
“You’re jealous of my lipstick, aren’t you?” Missy calls once to her, a small smile playing upon her lips.
The Doctor tenses her shoulders, only to realize too late that she’s given herself away. “No,” she says anyway.
“Doctor.” Without warning, Missy rises from her chair and approaches the glass. The Doctor mirrors her without thinking. “This face is a bad liar, you know that? I can see it all over your face.”
Her voice is velvet and the glass blocks any scent, but the Doctor can sense her perfume through the glass precisely because she can remember it. It’s heavy and luxurious and once, it bothered her to no end. Now, she only longs to smell it once more, if only to solidify the present.
She’s here now, with Missy as she so wanted her to be. Defanged, declawed. Almost good. She’d seen her cry, once. She’d seen her feel regret.
It had been possible then. It’s possible now, except she knows how it all ends.
“I’m not jealous,” she breathes, and her breath fogs the glass. When had she gotten so close? Missy bends to her level, and suddenly they’re face to face. Her mouth goes dry, but she forces words regardless. “I’ve never been jealous of you, Missy.” More lies. “And lipstick is ridiculous, it does nothing but leave marks on the other person.“
Missy draws back in a surprise that’s entirely too real, and at the same time very….faux. “Doctor, who are you dragging into this? Lipstick is simply for smartening up.”
The Doctor sees her mistake in an instant, and feels like an utter fool. She wonders briefly if she’s been played, but she hasn’t—it’s her own mind who’s gone and betrayed her. She should never have spoken.
The Doctor draws back, and finds to her horror that she’s gone a bright red. Stupid readable face— “Shut up. I’m not putting thoughts in your head.”
“And I’m not putting words in your mouth.” Missy raises her eyebrows, waggles them. “And yet…”
It’s hot in the room. Had it always been hot in the room? The Doctor resists the urge to tug at her collar, and instead takes a step back.
“I’m leaving,” she says shortly. Missy just cocks her head, playful. “And I’m not coming back. Not that you would miss me.”
Pure, nasty jealousy sends that last sentence tumbling from her lips. Missy’s Cheshire cat grin grows wider.
“Why would I?” she says. “When I have your old, grumpy self to keep me company?”
This is enough to make the Doctor huff, turn on her heel in anger, and stalk towards the door. She doesn’t turn back, determined not to see her, not to give her the opportunity, but she does anyway at the end, just to shut the door. Because she has to.
Missy is watching her go, palms pressed against the wall, something akin to regret on her face. The Doctor’s resolve crumples like a sheet of paper.
She shuts the door and leaves, and she’s already making plans to never, ever return.
—————
“You’re back quick,” Missy drawls. She doesn’t look up from her book. She’s got a new book this time: the cover reads ‘Bad Feminist’. The Doctor makes a mental note to look it up later.
“Not that quick,” she replies. She’s a careful distance from the glass this time, and determined not to break it.
“Hmm.” Missy taps her lip with her index finger. “Don’t know how long it’s been for you, but—“ She shrugs. “Darling, it’s tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow night— The Doctor’s hearts plummet, possibly in shock at her own stupidly. “Oh. I—“
“Didn’t realize?” Missy tuts, and turns a page. “Understandable. Suppose you just can’t keep your hands off me.”
She glances up then, flashes the Doctor a closed-lip grin and a sardonic wink, the kind which seems to say oh, if it weren’t for this glass—
Something in the Doctor tightens not unpleasantly at the prospect, but she shoves that feeling down and slams the lid on it.
“I’m just here to—“ To, to, to what? She’s no idea.
“To visit,” she finishes lamely. “Keep an eye on your progress. See how you’re doing. You know, that sort of thing.”
Missy pauses at this, eyes still upon her book. Then, she slowly shuts it. “Ah. I see. You want to know how good I am.”
“Maybe.” She’s taken a step forward, she realizes, without even noticing. Why does she keep doing that? “It’s worth checking up on, isn’t it?”
“Hmm.” Missy considers this, then leans down and slides the book under her chair. “Ah, but see Doctor, you already have somebody to check up on me. Namely, yourself.”
Caught. Then, it hadn’t been much of excuse anyway. “Sure. Doesn’t mean I can’t do the job myself.”
Missy looks at her, then lets out a laugh, high and tinkling. “And you’ll do it better?”
“Hopefully.” And she’s stepping closer again, though she doesn’t know why. There’s always been something inexorable about Missy, and the Doctor isn’t stupid enough to forget that once, the Master had been able to hypnotize. It’s very possible Missy is able to as well.
But the Doctor knows hypnotism, and this isn’t that. This is simply something…else.
Like falling headfirst into clear blue water. Like watches ticking in perfect synchronization. Like the clean curve of a planet orbiting a sun. Beautiful. Inescapable. Irresistible.
She wants very much to be not drawn in. It’s impossible.
Before she knows it, she’s pressed up against the glass again, though Missy hasn’t moved. She’s leaning forward, elbows on her knees and a knowing smile on her face, watching the Doctor with an expression that’s almost goading, if it weren’t so impeccably refined.
“Doctor,” she drawls, slow and smooth. “What are you doing?”
The Doctor doesn’t know. But she must be doing something, because her fingers are inching across the glass, feeling out the panel she knows to be there, typing in a lockcode from memory. Dangerous things, stupid things.
Missy has always known how to drag the stupid out of her.
Like a sheet of water, the glass parts, and the Doctor stand there, motionless, breast heaving. She isn’t sure for what.
“Gonna kill me now?” she calls, only because she knows she won’t. Murder, at the moment, must be the farthest thing from Missy’s mind. Not like this, not when the Doctor, dressed but entirely unclothed, is standing before her. Open, and waiting.
Missy smirks, and her red lipstick catches the light. “No, I don’t think I shall. It would be a waste. Besides, I’m…reformed.”
The word rolls glossily off her tongue, from lips that the Doctor can barely stand to look at, can’t stand to look away from. She watches them, and it occurs to her, in that same way that she knew Missy’s make up was only a performance, that she has to make the first move. It’s all part of the act between the two of them, Missy’s hyper femininity and the Doctor’s complete lack thereof. They’ve always been opposite ends of the spectrum, and maybe that’s why they’re so incredibly similar.
Don’t make the first move, the angel on her shoulder whispers.
Do it, her devil whispers.
She clambers into the chamber with clumsy, eager movements, like a teenage boy through the window of his high school crush. She’s never been good with religious symbolism anyway.
Missy stays in the chair, but one eyebrow arches in surprise.
“Oh, Doctor,” she says, “I didn’t expect this of you.”
Now it’s the Doctor’s turn to raise an eyebrow. She leans against the inside of the glass, almost casual, and crosses her arms. “Expect what?”
Missy spreads her arms wide. “A visit,” she says. “A proper visit, without a leash. I don’t do leashes, you know. Unless you’re into that.”
It’s the last sentence that has the Doctor flushing madly, first from embarrassment, then from indignation. She straightens up and shoves her hands in her pockets.
“Shut up,” she says. Missy just cocks an eyebrow.
“Did I strike a nerve?”
“Shut up.”
She’s not sure why she’s angry. Maybe because she’s here, inside a chamber she should by no rights have entered, only a meter from her mortal enemy who has always known how to wound her up, always known how to twist her around her finger until the Doctor’s tied up in knots.
It had been her decision to enter, she knows. But it’s also Missy’s fault, she knows that too, because Missy is drawing her in, spinning a web of jealousy and red lipstick and coquettish smiles that only drive the Doctor wild with a feeling she can’t name. It’s anger, blazing hot. But it’s something else, too.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not,” the Doctor spits. Missy smiles.
“No. You’re not.” She stands then, and before the Doctor can react, takes a single step forward, drawing up close. Her heels click together. “You’re jealous.”
The Doctor’s eyes roam over her face, and she forces a scoff. “Why would I be jealous?”
Missy gives a minuscule shrug. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just pull it off, as the kids say. And you don’t.”
She pokes the Doctor’s chest, hard enough to hurt, and the Doctor just glares. Her eyes keep falling to her lips, though she’s not sure why. Her hearts are beating a rhythm she can’t quite decipher, and all she can think is maybe she is a little jealous, because it’s not fair.
Missy’s good at it. She’s always been good at it, better than the Doctor at everything they do, which is why the Doctor always has to beat her. Not to save so many lives, or so many worlds, but because the Doctor can never ever let her win.
And standing here, smirking at the Doctor as she presses against the wall, hearts pounding and knees weak, she knows that she’s winning. They both know it.
The Doctor can’t let her win.
“I’m not jealous,” she says, and then, because she’s feeling rough, adds, “And your lipstick looks bloody stupid.”
Missy’s eyebrows arch in calculated surprise, and the tips of her fingers go to her mouth, as if to touch. They never make it. The Doctor catches her hand halfway, and before she can respond, leans forward and kisses her.
At first it’s just rough and angry, teeth grazing lips and a hand wrapped tight enough around a wrist to break bone, but then Missy makes a noise and pushes her away.
“Now, dear,” she says, satisfaction badly disguised as a reprimand, “Let’s do this properly.”
The Doctor stares at her, chest heaving, the waxy taste of lipstick pressed against her lips, and then shakes her head.
“This isn’t—“ She begins, then stops, because she doesn’t know what this is. In her lapse, Missy sighs.
“Seems I have to do all the work around here,” she says, and the Doctor is still mustering a response when she reaches out, grabs her by the braces, and pulls.
They knock together, the two of them, but it’s Missy who has an upper hand, and after a confused moment Missy simply sighs, and shoves her back again, up against the glass wall.
“Do I really have to show you the way around?” she whispers, her breath huffing against the Doctor’s ear. They’re pressed together, so close the Doctor can feel the rise and fall of Missy’s breast as if it were her own.
“I’m capable, thanks,” she says, and Missy just laughs.
“Then show me,” she says, and the Doctor doesn’t have time to reply before she’s cut off by Missy’s lips on hers, sharp and demanding and utterly, inexplicably, soft.
The Doctor responds without thinking.
She’s won, she thinks as she kisses her, and a hint of useless anger rises up in her chest. She always wins.
But they might as well be playing monopoly for all they circle the board, trapped in an endless, repetitious cycle of go to jail, don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars, and maybe the Doctor is losing money, but at least she’s spending it on the right things.
—————
Missy watches her as she buttons her trousers, loops her braces back over her shoulders.
“Going so soon?” Her voice is saccharine sweet. The Doctor glances up, then bites her lip and looks back down.
“It’s late,” she says.
“It’s morning.”
“All the more reason for me to be gone.”
Missy’s eyes are slicing into her. She doesn’t meet them. She’s still dazed, fumbling with the reality of what they’ve just done. It’s a line, to be sure, one she should never have crossed, though she might as well admit they’ve been toeing it for centuries.
Doesn’t make it right, she reminds herself as she adjusts her braces. Doesn’t make it right at all. And it’s something she’ll never, ever do again.
She buttons up her trousers, loops her braces over her shoulders, and locks the enclosure behind her.
—————
“Dear, dear, back so quickly?” Missy’s tone is teasing and sharp, and all the Doctor doesn’t want to hear right now.
“Shut up,” she snaps, and doesn’t even bother to take a moment of moral self-reflection before she’s unlocking the enclosure and stepping inside, crossing to the chair Missy sits upon. Her hands are in fists at her sides and anger is gnawing at her insides, swimming in her gut. All she can see is Charlie’s face before she left him to die, and all she can think is that she has to get it out of her head.
She means to take control this time, but Missy—again—beats her to it, reaching up and grabbing her by the braces just as she reaches her, drawing her down into a rough kiss. It’s angry on the Doctor’s part, smooth and smirking on hers.
“You’re angry,” Missy gasps after a moment, breaking apart. The Doctor, keen to avoid questions, leans in to kiss her again, but she plants a hand to her chest and pushes her away. “Why?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the Doctor growls, and swipes her hand away. “Why do you care, anyway?”
“Well, I do like to know why you call upon me,” Missy says with a raise of her eyebrow. “Usually, it’s all over your face. But now…”
She leans back, eying the Doctor with something close to amusement on her face. Then she brings her hand to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh, dear. You killed someone, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t,” the Doctor spits, anger clawing to the surface, but it’s misdirected. “He killed himself. I gave him a choice.”
“Oh sure.” Missy gives her a look of disbelief. “Let me guess, you held out your hand for a fraction of a second and when he didn’t take it—”
“Shut up!” The Doctor goes to straighten, then remembers that she doesn’t particularly want to leave, not yet. Missy is smiling at her, laughing at her, but she’s also there, and willing—the Doctor can see it in her eyes. So instead she hisses, “You of all people don’t get to lecture me on morality, Missy, not when—”
“I’m here, and you’re out there?” Missy jerks her thumb to the wall of the glass enclosure. She looks terribly amused, and it’s not helping the Doctor’s temper. Then again, she thinks, better she direct it here, instead of out there, isn’t it? Missy is safe. Missy is—
Oh. The only person the Doctor can stand to see, right now. Because staring at the sea of red that stains Missy’s hands, the Doctor can’t help but feel that her own stain is just a drop on a handkerchief.
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I don’t have a leg to stand on, but I’m better than you. I’ve always been better than you.”
“On what scale are you measuring?” Missy asks. “Morality? Kindness? How many lives you’ve failed to dirty up with your presence? Doctor, if you’re counting—”
“Don’t,” the Doctor growls, and takes a step backward, only for Missy to reach out and snag her where her braces meet her trousers. She pulls her forward, inching her hand upwards, then tugs her down. The Doctor, unthinkingly, allows herself to be pulled, sinking to her knees between her legs. Missy smirks, and leans forward. Her hand cups the Doctor’s chin.
“I know why you’re here,” she taunts. The Doctor doesn’t answer, but looks her in the eye, defiant. “You can’t stand to look at yourself, so you look at me. And you know it won’t hurt me, because I don’t care. You’re measuring by a scale no one here is using, Doctor. Does it make you feel better?”
Anger is sinking from her chest like a stone, pooling hollowly in her stomach—empty of the fire she’d had moments before. The truth hurts. But she isn’t about to leave, not in this position. She couldn’t if she tried.
The Doctor shakes her head. Missy smiles.
“Good,” she says. Then she leans forward and pecks the Doctor on the lips, the slightest brush, and doesn’t protest when the Doctor reaches up and drags her into a longer kiss, hands burying in her hair, wordlessly wanting. It’s all for her, the Doctor can tell, and it occurs to her briefly, as Missy’s hands slide down to snap off her braces, that maybe there is some good in Missy after all.
—————
Hours later, worn out and half naked, the Doctor sits on the floor with her back between Missy’s legs, and stares at the glass wall opposite. Missy is running her hands through her hair, humming tunelessly, and it’s almost comforting.
“It’s nearly sunrise,” Missy says after several minutes have passed. The Doctor cranes her head up to look at her, blond hair brushing against her inner thigh.
“So?”
“Hmmm.” Missy is playing with her hair with both hands, like a kid making shapes out of bubble bath. The Doctor watches her face for several moments, then drops her chin again, eyes sliding to the floor. “Don’t want to get in trouble, now do we?”
The Doctor just stares at the floor, or rather, the clasp of her braces, tossed haphazardly across the ground. They’d been the first thing to go, followed fairly quickly by her trousers. She’s still got her shirt on, and her fuzzy socks on her feet. The ground is cold beneath her bare legs.
“I don’t want to go back,” she says after a moment. Charlie’s desperate face is filling her thoughts again, and all she can think is that she should have saved him. Could have, only—
One spot on a handkerchief, she reminds herself. One spot.
Missy’s hands pause in her hair, and then the Doctor hears the squeak of the chair as she leans forward to look at her.
“Doctor,” she says quietly. “You have to, you know.”
“Why?” the Doctor asks miserably. Her voice is damnably small.
Missy sighs, and then there’s another squeak as she leans back, settles into her seat. Her hands resume their movement in her hair.
“Well, I assume you have human pets waiting.” Her voice is brisk, businesslike. Emotion never looked good on Missy, the Doctor remembers. At least, Missy never seemed to think so. The Doctor finds it rather beautiful.
“They don’t need me,” the Doctor says. “They’d be better off without me.”
“Oh, stop your whining!” Missy snaps. She pulls her hands back from the Doctor’s hair, and leans forward to grab her by the chin. With a jerk, she twists her head around to meet her gaze. The Doctor lets her without protest, and stares into her eyes, lips pressed together in defiance.
“You’re being weak,” Missy tells her.
“So let me,” the Doctor replies.
“No.” Missy pushes her face away, then goes to stand. She’s barely dressed herself, her dress and coat gone, her boots somewhere on the opposite side of the enclosure. She’d only bothered to return her white coiffed shirt, which by now is less coiffed and more wrinkled, and only half buttoned. The sudden movement pushes the Doctor forward, who twists around and falls back on her hands in confusion.
“What are you—”
“Here.” Missy is gathering up her trousers, her braces, and chucking them at the Doctor with enough force to make her wince. “And here. And here. Leave, Doctor. Fun as they are, these visits aren’t doing you any good, I can tell. You’re turning into a pansy.”
“I’m not a pansy,” the Doctor protests weakly, to which Missy only gives her a look, strong enough to make the Doctor reconsider. She is, after all, sitting on the floor of her archenemy’s prison, clad only in her underwear and a t-shirt. And she doesn’t want to leave.
“You are,” Missy says, and sniffs. “And it’s honestly embarrassing. Someday, Doctor, I’m going to kill you, you know. But if you’re like this, it won’t even be worth it.”
The Doctor scrambles to her feet, clothes spilling out of her hands. “What happened to reformation?” she asks. “Did I teach you nothing?”
Missy smiles. “You did. And you’ve offered a stunning counterpoint.” She gives her a pointed, up and down look. The Doctor flushes.
“All I did was—”
“Show me you still hate me,” Missy cuts her off. “Which means that whatever you try to do will undoubtedly fail. Which means that we will never be…” She studies her, lingers for a moment. “Partners. Well. I suppose it’s inevitable.”
“It’s not—” the Doctor begins, but her heart is sinking. “Missy, you could still—”
“Shh.” Missy steps forward and presses a finger to her lips. The Doctor, despite herself, shuts up. “It’s not you, Doctor, if you really must expunge your guilt. Do you really think a cage would teach me anything?” She glances around the glass walls, then shakes her head. “No. It’s your mistake. But not you. The old you. And if he can live with it, then so can you.”
The Doctor opens her mouth to reply, only to find that she has nothing to say. It doesn’t matter: Missy’s words won’t make a difference. She’ll carry the guilt in her heart, just as she always did, only now it’ll be worse, because she took advantage of it. Poked a stick at a past she should have let lie.
She’s always been so good at making bad decisions.
“You won’t let me visit you anymore, will you?” she says. Missy eyes her, distasteful and sympathetic all at once.
“No,” she says at last. “Not that it isn’t fun. But I don’t like you weak, Doctor. It’s embarrassing.”
“Why?” the Doctor challenges, pathetic and desperate though it is. “You like to win.”
“No,” Missy says. “I like a challenge.”
She steps back, and bends to pick up her boots, her coat. The sun is rising, the Doctor can feel it, though they’re far indoors. Soon enough, her past self will come to check on her.
“Missy,” she says after a long moment, “Can I have your book?”
Missy stops and looks up at her. Her lips curve into a small frown. Then she reaches under her chair, and pulls out the book. The words ‘Bad Feminist’ stare at the Doctor.
Missy studies her as she takes it. “Trying to learn something, Doctor?”
“No,” the Doctor says, and tucks the book under her arm. She doesn’t need to learn about the intricacies of womanhood, she’s decided. It’s never been about that, anyway. It’s only a competition between the two of them, and she should have long learned, neither are winning. They’re only running in perilously addictive circles. Endless. “Something to remember you by.”
“Oh?” Missy raises her eyebrows. Her smile curves into a smirk. “Well, then you can take this too.”
She leans forward and kisses the Doctor on the lips, a goodbye pressed with warm friendships and hidden threats. The Doctor lets her eyes flutter shut, feels the square of the book under her arm, and knows that when Missy pulls away, there’ll be lipstick on her face.
But this time, it’s no performance. It’s a gift, and it’s all for her.